British Horror Films That Time Forgot (eBook)

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2024 | 1. Auflage
215 Seiten
epubli (Verlag)
978-3-8187-1171-9 (ISBN)

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British Horror Films That Time Forgot -  Thomas Baxter
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Have you ever watched Unmasked Part 25? Xtro II? How about Screamtime or Bloodstream? Have you ever sat through The House That Vanished or Persecution? What about Sleepwalker or The Shout? In this book we will shine a light on some of the lesser viewed or more forgotten films in the history of the British horror industry. Vampire motorcycles, devil dolls, killer chimps, escaped lunatics, lighthouse horrors, troglodytes in caves, Satanic sacrifice in an antiques shop, demon babies who don't want to be born, teleportation shenanigans cursed by a fly, frozen Nazis, video nasties, zombies in Cornwall, louche vampire cults, necrophile killers, human/plant hybrid horrors, dream demons, murderous Punch & Judy men, killer garden gnomes, outer space terror, murderous priests, mansion mysteries, woodland secrets, ghosts, Christmas splatter fests, babysitters in peril. All this and much more awaits in the British Horror Films That Time Forgot...

I enjoy writing about film.

I enjoy writing about film.



Link has occasionally threatened to become a mild cult film due to its preposterous premise and chimp themed suspense but I can't say it appealed to me an awful lot. Horror fans might be disappointed by the lack of blood and murder (though you get a few) and I really didn't enjoy the scene where a chimp batters and swings a dog like something out of a wrestling match. The locations in this film (which was made in Scotland I believe) are great but this is a film I could take or leave and in the end and would prefer to leave if it's all the same to you. The youngsters who turn up in the film later looking for Jane don't add much to the acting quality but are amusingly dated from a modern perspective. By the way, look out for Tosh Lines from The Bill (Kevin Lloyd) in this film. That's his second mention in this book.


MUMSY, NANNY, SONNY, GIRLY (1970)

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly (aka 'Girly') was directed by Freddie Francis and written by Brian Compton. The film is based on a stage play by Maisie Mosco entitled Happy Family. Although this film is rather obscure, Francis considered it to be his best work as a director (this is one of the few films that Francis had complete creative control over - which might explain why he was so fond of it). This is a bizarre horror black comedy and quite possibly a brilliant one too. The film takes place at a grand sprawling country mansion where a family have retreated in a strange old fashioned fantasy world apparently based on children's books. The family are Mumsy (Ursula Howells), Nanny (Pat Heywood), and the children Sonny (Howard Trevor) and Girly (Vanessa Howard).

Although Sonny and Girly wear school uniforms and are treated like children they look rather on the mature side for such treatment. The family play something they call the 'Game'. This involves luring men back to the house - the men then indoctrinated into the rules of the house and forced to behave like children too. If they don't obey the rules they are 'sent to the angels' - in other words they are killed. Whenever a 'friend' is killed, Sonny records it on a camera and they watch the murder on a projector.

This is the sort of film that is better watched than described. It's a strange film but a very compelling one. The tension arises when a man played by Michael Bryant arrives at the house after Sonny and Girly kill his companion (played by Imogen Hassel) in a park by grabbing her foot when she is on top of a slide in a playground. Bryant goes with them to the house to lay low and is blackmailed because they have the body of the woman in the house. However, Bryant's character observes the family and their bizarre game and concludes that the key to his survival is to get close to Girly. This will create a fracture in the family as Girly won't want to 'share' her new friend - especially when he awakens her sexuality.

This is a beautiful looking film (shot at Oakley Court) and amusingly bizarre and deadpan. I gather that Francis was specifically looking for a film he could shoot at Oakley Court and this film was perfect. It makes a wonderful isolated and anachronistic location for this weird family to lurk around in. There are some good performances in the film but the star is unquestionably Vanessa Howard as Girly. Vanessa Howard is fantastically arch and charismatic and gives a brilliant performance. Vanessa Howard is plainly a star in the making in this film. She has comic charisma to spare and the camera loves her. The tragedy of this film's failure to find an audience, and the subsequent failure of the Amicus film What Became of Jack and Jill?, was that Howard abandoned acting soon afterwards. A terrific shame. Vanessa Howard had no more acting credits after 1973 and moved to the United States, where she married a film producer (Robert Chartoff - who produced the Rocky films) and concentrated on family life.

Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly bore the brunt of a moral backlash in Blighty due to a scene early on which implies that incest is going on with Girly and Sonny (who are brother and sister). As a consequence of this, few cinemas wanted to show the film. In the United States the title was changed to 'Girly' and the promotional art was focused on Vanessa Howard in her school uniform (Howard was actually twenty-two when she made this film so it isn't as if she was a real schoolgirl). This tactic worked and the film did quite well in the United States and got some decent reviews. Sadly though, Vanessa Howard was apparently oblivious to this and had no idea the film found a modest audience over there. One nice (if bittersweet) addition to this tale is that an event was held at Oakley Court in 2015 to celebrate the film and a memorial bench to Vanessa Howard (who sadly passed away in 2010) was opened there.

