horor movie review – Horror Ghouls

Welcome to the town of Hamelin, where the sun slowly rises above the horizon, and it’s time to begin a new day! Except, every new day in this town is one filled with misery and pettiness, as the townspeople of Hamelin are all a miserable, narcissistic bunch of lowlifes. Everything that matters in this town is money and social rank, and people’s gluttony and waste is enormous. The result is a rat infestation, where the rats are having their fun at night and steal both food and other valuables. Things get worse and worse, until a mysterious hooded man arrives in town. This man is a piper, and he demonstrates to the town leaders that the sound of his playing can entice rats to their deaths. How wonderful! The rat problem is soon to be gone an all the assholes in town can go back to their same shit as usual. They offer the piper 1000 gold coins as payment for the job, and so he starts playing and gets rid of the rats.

You probably know this story, of course. The Pied Piper of Hamelin is an old tale dating back to the Middle ages, and have forever stood as a warning of the importance of paying your debts when due. Because the Piper, despite getting rid of the rats and doing the job, doesn’t get paid. When the townspeople have gotten their problem solved, they decide to not pay him after all, causing him to exact his revenge. In the original story he lures all the children away from town, in the same way he did with the rats. In this movie, there’s a different twist on this old tale.

This version of The Pied Piper (Czech title: Krysař) is a 1986 Czechoslovak animated dark fantasy film, directed by Jiří Barta. It was a very ambitious project, where other animation studios in Czechoslovakia mainly made short films for television, usually aimed at children. As someone born in the 80’s and growing up in Norway, these Czech animated shorts were often featured on our local children’s programs on TV, mainly our public broadcaster NRK, with some of the main ones being Krtek and Pat a Mat. Kratky Film was the production company behind The Pied Piper (which is also the company that helped produce Krtek and Pat a Mat). Research for the film took six months, while screenplay and technical preparations took a year.

This movie is certainly a gorgeous and artistic piece of work. The art design is heavily influenced by German Expressionism and medieval German art, which of course is perfect for this film. And the puppets – oh man – they really are something else! Pure nightmare fuel, but in the greatest sense. I can imagine if I saw this as a child, my dreams would probably be really, really weird for the next days. The people of Hamelin look just as ugly as their personalities, which I suppose is very much the point as they’re horrible people through and through. The puppets were also intentionally designed to appear very mechanical to make them even less human, a contrast to the use of several living rats in the film. This is of course an artistic choice to make the rats seem more alive than the humans. There’s no language in the film, so the “dialogue“ is delivered through physical gestures, grunts, mumblings and other sounds.

Aside from the pure uncanny valley territory from the puppets, the whole film has a certain dark and disturbing atmosphere all over. The backgrounds, puppets, rats, music and everything creates this weird and slightly surreal nightmare-feeling to it all. Just taking a quick look at it should make most people realize this isn’t something you put on for the kids, but it’s also not just because of the visual style. There’s several themes here, including some really dark ones when it comes to another of the Piper’s main reasons for taking revenge on the entire town, that’s definitely not suitable for a younger audience.

The Pied Piper is an awesome art-house stop-motion animated film for adults, and definitely one you should check out if you want something strange, nightmarish and oddly beautiful! The movie is available on some streaming sites, including Tubi. A restored version of the film was released in 2023 by Deaf Crocodile, which is the film’s first official Blu-Ray release.

Director: Jirí Barta
Writer: Kamil Pixa
Original title: Krysar
Country & year: Czechoslovakia/West Germany, 1986
Voice actor: Oldřich Kaiser, Jiří Lábus, Michal Pavlícek, Vilém Cok
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0174834/

Ippolita is a young woman who has been paraplegic since a car accident when she was 12. The accident killed her mother, and left her broken in more ways than one. The doctors have diagnosed her paralysis as purely psychosomatic due to mental trauma rather than any physical issues. She’s also gotten very reliant on her father, the wealthy Rome aristocrat Massimo, and more or less craving his attention nonstop. Her attachment issues skyrockets when she finds out that Massimo has gotten romantically involved with a woman named Greta.

