The Vampires’ Night Orgy (1973)

The Vampires’ Night Orgy (La orgía nocturna de los vampiros) is pretty much a stock-standard slice of 1970s eurohorror. There’s nothing to make it either particularly outstanding or especially disappointing. Directed by León Klimovsky and released in 1973, it lacks the baroque excess and the trippy weirdness of the best movies of this type.

Somewhere in central Europe a bus is heading towards its destination, a palatial country house owned by a wealthy old family. The passengers are in fact the newly employed staff. They are destined, however, never to each the country house. The driver dies mysteriously, apparently of a heart attack. One of the passengers takes over as driver, but it’s getting late and he’s not familiar with the roads, so when they spot a turnoff to a village only ten kilometres away they decide it might be wise to break their journey there and get some food and sleep. Oddly enough, the village is not marked on their map.

Even more oddly, the village is completely deserted. They’re too exhausted by this time to worry about such minor details - the main thing is there are beds in the village inn. The next morning sees the sudden appearance of the villagers. The mayor tell them they’re welcome to stay, and since the bus has now developed mechanical problems they have little choice, and besides the countess who appears to own the village offers them money to compensate them for their misfortunes. Also stranded is an American tourist, played by eurohorror stalwart Jack Taylor. Things don’t seem too bad, until the bus passengers start to disappear one by one.

There’s no gore, but there are some nicely macabre touches. The villagers of course are all vampires so there’s no food in the inn. The problem is solved by serving the weary travellers human flesh - several of the villagers having (rather unwillingly) given up limbs to provide the meat course for dinner! There’s also a mysterious little boy who seemingly appears from nowhere, and then simply vanishes. The idea that the village is entirely surrounded by mountains that effectively cut off all direct sunlight, allowing a whole community of vampires to thrive even during the hours of daylight, is rather clever. It also gives the movie a ghostly feel, with almost the entire film taking place either at night or in a strange half-light.

The ending is reasonably effective. It’s an idea that’s been used before in a horror context but it works, and I’m not going to spoil the film by revealing it.

There’s surprisingly little nudity for a 1970s eurohorror film, but this one (like many other Spanish horror movies of that era) existed in both a clothed version to satisfy strict Spanish censorship guidelines and another version with a lot more nudity for other European markets. Most of the DVD releases of this film seem to be of the clothed version. It’s competently directed and photographed and the acting is adequate. If you’re a dedicated eurohorror fan then this movie should provide decent enough entertainment. On the other hand if you’re not a fan of the genre it’s not going to convert you.

Britannia Hospital (1982)

Britannia Hospital is usually described as the third part of Lindsay Anderson’s Michael Travis trilogy, although compared to If... and O Lucky Man Travis’s role is relatively minor in this one. It’s a movie that was thoroughly reviled upon its release in 1982 although it’s likely to find slightly more favour among modern audiences. It had much the same effect on Anderson’s career as Peeping Tom had on Michael Powell’s career in 1960 and for much the same reasons - it was not the movie that Anderson’s admirers or British film critics in general wanted from him.

Britannia Hospital is celebrating the 500th anniversary of its founding, but all is not well behind the wall of this venerable institution. In fact there is a great deal of bad craziness going on, as well as corruption and greed and all-round chaos. Things come to a head during a Royal Visit. There are protests against the special treatment of private patients and protests against the presence of a vicious Third World dictator in the hospital, while an investigative reporter (Mick Travis from the earlier films, again played by Malcolm MacDowell) is following up reports of bizarre experiments being carried out by the hospital’s most eminent surgeon, Professor Millar. The protests escalate into a full-scale riot, just as Professor Millar’s experiments are about to climax in true mad scientist fashion with his creation of a replacement for human beings.

It’s easy to see why this movie was so unpopular at the time. Anderson takes aim at an array of sacred cows, including those sacred to both the political left and the political right. While trendy film critics at the time would have enjoyed seeing the Royal Family, the police and the medical profession getting a pasting they would have been outraged that unions and human rights protesters got targeted as well. And Anderson’s style, already over-the-top in the earlier Mick Travis films, was becoming more and more outrageous. In Britannia Hospital he combines the surrealism of 1973’s O Lucky Man with a large dose of bad taste and gore and with humour that at times would not be out of place in a Carry On movie. The British film industry and British critics were just not ready for a blood-drenched art-house Carry On movie.

