{"id":7600,"date":"2022-02-03T11:29:24","date_gmt":"2022-02-03T11:29:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/?p=7600"},"modified":"2023-01-07T10:30:12","modified_gmt":"2023-01-07T10:30:12","slug":"andy-milligan-british-horror","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/film\/andy-milligan-british-horror\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018A tuppence where yer \u2019eart should be\u2019: Andy Milligan\u2019s British horror films"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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American filmmaker Andy Milligan’s extremely low-budget work was consigned to his homeland until 1968 when he ventured to the UK and made five horror films over a two-year period. Paul Lewis examines Milligan’s films in detail…\u200b<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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To many British cinephiles of a certain age, Andy Milligan\u2019s name is known primarily for his lurid 1968 picture Blood Rites<\/i> (aka The Ghastly Ones<\/i>), filmed near Milligan\u2019s own Staten Island home, which ended up on the official \u2018Video Nasties\u2019 list owing to its gruesome, deliriously homegrown scenes of carnage. <\/b>Most of Milligan\u2019s films were made on a zero budget, with a \u2018make do and mend\u2019 ethos, on or near his home turf of Staten Island, New York. However, between August 1968 and 1970, Milligan shot no less than five films in the UK \u2013 beginning with Nightbirds<\/b><\/i>\u00a0and The Body Beneath<\/b><\/i> for producer Leslie Elliot, and extending into Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/i>, The Man with Two Heads<\/b><\/i> and The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/b><\/i><\/p>

Following his British pictures, Milligan returned to the US and shot his first 35mm production, Guru, the Mad Monk <\/b>(1970). Milligan\u2019s first film under his own production company (Nova), Guru, the Mad Monk<\/b><\/i> was released as a double feature with The Body Beneath<\/b><\/i>; and over the next few years, Milligan\u2019s British productions would be released (and re-released) by William Mishkin, the notorious New York-based distributor of sexploitation films, often with newly-shot scenes. In particular, The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/b><\/i> began as a story about a family of werewolves, titled Curse of the Full Moon<\/b><\/em>. This, at least, was the narrative Milligan shot in the UK. However, the film was extended by footage shot in Milligan\u2019s own Staten Island home (which he dubbed \u2018Hollywood Central\u2019, and where he also shot his unconventional 1973 vampire film Blood<\/b><\/em>): back in America, at the behest of Mishkin, Milligan filmed a series of new scenes in which Hope Stansbury visits a shady salesman, Mr Micawber (\u2018Chris Shore\u2019; in reality, believed to be a heavily disguised Andy Milligan himself, acting under a nom de guerre), to buy rats. These scenes were a clear attempt to capitalise on the popularity of Daniel Mann\u2019s 1971 rat-themed horror film Willard<\/b><\/em>.<\/p>

Prior to Blood Rites\u00a0<\/b><\/em>(1968), Milligan\u2019s work was mostly in the field of melodrama and sexploitation, with some influence from New Wave cinemas. His first film, the short Vapors<\/b><\/em> (1968), was written by frequent collaborator Hope Stansbury, and is a profoundly impactful study of the denizens of a gay bathhouse in New York \u2013 shot in a manner that is, deliberately or otherwise, very sympathetic to Neo-Realism. Vapors<\/b><\/em>\u00a0is an incredibly little film, a clear riposte to those who suggest Milligan was a na\u00efve filmmaker and dramatist.<\/p>

At the time of the production of Vapors<\/b><\/em>, Milligan \u2013 who had a bent for the theatre (specifically Off-Off-Broadway and the Warhol-esque Caffe Cino group with which he worked in the \u201860s) \u2013 was working in the dressmaking business but decided to branch out into filmmaking; he bought a 16mm camera, an Auricon single system sound-on-film camera, for $700, and it was this camera on which many of his films were shot. He photographed his first feature, Liz\u00a0<\/i><\/b>(1967), over four months; when it was completed, he managed to book a screening of it at the Player\u2019s Theater in MacDougal Street, Manhattan, which was attended by William Mishkin. Impressed with the film, Mishkin persuaded Milligan to shoot some more scenes of female nudity. These were inserted into the picture, and it was released by Mishkin as The Promiscuous Sex<\/b><\/em> in 1967.<\/p>

Those early US films of Milligan are very personal, and clearly in tune with the various European New Wave movements. Sadly, a number of them are considered \u2018lost\u2019, supposedly destroyed by their producer at least partially as a result of a falling out with Milligan.<\/p>

