Jubilee (1977)

This is another review posted earlier on my personal journal. If you’re expecting Derek Jarman’s Jubilee to be a celebration of the punk scene in 1977 you’re going to be very disappointed. Aside from the fact that Jarman views the punk ethos with amused contempt it isn’t that sort of film at all. Although you will catch glimpse of Siouxsie and the Banshees performing Love in a Void, and there’s an appearance by The Slits as well as some of the more completely forgotten performers of that era, like the transsexual Wayne County and the prodigiously untalented Adam Ant. Jubilee is actually a story of a magical visit made by Elizabeth I and her court magus Dr John Dee to the England of Elizabeth II’s jubilee year, where they discover such horrors as social breakdown, random violence, a society that has forgotten beauty and considers art and history to be irrelevant. And, worst horror of all, the Eurovision Song Contest. Jenny Runacre plays Elizabeth I and she also plays Bod, leader of a punk gang. The gang also includes that aptly named Mad (Toyah Willcox) and Amyl Nitrate (played by Jordan). Amyl is the most interesting character in the movie, with her punk hairdo and make-up combined with a tweed skirt, a pink twinset and pearls, and her hobby of writing history (when she isn’t making it). In some ways she perhaps best represents the contradictions of the punk ethos – a veneer of sneering violence over a substrate of irony and artiness.

The satire of the film is heavy-handed. The punks certainly aren’t Jarman’s only targets – the media, the police (whose random violence is more vicious than that of the roaming gangs), capitalism, Marxism, all come in for a battering. Amyl’s ballet-dancing dream is probably the nest moment in the film – dancing in the midst of chaos and destruction. Although Chaos (one of Bod’s punk gang) tight-rope walking on the clothesline while singing Non, je ne regrette riens is also cute. An interestingly different film that just doesn’t quite come together, and suffers from being just a bit too disjointed. The framing device with Elizabeth I and Dr Dee and the angel Ariel probably needed to be strengthened a little – I suspect it was really the most important part of the film for Jarman.

6 out of 10

Dracula’s Daughter (1936)

I watched Dracula’s Daughter (directed by Lambert Hillyer, 1936) for the first time a while back and was just a little disappointed, possibly because my expectations had been so high. I watched it again more recently and this time liked it a great deal.

Gloria Holden has an air of vaguely aristocratic exoticism and a slightly otherworldly air as well. This nicely suggests her eastern European ancestry and her vampirism, and of course it also nicely suggests lesbianism. And of course she’s arty, which adds to the effect. Her first appearance in the film is very effective. She’s also good at portraying the ennui of the undead. Irving Pichel as her manservant Sandor is nicely creepy. And, as Michael pointed out, Edward van Sloan’s van Helsing is much more effective than his performance in the same role in Dracula.

It’s a moody and atmospheric film, and it gives us an ambiguous monster – Dracula’s daughter is aware of the evil she does, and fights against it. She’s as much a victim of vampirism as those she kills.

Dracula’s Daughter is better in every way than Tod Browning’s Dracula – it has better pacing, a more interesting villain, and none of the drawing room melodrama feel that was such an unfortunate feature of Browning’s movie. If you wanted watched this movie yet I urge you to get hold of a copy.

7 out of 10

She Killed in Ecstasy (1971)

By the standards of Jess Franco films She Killed in Ecstasy (Sie tötete in Ekstase) is remarkably straightforward. It’s a revenge movie, with a wife hunting down the people she believes destroyed her husband (who was either a mad scientist or a misunderstood genius or possibly both). There are flashbacks, but the plot is simple and easy to follow. Personally I prefer Franco when he’s being much more trippy and enigmatic and generally over-the-top, but what She Killed in Ecstasy lacks in obscurity it makes up for in style. The killings are intercut with scenes of the vengeful wife and her husband making love, a technique that works very well in the context of this movie. Soledad Miranda is riveting as a woman maddened by grief, maddened to the point of murderous obsessiveness. Her performance is both powerful and subtle. Tragically this was to be her last film. Franco films the murders with imagination and flair, especially the one with the pillow. It’s definitely not my favourite movie of his, not enough of the real Franco weirdness, but it does demonstrate his ability to make a fairly conventional but very effective horror thriller. I prefer the more esoteric pleasures of Franco movies such as Venus in Furs, or Female Vampire (a film I consider to be very underrated). She Killed in Ecstasy would probably be a good starting point though for anyone new to the fabulously strange world of Jess Franco.

