In an unnamed Victorian Era European village, Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp), the son of nouveau riche fish merchants, and Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson), the neglected daughter of hateful aristocrats, are getting prepared for their arranged marriage, which will raise the social class of Victor’s parents and restore the wealth of Victoria’s penniless family. Both have concerns about marrying someone they do not know, but they fall instantly in love when they first meet. After the shy, clumsy Victor ruins the wedding rehearsal and is scolded at by Pastor Galswells (Christopher Lee), he flees and practices his wedding vows in the nearby forest, placing the wedding ring on a nearby upturned tree root.
The root turns out to be the finger of a dead girl clad in a tattered bridal gown, who rises from the grave claiming that she is now Victor’s wife. Spirited away to the surprisingly festive Land of the Dead, the bewildered Victor learns the story of Emily (Helena Bonham Carter), his new “bride,” murdered years ago on the night of her secret elopement. Emily, as a wedding gift, reunites Victor with his long-dead dog, Scraps. Meanwhile, Victoria’s parents hear that Victor has been seen in another woman’s arms, and become suspicious…
‘While the script slightly creaks in setting up this love triangle, the simplicity of the story – realised in exquisitely gothic design – is among its greatest strengths. It doesn’t rely on the pop culture references and incessant wisecracking of Pixar toons, instead drawing you into a cosy world of Dickensian gloom cheered up with show tunes and a few mischievous twists.’ BBC Movies review
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
‘If Charlie And The Chocolate Factory was Burton’s big picture for 2005, this is his miniature. With its brief running time, tight little story and sweet/sad Gothic fairy-tale feel, it’s more like the live-action Edward Scissorhands than Burton’s previous animated venture, The Nightmare Before Christmas.’ Kim Newman, Empire magazine review
Corpse Bride clocks in at a whiplash 74 minutes, and it might have been even shorter if not for several uninspired Danny Elfman songs, which here feel like padding. It’s as if Burton and his co-director Mike Johnson had one eye on the clock, so as not to bore … well, what audience, exactly? The audience for Corpse Bride will indulge just about anything gothy and Burton-esque from Burton. But they may not indulge him this time. Rob Gonsalves, eFilmCritic.com review
Black Widow are a rockband that formed in Leicester, England in September 1969. The band were mostly known for its early use of Satanic and occult imagery in their music and stage act. They were often compared with the better-known heavy metal band Black Sabbath, but the bands were only superficially similar.
The group originally formed in 1966 as Pesky Gee! with Kay Garrett (lead vocals), Kip Trevor (lead vocals, guitar and harmonica), Chris Dredge (guitar), Bob Bond (bass guitar), Clive Box (drums and piano), Jess “Zoot” Taylor (organ), Clive Jones (saxophone and flute). Jim Gannon (guitar, vocals and vibes), replaced Dredge in Spring 1969. They split in September 1969.
Black Widow released their debut album Sacrifice in 1970. Perhaps better known than their music was the band’s use of occult references in their music and their live performances, which were made more controversial with the mock sacrifice of a naked woman. The band attracted further controversy by consulting infamous witchAlex Sanders for advice.
Controversy aside, Sacrifice reached No. 32 on the UK Albums Chart. Black Widow also performed at the Whitsun Festival at Plumpton, UK, and at The Isle of Wight Festival in 1970. By 1971, they had moved away from its darker occult imagery in an effort to gain a wider audience, which was unsuccessful. Black Widow released the self-titled Black Widow album in 1971 and Black Widow III in 1972 to general disinterest before being dropped by CBS Records…
Black Widow’s most popular song Come to the Sabbat has been covered by many bands and artists including Timberjack (Top 10 hit in New Zealand in 1971), Jon the Postman, Bewitched, Death SS and Propagandhi.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Werewolf is a novelty horror single by Morgus and the Daringers, released in 1964 by Fulton Records of Detroit, Michigan. It has subsequently turned up on unofficial compilation albums such as Garage Punk Unknowns Vol. 6.
The record tells the story of a werewolf who ‘passes as a beatnik’ and attends poetry reading at The House of the Seven candles coffee spot, where he bites a Beat and then proceeds to wow the crowd with his poetry (‘Scoobie Oobie Doobie’ is his opening line).
The single was part of the novelty horror record boom of the period, inspired by the monster craze in America during the early 1960s, when old horror movies turned up on TV and inspired a new generation of fans. It’s also a satire of the Beat movement (with the suggestion that Beatniks are so unkempt that they look like the Wolfman).
Little is known about Morgus and the Daringers, who would see to be one of many bands of the era who only managed a single recording before vanishing back into obscurity.
The Monster Club is a 1980 Britishhorrorfilm directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Vincent Price and John Carradine. An anthology film, it is based on the works of the British horror author R. Chetwynd-Hayes. It has sometimes been credited as an Amicus production, though this is incorrect; it was, in fact, made by former Amicus head Milton Subotsky’s Sword and Sorcery productions for Chips Productions, an offshoot of ITC.
The Shadmock: A fictionalized version of Chetwynd-Hayes (Carradine) is approached on a city street by a strange man (Price) who turns out to be a starving vampire named Eramus. Eramus bites the writer, and in gratitude for the small “donation”, takes his (basically unharmed but bewildered) victim to the titular club, which is a covert gathering place for a multitude of supernatural creatures. In between the club’s unique music and dance performances, Eramus introduces three stories about his fellow creatures of the night.
A young, financially struggling woman takes a job at a secluded manor house owned by a hybrid creature called a Shadmock, which leads a troubled and tragic existence and is notorious for its demonic whistle. As time goes by, the girl, Angela, develops a friendship with the mysterious Shadmock, named Raven, and he eventually proposes to her. Alarmed, Angela refuses but her controlling boyfriend forces her to go through with it in order to gain the Shadmock’s vast wealth. At the night of the engagement party, Angela is caught robbing the Shadmock’s safe, and screams that she could never love him. Heartbroken, the Shadmock whistles and destroys Angela’s face. Upon seeing her, her boyfriend is driven insane and locked away in an asylum.
The Vampires: The timid son of a peaceable family of vampires lives a miserable, lonely life where he is bullied at school and his father spends little time with him. The son discovers his father is a vampire, being relentlessly if ineptly hunted by a team of bureaucratic undead-killers. The hunters break into the house and stake the vampire father, but the tables are turned when the father bites the leader of the vampire hunters, meaning he will have to be staked by his own servants.
The Humgoo: A movie director scouting locations for his next film pays an unpleasant visit to a small backwards village, Loughville near Hillington, Norfolk, inhabited by man-eating ghouls who unearth graves for food and clothes.
Whilst imprisoned by these ghouls, he meets Luna, the daughter of a ghoul father and a deceased human mother. With the aid of Luna, the director attempts to escape, only for her to be killed by the ghouls and the director captured again and returned to the village by ghoul policemen.
