Journeys into Darkness part 2: more film reviews

I am writing a series of posts about some horror things I have experienced in the recent geological past. In part one I talked about The Exorcist. Join me as a I discuss some other films I have seen that explore the the world of fear and terror.

The Tell-Tale Heart is a 2023 short film that I have mentioned in passing previously, first when listing the best short films I saw last year and then when I was outlining what I was going to be nominating for this year's Hugo Awards (and like almost everything else I nominated, it failed to make the ballot). Directed by Max Hendrickson, It is a stop-motion animated adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story of the same name, the one narrated by a guy who describes a murder he has committed while being at pains to deny his insanity. I saw it in the Stoneybatter Film Festival last year, and it is stunningly atmospheric piece of work, all the more impressive considering Hendrickson was still in school when he made it. It is on YouTube, so check it out (and if you like it, have a look at his other films too).

Lust for a Vampire is a 1971 Hammer horror that was on television when I was away last year. I did not see all of it, but I saw enough. It is a sequel to The Vampire Lovers, Hammer's previous adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's "Carmilla" (the story that pretty much launched the important sexy lesbian vampire subgenre). This one is largely set in a finishing school for young ladies: the kind of place where at bedtime they have to help lace up each other's nightdresses to put away their ample bosoms. An English ne'er-do-well inveigles his way into a teaching job (he comes across as the type who likes assisting in the education of young ladies); he soon becomes convinced that new student Mircalla might be legendary vampire Carmilla resurrected. Despite this he falls in love with her. Various things happen but I got bored and went to bed before it all concluded. It did rather put the ham into Hammer.

The Omen (1976) is one of those famous films I have been aware of since it came out but somehow had not seen until it showed up in a horror film season in the Lighthouse. People often talk of the unholy trinity of folk horror films: The Wicker Man, Witchfinder General, and Blood on Satan's Claw. I think of The Omen as forming a second trilogy with The Shining and The Exorcist, a trilogy of big budget mainstream horror pictures that were event films when they came out. And you know what? It's not that great and is a far inferior film to the other two of my imaginary trilogy. It suffers from being excessively camp and lacking the sense of mounting dread that the other two films successfully create.

I was struck by one scene that seemed to be deliberately echoed in The Shining. At one point we see little Damien (the child of Satan [/spoiler]) zooming around in a peddle car before charging down a corridor to do something dramatic. I found this highly reminiscent of the very different scenes in The Shining, in which Danny zooms around the hotel's corridors in his own peddle car. This observation does not make this film worth going to see, but it is perhaps worth having seen in the past.

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A threatening policeman (Utah International Film Festival: "The Tale-Tale Heart" — Max Hendrickson)

Killer Couples: "Double Indemnity" (1944) and "The Getaway" (1972)

I saw these in the before time as part of an IFI season of films about couples who kill. Double Indemnity, directed by Billy Wilder, is a definite noir classic about a guy who thinks he is pretty smart (Fred MacMurray) and a dame (Barbara Stanwyck) who is playing him for a chump. If you have not seen it, the title comes from a term in life assurance policies whereby the insurer pays out double for particularly unlikely events, in this case a fatal accident on a train. As can be imagined, the plot involves a life assurance policy with just such a clause and a murder made to look like a fall from a train. The film is a masterful depiction of obsession leading to folly and delusion, with a typically noir inversion of the moral code through making the murderous insurance salesman the protagonist.

Billy Wilder made a lot of films and I don't know to what extent he is seen as making films with recurring themes, but there are definite elements here that find echoes in his other work. William Holden in Sunset Boulevard appears to have taken over the insurance salesman's apartment; in certain other regards the protagonists of both films follow a similar trajectory. The closing scene between the salesman and his loss adjustor colleague (Edward G. Robinson) recalls the ending of Some Like It Hot with its faint suggestion of homosexual attraction (though I could be reading too much into what is actually a more traditional paternal relationship). And similar to those other films, there is an air of loucheness to this one. In the opening it is presented as entirely normal that an insurance salesman would engage in lewd banter with the wife of a potential client, while later a minor character talks about how much he is looking forward to seeing a visiting "osteopath".

The Getaway meanwhile is a Sam Peckinpah directed film about a crim (Steve McQueen) who has to make a getaway after a heist goes wrong when other crims try to double-cross him. He is aided and abetted in this endeavour by his lovely wife (Ali McGraw). The film starts well with largely wordless scenes showing the crim in jail, the machinery of the jail juxtaposed with the mechanistic tasks pursued by the prisoners. It goes downhill once he gets out. The whole heist-gone-wrong plot is a bit plodding and predictable while the film as a whole has a tiresome air of macho blokey bollocks to it (see also: all other Sam Peckinpah films).

Peckinpah films are sometimes like artefacts from an era of unreconstructed offensive sexism and The Getaway is no exception in this regard. The scenes in which for reasons a rival crim kidnaps another couple and then starts shagging the woman, who turns out to love getting some good lovin', leaves a nasty taste, particularly as it is all largely played for laughs.

The various scenes where Steve McQueen's character slaps Ali McGraw around are also quite distasteful, not least because they were in a real-life relationship at the time that was reputedly characterised by domestic violence. Some of the other quirks of the Peckinpah style also grated with me. The slow-motion arcs of blood in the death scenes were a bit comedic; these may once have seemed ground-breaking but now (and perhaps already by the time this film was made) they are little more than Peckinpah cliché.

But for all that, the film has a strong visual sense. As previously noted, the images of jail life are stunning. Another scene that gives rise to some striking images is one where McQueen & McGraw escape emerge in a dump having escaped from the cops in a garbage truck's trash compartment. Neverthelss the film remains fundamentally not that good but might be of interest to film history types or fans of domestic violence. Otherwise don't bother with The Getaway: watch (or rewatch) Double Indemnity instead.

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Double Indemnity (Guardian: "My favourite film: Double Indemnity")

The Getaway (Basement Rejects: "The Getaway (1972)")