Fear Without Frontiers: Horror Cinema Across the Globe

321 Pages·2003·1.51 MB·English

by  Steven Jay Schneider

FEAR WITHOUT FRONTIERS:
HORROR CINEMA ACROSS THE GLOBE
First edition published July 2003
by FAB Press
FAB Press
Grange Suite
Surrey Place
Godalming
GU71EY
England, U.K.
www.fabpress.com
Text copyright © 2003 Steven Jay Schneider and individual contributors.
Design and layout by Harvey Fenton.
Front cover design by Deborah Bacci, Chris Charlston and Harvey Fenton.
This Volume copyright © FAB Press 2003
World Rights Reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,
without the prior written permission of the Publisher.
Copyright of illustrations is the property of the production or distribution companies concerned.
These illustrations are reproduced here in the spirit of publicity, and whilst every effort has been
made to trace the copyright owners, the editor and publishers apologise for any omissions and will
undertake to make any appropriate changes in future editions of this book if necessary.
Front cover illustration:
Maa ki Shakti (aka Ammoni) (India).
Back cover illustrations:
top right: Khooni Panja (India), middle left: Exorcismo Negro (Brazil), bottom right: Seytan (Turkey)
Frontispiece illustration:
Dany Carrel discovers the secret of the stone women in the shadows of the Mill tower,
MM of the Stone Women (Italy).
Contents page illustration:
Promotional montage for Sohail Shaikh's Ab Kya Hoga (India).
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 1 903254 15 9
Fear Without Frontiers
Horror Cinema Across the Globe
edited by
Steven Jay Schneider
Contents
Preface 7
- Kim Newman
Introduction 11
- Steven Jay Schneider
PART I: ARTISTS, ACTORS, AUTEURS
Madmen, visionaries and freaks: the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky 15
- Pam Keesey
Coffin Joe and José Mojica Marins: strange men for strange times 27
- André Barcinski
Return of the phantom: Maxu Weibang's Midnight Song 39
- David Robinson
Enfant terrible: the terrorful, wonderful world of Anthony Wong 45
- Lisa Odham Stokes & Michael Hoover
The rain beneath the earth: an interview with Nonzee Nimibutr 61
- Mitch Davis
Cinema of the doomed: the tragic horror of Paul Naschy 69
- Todd Tjersland
Sex and death, Cuban style: the dark vision of Jorge Molina 81
- Ruth Goldberg; followed by an interview with the director, "Testing Molina,"
by Steven Jay Schneider
PART II: FILMS, SERIES, CYCLES
Fantasmas del cine Mexicano: the 1930s horror film cycle of Mexico 93
- Gary D. Rhodes
The cosmic mill of Wolfgang Preiss: Giorgio Ferroni's Mill of the Stone Women 105
- David Del Valle
The "lost" horror film series: the Edgar Wallace krimis 111
- Ken Hanke
The exotic pontianaks 125
- Jan Uhde & Yvonne Uhde
Playing with genre: defining the Italian giallo 135
- Gary Needham
The Italian zombie film: from derivation to invention 161
- Donato Totaro
Austrian psycho killers & home invaders: the horror-thrillers Angst & Funny Games 175
- Jiirgen Felix & Marcus Stiglegger

PART III: GENRE HISTORIES AND STUDIES
Coming of age: the South Korean horror film 185
- Art Black
Between appropriation and innovation: Turkish horror cinema 205
- Kaya Ozkaracalar
Witches, spells and politics: the horror films of Indonesia 219
- Stephen Gladwin
The unreliable narrator: subversive storytelling in Polish horror cinema 231
- Nathaniel Thompson
The Beast from Bollywood: a history of the Indian horror film 243
- Pete Tombs
In a climate of terror: the Filipino monster movie 255
- Mauro Feria Tumbocon, Jr.
