If you’ve listened either of our coda/post mortem Crestwood House episodes, you’ll note that though we spend a lot of energy on how we decide to choose the films we cover on the show (e.g. we’ve utilized themes and the daisy chain method), we never really confer on the actual films chosen. We individually pick the films we’re interested in (as long as they fit the theme) and we just go from there. So there is little thought about the inter-connectivity of themes or story between the actual films. So I been very pleasantly surprised that between Paxton, Michael and I, we tend to pick stuff that is highly complementary, out sometimes outright inter-connected. It’s like we’ve wavelengths have truly matched up and it’s very fulfilling as a co-host of a show to be honest.
Last season we managed to open and close our series with films that were mirrored in their production teams and styles with Carnival of Souls and Night of the Living Dead. When we chose Vampire films in the middle of our first season, we all chose films that really pushed the boundaries of the sub-genre (with Mark of the Vampire, The Last Man on Earth and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter.) We also did a pretty fun job of picking films for that first season that covered out mission statement very well (if I do say so myself) by picking Universal, Hammer, Independent, Asian, Italian, British and exploitation films.
Finding these similarities and connections is fun, and I was curious how the latest season was going to shake out as we’ve begun picking some more obscure and disconnected films. But digging into our first two flicks (the Russian folklore flick Viy and Mario Bava’s creepy Kill, Baby…Kill!) we’ve yet again found some connective tissue that goes beyond our decision to choose Witchcraft for our first theme of the year. In issues 42 & 43 of Fangoria (from February and MArch of 1985), Tim Lucas did a two-part retrospective of the films of Mario Bava. In the first installment, while discussing Bava’s path from a happy cinematographer to a reluctant director, Lucas mentions an anecdote about Bava’s first foray into horror (which would become Black Sunday) started out as an adaptation of the original novella of Viy by Nikolai Gogol. He took that story and along with screenwriter Ennio de Concini, played up the witchcraft and vampirism, re framing the story until it no longer felt like an adaptation.
Now, sure, Black Sunday isn’t Kill, Baby…Kill!, but I was shocked that Viy was brought up at all in this Fangoria piece and it’s just another example that there is some wicked serendipity at play on this show that I immensely appreciate. It’s reassuring that we’re onto something with our little show and that we as co-hosts complement each other pretty well.
Anyway, enough back patting. If you’re curious to read more about Bava, here’s both parts of the retrospective by Tim Lucas from Fangoria. Enjoy.
