Yet Another Sixteen Screams For Halloween: Day 5 (Nothing But The Night)

 Let's just run with this theme for a bit, shall we? Last time we talked about a strange piece of British media that I likely never would have covered had it not been suggested by a pal. This time, we are going to do that again. Whereas The Worst Witch was family friendly, this is not. Thanks to my British (allegedly) pal Rain, I put my eyes in front of a piece of 70's British horror called Nothing But The Night. Hey, it's got Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in it! You know, from all that other British horror! And it was written by Brian Hayles, who also wrote a whole bunch of good Doctor Who like Curse Of Peladon! And also created the Toymaker. Oh. Oh dear. Well, nobody's perfect. Still, there are good things to say about this film and there isn't a racist cartoon in it so that's always a plus. Let's do our usual thing and dive into it, because it was certainly a film that I watched.

I'm going to be honest. I spent the majority of this watch wondering why in the hell I was doing it for this marathon. Not because it was bad, it was a quite fine example of old British character actors talking to each other and stuff, but it was more of a mystery thriller than anything spooky per se. Yes, the movie opens with bodies being disposed of in various ways to hide how they were murdered, like shooting them at point-blank range to make it look self-inflicted or putting them in a car and having it go off a cliff. There's even a wild fakeout where what seems to be the dashing young protagonist of the movie gets it like 20 minutes in. Someone's picking off these people, and everyone who isn't the assumed protagonist is a trustee in some orphanage so the assumption is that they're being bumped off to get the trust funds or whatever. There's also this traumatized orphan girl who was in a bus crash having nightmares about shit being on fire, and her estranged mother's this problematic ex-con who killed a bunch of people. She's the red herring of the movie, but lord do they spend a lot of time with her crazed vendetta of getting back at the orphanage or... whatever she was up to.

A lot of this movie is just the interesting vibe of trying to figure out what the hell is going on. It's a weird paradox where it simultaneously seems straightforward and it's just the crazy mom who's been killing people, and also it's a complex plot with a secret mastermind where we don't know their identity or the plan. I can at least admire the setting, with the orphanage being on this tiny little island off the coast of Scotland. It gives this sort of Jaws vibe where the only way over there is to have a boat ferry you and your car there, and the same sense of tense isolation. You're all alone on an island and weird shit is happening. I can talk about Cushing and Lee some, since they were class acts and the big headliners of the picture. Cushing is a pathologist and Lee a colonel, and they're both investigating the killings and trying to protect the orphan girl, Mary, from what they assume is the crazy mother. There's also a reporter lady who is trying to convince Cushing of the truth, and it's through her that things get interesting. It's the climax of the movie, a faux Guy Fawkes Night (is that the titular night there is nothing else but?) with fireworks and a big dummy and burning bonfire. We assume the crazy mom's going to try something, but then the entire bottom drops out of the movie when it's revealed she's the dummy, and the shoe drops.

Surprise, there was weird supernatural shit going on! The kids are the trustees, who have possessed their bodies in some sort of gruesome transference and then "killed" their old bodies to cover it all up. This is all a crazed attempt at immortality made by sacrificing the young, and now they're going to get Christopher Lee who's stumbled upon it. A curious synchronicity. Both this movie and The Wicker Man came out in 1973. In the climax of The Wicker Man, Christopher Lee has a guy burnt to death. In the climax of this, Christopher Lee is almost burnt to death. When the weird supernatural shit hits, lemme tell you it fucking hits. This movie went from 0 to 100 real goddamn quick, and its ending denouement  is something I shall not repeat. Not because I'm all about the sanctity of spoilers, but just because bad things happen to these kids who are actually adults who've body snatched them and I don't wanna relitigate that and have to put up a bunch of trigger warnings. Suffice it to say, eek. This was definitely an... interesting movie. A bit slower paced, but not everything has to be breakneck speed. It's the kind of movie that might be fun to rewatch now that I know what the fuck is going on, and what to look for. These have been fun suggestions, but now let's tackle something a little bigger and more personal.

You wanna get gonzo? I wanna get fuckin' gonzo.