Spending your Sunday afternoons in a cemetery may not immediately strike you as a viable option, but on one of the hottest weekends of the year, 2/3 of the TC editorial team could be found in Nunhead Cemetery, not far from Underhill Road (fortunately only visiting). But this is no ordinary dead zone – Nunhead, together with it’s more famous relative Highgate, are burial grounds founded by the London Cemetery Company, which today still provide a gorgeously morbid insight into the subject of the title.

As Victoria came to the throne, the problem of disposing of the bodies of dead Londoners was coming to a head. The population of the city was increasing rapidly – from 900,000 in 1801 to more than 2¬ million just 50 years later – and the city churchyards could no longer cope; people received a temporary burial locally before being removed elsewhere. Eventually, fears that having all these corpses in the city would cause an epidemic led to Parliament passing a bill in 1836, founding the London Cemetery Company. Three years later, they established Highgate cemetery, in North London and the following year Nunhead, at that time in Surrey, followed. This was no philanthropic act – 17 acres at Highgate cost a mere £3,500 and even conservative calculations show enough graves could be crammed in to make sixty times this in burial fees.

The Victorian attitude to death was very different to the one we have today. They believed the way a society disposed of its dead was a reflection of its treatment for the living and so, for example, cemeteries were places of botanical education, containing specimens of foreign plants and trees. Whole families would come down on Sunday afternoons, go into their family vaults and take tea with their relatives (deceased). Even after death, they were still very class-conscious – often graves were built with glass panels in them to allow the quality of the coffin to be seen! Seeing such a picnic is supposed to have been one of the inspirations for Bram Stoker’s ‘Dracula’.

There were problems to be faced, too. In certain cemeteries, the water table was too close to the surface (both Nunhead & Highgate, being built on hills, are alright) which meant the grave-diggers often hit ground water. The solution was to place a board just above the water surface, and sprinkle some earth on it to give the appearance of solid ground. Then, once the mourners had left, the board could be removed and the lead-lined coffin would sink majestically beneath the waves. Lead-lined coffins posed problems of their own – although intended to slow down decomposition by being airtight, occasionally the build-up of gas inside them proved too much, and they would, quite literally, explode. Having bits of Uncle Fred spatter the proceeding would put a damper on any Sunday afternoon tea party.

Another ghoulish tale concerns the family grave of the Rossetti family. Dante Gabriel Rossetti was a famous Victorian painter and poet – when his wife, Elizabeth, died he placed his notebook of unpublished poems in the coffin with her as a gesture of love. Some time later, egged on by his literary agent, he regretted this move and obtained permission to exhume her body (no doubt with a little palm-greasing), retrieve the notebook and publish the poems. She is supposed to have been just as beautiful as when she was interred, tho’ how much of this was to comfort Rossetti (who was, understandably, not present), I don’t know.

The memorials themselves are far more varied than those seen today, often reflecting the occupation of the internee; an animal trainer has a sleeping lion, a cricketer a set of demolished stumps. Symbolism is rampant, as in most things Victorian (cf. Holman Hunt’s picture ‘The Awakening Conscience’ for the best example) – everywhere, there are lights snuffed out, columns of life broken, serpents devouring their tails (a tad pagan, perhaps) and any number of weeping angels, most of which resemble Emmanuelle Beart. These monuments became extraordinarily ornate and expensive – in 1876, Julius Beer, founder of The Observer newspaper paid œ5,800 for his memorial, including the cost of the land. Assuming a modest 5% rate of inflation, that’s the equivalent of over œ1« million nowadays.

This obsession with death couldn’t last and eventually the industries relating to the cemeteries and the cemeteries themselves had to be reduced in scale. The London Cemetery Company went bust in 1975 and for a while Nunhead, taken over by Southwark Council, entered a period of benign neglect, with only the modern areas being maintained (there’s still plenty of room, however – it currently holds 250,000 bodies and won’t be full until the year 2030 at the current rate). Highgate was in an even worse state – graves were desecrated and various dubious practices occurred (the reader is referred to ‘The Highgate Vampire’ by Sean Manchester for a straight-faced account of a battle against an undead creature).

