Movie Review

Title: Devil’s Nightmare/La Terrificante Notte del Demonio (1971)
Starring: Erika Blanc, Jean Servais, Jacques Monseu,
Rating: 3 Succubus Demons
Review: I loaned this Belgian/Italian movie a while ago thinking it might actually contain something pertaining to a good horror movie. And while I am a little disappointed, it is not for lack of trying on their part.
The movie begins at the end of World War 2, where a Baron (Jean Servais) loses his wife in childbirth. He sends the servants away and then christens the child before killing it. A feminist would think it is because he had a daughter and not watch the rest of the movie.
20 years later, we then see a tour bus with six passengers and a driver wandering around lost as they are trying to find their next destination. Coming across a man at a pyre, he suggests they go to the castle, as it is the nearest place they can seek accommodation. Sure enough, the Baron and his two servants allow them to stay.
While we learn a little bit more about the people, and that two of the girls are REALLY into each other, graphically, we also discover that our baby killer owns the castle. He states that a curse was put on his family back in the 11th century, that the eldest daughter of each generation becomes a succubus. In short, a succubus is a female demon who seduces men to be sexual with them to create demonic spawn, but also (apparently) kills people at the height of their sinful ways. The succubus (Erika Blanc), also known as Lisa, plants sexual thoughts in the priest’s head and leaves him to dwell. She then follows the other guests and tempts them with their sins or lets them die within it. Each sin is one of the Seven Deadly Sins.
But how does one claim a priest (Jacques Monseu) when he is only having lustful thoughts? Leave it to the devil (aka; the man from the beginning who directed them to this nightmare). The priest offers his soul for the others and tricks the devil by protecting himself with the mark of the cross. So he frees the six souls and his own. But the devil is not so easily fooled. But I won’t let on who he takes, or how or when.
This film is translated and dubbed from another language, and while I don’t really mind that, I do mind that the sound effects were really bad, even for the era of films that this comes from. But I won’t deduct points.
I will take a point off (again) for brainlessness. When a woman sits down to dinner after you have been told EXACTLY what a succubus is, and she is dressed to the most sexual she can, wouldn’t SOMEHING go off in your mind? Well, I know something went off for the womaniser, but it wasn’t his brain.
The other point came off because I don’t feel the Succubus actually took enough time to get to know them for their sins. I know she is all powerful, etc, but a little bit of human interest wouldn’t kill the plot… just the characters. We certainly got a lot of ‘human interest’ watching two of the female characters have sex, although you don’t see much more than tits and tosh, whereas you barely see a man’s hairy nipple for the entire thing. Not impressed.
While I give credit, I do not return points for the theme music that is also the calling of the succubus. It Is creepy, hard to understand and ominous. That is theme music.

