Hammer of Dracula

Horror of Dracula (1958)
Directed by Terence Fisher
Screenplay by Jimmy Sangster

Horror of Dracula, also known as just plain Dracula, is one of the original recipe Hammer Horror films from the late 1950s.  As such it is a landmark in cinematic history.  While we're still waiting for a US release of the new restored edition on Blu Ray we'll take another quick look at this classic.

Fan Points
Christopher Lee as Dracula and Peter Cushing as Van Helsing.  Done.  That should be enough.  This is the first of the Hammer Draculas, the first Dracula in color.  The Hammer supporting cast features some gem performances.

In this film Count Dracula seems to start out content to remain in his own neighborhood until Jonathan Harker shows up to catalog his library.  Harker, of course, is not just there to catalog a library.  Harker is already a vampire hunter and is there to hunt Count Dracula.  We don't know if Harker's ruse was successful because ultimately his mission is a failure.  He does take out Dracula's unnamed vampire ladyfriend, which may explain Dracula's decision to go after the women in Harker's life.  Why would Harker go after Count Dracula by himself?  It seems like the kind of mission that requires an actual team (as is eventually the case in both the novel and this film at the end.)  Clearly Van Helsing and Harker are already in the business of vampire hunting.  Why does Harker take such a big chance against Dracula?  Well, maybe the thing we have to consider is that in the fictional world we're talking about Dracula is not quite Dracula.  And by that I mean to say that in the fiction the character of Dracula does not come with the same obvious baggage that the name carries for any of us.  Harker is thus on a reconnaissance mission to find out if this Dracula fellow is the cause of the vampire stories coming out of the frightened townsfolk of Klausenberg.

As for Dracula, he must have a regular series of household job listings he puts out on the 19th century Craig's List in order to lure people to his castle and drink their blood.  Clearly Dracula and his lady friend get their regular supply from the locals, but ordering in every so often provides an occasional opportunity to avoid the hunting and just stay home.   Harker just happened to be a hunter in the bargain.  And that's why Dracula has to make an example of him and follow him to where he came from.  Dracula has decided to take the fight to his enemy and fight them there before he has to fight them back home on the defensive.

Like any offensive expedition Dracula's invasion is a risky proposition since he has to take his resting place with him.  Dracula's logistics are his point of vulnerability.  It's all about strategy and tactics.
While retaining the original names the film maintains a general Central European German milieu for the action.  In the novel and even in Nosferatu, the vampire arrives by sea.  Dracula's return to Transylvania is serious ordeal of timetables in the novel.  Here he as an internal line of communication back to his home base.  It's just a matter of a simple carriage race back and forth.  And once Dracula's opponent is as cunning as Van Helsing then suddenly Dracula is on the defensive.

Cushing's first Van Helsing outing represents the character as ultra-competent.  The fight is difficult and nobody quite wants to believe him at first, but ultimately he is a quite competent occult scientist.

Occult scientist?  How can we even use those terms in conjunction?  This is the central conceit of Dracula and it is central in this film as well.  Van Helsing is not a believer in superstition.  But he is aware of the existence of things that are considered supernatural.  It is his power of scientific observation that prevents him from dismissing the vampire stories the way his post-Enlightenment scientific peers dismiss the local superstitions.  Van Helsing does not dismiss superstition out of hand, but instead pursues it to greater knowledge.  In this case the knowledge is a series of specific quantifiable rules of vampirism.  And although the rules of vampirism are suspiciously based on objects and articles of faith/religion it is ultimately a quite rational irrationalism we're talking about.
The truly supernatural would be something that has no rules.  But these vampires are quite rationally designed/created.  They have to follow certain rules, sleep in a coffin filled with their local soil (bound by the accident of geologic specificity) and they can be killed in a myriad of ways.   The centrality of Christianity to vampire stories is something that is only being slightly addressed even after more than a century of these stories.   And there's more to say about that later.

As for sexuality, there is more of it on the cover for this film than in the film itself.  That's not to say that there is none, but just that it is almost as sublimated as it is in the novel.   Jonathan Harker is somewhat lured by the attractiveness of Dracula's ladyfriend (not knowing she was his vampire ladyfriend) but it seems to be equally based on believing her to be Dracula's prisoner.  (Would he have helped her out if she was a wart-faced hag?  Or an obese hirsute dude?  Would any of us deal with people with equanimity in that regard?)  Dracula goes after Lucy and turns her (in some way as the ultimate revenge on Harker and also as a means of replacing his lost minion) and it is clear that his visitations to her bedchamber are moments of ecstatic rapture for her (even if they do leave her utterly and fatally drained).  Curiously, when Lucy is turned she attempts to feed on children (hunting the ultimate symbols of innocence.)

Not content with Lucy, the Count goes after Mina as well.  Mina is married to Arthur and seems to be a quite respectable middle class housewife.  Thus, when Dracula goes after Mina it is a direct assault on the cornerstone of middle class morality.  Dracula is (metaphorically) sexually assaulting (but also even more dangerously, sexually awakening) the very heart of the family unit, and the bastion of contemporary (late 19th century) civilization.  Thus Arthur Holmwood is a metaphor for the cuckolded husband and the Count is the ultimate slick seducer.  (And it would take supernatural capabilities to make his wife cheat on him, right?)  And Dr. Van Helsing is that guy who'll help you kill the guy who slept with your wife.  Wait, what?

Yeah, the metaphor falls apart a little there because in that regard Van Helsing is a little bit of cheated upon partner wish fulfillment.

At any rate, Horror of Dracula delivers on the Gothic premise both visually and in terms of storytelling. The pace is slightly quicker and steadier than Curse of Frankenstein and like that film it is the closest that any of the Hammer films gets to the original version of the story and to the Universal films for that matter.

Cast
Jonathan Harker -- John Van Eyssen
Arthur Holmwood -- Michael Gough
Mina Holmwood -- Melissa Stribling
Lucy Holmwood -- Carol Marsh
Gerda -- Olga Dickie
Tania -- Janina Faye
Inga -- Barbara Archer
Dr. Seward -- Charles Lloyd Pack
Dr. Abraham Van Helsing -- Peter Cushing
Count Dracula -- Christopher Lee
Vampire Woman -- Valerie Gaunt
Landlord -- George Woodbridge
J. Marx, Undertaker -- Miles Malleson
Porter -- Geoffrey Bayldon
Policeman -- George Meritt
Frontier Official -- George Benson

Music by James Bernard
Cinematography by Jack Asher

Return to The Mummy

The Mummy (1959)
Directed by Terence Fisher
Screenplay by Jimmy Sangster

Revisiting the first Hammer foray into mummyland and I'm still a fan of this one.  Having delved even further into the depths of the Hammer catalogue I can now say with more confidence that the 1959 mummy stands out as a gem of the classic Hammer horror set.

Let's get the fan review out of the way.  If you want to explore Hammer films this is an essential.  Fan of mummy movies?  Essential.  Christopher Lee, with and without a massive amount of makeup.  Peter Cushing back when he was the young lead.   (He seems so much older as Van Helsing in the 1958 Hammer Dracula.)  The English country setting gives us some nice low comic stylings that reoccur in other Hammer films from this period and thus if you aren't a fan of Michael Ripper going in you will become one.  

The film itself is one part archaeological adventure, one part ancient Egyptian epic sampler and one part  drawing room murder mystery.