Undeniably rough around the edges, Milligan\u2019s approach to filmmaking crude and un-artistic, Blood Rites<\/b><\/em> has frustrated and confused horror fans for decades. In Danse Macabre<\/i><\/b>\u00a0(1981, Everest House), his overview of the horror genre, Stephen King once labelled Blood Rites<\/b><\/em> as \u2018the work of morons with cameras.\u2019 Like many of Milligan\u2019s films, the picture was shot crudely, on 16mm film: actually, most of Blood Rites<\/b><\/em> was shot on \u2018short ends\u2019 (ie, leftover bits and pieces of 16mm film from other local productions). Sound was recorded \u2018live\u2019 on the Auricon single system camera Milligan had purchased in the early 1960s. The gore effects were achieved using animal offal. Many of the actors were non-professionals. Milligan, whose primary interest was apparently in theatre, supposedly cared very little about the photography of his films \u2013 which resulted in him staging scenes in a very \u2018flat\u2019 and theatrical manner, and marrying absurd moments of mayhem with wordy dialogue and little bits of business of the kind that work well in panto, for instance, but which seem out of place in a horror film.<\/p>

With Blood Rites<\/b><\/em>, his first colour picture, Milligan transitioned into the world of horror filmmaking and carved a niche that he would return to throughout his career: horror stories with period settings, which enabled him to practise skills acquired during his previous career as a dressmaker. (Milligan told Bill Landis when interviewed for Fangoria, that with Blood Rites<\/b><\/em>, he realised that films with period settings made more commercial sense because they could be rereleased without concerns about the pictures being seen as dated owing to the fashions worn by the actors.) Perhaps inevitably, Milligan\u2019s British films also cross this divide. His first production in the UK was Nightbirds<\/b><\/em> (1970): though this, like Milligan\u2019s cult Seeds<\/b><\/em> (aka Seeds of Sin<\/b><\/em>, 1968), is ostensibly not a horror film (at least, not in terms of its outer form \u2013 settings, locations and iconography), it is arguably one of his most disturbing and horrific stories. In the Landis interview, Milligan highlighted the fact that Nightbirds was shot \u2018four doors down from the third victim of Jack the Ripper<\/a> [presumably, Elizabeth Stride]\u2019, with the Ten Bells pub \u2013 where Jack the Ripper is rumoured to have met more than one of his victims \u2013 visible in the background during Nightbirds<\/b><\/em>\u2019 opening scenes.<\/p>

\"andy<\/p>

Nightbirds<\/b><\/em> tells the story of Dink (Berwick Kaler, whose presence anchors Milligan\u2019s British films) and Dee (Julie Shaw, who only appears to have screen acting credits in this and Pete Walker<\/a>\u2019s The Big Switch<\/b><\/em>). Dee finds the na\u00efve Dink homeless on the streets of London, and she invites him to stay with her in her dingy flat. Dee initiates the innocent, virginal Dink into the world of sex \u2013 but Dink is reluctant, and possibly conflicted about his own sexuality. (Milligan himself was gay, and his films often feature characters who repress their sexuality or desublimate it.) Despite this, in a memorably uncomfortable sequence Dee \u2018trains\u2019 Dink to pleasure her through cunnilingus. This, clearly, is not the basis for a healthy relationship, and Dee and Dink begin to argue and display excessive jealousy: Dink is jealous of Dee\u2019s relationship with her sleazy landlord, Ginger (Bill Clancy); and Dee is jealous of Dink\u2019s odd relationship with the older, blowsy ex-prostitute Mabel (Elaine Shore), who Dink \u2013 though claiming to see Mabel as a mother figure \u2013 admits gives him a \u2018hard-on\u2019.<\/p>

Like all of Milligan\u2019s films, there are some autobiographical elements in Nightbirds<\/b><\/em>. Milligan\u2019s mother, an alcoholic, was by all accounts domineering and abusive; this character type recurs throughout Milligan\u2019s body of work \u2013 perhaps most notably in Seeds<\/b><\/em>, in the role of the matriarch who assembles various family members for a Christmas celebration that swiftly evolves into an orgy of verbal cruelty, debauchery, incest and murder. (\u2018A bad seed comes from a diseased plant\u2019, is the battle-cry of Seeds which echoes throughout Milligan\u2019s oeuvre, as is the unforgettable line, \u2018I love you so much, I could kill you.\u2019) In Nightbirds<\/b><\/em>, it is established early on that Dink, like Milligan, suffered abuse from his alcoholic mother, and this has made him uncomfortable in the company of women. \u2018She\u2019s extremely dominant. I can\u2019t do anything without her say,\u2019 Dink says in reference to his dear old mum. In entering a relationship with Dee, nevertheless, Dink finds himself in the thrall of another controlling mother figure, and Dee increasingly begins to treat Dink as if he were a child.<\/p>