Title: To the Devil, A Daughter (1976)
Staing Christopher Lee, Richard Widmark, Nastassja Kinski
Rating: 3.5 Unholy Rituals
Review: In modern times, we are all used to Christopher Lee playing either big bad sorcerers or voicing characters on neutral persuasion, but what I have longed for is to see some of his earlier films, where he was the very picture of horror. He was well known in the 60’s and 70’s for playing Dracula, but I have been put off vampires since Twitlight made the scene. And the only other title I know of his that is dark but unvampiric is ’The Devil Rides Out’. Well, my present and great source of movies put me onto this film while the latter is being searched for. Christopher Lee, in all he darkness he can muster, is the dark Father Michael. Based on a book of the same name.
The movie begins as a collection of events that are somewhat blurred, but the main idea is that we know Father Michael is the head of a church with nuns scattered like so many autumn leaves. He sends one nun, Catherine (Nastassja Kinski) home to see her father, but her father detours her to stay with a man who specialises in the satanic and the occult. This man, John Verney (Richard Widmark) accepts her and sees that he will be looking after her until her birthday in two days.
Catherine dreams of her birth, which was done in a satanic ritual and her mother murdered. She is horrified, but seems to get over it rather quickly. We learn later that she has been gifted a cross, but it is rather odd, since the image of Jesus on the cross is the polar opposite, in that the cross is reversed and he is nailed there by his feet. John soon realises that Catherine is involved in the satanic church of Astaroth, whom she always refers to as God and the church known as The Children of the Lord. John now races against the clock and the darkened forces to save Catherine from her dark fate to bring Astaroth to earth and to defeat the all-powerful Father Michael, who displays a mass knowledge of dark sorcery and satanic spellcraft.
The movie, in its presentation, is actually pretty good, considering the style of film. It does leave short on the horror but is more a theme of what some people believe in crossed with CGI. But the movie presents well and is a good watch. You get to see nearly every square naked inch of Christopher Lee, so I wasn’t complaining there. But even when this movie was made 36 odd years ago, he was already greying at the temples, so he wasn’t exactly a young man then either, but God he had the dark eyes.
Get over it! I took a point off because the film is very clunky at points, and it is hard to follow exactly how things transpired to this present point and whether we are in the past or present, as not a lot of effort was put into unaging people by 18 to 20 years. Some effort people!
I took the other half point off because for all that the movie has a lot of pretence to gore, there really isn’t that much to put you off. But then again, I suppose that depends on your pain threshold when viewing these things, if you get my drift. But it is certainly a long way from a lot of movies that I have seen with similar pretence.
This movie is a good trip if that is what you are looking for. I doubt it is going to keep me awake at night, but I do think that if you went about it the right way, you could remake this film today and do a damned good job of it as long as you got some actors with acting talent. Take your pick.

Title: Lone Wolf and Cub – Sword of Vengeance (1972)
Starring: Tomisaburo Wakayama, Akihiro Tomigawa, Taketoshi Naito
Rating: 3.5 All-purpose baby-carts
Review: This has to be one of the better series of action movies form this era of Japanese film making. There are six movies in all, and they all tell different parts of Itto Ogami’s life as an assassin with his child in a cart. As we learn through the movies, the only thing baby cart can’t do for you is provide you with a decent conversation and a hot meal.
This film has two focused parts, one is how Ogami came to be the Lone Wolf and the other is a contract he is asked to fill. The movie jumps from one phase of time to another, sometimes with, sometimes without warning. The only real way to tell is that Daigoro (Akihiro Tomigawa) has a different hair style back then. And while I normally deduct a point for this, the transition is made obvious very quickly.
Ogami is the last living member of his family, surviving an attack on his house so that other families could move up in power. Taking his son, he cuts his way through guards rather quickly, because bad guys hardly learn defensive moves in these movies, and makes his escape. He makes a big show about being demoted, and is ordered to commit suicide by the Emperor. In defiance, he cuts the Emperor’s symbol and orders down and reveals he has the colours/symbols of that of a royal/noble, so it is punishable by death to attack him. He is banished from Eto (the region) but not without a final attempt on his life.
Sometime later, he picks up a contract to kill off a brutal family who are rising in power. Disguised as a traveller and his usual banner hidden in the river, he enters a bathing village (ie; a village whose income is based on visitors coming for the natural hot springs and spas) and lies in wait. Here, he meets Osen (Taketoshi Naito), who seems to think he is a samurai, and gives herself over to him for a price. She later talks about the Lone Wolf and His Child, incredulous to the fact she is talking TO them (-.5). The next day, the brutal family will spare the village for their silence, but will kill the travellers there to make an example of them and insure their silence. Ogami appears on the scene, but he has had his sword confiscated. The handles of the baby cart act as a quarter staff to which two expanding swords are attached, all hidden within the cart. Itto Ogami slices his way through the men and does so with wonderful speed and accuracy. His assignment filled and his Ryu (pre Yen currency) is earned.
Now, while I appreciate that the English subtitles were probably done by someone without a good grasp of English, the translation was pretty good and I only had to pause to work out what had been typed twice. It is amusing to pick up on all the errors in the subtitles, which are both spelling (either incorrect or letters missing) and grammatical problems. But, in any case, it is not worth a -1.
What is worth a -1 is the lack of music. Maybe it is a low budget, or maybe it is a high apathy for product, but it does subtract from some scenes. I know it won’t be fixed in the future movies (or at least not for a while) so I won’t be deducting points EVERY time, but it is a point off this time.
In this film, baby-carts awesome powers are; Hidden constructible sword staff. Bullet-proof base.