And of course there's the post-colonial discourse of the film.  Nowadays we might forget just how fresh the Anglo-French Suez crisis was in the minds of the British audience for this film.  It must have made for a very different attitude towards the Egyptian villain of the piece.   Mehemet Bey is indeed a curious character.  He is a closet worshipper of Karnak.  (Though the definition of closet is stretched by the large room he uses as a shrine in his rented house in England.)  The closet worshipper of an ancient religion is a familiar trope in adventure stories because it opens the door to exotic (inventive and invented) practices and rituals that make for more exciting stories than what you might get if Mehemet Bey was merely a moderately devout Muslim looking to recover antiquities with which he has no spiritual connection.   Instead he is a fanatic follower of Karnak and he has with him the living dead mummy of Kharis.  Putting off the backstory of Kharis for a second, Mehemet Bey uses Kharis like a golem.  It is ultimately his misuse of this instrument that causes his destruction.  Well, maybe not so much misuse as a misunderstanding of Kharis.  Sure, Kharis was the high priest of Karnak, but Mehemet Bey should have been more suspicious of Kharis's reliability as an instrument of service to Karnak.  After all, Kharis was entombed alive as a punishment for trying to resurrect the high priestess Ananka in order to engage in forbidden love with her.  So the whole reason that Kharis is there is because of his unreliability when it comes to obedience to the rules of Karnak.  Mehemet Bey should have known better.  Sure, what were the odds that he'd run into someone who is a dead ringer for the Princess Ananka?  But on the other hand, the only thing we know about Kharis is that he violated Karnak's sacred rules.  There's a logical fallacy at the heart of the punishment meted out to Kharis in the first place.  Kharis is obsessed with Ananka.  Ananka dies and he tries to bring her back to life in order to consummate his love for her.  (We are never informed about how Ananka felt about Kharis, mind you.)  Kharis is caught before he can resurrect Ananka.  His tongue is cut out and he is entombed alive, in the tomb of the woman he was obsessed with and so that he could be the guardian of her tomb.  Cutting out the tongue?  Yeah, that's a punishment.  But what part of putting him eternally close to the object of his obsession is supposed to be a punishment for Kharis?

At any rate, Mehemet Bey is determined to punish those who violated the tomb of Ananka and he does have the perfect instrument to enact vengeance since nobody cares more about Ananka than Kharis.  But Mehemet Bey's key flaw is that he believes Ananka is sacred because of her status as a priestess of Karnak, whereas Kharis was and is in love with Ananka.  Mehemet Bey underestimates the unpredictability of love.  Of course, what were the odds that one of the people he's hunting down would be married to someone who looks just like Ananka?  And how much of a facial match would someone have to be for Kharis's Ananka-radar to kick in?  Isobel Banning is an exact match.  What if someone was a 75% match?  Well, we do know that Kharis doesn't recognize Isobel as a match for Ananka if her hair is up, so even with a dead ringer Kharis isn't completely fooled.  And so, while Kharis is "fooled" by Isobel into believing she is Ananka and thus he unravels Mehemet Bey's revenge plan, on the other hand it is not pure Enlightenment rationality that wins the day because the mummy could only be fooled because of the miraculous coincidence (or should we call it fate?) of the resemblance of Isobel and Ananka.

One of the strange things that comes from this story is that while Stephen Banning, the man of science (archaeology, Egyptology), comes through against the closet cult fanatic (and possibly some form of apostate or closeted nonbeliever) it is not the values of science and enlightenment that prevail, per se.  The Bannings prevail because they recognize the existence of the irrational and mysterious and engage it to their benefit.  It's not exactly a victory of modern science, it's a victory of ancient irrationality.  At the end of the film the rational world has to deal with the genuine existence of the living dead and magical scrolls that can bring people back to life.  That's hardly a victory for the rational world.
But of course, the most irrational thing in this movie is love and yet for all its irrationality and the inability to scientifically prove its existence (show me a molecule of love) it does seem to be quite real.
And so Kharis's ancient love for Ananka wins out in the end.  Sort of.  He's now dead in an English bog and she's probably going to be on display in a museum.   Not exactly a love story for the ages.

While most of the main story of the film takes place in England and plays out in and around the Banning drawing room the discovery of the tomb in Egypt and even more so the ancient flashback that are the most vivid parts of the film.  The mass human sacrifice at the burial of Ananka is so tastefully played out that you might be forgiven if you don't notice that a lot of people are killed to join Ananka in her tomb.

So, were the archaeologists wrong to explore the tomb?  Was their search for knowledge (in this case knowledge about the past through archaeological study) akin to Victor Frankenstein's pursuit of forbidden experimentation?  I suppose one of the problems with cinematic archaeology is that the complete backstory of the archaeological discovery seems to always be available.  The archaeologists in this case know everything about the story of Ananka and Kharis.  All they need to do now is find the tomb.  This is one of the most unrealistic tropes that you can imagine.  I know this is a mummy story and not an archaeology story, but it would be nice to see some cinematic archaeology that doesn't involve already knowing the complete story of an archaeological discovery before you find an artifact.

Notwithstanding that last bit of crankiness I have always enjoyed this film and having seen some of Hammer's later forays into Egypt I have to say this is one that stands the test of time both compared to later mummy films (and yes, that includes all those Brendan Fraser vehicles) and to the earlier Universal mummy franchise.  Note also the joy to be found in a simple story with lowered stakes (still life or death, mind you) as opposed to the world-killing dust storms of the contemporary CGI era.  It doesn't always have to be the end of the world.

Cast
Stephen Banning -- Felix Aylmer
Joseph Whemple -- Raymond Huntley
John Banning -- Peter Cushing
Isobel Banning/Princess Ananka -- Yvonne Furneaux
Kharis -- Christopher Lee
Inspector Mulrooney -- Eddie Byrne
P.C. Blake -- George Woodbridge
Dr. Reilly --Willoughby Gray
Pat -- Harold Goodwin
Mike -- Denis Shaw
Poacher -- Michael Ripper
Mehemet Bey -- George Pastell

Cinematography -- Jack Asher
Music by Franz Reizenstein

Special Features
1. Theatrical Trailer

Frankenstein in Gaol

Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1973)
Directed by Terence Fisher
Screenplay by Roy Skeggs

If Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed represented an Endarkenment version of the title character, then Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is a return to a mostly Enlightenment gone wrong interpretation.   Whereas in the earlier film Victor Frankenstein really was a monster, in the latter film he is once again merely a brilliant man who likes to experiment in abominations.  In fact, in this film Victor  is more moral than the character portrayed by Peter Cushing back in 1957.

Let's start with the fan aspects.  This is Peter Cushing's last appearance as Victor Frankenstein in a Hammer film.   It is also the first film pairing for Grand Moff Tarkin (Cushing) and Darth Vader (David Prowse).  This is Terence Fisher's final film.  If you're a fan of Bond films you'll notice that Tarmut the sculptor is M (Bernard Lee).   And for the Whovians, the bodysnatcher is Patrick Troughton, the Second Doctor.   And since Peter Cushing played the Doctor in two films from the '60s that means that technically there are two doctors in this film.   And then there's Madeline Smith who was a Bond girl in Live and Let Die. In a remarkably refreshing decision the filmmakers don't give in to the worst excesses of the 70s and keep their female lead clothed and Ms. Smith manages to be quite expressive for the major portion of the film where her character is mute.

