HIGHGATE CEMETERY : THE PHOTOGRAPHY OF DAN AND DAVID BARRATT : AMICUS FILMS : 'FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE'

THOSE OF YOU WHO ANSWERED 'Highgate' to our #WarnerBrothers / #PCAS Blu ray #competition last week, will recognize these really fabulous photographs 🙂 These stills were taken of Highgate Cemetery...located on Swain's Lane, Highgate, London . . by Dan and David Barratt 🙂 Dan is a friend and follower here on the PCAS facebook page, and kindly offered to share his photographs here . . for anyone to see, what an incredible and #magical place #HighgateCemetary truly is! Many, many of you recognized the location as the setting of the title sequence of #PeterCushing's 1974 #Amicusfilm, 'From Beyond The Grave' . . it was then and is now, such an incredible place, a location that needs NO dressing!! I wonder how many of you, reading this have visited there too? Any pics?? Many thanks to Dan and David for sharing these 🙂 What do you think? - Marcus

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MORE SILENT BUT DEADLY GIFS FROM THE 70'S CUSHING ERA

#GIMMETHEGIFWEDNESDAY: THREE GREAT GIFS for you again this week. Requested by Roy Tremont, Trace Badden and Mitch Tarlin, great choices from the 70's when Peter Cushing appeared in over TWENTY horror films!

AT THE TOP David Warner comes face to face with his personal phantom, a demanding specter, who resides in a mirror and has the appetite for blood, on a grand scale. From Beyond the Grave, stands out has one of the better portmanteau films that Cushing appeared in for Amicus films. There is the usual top cast and performances, with tight and terrifying script that has no fat, but plenty of meat and . . blood! 

DREAMS SEEM TO PLAY a large and active part in the fantasy genre film of Peter Cushing. If the Bard's question of 'What Dreams May come..?' is the question, the answer is 'many and in the shape of horrific nightmares! This dream-sequence from another Amicus offering, features in the 1971, 'The house That Dripped Blood'. Cushing's obsession for the female lead, drives him to the point of madness. Which is pretty impressive, considering she, never speaks, goes no where, is made of wax and lives in a wax museum! 

SHOCK WAVES is one of those films from Cushing's career that has since it's release in 1977, risen from obscure low budget quicky, to a cult classic, that now sits in today's extremely profitable and prolific ZOMBIE genre. The idea of zombie German troops is a good one and from it's release, Shock Waves, lead the way rebounding off  'Night of the Living Dead' and presented us with an interesting and imaginative twist that up until then, was ruled by Hammer films, 'Plague of the Zombies', White Zombie' and a few Universal and RKO titles. 

Cushing as the reclusive and sinister SCAR, lends a lot of weight to what could have been, a film of just scary moments, and the ol 'monsters chase, monsters kill, monsters die' plot. The images of the undead troop appearing out of the sea and coming on land to twist, kill and murder the unsuspecting, is potent stuff. Cushing sadly has little time on screen, but what there is, he makes the best of, and along with co star John Carradine, serves up a flick that has, because of it's almost gorilla-film-making-production-values, a rough and raw energy, far removed from the polished horrors, that keeps us on edge, as we never quite know what is going to come next...!

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#GIMMETHEGIFWEDNESDAY: TERRIFYING PUSSIES DE SADE AND 3D!

#GIMMEGIFWEDNESDAY: Wilbur Gray, must have been an exhausting role for Peter Cushing to play. Reacting full of fright to fang furry felines, every few takes, must take it out of you! 'The Uncanny' had all the trappings of what we would expect from a Milton Subostky portmanteau film, the concept and model he and Max Rosenberg had successfully produced during the 19760's and 70's under the banner of their, Amicus films company. With funding and film production drying up in the UK during this time, Milton had to base the film in Canada... though with a largely British cast, you'd never know it. Amicus films always had that 'Meanwhile, somewhere..' look about them, pretty much like the US comic's strips that provided the plots and titles for the film.

THE UNCANNY was released by the UK distributor Rank and was given an X certificate . ..  some of the mutilations and pussy-left-overs, were quite graphic and unsettling. Mangled-bloodied-clawed and chewed leftovers of classical actress Joan Greenwood, anyone?? And that cast, like many of Subotsky's  productions, is unexpected, top drawer and inspired!

WHAT IS THE 1948 'ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN' CONNECTION TO THIS FILM??

FEATURE AND GALLERY : THE UNCANNY

NEVER HAS one persons head had so much screen time! Peter Cushing in the Amicus film THE SKULL 

In real life the Marquis de Sade's body was exhumed from its grave in the grounds of the lunatic asylum at Charenton, where he died in 1814, and his skull was removed for phrenological analysis. It was subsequently lost, and its fate remains unknown...

 

#GIMMETHEGIFWEDNESDAY: For Maria Wilson , Seattle. I am sure it would have looked very effective in 3D...but Amicus films I, MONSTER sure does look at a little weird at times... shots that were intended to be in the '3D process' now have that 'coming at you...sort of' flat feel about them. A good example of this, is this shot that Maria has requested here, of Christopher Lee, and his bunsen burner. A kind of... 'Can I LIGHT that cigar, for you?....!'

 

PETER CUSHING and CHRISTOPHER LEE'S performances in 'I MONSTER' are covered in THIS FEATURE at this website!

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