Ursula Howells and Pat Heywood are well cast as Mumsy and Nanny although Howard Trevor, who plays the brother of Girly, is something of a liability and clearly can't act. I'm not completely surprised to see that he didn't have any other acting credits after this film. The only other casting complaint you might have is that the rather plain looking Michael Bryant doesn't really seem like the sort of person who would charm and excite Vanessa Howard but then his performance is very good. Mumsy, Nanny, Sonny and Girly is a jet black comedy full of memorable scenes and deadpan wit. Though the film is surreal and darkly comic it does get quite bleak too - like the murder at the start and the scene where the family watch a 'snuff' film of a man hunted on the grounds of the house. This surreal darkness of the premise and the brilliant performance by Vanessa Howard make this film well worth watching.


THE MUTATIONS (1974)

The Mutations (aka The Mutation, The Freaks, and The Freakmaker) was directed by Jack Cardiff. It was the last film he directed and its failure led him to him going back to being a cinematographer. The Mutations was written by Harold Pinter and adapted from his stage play of the same name. I'm only joking. The film was written by Edward Mann and Robert D. Weinbach. The plot of The Mutations concerns Professor Nolter (Donald Pleasance). Professor Nolter is secretly kidnapping students and crossing them with giant Venus flytraps to create a new race of sentient plant people. Or something like that. Professor Nolter is in desperate need of a hobby if you ask me. He should take up playing bingo. The experiments of Professor Nolter inevitably end up being discarded and handed over to a local circus to use in their freak show.

The Mutations is definitely a strange film. A bit tasteless and exploitative, very silly, but quite watchable all the same and with a good cast. Hammer babe Julie Ege is the heroine as Hedi and the beefy Brad Harris is more or less the male lead as Brian. You don't get too many characters in films named Brian these days do you? There is some spiffy time lapse photography at the start of the film which leads one to expect a more thoughtful and interesting film than the one we get. You could probably describe The Mutations as schlock but that's fine because there is nothing wrong with some retro schlock. Jill Haworth, no stranger to horror at this point of her career, also features in the film as Lauren. The film is quite colourful despite its grim aura and you get a range of locales - from the pristine lab of Nolter to the sawdust of the circus to misty parks to grotty abodes in London.

The Mutations is one of those films where you have no idea what the hell was anyone was thinking when they made it but it does pass the time and certainly isn't boring. If anyone steals this film it is surely the great Tom Baker as Lynch - one of the 'freaks' and Nolter's assistant but not someone who is happy with this situation and aspires to be more than a circus sideshow exhibit. He wants to be cured. Even though he is buried under a lot of makeup and a monstrous mask that unmistakable Tom Baker persona still comes through in spades. He started playing the Doctor in Doctor Who the same year this film came out so you'd imagine he already had the Doctor Who gig in the bag when he did this film. It seems highly unlikely that someone at the BBC was watching The Mutations and when Lynch shuffled into view they suddenly stood up in the cinema and shouted "That's our Doctor!" at the screen.

Donald Pleasance, just as he did in I Don't Want To Be Born, underplays his part in a quiet and unfussy manner. Michael Dunn, a very talented American actor who had dwarfism, plays Burns in the film. Dunn sadly died before The Mutations came out. He passed away in London in 1974 while making a film called The Abdication. Look out by the way for Richard Davies in this film in a small part. He would have been very well known at the time for his fairly recent role in the sitcom Please Sir! as Mr Price. The Mutations is very inspired by Tod Browning's Freaks and even borrows a few scenes and lines from that film. There is a lot of Frankenstein in this film too. The real monster is Professor Nolter - not his experiments. The character in The Mutations who can make his eyes pop out of his head is played by Willie "Popeye" Ingram. Ingram actually worked in real carnival sideshows thanks to his eye bulging antics.

There's quite a lot of circus stuff in the film. Some of it is a bit uncomfortable to watch but most of of it is harmless enough - like a bearded lady for instance. You just knew a bearded lady was going to turn up sooner or later. Professor Nolter has a super ray device in his lab which looks like Auric Goldfinger's laser wotsit that he used when he had Sean Connery strapped to a table in Goldfinger. The device can turn mouldy oranges into fresh oranges. When he demonstrates this to his class the students seem...

Erscheint lt. Verlag 5.11.2024
Verlagsort Berlin
Sprache englisch
Themenwelt Kunst / Musik / Theater Film / TV
Schlagworte best horror • british horror movies • cult movies fims • Hammer horror • horror films • horror trivia • horror zombies vampires
ISBN-10 3-8187-1171-2 / 3818711712
ISBN-13 978-3-8187-1171-9 / 9783818711719
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