Baghead, The Coffee Table, When a Stranger Calls, Hamlet (1948 vs 2024), Blood and Roses, and The Devil’s Partner
Horror Bulletin Weekly Newsletter #277
We’ve got a good mix of old and new for you this week! We’ll start off with the fun monster-in-the-basement flick, “Baghead” from 2023. Next, we’ll take a look at the amazing “The Coffee Table” which just dropped. We’ll check on the babysitter in the classic “When a Stranger Calls” from way back in ‘79. Lastly, we’ll watch two versions of one of the most famous ghost stories of all time with the 1948 classic, “Hamlet” followed by the just-released 2024 version.
The weekly newsletter this time around adds two more oldies:
“Blood and Roses” from 1960
“The Devil’s Partner” also from 1960
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Announcement!
Check out https://hourlongpress.com/ and sign up for the weekly free nonfiction book newsletter. The first seven books were about legendary horror icons: Vincent Price, Lon Chaney Jr., Bela Lugosi, Christopher Lee, etc. Now we’re moving into some various topics that we find interesting.
This week, it’s Kevin’s turn! For the next five days, you can get “Oh, Say Can You See? A Brief History of the Star Spangled Banner” absolutely for free from Amazon.
Next week, there’ll be another!
Here. We. Go!
Baghead (2023)
Directed by Alberto Corredor
Written by Christina Pamies, Bryce McGuire, Lorcan Reilly
Stars Freya Allan, Jeremy Irvine, Ruby Barker
Run Time: 1 Hour, 34 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This was a tasty snack of a movie with a very creepy situation that the characters are dealing with. It’s got a great setting, an effective cast, and a story that moves very well. The rules that must be followed are used nicely, and we liked this one a lot.
Spoilery Synopsis
Someone’s banging on the door at the inn, which is closed. The proprietor, Owen, tells the young man that he can’t see “her” and to go home. The old man then explains to a video camera that the property comes with a special tenant, and she comes with the property. “You cannot let her out of the basement. You don’t know how dangerous she is, but you will. Tonight, her curse ends with me.” But he’s making the video just in case he fails. He then goes into the basement, pours kerosene all around, intending to burn “her” and the inn. Instead he manages to set himself on fire. “She” watches it happen, then poofs the fires out after he’s dead. Credits roll.
Iris and Katie break into Iris’s place after she was evicted. She’s got nowhere to go but Katie’s house. Then Iris gets a phone call from a solicitor; her father has died. She travels home to identify the body, and it’s a mess. The solicitor takes her to the “Queen’s Head,” the old pub at the beginning that her father owned. He assumes she’ll want to sell the run-down, old place. The lawyer is sketchy, and he just wants to sell the place. Iris has nowhere to go and stays there.
She wakes up in the middle of the night to find a man inside the house. It’s the young man who wanted to see “her” at the beginning. He introduces himself as Neil, and he says “I want to see her.” See who? He offers her two thousand pounds to see the woman in the basement. A woman in the basement is news to Iris. “Please. I need to see my wife. I’m not crazy; other people come here for the same reason. Take the money; I know what to do.” She takes his money and tells him to come back tomorrow night.
She goes back to the solicitor and tells him she wants to keep the place. He has lots of paperwork, including a special page that needs to be signed with an old fountain pen. “There are… traditions.” He also gives her the videotape that her father left for the new owner.
Katie shows up, and Iris tells her about Neil and the basement. She finds the keys in with the legal paperwork, so now she can open the basement door.
Neil arrives, and the three of them go down into the basement. Neil seems to know a little bit of the layout and what’s going on there. There’s a big hole broken through a brick wall, and Neil tells whoever’s in there to come out.
Iris thinks it’s all some kind of silly prank, but then someone does come out. It’s a very creepy woman with a burlap sack over her head. Neil says he wants to talk with his wife who died last year. They soon find out that it must obey Iris, so she tells it to sit in the chair, which it does.
Neil hands the creature a wedding ring, and the creature swallows it. He then straps the creature into the chair. It screams, and convulses, and its hands change. He pulls the bag off its head, and his… mother is inside. Neil was expecting his wife, but his mother has come instead. She killed herself twenty years ago; she talks to him normally at first. Then her eyes go black and she smiles and says it was all his fault. Now she wants a kiss… Iris puts the bag back over the creature’s head and it returns the wedding ring.
Neil says the ring was his mother’s before it was his wife Sarah’s. He’s never done this before but thinks he could get it right on another try. “Money is no object– I just really want the chance to say goodbye.” Then he leaves.
Iris and Katie watch the videotape. The creature is tied to Iris now because her name is on the title deed. “There’s a hole in the wall. She can’t harm you as long as you stay on your side. She only gives you two minutes with the dead, after that, she’s in control.”
Iris knows the rules and wants Neil’s money. Why not let him try again? Katie thinks it’s a terrible idea; “We’re not safe here.”
Iris goes to talk to Neil while Katie investigates the pub online. She finds a photo of Otto Vogler, one of the former owners of the place who killed himself. She looks up, and he’s sitting at the bar, but vanishes quickly.