Fortunately, as often happens, some people refused to let these pieces of social and natural history ‘die’ and formed associations to preserve them, which gradually, very gradually, are winning the fight. The eventual aim is not to tidy up the cemeteries completely, since much of the charm is their semi-overgrown nature, but to produce a range of states, from the geometrically precise Victorian pristine, to the ivy and moss encrusted ruins, which can be enjoyed by as many people as possible.

So next time you have some spare time in London, think about visiting Highgate Cemetery (they do daily tours there, while Nunhead has only one a month at the moment). Karl Marx, Sir Ralph Richardson, Michael Faraday, and even the inventor of Hovis bread are all buried in the grounds. While
maybe not as lively as other attractions, it can claim to be (ah, the old jokes are the best) the dead centre of London…

Of course, some people find other uses for cemeteries. Those of a sensitive disposition should probably skip the rest of this, as TC is about to go rapidly downhill. Difficult though that may be to believe…

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Dead Boring

It’s not that immoral… Yes, I refer to the treasured pastime of those select few, including myself: necrophilia. Considered perhaps something of an acquired taste by the majority of society, it is my belief that this activity is in fact perfectly acceptable social conduct and should be acknowledged as such in the community. Too often, I find, is necrophilia represented in a bad light today – a stigma has surrounded it for years for some reason – whereas it is in reality wholly permissible, respectable and actually somewhat soothing in my experience.

One should not be made to feel guilty by the majority; surely it is a simple human right that one man be allowed to pop into a graveyard for a quickie and maybe bring back a corpse for tea with mother and a shag upstairs. Perhaps this kind of date isn’t so talkative, but then you don’t dig them up for their conversation. Necrophilia has other benefits, I might add. There is no risk of pregnancy or even sexually-transmitted diseases as generally the offending viruses are unable to inhabit a dead host. However, it is still advisable to wear a condom all the same, since it saves time spent scraping away all of the dead skin/flesh that has become attached during intercourse.

Despite what one may have been led to believe, a necrophile actually meets some genuinely interesting (or should I say ‘absorbing’?) people while on the pull. A date is always guaranteed – stiffs are not accustomed to washing their hair of an evening and naturally the irritating possibility of a headache at an inappropriate time is eliminated. Wherever one gets one’s corpse, whether it be fresh from the site of a motor-vehicle accident, or a little aged, dragged out from it’s coffin beneath the moon, the stiff always looks damn nice in some quality lingerie, accompanied by some soft music and the enchanting odour of embalming fluid (or the coppery aroma of blood, depending on the state of the body). A morgue is often the best place to go: it can be considered simply as a showroom for the necrophile, he (or she) is able to select with ease the body that they desire – perhaps the corpse of his/her dreams. Additionally, you have the option, common to necrophilia in general, of return and replacement if the goods are unsatisfactory.

“Size isn’t everything”, they generally say, but for the female necrophile that likes a well-endowed carcass, the essential member is interchangeable with the help of some good scissors (or a hacksaw) and a needle & thread. And a dead date gives it to you straight. On the other side of the coin, the female corpse never gives you a faked orgasm with all the accompanying screams – the stiff just lies there squelching sometimes, at the disposal of the necrophile. You know where you stand with a cadaver.

Nowhere else is the incredible unity between the living and the dead so tenderly and sensitively demonstrated as with necrophilia. A dating agency is a thing of the past, from now on lovers all over the world will be flocking to their local graveyards, morgues and motorways to find their ideal partner and build a relationship. Although a corpse can leave a dubious smell around the house, it is on the other hand fairly cheap to feed and with some teaching may even learn to do the housework. At present I’m going out with a 23-year old road accident and things have never been better. So: “Get a corpse today, and while the hours away!!”

(Author’s name redacted!)


How did YOU score? As the rest of the book makes clear, for “unhealthy preoccupation”, “addiction” and “obsession”, you can read “mild interest” – I’ll admit six of the nine above could apply to me (as I write this, there’s a plaster skull, bought on a whim in Camden Town, lying in the bottom drawer of the desk, and I’ve also read ‘The Necronomicon’. It was DULL).

