Web of the Spider (1971)

Antonio Margheriti’s Web of the Spider (the original Italian title is Nella stretta morsa del ragno) is a colour remake of his excellent 1964 gothic horror film Castle of Blood which had starred Barbara Steele. I love the fact that the German title was Dracula im Schloß des Schreckens even though it has nothing to do with Dracula or vampires.

It begins with Edgar Allan Poe (played by Klaus Kinski!) in London which is cool because Poe certainly never visited England. Poe is being interviewed by an American reporter, Alan Foster (Anthony Franciosa). Poe claims that his stories of the strange and the supernatural are all in fact quite true. There really is life beyond the grave. Of a sort. Perhaps the dead are dead in some ways but not in others.

At this point it should be noted that the movie has no connection with any of Poe’s stories, but it’s a gothic horror movie so why not include Poe as a character?

Foster is introduced to Lord Thomas Blackwood. Blackwood owns a famous haunted castle. Foster accepts a wager, that he will not be able to survive a night in the castle. No-one who has ever tried it has returned to tell the tale. Foster is a rationalist. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. He has no doubt that he will have no problem spending a night at Blackwood Castle.

The castle is uninhabited but that doesn’t worry Foster.

To his surprise the castle isn’t deserted after all as he discovers when he meets the beautiful young woman who lives there. She is Lord Blackwood’s sister, Elisabeth Blackwood (Michèle Mercier). There’s another gorgeous babe as well, Julia (Karin Field). As far as Forster is concerned things are looking up.

In fact the castle is full of people. Maybe they’re alive and maybe they aren’t. Maybe this is the present and maybe it’s the past.

There are certainly some romantic and sexual dramas being played out. Perhaps they just go on being played out over and over again.

Foster has of course fallen in love with Elisabeth. She is in love with him, or so he assumes.

Elisabeth has a husband and she has a lover, Herbert (Raf Baldassarre). Or at least she did once have a husband and a lover.

The mysterious Dr Carmus (Peter Carsten) has tried to explain things to Foster. Carmus’ theories are similar to Poe’s. The point at which life ends depends upon what you mean by life.

Foster isn’t sure if he is really involved in these dramas from the past or not. He’s a pretty confused guy. He just knows that he wants Elisabeth.

While this was an attempt to update Castle of Blood by remaking it in colour Web of the Spider doesn’t really feel like a 1970s gothic horror movie. It has a bit of a retro feel. In fact visually it’s reminiscent in some ways of Roger Corman’s Poe movies, but done with a European sensibility. That’s actually no bad thing. It’s also fairly tame by 1971 standards, with nothing more than brief topless nudity.

This is obviously a ghost story, but then again it isn’t. It doesn’t fit neatly into a particular gothic horror sub-genre (which is true of so many Italian gothic horror movies of that era). It deals with what might be described as ghosts but they’re not the kinds of ghosts you find in most ghost stories. They’re not vampires but maybe in a sense they are undead. Whether or not they’re dead or undead depends on your definition of such terms. Of course they might be illusions. Italian gothic horror movies tended to ignore strict genre conventions and also to deal in a certain amount of ambiguity. Web of the Spider revels in ambiguity.

I liked the ending a great deal.

To enjoy this movie you have to take it on its own terms without constantly comparing it to Castle of Blood. It’s a remake but it has a different feel. Being in colour it obviously has a very different aesthetic. I personally like the aesthetic of Web of the Spider. I do have one minor aesthetic quibble - Anthony Franciosa looks too much like he’s just stepped out of the 1970s.

Apparently Margheriti was disappointed by this film but directors are often poor judges of their own work. He was obviously proud of Castle of Blood (and rightly so) and presumably was therefore inclined to judge Web of the Spider harshly.

All of Margheriti’s movies were made on very limited budgets. He was used to that. Like all Italian genre directors of that era he knew how to get good results with very little money.

Of course Michèle Mercier was no Barbara Steele. She can’t match Steele’s magnetism, charisma and sense of dangerous exotic eroticism. No-one could. Mlle Mercier does a pretty effective job. Klaus Kinski is, it goes without saying, delightfully deranged as Poe. Poe was obviously added as a character because his name was a major box-office draw but the framing story involving Poe works quite well.

Web of the Spider is enjoyable slightly offbeat gothic horror. Highly recommended.

