The Amityville Horror - A True Story

The Amityville Horror is a 2005 horror film directed by Andrew Douglas for United Artists and Dimension Films. It is a remake of the original 1979 film version of The Amityville Horror, which was based on Jay Anson's 1977 novel of the same name. The film is ostensibly inspired by a real life murder case from November 1974 in Long Island, New York, in which Ronald DeFeo, Jr. shot dead six members of his family.

George and Kathy Lutz (played by Ryan Reynolds and Melissa George), along with their three children, move into what they believe will be their dream home on Long Island, New York. The house had previously belonged to the DeFeo family, where Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had murdered his parents and siblings with a rifle a year earlier. DeFeo had claimed that he heard voices urging him to commit the crime.
Also see: AMITYVILLE THE MOST HAUNTED FAMOUS HOUSES IN AMERICA - Haunted ...Most haunted house in America, Amityville The House Of Horrors: Facts and Fictions,
The Lutz family soon start hearing ghostly voices and witnessing apparitions, including the ghost of Jodie DeFeo. George is the most affected, and he eventually becomes a danger to those around him. The local priest is called in to bless the house and he fails, warning Kathy to leave the house before it is too late. At the climax of the film, George Lutz tries to kill the other members of his family but is unsuccessful, and they all flee the house.

The best known of these films is the first version, which was released in July 1979. The film was made by the independent production company American International Pictures headed by Samuel Z. Arkoff, and directed by Stuart Rosenberg. It starred James Brolin and Margot Kidder as George and Kathy Lutz. The part of the priest who blesses the house was played by Rod Steiger, whose name in the film is Father Delaney. The 1979 version and its two sequels were filmed at a house in Toms River, New Jersey which had been converted to look like 112 Ocean Avenue after the authorities in Amityville denied permission for location filming.
The real life George Lutz denounced the 2005 version of the film as "drivel" and was suing the makers of the film at the time of his death in May 2006.

William Weber, the defense lawyer for Ronald DeFeo at his trial in 1975, has since claimed that the story that inspired the original book was a hoax concocted between himself and the Lutz family.

This was the last film marketed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer before its 2005 merger.
The house used as the Lutz home in the film was in Silver Lake, Wisconsin while other location work was shot in Antioch, Illinois.
 
In December 1975, George and Kathleen Lutz and their children moved into 112 Ocean Avenue, a large Dutch Colonial house in Amityville, a suburban neighborhood located on the south shore of Long Island, New York. Thirteen months before the Lutzes moved in, Ronald DeFeo, Jr. had shot dead six members of his family at the house. After 28 days the Lutzes left the house, claiming to have been terrorized by paranormal phenomena while living there.

Much of the controversy surrounding The Amityville Horror can be traced back to the way that it has been marketed over the years. The cover of the book shown on the right implies that it is based on verifiable events. A quote from a review in the Los Angeles Times displayed on the front cover states: "A FASCINATING, FRIGHTENING BOOK... THE SCARIEST TRUE STORY I HAVE READ IN YEARS", while the tagline at the bottom states: "MORE HIDEOUSLY FRIGHTENING THAN THE EXORCIST BECAUSE IT ACTUALLY HAPPENED!" The reference to The Exorcist is revealing, since the 1973 film had been a huge box office success and was one of the major cultural events of the 1970s. Many of the incidents in the book recall the style of The Exorcist, and this is one of the reasons why it has aroused suspicion.

In the afterword of The Amityville Horror Jay Anson states: "There is simply too much independent corroboration of their narrative to support the speculation that [the Lutzes] either imagined or fabricated these events", but some people remained unconvinced. Almost as soon as the book was published in September 1977, other writers and researchers began looking into the events at 112 Ocean Avenue, and the conclusions that they reached were often at odds with those that had appeared in Anson's book.

Poltergeist Seems Specifically Designed To Cause Nightmares

The Poltergeist movies are a trilogy of horror films produced in the 1980s. Steven Spielberg co-wrote and co-produced the first Poltergeist, with Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) as the director. Brian Gibson directed Poltergeist II: The Other Side, while Poltergeist III was directed, co-written, co-produced and storyboarded by Gary Sherman.

Michael Grais and Mark Victor co-wrote the first film with Spielberg, wrote the second film on their own and also co-produced it. Brian Taggert and an uncredited Steve Feke co-wrote the third film.

