0:00:02 > 0:00:06This programme contains scenes which some viewers may find disturbing.
0:00:06 > 0:00:09When I was growing up in the 1970s, Europe seemed to me
0:00:09 > 0:00:13a rather comforting combination of the Eurovision Song Contest...
0:00:13 > 0:00:15# When you pick a flower... #
0:00:15 > 0:00:17..package holidays,
0:00:17 > 0:00:22and of course, the international version of It's A Knockout.
0:00:22 > 0:00:24But I was also mad about horror...
0:00:24 > 0:00:29Dracula's Secret, now deadlier than ever with blood-red jelly.
0:00:30 > 0:00:33And alongside Hammer and Universal,
0:00:33 > 0:00:35Dracula, Frankenstein and the Wolf Man,
0:00:35 > 0:00:37I started to become aware of other names.
0:00:37 > 0:00:43Film titles like Nosferatu and Les Diaboliques.
0:00:46 > 0:00:48Actors like Conrad Veidt.
0:00:50 > 0:00:53The work of directors like Dario Argento...
0:00:54 > 0:00:57..and Mario Bava.
0:01:01 > 0:01:04Now I'm going in search of the stories behind the classics
0:01:04 > 0:01:06of European horror cinema
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and meeting the people from across the Continent
0:01:08 > 0:01:10who created the films I most admire.
0:01:10 > 0:01:14The way each country reinterprets horror
0:01:14 > 0:01:17brings a new flavour to the banquet of horror.
0:01:19 > 0:01:25What is commercial? Commercial is violence, blood, sex and horror.
0:01:25 > 0:01:29I was hidden behind the mask like a prisoner.
0:01:30 > 0:01:33Fantasy is like a dream, a nightmare.
0:01:36 > 0:01:39Europe's turbulent 20th century
0:01:39 > 0:01:43forged a distinctive and diverse horror tradition.
0:01:43 > 0:01:46My travels will take me from German expressionism
0:01:46 > 0:01:48in the aftermath of the Great War
0:01:48 > 0:01:52to Belgian surrealism in the wake of the sexual revolution.
0:01:54 > 0:01:57From guilt-ridden post-war France
0:01:57 > 0:02:00to the dark excesses of swinging sixties Italy.
0:02:00 > 0:02:05And to Spain, in the dying years of a dictator.
0:02:05 > 0:02:10What's so fascinating, and chilling, about the continent's horror cinema
0:02:10 > 0:02:14is how much it reflects the story of Europe itself.
0:02:26 > 0:02:29I'm beginning my continental journey at the location
0:02:29 > 0:02:32of one of my favourite horror movies.
0:02:32 > 0:02:38Daughters Of Darkness is a stylish and coolly elegant vampire movie,
0:02:38 > 0:02:41but its story doesn't take place in Paris or Rome
0:02:41 > 0:02:44or any other glamorous European capital.
0:02:45 > 0:02:47It was set here...
0:02:49 > 0:02:50..in Ostend.
0:02:52 > 0:02:54And perhaps that makes it the perfect entry point
0:02:54 > 0:02:56to European horror cinema.
0:02:56 > 0:03:01After all, this IS the gateway to Europe.
0:03:07 > 0:03:11Let's hope we find something better here.
0:03:11 > 0:03:12I'm so tired.
0:03:27 > 0:03:32I'll go in first. You look after the luggage, Ilona.
0:03:37 > 0:03:39What makes Daughters Of Darkness
0:03:39 > 0:03:42such a quintessentially continental production
0:03:42 > 0:03:45is its strange cocktail of ingredients.
0:03:45 > 0:03:49A respected French actress plays opposite a German blue movie star
0:03:49 > 0:03:52and a Canadian beauty queen in a Belgian horror film.
0:03:52 > 0:03:581970s chic rubs up against quotations from the silent classics.
0:04:01 > 0:04:05Daughters Of Darkness tells of a mysterious countess,
0:04:05 > 0:04:08who, together with her companion,
0:04:08 > 0:04:12latches onto a newly-married couple holed up in an out-of-season hotel.
0:04:14 > 0:04:15Stefan.
0:04:21 > 0:04:24Unfortunately, they're leaving tomorrow.
0:04:24 > 0:04:29The Countess and her friend are, of course, lesbian vampires,
0:04:29 > 0:04:31and the hotel soon becomes a playground
0:04:31 > 0:04:35for increasingly dangerous mind games with the young newlyweds.
0:04:35 > 0:04:40The Countess Erzsebet Bathory, my ancestor.
0:04:40 > 0:04:44Erzsebet is Elizabeth in Hungarian, but she was best known
0:04:44 > 0:04:46as the Scarlet Countess.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49Imagine, she bled 200 virgins to death.
0:04:49 > 0:04:54Some say 800. A woman will do anything to stay young.
0:04:54 > 0:04:56But drinking human blood!
0:04:56 > 0:04:59She believed human blood was the elixir of youth.
0:05:01 > 0:05:04Exactly. Do you know about her?
0:05:05 > 0:05:07Yes, I've read of her.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11She kidnapped young girls and kept them chained.
0:05:12 > 0:05:13To give blood.
0:05:14 > 0:05:18- Blood for her to bathe in and drink.- No.
0:05:18 > 0:05:21Oh, yes. Yes.
0:05:21 > 0:05:22And she hung them up by the wrists
0:05:22 > 0:05:26and ripped them until their tortured flesh was torn to shreds.
0:05:26 > 0:05:29Yes, that's it, and she clipped off their fingers with shears.
0:05:29 > 0:05:30No!
0:05:30 > 0:05:33She pricked their bodies with needles.
0:05:33 > 0:05:37Yes. Yes, she tore out their nipples with silver pincers.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39- She bit them everywhere.- No.
0:05:39 > 0:05:43Then she pushed white-hot pokers into their faces.
0:05:43 > 0:05:45And when they parted their lips to scream,
0:05:45 > 0:05:49- she shoved the flaming rod up into their mouths.- Stop it.
0:05:49 > 0:05:50Yes, go on, go on.
0:05:50 > 0:05:54Harry, obviously Belgium doesn't have much
0:05:54 > 0:05:56of a tradition of horror films.
0:05:56 > 0:06:00What was your attitude towards Daughters Of Darkness
0:06:00 > 0:06:02when you first approached the project?
0:06:02 > 0:06:04Belgium HAS a tradition of horror films,
0:06:04 > 0:06:06when you look at Belgian films.
0:06:06 > 0:06:11- MARK LAUGHS - But I was approached by producers and they asked me,
0:06:11 > 0:06:14after my first film, to do something in that style
0:06:14 > 0:06:16that would be commercial.
0:06:16 > 0:06:22What is commercial? Commercial is violence, sex, blood and horror.
0:06:22 > 0:06:26So, I mixed those and found a subject
0:06:26 > 0:06:29that would make it possible to do that.
0:06:32 > 0:06:35Any vampire film is only as good as its vampire
0:06:35 > 0:06:37and Daughters Of Darkness boasts
0:06:37 > 0:06:39one of the finest on-screen vampires of them all,
0:06:39 > 0:06:43Countess Elizabeth Bathory, played by Delphine Seyrig,
0:06:43 > 0:06:45the doyenne of French art house cinema,
0:06:45 > 0:06:48an actress of spellbinding poise and presence.
0:06:53 > 0:06:58With her platinum blonde Marcel wave and Marlene Dietrich couture,
0:06:58 > 0:07:00she exudes a timeless ennui.
0:07:03 > 0:07:08Did you have a sense of what sort of a vampire you wanted her to be,
0:07:08 > 0:07:09or did she bring...?
0:07:09 > 0:07:14She was very fluffy in a certain sense,
0:07:14 > 0:07:17like many actresses are,
0:07:17 > 0:07:20but on the other hand, extremely serious.
0:07:20 > 0:07:24But she had one idea, "I'll play it smiling."
0:07:24 > 0:07:26Closer.
0:07:26 > 0:07:33The visual thing that I knew is to make the countess and maid
0:07:33 > 0:07:35iconic film figures.
0:07:36 > 0:07:38Show me your eyes.
0:07:40 > 0:07:45So Delphine has connotations of Marlene Dietrich...
0:07:45 > 0:07:47You're jealous.
0:07:47 > 0:07:50..and her maid, Ilona, of Louise Brooks.
0:07:50 > 0:07:53Well, well, well...
0:07:54 > 0:07:58So that in their exteriorisation, they would be immortal.
0:08:00 > 0:08:04She's a demagogue and a dictator,
0:08:04 > 0:08:08so I put her in Nazi colours.
0:08:08 > 0:08:13Red, black and white, that is the colour scheme that she wears.
0:08:16 > 0:08:19The rich historical resonances of Harry Kumel's characters
0:08:19 > 0:08:22are echoed in the locations.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26He filmed Daughters Of Darkness at two of Belgium's great hotels,
0:08:26 > 0:08:29the Thermae Palace in Ostend...
0:08:31 > 0:08:34..and here at the Astoria in Brussels.
0:08:36 > 0:08:38Both date back to the reign of King Leopold II,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42notorious for his brutal profiteering in Africa.
0:08:43 > 0:08:45It all lends Daughters Of Darkness
0:08:45 > 0:08:47a depth unmatched by any contemporary British
0:08:47 > 0:08:50or American attempt at erotic horror.
0:08:53 > 0:08:55Help me! Help me!
0:08:58 > 0:09:01The film is also suffused with a mordant sense of humour -
0:09:01 > 0:09:04death by dish cover, anyone?
0:09:11 > 0:09:13The blood. The blood!
0:09:13 > 0:09:15The blood!
0:09:20 > 0:09:24And it boasts a painterly eye for light and composition.
0:09:32 > 0:09:35Would you say there's a particularly Belgian sensibility to the film?
0:09:35 > 0:09:42Absolutely. In Belgium, we have a tradition of surrealism, of course.
0:09:42 > 0:09:44That is obvious, and expressionism.
0:09:44 > 0:09:48So, the combination of the two gives this visual effect.
