Dir.: Terence "Givin' it up for Hammer" Fisher
Starring: Clifford Evans, Oliver Reed, Yvonne Romain, Catherine Feller
"There was something about a silver bullet."
"Get away! Get away!"(okay! okay! fine then! geez)
Have you been to a drive-in? You're old then. So am I. It's okay. This is a drive-in kind of movie. It runs about an hour and a half with some slow parts for making out and a lot of dramatic sound for the car window speaker.
As horror films go, this one's got few real suspenseful moments, so not all that horrifying. But, really, where do you go with it? He's a werewolf = he's going to tear someone's throat out and someone's going to shoot him with a silver bullet. A to B to C. No surprises, but it's a Hammer Horror Film so you can certainly be guaranteed of lots of gaudy color
lots of really red blobby blood
and lots of ... well, breasts on wide-eyed heavily made-up women.
Fortunately for Hammer this one also had Oliver Reed as Leon, the werewolf, chewing up the screen almost as violently as he chews up other characters. What a master.
Brooding on the moon ... always brooding ...In fact, the casting is the most inspired aspect of the movie. Justin Walters never made another film in his life, but he could have had a solid a career playing younger versions of Oliver Reed.
It's weird, isn't it? The same chin; the same vacant, but violent stare; the same washboard... oh wait... Actually, I threw that second picture in because it isn't often you see Oliver Reed in that shape. I think he deserves to have something enduring online that shows him fit and healthy.But, I digress. Casting -- it just gets better and better. Peter "Wallace" Sallis shows up as the mayor (with Professor Fate facial hair):
and two very prominent James Bond actors have short, but pivotal roles as well. Anthony Dawson (the evil Professor Dent from Dr. No) is the evil (yes again) Marques Siniestro
and, in a role IMDB labels as "1st Footman (uncredited) is Desmond "Q" Llewelyn.
No, it's not the best movie ever made, but it was pretty entertaining. And! if you rent it from Netflix it comes with Brides of Dracula (1960), which is, oddly enough, also directed by Terence Fisher. Weird. The tagline? Friends, it doesn't get better than this:
He Turned Innocent Beauty Into Unspeakable Horror
Oh, hell yeah.
4 comments:
I just walked out of the new Wolfman last night. It was worse than worse. I has to chance it, cuz Im a sucker for werewolfs.
This looks much better.
See? That's one of the reasons why I threw this on the queue. I loves the Benicio, but I haven't found anyone yet who liked the new one. Bummer. And you can't go wrong with Oliver Reed except for maybe "The Devils" ... oh and "Oliver!". I hate that movie and it's title exclamation mark. feh.
Damn straight you can't go wrong with Oliver Reed. As a kid it was all about this movie, the Musketeers films, and The Assassination Bureau. They made enough weekend movie rotation that I got to see all of them multiple times. Seminal artistic experiences, all of them. I made Mia watch the last three quarters of Burnt Offerings a month or so back. There's just something about him, Betty Davis and Burgess Meredith ALL TOGETHER...talk about rippin' it up! But, it's like your watching them sink slowly in quicksand. Even I was wondering near the end, 'why I am I watching this?' But, I still couldn't stop...Made me want to see The Brood, though.
Oh wow! I forgot about "The Assassination Bureau"! I loved that movie. It must have been on SelecTV a hundred times. It's now on my Netflix and moving up. But Karen Black in "Burnt Offerings" ... I ... words fail me.
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