Tag Archives: The House That Screamed

Creative Insanity

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One of many unsettling images from the 1973 surrealistic psychodrama A BELL FROM HELL by Spanish director Claudio Guerin Hill.

A young man named Juan is released from a mental asylum after a long confinement. He is on parole and placed under the guardianship of his aunt but is he cured or still a danger to society? One thing is clear. Juan has no intention of going back to the sanatorium or following the rules of his release. In fact, he has a plan which involves an elaborate revenge on his aunt, three female cousins and anyone else he holds responsible for his confinement. The question of whether Juan is truly insane or just pretending to be is the question that drives the narrative of La Campana del Infierno (English title: A Bell from Hell aka The Bells, 1973), a Spanish psychodrama which is often categorized as a horror film due to its gothic atmosphere, disturbing imagery and sinister plot twists.

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These Violent Delights Have Violent Ends

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The William Shakespeare tragedy, Romeo and Juliet, has served as the inspiration for countless movies about star-crossed lovers such as Beneath the 12-Mile Reef (1953), West Side Story (1961) and the zombie comedy Warm Bodies (2013) but it has rarely been re-imagined as a spaghetti western. One of the few but notable exceptions is Dove si spara di più (1967), which is also known under the alternate release titles of Fury of Johnny Kidd, Ultimate Gunfighter and Ride for a Massacre.

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Pool Days

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Sometimes a film comes along that no marketing department can get a handle on and as a result it just gets tossed out there to fend for itself and to find an audience on its own. That was the case with Deep End, made in 1970 but released in 1971 by Paramount Pictures to selected art houses and whatever theaters were willing to book it. I saw the film at the Westhampton Theatre in Richmond, Virginia, which was obviously run by an Anglophile because almost any new British film would play there. Of course, Deep End is only British on the surface. It is set in London but the cast includes British, Germany actors and Polish actors and much of the film was shot in Munich, Germany by Polish director Jerzy Skolimowski.

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The Games People Play According to Eloy de la Iglesia

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Juego de amor prohibido posterTwo college students, Miguel (John Moulder-Brown) and Julia (Inma de Santis), take advantage of a school holiday to run off together for parts unknown. Their plan is to shack up somewhere where their parents can’t find them but their impromptu road trip takes an unexpected detour. The young lovers soon find themselves prisoners at a sequestered mansion and estate under the control of Don Luis (Javier Escrivá), an aristocrat with a passionate love of fine arts and the music of Richard Wagner. He also happens to be one of their professors at college and the one who picked up the hitchhikers while he was blasting “Ride of the Valkyries” from his car stereo. This is the set-up for Eloy de la Iglesia’s Forbidden Love Game (Spanish title: Juego de amor prohibido, 1975) but if you think you know what’s coming, you’re probably mistaken.   Continue reading →