The German DVD release, with the title Dracula im Schloß des Schreckens, includes the English dubbed version. That’s the release I have. The transfer is very good. Lots of scenes had been cut from the English dubbed version (which probably explains the movie’s poor reputation). They’re restored here, but in Italian (or sometimes German) with English subtitles and from an inferior source. On the whole the DVD is excellent. There is a German Blu-Ray release as well but I am not sure that it is English-friendly. There’s also a hard-to-find Garagehouse Pictures Blu-Ray.

The Cats (1968)

Duccio Tessari’s I bastardi (1968) is one of those European movies that gets a bit confusing when it comes to titles. It was released in English-speaking markets variously as The Cats, The Bastard, Mod-Cats and Sons of Satan. For convenience I’ll refer to it as The Cats.

This was an Italian-French-German co-production but was shot at least partly in the United States. Certainly all the location shooting (and there’s plenty of it) was obviously done in America.

Rita Hayworth is Martha and she has two sons, Adam (Kinski) and Jason (Giuliano Gemma). She loves them both but especially Jason. One can’t help feeling she may be a bit blinded by maternal love since we see Jason murder half a dozen people in the first few minutes of the movie. Martha calls her sons her kittens (hence the English title).

Adam and Jason are both criminals. Martha doesn’t mind as long as they pay her her allowance and keep her in whisky.

Jason’s killings were intended to wipe out Adam’s criminal rivals. Jason would be paid by receiving the proceeds of a jewel heist.

Everything is going great for Jason. He has lots of money. And he has a cute sexy girlfriend, Karen (Margaret Lee).

Unfortunately things are about to fall apart for him. He ends up grievously injured and is rescued by a pretty lady rancher, Barbara (played for former Bond girl Claudine Auger).

Fate has played a perverse trick on Jason. Barbara is his one chance of happiness. Any sane man would be delighted to win Barbara’s love but Jason doesn’t want her. He obviously prefers bad girls. And he has scores to settle. Revenge is all he can think about. He doesn’t care how much it might cost him.

So this is an obsession movie. It’s also a very dark very violent very cynical movie. Of all the characters in this movie Barbara is the only decent human being. Martha is a crazy drunk. Adam and Jason are psychos. Anyone who trusts Karen deserves what he gets.

We know this is all leading up to a violent finale and then the movie adds a twist that I can absolutely guarantee you won’t see coming. It really is the kind of thing you’re only going to see in an insane late 60s movie. There is a reason for it and when you find out the reason it’s kind of crazy.

Like most European movies that were filmed in the U.S. this movie still feels totally European. It’s a deranged eurocrime movie that just happens to take place in Arizona.

Rita Hayworth does the crazy drunk thing extremely well.

It’s hard to judge Kinski’s performances because of the English dubbing but he manages to get across plenty of Kinski derangement. Giuliano Gemma is effective enough as the obsessed Jason. Margaret Lee oozes sex and treachery.

You won’t get too many chances to see Rita Hayworth and Klaus Kinski starring in a movie together.

Kinski’s groovy sunglasses are a highlight. There’s plenty of that 60s aesthetic if you like that sort of thing (and I like it a great deal).

This movie is on DVD in the Warner Archive series. It’s barebones but it’s a pretty good transfer. The English dub is the only soundtrack option.

The Cats is a pretty decent movie if you enjoy movies about hyper-violent criminals. I liked it. Recommended.

Nosferatu in Venice (1988)

Nosferatu in Venice (AKA Vampires in Venice) is a kind of sequel to Werner Herzog’s superb 1979 Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht with Klaus Kinski returning as the vampire. Herzog’s movie had been a kind of remake of F.W. Murnau’s classic 1922 Nosferatu which was of course an unauthorised adaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula.

By 1988 Klaus Kinski was so far out of control that even Werner Herzog had decided he couldn’t work with him any longer.

Herzog’s Nosferatu: Phantom der Nacht had been a major hit so a sequel seemed like a very good idea. With Kinski on board it turned into a nightmare of chaos for everyone involved. Directors came and went. Firing Kinski seemed like a good solution but the distributors insisted (probably correctly) that it was Kinski who was going to be the film’s main drawcard at the box office so therefore there was no way he could be fired.

The result is chaotic but somehow it works. And it has to be said that mostly it works because Kinski delivers the goods.

This is essentially another reworking of Stoker’s novel but in a contemporary setting.