At the end of the film, Eramus cheerfully lists to the other club-members all the imaginative ways that humans have of being horrible to each other, and declares that humans are the most despicable monsters of all. Thus Chetwynd-Hayes is made an honorary monster and member of the club.
Despite Vincent Price’s decades-long career as a horror actor, The Monster Club features what may be his only film performance as a vampire; although he appeared as Dracula in the educational film Once upon a Midnight Scary. Christopher Lee was originally sought for the role of Chetwynd-Hayes, but apparently dismissed the offer simply upon hearing the film’s title from his agent. Peter Cushing and Klaus Kinski also turned the project down. The character of Lintom Busotsky is a film producer, and his name is an anagram of the real film’s producer, Milton Subotsky.
Subotsky intended the film to be suitable for a family audience, and so avoided graphic horror, gore or nudity. The BBFC initially gave the film an ‘AA’ (14) rating, but after Subotsky arranged a screening for children to show they would not be upset by it, agreed to pass it with an ‘A’ (PG). However, subsequent video releases have been rated ’15′.
A comic book adaptation of the film was produced by Dez Skinn, John Bolton and David Lloyd, to be used as a promotional tool at the Cannes Film Festival. Only 1000 copies were printed, making it a collectable item. The strip was later reprinted in Skinn’s Halls of Horror. The film also spawned a soundtrack album and paperback tie-in edition of Chetwynd-Hayes’ original book.
The film was released to UK cinemas on May 24 1981. It failed to secure US distribution, and was not a box office success in the UK. Many people were dismissive of the rather clumsy humour, the insipid music from the likes of B.A. Robertson, The Pretty Things and UB40, the old-fashioned nature of the film and the poor production values – the meagre budget meant that most of the creatures in The Monster Club wore cheap and crude face masks. A planned sequel, Monsters vs Meanies, was quickly dropped, and the film effectively signaled the end of Subotsky’s career.
“In the hands of a younger director with a vision for the fantastique, The Monster Club would have been to die-for. Instead it is a wet blanket, and apart from the first story which features a superbly gory ending, there is only the pleasure of seeing Vincent and John Carradine trying to be hip in a club playing UB40 to savour.” The Sound of Vincent Price
“If The Monster Club has accrued a certain cult status it’s mostly down to its sheer awfulness” Film 4
“Any expectations of humour aroused by the presence of a producer and a director in the dramatis personae prove ill-founded. The individual narratives are slackly unfolded while the scenes at the club are just embarrassingly silly.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Horror, edited by Phil Hardy, 1997
Hammer Presents Dracula – with Christopher Lee is an LP vinyl album released in 1974 by EMI. It is the only released production of Hammer City Records.
The LP consists of two distinct parts. Side One features an original Dracula story (simply titled ‘Dracula’, written by Don Houghton (and based loosely on the story of Dracula Prince of Darkness). The story is preceded with an atmospheric introduction from Bill Mitchell, before leading into the story proper, which is narrated by Lee. The accompanying music is composed by Hammer regular James Bernard.
Side Two consists of Four Faces of Evil – musical suites from Fear in the Night, She, The Vampire Lovers and Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde. The music is arranged and conducted by Philip Martell.
The album sleeve (featuring a still from Dracula AD 1972) contains sleeve notes on the history of vampire in popular culture and superstition by author Basil Copper. The original UK release had a gatefold sleeve, but this was reduced to a standard sleeve for the US edition.
The album was reissued on CD, but both this and the vinyl editions are now rare and collectible.
Hammer City Records were scheduled to follow this with Hammer Presents Frankenstein, featuring a story read by Peter Cushing. However, it failed to appear, and according to Little Shoppe of Horrors issue 4, the man in charge of Hammer’s record division allegedly disappeared with both the master tapes and all the profits from both this and the Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires soundtrack LP.
In 1970, the heady, care-free days of the sixties were already a distant memory in the horror film world; British horror in particular took on a distinctly sideways glance at life and history, what was considered twee, naive and inconsequential was now dark, mysterious and cursed. Piers Haggard‘s The Blood on Satan’s Claw - also known as Satan’s Skin – followed quickly on from the sentiments and pastoral bleakness of Witchfinder General, both exercises in the futility of Man against nature and fate.
The soundtrack to The Blood on Satan’s Claw was composed by French-born Australian Marc Wilkinson, already having made a name for himself a couple of years earlier with his score to Lindsay Anderson’s If…. On the surface, his score for ‘Claw’ is exactly as you’d expect [though much lovelier] – gentle drifts of woozy woodwind and the early electronic instrument, the ondes martenot. However, the sound of ‘Claw’ features something far more sinister, something that elevates it, perhaps, to being the most horrible of all horror soundtracks.
Since the earliest of times, music has moved humankind and featured heavily in all aspects of divinity and worship. By the 11th Century, great importance was placed upon sacred music and the meanings of melodies and methods of creating it. Following along this train of thought, there was also that which was forbidden; primary amongst these was the ‘tritone’ – a musical interval which spans three whole tones – perhaps what we would write today as C and F# or as augmented fourths or diminished fifths.
The sound is one of dissonance – not displeasurably, as it may suggest but neck-twistingly alluring and intriguing. Indeed, the theory behind the banning of such a creation by the Church was that it may take the singers, players or listeners of such a sound closer than Man may ever be to God…or otherwise. It was called ‘Diabolus in Musica’; ‘the Devil’s music’ or ‘the Devil’s chord’.
Though shunned and reviled in the Middle Ages – the earliest references go back to the 9th Century – there was enough fear and suspicion around it that torture would be employed against practitioners in some instances, even by the 18th Century it was being used with dubious dedication – baroque composer and violinist Giuseppe Tartini’s most famous work, the notoriously difficult to play ‘Devil’s Trill Sonata’ was explained by the composer as having being taught to him by Satan himself. Tartini’s rumoured six fingered hand was a possible explanation as to his proficiency in playing it; the tritone made a big return in the 19th Century, used almost exclusively to create a feeling of foreboding and overriding evil; Richard Wagner and Camille Saint-Saens were fond of utilising it. Though now not banned in any sense, the effect it had was still to unsettle any audience.
Wilkinson’s use in his score was to use a descending chromatic scale as the main theme – this was nothing new, as previously seen, a descending scale had been used since the earliest horror scores to signify a descent into musical and visual Hell. Wilkinson’s trick was to omit the perfect fifth, the one note needed to create stability to the scale; in turn, this highlighted the diminished fifth – it sounds wrong, as if you’ve missed a step whilst walking down the stairs or your finger has hit the wrong key at the end of typing a word. There’s something incomplete about it, something fundamentally at odds with what we have been attuned to accept…and yet, it’s perfect.
The Devil’s Interval is used in popular culture regularly now; everything from The Simpsons’ theme tune to Black Sabbath’s self-titled song employ it but ‘Claw’ stands as one of the most poignant. A perfect marriage of the conventional and the dysfunctional, there could scarcely be a better backing to any film, Linda Hayden’s lascivious minx versus Patrick Wymark’s puritan fear, all wrapped up in a curious, entrancing yet truly damned score. Bravo, Satan.