0:09:48 > 0:09:52How do you feel about the film now, 40 years on?
0:09:52 > 0:09:54I don't feel anything about films.
0:09:54 > 0:09:57I know only one thing, that it still makes money!
0:09:59 > 0:10:04I can't tell you how completely happy I am to have you here tonight.
0:10:04 > 0:10:07Salut. Welcome back to the Astoria.
0:10:07 > 0:10:09Oh, yes.
0:10:09 > 0:10:12Don't drink it, it's shampoo.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Goodness. It looks so good.
0:10:14 > 0:10:19- It looks very inviting, doesn't it? - Yes, yes, it's so green.
0:10:28 > 0:10:32Daughters Of Darkness may be set just a brief ferry ride from Britain
0:10:32 > 0:10:35but its story reaches all the way across the continent.
0:10:35 > 0:10:39Countess Bathory is a figure drawn from the rich myths and legends
0:10:39 > 0:10:43of eastern Europe, which provided the very foundations of horror.
0:11:01 > 0:11:02I'm heading East,
0:11:02 > 0:11:05into the region that was home to the real Elizabeth Bathory,
0:11:05 > 0:11:07and to Vlad the Impaler,
0:11:07 > 0:11:10the historical counterparts of fictional vampires.
0:11:12 > 0:11:16Centuries of war and shifting boundaries have made this
0:11:16 > 0:11:19an amorphous, indefinable place,
0:11:19 > 0:11:22its castles and forests the inspiration
0:11:22 > 0:11:26for literary and film renderings of Dracula and Frankenstein.
0:11:27 > 0:11:30But to travel here is also to journey back in time
0:11:30 > 0:11:33to the earliest days of European horror cinema.
0:11:36 > 0:11:40This is Orava Castle in Slovakia, residence of Count Orlok
0:11:40 > 0:11:44in the pioneering German vampire movie, Nosferatu.
0:12:26 > 0:12:29Orava Castle dates back to the 13th century,
0:12:29 > 0:12:33and the decision to shoot Nosferatu here lends it an authenticity
0:12:33 > 0:12:35rarely matched in any horror picture since,
0:12:35 > 0:12:38a disorientating sense that the terror,
0:12:38 > 0:12:42however outlandish it may appear, comes from a real place.
0:12:46 > 0:12:52Directed by FW Murnau, one of the masters of German silent cinema,
0:12:52 > 0:12:56Nosferatu is a reworking of Bram Stoker's Dracula.
0:12:56 > 0:12:58The characters' names were changed
0:12:58 > 0:13:01in what would be a doomed attempt to avoid copyright problems.
0:13:13 > 0:13:16In place of Count Dracula, we have the vampire Count Orlok,
0:13:16 > 0:13:20a startling figure played by Max Schreck.
0:13:33 > 0:13:35Little is known about the actor
0:13:35 > 0:13:38but the word "schreck" is German for fright,
0:13:38 > 0:13:39and this gave rise to a rumour
0:13:39 > 0:13:43he'd changed his name specially for the film.
0:13:43 > 0:13:46It was, though, simply a coincidence.
0:13:46 > 0:13:49Familiar as we now are with the more urbane Draculas
0:13:49 > 0:13:51of Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee,
0:13:51 > 0:13:55it's easy to find Max Schreck's goggle-eyed, hunch-shouldered Orlok
0:13:55 > 0:13:57crude, even absurd.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01But in his utter alienness lies his menace.
0:14:01 > 0:14:05Nothing about him seems susceptible to human reason or emotion.
0:14:05 > 0:14:09He's like a figure that's stepped out of a medieval painting of hell,
0:14:09 > 0:14:13an embodiment of apocalypse intruding into reality.
0:14:18 > 0:14:23Nowhere is this captured more than in Nosferatu's most chilling scene.
0:14:23 > 0:14:25As a ship transports him to Germany,
0:14:25 > 0:14:28Orlok picks off the sailors one by one.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31Slowly, as if he has all the time in the world.
0:14:41 > 0:14:44The scene culminates in one of silent cinema's great intertitles,
0:14:44 > 0:14:47which appears with perfect timing.
0:14:47 > 0:14:51"The Ship of Death has a new captain."
0:14:57 > 0:15:00It's difficult to separate Murnau's vision
0:15:00 > 0:15:03from that of his set designer, Albin Grau.
0:15:03 > 0:15:07In effect the producer of Nosferatu, Grau was also responsible
0:15:07 > 0:15:11for the remarkable images that were used to promote the picture.
0:15:13 > 0:15:15The publicity campaign is believed to have cost more
0:15:15 > 0:15:18than the film itself.
0:15:24 > 0:15:29Albin Grau was a devout occultist, and he envisaged Nosferatu
0:15:29 > 0:15:32as the first in a series of occult-themed films,
0:15:32 > 0:15:35possibly as a way of spreading his belief system
0:15:35 > 0:15:38through post-war Germany and Europe.
0:15:40 > 0:15:44Unfortunately, Bram Stoker's widow had other ideas.
0:15:44 > 0:15:48She sued Nosferatu's producers for copyright violation,
0:15:48 > 0:15:51and a court ordered all the prints to be destroyed.
0:15:52 > 0:15:55Luckily, some slipped through the net.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59It's sobering to think how close this classic film came
0:15:59 > 0:16:04to joining the long roll-call of lost works from the silent era.
0:16:04 > 0:16:06The irony is that in many respects,
0:16:06 > 0:16:08Nosferatu is very different to Dracula.
0:16:08 > 0:16:10Indeed, if you watch it expecting
0:16:10 > 0:16:12a straightforward interpretation of Stoker's novel,
0:16:12 > 0:16:14you'll be baffled and frustrated.
0:16:14 > 0:16:16It has rats instead of bats,
0:16:16 > 0:16:20no-one gets staked or turned into a vampire.
0:16:20 > 0:16:21To do it justice,
0:16:21 > 0:16:25you need to see Nosferatu as a work in its own right.
0:16:28 > 0:16:31The film's unique climax
0:16:31 > 0:16:34is at least the equal of any other version of the story.
0:16:35 > 0:16:38Rather than leave the vampire-killing action
0:16:38 > 0:16:42to the male characters, Nosferatu becomes a confrontation
0:16:42 > 0:16:46between feminine virtue and masculine evil,
0:16:46 > 0:16:48played as a symphony of light and dark.
0:16:53 > 0:16:56At this point, Orlok's exaggerated shape and appearance
0:16:56 > 0:17:00seem entirely justified, as Murnau makes striking use
0:17:00 > 0:17:03of the vampire's shadow.
0:17:07 > 0:17:10Light, of course, is Orlok's undoing,
0:17:10 > 0:17:13as he lingers just that little bit too long over his victim,
0:17:13 > 0:17:16long enough for the dawn to rise.
0:17:37 > 0:17:40Nosferatu may have run into trouble
0:17:40 > 0:17:44but the German film industry wasn't easily daunted.
0:17:45 > 0:17:49It had a determination and ambition unmatched in Europe.
0:17:49 > 0:17:51One that belied the country's recent,
0:17:51 > 0:17:54disastrous defeat in World War I.
0:18:15 > 0:18:19After the Great War, German cinema had something to prove.
0:18:19 > 0:18:20It wasn't just entertainment.
0:18:20 > 0:18:24The young medium could help restore the nation's lost pride,
0:18:24 > 0:18:26showcasing German artistic talent,
0:18:26 > 0:18:30to audiences at home and the world.
0:18:30 > 0:18:35One film in particular, made just a year after the war ended,
0:18:35 > 0:18:38came to embody this bold aspiration...
0:18:40 > 0:18:43..earning it pride of place in Berlin's Film Museum.
0:18:51 > 0:18:55The Cabinet Of Dr Caligari was ambitious and startlingly original,
0:18:55 > 0:18:58and it's cast a shadow over cinema ever since.
0:19:04 > 0:19:07The film is the story of a sleepwalking killer,
0:19:07 > 0:19:10who is manipulated to fulfil the murderous urges
0:19:10 > 0:19:12of his own psychiatrist.
0:19:17 > 0:19:20Caligari boasts some daring narrative twists.
0:19:20 > 0:19:23But above all, it was a ground-breaking attempt
0:19:23 > 0:19:28by film-makers to put German expressionism on screen.
0:19:33 > 0:19:38No-one ever agreed an exact definition of German expressionism,
0:19:38 > 0:19:41least of all the German expressionists themselves,
0:19:41 > 0:19:43but subtlety was never an aspiration.
0:19:50 > 0:19:54Expressionist art offered a heightened, stylised experience
0:19:54 > 0:19:58that made inner, psychological states outwardly visible.
0:20:00 > 0:20:03That's what the makers of Caligari hoped to achieve
0:20:03 > 0:20:05with their set design.
0:20:08 > 0:20:12The result is one of cinema's most distinctive visions.
0:20:14 > 0:20:17The Berlin Film Museum holds some detailed reconstructions
0:20:17 > 0:20:21of the original sets, which give an insight into how they conveyed
0:20:21 > 0:20:24their claustrophobic, disorientating effect.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28- These are my murdering gloves. - THEY LAUGH
0:20:28 > 0:20:32Werner, tell me about these models. Who made these?
0:20:32 > 0:20:35That was one of the set decorators,
0:20:35 > 0:20:39Hermann Warm. He did these models in the '50s.
0:20:39 > 0:20:44So the first model here is Wohnzimmer Allen,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48which means this is the living room of Allen.
0:20:48 > 0:20:53It's not a cosy living room because it has
0:20:53 > 0:20:57a window which looks like a window from a prison.
0:20:57 > 0:21:00You wouldn't like to live in a room like that.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04It's very dark, it has shadows painted on the wall.
0:21:06 > 0:21:12When you look at the film, all the sets look like theatre sets.
0:21:15 > 0:21:17People are moving in circles
0:21:17 > 0:21:22and they built things where you could go down and up again,
0:21:22 > 0:21:27so they are all moving on a very limited space.
0:21:28 > 0:21:31In terms of the expressionist look of the film,
0:21:31 > 0:21:34what would an audience have made of that?
