The Stone Rider (1923)

Original title: Der steinerne Reiter. At a peasant wedding in a valley, an old man tells the younger people that there was a time when such a thing would not have been permitted. He points out a strangely shaped rock overlooking the valley, and tells the story of the “Stone Rider”… While their lord is away from his mountain stronghold, the peasants of the valley hurry to celebrate the wedding of Schaffnerin (Emilia Unda) and Jäger (Gustav von Wangenheim). Jäger climbs up to the mountain retreat of Schaffnerin’s sister, Hirtin (Lucie Mannheim), to persuade her to attend, but she refuses, replying bitterly that such defiance of their lord can only end in disaster. As he carouses with his friends, Herr vom Berge (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) is informed that his peasants are defying his orders: enraged, he immediately sets out for the valley—declaring that, if the peasants insist on viewing him as a devil, he will act like a devil. Vom Berge’s arrival at the celebration strikes fear and dismay in those present: he insults and abuses the men and forces his attentions on the bride. The outraged Jäger seizes a knife and strikes at him—but mortally wounds Schaffnerin instead. Arriving from her retreat in time to watch her sister die, Hirtin acquires the fatal knife and heads for the castle of Herr vom Berge… Directed by Fritz Wendhausen and co-written by Thea von Harbou, The Stone Rider originally ran some 86 minutes but is now readily viewable only in British prints cut down to about an hour. (It’s been a big month for that sort of thing; see below.) These prints don’t carry any cast information or bother to introduce any of the characters by name (apart from Rudolf Klein-Rogge and Lucie Mannheim, I’m guessing), while the combination of cutting and under-titling leaves us wholly without guidance as to the motivations of its two central figures. We are left to decide for ourselves whether vom Berge is under a curse, mentally unstable or just a man of mood swings; while Hilton goes from trying to knife him in the back to willingly marrying him in the space of about five minutes. Ironically, it is the assumption that Hilton is being held against her will that finally rouses the peasants to revolt: they storm the castle, “rescue” her and overpower vom Berge. Hilton manages to save him from summary justice by declaring ambiguously, He belongs to me—but then must find a way for both of them to escape… As it stands, The Stone Rider makes little sense but it is still a visually striking work. While some of its details foreshadow the German mountaineering films, in its set design and cinematography it is closer to Expressionism in spite of its realistic – or “realistic” – story. While the film is sometimes classified as horror, only its climax, including the creation of the “stone rider”, really fits the bill. Its most memorable touch, however, is vom Berge’s arrival at the wedding, when from a high ridge his shadow is thrown literally across the valley.

Air Devils (1938)

On the Pacific island of Taro Pago, former Marines John “Horseshoe” Donovan (Larry Blake) and Percy “Slats” Harrington (Dick Purcell) form part of the local constabulary—although the two cause as much trouble as they stop. While Donovan is on leave, Harrington tries to one-up him by stealing his girl, cantina singer Lolano (Mamo Clark); but to the dismay of both, Donovan steps off the boat in company with lovely young Marcia Bradford (Beryl Wallace), an anthropologist who has come to the island to study the natives. Donovan later pranks Harrington by setting him up with Marcia’s much older colleague, Margaret Price (Minerva Urecal). In the heart of Taro Pago, an important engineering project is underway under the control of Robert Walker (LeRoy Mason), and much of the constabulary’s duty revolves around protecting the work from a band of disgruntled natives. Unbeknownst to the authorities, local cantina owner Tom Mordaunt (Charles Brokaw) is behind the unrest, using Lolano as a spy to assist his financial schemes… Air Devils is a drearily dull attempt at an action-comedy, its only vaguely interesting touch its prescience about how and where much of the war in the Pacific will subsequently be fought. That said, it is never actually clear what Robert Walker’s engineering project is—though Tom Mordaunt and his collaborators believe it to be a military air base, which in the fullness of time they intend to seize and sell to, ahem, “another interested nation”. This is never more than a murky subplot, with the film’s focus instead upon the painfully unfunny antics of best-of-frenemies Donovan and Harrington as they fight over Marcia Bradford,  fall in and out of trouble, get promoted and demoted, and react to everything with a surfeit of “Why-you-I-oughtta” dialogue, before their F Troop-ish accidental thwarting of the native uprising fermented by Mordaunt. Despite its title, there is precious little aviation in Air Devils – a little stunt flying at the beginning and a crack-up towards the end – so it isn’t even worth watching for that; while the “island paradise” of Taro Pago looks suspiciously like Californian scrubland. On its first release, Air Devils ran about 70 minutes, but some kind soul subsequently edited ten out of it.

(And speaking of which—)

Sky Liner (1949)

At the State Department, George Eakins (John McGuire) takes delivery of some vital confidential documents, which he is to carry to an important political conference in Los Angeles. Unbeknownst to Eakins, his secretary, Amy Winthrop (Rochelle Hudson), is in league with secret opposing powers: as she prepares for her own departure, she first contacts her collaborator, then leaves the doors of Eakins’ office unlocked… In Chicago, a European diplomat called Bokejian (Steven Geray) seals a profitable deal regarding oil and mineral concessions with a certain business faction. The meeting is interrupted by a phone message informing him that “the documents have been secured”, and directing him to take cross-country flight #153. As the flight boards in New York, Miss Winthrop stares in dismay at the man who joins her (Gaylord Pendleton), who is posing as Eakins: he explains under his breath that he struck Eakins too hard… As the plane takes off, Captain Fairchild (William F. Leicester) informs the stewardess (Pamela Blake) that there is a federal agent onboard… Though basically an espionage thriller, its setting more or less forces Sky Liner into service as a proto-disaster movie—which makes it a frustrating experience for reasons I will get to. As it is, the central plot of “Smith” attempting to sell the stolen documents to Bokejian, while he in turn is pursued by FBI agent Steve Blair (Richard Travis), who has been put on his trail by his surveillance of Amy Winthrop, comes supported – and sometimes interfered with – by extraneous subplots involving a jewel thief / murderer on the run, a gambler who has embezzled company funds, a pompous British diplomat, a pair of reluctant elopers (reluctant on his part, anyway), and an aspiring child actress on her way to Hollywood: the first two, at least, involving flashbacks, and all of it surrounded by passengers afraid to fly and/or indignant at having to travel with the herd. However, after its first release Sky Liner was cut down from 61 minutes to only 49, and while we thank the editor for removing the Shirley Temple wannabe almost in her entirety, the cutting makes much of the rest confusing, particularly as it impacts the film’s climax. When Smith is found dead in the plane’s lavatory (which is big enough for three, apparently because it is toilet-free), Blair takes command and orders the plane set down a military air base rather than its original destination—which prompts a desperate response from the murderer on the run…

(Sky Liner is available uncut only as part of Volume 4 of the Forgotten Noir DVD series, and while its proto-disaster aspects do make me want to see the full version, it turns out I don’t want to see it badly enough to pay that much for the privilege…)

The River Fuefuki (1960)

