The Skull (1965)

Directed by: Freddie Francis

Even though Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing made a lot of movies together for Hammer Films my favorites are the ones that was made for other companies. Their best, in my opinion, is Horror Express, but this might just be my second favorite with the gruesome twosome that was Lee and Cushing. The Skull was made by Amicus and the more I watch the Amicus movies the more I feel that they were really up there with Hammer when it comes to making great atmospheric horror movies. I've always held Hammer as the best by far and then Amicus and Tigon and companies like that... nah, screw that, Amicus were just as good as Hammer and this movie is one of many proofs of that.

The DVD (released by Paramount / Legend Films) lacks when it comes to extras and this is not really a review of the DVD, but I just wish that they could drag Christopher Lee into a studio and have him record commentary tracks for every damn movie he's made while there's still time. Even though his part in this movie is pretty small (he's billed as a guest star) I would have loved to listen to him talk about the movie and his work with Peter Cushing... well, a guy can dream, can't he?


The film starts in the 1800's and a cemetary where a man is having a grave dug up and he hacks off the head of the corpse lying in that grave. He brings the head back home with him and into his bathroom where he strips it of its flesh, but moments later his mistress finds him drowned in his bathtub and the skull is sitting on a table facing the dead man.

We then jump circa 150 years into the present day (well, it was the present day when the movie was released) and at an auction we meet Dr. Christopher Maitland (Peter Cushing), an collector of occult stuff (and author of books dealing with the occult). Present at the auction is also Maitland's friend and fellow collector Sir Matthew Phillips (Christopher Lee), and when four small statues of different devils are up for bids they start a bidding war that ends when Phillips ups the price far beyond their worth. Maitland returns to his home where he is visited by Marco (Patrick Wymark), and unscrupulous antiques dealer. Marco has sold many things to Maitland in the past, but this time he feels he has some real good shit to sell him. Marco has brought with him a book, bound in human skin, that's about the life and death of the Marquis de Sade. Even though he at first doesn't seem that interested Maitland buys the book and is told that he will be offered something even greater the next evening...


The following evening Marco returns and this time he offers Maitland a skull, but it's just not any skull... it's the skull of the Marquis de Sade (the very same skull that was dug up in the beginning of the movie). Maitland doesn't jump on the chance of owning the skull of de Sade immediately though as Marco asks for too much money... that kind of cash needs some sleeping on. So, they decide that Maitland will come around Marco's place the next evening if he wants to buy the skull.

While visiting his friend Phillips, Maitland discovers that the skull was stolen from him and he really don't want it back. Phillips warns Maitland to buy it as it is an evil skull with powers to possess you during the first nights of the new moon... spooky stuff... Maitland returns back home where he later that night is visited by a couple of police men who are there to arrest him. They bring him to a strange house and a weirdo judge who forces him to play russian roulette before locking him up in a room that is filled with gas (this whole segment reminded me of the TV show The Prisoner for some reason, it has that strange weird feeling over it). And just then Maitland wakes up in a strange place he doesn't recognize... he's in the building Marco lives and when he enters Marco's apartment to talk about the skull he finds Marco dead. But, before calling the cops he finds the skull and hides it in an hallway closet.


Later on when the cops are gone he returns for the skull, and while taking it from it's hiding place he runs into the building's caretaker which he pushes down the stairs to his death. The skull is already slowly taking over Maitland, who then breaks into Phillips' house to steal one of the small statues from the auction in the beginning of the movie... When he returns back home the skull wants him to kill his wife, but Maitland refuses to do it making the skull to go after him instead...

This here is a great movie, and I wonder why the hell I had never watched it before... I always go back to the great atmospheric Hammer horrors, but this one almost felt more like an Hammer film than the Hammer films themselves. This is how it should be done! Peter Cushing holds up the entire movie on his shoulders and he does it so well, the last 20 minutes or so has almost no dialogue and still he manages to crank out such a great performance. Christopher Lee is in only three scenes, but he is still very important to the plot and as always he shines in his part. I didn't even think about how little screen time he had as this truly felt like an Cushing/Lee movie all the way.

Freddie Francis also shines as the director, his use of strange angles adds to the weirdness that comes from the skull's powers. His skull point of view cam is also superb. Everything about this film felt just perfect to me, the library/study where Maitland is working is one of those places you just feel you want to visit for real and just sit there and read through all of those books. The attention to detail is wonderful... and one thing that probably isn't so perfect from the filmmaker's point of view just made my day, when the skull is flying through the house at the end the strings holding it up are clearly visible and I just LOVE that! Today it would of course have been done by using CGI (and Cushing's and Lee's roles would probably have been played by stupid teens from a soap opera or something), but this is how it should be... more visible strings!!!

