Telephone Time: The Vestris (Arthur Hiller, 1958)

In which we journey, like an ailing John Sheridan and a concerned Ood Elder, to peel back and peer beyond The Veil...

The list of television anthology series is quite a long one, even if one restricts oneself to those whose remit is to dabble in the arena of the unearthly or the bizarre.  Famous examples abound, such as Tales of Tomorrow (1951-1953), Rod Serling's legendary The Twilight Zone (1959-1964) and the more sci-fi oriented The Outer Limits (1963-1965) - not to mention HBO's long-running EC Comics-inspired ghoulishly cackling Tales from the Crypt (1989-1996).  From 1961 to 1963 watchers of US network NBC would witness horror legend Boris Karloff hosting tales of suspense and the supernatural in Thriller, but little did these enraptured viewers know that the erstwhile Mr Pratt was not a novice in the art of introducing a selection of eerie vignettes - as he had, three years earlier, filmed a very similar series entitled The Veil wherein he would also perform the duties of host and occasional guest star.  But their ignorance of this occurrence can be forgiven, because by the caprice of fate The Veil had - like its title suggests - remained shrouded in mystery, unseen and forgotten.  Falling victim to behind the scenes strife and the collapse of a financing deal, not enough episodes were completed before production was forced to shut down to sell to any network or put into syndication run.  Therefore Karloff's The Veil dwelt in darkness, save for a selection episodes that were edited together into a trilogy of portmanteau TV movies (Jack the Ripper, Destination Nightmare and the eponymous The Veil respectively) until its rediscovery in the 1990s and subsequent (long delayed) release to the public on DVD.

The series itself started as something of a spin-off: the 'pilot episode' (entitled 'The Vestris') was actually produced as the twenty-fifth episode of the third season of Telephone Time (produced, like The Veil, by Hal Roach Studios and a shining example of 1950s US television's wanton display of corporate sponsorship - with its opening intro of "The Bell Telephone System presents..." - like other shows of the era such as The Philco Television Playhouse, The Alcoa Hour and General Electric Theater all proudly wearing their sucking of the corporate schlong of The Man proudly on their sleeves).  The episode was introduced, as usual, by 'Dr Research' himself Professor Frank Baxter (also the host/narrator of 1956's Our Mr Sun and the US airings of the groundbreaking 1961 15-part Shakespeareathon An Age of Kings), who informs the viewer that the story was "first written down by a distinguished American of the 19th century", the Glasgow-born writer, diplomat, politician, Spiritualist and social reformer Robert Dale Owen.

The episode unfolds upon the titular barque Vestris, embarking upon an Atlantic voyage from "Plymouth, Ingerland" in Dr Baxter's words (PLYMOUTH: 1828!) to Boston in the spring of the eighteen-twenties.  The crew of mostly British and Irish expatriate actors - including Torin Thatcher (soon to be a star of such genre classics as the Nathan Juran-helmed twin spin The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad [1958] and Jack the Giant Killer [1962]) as skipper Robert Norrich - lend a feeling of verisimilitude to proceedings talking place on a Culver City soundstage.  An exception is the captain's wife, Mary Norrich.  Played by New Orleans actress Rita Lynn, Mrs Norrich's accent seems to be in roughly the same mid-Atlantic position as the ship - which, coupled with some oddly out of place archaisms in the dialogue ("'Tis nothing!" for example) for the 1820s, gives the impression of an Amish theatre troupe mounting a performance.  Still, co-star Tommy Duggan would later even the scales by putting on a pretty dreadful American accent as the unfortunate Senator Alcott in the 1971 Doctor Who story 'The Mind of Evil' in which he dies wearing a frankly horrible dressing gown - so perhaps Ms Lynn wins out in the end.

Mrs Norrich is suffering from a melancholy mal de mer during the voyage, haunted by voices from the lonely sea ("Even in my dreams, i hear them...") that make her certain that some disaster is looming on the horizon.  Her Cassandra-like utterings dismissed by her husband as the idle fancies of a mind bored by "the monotony of seeing nothing but water" and that she should gain her "sea mind" along with her sea legs, Mrs Norrich is pushed further into embarking upon a voyage to Freak-Out City when she retreats to her cabin only to be confronted by a silent spectral harbinger (Karloff the Uncanny himself).  Collapsing in fright, some deck hands rush to her aid and her husband enters to find his wife sprawled exhausted on the floor and surrounded by seamen.  Finding no sign of the tall and thin mysterious stranger of whom she speaks ("His face was like that of death!"), Cap'n Norrich grows more convinced of his wife's bourgeoning hysteria until he notices the words Turn North West have been scrawled upon a chalk slate by some unknown hand - prompting a search for a stowaway on board.

Mary's nights of sleep continue to be plagued by signs and portents, as voices urge her to convey the message that the ship should stab northwestwards, driving her to wander the ship's fog-shrouded deck at night in her nightgown like a ghost and pleading with her husband to change course.  "There's something at work here, some power beyond our understanding!" she argues when Norrich refuses to take the ship into the Arctic ice floes, before giving in to a spouse Guided by Voices and serving as Manos the hands of fate much the the chagrin of his increasingly restless and mutinous crew.  The ship eventually chances upon the stranded survivors of the iceberg-wrecked Morning Star - "We were on that ice for a week," says Robbins, "God knows how you found us - it was a miracle!" - and one of the rescued mariners happens to be the sunken ship's surgeon Dr Pierre, played by Boris Karloff, who pays a visit to the bedside of the now delirious Mrs Norrich, bedridden with intestinal fever.  Lucky Pierre (ahem) was there.  "I knew you would come!" she cries upon beholding the visage of the man she had beheld as a phantom, who reciprocates his life being saved by administering to the stricken psychic.

