Roddy McDowall

  • Dead of Winter (1987)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, May 2022) Any film that dares re-create a Gothic horror story in a somewhat modern setting gets my attention – that it happens to star the lovely Mary Steenburgen is a really nice bonus. Taking place under a deep cover of snow and ice, Dead of Winter sees a struggling actress (Steenburgen) travelling to an upstate mansion under the impression that she’s auditioning for a part in a movie. It’s for a part all right – but in a twisted familiar melodrama of familial feud, murdered women, identity replacement and amputation. Locked in the middle of nowhere, her frantic efforts to ask for help result in a devilishly frustrating confrontation with visiting police, in which her captors coolly argue that she has lost her mind. Dead of Winter, appropriately shot in Ontario, honestly comes by its Gothic credentials – it’s an unofficial remake of the 1940s domestic thriller My Name Is Julia Ross, itself adapted from The Woman in Red, a novel written in the heyday of British mystery fiction. While Roddy McDowall is suitably creepy as the antagonist, Steenburgen has a lot to do here, with the plot naturally leading her to play three different roles. The plot is almost entirely preposterous down to the importance of free gas station goldfishes (don’t ask) – but the point here is the thrill of a woman stuck in the middle of nowhere, desperately trying to escape a situation rigged against her. The film stands as director Arthur Penn’s last theatrical release – even if the true authorship of the film is muddled through a mid-production change. The result is not that good, but it’s reasonably entertaining – and a treat for Steenburgen fans.

  • Embryo (1976)

    Embryo (1976)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (On Cable TV, July 2021) Once, just once, I’d like to see a film about the artificial creation of humans that wouldn’t result in the creation turning homicidal. But Embryo is largely a blunt-force horror film and that’s what creatures do in horror films. Rock Hudson (!) stars as a grieving veterinarian who, through the first act, comes to manipulate a human embryo with a fast growth serum. Moments later, here grows a young woman played by Barbara Carrera, not only a beauty but also a genius-level intellect beating chess champions and a psychopath willing to kill in order to prevent her cellular decay. It predictably escalates from there. It’s all quite familiar, although there it has a 1970s atmosphere that almost makes it interesting. I could easily see a triple bill of this, Coma and Demon Seed for a 1970s medical science fiction/horror marathon. Hudson is not bad and neither is Carrera — with small roles for Diane Ladd and Roddy McDowall as a bonus. Embryo’s turn to horror is cheap and predictable, though, and the “don’t play God” moralism is as basic as it comes.