In England, jazz drummer Basil Kirchin had established himself as a reliable hand to bandleaders such as Ted Heath, belting out resolutely British jazz stylings to 1950s ‘cats’. Although his success was recognised not just by his contemporaries but also audiences [he was voted ‘best drummer’ by Melody Maker readers], he remained unsatisfied with the constraints of what, even now, is considered the most traditional and unchallenging of jazz forms and ,way before it was fashionable, fled to India to study the mysticism of the swami on the banks of the Ganges.
The following early 60s years were spent as musical director of the Pigalle club in Sydney before he finally returned to London brimming with ideas. His first forays into film music are notable for their distinct oddness; H.P Lovecraft-inspired The Shuttered Room, crime caper The Strange Affair and particularly I Start Counting are blisteringly good but unsettling British films relying on mood, tone and distinct acting rising above extremely modest budgets. I Start Counting’s delicate yet chillingly drifty folk still stands up well today.
It was, however, 1971’s score to The Abominable Dr Phibes which really drives him to the upper echelons of film composers, the swirling, throaty trumpets performing an odd balancing act with stacatto strings and trilling flutes. The perfection comes with the romance but awkwardness of the music reflecting superbly the doomed, chaotic love of Phibes himself, of course, played by Vincent Price.
Prices’ voice could easily be described as a musical instrument itself, quite unlike anyone else, the odd mid-Atlantic crawl of his tones as distinct and welcoming as any score in horror. Kirchin though, had found a medium which allowed him space to express himself. His experiments outside of film and traditional composition had led to him recording the sounds of birds and animals in zoos and then manipulating them the create previously unheard worlds. Later recordings used the voices of autistic children counterbalanced with avant yet fluid improvisation from the likes of jazz guitar auteur Derek Bailey.
These works placed him in a largely unrecognised but hugely influential group. Being regarded as the Godfather of Ambient Music didn’t earn him much. As such, his final film recording, 1974’s The Mutations, a terrific, creepy exploration of freakshows and madness, featuring Donald Pleasance and Tom Baker, was his last. The sound of the score is very organic and brings to mind the music used on early David Attenborough documentaries to back scenes of time-lapse photographed plants reaching for the sky. The cue used to back the scenes of the freakshow itself are utterly sublime and sound like nothing else in the horror film world, surprisingly joyous, uplifting, familiar yet from another world. Kirchin continued to work, occasionally for De Wolfe but didn’t receive any recognition for his contribution to the world of film and beyond until just before his death in 1993.
KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (also known as KISS in the Attack of the Phantoms) is a 1978 television film directed by Gordon Hessler (The Oblong Box, Cry of the Banshee, Scream and Scream Again) from a screenplay by Jan Michael Sherman and Don Buday. The film’s plot revolves around American hard rock band KISS, who use their ‘superpowers’ to battle an evil inventor (Abner Devereaux, played by Anthony Zerbe) and to save a California amusement park from destruction.
The film was aired by NBC at the height of the bands popularity in the United States. However, poor acting and a semi-comedic script caused it to be regarded poorly even by most KISS fans. Despite or perhaps because of this, it has attained cult status. The film is hated by the band members themselves for the buffoonish way it made them appear. For years after its airing, no-one who worked for the group was permitted to mention the film in their presence.
Filming for Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park began in May 1978, and it was produced by Hanna-Barbera (better known as the animation studio behind Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Most of the movie was filmed at Magic Mountain in California, with additional filming taking place in the Hollywood Hills. Much of the production was rushed, and the script underwent numerous rewrites. All four members of Kiss were given crash courses on acting.
Prior to completing the script, screenwriters Jan Michael Sherman and Don Buday spent time with each Kiss member, in an effort to get a feel for how they each acted and spoke. Ac Frehley, known for his eccentric behavior, said little to the pair but “Ack!” As a result, Frehley was not originally given any lines, except to interject “Ack!” at various points. In the first draft of the script, Frehley was described as “monosyllabic and super-friendly. Communicating largely through gestures and sounds, Ace might be best described as an other-galactic Harpo Marx. Upon learning of his lack of dialogue, Frehley threatened to leave the project — soon after, lines were written for him.
In 1979, Avco-Embassy released Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Park in cinemas outside the United States, with translations of the title Attack of the Phantoms. In some countries — Italy, in particular — the film was simply titled Kiss Phantoms. The theatrical release featured a vastly different version of the film, with several scenes that did not appear in the original television airing added to the cut.
In the years since its initial airing, Kiss Meets the Phantom of the Parkhas achieved cult status, mainly among Kiss fans. It is currently available on DVD as part of Kissology Volume Two: 1978–1991, a collection of concerts and television appearances (however, this is the re-edited European version, which contains hardly any of Ace Frehley’s lines). Previously, availability was limited to two brief VHS releases in the 1980s and a laserdisc release in 1991. In 2005, distributor Cheezy Flicks attempted to release the original TV film version of the film on DVD, but due to legal issues, the disc was quickly pulled.
“Probably the best part about this movie is that although the songs KISS plays are from their heavy metal period, the rest of the soundtrack consists entirely of period disco wah-wah stuff (you know, the stuff that goes “wak-a-ticky wak-a-ticky” incessantly). Also, since it was a made-for-TV movie, there are convenient points to pause the movie to make a snack run.” Its a Bad, Bad, Bad, Bad Movie
“You’ll notice that when KISS eventually embark on their rescue mission, they do so very slowly because they’re still wearing their platform boots and can’t run in them, but no matter as they give way to their stuntmen at every possible opportunity (Ace Frehley’s stuntman is obviously black, bizarrely). Grame Clark, The Spinning Image
“Maybe good for a laugh just cause it’s campy as fuck and Gene Simmons walks around the entire movie like he’s trying to clinch in a huge turd, but I can’t recommend this for any reason. Avoid at all costs.” Happyotter
Phantom of the Paradise is a 1974 American musical film written and directed by Brian De Palma (Carrie, The Fury, Dressed to Kill). The story is a loosely adapted mixture of The Phantom of the Opera, The Picture of Dorian Gray and Faust. Initially, it was a box office failure and was panned by some critics but has since acquired a cult following. Its music was nominated for an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award.
Winslow Leach (William Finley, Eaten Alive, The Funhouse) is a frustrated songwriter, who finally makes his big break when his support act for The Juicy Fruits is seen by mysterious rock ‘n’ roll svengali, Swan (played by genuine 70′s song-writing behemoth, Paul Williams) who pinpoints his music as the ideal debut act for his new mega-club, The Paradise. In a fiendish plot, he employs Arnold Philbin (George Memmoli, Mean Streets) to steal the music for his own gain. Leach visits Swan’s mansion, which also house his record label, Death Records, but is immediately turfed out, though not before witnessing an aspiring singer auditioning, Phoenix (Jessica Harper, Suspiria), whom he quickly falls for.