As with other Hammer films from this period there is an attempt to pair their older stars with younger counterparts in a sometimes muddled attempt to pass the torch.   And while there are some attempts at a continuity of Victor Frankenstein in the Hammer series it is a very loose continuity and in many ways it is best to pretend that the character who perished in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed actually did die and that this character is another version entirely, especially since this Frankenstein incarnation is mostly benign.  I mean, apart from the murders of course.  But I'll come back to that in a moment.

The film commences with the young Simon Helder exercising his fan appreciation of Dr. Frankenstein by reading his book and attempting to continue the experimental progress of the Baron.  Unfortunately the law is not particularly kind to Dr. Helder's science and he is arrested and put on trial.  The policeman and the judge are model representatives of an unimaginative society.  Simon seems almost delighted to be sentenced to the same mental institution that Baron Frankenstein was sent to, because of course Simon really wants to be just like his role model.  As for the crimes involved, it's interesting to note that while in Curse of Frankenstein the Baron's only known crime was murder, here he (and Simon) are being specifically condemned for their abominable scientific experiments.  (Or at least for the illegal trafficking in body parts and grave robbing that are required for their research.)

Once Simon arrives at the institution he is initially mistaken for a visitor by the befuddled director Klauss who is furious at being deceived.  Klauss and his henchmen are not only incompetent but they are also quite corrupt.  If the law enforcement and judicial system on the outside are unimaginative and somewhat repressive they are not overtly corrupt or evil.  In the asylum, though, the system is brutal and corrupt.  It is no surprise that it turns out that Baron Frankenstein faked his death and has taken up the position of asylum doctor continuing his experiments with equipment provided by Klauss through threat of blackmail.  Klauss is so obviously incompetent that it's hard to believe he is afraid of being held to account for his job competence.  Instead, it turns out that Frankenstein rescued Klauss's daughter Sarah from an attempted rape (the shock of which left her mute) and has achieved his state within a state through the threat of blackmail.  This leaves Victor Frankenstein in a strange state of moral ambiguity.  On the one hand he is certainly a more benign and competent presence than Klauss.  (e.g. The brutal hazing Klauss's henchmen give to Simon, scarring his back with a forced shower with the high pressure water hose.)  But Victor's motivations aren't in any way altruistic (he wants the freedom to work on his experiments) unless you believe entirely in the notion that Frankenstein's experiments represent scientific progress in which case you might at least buy some portion of the argument that it is important to support his experiments.  Of course, Frankenstein's actual experiments undercut the notion that he is really achieving progress for humanity and the expansion of scientific knowledge.

But the bigger problem with Frankenstein's ethics is the fact that he does murder inmates in order to collect their most prized body parts.  Tarmut the sculptor, for instance, is killed for his hands.  In the case of Durendel, meanwhile, Victor drives the poor man to suicide in order to collect his brain.  Whatever kind of relative goodness we want to believe separates Frankenstein from Klauss, these acts of murder (there is no other word for it) undercut the sympathy we might have for Victor.  Sure, he's not a rapist in this film and he doesn't murder anyone for mere convenience as he did with Justine in Curse of Frankenstein, but nonetheless he is actually killing people in this film and in the case of Tarmut and Durendel they are seemingly very nice people.

As for Frankenstein's creature in this film it really is a creature.  It is not so much a monster from hell as a monster from a very large bath drain.  Herr Schneider is described as feral.  I think that's a real understatement.  Herr Schneider is as apelike as Mighty Joe Young.  (But the beast can be soothed with music--or rendered unconscious with a serious dose of chloroform.)
It's difficult to imagine what Frankenstein was thinking when he decided to use a hirsute beast as the base model for his cobbled together life form.  Even Frankenstein seems to acknowledge this when the beast is torn to pieces by a mob of inmates.  (The culmination of the film, mind you.)  The Baron shrugs it off says that it's "best thing that could have happened" and starts planning for a new experiment.  Simon and Sarah have the most priceless expressions as they realize that Frankenstein is simply shaking it off and moving on as if the entire "crisis" of the film was merely a bad inning and that there's still plenty of baseball to be played.   There is some ambiguity as to their enthusiasm for continuing to serve as Frankenstein's sidekicks as they seem to betray a sense of disbelief in Frankenstein's near delusional final monologue.  But on the other hand, with Klauss dead and Frankenstein now unrestricted in his control of the asylum that might be better than leaving things to the mob rule of the inmates or to whatever cruel and unusual new director the governing authorities might think to send in to replace Klauss.  There is every reason to believe that the outside world will not even notice Klauss's absence and will be content to not know anything about what goes on in the asylum.  (And once people go in they never come out.)

Klauss's death is the one act of justice in the film, but it is, like the tearing apart of the creature, an act of mob disorder.  Like other cases of "poetic justice" or "street justice" we have to have a certain civilized revulsion at it even when it is somehow satisfying because we "know" the "truth" about the character.  Certainly the mob of inmates at the asylum know plenty about Klauss's abuses.  They might have every moral right to take out vengeance for the wrongs done unto them.  It may be ethically compromised but at least the audience and characters are all aware that Klauss has it coming.  The creature is certainly violent, but does it really deserve to be torn into pieces?  Frankenstein is right in the sense that it is certainly a convenient way of ending the experiment and the creature will no longer threaten anyone.  But the creature, while achieving cleverness, does not really seem to have awareness of right and wrong, just feral rage.  Frankenstein, on the other hand, actually murders at least one person (and has probably done away with many more) driven some others to death and is even at the end of the film planning more murders.  He is delusional enough to think of the murders as involuntary organ and tissue donations.  To his credit, though, Frankenstein does his best to conceal the actual murders from Simon and Sarah (thus insulating them from complete complicity).  And his affection for Sarah and Simon seems to be genuine and paternal.

Simon and Sarah are complicit in the criminal aspect of Frankenstein activities now that they are fully aware of what he's up to.   We have no idea about their level of cooperation with the Baron in the future, but they really don't have any escape.  Of course, the trio will probably rule the asylum in a more benevolent fashion than Klauss, but Frankenstein is still planning to kill more people.  That's what leaves us with a sense of unease as the film closes.  As a valedictory film in the Hammer Frankenstein franchise Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell is a fine example of non-closure.  There is no burning castle, no execution, no disastrous plunge from a great height.  There's just the eternal tinkerer going back to the drawing board to keep working on his "science."

Cast
Baron Victor Frankenstein -- Peter Cushing
Dr. Simon Helder -- Shane Briant
Adolff Klauss -- John Stratton
Sarah Klauss -- Madeline Smith
Herr Schneider, The Creature -- David Prowse
Durendel -- Charles Lloyd Pack
Tarmut -- Bernard Lee
Transient -- Michael Ward
Wild One -- Elsie Wagstaff
Ernst -- Philip Voss
Hans -- Chris Cunningham
Old Hag -- Lucy Griffiths
Muller -- Sydney Bromley
Brassy Girl -- Andrea Lawrence
Gerda -- Sheila D'Union
Smiler -- Norman Atkyns
Twitch -- Mischa De La Motte
Letch -- Victor Woolf
Mouse -- Winifred Sabine
Chatter -- Janet Hargreaves
Aggressive -- Gordon Richardson
Death Wish -- Nicholas Smith
Bodysnatcher -- Patrick Troughton
Police Sergeant -- Norman Mitchell
Judge -- Clifford Mollison
Landlord -- Jerold Wells
Coach Driver -- Peter Madden
Inmates -- Hugh Cecil, Ron Eagleton, Lianne Gilmore, Beatrice Greek, Toni Harris, Peter Macpherson

Music by James Bernard
Cinematography by Brian Probyn

Special Features
1. Commentary by Jonathan Sothcott, Madeline Smith & David Prowse
This is a gentle and genial commentary with authoritative moderation by Sothcott.   Prowse and Smith are quite affectionate and friendly and Sothcott keeps the commentary informative without being overly intrusive.  Everybody loved Peter Cushing.  Director Terence Fisher was a serious alcoholic and this was his final film.  (But he was also a very nice man.)

