Worth Mentioning - Nothing Can Stop It!

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning. 

Cody watches horror old and new, plus another Green Knight movie.

X THE UNKNOWN (1956)

Hammer Film Productions’ 1955 release The Quatermass Xperiment (also known as The Creeping Unknown) was such a success, that sci-fi horror film took the company down a whole new path. Soon they would become known for specializing in sci-fi and horror productions – and the 1956 film X the Unknown was their first attempt to chase the success of The Quatermass Xperiment.

Scripted by Jimmy Sangster, the film begins with the ground splitting open in a field in Scotland and releasing dangerous levels of radioactivity on the unfortunate people who happen to be in the area. Then scientist Dr. Adam Royston, played by Dean Jagger, is brought in to investigate the situation... and it was around this point when I thought, “This feels like The Quatermass Xperiment all over again.” As it turns out, that’s for a very good reason: X the Unknown was originally intended to be a sequel to the Quatermass film, but Nigel Kneale, creator of the character Professor Quatermass, wouldn’t let Hammer use the character in this movie. It all works out in the end, because I actually found Royston to be a more likeable character in X the Unknown than Quatermass ever was in The Quatermass Xperiment.

X the Unknown moves along swiftly, never going too long between scenes where characters are attacked by a mysterious creature that has emerged from that field in Scotland. A creature that Royston is quickly able to deduce is some kind of prehistoric life-form that feeds on radioactivity. Leslie Norman directed the movie, replacing Joseph Losey in the midst of production when Losey fell ill and couldn’t continue working, and really stayed true to the title. This thing is so “unknown”, the director(s) keep(s) it off screen for most of the brief running time, so we’re treating with multiple scenes of characters reacting with fear and disgust at the sight of something we don’t get to see for ourselves. When the creature finally is revealed, it’s surprisingly Blob-like in appearance, even though this movie was made two years before The Blob. This is a muddy sludge, but it’s a dangerous glob nonetheless. And the more radioactivity is consumes, the bigger it gets.

This leads to an exciting climactic sequence of the authorities trying to figure out how to stop the creature. As Royston says, “How do you kill mud?”

X the Unknown is a fun, fast-paced movie that I really enjoyed watching.

GAWAIN AND THE GREEN KNIGHT (1973)

A few weeks ago, I watched the 1984 film Sword of the Valiant (which also has the lengthy subtitle The Legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight), which was directed by Stephen Weeks and inspired by the 14th century poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. I thought that movie was, as I said back then, "a clunky mess" - so when I discovered it was actually Weeks' second try at bringing the Green Knight story to the screen, as he had also directed Gawain and the Green Knight eleven years earlier, I knew I had to see his other take on the material so I could try to understand why he would tell the same story twice.

Looking back at Gawain and the Green Knight, I can now sort of see why Weeks would want a second try. While his earlier Green Knight movie is quite close to the one he would deliver a decade later, it’s also a smaller, cheaper movie, with a narration that feels largely unnecessary. So I could imagine Weeks thinking to himself, “I can try this again and make it bigger and better!” In some ways, Sword of Valiant is bigger and better than Gawain and the Green Knight, as there were some additions made to the story to be sure there would be more going on the second time around, and in other ways Gawain and the Green Knight is the better result. Especially when you compare the hair Murray Head has as Gawain in this movie and the ridiculous hair Miles O’Keeffe had in Sword of the Valiant. The Green Knight, played in this one Nigel Green in his final role (he would die of an overdose at age 47 before the movie was released), also looks less silly than Sean Connery looked as the Green Knight in Sword of the Valiant... although Green’s Green Knight does still look plenty silly.

Gawain and the Green Knight is so close to Sword of the Valiant, I assume Weeks went into Sword of the Valiant with the same script he and Philip M. Breen wrote for this movie, then just did some revisions with Howard C. Pen. Thus why Weeks and Breen are the credited writers for Gawain and the Green Knight and Weeks, Breen, and Pen are credited on Sword of the Valiant. If you want a plot breakdown for Gawain and the Green Knight, all you have to do is click back to the Sword of the Valiant write-up and read what’s there. There are a couple story elements in Sword of the Valiant that weren’t there in Gawain and the Green Knight yet, but overall... yep, same thing all over again.

So Stephen Weeks made two Green Knight movies and neither one of them is great, but they’re both worth a watch.

The following review originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com

WOLF GARDEN (2023)

Chances are that any genre fan who decides to check out the horror movie Wolf Garden is going to, given the title, expect the film to fit into a certain sub-genre - and since distributor Gravitas Ventures is marketing the film as “An American Werewolf in London meets Vertigo”, I suppose it’s safe to confirm that Wolf Garden is a werewolf movie. Of sorts. It just might be the most economical werewolf movie ever made. Even more so than that Howling movie that primarily seemed like a documentary about a Pioneertown honky-tonk. Don’t go into this one hoping to see much in the way of cool special effects, but do go into it aware that it’s a slow burn psychological thriller that may test your patience with its pace and its non-linear structure.

Writer/director Wayne David also stars in Wolf Garden as William, a man who went on a vacation to the countryside with his girlfriend Chantelle (Sian Altman), and something clearly went terribly wrong while they were out in the wilderness. While the story jumps back and forth between past, present, nightmares, and moments where William and Chantelle question whether or not they’re properly experiencing reality (therefore it’s difficult to say whether it’s another flashback or another nightmare), we can decipher that William is now hiding out by himself. Chantelle isn’t around anymore. But for some reason, William keeps chopping up meat and carrying it out to a shed in the woods.

Some viewers might be able to get into playing the mind game of the scattered narrative and enjoy the ride to the ending that we all expect from the beginning, but I found Wolf Garden to be very difficult to get into. Not only was the constant shifting in and out of the past, present, and reality annoying, but I also couldn’t bring myself to care about William or Chantelle at all. They may have a true, deep love for each other, but from the outside they are not interesting characters and their interactions were just another part of the film’s overall drab dullness.

Although Wolf Garden is largely a one-man show, focusing on William with the occasional appearance by Chantelle, she isn’t the only character he interacts with over the course of the film. From time to time, William will also talk to Grant Masters as a mysterious character known as The Visitor, who was someone William thought was dead before he shows up for his first visit. This was an element of the story that made me think of An American Werewolf in London even before I saw the “An American Werewolf in London meets Vertigo” marketing line. The Visitor’s conversations with William are similar to the chats the werewolf in London would have with the ghosts of victims, and Masters has a captivating screen presence.

David did a fine job of carrying the film on his shoulders, and Altman also did well with the material she was given to work with. There’s just not enough going on in the movie to sustain the 89 minute running time and make it a satisfying viewing experience. Fans of the slow burn may get something out of it, but for me the tone, structure, and pace were off-putting and patience-challenging. I couldn’t wait for this movie to reach its conclusion.

If you would like to give Wolf Garden a chance, you can do so today. Gravitas Ventures has made it available on digital and VOD as of February 28th.