“Every 400 years, a baby werewolf is born into the Fangsworth family, and so when the moon shined on little Sherman Fangsworth, he changed into Fangface, a werewolf! Only the sun can change him back to normal. And so little Fangs grew up and teamed up with three daring teenagers: Kim, Biff and Puggsy, and together they find danger, excitement and adventure! Who can save the day? Who can wrong the rights and right the wrongs? None other than Fangface!”

Fangface is a 30-minute cartoon produced by Ruby-Spears Productions for ABC which aired from September 9, 1978 to September 8, 1979. Following hot on the tails on Scooby Doo, Where Are You?, also created by Ruby-Spears, the cartoon attempted to latch on to the success of its predecessor, combining ‘zany antics’ and a kid-friendly introduction to monsters.

The adventures followed four teenagers – Kim, Biff, Puggsy and Sherman “Fangs” Fangsworth, solving crimes and mysteries, hindered or sometimes helped by the fact that Fangsworth, inevitably, transforms into a werewolf when he sees the moon, a picture of the moon or indeed, anything slightly lunar. As opposed to the Mystery Machine of Scooby Doo, they travel around in a rather flash convertible named the Wolf Buggy. The villains are often to be found committing their crimes under the guise of monsters and other strange beings.

Although it would be unreasonable to expect any genuine logic to a cartoon, it does stretch the viewer’s tolerance somewhat. At the sight or mention of food, Fangface will instantly gobble up Puggsy (and only Puggsy) whole, to the echo of canned laughter. It then falls to one of the other gang members to rub Fangface’s foot, the only way to distract him into being docile enough to clamp his jaws open and rescue their friend. The werewolf also has a problem with mirrors, going temporarily mad if he sees his own reflection. Neither Fangface nor Fangsworth or aware of each other’s existence.

On the off-chance your patience hadn’t already worn thin with this barrel-scraping tedium, the second season felt the need to introduce a Scrappy Doo type infant called Baby Fangs/Fangpuss, begging the question as to who checked with the audience first. It wasn’t enough and the second season proved to be the last.

Despite being relatively short-lived, the cartoon did spawn a boardgame, a jigsaw, books, a vinyl album of stories (!), soft toys and most excitingly of all, a 3-disc Viewfinder set, surely the must-own 3D device for all self-respecting kids of the 1970s and 1980s? This latter item, of course, benefitted enormously from the lack of sound – even the theme tune was un-memorable!

The most famous voice-actor on the show was veteran Frank Welker, who voiced both Fangface and Fangpuss, plus their human counterparts. He is best known as the voice of Fred in Scooby Doo but has a staggeringly long CV which made him for many years the highest-grossing actor in Hollywood. He can also be heard in roles as far apart as Dr Claw from Inspector Gadget and many of the Transformers in the animated series.

Daz (Fangface) Lawrence, Horrorpedia

Wolf Blood, also known as Wolfblood: A Tale of the Forest, is a silent 1925 werewolf movie starring George Chesebro, who also directed it.

Dick Bannister is the new field boss of the Ford Logging Company, a Canadian logging-crew during a time when conflicts with the powerful Consolidated Lumber Company, a bitter rival company, have turned bloody, like a private war. His boss, Miss Edith Ford, comes to inspect the lumberjack camp, bringing her doctor fiancé with her. Dick is attacked by his rivals and left for dead. His loss of blood is so great that he needs a transfusion, but no human will volunteer, so the surgeon uses a wolf as a source of the blood. Afterwards, Dick begins having dreams where he runs with a pack of phantom wolves, and the rival loggers get killed by wolves. Soon, these facts have spread through the camp and most of the lumberjacks decide that Dick is a werewolf.

The film has been referenced in a number of books as being the first werewolf movie ever made. There is no official music score primarily because the film was made during the silent era of movie making. This motion picture is available commercially as part of DVD along with F.W. Murnau’s The Haunted Castle (1921 film). It has been shown at film festivals such as Chiller Theatre and Mid-Atlantic Nostalgia Convention. The copyright for this motion picture expired in 1954 and it is now available freely on assorted video websites.

Watch the whole film:

Wikipedia | IMDb

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13Hrs is a 2010 British horror film directed by Jonathan Glendening. The film stars Isabella Calthorpe as the main female lead, and also features Gemma Atkinson, Gabriel Thomson, Antony De Liseo and Tom Felton

Also known as Night Wolf, 13Hrs comes in a long line of British-made horror films in the last five years which are heavy on marketing and scant on plot, acting and quality of any discernible kind. On the plus side, director Glendening spends an appropriate amount of the budget on the stalking beast which terrorises the cast who are holed up in the large family house, seemingly just to argue with each other and get drunk.

The dynamics see Sarah (Calthorpe) returning from LA to leafy England and reuniting with her brothers Stephen (Peter Gadiot), his girlfriend Emily (Atkinson), Charlie (Thomson) Luke (De Liseo) and enough hangers-on to allow for a reasonable amount of kills. After rooting around for booze and cigs they soon find a bloodied body and realise that something else lurks within the house.

Having assembled one of the most dislikeable casts in film history, it’s only fair we investigate further. Atkinson, ex of TV soap Hollyoaks and photo-shopped lad’s mag layouts, simply can’t act, which is a massive shame as technically that’s her job. Many of her scenes are cringeworthy , though in fairness, she’s not alone. Thomson arrives after the mind-melting success of BBC ‘comedy’ My Family, and Felton from something called Harry Potter, which I will check on the internet for later. It’s a great shame that the film features the last film performance by Simon MacCorkindale (Manimal and Quatermass TV series and husband of Susan George) as he deserved a far better send-off. Perhaps remarkably, the best performance comes from Calthorpe, or to give her her full title Isabella Amaryllis Charlotte Anstruther-Gough-Calthorpe (no, honestly!). Tatler-botherer and socialite Caltorpe, who had enough options to turn down Prince William’s advances and is now betrothed to billionaire Richard Branson’s son, pitches in with a perfectly acceptable turn as the last girl standing and is leagues ahead of most of her co-stars.

The beast itself is mostly only glimpsed at but is well designed if unrevelatory. The film also benefits from a several very distinct POV shots of the besieged teens peeking through floorboards and around corners which certainly ramps up the tension, even if the pay-off is never satisfactory.

To compare the film to Neil Marshall’s masterful Dog Soldiers is laughable, a far nearer comparison would be to Glendening’s own Strippers Vs Werewolves, though 13Hrs is at least a step up from that debacle. Aside from the majority of the acting, the real shame is that with a reasonable monster, Glendening had so little faith in his storytelling abilities that he felt the need to crush any promise with such a lousy cast. At least with the title he accurately pinpoints how long the film feels.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

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Big Bad Wolf is a 2006 American comedy horror film directed by Lance W. Dreesen. It stars Trevor Duke and Kimberly J. Brown with appearances by Clint Howard (Evilspeak) and David Naughton (An American Werewolf in London). It won the 2007 Silver Award at WorldFest Houston in the category of Best Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Film.

