V/H/S hits UK screens this week. It’s title will invoke a pang of nostalgia for some, recalling a time when rewinding and tracking was an indispensable part of watching a movie. It recalls the time of the video nasty. There’s something inherently sinister about the video format – something to the grain, the warping, the low resolution that can make the innocuous look really quite sinister.
But there’s something else that’s really nostalgic about V/H/S: its structure. V/H/S is not one film but several short films linked by a ‘wraparound’ narrative. A bunch of lawless ‘youths’ are out for kicks and break into the home of a reclusive old man, only to discover that the man has passed away and that his home is filled with hundreds of mysterious video cassettes. The tales contained on this tapes make up the movie.
The horror anthology is an old idea, and has been a staple of horror cinema since the very beginning. Eerie Tales (1919) and The Living Dead (aka Ghastly Tales (1932) were black-and-white patchworks composed mainly from short stories by Edgar Allan Poe. But the horror anthology as we now recognise it – or the ‘portmanteau’ – really emerged from the shadows and transformed into a definite form during the middle decades of the 20th century.
Below are some of the best and most memorable examples the genre had to offer, from the sublime to the silly to the inevitable homage. The form is, as you’d expect, something of a ‘mixed bag’, with usually one or two standout segments, combined with more forgettable offerings. They tend to be less sexualised and decadent than the output of Hammer – the studio that really dominated horror on film during the period – but the films of Amicus had a reserve and a sardonic approach to horror which has arguably aged better.
But before we delve into the catalogue of one British studio in particular, it would be remiss of me – your humble narrator – to overlook one film which continues to cast a long and sinister shadow over this charming, something-for-everyone sub-genre… that film, of course, is Dead of Night.
Number of Stories: 5
Best Segment: Ventriloquist’s Dummy
Maxwell Frere is a highly-skilled ventriloquist. His dummy Hugo acts so realistically, what is Maxwell’s secret? The fantastical suggestion is that Hugo might even have a life of his own. Hugo starts to think that his partnership with Maxwell is holding him back, fraternising with a rival performer named Silvester. Things quickly fall apart for the duo, and Maxwell is imprisoned for the murder of Silvester. But most will remember the film for its closing moments in which Maxwell confronts the supposedly inanimate Hugo one last time.
British horror in the mid-twentieth century will forever be associated with the House of Hammer, but there was a studio that briefly rivalled its monopoly: Amicus. One of the studio's co-founders, Milton Subotsky, was a huge fan of Ealing's Dead of Night, and that love would shape a lot of the studio's output. Starting with...
Wraparound: 5 men are on a train headed to London, when a mysterious sixth man enters their carriage. His name is Doctor Schreck (German for terror), and he proceeds to tell the fate of each man using Tarot cards.
Number of Stories: 5
Best Segment: Maybe not the most tense but certainly one of the weirdest, the second story is all about Bill Rogers who returns home to find a vine has started to grow in his family’s garden. He tries to cut it down, but the vine seems to have a mind of its own and reacts violently. It’s part John Wyndham, but also brings to mind a memorable section from Creepshow starring Stephen King, and that scene from the Evil Dead. Wonderfully weird stuff.
Number of stories: 4
Best Segment: ‘The Cloak’… Jon Pertwee plays a famous horror movie actor who moves into the house. He’s landed the role of a vampire in his latest movie, and in his quest for authenticity wishes to buy a new cape for the occasion. But on the set of his latest movie, he slowly discovers that vampires might not just be the stuff of ancient legend. The segment is also worth noting for its cheeky swipe at rival Hammer, as Pertwee identifies Bela Lugosi as his favourite Dracula, not that ‘new fella’ (Christopher Lee).
Number of Stories: 5
Best Segment: ...And All Through the House
I think this is my absolute favourite section from any portmanteau film ever made. All the stories in the film were inspired by classic tales from EC Comics, the famous horror books that led to a well-publicised moral panic. In keeping with the source material, each one can be read as grimly funny morality tales. Joanne Clayton (played by Joan Collins) decides to murder her husband on Christmas Eve, as their child dreams of presents upstairs. She spends the night before Christmas trying to dispose of the body, but hears on the radio that a crazed murderer has escaped from a nearby institution.
Merry bloody Christmas!
Over the next ten minutes or so, she is terrorised by a mad man dressed as Father Christmas. She can’t ring the police without revealing her own crimes. I’ll save the finale, so you can savour it for yourself. Watch it next Christmas Eve to maximise the effect.
Number of Stories: 4
Best Segment: An Act of Kindness
Christopher Lowe leads a life of quiet desperation: boring marriage matched only by his equally boring job. His son doesn’t respect him. He lives for nothing. But he soon makes friends with Jim Underwood (played wonderfully by Donald Pleasence), an old war hero who sells matches and other essentials on a street corner. Lowe begins to lie in a pathetic attempt to impress his only friend; he even buys a medal to sell the illusion. Lowe visits Underwood’s home and falls in love with his rather peculiar daughter, Emily. Voodoo and some gruesome murder follow, with a deliciously unexpected conclusion.
It seems fitting that a feature about horror anthologies should have an epilogue of its very own.
While Amicus may have become synonymous with the portmanteau form despite producing more standard fare, the format didn’t die with the studio. But since that heyday, as good as V/H/S occasionally is, the best horror anthology for me is The League of Gentleman's Christmas Special.
Hello, Dave...
Wraparound: The League's gruff, chain-smoking vicar Bernice Woodall receives three visitors on Christmas Eve. Each one is seeking guidance of a different sort. By the end of the episode, Bernice faces her childhood nightmare.
Number of Stories: 3
Best Segment: It's hard to pick just one. The first is a riff on the From Beyond The Grave story mentioned above, blending marital frustration with voodoo. Meanwhile, the final segment is a wonderfully whimsical Victorian tale, drawing strongly on W.W. Jacob's classic ghost story The Monkey's Paw. But I think for pure horror, the second is the best: the vampire of Duisburg. It centres on Herr Lipp – the tragic repressed homosexual – in his native Germany. Its genuinely funny and genuinely terrifying, demonstrating just how close humour and horror really are.
Daniel is IGN's UK Staff Writer. You can be part of the world's worst cult by following him on IGN and Twitter.
Source : ign[dot]com
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