Milligan offsets Dink and Dee\u2019s relationship with Dink\u2019s discovery of an ailing pigeon. Dink takes the animal in, much to Dee\u2019s consternation, and attempts to nurse it to good health. His relationship with the bird seems to mirror Dee\u2019s relationship with Dink. However, Dee\u2019s behaviour becomes more explicitly destructive. At one point, Dee encounters a blind busker in the street and asks how he is. \u2018You should know,\u2019 he tells her bitterly. This leads into the film\u2019s climactic revelation: though Dee has told Dink she is an orphan, she has in fact run away from her wealthy parents after she gave birth to a baby by her lover Jack, who has syphilis. The baby, Dee is told by her mother, in a telephone call, \u2018is in a home. They don\u2019t think it will live long.\u2019 \u2018I don\u2019t think I will miss having children,\u2019 Dee asserts coldly. Milligan leaves the film\u2019s viewer with this revelation that Dee is, to use the parlance of 2020, a \u2018super spreader\u2019: coldly sharing the gift of syphilis by seducing na\u00efve and sexually inexperienced young men such as Dink. (The encounter with the busker suggests that Dink is simply the most recent of Dee\u2019s victims.) Though externally, the film is not a horror film, this final revelation \u2013 and Dee\u2019s cold abandonment of her own child, and dismissal of its impending death \u2013 is more horrific than almost anything in Milligan\u2019s horror pictures. In Nightbirds<\/b>,<\/em> Milligan consolidates a broader meta-narrative within his films as a whole \u2013 both the horror pictures and his earlier avant-garde melodramas \u2013 which focuses on passive, frustrated men and their relationships with overbearing, often alcoholic women: mostly mothers, wives and lovers who are verbally and emotionally abusive towards the menfolk in their lives.<\/p>

Prior to shooting Nightbirds<\/b><\/em>, Milligan had made Torture Dungeon<\/b><\/em>, also lensed in 1969. Though shot in the US, Torture Dungeon<\/b><\/em> was set in medieval England. A lurid tale of cross and double-cross, about the Duke of Norwich\u2019s (Gerald Jacuzzo, who had starred in Milligan\u2019s gay-themed short \u2018Vapors<\/b><\/em>\u2019) devious plans to take the throne of England, Torture Dungeon<\/b><\/em> features some outrageous violence and hints at Milligan\u2019s own unabashed taste for S&M: in one scene, the Duke of Norwich\u2019s companion \u2018Ivan the Hunchback\u2019 (Richard Mason) rolls on the floor and \u2013 as if auditioning for the lead role in Howard Brenton\u2019s then-new play Christie in Love \u2013 mimes masturbation in front of a hunky labourer dressed only in a loincloth, who then proceeds to wordlessly whip him. (One wonders if Paul Morrissey had this film in mind when making his outrageously parodic double-bill Flesh for Frankenstein<\/b><\/em> and Blood for Dracula<\/b><\/em> in 1973\/4.) Torture Dungeon<\/b><\/em> also features some bizarre dialogue, intimations of incest, and co-stars the barely-contained cleavage of Susan Cassidy, who also played in Milligan\u2019s Seeds<\/b><\/em> (1968), Gutter Trash<\/b><\/em> (1969) and Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em>. In addition to Milligan\u2019s patented blend of caustic bickering, no-fi gore, and quasi-elegant home-sewn costumes, this movie also includes arguably the most memorable line of dialogue that the deranged filmmaker ever penned. At one point in the narrative, the Duke of Norwich declares, \u2018I live for pleasure. Only second to power, of course. And I\u2019ll try anything. I\u2019m not a homosexual; I\u2019m not a heterosexual. I\u2019m not even asexual. I\u2019m try-sexual\u2026 I\u2019ll try anything for pleasure.\u2019 The overall effect is like Shakespeare\u2019s Richard III if the play was co-written by an S&M fetishist and performed by a group of panto professionals hopped up on goofballs.<\/p>