Spielberg's long-time friends (and then-married couple) Frank Marshall and Kathleen Kennedy co-produced the first film. Freddie Fields and Lynn Arost co-produced the second film, and the third film was co-produced by Barry Bernardi.

The scores of the first two films were composed by Jerry Goldsmith. H.R. Giger did conceptual designs for the second film.

In the first and most successful film (released on June 4 1982), a group of seemingly benign ghosts begin communicating with five-year-old Carol Anne Freeling in her parents' suburban California home via static on the television. Eventually they use the TV as their path into the house itself. They kidnap Carol Anne, and most of the film involves the family's efforts to rescue her. Eventually they do, but then the spirits, led by a demon known only as The Beast, go on a rampage.
Poltergeist II: The Other Side (1986)

This sequel exists to explain in much greater detail why Carol Anne was targeted in the first film. As it turns out, the Freelings' house in the first movie was built over a massive underground cavern that was the final resting place of a utopian cult that died there in the early 1800s. This cavern was even below the graveyard that wasn't relocated in the first film. The cult was led by Rev. Henry Kane, and this man did not have the best intentions. He was power hungry, anxious to control the souls of his followers in both life and death. This film also elaborates that the females in the family have measures of psychic powers, making them a target for the spirits.

Apparently, between the second and third films, the Freeling family has had quite enough of all supernatural activity, and have decided to cut it off at the source: Carol Anne is now living with her aunt Pat (whom Carol Anne insists on calling Trish, a common nickname for Patricia; this is important later in the film as a way of identifying an impostor Carol Anne) and uncle Bruce Gardner in the John Hancock Center where Bruce also works in downtown Chicago.

Some of the stars in the movie, such as Dominique Dunne and Heather O'Rourke, died young. As a result, an urban legend has grown up asserting that the cast was cursed. See the Poltergeist curse.

The line "They're here!" was voted on AFI's 100 Years...100 Movie Quotes at number 69.

H.R. Giger was responsible for The Beast's creature design.

Of all the films in the series, the first is the only one not currently owned by MGM — it is currently owned by Warner Bros. via its acquisition of Turner Entertainment, which is in possession of the pre-1986 MGM library.
The Poltergeist curse is a rumour that a supposed curse is/was attached to the Poltergeist motion picture series and its stars.

The idea that the casts of the several movies in the series were in some way cursed is a superstition based on the fact that four of the cast members from the movies died in a relatively short span of the films' release, two of them dying at a young age (12 and 22). It is not clear that these particular films are atypical in the number or nature of the deaths of their actors.
In Poltergeist's case, those associated with the film who died prematurely include:
Dominique Dunne, 22-year-old actress who played the oldest sister Dana in the first movie, died after being choked by a jealous boyfriend in 1982. The boyfriend was later convicted and sentenced to six years in prison.

Heather O'Rourke, 12-year-old actress who played Carol Anne in the three Poltergeist movies, died in 1988 after what doctors initially described as an acute form of influenza but later changed to septic shock after bacterial toxins invaded her bloodstream.

Julian Beck, 60-year-old who played Kane in Poltergeist II: The Other Side, died of stomach cancer, with which he was diagnosed before he had accepted the role.
Will Sampson, 53 years old, who played Taylor the Medicine Man in Poltergeist II, died of post-operative kidney failure and pre-operative malnutrition problems.
Other rumours surrounding the film have pointed to a potential cause of the curse. The most widely blamed alleges that real human skeletal remains were used as props in the first film, causing the angry spirits of the deceased to wreak havoc. On this theory, also "survivor" actress JoBeth Williams has pointed out in television interviews (most notably the E! True Hollywood Story episode "The Curse of Poltergeist") that she was actually told that the skeletons used in the well-known swimming pool scene in the first Poltergeist film were real.

Other occurrences that have been attributed to the curse include:
The "Freeling" home in Southern California where the original film was partially shot was damaged by the Northridge earthquake in 1994.

JoBeth Williams, who played mother Diane Freeling, claims she returned home from the set each day to find pictures on her wall askew. She would straighten them, only to find them crooked again the next day.

Actor Will Sampson, a Creek Indian and actual shaman, performed an exorcism on the set of Poltergeist II to rid it of "alien spirits." A year after Poltergeist II was released, he died.