Neil tells Iris about how he learned about the baghead woman. They go to the basement and try again. This time, Sarah does show up, and this time, they set a timer. She’s terrified; she remembers driving in the rain and then everything went black. He explains that she died but wants to know who she was going to see. “I know you were going to leave me.” The time is up, and the creature takes over, and she’s not nice. “You don’t understand,” it says to Iris, “We’re both prisoners.”
Iris starts to think more and more about her dead father whom she didn’t really know. We flashback to her father talking to the baghead for the final time, channeling his dead wife - Iris’s mother.
Iris and Katie go back to the solicitor’s office, but it’s been cleared out like he was never there. Katie argues with Iris about not using the creature; she thinks the monster is getting into Iris’s head. Katie ends up leaving in a huff.
Katie still wants to follow up on Otto Vogel. She goes out to a house in the country and breaks into Otto’s abandoned home. There’s a “crazy wall” full of research about the creature.
Iris makes the creature channel her father. He didn’t want her involved in any of this, but he couldn’t leave the place because terrible things happened when he tried. That’s how Iris’s mother died. “She’s gotten to you, I can tell. You can’t kill her, all you can do is not use her.” Iris sets the deed on fire, but it won’t burn.
Katie returns to the pub, but Iris isn’t there. She goes to the basement and baghead gobbles a photo that belonged to Otto. Katie then talks to “Otto Vogler.” She wants him to tell her how they can get out of this. He says her fate was sealed 400 years ago. He tells the story of a woman who could channel the dead; she was burned at the stake. But she came back and men trapped her there to abuse her powers. When “Otto” finds out that Katie isn’t the gatekeeper, he grabs her.
Later, Iris hears Katie calling from the other side of the hole in the basement. She knows better than to go in there, but she does. She walks through a maze of tunnels but finds Katie and leads her toward the exit. Then she spots Katie’s dead body and knows she’s been fooled. She runs to the hole and gets out just in time to find Neil, who helps her.
Iris wants to seal up the hole forever.
Neil gives Iris some sleeping pills and goes downstairs himself. He tells the creature that he wanted the pub all to himself all along and was working with Otto to buy the place. He has now signed the deed to become the guardian, but his signature fades away and the witch laughs. That won’t work, it’s still Iris as long as she lives. He conjures up Sarah again, who remembers more about her death. She realizes that he drugged her, and he admits to that, but says he never thought she’d try driving away. Neil is obviously not quite sane. Sarah/baghead tells Neil that he’ll have to kill Iris in order to really be the new keeper.
Iris and Neil fight and chase each other all over the house and up to the roof. He chokes her, and she whacks him with a roofing tile. He pushes her off the roof to her death.
Neil carries Iris’s body downstairs. He gives baghead Iris’s phone to channel her. When the witch morphs into Iris, he demands that Iris release the inn to him and put his name on the deed. But Neil has fatally screwed up. The creature gloats that he’s killed her guardian and brought her back and they are now one. She’s been using her powers to manipulate everything to bring it to this point. She is now her own master and she’s going to keep the image of Iris. She alternates between Iris, Neil’s mother, and also Sarah, and they kill him dead.
The deed self-ignites as “Iris” walks up the basement steps and leaves the pub which is engulfed in flames.
Commentary
A very wise man once said, “When someone asks you if you’re a god, you say ‘Yes’.”
This reminds me of “Talk to Me” (2023) in many ways. Communication with the dead with some very specific rules and risks. The setting is really cool; who wouldn’t want to inherit a big old place like that? Making a few bucks from renting out the monster in the basement seems like a good idea as well. What could go wrong?
It’s good!
The Coffee Table (2022)
Aka “La Mesita Del Comidor”
Directed by Caye Casas
Written by Cristina Borobia, Caye Casas
Stars David Pareja, Estefania de los Santos, Josep Maria Riera
Run Time: 1 Hour, 31 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
There’s horror comedies and then there’s seriously dark horror comedies where the situation is so awful and the humor is so primal that you snicker and almost feel guilty for doing so. This was so much more than the trailer let on. Who knew that buying a piece of furniture could be so life changing? We were both pleasantly surprised by this one and thought it was terrific.
Spoilery Synopsis
A woman lays back and screams; she’s giving birth. Much later, with the baby in a stroller, she and her husband go out to buy a coffee table. The salesman makes a big deal out of it, saying “it will change your life for the better. It will fill your home with happiness.” Jesús wants to buy it, but Maria says it’s ugly. There’s a whole debate between them and the vendor, but in the end, Jesús wants it. She got the baby, the least she can do is let him have the table. Credits roll.
Jesús lugs the big box up the many flights of stairs to their apartment. The neighbor’s very young daughter, Ruth, has a crush on Jesús, but he’s not at all interested and just trying to stay out of trouble; she’s 13. She wants the two of them to run away together.
Jesús and Maria argue about “Cayetano,” the baby’s name. Jesús thinks that’s a terrible name. There’s a screw missing from the table, so Jesús calls the store for another. The couple argues again, hilariously. She ends up calling his brother a pedo-vegan and then goes shopping.
