BEYOND THE DUNWICH HORROR /PRETTY DEAD THINGS

Two films from a director named Richard Griffin make up this double bill release: I have to say I'm not familiar with Griffin's work, but a cursory look over his IMDb page reveals that he seems to have a liking for the sillier side of horror (with titles such as Nun of That, The Disco Exorcist and Atomic Brain Invasion it's fair to say we don't have an aspiring Gaspar Noé on our hands here – and that's okay). Here for our delectation we have a Lovecraftian tale in Beyond the Dunwich Horror and a vampires-as-bright-young-things yarn in Pretty Dead Things, two films which, despite coming from the same director and writer, are of surprisingly variable quality.

The first film in the set – Beyond the Dunwich Horror – is quick to set itself up as a love-letter to Fulci by using credits, a soundtrack and an opening scene which would not have looked amiss in the Italian's own trip to Dunwich in City of the Living Dead (1980). We start with someone discovering a young man lying half-drowned on the shore of Dunwich Island, clutching a suspiciously-esoteric piece of jewellery...he's taken to a sanatorium where, as he regains a sense of awareness, he is petrified by strange voices and the walls seeming to close in on him. When this young man's brother arrives on the island he's angry that no one contacted him earlier to tell him about his brother – Andrew – being in such a delusional state, and vows to get him released into his care.

Kenneth, Andrew's big brother, heads off to find out what is going on in this strange community and joins forces with a reporter, Marsha, who wants the same thing. Via their detective work and a series of flashbacks from Andrew, we come to understand how Andrew got into his disturbed state.

The quality of Fulci homage here, especially in the opening and closing sequences, is good: it's not all in that vein though, and actually loses a lot of its familiar cult film feel as it moves into a more chatty and (deliberately) comic middle filled with twentysomethings going through the usual rigmarole of talking about their relationships and so on. The rather unlikely gathering of characters (in terms of their age, appearance, style and delivery of dialogue) uses far too much in the way of Buffy the Elder God Slayer-style drama stops that good old Lovecraftian build-up of paranoia from taking hold, which is a shame, as evidently Griffin has a soft spot for HPL and uses quite a lot of verbatim material from the author. I really liked the cultist scenes included here too.

However, I'd take issue with the casual inclusion of a male rape scene in the film – although not given much screen-time - which goes from nasty to being glibly glossed over in a matter of minutes, as this felt self-consciously crude in an already grim and non-erotic array of sex scenes.

With those criticisms in mind, the film has quite a complex structure which ties together really well. So many indie directors flounder as soon as they attempt to play around outside linear format, but Griffin does it here. Whatever the faults of this film, it does show some initiative and ambition, not to mention enthusiasm for the source material.

Moving on to Pretty Dead Things – actually the earlier film, made in 2006 – I find it much harder to see any successful elements. This is by and large because it promises both sleaze and horror but is pretty anaemic on both fronts, presenting a cardinal sin for genre film audiences...

A band of hedonistic ex-porn star vampires (yep, you read that right) are neck-biting their way round the clubs and bars of Providence and having a right old time: two of the girls, Jennifer and Shelby, order a pizza one evening and prefer the pizza delivery boy. Sadly for them he gets 'turned' and becomes pretty puritanical in his new incarnation, offering to help the town's alcoholic mayor suppress the local porn industry – and the deadly vamps to boot. If this wasn't all bad enough then Jennifer seems to be having a crisis of conscience anyway, and feels unhappy about the everyday life denied to her. Still, when a human ex-porn colleague offers to help them fight back, the vamps all rally together. And how? Well, with more porn!

The thing is, the movie can't quite bring itself to deliver anything that naughty. The style of hedonism on offer here relies heavily on awful nightclubs and tinny music; perhaps I'm getting old, but scenes containing nothing but minutes of footage of people dancing about in cages just doesn't scream 'decadence' at me. The whole premise of the film is meant to be the porn industry anyway, but it's all very tame and a bit naïve considering, and doesn't make it as pastiche either. As for blood – there's some SFX on offer, but again, for a troupe of blood-drinkers things aren't exactly as gory as you might expect.

The film instead falls into the same trough as Beyond the Dunwich Horror, delivering a lot of dubious jokes but rather more clumsy dialogue (as an example: "You don't want God to violate thee with his vengeful manhood, do you?") The plot isn't strongly delineated in favour of lots of daft lines like this, so much so that it's hard to get a sense of what's going on with the 'rival faction' of vampires or, for another example, to reconcile Jennifer's initially cruel side with the tart-with-a-heart side shown later. Another black mark against the film is in its basically daft errors: when we flash back to the 1960s (as sophisticatedly shown by the words 'Flower Power' being scrawled on a wall and a cameraman wearing tie-dye) we see the vamps attack a guy quite evidently wearing hipster-style piercings and flesh tunnels. This scuppers the, ahem, clever '60s markers which came before...

Of the two films, Beyond the Dunwich Horror is by far the better. Pretty Dead Things is too protracted and sidelines horror/sleaze in favour of flat or clichéd characterisation, and whilst there's a bit too much chit-chat in the former, it has more interesting elements going on.

Both films look stylistically similar, with lots of high colour and lighting which makes them look like they were made earlier than they actually were. The picture quality in these is alright, although the lack of budget does show, although the sound quality is at times weak or muffled. This release from Camp Motion Pictures features a few extras: on Disc 1 you get a feature commentary, as well as some trailers (including the aforementioned Nun of That; Dark Night of the Demon House gets a showing too. Disc 2 also has a commentary and a Trailer Vault.

Review by Keri O’Shea