In the parlance of the film, my mind is blown.
It's 1973, and Australian director Don Sharp, Hammer veteran and helmsman of such mediocre childhood favorites as the remakes of 39 Steps and Four Feathers (why Beau Bridges? of all the actors in the world?), has given the world an undead biker gang which terrorizes the poor old English countryside.
We open with the groovy psychedelia (and I'm not saying that derogatorily: picture me saying all of the following with absolutely sincere appreciation) of mist over an English henge. A gang of leather-clad bikers in clumsy death's-head masks weaves amongst its liths to the strains of John Cameron's perfect electric soundtrack. In spite of names like Hatchet, Chopped Meat and Gash, we find as we get to know them that there's something naive about these miscreants. Yes, they get kicks by causing motoring accidents, but they also sing hippie songs and weave floral wreaths and their main idea of mayhem involves kicking over parking cones and knocking down grocery trolleys.
Their leader, Tom Latham (Nicky Henson), is the handsome scion of a wealthy family who also happen to be worshippers of Satan in the form of a frog. (Although, granted, they never say it's Satan. One assumes. It might just be a frog.) He lives with his old mum, played by the adorable Beryl Reid, who's about as scary as the tea-lady at Selfridge's or the Queen Mum. In the flashback where she's selling baby Tom to the frog-god, she even looks like the Queen Mum, with the doughy, delighted smile and even the little hat. Also in residence is George Sanders as the unflappable and ever-present butler who seems to be some sort of emissary between this world and the froggish.
Tom is obsessed with the idea of returning from the dead, and, as luck would have it, built into the grounds of the family mansion is a Secret Room, a sort of Chapel Perilous into which one ventures only when one is ready to Face One's True Self, and it is ominously suggested that this room had something to do with the disappearance of Tom's father many years prior. In fact, one of the film's early moments of brilliance is the pivotal scene of high camp strangeness in which Tom ventures into the room. Once he emerges, we're ready to bring on the zombies.
But is it a zombie movie? Not exactly. Whether the old-school, limb-dragging and moaning variety or the newfangled superfast and snarling type, zombies are generally understood to be revivified shells, with little or none of the human personality remaining. These revenants look, move, think, talk and dress exactly as they did before death, minus only the fear of reprisals for their mischiefs. I'd call it a "necromancy" film, except these undead are not revived by an outside source, but by their own unshakable will to return.
In any case, Tom suicides and returns from the dead then convinces most of his gang to do the same, all in the name of kicks! And considering this movie's ample body count, it retains a very posh British innocence. It has no blood at all, and the deaths are mostly suggested. If it sounds like I'm mocking, I'm not: its earnestness is self-mocking, its humour earnestly underplayed but certainly intended. As evidence, I submit the scene where the undead Tom and his sidekick Jane burst into the police station on their bikes and the copper behind the desk pauses in his outrage long enough to politely ask a girl if she'll shut the door behind her; also the various gleeful suicides the gang-members devise; and, let's face it, any bit involving a frog.
On the other hand, it's not glib. It has compelling set-pieces -- you might even say haunting: the hippie funeral in which the gang buries Tom sitting upright on his bike like a warrior of old on his steed, or Tom waltzing easily with his mum in their groovy (I'm sorry; there's no other word for it) parlor. Or the ending, which I could not describe, even if I wanted to, not and still do it justice.
The acting has got short shrift in various (may I say) short-sighted reviews over the years. Granted, some come off better than others. Sanders applies himself with ardent seriousness, and playing a convincing devil has always come easy as lying to him. Robert Hardy (who one day will give an irresistible turn as Sir John in the Ang Lee Sense and Sensibility) has a harder time in the thankless role of the investigating Chief Inspector, who mostly shows up as a foil for the mischievous undead. But the real attraction is Nicky Henson. He looks like one of those gorgeous, snaggletoothed, shaggy-headed footballers that England unloosed on the world in the late '60s, and nobody has ever looked better in leather pants. Also (bonus!), he's both well cast and theatrically trained.
No comments:
Post a Comment