The Hollow Workshop

Quatermass and the Pit 1967

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 21:27:12 GMT

A film with such ambition only the technical limitations of the time let it down

I recall watching Quatermass when I was young, however, I don’t think it was the Hammer productions, instead the BBC adaptations. Because it was a long time ago I can no longer remember what the Quatermass films were about and what happened in them. The only recollection I have is the middle-aged, bearded scientist image of the leading role, Bernard Quatermass.

Amazon Prime have, or at least had, I’ve not checked in a while, both 1955’s The Quatermass Experiment and Quatermass II and I watched The Quatermass Experiment not so long ago. I thoroughly enjoyed it from a story point of view and thought the ideas and the way the plot unfolds was really good. My least favourite aspect was Quatermass himself played by Brian Donlevy. Spikey and uncharismatic, I felt the film would be better off without him and wasn’t 100% sure what he brought to the proceedings. However, the 1967 version of Quatermass and the Pit was in my Hammer Boxset and I was eager to find out what was in store and what Andrew Keir could bring to the role of the scientist

From IMDB

A mysterious artifact is unearthed in London, and famous scientist Bernard Quatermass is called into to divine its origins and explain its strange effects on people.

A skull is unearthed in Hobbs End underground station in London and the next thing we see is archaeologists excavating the site with the press clamouring for information and the archaeologists hoping for further funding as the skeletons they had uncovered pre date any other finds of human remains. It's quite the mystery especially as there’s something else buried in the clay.

Like with all Hammer films, it doesn’t take long to get the film up and running with little consideration to character with the story front and centre. However, in this instance, I found Andrew Keir’s take on the role of Quatermass to be grumpy, yes, but full of warmth, authority and exasperated by those above him as are the audience thus giving us a connection to the main character. It was obvious there was always something ticking over in his brain and the chemistry between the three main leads, James Donald’s 'Dr Roney' and Barbara Shelley’s 'Barbara Judd' was well imagined and carried the film, all three proving resourceful and vital to the proceedings.

The direction by Roy Ward Baker was ok but lacked a sinister spark and I found the scenes to be too well lit at times, especially those in the pit itself. I think more creepiness could’ve been extracted with more of a forbidding tone in regards to illumination and, dare I say, soundtrack. Dr Roney always seemed dressed for the office rather than archaeology and Miss Judd seemed to wear her best togs when going under ground. More attention to detail in these areas would’ve helped the immersion into the film as every time I saw Miss Judd wear her best jacket in the pit it took me out of the experience. These are only small gripes and didn’t spoil my overall enjoyment of the story (story is king).

I will not be going any further into the story as it’s worth watching it for yourself and witness how strong each twist and turn is in this well thought out plot with a final act so ambitious it is only let down by the technological restraints of the day, plus Hammer’s trend of strangling films to 90 minutes or less. The moment at 39 minutes is cinema gold and genuinely eerie. Why this has not been rebooted on the big screen is anyone’s guess. 9/10

The Devil Rides Out 1968

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Mon, 07 Feb 2022 21:18:42 GMT

Character? Nah, there's no time for that ole chum.

For some reason I thought I had already seen this Hammer Horror classic and maybe I had when I was younger but I could not recall the opening scenes suggesting I had not. I recognised imagery from the film thanks to trailers, clips and segments in Iron Maiden videos; perhaps this was the cause of my mistake. My expectations were high when hitting play as some, especially in the British Horror Group I am a member of, herald it as peak Hammer with the great Christopher Lee often siting The Devil Rides Out as his favourite Hammer film. It had a lot to live up to, however, invariably such films fail to deliver due to unmeetable expectations, but Christopher Lee, Devil worship, Charles Gray, directed by the great Terence Fisher…what could go wrong?

First of all, it was lovely to see Christopher Lee starring as the protagonist, not the action type, that was the job of Leon Greene, but as the wise council and voice of reason, no wonder it was Lee’s favourite Hammer film, he got the chance to play a good guy for once.

The film doesn’t hang about, as soon as Leone Green lands his plane and is met by Christopher Lee. He asks about someone called Simon and within a few lines of dialogue we’re at Simon’s new house because they’re worried about him and hadn’t seen him for at least three months. My first thought was he’d met a girl or taken a new job but it turns out he’s having a dinner party and hob nobbing with a group of new friends from an astronomical society. Of course, Christopher Lee suspects they’re all devil worshippers ready to sacrifice chickens. For me, it was a stretch for him to conclude this within the first nine minutes of the film and I wish more time was given for his suspicions to embed. A general decline in Simon’s behaviour perhaps or more clues gathered to Simon’s new ‘hobby’, it all happened a little too quickly, especially as Simon’s behaviour is quite pleasant and not sinister at all. Simon’s bought a new house, I’ve not seen him in three months that means he’s dealing in black magic. Simon insists Greene and Lee leave (this would make more than thirteen at the party and thus unable to perform the ritual) but Lee punches Simon’s lights out instead before kidnapping him and slugging the butler at the same time, it was all a little clunky for me.

Because the film wasted no time in getting on with proceedings I felt the characterisation suffered because I had little to no investment for our heroes. I’m always one for saying story is king but an extra few scenes to build the characters would’ve gone a long way, although, this would’ve pushed it far beyond Hammer’s 90 minute movie trend. There’s a lot of telling and showing in the first twenty minutes with Lee’s character telling us he’s dealing with devil worshippers yet we don’t actually see anything transpire except for chickens in a basket. Then, a naked bloke with weird eyes turns up and hypnotises Greene. After escaping, Lee explains how they’re in a race against time to save their friend and they must find the girl they met at the gathering at the start, which then cuts to Greene having a bit of a sleep and Lee sat at his desk. The stakes are raised but, for me, they are too high and the plot should’ve been allowed to build to reach such high stakes.

Greene picks up the woman from gathering to take her to lunch and so begins the usual awkward Hammer romance with the woman who is a member of the occult. She steals a car and Greene goes after her in a fairly terrible car chase. The chase, their relationship, it all comes across as clunky and unconvincing and it’s not until the actual devil worshipping scene does the film finally hit a high light. What a high light it is as the worshippers express joy at freshly squeezed goat’s blood. Greene and Lee can only look on as frivolity ensues, the baptised drunk on the crimson liquid, it’s a disturbing image which becomes even more bizarre when the goat of Mendes appears just like in the video The Number of the Beast by Iron Maiden. Chaos ensues when Greene and Lee gate crash and I could not help sense this would’ve made for a fitting finale because it was quite brilliant.

Sadly, the pace dies and rituals and hallucinations drag on the film after peaking with the appearance of the goat of Mendes. I can see what they were trying to do but the ropey special fx, lack of any sort of character build up in the first third and random, noisy things happening meant it failed to draw me in or care about the characters or proceedings. Charles Gray’s character was obviously the film’s antagonist but he was woefully underused and I would’ve like to have seen his character and motivations explored more because I felt no actual threat from him. It was a wasted opportunity because Gray portrays sinister so deliciously.

My friend said The Devil Rides Out scared him as a kid and I can fully understand why. The imagery and tone of the film is classic Hammer and there’s always something unsettling about mob cults, yet I found the film has not aged well and an extra thirty minutes of story telling would’ve gone down a treat and made for more of a coherent film. As it stands, all the ingredients are there, the execution in this instance was clunky and not as strong as the elements contained within. 5/10

The Nanny 1965

Sun, 06 Feb 2022 14:46:23 GMT

Master Joey is a complete irritant.

One of the best Christmas presents I have ever received, yes, even greater than the roller-skates when I was seven, and I wrote that correctly, they were roller-skates not roller-boots which basically meant they were flipflops with wheels, was The Hammer Collection box set. 20 Hammer films including all their classic movies (although that’s a matter of opinion), some I have seen a long time ago and some I have yet to watch. I’m planning to cover some of them in this blog…well, I’ll see how I go.

The first one I fancied out of the box was 1965’s The Nanny with Bette Davies and Wendy Craig, a film I had not seen and the IMDB premise piqued my interest.

There's just something not quite right when Bette Davis stars as an English nanny. And is her 10-year-old charge an emotionally disturbed murderer or just an insolent brat?

The film opens with Bette Davies carrying a parcel through a playground and a park and all is good with the world, it has to be, the music by Richard Rodney Bennett tells us so. She eventually ends up at her employers who are having a to do where the mother is in tears and the husband is telling her to pull herself together, why? Because their son is coming home. Bette swans about as if this is a regular occurrence and already the husband and wife relationship is an uncomfortable watch with the prickly James Villiers, who also played a prickly role in For Your Eyes Only, instructing Wendy Craig to put some make up on while she bawls into a pillow.

Bette Davies, the nanny, has bought a welcome home cake for their son who has been away for 2 years and Wendy Craig doesn’t want him home. At this point we gain an inkling something happened a couple of years ago and the mother is frightened. An interesting premise indeed and we’re only six minutes in. I’ve only ever seen Wendy Craig in the sitcom Butterflies and to see her in a dramatic role was an enjoyable experience as she played the part of a broken and fearful mother very well.