During a scene when Robbie Freeling (Oliver Robins) was choked by a clown in his room, something went wrong with the prop and Robins was actually being choked.
During a photography session for Poltergeist III, it was discovered that one shot of another "survivor" co-star Zelda Rubenstein had shining light obstructing the view of her face. Rubenstein claims the photo was taken at the moment her real-life mother died.

During the fight Dominique Dunne had with her boyfriend that ended up with her losing her life, Dominique's friend who was at the house turned up the Poltergeist soundtrack to drown out the noise of the two yelling outside.

During the making of Poltergeist III, a movie set of a parking garage was completely engulfed by fire during shooting of a fire scene, from which only one crew member escaped without a scratch.
 

The Exorcist Is The Thriller Film

The Exorcist is an Academy Award-winning 1973 American horror and thriller film, adapted from the 1971 novel of the same name by William Peter Blatty, dealing with the demonic possession of a young girl, and her mother’s desperate attempts to win back her daughter through an exorcism conducted by several priests. The film features Ellen Burstyn, Linda Blair, Max von Sydow, Kitty Winn, Lee J. Cobb and Jason Miller. Both the film and novel took inspirations from a documented exorcism in 1949, performed on a 12 year old boy.

 The film became one of the most profitable horror films of all time and has had significant impact on viewers, grossing $402,500,000 worldwide. The film earned ten Academy Award nominations—winning two, one for Best Sound and Best Adapted Screenplay. Considered the scariest movie of all time, "The Exorcist" won two Acadamy Awards after it's release in 1973.

Based on the 1971 novel by William Peter Blatty, The Exorcist marries three different scenarios into one plot.

The movie starts with Father Lankester Merrin (Max von Sydow) on an archaeological dig near Nineveh. He is then brought to a nearby hole where a small stone head is found, resembling some sort of creature. After talking to one of his supervisors, he then travels to a spot where a strange statue stands, specifically Pazuzu, with a head similar to the one he found earlier. He sees an ominous man up a bit away, and two dogs fight loudly nearby, setting the tone for the rest of the film.

A visiting actress, Chris McNeill (Ellen Burstyn) in Washington, D.C., notices dramatic and dangerous changes in the behavior and physical make-up of her 12-year-old daughter Regan McNeill (Linda Blair), first believing her rapid change physically and mentally are due to trauma from her recent break-up with Regan's biological father. During this time, several supernatural occurrences plague the household of the McNeill's along with the sudden change in her daughter, including violently shaking beds, strange noises and unexplained movement.

Meanwhile, Father Damian Karras, a young priest at nearby Georgetown University, begins to doubt his faith while dealing with his mother's terminal sickness. Regan exhibits strange, unnatural powers, including levitation and great strength. When all medical possibilities are exhausted, her mother is sent to a priest who is also a psychiatrist. He becomes convinced that Regan is possessed.

Father Merrin, who in addition to being an archeologist is also experienced in exorcism, is summoned to Washington. He and Father Karras try to drive the spirit from Regan before she dies. Regan, or rather the spirit, claims she is not possessed by a simple demon, but the Devil himself.

At the climax of the lengthy exorcism, Father Merrin dies of heart failure and Father Karras shouts at the demon to enter himself. After this, the priest immediately throws himself outside of Regan's bedroom window in order to stop the spirit from continuing its cycle in possession. Regan is restored to her normal self, and according to Chris, claims she does not remember any of the experience. The film ends as the McNeill mother and daughter move to a different city to move on from their ordeal.

CastJason Miller as Father Damien Karras
Ellen Burstyn as Chris MacNeil
Max von Sydow as Father Lankester Merrin
Lee J. Cobb as Detective Lieutenant William F. Kinderman
Linda Blair as Regan MacNeil
Kitty Winn as Sharon Spencer
Jack MacGowran as Burke Dennings
Mercedes McCambridge as Voice of 'the demon'
Rev. William O'Malley as Father Joe Dyer

The Vampire Diaries:A Little Bit Of History Repeating

There was a whole lot of backstory, a whole lot of myths, legends and curses, most of which turned out to be a pile of lies to find the doppelganger. Katherine was feisty, Damon was snarky, and Stefan tried to out noble everyone within a ten mile radius. Bonnie was apparently the most important person in Mystic Falls, Elijah was most definitely the coolest, and Klaus had an ego to rival Damon’s. People died, people survived, and death bed smoochies are now included in the werewolf bite deluxe package…

I feel like this beginning has slipped in from True Blood – it’s more that vibe than Vampire Diaries. Although who knew that Klaus could do a pretty yummy southern accent?...