All they wanted was a fun weekend away from their parents and the pressures of school, but when these fun-loving teens cross the path of a werewolf that isn’t afraid to speak its mind as he tears them limb from limb, they must find out who is behind the furry façade and put the beast down before it can claim any more lives…

Wikipedia | IMDb | Rotten Tomatoes

Buy Big Bad Wolf on UK DVD at Amazon.co.uk or US DVD at Amazon.com

“I wanna tell you that Big Bad Wolf is cheesy rubbish…and it is! But it’s really enjoyable cheesy rubbish. It entertains and urges you to keep watching; credit has to go to the cast for holding our interest so well, and also to that vintage 1980’s feel, which many have tried to emulate and failed. The screenplay does its job, ensuring that each character evokes the right emotions. Not an Oscar winner, no huge feats of cinematography, and definitely not one to remember. But when I press play, all I’m asking for is to be entertained for the duration of the film, and Big Bad Wolf does just that.” Stalk’n'Slash

“Big Bad Wolf does have some great kills, a good deal of T&A, and moves along at a reasonably brisk pace; none of which was still enough to keep me from feeling apathetic towards it. Big Bad Wolf huffs and puffs but it failed to blow my house down.” Dread Central

WH

Son of Dracula is a 1973 British rock ‘n’ roll musical horror comedy film starring Harry Nilsson and ex-Beatles drummer Ringo Starr as Merlin the Magician, directed by Freddie Francis and produced by Starr for Apple Films. It is also the title of a Harry Nilsson album released in conjunction with the movie.

Starr had recently played drums on Nilsson’s album Son of Schmilsson, which had spoofed horror movie motifs. A few months after those sessions, in August 1972, Starr decided to make a rock and roll Dracula movie (originally titled Count Downe), and invited Nilsson to come on board. Keith Moon of The Who and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin both appear in the film, alternating as drummer in Count Downe’s band. Other band members include Klaus Voormann, Peter Frampton, Leon Russell, and the regular Rolling Stones horn section of Bobby Keys and Jim Price.

Soon after filming was completed in November 1972, Starr called in Monty Python‘s Graham Chapman, who was writing with Douglas Adams at the time and had been working on a proposed Ringo Starr TV special. They, along with Chapman’s other regular collaborator, Bernard McKenna, were asked to write a whole new script to be dubbed over the film’s lacklustre dialogue, and they recorded an alternative, Pythonesque soundtrack, but the whole idea was then shelved. Later, attempts were made to market the movie, but as Ringo Starr later said, “No one would take it.”  It was eventually released in the USA in April 1974 by Jerry Gross’ (I Drink Your Blood) Cinemation Industries distribution company.

After the killing of his father (Count Dracula, the Lord of the Underworld), by a mysterious assassin, a hundred years later Count Downe (Nilsson) is summoned from his travels abroad by family advisor Merlin (Starr) in order to prepare him to take over the throne. Baron Frankenstein (Freddie Jones, also in The Satanic Rites of Dracula and Vampira) is also on hand to help in any way he can. Problem is, Downe wants no part of this responsibility, and instead wishes to become human and mortal − especially after meeting a girl named Amber (Suzanna Leigh, also in The Deadly Bees and Lust for a Vampire), with whom he falls in love. He approaches old family nemesis Dr Van Helsing (Dennis Price, also in Twins of Evil and Horror Hospital), who agrees to enable the Count’s transformation, much to the dismay of the residents of the Underworld.

Despite the best efforts of a host of monsters, as well as one traitorous figure who is dealt with by the trusted Merlin, Van Helsing performs the operation and removes Downe’s fangs. He then informs the Count that he can now live out his days in the sunlight, with Amber at his side…

Wikipedia | IMDb

“It vacillates between unamusing comedy and what Starr considers ‘outre’. All the standard cliches are here, plus figures from the rock world, and while there is an obvious love for horror movies underlying the project, results are wishy washy.” John Stanley, Creature Features

Bubba the Redneck Werewolf is a 2013 American horror comedy film adapted from Mitch Hyman’s comic book of the same name. The film is being directed by Stephen Biro and produced by Unearthed Films, And You Films and Two Rubbing Nickels Ltd.

Plot synposis: “In the town of Broken Taint, a vicious evil is unleashed, offering the dreams of humanity if you just sign on the dotted line. One lovesick dog catcher makes a deal with the Devil and not only is his life turned upside down, but so is Broken Taint. Bubba The Redneck Werewolf is born and the town goes to Hell while his local bar is filled with the Damned, Bubba figures out how to beat the Devil—but first, he needs another beer and maybe some hot wings.”

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Deadtime Stories is a 1986 American horror anthology film directed by Jeffrey Delman. The film is also known as Freaky Fairytales (in the UK), The Griebels (European DVD title) and The Griebels from Deadtime Stories (Netherlands).

Young Brian is unable to sleep (“it’s too dark!”) and beleaguered Uncle Peter, who has seen fit to babysit whilst wearing a shirt and tie, begrudgingly comes to the rescue, agreeing to tell him a story to help him nod off. Off the (shirt) cuff, he begins with a tale about two witches who employ the hero (played by Uncle Peter) into attracting people to their lair in order for them to use them as sacrifices to resurrect a third sibling. Uncle Peter drags his made-up yarn out for an inordinate amount of time, somehow shoehorning some comments about bondage in along the way. His nephew is 8 years-old.

Happy he’s corrupted the child into slumber, Peter is sadly mistaken, the increasingly annoying Brian summoning him to his room once more as he thinks there’s a monster in his room. Peter expresses his dismay by telling Brian he’s missing Miss Nude USA on TV. Lining up another tale, a re-telling of Little Red Riding Hood, concentrating on the sexual elements, starting off with Ms Hood fantasising about a handsome stranger molesting her. The wolf, actually a werewolf, dispatches Grandma as expected but the issue is complicated by the fact that the werewolf has mislaid some rather important drugs. Are you asleep yet?

Thirdly and thankfully finally, Uncle wheels out his take on Goldilocks and the Three Bears, re-titled Goldi Lox And The Three Baers, seeing the criminal family of Baers escaping a mental asylum, only to break into the house of a psychic female serial killer. The wraparound story concludes with something from the bottom of the props cupboard looming towards Brian whilst Uncle loosens his tie to settle down to Miss Ohio’s talents.

In the wake of Creepshow and the renewed interest in the anthology film, Deadtime Stories is an unmitigated disaster, three stories that seem to last an eternity, awful acting and some extremely misjudged attempts at throwing ‘comedy’ into the mix. The writing is on the wall from the off, both the intro and outro to the film feature ‘songs’ – truly face-clawing efforts featuring Casio-like synths, horrid drum machines and lyrics which not only challenge everything you ever thought about rhyme but have to be ‘speed-sung’ to get them to fit the tune. I use the word’ tune’ advisedly.

Uncle Peter, played by Family Ties actor Scott Valentine, appears far too much for an actor of such limited ability, though he can scarcely be blamed for behaviour that nowadays would probably attract the attention of Operation Yewtree. Step forward director, producer, lyricist and yes, actor, Jeffrey Delman, whose other claims to fame are for writing Troma’s Stuck on You and distantly being a relative of genius composer Bernard Herrmann. Elsewhere, actors of ‘note’ include Rachel (the Red Riding Hood lead), played by Nicole Picard, who also had a bit-part in Ghoulies 3, Werewolf Matt Mitler, also seen in The Mutilator, and accidental mainstream breakout, Melissa Leo (Mama Baer) who appeared recently in Tom Cruise box office shoulder-shrug Oblivion and 2013′s annual excuse to cast Morgan Freeman as the President, Olympus Has Fallen. Eight months after the film’s theatrical run, it was released on videocassette in 1987 by Continental Video in the U.S. and in Canada by Cineplex Odeon. The film was initially available on DVD via Mill Creek’s Chilling Classics 50 Movie Pack. That box was later discontinued when it was revealed that Deadtime Stories was not in the Public Domain. Mill Creek did get one thing right – it is chilling.