The nanny seems like the perfect employee. Hard working, loyal, sweet and very forgiving considering the amount of abuse she receives from the son, Joey, and what an annoying little shit he is. When we first meet him he’s playing a practical joke by pretending to hang himself. A sadistic prank but a wonderful set up of how things would play out. I don’t want to go any further into the plot as this will just give too much away. It’s an unsettling film. What it lacks in scares it makes up for in tension and drama with an undercurrent of doubt from viewer as we’re always guessing what the actual truth is. It also, probably unwittingly, gives a snapshot into a 60s patriarchal family unit with a dominant and cold husband and a trodden down wife whom he bullies by simply being dissatisfied by his wife’s weaknesses. The way it unfolds and the skill of the writing just shows you what can be achieved with a small set, a small cast of a well defined characters and a collection of excellent actors.

Bette Davies carries this film with such ease. The power of her performance was so captivating that by the end of I wondered if the film would’ve had as much impact with someone else in the lead role. The film is worth your time just for Davies’s portrayal and its 89 minute run time means it doesn’t outstay its welcome and has an excellent ending. 8/10

Get Out

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Wed, 19 Dec 2018 00:03:33 GMT

One of the most uncomfortable 110 minutes I've endured

I sadly missed Get Out when it was on at the local cinema and I’m quite glad I did because I’m not sure I would want to squirm in my seat in public for 110 minutes. I don’t think I’ve felt so uncomfortable watching a film, not even watching The Wicker Man. In fact, if you’ve not seen it, stop reading this and try and grab yourself a copy.

From IMDB: Chris and his girlfriend Rose go upstate to visit her parents for the weekend. At first, Chris reads the family's overly accommodating behaviour as nervous attempts to deal with their daughter's interracial relationship, but as the weekend progresses, a series of increasingly disturbing discoveries lead him to a truth that he never could have imagined.

It stars Daniel Kaluuya who I’ve liked ever since I saw him in Black Mirror. I wasn’t sold on Black Mirror until I watched the episode he was in and from that point, I was Black Mirror addict. I predicted great things for Daniel and in Get Out he does not disappoint. His relationship with his relatively new girlfriend, Rose, is very believable and, due to Daniel’s performance, you can feel his apprehension, his nervousness without him really saying anything.

From an excellent opening, there is an undercurrent of racial tension from the cop who stopped by after they hit a deer, the unsettling black gardener, Rose’s father’s deer analogy and the way he explained about his father being beaten by Jesse Owens. Throughout the first half of the film the creeping tension is like a splinter in the eye, you know something is wrong (of course there’s something wrong, this is a horror film) but you don’t know what and that uneasy feeling is inescapable. Betty Gabriel gives a disturbing performance as Georgina, the maid with the ominous smile, the menacing stare and shuddering presence. The moment where she apologies to Daniel for unplugging his phone was chilling. How do you act fear and happiness whilst crying and smiling? I’m not sure but Betty achieves it. Brilliant.

Rose’s parent’s friends arrive for a gathering which is where the stakes are raised as all of their dialogue is stained with subtext and you know they’re all in attendance for something a little more sinister than drinks and canapes. This was confirmed when the downstairs of the house is brimming with chatting guests for them to stop and look up when Daniel runs upstairs.

I’d like to go into it more but I’d be giving too much away, even watching the trailer after the seeing the film gives too many spoilers and I’m glad I avoided all trailers prior to sitting down with Get Out. The trailer gives you images you’d be expecting and waiting for, it’s better to let it unravel before your very, tear soaked, unblinking eyes. With films containing creatures, monsters, ghosts and spiritual entities, sometimes all you need is a group of menacing humans in a one versus the group situation. It reminded me of those unsettling horror films of the past such as The Wicker Man and Rosemary’s Baby and long may these types of film continue as long as the stories are strong and credible. Recommended.

The Descent

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 21:00:35 GMT

A bunch of morons go spelunking (Spoilers)

The Descent, a well renowned, critically acclaimed British horror flick from the director of Dog Soldiers, had somehow passed me by over the years. With Google Play offering me only 99p to rent it for 48 hours, I thought I’d give it a go.

From IMDB: A woman goes on vacation with her friends after her husband and daughter encounter a tragic accident. One year later she goes hiking with her friends and they get trapped in the cave. With a lack of supply, they struggle to survive and they meet strange blood thirsty creatures.

I thought the opening was very interesting. It set up the extreme sports loving Sarah (Shauna Macdonald) and her friends, Juno (Natalie Mendoza) and Beth (Alex Reid) as we seen them white river rafting. Sarah’s other half and her daughter were at the bottom waiting for them and even in this short scene it was insinuated that there was something between her husband and Juno. On the way home, Sarah was distracting her husband whilst he was driving leading to a fatal car crash resulting in the deaths of both her husband and her daughter.

The film cuts to a year later and the three friends gather together with three others to go spelunking and for some reason we’re supposed to feel sorry for Sarah. She may have lost a husband and a daughter but for me we didn’t get to know any of them because their appearance in the film was only fleeting. This is a method a lot of film scripts adopt. I call it forced empathy and characterisation because we’re meant to feel sorry for the main character right from the opening scene. But we don’t know the main character yet, it’s too early, for all I know she might be a bit of a nob and it turns out, Sarah, is a bit of a nob and a grumpy nob at that. But she was in good company as the whole group of six come across as a bunch of morons. The night before the expedition they all get drunk and bond but I always felt they were always on the verge of having an argument to the point where they didn’t come across as close friends.

From that moment on I felt the film would fall in to an easy, generic trap and that was a story based on stupid decisions rather than clever, well written plot points, and the fact that Juno decided not to take the guide book confirmed my suspicions. Running blind into dark caves, jumping down holes on their own are just two examples of this and you realise you’re just watching a bunch of morons going cave diving using luck and fortune as a guide than actual knowledge and wits. It’s difficult to feel sorry for any of them as they bungle their way through the cave system. The only real positive about the first half of the film was the direction. Neil Marshall managed to capture the claustrophobia of spelunking, crawling through slight gaps, the darkness the closeness of the cave walls.

Around the half way mark the creatures turn up and the film takes a decidedly steep, upward turn. Suddenly, the stakes are raised, the level of threat reaches new heights and there are some excellent ideas within the first five minutes of them turning up. The introduction of the night vision camera always gives good value to ghost and monster flicks and the film is at its strongest when all you can see are caves washed with shades of green. Even though the six main characters are all bozos, the peril they suddenly find themselves in makes you feel something for them which made me wonder whether all of the first forty-five minutes was completely necessary. Personally, I would’ve liked to have seen more creatures and the girls using their wits to outsmart their adversaries rather than indulge in a couple of fist fights.

After a while the film settles into a sequence of set pieces, the fight in the pool of blood, the crawler creeping over two of the girls, the unrequired and poorly set up tension between Juno and Beth, the latter leading to a cheesy moment between Sarah and Beth as Beth explains her predicament all the while a hole in her throat is pumping out blood. There’s nothing like a disastrous spelunking adventure to settle your differences. One of the aspects I learned from film school was to always think about how a film looks. The moments when Sarah looks a bad ass, covered in blood, swathed in crimson light certainly plays into this, as well as Juno kicking crawling butt, coming off as a take on Rambo. Visually, it all worked but I wish there was a little more story thrown in.

On the whole, a strong second half made up for a lacklustre first half and the film is definitely worth a watch if you’re short of something to do and have 99p in your Google account. It has some great moments, some good scares and claustrophobic feel, it’s just a shame the characters were idiots and the story could have done with a little more substance.

Mama

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Thu, 13 Dec 2018 21:00:24 GMT

Abandoned cabin in the dark? Yes, let's go inside.

2013 scares from Andy Muschietti and a film that had been in my ‘to watch’ library for a while but, for some reason, never put aside enough time to watch. But, after the clunkers, Annabelle and IT, I was keen for at least a solid scare fest and, thankfully, Mama delivered.

From IMDB: The senior partner of an investment brokerage, Jeffrey Desange, has a breakdown due to a financial collapse and kills several co-workers and his estranged wife. He then kidnaps his two young daughters, Victoria 3 and Lilly just 1. He drives his car recklessly through a winding snow covered road. He loses control of his car and drives off an embankment. He finds an abandoned and isolated cabin where he plans to kill his daughters, but the children are saved by a dark ghostly image.

Jeffrey Desange’s twin brother, Lucas has been on the hunt for his missing brother and his family for five years, almost pushing himself into financial strife himself because of it. His girlfriend, Annabel (Jessica Chastain) is a punk rocker, more interested in her band than having a child, and so we begin her story arc as we witness her relative disinterest in the two children when they are found five years later in the same abandoned cabin.