In the US, Torture Dungeon<\/b><\/em> was released on a double-bill with Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em>. Milligan even worked a very brief \u2018plug\u2019 for this double-bill into his 1973 film Fleshpot on 42nd Street<\/b><\/em> (which is about the most shamelessly un-erotic pornographic film this side of Roberta Findlay\u2019s XXX roughies): in that picture, transvestite prostitute Cherry Lane (Neil Flanagan) suggests to the film\u2019s protagonist, Dusty Cole (Laura Cannon), that they \u2018go see Torture Dungeon<\/b><\/em> playing on a double bill with Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em> down at The Waverly.\u2019<\/p>

Nightbirds<\/b><\/em> was the first of two films Milligan completed for London-based producer Lucas Elliot, who had met Milligan in New York whilst travelling the world with the aim of finding films for his company Compton Films to distribute in the UK. Elliot had been introduced to Milligan by film distributor Jerry Balsam. (Milligan says, in the aforementioned interview with Bill Landis, that Mishkin refused to introduce Milligan to Elliot.) Milligan pitched several films to Elliot, including The Weirdo<\/b><\/em>, which Milligan ultimately made in 1989 \u2013 one of Milligan\u2019s last films before his death in 1991 of AIDS-related complications. Elliot contracted Milligan to make three films a year over a five year period. However, after The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em>, the second of his pictures for Elliot, Milligan parted ways with Elliot following a disagreement with Elliot\u2019s father, Curtis Elliot. (By all accounts, Lucas and Curtis Elliot seem to have had a turbulent relationship.) Curtis Elliot took the reins of the business and defaulted on the company\u2019s contract with Milligan. Milligan would make a further three films in the UK, apparently under an agreement with Mishkin, before returning to the States.<\/p>

The Body Beneath and The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/h4>

Both The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em> and The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/b><\/em> were shot predominantly at Sarum Chase, a Grade II-listed neo-Tudor mansion in Hampstead that, a year earlier, had served as the location for photographer Michael Joseph\u2019s photoshoot with the Rolling Stones for their album Beggars Banquet. (The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em> also features some memorable footage shot guerrilla-style \u2013 ie, without a filming permit \u2013 in Highgate Cemetery.) Stephen Thrower has suggested that Milligan may have happened across Sarum Chase whilst \u2018cruising\u2019 on Hampstead Heath. Thrower has also suggested that Milligan may have been drawn to the location by the story of Joseph de Havilland, a Hungarian interior decorator who consented to let his flatmates crucify him in Hampstead Heath \u2013 either, it has been speculated, as part of a sex game, or with the intention of photographing the ritual and making an income by selling the images to the press. (Joseph de Havilland survived, and the men who committed the act were defended by David Jacobs, the openly gay solicitor who gained a reputation for representing clients who wished to keep secret their sexuality \u2013 bearing in mind that male homosexuality had only recently been decriminalised in the UK. Only months later, Jacobs was found at his home in Hove, hanged by a satin cord; his death was declared a suicide, though some sources have suggested that the Krays, who Jacobs had refused to represent, may have had a hand in his death.) Certainly, in The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em> Milligan seemed to pay homage to this event by including in the narrative the crucifixion of Berwick Kaler\u2019s character, who is nailed to a tree by Gavin Reed.<\/p>

\"the<\/p>

Both The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em> and The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/b><\/em> deal with families who are afflicted with a supernatural \u2018curse\u2019, and who have become obsessed with maintaining the purity of their bloodline. In the former film, the family are afflicted with vampirism; in the latter, they are werewolves.<\/p>

In The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em>, Reverend Alexander Algernon Ford (Gavin Reed) has recently returned from the US to take up residence in the family home of Carfax Abbey (Sarum Chase), on Hampstead Heath. However, he is not alone. Ford, and the rest of his clan \u2013 including three predominantly silent, blue-faced women who always appear to their victims in a group \u2013 are vampires. His intention is to make contact with the family\u2019s descendants, who are unaware of the family\u2019s connection with vampirism and find a suitable woman with whom a selected group of men will sire a new generation of vampires. The bloodline, Ford asserts, has been \u2018dissipated\u2019 by inter-marriage. After testing and eliminating a number of non-vampire relatives, Ford sets his sights on the pregnant Susan (Jackie Skarvellis). However, in targeting Susan and her fianc\u00e9 Paul (Richmond Ross), Ford may have bitten off more than he can chew.<\/p>

