Metempsyco (1965)

You don’t hear a lot about guinea pigs these days.  In the pantheon of house pets, they just don’t rank all that high, which is kind of a shame, because I think they’re pretty nifty.  They’re easy to take care of, they’re cute as buttons, and they’re fairly even-tempered.  My family had one back when I was young.  Her name was Petunia (get it?), and I used to push her around on my cheap, plastic skateboard (back when the activity was still called “sidewalk surfing”).  If I remember correctly, she only nibbled on my fingers a few times, but I didn’t mind.  People love their bunnies, their dogs and cats, even their regular pigs, but the guinea pig is all but forgotten these days.  Maybe they got a bad reputation for their ability to be mistaken for rats, as they do in Antonio Boccaci’s Metempsyco (aka Tomb of Torture).  That said, they just don’t bring the chills like you might think they would.

Anna Darnell (Annie Alberti) is dragged to her physician father’s village in order to keep her from going insane (this makes sense to someone somewhere).  The village’s dilapidated castle plays home to cranky dowager Countess Elizabeth (Flora Carosello) and the horridly disfigured Hugo, who enjoys torturing and murdering nubile young women in the dungeon/tomb that comes standard in places like this.  Anna just so happens to be the spitting image of Elizabeth’s sister, the missing Countess Irene (also Alberti), which deeply interests (kind of) Raman (Adriano Micantoni), the Countess’ former fiancé.  And things go from there.

The title Metempsyco is a shortening of “metempsychosis,” which is a fancy word for reincarnation, and for once in an Italian genre film of the time, it actually corresponds to the context of the narrative.  There’s the obvious mentioning of the resemblance between Irene and Anna by every character, but Boccaci also handles the duality of the character in a strong visual manner.  Irene appears as a mute specter frequently in mirrors that Anna peers into.  The countess is a presence looming over Anna, possessing her body, as well as an ominous harbinger of the physical danger Anna is in and a representation of the possible madness that imperils her mind.  Irene even appears a few times outside of reflective surfaces, so she becomes more physical than just a rumination on what’s inside Anna.  There’s even a dream sequence that’s both eerie in its disjointedness and telling as a flashback to Irene’s fate, and it directly draws a line between the two women, linking them on a spiritual level as something shared from life to life.  

As all cinematic ghosts are, Irene is the past sin on which the film’s plot turns.  We find out rather quickly exactly what happened to her (it’s pretty inventive), leaving only the mystery of who was involved in it (which is no real mystery at all) and how the film’s characters must deal with this.  Obviously, Irene can’t or won’t go away until her life and death have reached full closure.  Likewise, the deformed Hugo is the ugly, corporeal secret of this past that continues to harm the people of the village.  The past is, in fact, more important than anything happening in the present, because it informs every motivation of every character in the film (one could argue that this applies to all fiction, but I feel that it’s more pointedly true in Metempsyco and films like it).  Until this is dealt with, no one can move on.

Similarly, the castle and its inhabitants, in fact the whole village, simultaneously embody opulence and rot.  We’re shown this from the film’s start.  It opens with an establishing shot of the castle exterior, looking the worse for wear.  We then get a POV shot (heavy breathing included) of the castle’s interior, the finely woodworked doors, the various large busts, the bookcases, etcetera.  This cuts to a skull hanging in blackness, and the camera tracks in on a human eyeball in its socket.  It then switches back to the POV shot, and we now get a “rat” (one of the aforementioned guinea pigs) crawling on the fireplace’s mantle.  This bastion of finery is decayed, just as Irene’s corpse is.  It is beauty and ugliness combined.  In this same manner, you have the beast Hugo who captures, strips, tortures, and kills a couple of snooping girls (in a Psycho-esque prologue of some length).  In this village, beauty is threatened and must be destroyed.  Elizabeth, not an ugly woman, per se, is given a stern iciness which drains what comely attributes she may have once had, and her all-black ensemble only adds to her forbidding mien.  She may be wealthy, but she’s practically dead inside.  Anna’s arrival is a threat to the fetidness of the locale as well as being the reincarnation of Irene’s allure, so she is in turn threatened.  The castle is old affluence consumed by its greed and turned monstrous.