Ippolita, wanting more of her own life and especially to get rid of her paralysis, eventually reaches out to her uncle who is a Vatican cardinal. He only recommends her to get in contact with a parapsychologist named Marcello Sinibaldi, who uses hypnosis on her because he believes that she’s having unconscious memories of her past lives. One of these past lives is none other than a witch (well, of course!) who entered a covenant with Satan and was burned at the stake. Ippolita is possessed by her ancestor’s spirit, and even regains her ability to walk, which she does only under a dissociated state. During this state she ends up killing a tourist after seducing him in her own witchy way. Then things only escalate, where Ippolita becomes fully possessed and lets everyone know that she’s learned a few bad words like “cock“ and “whore“. Especially cock, which seems to be her new favorite word. Ippolita is now ready to let her witchy, demonic side out in full. Mamma Mia! Time to call the exorcist!

The Antichrist (original title: L´anticristo), also being released under the title The Tempter, is a supernatural horror film from 1974, directed by Alberto De Martino and co-written with Gianfranco Clerici and Vincenzo Mannino. Yet another cash-in on the success of The Exorcist (1973), but despite all the cheese and nonsense in this film I don’t think anyone can beat The Turkish Exorcist, Seytan. Its place as number-one in the most baffling and hilarious exorcist ripoffs remains unsurpassed.

While this film is another blatant The Exorcist ripoff, it is on a completely other level than the aforementioned Seytan. The Antichrist actually harbors some qualities, especially in the visual department. Joe D’Amato worked as director of photography on this film, under his real name Aristide Massaccessi. This easily explains why the movie feels fairly competent visually, and combined with a score composed by Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, there are actually some scenes which manage to deliver some decent atmosphere. It doesn’t take long until it stumbles between each of those, however, as the pacing is quite off at times and the special effects are mostly goofy. Ippolita’s character isn’t exactly the most sympathetic to begin with, but her change into a murderous, horny, foul-mouthed witch becomes more ludicrous than shocking. Hearing an adult woman say cock will never pack the same punch as hearing a 12-year old say your mother sucks cocks in hell.

There are some scenes that goes straight into wtf-land with some surreal fantasy-dream-nightmare visuals, and of course we get a rather lengthy Satanic orgy in Satan’s garden in Hell (or wherever it’s supposed to be). With all that talk of cock it was about time she finally got some. Despite some good things, the film is struggling with the pacing issues and some rather laughable scenes which are actually supposed to be scary. Or at least I think so. We have a disembodied flying hand that chokes a guy, a hilarious levitation scene, and so many other things which I suppose are supposed to be horror elements, but just makes you chuckle instead. It’s a totally confused mixture of witchcraft, satanism, possession, sleaze, and goofy effects. But is it still entertaining? Hell, yes!

Overall, The Antichrist is a movie that can be a fun watch if you want to see a sleaze ‘n cheese ripoff of The Exorcist. If you’re in for a challenge: take it as a double-feature with The Turkish Exorcist, Seytan!

Fun Fact: Carla Gravina, who plays the role as Ippolita, revealed that she had some trouble playing the role and would never accept anything similar ever again. After starting the shooting of the film, she said she started to feel some kind of strange disease coming on, which she described as differing between an intense cold, feeling dizzy, getting a feeling of emptiness, headaches, lack of appetite, and so on. Doctors diagnosed that it was most likely due to overwork and “curious psychic influences“…

Director: Alberto De Martino
Writers: Gianfranco Clerici, Alberto De Martino, Vincenzo Mannino
Original title: L’anticristo
Also known as: The Tempter
Country & year: Italy, 1974
Actors: Carla Gravina, Mel Ferrer, Arthur Kennedy, George Coulouris, Alida Valli, Mario Scaccia, Umberto Orsini, Anita Strindberg, Remo Girone, Ernesto Colli
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0071150/

Tag: horor movie review

The Pied Piper (1986)

The Antichrist (1974)