The Glamourous Side of Hammer

When people think of Hammer films, they think dignity, respect, atmospheric horror films, elegance, and class. When people think of Hammer films, they think of great actors like Peter Cushing, and Christopher Lee, performers of the highest degree and some of cinemas finest. When some people think of Hammer films, well, they just cannot help but think how bangin' those women were in those movies! I would be a little bit of "all of the above," but my whole reason for being here this fine and frigid evening is to talk about the incredible ladies of Hammer studios, the beautiful women that graced the silver screen and the hearts of many a young man and woman.

I recently got my hands on Marcus Hearn's Hammer Glamour (Titan Books), the 160 sticky page tribute to the beauties of Hammer Horror over its reign of cinema terror. Filled to the tippity top with rare and unpublished full color photographs from Hammer's archives and private collections, Hammer Glamour is a lavish celebration of cinemas most amazing women. There are plenty of interviews, some of them new and each actress gets a nice insightful retrospect talking about their careers inside and out of the Hammer studio system.

If there is one thing I love, beside busty women, it is documentaries, books and behind the scenes of film, film history and how things have come to be where they are today. Hammer has one hell of a history and to learn the female aspect of it is quite fascinating. The stories of how films were sold based off a good looking, new starlet on some fake poster for a film not yet written is incredibly interesting. Hammer Glamour and the women behind it were a major part of Hammer's success and they could almost be looked at as the unsung heroines that pushed the company and their films popularity just that one-step further than they did with just the characters of Dracula, or Frankenstein. Hammer intrigued many young people with the threat of monsters and horror, but in a different way, these films also intrigued many a youth with the beauties that were to be found within each and every film.

Some of the interviews are very candid and honest, with some very likable women, others are a little tougher to enjoy, as some of them were not really into doing "horror" movies, which is as always, a let down. What really stands out though, are the photos and there are an abundance of amazing pictures of each and every lady in this book with some very nice candid behind the scenes shots to be viewed. One of my favorites is a behind the scenes shot of Christopher Lee and Stephanie Beacham from 1972's Dracula A.D. where it's clear that Beacham must have said some sort of corny joke and is dying from laughter about it, while Lee has a look on his face as if he cannot believe what she just said. Very candid and kinda cute, it's the type of photo that makes a book like Hammer Glamour work beyond the just photos of good looking girls.

As for the ladies themselves, well, most all of the important ones are here and it just does not get any better than having them go in alphabetical order. Why? Because you start off with the almighty Ursula Andress at A and the book finishes with W and that W can only stand for one woman...Raquel Welch. Talk about perfect 10 bookends! Those being two of my favorites and probably two of the best-known women to come through the Hammer ranks, it's very interesting hearing their thoughts on their Hammer past. My personal favorite of all these women? Well, that comes from the last of the Hammer movies and that's Nastassja Kinski from the film, To The Devil...A Daughter. Cat People indeed.

The presentation is top notch all around, as are the women, so if you're a fan of Hammer films, horror history, and mad hot babes, or even just one of the three, Hammer Glamour is a must.

Black Christmas

1974's Black Christmas, while being noted by many as the first true Slasher film, is a movie that is slightly under appreciated by some, well, I more mean under appreciated by myself I guess. I often get "wrapped up" in the "normal" classic holiday films like, It's A Wonderful Life and (another Bob Clark film) A Christmas Story, etc...almost completely ignoring the Christmas Horror that there is to be had. Being a horror fan, that is a bit of a shame I might add. So to sit back and watch Black Christmas after many years was a nice holiday treat and one that would be perfectly enjoyed on cable, meaning, cable stations should run this film once in a while during the holiday season instead of only playing the usual happy holiday fare.

It's just before Christmas break at a sorority house, when it is discovered that one of the sisters has gone missing when her father comes to pick her up and she never shows. This event results in a search party where there is the discovery of a dead girl's body, but not the body of the missing girl that was the originally being searched for. With a missing woman, a dead body, and a series of menacing phone calls to the sorority house, the police try and figure out what is happening, while the remaining sorority sister vie to stay alive. Kinda.

Back Christmas has a great cast and most of the performances are exceptional, especially Margot Kidder, who plays one of the sorority sisters. She is a very obnoxious, brash, and outspoken - mixed with a copious amount of alcohol, her character is a hot mess and a lot of fun to watch. Olivia Hussey is the films main protagonist and while I think "Hussey is hot," her performance is the weakest of the bunch. Not terrible and it gets better as the film moves along, but at first, she is a bit annoying. Two welcome actors were Andrea Martin, who (looks EXACTLY like Screech Powers in this film) I know from watching SCTV when I was a wee lad, so it was nice to see her. The other appearance is from the sexiest man ever, John Saxon. Complete with funny hat and all, Saxon plays the role of detective, which isn't a stretch for him and he's as fantastic and charismatic as ever.

