Old Movie Reviews, Part # 1:Originally Posted July 1st 2005

The Night Caller (John Gillings, UK, 1962)

This is a really odd black and white British sci-fi – starts off very much in the vein of Quatermass (only less good) as some scientists try to make sense of a mysterious glowing orb found in a meteorite crater whilst being gently hassled by some bullheaded military folk. Stiff upper lips and stern b-movie psuedo-science all round. Things take a turn for the ridiculous when an alien emerges from the orb and proceeds to creep around in the shadows, frightening our plucky lady lab assistant with his big, hairy claw(!) The creature runs off into the night, and – I certainly didn’t see this one coming – poses as a human, rents some offices above a Soho sex shop and places an advert in ‘Bikini Girl’ magazine(!!). He lures teenage girls to his phony modelling agency and proceeds to, er, ‘touch them with his claw’. This unexpected shift in tone from high-minded SF to sleazy weirdness is truly inexplicable. The pretty glum selection of policemen, soldiers and scientists who constitute the film’s ‘heroes’ take it all in their stride however, calmly making plans to apprehend the extra-terrestrial scallywag as if this sort of thing happened all the time. The film makes a really big deal out of the fact that the alien keeps his face hidden at all times, but when he’s cornered at the end and forced to explain what he’s up to (trying to repopulate his dying planet – always the same excuse with these bloody aliens, isn’t it?), he removes his mask… to dramatically reveal that he’s actually a fairly handsome, human chap with a bit of a burn on his right cheek. You’d have thought hiding that fucking great werewolf claw would be more of a priority, wouldn’t you? Anyhow, a very strange film whichever way you look at it.


The Vampires’ Night Orgy (Leon Kilmovsky, Spain, 1972)

No orgy I’m afraid, but plenty of vampires. Spanish horror outting in which a bus-load of domestic servants en-route to a manor house get a bit lost and end up in an eerie, deserted village whose residents turn out to all be… no, really, take a guess. The dubbed dialogue is atrocious, the characters are dreadful and the ropey plotline barely hangs together, but nevertheless, this is a surprisingly well made film with a few imaginative ideas, visual flair, a modicum of tension and an all-pervading atmosphere of general wrongness which is satisfyingly unsettling. The vampires here seem to be practicing a pretty strict class system – the village notables swan around elegantly in traditional Euro-horror fashion, whilst the peasants feed on their leftovers like a pack of misshapen zombies. Other highlights include a scary barbarian hatchet-man who goes around cutting peoples limbs off to feed to the outsiders for dinner, and a Jean Rollin-esque sub-plot about a girl who makes friends with a weird little ghost/vampire boy. Pretty good movie overall – I have a hunch that ‘From Dusk Till Dawn’ might have ripped off a few elements from it. It looks a bit embarrassing on my video shelf, but as a long-time horror movie / comics fan you’d better believe I’m way past caring about the odd raised eyebrow.