Perhaps unbelievably given my predilection for such things, this was yet another slice of prime British trash that I hadn't watched for a while: in hindsight, this was surprising, especially given my previous involvement with the company that released the DVD and blu-ray thereof, but the fact is there's so much stuff out there, it's impossible to remember everything at once. Especially at my advanced age!! Until, that is, I recently dug it out whilst visiting a friend in London: she always looks forward to whatever unearthed cinematic treasures [again, I realise I'm using the term in its widest sense here] I bring with me, and if they're British and were made any time betwixt 1960 and 1980, all the better.
For those who may be perhaps unfamiliar with its delights, CRAZE is - with the possible exception of the earlier TROG - the film of which director Freddie Francis was least proud, to the point of actually being ashamed of it. In fact at one point, he even described it as 'worse' than the latter picture - although until you've seen Joan Crawford playing frenetic lounge jazz to a bloke in a monkey suit, I should reserve judgment on that. For one thing, and despite producer Herman Cohen's notorious simian obsession, there are [thankfully] no giant gibboons on display here: instead, we have the possessed statue of an ancient God referred to variously as 'Chuko' 'Chucku' or 'Chooku' [evidently a forerunner of THE APPLE's similarly unpronounceable 'Moyeeester Bioogellaaaow' or any number of variations thereupon] a psychedelic cellar, and a coven of gullible acolytes. And, heading up the charge, we have a veritable baddie in the shape of seedy antique dealer Neil Mottram- played by none other than the ever-dependable Jack Palance. Yeehaw!!
You really DO have to admire the bloke's chutzpah: by now onto roughly his seventh horror flick [and his third British one] he still thinks he's capable of convincing the audience he comes from Notting Hill Gate [even to the point of describing his pick-up lines as "English hospitality"] despite talking like a cowboy and looking like a cross between Sitting Bull and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Not to mention trying to convince us that even though he spends one half of the plot chatting up/killing dollybirds [Julie Ege, Suzy Kendall in a dreadful syrup] and the other using his gone-to-seed ex [Diana Dors] as an alibi for his nefarious deeds, he's also in a gay relationship with his assistant Ronnie [Martin Potter]!!! Shurley shome mishtake? But no, there it is, as plainly spoken as the 'coded' film dialogue of the time would allow. How bona to vada their dolly old eeks.
Naturally, it all goes wrong - it wouldn't be a very long film if it didn't - and despite being 'rewarded' by his infernal graven image to begin with, Mottram soon finds himself having to cover his tracks in a variety of increasingly implausible ways in order to avoid being pulled in by the archetypally cynical cop duo of Michael Jayston and Percy "I Actually Built The Bridge On The River Kwai" Herbert. Not just cynical in fact, but downright insulting: once heard, Jayston's legendary comment of "one would have to be pretty desperate to sail into that port!!" [uttered by way of rejoinder to Palance's claim that he was doinking Dors at the time of his aunt's murder] can never be forgotten. Whatever must Alan Lake have thought? And sure enough, before you can say 'you're nicked moi sahn', both the aforementioned bizzies [and their fresh-faced young rookie David Warbeck] are 'onto him', finally bearding their prey in his bijou des res: as a result, the cat-and-mouse chase concludes in the most ludicrous manner outside of CORRUPTION, with good ole' Chooka-kooka-koo-la-ley [er, that's an ELO lyric- Ed] in full precedence, though obviously I'm not going to tell you how. You'll have to watch it- that is, assuming this description makes you want to bother.
Daft as a brush, entirely implausible, with an utterly pointless cameo from a by-then-slumming-it Edith Evans that seems to have been inserted purely so the Jackster can don a ludicrous Onibaba mask and frighten her to death, CRAZE is nobody's idea of a good horror movie. Potter [evidently experiencing a career dip between his top-bill triumvirate in SATYRICON, ALL COPPERS ARE and GOODBYE GEMINI and brief household acclaim as TV's next Robin Hood] is entirely wasted in his role: the set is so cheap that despite being set in W11, it's clearly filmed almost entirely on a back lot at Shepperton, Ege's 'dance' routine is literally beyond all comprehension, and the effigy of the eeeevil god at the heart of the proceedings looks like it's been fashioned entirely from plastic and rubber [probably because it has] Worse still, Cohen and cowriter Abe Kandel are so uninterested in their own work, they can't even be bothered to give Chuko a back story or country of origin: and most glaringly of all, the title has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the plot. You might just as well call the film DAVE for all the sense it makes.