Swans soon realises that Leach remains a threat to his plans and has him beaten up and framed for drugs offences, leading him to be given a life sentence at the notorious Sing Sing Prison, and having his teeth removed and replaced by a metal plate. Part-way into his ordeal, Leach hears The Juicy Fruits playing one of his songs on the radio and manages to escape by hiding in a delivery container. Returning to Swan’s mansion, he tried to sabotage Swan’s plans but is soon rumbled, becoming trapped in a record press which burns his face and destroys his vocal chords. Leach retreats, donning a bird-like sliver mask and cape that will see him turn into his alter-ego, The Phantom, whose sole aim is to destroy Swan’s empire and seize back his music and Phoenix.
Swan eventually strikes a deal with Leach, supplying him with an electronic voice box so that he can complete his fabled track, “Faust”, with Phoenix as the singer. Swan reneges on the plan and instead selects gargantuan glam rocker, Beef (Gerrit Graham, Child Play 2, Chopping Mall) to open The Paradise singing Leach’s “Old Souls” – only for The Phantom to interrupt proceedings in true Chaney style. With both The Phantom and Swan now realising the true intentions of each other, the pair struggle to the film’s violent conclusion, with Phoenix trapped between them.
Pre-dating The Rocky Horror Picture Showby a year (though not the 1973 stage show), Brian De Palma’s rock/horror hybrid has long been viewed as little more than folly, something the director felt he had to get out of his system without considering how many people shared his vision. Packed with fantastic characters both in front and behind the camera (regular David Lynch production designer Jack Fisk was responsible for much of the film’s garish visual appeal – his girlfriend, Sissy Spacek, pre-Carrie, was his assistant) the film perhaps suffered for being too intricate – the plots twists endlessly and the music is elaborate and sweeping, far removed from the immediate, catchy pop of Rocky Horror.
The appearance of Paul Williams seems far more bizarre now than it would have 40 years ago. In the 1970′s he loomed large of popular music in all its forms, from penning numerous Carpenters tracks (including “Rainy Days and Mondays” and “We’ve Only Just Begun”) to tracks on the smash hit Bugsy Malone, the theme to the seemingly never-ending TV show Love Boat, to the terrific “Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie. Undoubtedly a musical genius, his stature and appearance did not lend themselves to superstardom in front of the camera, though as the sinister and creepy Swan, he finds an unlikely role in which he excels.
Harper is a strange piece of casting but again, this is entirely fitting for a film which is all things strange. Her wide-eyed innocence adds a real feeling of pathos, in a film it’s easy to feel detached from. Finlay is sensational as Leach/The Phantom, and although he worked until his untimely death in 2012, he never achieved the plaudits he deserved. Similarly, Gerrit Graham throws everything into the role of Beef, sadly not lasting very long as a character.
Throwing everything at the picture, De Palma, hurls pop culture references at the audience from the start. Swan’s Death Records label is such a thinly veiled take on Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label that it should come as no surprise that the original shots actually see the label named Swan Songs, an error which necessitated optically over-pasting Death Records in several scenes to avoid a lengthy court battle.
Elsewhere, Philbin’s character is named after Mary Philbin from the classic 1923 Lon Chaney film Phantom of the Opera. Spacek stayed behind the lens but only due to the fact that Harper beat her (and Linda Ronstadt) to the role of Phoenix. The musical merry-go-round of casting saw Jon Voight being considered for the role of Swan, Williams as Leach, Graham as Swan and Peter Boyle as Beef. Boyle went on to play is somewhat similar role to Beef in Mel Brook’s Young Frankenstein. Graham’s singing voice is dubbed by Ray Kennedy, the noted singer, composer and session musician.
The nature of the Phantom’s disfigurement references the Claude Rains version of the Phantom of the Opera rather more than Chaney’s classic, though other filmic nods include Faust, Frankenstein, The Picture of Dorian Gray, as well as nods to television – Rod Serling, host of writer of much of The Twilight Zone TV series supplies the opening monologue.
Phantom of the Paradise opened in the U.S. on October 31, 1974 and soon flopped.The film’s only successful major market during its theatrical release was Winnipeg, Canada where it opened on Boxing Day, 1974 and played in local cinemas over four months continuously and over one year non-continuously until 1976.The soundtrack album sold 20,000 copies in Winnipeg alone and was certified Gold in Canada. It played occasionally in Winnipeg theatres in the 1990s and at the Winnipeg IMAX theatre in 2000 and always “drew a dedicated audience”. The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Original Song Score and Adaptation and a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score – Motion Picture. In more recent years, the film has attracted a loyal fanbase who organise ”Phantompalooza” events – celebrity fans include Sébastien Tellier and Daft Punk.
Christmas is generally seen as a jolly old time for the whole family – if you are to believe the TV commercials, everyone gets together for huge communal feasts while excited urchins unwrap whatever godawful new toy has been hyped as the must-have gift of the year. It is not, generally speaking, seen as a time of horror.
And yet horror has a long tradition of being part of the festive season. Admittedly, the horror in question was traditionally the ghost story, ideally suited for cold winter nights, where people gather around the fire to hear some spine chilling tale of ghostly terror – a scenario recreated in the BBC’s 2000 series Ghost Stories for Christmas, with Christopher Lee reading M.R. James tales to a room full of public school boys. That series was part of a tradition that included a similar one in 1986 with Robert Powell (Harlequin) and the children’s series Spine Chillers from 1980, as well as the unofficially titled annual series Ghost Stories for Christmas than ran for much of the 1970s and is occasionally revived to this day.
The idea of the traditional Xmas ghost story can be traced back to Charles Dickens and A Christmas Carol, where miserly Ebenezer Scrooge is visited by three ghosts in an effort to make him change his ways. It’s more a sentimental morality tale than a horror story, though in the original book and one or two adaptations, the ghosts are capable of causing the odd shudder. Sadly, the story has been ill-served by cinematic adaptations – the best version is probably the 1951 adaptation, though by then there had already been several earlier attempts, going back to 1910. A few attempts have been made at straight retellings since then, but all to often the story is bastardised (a musical version in 1970, various cartoons) or modernised – the best known versions are probably Scrooged and The Muppet Christmas Carol, both of which are inexplicably popular. A 1999 TV movie tried to give the story a sense of creepiness once again, but the problem now is that the story is so familiar that it seems cliched even when played straight. The idea of a curmudgeon being made to see the true meaning of Christmas is now an easy go-to for anyone grinding out anonymous TV movies that end up on Christmas-only TV channels or gathering dust on DVD.
Outside of A Christmas Carol, horror cinema tended to avoid festive-themed stories for a long time. While fantasies like The Bishop’s Wife, It’s a Wonderful Life and Bell, Book and Candle played with the supernatural, these were light, feel-good dramas and comedies on the whole, designed to warm the heart rather than stop it dead. TV shows like The Twilight Zone would sometimes have a Christmas themed tale, but again these tended to be the more sentimental stories.