For me, the film has two major strengths, the first being the cast. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau as Lucas and Jessica Chastain add gravitas to the film and elevate it above your usual scare-em-up fodder. Jessica Chastain in particular, sparkles as the rocker. Her portrayal is convincing and her look is one very different to what we’re accustomed to. The second strength is the girls themselves. Feral to begin with, they, as well as Lucas and Annabel, are moved to a house where the Doctor Dreyfuss can witness their progress, which is where things start to go awry.

The girls give brilliant performances and it’s a credit to the scriptwriters and director Andy Muschietti that the girls do come across as a credible threat, a foreboding presence and creepy as hell. A six year old should not come across as a sinister being, but watching her scuttle on all fours along a darkened corridor then stop and stare gave me the chills. Mama had followed the girls to their new home and starts to cause chaos and puts Lucas in the hospital leaving Annabel to look after the two girls, a role she initially struggles with.

Mama certainly set itself up to be a superior entry in the horror genre with its excellent sound track (the cries from Mama really got under my skin), its good performances, scares and cast. Sadly, and this is echoed from other user reviews I’ve read on IMDB, it begins to suffer as soon as see Mama in all her cartoonish glory. Her menace is almost all gone the first time we see more than a glimpse or shadow of her. Mama’s backstory is your standard ghostly tale of an insane woman who refused to hand over her child choosing to jump with her child from a cliff. But her child was caught on a branch and thus never died with Mama leading to Mama’s maternal instinct kicking in from the Grave.

Like with many films, the ending felt a little rushed with a lot happening and it felt like it went through a few re-writes eventually go for one that would do. The more we saw of Mama the weaker the film became, although the very end was an interesting twist we don’t normally see. On the whole, it was a good flick especially coming after two poor examples, with the first two thirds being a lot stronger than the finale. Had they written a better ending I think Mama would’ve been deemed a modern classic up with The Conjuring, but, sadly, for all its promise, cast and performances, it never quite got there, but it’s still worth the watch.

The Mummy (1959)

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Sat, 08 Dec 2018 20:07:21 GMT

He's obviously Egyptian, he's wearing a fez. (spoilers)

The Horror Channel’s season continues with Hammer’s The Mummy. The myth of the Mummy is perhaps as old as horror itself and, for me, I’ve always found the start of such films more interesting than the final act. If you have a weakness for tombs, ancient tales of evil and grave robbing in your movies, then The Mummy always works because the creature is always hidden underneath a shroud of mystery. Only when the Mummy actually appears does a film usually fall into a chase movie. There’s nothing wrong with this but I’ve always felt the set up was always far stronger than the pay off because, and this is purely personal, I don’t find someone wrapped in bandages all that terrifying.

The film starts with a team of English archaeologists breaking into Princess Ananka’s tomb, and, before they are about to enter, Egyptian, Mehemet Bey, warns the archaeologists not to go into the tomb, but his wise words are ignored and rightly so because otherwise the film would have only been ten minutes long, including credits.

The setup is fairly well handled and, for 1959, it doesn’t look too bad. Peter Cushing plays the injured son who, with his uncle, seal the tomb with dynamite after removing the body of Ananka and, basically, desecrating the whole site, a point to which Mehemet Bey, devotee to Ananka, says he will avenge such desecration. It was a clunky moment which seemed rushed and I don’t think it would have done the film any harm if it was left out.

The film then moves to England. John Banning’s father is in the ‘nuthouse’ after his encounter in the tomb. Stephen Banning warns his son of The Mummy, but he’s certified as crazy so no one listens to him. It then cuts to two drunks who are carting The Mummy to “that big ‘ouse up the ways there.”, they hit a rock, the casket falls off the cart and slides into a bog and disappears. I don’t like being critical with older horror movies but I am sure they could have come up with something a little less contrived and clunky than an accident on a cart…curse that random rock in the road. However, the scene of Christopher Lee’s Mummy emerging from the mire covered in sludge and slurry was worth the weak set up because its pacing, lighting and look of the creature added a blanket of menace over the film and you instantly know the film has taken a dark turn. It’s also nice to see the creature appear early into the proceedings. In such films as The Curse of Frankenstein or The Abominable Snowman, it’s passed half way until we get a glimpse of the monster, but in The Mummy, it’s just after the twenty minute mark. The beast has been unleashed.

The first victim was the deranged Stephen Banning who had been since committed to a padded cell. The whole scene was very effective. The foreboding presence Lee exudes in sodden bandages and doused in slime was quite powerful as he crashes through the window, bends the bars and delivers a brutal attack. In the aftermath of the attack, the court rules the cause of death was by person or persons unknown and in the search for answers, Cushing, delves into his father’s studies. We are treated to a lengthy flashback of how Kharis was entombed and how the mummy came into being. I really enjoyed this sequence as we got to see Lee hamming it up as an Egyptian High Priest. The slaughter of the slaves and maidens was brutal and cutting off of Lee’s tongue made me wince. Obviously, this is 1959 and you don’t see anything but the insinuation of it does make you feel uncomfortable.

Inspector Mulrooney (Eddie Byrne) enters the story as he attempts to solve the murder of Stephen Banning, predictably unwilling to believe John Banning’s explanation of The Mummy wanting to murder those archaeologists who desecrated the tomb of Ananka. I felt the inspector was a little force and not terribly likeable, however, he did exude authority but I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid if he was permanently taken off the payroll so to speak.

Any scene with the locals I found to be very clunky. I can only assume their dim-witted nature and ham acting was comic relief to the tension of the main narrative but it did not come across like that and only served to be an annoyance.

John Banning’s wife, Isobel (Yvonne Furneaux) is a late addition to the proceedings and, to put a twist into the last third, is the spitting image of Ananka, the high priestess. It was a nice idea and avoided the chase movie tropes to the final curtain, but it would’ve been nice to see Isobel sooner and her likeness of Ananka could’ve been set up earlier perhaps? Of course, the Mummy, with only John Banning left on his hit list, stops his attack when he sees Isobel. We then see the creature gain a conscience, a misunderstood monster at the will of another, Mehemet Bey.

As mentioned earlier, after the reveal of the Mummy, a chase movie usually ensues but I felt the second half evolved the story well and it certainly felt there was more meat on the bones than I was expecting. The scene between John Banning and Mehemet Bey as they both baited each other was a classic protagonist versus the antagonist moment and one of the highlights. It’s certainly an aspect modern film making could learn a lesson from.

The ending was a tense affair with The Mummy kidnapping Isobel and carrying her to the swamp, Mehemet Bey brutally stabbing a policeman and one of the locals and a last minute, gun toting finale. Because the finale was strong, for it to simply end as soon as the Mummy sank into the mire was a little unsatisfactory because I was invested in the story and wanted a scene about the aftermath, but this is classic Hammer, 80 minutes was your lot as if they only had 80 minutes of film in the can. I got over this very quickly and reflected on a strong entry in the Hammer franchise.

IT

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 23:45:01 GMT

Good lord, they're going to make another one.

I don’t particularly want to waste too much time writing about IT The Movie because the less time spent thinking about this tedious affair the better in my opinion.

The film has a good reputation, a decent IMDB score and I was genuinely disappointed when I missed it at the local movie theatre. After the first five minutes I thought I was going to be in for a thrilling ride because the start was brilliant. When Georgie runs down the rain soaked street chasing his boat only for it to fall down a drain and we meet Pennywise for the very first time, I felt the dread because Bill’s Skarsgard’s portrayal of the clown, the script and cinematography in those few moments were sublime.

Unfortunately, the film slid downhill from that moment on as it turned into a version of The Goonies mixed with Stranger Things but with none of the charm or engaging story. The child actors did a decent job but there was a lot of riding around on bikes getting into scrapes, and, like with all these types of a small American town settings, you can go through the rest of the film with a check list:

Token girl, check

Token black kid, check

Token chubby kid, check

Paedo dad, check

Clichéd bully, check

Cliched bully is bullied by his dad, check

The bullies like heavy metal, check

No one believes the kids, check

The adults are an aside, check

Bullied kids become mates, check

I could go on but I don't have the energy.

This is horror for ten year old kids, for an audience who aren’t old enough to watch it so it makes me wonder who it’s appealing to. The jump scares weren’t particularly effective with the shapeshifting Pennywise assuming images that were too outlandish to portray any horror. If you suffer from any type of coulrophobia then this overlong, dirge might make you soil yourself because Pennywise was well designed and portrayed, but, overall, there wasn’t any real tension in the film, no sense of threat or foreboding. Throw in some dark basement, knocks on doors and creepy house clichés and it all adds up to lacklustre experience because, at the end of it all, the story is pretty poor. The history of the town, Derry, seemed quite interesting but this was quickly brushed over for more scenes of kids hallucinating.

Apparently, this was only chapter 1. I, for one, will not be tuning in to chapter 2. I’d hate to imagine how thin the story will be if this film is anything to go by. I think I preferred Annabelle and that’s saying something. Very disappointed. 29/100

Annabelle

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Wed, 05 Dec 2018 23:44:46 GMT

Scary sewing machines, no really.