A Venetian noblewoman calls in the famed vampirologist Professor Paris Catalano (Christopher Plummer). In 1786 terrible things happened in the family’s villa in Venice. Venice was afflicted by a plague but even worse horrors were perpetrated by a vampire. Catalano insists that the vampire is now safely at the bottom of the sea, the ship in which he was travelling having foundered in 1786. The elderly princess thinks the vampire is still around. Catalano soon has cause to agree with her.

He suspects that a member of the family, the beautiful Helietta Canins (Barbara de Rossi), is not only the descendant of a vampire but may be a vampire herself, or susceptible to vampirism.

The worst thing anyone could do at this point is to conduct a séance but that’s what somebody does. And the vampire (Kinski) is revived.

Catalano is the van Helsing character but he proves to be ill-equipped to fight vampires. He does however contribute one piece of advice. There is one way to destroy the vampire. If an innocent virgin gives herself voluntarily to him then at the moment he deflowers her he will be destroyed. Of course the problem is that innocent virgins willing to be deflowered by vampires aren’t all that plentiful. They’re like policemen. They’re never around when you need them.

For this Kinski announced that he had no intention of putting up with spending hours in the makeup chair. He said he could play the rôle with no makeup at all. Kinski was probably right. He has no trouble at all looking creepy and scary without makeup.

It also has the advantage that it makes the vampire look much more dangerous and more sexy. And this is a very sexual vampire. Which is fine, since all vampire stories and vampire movies are essentially about sex. Vampires represent unrepressed uncontrolled sexuality. And in this case, whenever Nosferatu pursues a victim (and as in Stoker’s novel his victims are always female) it’s made fairly clear that he rapes his victims as well as drinking their blood.

Playing the rôle without makeup obviously means that Kinski doesn’t look anything like the vampire he played in Herzog’s movie even though he’s supposed to be the same vampire. But the secret to enjoying Nosferatu in Venice is to avoid the temptation to compare it to the earlier movie and just approach it as an entirely separate movie.

The problem I’ve always had with vampires is that they seem very vulnerable. Sunlight kills them, they can’t go near garlic, they’re terrified of religious symbols, they’re incredibly vulnerable while they sleep during the day. I usually find myself rooting for the vampires because I feel feel that the odds are stacked against them. This however is a much more formidable vampire. He isn’t bothered by sunlight. He simply ignores religious symbols. He only sleeps once every twenty-four days. He has considerable supernatural powers. In this case the odds are heavily stacked against the vampire hunters.

That should make the vampire less sympathetic but over the course of the movie we discover that this is a vampire who is capable of feeling emotions. He can feel sorrow, regret, even love. The movie becomes almost a weird kind of love story, centring on that innocent virgin I mentioned earlier.

Severin’s release offers a very fine transfer plus a feature-length documentary of Kinski’s unbelievably deranged final years.

Any movie with Klaus Kinski as its star is going to end up with a slightly strange chaotic feel to it but his performance is extraordinary and on the whole this is an unconventional vampire movie that works. Highly recommended.

The Black Abbot (1963)

The Black Abbot (Der schwarze Abt) is a 1963 entry in the West German Edgar Wallace krimi series. I’ve seen this one before, but in an English dubbed version years ago.

Edgar Wallace's original novel The Black Abbot, published in 1926, is one of his best. It has all the classic Edgar Wallace ingredients, mixed to perfection.

The movie takes place at Fossaway, the Chelford family seat in England, where a dead body has just turned up.

Scotland Yard are called in but as yet Inspector Puddler (Charles Regnier) and his assistant Horatio W. Smith (Eddi Arendt) can make no sense of the murder.

There’s plenty of scheming going on. Mary Wenner (Eva Ingeborg Scholz) is angling for marriage to Lord Chelford. Crooked lawyer Arthur Gine has an angle. So does his even more crooked head clerk. His angle involves marriage to Gine’s sister Leslie (Grit Boettcher). The butler, Thomas Fortuna (Klaus Kinski) is definitely hatching some plot. The administrator of the Chelford Estate, Dick Alford (Joachim Fushsberger), is up to something. He has some marriage plans as well.

At the bottom of all the scheming is the Chelford Treasure. Nobody has any idea where the treasure is or of its value (it’s rumoured to be a cache of gold but there’s also a rumour that it includes a secret wonder drug) and it may be just a legend. But it may be real. There are people who think it’s worth taking the chance that the treasure really exists.

There are rumours of ghosts, and there’s the mysterious Black Abbot. There are countless secret passageways. There are lots of double-crosses and attempted double-crosses. There’s greed and madness. There’s love and lust, and in this movie they can be as dangerous as greed and madness. There’s an ancient map which could reveal the treasure’s location.