The only film to really hint at Christmas creepiness was 1945 British portmanteau film Dead of Night, though even here, the Christmas themed tale, featuring a ghostly encounter at a children’s party, is more sentimental than terrifying. Meanwhile, the Mexican children’s film Santa Claus vs The Devil (1959) might see Santa in battle with Satan, but it’s all played for wholesome laughs rather than scares.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that the darker side of Christmas began to be explored, and it was another British portmanteau film that began it all. The Amicus film Tales from the Crypt(1972) opened with a tale in which murderous Joan Collins finds herself terrorised by an escaped psycho on Christmas Eve, unable to call the police because of her recently deceased hubby lying on the carpet. The looney is dressed as Santa, and her young daughter has been eagerly awaiting his arrival, leading to a suitably mean-spirited twist. The story was subsequently retold in a 1989 episode of the Tales from the Crypt TV series.
This film would lead the way towards decades of Christmas horror. Of course, lots of films had an incidental Christmas connection, taking place in the festive season (or ‘winter’, as it used to be known). Movies like Night Train Murders, Rabid and even the misleadingly named Silent Night Bloody Night have a Christmas connection, but it’s incidental to the story. Those are not the movies we are discussing here. No, to REALLY count as a Christmas film, then the festive celebrations need to be at the heart of events.
Two distinct types of Christmas horror developed. There was the Mad Santa films, like Tales from the Crypt on the one hand, and the ‘bad things happening at Christmas’ movie on the other. The pioneer of the latter was Bob Clark’s 1974 film Black Christmas, which not only pioneered the Christmas horror movie but also was an early template for the seasonal slasher film. Some critics have argued, with good cause, that this is the movie that laid the foundations for Halloween a few years later – a psycho film (with a possibly supernatural slant) set during a holiday, where young women are terrorised by an unseen force. But while John Carpenter’s film would be a smash hit and effectively reinvent the genre, Black Christmas went more or less unnoticed, its reputation only building years later. In 2006, the movie was remade by Glen Morgan in a gorier but less effective loose retelling of the original story.
Preceding Black Christmas was TV movie Home for the Holidays, in which four girls are picked off over Christmas by a yellow rain-coated killer who may or may not be their wicked stepmother. A decent if unremarkable psycho killer story, the film was directed by TV movie veteran John Llewellyn Moxey.
Also made for TV, this time in Britain, The Exorcism was the opening episode of TV series Dead of Night (no connection to the film of that name) broadcast in 1972. One of the few surviving episodes of the series, The Exorcism is a powerful mix of horror and social commentary, as a group of champagne socialists celebrating Christmas in the country cottage that one couple have bought as a holiday home find themselves haunted by the ghosts of the peasants who had starved to death there during a famine. While theatrical in style and poorly shot, the show is nevertheless creepily effective.
1980 saw Christmas Evil (aka You Better Watch Out), a low budget oddity by Lewis Jackson that has since gained cult status. In this film, a put-upon toy factory employee decided to become a vengeful Santa, putting on the red suit and setting out to sort the naughty from the nice. It’s a strange film, mixing pathos, horror and black comedy, yet oddly it works, making it one of the more interesting Christmas horrors out there.
Also made in 1980, but rather less successful, was To All a Goodnight, the only film directed by Last House on the Leftstar David Hess and written by The Incredible Melting Man himself, Alex Rebar. This generic slasher, with a house full of horny sorority girls and their boyfriends being picked off by a psycho in a Santa outfit, is too slow and poorly made to be effective.
The most notorious Christmas horror film hit cinemas in 1984. Silent Night Deadly Night was, in most ways, a fairly generic slasher, with a Santa-suited maniac on the loose taking revenge against the people who have been deemed ‘naughty’. The film itself was nothing special It’s essentially the same premise as Christmas Evil without the intelligence), and might have gone unnoticed if it wasn’t for a provocative advertising campaign that emphasised the Santa-suited psycho and caused such outrage that the film was rapidly pulled from theatres.
Buy Silent Night, Deadly Night on DVD from Amazon.co.uk
Nevertheless, it had made a small fortune in the couple of weeks it played, and continued to be popular when reissued with a less contentious campaign. The film is almost certainly directly responsible for most ‘psycho Santa’ films since – all hoping to cash in on the publicity that comes with public outrage – and spawned four sequels.
Silent Night Deadly Night Part 2 is notorious for the amount of footage from the first film that is reused to pad out the story, and was banned in the UK (where the first film was unreleased until 2009). Part 3 was directed, surprisingly, by Monte Hellman (Two Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter) and adds a psychic element to the story. Part 4, directed by Brian Yuzna, drops the killer Santa story entirely and has no connection to the other films beyond the title, telling a story of witchcraft and cockroaches, while Part 5 – The Toymaker– is also unconnected to the other movies.
Buy Silent Night, Deadly Night 3-disc set from Amazon.co.uk
Also made in 1984, but attracting less attention, Don’t Open Till Christmaswas that rarest of things, a 1980s British horror film – and one of the sleaziest ever made to boot. Starring and directed by Edmund Purdom from a screenplay by exploitation veterans Derek Ford and Alan Birkinshaw, the film sees a psycho killer, traumatised by a childhood experience at Christmas, who begins offing Santas – or more accurately, anyone he sees dressed as Santa, which in this case includes a porn model, a man at a peepshow and people having sex. With excessive gore, nudity and an overwhelming atmosphere of grubbiness, the film was become a cult favourite for fans of bad taste cinema.
Buy Don’t Open Till Christmas on DVD from Amazon.co.uk
The third Christmas horror of 1984 was the most wholesome and the most successful. Joe Dante’s Gremlins is all too often overlooked when people talk about festive horror, but from the opening credits, with Darlene Love’s Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) belting out over the soundtrack, to the carol singing Gremlins and Phoebe Cates’ story of why she hates Christmas, the festive season is at the very heart of the film. Gremlins remains the most fun Christmas movie ever made, a heady mix of EC-comics ghoulishness, sentiment, slapsick and action with some of the best monsters ever put on film.
Gremlins would spawn many knock offs – Ghoulies, Munchies, Critters and more – but only Elves, made in 1989, had a similar Christmas theme. This oddball effort, which proposes that Hitler’s REAL plan for the Master Race was human/elf hybrids. When the elves are revived in a pagan ritual at Christmas, only an alcoholic ex-cop played by Dan Haggerty can stop them. It’s not as much fun as that makes it sound.
Family horror returned in 1993 stop-motion film A Nightmare Before Christmas, directed by Henry Selick and produced / co-written by Tim Burton. This chirpy musical see Pumpkin King Jack Skellington, leader of Halloween Town, stumbling upon Christmas Town and deciding to take it over. It’s a charming and visually lush movie that has unsurprisingly become a festive family favourite over the last twenty years.
