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A few weeks ago, I profiled Cult Epics, which has become the reigning king when it comes to DVD companies specializing in vintage sexploitation, erotica, and the like. That position is likely to remain pretty secure for some time, what with the release of such treasures as The Irving Klaw Classics box set, but there are a couple of recent contenders for the throne that have just come to my attention, so I thought I’d say a few words about them. These are Private Screening Collection and Severin Films.

< ...>Both firms have about a half-dozen or so titles out so far, and both specialize exclusively (to date) in the erotic (right down to their logos). There’s a further point of connection, too, if only an indirect one: Private Screening’s focus is on producer Harry Alan Towers, while Severin has released two films by Jess Franco, who made several films for Towers (though you’ll have to see Blue Underground for those collaborations). The similarities end there, though.

If the exploitation film is the dark underbelly of mainstream cinema, then the rape revenge movie is the dark underbelly (or one of those dark underbellies) of the exploitation film. It is a form that has more exemplars than many would like to think, and has extended its tendrils into the mainstream, whether that be in the form of made-for-TV movies or theatrical ones. Carol Clover, in her excellent study Men, Women and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film sees a direct link between the most notorious o... the rape revenge films – I Spit On Your Grave (1978) – and the Oscar -winner The Accused (1988). One, though, she argues, is more honest in the way it confronts the issues than the other, and the honest one is not the one starring Jodie Foster.

I Spit On Your Grave is undoubtedly a nasty piece of work, what with its near-interminable rape scene that makes one sigh with relief once the castration gets going, but there is another film arguably even more unpleasant, and certainly even more peculiar: Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1974). This was released, in truncated form, in the States as They Call Her One Eye, and its eye-patched heroine is the obvious visual inspiration for the Elle Driver character in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill.

The Quatermass series I wrote about last week were based, as I said, on television mini-series written by Nigel Kneale. They were not the only Kneale adaptations, nor were they the only SF films from that period to turn to television for source material. A six-part series aired in 1956 under the title of “The Trollenberg Terror.” This was written by Peter Key, doing his best to be Nigel Kneale. A film version duly followed in 1958, retaining the original title in Great Britain, but seeing light in the States under th... much more lurid (but beloved) moniker of The Crawling Eye.

Forrest Tucker is a scientist on his way to the town of Trollenberg to visit a colleague at the observatory up on the mountain. On the train heading there, he meets two sisters (Jennifer Jayne and Janet Munro). Munro is a mentalist, and the duo has an act, but she also is legitimately psychic, and she feels an inexplicable compulsion to alight at Trollenberg. The small Swiss town, meanwhile, is dealing with tragedy, as a mountain climber has been mysteriously decapitated during an ascent. Tucker’s friend (Warren Mitchell) is also concerned about this mysterious, radioactive, unmoving cloud that clings to the mountainside. Strange events multiply. Munro has visions of events going on up the mountain. A geologist is killed, and his partner becomes a possessed zombie who tries to kill Munro. Turns out there are evil aliens in that cloud. And they look like... Well, you can probably guess.Peter Key was no Nigel Kneale, and the film is no match for the Quatermass flicks. If the FX in the latter had their rough edges, the context in which they appeared – from both narrative and technical considerations (the lighting was always superb) – made them much more convincing than they might otherwise be. The tentacled eyeballs of The Crawling Eye are so ludicrous that they cannot be taken seriously. On the other had, they are extremely memorable, instantly recognizable in a way that the Quatermass monsters are not. They are also completely adorable. Rarely has an SF monster looked so precisely like the most stereotypical SF monster imaginable. I mean every word of that apparently self-contradictory sentence.Bill Warren has pointed out that the plot makes no sense. True enough. Very little by way of convincing explanations and motivations regarding the crawling eyes and their actions are ever provided. But in the final analysis, this matters not one jot. The film has such a wealth of incident that one is carried along by the plot, breathlessly watching each new (and exciting) development without worrying about how they all connect (if they do at all). The performances certainly help: everyone acts with conviction, and the delivery is often underplayed, making the whole affair that much easier to take seriously. The atmosphere is also carefully developed. The dimly lit inn where much of the action until the climax takes place starts off cozy but becomes eerie once the characters come under threat. Silly though the proceedings might be, they still carry an undeniable aura of menace, and the climax manages to be suspenseful despite the silliness of the monsters.Image’s DVD is a pretty no-frills affair (trailer and stills, plus liner notes), but it does present the film in 1.66:1 anamorphic widescreen, and is the original British print, with the original title intact.

One of the smartest, most suspenseful SF franchises to emerge from the 1950's was Britain’s Quatermass series. Created by Nigel Kneale, the series first saw light as superlative television shows, which were subsequently adapted for the big screen by Hammer. While the shorter running time necessitated certain compromises, all three films were excellent, among the best offerings of British SF. These movies were The Quatermass Experiment (1955, released in the States as The Creeping Unknown), Quatermass...2 (1957) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967, AKA Five Million Years to Earth).

Val Guest, who was also responsible for the superb The Day the Earth Caught Fire directed the first two. The first film, which introduced Brian Donlevy as the irascible, bull-headed Professor Quatermass, remains unavailable on DVD, as far as I’ve been able to determine. This is positively criminal. The film, about an astronaut who survives the disastrous returning crash of his spaceship only to slowly transform into a carnivorous, Lovecraftian blob/tentacle monster, is bleak, suspenseful and terrifically atmospheric. Donlevy’s Quatermass is a rather troubling good guy, since he refuses to countenance any delay before launching yet another spaceship. If you can find the VHS, see this film, and in the meantime, let’s hope its DVD release isn’t too long in coming.As if in compensation, the other two films were released by Anchor Bay as a double feature DVD. Brian Donlevy returns to the role in Quatermass 2. He’s still pretty irritable, but he’s much more straightforwardly sympathetic. I mentioned this film before in my tribute to Michael Ripper, but to reiterate, it is very much in the vein of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Here, though, the takeover by aliens is already well advanced, with important members of the government not what they appear to be (a conceit revisited in last year’s Doctor Who revival). The climactic battle at the industrial plant that is the heart of the alien invasion is pretty explosive, and the monsters on display are impressive despite the limited FX budget.Quatermass and the Pit has Roy Ward Baker directing instead of Guest, and Andrew Keir taking over as Quatermass (meaning the hero is no longer inexplicably American). Both men do their predecessors proud. The only entry to be shot in colour, it makes good use of same, as there is plenty of (for the time) icky ooze and blood on display. Construction of a new subway line unearths a spaceship. The grasshopper-like corpses on board turn out to be Martians, and it seems they were responsible for the colonization of the earth. Our images of demons are the race memory of our previous overlords. The spaceship is far from being inert, however, and a terrible psychic horror descends on London. The climax is a horrific orgy of destruction, imitated (badly) by Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce. The premise, like that of the other films, is, of course, preposterous, but it is delivered with such conviction by all involved that it winds up making perfect sense, at least for the running time of the film.While the special effects of all three films have been, of course, outclassed by advancing technology, the intelligence of the scripts is something that most current SF films can only envy. Track these down. They’ll reward your effort.