A werewolf, witches and weirdness: movies and TV

I read Jessie Douglas Kerruish’s The Undying Monster after watching the film adaptation The Undying Monster, which Donald Glut rated as the best werewolf movie ever. I don’t agree but I did find it enjoyable.

For centuries, the Hammond family has been haunted by a monster that attacks them in the nearby woods at certain times. A new series of attacks brings a Scotland Yard CSI team to Hammond Hall. Can they explain the infamous Hammond Monster with science? Will it turn out to be supernatural after all?

The result is a good mix of mystery and horror but the women’s roles aren’t as strong as in the book, and the explanation doesn’t work at all — even if they could work in the book’s exposition, the curse couldn’t create the kind of fur-face shown on the poster. “No Hammond ever ventures into the frosty lane on a snowy night.”

TYG has a nostalgic fondness for THE CRAFT (1996), which came out during her college years, so we watched it recently. While it doesn’t move me as much, I did find it enjoyable. White-trash Goth Nancy (Fairuza Balk), scarred Bonnie (Neve Campbell) and black-and-discriminated-against Rochelle (Rachel True) are school outcasts and witches struggling unsuccessfully to work any magic. When new kid Sarah (Robin Tunney) shows she has powers, they offer to make her the fourth of their coven. She refuses until Chris (Skeet Ulrich) tries seducing her, then brags to the school that he succeeded. Sarah agrees to join in hopes of making Chris fall for her for real.

As a quartet, they have the powers to work miracles but this being a horror film things go wrong and the original trio, particularly Nancy, start crossing major lines. When Sarah tries to back out, they are not happy …

This is a remarkably woman-centered film — they have the agency, they make things happen, their feelings and conversations are the core of the story — which makes it odd how sympathetic the film is to Chris. The guy is a total jerk but Sarah doesn’t want him punished and insists he’s not that bad. What happens to him as the magic goes wrong is tragic but he deserves punishing as much as some of the others they lash out at. As the Mary Sue points out, that applies to some of their other victims too: Rochelle’s retaliation against a racist is nasty but so is her victim. Worth a look, all the same. “By the way, he wanted me to give you a message.”

THE SPECIAL LONDON BRIDGE SPECIAL (1972) struck me as very strange when I saw it aired and rewatching on YouTube doesn’t change my opinion much. Singer Tom Jones discovers his bus ride to the London Bridge has deposited him at the old bridge in Arizona (it was bought and transplanted there in the late 1960s). He meets and starts arguing with American Jennifer O’Neil, the Carpenters sing, Charlton Heston plays Michael Landon at tennis, Chief Dan George kidnaps bus ticket taker Hermione Gingold (not so fun as we get into unpleasant racail stereotypes) and Jones teaches Kirk Douglas to sing and dance.

Part of the fun watching this when it first aired was that I was three years emigrated to America and the opening has lots of London scenery. Another factor was that it’s a musical and I didn’t get the genre conventions. Watching now it’s silly fun, though O’Neil trying to sing is a mistake (she’s not bad but Karen Carpenter and Jones completely outclass her) and the ending — Jones winds up back in London without her — didn’t work either time. This feels like a show that should have a HEA. “Karen, we’re in Lake Havasu, not Dunkirk.”

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