The third film in Warner Brother’s Conjuring universe focuses on the Annabelle doll first seen in the original Conjuring film. One cannot deny the Annabelle doll had a creepy presence in that film, especially the scene where was sat in a chair and her head slowly moved. Pediophobia is a relatively common so if you’ve going to include a weird looking doll with an uncomfortable stare in your movie then you’re already onto confirmed success, right? Not quite.

The film focuses on John (Ward Horton) and his heavily pregnant wife Mia (Annabelle Wallis) who live in a neighbourhood where people do not lock their doors and everybody goes to church. Mia collects dolls and, after upsetting his wife with a comment he clearly hadn’t thought through, he gifts her the Annabelle doll because Mia had been searching for it to add to her collection. One night, two members of a satanic cult break in their house and attack Mia. Thankfully, Mia and baby suffer only a modicum of stress, however her attackers were not so lucky. Once is shot by the police and the other slits her own throat whilst hold the Annabelle doll. From then on, strange things begin to happen around the home.

The doll is a genius design. It’s tatty, has a grey complexion and a terrifyingly absent stare and when you see it rocking in a creaking rocking chair, there is a sense of wariness, a feeling of dread. Sadly, this early promise is not built on and we soon lapse into ideas that seemed to be handed down from The Conjuring 2 because they weren’t good enough.

How scary can a sewing machine be? How much foreboding can popcorn produce? On top of these terrible ideas we get the usual flickering television, record players somehow coming back on, whispers, creaks and scary child drawings. Add lots of lingering shots of the doll accompanied by deep drones without anything really happening and you realise you’ve reached half way and nothing has really happened and the story hasn’t really got going.

The reason why the story hasn’t got going by half way because there is very little story. In the second half we’re treated to the usual scary, dark basement, an unnecessary black demon (I’m still unsure as to the point of this demon), a tedious, sceptic husband, bland hallucinations and a priest, because who else are you going to call?

I felt nothing for the characters except one. Mia came across as a bargain bin Sarah Michelle Geller, John seems like the most boring husband anyone could have and the priest did his best to get his religious rhetoric in whenever he could. Only book store owner, Evelyn, seemed interesting but she was terribly underwritten and whose end was just laughable as was the whole finale. I would go as far to say the cast looked bored, especially Mia, probably because they knew it was going to be a clunker.

There were several instances where the usual Haunted House tropes were used and I’ve praised them in the past, I’ve come to the conclusion they’re only as good as the story itself. With Annabelle, you get a boring, unengaging story and the tropes come across as clichés. Get a strong story and these tropes add tension and scares to the overall narrative. Where the narrative is weak and paper thin, you realise a film is unable to survive on clichés alone. Compared to the previous two films in this cinematic universe, Annabelle comes across as a cheap, lazily made cash in that doesn’t have the imagination or the creativity to do the franchise justice. 38/100

The Blackwell Ghost

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Sat, 01 Dec 2018 10:59:14 GMT

Did you turn off the taps?

I noticed this film on Amazon Prime while I was looking for some alternative horror. I was drawn towards the thumbnail which is the portrait of a mature, lady with a thunderous expression and dressed in an early 1900’s garb. I thought I was going to get an old fashioned ghost story similar to the BBC Christmas ghost stories from yesteryear, but The Blackwell Ghost couldn’t be further from a Victorian spine chiller. Although, it does have something in common with the BBC, in style only, and that is 1992’s Ghostwatch.

At only an hour long, this mockumentory follows the exploits of Turner Clay as he puts his zombie movies on hold to look into whether ghosts are real. After putting out a call for paranormal experiences, only one piques his interest, a house in Pennsylvania where the owner experiences ghostly activity almost every day. It turns out a previous owner, Ruth Blackwell, had killed several local children and hidden the bodies in the drain beneath the house. What a lovely lady.

Turner, and his other half, Terri, spend three nights in the house and, because of the realistic tone of the film and the relatively long build up, the whole experience is extremely easy to relate to. Who hasn’t heard noises downstairs, accidentally left a faucet running or unable to remember whether you have shut a door or not. The orchestrated jump scares and deep tension of such films as The Conjuring or The Grudge are not required here. Because the scenario is mundane and believable, something as simple as a night vision camera, a creaky floorboard and a running tap can ice the skin. The cliché of the dark foreboding basement is given a different twist of having a static camera recording absolutely nothing out of the ordinary but with the potential for revealing everything, and this is the film’s strength. It’s what could happen that really sets the tension making the smallest of movements, the hint of a flickering shadow give you the shivers.

Overall, the style works well and Turner comes across as a genuine guy. You believe his panic, his nervousness, his fear when he becomes spooked by even the most insignificant of sounds. It’s perhaps a little baggy at the beginning and it’s about ten minutes too long, but I thoroughly enjoyed the change of pace and style compared to the big budget scare-em-ups. Because of the down to earth style, I think I was affected by it more than I was anticipating. This could be the reason why I haven’t plucked up the courage to watch Grave Encounters yet. Worth a watch. 75/100

The Babadook

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Thu, 29 Nov 2018 12:58:25 GMT

Let him in

The Babadook has been on my radar for quite some time. Ever since Mark Kermode noted as his favourite film of 2014 and its raft of awards, I’ve been keen to watch it. Finally, after plucking up some courage on a cold, Autumn night, I sat down to watch it full in the knowledge that the trailers had done their job and filled me with dread even before I pressed ‘play’.

From IMDB: A widowed mother, plagued by the violent death of her husband, battles with her son's fear of a monster lurking in the house, but soon discovers a sinister presence all around her.

It’s not really a story about ghosts, it more a tale of a mother connecting with her son with the sinister presence acting as a catalyst. There’s nothing like an evil entity to bring a mother and her child closer together. After ninety minutes, was the Babadook worth the wait? Was it worthy of Mark Kermode’s praise? For me, the answer is yes and no.

The Babadook is a fairly low budget affair but is directly quite beautifully by Jennifer Kent. The dark, fairly colourless palate adds atmosphere and reinforces the grimness of the mother’s day to day life, her struggles with her son, her loneliness, her difficulty in coping. Essie Davies, star of the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries and Game of Thrones, is perfectly cast as the troubled Amelia. She portrays sensitivity, frustration, compassion and weariness perfectly, giving the character of the mother depth and a sense of empathy.

The film uses the genre’s well trodden tropes well. The monster hidden in the closet is as old, an idea as old as the closet itself, but it’s the story around it, the difficult child, the stressed mother that gives the idea more gravitas. The children’s book about the Babadook is genuinely creepy, a book that keeps coming back to haunt the mother until eventually, after a rubbish CGI moment, the mother eventually lets the Babadook in.

Because the character of Amelia had been well written and acted, her subtle changes in behaviour escalated the foreboding and, at times, it felt like the Babadook was unveiling her inner voice, giving sound to her buried frustrations. For me, these were the best moments of the film and whenever she lost control Essie's performance gave me chills.

As already mentioned, the CGI was pretty poor and the film occasionally ran through the check list of haunting staples, the creaking furniture, the strange shadows, the knock on the door without anyone being there, the strange noises, the footsteps etc… The last thirty minutes seemed to drag a little and I can’t help thinking a 75 minutes film would’ve been a tighter affair. I always remember watching Rec and thinking its 70 minute running time was a little on the short side, but it was quality over quantity and I think a bit of trim would’ve served this film well.

These are minor complaints for a film that is well made, well written and well acted. The Babadook held a blanket of terror over the whole piece and posed a credible threat. It also proves that if the writing is good then you don’t need huge budgets, a cast of thousands or cheap jump scares. 78/100

The Conjuring 2

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Sat, 24 Nov 2018 00:43:26 GMT

It's only a tent at the top of the stairs, where's the harm?

After watching the superb The Conjuring, and knowing The Conjuring universe is five films in, I sat down to watch The Conjuring 2 knowing that its reputation gave the impression it was just as good as the first. I was interested to find out.

From IMDB: In 1977, paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren travel to London, England, where single mother Peggy Hodgson believes that something evil is in her home. When Peggy's youngest daughter starts showing signs of demonic possession, Ed and Lorraine attempt to help the besieged girl, only to find themselves targeted by the malicious spirits.

Like its predecessor, The Conjuring 2 is based on real life events, this time being the Enfield Hauntings. Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson are back as Lorraine and Ed Warren as they try to help Peggy Hodgson attempting to cope with four terrified children.

The difficulty the writers must have had in addressing a sequel was how to avoid making The Conjuring all over again but not as good, because sequels rarely are as good especially if the idea is basically the same. There are many similarities in the set up between the two films, a family move into a house which turns out to be haunted and, slowly but surely, strange things start to happen. There are creepy kids, a menacing old man, slamming doors, shadows that move, is there something under the bed? Was that door open earlier? What’s that in the back ground? But once again, all these staple ideas underpinned the narrative rather than be the narrative and a highlight was the child’s tent at the top of the stairs. Very relatable.