Maria leaves, the baby starts crying, and Jesús works to calm the baby, clearly devoted to the little one. That goes badly. Very badly. He falls through the supposedly unbreakable glass table top, which breaks, killing the baby.
At the store, Maria brags about the baby to a friend. Meanwhile, Jesús looks at the broken glass and all the blood. After pulling glass shards from his hand, he changes the now-silent baby’s diaper. He quietly puts the baby to bed and then goes to the neighbor’s to borrow some cleaning supplies. He wants all of them. Young Ruth says she’s going to stop by later after she walks the dog so they can talk, implying she’s going to tell his wife about their imaginary relationship.
When he returns to the apartment, the salesman is there with a replacement screw. He has lots of advice on how to put that screw in, and Jesús just stands there smiling. The man does like to talk, and talk, and talk, and he wants to be friends.
Jesús cleans up the mess as best he can, but that is a lot of blood. He gets a text from Maria that she’ll be home in about 30 minutes.
She finally arrives and he explains that it was hard to put the baby to sleep but that he’s in his room now. He admits he broke the new table and cut his hand. She smiles and says, “That’s karma!” She laughs and rubs in how terrible that table was. She gets to work making lunch, laughing the whole time.
She wonders what he did to break the glass. “I would have loved to see the moment it broke,” she chuckles. When she says she’s going to check on the baby, Jesús follows her, telling her to let the baby sleep. Maria hears something that sounds like dripping coming from the baby monitor. Yeah, the blood is leaking to the floor.
Jesús’s brother, Carlos and young girlfriend, Cristina, come for lunch. They mention blood on the bottom of the chair, and we get a glimpse of something under there. Could it be the baby’s head? The visitors brought a gift and, of course, want to see the baby.
The brother senses something is wrong, but assumes Jesús really has done something nasty with the 13-year-old upstairs. They all gush over the decorating and 80s vibe of the room. The baby must be sleeping in their room. Then it’s time for lunch, and they all talk about Carlos and Cristina being vegans now. All the food looks like blood to Jesús. Maria talks in great detail just how important having a son is and how much it means to her when the other couple mention they have a baby on the way.
Jesús is less than enthusiastic about his new niece or nephew, which the others find rude. He starts talking about regretting buying the table, the biggest mistake of his life, and they are confused. He excuses himself.
Jesús records a suicide message in the bathroom, admitting everything and apologizing to his wife. Carlos overhears, and then he sees the baby; now he knows what happened. “What happened to the head?” “It’s under the armchair; I couldn’t pick it up.”
Just as the two men are about to come out of the bedroom and admit everything, young Ruth from upstairs comes to the door. She talks to Maria and tells that Jesús kissed her in the lift. Ruth brings in her little dog, who goes straight to the chair of blood.
Things get chaotic quickly with raised voices and barking dog. Everyone, Maria included, says Jesús needs to confess what he did. Then they all see the baby’s head. It gets real tense, real fast. This ends with Maria jumping off the sixth-floor balcony.
Next, the police are there and talk about trying to figure out what happened. The mother, father, and baby all died falling from the balcony, but the baby was clearly beheaded. Carlos is in shock, all he keeps repeating is “The coffee table…”
Commentary
This honestly didn’t look like much from the trailer, but it’s darkly hilarious from the beginning to the end. The budget here was obviously very low, but they made good use of what they had with a really interesting situation.
A couple of times, they hinted that they were going down the same path as “The Tell-Tale Heart,” but they never quite committed to that idea.
The situation goes on and on, getting more and more uncomfortably intense– just how long can Jesús cover up what he did?
This is surprisingly good!
When a Stranger Calls (1979)
Directed by Fred Walton
Written by Steve Feke, Fred Walton
Stars Carol Kane, Charles Durning, Colleen Dewhurst, Tony Beckley
Run Time: 1 Hour, 37 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This surprised us because we knew about the classic reveal in this, and we thought that’s all there was to it. There’s practically a whole movie to go after that where all kinds of craziness continues. This was a sandwich of good stuff at the start and ending with a long stretch in the middle that’s kind of a slow paced detective story. It was pretty good overall, low key on horror.
Synopsis
Jill Johnson walks through the neighborhood after dark. Dr. Mandrakis opens the door; Jill is here to babysit for their child. She talks to her friend Nancy on the phone, and she asks Nancy to give Bobby the number there.
A while later, she gets a hang-up call. A second call asks, “Have you checked the children?” She hears a noise in the kitchen, but it’s just the ice maker. The phone rings one more time, and he asks the same question again. She thinks it’s Bobby pranking her, but the voice doesn’t respond to that. Does she check on the children? No, she has a drink instead.
Jill calls the restaurant where Dr. Mandrakis is having dinner, but he’s already left. Next, she calls the police and talks to Sgt Sacker. Since the guy hasn’t made any threats, the cops don’t take it too seriously. The man calls back and asks, “Why haven’t you checked the children?” Does she check the children?
Almost. She starts going up the steps when the phone rings again. She calls the police, and they offer to trace the call if he calls back. When he calls back again, she tries to keep him on the line so the trace will go through. This time he gets pretty graphic in what he wants to do with her.