Rather less fun is 1996′s Santa Claws, a typically rotten effort by John Russo, with Debbie Rochon as a Scream Queen being stalked by a murderous fan in a Santa outfit. This low rent affair was pretty forgettable. It is one of several low/no budget video quickies that aimed to cash in on the Christmas horror market with tales of killer Santas – others include Satan Claus (1996), Christmas Season Massacre (2001) and Psycho Santa (2003).
1997 saw the release of Jack Frost(not to be confused with the family film from a year later of the same name). Here, a condemned serial killer is involved in a crash with a truck carrying genetic material, which – of course – causes him to mutate into a killer snowman. Inspired by the Child’s Play movie, Jack Frost is pretty poor, but the outlandish concept and mix of comedy and horror made it popular enough to spawn a sequel in 2000, Jack Frost 2 – Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman.
That might seem as ludicrous as Christmas horror goes, but 1998 saw Feeders 2: Slay Bells, in which the alien invaders of the title are fought off by Santa and his elves. Shot on video with no money, it’s a film you might struggle to get through.
Rather better was the 2000 League of Gentlemen Christmas Special, which mixes the regular characters of the series into a series of stories that are even darker than usual. Mixing vampires, family curses and voodoo into a trilogy of stories that are linked, Amicus style, it’s as creepy as it is funny, and it’s perhaps unsurprising that Mark Gatiss would graduate to writing the more recent BBC Christmas ghost stories.
Two poplar video franchises collided in 2004′s Puppet Master vs Demonic Toys, with the great-nephew of the original Puppet Master battling an evil organisation that wants his formula to help bring killer toys to life on Christmas Eve. Like most of the films in the series, this is cheap but cheerful, throwaway stuff.
2005′s Santa’s Slaysees Santa reinvented as a demon who is forced to be nice and give toys to children.Released from this demand, he reverts to his murderous ways. Given that Santa is played by fearsome looking wrestler Bill Goldberg, you have to wonder how anyone ever trusted him to come down their chimney and NOT kill them.
Also in 2005 came The Christmas Tale, part of the Spanish Films to Keep You Awake series, in which a group of children find a woman dressed as Santa at the bottom of a well. It turns out that she’s a bank robber and the kids decide to starve her into handing over the stolen cash. But things take a darker turn when she escapes and the kids think she is a zombie. It’s a witty, inventive little tale.
2006 saw Two Front Teeth, where Santa is a vampire assisted by zombie elves in a rather ludicrous effort. Equally silly, Treevenge is a 2008 short film by Jason Eisener, who would go on to shoot Hobo with a Shotgun. It’s the story of sentient Christmas trees who have enough of being cut down and displayed in people’s home and set out to take their revenge.
Recently, the Christmas horror has become more international, with two European films in 2010 offering an insight into different festive traditions. Dick Maas’ Sint (aka Saint) is a lively Dutch comedy horror which features a vengeful Sinterklaas (similar to, but not the same as, Santa Claus) coming back on December 5th in years when that date coincides with a full moon, to carry out mass slaughter. It’s a fun, fast-paced movie that also offers a rare glimpse into festive traditions that are rather different to anything seen outside the local culture (including the notorious Black Peters).
Finnish film Rare Exports, on the other hand, sees the original (and malevolent) Santa unearthed during an excavation, leading to the discovery of a whole race of Santas, who are then captured and sold around the world. Witty and atmospheric, the film was inspired by Jalmari Helander’s original short film Rare Exports, Inc, a spoof commercial for the company selling the wild Santas.
But these two high quality, entertaining Christmas horrors were very much the exception to the rule by this stage. The genre was more accurately represented by the likes of 2010′s Yule Die, another Santa suited slasher, or 2011′s Slaughter Claus, a plotless, pretty unwatchable amateur effort from Charles E. Cullen featuring Santa and the Bi-Polar Elf on an unexplained and uninteresting killing spree.
Bloody Christmas (2012) sees a former movie star going crazy as he plays Santa on a TV show. 2009 film Deadly Little Christmas is a ham-fisted retread of slashers like Silent Night Deadly Night and 2002′s One Hell of a Christmas is a Danish Satanic horror comedy. Bikini Bloodbath Christmas (2009) is the third in a series of pointless tits ‘n’ gore satires that fail as horror, soft porn or comedy.
And of course the festive horror movie can’t escape the low budget zombie onslaught – 2009 saw Silent Night, Zombie Night, in 2010 there was Santa Claus Versus the Zombie, 2011 brought us A Cadaver Christmas, in 2012 we had Christmas with the Dead and Silent Night of the Living Dead is currently in pre-production. None of these films are likely to fill you with the spirit of the season.
So although we can hardly say that the Christmas horror film is at full strength, it is at least as prolific as ever. With a remake of Silent Night Deadly Night, now just called Silent Night, playing theatres in 2012, it seems that filmmaker’s fascination with the dark side of the season isn’t going away anytime soon.
Der Struwwelpeter (1845) (or Shockheaded Peter) is a German children’s book by Heinrich Hoffmann. It comprises ten illustrated and rhymed stories, mostly about children. Each has a clear moral that demonstrates the disastrous consequences of misbehavior in an exaggerated way. The title of the first story provides the title of the whole book.
Hoffmann was primarily known as a psychiatrist and spent much of his career attempting to revamp the German asylums, trying harder than many of his predecessors to understand the troubles of the patients held within and working to reintegrate them into society. Having written poetry and satirical work for his own pleasure, he was convinced by friends to get some of his work published, the title in question being the snappily named Lustige Geschichten und drollige Bilder mit 15 schön kolorierten Tafeln für Kinder von 3–6 Jahren (Funny Stories and Whimsical Pictures with 15 Beautifully Coloured Panels for Children Aged 3 to 6) eventually titled ‘Der Struwwelpeter (or Shockheaded Peter) by its third printing in 1858, an illustrated collection of fiendish stories he had created for a Christmas present for his son one year. Though the success of the book convinced Hoffmann to continue writing books, only this work remained popular, even in Germany, a turn of events largely attributed to his scathing skepticism.
Each of the short stories within the tome offer the soon-to-be traumatised child the opportunity to glimpse various scenarios in which the consequences of making the wrong choice can lead to horrific results. The stories are as follows:
“Struwwelpeter” describes a boy who does not groom himself properly and is consequently unpopular.
In “Die Geschichte vom bösen Friederich” (The Story of Bad Frederick), a violent boy kicks kittens down stairs, pulls wings off flies, kills birds and then starts on humans and his pet dog. Eventually he is bitten by the dog, who goes on to eat the boy’s sausage while he is bedridden.
In “Die gar traurige Geschichte mit dem Feuerzeug” (The Dreadful Story of the Matches), a girl plays with matches, despite repeated warnings. Inevitably, it all goes horribly wrong and the girl sets herself on fire and begins to burn in surprisingly graphic detail, until all that remains are her ashes.