And there’s quite a high body count.

We’re kept in the dark rather effectively as to whether some of the characters are good guys or bad guys.

Franz Josef Gottlieb directed several of the Wallace krimis. He does an effective job here.

As usual with a krimi it’s set in England but shot in Germany and it doesn’t look anything like England but that adds to the fun.

The movie’s cast consists of names very familiar to krimi fans - Joachim Fushsberger, Eddi Arendt and Klaus Kinski. Fuchsberger and Kinski are always good in these films.

Something that struck me forcibly when I started watching these movies subtitled rather than dubbed is how much it changes the performances. I’d always thought of Eddi Arendt as a particularly annoying comic relief actor but it turns out that much of that was due to bad dubbing. He’s actually not that bad, in fact he can be quite amusing.

I now have this movie in an excellent Blu-Ray release from Tobis. Seeing these krimis in the original German with English subtitles makes a huge difference. Tobis also presents the movie in a 16:9 enhanced transfer in the correct aspect ratio (the film was shot in Ultrascope, a German version of Cinemascope).

Tobis have released all of the krimis in their Blu-Ray sets (and on DVD). The majority either include the English dubbed versions or include English subtitles but not all do. These are German releases but they’re very easy to obtain. You don’t need to order them from Germany. The Edgar Wallace krimis have been available for years in dodgy grey-market versions. Seeing them presented in truly excellent transfers makes a huge difference. The visual style in a large part of the appeal of these movies.

The Black Abbot incorporates all the features that you could wish for in a krimi. Deliriously entertaining. Plus of course you get Klaus Kinski. Highly recommended.

Dr Mabuse vs Scotland Yard (1963)

Fritz Lang's Dr Mabuse - The Gambler, has been a sensation in 1922. It was a film that created several entirely new genres and introduced the diabolical criminal mastermind to cinema.  Lang made a sequel in the early 1930s and a second (excellent) sequel in 1960, The Thousand Eyes of Dr Mabuse. The latter was so successful in Europe that it kicked off a whole series of Dr Mabuse movies. None are as good as Lang’s film but all are fun and all are worth seeing. Dr Mabuse vs Scotland Yard (Scotland Yard jagt Dr. Mabuse) is no exception.

The evil Dr Mabuse is up to his old tricks again. Which is surprising, since he’s dead. But to a diabolical criminal mastermind as cunning as Dr Mabuse death is merely a setback. Even when dead he is most definitely still a very formidable adversary.

This time Dr Mabuse has got his hands on a fiendish brain-control device. Hidden inside a camera it can project a hypnotic ray that turns people into robotic slaves. Dr Mabuse intends to use the device to take over Britain.

This movie is supposedly based on a Bryan Edgar Wallace story so it’s part-krimi and part Dr Mabuse movie, set partly in Germany and partly in Britain. Inspektor Vulpius (Werner Peters) from Hamburg and Major Bill Tern (Peter van Eyck) from Scotland Yard are both investigating the case. Major Tern has the assistance of his mother who is a detective story fan and a bit of an amateur detective. Also on the case is Inspector Joe Wright (Klaus Kinski).

Dr Mabuse is making use of a renegade English scientist who has been given plastic surgery to disguise his identity, and his plans include kidnapping princess Diana (no, not that one, a different one).

It seems that Dr Mabuse may succeed this time since he is able to turn Scotland Yard’s own men against them. Even the indefatigable Inspector Joe Wright finds himself robotised. Is there no answer to this horrible weapon? Perhaps there is. Major Tern’s mother is immune. If Major Tern can just figure out why, he may have a chance. And one other man is immune also - is there a link? Can the answer be found before Dr Mabuse takes over the British government?

As usual with krimis the acting is pretty good. Peter van Eyck makes a good hero. Klaus Kinski is surprisingly heroic, at least until he gets robotised. Wolfgang Priess is an excellent super-villain. As usual the British police are armed to the teeth, although it appears that guns are of little use against such a super-weapon.

Paul May had already had a very long career as a director and he handles matters fairly confidently.

There’s no need for any expensive special effects which is just as well since there was no way that the very limited budget was possibly going to extend that far anyway.

Sinister Cinema’s DVD-R release offers only a fullframe print with an English dubbed soundtrack but picture quality is quite acceptable and it appears to be the only option for non-German speaking audiences.