0:21:34 > 0:21:38Because...it wasn't absolutely brand new.
0:21:38 > 0:21:43No, expressionism was already in literature,
0:21:43 > 0:21:47- in painting and sculpture. - But not in film?
0:21:47 > 0:21:51But not in film. For film it was new, so this was the strategy
0:21:51 > 0:21:55of the film industry to install film as an art form.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59This is expressionist for the poor.
0:21:59 > 0:22:02So everybody can now see expressionism.
0:22:02 > 0:22:05Caligari's production design
0:22:05 > 0:22:08has ensured its status as a cinematic landmark.
0:22:08 > 0:22:12But it's also a film with remarkable performances.
0:22:12 > 0:22:15Werner Krauss as the sinister doctor
0:22:15 > 0:22:20and, most hauntingly, the tragic somnambulist Cesare,
0:22:20 > 0:22:22played by Conrad Veidt.
0:22:22 > 0:22:25The moment Cesare first opens his eyes
0:22:25 > 0:22:29must be one of the most unforgettable close-ups ever filmed.
0:22:51 > 0:22:54Future horror and fantasy creations,
0:22:54 > 0:22:57ranging from Boris Karloff's monster in Frankenstein
0:22:57 > 0:23:00to Johnny Depp's Edward Scissorhands,
0:23:00 > 0:23:04would all follow in Conrad Veidt's halting footsteps.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35Conrad Veidt established himself
0:23:35 > 0:23:37as European cinema's first great horror actor
0:23:37 > 0:23:41with a series of standout performances in macabre roles.
0:23:41 > 0:23:45What made him so special was his talent not just to convey menace,
0:23:45 > 0:23:49but to articulate, simply through his looks, gestures and expressions,
0:23:49 > 0:23:51a particular kind of terror.
0:23:54 > 0:23:58Terror like that of the sleepwalker Cesare, a man forced to commit acts
0:23:58 > 0:24:01that he would never sanely do.
0:24:04 > 0:24:07A man whose psyche has been fragmented,
0:24:07 > 0:24:10like the hundreds of thousands of German veterans
0:24:10 > 0:24:11who returned from the war
0:24:11 > 0:24:15to hospitals like this former sanatorium outside Berlin.
0:24:18 > 0:24:21Explicit soul-searching about the war experience
0:24:21 > 0:24:23was frowned upon in Germany,
0:24:23 > 0:24:27but Conrad Veidt's films provided an extraordinary metaphor.
0:24:29 > 0:24:32Veidt's characters are constantly losing control,
0:24:32 > 0:24:36fighting to hold themselves together in the face of doppelgangers,
0:24:36 > 0:24:39alter egos, forces they can't comprehend.
0:24:39 > 0:24:41Germany may have been reluctant
0:24:41 > 0:24:43to confront the trauma of the war in public,
0:24:43 > 0:24:48but Veidt played out the nation's fears on the big screen.
0:24:50 > 0:24:54In Der Januskopf, or The Head Of Janus,
0:24:54 > 0:24:56Veidt was both the Jekyll and the Hyde characters
0:24:56 > 0:25:00in this unauthorised adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's novel.
0:25:02 > 0:25:05The Student Of Prague saw Veidt confronted
0:25:05 > 0:25:09with his doppelganger in a Faustian fable.
0:25:10 > 0:25:14And in The Hands Of Orlac, an Austrian production from 1924,
0:25:14 > 0:25:18Veidt reunited with Caligari's director, Robert Wiene.
0:25:24 > 0:25:26While less stylised than Caligari,
0:25:26 > 0:25:29the film's depiction of a train wreck offers a powerful image
0:25:29 > 0:25:33of mechanical carnage that clearly echoes a battlefield.
0:25:43 > 0:25:45The Hands Of Orlac is an early example
0:25:45 > 0:25:48of what we might now call body horror.
0:25:48 > 0:25:49Veidt plays Paul Orlac,
0:25:49 > 0:25:53a concert pianist who loses his hands in the train crash.
0:25:53 > 0:25:57A surgeon replaces them with those of an executed killer,
0:25:57 > 0:26:01and Orlac comes to believe they have retained their homicidal intent.
0:26:04 > 0:26:07The moment when that realisation dawns
0:26:07 > 0:26:10is captured in one of Veidt's most compelling scenes.
0:26:12 > 0:26:15This is expressionism not as set design or lighting
0:26:15 > 0:26:19but as a purely physical performance that holds the screen.
0:26:26 > 0:26:28It's one thing to act with your hands and eyes,
0:26:28 > 0:26:32but to act with your veins as well...
0:26:43 > 0:26:46In the silent era, nobody cared about your accent,
0:26:46 > 0:26:50and Veidt was soon lured across the Atlantic to Hollywood.
0:26:50 > 0:26:54There, he took the lead in one of Universal Studios' greatest epics,
0:26:54 > 0:26:57The Man Who Laughs.
0:26:57 > 0:26:59Veidt's hero,
0:26:59 > 0:27:02his face cruelly mutilated into a permanent rictus grin,
0:27:02 > 0:27:05is said to have inspired Batman's nemesis, the Joker.
0:27:09 > 0:27:12But Veidt had other reasons to pack his suitcase.
0:27:14 > 0:27:18Back in Germany, the Weimar government was collapsing.
0:27:18 > 0:27:20The Nazis were on the rise.
0:27:21 > 0:27:24And Veidt's new wife was Jewish.
0:27:24 > 0:27:27The couple decided to settle in London.
0:27:30 > 0:27:32The departure of such a leading talent
0:27:32 > 0:27:34was bitterly felt by the Nazi authorities.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38One evening, Veidt took a phone call in his Hampstead home.
0:27:38 > 0:27:40It was Joseph Goebbels.
0:27:41 > 0:27:43The Reich's propaganda minister
0:27:43 > 0:27:45offered Veidt a number of inducements,
0:27:45 > 0:27:48but failed to convince him to return to Germany.
0:27:48 > 0:27:51You can imagine Veidt saying as he replaced the receiver,
0:27:51 > 0:27:56"Darling, next time Goebbels rings, tell him I'm out."
0:28:00 > 0:28:03Veidt was just one participant in a growing exodus
0:28:03 > 0:28:05from Germany and Austria.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11An exodus of talent, of craft and of style.
0:28:14 > 0:28:17Universal's Dracula and Frankenstein,
0:28:17 > 0:28:22released in 1931, drew heavily on their German forebears.
0:28:23 > 0:28:27But Germany was no longer horror cinema's centre of gravity.
0:28:29 > 0:28:32Despite their fondness for mystical Aryan mumbo-jumbo,
0:28:32 > 0:28:34the Nazis weren't too keen on horror.
0:28:34 > 0:28:37Their idea of a good night out was a queasy mixture
0:28:37 > 0:28:41of sentimentality, patriotism and propaganda.
0:28:41 > 0:28:46Horror cinema had found a new home in Hollywood and decided to stay.
0:28:46 > 0:28:51Europe was about to face more than enough real horror of its own.
0:28:51 > 0:28:54SIRENS WAIL
0:28:56 > 0:29:00And when horror cinema returned to Europe,
0:29:00 > 0:29:03it was France that picked up the baton.
0:29:13 > 0:29:16French horror, like that of Weimar Germany,
0:29:16 > 0:29:19was shaped by the country's wartime experience.
0:29:19 > 0:29:22But the trauma suffered by France in the Second World War
0:29:22 > 0:29:26had a particularly insidious quality.
0:29:30 > 0:29:34The Vichy government's collaboration with the occupying Nazis
0:29:34 > 0:29:36shattered French self-confidence
0:29:36 > 0:29:38and divided the country against itself.
0:29:41 > 0:29:44La Main Du Diable, The Hand Of The Devil,
0:29:44 > 0:29:47was a rare French horror film from the period.
0:29:47 > 0:29:51Its tale of a Faustian pact was painfully ironic.
0:29:52 > 0:29:56As a film-maker under the occupation,
0:29:56 > 0:30:00you either sought approval from the Germans, or you didn't work at all.
0:30:02 > 0:30:05The war and its aftermath were full of betrayal
0:30:05 > 0:30:08and the settling of scores.
0:30:10 > 0:30:14Even after the liberation, the bitter mood lingered for years.
0:30:15 > 0:30:19And nothing captured it better than a 1955 release
0:30:19 > 0:30:22in which two seemingly ordinary women commit a violent murder.
0:30:27 > 0:30:29The crime doesn't take place
0:30:29 > 0:30:31in an exaggerated expressionist setting,
0:30:31 > 0:30:35but in a banal domestic bathroom,
0:30:35 > 0:30:37and it's depicted with unflinching detail and realism.
0:30:52 > 0:30:56The film was called Les Diaboliques, and it established the template
0:30:56 > 0:30:59for a new hybrid of horror and thriller
0:30:59 > 0:31:02that's been with us ever since.
0:31:04 > 0:31:08At its outset, the tone of the film is humdrum and provincial.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11Much of it takes place in a shabby boarding school,
0:31:11 > 0:31:14filmed here in L'Etang La Ville,
0:31:14 > 0:31:17a small town on the outskirts of Paris.
0:31:21 > 0:31:24Vera Clouzot and Simone Signoret play, respectively,
0:31:24 > 0:31:27the wife and mistress of the school's headmaster.
0:31:27 > 0:31:30The husband treats his wife with contempt,
0:31:30 > 0:31:33making no effort to conceal his affair.
0:31:33 > 0:31:36But he's not above raising his hand to his mistress,
0:31:36 > 0:31:38hence the dark glasses.
0:31:40 > 0:31:43It soon becomes clear that the mistress and the wife
0:31:43 > 0:31:45are brewing up something between them -
0:31:45 > 0:31:49a plan to get rid of the unpleasant husband, once and for all.
0:31:49 > 0:31:52Let's face it, which of us has never fantasised
0:31:52 > 0:31:54about doing away with a bully?