Based upon the novel by Fukazawa Shichirō; original title: Fuefukigawa (Fuefuki River). As civil war tears their country apart, a family of small farmers struggles to survive on the banks of the river Fuefuki. The conflict has a more direct impact when, tired of their grim daily existence or in search of personal glory or material gain, the young men of the family follow their lord into battle—and rarely return. When Hanpei (Oda Maseo) is left to raise his grandson after his daughter remarries, he impresses on the child over and over again that he must stay on the farm. As a young man, Sadahei (Tamura Takahiro) follows his grandfather’s dictum, working the farm and marrying Okei (Takamine Hideko). At first the two take great delight in their four children but, as their sons grow to manhood, the call of the ongoing war tears their family apart… Set during the Sengoku period in Japan, and with its action explicitly extending from the Battle of Iidagawara in 1521 to the Battle of Tenmokuzan and fall of the Takeda clan in 1582, Kinoshita Keisuke’s The River Fuefuki is a low-key but grim historical drama about the horrors of civil war, the dangers of ambition and the helplessness of the individual in the face of both. Dealing with five generations of the same poor farming family, the film opens with the first of its sons to turn his back upon his inheritance and follow his feudal lord into battle, and closes with the near-entire destruction of the family as the war, one way or another, claims its members as casualties; likewise, Hanpei’s delighted receipt of a Takeda war-banner at the beginning, the spoils of his son’s first successful essay as a warrior, is bookended by the elderly Sadehei’s discovery of another in the wake of the final, disastrous battle, which he rejects with a gesture of repulsion. It has been suggested that Kinoshita Keisuke intended The River Fuefuki as a counterpoint to the samurai epics of Kurosawa Akira: there is certainly a bitter irony in the film’s handling of the traditional relationship between the feudal lord and the people who work his land and fill his armies. The passionate insistence of  Sadehei and Okei’s oldest son, Sozo (Somegorō Ichikawa VI), upon absolute loyalty to the Takedas, to whom he declares they owe “everything”, is foregrounded even while the death and disaster that regularly strike the family emanate not from the lord’s enemies but the lord himself, and while that poor “everything” changes not one whit over decades. Visually, The River Fuefuki is a strange though striking work, with its monochromatic photography overlaid by dramatic splashes of colour apparently intended to evoke woodblock prints. Though in this way the film’s worst horrors are implied rather than shown, the technique sometimes has a distancing effect.

Black Caesar (1973)

As a teenager, Tommy Gibbs (Omer Jeffery) helps position a target for a hit, and is rewarded with a job as a runner for the local mob. However, when a payoff to corrupt cop Jack McKinney (Art Lund) is short, McKinney assumes Tommy has robbed him and beats the boy savagely, leaving him with a permanently injured leg. As a man, juvie and adult jail behind him, Tommy Gibbs (Fred Williamson) sets in motion a long-developed scheme to win a piece of the New York action. Preemptively executing the target of a mafia hit, Tommy carries evidence of his kill to Cardoza (Val Avery) and parlays it into a working partnership, receiving permission to take as his own turf a piece of Harlem that the mob has never succeeded in making profitable. From this beginning, and working with his childhood friends Joe Washington (Philip Roye) and “Reverend” Rufus (D’Urville Martin), Tommy grows his organisation until he has bases not only in New York, but in cities across the country. He then pulls his masterstroke, murdering a mob accountant and seizing the ledgers in which the dead man recorded decades of transactions—including those with Jack McKinney, now frontrunner for the position of police commissioner… The Caesar referenced in the title of this blaxploitation film isn’t “Julius”, but “Little”: written and directed by Larry Cohen, Black Caesar deliberately evokes the Warner Bros. gangster movies of the 1930s, but with the bonus of not having to pretend that it is about how crime doesn’t pay; rather, it contends that crime will pay very well indeed—as long as you are careful about who you screw over. As a blaxploitation film, this is an unusually uncompromising piece of work. Granted, some of the usual wish-fulfillment aspects are there, and we no less than audiences in 1973 can appreciate Tommy Gibbs’ carrot-and-stick approach to dealing with the repulsive McKinney – a massive bribe, backed up with a glimpse of the compromising ledgers – and his sweeping gesture of hiring as his lawyer Alfred Coleman (William Wellman Jr.), the son of the family for whom his mother (Minnie Gentry) still works as a maid, and then acquiring his apartment lock, stock and barrel. But once established, Tommy Gibbs is guilty of some truly repugnant behaviour by any standard, and the film acknowledges this unflinchingly. Tommy starts out promising to use the profits of his criminal enterprises for the betterment of Harlem, but in the end his “own people” prove to be just one more cash cow. Furthermore, while overtly it is his hubris in trying to dispose of the mafia family with whom he has been doing business that begins Tommy’s slide to ruin, in fact it is his treatment of his girlfriend, singer Helen Bradley (Gloria Hendry), that sets these wheels in motion. Sick and frightened by the escalating violence surrounding her, Gloria one night rejects Tommy’s sexual advances—but he is no longer a man who will take ‘no’ for an answer… Black Caesar is a much better film than most of its competitors, though one harder to just “enjoy”. Fred Williamson gives a powerful performance as Tommy, capturing both his charisma and his ruthlessness; and the supporting cast is solid. In addition, the film offers a soundtrack by James Brown, some striking location shooting in New York, and much of Larry Cohen’s trademark guerilla film-making: it is evident that some of the people participating in this film weren’t aware they were participating in this film. (On the other hand, threatened by some real local gangsters, Cohen evidently paid them off with bit-parts.) Two different endings exist for Black Caesar, though the more downbeat of them is now canon: in fighting with his more traditional enemies, the Sicilian mob and the Irish police force, Tommy Gibbs takes his eyes off the rising generation of black criminals…

Drunken Master (1978)

Though the son of a respected kung-fu master, Wong Fei-hung (Jackie Chan) spends his time avoiding formal training and looking for trouble with his friends. He finds it when he bets that he can trick an attractive girl into hugging and kissing him: he succeeds, only to have her older companion beat him soundly; and his embarrassment is even greater when he learns the two are his cousin and aunt. Sometimes, however, Fei-hung falls into trouble not of his own making: after defending a poor merchant against a defrauding customer, he is accused of attacking the man unprovoked by his father, businessman Li Man-hung (Fung King-man), who complains to Professor Wong Kei-ying (Dean Shek). In despair, Kei-ying makes the drastic decision to hand Fei-hung over for training to Beggar So (Yuen Siu-tin), the notorious “Drunken Master”… This early Jackie Chan comedy-drama is a strange film inasmuch as most of its characters are real figures from Chinese history and folklore: if you didn’t know, you couldn’t guess it from the way that they are presented here, and least of all Wong Fei-hung—who is, quite frankly, a bit of a shit over the first half of the film, both in his behaviour generally and the rather crass humour that infuses it; we are not particularly sorry when he takes several beatdowns from various people, including his own aunt (Linda Lin). Having run away from Beggar So and his extremely rough methods, Fe-hung encounters a passing kung-fu master (Hwang Jang-lee) who beats and humiliates him just for fun. At this point, the tone of Drunken Master shifts somewhat, with a broken Fei-hung crawling back to Beggar So to accept him as his master (cue training montage); while the film’s subsequent humour, usually built around conflicting fighting styles, becomes more organic to the plot. Finally Beggar So teaches Fei-hung the styles of the Eight Drunken Immortals – or at least, seven of them, with Fei-hung rejecting the “girly kung fu” of the one female Immortal (after having his butt handed to him by his aunt, you’d think he’d know better) – and just as well, too: when Wong Kei-ying defies Li Man-hung in the matter of a shady business deal, the latter hires professional assassin Yan Tie-xin to kill him. Nicknamed “Thunderleg” for his fatal Devil’s Kick, Tie-xin is also the man who taught Fei-hung his painful lesson… At this early stage of his career, Jackie Chan hasn’t quite got the balance right; though his future direction is clear enough. Partly as a result of this, Drunken Master is stolen by Yuen Siu-tin as Beggar So, whose unique kung-fu style is something we can all embrace—which is to say, he can’t fight unless he’s tanked up…

