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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RATE THE CLIP: #GETTHECUSHIONITSCUSHING : NIGHTMARE IN THE WAX WORKS

#GRABTHECUSHIONITSCUSHING... OK here is the first of our SUNDAY posts under our new theme looking at some of the most frightening and effect Peter Cushing Fright Scenes.... This week it's a clip Don't forget to click HD) from that iconic NIGHTMARE scene from Amicus's The House That Dripped Blood (1971)...we'll be taking a closer look at the scene and direction in our next post coming up...DOES THIS scene rate in your FAV CUSHING terror scenes??? #grabthecushingitscushing

THE 1971 AMICUS FILM, 'THE HOUSE THAT DRIPPED BLOOD' came at a difficult time for Peter Cushing... it couldn't have came at a worse time! The production started shooting from June 29th at a studio knew very well, Shepperton. At this time, Cushing's wife Helen was experiencing a deterioration in her health, because of this Cushing had tried to get the suits at Amicus, to release him from the contract and schedule from 'House'. While Hammer films had been sympathetic, and released him from his contract and appearance in their latest installment  of their Karnstein trilogy , 'Lust For A Vampire' . Cushing Had appeared in the  first part, 'THE VAMPIRE LOVERS'  and the last, 'TWINS OF EVIL' But, sadly Amicus dig in their heels, with Cushing having no choice but to for-fill his contractual obligations. 'House' followed, what was the resurrection of of a format that had severed Amicus very well in their 1965 film, 'Dr Terrors House of Horrors'. What took them so long to revist the portmanteau set up, with only ONE multiple story film after 'Dr Terrors' - Torture Garden (1967), with almost everything in that gap of eight years being a box office dud, one can only guess.

CUSHING SEGMENT IN 'HOUSE', centered around a WAX WORKS, in a story with the same name. Cushing played a retired stockbrooker named Phillip Grayson who along with Neville Rogers, played Joss Ackland.. becomes obsessed with the wax figure of biblical nightmare, SALOME! Yes, she who demanded the head of one, John The Baptist, on a plate . . . so you can see where this is going!

THE ACTUAL NIGHTMARE sequence in Cushing's tale, for me the the high point of the film. If you forgive the corny mishmash of music accompanying the scene, full of clanging death bells and Swanee whistles, and some quite tatty wax figures... it is really quiet effective. I know the museum is supposed to look like it had hit on hard times, but the last time I saw figures as bad as that, was as a child, in the wax museum at Weston-Super-Mare! The scene builds up the tension and in real time,  from Cushing's exit OUT of the front door, of his newly acquired property, the titular, House That Dripped Blood, and into the interior of the waxworks he has recently visited. The camera, sets about through a series of dutch tilts, slow motion and back tracking, purposely in front of Cushing, to take in all his looks of bewilderment and horror.....
 

AND WE KNOW FOLLOW CUSHING, past the figures, and to an curtained exhibit at the rear of the wax works. What makes this scene so chilling is Cushing's character's longing to reach the point of attraction...and its that fact that provides the 'grab the cushion moment'! We REALLY don't want him to get there, and reveal what is BEHIND those curtains. It's a NIGHTMARE, and is the stuff of OUR nightmares too, all accuratarely replicated in a scene that gets the the pay off it style. Yes, it's pretty tame by today's standards, but I can remember hiding behind that cushion, and being truly spooked. Spooked enough to not go into a wax works, until well into my adult years!

THERE IS ANOTHER REASON WHY this clip has earned this title of 'A NIGHTMARE IN THE WORKS'  . . .  as I have shared, even before Cushing commenced work on this film, the signs were not good, and the clouds of sadness not only loomed in Cushing's life away from the spotlight, but it also hung heavy over the story he was appearing in. As David Miller recalls in his book, 'A LIFE IN FILM: Peter Cushing', 'The most affecting part of The House That Dripped Blood' are the shots of Cushing, standing on a riverbank, lost in the grief for his lost love. It is difficult not to think that he was in some way anticipating the unendurable - Helen's death.'

For Peter Cushing, it would be a true and lasting nightmare . . . 



OUR FULL FEATURE AND GALLERY ON 'The House That Dripped Blood' in PART THREE of our AMICUS SERIES can be found at our website : RIGHT HERE
 

 

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