When someone introduces you to a film that holds the accolade of being the first horror film made by the USSR, it’s only polite to give it a watch with very open arms. It’s based on an 1835 story of the same name by Ukrainian author Nikolai Gogol, and I’ve not seen any films from that region it makes it a double first for me, and that’s what this kind of film blog is all about.
Hands up whoever wants quality entertainment!
“When a nun in a remote convent claims immaculate conception, the Vatican sends a team of priests to investigate, concerned about an ancient prophecy that a woman will give birth to twin boys: one the Messiah, the other the Antichrist.” Which is a perfect setup for a bit of religious-themed horror, the only thing you need to add is a decent cast and a spooky church.
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Apparently this has been doing the rounds as a “must-see” cult movie for a while, but it’s one that I couldn’t remember hearing about until it was literally shoved into my eyeballs. If I heard of it before and paid it no heed it was probably because it was about The Carpenters and Anorexia, neither of which I have any more than a passing interest in, and because when mainstream critics rave about something being strange that normally means it’s rather dull. I was wrong, and if you haven’t seen this yet either then here is why you should watch it now.
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It may surprise modern folks, but the reason that A Christmas Carol did so well when first released by Charles Dickins was because it tapped into a grand tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas time. So it’s probably of no surprise that the BBCs decision to commission a run of ghost stories for Festive viewings in the 70s was less to do with providing an alternative to bawdy light-entertainment and more to do with maintaining Victorian values. So it’s educational horror, beyond the usual anatomy lessons.
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To avoid any possible confusion, it needs to be made clear that this is a comedic pastiche of two genres that seem to have a near infinite canon: Hallmark style Christmas romance movies and budget horror’s trading off the Amityville name. I’ll leave you to decide which one is a bigger scourge on the psyche of mankind (mostly because I can’t make my mind up on the answer) and give the general warning that all such films need. Simply put; unless you are versed in the content being parodied you may not get all the jokes that are trying to be told, and just think it’s the cheap, formulaic junk that’s being sent up.
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In context even this is problematic, which is impressive.
The straplines made me think this was going to be good old fashioned Psycho Santa Slasher, but this is actually a horror story anthology with a Christmas motif and framing device. Which isn’t a problem as that’s prime quality festive family fun in the Super Fortress. Thus we fired up the streaming service and let the intro credits roll.
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People can complain about Christmas themed horror all they want, but it taps into three key traditions. You have the Northern European tradition of telling horror stories at Christmas, the horror genre tradition of taking happy situations and warping them, and the horror movie tradition of ripping off anything succesful. You also have the great tradition of misleading posters, which occasional leaves you with something other than a lump of coal.
I went into this knowing practically nothing about it, either with it’s original title or AKA of “Rebel Waves”. Given the amount of post-apocalyptic nonsense I watch, and the number of books I read on the subject (like the rather excellent https://pulsestore.net/produit/after-the-world-ends/?lang=en After The World Ends by Claude Gaillard, that I encourage all fans of the genre to check out), that surprised me, but after about 10 minutes I’d worked out why. And for the cynics amongst you it wasn’t because it was yet another low cost Mad Max lite Continue reading
The promise of this Jack McHenry written and directed movie is straightforward: “Let’s take the micky out of the old Agatha Christie rip-off movies of the 30s”. It’s a simple, evocative, and, to the right kind of person, enthralling concept, and about the first 20 minutes of the film do a good job of it. But, much like the best murder mysteries, things suddenly go awry in the best possible manner. Continue reading
Trash or Treasure 