Dr Mabuse is one of the screen’s greatest villains and fans of the evil doctor will want to check out this installment in his infamous criminal career. Dr Mabuse vs Scotland Yard will not disappoint them.

The Great Silence (1968)

While it’s not Sergio Corbucci’s best-known spaghetti western (that honour goes to Django) there are many who believe that his 1968 movie The Great Silence (Il grande silenzio) is his greatest. Unfortunately those people are wrong.

The movie concerns bounty hunters at the close of the 19th century. A large group of criminals is holed up in mountainous snowbound terrain waiting for a government amnesty. Before the amnesty arrives though they have to survive the attentions of a gang of bounty hunters. The most notorious of these is a man known variously as Loco or Tigrero (the subtitles on the Region 4 DVD insist that he’s called Tigrero). Either way he’s played by Klaus Kinski. He’s the movie’s chief bad guy (although his occupation happens to be hunting down criminals).

The bandits have a champion however, a mysterious stranger known as Silenzio or Silence. We later find out that his nickname comes from the fact that he’s mute as the result of having his vocal cords destroyed by wicked bounty hunters when he was a child. The bounty hunters had killed his father. Silenzio is now a crusader for the rights of criminals sought by bounty hunters. He pursues his crusade by taunting them into drawing first and then shooting them with his nifty machine pistol. He’s the hero of the movie (although his occupation happens to be defending criminals).

When a black woman’s husband, a thief, is shot by Tigrero she employs Silenzio to avenge him. She and Silenzio fall in love.

While this is happening a new idealistic sheriff has arrived in the town of Snow Hill. He doesn’t like bounty hunters and he wants to see Tigrero behind bars. The fact that Tigrero is actually pursuing a perfectly legal if rather unpleasant occupation doesn’t trouble the sheriff too much. He’s sympathetic to the rights of the poor and downtrodden, and he clearly considers that criminals fall within that category.

There’s also a wicked capitalist oppressor, Pollicut, who is in league with the bounty hunters.

With both Silenzio and the sheriff against him you might think that Tigrero would be in trouble, but in fact he’s a whole lot smarter than either of his antagonists.

The Great Silence has strong claims to being the most miserable spaghetti western ever made. Its famously downbeat ending is part of the film’s problem, but not for the reason you might suppose. The fact that it’s downbeat isn’t the problem but the fact that it lacks any dramatic punch certainly is. The whole plot just doesn’t quite develop the necessary dramatic tension. Silenzio is just too inept, too helpless. You really have to buy the naïve political message if you’re going to enjoy this movie.

Jean-Lois Trintignant plays Silenzio. His performance is presumably intended to be moody and intense. It doesn’t quite come off. As a deadly killer he is less than entirely convincing.

The movie’s saving grace is Klaus Kinski. He’s magnificent. He’s gloriously wicked, a man who really loves his job, especially the part that involves shooting people.

Technically the movie is an odd mix of brilliance and incompetence. There’s some stunning location photography, and the mountains and the remorseless snow create a superb atmosphere. But then there are scenes where Corbucci couldn’t even be bothered to make sure the camera is in focus.

This is a movie that the film school crowd will adore. It has the kind of heavy-handed political message that they love so much. And it has those moments of technical incompetence that will have them talking excitedly about cinéma vérité.

A film worth seeing for Kinski’s terrific performance, and for some impressive visuals.

The Region 4 DVD from Force Video is in Italian with English sub-titles.

The Indian Scarf (1963)

I’ve always been a fan of the German Edgar Wallace krimis of the 60s but now that I’ve got my hands on one of the German DVD boxed sets from Tobis I’m going to have the chance to see a few as they should be seen, in the proper ’scope aspect ratio and without the usual awful English dubbing.

First cab off the rank for me has been the 1963 Rialto production The Indian Scarf (Das indische Tuch).

The plot is one that with variations has been used hundreds of times - the members of an old family are gathered together in the family castle in Scotland to hear the reading of the will of the deceased head of the family, and the will contains the provision that no member of the family will inherit anything at all unless he or she agrees to stay in the castle for six days and six nights. Given that the members of the family all hate each other’s guts this will of course be an exquisite form of torture, and given the extent of this mutual hatred it may well end up being positively dangerous.

And of course a fierce storm arrives right on cue, the telephone lines are washed way and the roads are cut, and these temporary and unwilling inhabitants of the castle find themselves stranded. And conveniently this means that the killer (and you know there’s going to be a killer) must be one of them.

