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CAPSULE: MORBO (1972)

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DIRECTED BY: Gonzalo Suarez

FEATURING: Ana Belen, Victor Manuel, Michael J. Pollard, Maria Vica

PLOT: Their honeymoon goes awry when newlyweds unwittingly park their camper at the edge of a haunted forest.

 

COMMENTS: Morbo is a ghost story without ghosts. The English title, Morbidness, pretty much sums it up. A honeymooning couple find themselves engulfed in a sinister atmosphere that they’re at a loss to explain. Moments of violence erupt out of the tension, but this nontraditional horror film mostly traffics in mood.

A pre-credits introduction sets the scene. As the camera floats through a deserted, crumbling mansion, disembodied voices recount their misfortunes: the devastating forest fire that tore through the landscape, wrecking their livelihood, leaving them old before their time, ruined by injury, illness, and poverty. The empty rooms echo with plaintive laments. Amid the decaying furnishings, a reporduction of the Mona Lisa sits on the floor, symbol of their former prosperity and a hint of the mystery to come.

The opening credits then roll over a static shot of a church interior. We meet Alicia and Diego as they drive off to their honeymoon, a camping expedition designed to provide them with peace and quiet. They choose a secluded forest glade on their campsite, failing to notice the “No Trespassing” sign at the side of the road. When they set out to explore the area, Diego comes across the rotting, headless carcass of a dead animal without a head. He doesn’t mention it to Alicia.

Despite this disturbing discovery, they settle in, unpacking their wedding gifts from the camper and decorating the clearing with inflatable furniture. At first they are content to be together, sharing confidences and increasing their intimacy. They open the wedding gifts and immediately start mocking both the contents and the people who gifted them. “A real Leonardo,” Alicia sarcastically declares when she opens a package to reveal a Mona Lisa print.

Her disdain aside, the image triggers a vivid memory for Alicia. She recounts a dream she once had of inhabiting a summer house where a copy of the Mona Lisa hung on the chimney. The detailed vision includes gardens surrounding the house, a picturesque old mill, and a well.

Made in Spain during the tail end of the Franco regime, Morbo pushes the limits of state-imposed censorship. Through its irreverent attitude towards marriage and the sanctity of the nuclear family, it challenges prevailing Catholic beliefs and the encroaching consumerism of lavish wedding and honeymoon practices.

Along with the societal critique, director Suarez toys with the conventions of the Western horror film. The couple make a classic gas station stop along their journey, during which Alicia peels off her wedding dress to display a white crocheted bikini underneath. She unceremoniously tosses the dress into the back seat, and there it will remain, a casually discarded symbol of tradition.

It isn’t long before bizarre events begin taking place, leading to arguments between Alicia and Diego. An old house nearby becomes a point of contention. Diego sees it first, but he’s evasive when describing it to Alicia. Since it has a well, she’s confident the residents will allow them to replenish their water supply, but whenever Diego goes to ask, he’s says no one’s home. They find a river nearby, but Alicia refuses to drink or use the water out of fear of insects.

More alarming to the couple is evidence that someone may be spying on them. The invisible antagonist tampers with their car, as well as their water canisters. The theft of Alicia’s wedding dress proves to be the last straw. Determined to find the thief, she runs off to the old house on her own. Despite the prevailing aura of obfuscation, Morbo concludes with a satisfyingly bloody denouement for viewers who manage to make it to the end. The plot loops back to the introduction, connecting various narrative threads, although it can never entirely account for the strange workings of Fate.

Belen and Manuel, the two leads, were popular celebrities known for their left-wing sympathies, and a couple at the time. Their casting was a coup for Suarez, who remained somewhat outside the mainstream. He had begun his career in film as a scriptwriter before deciding to direct his own films. He was affiliated with the Barcelona School, a group of intellectuals, artists, film makers, and musicians who frequented the newly flourishing night club scene in the city. But Suarez always stayed true to his unique vision. Many of his films similarly deal with unseen forces that catch his protagonists in their inexorable grip.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“There are also visually striking surreal touches such as the inflatable red and yellow plastic chairs that Diego and Alice use for lounging in a barren field or a wedding cake left in the sun that becomes insect food… the film casts a strange, otherworldly spell and remains an enigma despite a resolution that sends Alice and Diego back to their bourgeois world, obviously changed forever by their experience.  – Jeff Stafford, Cinema Sojourns

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    Capsules

    CAPSULE: JOHN LILLY AND THE EARTH COINCIDENCE CONTROL OFFICE (2025)

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    DIRECTED BY: ,

    FEATURING: Voice of

    PLOT: A biography of pioneering cetologist and “psychonaut” Dr. John C. Lilly.