Recently, on both sides of the Atlantic, there’s been an upsurge in paranoia about witchcraft, devil-worship and Satanism. This is worrying, because there is a severe danger that it’s going to divert people from REAL problems. The worst example was the recent TV programme that tried to link Satanism and child sex abuse. Several people I know found the programme disturbing, yet no first- or even second-hand accounts were produced and the programme admitted police had totally failed to find evidence at all anything was happening. Yet the reaction of one social worker interviewed, astonishingly, was “Just because there isn’t any evidence, doesn’t mean it isn’t happening”!!!! I’ll restrain myself from commenting on this, beyond saying that a lack of evidence certainly doesn’t mean it IS happening.

Meanwhile, back in America, Bob Larson, radio talk-show host, continues his crusade to save America’s youth from the Devil. Let’s see what he has to say on horror films:

“The often chaotic plot lines and disjointed camera sequences of many horror films are randomly based. Instead of fostering mental stability, the cinematic techniques leave movie-goers wondering what will happen next. Such unpredictability enforces morbid fears that young minds cannot process. Tell the teen who wants to watch horror movies that the human mind can handle only so much stress before it becomes overburdened and desensitised. Scenes of gore galore can become so indelibly imbedded that the film becomes a living nightmare, triggering neuroses, trauma and ongoing phobias. Don’t hesitate to declare something is tragically wrong with anyone who watches a movie for the thrill of watching blood flow”.

Wow! A living nightmare! Neuroses! Trauma! Sounds like my sort of film. But is the ‘thrill of watching ARTIFICIAL blood flow’ any different from the thrill of the (car) chase, the thrill of a fight sequence or even the thrill of a well-staged, tense piece of dialogue? The man has also completely forgotten that horror films are MEANT to be unsettling but that, almost by definition, a sane individual can distinguish reality from celluloid fantasy and keep them apart. On reading the following paragraph, you begin to wonder whether Bob’s grip on reality isn’t a little shaky:

“The worst part was audience reaction as bodies were disembowelled and limbs amputated. Instead of hung heads and disapproving groans, the murderous mayhem met with cheers, laughter and indifference”

No, Bob! FAKE bodies, LATEX limbs. THIS IS NOT REALITY. Show those teenagers footage of open-heart surgery and you would GET the hung heads and disapproving groans you want. And this inability to tell the difference appears in all the other areas he ‘investigates’. His chapter on role-playing games (which contains several blatant errors, such as claiming the spell Slow Poison is used to kill, when it’s actually a healing spell) makes the same mistake of assuming that because devil-worship and magic are part of the mythos, this will lead the participants to use them in real life.

Admittedly, the only Satanist I ever knew DID play D&D. However, his influence on the rest of us was highly POSITIVE, encouraging mutual collaboration and other ‘good’ deeds. The guy was a 100% sh*t and whenever he played, the rest of us (including the referee) would instantly forget all differences and work together towards the common goal of killing the mother as fast as possible. The record was just over 35 seconds. He wasn’t a great advert for Satanism, but it does show that D&D can just as easily promote positive traits!

Now, I hold no candle, black or otherwise, for Satanism, and I freely admit there are some highly dubious things going on ‘in the name of Satan’ but claiming that rock music, films or fantasy games will cause sane, stable people to commit murder is just not on. Neither is trying to link the completely separate problem of child abuse – we’ll get nowhere if we ignore the atrocities committed by Christian families…

1 – The Pussy Shocker

The hero is alone in his house. He hears a noise in one of the other rooms and goes to investigate. He searches around, but finds nothing, when suddenly, WHAM, a black cat jumps out from nowhere, it’s snarl mixed high in the ÿÿÿÿsoundtrack, giving the hero (and supposedly the audience) a split second shock.