“I promise I’m not a serial killer, I just want to use your phone.” Aw sweetie, face it head on, admitting your problem is the first step on the road to recovery…

I love that he tries to see if he can get in without compelling first. It’s all about the challenge with this guy.

I have to admit even I jumped a bit when she opens the door and sees broody Stefan waiting to catch the left overs. “I love it when they run.”

I also love that Klaus takes no part in the bloodshed. He’s enjoying Stefan’s problem and seeing how far he can push him until he completely snaps, because until he’s smirking and swaggering and relishing the blood shed, I don’t think he’s snapped.

Cue screams – welcome back VD, we’ve missed you.I love that this whole opening with Elena is so close to the opening we had in Season 1 when she was dealing with the death of her parents. These kids have been through so much. Why is no-one hugging them?!

(Although she’s managing the parenting Jeremy thing pretty well…)
Caroline! I missed you! And a party! Oh sweetie C’mere!!!!
Ric! Ha, I love that he’s not only crashing at the Gilbert’s, but he also can’t make the coffee machine work.

Oh god these two are so cute, Caroline and Tyler just light up like lightbulbs whenever they’re around each other. Drop the shopping and shirtless hug already!
I like the Ric/Elena dynamic they’ve got going on and how she’s immediately latched on to the idea that Ric is the nearest thing to an adult around her (Damon has the mentality of a teenage boy after all) and therefore the adult will move in, be a parent, and make everything be ok again. She probably should have given that memo to Ric at some point though…

Wow, Andie is still around? I’d almost forgotten her existence. And why are we trying to pretend that Damon and Andie have a meaningful relationship that isn’t based on her being his full working slave?... ‘Get your own champagne’ – really?
Although anything that gets Damon wandering around the house in nothing but soap suds is good.

I love the dynamic going on between Elena and Damon. I wasn’t sure how it would play out following that deathbed smush moment at the end of last season, but I like this antagonistic flirting. It makes me happy inside.

Damon has a cupboard full of maps and tip offs?! This guys needs a broom cupboard! And a typewriter! And a bottle of whiskey! And to never find pants again!
Hello Bonnie product placement cram in!

Um, when did Jeremy get buff?! Does waiting tables do that to you?...
Or maybe it’s the constant jumping over seeing your dead vampire girlfriends!
Oh Matt, someone else is in desperate need of shirtless hugs! Maybe Jeremy would oblige. I think they’d make a cute couple.

Oh dear god you have no idea how happy Tyler and Caroline are making me right now. The whole, people think we’re dating? That’s crazy! And insane! And why are you smiling like that?! I’m smiling because you’re smiling! Giggle, wink, nudge etc. I LOVE IT.
“I however, am something else. A different kind of monster.”

I love that Stefan’s compelled everyone in the bar, so it’s the horrific freakshow that no-one even bats an eye over. Shudders, but in a good way. I’m also so glad that Klaus is now a regular, because he is freaking awesome, and makes me swoon then cower in fright in a matter of seconds. The only thing that can possibly top this, is if they PULL THE DAGGER OUT and let my true love return. Yes Elijah baby I’m looking at you.

Damon and Ric are so cute together. Ric should so move in with him… I would pay good money to see a sitcom involving the two of them living together.
Oh good, blood, guts and carnage. And dead girls!

I love that Damon knows Stefan so well to know his kills, and I also love this explanation for his Ripper title.

“He feeds so much he blacks out, rips them apart. And then when he comes round he feels remorse. It’s the damndest thing – he puts the bodies back together again.”

Ew – yet at the same time, freaking awesome.

I LOVE THIS. The fact that Tyler is the voice of reason around here, and only because Caroline has been telling him things she shouldn’t have done.
“Just because I tell you things, doesn’t mean you’re allowed to know them.”
Hey! You’re horny, I’m horny, we have all this sexual tension together and you’re off to go have sex tonight! Caroline is so crying inside. And possibly visiting Ann Summers.

