THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)

Day #I've stopped counting to be honest.

Whilst whistling a jaunty yet unfamiliar tune as I shaved myself in the igloo mirror this morning, I couldn't help feeling a sense of foreboding, a sense that something just... wasn't quite right. I looked at my reflection peering out at me through the grubby glass and noticed a small cut on my upper lip. Carefully, I dabbed it with my handkerchief. My reflection didn't, and continued to whistle that unfamiliar tune. Then I realised why the tune was so unfamiliar and I had that sense of foreboding - I can't whistle!

I was given no opportunity to ponder this fact however, as my reflection stuck a fist out of the mirror and punched me square in the face, round about where my nose used to be. "Here's something that doesn't happen every day." I remember thinking to myself as I collapsed unconscious on the floor.

When I came to I was strapped to my bed with my assailant standing over me.

"Dammit, he's good looking!" I thought to myself as I asked him "Who the hell are you?"

"You really don't remember, Basil?" replied my attractive attacker. "What on earth have they done to you? I'm Sean Berman. Your twin brother."

This place gets more like a far-fetched pulp horror novel every day...

And... Basil? What kind of name is that?

"Hey, this TV actually works!" I heard my stunningly handsome twin say as I slipped back into sweet unconsciousness...

THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME (1932)






The Most Dangerous Game is the first ever celluloid example of one of my favourite horror sub-genres - humans hunting humans!

However, I don't think that the title is particularly apt when you consider that:

A) Humans aren't as dangerous as leopards or tigers really, are they? Oh, I know that humans have greater intelligence and have done more damage to the planet than any other living creature, but If I was walking through the jungle with a hunting rifle I'd rather come face-to-face with, say, Billy Ray Cyrus than a pissed off panther. But that's probably just me...

and

B) Is hunting humans really 'The Most Dangerous Game'? What about Snakes & Ladders with real snakes and rickety ladders that have random rungs missing? What about Hungry Hippos with real Hippos? I'm sure there are many other examples.

But I digress. We're in a small passenger ship traversing through dangerous waters as we meet our hero Bob Rainsford, a hunter by trade. One of Bob's chums engages him in a philosophical discussion along the lines of, "Who is the real savage, man who hunts for pleasure or the beast who hunts for necessity? What would you do if the roles were reversed?"

Bob laughs this off with a "Ha, that'll never happen to me! Never happen! Why, what possible set of circumstances could ever..." CRASH!!!! "What was that noise?"

It was the ship crashing. It sinks.

Bob and the captain are the only survivors!

A shark eats the captain.

Bob is the only survivor!

Somehow he manages to swim ashore unharmed. After wandering around for a bit he spots civilisation in the shape of a large, forbidding looking mansion.

The door creaks open and Bob steps inside. A hairy, scary man appears from behind the door. Bob tries to engage him in polite conversation but gets blanked, much to his annoyance. It never seems to register with Bob that this guy might not actually speak English, so thank goodness for the appearance of Count Zaroff to explain that Bob is speaking to Ivan who not only can't speak English but can't speak, being as he is that classic horror film staple, a mute man-servant.



Ivan is actually played by the African-American actor Noble Johnson - making this the earliest known example of a black actor play a Caucasian character.

Count Zaroff cuts a fine figure, I must say. Perfectly groomed facial hair, elegantly tailored suit and with a cigarette holder held just so.



He's foppish and he's fey and has impeccable manners, as he cordially welcomes Bob to his humble abode and has Ivan show him to a room, explaining that he has other guests who have also been shipwrecked. It would appear that Bob has had a stroke of luck finding the mansion. Count Zaroff seems like a really nice guy.



He's quite insane, of course.

Bob freshens himself up (luckily this was the 1930s, in the days before people got traumatised by being in disasters and getting chased by sharks) and meets his fellow shipwreckees; an annoying drunk called Martin Towbridge and his distinctly unannoying sister Eve Towbridge, played by the stunning Fay Wray.




Naturally, Bob makes a beeline for Eve.

Eve seems somewhat unhappy with the situation, and we see Bob surreptitiously sniff his armpit. But it turns out that it's Count Zaroff that is worrying Eve. "Two of our party have gone missing! They were last seen entering Count Zaroff's trophy room!"

"Hic! I'm going with Count Zaroff to his trophy room!" shouts her drunken brother, cheerily.

