American Horror Project - Vol 1

With the newly launched American Horror Project the good people from Arrow Films have undoubtedly created their own little fright fest, celebrating obscure and little known American celluloid nightmares. Volume 1 contains three tales of blood-soaked terror from the 70’s, and genre fans are in for a treat!

Two films are from 1976, with the first being Robert A. Schnitzer’s THE PREMONITION, a paranormal horror of sorts. The story is about Sheri and Miles Bennett (Sharon Farrell and Edward Bell) who are loving foster parents to little Janie (Danielle Brisebois). Sheri suffers repeatedly from strange premonitions and believes that one day soon Janie will be snatched by her biological mother Andrea (Ellen Barber), a deeply disturbed and unstable young woman involved with the strange Jude (Richard Lynch), a clown with a travelling fair who takes photos of visitors as part of his job. Initially Jude is supportive when Andrea reveals her plan to kidnap the little girl, hoping that it will stabilise his troubled partner and they can live as a ‘complete’ family in a remote house far away from everything and everyone. However, when Andrea breaks into the Bennett’s home things don’t go according to plan… Sheri fiercely fights off the intruder which she recognises as Janie’s real mother, and Andrea runs out of the house with a doll instead, bonkers as she is. From now on it’s all downhill for her, culminating in her long-suffering partner Jude killing her in a frenzied attack. Meanwhile, the increasingly fragile Sheri continues to have bizarre premonitions despite the assurance of the local police and her worried husband Miles, a professor of the paranormal who has a bit of a thing for his colleague Dr. Jeena Kingsley (Chitra Neogy). Despite the best of efforts to calm Sheri, another one of her premonitions becomes true, and this time Janie is snatched for real… A race against time begins to find her, though neither the Bennetts nor Det. Lt. Mark Denver (Jeff Corey) take the diabolically scheming (and violent) clown Jude into account…
The film, shot in Mississippi, benefits from atmospheric external camerawork and strong central performances especially from R. Lynch as the ‘killer clown’ and S. Farrell’s portrayal of a foster mother on the edge of a complete meltdown. The plot doesn’t always add up and occasionally borders on the implausible if not altogether on the unnecessary, for example the opening shot in which Jude performs a ‘mime dance’ reminiscent of Marcel Marceau or a scene from a Fellini movie. It might be intriguing to watch but adds little to the actual plot line.

The second 1976 movie is Matt Cimber’s THE WITCH WHO CAME FROM THE SEA, possibly better known than ‘The Premonition’ but by no means the better of the two. Millie Perkins stars as Molly, a highly dysfunctional woman working at a waitress in a seaside bar. Having suffered repeated sexual abuse at the hands of her father since childhood it’s fair to say that Molly’s relations with the male species is somewhat disturbed… and that’s an understatement. The plot is relatively simple: during the course of the movie Molly’s state of mind gets derailed to the point where she no longer can tell the difference between her violent fantasies and her real encounters with the various men she meets at the restaurant. It might be fun to watch for the first forty minutes or so, but things become tedious after a while as one man after another not only loses his life but his ‘manhood’ too, while Molly’s hysteric antics push our very patience. It’s not exactly a challenging plot for actress Millie Perkins whose performance range glides between disturbed, highly disturbed and hopelessly insane. Equally misleading is the famous poster/sleeve art, which suggests the witch in question to be a supernatural creature who literally rises from the sea to bring havoc and destruction upon ships and crew. Fat chance! Screenwriter Robert Thom, was hardly doing his wife, said Millie Perkins, any favours in re-launching her career with his particular vehicle.

Save the best for last, and here the best is also the most obscure film – a surreal gem from 1973 directed by Christopher Speeth titled MALATESTA’S CARNIVAL OF BLOOD. When the Norris family, led by young Vena (Janine Carazo) pretend to be looking for work at a strange fairground they do so with one mission on their minds: to look for their missing son, last seen visiting the carnival. Little do they know that they’re in for the ride of their lives, though this is a ride they can surely do without! The fairground’s sinister manager Mr. Blood (if that ain’t a giveaway!) is a vampire whilst the macabre and evil owner of the fairground calls himself Malatesta and looks a cross between Dracula and E. A. Poe. Together with his flesh-eating family of ghouls the lot dwell underground in a labyrinthine maze decorated with the most surreal and bizarre artefacts (upside turned cars padded with bubble wrap, sinister paper-mache dolls, scary labs and a giant screen showing a never-ending selection of old horror flick classics like ‘The Phantom of the Opera’, ‘Dracula’, ‘Cabinet of Dr. Caligari’, ‘The Hunchback of Notre Dame’ etc.). During the search Vena and her family are not only threatened by Malatesta (Daniel Dietrich), Mr. Blood (Jerome Dempsey) and a truly creepy, goggle-eyed cleaner called Sticker (William Preston), but can Vena really trust gypsy fortune teller ‘Sonja’ (Lenny Baker) and Bobo the clown (Hervè Villechaiz – THE MAN WITH THE GOLDEN GUN)?
Malatesta’s Carnival of Blood is admittedly rather disjointed as far as the storyline goes, though in this case it doesn’t really matter. Just join the ride and marvel at the utter weirdness the film has to offer!

The three dual-format releases are presented in a set and each disc contains an array of interesting Special Features!