“Die Geschichte von den schwarzen Buben” (The Story of the Black Boys), Saint Nicholas catches three boys teasing a dark-skinned boy. To teach them a lesson, he dips the three boys in black ink to make them even darker-skinned than the boy they teased. A surprisingly forward-thinking tale, though the taunting of the boy as ‘inky black’, scarcely seems worse than the story’s description of him as a ‘woolly-headed Black-a-moor’.
“Die Geschichte von dem wilden Jäger” (The Story of the Wild Huntsman) is the only story not primarily focused on children. In it, a hare steals a hunter’s musket and eye-glasses and begins to hunt the hunter. In the ensuing chaos, the hare’s child is burned by scalding coffee and the hunter falls down a well, presumably to his death.
Perhaps the most famous tale, “Die Geschichte vom Daumenlutscher” (The Story of the Thumb-Sucker), a mother warns her son not to suck his thumbs. However, when she goes out of the house he resumes his thumb sucking, until a roving tailor appears and cuts off his thumbs with giant scissors.
“Die Geschichte vom Suppen-Kaspar” (The Story of the Soup-Kaspar, re-named Augustus in some English language versions) begins as Kaspar, a healthy, strong boy, proclaims that he will no longer eat his soup. Over the next five days he wastes away and dies, a harsh tale about broth consumption.
In “Die Geschichte vom Zappel-Philipp” (The Story of the Fidgety Philip), a boy who won’t sit still at dinner accidentally knocks all of the food onto the floor, to his parents’ great displeasure.
“Die Geschichte von Hans Guck-in-die-Luft” (The Story of Johnny Head-in-Air) concerns a boy who habitually fails to watch where he’s walking. One day he walks into a river; he is soon rescued, but his writing-book drifts away.
“Die Geschichte vom fliegenden Robert” (The Story of the Flying Robert), a boy goes outside during a storm. The wind catches his umbrella and sends him to places unknown, and presumably to his doom. ‘Bob was never seen again’, intones the final line.
Hoffman’s book forms the basis of a 1998 stage musical called Shockheaded Peter is a 1998 musical, created by Julian Bleach, Anthony Cairns, Julian Crouch, Graeme Gilmour, Tamzin Griffin, Jo Pocock, Phelim McDermott, Michael Morris and TheTiger Lillies (Martyn Jacques, Adrian Huge and Adrian Stout) the production combines elements of pantomime and puppetry with musical versions of the poems with the songs generally following the text but with a somewhat darker tone. Whereas the children in the poems only sometimes die, in the musical they all do. Commissioned by the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds and the Lyric Hammersmith in West London, the show debuted in 1998 in Leeds before moving to London and subsequently to world tours.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
In the early 1960s, US film distributor K.Gordon Murray had a surprising amount of success importing, editing and dubbing Mexican children’s films and releasing them to unsuspecting audiences. His biggest hit was Santa Claus (aka Santa Claus vs the Devil), which pulled in large audiences who presumably expected something more festive than the incoherent and badly-dubbed atrocity they got. And he pulled the same trick with several other films, including this bizarre sequel to Mexican fairy tale movies Little Red Riding Hood (1960) and Little Red Riding Hood and Friends (1961).
In this often incomprehensible film, we see Little Red Riding Hood (Maria Gracia) and Tom Thumb (Cesaro Quezadas) battling a collection of monsters who live in the Haunted Forest (which seems to be inconveniently next door to their village). The monsters, who include Dracula and the Frankenstein monster, are led by The Queen of Badness (Ofelia Guilmáin), who seems modelled o the Wicked Queen from Disney’s Snow White. She’s a ruthless leader, and we first meet her as she presides over a show trial for the Wolf (Manuel Valdés) and the Ogre (José Elías Moreno), who are accused of not being evil enough after what I assume were the events in previous films.
The Wolf is something to behold, dressed in the most ragged, flea-bitten and unconvincing animal costume you’ll ever see. He also rarely stops talking, his voice in the dubbed version a gruff vocal that soon starts to grate… especially when he sings! Did I not mention that this is a musical too? Well, it is… at least for the first 20 minutes or so, after which everyone involved seemed to forget that they needed to include songs until the final scene.
The Queen of Badness casts a spell on the local villagers, turning them into monkeys and mice, so it is down to Little Red Riding Hood, Tom Thumb (who is quickly transformed into a normal size child by the Good Fairy – presumably to save on special effects, as he’s rarely on-screen before his transformation) and Stinky the Skunk, another fine animal costume and dubbed with a speeded up chipmunk voice that immediately makes your teeth hurt and is only occasionally comprehensible. Oh, and they have Red Riding Hood’s dog, which is the most indifferent animal actor ever seen on film – he frequently just wanders off camera, ignoring the dramatic action.
Our heroes make their way through the Haunted Forest – a passably spooky set – towards the Queen’s castle, battling the odd monster. Sometimes, helped by other kids, they even torture the monsters they defeated – one poor creature is hung by his feet and beaten like a piñata.
On reaching the castle, they defeat Mr. Hurricane, Dracula and Frankenstein (sorry purists, that’s what they call the monster here), finish off a terrible looking dragon and save their friends the Wolf and the Ogre, who have been bickering away in a cell before being tortured by Siamese Twins 2-in-1. As for the Queen of Badness… well, let’s just say she meets an explosive end.
Little Red Riding Hood and Tom Thumb vs The Monsters (originally Caperucita y Pulgarcito contra los monstruos and also titled Tom Thumb and Little Red Riding Hood) is, of course, complete rubbish. The dubbed version is entirely incoherent, but it’s hard to imagine it was a masterpiece beforehand, given the all-round shoddiness on display. Yet the film is certainly entertaining for fans of bizarre cinema, and it’s easy to imagine cinemas full of undemanding, monster loving kids in the early Sixties eating it up.
Open up your mind for everyone’s dissection and delectation!
There is now a Facebook Group for Horrorpedia users/followers. Sign up and have your say about all things horror related!
Post anything and everything about horror, sci-fi, cult and exploitation movies and culture. Write about movies, TV series, books, magazines, comics, theatre, computer games, theme rides, haunted houses, true crime, novels, rock bands, cartoons, artwork, toys and games, iconic directors, actors, writers, producers, composers… it’s all wide open for discussion, your opinions, celebration, rants and whines!
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view. Werewolf is a novelty horror single by Morgus with the Daringers, released in 1964 by Fulton Records of Detroit, Michigan. It has subsequently turned up on unofficial compilation albums such as Garage Punk Unknowns Vol. 6.
The record tells the story of a werewolf who ‘passes as a beatnik’ and attends poetry reading at The House of the Seven candles coffee spot, where he bites a Beat and then proceeds to wow the crowd with his poetry (‘Scoobie Oobie Doobie’ is his opening line).