Frankenstein Must Still Be Destroyed

Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969)
Directed by Terence Fisher
Screenplay by Bert Batt

A second look at this Hammer production makes me think I had underrated it before.  For one thing, this film actually revolves around the notion that the brains Frankenstein transplants retain their memories and personalities even after surgery.  Having retained that memory, the "creature" of this film also bears a distinct grudge against the Baron.  In this iteration Frankenstein is not so much creating life as prolonging it or resurrecting it in some ways.  Thus, the Baron is not responsible for the generation of a new soul but must instead contend with a pre-existing personality.

One thing that remains consistent is the Baron's megalomania and singleminded pursuit of his quest for the source of life.  As in Hammer's earliest adaptation The Curse of Frankenstein the Baron is not above pursuing desires of the flesh.  By contemporary standards the scene where Victor Frankenstein rapes Anna Spengler is not particularly graphic, but the intent is still brutal.  I can see how the directness of the violent action would be disconcerting to those having to perform the scene, especially if the backstory of its addition to the film is to be believed.  But like the earlier incarnation's treatment of the relationship of Frankenstein and his servant Justine, Victor's rape of Anna is perfectly in keeping with a character who has no regard for the lives of others.  And it is quite in keeping with a Victor Frankenstein who is already morally bankrupt at the beginning of the film. 

The film commences with Victor lopping off the heads of unsuspecting Germans.  Thus, Frankenstein is no longer content robbing graves but instead starts off as a serial murderer.  Any pretense of a scientific desire for knowledge is utterly lost.   This is not the story of a person who means well but gets caught using bad means for a good purpose.  Here, Victor is already just running around murdering people to collect body parts.   In this film he doesn't even get close to pursuing his original task of creating life.  He's just doing what he can to crack open the addled brain of Dr. Brandt in order to get a key piece of scientific information that he needs to continue in his experiments.  It's the ultimate red herring of a plot device because as far as anyone knows Brandt's information could be a dead end (though Brandt reveals it to be useful later) and even with Brandt's secret all Frankenstein gets is another piece of the puzzle that combined with his own knowledge might (might, mind you) lead to new discoveries.  

From a structural standpoint, there's a lot to be said for this lowering of stakes.  Instead of a ridiculous world killing death ray with a ticking clock what we have is a much more scientifically realistic scenario.  One person desires something that when combined with something else could lead to another thing.  The thing itself does not have to be earth-shattering.   It is the desire for the thing that leads people to kill for it.  The possibility that the thing itself isn't worth killing people for doesn't make the story stupid, it makes the murdering much more poignant if also absurd.  (e.g. The Maltese Falcon.)  In this film Frankenstein (and the writers) seem to have forgotten why Frankenstein was experimenting to begin with.  It hardly seems to matter anymore. 

What makes this film interesting is that the moral complexity is heightened by the fact that the most sympathetic characters (Anna and Karl) are themselves ethically compromised.  Karl is stealing drugs from his job to sell on the black market.  He is doing this to help his fiancee Anna pay for the expensive healthcare for Anna's mother.  It is an obvious parallel to Frankenstein's original premise of helping cure the world of death with his experiments.   Anna and Karl are a microcosmic version of the Baron.  They are trying to save one life.  For that they need money.  Anna's boarding house and Karl's job presumably provide barely enough income to keep Anna and Karl financially secure.  Anna's mother has no doubt exhausted any savings that might have existed and so there is an income gap when it comes to providing for her care.  She could be relegated to lesser forms of care, but we are assured that anything less than what she is currently getting will put her on the road to termination but that if Karl and Anna can keep the money flowing Anna's mother will not only survive but steadily improve.   It's a real ethical conundrum.   Anna and Karl are both essentially employed full time.  Anna has her hands full keeping the boarding house in good order.  Karl is working full time at the psychiatric institution.   There are few ways for them to make enough money to make up the difference.  There are certainly some legal options open to them for some added income (grow some potatoes in the garden?)  but we're not talking about significant supplementary income.   The only other obvious (and also illegal) way of supplementing their income is for Anna or Karl to sell their own bodies to willing customers.  And it's not like these folks are living in the early 19th century version of Las Vegas where they could sell themselves to real high rollers.  We're talking middle class Germany and Anna is a respectable woman.  Even if we were to believe she could take up something less than prostitution (some form of Lutheran exotic dancing?)  it would be something considered unsavory enough to potentially jeopardize her income from the boarding house.  Anna's rent from boarders is entirely dependent on the perceived respectability of her house.

This is the part where some sort of health care reform would have been very useful.  If Anna's mother had access to some sort of national health care program her daughter would not have to become an accessory to illegal narcotic trafficking.  Insofar as we might imagine a rich tradition of charitable institutions and programs in Western Europe they seem to be of no use to Anna's mother who needs full time specialized medical care.  The private sphere has no desire to reduce the financial burden on Anna's mother and thus on Anna.  It's the triumph of the free market.  The free market has created an incentive for people to provide the specialized medical care that Anna's mother needs but don't they deserve to profit from their own investment and labor?   Of course, if Anna and Karl don't sell stolen drugs then they can't afford the expensive medical care and Anna's mother will deteriorate and die and thus provide no financial benefit to the providers of that health care.  Their customer will die. 
The free market doesn't care. 

So what's the point of this digression.  Only to point out that there is a structural villain in this story that is worse than Victor Frankenstein.  The free market system which provides no relief to people in life or death situations such as medical care (and the state which has absented itself from the issue entirely) are the villains that force Anna and Karl into the abject choice of crime in order to get money, sell off what little capital they own thus destroying their own future to save Anna's mother, or to do nothing and let Anna's mother die.  It is an impossible moral and ethical choice for them.  They make the choice that turns them into criminals (thus the least ethical choice) but it is also the most morally acceptable choice since it is the only choice that doesn't condemn someone to either death or grinding poverty.  Of course, its still not a good choice because the black market narcotics are no doubt also going to ruin some lives.   But this wouldn't have to be the case if there was a means of subsidizing those who need life-saving medical care.   It would seem to be the most moral choice.  
But in the world of this story nobody wants to provide that assistance.

Anna and Karl's ethical impurity makes them vulnerable to Victor Frankenstein's blackmail.  Victor then forces Anna to evict the other tenants of the boarding house thus making her completely dependent on, and at the mercy of, Frankenstein.  Karl is blackmailed into assisting Frankenstein in larceny and in the course of acquiring medical supplies Karl murders a security guard.   Karl is now completely compromised ethically.  His motivations no longer matter.  He is now complicit in Frankenstein's crimes.  Victor and Karl collaborate to medically murder Professor Richter, whose body is used as a vessel for Dr. Brandt's brain.   Professor Richter's brain is considered of insufficient value for Frankenstein to attempt to keep alive.