0:31:58 > 0:32:01After drugging and then drowning the headmaster in the bath,
0:32:01 > 0:32:05the women dump his body in the school's murky swimming pool,
0:32:05 > 0:32:08hoping it will look like an accidental drowning.
0:32:09 > 0:32:11It's at this point that the film becomes more
0:32:11 > 0:32:13than just a very frank thriller,
0:32:13 > 0:32:16and takes a turn into horror.
0:32:16 > 0:32:19The pool is drained, but there's no sign of a body.
0:32:19 > 0:32:22One of the pupils insists that he's seen the headmaster
0:32:22 > 0:32:25hanging around the school, and most chillingly of all,
0:32:25 > 0:32:27a familiar face is half-visible
0:32:27 > 0:32:31in the back of the annual school photograph.
0:32:31 > 0:32:34It all begins to take a toll on the fragile wife.
0:32:34 > 0:32:38And then, one night...
0:32:51 > 0:32:52SHE SCREAMS
0:33:10 > 0:33:12It's enough to scare you to death,
0:33:12 > 0:33:15but there are still more twists to come.
0:33:15 > 0:33:19The next thing... Ah, well, that really would be telling.
0:33:25 > 0:33:28The director of Les Diaboliques was Henri-Georges Clouzot,
0:33:28 > 0:33:32who understood the grey world of moral compromise all too well.
0:33:34 > 0:33:37He himself had been criticised for taking German funding
0:33:37 > 0:33:39to make a film during the occupation.
0:33:42 > 0:33:45But Les Diaboliques wasn't an original story.
0:33:45 > 0:33:50Clouzot adapted it from the debut novel by a crime-writing duo,
0:33:50 > 0:33:52Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac.
0:33:55 > 0:33:59Their work would have a lasting influence
0:33:59 > 0:34:01on horror and thriller films.
0:34:01 > 0:34:03But at the time, Clouzot was taking a gamble
0:34:03 > 0:34:08by adapting Boileau and Narcejac's book, Celle Qui N'Etait Plus.
0:34:08 > 0:34:11It didn't have a conventional detective hero
0:34:11 > 0:34:15but was told from the perspective of victim and perpetrators.
0:34:21 > 0:34:24I've come to the small French coastal town of Pornic,
0:34:24 > 0:34:28home to Thomas Narcejac, to find out from his daughter Annette
0:34:28 > 0:34:30how the novel was initially received.
0:34:32 > 0:34:35Could you tell us how the publishers reacted
0:34:35 > 0:34:38when they first saw Celle Qui N'Etait Plus?
0:34:38 > 0:34:40TRANSLATED FROM FRENCH:
0:35:10 > 0:35:13Clouzot's faith in the story paid off.
0:35:13 > 0:35:16Les Diaboliques was a hit,
0:35:16 > 0:35:20despite, or because of, reports that people became ill with fright
0:35:20 > 0:35:22during the climactic scenes.
0:36:08 > 0:36:11The impact of Les Diaboliques was quickly felt across the Atlantic.
0:36:11 > 0:36:14But when Hollywood came calling,
0:36:14 > 0:36:16it wasn't Clouzot who was wined and dined.
0:36:16 > 0:36:18It was Boileau and Narcejac.
0:36:18 > 0:36:21No less than the master of suspense himself
0:36:21 > 0:36:23wanted to film their latest novel.
0:36:28 > 0:36:32The book was D'Entre Les Morts, Between the Deaths.
0:36:35 > 0:36:38With the story of a man obsessed with a woman,
0:36:38 > 0:36:41it continued Boileau and Narcejac's theme of the dead returning.
0:36:45 > 0:36:49Do you think that Hitchcock felt that they had found something new,
0:36:49 > 0:36:52that was the next big thing?
0:37:29 > 0:37:33The film became Vertigo, one of the master's most morbid works.
0:37:33 > 0:37:37But although they weren't involved, Boileau and Narcejac's influence
0:37:37 > 0:37:41can also be strongly felt in a later Hitchcock film.
0:37:43 > 0:37:46Psycho blends horror and thriller,
0:37:46 > 0:37:49blurs the line between heroes and victims,
0:37:49 > 0:37:53and features more unpleasant goings-on in a bathroom.
0:37:57 > 0:38:01Vertigo premiered in May 1958, just the day after another release
0:38:01 > 0:38:04which proved to be an out-and-out international hit.
0:38:06 > 0:38:10That was Dracula, made by Britain's Hammer Films,
0:38:10 > 0:38:14its follow-up to another full-colour horror sensation,
0:38:14 > 0:38:17The Curse Of Frankenstein.
0:38:26 > 0:38:30Hammer's success proved that audiences worldwide were hungry
0:38:30 > 0:38:33for a new level of graphic horror.
0:38:33 > 0:38:35French producers couldn't ignore
0:38:35 > 0:38:37these gory imports from across the Channel,
0:38:37 > 0:38:41but they weren't going to respond with a mere piece of hack work.
0:38:42 > 0:38:45Boileau and Narcejac were signed up
0:38:45 > 0:38:48to write what became France's next great horror film.
0:38:55 > 0:38:57In a genre that's never shied away from the lurid,
0:38:57 > 0:39:01few horror films boast a premise quite like Eyes Without A Face.
0:39:01 > 0:39:04Someone is travelling around Paris,
0:39:04 > 0:39:08abducting beautiful women and... cutting off their faces.
0:39:08 > 0:39:11The culprit is an outwardly respectable plastic surgeon,
0:39:11 > 0:39:15secretly attempting to restore the beauty of his disfigured daughter.
0:39:15 > 0:39:17It is a lurid premise,
0:39:17 > 0:39:20but this is perhaps the most poetic of horror films.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23It fuses the grim realism of Les Diaboliques
0:39:23 > 0:39:25with an almost fairy-tale quality.
0:39:34 > 0:39:38The moment we first see Professor Genessier's tragic daughter
0:39:38 > 0:39:40is both startling and moving,
0:39:40 > 0:39:44filmed by director Georges Franju with restraint
0:39:44 > 0:39:47and accompanied by Maurice Jarre's delicate score.
0:39:54 > 0:39:57In Christiane, shut away from the world,
0:39:57 > 0:40:00her ruined face hidden behind an expressionless mask,
0:40:00 > 0:40:05actress Edith Scob created a particularly haunting figure.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11When did you realise that your face would hardly be visible,
0:40:11 > 0:40:14that you'd be doing it through a mask?
0:40:14 > 0:40:16How did you feel about that?
0:40:16 > 0:40:21I think it was something I liked profoundly, yes.
0:40:21 > 0:40:25If I may say, it's an astonishing performance.
0:40:25 > 0:40:29Did you have a method of approach for that, once you realised
0:40:29 > 0:40:32you'd be expressing yourself through your eyes only?
0:40:32 > 0:40:37I really had no method because I was hardly 20 years old,
0:40:37 > 0:40:43and it was the first time I had such an important thing to do.
0:40:43 > 0:40:45It was quite instinctive.
0:40:45 > 0:40:48I remember behind my mask,
0:40:48 > 0:40:54I was sometimes smiling to a person. People see nothing!
0:40:54 > 0:40:56And I was really...
0:40:58 > 0:40:59..alone.
0:41:07 > 0:41:12And somehow, with a mere tilt of the head or movement of her eyes,
0:41:12 > 0:41:18Edith Scob conveys a world of isolation, a life forever lost.
0:41:18 > 0:41:22For all its poetry, this is an unflinching film.
0:41:22 > 0:41:25Just as Les Diaboliques doesn't hold back on its central murder scene,
0:41:25 > 0:41:28the key moment in Eyes Without A Face -
0:41:28 > 0:41:30its heart of darkness if you like -
0:41:30 > 0:41:34takes place in Professor Genessier's secret operating theatre.
0:41:36 > 0:41:39The scene shows a facial transplant.
0:41:39 > 0:41:41It's almost silent,
0:41:41 > 0:41:45the main sound being actor Pierre Brasseur's concentrated breathing.
0:41:45 > 0:41:48It lasts more than five minutes,
0:41:48 > 0:41:52director Franju daringly letting it unfold in real time.
0:41:54 > 0:42:00He was telling that the most impressive thing was...
0:42:00 > 0:42:02it was not the blood,
0:42:02 > 0:42:08it was just Pierre Brasseur with the pencil, like this.
0:42:08 > 0:42:13- The china pencil is more invasive and scary than a knife.- Yes!
0:42:13 > 0:42:17- You can imagine people looking away and thinking they see...- Yes, yes!
0:42:17 > 0:42:23He wanted people to imagine they're seeing,
0:42:23 > 0:42:25more than showing that.
0:42:25 > 0:42:27Crayon.
0:42:27 > 0:42:31For several minutes, the scene is pure technical procedure...
0:42:31 > 0:42:34and utterly, morbidly fascinating.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39How do you go about removing someone's face?
0:42:40 > 0:42:44As the scalpel starts to cut into flesh, we start to wonder,
0:42:44 > 0:42:48when will Franju fade to black, or move to the next scene?
0:42:48 > 0:42:52Surely he won't show us an actual, literal facelift?
0:43:04 > 0:43:06Allons-y.
0:43:21 > 0:43:25It's said that when Eyes Without A Face received its first UK showing
0:43:25 > 0:43:28at the Edinburgh Film Festival, seven people fainted,
0:43:28 > 0:43:33leading Franju to comment, "Now I know why Scotsmen wear skirts."
0:43:35 > 0:43:38I'd like to read you something, Edith.
0:43:38 > 0:43:41This is a British critic. He said,
0:43:41 > 0:43:47"Eyes Without A Face is a piece of revolting, pandering, evil rubbish.
0:43:47 > 0:43:50"I wonder what the censor was up to the day he gave this film
0:43:50 > 0:43:54"an X certificate. He should have ordered it to be publicly burned
0:43:54 > 0:43:56"in the Charing Cross Road, and on top of the fire,
0:43:56 > 0:43:59"he should have thrown all the makers of the film
0:43:59 > 0:44:02"and the people who saw fit to release it in Britain."