This is a truly great movie that you should rather be watching right now instead of reading this shitty so called review!

Witchboard (1986)

Directed by: Kevin Tenney

Want some cheese with that? Or wait a minute... it should probably rather be: Want some extra cheese on top of all that cheese, and maybe some cheese on the side? If you like cheesy 80's horror flicks this is probably the holy grail for you as it has plenty of cheesy stuff in it... I love cheesy movies, but even I have a limit somewhere and this flick might have crossed the line. Well, maybe not totally as I did enjoy it, but god damn it's a cheesy flick! It was the director Kevin Tenney's first movie and he truly went for all the clichés in a supernatural horror flick in the 80's (he wrote the flick as well). There are plenty of jump scares (is that even an expression? hopefully you know what I mean), bad 80's acting and silly looking effects.

Back in my teens I used to have this big Swedish Witchboard poster above my bed, I think it was the same image that was on the UK poster as well, a painting of a very scantily clad Tawny Kitaen with some ghostly hands reaching for her. After having rewatched the movie now I wonder if it wasn't because of ms. Kitaen I had that poster up rather than the movie itself... I do remember liking the movie back then, but trust me when I say that a short nude scene with Tawny was probably all I needed to like this movie as a horny teenager with hormones flying all over the place (I would probably have exploded if I had watched Gwendoline at the time...).

It all starts at a party that Jim (Todd Allen) and Linda (Tawny Kitaen) are throwing. Among the guests are Jim's ex best friend and Linda's ex boyfriend Brandon (Stephen Nichols) - apparently hooking up with your best friend's ex can break a frienship... but, in the movie world it would be worth it for the lovely ms. Kitaen. In the real world I don't think it would be a great idea, rather stay with the best friend and not get beaten up by the not so lovely ms. Kitaen... Ok, back to the story, Brandon has brought with him a Ouija-board to the party - it should preferrably be two people using it by placing the board on their knees and put their hands on the thingy that moves over the letters. So, Brandon enlists Linda to help him contact his dead buddy David - David shows up, but Jim not liking his girl doing this with her ex manages to upset David by acting like an asshole. David splits in a rage and the party has come to a halt.

The next day Linda finds the Ouija board still being at their apartment and she starts using it to contact David on her own (a big no-no as you should never do this alone). She manages to contact David (or is it?) who is very helpful and nice again... meanwhile, at the same time some spooky spirit stuff is going on at the construction site Jim works at when a coworker gets crushed under a big load of construction material. And all of a sudden "David" is starting to scare Linda and even go so far as to attack her, sending her to the hospital.

Jim and Brandon have to work together to save Linda from whatever it is that is terrorizing her. They contact David through another Ouija board and is told that there is another spirit that is the one terrorizing Linda, the evil Malfeitor. And just as the boys get this news they are attacked by Malfeitor and Brandon gets clobbered over the head with an axe and it's bye bye to him... Meanwhile, Linda is now out of the hospital and of course she just can't keep her hands from the board, but this time she gets no response. She decides to take a shower (and yes, here comes the nude scene) and there she gets attacked again. When Jim comes back home the whole place is in a mess and Linda shows up, possessed by the spirit of Malfeitor, holding an axe. She attacks him and right here a cop shows up to get knocked out immediately, but his gun falls to the floor and Jim uses it to shoot the Ouija board to free Linda from Malfeitor's powers.

Ok, what can I say that I didn't say in the beginning of this "review"? It sure is a cheesy movie, but it's grade A cheese at least, no matter how silly it gets it's still a charming 80's horror flick that contains everything an 80's horror flick should have. It drags along at times, but if you wait around you'll get one of those extra silly horror flicks that could only have been made in the 80's. And we also get a super hot Tawny Kitaen (yep, I NEED to watch Gwendoline again soon!) dressing up in men's clothes and acting crazy (um, is that maybe just me with that kind of fetish? ;-)).