Brandt in the form of the Creature (with Richter's body) seems to be less morally or ethically compromised than any of the other characters.  Of course, Brandt was involved in the same sort of forbidden experimentation as Baron Frankenstein, but Brandt had the good grace to go completely mad upon gazing upon discovering forbidden knowledge.  Restored to his senses, Brandt makes no compromise with Frankenstein and sees the swapping of brain and body as nothing more than abomination.  (And useless abomination since Brandt's wife rejects him in the new body so he has no personal happiness to gain from Frankenstein's act.)  In fact the only use that Brandt has in Richter's body is to provide Frankenstein with the information he desires.  (It is probable that Frankenstein would dispose of Brandt once he was no longer of scientific use.)

Ella Brandt is certainly sympathetic even as the situation forces her to become something of a structural antagonist for the audience.   Since we spend most of our time with Karl and Anna they are our protagonists structurally.  We are sympathetic with Anna when she is trying to conceal Dr. Brandt's discarded body and before that when she is trying to keep Frau Brandt from discovering Frankenstein's presence.  Ella is not at fault for her disbelief when her husband comes to their house in another man's body.  It is hardly credible.  Similarly, we cannot fault her for imagining that her husband is dead when she identifies his body buried in Anna's garden.  It is what makes Brandt's attempt to communicate with her that much more poignant.

Does Anna have to die?  It depends on the reason for it in the story.  It would seem that Anna's death serves to provide Karl with a burning desire for vengeance that matches Brandt's fury thus pitting Victor against two mortal enemies and with the police closing in to boot.  Anna is inherently sympathetic.  Her motives have been pure though her actions have led her to ruin.   She has at best been an accessory to the crimes and she does not take an active hand in the worst of them.  And having already destroyed her life Frankenstein also physically violates her.  She serves as a symbol of the reason why "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed."  But why should Karl live when Anna dies?  Is this some sort of sinister gender politics?  Karl has actually murdered at least one person and has effectively allowed another to die through the removal and discarding of his brain.  Also he has stolen drugs and sold them to traffickers.  It's certainly not a case of those who have been ethically compromised not being allowed to survive.  Karl survives...alone.  It's hard to imagine what his future will be.  Jail?  Execution? Any life Karl has from here on out is going to be with some tremendous emotional baggage, that's for sure.  The same baggage (and then some) would have been there for Anna if she could have survived the stabbing.  Anna never tells Karl about the rape.  Would she have told him?  If she had, what would his reaction have been in the short term and in the long term?  If she would not have told him what would that secret have done to her in the long run?  I don't know what the motive of the writer or director was in killing off Anna, but I hope it wasn't a retrograde trope of killing off the woman who has been somehow sullied. 

I would like to note again the sheer joy to be had in the comic bungling of Police Inspector Frisch in this film and the counterpoint of the clearly long-suffering sidekick Police Doctor.  The scene with the undertaker alone is worth paying the Hammer tax and watching this film more than once. 

Cast
Baron Victor Frankenstein -- Peter Cushing
Anna Spengler -- Veronica Carlson
Dr. Karl Holst -- Simon Ward
Dr. Frederick Brandt -- George Pravda
Ella Brandt -- Maxine Audley
Professor Richter -- Freddie Jones
Inspector Frisch -- Thorley Walters
Police Doctor -- Geoffrey Bayldon
Madwoman -- Colette O'Neil
Guest (Plumber) -- Frank Middlemass
Guest (Chess Player) -- George Belbin
Guest (Pipe Smoker) -- Norman Shelley
Guest (Newspaper Reader) -- Michael Gover
Dr. Heidecke -- Jim Collier

Cinematography by Arthur Grant
Music by James Bernard 

The Curse of Frankenstein Revisited

The Curse of Frankenstein (1957)
directed by Terence Fisher
written by Jimmy Sangster

Taking a recent second look at some of the old Hammer favorites I went back to the fountainhead of Hammer Horror, The Curse of Frankenstein because if you're going to watch the Hammer Horror Cycle you can't ignore the first one.

One thing I hadn't thought of in a long time was just how much of the film is spent in "doing science" and how little screen time the Creature gets.   If you keep a careful accounting of time you'll notice that the early events of the film move along at a leisurely pace but that once the monster is actually fully active things end pretty rapidly.   I'm sure there are some film schoolmasters who want to use this as an example of what not to do, but the actual result of this is that while action is delayed our investment in the characters is increased exponentially.   So much of this film is spent with people chatting that you can be forgiven for forgetting that there's human experimentation going on in the attic.

Speaking of human experimentation, the immorality of Frankenstein stood out more this time as did Victor's sense of class entitlement.   Young Victor is interested in science, but he's also a privileged brat.  That sense of aristocratic privilege comes back later when Victor refuses to marry the pregnant Justine.  He never has any intention of marrying her and in terms of his own legalistic sense of honor he never tells her he will marry her.  She states that he will be convinced "because of this..." and then kisses him.  He never gives any confirmation to her that her kiss (and anything that might follow) has convinced him to marry her.  It is, in fact, inconceivable that the haughty Victor would deign to sully his name with marriage to a chambermaid.  He is honor bound and class bound to marriage to Elizabeth.  

So, what to make of his dalliance with Justine?   On the one hand it gives the lie to the notion of Victor as being too wrapped up in his science to give thought to the issues of daily life.
It would be more accurate to say that science is his only passion, but that his relationship with Justine is the mere fulfillment of base physical demands.  For Victor, a dalliance with Justine is akin to having a sandwich for lunch.  Other incarnations of Frankenstein lean towards the absent-minded professor who might even forget the sandwich, but it's interesting that this Victor Frankenstein is human enough to pursue a sexual appetite in addition to his high-minded enlightenment pursuit of science and the secrets of life.  The fact that Victor and Justine have created life the old-fashioned way also stands in sharp relief to Victor's attempt to create life in a new and quite unnatural way.  Victor is already morally compromised by his treatment of Justine before he decides to lure her to her death and silence her attempt to blackmail him.  

Of course by the time Victor gets Justine killed by the Creature he has already murdered Professor Bernstein.  Paul Krempe might be considered morally complicit for not exposing Victor's activities (which would involve self-incrimination) but he gets a modicum of sympathy for attempting to save Elizabeth's reputation.  Is this a real concern, though?  Would Elizabeth's honor be dragged through the mud if Victor's grave robbing and other illegal activities are exposed?  Maybe, but what's more important is that Elizabeth is already known to be financially dependent on Victor.  Her marriage to Victor is in fact his payment for providing for the welfare of Elizabeth and her mother.  (So much for pure aristocratic honor and sense duty.  Victor doesn't provide for his aunt and cousin out of altruism but (in a very middle class mercantile way) expects recompense for that investment.  This also undercuts Victor's moral stature.   Paul knows that if the full range of Victor's illegal and immoral activities are exposed then his fortune might be forfeit and that would also hurt Elizabeth, who is completely innocent.  It is only when Elizabeth is in actual physical danger that Paul has no choice but to act.