Yep, the brain dead film-makers have pulled the hoary old “Cat Gag” again. Have you ever been jolted by a cat suddenly jumping out at you?
No, I didn’t think so, but going by horror films you’d think that being shocked by your pussy (or someone else’s) was one of life’s inevitable bad happenings. Films as diverse as ‘Stagefright’, ‘The Slayer’, ‘Hardcover’, ‘Psychic Killer’, ‘Alien’, ‘Night of the Creeps’ and ‘Friday the
13th, Part II’ (plus a host of other slashers) have all used variations of The Cat Gag. The moggies involved have jumped out of windows, boxes, cupboards and garbage bins, all for the sake of a
cheap ‘filler’ shock. Of course, The Cat Gag doesn’t always have to utilise a cat, other animals can be used, for instance ‘Something is Out There’ uses a white parrot. It helps if the animal has a loud shriek or snarl – rabbits and gerbils are thus out.

There’s not always a suspenseful build-up to The Cat Gag, but when there is, most horror fans will see it coming well in advance and this anticipation probably makes the shock more successful. It has to be admitted, The Cat Gag is usually effective in making the viewers heart stop for a split second – just as well, because otherwise cats in movies are about as scary as the end sequence of ‘Top Cat’. Need I say more than ‘The Uncanny’, ‘The Corpse Grinders’ or ‘Eye of the Cat’? Even horror stylist numero uno, the giallo god himself, Dario Argento, could only muster luke-warm chills for his cat attack sequence in ‘Inferno’ [ That’s being generous – you can almost see the bloke, standing just out of shot, throwing the recalcitrant felines through the air at the ‘victim’. Hilarious. Ed. ]

2 – The False Point of View Shot

A slasher movie fave, this one. The camera, supposedly rendering the psycho’s point of view, menacingly tracks towards an unsuspecting character, whose gory murder is anticipated by the tension-racked (I don’t think) audience. As the camera finally reaches the character, we discover that it’s actually been the point of view of another protagonist and not the psycho, about to indulge in some slice ‘n’ dice.

The makers of ‘Friday the 13th, Part IV’ must have thought this one was celluloid horror’s magic ingredient for surefire success, as they use it again and again (and again) throughout the film. As a rule of thumb, in a slasher flick, if the camera slowly tracks towards someone POV style, then you can bet your video tape cleaner that he/she will live to be killed off in another sequence.

‘The Unnameable’ contains what is possibly the most stupefying ever variation of this gag [ the entire film was pretty stupefying, I thought. Ed. ]. ‘Burial Ground’ (aka ‘Zombie 3’) has a text book example of how this trick should be done, in it’s earlier sequences, but blows it by ineffectively rehashing it later. When a film uses the POV gag more than once, it’s a sure sign that the director is probably suffering from an acute case of brain death.

3 – The False Capture Shock

This one is usually inflicted on a female protagonist. She’s alone in the woods (usually the male who has been accompanying her has just ‘mysteriously’ disappeared). She suddenly realises that someone is watching her. Scared, she runs and after twenty or thirty yards, she stumbles into a figure whose identity is momentarily unrevealed, causing her to yell in shock. “Oh, no – the killer’s got her”, the audience think as their pulse rate doubles but after a second or two the figure is revealed to be a ‘safe’ character, usually the aforementioned male, who has no desire to cut her life short.

There are various setups to this gag, but the pay-off is always well telegraphed. ‘Pieces’ has an especially hokey version in which Lynda Day George rushes straight into big Paul ‘Popeye’ Smith, who’s wielding a mean chainsaw. Tho’ naturally, he’s just the college caretaker out trimming some hedges.

4 – The Blood Daub Device

A sorry cop-out to a violent murder, this one. The killer, holding a knife (or axe, sword, etc) traps his victim in a room, raises the weapon and violently thrusts is down at the victim. Cut to the wall, as the victim’s blood spatters over it.

This device, used in many a low-budget movie, is nothing but a cheapjack substitute for a real gore effect. When the blood-drenched wall rears it’s ugly head in a movie, I always hope that the blood daub will be quickly followed by the victim’s decapitated head or hacked-off arm being thrown against it. Such Grand Guignol taste/imagination has yet to materialize.

5 – The Triple Zoom Reverse

A cliche of technique. The camera simultaneously zooms forward while tracking back on a close-up of a character, displacing them from the background to accentuate a moment of shock realisation on their part.

