cinema history class: beyond the darkness (1979)

The session: Work-Aways

Four Movies with horrible horrible characters who remind Keith of some of our craziest work-away stories

(Note: I could not find the trailer on Youtube, so I am sharing this instead.

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: Beyond the Darkness (1979)
Directed by Joe D'Amato

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
A disturbed taxidermist can't bear to say goodbye to his deceased lover, so he preserves her corpse, keeping it hidden in his home. When his obsession deepens, he embarks on a series of increasingly gruesome murders to prevent others from discovering his secret.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
The first thing that grabbed me about Beyond the Darkness was the music. Keith has shown us a bunch of movies scored by Goblin over the years, and their electronic soundtracks are always a treat—and I kind of got a kick out of the fact that this movie credits them as “The Goblins,” which somehow feels even more perfect. Between that pulsing, uneasy score and the absolutely first-rate gore effects (yes, including the cannibalism), the movie is constantly doing something to keep your attention. The effects work is genuinely impressive and often stunning, even by Italian horror standards.

Story-wise, it’s hard not to notice how much the film borrows from Psycho, especially in its setup and obsessions. That said, the plot still feels like it needed one more pass. The private investigator, in particular, feels underused—he’s introduced like he’s going to matter in a big way, but then he’s mostly just… there. When the movie finally delivers its “punchline” with him, it’s not entirely clear what point it’s trying to make, which makes the whole thread feel like a tease that never quite pays off.

Oddly enough, though, despite those narrative shortcomings, the movie does more character development than I expected. There’s an attempt to understand the people involved rather than just using them as fodder, which adds an unexpected layer. And honestly, between Goblin’s score and the relentless, beautifully executed gore, I was pretty much enthralled the whole time anyway—plot gaps and all.

Of course, Joe rated it a 10. But so did Ethan, and he's the toughest grader in the class. So maybe Joe's rating is actually justified this time.

cinema history class: death line (1972)

 he session: Work-Aways

Four Movies with horrible horrible characters who remind Keith of some of our craziest work-away stories

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 2: Death Line (1972)
Directed by Gary Sherman

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
When people begin vanishing in a London Underground station, the search uncovers a tragic, feral survivor living in the abandoned tunnels — a remnant of a forgotten disaster whose hunger drives the horror beneath the city.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

At first glance, Death Line may seem like fairly standard ’70s British horror—subways, missing commuters, gloomy lighting—but it turns out to be weirder, bloodier, and honestly more artful than I ever expected. The standout for me was the camera work. There’s a jaw-dropping 360-degree pan through the monster’s underground lair—one long unbroken shot that glides past corpses, debris, and our poor doomed characters. For a movie that otherwise feels small and grimy, that moment was gorgeous. I didn’t expect to call anything in this film “gorgeous,” but here we are.

The whole thing has a vibe very reminiscent of Texas Chainsaw Massacre—that same oppressive grime and sense that the characters have wandered into a forgotten pocket of humanity that really should’ve been left forgotten. But it’s actually gorier than TCM, which is saying something. The makeup work is terrific, too: the monsters look sickly, feral, and completely believable, like something that really could have evolved in the dark over decades.

Plot-wise, I have to confess: I didn’t fully get everything while watching. There are really only two monsters left, descendants of a group of workers trapped underground long ago, and they’ve only started grabbing passengers recently because the second one has died, leaving the last survivor desperate enough to venture out. Joe (or maybe Bobbo—I forget who gets the credit/blame here) laid all this out for me afterwards. It was in the exposition from the police, but somehow the meaning didn’t land for me in the moment. Not sure if that’s a flaw in the movie or if I was just having a slow night. Let’s generously say it’s 50/50.

What surprised me most is how oddly sympathetic the surviving monster is. Yes, he’s a cannibal and yes, he does terrible things, but the movie really leans into the idea that he’s more a victim of circumstance—lonely, wounded, and hardly articulate. There’s a strange pathos there that I wasn’t expecting, and it gives the whole story a little emotional dimension beyond “creature feature.” The cannibalism angle itself isn’t even played up that heavily; it’s there, but not milked for shock value.

The film also does a nice slow burn—creeping tension, a few genuinely well-executed jump scares—and then… well, the ending kind of just happens. After all the buildup, it feels a bit anticlimactic. Not a deal-breaker, but definitely a soft landing compared to the dread leading up to it.

A huge unexpected delight is Donald Pleasance as the police detective. He seems to be having the time of his life, tossing in dry humor, snapping at his assistant, and milking a running gag about tea that breaks the darkness just enough without feeling out of place. In a movie this bleak, a little comedy goes a long way, and Pleasance knows exactly how far to take it.

Overall, Death Line is a grimy, atmospheric slow burner with some surprisingly beautiful filmmaking and a memorable monster who manages to be terrifying and tragic all at once. Even with a muddled plot moment or two, it’s a fascinating little horror gem—and that 360-degree shot alone is worth the price of admission.

And Joe rated it a 10. Stop me if you've heard this one before...

cinema history class: antropophagus (1980)

The session: Work-Aways
Four Movies with horrible horrible characters who remind Keith of some of our craziest work-away stories

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 1: Antropophagus (1980)
Directed by Joe D'Amato

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
A group of tourists, stranded on a remote Greek island, discover that its inhabitants have been slaughtered by a monstrous, cannibal. As they explore further, they’re hunted one by one by the deranged killer.