The policeman calls back. “The call is coming from inside the house. Get outside right now!” She looks upstairs and sees someone up there. She opens the front door and sees a scary man standing there; he’s John Clifford, a detective.
The police officer tells Clifford that the children were upstairs, dead. They caught the guy who did it. Jill survived, but she’s traumatized.
Seven years later, Detective Clifford goes to see Dr. Mandrakis. “Have you heard about Curt Duncan’s escape? Do you think the police will find him?” Clifford’s a P.I. now, and Mandrakis wants Curt, the murderer, found.
Clifford questions the doctor in charge of the asylum that Curt Duncan escaped from. She plays a tape of Duncan, and yeah, he’s all kinds of crazy.
We cut to a bar where Curt Duncan talks to a woman there named Tracy. He’s weird, and the woman’s not interested. He’s persistent to the point of being annoying. He gets into a fight, and some guy beats him up pretty badly. The woman goes home, and Curt follows her. He forces his way into her apartment, and she’s friendly at first, but things take a turn when he gets creepier and creepier. Eventually he leaves and tries to come back, but she’s locked her door.
Clifford makes calls and researches the files. Meanwhile, Curt wanders around town, hanging with the homeless. He pays a visit to Tracy, the woman Curt was with last night.
Clifford tells his cop friend that he wants to kill Curt to make sure it never happens again. “Do it good,” Charlie warns.
Tracy goes back to the same bar, hoping to run into Curt again, and we see that Clifford is following her. She doesn’t spot Curt and eventually goes home. We see that Curt is… inside the house again.
Curt jumps out and grabs her. “I want you to be my friend, OK?” She screams, and Clifford pursues him, but Curt gets away.
Later, Curt looks at himself in a mirror and remembers all the things he’s done; he breaks down crying. One of the homeless men spots Curt and tells Clifford where to find him. Clifford checks out the men in the shelter, but Curt spots him first.
Clifford follows Curt to an old warehouse, but that soon devolves into a foot chase, and Curt escapes again.
We cut back to a big house. Former babysitter Jill is inside with her own two children. Her husband calls to say he’s taking her out to dinner tonight. Sharon is the babysitter for her kids. The whole scene is very similar to the opening.
Jill gets a phone call at the restaurant, “Have you checked the children?” She freaks out and starts screaming. Husband Steven calls Sharon, but she says everything is fine. The police come to see what all the screaming is about, and then the phone line goes dead.
The police race to Jill’s house, where the children are fine. Everything is fine, and Sharon knows nothing about any problems.
Jill’s not satisfied when the police all leave. Steven’s got a gun. Meanwhile, Detective Charlie hears about Jill’s call and lets Clifford know about it. Clifford tries to call Jill, but the phone has been– disconnected.
At Jill’s house, the power goes out, and she checks out the kids. Is there someone in the closet? No. She looks in her bed, and there’s Curt laying next to her, who starts raving and screaming– until Clifford comes in shooting. Steven’s unconscious in the closet, but everyone is all right otherwise.
Commentary
Carol Kane was 27 years old here, playing a teenager. We both knew about the call coming from inside the house, but what we didn’t realize was that it was just the opening scene!
On the other hand, after that introductory scene, we get an hour and a half of detective movie with Charles Durning as a grouchy P.I. hunting the killer. Up until the last twenty minutes, the rest of the film is decidedly more “crime thriller” than horror.
The beginning and the ending were good, but the middle was pretty dull.
Hamlet (1948)
Directed by Laurence Olivier
Written by William Shakespeare, Lauence Olivier
Stars Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Norman Wooland, Felix Aylmer, Terence Morgan
Run Time: 2 Hours, 34 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This is a little slow and a lot talky for modern viewers, but it’s very well put together and superbly acted. The speech is in a dated style which takes deciphering sometimes, but it's clear and easy to understand. Horror-wise, it does have a ghost. And Peter Cushing has a nice little role very early in his career. Plus Christopher Lee can be spotted in the background if you watch the guards. If you’re a fan of Shakespeare or are curious about sampling some, this is a good one to check out.
Spoilery Synopsis
“This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind,” we are told. We open on a group of guards and Horatio, who have come to the tower to see this “thing” that some have reported seeing. They see it; it’s the ghost of King Hamlet. It looks at them ominously and then vanishes without speaking.
The new king is Hamlet’s uncle, Claudius, who has married dead King Hamlet’s wife Gertrude, the queen. Laertes is there, and he wants permission to go back to France. Polonius, Laertes’s father, gives his approval. Young Hamlet is moody and doesn’t participate in the celebration. His mother urges him to get over his father’s death, as everyone dies, and life goes on. The king says he feels that Hamlet is like his own son.
Laertes says goodbye to his sister Ophelia before Polonius gives him some traveling advice. Ophelia tells her father that Hamlet has been showing interest in her, but he forbids her to even talk to him.