Haunting Fear (1990)

Based upon The Premature Burial by Edgar Allan Poe. Victoria Munroe (Brinke Stevens) suffers chronic insomnia due to her recurrent nightmares about her father’s death and her own phobic terror of being buried alive. Finding her asleep on the kitchen floor after a typically disrupted night, Victoria’s husband, Terry (Jay Richardson aka John Henry Richardson) insists that she make an appointment with her family’s doctor, to which Victoria reluctantly agrees. She keeps her promise despite her hostility towards Dr Carlton (Robert Clarke), who she suspects of involvement in the death of her father; he prescribes her sleeping pills which he hopes will also stop the nightmares. Meanwhile, Terry complains about his marital situation to his secretary, Lisa (Delia Sheppard), with whom he is having an affair. She points out wryly that whatever his difficulties, he can’t afford to leave Victoria. That night, Victoria takes her pills and settles down in hope of sleep, but soon wakes struggling for breath and then collapses. Terry summons Dr Carlton, who confirms that Victoria is dead—but as the men make arrangements for her lifeless body, Victoria’s mind screams that she is still alive… Written and directed by Fred Olen Ray, Haunting Fear is one of the odder manifestations of the 90s Poe revival, though one not without a few mild virtues. This is probably the meatiest role of Brinke Stevens’ career, and she is sympathetic as the beleaguered Victoria, who suffers terrors both self-inflicted and targeted; though of course she had to pay her dues, going full frontal within the first ten minutes. Gratuitous nudity is in fact the order of the day here, with Delia Sheppard stripping off to display Lisa’s taste for rough-ish sex, and Sherri Graham (aka Greta Carlson) appearing in one of those demeaning stand-around-topless bit parts. Transplanting its story to contemporary LA and casually ascribing its heroine’s terror of premature burial to events in a past life (!), Haunting Fear bolsters its central triangle with cameo appearances from Robert Quarry as a loan shark and Karen Black as a psychotherapist (the latter’s presence prompting a delightful visual allusion to Trilogy Of Terror during the film’s climax), in addition to the appearance of Robert Clarke. Meanwhile, Victoria’s bait-and-switch “death” allows for Michael Berryman as the world’s creepiest morgue attendant; while Jan-Michael Vincent gets top billing (!!) as Trent, the loan shark’s muscle, who while keeping an eye on Terry for his boss grows increasingly concerned for Victoria (a subplot that does not play out remotely as I expected). Desperate for money, Terry finally gives in to Lisa’s hints about disposing of his wife, with the two arranging for her to wake up in – as she thinks – a coffin; but their plan works a little too well, with a ragingly insane Victoria tearing herself free and seeking bloody vengeance…

The Haunting Of Morella (1990)

Based upon Morella by Edgar Allan Poe. In colonial America, Morella Locke (Nicole Eggert) is convicted of witchcraft, blasphemy and murder. Facing execution,  she curses her husband, Gideon (David McCallum), who denounced her… Seventeen years later, young lawyer Guy Chapman (Christopher Halsted) calls upon Gideon Locke with the legal papers pertaining to the inheritance of his daughter, Lenora (Nicole Eggert), who is soon to turn eighteen. Gideon refuses to let Chapman see Lenora, and turns him out of the house: his departure is observed by Lenora and her governess, Miss  Devereaux (Lana Clarkson). That night, when she retires, Lenora finds upon her bed an old diary of her father’s, in which he recounts his marriage to Morella: how she almost died when her daughter was born; how, as her health failed, her researches into the occult and the gaining of immortality became more desperate; how this search extended so far as the murder of a servant, so that she, Morella, could bathe in the girl’s blood; and how he prevented her attempt to sacrifice her infant daughter. Meanwhile, Coel Devereaux begins the dark work intended to raise Morella from the dead… More early-90s faux-Poe, this time brought to us by New Concorde and Jim Wynorski; and while this film evokes producer Roger Corman’s own Poe adaptations in such touches as its hallucination / dream sequences, its fiery climax and Gideon Locke’s glasses (Vinnie’s from The Tomb Of Ligeia), in plot it is closer to Bava’s Black Sunday, to which it also explicitly alludes. However, for the most part we’re a million miles away from those respectable and arty horrors. The Haunting Of Morella is an amusingly bifurcated film: its framework is played straight, with Morella’s gruesome execution (including having her eyes put out, thank you) setting up her return from the grave and her attempt to live again by possessing Lenora’s body; but this grim storyline is repeatedly interrupted by nudity, sex – straight and lesbian – and inappropriate underwear, in a manner that makes it impossible to take the rest seriously. It’s even hard to pick just one favourite absurdity: I’m torn between how Christopher Halsted manages to lose his clothing in the one second it takes for him to fall onto a bed, and Lana Clarkson’s push-up bra, which places her chest exactly at eye-level for the slight-of-stature Nicole Eggert. (Lenora and Miss Devereaux have to hug very carefully.) The Haunting Of Morella offers a number of enjoyably nasty moments, but that’s not what you remember when the film is done. I’m not sure how David McCallum ended up in this mess, but between them he and Jonathan Farwell as family friend Dr Gault add at least a little gravitas to the proceedings. Nicole Eggert tries hard in her dual role – she’s better as Morella than as Lenora – but she’s not a particularly good screamer and her delivery, to put it mildly, hardly suggests colonial times (“Gemme outta here!” Lenora shrieks when trapped in a mirror). Meanwhile, Lana Clarkson manages to keep a straight face whether embodying an “accomplished” governess, committing bloody murder for the benefit of her undead love, or cavorting naked under a waterfall with Maria Ford as history’s most unlikely maidservant (who apparently moonlights as a Victoria’s Secret model).

