Review #118: 'Something Weird' (1967)

Well, it was bound to happen to one of us eventually. I've recently been unable to play any form of disc/DVD, which has made me look elsewhere to find some filmic pleasure. Fortunately, youtube.com has given me the gift of a wide selection of middle-rate/utterly bad films (although surprisingly, they have some quite extraordinary cinematic classics such as Benjamin Christensen's Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922), and F. W. Murnau's Faust (1926). Like an excited child in a video shop, I looked for the selection within the genre of horror. After all, this is the best place to look, when you want some bad-yet-possibly-interesting-cinema. I fell upon this release by the infamous 'Godfather of gore', Herschell Gordon Lewis.

This is not one of Gordons' gore-filled movies. It is an attempt at a story of psychic abilities. Cronin Mitchell (Tony McCabe) is in a freak electrical accident that leaves half his face disfigured. Whilst Mitchell (Mitch, as he likes to be called by the 'ladies') is angry at the fate of his 'beautiful face', he has developed incredible powers of ESP (extra-sensory perception - the sixth sense). After leaving the hospital with no apparent possibility of plastic surgery to re-instate the 'normal' face, Mitch begins a business of psychic readings. This is where he encounters The Hag (Mudite Arums).

The Hag proposes to Mitch a bargain, that if he loves her, she will restore his face. After refusing, Cronin's face is restored anyway. So begins his fate. For he is completely controlled by The Hag, who now disguises herself as a beautiful 'assistant' (Ellen Parker) to his travelling psychic. Whilst he has his extraordinary powers of ESP, the government want him and the local police desire his assistance in a murder case, where seven woman have been brutally slaughtered.

Mitch is inaugurated into the societal traps of the 'connected' police detective. He has an almost celebrity status. This is pure post-Psycho filmmaking. Mitch is quite obviously investigating murder that he himself has done, but is unable to remember. The Hag has utter control over his memory and his actions. She moves on to her next victim even as Mitch is stumbling through his nightmare. We enter psycho-babble through analytical trappings of 'split-personality' etc. Therefore, he is utterly controlled by his unconscious-self.

Whilst the seeming twist might give this cheap affair some form of narrative gravitas, the film surely doesn't. After all, it is an H G Lewis picture. Yes, everything about a Lewis film is inept. The acting, cinematography, editing, writing are all so terrible. But for some reason, I am utterly drawn into this garish Eastman colourised world. This doesn't have the blood-red charms of Blood Feast (1963) and Two-Thousand Maniacs (1964); it doesn't even hold the absurdly laconic pace of these dull-yet-entertaining films. It is a incredible bore to watch. Perhaps if you created an anthology movie of Lewis-like vignettes, then there may be a two-hour movie there (the sordid lives of distracted Americans perhaps), but to hold out a 20 minute premise in an 80 minute feature, is not the best way to spend that time. I have to say, I still adore the cinema of Herschell Gordon Lewis - up there with the sexploitation magnetism of (the better filmmaker) Russ Meyer.

Directed by: Herschell Gordon Lewis
Starring: Tony McCabe, Elizabeth Lee, William Brooker, Mudite Arums
Country: USA

Rating: *

Marc Ivamy