The single was part of the novelty horror record boom of the period, inspired by the monster craze in America during the early 1960s, when old horror movies turned up on TV and inspired a new generation of fans. It’s also a satire of the Beat movement (with the suggestion that Beatniks are so unkempt that they look like the Wolfman).
Little is known about Morgus with The Daringers, who would seem to be one of many bands of the era who only managed a single recording before vanishing back into obscurity.
Big Terror Movie Themes is a 1976 British album by Geoff Love and His Orchestra, featuring a collection of ‘cover’ versions of horror, thriller and disaster film music.
Love produced several film theme collections in the 1970s, often to cash in on a big hit – others included Big Suspense Movie Themes, Big Bond Movie Themes and Star Wars and Other Space Themes. These collections were widely ridiculed by soundtrack enthusiasts, but their cheap price – they were released on EMI’s budget label Music for Pleasure – and widespread availability through shops like Woolworth meant that they were big sellers, and for many people, they provided an affordable entry into the world of soundtrack collecting.
Big Terror Movie Themes appeared in the wake of Jaws – hence the large shark that dominates the cover, and despite the sleeve notes by Nigel Hunter that talk at length about the joy of horror movies, the actual content is decidedly horror-lite. Apart from Jaws, Psycho and The Exorcist, the album is filled with the music from thrillers – The Eiger Sanction, Death Wish, The Executioner, Three Days of the Condor – and disaster films – Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, Airport 75, The Towering Inferno – with token science fiction movie Rollerball also added to the mix.
As with many of his albums, Love’s interpretation of these themes ranged from being reasonable facsimiles through to rather bizarre revamps. His take on Tubular Bells, for instance, turns Mike Oldfield’s minimalist theme from The Exorcist into a full-blooded swinging lounge number.
While time once seemed to have confined these albums to the dustbin of history, retro culture and the 1990s easy listening revival saw them unearthed and released on CD. The vinyl copies are now rather prized, if only for the cover art by British film poster legend Tom Chantrell.
HORRORPEDIA is wholly independent and we rely solely on the very minor income generated by affiliate links and internet ads to stay online. Please support us by not blocking ads on our site. Thank you.
Anna and the Apocalypse is a 2017 British comedy zombie horror feature film directed by John McPhail – based on his 2010 short film Zombie Musical – from a screenplay by Ryan McHenry and Alan McDonald. The Blazing Griffin production stars Ella Hunt, Malcolm Cumming and Sarah Swire.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Plot:
When the zombie apocalypse hits the sleepy town of Little Haven – at Christmas – teenager Anna (Ella Hunt) and her high school friends have to fight, sing and dance to survive, with the undead horde all around them.
Teaming up with her best friend John (Malcolm Cumming), Anna has to fight her way through zombified snowmen, Santas, elves and Christmas shoppers to get across town to the high school, where they’ll be safe. But they soon discover that being a teenager is just as difficult as staying alive, even at the end of the world…
Release:
Vertigo Releasing will release Anna and the Apocalypse on Digital HD on 22nd March and on DVD 8th April 2019.
Orion Pictures released Anna and the Apocalypse in select US theaters on November 30th, followed by a nationwide release on December 7th. Despite repeated PR pushes on some well-known horror web sites, it took a mere $545,597 at the box office.
Before the movie’s release, it was available as a book. Co-written by Katherine Turner and Barry Waldo, the novelisation was released as a Macmillan Publishing Imprint paperback and e-book on October 23, 2018.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
Reviews:
“Though the film isn’t exactly a fright fest, it does feature a few excellent scares and wonderfully gory makeup and effects […] It may be rather obvious that a zombie film featuring the cast bursting into song and dance won’t exactly have hardcore horror hounds on the edge of their seats, however there is just enough guts and splatter to keep it real for genre fans.” Ain’t It Cool News
” …you still have to go out of your way to not be wooed by the fun flick’s well-meaning sweetness, flashes of sassy attitude, and overall eagerness to please with pure entertainment. Anna and the Apocalypse is lacking in areas that are usually worth more points, specifically original fiction and characters who aren’t inhibited by their archetypes.” Culture Crypt
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
“Some might argue it loses a little steam in the end, though I feel like this is an almost intrinsic flaw of the horror comedy: heavy on the comedy before it recedes into the background in favor of the horror. I’m inclined to agree, but with a caveat: it’s kind of hard to care when the consistency of the performances (and the songs!) never falters.” Dread Central
“The catchy, briskly staged musical numbers are balanced with witty pop culture references, apocalyptic geek humour (speculation about whether Ryan Gosling has been turned) and inventive riffs on familiar horror comedy backdrops – notably, zombies-in-a-bowling-alley. […] Like Shaun, it doesn’t shy away from grim plot developments in which loved ones perish horribly…” Horrorscreams Videovault
It’s utterly charming for the first half. The songs are catchy, the actors are all likeable, and the humour is splendid. It all starts to lose its way after that, resulting in a finale that is nowhere near as affecting or satisfying as movies that try the same kind of thing such as Shaun of the Dead, Night of the Living Deb or Cockneys vs Zombies.” House of Mortal Cinema
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.
“It may be a touch overlong – perhaps because everyone has to stop running to sing songs at regular intervals – and the emotional beats familiar, with moments of poignance, tragedy, gruesome comedy (a decapitated zombie in a snowman suit) and absurdity. Yet John McPhail, director […] carries off a tricky mix of elements with brio.” Screen Daily
HORRORPEDIA is truly independent and we rely solely on the minor income generated by affiliate links and ads to stay online. Please support us by not blocking ads. Thank you.
In 1970, the heady, care-free days of the sixties were already a distant memory in the horror film world; British horror in particular took on a distinctly sideways glance at life and history, what was considered twee, naive and inconsequential was now dark, mysterious and cursed. Piers Haggard’s The Blood on Satan’s Claw – also known as Satan’s Skin –.
In England, jazz drummer Basil Kirchin had established himself as a reliable hand to bandleaders such as Ted Heath, belting out resolutely British jazz stylings to 1950s ‘cats’. Although his success was recognised not just by his contemporaries but also audiences [he was voted ‘best drummer’ by Melody Maker readers], he remained unsatisfied with the constraints of what, even now...
KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park (also known as KISS in the Attack of the Phantoms) is a 1978 television film directed by Gordon Hessler (The Oblong Box, Cry of the Banshee, Scream and Scream Again) from a screenplay by Jan Michael Sherman and Don Buday. The film’s plot revolves around American hard rock band KISS, who use their ‘superpowers’ to battle an evil inventor (Abner...
Big Terror Movie Themes is a 1976 British album by Geoff Love and His Orchestra, featuring a collection of ‘cover’ versions of horror, thriller and disaster film music. Love produced several film theme collections in the 1970s, often to cash in on a big hit – others included Big Suspense Movie Themes, Big Bond Movie Themes and Star Wars and Other Space Themes.
Image may be NSFW.