"Stop bothering me Martin, I'm trying to explain to Bob about people going missing!" she replies.

Anyway, Martin is never seen again. Bob and Eve search for him later that night, and creep into the trophy room. It's full of heads. Human heads!

"Something's not quite right here..." thinks Bob, but he has no time to piece the clues together as Zaroff and Ivan burst in and tie Bob and Eve up.

Zaroff helpfully explains the situation which we knew anyway - Zaroff likes hunting humans. But he recognises Bob as a fellow hunter and asks him if he'd like to join him in his horrifying human hunting hobby. Bob says no, one thing leads to another and before you know it Bob and Eve are running for their lives through the jungle (which you'll recognise as being the same jungle used in King Kong. You may also have recognised the screams of the shipwrecked sailors being the same as the screams of the equally unlucky sailors shaken off a log by Kong).

I almost forgot the rules - If Bob and Eve last until dawn, they're free to go. And Bob's been given a knife. That's all.

"Oh I'm slowing you up I shouldn't have came!" shouts Eve as they come to the edge of a cliff. You can see that Bob is thinking that she's right and he'd have been better off without her, but being a gentleman he keeps quiet about it.

Bob sets a couple of clever traps but Zaroff equally cleverly evades them, the clever count!



He's right behind Bob and Eve now and sets his dogs on Bob! Bob manages to fight one off, but here comes another one! And it's a big bitch!

The remaining few minutes of the film are pretty damn exciting and full of incident. Perhaps I'm being over-cautious in not wishing to give away spoilers for a film that's over 80-years old, but look, it's only an hour long. You should really watch it. And because it's Public Domain I can post a link to the full version here (I think) for your viewing pleasure. So here it is. Enjoy:


Watch The Most Dangerous Game

Inside The Slaughtered Lamb 2010

Much excitement was had over the weekend when, on a rare trip from Igloo-Land, I went for a rather nice meal in a country pub. I opted for Pork Belly on stir-fried Cabbage, topped with Mustard Mash and washed down with a light and fruity Beaujolais. It was fantastic, it really was:



PS I almost forgot, the pub in question was The Black Swan in Effingham, Surrey, a key landmark in horror film history as it was the interior of The Slaughtered Lamb pub which Jack and David had the misfortune to stumble into in, of course, An American Werewolf in London.

It's now almost unrecognisable unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately come to think of it) and there were no weird goings-on to be reported. Although at one point, I could have sworn my Guinness magically refilled itself...

Also rather aptly, the nearby hotel I stayed in was called The Talbot Inn.

Here's some professionally taken photographs:

A shot of the bar itself



The door where Jack and David walked in (and out) and sat down to the left of. It's no longer a functioning entrance (or exit) to the pub, so go round the back.



Excuse me but what's that star on the... oh, it's gone...



Bit of history to finish with.

Becoming...

“Enjoy your exile, murderer!” shouted the pilot and co-pilot in unison as they threw me out the plane. “Don’t I get a parachute?” I replied, not unreasonably I thought. But it was too late, and I was already plummeting to the icy wastes below...

Luckily I landed on some soft snow and some talking penguins sheltered and fed me. Until I realised I was hallucinating, and they left on a magic carpet.

And so I found myself wandering. Lost, half-mad and half-dead, all hope gone. Then I saw the igloo.

Something uncanny about it, I remember thinking. Maybe it was the supernatural glow that seemed to emanate deep from within it. Maybe it was the sense of destiny that I felt as I stumbled towards it. Maybe it was the large wooden sign saying ‘Igloo of the Uncanny’ nailed above the door…

It was warm inside. The old man said nothing as he handed me a hot drink. I gulped it down greedily and fell into a deep sleep. Such strange dreams… glaring hospital lights... blue pills and bibles... and when I awoke the old man had gone. But when my eyes fell upon his dirty old shaving mirror, I saw his face staring back at me.


Maybe I’ve always been him.

Maybe I’ve always been here.

Women of Horror that we need to see more of #23 - Lisa Houle

If you’ve seen Pontypool – and you really must – then you’ll be in love with Lisa Houle and her beautifully judged, multi-layered performance which manages to be incredibly moving yet bloody funny at the same time.