The Fords have, Rev. Ford claims, been vampires for twenty-one centuries \u2013 stretching back to the Roman occupation of Britain. Highgate Cemetery and the nearby Carfax Abbey have been their home turf since the First Century, and the Fords return every 40 years. In the film\u2019s opening sequence, the three Ford sisters (who appear in flowing gowns, their skin covered in blue makeup) set upon Anna Ford (Susan Clark) in Highgate Cemetery, in a scene shot without permits. (This was an act for which Milligan and his crew were reputedly chased out of the cemetery.) The trio of Ford sisters brings to mind the three witches in Macbeth or the three Furies of The Iliad. Though Milligan\u2019s technique is often mocked, to be fair, the appearances of the Ford sisters are arguably no less absurd than those of the female vampires in, say, Jean Rollin\u2019s Fascination <\/i><\/b>(1978).<\/p>

Ford\u2019s plan is rooted in eugenics and seems a thinly-veiled allegory for Nazism and its focus on \u00dcbermenschen. However, like most na\u00efve interpretations of history, this sidesteps the fact that eugenics was practised throughout many societies \u2013 including the sterilisation of African American women, Latina women and Native Americans in the US during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. \u2018You will have beautiful children,\u2019 Ford tells Susan, \u2018Perfect children for our cause. Everyone will be godlike in appearance. We shall all continue into eternity.\u2019<\/p>

Milligan\u2019s film contains some excellent ideas: for example, the notion that Ford tries to stave off the negative effects of his vampirism (eg, an aversion to sunlight) through regular blood transfusions. (\u2018I can\u2019t stand the daylight,\u2019 he says, \u2018To think we have to submit to this daily ordeal in order to survive the damn daylight.\u2019) Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/i><\/b> had featured a memorable blood transfusion that was underplayed in most vampire films \u2013 aside, perhaps, from Henry Cass\u2019 Blood of the Vampire<\/b><\/em> (1958) \u2013 but Milligan brings it to the foreground of the narrative. Instead of depicting the transfusion as a cure for vampirism, Milligan shows the transfusion as a means of extending Ford\u2019s longevity and abilities. Milligan would depict the act of blood transfusion in a similar way in The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/b><\/em> and his 1973 vampire film Blood<\/em>, shot in the US. (Similar ideas would appear, of course, in later vampire films such as Kathryn Bigelow\u2019s Near Dark<\/b><\/em> (1987) and Stephen Norrington\u2019s Blade<\/b><\/em> (1999).)<\/p>

Like Torture Dungeon<\/b><\/em>, The Body Beneath<\/em> <\/b>features another put-upon hunchback: Spool, played by Berwick Kaler, who is Ford\u2019s servant\/assistant. Spool\u2019s back was broken as a child by his cruel stepmother and stepbrother, who pushed him in front of a bus. A pitiful creature, Spool is caught trying to help Ford\u2019s captives escape, and in the aforementioned nod towards the crucifixion of Joseph de Havilland on Hampstead Heath, Ford punishes Spool by crucifying him to a tree.<\/p>

The film also features a climactic \u2018conference\u2019 of vampires that is led by Rev. Ford. Resembling a Renaissance fair of the kind particularly popular in the US, this \u2018conference\u2019 is essentially an eerie night-time gathering of vampires at Highgate Cemetery. They feast at a table \u2013 on human corpses. The photography is distorted, Doctor Who-style, by what appears to be Vaseline smeared on the camera lens \u2013 resulting in a vignette-like effect. The overall impact is highly trippy and confusing, like the Mardi Gras sequence from Dennis Hopper\u2019s Easy Rider <\/b><\/em>(1969). When Rev. Ford suggests the family should relocate to America, because it seems the police may be closing in, Elizabeth (Judith Heard) protests, \u2018What is America? What is it made of? Pimps? Prostitutes? Thrown out of England just a few short centuries ago! They\u2019re the scum of the earth!\u2019<\/p>

\"andy<\/p>

As mentioned above, The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/b><\/em> was, like The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em>, filmed at Sarum Chase. However, it also shares some thematic similarities with its predecessor, in its focus on an aristocratic family that is cursed by a supernatural affliction. Again, in this film, we encounter a particularly toxic family: the Mooneys (an all-too-obvious name for a family of werewolves), headed by the ailing Pa Mooney (Douglas Phair). Pa\u2019s children are Mortimer (Noel Collins), Monica (Hope Stansbury) and Malcolm (Berwick Kaler). Another of Milligan\u2019s put-upon hunchbacks, Malcolm is kept chained in a room, where he is frequently visited by his sister Monica \u2013 who seems to take a fetishistic delight in taunting and beating him. Monica\u2019s abuse of Malcolm extends to whipping him and dripping hot candle wax onto his body: this strange sub\/dom relationship between siblings hints at the themes of incest and S&M that bubble beneath the surface of many of Milligan\u2019s pictures.<\/p>