Lionheart (1990)

Lyon Gaultier (Jean-Claude Van Damme) of the French Foreign Legion belatedly receives word that his brother, Francois (Jason Adams aka Ash Adams), has been critically injured in Los Angeles. Gaultier’s request for leave is harshly denied, and a hostile confrontation ends with an attempt to confine him in “the box”—which in turn leads to Gaultier beating his guards, stealing a jeep, and going AWOL. Evading his pursuers, he escapes Djibouti and begins his journey to America working on a cargo ship. Furious, but anticipating his movements, Gaultier’s commanding officer (George McDaniel) sends two of his own men after him to bring him back… Emerging from below decks, Gaultier finds himself not in Los Angeles as promised, but arriving in New York. He escapes overboard and, penniless, must find some way not only to survive, but cross the country. An opportunity opens up for him when he stumbles into an underground fight ring… Obviously shaped to allow Jean-Claude Van Damme to stretch his repertoire, Lionheart is less successful and less fun than its predecessors, though it has its moments via a constant parade of fights that don’t, despite the film’s credentials, have much to do with martial arts. It does also have a few unexpected story touches: Lyon’s delayed trip to Los Angeles means that Francois is dead by the time he gets there; he then learns that the police caught the killers, which takes the expected revenge-plot off the table. This paves the way for some earnest emoting on JCVD’s part, with Lyon attempting to make contact with Francois’ widow, Hélène (Lisa Pelikan), and her young daughter, Nicole (Ashley Johnson), only to be harshly rejected—Hélène blaming him for no reason that is ever clear for Francois’ slide into the drug world. By this time Lyon has hooked up with sidekick / manager / friend / exploiter Joshua Eldridge (Harrison Page): he in turn brings him to the attention of Cynthia Caldera (Deborah Rennard), who brokers illegal fights for the edification of the wealthy – and bloodthirsty – elite. The arrangement makes significant money for both of them, most of Lyon’s going secretly to Hélène and Nicole, but it founders when Lyon rejects Cynthia’s sexual advances—she having conceived a letch for him after a single glance at Le Butt. Furious, she turns on Lyon and arranges what she intends will be his final fight, against the most dangerous possible opponent; and meanwhile, the pursuing Legionnaires are closing in… In its minutiae, Lionheart is more interesting and amusing than it probably intended: it offers, for example, no criticism of Lyon for going AWOL, thought at the time the FFL was engaged in the Gulf War; and I have to say, I agree with Lyon’s CO: why would someone for whom “family is everything” join the FFL in the first place!? The film evinces a solemnly headshaking attitude towards poverty and homelessness in the US, one totally undermined by the carefully dirty faces of the mother and daughter Lyon helps, who look like they’ve never missed a meal in their lives. The supporting cast of Lionheart includes Brian Thompson as Cynthia’s meaty offsider; Michel Qissi as one of the Legionnaires; his brother, Abdel, as Attila, Lyon’s final opponent; and the wonderfully named Clement von Franckenstein as a British fight enthusiast.

(More on this film in Moments.)

The Enemy Within (1994)

In Washington, Congress passes a bill that will increase the military budget by 30%—but when it is placed before President William Foster (Sam Waterston), he resists signing it… Colonel Lyle MacArthur Casey (Forest Whitaker), attached to the Joint Chiefs of Staff under General R. Pendleton Lloyd (Jason Robards Jr), is puzzled one morning by a subordinate’s mention of a betting-pool being run by the General on the NBA finals—and puzzlement turns to concern when a subsequent conversation with Lloyd indicates that he has no interest in the sport. Taking an opportunity to investigate, Casey discovers that the alleged betting-pool involves only those in the very highest echelons of the government and the military. His suspicions growing, Casey follows his leads to discover also a covert military “exercise” planned between the military and the CIA, with ten times the usual troop involvement, planned for the following weekend, and a requisition for both live ammunition and chemical weapons. In increasing fear, Casey follows Lloyd one day and glimpses him in a private meeting with Secretary of Defense Charles Potter (Josef Sommer) and other members of the Cabinet. Recognising that time is running out, Casey uses his old friendship with Betsy Corcoran (Dana Delaney), William Foster’s Chief of Staff, to carry his suspicions to the President… Based upon the novel by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II, and the screenplay by Rod Serling, The Enemy Within is an updated and rather superficial re-make of 1964’s Seven Days In May: one adjusted for the political realities of the 90s, and losing much of its impact along the way. The film lacks the gravity and the sense of creeping paranoia that mark its forerunner, with Casey finding out everything far too quickly and easily; while the failure at the outset to establish a relationship between Casey and Lloyd beyond the merely professional means that it never feels like the former has much personally at stake in his decision to reveal the conspiracy to the President. Meanwhile, we are left uncertain about the competing legitimacies of William Foster’s stance on the military funding and General Lloyd’s assertion that his policies are leaving the country “undefended”. Foster is finally a rather shadowy figure, lacking the moral imperative of his cinematic predecessor—which I suppose is one of the 90s “realities”: he barely reacts to the suspiciously timed death of the Attorney General (Lawrence Pressman), and frankly seems as concerned with his own political survival as the wider implications of the conspiracy. Likewise, though the conspirators’ exploitation of a loophole in the Constitution is one of the genuinely interesting changes here, the accompanying alteration to the underlying threat, from an outright military coup to the straightforward replacement of one government with another, takes away the narrative’s central contradiction of “defending the nation” by violating everything that nation is supposed to stand for. Indeed, given the nature of the plan, the massive military exercise seems unnecessary, and the threat of chemical weapons, just piling on. Eschewing most of the intellectual thrills of its model, The Enemy Within instead puts its energy into trying to turn Forest Whitaker into an action hero, with chase scenes and gun-play and Casey, once his “defection” to William Foster becomes evident, in imminent danger of his life. He manages to survive an outright attempt at murder, but emerges with very little left to lose—which is just too bad for the conspirators… Casey’s plan for spiking Lloyd’s guns is certainly the best thing about The Enemy Within, and perhaps leaves the viewer thinking more kindly of it than it deserves. The film also features Dakin Matthews as the duplicitous Vice-President, Isabel Glasser as a double agent, and an oddly cast George Dzundza as a Russian operative who for reasons of his country’s own lends Casey some vital assistance. That said, it occurs to me that the real hero here is the weaselly lieutenant who tells Lloyd a lie out of pure self-interest, and so paves the way for Casey’s retaliatory strike…

Haunted School (1995)