How does Ric do it? Walks across a room, accidentally finds the werewolf cellar of doom. If this guy fell over drunk he’d probably find gold…

Oh dear god, the torture on this show is inspired! I probably shouldn’t admit to being impressed by that! But chaining him to a dark board and throwing wolfsbane soaked darts at him?.... Stefan why are you wasting your brain in high school?!
Klaus, think this through. You ‘deal with’ Damon, you lose your hold on Stefan… And he seems so genuinely put out and hurt that Stefan isn’t having fun on his roadtrip of insanity!

“It’s your party you can cry if you want to!”
“I know I promised not to buy you anything…”
“You stole it?!”
It’s a logical leap…

And seriously, who does that?! Elena knows how Damon feels, she’s played on it before But asking him to put the necklace on her is such an obvious trick, it seems a little too… I don’t know… Mean?

Although I love their entrance together. Damon smug that he’s got the prettiest girl, and Elena enjoying being escorted in by easily the hottest guy in that house.

Oh Jeremy, why are you back on the drugs?... And why are you dragging Matt down with you?! Although seriously, the more I see of the two of them, the more I love them.

“You know I died right, and Bonnie used magic to bring me back to life?”
“Yeah, Elena told me.”

Beauty And The Beast

Jeanne-Marie Leprince de Beaumont’s fairy-tale of the beauty and the beast is one of the more famous. French poet-artist-cum-filmmaker Jean Cocteau directed his first feature adapting the story to the screen as La Belle et la Bête (1946).

It’s a magnificent fable of love and identity set a couple of hundred years ago in rural France. A merchant (Marcel André) lives with his son Ludovic (Michel Auclair) and his three daughters. The two eldest, Félicie (Mila Parély) and Adélaïde (Nane Germon) are selfish and vain, and they exploit their sister Belle (Josette Day) as their servant.

One day the father becomes lost in the nearby forest and comes across a strange castle. He takes advantage of the garden and plucks a rose (something Belle had always wanted), but the castle’s owner suddenly appears and he’s none to happy. He’s half human-half animal (lion-esque) and he possesses magical powers.

The furry fanged beast (Jean Marais) condemns the man to death unless he gives up one of his daughters. The man gives him his word and the beast gives him directions out of the forest. Later after he explains his ordeal to his family Belle sacrifices her freedom and goes to the castle. She becomes the beast’s prisoner. But the beast turns out to be more compassionate and genuine than Belle’s suitor, Avenant (Jean Marais). The beast is grotesque on the outside, but beautiful on the inside.

The beast wants Belle’s hand in marriage, but she steadfastly refuses. Avenant, along with Belle’s brother, find the castle with the intent of rescuing Belle and killing the beast, but, in perfect fairy-tale fashion there’s a twist of fate that turns everything upside down and inside out.

Jean Cocteau would go on to make one of the finest examples of surrealist drama with Orphée (1949), which was based on the myth of Orpheus who travels down into Hades to confront Death and ressurect his wife Eurydice. Beauty and the Beast isn’t as surreal as the latter work, but it does possess some truly sublime moments of ethereal beauty and magic realism. It’s all a phantasmogorical tale that delves deep into the heart of what it is to love and be loved, to reject and accept, regardless of what you look like.

Drenched in melancholy, yet it transcends its inherent sadness, and at film’s end takes flight into the misty ether of unconditional love, Beauty and the Beast is a cinematic creature that belies its theatrical trappings and embraces the visual artifice of film with wit and wonder.

The production design is classic, yet unique, the monochromatic cinematography is luminous and poetic. The special effects, including clever use of film in reverse, and smoke wafting out from the beast as he smolders in contempt, is novel, while the bestial facial prosthetic make-up is fantastic.

Jean Marais and Josette Day command the screen as the two leads. The subtleties and nuances of their performances give the film a richness that shines beyond the black and white veneer. The French dialogue adds a further exotic appeal.

Beauty and the Beast is a wondrous work of cinema, a classic fairy-tale told with a poet’s conviction and painterly eye; essential viewing for anyone who loves to escape into the fable realm of make-believe where virtue floats and conceit is defeated. If only more filmmakers approached cinema with the same sense of unbridled imagination as Jean Cocteau the world would be a better place (... perhaps Guillermo del Toro is not too far off).