Utilised in ‘Vertigo’, purely as a subjective device by Hitchcock (who invented it) to depict James Stewart’s height induced dizziness, this shot became popular when Steven Spielberg used it in ‘Jaws’ in the sequence where Roy Schneider, sitting on the beach, suddenly spots a shark fin in the ocean full of swimmers. Since then, there has been no shortage of exploitation films (not just horror ones) that have had this shot thrown in, adding nothing but a moment of second-hand artisticness to the proceedings – ‘How I Got Into College’ is the latest. Funnily enough, whenever a film does use this shot, it’s almost always shown in the trailer…

(A.McGavin)


Ah, those two magic words! Let’s say them again…MONDO MOVIES. What do those words conjure up? Sadism? Reality? Revulsion? All of these and more? As the good Dr. Francis Gross would say, let me take you on a journey…

When we discuss mondos, we’re talking about real life, or at least an attempt to persuade us we’re watching real life. The Italian title of that old video nasty list resident ‘Cannibal’ may have been ‘Ultimo Mondo Cannibale’, but it’s really just another fictional flesh-eater. True mondo films don’t intentionalise or try to provide a plot – they serve up gleeful helpings of the real thing.

It’s easy to film reality. Before 1910, the cinema had given us ‘Workers Leaving A Factory’, ‘The Kiss of May Irvin and John C.Rice’, ‘A Fight With Sledgehammers’ and even ‘The Electrocution of an Elephant’. Horses died in ‘The Ten Commandments’, and extras in ‘My Love For Ireland’, but it was not until 1961 that those enterprising Italians came up with the ultimate pessimism of ‘Mondo Cane’ or ‘A Dog’s Life’. This time, death was central to the film – the dogs of the title were dispatched under the opening credits. That unfortunate staple of the mondo film, the turtle, comes under attack in this one too, crawling onto the beach to lay it’s eggs and then being overturned (not by the filmmakers, surely?) to bake in the sun.

‘Mondo Cane’ was, unsurprisingly, terrifically popular, and it was given an official seal of approval when it’s them song, ‘More’, won an Oscar. ‘More’ resurfaced again and again, as both the makers of ‘Mondo Cane’ and many other directors realised that death, mutilation and sadism sold by the bucketload. Most of these films followed ‘Mondo Cane’s formula of tribal rituals and slaughterhouse footage, and for twenty years there was a steady drip of (mainly Italian) mondo films, all recycling each others’ ideas and, very often, each others’ footage. The bored mondo audience shifted it’s attention toward ‘snuff’ movies and the debate about Roberta Findlay’s ‘Snuff’ in particular, and it seemed there was no place for the mondo any more.

All this changed with the release of ‘Faces of Death’ in 1978. The aforementioned Dr. Francis B. Gross wishes to exorcise his recurring dream about a funeral, so he takes us on a trip through the world’s abbatoirs, road accidents and death cults for 105 minutes (or 70 in the severely truncated UK release). American audiences lapped it up, undoubtedly due to the use of US news footage and the fact that the film returned every five minutes from Japan or the Amazon to some home-grown atrocities. ‘Faces of Death’ was so successful that two sequels and more than one unofficial semi-sequel followed. Doctor Gross returns for parts two and three (“I would like to invite you on yet another journey”) and the films get predictably duller by turns.

Mondo was back as a genre in it’s own right (although it had always been present as an inherent part of Italian cannibal films – the turtle in ‘Cannibal Holocaust’ is treated rather worse than it’s cousin in ‘Mondo Cane’), and again the rip-offs surfaced, with films such as ‘Fear’ (completely staged ‘faces of near-death’) and ‘Death Faces IV’ (‘an FOD production). Legendary sleazemonger Doris Wishman was so embarrassed by the genre that she took her name off ‘Let Me Die a Woman’, a hilariously tacky sex-change mondomentary.