Daz Lawrence, Horrorpedia

It says a lot about the effectiveness of Tyburn Films’ publicity machine – at least within the horror scene – that in the 1970s, the newly formed British studio was being hailed as the next Hammer, despite emerging at a time that the old Hammer was breathing its last – and despite having only made a few films, all of which were financial failures. Even now, people often mention Tyburn in the same breath as Hammer and Amicus, placing them above the more prolific and successful Tigon. In reality, Tyburn were no more significant that short-lived production companies like Planet.

Tyburn was formed by Kevin Francis, son of acclaimed cinematographer and somewhat less acclaimed director Freddie Francis. Kevin had a career that led him from slaughterhouse employee to film company tea boy to Hammer staffer (he provided the story that eventually evolved into Taste the Blood of Dracula), and was now working as a freelance production manager. His ambition, however, was to be the new Hammer. There was only one problem – by 1973, the market for traditional Hammer Horror had rapidly dwindled, a victim of changing tastes in a world where Rosemary’s Baby, Night of the Living Dead and even the works of Peter Walker were bringing a new realism to the genre. Producing gothic horror was probably not the brightest idea at this stage.

The first horror film to emerge from Francis didn’t have the Tyburn name attached. Tales That Witness Madness (1973) was an imitation of the Amicus portmanteau films, made under the World Film Services banner. Directed by Freddie Francis (as would be the later Tyburn horrors), it had its moments, but suffered from weak, derivative and sometimes laughable stories, one of which features a man falling in love with a tree!

The first ‘official’ Tyburn production was Persecution (aka The Terror of Sheba), a psychological horror story starring Lana Turner (who apparently hated the film) as a matriarchal monster in the grand tradition of the female villains played by other aging Hollywood legends in the 1960s (cf: Whatever Happened to Baby Jane, The Nanny, Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte). Here, her obsessive possessiveness pushes son Ralph Bates over the edge of sanity in a film that feels similar to the Hammer psycho thrillers (Crescendo, Fear in the Night and Straight on Till Morning). With a hint of the supernatural thanks to a creepy cat and fairly solid support from Trevor Howard and Olga Georges-Picot, it proved to be an effective, if minor thriller.

But this was not the sort of film Francis saw his new company producing. A fan of horror  – and Hammer in particular – he wanted to carry on where his idols had left off. And this would mean appropriating the cast and crew of old Hammer.

The Ghoul was the first ‘proper’ Tyburn horror. Directed by Freddie Francis, written by Hammer stalwart John Elder (in reality Anthony Hinds, who had overseen production for Hammer in the 1960s) and starring Peter Cushing, this did seem like it could be a return to the glory days of the past. And on paper, it has a lot going for it – the supporting cast includes ex-Hammer starlet Veronica Carlson, John Hurt, Ian McCullough (making an early horror appearance before battling Zombie Flesh Eaters at the end of the decade) and Alexandra Bastedo, star of TV series The Champions and The Blood Spattered Bride. The film was set, interestingly, in the 1920s jazz age (taking advantage of sets built for The Great Gatsby), with McCullough, Bastedo and Carlson playing rich kids who challenge each other to a race to Land’s End, only to become lost on the moors (which moors isn’t made clear). They are attacked by red herring Hurt and offered shelter by Cushing, who has a sinister Indian servant, a private chapel and mutters a lot about corrupt Eastern religious cults – so clearly nothing good will come of this.

It doesn’t take long to realise that The Ghoul is essentially Hinds recycling his (rather better) screenplay for The Reptile, where an English man’s family is also corrupted by an evil Indian sect (revenge for British colonialism?). It’s an unfortunate comparison, because The Reptile is one of the best hammer films of the 1960s and The Ghoul can never compete. In fact, it turns out to be a somewhat tedious film. Devoid of shocks or any sense of style, it features listless performances, bored direction from Francis (who clearly didn’t feel the need to up his game just because his son was paying the bills) and seems incredibly dated for the time. Very little happens, and when it does, it’s handled with an overly genteel style. Kevin Francis had expressed disdain for the new trends towards sex in horror films – interviewed in Little Shoppe of Horrors, he commented that “there is a difference between using sex and showing tits”. True, perhaps – but Tyburn did neither and together with an equally coy approach to gore, it made the film seem very staid.

Now, you might argue that, despite a gratuitous (but nudity-free) bathing scene from Veronica Carlson, there was no need for sex to intrude on The Ghoul. But in the case of the next Tyburn film, sex was a significant plot point. The equally tame approach to Legend of the Werewolf suggests a fear of eroticism that borders on prudishness.

Originally announced as Plague of the Werewolves (a rather misleading title, given the singular nature of the beast in the film), the Hammer connection this time is even stronger. The film is based on a John Elder screenplay that Hammer had rejected in the 1960s after Curse of the Werewolf had failed to be a financial success. And if The Ghoul was a disappointment, then Legend… is even worse, failing on almost every level.

Looking at stills from the film, you’d be forgiven for expecting an atmospheric, well crafted chiller. And if you only watch the closing moments, taking place in the Parisian sewers, you’d probably think you were right. These scenes, with Peter Cushing facing off against the werewolf are creepy and poignant – they outdo Curse of the Werewolf in terms of pathos. But the rest of the film is terrible. The werewolf make-up, a clear but ineffective knock-off of that used in Curse… is poor, Freddie Francis’ direction dreadful and the acting shocking. It’s a rare bad performance from Cushing, who seems woefully miscast, while Ron Moody mugs furiously, as if sending up his Fagin character from Oliver!. David Rintoul, making his screen debut as the hapless young man who falls in love with a prostitute, bringing out the beast in him is terribly wooden and as for the appearance from Roy Castle… it makes his appearance in Dr Terror’s House of Horrors look like Olivier in comparison.

Legend of the Werewolf followed The Ghoul into box office oblivion – neither film even gained a US release for years. Things suddenly ground to a halt for Tyburn. Plans for future films with titles like Dracula’s Feast of Blood and By the Devil Possessed were rapidly abandoned, as was a proposed film based on Dennis Wheatley’s The Satanist. Plans for soundtrack albums for The Ghoul and Legend… were also quickly dropped, though both films were novelised – Legend… by Robert Black and The Ghoul, ironically, by the ultra lurid Guy N. Smith. Both books are considerably better than the films, Smith’s book adding in the sex and violence needed to make the story lively.

A Tyburn TV series concept also fizzled out and it seemed that we’d heard the last of this ambitious but misguided company. But it didn’t quite die. Tyburn remained in existence, with Francis working as a film buyer and seller for TV. And a decade after its last productions, Tyburn returned.

It was, admittedly, a rather more low key revival than the company’s launch. The Masks of Death appeared as a TV premiere on Channel 4 in the UK in 1984. But in many ways, it was as if nothing had changed. Cushing starred again in a screenplay by Hinds, although this one was directed by Roy Ward Baker – another Hammer veteran.

The film sees a return by Cushing, aged 70, to the role of Sherlock Holmes. Francis had initially wanted to make a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles (which Cushing had starred in for Hammer in 1959 and again for the BBC in 1968!) but when funding fell through, decided to go with an original story that would explain Holmes’ advanced age. Here, he is tempted out of retirement on the eve of the First World War. Together with trusty sidekick Watson (John Mills), he investigates the discovery of three corpses that seem to have grave implications for national security.

The Masks of Death is rather better than the previous Tyburn/Cushing/Hinds collaborations, but nevertheless it feels old, tired and out of step. It seemed that Tyburn had a bloody-minded determination to stick with an increasingly old-fashioned style, no mater what.