Horatio comes to Hamlet and tells about seeing his father’s ghost. Naturally, Hamlet wants to join them tonight and see for himself. Sure enough, the ghost appears, and Hamlet goes to talk to it, alone. The ghost says he was murdered by his own brother, Claudius, who poured hemlock in his ear. Hamlet then swears vengeance against the new king.
Polonius complains to the king and queen about Hamlet; he’s sent a love letter to Ophelia, and the old man wants him to stop. Hamlet overhears all this, but pretends that he didn’t. Later, he talks to Ophelia, and they argue. “Get thee to a nunnery!” Later, Polonius accuses Hamlet of being insane to the king, who doesn’t disagree. Hamlet considers suicide, but decides against it.
Polonius tells Hamlet that a bunch of actors have arrived, and that cheers him up a bit. Hamlet talks to the lead actor and gives him some instructions and a revised script for a classic play. The king and queen come to the show, as does Ophelia, and Hamlet hits on her again. The play begins, and it’s essentially a re-enactment of Claudius killing old King Hamlet by pouring poison in his ear. Claudius takes the hint, and he is not amused. Everyone runs out of the theater in a panic.
Hamlet goes to his mother’s quarters to talk, and Polonius hides in the closet to spy on what’s being said. Hamlet and his mother argue, and Hamlet stabs into the closet, thinking he’s killed the king, but instead it’s just Polonius. He’s about to kill his mother as well, but his father’s ghost appears just then and distracts Hamlet. He later boasts about it to the king, who starts plotting Hamlet’s death on an upcoming trip to England.
Ophelia takes her father’s death badly and starts acting crazy, singing for no reason. Laertes returns from France wanting answers about his father’s murder. Also, he finds that his sister has gone mad from grief. She eventually drowns herself in the river.
The king, queen, and Horatio get messages from Hamlet. Pirates attacked his ship and took him prisoner. Horatio goes and pays the ransom to get Hamlet freed, and they return just in time for Ophelia’s funeral. Since she’s a suicide, her funeral is small and the priest isn’t very forgiving. Laertes blames Hamlet for his sister’s death, and there’s a fight.
The king talks to Laertes and talks him into a duel with Hamlet. He plans to make sure that Hamlet has an “accident” during the fight.
Osric comes to Hamlet and Horatio, and brings an invitation to the duel. It’s an offer that Hamlet cannot refuse. Everyone files in as the duel gets set up. The king drinks to Hamlet in an elaborate toast, and then the battle starts. Hamlet and Laertes cross swords and fight as Osric referees. The king poisons Hamlet’s drink, but he’s too busy to try any. The queen, however, drinks what’s in the cup; it looks like she knows what’s in the cup and willingly embraces it.
Hamlet and Laertes go another round, both injuring each other with a poison blade. The queen keels over dead. Laertes blames the king's treachery before he dies, so Hamlet stabs Claudius to death repeatedly. Hamlet manages to get out one more short speech before he, too, dies from the poison.
Commentary
One of the oldest “ghost stories” that’s still popular today.
It won the Academy Award for Best Actor, Best Picture, Best Art Direction, Best Music, and Best Costume Design. Jean Simmons was nominated for Best Actress in a Supporting Role, as was Laurence Olivier for Best Director, but it didn’t win those.
On the horror side of things, beyond the ghost and the murders, this film also features early roles by Christopher Lee, as an uncredited spear carrier, and Peter Cushing, as Osric. They are small roles, but this was the first of 22 films they did together. Actually, I never did spot Lee in the crowd, but Cushing’s role was bigger than I expected.
The first thing I noticed about this one is that they’re all speaking Shakespearean English, but slowly and clearly enough that it’s all entirely understandable and easy enough to follow. You have to pay attention, but it’s not a tough watch. The costumes are impressive, but the sets are cheap– but probably not bad for the period. They did cut out a few characters and scenes from the original play, but the main plot is intact. It’s slow-paced and probably a bit draggy for modern viewers, but you get most of the story here, and again, it’s easy to follow.
Hamlet (2024)
Directed by Sean Mathias
Written by William Shakespeare
Stars Ian McKellen, Jenny Seagrove, Jonathan Hyde, Steven Berkoff, Francesca Annis
Run Time: 1 Hour, 57 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The trailer for this makes it look more thrilling and bordering on horror than it actually was. It’s not awful, but we kept thinking it should have been better than it was. Age, race, and gender were swapped around some in the casting, most notably with 84-year-old Sir Ian McKellen playing young Hamlet. He’s actually a little mush-mouthed and hard to understand at times. It’s set in modern times, in a theater mostly, which was kind of interesting. Overall we thought it was a little on the slog side, not as good as other productions we’ve seen.
Spoilery Synopsis
It’s 2020, and theaters across the globe have been closed. Hamlet, in a black and white world, looks up at the closed theater, and he doesn’t look happy. As he walks away, someone on a nearby rooftop watches him in binoculars. He finds a way inside, where everything comes to life in color as credits roll.
We return to a funeral which also seems to be a wedding proposal and ceremony all in one. Hamlet’s father, the king, has died, and his uncle has taken over as king.
Another student, Horatio, comes to visit Hamlet. He thinks he’s seen the king in the middle of the night; a vision. Hamlet wants to stay up late and see that tonight.
