Behind the Couch

AKA The Haunted & the Hunted 1963 Dir. Francis Ford Coppola Troubled couple Louise (Luana Anders) and her husband John are staying at his family castle in deepest, darkest Ireland. The family have gathered for the annual memorial service of John’s sister and the reading of his mother’s will. Taking a midnight jaunt in a row boat, Louise and John discuss his mother’s will, they argue and he reminds Louise that if he dies before his mother, she will not see a penny of the inheritance. As she tries to persuade him to talk his mother into changing the will, he has a heart attack and dies. Louise sees the opportunity to worm her way into her mother-in-law’s favour and tips John’s body into the lake, later faking a note from him stating that he had to return to New York on urgent business. She hatches a plan that involves driving the mother insane by making her believe that her dead daughter has come back to haunt her and will therefore be more easily persuaded to change her will.

1960 Dir. Georges Franju Christiane (Edith Scob) is horrifically disfigured in a car accident caused by her father's reckless driving. Her father, famed surgeon Dr Génessier, is driven by guilt and despair to abduct young women, surgically remove their faces and attempt to graft them onto Christiane’s own scarred face. When Christiane realises what her father is doing, she decides that the time has come to show him that he cannot control everything… This was Franju’s feature film debut. Preceding it was a series of short films and documentaries, notably The Blood of the Beasts , a documentary about an abattoir. While not the first film to follow the exploits of a deranged surgeon, Eyes Without a Face was certainly the first to do so in such a poetic, provocative and literate way. It addresses notions of identity, morality, obsession and hope. Written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, writers whose earlier work such as Celle Qui N’Etart Plus and D’entre les Morts had

1999 Dir. Rupert Wainwright After her mother posts her some rosary beads that belonged to a recently deceased Priest, Frankie (Patricia Arquette) begins to exhibit explicit signs of the stigmata – wounds on her body that mirror those inflicted upon Christ when he was crucified. The stigmata are usually only suffered by the devoutly religious – but Frankie is an atheist. Father Kiernan (Gabriel Byrne) is dispatched by the Vatican to investigate, and disprove, this seemingly miraculous phenomenon. When he witnesses Frankie’s affliction for himself, and realises it has no logical explanation, he agrees to help her. They eventually discover a vast conspiracy within the Vatican to cover up religious texts written by Jesus.  The film opens with Kiernan going to South America to study a statue of the Virgin Mary that has cried tears of blood since the death of a renowned local priest. The priest discovered texts he believed were written by Jesus and even though they contradict the concep

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Mannequins have frequently been used to supremely creepy effect in horror cinema. From Mario Bava’s early giallo Blood & Black Lace , with its lavish fashion house peppered with dress makers dummies, to 1979’s eerie Tourist Trap with its bizarre roadside museum chock-full of the uncanny things, it is fair to say that mannequins are officially creepy. An early episode of the Twilight Zone called The After Hours  also utilises the spooky plastic people to shuddering effect, and then it manages to do something genuinely original with them too… Anne Francis stars as Marsha White, who enjoys shopping and browsing in expensive boutique shops. Mooching around a colossal department store looking for a gold thimble for her mother, Marsha is taken to the 9th floor by the elevator operator: a floor that does not appear on the elevator panel. When she reaches the 9th floor, Marsha is greeted by a slightly awkward saleswomen, who shows her the only item on the floor: a gold thimble! Thin

1965 Dir. Jorge Grau AKA Let Sleeping Corpses Lie Don't Open the Window Do Not Speak Ill of the Dead Breakfast at the Manchester Morgue The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue is an Italian/Spanish co-production, largely shot in England, by a Spanish director, with a mostly British cast. George (Ray Lovelock) is an antique shop owner in swinging Sixties Manchester. He shuts up shop one fateful weekend to head off into the countryside to fix up an old house with some friends. On the way his motorbike is accidently reversed into by Edna (Cristina Galbo). She agrees to give him a lift to his destination, after she has been to visit her troubled sister Katie. George insists on driving Edna’s car, and bizarrely, she is okay with this. And so begins a night of terror for George and Edna. Hunted not only by an ever-growing horde of the living dead shuffling across the countryside, but also by the police, headed by a brutish Inspector who believes George and Edna are a couple