Yet there is one other, remarkably obscure Tyburn feature – Murder Elite is a contemporary mystery thriller that has seems unreleased – it was scheduled for video in the mid-1990s on the ‘Taste of Fear’ label but doesn’t seem to have emerged. Currently, no Tyburn films are available on DVD.

Tyburn’s best film isn’t a feature but a TV documentary. 1989 saw Channel 4 broadcast One Way Ticket to Hollywood, a biography of / tribute to Cushing. Whatever else you might say about Kevin Francis and his films, he was clearly someone who held Cushing in great esteem, and this loving documentary is a fine tribute to the man. But this love of the golden age of Hammer horror was also the downfall of Tyburn, who were woefully out of step with public tastes in the 1970s. Because of this, rather than becoming a byword for terror, the company is little more than a minor postscript in the history of British horror.

Written by DF

Rampage is a 1986 arcade game by Bally Midway. Players take control of gigantic monsters trying to survive against onslaughts of military forces. Each round is completed when a particular city is completely reduced to rubble. Over the years it has been released on a variety of consoles, the main difference between the original arcade version being that it was possible to actually complete the game whereas you could spend forever feeding 50 pence pieces into the machine, only to repeat levels endlessly.

Playing with up to two other friends or alone, Rampage sees you take control of one of three characters familiar to all horror fans; a gigantic King Kong-like ape (George), a green Godzilla-like dinosaur (Lizzie) or a similarly-sized werewolf (Ralph), all of whom are mutated humans, escaping from an establishment called Scumlabs (George a middle-aged man, Lizzie a young woman, Ralph an elderly man). George was mutated after swallowing mega-vitamins, Lizzie was mutated after bathing in a radioactive lake and Ralph was mutated after eating infected sausages. Faced with a metropolis of skyscrapers, civilians, helicopters and various other likely city fare, the aim is for your chosen monster to raze everything in sight to the ground, moving onto the next screen which contains even more metal, concrete and flesh to destroy.

The monsters can climb the buildings, punching them to pieces on the way down which will eventually reduce them to rubble. The various people can also be punched or grabbed and food items can be eaten. The player’s monster receives damage from enemy bullets, sticks of dynamite, shells, punches from other monsters and falls. Damage is recovered by eating the various food items such as fruit, roast chicken, or even the soldiers. If a monster takes too much damage, it reverts into a naked human and starts walking off the screen sideways, covering its modesty with its hands (and in this state, can be eaten by another monster).

Smashing open windows generally reveals an item or person of interest, which may be helpful or harmful. Helpful items include food or money, whilst dangerous ones include bombs, electrical appliances, and cigarettes. Some items can be both; for example, a toaster is dangerous until the toast pops up, and a photographer must be eaten quickly before he dazzles the player’s monster with his flash, causing it to fall. When a civilian is present waving their hands at a window signaling for help, a player’s points rapidly increase when the person is grabbed. Each monster can hold only one type of person: George can hold women, Lizzy can hold men, and Ralph can hold businessmen.

Rampage is set over the course of 128 days in cities across North America. The game starts in Peoria, Illinois and ends in Plano, Illinois. In  After this, the cycle of cities repeats five times. After 768 days, the game resets back to Day 1. Some of the home console versions of the game start in San Jose, California and end in Los Angeles, California after going all around North America. The rampage travels through two Canadian provinces and forty-three U.S. states. Only Connecticut, Delaware, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Vermont are spared.

Rampage was ported to most home computers and video game consoles of its time, including the Atari 2600, Atari 7800, Atari Lynx, Atari 8-bit,Atari ST, Commodore 64, MS-DOS/IBM PC, ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC, NES, and Sega Master System. The Atari Lynx version adds a special fourth character named Larry, a giant rat. The NES version excludes Ralph, reducing the number of monsters to two. In July 2000, Midway licensed Rampage, along with other Williams Electronics games, to Shockwave for use in an online applet to demonstrate the power of the shockwave web content platform, entitled Shockwave Arcade Collection. The conversion was created by Digital Eclipse. Rampage was also ported to iOS as part of the Midway arcade app.

About a decade later, a sequel was released entitled Rampage World Tour, later followed by console-exclusive games including Rampage 2: Universal Tour, Rampage Through Time, and Rampage Puzzle Attack. The latest game in the series is Rampage: Total Destruction.

The game has enjoyed such lasting success that a film version is planned by New Line with John Rickard (A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010) and Final Destination 5) set to produce.

Daz Lawrence

Los Monstruos del Terror, also known as Assignment Terror and Dracula vs. Frankenstein is a 1969 (released 1970) Spanish-German-Italian horror film directed by Tulio Demicheli, Hugo Fregonese and Eberhard Meichsner. The last two were uncredited in the film’s original print.

It is the third in a series of movies featuring the werewolf Waldemar Daninsky, played by Paul Naschy, who also provided the screenplay. It was apparently originally slated to be titled The Man Who Came From Ummo, referring to the alien character played by Michael Rennie (The Day the Earth Stood Still). The film remains very obscure, being — to our knowledge — without an official English language DVD release and only available online in poor quality versions.

Aliens, running a traveling circus as a cover, revive a vampire, a werewolf, a mummy and Frankenstein’s monster (also Paul Naschy) with a plan to use them to take over the world. They want to discover the reason that these monsters are so frightening to Earthlings. They then plan to create an army of such monsters using their findings.

The werewolf they revive (Waldemar Daninsky) saves the world by destroying the other monsters in hand-to-hand combat and ultimately blowing up the aliens’ underground base, although he is shot to death in the process by a woman (Karin Dor) who loves him enough to end his torment.

Assignment Terror is weak on every level. A bored-looking Michael Rennie goes through the motions as a supreme being alien but this excuse to revive all the classic movie monsters is a wasted opportunity. There seems to be a sexist sub-text about men holding power over women but the film is so ineffectual it hardly matters. Plodding is the best description for this incompetently presented production and not even Naschy’s presence can save it.

Adrian J. Smith

“Despite its charming idea, alien invaders led by Rennie set about terrorizing mankind by reviving the monsters of the popular imagination, Dracula, the Werewolf, the Mummy, the Reptile and Frankenstein’s Monster, this is a mediocre film. Even the witty idea of having the aliens in monster form succumb to the emotions of their bodies’ previous owners falls flat.” The Aurum Film Encyclopedia: Science Fiction

Buy Paul Naschy: Memoirs of a Wolfman from Amazon.com | Amazon.co.uk

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WolfCop is an upcoming Canadian horror film from writer/director Lowell Dean. The film is set to be released in Cineplex theatres nation wide in 2014. It is the first film chosen for production from the CineCoup Film Accelerator. It stars Jesse Moss, Amy Matysio, Jonathan Cherry, Sarah Lind, Aidan Devine, Corrine Conley and Leo Fafard.

Filming began in October 2013 in Regina, Saskatchewan and surrounding area. It is Dean’s second feature having previously shot 13 Eerie in the same location. The film is set to rely on “retro-style” practical effects instead of computer-generated imagery.

The plot revolves around an alcoholic small town cop who transforms into a werewolf after being cursed when he interrupts a ceremony in the woods.

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Lokis Rękopis profesora Wittembacha (often called simply Lokis) is a 1970 Polish horror film directed by Janusz Majewski. It stars Józef Duriasz, Edmund Fetting, Gustaw Lutkiewicz, Małgorzata Braunek, Zofia Mrozowska and Hanna Stankówna.

Majewski won ‘Best Director’ for Lokis at the Sitges International Film Festival in 1971 (an honour perhaps ever-so-slightly diluted by being shared with Miguel Madrid for his endearingly dreadful Necrophagus aka Graveyard of Horror).

