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| A print of my painting "The Ghost of Skull Manor" |
The gothic horror genre has had few
new entries in recent years, so I felt very encouraged when images from Guillermo del Toro's new film "Crimson Peak" began to circulate earlier this year. The era of gothic romance in
the 1960s and early 1970s was a short one, as the well-established clichés began
to wear out their welcome, and people started to demand gore, shocks and
real-world horrors, instead of the subtle, atmospheric shudders produced by
these earlier films. Films like "Crimson Peak," or "The Woman in Black" (2012) revisit and celebrate this style, staying pretty faithful to the traditions of the genre while infusing it with new energy and opening it up to a new audience.
I would love to compile a list of all of the best films from
the 60s and 70s which feature gothic horror themes, particularly the great
nightgown & candelabra scenes, but there are so many, and they are all so excellent, I think the task is meant for a greater mind than mine. So
instead, I present five films that contain interesting variations upon the
Gothic theme – not all are ghost stories, not all are very good, but each presents a distinct facet of
the gothic genre.
For some, this means exquisite scenes of wandering around at
night with a candle, possibly in a crypt, a mansion or a castle. There are ghosts
in some, vampires in others; family intrigue and secrets; poisoning, illness
and revenge. There are FABULOUS DRESSES, dramatic lighting, dark and sinister
sets. To be sure, there are dozens or even hundreds of films that can be
considered for a list like this, so I'm not trying to choose the most successful or the
most representative – just a couple that come to mind, or which I have watched
recently, that fall within this very specialized category.
The Ghost
"Lo Spettro" (1963) by Riccardo Freda, while not
the most well-known or lauded of the genre, is a great showcase of some of the
classic elements in a 1960s Italian gothic film. A séance, poison, and a mad,
wheelchair-bound Dr. Hichcock immediately set the mood for the film in a
suitably dark mysterious and candle-filled mansion. Barbara Steele's dark
beauty is an inevitable focal point of any film she is in, and she walks
through the wainscoted sets and down the skull-lined crypt passages as a living
special effect. Wearing black veils of mourning and drifting through autumn
leaves in a cemetery, Steele's presence is hypnotizing in the film – as are her
glorious, ornate black Victorian gowns.
The film is mostly housebound, and
aside from the scenes in the cemetery it mainly takes place within the walls of
a particularly dark and oppressive mansion. The plot revolves around Steele's
love affair with a young doctor, whom she urges to poison her hateful husband
with the experimental substance they have been using to try to cure the latter's
paralysis. She is then seemingly haunted by the late Dr. Hichcock, who speaks
through the housekeeper – the medium at the séance – and who appears in various
ghastly forms to haunt her guilty conscience. A "sort of" sequel to
The Horrible Dr. Hichcock, it stands on its own and should satisfy anyone's
appetite for decadent Victorian décor and evil deeds.
The Innocents
While it has been a few months since I last watched this
film, I don't think I could make even an off-the-top-of-my-head list of gothic
or ghostly films without including it.
"The Haunting" (1963) would
also be a good entry in this list, as that is probably my favorite ghost movie
of all, but
"The Innocents" (1961) is a little less widely known and shown. Based on
Henry James'
Turn of the Screw, it is a perfect imagining of that tale, with a
gothic mansion, exquisite photography, and unusual, electronic music creating a
sustained atmosphere of gloom, suspense and mystery. If you are not familiar
with the plot of
The Turn of the Screw, the short version is that a governess
is caring for two children in a remote country mansion, and is menaced by the
ghosts of a former governess and caretaker. The traditional and straightforward
premise, however, is steeped in a mood of menace, foreboding and encroaching
madness. Its beauty transcends the notion of a "horror" film and places it squarely with the realm of art cinema, in the tradition of Jean Cocteau's
"Beauty and the Beast."