Lust and madness are also intertwined in the film.  Elizabeth’s lust turned to envy of Irene, driving her to madness and murder.  Anna struggles against some vague genetic insanity, but she beds down with gormless reporter George (Marco Mariani).  This does nothing to stave off her mental instability and seems to exacerbate it.  Raman lusts for Anna the same as he did Irene, driving him to act the stalker throughout the film.  And then there’s Hugo who is clearly psychopathic and indulges his cravings for female flesh in erotic murderous fantasies.

There are some surprises to be had in Metempsyco, primarily stemming from the lurid quality that informs its plot.  Death is brutally delivered by more than one character with shocking starkness.  There’s no actual skin on display, but both consensual sex and rape are presented as a matter of course.  Oddities are left unexplained or only partially explained, augmenting the nightmarish ambiance of the film.  Yes, the plot is as well-trodden as the cobbled streets of Pamplona and as enigmatic as a stapler, but it all works because of its macabre disarray.  This is pure pulp served up with a heightened gloom that makes it all the more nasty.  It’s a shame Boccaci didn’t direct another film (and only wrote a total of four), because he clearly had the sensibilities to be one of the more inventive and intriguing filmmakers of Italian genre cinema.  Plus, he was unafraid to try passing off guinea pigs as rats, and you have to admire that kind of moxie.

MVT:  The atmosphere of the film is infused with elderly gothic trappings and modern pulp perversity, blurring the two together admirably.

Make or Break:  The prologue showcases everything there is to love about the film.

Score:  6.75/10     

The Sound of Horror (1965)

Professor Andre (Antonio Casas), along with archeological assistant Stravos (Francisco Piquer) and Andre’s niece Maria (Soledad Miranda), are blowing up cave walls in a secluded Grecian valley.  They discover some petrified, prehistoric eggs which just so happen to hatch (as these things do), and unleash an (mostly) invisible horror from out of time.

José Antonio Nieves Conde’s The Sound of Horror (aka El Sonido de la Muerte aka Sound from a Million Years Ago aka The Prehistoric Sound) is a cozy little creature feature.  It has a small cast of victims, an interesting take on an old premise, and some surprising black and white gore effects.  It deals, as just about all monster/science fiction films from the Fifties and well into the Sixties did (and much further back, to be sure, but there was a pointedness to the object lessons during this era), with the consequences of tampering with Nature and/or God’s domain.  Andre and his crew are destroying these caves to find a treasure (they use dynamite, which boggles the mind, especially if they want to find what they’re looking for intact).  Aside from the eggs, they also discover a very well-preserved Greek mummy, indicating that the caves were once an ancient burial ground (was there anything not buried in this cave?).  By uncovering these things, they offend the Powers That Be and incur their wrath.  These things were meant to stay buried, even though the process of discovery insists that they be dragged into the light.  This is the same paradigm at work with atomic-age horrors; For all the value culled from splitting the atom, it brought with it heavy negatives, and there are also the aspects we have not or cannot comprehend about these “breakthroughs” which may come back to bite humanity in its collective ass.  

More than this, the excavators’ motives are not completely pure.  Andre is hellbent on finding this supposed treasure, and at first blush, he appears to be doing this for the sake of historical exploration (“we cannot allow superstition to block the way of progress,” according to Andre; a line uttered by many a mad scientist).  However, it quickly becomes apparent that his true motivation is avarice.  Andre’s two buddies from World War Two, Asilov (James Philbrook) and Dorman (José Bódalo), show up with the second half of the map Andre has been using incorrectly up to this point.  This introduces Andre’s ulterior motives for his dig.  There is booty supposedly hidden in the caves by an ancient gang of international thieves, and the professor and his buddies plan to split it and live the high life (“a beautiful villa, fine clothes, and limousines”).  These three feel entitled to this loot from what they had to endure during the war, spending their youth “dancing to bullets.”  

Contrasting the old men’s cupidity are Stravos and Asilov’s driver/guide Pete (Arturo Fernández).  Stravos is content merely with the archeological discovery of the mummy.  To him, that’s “treasure enough,” and he ignores Andre and company’s further searching for the money in order to study the corpse in detail and sketch it (I suppose, like in many museums, flash photography is not allowed in archeological dig sites).  That the body is left lying disdainfully in the middle of the cave is further evidence of the disrespect that calls down the proverbial thunder on the heads of these people.  While everyone else talks about all the material things they want to buy with the money, Pete only wants to expand his tour guide business.  He is satisfied just polishing his truck (which he has dubbed Diana) and making time with Maria (can’t blame him for that).  Only the three old men have dollar signs in their eyes, but it is their actions that periclitate the group as a whole.