1967 Dir. Roman Polanski AKA Dance of the Vampires The Fearless Vampire Killers… Or, Pardon Me, But Your Teeth Are in My Neck Polanski’s pastiche of Hammer Horror opens in familiar fashion: two eccentric ‘outsiders’ seek refuge at an inn inhabited by superstitious locals and an abundance of garlic bulbs hanging everywhere. The mere suggestion that these two inept gentlemen are searching for the castle of famed fiend Herbert Von Krolock is enough to frighten the simple townsfolk. The sort of madcap shenanigans that ensue set the tone for a film that, while largely a comedy, still manages to muster a sharp bite (sorry) and a dark edge. Polanski plays Alfred, the loyal yet bumbling assistant to vampire killer extraordinaire Professor Abronsius (Jack McGowern). Abronsius claims his ineptitude and incompetence is actually a wily foil to conceal his status as a legendary vampire hunter, tracking and destroying the Un-Dead. He's fooling no one. The duo are the Laurel and Har

John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is an underrated, highly moody horror flick from 1987. After the discovery of a giant canister containing an eerie green and swirling mass under a church, a group of students specialising in philosophy, science, theology and linguistics are invited by a troubled priest (Donald Pleasance) to investigate. They realise that the canister will act as a doorway to hell but the only way to open the canister is from the inside… Soon, the liquid begins to seep out and possess the students, one by one. Meanwhile outside, a group of menacing vagrants led by Alice Cooper surround the church and the remaining students must barricade themselves in, unaware that their colleagues are gradually becoming possessed by the evil in the canister. The collective dream shared by the students is, for this reviewer anyway, incredibly creepy and unsettling. A static-hewn shot of a shadowy figure lingering sinisterly in a doorway backlit with spectral light, is perhaps th

I recently conducted (no pun intended) an interview with Marco Werba for Little White Lies . Werba has just finished completing the score for Dario Argento's latest thriller Giallo . Click here to listen to some of Werba's music from the forthcoming Giallo . Indeed, why not check out some of Werba's other film scores by clicking here . Enjoy. The following interview was published on www.littlewhitelies.co.uk on 18th February 2009 Madrid born composer Marco Werba is the man responsible for scoring Dario Argento’s latest blood-soaked opus, Giallo . Werba is no stranger to horror, however, having provided the music for other genre pictures, including several by leading German underground horror director, Timo Rose. Not just confining himself to horror, Werba has enhanced the visuals of many genres including historical epics and intimate dramas. His work veers from the broodingly theatrical to melodic fragility. Not only a distinguished composer of film scores, he has als

1965 Dir. Freddie Francis Amicus Productions was set up in the wake of Hammer Horror's success in the Sixties. Many of its films took the form of creepy, darkly humorous portmanteaux tales of insanity, revenge and grim death. Some of their more well known titles include Torture Garden, Scream And Scream Again, I Monster and The House that Dripped Blood . The Skull is a pretty typical example of their output, an atmospheric, entertaining slice of gothic schlock. The story follows Peter Cushing as Dr Maitland, a collector of odd and bizarre artefacts and transcripts. He gets more than he bargained for when he acquires the skull of the Marquis de Sade... Directed with notable flair by Freddie Francis and based on a short story by Robert Bloch, The Skull unfolds at a languid pace. Untypical attention to characterisation is lavished upon Cushing’s Dr Maitland as he sinks deeper into despair. Cushing is always a credible presence and his performance is a subtle study in menta

2000 Dir. Jan Svankmajer Little Otik is the troubling tale of a couple whose desperation for a baby pushes them to the brink of sanity. In an attempt to alleviate his wife Bozena’s distress, Karel offers her a tree root which she accepts as their child. Eventually however, they realise to their horror that the root has a voracious appetite that can’t be quelled by milk and carrot soup alone. Not since  Eraserhead  has parenthood seemed like such a nightmare. Svankmajer is renowned for his ground-breaking and innovative use of stop-motion animation in his films. Many of his surreal short films comprise of his experiments in this medium. Svankmajer imbues his animated creations with so much life and character, more so in fact than those of his human/live action characters. Indeed Little Otik seems to highlight this trait of Svankmajer’s and even steps it up a notch. The human characters are drawn with the broadest of stokes, however the writhing mass of roots and twigs that mak

1961 Dir. Roger Corman Francis Barnard (John Kerr) makes his way to the home of his late sister Elizabeth (Barabara Steele) to meet her husband Nicholas Medina (Vincent Price) and learn more of her death. Whilst there, he witnesses Medina slowly sink into mourning and insanity as his sister Catherine (Luana Anders) helplessly looks on. Francis soon begins to realise Elizabeth’s death occurred under mysterious circumstances and all is not as it seems…  The Corman adaptations of Edgar Allan Poe stories were perhaps some of the first horror films I ever watched as a youngster. Staying up late and secretly watching the little portable TV in my room, with the light on of course, I often peered at these lurid gems of the genre from between my fingers. None had more of an impact than Pit and the Pendulum . It still retains the ability to chill and unsettle in its own unique way. Watching it is pure nostalgic bliss. Adding to the nostalgia and the bliss is the fact that the film stars Vin