Horror Channel will be slicing its way through our TV schedules every Friday night throughout October as it celebrates slasher films, both classic and contemporary, From Oct 5 there will be four double-bills, headed up by four UK TV premieres. Seen as the most controversial of horror film sub-genres, the slasher film has delighted fans for over 30 years with its iconic psychopaths, trend-setting special effects, horny teenagers and outrageous plotlines. From ‘Psycho to the hilarious Scream
franchise, these endearing films forever changed the face and fortunes of horror
cinema.
Fri Oct 5 @ 22:55
The season kicks off with the premiere of GOING TO PIECES: THE RISE AND FALL OF THE SLASHER FILM (2006) a documentary which features a host of genre legends including Wes Craven, Rob Zombie & John Carpenter, who take us on a journey to the darkest recesses of cinematic shock. This is followed at 00:40 by BLACK CHRISTMAS (1974). Bob Clark’s Sorority House
horror classic, which stars Olivia Hussy, influenced such spine-chilling greats as Halloween and Scream.
Fri Oct 12 @ 22.55
Next up is the premiere of the bone-crunching WRECKAGE (2010) directed byJohn MalloryAsherin which four friends head to a scrap yard
to look for spare parts – but soon realise the only spare parts they’ll be
getting their hands on are their own!. This is followed at 00:40 by
high-school slasher favourite PROM NIGHT (1980), starring the original
scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielson. There is also an actress in
the film called Liz Stalker-Mason.
Fri Oct 19 @ 22.55
Martin Kemp, the
famed actor/musician has turned his hand to horror, bringing us his impressive
directorial debut STALKER (2010).
Its not often that a woman stalks another woman in this genre and
here Jane March, who found fame in ‘The Lover’, plays the part of a psychotic
female to chilling perfection. This is double-billed at 00:25 with HAPPY
BIRTHDAY TO ME (1981) starring Melissa Sue Anderson as a high school senior whose
birthday party guests are being killed off one by one…
Fri Oct 26 @
22:55
The last
double-bill of the season features the TV premiere of THE TORTURED
(2010), directed by Robert Lieberman, in which a desperate mother and father
(played by Jesse
Metcalfe & Elise Landry)decide
to take the law into their own hands after the kidnapper and killer of their son
receives a light sentence. .
Concluding the series at 00:30 is cult classic MANIAC COP(1988) written by Larry Cohen and starring Bruce Campbell as the
suspected cop who goes in search of the real killer.
TV: Sky
319 / Virgin 149 / Freesat 138
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse was Fritz Lang’s last film in his native Germany. Soon after his completion of the film he fled Germany because of his Jewish ancestry and the fact the Nazi head of propaganda banned his film and also because he went Lang to make films for them. It is a sequel to his previous film in the Dr. Mabuse series but having not seen the earlier film will not diminish the effect of the sequel.
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse opens with disgraced Detective Hofmeister who escapes from his criminal attackers. He phones his former superior inspector Karl Lohmann and frantically tells him he has discovered a huge criminal conspiracy. Before he can discloses the identity of the responsible criminal, shots and fired and he goes mad and institutionalized at Prof. Baum’s mental institute.
Baum introduces the case of Dr. Mabuse who went bad and crazy 10 year previously. Mabuse writes detailed plans for crimes and is the head of the crime syndicate. A colleague of Baum’s is shot and killed by Mabuse’s execution squad. There is clue scratched on a window. Lohmann suspects Mabuse but it’s revealed Mabuse died that morning. The rest of the film is Lohmann’s investigate in the crime syndicate.
The film is a complex endlessly fascination crime sage with a strange supernatural twist to it. Fritz Lang later regretted the supernatural element but it’s ads this wonderful off kilter aspect to the crime film. The film is one of the last grasps of German expressionism but is shot in a much realistic style than most German expressionism. It’s not quite up to the beauty of Lang’s Metropolis or M. It’s a near masterpiece with some slight pacing issues but saying that the previous Mabuse film was over 4 hours long (I haven’t seen it yet).
The Nazis banned the film because according to Joseph Goebbels “showed that a extremely dedicated group of people are perfectly capable of overthrowing any state with violence”. It is a very cynical look at the government/officials who are rather useless in the film and can’t do anything about the syndicate.
The film is wonderfully photographed and has enough twist and turns to keep you guessing. It’s not as good as some of Lang’s previous masterpiece but what are? Not many films. It’s a wonderfully offbeat mix of cop drama, mystery and horror and it’s a wonderful piece of proto-noir. It has been lovingly restored by Eureka for Masters of Cinema on blu-ray.
Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011) is like Marmite - you’ll either love it or hate it. Those who fall into the latter category will, in all likelihood, not understand what all the fuss is about and find the woman at the centre of this documentary sharp, obnoxious and hard to swallow - much like the aforementioned savory spread. Those on the other hand who revere Mrs Vreeland as one of the supreme ‘Queens of Fashion’ - up there along side Vogue’s Anna Wintour and Harper’s Bazaar’s late Liz Tilberis - will let every morsel of this tangy documentary cocktail linger tantilisingly on their palate.
Watching this 86 minute film, directed and written by Lisa Immordino Vreeland, Brent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Frédéric Tcheng, feels like a fast flick through one of the glossy magazines Vreeland became famous for editing. Spliced with archive interview footage of the woman herself discoursing on her colourful life and career - from her early Parisian childhood at the opening of the 20th century to her life in New York and career first at Bazaar and then its arch rival Vogue, before her rebirth as the doyenne of fashion historians at The Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute - this film is a fascinating insight into one of the true legends of fashion.
However it is also a mesmerising photo-album of many of the defining moments and images which shaped culture in the 20th century and beyond. As the stars who contribute memories to the film - from Ali McGraw, Angelica Huston and Penelope Tree to David Bailey and Richard Avedon - testify, Vreeland may have been a nightmare to work for but she had an uncanny ability to capture the essence of the moment and put her finger on the pulse of style. In the recent documentary The September Issue (2009) that other fashion legend Grace Coddington grudgingly admits that her boss at Vogue, Anna Wintour, was right when she started the trend of putting celebrities on the cover of the magazine. However after watching Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011) you will see that it was Vreeland who went one better by discovering (and creating) the celebrities, such as Lauren Bacall, in the first place.
Like many famous people, particularly those who become defined by their jobs, their families often take second place and suffer as a result. Though she clearly adored her husband Thomas Reed Vreeland, her sons Tim and Frecky, who contribute to the film, appear to have had a distant relationship with their mother - most likely due to the fact that she virtually lived for her job. Nonetheless those, including her sons, who are interviewed, all remember Vreeland with the affection and respect one would have for an eccentric yet beloved old aunt.
Some years ago I studied fashion journalism in London, and though my writing career took a different path, films like Diana Vreeland: The Eye Has to Travel (2011) and its vibrant and colourful subject, remind me why I, like many, will always have a hankering after the world of glossy fashion magazines and the exotic lifestyles of those who create them.