     

    COMMENTS: John Lilly may best be known to readers of this site as the inspiration behind the canonically weird Altered States. The real Lilly seems to have lived a life that actually was “stranger than fiction.” A neurophysiologist by training, Lilly began his research career during the height of Cold War paranoia. The term “brainwashing” was first coined in the 1950s, when Lilly’s initial studies of mammal brains were designed to achieve “push-button control of animals and people.” In the 1960s he embraced the use of psychedelic drugs, leaving behind military research in favor of the counterculture. He described his moment of enlightenment as a “very bizarre and weird feeling.”

    Almereyda and Stephens’ documentary traces the gamut of Lilly’s life-long research interests, from his early days hooking monkey brains up to cathode ray TVs to a daily self-experimentation regimen involving hourly doses of ketamine. What comes across is a portrait in contrasts. Though he came to see himself as living outside the bounds of mainstream “consensus reality,” American culture readily absorbed Lilly’s ideas.

    Lilly is responsible for our belief that dolphins are intelligent creatures, and inspired the Greenpeace effort to “Save the Whales,” igniting an interest in environmentalism. He popularized the analogy likening the human mind to a “biocomputer”; he believed that only through the perception of other realities can we break free from our “programming.”

    Lilly’s “feeling of weirdness” resulted from the realization that the animals he had been researching were not just test subjects but thinking, feeling creatures, whose intelligence and sense of consciousness could equal that of humans and, in some cases, even exceed us. After studying the brains of cats, monkeys, and dolphins, he decided to focus on dolphins, convinced they would have some ancient wisdom to impart to human beings.

    The film’s makers present all facets of Lilly’s research and impart his intense curiosity regarding the mind and how it works. His evolution from straight-laced government scientist to drugged-out psychonaut proceeds without judgment. In the beginning, Lilly comes across as eccentric even when appearing on ’60s talk shows, likening inter-species communication to an alien encounter. In one episode the host is quick to point out that Lilly is a real doctor and not “some nut!”

    The narration touches on important ethical issues regarding animal research, but never delves too deeply. Lilly’s personal fortune gets a

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    Capsules

    CAPSULE: EARWIG (2021)

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    DIRECTED BY:

    FEATURING: Paul Hilton, Romane Hemelaers, Romola Garai

    PLOT: A servant looks after a girl without teeth, who wears dentures made of ice.

    Still from Earwig (2021)

    COMMENTS: The fanciful dental system utilized by young Mia is elaborately efficient. She wears a headpiece with a metal brace affixed with two glass reservoirs. As the ice teeth melt, the reservoirs collect the moisture. This liquid is then poured into molds to create a new set of teeth, which replace the set awaiting her in the freezer in a regular cycle. Why ice should be a suitable material with which to make prosthetic teeth is a question worth asking of Earwig. Both ice and glass are solidified liquids that can be molded into strong, hard surfaces which retain an aspect of delicacy and fragility. And glass, when broken, to paraphrase Jean Ray is like the best of stories—it can cut you like a knife.

    Middle-aged Albert assiduously attends to the girl’s dentures as Mia’s lone butler/servant/caretaker. The two reside in dusty, sparsely furnished rooms in a massive old apartment building where the routine of replacing the dentures shapes their days. When not patiently sitting through her dental procedures, Mia amuses herself by making her own toys out of scraps of newspaper, watching a painting of a grand chateau for curious changes in the composition, and observing the flow of sunlight through ruby-red cocktail glasses.

    Mia seems like an easy charge, despite the dental care, but Albert always wears a strained expression, as though suffering a perpetual headache. But though one might guess he’s eagerly awaiting the day when his duties will come to an end, he appears genuinely disturbed when his “master” phones to tell him it’s time to prepare the girl for the outside world.