A slight but intriguing tale of interwoven destinies and ominous omens that prove to be blessings in disguise, 'The Vestris' is a worthwhile half hour of vintage 1950s television that i'm glad finally emerged from the oubliette of the forgotten to be enjoyed.  Hello, sailor.

Re-Penetrator (Doug Sakmann, 2004) [NSFW]

Gettin' carnal amidst the charnel

I suppose i've come to terms over the years with the fact that i have something of an obsessive personality (and i'm not talking about the embarrassing time that a woman asked me to stop PMing her multiple times a week on Facebook, as she was having more conversations with me than with her family or boyfriend - though i guess i have just embarrassed myself by remembering and mentioning that fact).  I suppose a large majority of cult and genre fans are, to some extent - the addiction to collecting, cataloguing, making lists and so on.  We all, perhaps, have fandoms and obsessions that we don't really admit to others: a particular one of mine for the past couple of years has been perusing the oeuvre of Joanna Angel (is that a euphemism?  I guess).

The multi-talented performer/writer/director/producer first caught my eye when i saw a film entitled Evil Head (a naughty affectionate lampooning of horror classic The Evil Dead) a few years ago.  The realm of the pornographic parody has, in recent years, been mostly dominated (that's not a euphemism) by the superhero genre, but here i was discovering a very sexy goth/punk actress making sexy parodies of horror movies.  Obviously, i was in love at first sight intrigued.

Parodying Stuart Gordon's goretastic 1985 filmic adaptation of HP Lovecraft's Re-Animator, Re-Penetrator is a 22 minute (pretty much an ideal length for the intent of it's content, really) short by Doug Sakmann (writing, directing, editing and supplying the [quite good] blood and gore effects under the nom de porn of The Evil Carrot) featuring in its two-hander (now there's a double meaning for you) cast Tommy Pistol taking Jeffrey Combs' manic performance as Dr Herbert West to the ne plus ultra as 'Dr Hubert Breast and Joanna Angel as 'Corpse Girl'.  Lit with appropriately crepuscular green gels that make the endeavour seem like an X-rated Mario Bava film, Dr Breast beavers away (well, not yet, he's working at the beginning...) in his mortuary/laboratory filled with steaming and bubbling beakers of yer average mad scientist kind of set-up and pulls away the sheet from his morgue slab to reveal the naked form of the Corpse Girl, dressed - of course, as i suppose most dead people are - in nothing but a pair of stripper heels.  I would pause here to muse whether it's mentally healthy or not to find a naked woman attractive even when she's playing dead and made up with autopsy stitches, but i didn't want to overly worry myself.*

"Prometheus brought the gift of life - fire to man" mugs the manic doctor, showing his knowledge of both Classical mythology and the Shelleyan source of Lovecraft's story.  "But I - I will bring the world a much greater gift: immmmmortality!", followed by a 'nyah-ha-ha-haaa!' cackle that would make Skeletor jealous.  Preparing his resurrection serum (the same lurid luminescent green as in Re-Animator, or even Dr Alec Holland's bio-regeneration formula from Swamp Thing), Dr Breast forgoes and ordinary hypodermic for a large artificial insemination syringe - injecting the potion straight up the subject's cervical canal.

"Unlike the other failures before you, who only craved the brain," the alchemical coot croons to his creation, "you - with the help of this serum- you, my darling, will crave sex!"

And he's not wrong, you know.  No sooner is the dearly departed doxy sitting up and breathing than she is treating the Maker to an eager spot of thanatological fellatio, consisting of Ms Angel obviously holding a mouthful of Kensington Gore (is that what we still call movie blood?  All my reference books are out of date) and spitting it over the shaft during the act.  Which i found quite effective.  I mean, what is life in the end but flesh and blood and sex and death?  And here we have it all - not least when we progress through the positions (ooh - from behind with some throat holding: there's nice.  Though logistically you probably can't choke-fuck a corpse) and end up with some cunnilingus on the delectable corpus de-lick-ti that ends up with her shuddering out the words "I'm gonna cum all over your face!" and then some very effective gore effects as she spurts gouts of vaginal blood over the lapping lab rat.  Why not play along at home during your partner's time of the month, dear readers?

It all ends - as everything does - when the spent scientist finds himself being continually pawed at by his unsated opus until she mounts him again even more hungrily, biting and clawing at him as rides him in the cowgirl position, blood and guts and sweat and other bodily fluids flying.  It's how i want to go, for sure. 

I guess that even in the hellish environment of a charnel house, it's heaven when an Angel is present.

(*And besides - if i can continue to cope with the fact that i once had a conversation in the University bar that consisted of someone asking me if i discovered the body of an attractive woman "and she was still warm", would i consider necrophilia to be okay - then i can cope with anything.  The man who was emitting these opinions went on to be jailed for taking a weapon into the drama studio one day and holding everyone to ransom.  I state this simply as a matter of historical record, rather than drawing a specific correlation between events.)