Behind the Couch

I recently had the pleasure of interviewing Sean Keller - co-writer of Dario Argento's forthcoming thriller, Giallo. Head over to Cinefantastique and check it out ... The film stars Adrien Brody as an eccentric detective hired by air-stewardess Emmanuelle Seigner to track down her sister (Elsa Pataky), who has been abducted by a crazed psychopath known as Yellow. Yellow is obsessed with mutilating and destroying beautiful things... Will they find her in time to save her life and put a stop to Yellow's devious plans? Find out later this year when Giallo is released. The film premieres at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in June. The following interview was published on cinefantastiqueonline.com on on 26th May 2009  Yellow Fever: Sean Keller on Writing “Giallo” for Dario Argento Posted on May 26, 2009 by James Gracey Giallo (plural – gialli) is Italian for ‘yellow’ and the term comes from the lividly coloured covers of pulpy crime thriller paperbacks popular in ...

1968 Dir. Jack Hill AKA The Maddest Story Ever Told Cannibal Orgy After the death of their father, the three Merrye siblings Virginia (Jill Banner), Elizabeth (Beverly Washburn) and Ralph (Sid Haig) find themselves in the care of their ailing butler Bruno (Lon Chaney Jnr.). Suffering from a hereditary mental illness as a direct result of an overabundance of inbreeding, dubbed the Merrye Syndrome - due to its exclusivity to their family line - the three siblings are undergoing a startling mental regression, becoming increasingly childlike. They spend their days playing macabre games around their crumbling mansion as Bruno tries, to varying degrees of success, to keep their existence hidden from the outside world. Those unfortunate enough to stumble onto the grounds of the secluded house meet with gruesome deaths at the hands of the 'children', who just want to ‘play.’ Their solitary lives are impinged upon when distant relatives Emily (Carol Ohmart) and Peter (Quinn R...

1961 Dir. Roger Corman Renzo Capetto (Antony Carbone) seizes the opportunity to get his hands on some dosh when civil unrest breaks out in Cuba. He agrees to help General Tostada and a group of exiled Cuban nationals escape on his boat with a sizeable portion of the Cuban treasury. He then plots to kill the men and blame their deaths on a legendary sea monster. So far, so good. Capetto is joined by his faithful, if rather dim-witted motley crew. What Capetto doesn’t count on is an actual sea monster turning up to throw a major spanner in the works. The stage is set for shenanigans on the high seas, quirky beatnik characters, shoestring budgets, ludicrous acting and one of the best bargain-basement monsters ever committed to celluloid. Dear reader, I give you Roger Corman’s sublime  Creature from the Haunted Sea ! Creature from the Haunted Sea belongs to a group of Corman films collectively referred to as the ‘Puerto Rico Trilogy.’ The other two are The Last Woman on Earth an...

If you, like me, are watching the pennies, relying on the kindness of strangers, or just in search of a great bargain - why not head over to Paracinema and pick up their premiere issue - for only $5 . Included in issue 1 is: Into The Green Inferno: Italian Cannibal Films by Tim McLean, Sound And Sountrack: Diegetic Thrills & Chills In Session 9 by Matthew Monagle, Jeffrey's Strange Discovery: Gender, Sexual And Parental Roles In David Lynch's Blue Velvet by Dan Burns and much MUCH more.

1933 Dir. Frank Strayer A small German village is plagued by a number of mysterious deaths, all of which leave the victims drained of blood. The town elders suspect the work of vampires and a number of large vampire bats are spotted in the area. Sceptical Police Inspector Karl Brettschneider (Melvyn Douglas) suspects the work of a psychotic serial killer who needs the blood drained from his victims for some sort of bizarre experiment… Is he right? Well, he’s not wrong. The Vampire Bat is a surprisingly entertaining piece of schlock that also stars Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray. Aside from the big names attached to it, the film’s only other notable trait is that is was one of the first films to attempt to capitalise on the success of Universal’s horror epics Dracula (1931) and Frankenstein (1931). It mixes elements from both these films (and a slew of others) to intriguing, but arguably unmemorable effect. The somewhat loose story ambles along briskly enough and there are a couple...

2008 Dir. Tomas Alfredson Lonely 12 year old Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) is bullied by his classmates and all but neglected by his mother. One night, while sitting on the climbing frame outside his home, he meets Eli (Lina Leandersson) who has just moved into the flat next door to his with her strange guardian Håken (Per Ragnar). And so a gentle friendship begins. Eli gives Oskar the strength to hit back when he is bullied, and Oskar takes it all in his stride when he realises Eli is a vampire… ‘Can I come in? Say that I can come in.’ Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist and adapted from his own novel, Let the Right One In has, like its little vampire protagonist, subtly worked its way into the minds and hearts of audiences everywhere. Emerging from relative obscurity, it has found a large enough audience to become the sleeper hit of the year so far. And rightly so. The two leads deliver mesmerising performances. Kåre Hedebrant as Oskar is compelling to watch. When we first encoun...

