100 Years of Horror
What frightens me is not so much the obvious monster. What frightens me is the unknown, the fear that my mind is not in control, that there is something out there that nobody knows about. So says Roger Corman, king of the B picture, helping to set the tone for this richly detailed survey of the horror film. Introduced and hosted by veteran horror actor Christopher Lee, and written and directed by Ted Newsom (the director of Ed Wood--Look Back in Angora), this documentary is clearly a labor of love. There is on view a blood feast of film clips and sometimes priceless interviews with filmmakers. As our host, Christopher Lee offers up funny anecdotes about his days at Hammer Studios, you might be interested in knowing why being The Mummy was a literal pain. Exploitation film director Herschell G. Lewis is hilarious on why you shouldn t worry about opening gory films in Peoria, and how the censor board was stymied by the bloodiest of films. And John Carpenter tells how Suspiria director Dario Argento worked from his dreams like Luis Bunuel. Notably missing is any mention of Stephen King, Brian De Palma, or Sam Raimi. Raimi alone could have been the focus of a whole section devoted to the influence of H.P. Lovecraft on modern horror films. Also, the filmmakers seem less interested in the sections on science fiction for some reason, despite critics estimates that half of all science fiction films fall clearly in the horror genre. Nevertheless, the interviews and film clips make this disc worth the price of admission. --Jim Gay
Christopher Lee at your service - ",call them fantasy films...but please don t call them horror", is one of the lines given by the host, Christopher Lee, jokingly looking in utter disgust that the public would call these films horror . his performance is hilarious because of his sophisticated and always serious approach to acting and yet he s offering a self-parody much in the tradition of Vincent Price. although he doesn t go over-the-top, Lee s participation/narration was vital for this program s legitimacy. clips of horror and Sci-Fi films are shown throughout...there s also clips of interviews with Vincent Price, Boris Karloff, and Roger Corman among others...the so-called drive-in horror titans of the 60s are also spotlighted: American International and Hammer, the two companies that were responsible for 90% of the horror output in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s. this is a great look at horror films and Lee s commanding voice and screen appearances keep it from being too tedious, as it may have been had a contemporary hot shot with little to no affiliation with the genre narrated the show.
Only for The Most Desperate of ",Horror", Fans - Unfortunately, the folks who put this ",documentary", together seem to think horror is confined to cheezy Grade Z movies full of excessive ",knife across the eyeball", style gore. A somewhat comatose Christopher Lee seems ashamed to be hosting this mess.
