I love this movie for a million reasons, and they are damned good reasons. It is an early directing attempt of Jack Hill (Switchblade Sisters, The Big Birdcage, Foxy Brown, Coffy!!!) featuring Lon Cheney Jr. and Sid Haig among a cast of relative nobodies. It's shot in beautiful black and white, and with a great premise and perfect horror setting. Bruno (Lon Chaney Jr.) has vowed to look after the progeny of his deceased master, and to keep their terrible family secret, which is that years of inbreeding have resulted in a unique mental handicap passed from generation to generation. Bruno has resolved to care for the last three members of the family in the isolated family mansion, and it seems that these four will live out their days in peace until greedy distant relatives show up to try to lay claim to the property.
With this film Jack Hill displays a deep understanding of genre cinema, and references his roots by casting an aging Lon Chaney Jr., whose performance is inspired, and has him discuss his appreciation for the wolfman and the mummy in a dinner scene with the whole, less than wholesome family. His treatment of women is, as always, very interesting. In fact, although Bruno and the Uncle Peter character play large roles in the narrative, the source of dramatic tension in this movie comes from three female characters, the two sisters protected by Bruno, and evil Aunt Emily, who is trying to get her hands on the property and the supposed family fortune. All three of these characters are menacing, powerful, and genuinely feminine. It is very rare in any horror movie, much less a horror movie from '68, to create a world with this kind of gender dynamic. Sid Haig's portrayal of a mentally handicapped youth is amazing, and his interactions with Aunt Emily make the film for me. Strong characters, skeletons in the closet, a creepy old mansion, dead-on performances from the whole cast, some good old fashioned genre-cinema fun, and real, multi-dimensional female characters make this a very strong early film. Overall, a solid, kick-ass horror flick that can't be missed.
available from netflix and for sale on amazon, although you could probably find it cheaper somewhere else.
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2 comments:
More people I know who know, or at least, have made contact with famous people.
This guy was a former student of my wife's (high school), and I was reading an article he wrotew for the Washington Post. In it, he mentions a conversation with John Waters, and I e-mailed him to double-check that he actually spoke to Waters on the phone.
Indeed he did.
Waters was "nice and fun to talk to," which sounds right.
He also talked to Liv Ullmann and Jack Hill, who were both relatively easy to contact, versus the usual obstacle course of publicists, etc. my friend sometimes has had to go through in order to speak to someone in the entertainment business.
Finally, he said the "nicest" people he spoke to was David Lynch and Laura Dern.
I am so freaking jealous.
Here's the article:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/artsandliving/daily/graphics/muse_012107/muse_012107.html
Hmmm...
The last part of that link is:
muse_012107.html
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