With the stage set it’s time for the mayhem to start. And there’s plenty of mayhem. A whole series of murders, all carried out in the same way - strangulation with a scarf. The body count is very impressive.

LIke I said, it’s a very familiar basic plot, but what matters in this type of movie is whether a creaky idea can be executed with enough style and enough flair to make it entertaining. Luckily the Edgar Wallace krimis usually had those qualities in abundance and this one is no exception. With Alfred Vohrer directing it’s also nicely paced.

The Wallace krimis also benefited from a pool of talented actors who did these films because there weren’t many other movies being made in West Germany at the time - if you wanted to work you were happy to accept these roles.

This one is a little different from the usual run of Wallace krimis in having an amateur detective rather than a Scotland Yard man having to solve the puzzle. In this case it’s the family solicitor, Mr Tanner. Heinz Drache does a solid job in the role, playing the only character who isn’t a raving maniac. The other cast members get to chew the scenery and they set to their task with enthusiasm. Of course you expect Klaus Kinski to be playing someone who’s completely unhinged, and you won’t be disappointed.

Eddie Arent supplies the comic relief in most of the Rialto krimis. And without the customary English dubbing he’s a lot less annoying. In fact he’s quite good.

With a plentiful supply of bizarre characters, lots of over-acting and some energetic direction it’s all a good deal of fun. And there’s a cute twist ending that may provoke groans but since these films were all approached in a tongue-in-cheek manner it’s actually quite amusing.

Watching one of these movies with the original German soundtrack with English subtitles is quite a revelation. It’s definitely a major improvement. For one thing the comic elements are less clumsy and consequently more effective.

Picture quality is extremely good. This is a DVD I can recommend wholeheartedly - the best DVD presentation I’ve seen of any of the Wallace krimis. And the movie itself is thoroughly enjoyable.

The Indian Scarf comes with both the German soundtrack with optional English subtitles and the English dubbed version. Unfortunately this set, which is volume 4 in the Wallace series, is apparently the only one in which all four movies are presented in English-friendly versions (although I’m told that all of the sets include some movies with English subtitles). In any case this particular set is a must-buy if you’re a Wallace krimi fan.

Venom (1981)

Given the title I was expecting Venom to be a horror movie, but it isn’t. It’s a crime thriller, but with venomous snakes included. An odd mix but it kind of works.

This 1981 British production has the kind of cast cult movie fans dream abut - Oliver Reed, Klaus Kinski, Susan George and Michael Gough. With a line-up like that, what could go wrong? And in fact the results are pretty satisfactory.

A sick rich kid lives with his American parents and his grandfather in one of the more luxurious parts of London. The kid collects animals and has an impressive little menagerie. His grandfather used to be an explorer and keep the boy entertained with his takes of thrills and adventure on safari in Africa.

This idyllic life is shattered when the boy is kidnapped by a criminal gang. The gang is led by a shadowy European criminal type (Klaus Kinski). The household’s chauffeur Dave (Oliver Reed) and the maid (Susan George) are also in on the plot. What they don’t know is that when the boy went to the pet store that afternoon to collect his new pet, a harmless African house snake, he was given the wrong snake. He was given a black mamba by mistake. Not just possibly the world’s deadliest snake, but an outrageously aggressive species as well.

The kidnapping is already starting to go badly wrong even before the black mamba escapes. That just adds to the chaos. And it adds to the headaches of the policeman (played by Nicol Williamson) assigned to deal with what has now become a major hostage drama. He has some assistance from a toxicology expert, Dr Marion Stowe (Sarah Miles) but that all goes badly wrong as well and he has to call in a snake expert from London Zoo (played by Michael Gough).

For an 80s movie it’s quite light on violence, despite the subject matter. And what violence there is is fairly non-graphic. Aside from the wild card of the deadly snake it’s a straighforward but very competent thriller relying more on suspense and the very strong cast rather than lots of blood.

Kinski and Oliver Reed make a great movie criminal team. They’re both totally out of control, but in different ways. Reed is jumpy and out of his depth, inclined to be trigger-happy due to his nervousness but at the same time he’d really prefer not to hurt anyone. Apart from the cops. He doesn’t like cops. Kinski is just as wired but much more ruthless and with a more obvious enjoyment in terrorising people. Kinski doesn’t go over-the-top, but being Klaus Kinski he doesn’t need to. He’s quite capable of giving the impression of being a dangerous and unbalanced crazy without needing to do anything too overt.

