MEN (1972); Harry Andrews and James Donald had played the roles in the 1969 TV movie DES- TINY OF A SPY, from the novel THE GAUNT WOMAN. One of the pleasures of NOTHING BUT THE NIGHT is that—along with NIGHT OF THE BIG HEAT (1967) and HORROR EXPRESS (1972)—it lets the often-teamed Lee and Cushing play comrades rather than antagonists, and the prospect that they might have returned in a series of Bingham-Ashley ad- ventures is tantalizing. It’s a well- cast film, with Dors (in full-on blowsy harridan mode) and Strong (creepy when dressed as an oldlady with pearls and red lip- stick) the standouts. Room is also found for singer Georgia Brown (most often heard but not seen in horror films, dubbing comely non-actresses in the likes of VAMPYRES) as an interestingly cynical journalist heroine with fab ’70s purple boots and a floppy hat, TV Quatermass veterans John Robinson (QUATERMASS II) and Duncan Lamont (THE QUA- TERMASS EXPERIMENT), a young Michael Gambon as a policeman, professional Scot Fulton Mackay, TV genre fixture Morris Perry (DOCTOR WHO, DOOM WATCH, etc.) and an underused, still-sin- ister Kathleen Byron (BLACK NARCISSUS, TWINS OF EVIL). The theme of the old living
on by exploiting the young, which screenwriter Brian Hayles (known for the radio play which became Hammer’s unproduced VLAD THE IMPALER script) found in Blackburn’s novel, dovetails with the series of generation gap horrors director Peter Sasdy worked on. It seemed for a while to be Sasdy’s obsession, as he alternated monster children de- stroying their parents (TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA, I DON’T WANT TO BE BORN) with wicked parents possess- ing or replacing their children
A spectral image from SISTERS OF DEATH, included in the first volume of VCI’s SCREAM THEATER double features.
(COUNTESS DRACULA, HANDS OF THE RIPPER). The mix of conspiracy/policier thrills, medi- cal science fiction and horror also evokes other Cushing-Lee teamings (THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA and SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN, for in- stance), though this is more se- date and less exciting than either. Lee’s rather stiff middle-aged hero, who takes over from the more sympathetic (and younger) Keith Barron character, isn’t likeable enough for us to care too much that he might be dragged into a Guy Fawkes’ bonfire by an or- phans’ tug-of-war team. Cushing, who can usually be counted on to provide the warmth that leav- ens Lee’s iron will (as in HOR- ROR EXPRESS), is given a rather bad-tempered boffin part he takes a while to get a grip on. (Unusually, Cushing is un- convincing in some early angry scenes though he settles down to his usual professional author- ity.) It’s a good-looking film, shot on attractive if chilly locations by Ken Talbot (Sasdy’s favored cin- ematographer, from COUNTESS DRACULA and DOOMWATCH) and intelligently-written, but
perhaps suffers from being classier and cleverer than it is terrifying.
Scorpion’s anamorphic 1.78:1 DVD is in their Katarina’s Night- mare Theater series, with op- tional intro and end-note by Katarina Leigh Waters, who pro- vides some background informa- tion along with the expected schoolgirl outfit jokes. Other ex- tras include useful (but awk- wardly-written) liner notes and a trailer narrated (like so many other British trailers) by the distinctive Patrick Allen.
SCREAM THEATER DOUBLE FEATURES
VCI, various, $9.98 each, DVD By Shane M. Dallmann
Just in time for the previous Christmas holiday, VCI has re- released sixteen of their horror titles in a series of eight SCREAM THEATER volumes (retailing at $9.98 per double bill, but avail- able for considerably less online). The emphasis is on the 1970s and ’80s (weighted in favor of the early days of DTV genre efforts), with the odd public domain standby and the occasional
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