"...And yet Reeves avoided intellectualism in favor of a simple and straightforward approach to filmmaking..."

Here's an odd situation.  A young director makes four horror films, two of them pretty forgettable, and then commits suicide.  Yet he becomes one of the enduring cult directors in the halls of fright film fandom.  This unlikely situation, and the films that led up to it, are just a part of what we like to call... 

By HARVEY F. CHARTRAND

(Note:  This is the first of two articles on the short but memorable career of director Michael Reeves.  The second article which will conclude this series will appear in next month's issue.)

By the time he was 25, Michael Reeves had directed horror icons Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele, Boris Karloff and Vincent Price in, respectively, Castle Of The Living Dead (1964), The She Beast (1966), The Sorcerers (1967) and Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General/The Conqueror Worm (1968).

After 12 years of hustling, Reeves had made it. The film wunderkind was set to helm The Oblong Box, an occult thriller with Price and Lee, and was being considered to direct Bloody Mama, a Depression-era gangster picture starring Shelley Winters as Ma Barker (which was eventually helmed by Reeves’ hero Roger Corman).

You’d think Reeves would have been happy. But after months of erratic behavior, he committed suicide on February 11, 1969, succumbing to an overdose of alcohol and anti-depressants at his home in London. Who could have forecast that Reeves would outlive the elderly Karloff by only nine days?

What happened? An excellent 1999 documentary--The Blood Beast: The Films of Michael Reeves--fails to resolve the central mystery of Reeves’ self-willed end. Thirty-four years after his untimely death, Reeves’ reputation continues to grow, based on a filmography of four cinematic works, only one of which can be proclaimed a masterpiece.

Scarlet Street Magazine editor Richard Valley says about Reeves that: "A promising talent cruelly cut down is a subject for endless and often fascinating speculation, sometimes more so than a talent who goes on and on with increasingly diminishing results."

In his 2001 review of Ten Years of Terror: British Horror Films of the 1970s, PopMatters books critic David Sanjek notes that "(Reeves) managed in a short time to put on screen in a handful of films as bleak and foreboding a world view as any I can imagine in world cinema."

And yet Reeves avoided intellectualism in favor of a simple and straightforward approach to filmmaking. In a recent interview with The Manchester Guardian, writer Iain Sinclair recalled that "(Reeves) was tunnel-visioned about Don Siegel, a competent Hollywood action director and a god to Mike, who hadn't the least interest in the European art cinema we were all consumed with. It was very unusual: while we wanted to be the next Jean-Luc Godard, Mike wanted to be a technically competent middle-of-the-road director."

In 1964, after completing work as a production assistant on the Viking saga The Long Ships, Reeves signed on as assistant director for Castle Of The Living Dead, an odd Italian-French horror thriller about a troupe of actors who travel to a creepy castle to perform for Count Drago (Christopher Lee, sporting a goatee and eye shadow).

The Count has a morbid interest in taxidermy and mummification. He transforms birds and animals into statues by injecting them with an instant preservative (a secret formula gleaned from his readings of ancient texts). However, the Count’s creations aren't stuffed carcasses, but permanently frozen, fully conscious living beings, captured at the peak of their beauty!

Except for one standout scene [directed by Reeves] of a dwarf fighting for his life before being thrown from the castle ramparts by Count Drago’s slavering, eyeball-rolling henchman, it is hard to predict the young director’s future claim to greatness based on a single viewing of Castle of the Living Dead. The print I saw was terrible.

The acting by a good cast (including Philippe Leroy and Donald Sutherland) is adequate, but marred by poor dubbing. In his first film role, Sutherland plays an inept soldier/policeman and a cowled hag who warns the troupe to steer clear of the evil castle. Yet there is no particular reason to recommend this movie. Even die-hard Lee fans may not enjoy it. Given its limited budget, Castle of the Living Dead can’t possibly live up to its promotional tag line: "How much shock can the human brain endure before it cracks?"

Castle Of The Living Dead (retitled Crypt Of Horror in some markets) was directed by Warren Kiefer, an American expatriate who went on to write spy novels and screenplays for spaghetti westerns. On some prints, the direction is credited to Luciano Ricci or Lorenzo Sabatini; this was simply a ruse by the producer to qualify the film for subsidies from the Italian government. Other prints credit Herbert Wise as director.