Although this may seem like the same film, its setting gave the film a fresh feel. The suburbs of London was a refreshing change to the isolated house, the building in the middle of nowhere. This was a three bedroom semi in the middle of a housing estate and most of us can relate to that. There was a deliciously sinister atmosphere running through its run time and the 70s retro look was captured beautifully with the film makers paying respectful homage to actual events in 1977.

I did find The Conjuring 2 to be a little baggy. It’s half an hour longer than its predecessor and I felt it would’ve been a tighter affair if it came in at around a similar length to The Conjuring. The Crooked Man, although an excellent idea, let the film down with its cartoonish look and took me out of the film if only for a few minutes. There was probably too much time spent with Vera and Patrick at their home, but at the same time this gave the characters time to breathe because we found out about the mental fragility of Lorraine Warren. The foreshadowing of the Annabelle doll was a nice touch and their room of haunted artefacts was an interesting concept and reminded me of 1974’s From Beyond The Grave. It also gives Warner Brothers license to churn out these types of horror films for years to come, choosing one artefact and throwing together a 90 minute movie about its back story. One word on the Demon Nun, I found her quite amusing and not really scary at all. I think it was the concept of a Demon Nun that I couldn’t overcome. Thankfully, her screen time was kept to a minimum although I’m not looking forward to the latest movie in this franchise which is simply called, The Nun.

These are minor gripes however, because all the way through there was great peril, the child actors were superb, especially Madison Wolfe who played the possessed Janet Hodgson, and there were moments that stayed with me a while after the film had finished, for example, billy, the truck and the tent. There’s not much to choose between the two films because I felt the location of The Conjuring 2 made up for the film’s flaws and, in the end, I enjoyed both film very much the same. 80/100

The Curse of Frankenstein

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Tue, 20 Nov 2018 22:28:32 GMT

"Where will you get a brain?"

Back on the Hammer trail, The Curse of Frankenstein is considered one of Hammer’s finest films and, after revisiting it, I have to concur. The picture has held up well even sixty years after its release. This is largely due to an engaging, grisly story (the source material isn’t considered a classic without reason), a tight script and a subtle performance from Peter Cushing that is awash with dignity but also riddled with menace.

From IMDB: In prison and awaiting execution, Dr. Victor Frankenstein recounts to a priest what led him to his current circumstance. He inherited his family's wealth after the death of his mother when he was still only a young man. He hired Paul Krempe as his tutor and he immediately developed an interest in medical science.

When he manages to reanimate a dog, Frankenstein sets about collecting body parts to construct the perfect human. Through fair means and often foul, Victor manages to get hold of the hands of a pianist and the brain of a renowned scholar. As I was watching I realised I was probably watching an early example of body horror both in terms of story telling and cinema. You don’t see much mutilation but the inference of it leaves a bitter taste in the mouth which has to be a credit to the film’s, and Hammer stalwart, director, Terence Fisher as well as Cushing’s performance. Cushing is extremely convincing of a man driven to succeed, his foul doings all acted upon with the best of intentions, a man who can’t see the horror in what he’s doing. He should be a loathsome character. A murdering, adulterer who robs graves and performs illegal experiments should not be admired, but it’s the power of Cushing’s performance that gets you on his side. You want him to succeed because he’s seemingly unaware of the grimness of his actions and all he seems to want is the recognition of his peers, namely his friend Paul, with whom he regularly shares his progress desperately hoping he will understand what he’s trying to achieve and share the admiration of his own creation.

The script is excellent with Cushing delivering subdued menace with aplomb, especially when Paul asked him where he was going to get the brain from, he simply replies, “I don’t know…yet.” Oh the chills. It was a performance that did not require raised voices, evil laughing and other evil genius cliches, a slight change of expression, a wry smile is all Cushing needed to portray his malevolent side.

The monster, Christopher lee, turns up after half way and must have looked quite horrific in 1957. To be honest, the monster could’ve been anyone, but any film with Lee’s name on it exudes a gravitas and the film is richer for his portrayal of the monster. The real horror is the Frankenstein’s unrepentant drive, his willingness to sacrifice others for his own benefit, the result of his actions, a lesson we can all learn.

The character of Paul is Frankenstein’s friend, torn between loyalty and disgust and Robert Urquhart adds charm and brings a good chemistry with Cushing and their friendship is very believable. The token marrying material/wife, Elizabeth, played by Hazel Court, is probably the weakest part in the film as her part was written by the numbers and if she was removed completely I don’t think film would’ve suffered. I found the maid a more interesting character, a shunned woman, Victor, was just using for carnal pleasure

To think this film came out the same year as The Abominable Snowman is astonishing. For me, The Abominable Snowman is a throwback to machine gun dialogue, clunky scripts and wooden acting, whereas The Curse of Frankenstein feels like a fresh, innovative style of films to come. If you watch the two films back to back you may see what I mean. 90/100

The Conjuring

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Sat, 17 Nov 2018 14:32:33 GMT

Excellent Modern HorrorExcellent Modern Horror

I’ve always mixed up The Conjuring with Sinister. They were released within a year of each other, have a family moving into an isolated house, there’s a hanging tree and the tone seemed quite similar. As a consequence, I thought I had seen The Conjuring but it turned out I had not. The Conjuring universe is now five films in and I havn’t seen any of them. It was time to put that right.

At an IMDB score or 7.5, which is excellent for a horror film, I was expecting quite a lot and the film lived up to the promise.

From IMDB: In 1971, Carolyn and Roger Perron move their family into a dilapidated Rhode Island farm house and soon strange things start happening around it with escalating nightmarish terror. In desperation, Carolyn contacts the noted paranormal investigators, Ed and Lorraine Warren, to examine the house. What the Warrens discover is a whole area steeped in a satanic haunting that is now targeting the Perron family wherever they go

The film is based on the a true story and revolves around paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren who come to the aid of the Perron family when they began to experience disturbing events. Because the film is based on real life accounts, whether you believe in the paranormal or not, the film is very much grounded unlike Insidious which lost me after a pretty strong first hour when the crossing of worlds began to happen.

I’m not sure where the horror world would be without the family moving into a new home trope and The Conjuring includes this as well as many other tried and tested haunted house themes: Slamming doors, the nervous canine, the creepy cellar, the scary kid, the face in the mirror and so forth. I want to avoid using the word cliché because, arguably that’s what they are, but it’s how they are used, how they are set up and included in the overall narrative. Let’s face it, if you didn’t include these tropes, you’d probably end up with a really boring film that was more akin to a drama and the audience would feel cheated and go home empty handed.

One complaint about modern horror is its reliance on jump scares. You can’t beat a good jump scare but when they’re randomly put in, or if that’s all the film has then they don’t work very well. Using jump scares as a compliment to a sense of peril or an undercurrent of unease as well as fear, jump scares are worth their weight in gold. I found The Conjuring’s story of a witch protecting her lands was enough to create that danger, that agitation, that uncomfortable feeling you get in the pit of your stomach. Because of this, the jump scares worked really.

The tension was nicely built up initially with small instances of things to come, for example, shadows moving, is that a figure in the back ground? Did that item just move? The bruises on the mother was a nice touch and the family of girls were superbly played and you actually felt their terror, their screams being very convincing. The dad, played by Ron Livingston, came across as a bit of a wet fish, but this was made up by Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga who played Ed and Lorraine Warren. It took me a while to get past Vera’s portrayal of Norma Bates, such is her stunning performance in Bates Motel singed into my consciousness, but about half way though I realised how good Vera is and the Horror genre is all the richer for her inclusion. Long may it continue.

At 105 minutes, the film felt about the right length, the script was tight and I can’t recall any scenes that didn’t need to be there. The music was excellent and the seventies retro feel was captured by the director. In summary, The Conjuring is a superb example of modern day paranormal horror with some strong performances and genuinely chilling moments that elevate it above the competition. Recommended. 80/100

The Haunting of Hill House

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Sat, 17 Nov 2018 14:21:43 GMT

May contains spoilers

Netflix’s new chiller, The Haunting of Hill House, follows the lives of the Crain family both as a young family in Hill House and many years later as adults, and how their experiences inside the house still affect them today. But what were those experiences? What drove them from Hill House? That is what this ten part series is built around.

Flashing between past and present, a fractured family confronts haunting memories of their old home and the terrifying events that drove them from it. (from IMDB)

I have to admit, after the first episode, I was sucked in. Not only did it set up the premise really well, but there was just enough given away in that first episode to create a shroud of mystery around Hill House. On top of that, you have a show that is exquisitely made. The grim, subtle lighting, the sublime camera work, the excellent soundtrack, the innovative transitions give it a fresh, modern and immersive feel and you instantly realise this is a well made production with a lot of $$ behind it.

I think it is money well spent as the series is a perfect example of a ‘slow burn’ because the characters of both the parents and each of the five children are fleshed out and given room to breathe. They each have their own story, their own tale to tell and which is something quite rare in the haunted house genre. The acting is simply wonderful, especially from the child cast and not once did I feel like any of it was clunky enough to take me out of the film.