Does Victor in any way redeem himself when faced with the Creature's attack on Elizabeth?  It seems that only then does he show that he might actually care about Elizabeth, but even then it is Paul who acts more effectively.  And Frankenstein is still morally and ethically responsible for once again reviving the Creature after its first murderous foray that resulted in the deaths of the old man and the young boy in the woods.   Paul, who knows enough of the story to corroborate Victor's prison confession refuses to do so.  While this leaves open the "insane nightmare" interpretation, it is just as likely that Paul sees no moral need to confirm Victor's narrative for the authorities when all relevant evidence has been destroyed and as it would not serve to save anyone, except for maybe Victor if he could convince a court that Justine's death was a regrettable accident.  Paul, who is already quite sure that Victor has gotten away with murder once and that Victor is responsible for any deaths caused by the creation and revival of the Creature, sees no cause to save his old friend by helping him weasel out of murder charges.  Paul may be concealing the full truth, but he is acting within an ethical code of protecting the innocent.  Elizabeth, the only truly innocent person in this film, is physically and financially safe now that Victor is bound for the guillotine.  Paul may have failed in teaching Victor ethics but he succeeds in saving at least one innocent from suffering because of Victor's single-minded desire.

Ultimately, Victor Frankenstein in this film is a single-minded megalomaniac.  He refuses to publish his early successes which might have been applied to improve medicine and save countless lives.  Paul sees the great potential for humanity in this, but Victor doesn't care about humanity.  Victor wants something else entirely: the godlike power of pure creation.  He is looking for the origin of life itself.  And he wants to have control over that.  And he's not looking for it in the name of any greater good.  He twists the pursuit of pure scientific discovery into something done entirely for personal aggrandizement, but what makes it exasperating is that even Victor seems to forget what the point of all that experimenting was in the first place.  For all his pursuit of personal greatness through discovering and harnessing the life force all that Victor really gets is the limited control over a monstrous creature.  His secrecy even prevents him from taking credit for any of the more useful incremental innovations that led up to his final experiment.  

And another issue is why does Victor think that a brain belonging to someone he murdered is going to be perfect for his creation?  Victor seems to place the blame of abnormality of the brain and Creature's murderous rage on the damage done to the brain when Paul struggles with him over it.   But even if the Bernstein's brain was completely undamaged wouldn't it carry the memory of the murder?  Victor's entire reason for using Bernstein's brain is that he is a great thinker at the height of his mental faculties.
Victor presumes that Bernstein's brain will retain all of that information and capability in its memory in the immediate aftermath of death.  But if the brain has its complete memory, wouldn't it also have the memory of its last moments?  For all his superior intelligence it seems that this does not occur to Victor. And it doesn't seem to occur to Paul, either, who could have used it to counter Victor's argument for using the brain.  In fact, this point is what drives the final act of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed where brains and bodies are switched, and it in fact is a feature of some of the original Universal Frankenstein sequels that featured a lot of Freaky Friday body/soul switches.  

A good cast is still worth repeating
Baron Victor von Frankenstein -- Peter Cushing
Elizabeth -- Hazel Court
Dr. Paul Krempe -- Robert Urquhart
The Creature -- Christopher Lee
Justine -- Valerie Gaunt
Professor Bernstein -- Paul Hardtmuth
Aunt Sophia -- Noel Hood
Young Victor -- Melvyn Hayes
Young Elizabeth -- Sally Walsh
Priest -- Alex Gallier
Grandpa -- Fred Johnson
Little Boy -- Claude Kingston

Music by James Bernard
Cinematography by Jack Asher

Snuff Motel

Vacancy (2007)
Directed by Nimrod Antal
Screenplay by Mark L. Smith

Vacancy covers a lot of familiar horror tropes in a competent way.  (I know that's not exactly a glowing review, but hey that's what happens when you're not on the studio dole.) We have a couple with relationship difficulties.   We have a detour through rural countryside on a road trip.    And we have a creepy motel. Yep, you probably feel like you've seen this film before but that feeling hasn't stopped you from watching every romantic comedy ever made so why should stop you from watching people go into a creepy motel where they are likely to be terrorized and murdered?

This is a film about love.  It's about a couple who have already decided to get a divorce but when terrorized and nearly murdered they ultimately reaffirm their love for each other.  Which is good, because if you and your spouse are being threatened to death by a bunch of hicks trying to make a snuff film and you hate your spouse more than the people trying to kill you then there's something wrong with you--or clearly there's something really wrong with your relationship.   In the case of David and Amy Fox their problems are deep but not insurmountable.   Nothing that can't be overcome with love and the impetus of survival in the face of massive danger.

The massive danger in this film is the commodification of death in the form of violent media.   The cultural critique here is aimed vaguely in the direction of our increasing appetite for real violence which keeps pushing us back toward the idea of snuff films.   In the great spirit of American entrepeneurship the management of this motel has worked a way to create and distribute snuff films--commodified violence.  You have to hand it to the spirit of American ingenuity.   The foreigners in Hostel sell their violence experience to an aristocratic wealthy elite.   The killers in Vacancy are much more democratic.  They create a violent experience that can be reproduced and sold to all classes.   If the idea occurs to the folks in Hostel they think better of it--for the owners of Elite Hunting it is better to do a steady business with the elite rich who will also keep their activities discreet.   For the folks running the motel in Vacancy it probably never occurs to them that they might find a sick bastard who will pay them to let them kill someone in their motel.

At any rate, it isn't the psychosis of an individual that puts The Foxes in danger.   (Yes, they are foxes which makes the killers fox hunters.   You're welcome for that British anti-foxhunting leagues.)  Their lives are ultimately put in peril because of greed and simple business.   Mason (I leave that name to the fans of Dan Brown to think about) and his accomplices are doing good old fashioned American business and the guests at the motel are just the dupes who keep the engine of industry rolling.   The Foxes are merely a commodity and the truck drivers stopping in to pick up a sandwich and some snuff videos are the customers whose willful demand keeps the merchants of motel death in operation.  

The media critique implicit in this film goes roughly like this:  Here we are slaving away making fake violence for you and it just isn't good enough for you, is it, you sick fucks?   No, you have to watch Cops or The Real Murderers of Bevery Hills because you hope to see a real person getting their head bashed into the sidewalk and when even that became stale for you along came the internet with all kinds of sick videos to keep you going.  What the hell is wrong with you people?  And there's an interesting question here about the social purpose of violent films.   Are they a safe means of cathartic release of violent tendencies?   Are they a gruesome means of confronting the idea of death--especially of the violent kind?   Or are they just an appetizer of violence that creates a need for more violence in an escalating pattern that will inevitable lead to Thunderdome?   In short, why do these truckers need to watch snuff films of people getting killed in a motel?   And wouldn't watching a film like The Strangers or, for instance, Vacancy be enough to satisfy them?  Apparently not.

At least this film solves doesn't posit killers who can walk through walls or have the ability to fold space.   The moteliers have a system of tunnels and entrances that serve both as their means of entry and also as our victims' means of escape thus not only serving to clean up a plot point but also to create plot possibilities.

I think one of the charms of this film is that despite the incredible odds against them David and Amy survive.  (Well, David is badly hurt, but I think it's safe to say that he's still alive at the end.)   That's a testament to their intelligence and to their will to survive.  Yes, indeed.  These crazy kids will live and because of that, maybe their marriage will survive as well.   Yep, it's a movie about the hardships of love and the strength that it requires to persevere and survive.

Maybe it's because I saw this immediately after The Strangers, but I found this to be a much more watchable film and thus I might even recommend it...if you're in the mood for a motel slasher film.