French revolution: the secret history of Gallic horror movies 265
- David Kalat
PART IV: CASE STUDY - JAPANESE HORROR CINEMA
Pain threshhold: the cinema of Takashi Miike 285
- Rob Daniel & Dave Wood; followed by an interview with the director,
"When cynicism becomes art," by Julien Fonfrede
The Japanese horror film series: Ring and Eko Eko Azarak 295
- Ramie Tateishi
The urban techno-alienation of Sion Sono's Suicide Club 305
- Travis Crawford
Notes on contributors 312
Index 314
Preface
Kim Newman
Of all screen genres, only the western and Edgar Allan Poe - who half-aspired to a
the musical were Invented and developed European sensibility even as he
primarily or even exclusively in the USA.1 incarnated the first great stereotype of
And yet, in almost all cases, the dominant American letters, the alcoholic newspa
strains of any given genre, identifying perman - most of the subjects of early
cycles and stand-alone individual master- American horror films were European.
works, are American: the gangster film, the Chaney's greatest grotesque characters
melodrama, the war movie, the romantic were French, in The Hunchback of Notre
comedy, science fiction. Only the martial Dame (1923) and The Phantom of the
arts movie grew up away from Hollywood, a Opera (1925), while 1930s monsters
non-American alternative to the western. hailed from that imaginary Mittel Europa
The mainstream of the horror film is which is always "Transylvania" whether or
American, though the defining cycle of the not it is actually supposed to be
1930s, commenced at Universal Studios Czechoslovakia (Mark of the Vampire,
by Tod Browning's Dracula and James 1935) or the made-up "Kleinschloss" (The
Whale's Frankenstein (both 1931), is a Vampire Bat, 1933), Haiti (White Zombie,
synthesis of Hollywood industrial 1932), the South Seas (King Kong, 1933),
production methods with a primarily Ancient Egypt (The Mummy, 1932),
(though not exclusively) British literary fogbound London (Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde,
tradition (Bram Stoker, Mary Shelley, R.L. 1932, The Lodger, 1944), Paris (Mad Love,
Stevenson) and the expressionist visual 1935) or the Far East (The Mask of Fu 1 Nevertheless, the
techniques coined by the run of silent Manchu, 1932). Some films even doubled western owes a
great deal to the
horror films from Germany. Many of the the alienation effect by bringing monsters pre-clnematic
key personnel in the first American horror from remote locales to a contemporary traditions of bandit
boom, often employed by Universal London that still seemed mid-Victorian by tales found in every
culture in the world
Pictures and then taken up by competitor Yankee standards, as witness the and the musical to
studios eager to get in on the act, came Transylvanian visitors of Dracula and many European
varieties of theatre-
from the United Kingdom (James Whale, Dracula's Daughter (1936), and the with-music.
Boris Karloff, Claude Rains, Charles Tibetan curse of The WereWolf of London
Laughtoh, Colin Clive, Lionel Atwill) or had (1935). Even the odd American-set horror, 2 Chaney was
experience in the German film industry like Warner Brothers' Dr. X (1932) and never quite the
horror star Forrest
(Bela Lugosi, Karl Freund, Edgar G. Ulmer, Mystery of the Wax Museum (1933), took J. Ackerman would
Paul Leni, Curt Siodmak, Peter Lorre, pains to establish a "European" feel, like him to have
Michael Curtiz). The death of home-grown casting Englishman Lionel Atwill as been. His career
range, taking in
macabre icon Lon Chaney2 after the foreign-sounding madmen (Dr. Xavier, pirates In Treasure
completion of his only talkie (The Unholy Ivan Igor) who menace all-American Fay Island (1920) to the
drill instructor of Go
Three, 1930) meant that for Americans Wray and handing directing chores over to
Tell the Marines
horror would speak with a European the versatile Hungarian Michael Curtiz, (1927), marks him
accent, whether the sly Anglo-Indian lisp who deftly laid Technicolor expressionist out to be as much a
precursor of
of Karloff or the drawled Hungarian touches over the typical Warners US big chameleon
cadences of Lugosi. city feel. The Curtiz films make something character actor
of the disjunction between mad science stars like Alec
Aside from the persistent run of films Guinness and Peter
Murders in the Rue Morgue, 1932; The experiments or bodies encased in wax and Sellers as it does a
fast-talking, cynical reporters who joke monster man like
Black Cat, 1934) drawn from the works of Karloff or Lugosi.
horror cinema across the globe 7
preface
about Prohibition and snarl their copy
down the telephone like refugees from The
FrontPage (1931).
The 'Universal' style of horror stayed
in vogue for fifteen years, modified a little
by the arrival of a new American horror
star in the doggily unlikely Lon Chaney, Jr.
