THE OBLONG BOX (1969)

Director: Gordon Hessler

Writers: Lawrence Huntington, Christopher Wicking, Michael Reeves (uncredited), Edgar Allan Poe (claiming to be based on the Poe short story, though using only its title)

Producer: Gordon Hessler

Cast: Vincent Price, Alister Willamson, Peter Arne, Christopher Lee, Hilary Dwyer, Carl Rigg, Harry Baird, Godfrey James, Maxwell Shaw, Uta Levka, Sally Geeson, Rupert Davies, Michael Balfour, Danny Daniels, James Mellor, John Barrie, Ivor Dean, John Wentworth, Hira Talfrey, Betty Woolfe, Martin Terry, Anne Clune, Jackie Noble, Jan Rossini, Ann Barrass, Tara Fernando, Zeph Gladstone, Tony Thawnton, Colin Jeavons, Richard Cornish, Anthony Bailey, Martin Wyldeck, Hedger Wallace, Barbara Kellerman, Andreas Malandrinos, the Oh! Ogunde Dancers 

On a nineteenth-century African plantation, Englishman Sir Edward Markham (Alister Wiliamson) is subjected to an occult African ritual that has disfigured him and unhinged his mind. His plantation co-owner and brother Sir Julian Markham (Vincent Price) returns him to the family manor in England and keeps him chained in an upstairs room. The mad Sir Edward plots to escape and seek revenge.

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

Throughout the '60s, American International Pictures specialized in fright flicks based upon the works of Edgar Allan Poe. Although director Roger Corman decided to stop making Poe-based pictures, AIP was not ready to abandon this lucrative horror film subgenre. They retitled their fine and economically produced British film Witchfinder General (1968) as The Conqueror Worm to suggest a Poe connection. The Oblong Box would be their next hardly-Poe-based production.

This was to be the up-and-coming British director Michael Reeves’ follow-up to Witchfinder General. Along with writer Christopher Wicking, Reeves did a lot of reworking on Lawrence Huntington’s original script. However, director Reeves was suffering from drug and mental issues and was replaced early on by Gordon Hessler, who also produced the film. Many lament that not only was young Reeves  soon to die from an overdose, but that he did not get the chance to direct The Oblong Box. I think that the project was turned over to a very capable director, as Gordon Hessler gives us a very bleak and unsettling film. Its success convinced AIP to sign Hessler to a three-picture deal to direct more horror films for them.

While having nothing to do with the Edgar Allan Poe short story its title is taken from, The Oblong Box film still manages a Poe-like feel with its nineteenth-century era and its themes of madness, murder, revenge, family sin, and premature burial. It is a convoluted tale of skulduggery that exposes the often-unjust foundations beneath family fortune and reputation. It also reveals the corruption and lack of ethics behind those of the upper crust. Both the aristocracy and the professional class resort to illegal means and exploit the lower class to achieve their ends. All of this scheming and treachery creates conflicts and complications in the lives of the well-to-do that leads to their ruin. Sir Julian Markham suggests that the fate of his brother Edward is retribution. There is plenty of retribution to go around in The Oblong Box.

As in most of the AIP Poe-based films, The Oblong Box stars Vincent Price. His Sir Julian Markham is not an obsessive neurotic like many of his earlier Poe characters, yet he has his share of emotional baggage and ethical lapses. He presents a very dignified and genial front while being able to manipulate and coerce his dishonest lawyer to commit a crime. Two of Markham’s servants are also privy to his scheme. Despite the risks, this is apparently acceptable to those involved, as it will maintain the dignity of the Markham family image. 

Price’s beautiful co-star from Witchfinder General, Hilary Dwyer, has a much more wholesome relationship with Price’s character this time around as his betrothed Lady Elizabeth. She helps to make Julian Markham a more sympathetic character rather than just a guilty and entitled aristocrat. 

Peter Arne is fine as Samuel Trench, the unethical Markham family lawyer. Trench is instrumental in many of the underhanded shenanigans that result in so many deadly complications. He is also part of the film’s mannered British wit when being offered a drink or ordering tea at the end of scenes involving criminal schemes. He has one of the best moments in the film that typifies director Hessler’s intense and subjective approach to horror. From the mad Sir Edward’s viewpoint, we see a close up of Trench being throttled. Peter Arne’s eyes actually get increasingly bloodshot during this uninterrupted take. 

Many horror buffs are stunned that in a film starring those two terror titans Vincent Price and Christopher Lee, the only scene they share is so brief that Lee barely gets out a single word. That nit to pick aside, Lee has terse and amusing scenes with nearly everyone. His Dr. Neuhartt is another unethical professional that unwittingly contributes to the horror to come. 