Dramatis Personae
Amy Fox.....Kate Beckinsale (Much Ado About Nothing, Cold Comfort Farm, Underworld, Van Helsing, The Aviator, Pearl Harbor, Republicans Get in My Vagina) You had me at Kate Beckinsale.
David Fox....Luke Wilson (The Royal Tenenbaums, Rushmore, Bottle Rocket, Idiocracy)
Mason, the motel manager....Frank Whaley (Pulp Fiction, The Doors, Born on the Fourth of July, Field of Dreams, Hoffa, Swing Kids)
Mechanic.....Ethan Embry (CSI: Miami, Fairly Legal, House, Brotherhood, Fear Itself, Eagle Eye, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Masters of Horror, Numb3rs, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Timeline, LA Dragnet, Sweet Home Alabama, Vegas Vacation, That Thing You Do, Empire Records, Harts of the West)  He spends much of the film wearing a mask, which has to be a bit thankless.
Killer....Scott G. Anderson (Titanic, Touched by an Angel, Vacancy 2)
Truck Driver....Mark Casella (Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Joe Gould's Secret, Cop Land, St. Elsewhere, Scarecrow & Mrs. King, MASH, Simon & Simon, CHiPS, Hill Street Blues, NYPD Blue)
Highway Patrol....David Doty (Weeds, Scrubs, Dollhouse, Seabiscuit, Wyatt Earp, Caroline in the City, The Golden Girls, Empry Nest, JAG, Never Been Kissed, Mumford, The West Wing, Star Trek: Voyager, Malcolm in the Middle, The X-Files, Six Feet Under, Spin City, The Drew Carey Show, The Practice, Minority Report, Down with Love, Nancy Drew, Childrens Hospital, Bad Teacher)
Snuff Victims....Norm Compton (Magnum, PI, Jake and the Fatman, The Big Tease, 24, 8mm, The Replacement Killers, The Fan, Hot Shots Part Deux)
Caryn Mower (Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charmed, Crossing Jordan, CSI, Ally McBeal, V.I.P., Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl, Dead Man's Chest, The Office, Parks and Recreation, 24, NCIS: Los Angeles, Community)
Meegan E. Godfrey (How I Met Your Mother, Criminal Minds, Pushing Daisies, Monk, Desperate Housewives, Dexter, CSI: Miami, General Hospital, Law & Order: LA)
Kim Stys (Angel, Monk, NCIS, My Name is Earl, Sons & Daughters, CSI: Miami, Californication, Piranha, House, Justified, The Mentalist)
Ernest Misko (The Big Valley, Wild Wild West, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari)
Bryan Ross (Sex and Death 101, The Longest Yard, Grandma's Boy, Obsessed)
Chuck Lamb (ThanksKilling, Stiffs, Horrorween)
Snuff Guy #3....Richie Varga (Eraser, Melrose Place, Weird Science (TV))
Snuff Guy #4....Cary Wayne Moore (The Donner Party, Gilmore Girls, Justified, Hart of Dixie)
Steven R......Andrew Fiscella (The Hard Times of RJ Berger, House, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Prom Night, CSI: NY, Without a Trace, Law & Order, Law & Order: Criminal Intent)
Brenda B.....Dale Waddington (Castle, Monk, Grey's Anatomy, Desperate Housewives, iCarly, Mad Men, The Closer, Important Things w/Demetri Martin, The Young and the Restless, Criminal Minds)

Original Music by Paul Haslinger (Crank, Turistas, Blue Crush, Underworld, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans, Underworld: Awakening)
Cinematography by Andrzej Sekula (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction, American Psycho, Cousin Bette, Four Rooms)

Special Features
1. Alternate Opening Sequence
I think the crime scene opening gives away too much without adding anything that interesting to the film.   Plus, it breaks the mood of a film that is mostly set at night.
2. Checking In: the Cast & Crew of Vacancy
Pretty standard promo stuff.   Nimrod Antal comes off as an intelligent director and the scenic component is very nice to see in action.
3. Mason's Video Picks: Extended Snuff Films
It's a little awkward watching these fake snuff films.   They seem almost mundane, which is the point.
But there's something too perfectly meta about watching these things.   I think I would have liked them better if there was some sort of commentary that explained the scenarios that had been concocted (if any) for the victims in these fake motel snuff films.   That would have been interesting.
4. Raccoon Encounter
I'll admit that this deleted bit probably sold me on this film.   I know it might have destroyed the tone of the film had it been included, but the fact that they left it on the disc is encouraging in terms of the imagination of the filmmakers.  The setup is that David swerves to miss a raccoon on the road and thus the car falls into difficulties.   Later when David stops to take a leak by the side of the road he is startled by...a raccoon.   If they could have thrown the raccoons into the motel as well that would have been awesome.
5. Previews
Coming to Blu-Ray
Things that have already come to Blu-Ray.
30 Days of Night
Vampires in the polar regions.   The soundtrack for this trailer makes it one of the best ever.
Resident Evil: Extinction
Umbrella Corp in Vegas.
Vantage Point
I've seen so many trailers for this that I feel I don't need to see the film itself.  I'll stick with the vantage point of not seeing this movie.
I Know Who Killed Me
I don't care who killed you.
Revolver
Another Guy Ritchie film with Jason Statham.  I'm not saying the Ritchiverse is not good, but everything does seem to run together in my head now.
Perfect Stranger
Based on the 1980s sitcom Perfect Strangers.  Not a good adaptation.
Rise: Blood Hunter
Another vampire movie.  It's like Blade only with Lucy Liu.
Hostel Part II
See the review from earlier.  A film that is better than I had imagined.
Bobby Z
Paul Walker, Laurence Fishburne and Olivia Wilde.  Vaguely interested by the cast, uninterested by the plot.
Fearnet.Com
Whenever I see a website trailer I always feel like it must already be defunct by now, but apparently fearnet is still up and running...running on fear, that is.

FILE UNDER:  HORROR/SLASHER/RURAL/MOTEL MURDERERS

No Exit?

The Strangers (Unrated) (2008)
Directed by Bryan Bertino
Screenplay by Bryan Bertino

In this film very loosely based on The Stranger by Albert Camus a pair of attractive people are terrorized and then mostly murdered by some strangers.   If the unknown and the inexplicable are the source of much of our fear then the unaccounted for is just annoying.   The crucial moment in understanding the philosophy of this film comes near the very end when the victims ask why they are being terrorized and the killers respond with "Because you were home."  That's cold.   And if the film wasn't riddled with unnecessary cheap scares and a bloated notion of suspense then maybe it would have earned that line a little better, though I'm not sure what it means to "earn" nihilism.

The Strangers started out with some promise as a film about a relationship that has gone sour.
I think this may be the resurrection of an old trope in horror films where the terror of the outside reflects what was initially an inner turmoil in key relationships of the terrorized.   (The Shining, anyone?).
In The Strangers we start with James and Kristen driving home from a wedding reception to his family's remote vacation home where he thought he'd be celebrating his own engagement with Kristen.
But she rejected him.  Maybe the sound was too low maybe it doesn't matter but I still don't understand why she shot down his proposal.   Maybe it's because she had seen Underworld.   I would have said that this film has the most awkward driver/passenger pair in recent film history, but then the road trip couple in Vacancy really gave this one a run for its money in the uncomfortability category.