And you’ll probably be in love with her as a person too. Which I hope co-star Stephen McHattie is, because he’s married to her. Here's a pic from their wedding day album:



Incredibly she’s hardly acted on-screen if those reliable people at IMDB are to be trusted:

# "Pontypool" .... Sydney Briar (2008)
# "Emily of New Moon" .... Eve Kinch / ... (7 episodes, 1998-2000)
# "Due South" .... Madeline Carnes (1 episode, 1996)
# "Seinfeld" .... Cheryl (1 episode, 1993)
# "Scene of the Crime" (1991) TV series (various episodes)

Of course, it may be that she doesn’t particularly want to act and has other things going on in her life, which is fine. Except it’s not because it affects me. Let’s see Lori in lot’s more films from now on - McHattie, do some house-sitting!

EVIL DEAD - REMAKE

In Claymation. In 60 seconds.

Evil Dead done in 60 seconds with CLAY - 2010 from Lee Hardcastle on Vimeo.

... just one of the nominations for the Jameson Empire 'Done in 60 Seconds 'Awards 2010. You can view the rest of the nominations here, including Avatar, Predator and Nightmare on Elm Street...

ZOLTAN, HOUND OF DRACULA (1978)

There doesn't seem to be much love around for Zoltan, Hound of Dracula (US title 'Dracula's Dog'). It's always held fond memories for me though, and I remember being genuinely spooked by it as youngster.

I like Zoltan. Okay, so he’s a horrifying hellish hound and a vicious bugger, but he is obedient, faithful and a bit of a cutie.




I can’t help but feel if he attacked me all I’d need to do was give his chin a stroke and we’d be best friends forever.

Not the ideal way to think about the main villain when settling down to watch a horror film you might think. But Zoltan isn’t the scariest dude in this film. Here's Reggie Nalder as the diabolical Veidt Smith:



Here's a quick shot of Reggie without any make-up:



Veidt Smith then, is Dracula's recently resurrected henchman who, with the help of his beloved Zoltan, goes off in search of his dead master's descendant; family man Michael Drake, happily residing in the good old US of A and about to set off on his yearly camping trip with his sickeningly nice wife and kids. He's also bringing along Samson and Annie, his two cute dogs, and their little puppies. Something's going to happen to the puppies, isn't it?

Yes. One mysteriously drowns. Then that night, the family is attacked by Zoltan and a couple of his newly vamped-up canine accomplices. Shaken and upset, the family decide to head off home the next day.

Until up drives the wonderful Jose Ferrer...



... playing Inspector Branco, the Van Helsing-like character who has followed Schmidt all the way from Romania and has a plan to stop him! He explains everything to Michael Drake and quickly wins his trust.

"You leave in the caravan with the kids love, I'm going to stay in a fisherman's hut for the rest of the weekend with this old guy who I've just met." Michael explains to his strangely understanding wife, who packs up and drives off with the kids, never to reappear. This is unfair - I don’t think you should be allowed to just leave and head off home half way through a horror film. How disappointing would 'The Hills Have Eyes' or 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' have been if the potential victims were allowed to say "Sod this, I'm going home. This place is beginning to annoy me"...?

Anyway, the Inspector's plan is for Michael to be 'bait', and for the two of them to hole up in a nearby fisherman's hut and await the attack. The rest of the plan is unclear...in fact, I’m going to stop even referring to it as a ‘plan’ because it patently wasn’t. Making someone ‘bait’ to lure attackers is only PART of a plan. The bit that happens when the attackers attack is the OTHER part - most would say the most important part.

But when the Zoltan and co. attack that night what does the Inspector do? Basically just shrugs his shoulders and gives Michael a look that says ‘sorry, I didn’t actually expect them to attack.' Thanks Inspector, thanks a lot. So the pair simply wait in the shack, huddling together while the three dogs try and make their way in. Eventually Zoltan comes crashing through the roof and lands on top of the planless pair, knocking them both unconscious.



Zoltan couldn’t have aimed better if he’d tried, although they did make it a bit easy for him, huddled together in the dead centre of the shack like that.

Zoltan's about to vamp up Drake but would you believe it - here comes dawn! And so the devilish dobermann is forced to beat a hasty retreat.

For some strange reason it appears not to have dawned (no pun intended) on the Inspector or Michael that the dogs have anything to do with Veidt Smith. The fact that there were 'two coffins' though is beginning to register with the Inspector but bloody hell it's not difficult is it?