A roar to the beast within us all; cry hard for true love, and pierce the mirror of narcissism, you’ll see your soul reflected back between the cracks … the pleasure of the perverse, spellbound by the black and white magic.

Hammer Horror-Curse Of The Werewolf

Lon Chaney, Jr.’s Wolf Man may be cinema’s most famous lycanthrope, but there can be little doubt that this 1960 film from Hammer Productions is the best werewolf movie ever made. It features all of the studio’s classic virtues: beautiful sets, effective music, colorful photography, solid scripting, memorable performances, and a muscular directorial approach that relishes depicting horror for the maximum emotional impact. The film plays out like a deliberate piece of Theatre of Cruelty, in which most of the sympathetic characters come to a tragic end. The result is actually not terribly frightening, but it is undeniably effective, in a depressing sort of way.

Loosely based on Guy Endore’s grim but effective novel The Werewolf of Paris, the screenplay by John Elder (a pseudonym for producer Anthony Hinds) strives to live up to the filmic title CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF by depicting a tragic saga that shows how Leon (Oliver Reed) came to be cursed with lycanthropy. Two hundred years ago, a beggar (Richard Wordsworth) runs afoul of an evil Marques (Anthony Dawson), who has him thrown into a dungeon, where he spends the ensuing years degenerating to a bestial condition. He is attended by the jailer’s daughter, who gets thrown into the cell with him after rejecting sexual advances by the Marques.

The mute woman is raped by the beggar, who dies from the exertion; after killing the Marques in revenge, the woman later dies giving birth on Christmas Day to Leon, who is adopted by Don Alfredo Corledo (Clifford Evans). When Leon is a young boy, his village is terrorized by a wolf that kills several goats. The local priest explains to Don Alfredo that the unfortunate circumstances of Leon’s birth have allowed an elemental wolf spirit to take possession of his body; only love and affection can keep the evil inside him at bay.

Leon grows to adulthood unaware of his true nature, but, lured to a brothel by a well-meaning friend, Leon finds his bestial side awakened, resulting in several deaths. The pure love of his fiancé is enough to stop his transformation, but when he is arrested for murder, he is separated from her and inevitably changes into a wolf again and breaks free from his cell. As angry villagers pursue him with torches, Don Alfredo reluctantly takes the only action possible, putting Leon out of his misery with a silver bullet.

It was always tempting to read Freudian interpretations into the werewolf mythology (the sudden bodily changes certainly suggest a bizarre form of puberty and sexual awakening), but little in Universal Pictures’ old black-and-white werewolf films such as THE WERE-WOLF OF LONDON (1935) and THE WOLFMAN (1941) dealt with sex on any kind of overt level. Hammer’s take on the lycanthropy legend corrects this oversight. The John Elder screenplay for CURSE OF THE WEREOLF retains the basic structure of Werewolf of Paris, which was almost lurid in its sadistic sexual detail.

Fusing the established filmic conventions with Endore’s tale, CURSE manages to be the best ever cinematic treatment of lycanthropy by placing the simple transformation scenario within a larger Christian cosmology. Oliver Reed’s Leon is fated to become a monster not because of a bite but because of a defect of birth, which has allowed a predatory, demonic spirit to enter his body. This canine elemental is strongest during the full moon, but more important, it is strengthened by whatever weakens the human soul (such as lust and depravity) while held at bay by such ennobling emotions as love.

This schism between Good and Evil, between sex and love, lends a weird sexual kink to the proceedings, rendering the film as a bizarre adult fairy tale. Especially disturbing are the scene of Leon as boy describing his awakening blood-lust (he naively recounts trying to kiss a dead squirrel back to life, only to be aroused by the sweet taste of its blood) and, later, the scene of a more adult version of that lust being reawakened in a brothel (Leon returns a prostitute’s kiss with a bite to the shoulder, drawing blood, like a more bestial version of a vampire). The film is also noteworthy for making “lycanthopy=puberty” metaphor explicit: Leon first transforms into a werewolf as a boy, seen howling at the moon with new hair growing on his body.

The narrative is impressive in its attempts to show Leon’s saga from pre-conception to death, but it is not quite as perfected in terms of dramatic structure as earlier Hammer efforts like CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN and HORROR OF DRACULA. The film is cleverly built around scenes that compare and contrast with each other, offering visual depictions of the thematic oppositions underlying the story (the brothel sequence, which triggers Leon’s transformation, is followed by a scene in which he awakes with his head chastely in the lap of his innocent fiancé, having spent the night without changing).

