Posts by Nate Yapp

Hell is other people. The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Go to Hell. Raise some Hell. Your own personal Hell. Hell is for children. Life is Hell. Hell yeah. Where are we going and why are we in this handbasket?(read more...)

Before the giallo, there was the krimi – West German crime films frequently based on the works of British novelist Edgar Wallace and his son Bryan Edgar Wallace. These movies were marked by their sensationalistic content and their tendency to skirt the horror genre when they weren't plunging headlong into it. Alfred Vohrer's The Door with Seven Locks (German title: Die Tür mit den 7 Schlösser) is a horror-skirter, but it also skirts nearly every other genre that doesn't involve bursting into song or traveling back in time. If it can conceivably be stuffed into a pulp crime novel, it's here. With so many weird plot elements flying around, The Door with Seven Locks often feels a little breathless, but it's quite enjoyable if you don't bother with thinking through its various twists and contrivances.
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Zé do Caixão (or as he's known in the United States, Coffin Joe) is something of a horror film legend and obscure cult figure all at once. The character, the creation of Brazilian actor-writer-director Jose Mojica Marins, is only infrequently included in books on the genre and only one tome (as far as I can tell) has been utterly devoted to him. Yet once you've seen him, you're not likely to forget him; from his  all-black suit to his long, curved fingernails, he's an imposing figure. My first Zé do Caixão sighting came in the pages of Phil Hardy's Encyclopedia of Horror, in a publicity still from This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, which had Zé leering over a female victim, all ten of his fingers hovering like talons over her eyes.(read more...)

The films of Freddie Francis have always shown the work of a skilled visual craftsman -- one of the very best, in fact -- but also one who performs better when others provide him a creative vision and context from within which he can do his work. I find it rather telling that many of the best films that Francis worked on -- Glory, The Straight Story, The Elephant Man -- were those in which he acted as cinematographer to a visionary director, years after he gave up regularly directing himself. The Skull, made for Amicus in 1965, is a particularly effective case for Francis's talent with a camera and against his knack for creating his own stories. Although the film is hampered by a lackluster script and poor casting choices, its ultimate chance at success rests on Francis's shoulders – for better or for worse.
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