An emotionally withdrawn cleric, Professor Wittembach (Edmund Fetting), studying arcane eccesiastical texts at a remote Lithuanian country house, comes to believe local superstition about his aristocratic young host, the oddly intense Count Michael Szemiot (Józef Duriasz). Rumour has it that the Count, whose mother (Zofia Mrozowska) was mauled by a wild bear during pregnancy, was born only half-human, a possibility that seems more and more compelling as a number of strange events occur in the weeks before the Count’s wedding…

Based on a novella by the French author Prosper Mérimée, this is a carefully crafted piece of work, sombre and brooding, which downplays the more lurid possibilities of its subject and concentrates on character and setting. Thanks to the opulent mansion location and lush surrounding countryside it’s consistently beautiful to watch, and director Janusz Majewski creates a number of striking sequences making full use of the locale, through autumn into winter. The script is devoutly serious and the acting measured and restrained, drawing a handful of hard-to-like but nevertheless interesting characters: Professor Wittembach, whose politeness masks an air of superiority; the misanthropic Doctor Froeber (Gustaw Lutkiewicz), a physician staying at the mansion to care for the Count’s ailing mother; and the Count himself, whose haggard yet piercing eyes brood beneath a permanent frown. Last but not least there’s the Count’s mother, an hysteric locked away in an isolated tower-room, whose screams express a truth pointedly ignored by the urbanity downstairs.

Lokis (the title is a misspelling of the Lithuanian ‘lokys’, meaning “bear”) has much to recommend it to anyone who enjoys the more sober and stately aspects of the Gothic tradition. Gorgeous visuals and sophisticated characterisation aside, however, if Majewski had embraced the genre a little more vigorously the film would be much improved. There is a point in horror cinema at which subtlety shades into diffidence, and Lokis strays beyond it, unwilling to go for the jugular even as the story reaches its climax. At times it feels like the Polish equivalent of a Merchant-Ivory production, with too much time spent observing ladies dancing timorous two-steps, and a wealth of unnecessary chit-chat amid soft furnishings and antique furniture.

This is a shame, because Mérimée’s folk-tale is basically a progenitor for the werewolf sub-genre and a little more wildness would not go amiss. Lurking beneath the elegant surface is a rough-hewn allegory concerning the bestial nature of man versus the sobering force of civilisation. Tension is left to simmer until the very moment when civilisation concedes ‘right of way’ to animal urges – the wedding night. The Count’s inner beastliness is thus unleashed upon his pretty young bride (Malgorzata Braunek, star of Andrzej Zulawski’s The Third Part of the Night), lending the tale a Catholic dimension: such is the woeful power of sexuality that even the sanctified conjugal bed is too weak a vessel to contain it. Of course one may also feel that repression has so distorted the Count’s natural energy that the expression of it leads to destruction and madness. Sex is very much repressed: Doctor Froeber, for instance, shows Wittembach a series of drawings depicting the day the Count’s mother was ‘dragged away’ by a bear, though neither physician nor priest comment on the fact that the drawings have a distinctly erotic dimension, with the bear standing over a supplicant woman whose dress is ripped, exposing her breasts. If only the film had dramatised the encounter!

The erotic subtext is buried so far beneath the genteel surface of Lokis that one longs for an eruption of visual extravagance to match the rage of the were-bear. Instead, on the fateful occasion of the Count’s wedding night, the camera enters the bedchamber only after the damage has been done. Unlike another Polish film on a similar theme, Walerian Borowczyk’s The Beast (1975), the problem with Lokis is that the very repressiveness explored by the story is allowed to afflict the telling of the tale.

Mérimée’s novella, published in the Revue des deux Mondes in September 1869, has much in common with, yet predates, the celebrated antiquarian ghost stories of M. R. James. Mérimée also wrote “Carmen” (1845), used by Bizet as the basis of his celebrated opera. His story “La Vénus d’Ille” (1837) was made into an elegant TV movie by Italian horror maestro Mario Bava in 1979.

Lokis is available on DVD as part of a ‘Horrory’ 3-disc box-set including two more Polish horror films: Wilczyca ['She-Wolf'] (1982) and Widzaidło ['Apparition'] (1983).

More information about the film, including translations of contemporary Polish reviews and numerous pictures, can be found at Repozytorium Cyfrowe Filmoteki Narodowej (Digital Repository of the National Film Archive) – go to http://www.repozytorium.fn.org.pl/?q=en/node/8134  Filmoteka Narodowa

Stephen Thrower, Horrorpedia

David Tynan O’Mahony (6 July 1936 – 10 March 2005), better known as Dave Allen, was an Irish comedian and actor, perhaps best known for his 1970s BBC TV series, which saw him sitting in a studio – cigarette in hand, glass of whiskey by his side – telling humorous, observational, sometimes acerbic stories, interspersed with sketches. He was famous – or infamous, depending on your viewpoint – for his mockery of religion, the Catholic church in particular. Many of his skits would probably not be done today in our times of heightened sensitivity towards / fear of religious offence.

So why is he here on Horrorpedia? Well, quite simply, Allen’s work often included horror movie pastiches. It’s clear that this was a man with an affection for and appreciation of horror cinema. While other comedians may have donned the cape and fangs and camped about as comedy Draculas, Allen’s sketches were more nuanced. Often, the humour didn’t become apparent until the  punchline, and until that point, many of his skits – based around Hammer style gothic horror usually, sometimes involving a Death figure straight from The Seventh Seal and once mocking The Exorcist – were straight-faced, atmospheric and often creepier than many a genuine horror film.

Most of these sketches are (at best) gathering dust in the BBC vaults, but a few have been reshown over the years. Here are a couple.

Posted by DF

El Retorno del Hombre Lobo (Return of the Wolfman) is a 1981 Spanish horror film that is the ninth in a long series about the werewolf Count Waldemar Daninsky, played by Paul Naschy. It was briefly released theatrically in the US in 1985 by The Film Concept Group as The Craving, and more recently on DVD and Blu-ray as Night of the Werewolf.

In an outdoor trial in the 16th Century, Elizabeth Bathory and a number of witches are being sentenced – Bathory to spend her remaining days entombed, most of her followers beheaded or hanged. The brawn of her operation, Waldemar Daninsky, the celebrated nobleman-lycanthrope, is sentenced to be left in a state of living death, with a silver dagger through his heart and an iron mask (the mask of shame, no less) to keep him from biting. Centuries later, the dagger is removed by grave-robbers and Daninsky returns to activity, fighting against a revived Elizabeth Bathory and her demonic manservant, courtesy of some attractive modern-day witchery.

Outside of Italian gialli, there is little more confusing a purchase than a Naschy film – it is an essential rite of passage as a serious fan of horror films that at some point you may mistakenly end up with two copies of this under differing titles in error. Fortunately, it’s a cracker, not only the crystalisation of everything Naschy had attempted up to this point but also one of the peaks of Spanish horror. Paul Naschy had been successful enough by this stage that he was afforded a budget that matched his ambition – wobbly sets were replaced by actual castle ruins and sumptuous gothic decoration, the scope of the film covering vampires, werewolves and that old Spanish stand-by, the skeletal Knights Templar.

The cast sees Naschy regular Julia Saly (Panic Beats, Night of the Seagulls) as Bathory, pale-faced and clearly relishing the role, without ever attempting to overshadow Naschy. Naschy seems positively weepy, surrounded as he is in fog, thrilling coloured lighting and decked out in ancient finery. The other three main female characters, played by Pilar Alcón, Silvia Aguilar and Azucena Hernández had varied careers in Spanish genre cinema, all of them supplementing their incomes with ‘daring’ magazine photo-shoots – although nudity is scarce in the film, the three of them continually seem on the cusp of disrobing.