The Asphyx (1973)

a.k.a The Horror of Death / Spirit of the Dead
Directed by: Peter Newbrook

It's hard to not compare this movie with the Hammer films from the same time. I mean, it's a gothic horror film set in the victorian era (the film is set in 1875) and it has all of the ingredients that a Hammer flick would have had as well. But, if you go beyond the similarities you'll soon spot the signs that this isn't a Hammer flick. Don't get me wrong, I do think the film is quite OK, but at times it has a tendency to be a bit too slow paced, talky and in all honesty, a bit on the dull side. Even though the sets looked good it still felt like a low budget little brother to the Hammer films of the time and I know it's not fair to compare to Hammer all of the time, but they really set a standard for gothic period horror flicks.

The low budget showed quite well in the last scenes of the movie (I'm not gonna tell you exactly what happens - watch it for yourself) where there is a mask that looked even worse than the old alien masks in the original Star Trek TV series. That was a pure low budget series and still this flick managed to look even cheaper when it came to the special effects. Not that it should matter as a great movie is a great movie no matter how cheap it might look, but then again... I wouldn't go so far as to call this one a great movie.


The main character in the movie is the scientist Sir Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens), who is taking photographs of dying people (quite a macabre hobby, wouldn't you say?). When he discovers a black blur in all of the photographs he starts to research the phenomena, coming to the conclusion that he has captured the souls leaving the bodies. Later when he is out filming with his family (yes, he's also an inventor as he has invented a way to make moving pictures) his son and Hugo's soon to be second wife capsize with their small boat and drown. Hugo continues to film them when they're drowning (that's dedication for ya!), while the rest of the family at least tries to save them.

Later on when Hugo is examining the film from the accident he finds the same black blur there as well, but realizes that the blur is not leaving the bodies - it's coming for them. And later when he's filming a public hanging he manages to capture a weird muppet looking blue spirit coming for the hanged man. Hugo comes to the conclusion that what he captured on film was the spirit of the dead, The Asphyx, who came to take the hanged man to the underworld. Being the bright guy that he is he realizes that if he can capture the spirit he will have found immortality... if there's no spirit of the dead to take you away you will not die.

He uses a guinea pig (it's an actual guinea pig) for an experiment in trying to capture the Asphyx, and after having fed it some poisoned paste the guinea pig starts to die - and viola! the Asphyx appears. Thanks to some weird blue light Hugo uses he traps the spirit and locks it up in a box - the guinea pig recovers and it comes clear that if you catch the spirit of the dead you can not die. He's not only a brilliant scientist, he's also a bit koo-koo, so Hugo decides to top himself off (well, almost at least) and with the help of his adopted son, Giles (Robert Powell), capture his very own spirit of the dead who will come and collect his soul and thus become immortal.


After doing what they do so well in Texas, using an electric chair, Hugo's very own Asphyx is now trapped and locked up in a room in the cellar. Having lost half of his family recently Hugo wants Giles and Hugo's daughter (who wants to get married to Giles... her adpoted brother, what the hell is going on in that family, really???) to do the same so he won't lose them as well. After some persuading they both agree (he won't let them marry unless they do this, nice guy that he is), but things don't really go as planned...

This is by far not a bad movie, not at all, but I feel it could have been so much more... It's a horror film, but in all honesty there isn't really that much horror in it. I don't know if it's the low budget, but at times it does feel like I'm watching an old british TV theater episode - it's a very talky movie that rather than showing some of the stuff let the characters tell us about it instead. Even though the DVD I have of this flick looks pretty washed out when it comes to the colors it is a good looking film with some great looking sets - and even if some of the acting was a bit too TV theater looking I really liked Robert Stephens as Hugo Cunningham. The ending was maybe a bit on the cheesy side, but I like cheesy so I won't complain too much.

It's a good flick to check out when you have run out of Hammer flicks to watch... well, check out the Amicus ones before this one as well, but then you should definitely check this one out as it is well worth the time you'll spend with it if you're into british 70's gothic horror flicks.

Waxwork (1988)

Directed by: Anthony Hickox

I'm returning to the 80's with this little gem. "Waxwork" was again one of those favorite movies of mine back in my teens, even though I usually craved more blood and gore in my movies than this one delivers (well, there are some great looking gore effects in this one though) it does deliver a buttload of popcorn movie horror fun and that's more than enough to make me a happy dude. I suspect that one of the reasons I loved this flick was the call back to the old universal horrors in some of the waxwork displays (and short vignettes) in this movie... here we've got a mummy, a vampire, frankenstein's monster, a werewolf and even the invisible man. It's not an anthology movie, but at times sure feels like one and having grown up on the Amicus anthology movies I love that as well. Makes an interesting movie with lots of different horror action.