It was not without its flaws, however. At times, it did feel like a 2 hour movie stretched to ten hours. The stories of each characters were very interesting but, occasionally, seemed to stray too far from the overall narrative, the mystery of Hill House, to the point where a jump scare was shoehorned in to remind the audience they were watching a haunted house flick and not a grim drama. I felt it didn’t really bring anything new to the genre, using tried and tested Haunted House tropes such as visions, jump scares, scary kids, dark cellars etc… and the ghosts were a little uneven as well. A man with a moustache fixing a clock is not on the same level of scary figure crawling at you from the darkness of the cellar. But it executed those tropes well and played to the genre's strengths. Let's face it, what could the Haunted House genre produce that's new anyway?

Having said all that, the series built beautifully with episode eight and nine being standouts because all the seeds and set ups from the previous seven episodes began to pay off and made for simply gripping television. Like a lot of productions, the end can never live up to the exciting journey and I felt this was the case with The Haunting at Hill House. Although not terrible, I did feel disappointed with the final episode but it did little to mar what came before it and I was still invested right to the end. The Haunting at Hill House is available on Netflix right now. 82/100

The Abominable Snowman

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Mon, 12 Nov 2018 22:55:47 GMT

May contain spoilers

Classic Hammer season on The Horror Channel began with 1957’s The Abominable Snowman. Starring Peter Cushing as Doctor Rollason, the black and white movie casts him as a botanist studying rare mountain herbs whilst at a remote lamasery in the Himalayas. He is waiting for an American, Tom Friend, with whom he intends to go on an expedition to find the elusive Yeti, much to the chagrin of Rollason’s wife, Helen, because Rollason had injured himself during a climbing accident several years previous.

The ambition of the film has to be admired. It’s refreshing to see something other than the back streets of ole London town or an eastern European castle and the scope of the snowy expanse must have been difficult to pull off even for 1957, but I think the film managed it and the sense of isolation in the Himalayan mountains was achieved.

The production did have an old school feel to it, not because it was black and white, but in the dialogue and its delivery. The script was very wordy with a lot of telling and not enough showing (“look, there’s a tent.” “It’s snowing”.) and, at times, it seemed very clunky with emotions ranging from anger to the point of attacking someone, to apologising and being friends again within the space of twenty seconds. The delivery of the dialogue was rapid fire with the actors blurting out their lines with little in the way of dramatic pauses, but this, I’ve noticed, is a style of 1950s cinema. The Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Thing from Another World suffer from a similar machine gun acting style.

The plot was a little predictable especially when our scientist hero, Rollason, finds out his colleagues are only there to hunt the Yeti and take him back to civilisation for profit. Although we see very little of the Yeti, in fact, it doesn’t even turn up until after the half way mark, we soon realise the real monster of this tale is our greed and lust for power over others. The Yeti holds very little threat in the film and only acts as a catalyst to see how a group of men survive in the oxygen starved atmosphere of the Himalayas. It was an interesting concept as was the third strain of evolution theory put forward by Rollason and I wish the film had explored this angle rather than having a bunch of grown men squabbling in the snow.

It was a decent Hammer romp but marred by some wooden performances, especially from the lead, Forrest Tucker and a truly awful wise-cracking side kick, Ed Shelley. For me, there were too many spoilers in the set up meaning there weren’t any stakes to raise later in the film because we knew what to expect. We also found out that Brandy can fix almost all ailments. 67/100

Hammer Films Coming Soon

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Wed, 24 Oct 2018 22:15:09 GMT

It's Hammer time

As mentioned in the recent news, the wonderful Horror Channel (Sky 319, Virgin 149, Freeview 70, Freesat 138) are showing another Hammer Season beginning November 3rd. It is also the perfect time to kick start my blog where I look back at some of the classic horror films, not just from Hammer but this season is a perfect opportunity to watch four classics.

From the Horror Channel Website:
From November 3rd, Horror Channel celebrates vintage 1950s home-grown fantasy and horror with a Hammer Classics Season , The primetime Saturday night season, consisting of four network premieres, which star the iconic Peter Cushing, kicks off with Val Guest's atmospheric masterpiece, The Abominable Snowman .

The other three, all directed by Terence Fisher, are the highly successful adaptations of the classic Universal monster movies: the brilliantly lurid The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), the hypnotically sensual and gory Dracula (1958), which launched Cushing and Christopher Lee into global stardom, and The Mummy (1959), perhaps the most critically well-received Hammer movie of all time.

I've already revisited a couple of Terence Fisher directed films, The Gorgon and The Man who could cheat death. Where the former was a little clunk as well as hit and miss, The Man who could cheat death is one of my favourite Hammer films, although not considered to be so by the media. He directed twenty-nine films for Hammer, The Two Faces of Doctor Jekyll, being one of them I am also hoping to track down and watch over the coming weeks.

The Crimson Cult

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Fri, 20 Jul 2018 14:46:49 GMT

Contains Spoilers

The Horror Channel continue to be my go-to channel with another slice of classic horror. I’m being liberal with the term ‘classic’ because The Crimson Cult is not the greatest addition to the genre.

Labelled as, ‘The Curse of the Crimson Altar’ on The Horror Channel, yet called ‘The Crimson Cult’ on IMDB, it’s muddled title is synonymous with the film’s actual plot. However, it is notable for having an excellent cast. It is Boris Karloff’s final film to aired while he was still alive and it probably the film’s saving grace. Christopher Lee walks around being polite and the delicious Barbara Steele is painted green and suffers from limited screen time.

When his brother disappears, Robert Manning pays a visit to the remote country house he was last heard from. While his host is outwardly welcoming - and his niece more demonstrably so - Manning detects a feeling of menace in the air with the legend of Lavinia Morley, Black Witch of Greymarsh, hanging over everything.

The film opens with a S&M sacrifice with Barbara Steele almost unrecognizable as a green which. Unfortunately, what was recognizable was the body builder of a bloke in leather underpants and a crash helmet with antlers that kept popping up but thankfully not popping out.

Our Hero, Robert Manning is played by Mark Eden of Alan Bradley fame and I think he’s better at playing an antagonist rather than a protagonist. His performance is wooden and unconvincing but worst of all, unlikeable. Perhaps it was the way he forced himself on Eve Morley (Virginia Wetherell), the niece of Morley (Christopher Lee), that turned me off. I understand it was a different time and attitudes have rightly changed, but it left me a little uncomfortable.

Robert visits the last place he heard from his brother which is Morley’s lodge, a large creepy building acknowledged by a fun quip by Mark Eden that it reminds him of a haunted house in a film and he was half expecting Boris Karloff to turn up…if only he knew. For some reason our hero arrives when there is one of Stewie’s sexy parties going on which seemed to serve no purpose whatsoever and thus was the problem with the film.

There’s a decent story in it…somewhere. A witch from the 17th century is burnt at the stake and someone is trying to sacrifice the descendants of her accusers. It never really comes across, instead Robert Manning dashes about, makes passes at Eve Morley and doesn’t really delve into the history of the surrounding village. Boris Karloff’s character is an authority on witchcraft and has a collection of torture devices and the film’s best moment is when Boris and Mark have a chat in Boris’s living room. The flat script at that moment comes alive but it’s not enough to save an underwritten by the numbers sixties horror.

The camera work and direction was uninspired, for example, when Mark’s character finds the secret alter in the loft at the lodge. The loft is quite big and has some nasty items in it yet there’s no sweeping shots, no clever lighting or cinematography because it should’ve been a dark, foreboding scene. Instead, we got a dusty table and a few cobwebs and Mark is wandering around them in yellow jimjams.

I’ve heard The Crimson Cult is not one of Christopher Lee’s favourite films, however, the cast and a few moments save this film and make one worth watching when you’ve seen all the Hammer films. There’s something decent in there and a remake would be nice so that the witchy undercurrent could break through a little more. 52/100

Cover Art Part 5

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Thu, 12 Jul 2018 23:23:22 GMT

Frustration and indecision

When it came to the new book, The Devil’s Accompanist, I thought I knew what I wanted and I had stumbled upon this book cover last year (see above) and I just loved the tone, the colours and image and thought something along those lines would be great. Good news followed soon after as early stock images searches unveiled this quite brilliant picture (see below) and I thought, ‘yes, that’ll do nicely’. Things were looking up. What I liked about it is the way it portrays loneliness with a hint of despondency, a woman lost, unsure of herself while walking around an old building…or at least that’s what I saw. It was perfect for the story.

Of course, it’s never that simple. When you look through stock imagery, the site usually brings up other pictures that are either, part of the same collection, by the same artists, similar pictures or, in many cases, all three. Sadly, this picture is not part of a collection, it was a one off, but at least I had a cover, right?