The Inspector's next 'plan' is to head back to the original camping ground. "I have a feeling that something will happen there." He says, which once again, isn't a plan in my book. Nevertheless, Michael agrees, and the two head back.

Not long left to the film now, which Veidt Smith underlines by reminding Zoltan that they "cannot survive without a master another night". This leads to a rather rushed and unsatisfying ending and it's over all too soon - an extra ten or fifteen minutes running time and another plot twist could have made all the difference. What about 'turns out that the wife and kids didn’t manage to escape but have been kidnapped by Smith, who has them holed up in a nearby abandoned spooky old house?'. That would have worked for me. “I don’t remember this abandoned spooky old house being here before.” Michael could say to the Inspector as they enter for an exciting final showdown.



But no, all that happens is that the Inspector finds Smith and after a quick fight, gives him a good staking. In the meantime Zoltan and his doggy disciples attack Michael, who takes refuge in the Inspector's car. But damn! It's a convertible, so the roof has to shut before he's safe. The fact that it's the slowest closing roof that I've ever seen in a car really racks up the tension. Maybe they could have made it even slower and added ten minutes to the film that way.

Michael notices his beloved dog Samson rushing to rescue him and lets him into the car. Big mistake, as Samson's eyes glow a hellish vampiric glow and he attacks!

All this is happening as the inspector and a couple of friendly hunters reappear. Much dog-fighting and dog-staking ensues. Michael kills Zoltan by flashing at him (with his crucifix). Zoltan backs off and falls over a cliff that appears from nowhere behind him. He lands on a fence spike. Game over.

It's the end to another successful night's dog killing, and everyone laughs, slaps each other's backs, packs up and heads off home. We just have time for the camera to pan slowly across the ground... to eventually reach Michael's lost pup, alone in the middle of the forest... with fangs and glowing eyes!



Zoiks! THE END. Or is it?

LOST BOYS (1987)

A classic clip:

Intermission

Day #477

Same old routine today, no doubt. Same cold, same ice, same snow…



Same surgery lights buzzing noisily. Same wires sticking out of my head and chest, connected to a shiny yet strangely antiquated looking machine with numerous dials and flashing buttons… hang on, this isn’t part of the usual igloo routine?

A familiar looking face appeared. “Morning, Carlisle.” It said.

Memories. So far away. Memories surfacing slowly and hazily, as if through a sheet of Arctic ice…

“Dr. Bertorelli?” I heard myself ask. And yes, I remembered. Dr. Bertorelli was my tutor. More of a father figure actually because my own father was… and I am… was… am… Edmund Carlisle! That’s my name! Edmund Carlisle, Medical Student in the Royal College of Surgery, Pall Mall! Yes, it’s all coming back to me…

“Good lad, ” Dr. Bertorelli replied “still got control of all your faculties, eh? I suppose you’re curious about how you got here?”

“I dreamt of an igloo,” I started “and of falling down a long flight…”

“No dream, lad. No dream.” Interjected Dr. Bertorelli. “Let me start at the very beginning. You came to me in the Summer of 1912, remember? Keen as mustard, you were. Eager to learn. And my instincts about you were for the most part correct, as you became one of my best students. Quite brilliant, with a mind as razor sharp as your scalpel. What a disappointment when I discovered that some of your ah, extra-curricular activities involved…”

“Why am I here, doctor?”

“Buggery, ma boy! Buggery most horrid! Bestiality to boot. More arson than you could shake a match at. Rape. Murder. More Buggery. And the drugs! Lithium, Opium, Laudanum, Cocaine, Hashish... oh, and all manner of strange and outlandish concoctions... you and that equally no good friend of yours Henry Jekyll (despite him having every guarantee of an honourable and distinguished future) constantly trying to outdo each other in your potion-making...”

“I prefer the term cocktails, actually Doctor. But...”

“Hush, Edmund!" Said Dr. Bertorelli. "Look at the time! I’ve conversed for far too long already. You need to rest and I need to partake of lunch - it’s twenty past the hour and Mrs. Braithwaite is very particular about punctuality. But not for you ma boy, not yet! You’ve got a 24-inch rod stuck in your spine and an even longer tube up your old chap, so no moving from your bed today! I’ll try and return for a chin wag later, what? If you get bored, we’ve got your old TV in the corner. I’ll switch it on for you now if you want…”

COMING SOON: ZOLTAN, HOUND OF DRACULA (1978)