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!
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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There is a truth, often spoken uncontested, that Rawhead Rex is an utterly shitty film. Much like James Corden, it has become a byword for badly made, uninspired, and derivative trash. Thus, as a fan of all flavours of cinema (including the super-sour), I never bothered to track it down and only watched it because it was free, I had nothing specific to watch, and the algorithm spotlighted it for me. I was expecting a mild hate watch, and instead, I was just angry at all those who had pointlessly berated this perfectly acceptable film for internet points.
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There is a long-standing tradition in folk-horror, all the way back to camp fire stories, of the weirdo family that lives in the middle of nowhere and eats anyone who inadvertently trespasses onto their hunting grounds. On an intellectual level it’s probably something to do with fear of the unknown and warnings against wandering too far away from the safety of the collective, but for B-movie fans it’s a very basic “hicks are inbred idiots” combined with the visceral thrill of transgressing one of the biggest cultural taboos. It’s morally reprehensible enough to make murder worse, it’s instinctively nauseating due to the fear of disease, and when done right it’s bloody funny.
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Trash or Treasure 