Yes, I did have a cover, one cover, but the problem which arose soon after was similar to The Eyes where the second cover is far superior to the first cover. I was never really happy with the first cover and I thought, with the coming of the first story’s full length follow up, here is a good opportunity to re-release Thank You For The Music with a lovely new cover. This is when the trouble started.

The problem I had was the differing lengths of the books. Thank You For The Music is a short story (18,000 words) and The Devil’s Accompanist is a full length (90,000 words). Could I successfully release the books as a part 1 and part 2 with the over-arching name of The Brazen Suite?

I had done some research into the best way forward and found that serials sell better than stand-alone books. It might not sound correct, but we humans love serials. Most of our TV dramas are serial based with cliff hangers keeping you on the edge of your seat until the following week. Hell, it’s the very basis our binge watching, box set culture is based upon. Ok, so I now have a part 1 and part 2 but they are of differing lengths, does this matter? Possibly, readers like something to get their teeth into and 18,000 words for part 1 is probably not going to cut it, but I was struggling to combine the two stories into two 54,000 word books. I then thought about splitting it into 3 parts. Part 1 would be the original 18000 word short story and parts 2&3 would be the new full length split into 2 x 45,000 word books. I went with this idea for quite a while but felt Thank You For The Music was not a good a title as The Devil’s Accompanist. Surely, if I’m going to make them a series, the titles must relate as well. I came up with The Devil’s Composer and The Devil Likes to be Serenaded and was quite happy with the way the series was shaping up. Sadly, the cover art had other ideas.

Three of the tips for creating serialised cover art is to: 1, Make them look like they’re related so they at least look like they’re part of the same series. 2, Have a human element to it. 3. Use fewer colours. The problem with making it a 3 book series was suddenly having to produce three front covers that adhered to these tips. I already had one I was happy with, yet the cover for Thank You For The Music didn’t look like it was related to The Devil’s Accompanist, nor did it have a human element. So, two covers had to be created to complete The Brazen Suite series…simple, yes?

I was going to need help so I got in touch with my good friend Chris Linaker again and we both set about discussing what the themes were and potential ideas. What followed was a period of passing back and forth possible covers and images that might spark some inspiration. I was up to my old tricks of being very vague about what I wanted, I just knew what I didn’t want. It didn’t help that I was indecisive about the book titles as well. The names changed around so often that they became meaningless for the cover art. It was a case of, ‘get the artwork sorted first and I’ll worry about what to call it at a later date’.

The following designs were quick mock ups by Chris and myself. I knew I wanted something to relate to the image for The Devil’s Accompanist and so went for pictures that were dark, had a woman in the image and were fairly mysterious. Although frustrating Chris to the point of distraction, he did keep me on track by asking the very simple question, ‘does it represent the book?’ Almost all of the time it didn’t, and he pointed out that some of them, although darkly lit, could pass off as romance book cover rather than the horror/mystery story I’d written.

Because producing just one of the two required covers was creating headaches, I decided to back track my decision on making it a three part series. So, Chris and I were back to creating just one cover and I made the executive decision of keeping the titles of The Devil’s Composer and The Devil’s Accompanist, the former replacing Thank You For The Music.

Chris asked me about other themes in the book and he came up with some different ideas including a woman overlooking London, a picture inside a picture and the hands of the devil, which I think is utterly brilliant but not suitable for what I was after. It has gone into the, ‘for use later’ folder, so we may see it again at some point.

Looking at other writers and their serial covers, I noticed a few serials used the same picture but altered a certain aspect of it. I approached Chris and suggested the idea and somehow, I’m yet to find out how, he managed to remove the woman in The Devil’s Accompanist. This opened up ideas of replacing her with another woman either listening to music, playing music or in a different pose. I liked these ideas but we never hit on anything that I was 100% behind, that was until Chris just moved the original woman and added a shadow. That was it, I was sold. All the weeks of frustration could all have been avoided if only either of us had thought of moving to woman slightly to the left. Chris added a gramophone and I asked him to darken and then fuzzy up the shadow a bit more and, tadaaaah, it was almost there. From the window on the right I added more of an orange glow which I really liked because it just took down the amount of colours (see tip 3) and the overall brightness. That was it job done…sort of.

I gave Chris the correct names and he finished of the titles. The downside was the fact that these covers would be for the individual ebooks. I wanted to create a version containing both parts so I could offer readers a combined paperback version. Part 1 has never had a paperback release and some people have not read it because they don’t have a kindle or ebook reader. In my mucking about, I had bought an image of a chair on fire (nice) and thought it fitted the imagery of the story quite well. I took some of the colour out of it and made a slight change in its hue. I had it in my design program and by sheer fluke I accidentally put The Devil’s Accompanist cover over the top of it. Instead of removing it, I made the white transparent and the result was something that really appealed to me. I liked the way the woman was walking in the flames and the chair is iconic to me and hopefully anyone else who has read the story. I liked it enough to make it the front cover for the paper back with the reverse including the covers of the book’s individual parts. I passed it over to Chris for a final opinion and once he put the titles on it, that was it, job done…until next time.

I’m really happy with the way the cover art has turned out for The Brazen Suite. It’s probably the most frustrated I’ve been when creating covers but I think they’re my favourite out of all the covers Chris and I have produced so far. It’s all been worth it...just.

Cover Art Part 4

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Wed, 11 Jul 2018 19:57:00 GMT

Shimmers in the Fog (spoiler-ish for The Shimmer at Fog Cottage)

When it came to The Shimmer at Fog Cottage I didn’t have a clue for what I wanted as a cover. If I wanted to stick to the grisly themes of the book it would either be too gruesome (it'd get banned on Amazon) or give too much away. One of the main aspects/plot points of the novella is the reveal of mystery of the island on which our heroes are stationed. If I didn’t go with the grisly themes and avoided spoilers then all I’m left with are pictures of the island or the police, or perhaps both. I went on the search for stock images that included these subject but couldn’t find anything suitable, not unless I wanted the cover to look like a crime/police procedural story or a non-fiction book about the islands of Britain.

Because of the lack of suitable imagery I didn’t go through the rigmarole of creating scores of alternative ideas. At this point I hadn’t contacted Chris and was trying to do this one on my own, after all, it was only a novella, right?

Wrong. It needs to be good regardless of story. This is a lesson I have finally learned.

Completely devoid of ideas, I had a search around the internet to see if there as a reasonably priced designer who could help, however, before I even got that far I stumbled upon a website called, www.thebookcoverdesigner.com

This site is a where designers can sell their pre-made book covers, yes, this is a thing. Not all authors are artists and it’s a brilliant idea in which an author can find a suitable cover for their creation without spending a lot of money and time creating one themselves or over spending by going through a professional designer. The Book Cover Designer site breaks down the covers into genres, e.g, Action & Adventure, Children’s, Dystopia, Romance, Horror, Paranormal, Thriller, Young Adult, Steampunk and so on. There are 1000s of covers to choose from. At present, there are 4546 images for fantasy alone. Prices vary from cover to cover but, in my opinion, they are not overpriced, in fact, I think they’re very reasonable considering the headaches and hassle they prevent should you find the right one. Once you’ve bought the cover, that cover is taken off the site to avoid duplication. You can’t have your book cover popping up on the front of six other totally unrelated books, that’d be bad practice.

The brutal horror tale that is The Shimmer at Fog Cottage meant I delved deep into the horror, sci-fi, paranormal and thriller genres. Here are a few of my favourite examples of covers for sale, Paperdolls and Pulled Strings especially. They range from $40 to $150. As you can see, your name and title of your book would replace the text on the design.

The problem I quickly ran into was shoe-horning. There are thousands of covers on the site and, after extensively searching, I couldn’t find one cover than fitted with Fog Cottage. I could find several examples of covers that I could shoe-horn into the story and would have done an admiral job and looked the business. In fact, several designs had been constructed using some of the stock imagery I had seen in previous searches for other covers. I extended my search and realised the whole premade cover idea is a mini industry with several sites dedicated to the covers, especially for ebooks.

www.premadeebookcovershop.com

www.thecovercollection.com

www.selfpubbookcovers.com

www.thebookcoverdesigner.com

www.rockingbookcovers.com

But, as Chris will attest to, I’m a fussy devil and having a cover that ‘would do’ didn’t sit right even if some of the premade designs were better than anything I could conjure myself. I left the premade idea behind. However, it’s not forgotten because it’s a great resource and one I will probably revisit in the future. Sadly, this meant I was back to square one. For empathy shots I had visited Hilbre Island and taken many photographs and I hoped one of them would be suitable as a cover...with a little doctoring of course. At one time, I was tempted to use the door of Fog Cottage itself (see pic at the top) but then I'd have a cover of a weather worn door...great! Here are a couple of empathy shots but as you can see they were not really suitable for the cover of a horror book (maybe I should've gone at night).

For more pictures from Hilbre Island, visit this link: www.peteworrall.com/test

It was back to square one (again) and looking through stock imagery trying to find some inspiration. I then found a suitable picture from where to start. I then created a test cover using this image, but again, it wasn’t fully related to the story.