    Earwig crafts a story of enigmatic destinies in an unspecified post-war time period, in an unidentified European city. The actors speak English, although there’s hardly any dialogue; the first twenty-four minutes of the film occur in silence. Characters drift through their memories, dreams and nightmares in barely populated fog-choked landscapes. The interiors appear encased in amber, glowing dimly with yellowish lights. Where most directors would punctuate the slow passage of time with monotonous clock-ticking, Earwig features a score of resonances, like the fulsome tones from a glass harmonica. The entire world seems brittle to the point of breaking, and all it takes is the appearance of vaguely sinister strangers with undefined ulterior motives to upset the balance.

    Mia’s dentures suggest an apt metaphor for the film itself, which parcels out its secrets to the gradual rhythm of melting ice, without ever explaining anything. Images of the old chateau and shafts of light shining through glassware illuminate forgotten memories which may also be figments of the imagination. Just how the film’s lost souls, (possibly) deceased spouses, and (maybe) missing children are connected remains hazy and shrouded in mystery.

    With its glacial pacing, obscure symbolism, and sudden bursts of irrational violence, Earwig may appeal to fans of , or ‘s Heart of Glass. Adapted from the book by Brian Catling, author of The Vorrh trilogy, and that may be all you need to know.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    ” .. like the young girls in Hadzihalilovic’s Innocence (2004) and the young boys in her Évolution (2015), Mia is being prepared for a rite of passage which is presented in the irrational idioms of surrealism…. Earwig keeps its secrets which is precisely what will ensure that its enigmatic, oneiric visions burrow their way into the darker crevices of the viewer’s consciousness. “– Anton Bitel, Sight and Sound (contemproaneous)

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    The Worlds Of Lucile Hadžihalilović

    The Worlds Of Lucile Hadžihalilović

    • INNOCENCE, EVOLUTION, EARWIG, THE ICE TOWER & shorts. A 4-disc journey through one of France’s most singular contemporary filmmakers.

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    It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

    IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: THE BUBBLE (1966)

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    AKA Fantastic Invasion of Planet Earth

    DIRECTED BY:

    FEATURING: Michael Cole, Deborah Walley, Johnny Desmond

    PLOT: When a storm, and his passenger’s birth pangs, force a charter pilot flying a pregnant woman and her husband to make a sudden landing during a storm, the travelers find themselves trapped in a strange community.

     

    COMMENTS: Another brainchild of Arch Oboler, The Bubble is an odd little curiosity. Oboler had a surprise hit with the first American 3-D picture, Bwana Devil, in 1952. Fourteen years later, he tried to replicate this success, despite the subsequent boom and bust of the 3-D fad. Not only do The Bubble‘s technical gimmicks hearken back to the 50s, its plot derives heavily from another cheap sci-fi horror flick made ten years previously, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). But while Body Snatchers would earn a place in the American psyche, and become subject to numerous remakes (along with Night of the Living Dead, the zombie film these earlier efforts anticipate), The Bubble never gained quite the same degree of cultural cachet.

    The Bubble begins in the heart of the action. A young married couple, Mark and Cathy, plan a brief stay in a remote mountain cabin before she gives birth to their first child. They hire a charter pilot, Tony Herric, to fly them to their destination but their plans go awry when they encounter unexpected bad weather and Cathy goes into labor. After losing radio contact, Tony makes a sudden descent onto what he thinks is a landing strip, but turns out to be a deserted stretch of road flanked by street lamps. Having no idea where they are, the trio seem to experience amazing luck when a cab pulls up out of nowhere.

    “Cab, mister?” asks the driver.
    Mark and Tony hurriedly explain how they need to get Cathy to a hospital ASAP.
    “Cab, mister?” replies the driver, as though he hasn’t heard a word they’ve just said.

    They manage to make it to the hospital, but since the baby is a month premature, the doctor insists on keeping him in a incubator for at least a week. While Cathy recovers in the hospital, Mark wanders empty streets, trying to find a working telephone. Having no luck, he finally runs into Tony at a bar that looks suspiciously like a saloon from a Western movie set. Here they encounter more odd behavior from the bartender. Like the cab driver, he’s a one trick pony. He polishes glasses and repeats the phrase, “What’ll it be, gents?,” but that’s it.