Laertes is getting ready for a show, when his father comes for a visit. Ophelia is there as well, and he wants to know what’s up. She says Hamlet is romantically interested in her.
Horatio and Hamlet see the ghost of his father outside that night. The ghost calls it “a murder most foul,” and Hamlet swears revenge. He blames Hamlet’s uncle Claudius. After, Hamlet swears his friends to secrecy.
Ophelia tells her father about a strange man she encountered. The father reads Hamlet’s love letter to Ophelia to the new king, Claudius, and queen, Gertrude. He doesn’t much like Hamlet.
Hamlet meets up with Ophelia later, and she thanks him for his gift and letter which she must return. He denies sending them, but she knows. Her father, Polonius, and Claudius listen from the shadows.
Claudius has dinner with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two of Hamlet’s friends. He wants them to spy on Hamlet to see why he’s been acting so strangely.
Meanwhile, Hamlet and Polonius have a talk; Hamlet wants Polonius to think he’s gone insane. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern show up, and he knows someone sent them.
Polonius and Hamlet watch the rehearsal for a play, and Polonius mutters, “This is too long” [Oh, yeah it was, I was already checking my watch]. Afterward, they put on the play for the king and queen and the rest of the characters.
Turns out, Hamlet’s play is about someone assassinating the king and taking his place. The murderers look suspiciously like the current king and queen. When called on it, Hamlet says he’s reproducing something that happened in Vienna. The king gets angry and storms out.
Hamlet tells us he could kill the king right now, but he’ll wait for a better time. He goes to talk to his mother and stabs Polonius, thinking it was Claudius. He argues with his mother until his father’s ghost shows up again, but Gertrude doesn’t see anything. She swears she doesn’t know anything about his father’s murder.
Gertrude tells all to Claudius, who sees Hamlet as a threat now. He sends Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to catch Hamlet in disposing of Polonius’s body. The king wants Hamlet exiled to England, where he’ll be killed.
Ophelia sings, terribly out of tune, before talking to the king. (I honestly could understand the words of her song better than McKellan’s speeches). She learns of the king’s plot to have Hamlet killed and wants to send him a warning, but it’s too late. Instead, he’s captured by pirates.
The queen freaks out, hearing that Ophelia has killed herself. Hamlet returns just as the funeral is in progress. Hamlet yells at Laertes, who thinks this is all Hamlet’s fault. The king talks to Laertes and puts him up to killing Hamlet in a duel. Hamlet is eager to accept, but Horatio warns him that it’s a trap.
Hamlet and Laertes have a fencing tournament. The king offers Hamlet drugged wine, but Hamlet doesn’t take it. The queen takes the drink and chugs it instead. Hamlet and Laertes fight, and he gets slashed with his own poisoned blade after slicing Hamlet. The queen dies. Laertes dies. Hamlet knows he’s going to die soon, so he stabs the king AND makes him drink the poison.
Everyone dies, leaving Horatio standing on a stage full of corpses.
Commentary
The trailers make this seem very much like a horror-centric portrayal of the classic play, which is why we chose to watch it. It is set in the modern age, mostly in and around a theater. There’s a ghost, and murder, but the film really isn’t as “horrific” as the trailer makes it look.
The character of Hamlet is supposed to be thirty years old. Ian McKellan, as good as he is, doesn’t quite pull it off at 84. Honestly, it looked like he could have used a stunt double just for doing long-winded speeches a few times. Honestly, I thought he’d be better in a role like this– he mumbled a lot. If you know the play word-for-word, it’s probably fine, but don’t go into this expecting to understand the language. Also, there are no subtitles, at least not in the version we screened.
Why is Francesca Annis, a woman, playing the ghost of Hamlet's father? Couldn’t they find a male actor who knew this obscure part? I get it, “blind casting” is a long-standing “theater thing,” but still, this is a film, it’s not theater. Laertes, with another female actor, is referred to as “him” and “a true gentleman” several times. I guess it’s the same idea of casting an 84-year-old man as a thirty-year-old.
Horror Guy Kevin thought that it was thoroughly acceptable for Laertes to be cast as a woman of color here, quite interesting in fact, but they should have fully embraced that. They continue to call Laertes him and sir instead of regendering the role completely. The same thing with a male military character later who has a woman in the role.
I’ve seen similar modern retellings of Shakespeare’s plays in the past. I’ve always wondered about the sense in setting the stories in the modern time, while leaving the 400-year-old language unchanged. It’d be far more accessible the other way around, a period-piece with modern language. I guess it wouldn’t “be Shakespeare” anymore. I could live with that.
As for setting the entire production inside a theater, that just reeks of pretentiousness. I would have enjoyed this infinitely more if it had simply included subtitles. Then again, maybe not, but it would have made it far more easy to follow.
Blood and Roses (1960)
Directed by Roger Vadim
Written by Roger Vadim, Roger Vailland, Claude Martin
Stars Mel Ferrer, Elsa Martinelli, Annette Stroyberg
Run Time: 1 Hour, 14 Minutes
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This looks great, and it’s a little different take on a vampire story. It’s clear what’s going on at every step, and it keeps building to an eventual payoff that’s pretty satisfying. We liked it.