The movie was also attacked for what was seen as its excessive cynicism. It is unquestionably a bitter and cynical movie, a movie that reflects a comprehensive loss of faith in almost everything, but the point that was missed was that it is a bitter and cynical movie by a man who was not naturally bitter and cynical. It’s a plea for humanity in a world of greed and hypocrisy. The political satire of the movie doesn’t come from support for or opposition to any political ideology. It’s aimed at those who use political ideologies as a cloak for opportunism. Nobody in Britannia Hospital cares about the patients. The union representatives, the administrators, the Palace officials organising the Royal visit and the high-flying surgeons are all equally indifferent to the fate of the unfortunate patients. They are so engrossed in their power struggles that they hardly even seem aware that they are supposed to be caring for the sick. Even greater contempt is reserved for the media.

The wonderful Graham Crowden is at his scenery-chewing best as the crazed Professor Millar. There’s a galaxy of talented actors in this one, all overacting their hearts out. While it doesn’t reach the heights of greatness that Anderson scaled with If... and O Lucky Man it’s a movie that is well worth a look, and the history of our civilisation since 1882 would suggest that Anderson’s bitterness and cynicism were well and truly justified.

Chrome and Hot Leather (1971)

American International Pictures put out a string of biker exploitation movies in the late 60s and early 70s. The best of them by far was the Roger Corman-directed The Wild Angels, but the two released on DVD by MGM as a Midnite Movies double-header - The Mini-Skirt Mob and Chrome and Hot Leather - are both fun in their own ways.

Chrome and Hot Leather isn’t as delightfully camp as The Mini-Skirt Mob but it’s still engagingly trashy. A biker gang called The Wizards become involved in an altercation with a couple of young women in a car. When one of the bikers is accidentally knocked off his bike by the car he takes revenge by smashing in their windscreen with a chain. The car plunges out of control over a cliff, taking the two women to their deaths. Unfortunately for the bikers the driver was the girlfriend of Mitch, a tough Green Berets sergeant from the local army training camp. Mitch and three of his fellow sergeants set off in search of the bikers, determined to bring them to justice.

They decide to go undercover. They apparently think that wearing incredibly dorky biker outfits with sergeant’s stripes on the back of their jackets and riding small Japanese motorcycles will make them look exactly like bikers. As you might expect, the responses they get from the bikers they encounter range from amused derision to even more amused derision. They do eventually find The Wizards. Mitch’s idea that sleeping with the girlfriend of one of the bikers would be a good way to get information turns out to be an exceptionally bad idea. The fact that she’s the girlfriend of Casey, the very biker who killed his own girlfriend, makes it an even worse idea and predictably enough he gets a particularly vicious beating for his trouble.

These Green Berets are tough though and Mitch escapes and he and his buddies then mount a well-planned full-scale military assault (well as full-scale as you can get with only four guys) on the bikers’ hideout in a remote canyon, using rocket launchers and various other equipment borrowed from the US Army.

The plot is ludicrous but amusingly original. The stunts, fight sequences and the action scenes at the climax, as well as the numerous motorcycle chases, are pretty competently executed. The acting is bad, but it’s good bad acting. Seasoned cult movie fans know that there’s a vast difference between bad bad acting (which is merely boring) and good bad acting (which is highly entertaining). William Smith as the leader of the biker gang does some memorable scenery chewing.

The DVD transfer is widescreen and looks superb. And it’s a great double feature. An absolute must for fans of biker exploitation (bikesploitation?) movies and well worth a look for any cult movie lover.

Invasion of the Star Creatures (1963)

It’s not very often that I come across a cult movie about which I can think of not a single positive thing to say. But Invasion of the Star Creatures is such a movie. This 1963 production aims to be a zany sci-fi spoof. It manages to be possibly the least funny movie ever made. It’s like watching the excruciatingly unfunny comic relief moments from 1930s/1940s American horror movies extended into an entire movie.

A nuclear test at a US rocket base uncovers a cave. The cave contains a spaceship from another world. The crew consists of two very tall scantily clad women scientists, and a horde of vegetable men. They are planning to invade the Earth, but are foiled by a couple of inept soldiers temporarily detached from their usual duties emptying garbage cans. The alien women realise they can no longer return to their own planet after their spaceship is sabotaged, but they don’t mind because they’ve discovered that what they really want is to be prisoners of Earth men. The two soldiers generously allow the alien women to become their slaves, and they get married and live happily ever after.

