peter cushing was great as ever but...
the movie was disappointing
4/10
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It's a bit of a curiosity, actually - I was amazed it was made as late as it was, 1975 - it's much more like British Horror of ten years earlier. For 1975 this must have looked pretty old-fashioned.
Although it does have a few modern touches - it's pretty savage and ruthless in its treatment of its characters, and I enjoy the film as a result. Of course this isn't so impressive when you realise that it seems to be cribbing both Psycho and Texas Chainsaw Massacre, making it look derivative rather than innovative. But I suppose it's pretty bold since it amounts to Texas CHainsaw as a Hammer movie, a not-obvious approach.
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Yeah, Hammer's last horror film was To The Devil A Daughter in 1976, but their last recognisably old-school film was probably something like Frankenstein And The Monster From Hell in 1972 - though I think their best days were over by 1969, when a genuinely nasty quality had entered into things. I found the tone of Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed fairly horrible (though it may be a good film in some ways) and the stabbing of the woman in The Scars of Dracula was simply gratuitous and vile.
The curious thing about The Ghoul is that the ingredients are really quite familiar and old-school for the time, but it manages to subvert them. If you look at the plot it could be seen as a simple retread of The Reptile or The Blood Beast Terror, though of course it lacks the fairy tale cosiness of one and the overt ridiculousness of the other.
But, the treatment of the characters is startlingly brutal - the cosy formula of one couple dying and the other couple surviving is broken here, and the way the Final Girl runs screaming from the house at the end reminds me now of the ending of Texas Chainsaw - as do the 'Kitchen scenes'. I was actually quite shocked when I saw these in The Ghoul, because you expect something like that in a film called Texas Chainsaw Massacre, but in a Cushing movie you really don't anticipate something that horrid - which is openly depicted in quite a laid-back and banal, if not too graphic, way! I mean, even the bits of our late heroine being packed into barrels of salt! Yech. Also I suppose I have to mention John Hurt, who is genuinely threatening and frightening beyond the normal Sinister Assistant in this film. I don't know if Texas Chainsaw is an influence on this film, but it has distinct similarities...
Seeing it again the other night I was also concerned about the concentration on the Hindu imagery - there does seem to be a line being crossed here, beyond the usual 'sinister eastern mysticism' of Conan Doyle and the like...
A bit of curiosity really. I like the fact that it has teeth, but contemporary stuff like Dr. Phibes is much more fun...
it's questionable on many levels, but i think cushing's performance, the incidental music and the strange atmosphere of the film redeem it.
it has a hopeless, grim feel to it which isnt matched by many other films
it's questionable on many levels, but i think cushing's performance, the incidental music and the strange atmosphere of the film redeem it.Well said. The atmosphere of the film was one of the most thrilling aspects as was Peter Cushing as a rather benevolent character.
it has a hopeless, grim feel to it which isnt matched by many other films
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