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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Green Unpleasant Land, 1 Dec 2001
By A Customer
No subject seems to get critics to draw up generation gaps more than British horror films, documents of the genre from the 70's and 80's in books written by people like Denis Gifford and Alan Frank tend to be continually looking back to previous decades for greatness while disregarding or being openly hostile to the films produced at the time these books were written.
Cut to the 21st century and with 'Ten Years of Terror-British Horror Films of the 1970s' its time for the films reviled by the Giffords or the Franks to be eulogized. 'There's much more to British horror than the films of the justifiably popular Hammer Studios' states this book's manifesto, and although its dedicated to providing an overview of the entire 70's output of Brit horror, what makes its present felt the most here is the underbelly of British cinema- sex and violence fests like The Fiend, Expose, Satan's Slave, Killer's Moon etc. As befits such contents TYOT is by far the most explicit book on the subject, nearly every page boasting several lurid stills with dolly-bird nudity and stage blood being the recurring themes- reprehensive not only of the era's permissiveness but the great hype machine that turned out stills hundreds of times more racier than the films themselves. Case in point is The Playbirds(1978) depicted here by a knife wielding, full frontally nude woman and what appears to be Pat Astley bathing 'Countess-Dracula' style in blood, two scenes of which of course don't appear in the film. If visuals like that wouldn't give the Giffords and Franks heart attacks musings on uncensored cinema like the dubious UK co-production The Sinful Dwarf and Derek Ford's hardcore horror Sex Express (also covered in Reynolds and Hearn's Keeping the British End Up) would. As a member of what older horror fans may uncharitably dub 'the video nasty generation' I can emphasize with making a case for British films that 'could stand shoulder to shoulder with the most extreme movies coming out of the United States and Europe' but there's a mean streak to this book and much as it champions modern (by-Seventies-standards) horror epics it has little time or enthusiasm for anything rooted in the old or the old school. Stuck in their ways Hammer, family entertainment loving Milton Subotsky, dull Hammer-Xerox Tyburn, horror star-also ran Mike Raven and even Peter Cushing all come in for a critical bashing, making Ten Years in a roundabout way as one sided effort as any Gifford or Frank tome. Its hard to see why the makers didn't just separate what they regard as the wheat from the chaff- by tackling the whole decade the book wastes pages on films its clear the makers don't like or find a bore, as well as true dross that only a mother could love. Compared to contempory books like Andy Boot's pleasant but error ridden Fragments of Fear and Jonathan Rigby's authorative English Gothic, TYOT breaks the mould format wise- since it's neither a history nor a one man opinion. Instead the book groups these films year by year with separate reviews for each film that range from the lengthy to the capsule (similar to the Aurum Encyclopaedia books). Often two critics are allowed to have a crack at the same movie, a technique borrowed from editor Fenton's Flesh and Blood magazine which has been documenting British horror for almost a decade. Unfortunately the technique isn't all that's borrowed since many of these reviews are re-prints. What hurts TYOT the most though is the varied talents of the multiple (19)writers, and the fact that their opinions differ greatly. You get the impression that if all these writers were in the same room they'd be a heated debate as to what makes a good British horror film, collected in book form though TYOT just never finds a common ground. At best Kim Newman animates whatever film he's writing about even if some of these (Horrors of Burke and Hare, Son of Dracula) aren't at all good, at worst several of the writers are of fanzine level, their enthusiasm for the subject is without question, but their writing all too often resorts to banal sloganisms and ballyhoo ridden reviews that seem more like an attempt at evoking over-the-top ad-lines than actual criticism of the films themselves. Slap bang in the middle is what might be described as a 'South Bank Show' take on Don't Look Now made to look faintly ridiculous, not because it's a bad review but because its scholarly approach just seems, well, out of place.
The end of the Seventies was a dreadful time for the British horror film and this is a story that doesn't have a happy ending, the British film industry gets snuffed out, companies like Hammer, Amicus, Tigon go belly-up, Pete Walker ends his career on an abnormality (House of the Long Shadows), Norman J Warren makes 1980's Inseminoid 'very much the final film of an era' and save for the compromised Bloody New Year hasn't shot a feature since, and Antony Balch dies. Documenting the 1980's onwards was a sore spot for both the Boot and Rigby books, TYOT though wraps it up with a surprisingly upbeat coda, holding out hope that the glory days of British horror may come again. But this isn't reflected in the bulk of the book which expires with the abysmal sci-fi of Saturn-3 and the Italian/UK Secret of Seagull Island 'best viewed through a Sunday afternoon haze' and never-released in the UK.
Shoddy is clearly a word not in the FAB press vocabulary and TYOT is very much the book equivalent of a CD box set, it's a beautiful piece of work, hernia inducingly heavy, pricy and unquestionably a labour of love. A shame then that for the casual buyer this is too written inside its culture to be a suitable introduction to the subject, while true disciples may find Ten Years of Terror promises more than it delivers.