OK, the social attitudes of 1950s American sci-fi movies can at times provide amusement, but this film provides nothing but irritation. The most offensive thing about it is its total lack of entertainment value.

Movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space and Cat-Women of the Moon demonstrate that inept film-makers with zero budgets can still make highly enjoyable and thoroughly likeable movies. Invasion of the Star Creatures is a useful reminder that sometimes inept film-makers with zero budgets simply end up making tedious unwatchable junk.

Female Yakuza Tale (1973)

Female Yakuza Tale is a kind of sequel to Norifumi Suzuki’s superb Sex and Fury but the two films have little in common. Written and directed by Teruo Ishii, Female Yakuza Tale lacks the artistry of the earlier film, and it also lacks the sheer visual brilliance. It also doesn’t have the lyrically beautiful action sequences. What it adds is a hefty dose of serious weirdness, a good deal of near-slapstick comedy, and large quantities of extraordinarily crude humour. Despite its many flaws it does have a kind of cheerful exuberance, and its bad taste has its own strange fascination. And it’s nothing if not off-beat.

Ochô Inoshika, the heroine of Sex and Fury, is back. This time she’s stumbled upon a drug smuggling ring that uses prostitutes to transport the drugs. The drugs are concealed in their vaginas. Ochô makes this discovery when she’s mistaken for one of these couriers and subjected to a painful and humiliating search by a group of gangsters. For some reason that I was never able to fathom one of the several criminal gangs mixed up in these proceedings is murdering and mutilating some of the girls.

The plot is both convoluted and obscure, and the more I tried to figure out exactly what was going on the more confused I became. There’s a yakuza boss who murdered his predecessor. The old boss had done Ochô a very big favour years earlier, so she’s keen to exact revenge on his killer, and she’s also trying to locate the old boss’s missing daughter. The various groups of criminals are all trying to double-cross one another, and there’s an enigmatic figure who may prove to be an ally or an enemy to Ochô. There’s also a lady gang boss, who appears to control prostitution and whose girls are being used, without her approval for the drug-smuggling operations. She also has the potential either to be a friend or an enemy.

The climax involves hordes of naked sword-wielding prostitutes and a chaotic, frenzied, gory but undeniably entertaining fight sequence. Like most of the things in this movie, it’s executed to some degree with tongue in cheek. The madhouse scene is disturbing and effective. And there’s a female assassin with some kind of religious obsession - when she prays, she kills.

Reiko Ike is impressive (as always) in the role of Ochô. She probably takes her role more seriously than the film really deserves. There’s more or less non-stop nudity. The crudity of the film is less offensive in practice than you might expect, since it’s clear that we’re not meant to take any of this seriously. The aim is to provide trashy exploitation fun, and it certainly delivers on the trashiness and the exploitation. Whether it’s fun or not really depends on your taste in humour. If you’re anticipating a worthy sequel to Sex and Fury you’re going to be disappointed. I’ve now seen quite a few of the Japanese pinky violence movies, and this one is unquestionably the weakest I’ve seen so far. It has its moments, and it’s probably worth a rental if you’re a fan of Japanese exploitation cinema.

War of the Robots (1978)

War of the Robots is pretty much what you expect from an Alfonso Brescia movie. The story makes little sense, the special effects are ultra-cheap, everything looks hokey, it’s outrageously cheesy, and it’s terrific fun.

An Earth scientist working on a project to create artificial life is kidnapped by alien robots in shiny outfits and bizarre wigs. His beautiful female assistant Lois (this is the kind of movie where you know that the scientist will have a beautiful female assistant) is also kidnapped. Unfortunately they forgot to switch off the atomic reactor before leaving home which turns out to be a lot more serious than forgetting to turn off the stove. Unless the professor can be rescued the entire city (located on a space station) will be destroyed when the reactor goes critical.