Synopsis
We open on a bunch of people on an airplane heading to Rome. A group of men start to tell stories, and the doctor says he’s got a good one…
He was working in the remote Roman countryside, where a little girl runs through the cemetery, afraid of vampires. Two older girls ride their horses to Leopoldo von Karnstein’s castle. One of the little girls literally prays to see a vampire just one time. Mary and Martha both pray bad things on each other.
Carlo Ruggieri, an engineer, comes to see the Count. Several of the characters are introduced. The Count wants to throw a costume party for Georgia, and he wants Ruggieri to set up a fireworks display. We meet Carmilla, an Austrian cousin, and the doctor, whom we’ve seen before. When Ruggieri talks about setting off the fireworks from the old abby on the hill, everyone gives him a look. The Count laughs and says that’s excellent. The Karnsteins left in the tombs up there are said to be undead vampires.
The Count tells that way back in 1775, the villagers rose up against the vampire Karnsteins and put a stake through all the hearts of the dead in the cemetery. The living ones had to sign a contract renouncing vampirism. They killed all of them except for Millarca, who had a secret, hidden tomb. It seems like he’s partly pulling the doctor’s leg and partly telling history.
Carmilla points out a really old painting that looks just like her. The woman in the painting was Millarca (an anagram). The woman in the painting holds a rose, and we’re told that roses wilt in the hand of vampires. We then get a strange scene where Carmilla explains what the ghost of Millarca is seeing right now. “Tonight, she might come for Leopoldo.” Leopoldo and Georgia are set to be married soon.
The party begins, and Leopoldo asks about Carmilla. The doctor tells him she’s having one of her bad days. He goes looking for her, and she’s upstairs, drunk dancing to her own music. Leopoldo gives her ten minutes to get dressed and come to the party. Carmilla dresses as Millarca for the party; she’s even carrying a rose like in the painting.
Giuseppe tells Carmilla that she’s always been in love with cousin Leopoldo, and he’s going to be married in two weeks. When she slaps him three times, we know that it’s true.
Suddenly, there’s an explosion. The fireworks in the crypts have gotten out of control and blown up the cemetery. Carmilla goes up alone to investigate, and there are still explosions going off. A wall falls down, and she goes into a room behind it. She finds Millarca’s tomb, and it slides open…
As the party clears up in the morning, Carmilla comes out of the cave and walks home. She goes to bed and won’t wake up; Leopoldo carries her to her own bedroom. Georgia undresses Carmilla as Leopoldo watches with a big grin.
In the morning, Leopoldo gets a report that there were land mines stored up in the ruins during WWII, and some of them may have been set off last night. He doesn’t want his ruins ruined, so he has them call the army bomb squad.
Carmilla complains to Georgia about how hot the sun is. At dinner, she has suddenly become an expert historian about the family’s past. Her entire personality has changed.
Giuseppe is outside setting a trap for a fox when he sees Carmilla coming toward him in the darkness. He runs away. The next day, Carmilla’s horse acts strangely around her, and she doesn’t understand why.
Carmilla runs into Lisa, one of the servants, and asks where she sleeps. After dinner that evening, Carmilla’s waiting outside for her. There’s a foot chase through the woods, but Lisa eventually becomes Carmilla’s first real meal.
Leopoldo catches Carmilla playing the piano, a song an old relative began but never completed. She knows the ending. He invites Carmilla to come along on his and Georgia’s honeymoon. They talk about old times, so the real Carmilla is in there somewhere. She sees herself in the mirror, covered in blood, but no one else can see it. She and Leopoldo get closer than cousins are supposed to get.
Marie and Martha find Lisa’s body in the morning. They think a vampire killed her, like Giuseppe said he saw. Leopoldo and the doctor get called to identify the body. She has marks on her neck, but the cause of death is determined to be from falling from a cliff. The doctor says that the villagers are going to blame vampires. Giuseppe’s already telling the little girls all the rules about killing vampires. On the way home, Leopoldo asks Giuseppe about the ghost he saw.
Carmilla and Georgia have a talk in the greenhouse, and Carmilla says she feels dead. She takes the rose offered by Georgia and then moves in for a kiss– until Leopoldo comes looking for them. We see the rose on the ground, quite wilted and dead.
Leopoldo decides to have the wedding in Venice, so everyone packs up their stuff. Carmilla stalks outside Georgia’s door, but the two children grab a bunch of garlic and decide to go out to the cemetery to go vampire-watching.
Georgia has a very strange black-and-white-and-red dream. Millarca says she killed Carmilla the night of the ball. Georgia wakes up screaming with bite marks on her neck.
The army prepares to blow up the old ruins for safety reasons. Leopldo tells the doctor about the vampire bite marks, and he believes the old stories. The doctor thinks Carmilla’s gotten delusional because of her unrequited love for Leopoldo. Maria and Martha tell the men that they saw the vampire up near the ruins.
