Blu-ray Review: AMERICAN HORROR PROJECT Volume One

The first in a planned series, Arrow’s region-free Blu-ray box set AMERICAN HORROR PROJECT VOL 1 brings together three American cult classics, little seen in the UK.

THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA

Of the three in the box set, this is probably the most familiar title to UK viewers thanks to its finding itself on the notorious ‘video nasties’ list of titles refused home video certificates in the early ‘80s. Given the violence, the language and the subject matter, you can sort of see how it got there – inasmuch as you can see why anything was on that list – but it sits oddly alongside its more notorious contemporaries like NIGHTMARES IN A DAMAGED BRAIN and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. Exploitation is not the agenda here. Rather, Matt Cimber’s film is an off-kilter treatment of a deeply serious subject; a drama about damaged people, only trespassing into horror territory through its jarringly bloody killings. Otherwise it’s a quiet, measured affair; more strange than terrifying. It takes place in seedy, down-at-heel beach side locations on the edge of Hollywood, allowing Millie Perkins’ damaged protagonist to rub shoulders with the low-rent sports stars and actors she murders. Her history of being abused by the father she continues to idolise is revealed in gnomic flashbacks, which include the indelibly disturbing image of the father hiding, naked in the closet waiting for his daughter to find him. There’s a slightly stoned atmosphere to the whole thing –  a dream-like state, making us question whether the butcherings and castrations are fantasies until we realise they categorically aren’t.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OB2X98v2_Ek

MALATESTA’S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD

Christopher Eric Speeth’s only film starts with a man in drag, as does THE PREMONITION. And it’s set among carny folk, as is THE PREMONITION to an extent. While the three films of American Horror Project’s first salvo aren’t exactly thematically connected, it’s still fun to look for the links. This one is simultaneously the most “conventional” and the weirdest film in the box: conventional because it’s about killings at a funfair; weird because it’s barely interested in being about that at all. The budget was clearly microscopic: there wasn’t much money for sets, but they had a lot of bubble wrap. And, thankfully, a dilapidated amusement park. The plot is about a family taking jobs at the park to find out what happened to their son and – on the father’s part – avenge him if necessary. But the plot isn’t really at all important. Malatesta’s Carnival Of Blood is more a series of scenes that play out with only the vaguest of links to one another. Hervé Villechaize is in it – unintelligible as the mischievous Bobo. Jerome Dempsey’s Mr Blood is very, very funny (watch out for a scene with a fire extinguisher that had us reaching for the rewind button). Daniel Dietrich’s  Malatesta doesn’t make the greatest impression. His name translates as “Bad Head”, possibly from too much acid. He presides over a community of subterranean Morlocks who watch silent movies and sing choral music – rather well. One extraordinary sequence sees Janine Carazo trying to escape the park, rolling around in plastic, then running out on a road in the woods, and then somehow back among the rides again. Narrative logic was furthest from anybody’s mind. You could call it vaguely Lynchian, except it predates Eraserhead by four years. It was thought lost for 30, so it’s great to have it this widely available again.

THE PREMONITION

A crazed mother (Ellen Barber), just released from a mental hospital, embarks on a mission to kidnap her daughter, now living a happy new life with adopted parents. Like WITCH, Tobert Allen Schnitzer’s THE PREMONITION is actually at base a rather sombre exploration of mental illness and motherhood (and child kidnapping), but has a peculiar supernatural element bolted on. One character ends up helping another from beyond the grave, and the film’s dramatic crescendo is reached as much by an impromptu open-air harpsichord performance as by the traditional detection and chase. Richard Lynch as the circus clown boyfriend of Barber is compelling and strange as always, but his motivation later on isn’t very clear. But his murderous rages are the scariest thing in this set.

Also like WITCH, this one’s fascinating because it’s not something you could imagine being made now. Its screenplay would have been drafted and re-drafted to be one thing or the other, kidnap thriller or psychic showdown, rather than both or neither. American Horror Project curator Stephen Thrower makes the point in his introduction about a bygone age before “horror” became all about teenagers – although its debatable whether either WITCH or PREMONITION are horror per se: they’re more psychological thrillers with gore or supernatural elements. But the point is these things haven’t been tested or focus-grouped. In fact, they’ve barely been seen at all. One can’t imagine them playing on the drive-in circuit because they’re either too odd or too serious. They first came out pre-video and were barely if at all released theatrically. Where the hell did they play? They’re archival curios that could well have remained obscure. Which makes the American Horror Project a valuable and intriguing one.

EXTRAS:

THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA has a new documentary with Matt Cimber, Millie Perkins, John Goff and cinematographer Dean Cundey, who, of course, went on to a stellar career and a fruitful artistic partnership with John Carpenter. There’s also an older archive  featurette covering a lot of the same ground; and standalone interview with Cimber; and a commentary with Cimber, Perkins and Cundey.

MALATESTA’S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD – has standalone interview features with director Christopher Speeth, writer Warner Liepolt, and art directors Richard Stange and Alan Johnson . Incredibly, given that the film itself barely existed for three decades, a reel of outtakes has been found and included. And the amusing, engaging commentary comes courtesy of historian Richard Harland Smith.

THE PREMONITION – gets a new documentary featuring director Robert Allen Schnitzer, composer Henry Mollicone and cinematographer Victor Milt. Also included are three of Schnitzer’s short films and four TV “peace” spots; a half-hour 2005 interview with Richard Lynch; trailers; and an isolated score. Schnitzer provides the commentary.

All three films are introduced by project curator Stephen Thrower, who seems uncomfortable in front of the camera and often repeats himself, despite visible editing. THE PREMONITION in particular has him saying variations of “you just have to go with it” about five times in a couple of minutes. What’s going on here? Were these an unplanned afterthought?

The films themselves have been remastered at 2K and are provided on both Blu-ray and DVD in the same package. The Blu-rays are at 1080p, and the soundtracks are mono. The restorations are obviously only as good as the original source, which means there are still lines and crackles on the prints. But that feels appropriate. You wouldn’t want them pristine, right? The sound on all three films is the original mono; there are English hard-of-hearing subtitles; the sleeves on the individual boxes are reversible, giving you the choice of new or classic artwork; and as ever there’s a booklet of excellent essays, in this case by Thrower and genre critics Kim Newman, Kier-La Janisse and Brian Albright.