0:44:02 > 0:44:05Wow! THEY LAUGH
0:44:05 > 0:44:10It's strange, isn't it? It's someone criticising the film for its horror,
0:44:10 > 0:44:15- then suggesting the film-makers should be burned at the stake.- Yes.
0:44:15 > 0:44:20I think Franju would be delighted by this critic!
0:44:27 > 0:44:28But Franju's singular film
0:44:28 > 0:44:32also received a mixed reception in France,
0:44:32 > 0:44:35and, inevitably, overseas distributors struggled to work out
0:44:35 > 0:44:38what to do with Eyes Without A Face.
0:44:39 > 0:44:43For the American market, it was dubbed into English
0:44:43 > 0:44:46and re-titled The Horror Chamber Of Dr Faustus,
0:44:46 > 0:44:50ignominiously paired in a double bill with The Manster,
0:44:50 > 0:44:53the story of a man with two heads.
0:44:55 > 0:44:58While Britain revelled in its Hammer boom,
0:44:58 > 0:45:03by the early 1960s, the brief flowering of Gallic horror was over.
0:45:06 > 0:45:09France, it seemed, had neither the instinct nor the inclination
0:45:09 > 0:45:13to pull off that peculiar mixture of art and exploitation
0:45:13 > 0:45:16which is essential to a thriving horror movie industry.
0:45:16 > 0:45:18But, in the wake of Hammer's success,
0:45:18 > 0:45:22other European countries were far less...reticent.
0:45:28 > 0:45:32In an atmosphere of horror, the story of a man...
0:45:32 > 0:45:34Italian producers had no qualms
0:45:34 > 0:45:36about jumping on the horror bandwagon.
0:45:36 > 0:45:39They even flew in Hammer's biggest star
0:45:39 > 0:45:42in a shameless grab for the international market.
0:45:42 > 0:45:45..starring the unforgettable creator of Dracula...
0:45:47 > 0:45:49You wonder what Bram Stoker would have made
0:45:49 > 0:45:51of the trailer's extravagant claim.
0:45:51 > 0:45:54Breathtaking as never before.
0:45:54 > 0:45:56Sadistic and pitiless.
0:45:56 > 0:45:59Subtle and monstrous.
0:45:59 > 0:46:03While Lee embalmed his victims in The Castle Of The Living Dead,
0:46:03 > 0:46:06Barbara Steele was the target of a necrophilic scientist
0:46:06 > 0:46:10in another Italian production, The Horrible Dr Hichcock.
0:46:13 > 0:46:16The set-piece scene in which Steele wakes up in a coffin
0:46:16 > 0:46:20echoes the claustrophobic terror of her previous American hit,
0:46:20 > 0:46:22Pit And The Pendulum.
0:46:33 > 0:46:38The 1960s saw nothing less than an Italian horror boom.
0:46:38 > 0:46:39But it would go well beyond
0:46:39 > 0:46:42merely cashing in on British and American films
0:46:42 > 0:46:45to take on a distinctive national flavour.
0:46:46 > 0:46:48After all, this was the decade
0:46:48 > 0:46:51in which Italy became the byword for style.
0:47:00 > 0:47:03And its best films brought a visual flair to the genre
0:47:03 > 0:47:07that would win Italian horror lasting renown.
0:47:11 > 0:47:14SCREAMING
0:47:27 > 0:47:31Italian horror directors weren't exorcising national ghosts,
0:47:31 > 0:47:34they were flaunting their talent, and in the early '60s,
0:47:34 > 0:47:39one man rapidly established himself at the forefront of the genre.
0:47:40 > 0:47:43He was Mario Bava, an experienced cinematographer
0:47:43 > 0:47:47and prolific director, who made everything from westerns
0:47:47 > 0:47:49to science fiction.
0:47:49 > 0:47:52Mario made many movies.
0:47:52 > 0:47:55The movies that we remember the most, probably, are the movies
0:47:55 > 0:47:59where he was really having fun, that he liked the stories.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03He was thinking, "I would enjoy seeing this kind of film."
0:48:03 > 0:48:05TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN:
0:48:33 > 0:48:36Black Sabbath is a portmanteau of three tales of terror.
0:48:36 > 0:48:40It was the follow-up to Bava's debut horror hit, Black Sunday,
0:48:40 > 0:48:44in which he'd established his mastery of the Gothic tradition
0:48:44 > 0:48:47of crypts and castles that dominated horror cinema.
0:48:48 > 0:48:51Black Sabbath gave Bava the chance to work in colour
0:48:51 > 0:48:55and with Boris Karloff, the elder statesman of Hollywood horror,
0:48:55 > 0:48:57who links the three stories.
0:48:59 > 0:49:02Karloff was a useful marquee name to attract an international audience,
0:49:02 > 0:49:04but there's a humorous -
0:49:04 > 0:49:07and even psychedelic - quality to his linking segments
0:49:07 > 0:49:10that shows that Bava was playing by his own rules.
0:49:11 > 0:49:14The film's opening shot is a declaration of intent.
0:49:14 > 0:49:20With its bold colours, knowing tone and otherworldly setting,
0:49:20 > 0:49:22the scene flies in the face of the Gothic tradition.
0:49:28 > 0:49:30But Bava's most daring move comes
0:49:30 > 0:49:34at the original Italian conclusion of Black Sabbath,
0:49:34 > 0:49:37where he co-opts the grand old man of Hollywood horror
0:49:37 > 0:49:40into a decidedly European, whimsical joke.
0:49:46 > 0:49:49HE LAUGHS
0:49:55 > 0:49:57The scene was cut from the English-language release.
0:50:00 > 0:50:03The ending of Black Sabbath is very unexpected.
0:50:03 > 0:50:06What do you think Mario was trying to say with that?
0:50:06 > 0:50:08If you see all of his films,
0:50:08 > 0:50:14in the end you always feel like he wants to show the trick, or...
0:50:15 > 0:50:18..the last statement is, "OK, but it's just a movie.
0:50:18 > 0:50:24"OK, we were scaring you, but, see? It's just a game."
0:50:24 > 0:50:26LAUGHTER AND SHOUTING
0:50:33 > 0:50:36Having worked with Karloff,
0:50:36 > 0:50:39Bava secured another horror icon to star in his next film.
0:50:39 > 0:50:44Christopher Lee wielded the lash in The Whip And The Body,
0:50:44 > 0:50:46a lush, overheated ghost story
0:50:46 > 0:50:50in the mould of Roger Corman's Edgar Allan Poe films.
0:50:52 > 0:50:56I'm fond of telling people the plot of the story
0:50:56 > 0:50:59is essentially, the prodigal son returns to the family home
0:50:59 > 0:51:03and recommences his incestuous affair with his brother's wife.
0:51:03 > 0:51:07She kills him, but the affair doesn't end.
0:51:07 > 0:51:09It's very much ahead of its time.
0:51:09 > 0:51:13Even today, if you make that movie and you make it explicit,
0:51:13 > 0:51:15that can be shocking.
0:51:15 > 0:51:21The movie was released, then the censorship stopped the release,
0:51:21 > 0:51:23because of the fact that
0:51:23 > 0:51:27in one scene you see the bare back of the actress.
0:51:27 > 0:51:29I mean, it's too much!
0:51:29 > 0:51:32Not because she's... I mean, she's enjoying
0:51:32 > 0:51:37the fact that she's a masochist and she's having sex with the ghost,
0:51:37 > 0:51:39and he's whipping her...
0:51:39 > 0:51:42- Just the shoulders, too much. - It's just the shoulders.
0:51:45 > 0:51:48Bava shot this heady mix of shoulder baring
0:51:48 > 0:51:50and supernatural sadomasochism
0:51:50 > 0:51:53with his trademark virtuoso camerawork and lighting.
0:51:59 > 0:52:01It was clear that the Gothic tradition
0:52:01 > 0:52:03could barely contain his ambitions.
0:52:05 > 0:52:06Where to next?
0:52:18 > 0:52:20Fittingly, for such a style-obsessed director,
0:52:20 > 0:52:24Bava now embarked on a film that fused fashion with horror.
0:52:27 > 0:52:32An ultra-violent thriller set in a Rome house of haute couture -
0:52:32 > 0:52:35Blood And Black Lace.
0:52:40 > 0:52:42Many of the exteriors of Blood And Black Lace
0:52:42 > 0:52:45were shot here at the Villa Sciara in Rome,
0:52:45 > 0:52:48but Bava transforms the location with his lighting.
0:52:53 > 0:52:57Throughout the film, he uses colour like a costume.
0:53:01 > 0:53:03Other horror thrillers set in the present day,
0:53:03 > 0:53:06like Les Diaboliques or Psycho,
0:53:06 > 0:53:08had been sought in austere black and white,
0:53:08 > 0:53:11but Bava promises the colour of flesh,
0:53:11 > 0:53:14the colour of blood.
0:53:18 > 0:53:21Bava was also pioneering something even more significant.
0:53:22 > 0:53:27Nothing less than a new, distinctly Italian horror sub-genre -
0:53:27 > 0:53:29the Giallo film.
0:53:30 > 0:53:35"Giallo" means yellow, the colour of the pulp paperback thrillers
0:53:35 > 0:53:37that inspired many of the plots.
0:53:38 > 0:53:40Blood And Black Lace has a typical Giallo storyline,
0:53:40 > 0:53:44with the models and staff of the fashion house being stalked
0:53:44 > 0:53:47and killed by a mysterious masked figure.
0:53:51 > 0:53:55The opening murder is a classic Giallo sequence,
0:53:55 > 0:53:58a carefully built up set-piece in which a shadowy killer
0:53:58 > 0:54:01plays cat and mouse with a beautiful woman.
0:54:02 > 0:54:04It shows what pushed the Gialli
0:54:04 > 0:54:08beyond the thriller genre into horror - their flamboyant violence.
0:54:15 > 0:54:19And strangulation is one of the more merciful means of dispatch
0:54:19 > 0:54:20in Blood And Black Lace.
0:54:20 > 0:54:23Others include striking with a metal claw,
0:54:23 > 0:54:27and even pressing a victim's face against a burning stove.