8 out of 10

Kiss Me, Monster (1969)

Kiss Me, Monster is Jess Franco strictly in fun mode. This 1969 movie is a send-up of spy movies, seasoned with a healthy dash of psychedelia. The plot is obscure to say the least, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it includes all the elements necessary for a movie like this – a mysterious secret society, a mad scientist and a secret formula. The movie also includes not one but two glamorous girl secret agents. Although they’re really not that keen on being secret agents – they’re hoping to break into show business. Being a Jess Franco film, there are also slightly weirder ingredients, like a sisterhood of whip-wielding “queer virgins” and a method of sending secret messages by windmill. At least I think that’s what they were doing with the windmill. The dubbing on the Redemption VHS edition is atrocious, but that actually adds to the fun. Janine Reynaud and Rosanna Yanni are delightful as Diana and Regina, the two intrepid female spies. Their performances add just the right extra touches of camp to the movie. Definitely not a movie to take seriously, and clearly not intended to be taken seriously, but a lot of fun. I believe it’s the sequel to Two Undercover Angels, which I’ve not seen.

6 out of 10

Supervixens (1975)

Russ Meyer’s Supervixens - what can one say about this movie? It’s a Russ Meyer movie. It has lots of sex, lots of women with very large breasts, some very disturbing violence, it’s bizarre and it’s funny. The interesting thing about the violence is that it’s explicitly linked to fear of female sexuality – the macho tough guy cop beats up women because he’s sexually inadequate. The most sexually repressed people are the most screwed-up people in this movie, which kind of makes one nostalgic for the 70s in a way. Remember hen sex was supposed to be good for you? I’m not sure to what extent Meyer intended his movies as a satire on American culture, but they can be read that way. Obsessions with cars and violence certainly figure largely in the three Meyer movies I’ve seen so far. It’s basically a road movie. The hero, Clint, leaves the gas station he works at (run by a certain Martin Bormann, ex-war criminal but now nice guy) and sets off on a journey into a weird wasteland of deserts and rural Americana after he finds himself the prime suspect in a murder. He has a series of adventures, sexual and otherwise. He encounters Superlorna, Supercherry and Supersoul, and finally meets the Supervixen. She’s kind of a nice girl version of his old girlfriend, Superangel. It’s all done in typical Meyer style. The insane chase through the desert involving a souped-up Volkswagen and a dune buggy containing Clint and SuperEula is particularly bizarre. As for the ending, it’s so strange that really words fail me. The cast includes plenty of Meyer regulars, including John Lazar (Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell from Beyond the Valley of Dolls) and Haji from Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (who is now Superhaji). Overall, bizarre but entertaining. It’s over-the-top, but it lacks the extreme over-the-topness of Beyond the Valley of Dolls, which remains my favourite Meyer film.

8 out of 10

Dead Ringers (1988)

David Cronenberg’s Dead Ringers, made in 1988, saw him moving away from the conventional horror film. It’s about twins who become gynaecologists, and share everything. Including women. In fact it seems that they don’t really experience anything unless they both experience it. They don’t really see themselves as separate individuals. They think of themselves as being linked just as tightly as Siamese twins, and they even believe that if one of them takes a drug it affects them both. You can’t help suspecting that they became gynaecologists in an attempt to uncover the mystery of reproduction, in particular of their own reproduction which was so abnormal. They almost regard themselves as mutants. Their speciality is infertility – in other words the reproductive system when it goes wrong.

The emotional bond between them is so strong that they seem unable to connect emotionally to anyone else. They don’t need anyone else. Then one day one twin, Beverly, falls in love. He falls in love with a patient, a woman who has a trifurcate uterus – so he can regard her as being a mutant as well, like he and his brother. The situation is complicated by the fact that both twins have been sleeping with this woman, although she isn’t aware that there is more than one. Falling in love with an outsider threatens the emotional balance between the twins, and things start to unravel for them. Jeremy Irons gives a wonderfully disturbing and creepy performance as both twins. There’s very little horror, until the end, but this is a deeply unsettling and extremely good movie.

8 out of 10

The Delinquents (1957)

After enjoying Kitten with a Whip so much we just had to see more juvenile delinquent movies. So tonight we watched The Delinquents which, according to the poster, is a “shocking expose of the baby-faces who have just taken their first stumbling step down Sin Street U.S.A.” Sadly the movie isn’t as good as the poster. Surprisingly enough it was written and directed by Robert Altman, who certainly went on to much better things. It doesn’t have the sheer exuberance and glorious excess that makes Kitten with a Whip such a camp classic, nor does it have Ann-Margret whose deliriously over-the-top performance was such a standout feature of Kitten. It does have a very healthy dose of 50s hysteria (it was made in 1957), and one of the most ludicrous voice-overs I’ve ever heard warning of the need to combat this horrifying threat to society.

The story concerns Scotty, a nice boy with a conservative haircut, who becomes involved with a gang of juvenile delinquents after his girlfriend’s father forbids their relationship. At one point he cries, “Why can’t they just leave us alone?” A bit reminiscent of Rebel without a Cause, but without James Dean’s embarrassing Method acting excesses. Pretty soon he gets drawn into a nightmare world of sin in which teenagers listen to crazy music, dance, and sometimes even kiss. No wonder parents were worried. The Delinquents is entertaining for fans of 50s American paranoia, although not really camp enough for my tastes.