The Stone Tape (1972)

A TV movie that has rightly been praised by horror fans over the decades since it was first shown, The Stone Tape is another excellent blending of science and the supernatural from the pen of Nigel Kneale.

The plot revolves around a research team who move into an old house in order to start working on a major project. Things change, however, when Jill (Jane Asher) witnesses a ghost, leading the team director (Peter Brock, played by Michael Bryant) to start investigating the phenomenon. As they use every measuring instrument at their disposal, including themselves, it soon becomes clear that the building holds some psychic impressions within its walls (the stone tape of the title).

Okay, if you're watching this for the first time nowadays then you have to bear in mind that this was made for TV in the early 1970s. It isn't a polished work, it doesn't often move outwith the main rooms/house that the team are working in, and there are some moments that absolutely clang with how dated they are (in terms of the attitudes of the characters and the language of the medium, no pun intended). What it IS is an intelligent and creepy story that takes time to establish the motivations of various characters and allows the plot to unfold in an unforced and logical way.

Director Peter Sasdy is a dependable pair of hands, having worked on many TV shows and a few enjoyable movies (with Countess Dracula being a highlight), and he excels in his role here by working with a great cast and allowing Kneale's dialogue to build and build on the way to a genuinely interesting and unsettling finale.

Asher has to play her character as a fragile woman from start to finish, more receptive to things than anyone else and always a jittery bag of nerves, but she does what she's asked to do well. Bryant has to be the blunt obsessive, doing whatever it takes to dive further and further into unknown territory, which could lead to dire consequences. Iain Cuthbertson, Michael Bates, and a few others round out the main cast, and it's always interesting to see James Cosmo as a relatively young man.

I may not find it the very best from Kneale (as a Quatermass fan, that will always have the top spot for me) and it's not even my favourite science-based take on the haunted house subgenre (that would be The Legend Of Hell House), but The Stone Tape deserves a lot of the praise it has had heaped upon it. It's atmospheric, interesting, intriguingly plausible, and intelligent. And you don't always get all of those things coming together in works of horror.

8/10

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The Masque Of The Red Death (1964)

A film that remains, arguably, the high point of Roger Corman's career, The Masque Of The Red Death is a fine adaptation of material by Edgar Allan Poe. Vincent Price gives another fantastic turn in the lead role, the supporting cast all do great work, and the whole thing has a style and mix of the fantastical with the genuinely horrifying that should please most horror fans.

Europe is plagued by the "Red Death" and nobody is safe from it. Prince Prospero (Vincent Price) is a cruel man who is determined to keep himself healthy and alive, and so decides to throw a ball for invited guests at his death-free castle. He believes that his home is a refuge from the plague, although it is not a refuge that he is willing to share with everyone. Will everyone stay safe? Even young Francesca (Jane Asher), a young woman taken by Prospero from a local village for his amusement?

Dripping with gorgeous little touches in almost every scene, and chock full of great lines of dialogue (with Charles Beaumont and R. Wright Campbell being the men responsible for the script), this is a treat from start to finish for anyone allowing themselves to relax and soak up the whole experience. It's atmospheric, often quite bizarre, and all anchored by that rich Price performance.

While the leading man is the main attraction, in terms of the cast, he's not the only one doing a sterling job. Asher does well in her scenes, a sweet and innocent individual stuck in a terrible situation, and Hazel Court is mesmerising as the wicked woman, Juliana, who wants to be by Prospero's side. Patrick Magee as the selfish Alfredo (who ends up involved in the most memorable scene in the film). David Weston is the least interesting of the main characters, as Gino, but he's easy to root for as he sets out to rescue the lovely Francesca from Prospero's castle.

Although most horror fans are aware of, and praise, the Roger Corman movies that were developed from the works of Poe, it's still quite a pleasant surprise to revisit his earlier works and see just how different that output was compared to the many b-movies and creature features he has lent his name to in recent years.

It's a great shame that Corman transformed himself over the years, from a canny artist who had great business savvy into a businessman who buried any art in the quest to provide audiences with simple pleasures, but it's hard to criticise a man too much who has provided me with movies as enjoyable as this one before also, in his capacity as producer, providing me with schlock as enjoyable as Sharktopus.

9/10

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The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

AKA The Creeping Unknown.

I first encountered the character of Professor Quatermass many years ago, when I first saw the superb Quatermass And The Pit. He was played in that movie by Andrew Keir and back when I was a young boy I didn't even realise the history of the character. I didn't know that he'd been introduced to people in radio dramas and then television and I wasn't even aware of this film, the first to feature the character on the big screen.

Anyway, this film sees Quatermass (played by Brian Donlevy) called into action when a rocket (launched by a team led by the Professor) crash lands in the English countryside and only has one survivor (Victor Carroon, played by Richard Wordsworth) inside. Three went up, only one came back. Quatermass wants to figure out what went wrong, and what has turned the lone survivor into a mute shell of his former self, while Inspector Lomax (Jack Warner) is also wanting answers. Quatermass calls it a scientific matter requiring a scientific approach while Lomax argues that he needs to do his job, regardless of the unusual setting and situation. The two men find themselves working together as Victor Carroon escapes from those watching him, becoming more and more dangerous with each hour he's on the loose.

Directed by Val Guest, who helped shape the screenplay with Richard H, Landau as they adapted the television play by Nigel Kneale, this is a very low-key affair that plays out, for the most part, exactly as you'd expect an adapted piece of television to play out. There are some nice exterior shots, but most of the action takes place in offices and medical facilities (and also, most memorably, Westminster Abbey). The film starts with a tone of mystery before revealing plenty in the second half, leading viewers by degrees from the sci-fi core through to the real horror of the premise.

Donlevy is far from the best actor to have been given the role of Quatermass. I have to agree with Nigel Kneale, who wanted UK actors anyway, and found Donlevy to be far too unsympathetic and implausible in the role. He's not terrible in the role. However, he's just not on a par with the likes of Andrew Keir or Andre Morell. Jack Warner is decent as Lomax, David King-Wood is fine as a puzzled doctor and Margia Dean does well as the distraught wife of the suffering Victor Carroon. Wordsworth may have his performance overshadowed by some special effects here and there, but he's also pretty good (especially in the scene with him meeting a young Jane Asher in a moment reminiscent of Frankenstein). Great support comes from the likes of Lionel Jeffries, Thora Hird and Gordon Jackson, although the latter actor is hardly in the film for more than a minute.

All of the Quatermass tales are enjoyable adventures, mixing some impressively tense moments with intelligence and a very British approach to potential impending doom. This is certainly worth your time, even if it's not the best one (that would be the mighty Quatermass And The Pit, in my opinion).

7/10

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