The film’s most unique aspect is right there in its title.  It makes excellent use of sound to convey menace and delivers frights.  The monster emits a high pitched skirl that rises and falls as it closes in on its prey.  This device, of course, has two purposes.  On a practical production level, it covers for budgetary restrictions in the costume department.  The only time we see the monster is at the very end, and then it’s shot from far away, and it is thankfully indistinct enough to not completely ruin everything that’s been built up beforehand (honestly, it does not look like it would impress if seen clearly).  Otherwise, there is a brief glimpse of the monster’s outline in double exposure, and the appearance of its footprints in flour.  That’s it.  Everything else is left to the viewer’s imagination, and while there’s something to be said for giving the audience what it wants, there’s equally something to be said for holding back and making the audience engage their minds in the creation of the fantasy.  On a stylistic level, it maintains the mystery of the creature, and it creates tension, because you never know precisely where the beast is (other than that it’s near you).  Additionally, the fact that the monster shrieks like a banshee is unnerving (and it should be noted, it is a very human shriek, almost as if the creature were mocking its victims).  

The clear pinnacle of the use of sound in horror is Robert Wise’s The Haunting, which was released two years prior to The Sound of Horror.  The major differences between these films and their aural displays are twofold.  One, Conde’s film uses a simple sound with slight variations on it.  Wise’s film used various sounds to exude the notion that the entire house is alive.  Two, whereas Wise combined his audio approach with a visual flair, Conde’s film is fairly static in feel.  His camera does move around some, and it’s usually well-motivated, but his aesthetic is still very staged and more economical than Wise in many ways (never uninterestingly, but certainly not innovatively).

Despite what the film gets right, however, its middle sags a bit more than it should after it becomes something of a siege movie.  At this point, what tensions there are between the characters melt away, and the film simply waits for the next attack.  It fills this time with characters sleeping and chatting idly.  Funnily enough, there are just enough moments of action to pep things up occasionally, so it’s not a total loss.  That being said, this is a damned good low budget horror film.  I’m surprised The Sound of Horror isn’t brought up more often among genre enthusiasts, because it really deserves to be.  Seek it out (it’s on Youtube in full, if you’re interested).

MVT:  I appreciate the conceit of the film, largely because it’s something that wasn’t done often at the time, and even if it were, wasn’t consistently successful enough to be noteworthy.

Make or Break:  The first kill of the film works in spades.  The unsettling cry of the monster along with the rather well done gore effects actually captured my full attention.

Score:  7/10 

Samurai Spy (1965)

Stop me if I’ve told you this one before (actually, don’t).  I was the youngest of six children.  I grew up with four brothers and a sister, all of whom loved nothing more than bedeviling their chunky (and much cooler) baby brother.  If you recall from my story about Brigantine Castle, you’ll recall that my family used to vacation in Long Beach Island, New Jersey every summer.  On the main strip was, conceivably, my favorite place in the whole, entire world: an arcade/snack shop which had the single greatest video game ever created: Xevious.  Adjacent to this pleasure palace was my second favorite place in the whole, entire world: a trampoline park.  For those who don’t know, these were places where you could rent time to risk life and limb and bounce on a giant trampoline.  When your time was up, your name was announced over a loud speaker, and you were invited to leave.  Like last call at a bar, just without the bouncers and alcohol and beer goggles.  Places like these have vanished; I’m sure due more to an increasingly litigious society than to any actual physical danger to children.  

At any rate, I used to love Trampoline World (this particular park’s moniker, if memory serves), but of course, I was too young to go there by myself.  This task of handling me fell to my brothers.  One fiendishly clever day, they took me over for my midday, spring-loaded constitutional, and I proceeded to go through my routine, lost in that magical act of leaping.  As my time drew to a close, the loudspeaker crackled to life, “Pyew Stinky on Six, Pyew Stinky on Six.  Your time is up.”  Go ahead and guess what the number of my trampoline was.  Suffice to say, I was miffed, nay, livid.  But I got over it.  Had I been more aware at that time of the usage of trampolines and the like in performing the acrobatics in films like Masahiro Shinoda’s Samurai Spy (aka Ibun Sarutobi Sasuke) and countless other Martial Arts and Science Fiction films, I probably would have pulled off some sweet midair maneuvers that would have firmly denounced the fetid nickname with which my trampolining prowess had been besmirched by my lowlife siblings.

