THE REVEREND’S REVIEW
FT’s resident man of the cloth REVEREND PETER LAWS dons his dog collar and faces the flicks that Church forgot!
How’s this for a plot? “Joan Collins gives an unforgettable performance as a stripper cursed by a sinister dwarf to give birth to a demonic child.” Yes, 1975’s The Monster (aka
I Don’t Want to Be Born) has reached Blu-ray (Network, £12.99), and it’s an absolute hoot. Where else can you see a baby transform into “Hercules” the dwarf and punch or drown adults directly from his crib? Donald Pleasence is a concerned doctor who tells Collins that despite her baby’s homicidal tendencies, it’s “a bit early” to get the psychiatrists in. Ralph Bates plays the husband with an utterly pointless (yet strangely amusing) Italian accent. Watch out for the many location scenes of London.
The commentary says these were put in to pad out the running time, but they end up offering a fabulous window on the period. Kids’ TV presenter Floella Benjamin even appears in her first ever role. She kindly tweeted me about the film, saying what a “great experience” it was to work with Joan Collins, even if it was in a scene where a possessed baby grins at her with his mother’s blood dripping from his lips. I wonder if that’s what inspired Floella to join the cast of Play School the following year.
For a classic horror fix, try The Dark Eyes of London (Bluray, Network, £12.99). Bela Lugosi plays a mad scientist who becomes a serial killer as part of an insurance racket. Tame by today’s standards it might be, but in 1939 the film was the first to receive the ‘H’ for Horrific certificate in the UK. It has various sadistic scenes of murder, which prompted the Catholic Legion of Decency to condemn it for its “excessive brutality and gruesomeness”. Which is probably the reason you’re thinking of watching it.
Some films don’t attempt to be scary... but end up frightening viewers anyway. Like The Singing Ringing Tree, which has been described as the “scariest kid’s TV show ever”. This 1957 German fairy tale epic (Blu-ray, Network, £12.99) is actually quite a charming story of a young Prince winning the hand of a princess by procuring her greatest desire... a tree that can sing. Yet the sheer weirdness of presentation creeped English audiences out back in the day. The vivid colour palate and studio sets do create an atmosphere of magical claustrophobia, and the characters are rather cruel at times. Yet I wonder if 1960s kids were simply scared of the strangely foreign feel of it all. Whether it was xenophobia or not, something has combined with the hauntological aspects of “old TV”, turning what was designed as a heart-warming family experience into the type of film one probably should not watch while on drugs.
Room for one more? Terrified (Blu-ray, Acorn, £12.99) is an Argentinian horror presented under the ‘Shudder Original’ banner which features not just a haunted house, but an entire haunted street. Bargain! I found it to be creepy and unique with some well-crafted scares.
Donald Pleasence thinks it’s “a bit early” to get the psychiatrists in