‘The Killing of America’ took the mondo film to it’s obvious conclusion with it’s history of American murderers. Whilst not as out-and-out repulsive as the Italian mutilation films, this was generally more shocking, pointing out that death isn’t just a foreign movie concern, it’s something that happens on your doorstep. The film was withdrawn from release in America – obviously the great US public wanted their reality held at arm’s length. The Italians retook the mondo mantle and ‘Addio Ultimo Uomo’, the ultimate display of depravities was born. Since then, we’ve had ‘Mondo Cane 2000’ and the cycle seems to have come full-circle. The brutalities of the first ‘Mondo Cane’ pale into insignificance as every imaginable display of hideousness comes out and gets thrown at the viewer. The mondo can go no further.

(David Thomson)

[There’s the facts – next issue, there’ll be the opinions, with two writers expressing rather differing views on the subject! We’d also be interested to hear what you have to say – are mondo movies the ultimate in horror, or have they gone too far? Let us know…]

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Oops!

A range of things from the last few issues that need to be corrected, amended, altered, fixed, added to and apologised for. Firstly, the Sybil Danning article back in TC5 continues to rumble on. ‘Blood’ was also known as ‘Eye of the Labyrinth’, ‘Fire of Love’ as ‘Freedom For Love’, ‘Run Run Joe’ was probably called ‘Run Joe Run’ and ‘Sweet Dirty Tony’ is an alternate title for ‘The Cuba Crossing’. In addition to the guest appearance in the TV series ‘The Fall Guy’ mention in TC6, she also appeared in an episode of ‘Street Hawk’.

As expected, the Christopher Lee filmography last issue had any number of errors, omissions and alterations, mostly in his early career. There are more of these than I have room for here, but by the time you read this, an expanded and hopefully corrected list will have been compiled – this, together with updated filmographies on Linnea and Nastassja, may appear in a future TC, but is also available if you send an SAE to the editorial address.

That’s about that, except to say sorry to James Lorinz for getting his name wrong last time, and to point out that ‘Marine Boy’ used oxy-gum, rather than an oxy-gun, to enable him to breathe underwater. Thanks to Brian Bower, Julian Grainger, Paul Higson, Ray Ridley, Pete Shepherd and Phil Taylor for pointing out various faults.

“Here he comes, here comes Speed Racer, he’s a demon on wheels.
He’s a demon and he’s gonna be chasing after someone.
He’s been around a lot, you’d better look alive
‘Cos he’ll be revvin’ up the powerful Mark 5.
And when the odds are against him and there’s dangerous work to do,
You bet your life Speed Racer will see it through.
Go Speed Racer, go Speed Racer, go Speed Racer, go!”
—– theme song

In TC6, we praised ‘Akira’ and ‘Warriors of the Wind’ as shining examples of Japanese animation. This may have led you to believe that all Oriental cartoon series are artistic and morally sound. ‘Speed Racer’ proves, beyond all doubt, that this is not the case.

The opening sequence of this surreal 1967 movie has the above lyrics, set to a hideously archetypal late 60’s song, behind which we see a car-race going along a fly-over – suddenly two cars collide, one of which ploughs through a crash-barrier and explodes in a fireball! Those of you who’ve seen the A-Team and their 70-mph multiple pile-ups, rollovers and crashes, after which the baddies climb out uninjured, will understand my shock as this U-rated cartoon starts to resemble an animated ‘Faces of Death’.

The first thing in the film proper is a clown driving a car. This explodes, leaving the driver with an umbrella dropping from the top of the screen, Mary Poppins style. The clown explodes. In his place is a girl; I use the term ‘girl’ for want of anything better as she could well be the result of some illegal, bizarre genetic experiment involving giraffe DNA – the length of her neck is only exceeded by the length of her legs. She introduces the Stunt Car Spectacular, where the aim seems to be to drive your car down a ski-jump and clear a number of sports cars piled vertically in front of it. The first contestant is Mr Guts Wheeler (sic) – he shoots down the ramp, crashes into the second top car and brings the whole lot down, leaving him trapped among the wreckage. The next driver up, Mr Hi Octane, fares even worse, hitting the top of the pile and the car smashes into a concrete wall and explodes. Mr Octane rolls onto his back, twitches and lies still. This sort of thing occurs irregularly throughout the 65 minutes of the cartoon.