Based upon Gakkō no Kaidan by Toru Tsunemitsu; original title: Gakkō no Kaidan (School Ghost Stories). At the Ichogaoka School, a janitor is bothered by a series of seeming prank calls from a girl called Mary, who despite the storm outside claims to be drawing ever nearer. When she says she is in the corridor, the puzzled janitor makes the mistake of going to see for himself… As the students gather on the last day of term before the summer break, one group of friends recounts the various rumours of a haunting in the school, frightening young Mika (Yonezawa Shiori). Meanwhile, Kazuo (Machida Shohei) refuses to attend the school at all, claiming that the presence of ghosts makes him sick and headachey: he asks his twin, Hitoshi (Machida Kohei), to bring his report card home…but not to look at it. In the schoolyard, a group of boys playing with a ball accidentally break a clay idol and rush away so that they will not be blamed. When the students of fifth-grade teacher Komukai Shinichi (Nomura Hironobu) enter their classroom, they see what appears to be a bloody handprint on the ceiling and shriek at this seeming evidence of the haunting; but it turns out to be a prank by Shota (Tsukada Junichiro). After school, Aki (Touyama Masumi) takes offence when his sister Mika remarks tactlessly on his academic struggles and his failure to make friends: he therefore refuses to accompany her when she must return for a forgotten paintbox. On her way back through the empty school, Mika stops short at the sight of a ball bouncing by itself. It leads her towards, and then into, the old, now-abandoned wing of the school, where she hears the sound of a girl’s laughter… One of my – infinite – areas of interest is the sudden explosion of genre films that occurred in Japan in the mid-1990s; and while I am always wary of proclaiming anything “the first”, it seems to me that what would eventually be a tidal wave in its impact upon world cinema began with the mild ripples of Hirayama Hideyuki’s Haunted School. As a horror movie, this is a PG-ish outing aimed at an audience about the same age as its young characters: it is soon clear that although they will have numerous terrifying experiences, none of them – or almost none of them – will really be threatened or fail to emerge from their ordeal; while some of the ghostly manifestations that they encounter, particularly a cartoony, Ghostbusters-lite demon, seem intended to amuse rather than frighten. The film does offer a few nastier entities, though, namely a forest of clay hands, an animated anatomical model (ew!), and the mutated spider-janitor-thing that comes closest to ending the youngsters’ adventures…and the youngsters. Progressively, Aki, who is guiltily looking for Mika, Shota and his equally troublemaking friend Kensuke (Atsuta Hajime), Hitoshi and Mr Komukai become trapped in the abandoned building, where they also encounter sixth-grader Kaori (Okamoto Aya). With danger closing in, they must all search desperately for a means of escape… Though the focus of Haunted School is on its spooks and the children, we also notice some tacit criticism of the adults in its society. Mr Komukai turns out to be almost useless in a crisis; fathers are entirely absent; and mothers too distracted to even notice when their children don’t come home. Only Yumiko (Sugiyama Ayako), Kensuke’s mother, finally takes a hand—and she is not only, we gather, a single parent but something of a rebel, in that she belongs to the Japanese equivalent of a bikie gang (i.e. they ride around on scooters). However, it finally falls on young Kazuo to rescue his brother and the others by finding a way to lay the ghosts…

(Does anyone know the significance of watermelons in Japanese ghost stories?? This has one, just like Hausu.)

The Haunting Of Helen Walker (1995)

Based upon The Turn Of The Screw by Henry James. Young widow Helen Walker (Valerie Bertinelli) is hired by Edward Goffe (Paul Rhys) as governess for his orphaned nephew and niece—though on condition that he is not to be contacted or in anyway bothered about anything to do with them. Helen is delighted with Bly Manor, the family’s country estate, and charmed by young Flora (Florence Hoath). The housekeeper, Mrs Grose (Diana Rigg), tells Helen that Miles (Aled Roberts), two years his sister’s senior, is away at school; though oddly, Flora insists that he will soon be home. As the three move towards the house, Helen is startled by what seems to be a man watching her from inside; though a moment later she concludes that it was only her own reflection. While being shown around by Flora, Helen loses track of the girl and finds herself in a room obviously occupied by a man: its contents suggest he has just stepped away, yet everything is covered in dust. A letter arrives from Miles’ school announcing his expulsion on the grounds that he is a corrupting influence. Mrs Grose’s angry indignation prompts Helen to treat the matter as she does, and she asks no questions of the boy. That night, while writing in her room, Helen is frightened by the reflection of a man in her mirror—but when she looks around, only Miles is there… Though its framework remains intact, The Haunting Of Helen Walker rejects the ambiguities of Henry James’ famous novella for a straightforward ghost story—and ironically enough, in doing so strips itself of any but the mildest jump-scares. The colour cinematography doesn’t help in this respect, but Tom McLoughlin’s direction is largely without subtlety, showing the spooks too clearly and in a way that actually lessens their impact. Valerie Bertinelli’s American-ness is jarring here and while we are provided with a justifying background, that too is part of the problem, as it presents Helen as too grounded to be doubted. The manifestations begin early, and in seeking an explanation Helen learns about the household’s previous governance under the uncultured valet, Peter Quint (Christopher Guard), his not-so-secret affair with the children’s governess, Miss Jessel (Elizabeth Morton aka Elizabeth Heery), and the untimely demise of both—the former in an apparently accidental fall, the latter a suicide soon after. Horrified by what she discovers of the couple’s influence over the children in life, Helen soon becomes convinced that this influence persists after death… Though The Haunting Of Helen Walker never has the impact we might wish, it does have some good and creepy moments—in particular the apparent interaction of Flora and the ghost of Miss Jessel by the lake, a scene that captures some of the desired ambiguity. Florence Hoath is very good as Flora, but Aled Roberts is an uncomfortable Miles—though I blame the way he is directed, coming across always as “a little man” (and with distractingly plummy upper-class accents) and never as a child, least of all a “charming” one. Diana Rigg manages to put some shadings into her performance as Mrs Grose; Michael Gough shows up as Barnaby the groundskeeper, and Alun Armstrong as the butler; while Bly Manor is played by Englefield House.

(In the interests of fair disclosure I should mention that The Innocents is one of my favourite films—and that consequently, any other adaptation is probably on a hiding to nothing.)

Mindhunters (2004)

As part of their assessment for becoming criminal profilers for the FBI, the students of eccentric section head Jake Harris (Val Kilmer) are required to investigate and secure a pre-prepared “crime scene”; with partnered-up J. D. Reston (Christian Slater) and Sara Moore (Kathryn Morris) making several serious errors and ending up “dead”. At Quantico, Harris is scathingly critical of his trainees, a group that also includes Lucas Harper (Jonny Lee Miller), Rafe Perry (Will Kemp), Bobby Whitman (Eion Bailey), Nicole Willis (Patricia Velásquez), who is secretly in a relationship with J. D., and Vince Sherman (Clifton Collins Jr), who is a paraplegic. Harris tells them that there will be one more exercise before their final assessment, with the group being sent to an isolated island ordinarily used for military training, but which he is able to borrow one weekend a year. Comprising a fake town and fake people, the island will be set up as the hunting-ground of a serial killer, with the trainees expected to analyse crime scenes and then assess, track and catch the killer. As they set out by helicopter, the group is annoyed and suspicious at being accompanied by Gabe Jensen (LL Cool J), who tells them that he is there simply to observe Harris’s teaching methods. The exercise begins grimly with the discovery of a dead cat with a pocket watch in its mouth. The trainees then locate the first “crime scene” and begin their analysis—only to have everything go immediately, horribly wrong, when one of the group is gruesomely killed by a bizarre death-trap… I wasn’t aware until I saw the end credits that Mindhunters was directed by Renny Harlin, but after that, it all made sense—or perhaps I should more correctly say, all the pieces fell into place. Basically what we have here is Saw meets Criminal Minds—with a screenplay not above pinching specific scenarios from the latter, while the characters use their alleged profiling skills to try – and mostly fail – to determine who amongst them is knocking together the Rube Goldberg-esque death-traps by which the herd is being thinned. Whether you can get any enjoyment out of this depends on how good you are at shutting down any critical faculty: this is an amazingly dumb film full of amazingly dumb people who like to hang around where they KNOW a death-trap is about to be sprung instead of just, oh I don’t know, going outside and staying in a group until help arrives. Personally I found the film’s anti-intellectualism tiresome, but if you can put aside any requirement for logic or credibility or just plain common sense, you might get some amusement out of the sight of Quantico’s best and brightest acting as stupidly as any bunch of stoned teenagers. Not one of the characters here is believable as a hardened law enforcement officer – which in the case of Kathryn Morris makes her consistent, if nothing else – while even more than its model, Mindhunters pushes the idea that criminal profiling allows for the prediction of what a given individual will do in a given situation—allowing the killer to tailor each death-trap to its intended victim. As the body-count rises, so does the level of paranoia…making the death-traps less and less necessary… In addition to its overarching issues, Mindhunters is guilty of bait-and-switch casting in the brief appearances of Val Kilmer and Christian Slater, and of a surfeit of that blue filter that was almost inescapable in the Oughts. The most interesting thing about the film is its initial setting, which is apparently a real military training facility in the Netherlands, where it was mostly shot. Unfortunately, the action soon shifts from this real-fake setting to the twisty underground sets from which the characters must try to escape. Indeed, the film’s superficial resemblance to Deep Blue Sea has been widely noted, with the cast getting picked off one by one in gruesome ways, and LL Cool J (co-billed here under his real name of James Todd Smith) dodging all the bullets that pop-cultural experience teaches should have been meant just for him. That alone should tell you whether or not this is a film for you; and while the absence of genetically modified killer sharks damned Mindhunters for me, I was able to amuse myself with such details as a facility used one weekend a year having a state-of-the-art DNA analyser in the basement…