The army sets off the bombs and Carmilla falls off the cliff and gets impaled on a fence post. Georgia, back at the house, gets chest pains at the same time.
Back on the airplane, the doctor finishes his story. He believes Carmilla was simply mentally ill. We see Leopoldo and Georgia flying home on a plane; she has a rose that’s falling apart in her hand… the last female Karnstein.
Commentary
It looks good– the visuals are really interesting for as old as this is. The music is impressive, and the acting is decent enough. We always understand what’s going on; we’re just not really sure how far it’s all going to proceed.
It’s a little slow-paced for a modern viewer, but it’s really very good.
The Devil’s Partner (1960)
Directed by Charles R. Rondeau
Written by Stanley Clements, Laura Jean Mathews
Stars Ed Nelson, Edgar Buchanan, Jean Allison, Richard Crane
Run Time: 1 Hour,
Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
The poster is completely misleading, but the movie itself was very entertaining. We pretty much know what’s going on early in the movie, but it’s fun watching the other characters trying to piece things together. It moves well, and it’s a good watch.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man carries his goat indoors. He pulls out a knife and kills it. He paints the blood onto the symbol he has scratched into the floor. He then writes on an animal skin, in his own blood until someone with very black hands signs it too. The man passes out. Credits roll.
We cut to a bus arriving in the tiny town of Furnace Flats. The man who disembarks, Nick, goes into the nearby diner. He tells the waitress that he’s here to find Pete Jenson, his uncle. When he mentions the name, the whole place clears out.
The sheriff comes in; someone has already called him. He tells him that Uncle Pete Jensen has died– he may have been murdered. They found him in his shack in a pool of blood. He described the results of the pre-credit scene. The words on the animal hide read, “I give my soul for two years.”
Nick goes to his uncle’s house and soon finds the pentagram on the floor. The door opens, and Nell Lucas is there, wanting to know who he is. They argue for a bit but soon make up. Suddenly, Nick gets a headache and Nell leaves. We see that Nell is dating David, the owner of the local gas station.
Nell takes Nick to meet old Harry to take him some milk. Everyone comments on how likable Nick is, unlike nasty old Uncle Pete. It’s noticed that Nick never sweats, not even in the hundred-degree heat. They leave, and Harry finds the milk is bad; he dies. Doc Lucas and Sheriff Fuller talk about the milk, but Doc says he tested the milk, and it’s fine.
We see Nick bent over the pentagram, and, across town, David’s dog attacks him. David fights off the dog. After the doctor fixes him up, Nick comes over to introduce himself and take over at the gas station.
Nell confides in Nick that something seems different about David; he doesn’t seem to care about her, his future wife. He’s completely hung up on how he looks to her now. She says David’s going to see one of the best plastic surgeons in the world, Dr. Marks, about his face, but he’s still changed. Nick gives Papers, the town drunk, some money for a special favor at ten o’clock.
Nick goes to work on his pentagram again, and Dr. Marks’s car crashes on the way into town, killing him. Clearly, David and Nell are having relationship issues, and she goes to Nick for comfort. They talk for a bit, and he kisses her.
Papers comes to Nick’s house at ten as instructed. He sits the old man down and lays the animal skin across his lap. Nick kills another goat. He puts the blood on the symbol on the floor as we saw his uncle do. Nick then ages and turns into Uncle Pete. Papers runs away screaming, and a runaway horse tramples him to death. Back at the house, Nick/Pete finishes his ritual.
Some kids spot the body, and they call Doc and the Sheriff. They find writing in the sand, “PETE is RICH,” next to the body. Where did that horse come from? They think he was trying to say the old man was rich for some crazy reason.
The sheriff goes to Nick’s house and finds the Satanic symbol under the rug. He also finds some bones buried right outside.
Doc Lucas removes David’s bandages, and says, “I’ve seen worse.” The sheriff talks to Nick, and he knows things about Papers’s death that he shouldn’t know. The sheriff wants Nell to tell Nick that she and David are leaving town together.
As David packs, a poisonous rattlesnake enters his room. He shoots at it. Doc and Nell arrive, and they find a blood trail that leads to the gas station where Nick works. The sheriff and Doc say they think Nick has tremendous power and that he’s behind everything bad that’s been happening. They put it together that Papers was trying to say “Pete is Richards,” but he died before he could finish it. The name he’s using is Nick Richards.
Nick stumbles into his shack; he’s been shot. Everyone arrives outside, and the sheriff shoots the black horse, who turns into Nick and dies. As he finally dies, he ages, and they all see that it’s really been old Pete all along. David’s face suddenly heals itself, and he looks good again.
Commentary
This may have the most over-the-top misleading movie poster of all time, but the film is actually pretty good. Who thought having a naked woman riding on the back of a centaur through a graveyard as the devil watches had anything to do with this?
The Doc and the Sheriff put things together awfully easy with no clue other than the hexagram on the floor. Nick never explicitly says why he’s done what he’s done. We assume he wanted another chance to be young again with a young woman. Still, it’s a pretty unique “sold my soul to the devil” story, and it never drags or gets boring.
Stay tuned for more regular and bonus reviews next week!
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