The House That Dripped Blood

Cast: Denholm Elliott, Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee

Director: Peter Duffell

102 minutes (15) 1971

Second Sight 
Blu-ray region B

Rating: 8/10

Review by Donald Morefield

Despite their variable cinematic qualities, mid-century horror movies created by Hammer and Amicus remain studio productions made on limited budgets. These comparatively economical efforts are but often cleverly inventive and typically wittily, and they bridge the gap between essentially British theatrical traditions, where actors take primacy over special effects, and screen entertainments usually composed with innovative practical tricks and optical illusions, where the mind’s-eye imagery of grisly surrealism frequently breaks through the surfaces of human reality.

Written by Robert Bloch, adapting his own short stories, anthology picture The House That Dripped Blood is a fine example of its format and genre concerns, boosted to prominence by the finesse of top stars and excellent supporting casts, portraying sweaty anxieties and relatable frustrations, in four narrative depictions with sinister atmospheres and macabre frights. The residential property is question here isn’t just another haunted house, it is more like a place that’s suffering a curse of death for tenants unwary of the posted warning signs.

A troubled writer rents this place where he discovers a maniacal strangler is lurking and stalking him in the first segment, Method For Murder. ‘Gaslighting’ is the cunning plan of conspirators here, but one weird twist crashes criminality into insanity. Waxworks begins with lonely reminiscence in retirement, then conjures up a fantasy prompted by curiosity. After visiting a black museum, one particular exhibit has a fascinating appeal to men who have lingering memories of a special woman. 

Sweets To The Sweet confronts a deadly evil that is disguised as innocence for a chilling, nightmarish tale beginning with a little girl who seems afraid of fire. Nyree Dawn Porter (The Protectors) provides excellent support. Finally, The Cloak stars Jon Pertwee, taking a break from popular TV series Doctor Who (1970-4), to portray a rather snobby actor who becomes a vampire. This comedy-horror that wraps up a diverse story package of mystery and murders has Ingrid Pitt playing the leading lady for a trashy movie-within-a-movie. 

Furthermore, there’s a linking story about a policeman investigating the notorious house and its history of mysterious deaths, and this framework is startling for its inquiries by a Scotland Yard detective that recalls cases in the spy-fi show Department S (1969-70). The House That Dripped Blood, and Dept. S are home-grown dramas that proved to be  genre precursors to a pair of American TV horror movies, The Night Stalker (1972), and The Night Strangler (1973), that led directly to a classic series Kolchak: The Night Stalker (1974-5). Much later, Dept. S and Kolchak, in turn, were an influence upon Chris Carter’s phenomenal franchise The X-Files. And so, from an historical perspective on genre, this nearly 50-year-old UK film’s surprising legacy adds values to many other screen horrors. 

The Legacy

Cast: Sam Elliott, Katherine Ross, and Roger Daltrey

Director: Richard Marquand

100 minutes (18) 1978

Powerhouse (Indicator)

Blu-ray region B

[Released 29th July]

Rating: 5/10

Review by Emily Webb  

Better known for featuring Sam Elliott’s bare bottom than for its cinematic quality, The Legacy was an adequate attempt at modern horror, after The Exorcist (1973), and The Omen (1976). Written by Jimmy Sangster, a veteran of Hammer films, The Legacy should have been better. Real-life couple Sam Elliott (Hulk) and Katharine Ross (The Stepford Wives) play architects Pete Danner and Maggie Walsh, who travel to the UK on an assignment (and starring in this film together led to the stars’ eventual marriage). When they have a motorbike crash in the country, they are taken in by Jason Mountolive, a mysterious millionaire, to a lavish country manor to recuperate. The mystery deepens when it turns out that the other guests at the manor have been expecting them...

A mystery horror, The Legacy starts with promise - a stately mansion, house-guests, and a mysterious reason for them all being present - but, sadly, it degenerates. It is a bizarre ‘old school’ British horror that features an ex-Nazi, a spooky nurse, and a mysterious and evil master of the house who turns out to be evil. Richard Marquand made his feature film debut with this, and went on to direct Star Wars: The Return Of The Jedi (1983), only to die shortly after its release.

Predictably, the house-guests are picked off one by one and it becomes clear that Maggie is wanted by the villain to fulfil a diabolic legacy. This film is also known as The Legacy Of Maggie Walsh (in its edited TV version), which gives a fairly big clue as to who survives the carnage at the English manor. Satisfyingly, an appalling Roger Daltrey dies when he chokes during a meal and fails to survive a gruesome tracheotomy. Elliott is particularly good looking (I love that moustache), and his nude shower scene is a highlight of the film, albeit unnecessary. The title song, Another Side Of Me, is performed by Kiki Dee and gives the film a suitably cheesy feel.

