Behind the Couch

2005 Dir. Andrew Leman "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." H.P. Lovecraft First published in Weird Tales in 1922, Lovecraft’s The Call of Cthulhu concerns Francis Wayland Thurston, a young man who is attempting to piece together the circumstances of his great-uncle's death. While looking through the dead man’s possessions he finds a weird manuscript pertaining to an ancient and alien slumbering deity, and the despicable ...

1943 Dir. Jacques Tourneur When a publicity stunt backfires, a domesticated leopard escapes from a New Mexico nightclub prompting a desperate search to re-capture it. An ensuing series of grisly deaths is blamed on the animal; however nightclub performer Kiki and her agent Jerry soon suspect that it isn’t the leopard responsible for the violent deaths; but a deranged serial killer who uses the escaped animal as a cover for his heinous crimes. After the success of Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie , producer Val Lewton reteamed with director Jacques Tourneur for their next collaboration, the RKO-assigned title of which was to be The Leopard Man . Rather than churning out a hackneyed variation on the werewolf film, in which a man transforms into a slathering beast before claiming his prey, the exceedingly literate Lewton chose to adapt Cornell Woolrich’s mystery-thriller ‘Black Alibi’: a twisted tale about a killer in a Mexican city using the fear caused by an escaped wild a...

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 ...

1957 Dir. Jacques Tourneur Understated and immensely provocative, Tourneur’s Night of the Demon pays homage to the films the director made with producer Val Lewton in the early 40s ( Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie and The Leopard Man ). Regarded as a classic of the genre, and testament to the power of suggestion and evocation, Night of the Demon is based on a short story by MR James: 'The Casting of the Runes.' Dana Andrews plays skeptical American psychologist Dr John Holden, who comes to England to investigate and disprove the supposedly supernatural acts of a sinister cult led by Dr Julian Karswell (Niall MacGinnis). Upon his arrival he discovers his friend and colleague Professor Harrington (Maurice Denham) has died under mysterious circumstances. Accompanied by the late professor’s niece Joanna (Peggy Cummins), Holden investigates the matter further only to become ensconced in a dark and uncertain world where the supernatural is frighteningly real. Much of...

1968 Dir. Jonathan Miller ‘Who is this who is coming?’ Based on the chilling ghost story (‘Oh Whistle and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’, first published in Ghost Stories of an Antiquary , 1905) by the master of ghost tales MR James, Whistle and I’ll Come to You was adapted by the BBC for their arts Omnibus series. The story revolves around the cranky and rationally-minded Professor Parkins (Michael Hordern) as he travels to the Norfolk coast for a brief holiday from his academic work. Out on one of his many perambulations, Parkins discovers an old whistle half buried in the grounds of an ancient cemetery. Reading the titular inscription carved into the whistle, Parkins is able to translate the Latin verse and discovers it reads ‘Who is this who is coming?’ The professor dismisses it pompously and goes about his introverted daily routines of studying and hiking and further alienating himself from the other guests. Later that day though, as the light fades and the wind howls, Park...

1943 Dir. Jacques Tourneur I Walked with a Zombie was the second collaboration between director Jacques Tourneur and producer Val Lewton and it followed on from the irresistible moodiness of Cat People (1942). Essentially taking the film’s rather lurid title from a newspaper article, and transporting elements of the plot of ‘Jane Eyre’ to a tropical setting, the filmmakers have created one of the most subtle, chilling and downright poetic horror films ever produced. The plot follows Betty (Frances Dee), a nurse, as she journeys to the West Indies to care for Jessica (Christine Gordon), the catatonic wife of plantation owner Paul Holland (Tom Conway). Betty soon begins to fall in love with Paul, and begins to suspect that the Holland family have a few dark secrets that are about to surface. Paul’s younger brother Wesley (James Ellison) and their mother Mrs. Rand (Edith Barrett) are also caught up in whatever it is that Paul seems so keen to keep Betty from discovering. Betty b...

1962 Dir. Herk Harvey This obscure and oddly affecting horror film from the Sixties was directed by Herk Harvey and shot on a ridiculously low budget in Lawrence, Kansas. It showcases Harvey’s vivid imagination and ambitious aspirations, despite the shoestring budget. After a tragic drag racing accident, resulting in a car being forced off a bridge into the murky depths of the river below, church organist Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) seemingly emerges as the sole survivor. She appears dazed and soaked on the river bank before wandering off to begin a new life for herself in Utah. However, she soon finds her daily chores increasingly interrupted by the spectre of a cadaverous man (portrayed by Herk Harvey) who stalks her every move. Eventually she is mysteriously drawn to an eerie amusement park on an abandoned pavilion outside town, where she realises the full horror of her fate. The film successfully creates a veneer of normality which the otherworldly intrudes upon unass...