One of my few criticisms of the film is that Susan George doesn’t get enough screen time. But while she is onscreen she gets to play a sexy villainess, which is why she should have been given more screen time. Nicol Williamson is surprisingly effective as the tough cop. He’s tough and ruthless but in a low-key way.

The original director was Tobe (Texas Chainsaw Massacre) Hooper but he was replaced after production had started by Piers Haggard. Which was probably a good thing. Haggard had a solid track record in movies and TV and he does a very professional job here.

The Region 4 DVD includes no extras whatsoever but it’s an acceptable transfer.

Not a great movie, but an entertaining one that succeeds in what it sets out to achieve.

Evil Face (1974)

Georges Franjus’ superb Eyes Without a Face started an entire sub-genre of horror movies - plastic surgery horrors. Evil Face (La mano che nutre la morte), a 1974 Italo-Turkish co-production, is a relatively typical example of the breed but with enough twists to make it worth a watch.

Klaus Kinski is Professor Nijinski, a brilliant surgeon carrying on the controversial work of his equally brilliant surgeon father-in-law. He has personal reason for his obsession with this field - his beautiful wife was horribly disfigured by fire in an accident. His aim is to restore her beauty. As is usual in this sub-genre, this can only be done at the expense of other beautiful young women whose faces must be sacrificed to provide the necessary tissue for the skin grafts. And many experiments are needed to perfect the process, so the professor must kidnap and murder a succession of young women.

A young couple staying the night in the professor’s gothic castle will provide his latest victims - the husband to be murdered quickly while the wife will provide material for the latest experiment. The plan miscarries, partly due to the interference of a woman who is convinced (quite correctly) that the doctor has murdered her sister. She and her friend have talked their way into staying at the castle as well.

There are some reasonably good plot twists which I’m not going to give away.

The 19th century setting and the castle provide a suitably Frankenstein-like mad scientist atmosphere. The direction and the cinematography are competent. The production values are fairly impressive fir what was obviously a low-budget movie, and the mad scientist laboratory has some nice steampunkesque touches.

The acting is generally adequate, and Klaus Kinski is, as you’d expect, a very convincing insane scientist. He overacts rather less than you’d anticipate.

There are some fairly gory surgical scenes, and the disfigured wife with her strange doll is rather disturbing.

Yilmaz Duru and Sergio Garrone are co-credited as directors. They don’t have the visual brilliance or the visionary qualities to make a great eurohorror movie from the material at their disposal but they’ve still managed to make a fairly entertaining film.

The woman investigating the disappearance of her sister has a friend with her, the friend’s sole function in the movie apparently being to allow the inclusion of the lesbian sex scene without which no eurohorror movie would be complete. But that’s the wonderful world of eurohorror!

MYA Communications have attracted a certain amount of flak for some of their releases, including this one. It does have the look of being taken from a VHS source, and there’s a distinct lack of extras. On the other hand if this is so it was certainly a very good VHS source, and the picture quality is more than acceptable. It’s not the kind of pristine transfer you might get from Blue Underground, but MYA Communications are putting out some very obscure, hard-to-find and rather interesting titles and I’m happy to support any company that will make these previously unobtainable European cult movies available to cult movie fans in reasonably good DVD editions.

It’s not one of Kinski’s greatest performances and it’s not a forgotten masterpiece, but for eurohorror fans it should provide good solid entertainment.

The Secret of the Red Orchid (1962)

The Secret of the Red Orchid (Das Rätsel der roten Orchidee) is one of those wonderfully outrageous krimis produced by Rialto Films in Germany, starting in the early 60s. Mostly based on the works of Edgar Wallace (who apparently had an enormous following in Germany) they’re a mix of comedy and murder mystery, often with horror and gothic elements as well. And totally insane plots.

In this one Chicago gangsters have started a kidnapping racket in London, targeting the very wealthy. To combat this threat Scotland Yard has the assistance of a gun-toting two-fisted macho crimefighter from the FBI, played by Christopher Lee (yes, really). Also involved in the fight against these dangerous hoodlums is an eccentric butler, played by Eddi Arent (who provided the comedy relief in most of these films). There are numerous shootouts, mostly involving machine-guns, and lots of sorted mayhem. There’s a romantic sub-plot as well, and various shenanigans to do with wills, and a long-lost heir to a fortune with a passion for orchids. Trying to keep track of what’s going on isn’t easy, but it also isn’t necessary. The trick is to sit back and just enjoy the madness.