0:54:34 > 0:54:37The film's Italian title says it all.
0:54:37 > 0:54:41Sei Donne Per L'Assassino - six women for the killer.
0:54:41 > 0:54:43This is horror as a numbers game,
0:54:43 > 0:54:47and it has left a lasting legacy in the scores of faceless women
0:54:47 > 0:54:49slaughtered in horror films ever since.
0:54:49 > 0:54:52We quickly forget them as characters.
0:54:52 > 0:54:54We just remember how they die.
0:54:57 > 0:55:01The murders do reach a new level of violence.
0:55:01 > 0:55:03It's a very striking...
0:55:03 > 0:55:06Yeah, but I mean, if in real life you read and you see
0:55:06 > 0:55:12how the people die, then why should you modify this too much?
0:55:12 > 0:55:14Even if it was violent,
0:55:14 > 0:55:17there's a moment that you can even find some poetry.
0:55:17 > 0:55:22I read that he had nightmares for three days after filming
0:55:22 > 0:55:24the girl having her face burnt on...
0:55:24 > 0:55:27That's, let's say, the Catholic part that's coming out.
0:55:27 > 0:55:31That you do something bad, and then, you know, you have...
0:55:31 > 0:55:35You start to think about it, and we call it crocodile tears.
0:55:35 > 0:55:37HE LAUGHS
0:55:40 > 0:55:42DISTANT ECHOING SCREAMS
0:55:44 > 0:55:48Thanks to Bava, Italian horror freed itself from American
0:55:48 > 0:55:53and British influences, and boldly asserted its own, unique style.
0:55:57 > 0:56:00The dark-hatted, black-gloved killer of the Giallo
0:56:00 > 0:56:02became an Italian icon.
0:56:32 > 0:56:34SCREAMING
0:56:34 > 0:56:38The longevity of the Giallo film might seem surprising.
0:56:38 > 0:56:41With the best will in the world there are only so many
0:56:41 > 0:56:45dark-hatted, black-gloved killers that anyone can take.
0:56:46 > 0:56:48But the formula seems to have encouraged,
0:56:48 > 0:56:50rather than stifled innovation,
0:56:50 > 0:56:54and in 1970, Bava's crown as king of Italian horror
0:56:54 > 0:56:57was seized by a young pretender.
0:57:01 > 0:57:04Dario Argento was shaped by the cutting edge
0:57:04 > 0:57:05of the Italian New Wave,
0:57:05 > 0:57:08and he injected new life into the Giallo.
0:57:09 > 0:57:11Argento also had a penchant
0:57:11 > 0:57:14for doing his own glove modelling in his films.
0:57:16 > 0:57:21His directorial debut was L'Uccello Dalle Piume Di Cristallo,
0:57:21 > 0:57:23The Bird With The Crystal Plumage.
0:57:27 > 0:57:32In the 60s, you were a rising star as a screenwriter.
0:57:32 > 0:57:35Why did you decide you wanted to make a Giallo?
0:57:35 > 0:57:37TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN:
0:58:10 > 0:58:14While Argento's film employed many of the familiar Giallo motifs,
0:58:14 > 0:58:18of black-gloved killers and violent murders,
0:58:18 > 0:58:21it also showed a highly unconventional imagination at work.
0:58:31 > 0:58:34The standout scene in The Bird With The Crystal Plumage
0:58:34 > 0:58:36is a remarkable set-piece in which the hero witnesses
0:58:36 > 0:58:40a violent attack in an art gallery, but is trapped behind glass,
0:58:40 > 0:58:43unable to help or intervene.
0:58:43 > 0:58:45The scene echoes Hitchcock's Rear Window
0:58:45 > 0:58:48in its use of the powerless spectator,
0:58:48 > 0:58:51but Argento brings an energy and dynamism that's all his own.
0:58:55 > 0:58:57WOMAN MOANING
0:59:26 > 0:59:28Just hang on! Just hang on!
0:59:28 > 0:59:30KNOCKING
0:59:30 > 0:59:33(MUFFLED) Open the door!
0:59:33 > 0:59:36Open the door!
0:59:36 > 0:59:38Call the police!
0:59:45 > 0:59:48The art gallery scenes show that,
0:59:48 > 0:59:50even working within the Giallo formula,
0:59:50 > 0:59:53Argento had a gift for the unexpected,
0:59:53 > 0:59:55for the unforgettable image.
0:59:55 > 0:59:59Sometimes this came at the expense of conventional narrative logic.
1:00:03 > 1:00:06One of my favourite scenes in Argento's work
1:00:06 > 1:00:09is from his 1975 thriller Deep Red.
1:00:11 > 1:00:14It begins as a fairly traditional stalking moment,
1:00:14 > 1:00:16although it's nice to see a male character
1:00:16 > 1:00:19as the potential victim for a change.
1:00:24 > 1:00:26DUMMY SQUEAKS AND GIGGLES
1:00:29 > 1:00:32A-ah! Urgh!
1:00:32 > 1:00:34I remember everybody asked me,
1:00:34 > 1:00:38"Please not this, no," because people don't understand.
1:00:38 > 1:00:41"It is stupid, this is absurd!"
1:00:41 > 1:00:44But I want to do that.
1:00:44 > 1:00:46I speak in English now?
1:00:46 > 1:00:48THEY LAUGH
1:00:48 > 1:00:52It's a very...it's genuinely unsettling, cos the very last thing
1:00:52 > 1:00:58you expect to come through that door is a tiny, childlike, dwarf robot.
1:00:59 > 1:01:01Yes, it was like an hallucination.
1:01:11 > 1:01:13Argento's clearly very fond of Deep Red.
1:01:13 > 1:01:16He named his memorabilia shop in Rome after it.
1:01:22 > 1:01:27'Welcome to Dario Argento's Museum of Horrors.
1:01:27 > 1:01:30'Here you will find some original props
1:01:30 > 1:01:33'from his famous terrifying movies...'
1:01:33 > 1:01:36The basement of Profondo Rosso houses a curious exhibition,
1:01:36 > 1:01:39or shrine, to Argento's prolific output.
1:01:41 > 1:01:44It feels a bit like walking inside Dario's head.
1:01:44 > 1:01:46I've been here before.
1:01:47 > 1:01:48This rings a bell now.
1:01:48 > 1:01:50HE CHUCKLES
1:01:56 > 1:02:01Hannibal Lecter's in the last cage, as long as I remember.
1:02:03 > 1:02:08'The corpse you see lying among the remains of a city
1:02:08 > 1:02:10'is a perhaps-dead demon.'
1:02:10 > 1:02:12Extraordinary mixture of things.
1:02:12 > 1:02:15There's a stray leg over there.
1:02:18 > 1:02:20'In front of demons,
1:02:20 > 1:02:22'here is the little ghoul
1:02:22 > 1:02:25'of the horrible child from Phenomena, or Creepers.'
1:02:25 > 1:02:27It's genuinely horrible.
1:02:27 > 1:02:30'During the action moments, the funny child was played...'
1:02:30 > 1:02:33In the 1960s, the pendulum of Italian horror
1:02:33 > 1:02:37had swung from the supernatural to the thriller.
1:02:37 > 1:02:38No comment.
1:02:38 > 1:02:42But by the mid-'70s, Argento was swinging it back.
1:02:42 > 1:02:46With his next film, he fully embraced the supernatural.
1:02:47 > 1:02:50I think they've missed a trick not having someone jumping out.
1:02:50 > 1:02:53That seems to be the next logical step.
1:02:53 > 1:02:56Probably Dario with a pair of black gloves.
1:02:58 > 1:03:00FURIOUS SNARLING THEN SUDDEN SILENCE
1:03:01 > 1:03:02MANIACAL CACKLING
1:03:05 > 1:03:08In Suspiria, the gloves are off.
1:03:08 > 1:03:12This tale of a German ballet school run by a coven of witches
1:03:12 > 1:03:15climaxes in a riot of visual effects and monster make-up.
1:03:15 > 1:03:20It's not a Giallo, but a hyper-violent fairytale.
1:03:23 > 1:03:25CACKLING AND MOANING
1:03:25 > 1:03:27And watching Suspiria
1:03:27 > 1:03:31is like experiencing a cinematic fever dream.
1:03:31 > 1:03:34Did you feel that making a fantasy film
1:03:34 > 1:03:37was a liberating experience as a director?
1:03:37 > 1:03:40TRANSLATED FROM ITALIAN:
1:03:53 > 1:03:56It's best not to worry about whether the plot's coherent.
1:03:56 > 1:03:59Just let yourself be overwhelmed by the dazzling colours,
1:03:59 > 1:04:02startling images and pounding soundtrack.
1:04:06 > 1:04:09THEY GASP AND MOAN
1:04:09 > 1:04:12Suspiria represented the ultimate outcome of the trend
1:04:12 > 1:04:16that had begun with Mario Bava's experiments in the early 1960s.
1:04:16 > 1:04:20Story was now totally subordinate to style.
1:04:26 > 1:04:28Argento's best work of the '70s could hold its own
1:04:28 > 1:04:31against the horror produced anywhere else in the world.
1:04:31 > 1:04:33But by the end of the decade,
1:04:33 > 1:04:36America had seized back the low-budget horror crown
1:04:36 > 1:04:38with films like Halloween and Dawn Of The Dead,
1:04:38 > 1:04:41which ironically, Argento himself produced.
1:04:41 > 1:04:45Italy rapidly responded to the new American horror
1:04:45 > 1:04:49with a salvo of films which pushed shocking and violent imagery
1:04:49 > 1:04:51beyond even Argento's work.
1:04:52 > 1:04:55Pictures like Lucio Fulci's Zombie Flesh Eaters
1:04:55 > 1:04:58and Ruggero Deodato's Cannibal Holocaust
1:04:58 > 1:05:01kept censors busy across the world
1:05:01 > 1:05:04before being consigned to the dead end
1:05:04 > 1:05:06of banned and "video nasty" lists.
1:05:06 > 1:05:10But European horror had life in it yet.