The pace is particularly brisk for a Naschy film, perhaps aided by him taking the director’s chair himself, instead of his usual muse, León Klimovsky. That said, the film makes little sense in the chronology of Daninsky werewolf films (this being the ninth of twelve), neither does the lenient sentence given to Bathory at the beginning of the film, nor her loyal servant suddenly being Hell-bent on revenge. No matter, the characters are interesting and straight-faced enough to carry what is lower rank Hammer fodder in theory.

Alas, 1981 was not the right time to suddenly nail your Gothic fetishes – horror cinema had long abandoned candle-lit castles and fangy nymphs and the box office was most unforgiving, leaving Naschy to film several films in Japan to try to rebuild not only his reputation but his finances. Time still doesn’t really seem to have caught up with Naschy, his films still polarising opinion amongst genre fans and almost completely ignored by the mainstream both in terms of interest and influence.

The soundtrack, though perfectly suited, is an outrageous plagiarism of both Ennio Morricone (the wailing harmonica of Once Upon a Time in the West) and Stelvio Cipriani (What Have They Done to Your Daughters? – in fairness, regularly reused by himself on the likes of Tentacles). The stunning cinematography is courtesy of Alejandro Ulloa, who also shot the likes of Horror Express, Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion and The House by the Edge of the Lake. The special effects largely stay away from the time-lapse transformation from human to beast and the film doesn’t suffer in the slightest – Naschy’s writhing at the sight of the moon being entertaining enough. Naschy remained proud of the film up to his death in 2009 and rightly so.

Daz Lawrence

La momia nacional (which translates as “The National Mummy”) is a 1981 Spanish horror sex comedy directed by José Ramón Larraz (Vampyres, Scream – and Die!, Rest in Pieces, Edge of the Axe) from a screenplay by Juan José Alonso Millán. It stars Francisco Algora, Quique Camoiras, Azucena Hernández, Carlos Lucena, José Jaime Espinosa, Lili Muráti, Trini Alonso, Paloma Hurtado, Mabel Escaño, Pilar Alcón. 

This film was a domestic release that does not seem to have been sold outside of Spain except perhaps in some Latin American countries.

The IMDb‘s plot keywords include: werewolf, female nudity, brothel, prostitute, vampire, governess, erotica, political comedy, mummy, severed arm, sex and insane asylum, which all sounds like good/bad fun to us… although the song that plays over the opening credits is appalling, so perhaps this is one comedy horror that deserves to remain in Spain?

IMDb | We are most grateful to No, hija, no for some of the images above.

Moonstalker (aka Predator: The Quietus) is a 1986 British horror film directed by Leslie McCarthy from a screenplay by himself and Cliff Twemlow (as Mike Sullivan). Twemlow also stars along with Cordelia Roche, Darryl Marchant, Mark Gover, Paddy Ward, Arthur Willman, Maxton G. Beesley, Abigail Zealey, Mark Heath, Sarah Fallon, Brian Sterling, John Simpson, Michelle Norfolk.

Review:

The late, great Cliff Twemlow was a true working class renaissance man who – until his death in 1993 – tried his hand at everything from stints as a nightclub bouncer, library music composer and horror paperback writer (The Pike, 1982), finally settling on a dual career as an actor and DIY filmmaker. Twemlow’s best known film G.B.H. (1983), the violent story of a Mancunian nightclub bouncer – autobiographically played by Cliff himself – was a fondly remembered good time rental from the early days of British video. Its ballsy claim to be “more brutal than The Long Good Friday”, non-stop action and one-liners worthy of Gene Hunt himself, easily winning audiences over, despite G.B.H.’s humble, shot on videotape origins. 

Stories about the so-called “Beast of Exmoor” proved to be the inspiration behind this 1986 effort which adds horror elements to Twemlow’s tried and tested G.B.H. formula. “The Beast” was all over the papers in the 1980s thanks to constant tabloid speculation that a high amount of sheep deaths were the result of a giant, panther like cat being loose in the countryside. Clearly not even this angle was sensationalist enough for Twemlow, nor Moonstalker director Leslie McCarthy, who instead use the film to posit the theory that the beast was in fact a werewolf!!! 

Given such a spin on the story like that it’s no surprise that a New York newspaper dispatches ace reporter Kelly O’Neil (Cordelia Roche) to a little village in England to investigate the apparent werewolf attacks. The paper also hires big game hunter Daniel Kane (Twemlow) in order to provide the back-up brawn to her brains. Clearly taking no chances, Kane arrives in the UK carrying with him machine guns and “an image that’s as wholesome as sewerage”. The fact that you are not really allowed to run around the English countryside tooled up like Rambo is cheekily dismissed by a line claiming that Kane has been granted a special permit to bear arms by the Freemasons!! “Charles Bronson eat your heart out” wisecracks one character. 

Kelly’s initial scepticism starts to crumble when Mr Rooney and Mr Clancy, a pair of old Irish drunkards, start feeding her stories about the werewolf’s exploits. The drunken duo’s merry demeanour and habit of injecting exclamations of “bejesus” and “Mary, Mother of God” into their conversations quickly endearing them to Kelly. “That’s real Irish charm” an easily impressed Kelly tells Kane. Kelly inadvertently gives Rooney and Clancy a flash of inspiration about how they can settle their bar tab when she mentions the cash reward on offer for the werewolf’s capture. Setting into motion several attempts to find the werewolf by the ‘Oirish’ double act, whose well pissed antics provide the film’s idea of comic relief. 

The werewolf itself occasionally surfaces to polish off livestock and a few minor characters as well as scare a pair of randy teenagers off having a quickie in a field. Just to add to the village’s problem of having a lycanthrope on their doorstep, a local biker gang have started throwing their weight around – as well as the odd Molotov cocktail – too. Sporting names like Weasel and Badger, and looking like they’ve escaped from the set of Death Wish 3, the motley bike gang are naturally destined for a run in with a certain big game hunter. After Kane beats up all of Badger’s gang, their leader sneers “not bad with boys are you old man, how do you make out with men”, only for Kane to shoot back at him the film’s funniest line “I don’t, my scene is with women, but I respect the preferences of others”.

As if the film didn’t have enough support characters to be going on with, we also get to meet the delightfully named Wilbur Sledge (Darryl Marchant), a strange young man who appears to know more about the werewolf than he is letting on. Wilbur serves as a mouthpiece for a surprisingly poetic and philosophical side to Twemlow’s screenwriting, and his script offers Wilbur plenty of opportunity to wander about the countryside delivering eccentric soliloquies about trees (“You are such a statuesque tree, proud and mighty, why did you anger the lord of lightning?”), passing rabbits, and even the werewolf itself (“The beast is lonely… it needs my friendship”). An utterly unique presence in the film played an equally unique looking actor – imagine a Gary Numan lookalike and a Roddy McDowall sound alike, dressed as a farmer and delivering dialogue that suggests Twemlow trying to channel the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe, and you have Mr Wilbur Sledge. Such a character would make for an incongruous presence in pretty much any film, and stands out even further here thanks to having being dropped in amidst such quintessential 1980s action film stables as a gun totting mercenary and a bike gang. The fact that Darryl Marchant looks to have never been troubled by the acting world before or since, and as far as I can tell remains a one film wonder, only adds to his and the his character’s mystic. Every moment Marchant is onscreen you are completely captivated by him and left wondering “what the fuck was his story?” and “where on earth did Twemlow find this guy?”