Overall, The Legacy is a disappointing film but there is enough to sustain viewer interest through the plot and atmosphere. There are a few action-packed scenes, including one where Maggie and Peter attempt to escape the estate on horseback, and this allows Elliott to do what he does best: be a brawling, manly, cowboy-type of guy. The music accompanying the action is reminiscent of a Charlie’s Angels episode.

Extras:

• Re-mastered in HD for limited edition Blu-ray
• Between The Hammer And The Anvil (1973) - Marquand’s acclaimed documentary short film, made for the Central Office of Information, about the Liverpool police force
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Julian Upton, an overview of contemporary critical responses, archival articles, and film credits
• Image gallery
• Trailers

Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich

Cast: Thomas Lennon, Barbara Crampton, and Udo Kier

Directors: Sonny Laguna and Tommy Wiklund  

90 minutes (18) 2018

Exploitation 
Blu-ray region B

[Released 8th July]

Rating: 7/10

Review by Christopher Geary

What if a bunch of horror icons from Hellraiser (1987), and various slasher movies, were incarnated as toys? The Puppet Master (1989) offers a likely answer, in eclectic subgenre terms, following the rarely explored trend of tiny terrors, from the flesh-biting dolls seen in Barbarella (1968), and homunculus mannikins created by a mad-house inmate for the final segment of British anthology movie Asylum (1972), to Stuart Gordon’s grisly fairy-tale Dolls (1987), and Tom Holland’s comedic slasher Child’s Play (1988). These figures of malevolence, skulking about and scuttling around, in the original movie’s Bodega Bay setting, continue their wholly creepy or violent activities in Puppet Master II (1990), as paranormal investigators study the old haunted hotel. A prequel movie, Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge (1991) delivers another grimly relentless adventure, this time set in Berlin during the 1940s.

Like the green serum injections of Re-Animator (1985), the Puppet Master movies also deploy the sci-fi notion of a wonder drug for ‘playing god’, but where Re-Animator made zombies from corpses, the miracle of puppet-master Andre Toulon (originally played by veteran William Hickey) brings to life several inanimate objects that were clockwork, yet never alive before. This is a peculiar spin-off trope from a weird quest for an elixir of eternal life that confers an immortality on the carved puppets, when human spirits (vengeful victims of the Nazis) are re-embodied in them. The false life of stringed puppets, as presented in Toulon’s miniature theatre, is a genre metaphor throughout the PM franchise, and there are sinister hints of a Faustian pact for success along with crazily Frankensteinian science based upon ancient Egyptian mythical secrets.

The new picture in this PM franchise is a savagely dark comedy that springs, perhaps, out of the Naziploitation exemplar and cult-worthy popularity of genre spoof Iron Sky (2012), and Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich is essentially a reboot of an 11-movie franchise where the genre creativity from several quirky character designs, previously enhanced by David Allen’s quite charming stop-motion effects, is cleverly replaced by camera trickery, and some digital visuals.

Filmed in Dallas, Texas, where a grim tragedy is celebrated during a convention marking the 30th anniversary of the infamous Toulon murders, this Puppet Master re-launch pays homage to most of the earlier movies, but updates the premise to reflect current political concerns. Edgar (Thomas Lennon, Lethal Weapon TV series), his girlfriend Ashley (Jenny Pellicer, The Bridge), and his buddy Markowitz (Nelson Franklin, Veep) hope to sell skull-faced Blade to prize collectors the convention. Detective Brown (Michael Pare, Streets Of Fire) is the calm voice of reason, not amused by the existence of Nazi puppets, and their reign of terror, where even a homicidal baby-Fuhrer isn’t the worst menace on the loose. 

Barbara Crampton (From Beyond) plays a no-nonsense security-officer, Carol, struggling to cope with numerous violent death scenes which are unflinchingly tasteless, extremely gory, and frequently amusing, in a binge of slick and often sick black-comedy aspects, as every hotel room seemingly becomes another slaughterhouse of demented fury. Panic begins as the body-count increases. Shoot ‘em-up action sequences are, largely, ineffective against much smaller targets. Under siege, the wounded and the repeatedly injured are forced to attempt risky escapes. When it really gets going, this comedy-horror delivers a cinematic model of disturbing slasher mania, with many brutal set-pieces all heightened by crunchy sound effects, when the most familiar puppets from previous efforts are joined by several new figures that scamper along or start flying about, scattering victims in bathrooms and hotel corridors.  

The comic-book mayhem is vigorous and uncompromising, despite the movie’s obviously trashy-horror and quite splattery style. Its sense of fun is most certainly of a ghastly and shocking variety.