Remembering Ingrid Pitt

The Gorgeous Ingrid Pitt only graced the world of horror with 4 notable cult films but her unmatched beauty stands the test of time.

A weird moment in my life, I was on a Hammer Horror kick and rented Vampire Lovers, obviously smitten by her looks, I looked her up the normal horror watching day on November 23rd 2010 and was shocked to discovery that same day she had died.

Young Ingrid Pitt survived being a Nazi Concentration camp and  worked her way into minor movie stardom with Dr Zhivago and Where Eagles dare but horror fans remember her stunning looks, curvaceous figure and sultry voice in her Carmilla Karnstein roles Countess Dracula and Vampire Lovers and the Amicus Anthology The House that Dripped Blood.  Ingrid played a small role as a Summerisle police burning pagan in the beloved Wicker Man. 

Although her mark in horror cinema was brief her centerfold looks are timeless and have been adored for decades from horror fans around the world.

Ingrid Pitt November 21st, 1937-Novermber 23rd, 2010

Expose' aka House on Straw Hill aka Trauma 76'

Paul Martin (Udo Keir) is a tormented writer who suffers violent hallucinations and hires an editor, Linda Hindstatt (the voluptuous Linda Hayden) to help him write his second novel, while staying in a secluded country house surrounded by a field of straw.

Martin's struggles to write as Linda acts as his typist, sexual tension begins on their first day together and Linda leaves to pleasure herself. Linda lays in a field near by and masturbates and is caught by two men who sexually attack her and she grabs hold of a shotgun and shoots both of them, leaving them for dead. She returns as if nothing happens and continues to act as Martin's secretary. Martin's girlfriend Suzzane (played by model Fiona Richmond) visits and creates more sexual tension between the three.

The story is slow and atmospheric with an eerie score that only hits extreme high points heightened by Sex and Violence. The BBC listed this one as a Video Nasty and approximately 30 cuts were taken out to tame the film to it's theatrical release.

The acting is strong and convincing despite the odd choices that the characters choose. The ending is definitly a WTF moment that leaves audiences scratching their heads. 

House on Straw Hill was remade in 2010 as Stalker featuring Hayden as the house maid. Severin Films released an uncut restored version sticking with the Australian title name House on Straw Hill.

7 out of 10

Black Belly of the Tarantula

1971 was a good year for the Giallo genre. All Giallo films have the haunting score, a good majority by  Ennio (genius) Morricone, and most Giallo's have the bold camera tricks, black gloved killers, colorful back drops, excessive blood-letting and oh-so-beautiful victims, but director Paolo Cavara (Mondo Cane) had the right elements with the film to make it one of the best of the genre.

The story's perspective isn't the typical Hitchcockian framed man caught in the middle of a murder while proving his innocence but instead follows a brooding inspector, who lost heart in his profession, yet follows the killer's bloody trail. The victims are viciously killed by being debilitated with a poisonous needle in the back of the neck and then cut open by a scalpel in the stomach. Black Belly has the right elements to transcend similar films within the genre by its ominous and hypnotic tone. The atypical cheese that comes with 70's European horror films is not present and the end leaves you feeling melancholic. (Which was also present concerning context in Dirty Harry of the same year) If you like Hitchcock or even the 70's films from Brian De Palma you should start you Giallo viewing with this particular film. 9 out 10.