"Scream and Scream Again" (1970) d/ Gordon Hessler

Tigon Studios really left the crazy cage wide open on this one, a minor masterpiece of espionage and mystery, well seasoned with elements of  horror and sci-fi, purveyed upon the screen by an all-star genre cast of casts, the first time the likes of Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and no less than Vincent Price himself all share the marquee, though I warn you up front: the elder statesmen of horror never appear in the same scene all together. Still, that's a small complaint to register against such a dizzy nuthouse of a cult classic as this one. Veteran genre director Gordon Hessler, who'd done movies like The Oblong Box (1969) and Cry of the Banshee(1970) for A.I.P., builds a rambling, schizophrenic narrative off the foundation of a sci-fi novel by Peter Saxon, but pulls it all together nicely for a wild finish if you can manage to stay on board the whole time.


"Sometimes I'm not very nice at all... a dreadful chap to make your acquaintance, really."
Just as London's getting it's swing on, the groovy partying is disrupted by a series of modern-day vampiric slayings, only this Dracula's more on the Thin White Duke side, with flash clothes and motor, C.T.F.O.ing go-go birds and draining their blood just as they're thinking they've landed themselves a real keeper. Meanwhile, a poor heart-afflicted bloke gets poorer by the minute, waking up in hospital significantly less of a man than he was the last time he checked. Also, there's a cyber-bully uber-fascist (Marshall Jones) who's been rising through the regime's runic ranks via a neat little trick he learned from Sifu Spock: the old Vulcan nerve pinch-to-the-shoulder, Achilles heel to both intergalactic dictators and Peter "One Scene" Cushing, alike.


" ...I think I'll just skip this round of 'If You're Happy and You Know It', if it's all the same."
When the Old Bill finally gets the bead on the young psycho (Michael Gothard) after a well-lengthy chase sequence, he pulls his own hand off while handcuffed to a car bumper, proceeds to ascend a real nose-bleed of a vertical climb, only to get pegged in the dome with a rock by one of the unarmed constables below, causing him to tumble awkwardly back down to justice. Was that trip worth it, young man? The trail leads to a private clinic that specializes in organ replacements and transplants, as run by Dr. Browning (Price), who's been secretly building a super race of cyber-men for that shadowy militaristic organization we saw earlier, and he's paid a visit by the synthetic uber-fascist, which leads to an enjoyably hammy nerve pinch-off between the two, culminating in the good doctor dunking the hit man in his nifty acid bath like a two hundred pound glazed kruller in coffee. Finally, Fremont (Christopher Lee) makes the scene, revealing himself as the real head honcho in the insane precedings, and wills Browning to dip himself into his own acid tub, which he does, emotionlessly.


"These swollen tonsils should be removed right away!"
You'll remember Gothard from Russell's The Devils the same year, and Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce(1984), while Yutte Stensgaard later made herself famous as Carmilla/Mircalla in the Hammer production of Lust For a Vampire (1971), the sequel to it's own Vampire Lovers(1970). Welsh pop group Amen Corner also appear in one of the nightclub scenes. Originally, the final reveal was to be aliens behind the sinister plot, just as in the novel, "The Disoriented Man", but the film's producers chose to roll with unexplained and mysterious, instead, which worked out just fine, I think. On the scale, Scream earns a well-deserved three Wops, and stands as an enjoyably ludicrous ride that comes with my recommendation. See it!


Say, what's that your ham is soaking in...

" The Devils" (1971) d/ Ken Russell

Before the inevitable influx of knee jerk religious zealotry comes raining down on this post, I've scheduled some flagellation in my personal fornicatory at the hands of twin raven-haired Wop-ettes in nun costumes for myself, having allowed such a blasphemous and incendiary piece of cinematic filth to slither it's evil way among my list of all-time favorite movies. Yea, though I greatly admire the powerful visual style of directorial conspirator, Ken Russell, who also hath writ the screenplay ( based upon the Aldous Huxley novel, The Devils of Loudon),  I shall also give thanks and praise to the dramatic contributions of those actors who would bring these shocking images to light, specifically Oliver Reed, though Michael Gothard, Dudley Sutton, Gemma Jones, and a hunchbacked Vanessa Redgrave all compliment Reed in supporting roles here. Riveting, disturbing stuff whose punch has lost very little, if any, potency, despite the passing of forty-plus years and countless censor's cuts, though one should pay heed to the poster's warning, as this is definitely not a film for every one...


I had a hunch that Sister Jeanne (Vanessa Redgrave) would be back...
The time is the seventeenth century, the place is France. At one of King Louis XIII's less masculine get together's, Cardinal Richelieu is buzzing about uppity protestants, suggesting the country's city fortifications all be torn down, to which the monarch agrees, excluding the town of Loudon, of course, as he had made a promise not to do such a thing, to it's governor, in the past. Only the governor has since turned his toes up, leaving the city's control in the hands of Urbain Grandier(Reed), a priest who's as insatiable for political power as he is for snug cunny, as evidenced by the number of Loudon women who daydream about receiving the holy in-out from him (even hunchbacked women of the cloth like Sister Jeanne(Redgrave) wouldn't mind drying his feet after a lengthy water walk with their scarlet tresses), and the growing number of rival priest's daughters suddenly pregnant at his doing is nothing to sneeze at, either.


"Take this spear wound, all of you, and lick obscenely at it, as though it were a vagina.", whispers dream-Jesus(Ollie Reed).
When an elitist Baron's (Sutton) attempt to carry out orders to bring down Loudon's walls are thwarted by a steadfast Grandier, backed by the city's army, he joins forces with Father Mignon (Murray Melvin), whose pregnant daughter has been rejected by Grandier. Meanwhile, Grandier has secretly married another woman (Jones), the news of which bodes ill upon the fragile psyche of Sister Jeanne, who implicates the priest in all manner of blasphemous charges to Mignon und Baron, who, in turn, enlists the services of a lanky drink of water inquisitor named Father Barre (Gothard) to get to the bottom of it all, even if it means pumping foul enemas up the asses of every nun at the convent in doing so.The King shows up in disguise during an exorcism, claiming to have a relic containing the blood of Christ to use in the cleansing spiritual rite, but after Barre appears to have used it successfully to clear the sisters of demons, the monarch flips it open to reveal it was empty in the first place. Good one, Louie. The still-"possessed" sisters pull the crucified statue of Christ from the wall and rape it in every conceivable manner, to celebrate. Grandier and his wife return just in time to catch the party, and are subsequently taken into custody by the Baron's soldiers. All that follows, you should really experience for yourselves.


Q: How many of these women are committing blasphemy? A: Nun.
Religious faith is a funny thing. Some people are content to believe what they believe and carry on their lives in a relatively normal fashion, while some treat their faith as an elitist badge of authority over others who don't share them, and some commit unspeakable crimes against their fellow man within the protective umbrella of their religious teachings. Who's wrong? Who's right? Let 'em scrap it out among themselves until the end of time if it's so important to them to find out what's waiting for them after they're gone. I'm more focused on enjoying the finer things in what life I've got left to live, with the people I care about, that care about me. I think if everybody gave that a shot,  we might be alright, after all. But we're just humans, hahaha. So we won't. I'd be more worried that you didn't give The Devils a shot, though, as it really is an extraordinary film, worth all the discourse and analysis one could possibly invest in it, and then some. Once you have, let me know what you think. Obviously, four wops.


"Is it too late to pass on martyrdom for the five quid and what's behind curtain number two?"