Having been shot down by Liv Tyler (an experience which suddenly gives him an everyman quality) James sinks his despair in a tub of ice cream.   But before we can sympathize with him for too long he and Kristen start to have some slightly awkward sad sex.   But then comes the murderous interreptus when there's a creepy knock at the door that prevents them from continuing.    From this point on the couple are at the mercy of the mask wearing slow-kill trio of murderers.

The first stupid thing that happens here is that James leaves the house to go for a drive.   Notwithstanding the little bit of ice cream that he had he's already been drinking and just killed a bottle of champagne.  I know the relationship has become awkward what with the whole rejection of marriage thing but still, there's no excuse for letting James go for a drive when he's been drinking....especially when he's upset.   I understand his impetus for wanting to get out of the room, but taking a drive to the corner store for some smokes is really a bad idea given the time of night.

The next stupid thing that happens is that the killers seem to have unfettered access to some sort of permeable (and very quiet) wall that lets them get into and out of the house at will without making any noise unless they want to make it.   The rest of the film consists of a series of cheap scares designed to frighten James and Kristen (and the audience) without actually going in for the kill.   The killers are so unconcerned that they play on a swingset and loll around the grounds.

The victims, meanwhile are completely incompetent.  Now, we have to believe that this house is isolated because it's a vacation community in the off-season.  That explains the reason no other house can be appealed to for safety.   But surely the victims could have tried to break into one of the other houses.  (They do have plenty of time.)  Maybe one of the other houses has an alarm, or a working telephone, or a shovel to crack over the heads of one of the three most complacent killers you could ever hope to find.   There's no excuse for the level of imcompetence that James and Kristen show in the face of a ludicrously inefficient home invasion.  The "strangers" don't just bust down the door and tie up their victims.  In fact, the victims have frequent opportunities to run outside.  The inefficiency of the killers is highlighted by the fact that they don't even get to the actual stabbing part until well after sunup.  And, in one of the most ridiculous endings of all time it appears as though Kristen survives at the end despite the loss of most of her blood, which means that for all of their work in terrorizing the "strangers" only manage to kill one person and cause the death of another.   (That would be the poor schmuck played by Glenn Howerton who takes a shotgun blast in the face from James when he is mistaken for one of the killers.)   The only reason for opening Liv Tyler's eyes at the very end is for a cheap scare.  You assume she's dead so when the little kid goes over to her you don't expect her to open her terrified eyes.   The reason you assume she's dead is because they stab her in much the same way they stab and kill Scott Speedman's character and he is definitely dead.

This last moment is in keeping with the ethos of the rest of the film where Bertino seems more than willing to sacrifice storytelling or a sense of consistent universe in favor of individual scares and set-pieces.  I don't give a two-tone fig about realism, but having killers who enter and exit the house for no reason other than to set up a scary moment is beyond senseless.  And if I could bring myself to believe that the idea was to present something bizarre or absurd then maybe I'd go along for the ride.   But instead I have the feeling that it's the cheap scare driving the car here and it takes away from the story.
I know I'm supposed to be horrified by the senseless and cruel violence of the "strangers" but instead I'm just annoyed by their terrible inefficiency as killers.  It's one thing for the killer whale to toss the seal up into the air a couple of times.  It's another for it to swallow the seal and then spit it back out and bite it again.   That's what seems to be happening in this film.  I'd have thought by now that gruesome murderous psychopathic Americans would have achieved a higher level of ability by now, but The Strangers shows that even the most creative fictional murderers seem to turn out to be rank amateurs when it comes down to it.   I'll put it this way:  if you put the "strangers" up against the murderers from any of a number of other horror films these "killers" would be dead before the opening credits roll by.

I'm not saying that The Strangers is an unwatchable Uwe Boll film.  But I'm a little miffed at the way the set-piece of the house is set up.   It would have been a lot more interesting to find out that the killers had the ability to walk through walls--and it would have explained a lot.  Instead it's just plain dumb.  The Strangers take an entire night to terrorize a couple of people.  I'm not creeped out by this film so much as annoyed by it.   I'll say it again:  the killers in this film took an hour and a half to stab two people when they had almost supernatural ability to come and go from the house for the entire time of their terror jaunt.   I suppose you could say that it's terrifying to be toyed with like that, but for an audience it's excruciatingly dull when you think about it.   And as for the "based on true events" pile of hooey--well, just stop it.  Seriously.  I HAVE HAD IT UP TO HERE (POINTS TO AN IMAGINARY LINE SOMEWHERE ON HIS UPPER TORSO)  WITH THE FAKE "BASED ON A TRUE STORY" TITLE CARDS.   PLEASE STOP PRETENDING THAT THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED.  

The Strangers is well made and glossy and full of cheap scares with unmotivated terror that is not so much unremitting as uninspired.   In short, this film is like a ten dollar grilled cheese sandwich.  It's a pretty sandwich but it's a bit expensive for what it is.  

Horrificus Personae
James Hoyt, a guy....Scott Speedman (Underworld, Felicity)  You should have stayed with Felicity, then you woudn't have been stabbed by this gang of shock-teases.  
Kristen McKay, his girlfriend....Liv Tyler (Lord of the Rings, Empire Records, Stealing Beauty, The Incredible Hulk, Robot and Frank) If you're a fan of Liv Tyler then this film will satisfy you with some quality screen time.  
Mike, James's brother/friend?....Glenn Howerton (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Serenity, Crank, Crank: High Voltage, Unsupervised, The Cleveland Show, Glenn Martin DDS, ER, That '80s Show)  Man, you're only in this movie long enough to take a shotgun blast to the face.   Such a shame.
Man in the Mask, the leader of this murder outfit?....Kip Weeks (Glory Road, American Primitive, A Girl, a Guy, and a Space Helmet)
Dollface.....Gemma Ward (The Black Balloon, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, The Great Gatsby)
Pin-Up Girl....Laura Margolis (Dirty Sexy Money, Monk, Masters of Horror, Friends, The Drew Carey Show, The Ballad of Danko Jones)
Mormon Boy #1....Alex Fisher
Mormon Boy #2....Peter Clayton-Luce (Neither of these characters are particularly Mormon.  They're too young to be on a mission and the pamphlets they're carrying are of inderminate Christian material.  It's a small matter, but why call them Mormons?)

Director of Photography....Peter Sova (Tin Men, Good Morning, Vietnam, Donnie Brasco, The Proposition, Wicker Park, Lucky Number Slevin, Push)

Previews
1. The Incredible Hulk
Oh look, it's another film with Liv Tyler.  
2. The Scorpion King 2
What makes me sad is that I know I'll break down and see this film at some point.
3. Hellboy II
And somehow I've still managed to avoid seeing this film.  
4. The Incredible Hulk TV Series
The Strangers would have been a lot better if Bixby's Hulk had shown up to give the killers a thrashing.

Bonus Features
1. Deleted Scenes
James Reflects At The Bar
I'm not sure what the point of this scene was.   It doesn't add much to the character and it certainly isn't all that interesting.   And I'm sure one reason that it is deleted is that it might point to the possibility that James shouldn't be driving at any point in this film.
Bathroom Discussion
This one seems more to the point of explaining the James and Kristen's relationship though in some ways it explores their relationship without making things clear.  
2. The Elements of Terror
A typical promo piece.   There are some interesting aspects of the set and the filming that might be worth a look but it's not much of a learning experience compared to listening to an Eli Roth commentary or getting a behind the scenes look at something truly fascinating.