On this date, 31 March, in 1930, the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America agreed to abide by the Motion Picture Production Code (MPPC) or “Hays code.” It stayed in effect until 1968, by which time it was often circumvented anyway. This saw the rise of the MPAA rating system.

Censorship

All of these efforts — in the US and abroad — to protect audiences from the contents of films are evil and stupid. They are evil because they stop people from seeing the films they want, which producers are willing to supply in a lawful way.

We aren’t talking about kitty porn here. One of the final straws for the MPPC was its denial of Michelangelo Antonioni’s film Blow-Up. Why? Because it had nudity!

(Now the MPAA effectively has the ability to dictate what can be seen in a theatrical release because of the lack of competition in the theater business. And the MPAA uses this not to stop consumers from seeing love scenes, but rather same-sex love scenes. Think what you will about such things but the MPAA is effectively censoring ideas in these cases.)

Stupid and Evil

But this censorious behavior is also stupid in that it does protect anyone from anything. Take, for example, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre. It was banned by the British Board of Film Classification. But in 1999, this ban was reversed. So that’s the difference between a film so dangerous it can’t even be seen and one that can: 25 years. What happened? Did humans become different?

It’s clear that the MPPC and other censors are not working in the interests of film viewers but of themselves. They don’t want to see the films so no one can. But after a bit of time, the censors get used to the films and allow others to see them. No one is made safer as a result of this.

Now, with so many films being released directly to consumers, the MPAA and others don’t have the power they once did. But they continue to have a pernicious effect on film. See Kirby Dick’s This Film Is Not Yet Rated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTL3XMDwY0c

Also on 31 March

Actor Patrick Magee (A Clockwork Orange) was born on 1922,

William Daniels (A Thousand Clowns) is 93, Richard Chamberlain (The Three Musketeers) and Shirley Jones (The Partridge Family) are 86, Christopher Walken (The Dead Zone) is 77, Gabe Kaplan (Welcome Back, Kotter) is 75, Rhea Perlman (Canadian Bacon) is 72, Paul Mercurio (Dark Planet) is 57, William McNamara (Natural Enemy) is 55, Ewan McGregor (Trainspotting) is 49, and Andrew Bowen (Conjurer) is 48.

Directors Robert Stevenson (The Love Bug) was born in 1905, Ted Post (Beneath the Planet of the Apes) in 1918, and Nagisa Oshima (Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence) in 1932.

Director Adam Green (Hatchet) is 45.

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Hays Code image taken from a copy of Bride of Frankenstein under Fair Use.

On this day, 26 March, in 1988, the Italian horror film Evil Clutch was released. It was writer-director Andreas Marfori’s first feature film. He’s a very interesting guy, which may explain why he’s only made six features. Some of them I’ve never found like Energy!!! The Movie, which features Timothy Leary.

But you can find other films that are worth checking out like Desperate Crimes (featuring Denise Crosby and Traci Lords) and Soviet Zombie Invasion. Evil Clutch sets the stage for Marfori’s idiosyncratic career.

Synopsis

The film starts with a young man going to a remote building where a beautiful woman is sitting. They start to make-out but then a claw appears and she rips off a bunch of flesh from his groin. He slowly dies and she now has white skin and fangs and laughs maniacally.

Not long after… The woman flags down a couple in a jeep. She says she was attacked and they give her a ride to a nearby town where they are vacationing. Once there, the woman sees a motorcyclist with a voice box and runs away.

The motorcyclist then tells the young couple a horror story about the zombies. They don’t like it and run away. But he follows and tells them that it is dangerous. Nonetheless, they stay and camp, disregarding one of the primary rules of horror films: always listen to cryptic warnings offered by people with unusual physical disabilities.

They soon run into the evil woman from before and follow her to the same building she was in at the start of the film. There’s a zombie roaming around (the victim at the beginning). Some goop splashes on the guy and he becomes sick and then homicidal.

Then it gets weird…

Analysis

Really! This is a seriously weird film. It does, however, have a flaw that makes it a bit hard to really submerge yourself into: it’s such a rip-off of Evil Dead II including tons of Sam Raimi’s two-by-four camera work. But if you can get past this, Evil Clutch has much to offer!

Andrea Marfori has a more interesting visual sense than Raimi. And much of the gore is gloriously over-the-top — yes, even more than Evil Dead II.

The film stars Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni (Terror At The Opera), Diego Ribon (Apnea), Luciano Crovato (Family Scandal), and Elena Cantarone.

I loved this film! For me, the Raimi stuff was part of the fun. And it’s not like the filmmakers are being coy. One of the characters refers to the zombie creatures as the “evil dead”!

You can get Evil Clutch on a Troma DVD. You can also find it around the internet, but generally in very bad shape. Much of the film is very dark and it’s hard to see much of anything at times. But knowing Troma, the disc isn’t that much better.

Image via Amazon under Fair Use.

On this day, 25 March, back in 2010, the Indian comedy-horror film In Ghost House Inn was released. I haven’t seen it. I don’t even know how to see it at the moment. So all I have to go on is Wikipedia and the trailer, which is in Malayalam with no English subtitles.

I’m afraid this is going to be the way it has to be. I’m trying out something new here and just finding films and people to write about will be hard. In this case, my other option was The Outsiders, Francis Coppola’s filmed version of SE Hinton’s beloved book. It had the advantage of my having read the book and seen the film. But it didn’t seem nearly as much fun!

The Narihar Nagar Trilogy

This was the third film in a series and despite the fact the films span 20 years, they all feature the same principal actors.

It started with In Harihar Nagar (1990), a film about four friends who become attracted to a young woman who is trying to figure out why her brother was murdered. Soon they are kidnapped by the bad guy. But it all works out because this is an Indian film.

Next came 2 Harihar Nagar (2009). Now the four friends are older in established in life, married except for one of them who is about to be married. They again get embroiled into a plot but everything turns out fine because this is an Indian film.

In Ghost House Inn

In Ghost House Inn adds horror to the hilarity. The story is pretty much the same as any episode of Scooby-Doo, Where Are You! The guy who got married in the last film buys a house only to find that it is haunted. He finally gives up and sells the house at a loss only to find out that it was all a scam and get his money back because… This is an Indian film! Except…

Since the reviews for In Ghost House Inn were lukewarm and the box office only reasonable, it was the last in the series. Check out this trailer to get an idea of why I want to know more about it:

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In Ghost House Inn poster via Wikipedia under Fair Use.