By John Seal

December 4, 2002

Welcome to a new regular feature here at Box Office Prophets. If you take a look at the picture to the left of this paragraph, you’ll see stacks of white tubs. This is a portion of my decades old video collection (otherwise known as The Bane of Lexy’s Existence), which resides cheek by jowl with the water heater in the family basement. Inside those tubs are hundreds of forgotten films: spaghetti westerns, black action flicks, horror movies, martial arts epics, art-house oddities, Eurotrash effluvia, and exploitation films of all varieties. These are the films that TV used to fill the wee hours with before infomercials squeezed them out. The video boom of the 1980s briefly kept them in the public eye, but now they lie neglected, no longer fit even for Blockbuster, Sam Goody, or Hollywood Video.

This column will try to rekindle some memories whilst focusing some attention on films that deserve a better fate than to simply disintegrate on rapidly decaying magnetic tape. It’s my belief that even the worst films need to be preserved in the best condition possible, and with that in mind I will also discuss the possibilities of DVD rehabilitation for each featured title. And with no further ado, let’s dip into the archives…

The Creepers (1971 GB)
Video Treasures SV 9022 (1987)

The story: Girls are being assaulted and murdered by a mysterious gloved rapist in the woods near their school. It’s up to the intrepid Detective Chief Superintendent Velyan to track down the culprit.

The film: The Creepers is one of those films with enough alternate titles to make your head spin. Originally released in the UK in 1971 as Assault, the film became a late night US TV staple in the 1970s as Tower of Terror. It was also issued as Satan’s Playthings and In the Devil’s Garden, but judging from the intact title sequence on this tape, The Creeperswas probably the title used when the film was released in the United States by the always tasteful Hemisphere Pictures (Brain of Blood, Blood of Ghastly Horror. Approximately four minutes of cuts were made for the delicate sensibilities of the American marketplace, but what’s left of the film on this tape is so tame it’s hard to believe the original version is particularly steamy. The only concessions to grindhouse connoisseurs are some rather tame nude photographs, which are seen very briefly, and some relatively tasteful assault sequences.

The cast and crew: Executive Producer Peter Rogers was most famous for the evergreen ‘Carry On’ comedy series and this is one of only a few times he worked on something else for the Rank Organisation. Director Sidney Hayers was a reliable Scots filmmaker who ended his career working on American TV fare such as Manimal, Remington Steele, and Knight Rider. The film’s dreadful, insistent, and pounding musical score came from Eric Rogers, who also scored a number of the Carry On films-I don’t know if Eric was related to Peter Rogers. Frank Finlay plays DCS Velyan, and in 1971 he bore a striking resemblance to Small Faces bassist Ronnie Lane. Finlay has always been a solid and reliable actor who is probably best remembered for playing Porthos in The Three Musketeers(1973 GB) and The Four Musketeers (1974 GB). A young Lesley-Anne Down is on hand as Tessa, who survives an attack but is traumatized by the experience and unable to assist the police, and B-movie goddess Suzy Kendall is also featured as the school’s art teacher (“Don’t forget to clean your brushes!”). Other names of note include Freddie Jones, recently seen in the latest remake of The Count of Monte Cristo, as a snooping reporter, and dapper Allan Cuthbertson as the coroner.

Nostalgia value: I’d be curious to know where the location footage was filmed, and the film features a lovely old wood-paneled Morris Minor.

The print: I’ve never seen a Video Treasures release that has looked particularly good, and this one is no exception. The print is fairly washed out and the image is fuzzy. I was surprised to learn that the film was originally shot in 2.35:1 and would have guessed 1.85:1 instead; that may be an indictment of cinematographer Ken Hodges, who really seemed to enjoy using the zoom throughout this film. There’s an abrupt cutaway at the 61-minute mark, which may be the point where some footage was edited; otherwise any excising was done with reasonable care. As one would expect, reel changes are presaged by speckling and the ubiquitous dancing circles.

The DVD prognosis: If there’s room in the world for re-issues of Peter Collinson’s Fright(1971 GB) and Robert Fuest’s And Soon the Darkness(1970 GB), there’s probably room for this one. A likely candidate would be Anchor Bay, and there’s little doubt they would do a magnificent job of restoring the film’s lost four minutes and its correct aspect ratio. Is the film worthy? Not terribly, but worse films have been given the lavish digital treatment.

Ratings:
Story: C+. Unoriginal, but not badly written.
Film: C. Good cast can’t overcome technical shortcomings, especially the headache inducing music.
Print: C. Not great, not terrible. Panning and scanning hardly in evidence.
DVD worthiness: C-. So many other great films, so little time.