Off The Beaten Path (2004)

Aspiring film-maker Chuck Stevens (Todd Hanson), accompanied by his best friend / cameraman, Randy Bodine (Tommy Thompson), and his girlfriend, Dina Duncan (Carrie Sizemore), sets out for the town of Gateway in rural Minnesota to investigate local stories of murder, missing persons and strange phenomena at some abandoned cabins in the woods. At a local bar, the three meet up with Brenda Jacobs (Jessie Welsch), a freelance writer who alerted Chuck to the situation. As they drive towards the woods, Brenda tells the others about Jasper Hagan, a satanist who performed sacrifices in the woods until lynched by the locals, and about a family that ignored the warnings and built cabins on the site—and the slaughter that followed. When the group finds occult symbols in a clearing where the bodies of two hitchhikers were once found, Brenda gets cold feet and wants to go back; but Chuck, Randy in tow, insists on going to the cabins… Off The Beaten Path is a found-footage horror whose micro-budget (some $1500, apparently) finally defeats its ambition—though it certainly has ambition and is to be commended for that. The film is curiously structured, opening with the usual “this video was found” disclaimer, positioning its Heather Donahue Moment^TM up-front, and then cutting to conventional credits: from there the film toggles between the footage filmed by the characters, standard objective shooting and a third, distorted perspective that we might think of as The Presence…because (as the film’s tagline puts it) in Gateway, the legends are true. What Off The Beaten Path has going for it chiefly is its brevity—and I don’t just mean that in the obvious nasty way: clocking in at only 65 minutes, the film lacks the 15-20 minutes of general asshole-ism that so many of these things use to pad out their running time and that makes them such a punish to sit through (and yes, I am looking at you, Blackwood Evil); which in turn makes it a lot easier to appreciate what it is trying to do. On the other hand, the brevity also makes this production feel more like a work-in-progress than a completed film, and there are some obvious holes—like the question of why Brenda, who arranged this in the first place, is so quick to change her mind. (By the time it occurs to Chuck and Randy that she might have set them up, a point that could have been fruitfully explored, the viewer already knows what is really happening.) Off The Beaten Path manages a couple of decent jump-scares, but the rest is too obvious to be effective, including the makeup on the climactic ghouls. Also, what we have here are non-actors working without a script, with predictable results. Amusingly, the film’s best performance comes from production assistant Chris Prew, who in his one scene as a passing jogger is so convincing, it emphasises the failed efforts of the main cast to “act natural”.

From Time To Time (2009)

Based upon The Chimneys Of Green Knowe by Lucy M. Boston. December, 1944. With his father reported missing in action and his mother struggling, Toseland “Tolly” Oldknow (Alex Etel) is sent to stay in the country with his grandmother (Maggie Smith) at the centuries-old family estate of Green Knowe. Tolly is hostile at first, aware of the estrangement between his grandmother and his father over the latter’s marriage; but soon he and Mrs Oldknow make peace. Unknown to Tolly, in addition to her fears for her son’s fate, Mrs Oldknow is facing the inevitable loss of Green Knowe, being unable to keep up with the expenses of running the estate. Tolly, meanwhile, begins to learn something of his family’s history, in particular the story of Captain Thomas Oldknow (Hugh Bonneville), his wife, Maria (Carice van Houten), and their children, Susan (Eliza Hope Bennett) and Sefton (Douglas Booth)—the latter his own lineal ancestor. One night, Tolly is astonished and rather frightened when he is suddenly confronted by a girl of his own age and a younger black boy, both dressed in the clothing of at least a century before. Experiencing soon afterwards a second such vision, Tolly discovers that he is able to cross over to the early 19th century, and participate in his own family’s history… Based upon one of a series of young-adult fantasy novels by Lucy Boston, the setting of which was based upon her own family home, From Time To Time is a film whose component parts can be enjoyed, but which ultimately has too many holes to be really successful. What starts out looking like a ghost story quickly becomes a time-travel narrative, with Tolly shifting back-and-forth between his own time period of the 1940s and Regency England, where he befriends Susan Oldknow, who is aware of him in spite of her blindness, and her young companion / guide, Jacob (Kwayedza Kureya). The question of who can see the ghosts – if, in this scenario, they are ghosts – and who cannot, and why, and Tolly’s ability to shift, are never really explained by the screenplay by Julian Fellowes, who also directed; and we are frankly left feeling it’s all just a little too convenient when Tolly is able to solve the great mystery in his family’s past, to the immediate benefit of that family’s present. The overall tone of the film is also a little uncertain: it is tough-minded enough to serve up one Christmas miracle but not two during its climax, and it is grimly realistic about the fates of a number of its characters; though on the other hand, if dead people are able simply to choose not to go, where (to coin a phrase) is the sting? However, as I say, the film is still very much worth watching. As with so many British dramas, the production design of From Time To Time and its sense of time and place are immaculate, and its cast – which also includes Timothy Spall, Pauline Collins, Harriet Walter and Dominic West – is a real pleasure. There’s also a lovely time-paradox bit, in the subplot involving Tolly’s torch. Much of the film was shot at Athelhampton Hall in Dorset.