Initially built up as a likely werewolf suspect, Wilbur instead ends up taking on a friend/spiritual adviser role to Kane. After Kane gets injured by the werewolf, Wilbur even volunteers to stitch him back up with a needle and thread, a scene that acts as Moonstalker’s only real stab at gore. It probably would have been advisable for Kane to have just gone to hospital, but as it turns out Kane is impervious to pain anyway having mastered “jungle law”, so that’s alright then! An impressive werewolf finally takes centre stage in the expected Kane vs. Werewolf climax. Even if it is all slightly bungled by post brawl revelations that first suggest a Scooby-Doo type explanation for the werewolf, only to then take it all back and opt for a genuine ‘monster on the loose’ explanation instead. Presumably sparing Twemlow and Co the wraith of any believers in the real life Beast of Exmoor in the process. 

Moonstalker gives the impression of having a greater amount of money and ambition behind it than the average Cliff Twemlow vehicle, with shooting on film instead of the usual videotape. The film makes a decent attempt at bamboozling the audience into thinking its opening scenes were filmed in New York. Thanks to some NYC stock footage and shots of actors pretending to be junkies and roaming what in reality were the mean streets of the North West of England rather than the East Coast of America. Yet for all of the upgrade to film and illusory ‘overseas location’ work, Moonstaker still retains all the recognizable hallmarks of Twemlow’s small scale, but enthusiastic film work. His eye for action scenes and ear for brilliant, tough guy movie dialogue are on fine form. Little known areas of Twemlow’s beloved North West are predominantly what are offered up as background scenery, Moonstalker being partly filmed in the sleepy village of Chipping and an off-season scout camp in Worsley. The cast includes such Twemlow regulars as Maxton G. Beesley and Brian Sterling-Vete, adding to the strong sense of a close-knit filmmaking troupe at work. 

Peek in at any stage of Cliff Twemlow’s life and career and what immediately strikes you is that here was a man who gave his all to whatever offbeat path life was pointing him in the direction of. His career as a nightclub bouncer, documented in his autobiography ‘The Tuxedo Warrior’, saw him pay multiple visits to the hospital over the years, his stint as a library music composer resulted in ‘two thousand’ pieces of music, and his 1970s fitness regime drove him to attempt 400 push-ups, 100 sit-ups daily, and three mile jogging sessions (with lead weights tied to his legs – according to local legend). This drive and determination was clearly the central force behind his film career, and the fact that he even had one and was able to carve out a mini-film industry for himself in 1980s Britain, was perhaps his most remarkable achievement in life. While even seasoned low-budget filmmakers like Norman J. Warren and Lindsay Shonteff struggled to get film projects off the ground during this decade, Twemlow was highly prolific in comparison, and seemingly doing what he did purely out of a love of making movies rather than for fame or money, since neither came his way on account of his film work. In fact, G.B.H. aside, his films were so invisible to the general public while he was making them, that it is really only now, years after the fact that we’re discovering later films like Moonstalker exist at all. By rights Twemlow should be an inspiration to all low-budget filmmakers out there.

Behind the scenes stories about Moonstalker further add to the idea of Twemlow as the sort who’d jump through rings of fire in order to see a film get completed, and at times threaten to rival the onscreen incidents in terms of entertainment value. According to one cast member the production was plagued by weird, supernatural occurrences and an actual ghost can briefly be seen in the film itself (although if this is true I’ve failed miserably to spot it every time I’ve watched the film). Given such hair-raising production troubles, a quick title change at the last minute (the original title Predator: the Quietus being unusable when it emerged that Hollywood was about to unleash a Predator of its own) must have been a comparatively minor problem for Twemlow.

Another moment of low-budget ingenuity saw the auteur talk a local Fiat car dealer into providing transport for the production in return for some obvious product placement. A handshake that resulted in poor Kane having to search for a werewolf in a Fiat Panda, a less than macho mode of transport that characters unconvincingly insist is a Jeep. In the event the miscast vehicle fits in conveniently well with Twemlow’s penchant for giving his characters quirky traits that go against audience expectations, generating intentional laughs in the process.

In G.B.H., Twemlow had shown his hard as nails bouncer character sharing a bed with a giant teddy bear, and in Moonstalker he makes Kane a strict teetotaller. Resulting in a priceless onscreen moment when Twemlow- a man built like a brick shithouse- goes to a restaurant and asks for “a glass of orange juice, please”. Scenes that illustrate Twemlow’s ability to gamely take the piss out of himself in a way that the egos of far bigger Hollywood action heroes would never have allowed. In spite of Twemlow taking on roles as the film’s male lead, writer, co-producer and fight arranger, there is an egolessness on display here, with the majority of his co-stars given a respectable amount of screen time and moments to shine too, a generosity that also extends to non-acting performers, witness the routine of a nightclub singer (“Jade at the Meridiana restaurant courtesy of Mr John Leyton” according to the end credits) being crowbarred into the film. 

Twemlow quickly followed Moonstalker with 1987’s The Eye of Satan, a similar hybrid of gung-ho action and horror that once again saw him playing a mercenary who answers to the name of Kane. Quite whether The Eye of Satan was conceived as a direct sequel is a moot point though, since Kane sports rather different characteristics in his second outing. Namely an allegiance to the devil and glowing green eyes! 

Perhaps this was just as well, since while The Eye of Satan was afforded an obscure video release and a few satellite TV airings on the HVC channel, a dispute with a film developing lab initially resulted in Moonstalker being left on the shelf. In the early 1990s the rights to the film were acquired by Hemdale Film Corporation, a company that had been set up by the actor David Hemmings. When Hemdale went bankrupt in 1995, the Hemdale library ended up the property of the Hollywood giant MGM. The sensible money would have been on MGM regarding the film as a low-priority and burying it, however to everyone’s great surprise they have in fact recently chosen to re-master it in high definition, subsequently broadcasting a HD version on American television in 2010 and making it available on Netflix. Quite an achievement for a previously unreleased film starring nobody anyone in America will have ever heard off, and featuring locations and accents that are equally obscure to a US audience. An unlikely happy ending to the previously sorry saga of Moonstalker, and one which offers hope that all the other lost, forgotten or barely released horror films currently out there gathering dust may one day emerge from the vaults and have their day too. 

Back in the UK, Moonstalker had its belated British premiere – nearly 25 years after it was made – as part of the 2010 Salford Film Festival. In true Cliff Twemlow fashion the première was held above a pub located just outside of Manchester City Centre. If the true litmus paper test of a film’s entertainment value is how it plays before a live audience then the film passed with flying colours. Proving a real crowd pleaser, the audience laughed along with its knowingly implausible storyline, cheered when Cliff’s face first appeared onscreen, while even the slightest hint of an upcoming action scene was greeted by wrestling match like shouts of “Go on Cliff!!”. Methinks Mr Twemlow would have approved.

Gavin Whitaker – Gav Crimson

IMDb

Howl is a forthcoming British horror film about a werewolf on a train directed by Paul Hyett (The Descent (special effects),The Seasoning House) from a screenplay by Mark Huckerby and Nick Ostler. It stars Shauna MacDonald, Ross Mullan, Calvina Dean, Rosie Day, Ryan Oliva, Sam Gittins, Anian Marson.

Plot teaser:

When passengers on a train are attacked by a creature, they must band together in order to survive until morning.

IMDb | Twitter

Hemlock Grove is an American, Netflix Original, horror thriller television series. The show is executive produced by Eli Roth (Cabin Fever; Hostel; The Green Inferno), developed by Brian McGreevy and Lee Shipman. It is based on McGreevy’s novel Hemlock Grove (2012).