Alister Williamson is both scary and sympathetic as the menace of Sir Edward. Williamson spends most of the film with his ruined face off camera or hidden beneath a crimson hood. Perhaps much of the credit for his performance belongs to the vocal performance of another actor that it is rumored to have dubbed his lines. That voice is rich and distinctive while suggesting the pain and madness that drive his character. 

The Oblong Box is one of those films that I appreciate much more after repeat viewings. The intricate and unforeseen consequences of the Markham family crimes and the attempts to maintain class conscious dignity while a madman threatens to destroy it all is very satisfying to this humble and hardworking flashback fanatic. This film also has one of the best finishes that any fright flick could hope for. The direction, dialogue, performances, editing, and music all mesh perfectly to deliver that great last-minute chill. 

SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN (1970)

Director: Gordon Hessler

Writers: Christopher Wicking, based on the novel The Disorientated Man by Peter Saxon (pen name)

Producers: Milton Subotsky, Max J. Rosenberg

Cast: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Alfred Marks, Michael Gothard, Marshall Jones, Uta Levka, Christopher Matthews, Judi Bloom, Judy Huxtable, Anthony Newlands, Yutte Stensgaard, Clifford Earl, Peter Sallis, Kenneth Benda, Julia Holloway, Nigel Lambert, Amen Corner (the band as themselves)

A jogger collapses in London and awakens in a hospital bed to find one of his legs has been removed with no explanation from his cold and silent nurse. There is also a series of brutal murders of young women being committed by someone draining the victims’ blood. Meanwhile in a fascist country, a cold-blooded member of its military rule is killing to ascend to a higher position of power. All three of these scenarios eventually prove to be related. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

I don’t like to reveal spoilers when reviewing films. In this case, I hate to discuss too many story developments, because the wild and crazy ride this film takes you on is all the more satisfying for seeing how three seemingly unrelated plots connect. This eccentric approach to the story has drawn a lot of criticism or indifference over the years. The same people that can’t appreciate it are probably thinking Quentin Tarantino was a genius for doing the same thing twenty-five years later in Pulp Fiction (1994). I am not suggesting Tarantino ripped off this film in any sense. I will say that the tying together of different parallel events and characters in a screenplay was much more unusual back in 1970. I will also say that this can create a sense of unease and dislocation in the viewer that enhances the paranoid feeling that Scream and Scream Again strives for.

Scream and Scream Again is a very unique film with a mix of genres that keeps it constantly moving and unpredictable. It is first and foremost a horror film with science fiction, sociopolitical, and police procedural elements. The ultimate concerns the story raises are that we may not know who the hell is really in charge and we may not be able to do anything about it.

Most horror fans are drawn to this flick because of the three heavy-hitters of horror in the cast: Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, and Peter Cushing. Some of those same fans are soured because all three actors are not featured more prominently. Cushing’s role is really just a cameo and he only interacts with one other main cast member, but not with Price or Lee. Price gets the most screen time, but only shares a single scene with Lee. However, the absolutely cold and brutal Marshall Jones as Konratz interacts with all three. This character is one truly despicable badass. His idea of a chicken dinner isn’t fingerlickin’ good.

Other cast members of note are Alfred Marks as detective superintendent Bellaver and Michael Gothard as “the vampire killer.” Marks is just great as the acerbic and weary member of law enforcement trying to catch the serial murderer. I am not familiar with Marks’ other work, but his main forte is comedy, which explains how good he is with his offhand humor in his role. Gothard is just plain mean once he stops being mod and charming. He provides plenty of surprises for the cops and the audience.

Gordon Hessler’s direction keeps things edgy and energetic. The film has a pretty cold and brutal tone throughout. Hessler kept pretty busy around this time on horror assignments. This film, as well as his work on The Oblong Box (1969), should have been much more appreciated in their day. Fortunately, both films were quite successful and are becoming more appreciated in recent years. Some consider Scream and Scream Again a cult film, though almost any offbeat and fondly remembered old movie seems to earn cult status these days. The famous German director Fritz Lang was supposed to be crazy about it.

Christopher Wicking’s script is also largely responsible for the unique qualities of this movie, yet it is surprisingly faithful to the novel it is based upon, The Disorientated Man by Peter Saxon (pen name). The film’s omission of an extraterrestrial basis for the plot is an improvement. This makes the origins of the menace more vague and disturbing. It doesn’t let man off the hook as being his own worst enemy when science is used to achieve power.