In The She Beast (also titled Revenge Of The Blood Beast and Sister Of Satan), "Mike Reeves" directed Steele and his friend Ian Ogilvy, a handsome leading man-type who would star in all subsequent Reeves films. Producer Paul Maslansky needed a name to sell the picture to distributors, and managed to bring in Steele for one day’s work (earning her undying enmity for working her 18 hours straight).

Even so, Steele is hardly in the picture at all. While she is onscreen, a ridiculous fedora and wide sunglasses conceal her striking features. One would almost suspect that Steele is trying to disguise herself due to intense embarrassment with the proceedings.

Indeed, The She Beast gives new meaning to the term ‘low-budget.’ Glimpses of the genius of Michael Reeves that would finally reveal itself in Witchfinder General are caught occasionally, only to be buried by the grainy film stock, wiggly camerawork and poor sound quality (although Ralph Ferraro’s brooding score is first-rate).

The story begins in 1765. Goaded on by a stern priest, Transylvanian peasants storm the cave of Vardella, a snarling, snaggle-toothed, one-eyed witch with a leprous (and all too rubbery-looking) face. The villagers drag the shrieking Vardella to a lake, tie her to "the Seat of Chastisement," an infernal wooden torture device, hammer a red-hot spike through her — pinning her onto the seat at the end of a long pole — and dunk her repeatedly into the lake until she drowns. (Reeves filmed a similar scene of a witch’s dunking to determine her innocence for Witchfinder General.) Before taking her last breath, Vardella curses her tormentors and their progeny.

Two hundred years later, newlyweds Veronica and Philip are honeymooning in the wilds of Communist-controlled Transylvania. "What a strange place," Veronica opines. "It’s all so full of weirdies and werewolves." To which Philip replies, breezily: "Terrible line, darling. Great alliteration, but a terrible line." From this point on, The She Beast veers from humor to horror (with a little Commie-bashing thrown in, including a great hammer-and-sickle sight gag).

The couple spends a night at Motel Transylvania, run by a lecherous alcoholic voyeur (Mel Welles of The Little Shop Of Horrors fame). The next day, their Volkswagen inexplicably goes out of control and crashes into the lake, near the very spot where the villagers drowned Vardella centuries before.

Philip swims to shore, but Veronica sinks to the bottom of the lake. Her body is retrieved, yet the corpse isn’t Veronica’s. It’s Vardella’s! At this point, Steele disappears from the picture until the final scene, as her character is now taken over by the vengeful spirit of the repulsive, 200-year-old witch.

Faded aristocrat Count Von Helsing (amusingly played by John Karlsen) tells Philip that the lumpy-faced crone fished out of the lake is Veronica, reincarnated as the witch. "Vardella has returned," Von Helsing intones. "Unfortunately, she’s chosen your wife’s spirit to possess."

The Count (being from a long line of vampire slayers) takes it upon himself to perform an exorcism that will restore Veronica’s identity and lift the witch’s age-old curse. After ordering Vardella to "return to hideous mortality," Von Helsing sticks his finger in her eye, releases some bloody maggots, and makes Vardella pop back to life, unleashing the vengeful sorceress upon the village.

The She Beast’s horror elements are almost outweighed by the vein of comedy that runs through it. This relatively short film ends with a 15-minute car chase verging on slapstick, in which incompetent police officers (yet again!) give chase to Philip and Von Helsing, while weirdoes on motorbikes ride around dangerously for no reason. This scene is so strange as to be almost deranged, and the viewer really must watch it closely, because it is well done, in its minimalist, low-budget way.

However, when there is violence, the blood flows freely. Reeves isn’t averse to including extreme close-ups of metal ripping through flesh and writhing worms in eye sockets. But except for a few graphic moments, The She Beast’s promo tagline couldn’t be more misleading: "Deadlier than Dracula! Wilder than the Werewolf! More frightening than Frankenstein!" (In 1999, star Ian Ogilvy told Filmfax Magazine that The She Beast was "actually a spoof, although there is a monster in it.")

In the second installment of the Michael Reeves story, we’ll look at The Sorcerers and Witchfinder General and I’ll review the new Reeves biography published by Cinematics.

Thanks, Harv!  It looks as if Michael Reeves didn't get off to a very good start, which is what makes his ongoing fame so fascinating.  All will no doubt be revealed in part two of this series in next month's issue.  Hint:  Michael Reeves meets Vincent Price and makes one of the most genial actors in the business hate his guts (for a while)!

Article copyright © Harvey F. Chartrand

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