It’s incredibly badly dubbed, which adds considerably to the fun. Christopher Lee is as good as you’d expect him to be playing an American FBI man. Klaus Kinski plays one of the many rival gangsters, and is delightfully hammy. Eddi Arent is the kind of comic relief that can so often be annoying in the extreme, but in these films his performances actually work, adding yet another layer of weirdness. There are plenty of faces that will be familiar to fans of European exploitation cinema, including Adrian Hoven and the lovely Marisa Mell (who was the girlfriend of Diabolik in Mario Bava’s glorious comic book spoof Danger: Diabolik!).

The Secret of the Red Orchid is available on a double-sided DVD from Retromedia, paired with another krimi, The Monster of London City. Picture and sound quality are quite reasonable, and the package represents great value for anyone who loves off-best movies. Lots of outrageous fun!

Jess Franco’s Count Dracula (1970)

Jess Franco’s 1970 Count Dracula (Nachts, wenn Dracula erwacht was promoted at the time as being the most faithful adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel up to that date. In fact it’s probably still the movie adaptation that remains closest to the original book. Personally I don’t care about the faithfulness of adaptations, but this is certainly a very good version of this much-told tale. Franco was fortunate in being able to assemble a very strong cast indeed, with Christopher Lee as the Count, Klaus Kinski as Renfield, Soledad Miranda as Lucy and Herbert Lom as van Helsing. In the accompanying interview Franco claims that to the best of his recollection this film was actually Christopher Lee’s idea, and that he was very excited about the prosect of being able to play Dracula as Stoker had written the character. Lee’s enthusiasm for the project pay dividends – he gives a great performance, far better than in any of the vampire movies he did for Hammer Studios. As superb as his performance is, it’s Kinski (as so often) who steals the film. Franco recounts that while most actors will battle a director to get more lines, Kinski would do the opposite – he much preferred to have as little dialogue as possible and to show emotions rather than talking about them, and this movie shows just how well Kinski was able to do just that. Herbert Lom is wonderful as van Helsing, and Soledad Miranda is mesmerising as Lucy. Apparently Christopher Lee wasn’t too happy at first about her casting, but after the first day’s shooting he had to admit that Franco was absolutely right about her. The movie boasts higher production values than most of Franco’s films, some glorious sets and some luscious location photography. It just drips gothic atmosphere, but not the overdone rather stagey gothic atmosphere you often get in horror movies.

For those who think Jess Franco’s movies contain too much nudity and gore – this one has no nudity at all, and virtually no gore. The Region 1 DVD release contains an exceptionally interesting interview with Uncle Jess, and it looks magnificent. It’s worth buying this one just for the performances of Christopher Lee and Klaus Kinski (and I’m not even a Christopher Lee fan). For those who like their literary adaptations to be reasonably faithful to the source material this is a must-buy, and it’s really a must-buy for any self-respecting horror movie fan.

The Door with the Seven Locks (1962)

The British thriller/mystery writer Edgar Wallace, who died in 1932, enjoyed enormous popularity in Germany. This popularity was maintained for many years after his death, and spawned countless movies based on his books. The best-known are the series of krimi (or mystery thrillers) made by Rialto Films in the 60s. The Door with the Seven Locks (Die Tür mit den 7 Schlössern) marks my first exposure to this genre, and I’m completely hooked. It starts a little slowly, and at first you could be forgiven for thinking this is going to be a fairly straightforward, if rather complex, murder mystery. As the story progresses, though, it just gets weirder and weirder, and more and more entertaining. Elements of horror are added to the mix, and there’s a quite bizarre mad scientist sub-plot (with Pinkas Braun making a wonderfully crazed mad scientist). The plot is impossibly convoluted but it doesn’t matter – there’s too much fun being had to worry about the intricacies of the plot. Alfred Vohrer directs the film with energy and style. The sets are outlandish – a mixture of high-tech modernist and gothic but with some truly grotesque and fascinating touches. Heinz Drache as Inspector Martin of Scotland Yard (although made in Germany the film is set in England) makes a likeable hero, and Sabine Sesselmann is an engaging heroine. There’s a whole galaxy of major and minor villains, all played with considerable panache by a very solid cast. There’s even Klaus Kinksi in a small role as a nervous safe-cracker. The Door with the Seven Locks is fast-paced outrageous fun and I recommend it highly. I can see myself buying lots more of these German Edgar Wallace krimi films! In fact I have another one waiting to be watched at the moment – The Black Abbot.