Following the historic Battle of Sekigahara, Japan is still torn between the Toyotomi and Tokugawa clans, though the balance of power is inclining toward the latter.  Naturally, there are other clans, and they have their own networks of spies.  These clans generally align themselves with either the Tokugawas or Toyotomis, and their spies wander the country, collect information, and send it back to their superiors.  The Sawada clan, however, is neutral but leans Toyotomi.  Sasuke is one of their most renowned agents, and he soon finds himself embroiled in a search for a Yagyu agent turned traitor, as well as a mysterious young Christian man who is somehow tied up in all this.

The film has elements of the superheroic at various times.  Men have the ability to leap great distances (but not necessarily tall buildings) in a single bound.  Their skill with shuriken and wakizashi are accurate and deadly effective.  These extraordinary skills are usually distinguished in the film by the use of slow motion.  Not only is the action being slowed down for the benefit of the viewer to delineate what is happening, but this break from normal film speed signifies that what these people are doing is special.  Normal people and warriors move in normal time.  The elite of the superhuman spy set move differently, because they perceive action differently.  The flick of a blade may appear as a flash of light to the normal human eye, but to these masters, they follow the gleaming edge from the start of the draw to the final, bloody end of its arc, and along the way, they will notice and hit exactly what they intend and nothing more.  These types of scenes are important in the film, but they are not a focus.  In other words, these people have incredible powers, but they are ancillary to the central conceit of the film.

Which brings us to the sense of mystery intrinsic to the film’s point, and it is basically conveyed using two visual motifs.  The first is the image of fog or smoke.  The first time we meet Sasuke, he is wandering around, lost in a literal fog and sensing like something is following him.  In fact, the character is constantly wandering in and out of fog-shrouded climes.  This symbolizes not only the murky plot Sasuke is trying to unravel but also the interior confusion he feels about what type of person he is and what he needs to do.  Early on, he tells fellow spy Mitsuaki that he has stopped asking why he does what he does.  His persona is subjugated by his job, and he does it very well.  Nevertheless, he does know that there are questions he should be answering and isn’t (“No one seems to give any thought anymore to the meaning of death.  Or the meaning of life, for that matter.”).  When all has finally been made clear to Sasuke, the fog clears for a short time, but it well re-emerge shortly with a different function.  Now it is a source of tension which will remain muddy until Sasuke’s fate has been lethally determined.

The second visual metaphor imparting this notion of mystery is compositional in nature.  Shinoda employs high angle shots often in the film and especially during scenes involving action.  By doing this, he makes it more difficult to distinguish one character from another (the major exception to this being the person of Sakon Takatani; a Yagyu agent who dresses completely in white, effectively making of him a ghost and agent of death).  Thus, the masses of people move against each other, and the only true way to know what has happened is after it has occurred (slow-motion sequences notwithstanding).  Still, action is not always the focus of these types of arrangements.  Even quiet moments are mired in uncertainty, none more beautifully realized than the scene where Sasuke and his love interest Omiya are discussing their future.  The two are centered in the frame, beset on all sides by flowers to the point that they become lost in this pattern of nature.  Samurai Spy’s plot may be a bit much to take in, and it may sound like just another Jidaigeki, but it truly distinguishes itself as a perceptual journey, and it is as much influenced by the best Western Films Noir as it is by anything from its native East.

MVT:  The cinematography and general aesthetic of this film is impressive and sumptuous.  Masao Kosugi’s camerawork captures bottomless pools of black alongside searingly hot whites.  That it is so striking is almost as praiseworthy as the fact that it is not ostentatious.  To me, that makes it all the more remarkable.

Make Or Break:  The introduction of the film’s contagonist, Sakon is the Make.  After using his trademark grappling hook on a hapless victim, he emerges from one of the darkest shadows I have ever seen.  He is a spectre, imposing and awesome, a presence to be feared and a force with which to be reckoned.

Score:  7.75/10