It's a very 80's movie, some of the "comedy" (it is a horror comedy after all) feels extremely dated and, like I said, very 80's. And we also have some actors who, to me at least, are best remembered for their movies done in that decade, like Zach Galligan who did Gremlins four years before this flick. And we of course get "Sallah" himself (John Rhys-Davies) as a werewolf (although nowadays I should probably call him "Gimli", but he's always gonna be "Sallah" to me). Another thing that screams the 80's to me are the special effects, and this is a thing I like, it's the real deal with rubber masks and prosthetics. No bad looking CGI in sight, which can be explained by it not being around that much back in 1988 of course. I don't hate CGI effects, it's just that I like the "real thing" a lot more, maybe I'm just an old fart yapping on about how everything was so much better "back in my day".


Who the hell would place a wax museum (or "waxwork") in the suburbs? Well, David Lincoln (David Warner) apparently... The two "teenage" (and I use that word very lightly here) girls Sarah (Deborah Foreman) and China (Michelle Johnson) manage to get themselves and "no more than four" friends invited to visit the local wax museum by the owner, Mr. Lincoln. They invite Mark (Zach Galligan), Tony (Dana Ashbrook) and two more and later that evening head over to look at the dummies (the ones made of wax that is...). The two friends I didn't even bother to name get scared and decides to not do this and then there were only four...

The gang are left alone to wander the place and all end up in front of different displays. The first one to do something stupid is Tony who manages to drop his lighter into one of the displays and when he stumbles across the rope surrounding the display he is immediately transported into a real version of the display where he ends up meeting a werewolf, get bitten by it and then killed by a werewolf hunter. And at the moment of his death he appears as a wax dummy in the display where there were none before. China also manages to disappear into one of the displays (this time a vampire one) where she get to experience if human meat really tastes like chicken before she also dies (and becomes part of the display). Mark and Sarah notices that Tony and China are gone, but are told they left early. (And the prize to the person to over use the word "display" in one and the same paragraph goes to... me! holy shit, maybe I should have used the word "exhibit" now and then, huh?)


Mark doesn't believe that whole "left early" thing and get the police to visit the wax museum, but of course they don't find anything weird with the place and leave. The cop get second thoughts though and returns to do some actual cop work (although, not believing teenagers' stories seems to be actual cop work in horror movies), but ends up getting killed by a mummy (the egyptian and bandaged kind). With the help of a friend of Mark's grandfather we learn that David Lincoln sold his soul to the devil and created the wax figures of the world's most evil people to help him bring an end to the world... all he needs are victims for all of his displays and the wax figures will come to life and help him with that end of the world business.

Mark and Sarah returns later that night to burn the wax museum down, but Sarah manages to enter the display of Marquis de Sade. Apparently this mousy little girl don't mind getting whipped at all, hell... she gets off of it! But like the stick in the mud that Mark is he "rescues" her as he have found the trick to not getting killed in these displays. It doesn't matter though as they both get captured and two others (the two who were too scared from the beginning of the film) take their places as victims. And now all of the wax figures come to life... good thing that friend of Mark's grandfather has his own little army to deal with these guys as they turn up at the right moment and one of those truly silly looking low budget fights erupt. It all ends up in the wax museum being burned to the ground (and the effect of the house burning takes the cake of being the most poorly made effect in the whole movie), but something seems to have survived... of course it has, otherwise we wouldn't have gotten the sequel four years later!

This flick feels like an episode of "Tales from the Crypt", but with more gore (although apparently not as much as first intended as they trimmed some of it before releasing the film). Maybe it's the tounge-in-cheek vibe the movie has, or the fact that there are some recognizable faces in the cast (people who were quite well known when this movie was made and not people who starred in a horror flick early in their careers), but it does feel quite a lot like an episode of that TV show. And, as I said in the "I, Madman" review, that's a good thing as that TV show was damn great. Just like "Tales from the Crypt" this movie mixes the "horror" with the "laughs" and the end result is a pure fun 80's horror comedy.

The same director returned to the world of "Waxwork" a couple of years later with a sequel ("Waxwork II: Lost in Time"), but that one isn't even close to the first one (but it has Bruce Campell in it at least). I will come back to that one later on though as it's on my "to rewatch" list... but, it'll probably take quite a long time before I re-enter the world of "Waxwork" as that list is really long at the moment. Not that I'm complaining... ;-)