After breaking down the themes further, I tried a search on forensics as there are two forensic pathologists in the story. I found a suitable image and thought what would it look like if I combine a forensics image and the image of a creepy chap. Suddenly, I was quite pleased with the idea (hurrah!) and sent preliminary ideas over to Chris for a second opinion.

Several discussions and exchanging of ideas later, the final version is a cropped image of the forensic officer with a little bit of the colour drained out of it. I then added a cartoon style filter over the figure but made it very light which brought out the creases in their clothes. I increased the soft glow of the camera flash as well making it less harsh, and to finish it off, I added the creepy fellow directly behind the forensic officer. It’s difficult to see and easy to miss on a casual glance, but if you look closely you will be able see that the forensic chap/chapette is not alone.

There were better covers than mine on the premade sites but my attempt was true to the story and I was, and still am, very pleased with how it turned out. It was definitely worth the hours upon hours of searching for ideas and the frustration that this brings.

Next time, The Devil’s Accompanist needs a cover, an older book cover gets a make-over and I drive Chris even more batty with my indecision.

Cover Art Part 3

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Thu, 05 Jul 2018 23:05:03 GMT

Anything for the Honey

After The Eyes story was complete, I wrote a couple of short ghost stories. Because I was only planning an ebook/kindle release for them I didn’t want to invest too much time in designing the covers, especially for a piece of work only 11,000 words long. I’ve since realised this is not the case and ALL covers should be eye catching and appealing regardless of how long the book is. People are drawn to good covers, it’s just the way of things. Out of the following books, which ones would you be tempted to pick up first?

I like to think at least one of the two ghost stories I released had a decent cover, that story was Goet. One of the advantages of creating artwork for a simple short story is you only have a few themes to choose from unless you’re planning to go completely avant garde and have a design that bears no resemblance to the content. Goet is a tale about a divorced, middle aged man who is possessed by an unknown spirit that requires honey to build up its strength in order to fully take over its host. The two themes that leapt out were the spirit and honey. A quick look on istock and two images struck a chord. I pieced them together but pushed the spirit more towards the background and that was it, job done in about half an hour, a new record. It’s simple but effective and perfect for the short story, but more importantly, I didn’t have to annoy Chris Linaker.

The second ghost story, Thank You For the Music (The Devil’s Composer), was not as straight forward and it highlighted one of the big issues with cover design. It’s only natural for your cover to represent the themes in the book or a snapshot of the ideas in the author’s mind, but if the story is a mystery or has a lot of revelations running through it, what do you include on the cover so not to give away any spoilers? The ideas in my head for Thank You For The Music that would’ve made a great cover, would’ve given the game away, perhaps not all of it, but certain aspects. The covers for The Eyes were perfect as they didn’t really reveal much at all, but Thank For The Music, and, subsequently as I found out, The Shimmer at Fog Cottage and The Devil’s Accompanist, all had initial ideas that, potentially, could reveal too much.

In the end I opted for a violin with the colour drained out of it. There is a picture on Charles Middleton hidden in the window but I had designed it so poorly that you can’t really see him unless I point him out, and then you still might struggle. I was never happy with it and I’m still not hence why it’s getting a make-over, but, at the time I remember really struggling with an image for the story that didn’t give too much away. I thought about including a picture of a manor house but didn’t find a suitable picture of one. None of the ghost stock pictures were of a haunting by an elderly gentleman, they all seem to be by scary children or beautiful women. It was a frustrating process resulting in a finished product that wasn’t terrible in my opinion, but it certainly wasn’t good enough.

Even when it came to revisiting the cover art for Thank You For The Music, I still struggled with finding suitable imagery. It meant, once again, trawling through the thousands of stock images in an effort to find one that kindles interest and sparks the creative process. As I’ve probably already mentioned, as frustrating as this process is, it needs to be done, and if you end up with a cover art you’re proud of then it was a process worth enduring. The book's new artwork will be revealed in part 5.

In the next part, I will look at The Shimmer at Fog Cottage and 3rd party covers.

Cover Art Part 2

theygrowupontheeyes@gmail.com (Pete Worrall) — Thu, 28 Jun 2018 23:32:53 GMT

The Eyes

The problem I had about the artwork for The Doom of The Hollow was telling Chris what I wanted because I genuinely didn’t know, or, to put it another way, I did know what I wanted, I just didn’t know how to express it, or I didn’t know what I wanted, I just knew what I didn’t want (delete as applicable). It was then we started trawling through stock images on the Internet. There are many websites that deal with stock images, footage, art etc… all purchasable and varying in price. The only problem is, when you don’t really know what you’re looking for and your image search brings back 30,000+ images, a long arduous task develops as you scroll through page after page of an eclectic mix of pictures.

Then came weeks/months of coming up with ideas, passing them back to each other for reaction and feedback. The following pictures were concept ideas and were never intended to become part of the final piece mainly because they contained the wrong imagery or I felt there was a stock image more suitable.

Every now and again an image catches the eye and I save it to my list of favourites but there’s a very good chance not one single image ticks all the boxes and a mix of two, maybe even three or four images is entirely probable. But then I saw this picture which immediately made me stop looking. I didn’t really want this actual picture, it was the idea I really liked.

More test ideas were sent back and forth between Chris and myself refining ideas, swapping parts around, altering the height of the syringe, changing the colour of one of the eyes, dropping one side of the face to represent the change one of the characters goes through.

Eventually, after many hours of work and discussion, Chris created this masterpiece. It uses two images, the woman's face and the syringe. Chris coloured one of the eyes green, changed the colour of the gloop in the syringe to brown (as it is in the story) and dropped the left hand side of the woman's face by a fraction and discolouring it slightly to represent the change someone goes through in the book.

Compared to my ‘broccoli’ cover for the first book, Chris’s effort light years ahead which then posed a new problem, the cover of They Grow Upon The Eyes had to be redone to bring it in line with The Doom of the Hollow.

I immediately set about designing a new cover for They Grow Upon The Eyes. I wanted to do as much of it myself as possible aware that I had already taken up hours upon hours of Chris’s time with the The Doom of the Hollow cover. Again, it was a process of frustration and tedium having to trawl through hundreds of images looking for inspiration. The woman’s face had to be the theme as its representative of a woman called Olive Shipley when she was in her youth. Finding the right face with the right expression at the correct angle is easier said than done as my early attempt will attest to. Eventually, I had to ask Chris for feedback and he did some test ideas and even though I ended up piecing it together myself, asking for his help and discussing the project really helped focus the process.

In the end the following picture was used, but it still took 9 efforts to get all the aspects right. The woman’s face, test tube, hogweed plant and blood are all separate images blended together. The subtle image of the Giant Hogweed on the left hand side was one of my own pictures which I embossed, added a drop shadow, removed the emboss, inverted the drop shadow and added a touch of transparency. The blood had to be positions correctly on the test tube and the spatter that didn't fit on the test tube had to be removed. The colour of the gloop was changed from red to brown, I distorted the lady's eye because of the test tube and coloured her other eye green just like the lady's in The Doom of the Hollow. (i hope she doesn't find out) I don’t think it’s as striking as Chris’s picture but I was pleased and, least of all, it was suitable enough to stand next to it.

Thankfully, for the third book in the series, the cover art for The Unforeseen Children of Olive Shipley was a much easier process. This was down to two factors: 1. For the picture to look part of a series it had to have a woman’s face on it. 2. In my previous searches I had already found the perfect picture. But this did not prevent a few attempts at alternative ideas.

The picture was £104 but worth every penny in my opinion. The woman’s expressed seemed to capture the situation of the book, the sad life of Olive Shipley and having it on black was a stark contrast to the white of The Doom of the Hollow. The DNA strand was an easy addition and representative of the story, it was just the woman’s eye was the wrong colour. I passed the picture over to Chris who coloured the eye green and sent it back. I’m making the whole process sound quick and painless, which it was compared to the previous two covers, but it still had to go through 16 versions often with only the subtlest of changes. The DNA strand had a smooth red finish until I drained out a lot of the colour, put transparency on the red, drop shadowed it and then replaced the red and added the drop shadow over the top to give it that decaying look...pure fluke.

Of course, there's always the back of the paperback that needs consideration, but often just a plain colour or part of the front cover will suffice because the 'blurb' needs to be readable. However, for The Unforeseen Children of Olive Shipley I had taken a trip to Rixton Old Hall near Warrington to get some 'empathy shots' as I call them, photographs of the area to give me an idea of layout, buildings, colour etc... it makes the description process more real. When I posted this following photo of the Hall's ruined swimming pool on my facebook page, readers were suggesting I should is it as the new cover. It didn't make the cover, but it made an excellent addition to the back.

In the end I still prefer Chris’s cover picture, but I think they look good as a whole and you can tell they are part of a series. Check out next week as the cover art goes beyond The Eyes, more disaster covers and the cover that took about half an hour to put together…a miracle!