1:05:10 > 1:05:12A new wave would emerge from a country
1:05:12 > 1:05:15with one of the least celebrated traditions of all.
1:05:22 > 1:05:24Creaking trapdoors,
1:05:24 > 1:05:27shadowy attics, period costume.
1:05:30 > 1:05:34While Italy looked forwards, Spain seemed to be looking backwards.
1:05:34 > 1:05:37The most successful Spanish horror film
1:05:37 > 1:05:40made in the 1960s embraced the Gothic tradition
1:05:40 > 1:05:43the Italians had so quickly discarded
1:05:43 > 1:05:47to tell a tale of disappearance and dismemberment.
1:05:47 > 1:05:49Irene?
1:05:49 > 1:05:51What happened? Irene?
1:05:51 > 1:05:53Child!
1:05:54 > 1:05:56What happened to you?
1:05:59 > 1:06:01Oh, my God.
1:06:04 > 1:06:06SHE GASPS
1:06:12 > 1:06:17La Residencia is set in a strict 19th-century finishing school,
1:06:17 > 1:06:20where the young women are going missing.
1:06:21 > 1:06:24The isolated, repressive atmosphere
1:06:24 > 1:06:27was something of a metaphor for Spain itself,
1:06:27 > 1:06:31languishing for decades under an authoritarian government.
1:06:35 > 1:06:37One of the most striking things about La Residencia
1:06:37 > 1:06:41and much other Spanish horror, is the pervasive air of melancholy,
1:06:41 > 1:06:44the sense that no matter what fresh terrors
1:06:44 > 1:06:46the characters are about to face,
1:06:46 > 1:06:49they're already living in a world of defeat and loss.
1:06:51 > 1:06:55The story burns slowly to its grim conclusion.
1:06:55 > 1:06:58The principal of the school discovers that her own teenage son
1:06:58 > 1:07:00has been murdering her pupils.
1:07:00 > 1:07:03The boy has been driven by a mix of Oedipal
1:07:03 > 1:07:07and Frankenstein-like urges, to create the perfect girlfriend.
1:07:07 > 1:07:09..had almost the same eyes as yours.
1:07:09 > 1:07:13You always said I'd have a...have a girl like you when you were young.
1:07:14 > 1:07:16And now I've got her.
1:07:22 > 1:07:23Do you see?
1:07:24 > 1:07:26Luis...!
1:07:28 > 1:07:31Now you must teach her to take care of me the way you do.
1:07:34 > 1:07:36And love me as you've always loved me.
1:07:36 > 1:07:39The shock here isn't just visceral, it's emotional as well.
1:07:39 > 1:07:41Luis!
1:07:41 > 1:07:43Luis...
1:07:44 > 1:07:50La Residencia was the feature debut of Narciso Ibanez Serrador,
1:07:50 > 1:07:53an actor and producer whose chilling television dramas
1:07:53 > 1:07:55had made him Spain's Godfather of Horror.
1:07:57 > 1:07:59He also created the game show 3-2-1.
1:08:00 > 1:08:02Now that's scary.
1:08:04 > 1:08:08How did audiences in Spain respond to La Residencia?
1:08:08 > 1:08:10TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH:
1:08:34 > 1:08:38Do you have any thoughts about why the film was so popular in Spain?
1:08:46 > 1:08:50Serrador's restrained approach was indeed a stark contrast
1:08:50 > 1:08:52to the more monstrous manifestations
1:08:52 > 1:08:55of Spain's own horror boom.
1:08:55 > 1:08:59As in Italy, it was largely motivated by producers
1:08:59 > 1:09:01with an eye for the overseas market.
1:09:01 > 1:09:05Frankenstein's Bloody Terror didn't actually feature Frankenstein,
1:09:05 > 1:09:08but rather a werewolf, played by Paul Naschy,
1:09:08 > 1:09:10who became Spanish horror's biggest star.
1:09:12 > 1:09:15Whatever happened to Super 70 Chill-o-Rama?
1:09:17 > 1:09:21Christopher Lee, meanwhile, continued his continental career
1:09:21 > 1:09:25with a rare, non-Hammer Dracula role in El Conde Dracula,
1:09:25 > 1:09:27directed by Jesus Franco,
1:09:27 > 1:09:31the master of Spanish exploitation cinema.
1:09:31 > 1:09:34And in the Blind Dead series of films, director Amando de Ossorio
1:09:34 > 1:09:38introduced some unique indigenous Spanish monsters...
1:09:38 > 1:09:40They're coming!
1:09:45 > 1:09:50..Undead Medieval Knights Templar who wreak havoc in the present day.
1:10:06 > 1:10:09The Gothic darkness of these films sat rather oddly
1:10:09 > 1:10:13with the image of itself that Spain was keen to sell to foreigners.
1:10:13 > 1:10:18One of sun, sea and fun.
1:10:19 > 1:10:23And it was this image that Serrador set out to subvert in his next film,
1:10:23 > 1:10:26provocatively titled Who Can Kill A Child?
1:10:31 > 1:10:35Shot mainly here in Ciruelos, a small town near Madrid,
1:10:35 > 1:10:37the film is the story of a young English couple
1:10:37 > 1:10:41who take a vacation to a Spanish island,
1:10:41 > 1:10:45which seems strangely empty of adults.
1:10:45 > 1:10:48Who Can Kill A Child is horror for the package holiday era.
1:10:48 > 1:10:50British tourists often returned home
1:10:50 > 1:10:53with stories about dodgy food in half-built hotels,
1:10:53 > 1:10:57but the nightmare faced by the holidaymakers in Serrador's film
1:10:57 > 1:10:59is of an entirely different order.
1:11:01 > 1:11:05The island's children have turned murderously
1:11:05 > 1:11:07against their parents and elders.
1:11:14 > 1:11:16It makes a disturbing change
1:11:16 > 1:11:19from the Gothic monsters of much Spanish horror.
1:11:50 > 1:11:53Do you think that, despite their superficial innocence,
1:11:53 > 1:11:56children do have a great capacity for violence?
1:12:00 > 1:12:02BELLS CHIME
1:12:15 > 1:12:19This was a decade when hits like The Exorcist and The Omen
1:12:19 > 1:12:22made monstrous children the height of horror fashion.
1:12:22 > 1:12:25Here, however, they're more a force of nature.
1:12:25 > 1:12:29Like Hitchcock's Birds, they're mostly content to watch,
1:12:29 > 1:12:33malevolent in their silence, and wait.
1:12:33 > 1:12:36Wait to take their revenge on the adult world.
1:12:41 > 1:12:45Serrador leaves us in no doubt that this is simply payback
1:12:45 > 1:12:48for all the suffering children have endured as a result of wars
1:12:48 > 1:12:51and other man-made catastrophes.
1:12:52 > 1:12:55The film builds to an uncompromising climax,
1:12:55 > 1:12:58as the English hero tries to escape the island,
1:12:58 > 1:13:01only to be blocked by sweet-faced psychopaths.
1:13:06 > 1:13:09Like director Georges Franju in Eyes Without A Face,
1:13:09 > 1:13:13you wonder how far Serrador is prepared to go in his key scene.
1:13:13 > 1:13:15He doesn't hold back.
1:13:15 > 1:13:17GUN COCKS
1:13:24 > 1:13:26RAPID GUNFIRE
1:13:32 > 1:13:34For many British cinemagoers in the mid '70s,
1:13:34 > 1:13:36the setting of Who Can Kill A Child
1:13:36 > 1:13:39would have felt uncomfortably familiar.
1:13:40 > 1:13:44But another Spanish film brought its nightmare all the way home.
1:13:47 > 1:13:50Boasting one of the great horror movie titles,
1:13:50 > 1:13:53The Living Dead At The Manchester Morgue
1:13:53 > 1:13:56opens with an almost documentary-like depiction
1:13:56 > 1:13:58of the 1970s North.
1:14:00 > 1:14:01It even throws in a sequence
1:14:01 > 1:14:03showing a popular pastime of the era.
1:14:03 > 1:14:08There aren't many zombie films that make me misty-eyed with nostalgia.
1:14:08 > 1:14:10I'm from the north of England,
1:14:10 > 1:14:14and that's very much how I remember the 1970s.
1:14:14 > 1:14:16Apart from the living dead!
1:14:16 > 1:14:19THEY LAUGH
1:14:20 > 1:14:23Director Jorge Grau was fascinated by the idea
1:14:23 > 1:14:27of zombies being created by environmental pollution,
1:14:27 > 1:14:31hence those opening shots of congested Mancunian traffic.
1:14:33 > 1:14:35TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH:
1:14:59 > 1:15:03All this probably flew over the heads of Grau's producers,
1:15:03 > 1:15:05who just wanted to replicate the American hit
1:15:05 > 1:15:08Night Of The Living Dead, but in colour.
1:15:10 > 1:15:13And the first appearance of a zombie in Manchester Morgue
1:15:13 > 1:15:18definitely recalls a similar scene in George A Romero's classic.
1:15:18 > 1:15:21Albeit relocated to a Peak District picnic spot.
1:15:21 > 1:15:25MOANING
1:15:39 > 1:15:43But Grau's approach to his zombies is innovative.
1:15:43 > 1:15:47He gives each of them a specific look and identity,
1:15:47 > 1:15:49almost a personality.
1:15:51 > 1:15:55Grau's zombies were inspired by real cadavers
1:15:55 > 1:15:58he read about in a book on forensic medicine.
1:15:58 > 1:16:03The book explained how each corpse had met its particular violent end,
1:16:03 > 1:16:07and Grau imagined similar backstories for his living dead.
1:16:24 > 1:16:27This idea of the zombies as sympathetic victims
1:16:27 > 1:16:30carries through to the film's climax,
1:16:30 > 1:16:32which has the emotional resonance
1:16:32 > 1:16:34so characteristic of Spanish horror.
1:16:49 > 1:16:51SHE SHRIEKS
1:17:21 > 1:17:23SHE CRIES OUT
1:17:29 > 1:17:32Both Manchester Morgue and Who Can Kill A Child
1:17:32 > 1:17:34give their horror a political edge.