An intrepid spaceship commander and his gallant crew set off on a mission to retrieve the missing scientist. As it happens the commander of the ship, Captain John Boyd, is in love with the scientist’s assistant. To further complicate matters one of his crew members, Julie, is hopelessly in love with him. Julie is played by Yanti Somer. She looks a bit like a female David Bowie but I must confess to finding her oddly sexy. And to add yet another romantic complication, the Professor is in love with Lois.

After being damaged in a space battle with the aliens the spaceship stops off at an asteroid for repairs. The inhabitants of the asteroid immediately attack them, mistaking them for their inveterate enemies the men of Antar, and are in their turn attacked by the shiny robot men. The robots zap them and send them into convulsion. The Earth spaceship crew decide that any enemies of the shiny robot men are friends of theirs, and rescue the asteroid dwellers. This wins them the undying devotion of the leader of the asteroid people, who promptly joins their crew.

Captain Boyd and his crew find the missing scientist, but things take several unexpected twists which culminates in his having to choose between the woman he loves and the woman who loves him. One must die, and he must decide.

I’m probably giving the misleading impression that this movie has more of a coherent plot that it actually does. The sets and props were mostly the same ones used in Brescia’s equally crazed and equally entertaining (and equally cheap) Cosmos: War of the Planets. The special effects are embarrassingly inept, the acting is atrocious, the space battles are totally unconvincing. None of which matters, because if you’re going to enjoy this one you’re going to enjoy it entirely for its camp value, and it has camp value in abundance. The English dubbing is of course appalling, which adds to the fun. There are some truly jaw-dropping dialogue moments. I loved it, but then I do tend to like this sort of movie.

The Alpha Video DVD transfer is unbelievably bad, even by Alpha Video’s terrifyingly low standards.

The Stone Tape (1972)

Nigel Kneal’s 1972 TV movie The Stone Tape starts off seeming like it’s going to be another of those ghost hunting with technology stories, a bit like Richard Matheson’s Hell House (filmed as The Legend of Hell House at around the same time this one was made). Kneale however has some twists in store for us.

An electronics corporation has established a high-tech laboratory in an old house. Their mission is to find a new data storage medium to replace magnetic tape, a development intended to put Britain at the forefront of the technology race. They have all the latest gadgets, including even a computer (a mainframe the size of a small bus). Peter Brock, the director of the project, is disturbed to find that no work has been carried out on the from intended as their computer storage room. The local workers refuse to enter the room, believing it to be haunted.

Brock’s initial scepticism is shaken when several members of his team hear the ghost, and two actually see it. It turns out that a servant named Louisa was killed in a fall on staircase in 1892, and her running footsteps and screams are the sounds they keep hearing. Since they have a whole lab full of high-tech equipment, and since they can’t continue their project until they have the use of the room, Brock decides they should try to capture the ghost on film or audio. This is where the story takes an interesting and unexpected turn. Brock realises there is no ghost as such. What they’re hearing and seeing is a kind of recording. The room has acted as a recording medium, capable of preserving human emotional outbursts of sufficient strength, such as stark terror. Apart from being interesting in itself, Brock feels he may have stumbled upon the very thing their research was looking for - a whole new way of recording data. The room and the human mind seem to be interact on one another, holding out the promise of being able to record images and sounds that can be played back directly into the brain, without the need for loudspeakers or monitor screens.

Jill, the computer programmer who seems most sensitive to these sounds and images, becomes increasingly obsessed, and increasingly convinced that there are in fact many layers of recordings present in this strange room.

Using only the crudest of special effects director Peter Sasdy and writer Nigel Kneale have crafted an intelligent and genuinely creepy little chiller. Good performances by Michel Bryant as Peter Brock and Jane Asher as Jill certainly help. As is usual with Kneale, we get some startlingly accurate predictions of the future, often in the form of what are almost throwaway lines. In this case the local vicar’s predictions of the new forms that our conception of sin will take in the future have proved uncannily prescient.

The Stone Tape demonstrates once again Kneale’s talent for combining science fiction with traditional horror elements, and the film clearly never really commits itself on the question of whether there is anything supernatural or even paranormal going on. The ending is truly frightening, with the tension gradually building to a crescendo of terror, obsession and madness.

While technology has certainly moved on since 1972, the datedness of the technology used by these scientific ghost-hunters doesn’t date the film at all. It’s the ideas that count, and the ideas in this one are as disturbing and thought-provoking today as they were in 1972. Very highly recommended.