Invictus (2009)

Based upon Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation by John Carlin. On 11th February 1990, Nelson Mandela (Morgan Freeman) is released from prison. For some in South Africa, this is the beginning of new hope; for others, the beginning of the end… In 1994, with black South Africans able to vote for the first time, Mandela is swept to power. In spite of the jubilation of his followers, the new President recognises the magnitude of the job ahead of him, in attempting to heal a profoundly divided country. Seeking for a point of reconciliation, he finds it when he intervenes in a vote by the council of the African National Congress against the South African national rugby union team, the Springboks, which many consider a lingering symbol of apartheid. Though sympathetic to the impulse, Mandela argues that taking their team away from white South Africa would be a backwards, divisive step. Though, like most black South Africans, he has little personal interest in a sport from which black players were rigidly excluded, Mandela begins to ponder the possibilities of the upcoming rugby union World Cup—and as the first step in a year-long plan, invites to a presidential tea François Pienaar (Matt Damon), captain of the struggling Springboks… I have to say, I have always considered Invictus an unlikely American film—dealing with a form of international competition in which that nation rarely participates, and with a game that in its full, fifteen-a-side form, is a relatively minor presence in its sporting pantheon. There are, moreover, certain key details missing from the screenplay by Anthony Peckham, including the fact that when South Africa was granted the hosting rights of the 1995 World Cup in acknowledgement of the dismantling of apartheid, the country was just emerging from a decades-long ban from international sporting competition, with the Springboks consequently at their lowest-ever ebb—making their victory even more improbable. Invictus is indeed one of the great triumph-of-the-underdog sporting films, rich in the best of that genre’s ability to draw in even those viewers who might know nothing and/or care less about sport generally or this one in particular. It is also a fascinating dissection of the nexus between sport and politics, and of the power of sport to effect real social change. Though the film gives us as much as we need of the transition of power and the realities faced by the new South African government, it keeps its focus on the shifting fortunes of the Springboks as they slowly embrace their unlikely destiny and find a way to rise to the occasion in spite of the terrifying reality of carrying, literally, the weight of a nation. My main criticism of Invictus is that, as presented, it’s all a little bit too neat and clean: we don’t doubt that there was a lot more pushback, a lot more ugliness, along the way. Nevertheless, as an exercise in capturing a moment, it’s exemplary. The film of course offered the role of a lifetime to Morgan Freeman, here in his third collaboration with Clint Eastwood, and he inhabits Mandela to such an extent, he barely seems to be acting. Matt Damon, meanwhile, though not really physically suitable for the part of François Pienaar, also does an excellent job in conveying the latter’s shifting perceptions of his country and his progressive acceptance of his own power to effect change. The final phase of Invictus consists predominantly of well-staged re-enactments of the games that carried the Springboks to the World Cup final, and to an unavoidable meeting with world sport’s most unstoppable force: the mid-1990s All Blacks…

(Ahem. NOT my code, so I can allow myself to snicker a little at (i) the Springboks cleaning up the Wallabies in their opening World Cup match – the latter falling on their swords for the sake of history, as I’m quite sure they retcon it – and (ii) the film-makers having to find a way to craft a gripping climax out of a tryless final…)

Red Riding: The Year Of Our Lord 1980 (2009)

Based upon the novels by David Peace. After a thirteenth woman falls victim to the so-called “Yorkshire Ripper”, Bill Malloy (Warren Clarke) is removed as head of the investigation for his inappropriately sympathetic comments directed at the killer. It is also decided that a new investigation is needed—not just into the killer, but the conduct of the West Yorkshire Metropolitan Police. Appointed to head it is Assistant Chief Constable Peter Hunter (Paddy Considine) of the Manchester Police, who has history with the WYMP after also inquiring into the unsolved massacre at the Karachi Club some five years before. Hunter requests as his assistants detectives John Nolan (Tony Pitts) and Helen Marshall (Maxine Peake); though the situation is complicated by Hunter and Marshall’s recent brief affair, bitterly regretted on his part. It is soon evident to Hunter that his investigation of the Karachi Club shootings is held against him, and that he and his team can expect only hostility and obstruction from the local police. Regardless, the three settle into the monumental job of re-examining the thirteen confirmed “Ripper” murders—and a fourteenth on the WYMP list that they realise does not fit the pattern… In using as its framework the well-known case of the Yorkshire Ripper, Red Riding: The Year Of Our Lord 1980 is a more accessible film than its predecessor, 1974; but at the same time, its blending of fact and fiction is discomforting for reasons beyond the nature of the subject matter. The screenplay by Tony Grisoni changes the names of the Ripper’s victims and the police officers involved alike, also fictionalising the latter; however, those areas in which the (real) WYMP was subsequently criticised most stringently by the (real) Byford Report into the conduct in the case remain, including the prevailing attitude of the police towards the prostitute-victims—with the clear suggestion that the murders were only taken seriously once Peter Sutcliffe (Joseph Mawle) began killing “respectable women” (the phrase was even used). Other fatal missteps, including the inexplicable faith placed in the hoax “Wearside Jack” tapes, are also referenced. This exposure of the police’s real-life failings is blended rather queasily into the film’s fictional scenario, with the implication here that the police might have gotten further with the Ripper investigation had not so much of their time and energy been going simultaneously into covering up their own malfeasance, and with the climactic events of 1974 forming the backstory to 1980. Peter Hunter’s investigation into the Karachi Club killings was a failure for reasons that the viewer understands even better than he does; and this only fuels his determination that history will not repeat. Despite the dogged lack of help from the locals, Hunter and his team soon single out the murder of Clare Strachan (Kelly Freemantle) as anomalous. Meeting first with young male prostitute B. J. (Robert Sheehan), then with police widow Elizabeth Hall (Julia Ford), Hunter learns of a prostitution and pornography ring that extends deep into the WYMP… The atmosphere of violence and corruption established by 1974 finds no relief in 1980, if anything on the contrary: the greater use of real-life material makes it even harder for viewers to place distance between themselves and the narrative. With all his good intentions, Peter Hunter makes for an exasperatingly flawed protagonist, not least because he fails to absorb the lesson that the audience has already taken to heart—namely, that you really can’t trust anyone…

Pagpag: 9 Lives (2013)

Original title: Pagpag: Siyam na Buhay. Leni (Kathryn Bernardo) attempts to keep her family’s funeral business running with the dubious assistance of her frequently drunken uncle, Dencio (Janus del Prado), and his equally unreliable friend, Marcelo (Marvin Yap); while she also cares for her adopted young brother, Macmac (Clarence Delgado), who is non-vocal. While running errands, Leni is nearly struck by the car of Cedric (Daniel Padilla), who is immediately smitten by her. Leni and the others are called out into the country to make arrangements for a wake, though Dencio warns that no-one else wants the job because of rumours that the dead man was possessed. While working, Leni hears from young widow Lucy (Shaina Magdayao) about the tragedies that have ruined her life: the loss of her infant son, the burning of her home, and now the death of her husband from injuries sustained in the fire. Dencio and Marcelo, meanwhile, are upbraided by Lucy’s older sister, Eva (Matet de Leon), for violating several traditional practices associated with a wake. Leni finally sends the two away while she finishes up and, while waiting for her ride, has a second vehicular encounter with Cedric, this time accompanied by his friends Hannah (Michelle Vito), Rico (Dominic Roque), Ashley (Miles Ocampo) and Justin (C. J. Navato). The young people, too, fall foul of Eva for their ignorance of various taboos; while, when Leni gets home, Dencio scolds her for coming directly and so violating Pagpag—not stopping to “shake off the dust” of the wake, so that the spirit of the dead will not know where to find her… Pagpag: 9 Lives is a flawed but interesting horror movie that makes good use of Filipino traditions and superstitions, though its plot ultimately rests upon a solid Catholic base of faith, prayer and holy water. The film’s main failure is evident in that synopsis: it is overpopulated by young people who spend all their screentime proving that Filipino teenagers can be just as obnoxious as their American movie counterparts, if not more so; and really, there is no need for Cedric to be as much of an unlikable jerk as he is over the film’s first half, even if this is to set up his redemption through his feelings for Leni. (Mind you, Leni’s bright perkiness and nervous giggling while dealing with Lucy are almost as grating.) It is also outrageous that the selfish, drunken, unreliable Dencio gets to lecture Leni about her failings, her ignorance of tradition—although as it turns out he too has transgressed so, you know… Though in essence this is a supernatural slasher movie, with the characters being stalked and gruesomely killed by an undead assailant, the framework of Pagpag: 9 Lives offers something deeper and more intriguing—and indeed, a much more interesting story lurks within the overt one: that of Lucy and her husband, Roman (Paulo Avelino), and their increasingly desperate attempts to push the reset button on their lives after tragedy strikes. Roman’s inability to accept the death of his baby son leads him into a pact with the devil and the taking of nine lives—only to be thwarted at the last moment. When Roman’s own death follows, the violation of Pagpag offers him and Lucy a second chance to reclaim their lives—but only via another nine deaths… There is plenty in Pagpag: 9 Lives that doesn’t make much sense, but for the most part it is still an enjoyable horror outing. While their characters needed more work, Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla are effective as Leni and Cedric; though in the end, it is Shaina Magdayao as Lucy who really makes an impact.