Title: The Prestige (2006)
Starring: Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Scarlet Johansson, Rebecca Hall
Rating; 4 Red Rubber Balls
Review: When you put a lot of really good looking men with acting talent together with some seriously beautiful women, you are going to make a movie. Considering that not a lot of the cinema in the past few years has entertained me, this has a great mark to it for me.
We all love magicians in one way or another. For me, they can do magic without pantomime and freaky make-up and wigs (ie; a clown) and they have that level of class to go with them. But what really goes on behind the scenes of magicians acts is unknown, and one can only guess at what happens when you put a lot of them in a room together.
Well, this story follows two magicians in particular. They start off working together. They are Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) and Alfred Borden (Christian Bale). Robert’s wife is their female assistant, and she performs the famous water escape act. When Alfred ties the wrong knot, she drowns. Robert seeks revenge. In disguise he sabotages Alfred’s solo acts at every possibility and tries to outdo him. When Alfred discovers a wonderful trick, Robert goes nuts trying to outdo it, and the competition goes on and on.
While these two duke it out, we move back and forth between journal entries that they have written in a code. Secrets trade hands and they each realise in turn that they are setting each other up for greater and greater falls. The biggest fall is when Robert seems to have died and Alfred is going to be hanged for it. This is the most future point we get and time moves back and forth from here to all other significant events.
The only other thing trading hands is Sarah (Rebecca Hall). She WAS Roberts assistant, she leaves to spy on Alfred under his orders but she makes the switch permanent and falls in love with Alfred and they have a mad affair. Alfred is also married to Olivia (Scarlett Johansson) and it is amusing to see how things transpire between them. In hindsight, it all makes sense, but without it there really is no great answer.
In having watched the movie and enjoyed it thoroughly, I cannot think of the last time I had this much fun watching a more modern movie. There isn’t that much CGI going on, and the end result is that it makes the movie a lot nicer to watch.
Now, besides having endless wants to spank Christian Bale throughout the movie, I took the time to note a number of the magician’s acts to see how many I could decipher BEFORE they were revealed. The answer; 2. But I’m not telling.
Yes, I removed a point. This one point comes off because I got very confused at the beginning of the movie of who was who and who wasn’t. Names are not dropped often enough and it took me a good hour to remember who was who. It was a magic act before my eyes. When I got it right it all made sense. There was also a bit of a hole in the plot that didn’t make a lot of sense either, but it was so insignificant to the story all over that it didn’t make a difference to my opinion.
In the end, this movie will keep you guessing what the magician’s trick is right until the very last second. How do these magicians defy death, both metaphorically with stage illusion and in the films reality? A true magician never gives away their secrets… as the movie will constantly remind you.
This film has made the top ten list, because even with all the secrets at hand, the film is still a good watch and you can marvel again and again at the hotness of the men and the magic tricks. It has moved to place number 4, moving ‘Shortbus’ down to number 5and eliminating ‘Sleepwalkers’.

Overall Top 10
1) Silent Hill (4.5) (Own)
2) The Color Purple (4.5) (Own)
3) The Frightners (4) (Purchase)
4) The Prestige (4) (Own)
5) Shortbus (4) (Purchase)
6) The Addams Family (4) (Own)
7) Splinter (4) (Purchase)
8) Night of the Living Dead (4) (Own)
9) Mrs.Doubtfire (4) (Purchase)
10) The Skeleton Key (4) (Own)