As in Seeds<\/strong><\/em> and a number of other Milligan films \u2013 not to mention the Fords in The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em> \u2013 the Mooneys are, to say the least, dysfunctional. The children, particularly Monica, are selfish and spoilt: as Mortimer says, \u2018Monica hates everything and everyone. It\u2019s just one big hate.\u2019 However, Pa Mooney will not listen to the others\u2019 criticism of Monica. (\u2018Monica\u2019s my baby. She\u2019ll always be my baby,\u2019 Pa whines.)<\/p>

The equilibrium is disturbed by the arrival of Diana (Jackie Skarvellis), the half-sister of the other Mooney children, and Diana\u2019s new husband, Gerald (Ian Innes). Pa refuses to accept Diana\u2019s marriage to Gerald: \u2018You\u2019re not an ordinary woman\u2019, Pa tells his daughter. Diana has been sent away to become a medical doctor and has returned to fulfil a promise that she would help her father with his \u2018experiments\u2019 \u2013 in reality, his development of a serum that will suppress the lycanthropy that runs through the family. However, Diana is regarded with disgust by Monica, who believes Diana should be excluded from their father\u2019s will owing to the fact that she has a different mother. \u2018I think we\u2019re [the family is] on the verge of destroying ourselves!\u2019, Diana asserts at one point, in a line that resonates throughout Milligan\u2019s filmography.<\/p>

As stated above, at the behest of distributor William Mishkin, after returning to the US Milligan shot some additional scenes to both extend the running time of the film and introduce a subplot involving rats that were intended to capitalise on the popularity of Willard<\/b><\/em>. Clearly shot on different film stock, these scenes mesh poorly with the rest of the footage; and the first of these scenes in the finished picture sees a woman (visible onscreen only by her hands and torso) tormenting a rat with a large knife, before partially decapitating it \u2013 in a very real moment of onscreen animal cruelty \u2013 and then hammering a large nail through its torso, pinning its body to a wooden board. Later, we see Monica visiting Mr Micawber, in his apparently subterranean lair, in order to buy rats from him. (This seems to suggest that it was Monica who killed the rat in the earlier scene.)<\/p>

Monica\u2019s meeting with Micawber is typically Milligan-esque. Many of Milligan\u2019s films have scenes that function essentially as sidebars: the narrative comes to a halt in order to allow Milligan\u2019s characters to wax lyrical about a subject that is tangential to the plot. (This technique presumably grew naturally out of what seems to have been an enthusiasm by Milligan for writing quite theatrical monologues.) In the scene in which Monica speaks with Micawber, who is dressed in rags and lives in the darkness, Micawber detours into a speech about the merits of the work of Charles Dickens. (\u2018Dickens is a great writer. Wouldn\u2019t you agree?\u2019 he asks Monica, who is only interested in acquiring rats that she can torture and kill.) Micawber reveals that once, when he was drunk and fell asleep, he lost his arm to the rats that he keeps, \u2018and part of my face, see?\u2019 This was because the rats had developed a taste for human flesh: \u2018I started feeding them flesh from birth. They know nothing else to eat.\u2019<\/p>

Monica takes two of the rats home and decides to call one of them Willard<\/em> <\/b>(what else?) and the other Ben: Ben was the 1972 sequel, directed by Phil Karlson, to Willard<\/b><\/em>. However, Ben bites Monica, and she visits Micawber again, demanding her money back. He refuses: \u2018I drank it all up,\u2019 he tells her. In an act of spite, Monica lashes out at Micawber and sets him alight. The scene is made horrific by the incessant screaming of Micawber and the manic behaviour of Monica. \u2018Burn! Burn!,\u2019 she cries out as Micawber is consumed by the flames.<\/p>

Setting actors on fire \u2013 a very real effect \u2013 is something else that recurs throughout Milligan\u2019s body of work. It seems that the first time Milligan did this was in Blood Rites<\/b><\/em>: in that film, Colin (Hal Borske) is set alight whilst trying to escape from the killer. Similar moments appear in several of Milligan\u2019s subsequent pictures. Perhaps Milligan realised that such a visually impactful effect was relatively easy and cheap to achieve, though the willingness to set his actors on fire has sometimes been taken as an index of Milligan\u2019s reputed sadism and misanthropy; but what is most disturbing about these scenes is the absolute sense of maniacal pleasure the other characters, such as Monica, seem to take from these moments. Aside from the sequence in which Monica kills Micawber, The Rats are Coming! The Werewolves are Here!<\/b><\/em>, in fact, opens with a scene in which Malcolm is set alight by a pair of thugs, before being rescued by his siblings \u2013 resulting in Monica accusing Malcolm of being responsible for his own assault.<\/p>