Our hero, Speed Racer, is the driver for a racing outfit run by his father, with the assistance of Speed’s kid brother Spridle (and pet monkey Chim-chim), his girlfriend Trixie and mechanic Sparky. Their car, the Mark 5, is entered in the Alpine Race, a gruelling endurance event, though judging from the number of Yawning Chasms present, the Swiss government stopped any spending on roads some time ago. Against them is the Car Acrobatic Team, seven drivers out to win at any cost in cars equipped with extending wings to help them cross Yawning Chasms. Speed’s team (minus Sparky, thanks to an argument about whether Speed should race at all) work through the night to try and fit similar wings (“even I’m going to help”, says token female Trixie in what seems a fine display of assertiveness until we discover she merely popped off to put the kettle on) but Speed’s dad collapses with the effort.

Undaunted, Speed works on (Trixie’s playing at nurses, naturally) and manages to fit the wings. “Now I’ll see if the wings work…They do!!”, he says – to be strictly accurate, while they do go out and in fine, he never bothers to see if they’re any good at actually keeping him up. Hopefully, Boeing operate slightly more stringent test procedures. Anyway, he makes it to the start line just in time, and is joined by Racer X (“Speed does not know that the driver of this car is his older brother, Rex, who ran away from home years ago”) who specialises in platitudes like “As a professional racer, I’ve got to meet the challenge”. Within thirty seconds of the start, we have the first crash-and-burn and not long after we get the first Yawning Chasm.

Now, Speed argued with his mechanic so his brakes aren’t working too well and he skids, backwards, down a Yawning Chasm. Naturally he’s rescued by Sparky, who suffered a pang of conscience and lassoes the entire car from a helicopter piloted by, of all people, Nurse/Tea-Lady/Pilot Trixie. The brakes are fixed and Speed catches up with the rest of the field, including what’s left of the Car Acrobatic Team, at a Yawning Chasm, appropriately named Yawning Chasm Pass. The six drivers who decide to go on, including Speed, Racer X, and chief C.A.T. driver Snake Oiler, draw lots to see who goes first but it’s all fairly pointless since they all end up at the bottom of the Yawning Chasm, Speed included.

Fortunately, as Yawning Chasms go it ain’t up to much – not only is Speed merely knocked out, but the Mark 5 has nary a scratch and starts first time. On regaining consciousness, Speed seems to suffer an acid flashback and stares at the sun for so long he is blinded. But Racer X is also there with another undamaged car and Speed is able to drive by following the sound of his engine… This isn’t totally effective (Speed’s eyesight might improve if he tried opening his eyes instead of driving with them shut) and to help Speed, Racer X crashes his car and pretends to have injured his legs so he can sit in the Mark 5 and give directions (yes, I know – why didn’t he do that without resorting to self-inflicted smashes?). These start off as “left 10 degrees”, but soon degenerate to “faster…even faster”.

They catch up Snake Oiler, whose car, it will not surprise you to hear, still works (some damn Yawning Chasm!) but is leaking oil and will blow up if he doesn’t slow down. Speed pulls alongside to try and warn Snake but he fails to believe Speed and, lo and behold, his car explodes torching the occupant to a cinder, leaving Speed the winner to the wild cheers of the crowd who would have instantly forgotten the messy fatal accident on the home straight. The C.A.T. drivers haven’t, and swear revenge…

Animation quality is ‘primitive’ it’s safe to say; plenty of loops with the same car going past multiple times. Dialogue fails to match the lip movements at all, despite more groans, gasps and moans on the soundtrack than your average porno movie. This film was clearly constructed of 3 twenty-minute episodes slammed together as every so often it pauses and you get a brief voice-over of previous events. An animated version of ‘Death Race 2000’, this film should be required viewing for anyone who thinks ultra-violent kiddie cartoons are a modern invention.

[Beware: at least two cassettes of ‘Speed Racer’ are available; the one reviewed here is on the ‘MY-TV’ label (MYTV 20027); the Parkfield Junior release may have been cut and is noticeably less vicious]