This structure helps illustrate the ideas at work in the film, but it also slows down the pace: Leon doesn’t reach adulthood until halfway through the film; his first attack on a human doesn’t occur until 60 minutes in; and the werewolf makeup is only full revealed in the very last sequence. Clearly, audiences seeking non-stop werewolf action should seek elsewhere.

Fortunately, the film maintains interest because director Terence Fisher serves it up with his usual gusto, marshaling all of the resources at his disposal (sets, script, performances) to create a self-contained, imaginary world wherein the story makes perfect sense. In its simple Good-Evil dichotomy, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF plays out like an adult fairy tale, and Fisher seizes on the opportunities to portray both virtue and vice.

He imbues the horror with almost a touch of surrealism, underlined by the unbelievably bright orange color of the blood, while emphasizing the suffering of the innocent victims. The result is rich in symbolic implications that fire the imagination (some critics have even noted a Christ parallel in Leon who is not only born on Christmas Day but also immediately held up in front of a painting of the Madonna and Child). And in typical Fisher fashion, the gaudy trappings delight the eye with their beauty, providing an effective visual contrast with the sin and degradation that takes place on screen.

Curse of werewolf thumb Curse of the Werewolf (1961) Hammer Horror ReviewOliver Reed is perfect as Leon. His dark good looks evoke sympathy, yet at the same time easily convey the lurking danger within. He really makes only one misstep in the film: when forced to show his teeth to a skeptical mayor (Leon wants to convince him he’s a werewolf, but the full moon has not risen yet), he makes an awkward grimace that invites titters.

Most of the rest of the cast performs splendidly as well, particularly Evans as Leon’s sympathetic stepfather. Anthony Dawson is excellent in his brief appearance as the vile Marques (at one point seen picking a carbuncle from his face). Only Catherine Feller, as Leon’s true love, fails to register as strongly as one would wish; she is sincere enough, but she cannot quite satisfy the film’s impossibly high demands of believably embodying an unbelievably perfect vessel of purity and love, untainted by sexual desire. (But then, who could?)

In the final analysis, CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF is a statement on the bestial nature of man. The true villain of the piece is the evil Marques, who delights in abusing his underlings; by imprisoning the beggar, and later the mute servant girl, it is the Marques who sets in motion the string of events that will ultimately destroy Leon, along with so many others along the way. In varying degrees, many other characters succumb to some form of bestiality: the beggar whose imprisonment turns him into an animal who rapes the woman who has looked after him for years; the woman herself, whose sexual assault prompts her to impale the cruel Marques; the various drunks and prostitutes who degrade themselves by carousing and promiscuity; and of course, Leon himself, whose better nature fights a losing battle against the beast within.

Against all of this is balanced the potential for human goodness, which in this context is explicitly equated with celibacy (the handful of sympathetic survivors are a priest, Leon’s virginal fiancé, and the bachelor Don Alfredo, whose only relationship with a woman seems to be the platonic one with his faithful servant Teresa, played by Hira Talfrey).

It’s not a very believable worldview; in fact, it’s quite reactionary, yet it’s perfectly suited to creating a rich and rewarding film about the eternal struggle in the human soul between kindness and cruelty, between purity and perversity. It’s the brilliant depiction of this duality that makes CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF a classic in spite of his slightly languid pace. It may not galvanize you with horror, but it will touch you with its tragedy.
The final sequence with Leon in wolf form pursued by the villagers (an excellent makeup by Roy Ashton that includes not just face and hands but also torso) seems designed to cast the monster as a persecuted victim, who literally dies like a dog, shot down by his own adoptive father, who wants to spare him the pain of potentially being burned to death by the torch-wielding mob.

The scene is brutal and almost cruel in its abrupt finality; the audience is denied even the “rest in piece” ending of old werewolf movies, which showed their monsters revert to human form in death, implying that their souls were at peace. CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF offers no such salve; the only message seems to be that the innocent will suffer for the wickedness inflicted by others. As the final images fades, at last we glean a glimmer of understanding about why the opening credits played out over a close-up of the werewolf’s eyes…crying.