Bloodthirsty Butchers and The Man with Two Heads<\/h4>

Milligan\u2019s two remaining British pictures, The Man with Two Heads<\/em><\/strong> and Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/em><\/strong>, revisit the well-worn narratives of, respectively, Robert Louis Stevenson\u2019s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde and Sweeney Todd. However, though these are familiar stories, in the case of each film, Milligan provides his own, sordid spin on the material.<\/p>

The Man with Two Heads<\/b><\/em> opens in Victorian London with a scene in which a prostitute \u2013 not the moderately presentable prostitutes of, say, Hammer\u2019s horror movies, but a genuinely coarse tart of the streets \u2013 approaches a man. \u2018\u2019Ello, ducks,\u2019 she says, \u2018Do you \u2019appen to know what time it is? It\u2019s awful dark out \u2019ere. Why don\u2019t we go to me room?\u2019 Almost immediately, she is brutally attacked and killed. Milligan\u2019s chaotic camerawork picks up glimpses of torn flesh \u2013 and the film swiftly establishes a milieu, common to many of Milligan\u2019s pictures, in which sex is depicted as transactional, seedy and violent. Most obviously, the scene also alludes to the murders committed by Jack the Ripper, which appear to have been a source of fascination for Milligan \u2013 if his comments to Bill Landis about the filming locations for Nightbirds<\/i><\/b> are anything to go by.<\/p>

Soon, we are introduced to Dr William Jekyll (Dennis DeMarne) and his assistant, Jack Smithers (Berwick Kaler). Jekyll is a devout materialist and believes that \u2018evil\u2019 has a specific location within a person\u2019s brain and can therefore be isolated and removed. He shares his experiments, including the dissection of the bodies and brains of criminals, with private students. (Owing to the radical nature of his ideas, he is unable to lecture in a university setting.) Jekyll informs his students that he has developed a serum designed to \u2018treat the evil within an animal\u2019s brain\u2019 and intends to evolve this so that it may be applied to humans too.<\/p>

Jekyll demonstrates this serum by injecting it into the brain of a recently deceased criminal \u2013 with the result that the \u2018area of evil\u2019 shows up in a shade of green: \u2018The darker the shade, the more evil; the lighter, the lesser.\u2019 If the formula is injected into a living person, Jekyll tells his students, evil will show through a green tinge of the skin. Developing the formula, Jekyll discovers what seems to be a cure for evil: injecting it into the criminal\u2019s brain, he discovers the green \u2018area of evil\u2019 disappears. Working alone in the lab, Smithers accidentally knocks over a glass of water, obliterating Jekyll\u2019s notes. Smithers attempts to write over the impressions on the page, recreating the formula. Using Smithers\u2019 incorrect notes, an unknowing Jekyll mixes up another batch of his serum and, frustrated at the impossibility of testing it on a human subject, tests it on himself. However, the formula has the opposite effect: instead of obliterating evil, it transforms him into Danny Blood, a brutal sadist who torments and abuses prostitutes \u2013 taking particular interest in a pretty blonde named April (Julia Stratton).<\/p>

Many of the film\u2019s early sequences drag and are filmed in a very static manner. But when Jekyll transforms into Danny Blood and begins to prowl the streets, Milligan\u2019s camera comes alive, and the venomous dialogue spits and bites. The scene in which Danny Blood encounters April for the first time takes place in a pub. April is propositioned by a leering man. She is snatched away by Blood, who handles her roughly, offering her money and groping her. \u2018Call me Daddy,\u2019 Blood leers, \u2018Yes, call me Daddy [\u2026.] I\u2019m from up North [\u2026.] Have you ever heard of de Sade?\u2019 When April answers in the negative, Blood tells her: \u2018Someone you should know about [\u2026.] He likes to do things to people sexually [\u2026.] I shall teach you some of the things that he taught. You\u2019d like that, wouldn\u2019t you?\u2019<\/p>