Being that this is one of the first Slasher films made, director Bob Clark nicely executed some of the inspirational genre staples that are still prevalent even to this very day. Black Christmas is a sort of whodunit to a small degree, but this does give you a few red herrings, something found in Slasher films and even more so, Gialli, which are just Italian Slashers anyways. There is also a stalk and slash element to this film and the advent of the final girl is even prevalent in a way.

Another Slasher aspect that is one of the standouts in this holiday horror is the use of POV. While this is mostly used in the films opening scene (which is the high point of the movie), the POV used is one of the genres best, with a slight fish eyed lens used and a somewhat erratic style created by cinematographer Albert J. Dunk. Dunk devised this awesome effect by rigging up a camera harness that would mount the camera on his shoulder as he walked about the house, stalking the sorority sisters.

Now, Black Christmas starts off with a bang, but quickly hits the skids and gets pretty slow for a good half an hour or so. I think the film picks up the pace a little when Saxon shows up and the calls to the sorority house become more and more disturbing and mean spirited, but even then, there are moments of almost boredom. I can personally deal with the slower pace of the film because I enjoyed some of the performances and the story was still entertaining to a degree, but you're not getting some balls out, err, I should say, "tits out" Slasher film here. This is a classy Slasher (!) and one that burns slowly.

What really keeps me engulfed in this film and the reason I love it most is the unbelievable look of the movie's setting and design. The 70's and Christmas aesthetic are so pleasing to my holiday loving eyes, that it is impossible for me not to swoon for Black Christmas. It's all done in beautiful Technicolor, with the magic of brightly lit Christmas jumping right out at you from the base colors of this era - from orange, yellow, and deep wood/brown colors, I was in love.

Clark has a keen eye for grabbing the essence of Christmas, which he shows in A Christmas Story and clearly here, with Black Christmas. Both with completely different styles and set in different decades, they are able to speak and give off a traditional holiday mood representative of their respective time periods. I am glad I came back to this film as I really appreciated it more than ever and if you like a nice, almost traditional horror film, then grag yourslef a glass of eggnog and warm up next to Black Christmas this holiday season.

Trees Have Feelings Too

Sorry folks, but no Horror Hangover for this week. With the holiday season flooding the television market with Christmas movies that are the equivalent of SyFy channel films, there is so little worth mentioning on TV this Sunday. However, I should bring up that Chan-wook Park's 2006 film, I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK is playing at 3:30 on the Sundance Channel. It's not nearly as good as his other films and it's a little overly long, but I like the movie in all its quirkiness and it's certainly worth a viewing.

So to make up for the lack of horror happenings this weekend, I will post the short film, Treevenge! This Jason Eisener directed short has been around for a little while now, so some of you may have already seen it, but if not, then definitely check it out. It's not too long (about 16 minutes), it's a lot of fun, and it is a great way to learn the importance of artificial trees, while showing us that there are much worse things than having to vacuum up pine needles.



Talk about a case of something's "bark" being worse than its bite, and I wonder...if Tarantino directed this, would there be a shot from inside of a "trunk?!"

Hopefully next week will give us a better showing in terms of genre movies, if not, then I will be forced to talk about shit like The Santa Clause or A Boyfriend for Christmas...and I'll do it!

All I Want For Christmas...

...Is a copy of Lady Dragon. Actually, that's not really all I want, but I REALLY want it. Rothrock, you slay me.

A Far Cry From Paracinema!

Hey there you baby eating beauties! I just posted a new review over at Paracinema...The Blog, but before I get into that, I would like to direct you all over to Horrorblips where they have just posted "Horror for the Holidays." Horror for the Holidays is spotlighting 27 horror blogs that have some sort of holiday theme for the month of December, or better yet, Death-cemeber! Of course, I wouldn't direct you there if CNAMB wasn't one of the featured blogs (cause I'm selfish!), but head over there and see all the holiday horror goodies they have to offer.

Back to why I'm here...over at Paracinema, I just posted my review of the 2008 Uwe Boll film, Far Cry staring Til Schweiger and Udo Kier. I am a bit of an Uwe Boll apologist and you can read my thoughts on the man and his work, as well as my thoughts on Far Cry over there. Should be interesting. I'll aso point out that our good friends Miles from ShowShow and Samurai of GGTMC fame have just teamed up to review Far Cry for a special edition of The Gentlemen's Guide to Midnite Cinema. So if you are down for some fun Uwe Boll talk, head over and give that review a listen.



You can check out my review of Far Cry by clicking this link...it's just that easy! And for shits and giggles, I grabbed a couple of Uwe Boll clips showing the mans madness and thought that some of you might enjoy watching this maniac go to work...I know I do! Enjoy.

Freddy's Friday Night Dance Party!: Witch Edition!

