Theme Song: A bunch of shitty violins and shitty piano by some shitty British guy.

Interesting Dated References: The film takes place in 1795, everything is dated poorly. Women being virgins on their wedding night. I think this is actually a documentary on the last woman to get married a virgin.

Best Line: “Rise, take up thy bottle and walk.”

Social Context: There’s some type of subtext going on here about the young British having to pay for the sins of the old British. I was reading about it on the internet and was distracted by one of those low mortgage rate ads with the dancing black women. I’m guessing this happened because I am neither British, nor young, nor old.

Summary: I hate horror movies that take place in England in the 1700s or 1800s. As a result, I hate a lot of movies starring Peter Cushing. I guess I shouldn’t say “hate.” I just can’t get into them one bit and I think Peter Cushing is a bit irritating. The films always remind me of sitting at my grandma’s on a Saturday afternoon and asking to watch something scary. Inevitably, some fucking movie taking place in England and involving ghosts or the devil would be on. I’d sit there trying to make sense of that shit, but it never worked out. Then my mom would finally pick us up so I could go home and think about how awesome my life was going to be.

So, a young, newlywed, snotty, English couple moves into a house, which happens to be the house in which the husband was raised, and has been in his family “for 300 years.” As if you could even track that shit without the internet. The woman immediately becomes scared of all types of shit, including reflections in the window and old paintings of family members in the hallway. Whenever she gets scared, violins synonymous with the sound of getting scared shoot out at you. It’s fucking lame. She seems to be scared every time old dude tries to get some action, but they really don’t address that, and they insinuate she’s a virgin, or something. Good news is we’re 10 minutes into the film and there’s no sign of Peter Cushing.

Man, this shit really blows. So the broad goes for a walk, gets barked at by dogs, and makes a bunch of dudes stare at her. Then she loosely becomes obsessed with finding out information about some guy named Silas The Woodsman. I’m not sure if that’s his real name or just his M.C. name. Either way it’s pretty good. Slowly but surely, everyone who comes in contact with the new bride begins to get killed by a disembodied hand, the wind, or a giant pube that’s been on the screen for the majority of the movie. The bride keeps finding the dead bodies and lets out the most annoying cackle/shriek I’ve ever heard. They should call the movie And Now The Terribly-Acted Shrieking Begins. That’s actually the name for marriage, should I ever choose to go down that road.

This isn’t even a Hammer Film, it’s actually an Amicus Production which makes it like a shitty rip off of a Hammer film. In fact, considering it stars veteran Hammer regular Peter Cushing and was directed by the guy who did Asylum and The Vampire Lovers, you’d think there would be something good here. But there isn’t, I swear. Eventually the young bride starts to go insane and starts slashing up the portraits on which she keeps seeing shitty superimposed ghosts. This causes the husband and a doctor to decide she’s gone crazy. I would be really pissed if I went crazy and all I saw were ghosts appearing in paintings. I mean, I’d like to think most of us could do better than that. So then Peter Cushing shows up because he’s some type of “head doctor,” and because it’s a shitty period piece horror movie, and because he probably needed the $200. He then proceeds to investigate and raise his eyebrows and wear a really shitty wig:


In eighth grade some kids and I made up a dance called the “Christopher Columbus” at the roller rink. We thought we were pretty hot shit in our silk shirts and Girbaud Jeans. Anyway, if we would have had financial backing, we probably would have bought wigs that look exactly like this and worn them around school. I probably still wouldn’t have gotten laid until 18, though.

Okay, so Cushing discovers there is some curse on the house and for some reason it affects virgins. Now the easy solution to this would be for the fucking husband to bang his fucking wife, but this doesn’t seem to occur to anyone. During a flashback sequence, the husband explains that the reason there is a curse on the place is because back in the day, a bunch of old timers attempted to rape a virgin on the property. There are some hilarious day-for-night shots that include sunlight glimmering in people’s hair. So yeah, the gist of the curse is that any virgins up in the house will be tormented. Again, no one thinks to just have sex with the chick, even though they are newlyweds. There is kind of a ghost-rape scene, but it makes no goddamn sense. More shrieking, more Cushing, more gigantic pubes on the film stock, and then we’re done.

Poster and Box Art: This movie actually has a pretty nicely painted poster that makes the film look way more interesting than it is. Much like the movie, though, it is filled with empty gestures that are supposed to make us scared, but really just invoke indifference. A disembodied hand? We’re supposed to be scared of that shit? What’s it going to do, give us a hand job? Or, like, just sit there on the ground? Yeah, doesn’t work for me, either. Then look out, there’s an ax! Ahhh! Whatever, it’s all still rendered very nicely with some fantastic type treatments.

Availability: Because people have shitty taste, and because people like foreign horror movies, this is available on DVD.

Posted by srock on Friday, June 22nd, 2007 at 2:15 pm. Filed under Foreign Movies Made For $5 (U.S.)