    The 3-D action heats up a little when a cabaret dancer performs, her fishnet-stockinged legs projecting off the stage into the audience, which includes the very appreciative Tony. He then offers her a drink, and in an otherwise unexplained moment, the tray of beer bottles and glasses floats off the counter and flies across the room—

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    Capsules

    CAPSULE: NADJA (1994)

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    DIRECTED BY:

    FEATURING: , , , , Jared Harris

    PLOT: Dracula’s estranged son and daughter reunite after his final death.

     

    COMMENTS: A remix of Bram Stoker’s original text haunted by the influences of prior adaptations, Nadja is an atmospheric homage to the Universal monster flicks of the 1930s filtered through the East Village art scene with deadpan Brechtian cool. Bela Lugosi portrays Dracula through clips of old footage. For half the film, the image appears distorted by an aura of supernaturalism, thanks to a pixelating camera. The rest of the cinematography is crisp black and white, interiors cloaked in Expressionist shadows, exteriors swathed in shrouds of fog.

    When André Breton met the woman who called herself “Nadja,” she had left behind one life and arrived in Paris seeking another. We meet Almereyda’s Nadja in a similar scene, on a date with a random guy who asks her the usual questions. “Do you work?” “No.” Her father provides for her. What does he do? He has money, family money – old money that goes back all the way to Romania. But she left Europe because it’s like a small village, whereas New York City is the world. She talks of how she wants to change her life. She can sense the potential for change but, as Renfield will remind her, changing your life is easier said than done, even when you’re undead.

    The guy asks if she wants another drink. A dangerous question to ask a vampire but apparently the old Romanian money didn’t tip him off. He takes Nadja back to his place and she has that second drink, disappearing before he even knows what happened.

    But then she feels it: her father is dead. Van Helsing has staked him, and Nadja knows immediately that Dracula is gone for good. She experiences a sense of relief, the impetus for change she’s been looking for. But first, she has to risk a reconciliation with her estranged brother, Edgar, who for unknown reasons, wants to kill her.

    Nadja was one of a slew of existential vampire films released in the early to mid-1990s. It makes a perfect double feature with ‘s The Addiction (1995), which features a similarly impressive cast, set in New York City just before it drowned beneath a tide of Starbucks lattes. But while Ferrara focuses on gritty street reality, Almereyda’s style is more Pictorialist, providing impressions of a city that never seems quite real. It’s all about the atmosphere, the vampire as symbol, as philosopher, though these musings are delivered with tongue-in-cheek humor, preventing the tone from ever becoming too ponderous or heavy. The story follows the basic outline of Stoker’s plot, but Almereyda introduces additional entanglements and family secrets to a pared down cast of characters. Peter Fonda’s Van Helsing is the embarrassing drunk uncle of Jim (Donovan), a Harker-esque character whose marriage to Lucy is on the rocks. When Lucy catches Nadja’s eye in a bar, she unwittingly sets Van Helsing on the trail of Dracula’s children.

    The ending sees the characters, somewhat improbably, whisked away to Transylvania, after some of them inexplicably survive an explosion, but don’t expect an action-packed, blood-soaked finale. The always lovely Suzy Amis delivers a moving monologue on humanity’s bereftness in the modern world, and Nadja finds the change she was looking for.

    Nadja largely succeeds as arthouse horror through its unusual visual style and subtle surrealism, enhanced by the strengths of its cast. Löwensohn captivates as Nadja, and plentiful shots focus on her unique face framed by the dark folds of a hooded cloak. She and Martin Donovan were regulars in Hal Hartley’s early ’90s films, where both perfected the technique of delivering emotionally resonant lines with minimal modulation of voice and facial expression. Fonda provides much needed energy as a zany and eccentric Van Helsing. For fans of , his brief cameo as a morgue security guard is a nice little bonus.

    Arbelos Films recently completed a 4K restoration of a director’s cut approved by Michael Almereyda, which has just finished its run in select theaters and will see by a physical media release in mid-October.

    WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

    “Stylish, eccentric and occasionally deliciously weird, it is a film for audiences who like their horror served with humour and their vampires with personality. With a runtime of under 90 minutes, for those willing to embrace its peculiar rhythms, Nadja reveals that even creatures of the night can have a sense of humour.”–Romney Norton, Dirty Movies (re-release)

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    Nadja

    Nadja

    • Director Michael Almereyda and Executive Producer David Lynch conjure a rare vampire film.

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