The Dance That Never Ends: Barbara Steele in Danse Macabre (1964)

“Your blood will be our life!”

The first film I’d like to look at is 1964’s Danse Macabre aka Castle of Blood, starring Barbara Steele. A striking Italian-French  film directed by Antonio Margheriti.

The film opens in a downstairs pub in London with Edgar Allen Poe and his friend Sir Thomas Blackwood meeting another writer named Alan Foster. Sir Blackwood wagers that Foster won’t be able to survive the November 1st Samhain night at his Castle due to supernatural goings on. Foster, who doesn’t believe in such things, takes the bet and they ride off into the mist. Once there alone, Foster finds a small black kitten that leads him to the decrepit seemingly empty castle. Once he is certain that he is alone, the madness appears in the form of the mysterious Elisabeth Blackwood (Barbara Steele) and Julia (Margarete Robsahm). I don’t want to spoil the fun so let’s just say that the more people that join Alan, the lonelier it gets.

       

I first saw this film on a rainy Sunday afternoon when I was young. So many of the things that scream great horror film to me are present; spectral party goers, beautiful women, a strange doctor, ghosts and murder.

The music by Riz Ortolani contains many wonderful queues that were staples of classic horror. The pace is swift and the mood is unrelenting.

When the film was edited for U.S. release many scenes were cut there by damaging the narrative. These scenes have thankfully been restored. They exist in the original French language but are subtitled. This doesn’t detract from the film one bit and frankly if you are enjoying the film at all, your eyes will be glued to the screen anyway.

   

With its black cats, hangmen’s tree and cobwebs, it is as stylish and iconic as any Hammer film, and even as sexy for the time it was made. Among the racier subject matter, we have infidelity, lesbianism, and brief nudity. Hammer waited more or less for the 70's before it started mixing nudity and lesbianism into it's horror. Where else can you see the bare heaving breasts of a skull faced corpse? And let's not forget the beautiful Barbara Steele. After just a few horror films, Barbara Steele had already carved out a complex persona for herself, often playing both vixen and victim and always holding our affections no matter the outcome.

Perfect for any dark and stormy night, Danse Macabre serves up a classy terror filled cocktail two parts atmosphere, one part horrific iconology topped with a deliciously understated sexual cherry. Curl up with a sexy someone and enjoy it together.

The death and rebirth of horror TV

The golden years of horror TV

In the 1970’s and 80’s the local independent station KTLA (now the CW) used to show the old Universal Horror films. For one week, twice a year, the viewer was treated to Frankenstein, The Bride of Frankenstein, Dracula, The Mummy, and The Wolf Man. On the weekends you could find The Creature from the Black Lagoon and some Hammer Horrors (my introduction to just how sexy horror could be) on appropriately enough, channel 13.

The night brought hosted horror from Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. Elvira was sexy with her mouth closed, funny when it was open and half naked all the time. She specialized in low budget, Z-grade films and Euro horror that uncut would play like pornography.

If you were home in the afternoon, maybe sick from school, you could watch The Addams Family and The Munsters.  You also had anthologies like Tales from the Darkside.

Every day of the week there was some kind of horror on TV, serious horror!  Then one day, it disappeared like a Virgin in a Whorehouse! I mean gone!

Enter…Cable TV!

Cable killed a lot of TV markets, but horror was one of the hardest hit. Why watch your favorite films dismembered on TV? I love and respect horror and it’s because I do that I say this: Horror sates to primal urges; the need for sex and the need for violence! That’s what we want to see. Cable gave us 24 hour film options, uncut! Though you could catch the occasional horror film, horror really became the domain of one show; Tales from the Crypt.

Tales from the crypt gave us big name stars, sex and violence. While nowhere near as sexy as Elvira the Crypt Keeper gave us the one thing Elvira couldn’t (well not overtly)…T& A.  The general structure of Tales involved sex at the beginning to get your heart pumping and the violent or horrific climax to well, bring you to climax (metaphorically of course).

TV couldn’t compete with that, so it stopped trying. Sure there were the X-Files and Millennium, and dozens of supernatural themed shows that lasted about as long as your first time, but no vampires, werewolves, witches or demons, until Buffy Summers move to town.

High School as Horror

Buffy the Vampire Slayer created a horrific world in the classic sense. Vampires ruled this world but every kind of creature inhabited it. It created a depth to the Vampiric society only glimpsed at in film. Interestingly enough, most of the horror came from the consequences of Buffy’s actions. Friends often die and Buffy’s own mother is found dead on the couch after a brain aneurism. Fun! Though it had its reputation as group therapy for teens, Buffy mattered.

Horror TV is both nostalgic and derivative today with Vampires the reigning kings of the horror world. By the way, Vampires are now pretty white kids with immortal problems (thanks Twilight)! Network TV and Cable have learned to play nice together. There are Supernatural quest shows (Duh, Supernatural) Vampire Diaries, True Blood, Walking Dead, and they keep coming. What’s funny is that none of these shows have any bite with the exception of The Walking Dead.

Zombies Zombies Zombies

The Walking Dead is an AMC scripted show based on the long running Image comics’ series. Following a group of survivors trying to find a safe place to live after a Zombie apocalypse, it leaves the viewer wanting more each week.  Gory, Emotional, and serious as hell, this is the one to watch.

Horror Hosts in force!

Over the years, horror host seem to disappear. Not quite. With the internet one can watch a weekly show from anywhere in the nation. Just because you don’t have one in your state doesn’t mean you’re doomed. Over the past few years Los Angeles has been lucky enough to have two. Ivonna Cadaver of Macabre Theater and the Queen of horror hosts herself, Elvira. Elvira has been revamped and is back to late night TV. It’s just as fun as it used to be and Elvira has aged like a fine bottle of blood red fine. Sometimes you actually can go home again.


Horror Network Revolution!


We have had a lot of Horror Channels come and go but the ones that stay usually offer minimal programming choices. Usually reruns of horror themed shows with little actual feature film content or original programming. All this is set to change as Hart D. Fisher is launching American Horrors upon the world. A 24 hour uncut horror network specializing in rare features and original programming. You want Buffy? You go somewhere else!

Is it safe to say that horror is back on TV? It depends on your perspective. I like to think we are making progress. I was at a press conference for The Flash TV show before it aired. The producer got up and made a closing statement that was as true now as it was then. Even if you don’t like it, support it, because if you don’t, it all goes away.  I guess in the end, it’s never gonna be what it was, but at least it’s what it is…