However, for ALL that, it's so inept, it's a really entertaining way to pass 80 minutes whilst playing 'spot the sitcom star' with one of your best mates - so that's precisely what we did. Plus, even in a bad film, Palance is always watchable- and as an added bonus, 40 minutes or so in, there's Marianne Stone! Yippee, another tick for the notepad. Oh, and let's not forget a 'shuddering brethren' [as Gruntfuttock might have said] of cellar-dwelling worshippers mumbling 'aaarmuneminuuuum' and waving their arms round a lot. A prerequisite of any such storyline back then, methinks...
In retrospect, Francis was probably right: quality-wise, CRAZE is a million miles away from the utter mantelpiece that is DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS [which also features a 'death by ungabunga' style Vodun ceremony and scary effigy-mask-thingy, only rendered far more effectively] or his two best works THE CREEPING FLESH and MUMSY NANNY SONNY AND GIRLY. And that's an understatement. Arguably in the all-time bottom five of the 26 horror pictures he directed between 1956 and 1996, only SON OF DRACULA [bloody hell, I haven't even touched on that one yet] and yes, TROG stop it from scraping the very depths of the barrel: even TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS, in which the thankless Jayston [again] is seen shagging a tree instead of making love to Joan Collins in a babydoll nightie - yes, seriously - is better. Honestly, it is.
Then again, even taking into account that the previous year had given us THE WICKER MAN, THEATRE OF BLOOD and FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, the arse was admittedly falling out of our homegrown horror industry by the mid-70s anyway- and pitted against several far more heinous offenders, CRAZE is certainly not the worst of the bunch. In fact, if you go into the right frame of mind [ie, expect it to be pants] you'll possibly even end up loving it [although it does admittedly help if like me, you're a bit mental] So, rather than launching into a tirade of all the usual cliches about "why couldn't we make films like THE EXORCIST, TEXAS CHAIN SAW, LAST HOUSE etc" - which I believe our most visceral directors, such as Walker, Warren and Larraz, actually did do - I'm just going to accept it for what it is, and view it within the context it should be viewed in. In other words, it's green slime- but it's enjoyable green slime. And from there, one can only look up.
Now, enough of this old cobblers already! Get home safely- and avoid upper-class Englishmen with Ukrainian features and drawling Pennsylvanian accents. Aaaaarmumeminuuuum....
For those who may be perhaps unfamiliar with its delights, CRAZE is - with the possible exception of the earlier TROG - the film of which director Freddie Francis was least proud, to the point of actually being ashamed of it. In fact at one point, he even described it as 'worse' than the latter picture - although until you've seen Joan Crawford playing frenetic lounge jazz to a bloke in a monkey suit, I should reserve judgment on that. For one thing, and despite producer Herman Cohen's notorious simian obsession, there are [thankfully] no giant gibboons on display here: instead, we have the possessed statue of an ancient God referred to variously as 'Chuko' 'Chucku' or 'Chooku' [evidently a forerunner of THE APPLE's similarly unpronounceable 'Moyeeester Bioogellaaaow' or any number of variations thereupon] a psychedelic cellar, and a coven of gullible acolytes. And, heading up the charge, we have a veritable baddie in the shape of seedy antique dealer Neil Mottram- played by none other than the ever-dependable Jack Palance. Yeehaw!!
You really DO have to admire the bloke's chutzpah: by now onto roughly his seventh horror flick [and his third British one] he still thinks he's capable of convincing the audience he comes from Notting Hill Gate [even to the point of describing his pick-up lines as "English hospitality"] despite talking like a cowboy and looking like a cross between Sitting Bull and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Not to mention trying to convince us that even though he spends one half of the plot chatting up/killing dollybirds [Julie Ege, Suzy Kendall in a dreadful syrup] and the other using his gone-to-seed ex [Diana Dors] as an alibi for his nefarious deeds, he's also in a gay relationship with his assistant Ronnie [Martin Potter]!!! Shurley shome mishtake? But no, there it is, as plainly spoken as the 'coded' film dialogue of the time would allow. How bona to vada their dolly old eeks.