Lemora (A Child's Tale of the Supernatural)
Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural (1973) is the only film directed by Richard
Blackburn, who also acts in the film as a country preacher, but it stands as a
unique example of an independent horror movie. There is an eerie surreality to
this film, as young Lila Lee– the debut role for exploitation starlet Cheryl
"Rainbeaux" Smith – is drawn through a series of sinister events
which seem designed to corrupt her Alice in Wonderland-like innocence. The
"singin' angel" of the local church choir, Lila is the daughter of a
gangster who, at the opening of the film, is on his death bed and calls for her
to come to him. She obliges, dodging lascivious males at every turn, in a
Southern landscape in the 1920s or 30s. Even worse than sleazy guys, though,
she is soon pursued by slobbering zombie-like vampires, until the striking
vampire matron Lemora comes to her "rescue."
Lemora's cadaverous presence – with skull-like features and
tightly laced Victorian gown – is rendered even more surreal by the riotous
gang of madly laughing children which surrounds her in several scenes. The
progression of the plot is less important to relate than the somber, elegant
mood that the film creates with very simple tools. The predominantly dark, blue
lighting; effective, evocative costumes, carefully constructed gothic settings
and subtle surreal touches all serve to make this a unique and atmospheric
vampire film.
Morgiana
While not a horror film, this Czech gothic fantasy (
"Morgiana", 1972) is a
crucial bit of viewing for anyone who wants to luxuriate in the most amazing
costuming I think I've ever seen in a film from the era. The plot is very
gothic, but not supernatural. It deals with jealousy, love, inheritance, and
poison. The two main characters are played by the same actress – one dark
(Viktoria), one light (Klara). It is a dark psychedelic fairytale with the kind
of beautiful surrealism you see in other Czech films like
"Valerie andher Week of Wonders." Morgiana is the name of a Siamese cat in the film, and
– don't worry, the cat is fine -- some of the film seems to have been shot from
cats'-eye view, which adds to its surreality. Although it appears to be set in
Victorian times, the costumes are far more over the top than they would be in
reality, and the overall tone reminds me of the Russian fantasy-fairytale films from around the same time period, like
"The Snow Queen" (1967), while the subject matter and setting are very different from those films.
Blood
The most perplexing thing about Andy Milligan films, to me,
has always been why he has decided to film so many period pieces. In
"Blood" (1973) actually
have all of the pieces of a good, old-fashioned gothic horror film here. We
have a young doctor recently returned to America from Europe, planning to
conduct his experiments in private in a rented house while he awaits the
settling of his father's estates. To make things even more gothic, his wife has
a horrible malady which causes her to become hideous and deformed if she is not
regularly supplied with blood – which in turn is supplied by ghastly
carnivorous plants. Add in a couple of assistants who are gradually losing
their limbs to the experiments, and a female Igor limping along with a hideous
grimace, and you have everything you could wish for in a horror film. He turns
up the volume even further when he reveals that the doctor is a werewolf and
his wife's malady is actually vampirism!
The complicating factor, as in all Milligan films, is an
extremely limited budget. One of the highlights of his films is watching the
creative ways in which he stretches that budget. He makes all of the costumes
himself ("costumes by Raffiné"), which in some films means yards and
yards of tulle and fake flowers. In this film, he does a tolerably decent job
of making Victorian-era clothing, although some of the dresses are clearly
created by someone with a vague idea of what a Victorian-era dress might look
like. Heavy on the ruffles, and roses, roses, roses, everywhere. The fact that
the Victorian house they are in, clearly
is a mid-twentieth century home, complete with light switches, further
mystifies the viewer.
Was it really necessary to put the story in a 19th-century
setting? No matter – I'm delighted that he does. I love his ingenuity and
desire to get a story onto film, even when most of the movie is bickering
dialogue that sounds half-improvised. Watch an Andy Milligan movie and then ask
yourself – could you do any better with the same resources? I think we should
all bow to his resourcefulness. I want to make a gothic horror film at least as
badly as he did, and I'm nowhere near getting one done.
Thus concludes my strange selection. The world of the gothic horror film is almost bottomless, though I like to think I've managed to uncover most of the ones currently available on DVD, over the past few years, and will continue to draw from this wonderful well for future posts as well, since I never (ever) get sick of this stuff (ever)!
Happy Halloween!