The show premiered April 19, 2013, with all thirteen episodes made immediately available for online viewing. On June 19, 2013, Netflix renewed Hemlock Grove for a second season.

Hemlock Grove, Pennsylvania. The town is a mixture of extreme wealth and poverty, as the closing of the town’s steel mill many years earlier caused many to lose their jobs. The town’s main sources of employment are now the Hemlock Acres Hospital and Godfrey Institute for Biomedical Technologies. Run by the powerful Godfrey family, the Institute is rumored to conduct sinister experiments on a daily basis.

The town’s rumor mill turns even more twisted when two teenage girls are brutally killed and their bodies left for unsuspecting people to find the next day. Peter Rumancek, a 17-year-old gypsy, is suspected of the crimes by some of the townsfolk; he is also rumored to be a werewolf. While secretly he is a werewolf, he is not the killer, and, along with the heir to the Godfrey estate, Roman, he sets out to solve the mystery…

Main cast:

• Famke Janssen as Olivia Godfrey
• Bill Skarsgård as Roman Godfrey
• Landon Liboiron as Peter Rumancek
• Penelope Mitchell as Letha Godfrey
• Dougray Scott as Dr. Norman Godfrey
• Freya Tingley as Christina Wendall

Reviews:

“If the underlying formula is as old as Dark Shadows, there’s still a need for more narrative momentum than the 13-episode series initially delivers. So while one can understand why Netflix would augment its original slate with this mix of talent, “Hemlock Grove” remains a mere niche confection, one likely to play best among those genre fans who can’t see the forest for the trees.” Brian Lowry, Variety

“Actually, embarrassing is a good way to describe everything about this show. It’s cringeworthy. You can tell that the creators thought they were being edgy, because they threw swear words into every other line and included lots of sex scenes, but it comes off as impossibly juvenile. There’s not a single character that acts like a real person would. They just do things, because the script says so. It’s hard to shake the impression that the whole thing was written by a child, just guessing at how the adult world works.” Sarah Dobbs, Den of Geek!

“Hemlock Grove takes its time with story lines, ensuring that each one has plenty of room to ripen. It carries out every dastardly deed with gusto, but still offers enough moments of levity … And though the sordid world is captivating, I’m still grappling with aspects of the conclusion, which oozes with old-school misogyny that savagely punishes every girl and woman who dares to own her sexuality.” Jessica Shaw, Entertainment Weekly

Wikipedia | IMDb | Facebook

Wolf is a 1994 American horror film directed by Mike Nichols and written by Jim Harrison, Wesley Strick, and an uncredited Elaine May, with music by Ennio Morricone and cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno (The Stendhal Syndrome).

The film features Jack Nicholson (The Raven; The Terror; The Shining) and Michelle Pfeiffer in the lead roles, alongside James Spader (The Watcher; Alien Hunter), Kate Nelligan (Dracula – 1979; Thérèse Raquin - BBC TV; Fatal Instinct), Richard Jenkins, Christopher Plummer (The Pyx; Murder by Decree; Vampire in Venice) Eileen Atkins, David Hyde Pierce, and Om Puri.

Plot teaser:

Will Randall is bitten by a wolf while driving home through Vermont after it was seemingly hit by his car. Soon after, he is demoted from editor-in-chief of a publishing house during a takeover by ruthless tycoon Raymond Alden, who replaces him with Will’s ambitious protégé Stewart Swinton. Will begins experiencing physiological changes ranging from increased appetites and libido to hair regrowth and sharper-than-human sensory perceptions. Catching an unfamiliar scent on the clothing of his wife Charlotte, Will rushes over to Stewart’s house, bites Stewart during a brief physical altercation, and rushes upstairs to the bedroom where he finds evidence of Charlotte’s infidelity. Will leaves his wife, takes up residence at the Mayflower Hotel, and as the moon ripens, takes on increasingly bestial aggressive characteristics.

With the help of Alden’s rebellious daughter Laura, Will tries to adapt to his new existence. His first nocturnal escapade as a werewolf takes place at Laura’s guesthouse on the Alden estate where he partially transforms and hunts down a deer by moonlight. In the morning, Will finds himself on the bank of a stream, with blood all over his face and hands, and, fearing notice, hurriedly departs in his Volvo…

Reviews:

“Quite frankly, it’s hard to fathom why exactly anyone would have wanted to make this slick, glossy, but utterly redundant werewolf movie… Overall, this is needlessly polished nonsense: not awful; just toothless, gutless and bloodless … Nichols makes it clear that directing a horror movie was the last thing on his mind. Even make-up wiz Rick Baker is stymied by the air of restraint.” Time Out

“a decidedly upscale horror film, a tony werewolf movie in which a full roster of talents tries to mate with unavoidably hoary material. Offspring of this union is less ungainly than might have been feared, but is also less than entirely convincing, an intriguing thriller more enjoyable for its humor than for its scare quotient.” Todd McCarthy, Variety

“No one puts more wicked zest into playing yuppie scum than the gifted Spader – he’s a roguish delight… Nichols is a master of the telling detail, and his vision of the New York publishing world as an urban jungle is elegantly stylized and bitingly funny… Nicholson is amazing, finding humor and poignancy in a role that could have slid into caricature. His scenes with Pfeiffer, who gives a luminous performance, have a welcome edge, aided by some uncredited scripting from Nichols’ former comedy partner Elaine May… a rapturous romantic thriller with a darkly comic subtext about what kills human values.” Peter Travers, Rolling Stone

“In its own delightfully peculiar way, the film is the only one of its kind ever made – a horror film about office politics… The movie isn’t wholly great; it starts to unravel just after the midway point. Still, there are charms enough all the way through to make it the most seductive, most enjoyable film of the summer… The main attraction, though, is Nicholson – first, last and always – and it’s his modulated suavity and wit that make the film so sublimely entertaining… Though Randall becomes more formidable as the movie progresses, Nicholson sustains his low-key, self-effacing style, and somehow the more he keeps his natural dynamism in check, the more his charisma increases…” Hal Hinson, Washington Post

“The tone of the movie is steadfastly smart and literate; even in the midst of his transformation, the Nicholson character is capable of sardonic asides and a certain ironic detachment… What is a little amazing is that this movie allegedly cost $70 million. It is impossible to figure where the money all went, even given the no-doubt substantial above-the-line salaries. The special effects are efficient but not sensational, the makeup by Rick Baker is convincing but wisely limited, and the movie looks great, but that doesn’t cost a lot of money. What emerges is an effective attempt to place a werewolf story in an incongruous setting, with the closely observed details of that setting used to make the story seem more believable.” Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times

Egyptian poster for Wolf

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Wer (also known as Kurt) is a 2013 American horror film directed by William Brent Bell (Stay Alive; The Devil Inside) from a screenplay co-written with Matthew Peterman. It stars A.J. Cook (Wishmaster 3; Ripper; Final Destination 2), Brian Scott O’Connor, Simon Quarterman, Sebastian Roché (Supernatural; The Vampire Diaries), Vik Sahay.

A US release on DVD is slated for September 23, 2014.

Plot teaser:

Defense attorney Kate (A.J. Cook) is called to defend the creepy, yet gentle, Talan (Brian Scott O’Connor) after he is charged with the murders of a vacationing family. She soon learns that he is a werewolf and that he may have been all too capable of the slayings. Things take a turn for the worse when Talan escapes from his imprisonment and runs loose through the city of Paris…

Filming location:

Bucharest, Romania

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