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5 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The decade of bosoms and bloodshed, 23 Oct 2002
Not so much a celebration of British horror films as a dismissal of genre traditions prior to 1970, "Ten Years of Terror: British Horror Films of the 1970s" (2001) is a compilation of reviews written by a generation of writers for whom THE EXORCIST and THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE clearly provide the touchstones of modern horror. Raised on a diet of hip, cynical, and often defiantly American films stretching from THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT to FRIDAY THE 13th and modern revisionist slasher movies (SCREAM, I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER, etc.) by way of Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento and the European splatter subgenre, "Ten Years..." displays little patience with the Hammer 'formula' of yesteryear and pours scorn on many of the so-called 'traditional' horror films which continued to flourish throughout the 1970's (SCARS OF DRACULA, LEGEND OF THE WEREWOLF, etc.). Some of the criticisms are valid, of course: Writer-producer Milton Subotsky is rebuked for his professional shortcomings (resulting in a string of unproduced features and bland, shoddy items such as THE UNCANNY and THE MONSTER CLUB), and the Tyburn company is derided both for ignoring contemporary trends and for hiring a director (Freddie Francis) who claimed no affinity with the horror genre and treated his material with contempt. But to dismiss the likes of Terence Fisher as 'little more than a hack' (despite ending his 1960's output with FRANKENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED, a masterpiece by any standard) and to belittle the Gothic trappings which had sustained the genre for more than a decade is to deny the true foundations of modern horror. Had THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957) and DRACULA (1958) not pushed the envelope in terms of theme and treatment, leading to a worldwide resurgence of interest in horror movies, the genre might have petered out altogether toward the end of the 1950's, thanks to a series of increasingly lacklustre sci-fi hybrids which Roger Corman had been peddling in a desperate attempt to woo the 'teenage' market established by A-list productions such as REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and BLACKBOARD JUNGLE. Hammer's output may seem quaint and old-fashioned today, but they tested the boundaries of international censorship and paved the way for a new breed of talent that would emerge in the 1970's, eager to take advantage of these hard-won freedoms by expanding the genre into all-new directions, far removed from the formulas of old.Compiled by Harvey Fenton (editor of the much-missed 'Flesh & Blood' magazine) and celebrated porn historian David Flint, "Ten Years of Terror" provides a writing platform for enthusiastic amateurs and seasoned professionals alike, and is prefaced by director Norman J. Warren (TERROR, SATAN'S SLAVE, etc.) who correctly identifies the 70's as a 'golden age' of independent cinema. But while the book seeks to inform and entertain, readers may be disconcerted by some of the cruel jibes which pass for 'criticism' (the string of comments directed at Mike Raven, star of CRUCIBLE OF TERROR, are especially unpleasant), while others may be irritated by the variable writing quality from one review to another. Kim ('I've-seen-everything') Newman has been chronicling the genre for years and seems less enthusiastic about it with every passing month, though his reviews (THE CORPSE, INCENSE FOR THE DAMNED, NEITHER THE SEA NOR THE SAND, etc.) are typically more detailed than most, and he even manages to nail the modern political relevance of Kubrick's alleged 'masterpiece' A CLOCKWORK ORANGE. Elsewhere, Jonathan Sothcott demonstrates a genuine affection for FRANKENSTEIN THE TRUE STORY with a comprehensive overview of the film's production history, while Stephen Thrower offers a lengthy thematic deconstruction of DON'T LOOK NOW which seeks to reaffirm the film's status as a genre 'classic'. This assumption of greatness is a particular source of irritation, especially to those of us who believe that this movie (along with the likes of ROSEMARY'S BABY, ALIEN, THE SHINING, and the collected works of Lynch, Cronenberg, et al) is overrated drivel, and unworthy of such prolonged analysis. The genre's sloppy flirtation with sexual extremes, kept in check for the most part by an ever-vigilant BBFC, is nevertheless used as the pretext for a juvenile emphasis on bosoms and bloodshed, which the editors claim is a homage to 70's publications such as 'Continental Film Review' and 'Cinema X', but which seems more like an excuse for for slobbering descriptions of female pulchritude. Though intended as a bit of innocent fun, this preoccupation with naked starlets often signifies a lack of critical judgement: There is a tendency - peculiar to a certain breed of UK genre writer - for cheesecake to dictate the evaluation of any given film. Young male actors (not considered sexy by straight male reviewers) are constantly dismissed as non-entities, rergardless of ability or experience, while even the most talentless actress will be praised for little more than a flash of her cleavage. In a review of THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES, for instance, Robin Stewart (a perfectly adequate performer) is rubbished because he lacks macho prowess, while Julie Ege 'comes closest to achieving a performance'. This is nonsense - Ege may have been easy on the eye, but she never gave a good performance in her life! Predictably, movies with a lesbian theme are held in high regard (TWINS OF EVIL, VAMPYRES, etc.), and even the most fleeting female nudity is detailed with gusto, which makes one wonder why the book's remit wasn't expanded to include British sex films of the period. Beautifully designed as a large coffee-table book and sporting hundreds of illustrations, including an eye-popping selection of colour photos and ad-mats, the book works best as a tribute to the unsung heroes of British commercial cinema (including the likes of Pete Walker and Antony Balch). But the text is a disappointment, veering wildly from detailed analysis to superficial 'opinion', and undermined by a leering approach to sex which says more about some of the writers than it does about the films they're supposed to be reviewing...
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2 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent, 21 Jul 2001
This is one big book, and excellent value for money. Not only is it packed with photos, but the text is excellent - not the thumbnail reviews of most film guides, but short essays by people who know, and care, about their subject. Well worth it.
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