- his most successful vehicle, The Wolf Man
(1941), casts him as a Yankee who goes
back to his roots in a backlot Wales and
mingles with all manner of Brits and
gypsies, accepting the script's curse via a
bite from Bela Lugosi that also suggests a
curse of typecasting being passed on. In
the 1940s, the most invigorating new cycle
came from the Russian-born Val Lewton,
whose first features were directed by the
Frenchman Jacques Tourneur (Cat People,
1942; I Walked With a Zombie, 1943; The
Leopard Man, 1943) and set in the
Americas3 but who called in American
directors Mark Robson and Robert Wise
even as his films cast Karloff and looked to
Greece (Isle of the Dead, 1945), Scotland
(The Body Snatcher, 1945) or London
(Bedlam, 1946). In the 1950s, a fresh
approach to horror was established by The
Thing From Another World (1951), which at
once looked further afield than Romania for
its monster but emphasised the very
Americanness of its human characters and
combined gothic shadows with the fast
pace and tough dialogue associated with its
supposed producer, Howard Hawks. The
gothic came back via England's Hammer
Films (their breakthrough feature was The
Curse of Frankenstein, 1957) and the most
(1968) and The Exorcist (1973), which came
completely American cycle of horror
to dominate the genre in ways still being
emerged in Roger Corman's series of Poe-
felt. Almost all the auteurs cited above have
derived films starring the effete but non-
made films based on the works of Stephen
European Vincent Price (commencing with
King,4 who became the default American
3 Though all are The Fall of the House of Usher, 1960).
foreign-tinged: Cat horror writer after Poe (H.P. Lovecraft never
People is about a Independent American filmmakers like quite took pole position) and represents the
Serbian curse,
I Walked with a George A. Romero (Night of the Living Dead, most monolithically American face the
Zombie concerns 1968), Wes Craven (The Last House on the genre has ever had. They have also all
Caribbean voodoo Left, 1972), Larry Cohen (It's Alive!, 1975), worked through their combination of debt
and The Leopard
Man transfers a the Canadian David Cronenberg (Shivers, to tradition and desire to escape from it by
novel set in South 1976), John Carpenter (Halloween, 1978) making revisionary vampire movies:
America to New
and Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Cronenberg's Rabid (1978), Romero's Martin
Mexico.
Massacre, 1974) might have rebelled (1978), Hooper's Safem's Lot (1979),
4 Hooper's Salem's against the conventions of the Universal- Cohen's A Return to Salem's Lot (1986),
Lot (1979), Hammer-Hollywood style when they set out Craven's A Vampire in Brooklyn (1995),
Cronenberg's The
to make committed, extreme, gruesome, Carpenter's Vampires (1999).
Dead Zone (1983),
Carpenter's genuinely scary, politically provocative The figure of the vampire has come to
CCohhriesnti'nse A ( 1R9e8tu3r)n, to horror films, but they nevertheless consti stand for the horror film as the figure of the
Salem's Lot (1986), tuted a mutation of the mainstream. From cowboy does for the western, and a handy
Romero's The Dark the low-budget zombie, slasher and way of encapsulating the horror film in any
HCraalfv (e1n9's9 3A) . venereal mutant movies that invigorated culture is to examine its vampire movies.
Nightmare on Elm American horror in the 1970s rose entire Vampire movies have been made in Turkey
S!reer(1984) is cycles, including the larger-budgeted Devil (Drakula Istanbul'da. 1953), India (Bandh
heavily King-
influenced. movies that followed Rosemary's Baby Darwaza, 1990), Hong Kong (the Mr.
8 fear without frontiers
preface
Vampire series), Italy (L'ultima preda del The first important studies of the
vampiro/Playgirls and the Vampire, 1960), history of the horror film, by Carlos Clarens
Spain (El gran amor del Conde (An Illustrated History of the Horror Film,
Dracula/Dracula's Great Love, 1972), 1967) and Ivan Butler (The Horror Film,
France (Le frisson des vampires/Sex and 1967), made the development of genre a
the Vampire, 1970), Germany (Derfluch der story, conceding its roots with Méliès in
grunen augen/Cave of the Living Dead, France and the Expressionists in Germany
1963), Korea (Wolnyoui Han, 1980), the but then following an Anglo-American
Philippines (The Vampire People, 1966), narrative with very occasional diversions
South Africa (Pure Blood, 2001), Greece like the Italianate horrors of Mario Bava.