Naturally, it all goes wrong - it wouldn't be a very long film if it didn't - and despite being 'rewarded' by his infernal graven image to begin with, Mottram soon finds himself having to cover his tracks in a variety of increasingly implausible ways in order to avoid being pulled in by the archetypally cynical cop duo of Michael Jayston and Percy "I Actually Built The Bridge On The River Kwai" Herbert. Not just cynical in fact, but downright insulting: once heard, Jayston's legendary comment of "one would have to be pretty desperate to sail into that port!!" [uttered by way of rejoinder to Palance's claim that he was doinking Dors at the time of his aunt's murder] can never be forgotten. Whatever must Alan Lake have thought? And sure enough, before you can say 'you're nicked moi sahn', both the aforementioned bizzies [and their fresh-faced young rookie David Warbeck] are 'onto him', finally bearding their prey in his bijou des res: as a result, the cat-and-mouse chase concludes in the most ludicrous manner outside of CORRUPTION, with good ole' Chooka-kooka-koo-la-ley [er, that's an ELO lyric- Ed] in full precedence, though obviously I'm not going to tell you how. You'll have to watch it- that is, assuming this description makes you want to bother.
Daft as a brush, entirely implausible, with an utterly pointless cameo from a by-then-slumming-it Edith Evans that seems to have been inserted purely so the Jackster can don a ludicrous Onibaba mask and frighten her to death, CRAZE is nobody's idea of a good horror movie. Potter [evidently experiencing a career dip between his top-bill triumvirate in SATYRICON, ALL COPPERS ARE and GOODBYE GEMINI and brief household acclaim as TV's next Robin Hood] is entirely wasted in his role: the set is so cheap that despite being set in W11, it's clearly filmed almost entirely on a back lot at Shepperton, Ege's 'dance' routine is literally beyond all comprehension, and the effigy of the eeeevil god at the heart of the proceedings looks like it's been fashioned entirely from plastic and rubber [probably because it has] Worse still, Cohen and cowriter Abe Kandel are so uninterested in their own work, they can't even be bothered to give Chuko a back story or country of origin: and most glaringly of all, the title has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the plot. You might just as well call the film DAVE for all the sense it makes.
However, for ALL that, it's so inept, it's a really entertaining way to pass 80 minutes whilst playing 'spot the sitcom star' with one of your best mates - so that's precisely what we did. Plus, even in a bad film, Palance is always watchable- and as an added bonus, 40 minutes or so in, there's Marianne Stone! Yippee, another tick for the notepad. Oh, and let's not forget a 'shuddering brethren' [as Gruntfuttock might have said] of cellar-dwelling worshippers mumbling 'aaarmuneminuuuum' and waving their arms round a lot. A prerequisite of any such storyline back then, methinks...
In retrospect, Francis was probably right: quality-wise, CRAZE is a million miles away from the utter mantelpiece that is DR TERROR'S HOUSE OF HORRORS [which also features a 'death by ungabunga' style Vodun ceremony and scary effigy-mask-thingy, only rendered far more effectively] or his two best works THE CREEPING FLESH and MUMSY NANNY SONNY AND GIRLY. And that's an understatement. Arguably in the all-time bottom five of the 26 horror pictures he directed between 1956 and 1996, only SON OF DRACULA [bloody hell, I haven't even touched on that one yet] and yes, TROG stop it from scraping the very depths of the barrel: even TALES THAT WITNESS MADNESS, in which the thankless Jayston [again] is seen shagging a tree instead of making love to Joan Collins in a babydoll nightie - yes, seriously - is better. Honestly, it is.
Then again, even taking into account that the previous year had given us THE WICKER MAN, THEATRE OF BLOOD and FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE, the arse was admittedly falling out of our homegrown horror industry by the mid-70s anyway- and pitted against several far more heinous offenders, CRAZE is certainly not the worst of the bunch. In fact, if you go into the right frame of mind [ie, expect it to be pants] you'll possibly even end up loving it [although it does admittedly help if like me, you're a bit mental] So, rather than launching into a tirade of all the usual cliches about "why couldn't we make films like THE EXORCIST, TEXAS CHAIN SAW, LAST HOUSE etc" - which I believe our most visceral directors, such as Walker, Warren and Larraz, actually did do - I'm just going to accept it for what it is, and view it within the context it should be viewed in. In other words, it's green slime- but it's enjoyable green slime. And from there, one can only look up.
Now, enough of this old cobblers already! Get home safely- and avoid upper-class Englishmen with Ukrainian features and drawling Pennsylvanian accents. Aaaaarmumeminuuuum....
statistics: Posted by Wyngarde — 7:58 PM - 1 day ago — Replies 5 — Views 234