PETER DUFFELL and PIERS HAGGARD are The Gentlemen of Horror
At this year’s Fantastic Films Weekend in Bradford, Obsessed with Film caught up with two directors from the golden age of British Horror - Peter Duffell and Piers Haggard.
Talk about British Horror movies of the 1960s and early 70s and one word usually springs to mind Hammer. With films like Prince of Darkness (1968) and The Devil Rides Out (1968), the studio was responsible for some of the finest gothic melodramas of the period. Their films billowed eroticism and bled danger. But all the while other studios lurked in Hammers mighty shadow.
There was Amicus, the studio that specialised in anthology horror films like Dr Terrors House of Horrors (1964), andTigon, the producers of Matthew Hopkins: Witchfinder General (1968). Many of these films were derivative of Hammers unique style, but some of them some of them were classics. This years Fantastic Films Weekend in Bradford showcased several such movies, most notably Peter Duffells The House that Dripped Blood (Amicus) and Piers Haggards Blood on Satans Claw(from Tigon), both from 1971. To add to the sense of occasion, Duffell and Haggard were on hand to discuss their work. Outside of their scheduled talks, the two directors happily chatted with fans, signed autographs and attended screenings. They are gentleman from the old school: smartly dressed, intelligent, and gracious to a flaw. Duffells kind face is wrinkled and grandfatherly, while Haggard is narrow and comes across like a favourite University professor. Youd never believe these men were responsible for innumerable childhood nightmares.I like the genre, Piers Haggard tells me in his dry, well-spoken voice. It allows you to talk about big issues such as God, death and the devil. You can talk about immortality and the afterlife. You cant do that in a romantic comedy.Duffell is less keen on horror and to date The House that Dripped Bloodis his only genre credit.
I grew up with horror as a kid, he explains. But nowadays I dont spend a lot of time thinking about it. Although this film has become a cult classic which is nice for me.
Most horror movies in the 70s had X certificates, says Duffell. But I just didnt feel that was right .Indeed, at the time of its release, Hammer was in the process of upping their gratuitous content and films like The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Twins of Evil (1971) were altogether more lusty affairs.
My yard stick was classic films like Dead of Night (1945) and The Old Dark House (1932), he says. These were films that focused more on creaking stairs and bolts of lightning than sex and blood. And we ended up with an AA rating (which is like todays PG or 12). Strangely I think the studio would have preferred an X.Haggards Blood on Satans Claw is much more savage, even by Hammer standards, and deals with possessed children, the occult and dangers within the English forest. The film has become notorious for a particularly disturbing rape sequence coming in the middle of the second act. The scene watches unflinchingly as a farm girl is brutalised by a satanic cult many of whom were supposedly her friends.
It just seemed to me that at that point in the film everything that had happened (people going mad and a weird demon corpse being found) had to come to a violent climax, confesses Haggard. Most of these cults in real life usually have repressed sex at their route, which arises as distorted or perverted desires. So I built the sequence up. But we had a little argument with the censors about that. The sandwich of sex and violence really worried them.To add to the sense of menace, Haggard brings an uneasy reality to the setting.
We shot in real countryside locations because I didnt want it to look like the cliché of a Hammer film, he states.
I grew up on a farm and as a kid, in the darkness and silence of the woods, you never knew what might be out there. When I came to do this movie I loved the thought of horror growing out of the plough fields or coming out of the thicket and infesting everything with terror. Blood on Satans Claw was to be a dark rural tragedy.In House that Dripped Bloodmeanwhile, Peter Duffell was doing just the opposite. His decision was to emphasis the fantasy and humour of his split narratives with a more exaggerated visual style.
In the last episode (where John Pertwee plays a hammy horror movie actor) I tried to pay a little homage to German Expressionist cinema, says Duffell. If that doesnt sound too highbrow.
We had these huge shadows on the basement wall as the vampire attacks and I had intended to play it against a silent movie piano. But the studio didnt get the joke and hacked it down. They wanted it to be scarier. But by cutting it they didnt make it more serious they just made it less funny.Despite these interferences the film remains one of Amicus finest productions (they now refer to themselves as, the studio that dripped blood.) In light of its success Duffell was offered the chance to direct several more horrors for the studio, but was fearful of being typecast. Though he was tempted by one proposal.
Amicus producer Milton Subotsky offered me a film called I, Monster (later to be directed by Stephen Weeks), says Duffell with a wry smile. He thought hed discovered a cheap way of doing 3D.
He found that if you had a pair of coloured 3D glasses and took out one of the lenses - so one eye looked at the screen naturally - then the image would arrive in each eye at different times. And if the image onscreen was moving very quickly then you got 3D.
But unfortunately it was completely dependent on where you sat and how close you were to the screen. The only guarantee was that it would give you a splitting headache. So I turned it down.Abandoning the genre, Duffell made two more movies (including the critically acclaimed adaptation of Graham Greenes England Made Mein 1973) before settling down as solid director for television. Piers Haggard followed suite, and his small screen credits include Nigel Kneales The Quatermass Conclusionin 1979 (interestingly The Quatermass Xperiment was made by Hammer in 1955) and Pennies from Heaven(1978) for which he won a BAFTA. But the genre wasnt totally done with him.
In 1980 I got a call to take over a film called Venom, Haggard tells me. Which at the time seemed like a good idea. The original director Tobe Hooper had a nervous breakdown so they stopped production and looked for somebody else.The film tells the story of two kidnappers (played by Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski) who get their comeuppance when a deadly Black Mamba is unleashed into the house in which theyre hiding. With two such extreme personalities onboard, the production slowly ran into trouble.
The Black Mamba was one of the nicest people on set, Haggard explains with more than a hint of truth. Kinski was a magnificent screen actor but he was also an egomaniac. And Oliver Reed took great pleasure in winding him up. We were shooting up at Elstree Studios and the actors were staying in these little caravans on the lot. And one night, typical of Oliver Reed, he came out, picked up the edges of Kinskis caravan and started to shake it while shouting, YOU FUCKIN NAZI CUNT! YOU FUCKIN NAZI CUNT!!! And when Klaus came out Oliver was nowhere to be seen. Things like that can make filming very difficult.Despite this, Haggard continues to work and is currently in talks to direct Death Cap, an eco-horror co-written by Blood author Robert Wynne-Simmons. Time will tell if it packs the same punch as their earlier effort. Although between them Haggard and Duffell only made a handful of horror pictures, the ones they created have stood the test of time with genre fans. Just ask anyone who attended the Fantastic Films Weekend. They are talented and astute English gentlemen; men who in 1971 pounded out two very different, but totally unforgettable horror movies and there wasnt a Hammer insight.