1:17:34 > 1:17:38But they're about British characters and global issues.
1:17:38 > 1:17:42Making a political film about Spain in the early '70s
1:17:42 > 1:17:44was never going to be easy.
1:17:44 > 1:17:47IMPERIAL MUSIC
1:17:47 > 1:17:49It was only after the demise of their dictator,
1:17:49 > 1:17:53Francisco Franco, in 1975, that the Spanish could start
1:17:53 > 1:17:57facing up to their own defining 20th-century trauma, the Civil War.
1:17:57 > 1:18:01CROWD CHANTS "FRANCO"
1:18:01 > 1:18:03But the subject remained so sensitive
1:18:03 > 1:18:05that it was another quarter of a century
1:18:05 > 1:18:08before a horror director was prepared to take it on.
1:18:14 > 1:18:17Set in 1939, The Devil's Backbone
1:18:17 > 1:18:21sees the conflicts of the Civil War play out in a boys' orphanage,
1:18:21 > 1:18:25after the ghost of a dead child points to buried secrets.
1:18:25 > 1:18:27TRANSLATED FROM SPANISH:
1:18:57 > 1:19:00The director of The Devil's Backbone isn't Spanish, but Mexican.
1:19:02 > 1:19:05And meeting him hasn't taken me to Europe,
1:19:05 > 1:19:10but to Toronto, Canada, where he's finishing his latest film.
1:19:10 > 1:19:12Guillermo del Toro is arguably
1:19:12 > 1:19:15the most powerful force in horror cinema today.
1:19:15 > 1:19:17A truly international figure
1:19:17 > 1:19:21who straddles both the European and English language traditions.
1:19:23 > 1:19:26Del Toro's career combines Hollywood hits
1:19:26 > 1:19:28like Blade II and the Hellboy films
1:19:28 > 1:19:32with highly personal projects made in Mexico and Spain.
1:19:35 > 1:19:38What led to your decision to set The Devil's Backbone
1:19:38 > 1:19:40during the Spanish Civil War?
1:19:40 > 1:19:44It's still something that is haunting the country to this day.
1:19:44 > 1:19:48It's something that a lot of people want to think is buried,
1:19:48 > 1:19:50but is very present.
1:19:50 > 1:19:52And the idea of the movie was,
1:19:52 > 1:19:58a ghost is not just what you term a ghost in the work of fiction,
1:19:58 > 1:20:02but it's something that has not been concluded.
1:20:02 > 1:20:04That's something that cannot be resolved.
1:20:04 > 1:20:06- Unfinished business. - Unfinished business.
1:20:06 > 1:20:09And for all those reasons, it had to be Spain.
1:20:12 > 1:20:16The ghost in The Devil's Backbone is surely one of the most
1:20:16 > 1:20:19convincing spectres ever to manifest on screen.
1:20:20 > 1:20:25He looks both ethereal yet tangible enough to be a real physical threat.
1:20:25 > 1:20:28And like Jorge Grau's zombies,
1:20:28 > 1:20:31he's a carefully characterised, tragic presence.
1:20:34 > 1:20:38The idea was to actually start the movie
1:20:38 > 1:20:40with the ghost as the scary figure.
1:20:43 > 1:20:47And then when his true nature is revealed to be benign,
1:20:47 > 1:20:51you then feel pity for him, and the opposite is true
1:20:51 > 1:20:55for the human counterparts. The real, terrible things come from the humans.
1:20:58 > 1:21:01Del Toro developed the themes of The Devil's Backbone
1:21:01 > 1:21:03in a companion piece, Pan's Labyrinth,
1:21:03 > 1:21:08set in 1944 after the Nationalist victory in Spain.
1:21:08 > 1:21:10The central character is once again a child,
1:21:10 > 1:21:14this time a girl who encounters a series of fantastical,
1:21:14 > 1:21:18beguiling and downright monstrous creatures.
1:21:19 > 1:21:21- Echo. - HER VOICE ECHOES
1:21:24 > 1:21:27Hola?
1:21:29 > 1:21:31Hola?
1:21:33 > 1:21:36The dangers of the magical realm are more than matched
1:21:36 > 1:21:38by the menace of the real world,
1:21:38 > 1:21:41in the shape of the girl's cold-blooded fascist stepfather.
1:21:45 > 1:21:49He's a character that I really constructed carefully.
1:21:49 > 1:21:53There's a particular brand of unsubtle fascism
1:21:53 > 1:21:56that I think is bred is Spain,
1:21:56 > 1:21:59where fascists are gentlemen.
1:22:00 > 1:22:05But the word gentleman is used almost as a stabbing weapon.
1:22:05 > 1:22:11You know, like, "I'm a gentleman, a Spanish gentleman." And that's...
1:22:11 > 1:22:14I tried to construct him as a character
1:22:14 > 1:22:20whose function would be unclouded by moral judgement.
1:22:20 > 1:22:22THEY SPEAK SPANISH
1:22:25 > 1:22:28The first few murders in the movie are shocking to me
1:22:28 > 1:22:30because of how in control he is.
1:22:33 > 1:22:37The bottle, he never even misses a beat,
1:22:37 > 1:22:40he doesn't get agitated.
1:22:53 > 1:22:58The way fascism packages itself is,
1:22:58 > 1:23:04I think, one of its most powerful, pervasive, perverse powers.
1:23:07 > 1:23:11In our times, I think, the most despicable people
1:23:11 > 1:23:17are mostly the most well-tailored people that appear on the news.
1:23:20 > 1:23:23In both The Devil's Backbone and Pan's Labyrinth,
1:23:23 > 1:23:24the brutality of adults
1:23:24 > 1:23:28is set against the courage and purity of children.
1:23:30 > 1:23:36I started reading fairytales and horror at the same time.
1:23:36 > 1:23:43So I was reading Little Red Riding Hood or Cinderella
1:23:43 > 1:23:44or Sleeping Beauty at the same time
1:23:44 > 1:23:48that I was discovering Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft,
1:23:48 > 1:23:50and for whatever reason,
1:23:50 > 1:23:58that clash in my head always fixated horror in a moment of childhood.
1:23:58 > 1:24:00SCREECHING
1:24:13 > 1:24:16SCREAMING
1:24:27 > 1:24:32Del Toro's highly personal approach and beautifully realised vision
1:24:32 > 1:24:36helped Pan's Labyrinth win three Oscars and break box-office records
1:24:36 > 1:24:39for a Spanish-language picture in the United States.
1:24:39 > 1:24:41It's probably the most commercially successful
1:24:41 > 1:24:44European Horror film ever made.
1:24:54 > 1:24:57The 21st century has seen Europe step out from the shadow
1:24:57 > 1:24:59of American and British Horror
1:24:59 > 1:25:03to reach wider audiences than ever before.
1:25:04 > 1:25:08Leading the pack is a new generation of Spanish films,
1:25:08 > 1:25:11from ghost stories to zombie action.
1:25:12 > 1:25:17France is back on the scene with its own extremely graphic thrillers.
1:25:20 > 1:25:23Other countries are pushing the genre in new directions.
1:25:25 > 1:25:30There's been Dutch body horror with the Human Centipede films
1:25:30 > 1:25:33and Swedish vampires in Let The Right One In.
1:25:35 > 1:25:39But it may be tempting fate to speak of a European horror boom
1:25:39 > 1:25:41just as the continent slides towards
1:25:41 > 1:25:44its biggest financial crisis in decades.
1:25:48 > 1:25:53These are straitened times, and film-making is a risky business.
1:25:53 > 1:25:55But as we've seen, horror cinema can thrive
1:25:55 > 1:25:59in the face of difficult political and economic conditions.
1:25:59 > 1:26:02Perhaps the continent's present crisis could actually be
1:26:02 > 1:26:05the impetus for a new generation of European horror movies.
1:26:08 > 1:26:12I think that genre film in general thrives in adversity.
1:26:12 > 1:26:17I think that the worst thing that can happen to a horror movie
1:26:17 > 1:26:23is for it to be birthed out of sheer support.
1:26:23 > 1:26:29You know, you can have adversity from the money, financiers,
1:26:29 > 1:26:34or it can come from the adversity of the political, social environment.
1:26:34 > 1:26:37In any case, in order to talk about horror
1:26:37 > 1:26:40you have to remain an outsider.
1:26:40 > 1:26:42If you are fully welcome,
1:26:42 > 1:26:44I essentially think you lose your mojo.
1:26:46 > 1:26:51And the best European horror cinema has always come from outsiders.
1:26:53 > 1:26:55Italian and Spanish film-makers,
1:26:55 > 1:26:59seeking to exploit the new horror trend triggered by Hammer,
1:26:59 > 1:27:02but spawning strange and distinctive works of their own.
1:27:07 > 1:27:10Maverick directors who took lurid subjects
1:27:10 > 1:27:13and lent them surreal elegance and poetry.
1:27:16 > 1:27:19And earliest of all, the expressionist directors
1:27:19 > 1:27:22and stars of Weimar German cinema,
1:27:22 > 1:27:25hoping to revive the dignity of their defeated nation.
1:27:29 > 1:27:32What fascinates me about the story of European horror
1:27:32 > 1:27:35is its sheer diversity, the sense that there's a parallel,
1:27:35 > 1:27:38but entirely separate story to the one we're familiar with.
1:27:40 > 1:27:42Europe is so much the home of horror,
1:27:42 > 1:27:45with its myths of vampires, werewolves,
1:27:45 > 1:27:46witchcraft and the undead,
1:27:46 > 1:27:49yet it's like those myths were exported to Hollywood,
1:27:49 > 1:27:52leaving Europe the room to develop a new tradition
1:27:52 > 1:27:54as a way of processing its own traumas,
1:27:54 > 1:27:57particularly the two world wars.
1:27:57 > 1:27:59It's led to a fascinating conversation between
1:27:59 > 1:28:02the English-language tradition and the European
1:28:02 > 1:28:04that continues to this day.
1:28:04 > 1:28:07I can't wait to see what happens next.