1980 Dir. Dario Argento When poet Rose (Irene Miracle) discovers an old book written by a mysterious architect, she believes that the New York building in which she resides is also home to one of the Three Mothers – powerful witches who bring suffering and death to all who encounter them. She asks her brother Mark (Leigh McCloskey) to come and help her, however prior to his arrival she is stalked through the building’s labyrinthine interior and slain by an unseen, and presumably supernatural assailant. It is up to Mark to follow the cryptic clues left by his sister and solve the mystery of The Mother of Darkness, before it is too late… Preceded by Suspiria (1977), Inferno is the second instalment of Argento’s only recently completed Three Mother’s trilogy - Mother of Tears (2007) is the final film. In Suspiria , we are introduced to the notion that three powerful witches, residing in different parts of the world, ensure that hopelessness, sorrow and death hang heavy upon those...

1973 Dir. Douglas Hickox Edward Lionheart (Vincent Price) is a Shakespearian actor who refuses to act in anything other than plays written by the Bard. He has extreme delusions of grandeur that are eventually quashed when he is panned by an influential circle of critics and is publically humiliated at an award ceremony. Faking his own suicide in order to return and have his revenge, he gathers together a merry band of misfits to aid him in his opulent quest to obtain bloody vengeance on those critics who ruined his career. Also along for the ride is his daughter Edwina (Diana Rigg), who has fun in a myriad of different roles and disguises. Ludicrous and ever more elaborate deaths mount up as two woefully inept and utterly incompetent cops attempt to track him down and learn some stuff about the Bard as they go. Theatre of Blood has more than a few similarities with Price’s earlier ‘themed death’ film, The Abominable Dr Phibes (1971). Both films feature crazed individuals extra...

1962 Dir. Sidney Hayers Based on the novel Conjure Wife by Fritz Leiber, Night of the Eagle follows the intriguing story of highly sceptical college professor (is there ever any other sort?), Norman Taylor (Peter Wyngarde), who discovers his wife Tansy (Janet Blair) is a practicing witch and has been has been using the Craft to protect them both from his dangerously jealous colleagues. Norman is an uncompromisingly logical sort. After Tansy reveals to him that his colleagues’ wives are using black magic to ensure his untimely demise and she is countering their efforts with occult practices, he fears she may be losing her mind. Tansy normalises witchcraft and speaks very matter-of-factly about it, even as she unpacks the groceries in one scene. For her, it's as everyday and practical as Norman thinks otherwise. She has hidden lots of little trinkets around the house to ward off evil forces, such as specially blessed spiders in little jars and various other bizarre accoutreme...

Independent, daring and fiercely intelligent, Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni  is not only an award-winning actress strongly associated with European horror cinema, but a multimedia artist who explores dark, fantastical themes throughout her work. She also writes, performs and records her own music; music that is imbued with the same dark drama and mysticism that seeps from her paintings. And then there's her film work with legendary European horror directors such as Pupi Avati, Lamberto Bava and, of course, Dario Argento. With roles in the likes of  Demons 2, Opera, Phantom of the Opera  and Mother of Tears , Coralina has claimed that she 'comes to life' in her death scenes. She kindly made time to chat with Behind the Couch about her film work, art, music and  forthcoming biography . From what I have seen of your artwork, it is quite dark and abstract. Is it fair to say that you are drawn to darker subject matter, artistically? Being drawn to darker subjects i...

1946 Dir. Alfred L. Werker After witnessing a brutal murder from her hotel room window, Janet Stewart (Anabel Shaw) falls into a state of catatonic shock. When she awakens, she discovers she is being held in a private hospital and treated by the sinister Dr Cross (Vincent Price), who she realises is the man she saw commit the heinous murder! Shock is not just an ‘old dark house’ type thriller with a creepy psychiatric hospital and conniving villain. It's a twisted and slyly subversive story, in which a perfectly sane woman is made out to be insane so her accusations of murder are not taken seriously. It unravels as a tightly constructed and provocative chiller. Janet seems quite frantic and preoccupied from the moment we meet her. She forgets to pay her taxi driver as she rushes into the hotel where she is to meet with her estranged husband. We learn that she was wrongly informed of his death in the war, and that he is actually still very much alive but had been a prisone...