(Dracula Tan Exarchia, 1983), Taiwan Since the 1960s, this has been the accepted
(Elusive Song of the Vampire, 1987), and natural way of looking at genre - until
Denmark (Dracula's Ring, 1978), Malaysia recently for the very practical reason that
(Pontianak, 1956), Belgium (Le rouge aux most commentators writing in English had
levres / Daughters of Darkness, 1971), probably seen every American or British
Argentina (Sangre de Vírgenes, 1968), horror film ever made but only a scattering
Brazil (As sete vampiras /7 Vampires, of genre movies from other territories. It
1985), Cuba (¡Vampiros en la was a simple matter to dismiss, say, the
Habana!/Vampires in Havana, 1985), Mexican gothic cycle of the late 1950s and
Mexico (El vampiro/The Vampire, 1958), early 1960s by ridiculing the likes of El
Japan (Chi o Suu Me/Lake of Dracula, Santo contra las mujeres vampiro (Samson
1971), the Netherlands (Bloedverwanten / vs. the Vampire Women, 1961), or to
Blood Relations, 1977), Australia (Thirst, shudder at the "ineptitude" of Jesus Franco
1979) and the former Soviet Union on the strength of an hour-long cut-down of
(Pyuschye Krovy/Blood-Suckers, 1991) - La comtesse noire (Female Vampire, 1973).
and though it took a surprisingly long time Of course, the French magazine Midi-Minuit
(discounting US-backed efforts like the Fantastique was more open to films from
Subspecies films), even Romania has gotten non-Anglophone cultures, and Gallic
in on the act, with the 2002 release of Vlad enthusiasm for Bava was caught by British
nemuritorul/Dracula the Impaler. critics frustrated at the censor-imposed
withholding of La maschera del demonio
In each case, the elements come from
(The Mask of Satan, 1960) from the United
English-language horror literature and film,
Kingdom even as AIP was hammering out
with the archetypal figure of the cloaked
Americanised versions of his films for
Dracula reincarnated in a local context and
kiddie matinees.
set among conventions drawn from specific
lore. Obviously, in vampire movies made in It is possible that English-language
non-Christian countries, the monster is not releases did no favours. To this day, there
repelled by the cross - but might shrink is an oppressive tendency on the part of
from a statue of the Buddha or the aum American writers when discussing 'foreign'
symbol. Frequently, the fanged blood- horror films to use slapdash American
drinker of Hollywood and Hammer is release titles - listing La maschera as Black
commingled with whatever variant features Sunday, or even to colonise Brazil's major
in national myth, like the hopping, mummy- horror icon by tagging Jose Mojica Marins's
look jiangshi of Chinese films. Occasionally, alter ego "Coffin Joe" rather than Zé do
there seems even to be a deliberate setting Caixâo, as if a character as strange and
^ As is made
of different horror traditions against each specifically resonant could be processed at especially obvious
other, for satirical purpose in ¡Vampiros en Ellis Island and repackaged as a samba by those scrambled
versions made by
la Habana!, in which languidly decadent Freddy Krueger. To a certain breed of Jerry Warren, who
European vampires and aggressively camp-follower, the poor dubbing is would transform La
capitalist American gangster vampires are essential to appreciation of films that can Momia Azteca
(1957) and La Casa
both put in their places by a revolutionary therefore be sneered at for their technical del Terror (1960)
Cuban half-breed; or just to lever in a ineptitude and recycled for contemptible into Attack of the
contrast, as in As sete vampiras, whose horror host shows, cut into with pathetic Mayan Mummy
(1964) and Face of
cloaked Count-type turns out to be innocent jokes and contextualised as trash. It's an the Screaming
of vampire murders actually committed by a especial irony that this unearned superi Werewolf (1965) by
blood-sucking plant, or the several recent ority is achieved in the process of intefrrocumtt itnhge fooroigtaingael
Hong Kong films that take a cue from Americanisation in that the bad dubbing with new material
Hammer's The Legend of the Seven Golden was usually done Stateside - the average shot with flat
lighting, locked-
Vampires (1973) by mixing Transylvanian- Mexican horror movie is lit, art-directed, down camera, non
style vampires with their hopping Chinese photographed and edited to a high existent art direction
cousins. standard,5 and the adoption of different and endless
pointless dialogue.
horror cinema across the globe 9