In the whole history of horror and suspense drama, there’s never been a more promising line than “Did you hear that?” Sound leaves too much to the imagination, which is where fear takes hold. As scores of radio writers learned in the 1930s and ’40s, banging out hit anthology programs like Suspense and Inner Sanctum Mystery, you could forgo the ghoulies and ghosties and long-legged beasties as long as you had things that went bump in the night. The moaning wind, the creaking door, the step on the stair—this was the stuff of real dread.
Scenes like these are a delight because they reveal how the imagination can turn one sound into another; even more entertaining are the scenes of voice artists doing their stuff. During the witch’s resurrection and revenge, a regal-looking actress (Katalin Ladik) stands before the microphone, gesturing with hands and building from eerie inhalation and croaking exhalation to a torrent of frenzied gibbering and guttural laughter. Later, an actor (Jean-Michael van Schouwburg) arrives to do a similar number for a rampaging goblin, and his professorial appearance—glasses, mustache, turtleneck sweater—contrasts humorously with the roaring, blubbering tantrum he unleashes. If you’re familiar with Italian horror flicks, you know that this sort of verbal overkill is par for the course; but isolated from the movie and presented as sheer unhinged performance, it’s a pleasure to behold.
Directed by Peter Strickland