Reaction and Other Folderol:

Antropophagus is one of those grimy Euro-slashers that, at first glance, looks like it’s going to follow the standard “tourists stumble into trouble” formula — and for a while, it does. The first act feels almost poky, like the movie is wandering around the island with the characters. But slowly, almost imperceptibly, it becomes a genuine slow burn: the dread keeps tightening, the atmosphere gets heavier, and by the time the violence fully erupts, I realized I was basically holding my breath.

And when the gore comes…wow, they did not phone it in. This thing goes far beyond the usual knife-in-the-dark slasher kills. We get the disturbing “impromptu abortion” sequence, with the killer literally eating a human fetus, someone being pulled through the roof of a building by the scalp, and of course the finale where a monster sees his own guts spilling out of his abdomen and decides to eat them. It’s disgusting, yes, but it’s also surprisingly well-staged and legitimately unsettling. There’s a nasty kind of artistry to it.

The throbbing electronic score is another huge part of why the movie works. It worms its way into your nerves — pulsing, buzzing, vibrating beneath everything like a diseased heartbeat. Even in scenes where nothing is happening, the soundtrack insists that something awful is about to.

And for extra fun, the movie isn’t shy about wearing its influences on its sleeve. There’s a scene lifted so blatantly from Jaws that I half expected the characters to hum the theme. Later on, the film pulls a Carrie-style shock moment that feels like it wandered in from another movie but somehow still fits the vibe.

Antropophagus is revolting, often ridiculous, sometimes sluggish, but ultimately effective — a weirdly well-made piece of Euro-nastiness whose reputation is absolutely earned.

Joe missed this one, so he couldn't rate it a 10. He would have tried to give it a 12, but Bobbo wouldn't have let him

cinema history class: requiem for a vampire (1971)

The session: Odds and Sods
Four oddball Halloween-appropriate movies from different countries

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 4: Requiem for a Vampire (1971)
Directed by Jean Rollin

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
Two teenage girls on the run after a botched robbery find themselves lost in the French countryside and stumble into an old château inhabited by a vampire clan. Seduced and terrorized in equal measure, they become trapped in a strange mix of gothic horror and erotic surrealism. As the night unfolds, the girls must confront the castle’s master, who wants to make them part of his undead lineage.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
Requiem for a Vampire might be the least talkative movie I’ve ever seen that still has a story you can actually follow. The two girls at the center of it barely speak to each other, which creates this weird sense of emotional distance—but somehow the plot is still clear. The silence ends up giving the whole thing a dreamlike, drifting quality, like they’re wandering through someone else’s half-remembered nightmare.

The movie kept reminding me of El Topo, and that’s not a comparison I make lightly. I didn’t like El Topo—that one felt like a fever-dream that forgot to include the plot part. Requiem shares that surreal, symbolic tone, but at least here I always knew what was happening. Even when things got strange (and they often do), the movie never fully dissolved into nonsense.

What it does dissolve into is imagery. This thing feels like an experiment Rollin decided to conduct with costumes, shadows, masks, ruins, and the French countryside. And honestly, it works better than it probably has any right to. The visuals are great—atmospheric, moody, and occasionally beautiful—but the trade-off is that the movie sometimes feels more like an art project than a complete story. I didn’t mind watching it, but it left me a little unfulfilled, like it was a sketch for a bigger, richer gothic film he never quite made.

If you squint, you can read it as a kind of fairy tale about transformation—innocence turning into experience, humans becoming monsters, girls becoming something new altogether. It’s not spelled out, but the vibe is there.

Anyway, fun to look at, interesting as an experiment, not entirely satisfying as a narrative… but definitely memorable.

And for the record: Joe would’ve slammed this one the moment it reminded him of El Topo, but he’d still give it a higher score than El Topo, because he recognizes when a fever-dream at least remembers it’s supposed to have a plot.

cinema history class: tower of evil (1972)

The session: Odds and Sods
Four oddball Halloween-appropriate movies from different countries

As always, there may be spoilers here. And the trailer may be NSFW and/or NSFL.

Week 3: Tower of Evil (1972)
Directed by Jim O'Connolly

My Level of Prior Knowledge
Never heard of it.

Plot:
A group of archaeologists investigates the grisly murders of several young people on a fog-shrouded island off the English coast. As they explore an ancient Phoenician temple beneath a lighthouse, they discover that something monstrous—and not entirely human—still lurks there, determined to kill again.

Reaction and Other Folderol:
It's not a masterpiece by any means, but Tower of Evil pretty much delivers what it promises: plenty of jump scares, a good amount of blood, and enough suspense and mystery to keep things moving. The plot—archaeologists investigating a creepy island murder scene—has that classic early-’70s British horror vibe, with fog, shadows, and lots of screaming.

That said, it’s hard not to notice that half the movie was clearly filmed on a soundstage. Every so often you can practically hear the echo off the studio walls, and there's just blackness all around. This kind of makes the “remote island” feel about as isolated as a BBC backlot. Still, there’s a weird charm to it all. At times it almost plays like a grown-up version of The Goonies—a group exploring tunnels, discovering treasures, and unleashing something best left buried.

When we meet the ancient Phoenician god, I had to stifle a laugh. The poor creature looks suspiciously like the squirrel from the Ice Age movies, if the squirrel had just crawled out of a vat of mud. And the fiery finale gave me flashbacks to Island of Lost Souls, with that same sense of wild, apocalyptic chaos. And, as we see the island in flames, I expected to hear someone say "Don't Look Back."

Joe missed this one, but I’m sure he would have given it a ten.