Amish Witches: The True Story Of Holmes County (2016)

A documentary crew – producer Conor (Nicole Rodenburg), production assistant A. J. (Amanda Jane Stern), audio engineer Dave (Troy Curtis) and cameraman Will (Chase Conner) – travels to Ohio to meet with a contact within the reclusive Swartzentruber Amish community. Isaac (Caleb Carlson) explains that they are thought to be researching a book and must hide their cameras except within the houses of the young women who have given permission for filming. Esther (Hayley Palmaer) is excited to be involved, but her cousin Ruthie (Evangeline Young) is wary and uncertain. The crew are still explaining their technology when an outcry comes from a house nearby, followed by the ringing of a bell: Rebecca Swartzentruber, the grandmother of Esther and Ruthie, long shunned by her community as a Brauchau, or witch, has died… Along with Rebecca’s apprentice, Iva (Kaylyn Scardefield), and another cousin, newcomer Katie Ann (Michelle Young), Esther and Ruthie are preparing the body for burial when the arrival of the Bishop (David Winning) sends the crew into hiding: they overhear the stern ruling that Rebecca must have a “black funeral” in unconsecrated ground. Almost immediately, the young women begin being plagued by strange events—and the cameras are there to capture it… Amish Witches is a found-footage Lifetime movie, so caveat emptor on both accounts. Its main achievement is a universal sense of confusion, extending from its initial premise, which hardly holds up under scrutiny and is in any case immediately abandoned, to its climactic disaster, which implies things that evidently didn’t happen, to its twist-upon-twist ending. Overlying all this, we have the question of what we’re actually watching: presumably a patched-together documentary released as a means of “explanation”—as per Paranormal Activity, which this film leans on very heavily, from its planted cameras and distorting images to a standing-by-the-bed interlude. Ultimately Amish Witches fails where so many of these things do: the “documentary” never looks like a documentary, the ubiquity of the “hidden” cameras is absurd, and the musical score accompanying its “scary” moments thoroughly undermines any sense of reality. Those moments, too, are few and far between, with much more anticipation and “Did you hear that?” / “Did you see that?” panicking than payoff. Finally, the film never convinces us that we are watching real Amish people, least of all reclusive ones—from their improbable ease with the strangers and their technology, to their casual speech patterns, to their sparkly-new clothing, which looks exactly like what it is, a series of costumes. The actual plot of Amish Witches turns on whether the events that torment the young women after the death of Rebecca are real or faked and, in either case, who is responsible. On one hand we have Iva, who has faced shunning to learn from Rebecca, insisting impatiently that a Brauchau is simply a healer, a practitioner of natural medicine; on the other, we watch Esther secretly curing a sick baby through the laying-on of hands. Meanwhile, conventional Ruthie’s disapproval of the strangers and fear of the Bishop isolate her from her companions including newcomer Katie Ann, who no-one knows much about—not even if she is Katie Ann…

Disappearance At Clifton Hill (2019)

Briefly separated from her family during an outing near Niagara Falls, seven-year-old Abby (Mikayla Radan) witnesses the brutal abduction of a facially disfigured boy a few years older than herself… When their mother dies, Abby (Tuppence Middleton) and her sister, Laure (Hannah Gross), learn that they have inherited her motel in the Clifton Hill district of Niagara Falls—and that, before her death, she arranged its sale to locate magnate Charles Lake III (Eric Johnson). Though Hannah is satisfied, Abby is distraught by the loss of what was their childhood home and resists signing the paperwork. While going through some of her mother’s things, Abby finds photographs of the long-ago day on the river, triggering buried memories of the boy’s abduction; she also discovers that they may have accidentally captured an image of one of the kidnappers. Abby tries to talk to her sister about it, but though Laure remembers her story of “the one-eyed boy”, she dismisses it as just a story—one of many told by Abby over the years. However, Laure’s husband, Marcus (Noah Reid), agrees to accompany Abby to the police station when she insists on reporting the abduction. Seeing that she is not believed, Abby resolves to pursue the matter herself. Her first stop is the library where, in newspapers from the time, she finds stories about the disappearance and presumed suicide of a thirteen-year-old boy… Disappearance At Clifton Hill is a complex thriller that is almost wilful in its refusal to play out as the viewer might expect—not always to the film’s benefit. Drawing upon his own childhood memories (and one wonders about his identification with the troubled Abby), writer-director Albert Shin sets his narrative in and around Niagara Falls, but with deliberate perversity not only refrains from showing the falls at all, but presents the region as cold, rain-swept and depressing and the Clifton Hill district as a tawdry tourist trap. Against this unexpected background, Abby stubbornly pursues her personal investigation in an attempt to make sense of her traumatising childhood memories. Along the way she encounters resistance from the impatient, sceptical Laure, growing hostility from Charlie Lake, and encouragement from Walter Bell (David Cronenberg [!]), one of a family of divers involved in salvage and body-recovery in the violent waters, but whose personal hobbies are local history and conspiracy theories. Having determined that “the one-eyed boy” was likely Alex Moulin, the son of professional magicians, “the Magnificent Moulins” (Marie-Josée Croze, Paulino Nunes), Abby researches them and their entourage and, in a promotional video from many years before, recognises one of the Moulins’ animal trainers as the presumed kidnapper from her photograph… To this point, Disappearance At Clifton Hill is an engaging amateur-detective thriller, but from here its narrative fractures, with Abby’s increasingly reckless behaviour accompanied by revelations about her past and her long struggle with her mental health—which, I may say, I found uncomfortable inasmuch as the latter is never really explored, but rather used just to call her credibility into question. Furthermore, Abby’s status as unreliable narrator becomes embedded in a growing sense of unreliable everything, with the pieces of the puzzle refusing to fit together and an ending that deliberately undermines much of what we’ve been watching. There are some good things in this film, including Tuppence Middleton’s committed performance as Abby and the unfamiliarity of its settings, but overall the late-story evocation of “smoke and mirrors” is a little too appropriate for comfort.

(I am both intrigued and amused by the way in which, in spite of the technological revolution, films like this continue to rely upon video, film photography and – yes! – newspapers on microfiche…)