Hey there gory guys and gals, after the fun time spent at Mickey D's last Friday, I thoug..*WITCH!* Whoa, what the hell was that? Huh...anyways, I thought we could get back to the darker side of things, with this week's edition..*WITCH!!* Really? Okay, I'll try this one more time. This week's edition of Freddy's Friday Night Dance Part...*WITCH!!* WHAT THE FUCK?! Seriously? Who the hell keeps doing that? Oh, it's that asshole, Claudio Simonetti. Can't you just keep your "Witch's" to yourself? Try using your inside voice, maybe? It is very rude and I don't appre...*WITCH!* Fine! Just do whatever the hell you want...I'm going to Subway.



In 1977, Italian Prog rock band Goblin composed one of cinemas finest scores for Dario Argento's masterpiece, Suspiria. Fronted by Claudio Simonetti, Goblin was behind numerous film scores, many of them for Argento films, but their work for Suspiria is what they are best known for.

This version featured tonight is not the original version of the song, but a slightly retooled one done by the Simonetti formed band, Daemonia. I think the original is better, but the original Goblin release doesn't have this fantastically awful video to go with it. So the trade off is worth it. I thought this was a Full Moon film with the expertly executed CG fire FX and the brilliant set design. Actually, that might be taking credit away from Full Moon a bit. Well, I hope Claudio is happy with "his" choice for this week, since he all but chased me away his "witch" business...I really need to start locking my doors.

A Christmas Tale

In 2008, Lionsgate released 6 Films to Keep You Awake, a conglomeration of six (no shit, right?) somewhat short Spanish horror films from different directors, most of whom, are of Spanish decent. The mastermind behind the this set is Narciso Ibáñez Serrador of Who Can Kill A Child fame and with us being knee deep in Death-cember, the no-brainer film to be discussed from this set is 2005's A Christmas Tale (Cuento de Navidad).

Written by Luis Berdejo and directed by Paco Plaza, who are the writer and co-director of the fantastic Spanish zombie film, [REC], A Christmas Tale is about five pre-teen kids that stumble upon a woman dressed in a Santa suit and trapped in a large deep hole in the woods. They decide to help her out, but when two of the boys go to the police, they discover that the woman is wanted for robbing a bank for two million pesetas.

With this information, the children decide not to help the woman out of her trappings, but instead of calling an adult or telling the police for that matter, these kids take a different route. A few of the youths decide it would be a good idea to try and get the stolen money from this unintentionally trapped thieving Santa, using the leverage that she cannot get out without their help. Cross dressing Santa's aren't down with extortion, but with a choice of losing all of her money, or being trapped in a massive hole and left to die, well, there's no real wiggle room there.

At a scant 71 minutes, A Christmas Tale works like two very different films in terms of tone. The first half is almost like a kid's movie right out of the 80's and is very reminiscent of films like Stand By Me and the Brian Trenchard-Smith film, The Quest (man I loved that movie). It is set in 1985, so you see a film set in that time period, that is also successfully conveying how life was for a lot of kids that age, at that time.

If you are in your mid 20's to mid 30's, you will love all of the bad-ass retro movies and TV shows that these children are in to. They use code names that are all characters from the A-Team, one kid is completely obsessed with the Karate Kid (I still am), and you get glimpses of bedrooms filled with Star Wars toys and Ghostbusters stuff strewn about. A few of the characters watch what is a film within a film titled Zombie Invasion, which is like an Exploitation Zombie movie that is inter-cut into A Christmas Tale. It serves no other purpose than to show that these kids are into the same stuff many of us were when we were kids and I am assuming the filmmakers were into also.

This is very well done and really brings a fun sense of nostalgia in how it is all captured, and it brings about a sense of connection to the characters as you can see a bit of yourself in these kids in one way or another. How far does that connection go though? That is where the film takes a turn from fun 80's kids movie, to a much darker place when a few of the characters become manipulative and it shows how even youth can be driven by greed and power.

We are all like the kids in many ways and most of us would do differently in such a situation. Others...maybe not so much. The way a few of the characters treat their siblings and this woman, who is essentially bad, but still a human, shows how evil some people can be when put into certain situations. There is also consequence in making the decisions that are made and without getting into too much detail, when the woman escapes her unholy hole; she is not too pleased about what the children did to her.

Outside of the trapped woman, there are no adults to be "physically" seen in this film, which shows you that these kids are in their own little world, almost living by their own rules. All of the youthful actors in A Christmas Tale are very solid and believable in their roles, and all but one of the children are boys, with the lone girl being played by a pre-Pan's Labyrinth Ivana Baquero. Maru Valdivielso as the trapped thief in a Santa suit is fantastic and when you get into the more horrific elements of this film, she is quite scary and effective and makes for a great villain of sorts.

A Christmas Tale is an enjoyable, nostalgia filled romp that is very well made and something that is not commonly seen these days. The feeling of retro-kids films is spot on and the horror elements are all in place for a fun holiday fueled ride that is well worth a watch for the Christmas season. I cannot stress enough what a great bargain the 6 Films to Keep You Awake is; with 6 semi-short Spanish horror films for under $20, you just can't beat it.