Blood takes April \u2018home\u2019 and is verbally cruel to her, telling her to \u2018wash that makeup off your face. You look like a cheap tramp\u2019. \u2018You always give them what they pay for, don\u2019t you? And I pay you very well, don\u2019t I?\u2019 he sneers before hitting her full force with his vitriolic rhetoric: \u2018You\u2019re a cheap little slut. You know that, don\u2019t you?\u2019, Blood snarls, \u2018You shouldn\u2019t be allowed on the face of this earth. You\u2019re scum!\u2019<\/p>

In his relationship with April, Blood seems more like an S&M dom. \u2018There\u2019s nothing a man likes more than to come home to a cigar, his beautiful wife, and dog,\u2019 a seated Blood tells April, looking down at her, \u2018Only you\u2019re not so beautiful, and I don\u2019t have a dog. You\u2019ll be my doggy, eh? Nice doggy. Bark! Go on, bark!’ he commands before putting out his cigar on the nape of her neck. Shortly afterwards, Blood is shown prowling the streets of London, eventually finding and murdering a streetworker who approaches him for trade. From here, the film\u2019s scenes of verbal and physical cruelty escalate. Much of this is meted out by Blood, but some of it is dished out by Carla (Jacqueline Lawrence), Jekyll\u2019s shrill harridan of a sister \u2013 this character conforms to the broader archetype of the domineering female who makes an appearance in every Milligan picture.<\/p>

All the while, Jekyll becomes increasingly aware of the activities of his nocturnal persona \u2013 and the verbally destructive nature of Danny Blood begins to bleed into Jekyll\u2019s day-to-day life. In one scene, he cruelly and misogynistically admonishes a quiet female student, Victoria (Jennifer Summerfield), in front of her peers: \u2018We all know you\u2019re privileged to be a female medical student\u2019, he says, \u2018After all, we all know you should be at home, looking after snot-nosed little brats [\u2026.] What makes you think you should be a doctor, standing up there as if you know what you\u2019re talking about? All women should be in bed\u2026 to be used.\u2019 However, this being a Milligan film \u2013 where abuse becomes conflated with desire and love \u2013 though Victoria leaves the room in tears, she returns later and is, to quote Van Halen, \u2018hot for teacher\u2019: she asks for Jekyll\u2019s assistance in writing an article for a publication and kisses him. (The kiss causes Jekyll to transform into Danny Blood: there is a less than subtle insinuation that female sexual contact is toxic.)<\/p>

Despite his knowledge that the formula is transforming him into Danny Blood, Jekyll returns time and time again to drinking the serum \u2013 his actions like those of an alcoholic. (This, again, is another character type that appears throughout Milligan\u2019s body of work.) As the film builds towards its climax, Milligan\u2019s photography and editing become increasingly chaotic, and another character is set on fire whilst Danny Blood cackles maniacally. Towards the end of the film, Blood presides over a chaotic and depraved orgy, presented via a montage of shots of sex and violence \u2013 one indistinguishable from the other. The energy of these later scenes is in stark contrast with the film\u2019s early sequences. Though the film references Stevenson\u2019s The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde<\/i><\/b> most overtly, it seems that Milligan used the material to deliver a story fixated on S&M sex games. (That said, we must remember the stories about the genesis of The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde<\/i><\/b>, and particularly the revelation that Stevenson\u2019s wife, Fanny, burnt her husband\u2019s first draft after, apparently in disgust at its content, declaring it to be \u2018a quire full of utter nonsense\u2019.)<\/p>

Milligan\u2019s Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em> also references a very recognisable narrative: the story of Sweeney Todd, the \u2018Demon Barber of Fleet Street<\/i><\/b>\u2019, which first appeared in the \u2018penny dreadful\u2019 serial The String of Pearls: A Domestic Romance<\/i><\/b> in 1846. Prior to Milligan\u2019s Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em>, the story of Sweeney Todd had been filmed several times \u2013 most memorably, in the lurid 1936 Tod Slaughter-starring picture Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street<\/b><\/em>, directed by George King.<\/p>

In Milligan\u2019s version of the Sweeney Todd story, Todd is played by John Miranda (with the help of some enviable sideburns). Picking on itinerants and those without family, Todd murders his victims brutally in his barbershop. The bodies are passed to his neighbour, the piemaker Maggie Lovett (Jane Hilary), who without the knowledge of her invalid husband, John Lovett (Jonathan Holt), butchers the corpses and uses them in her prized pies. The spoils of these crimes are shared between Todd and Maggie. This carefully-devised business model starts to backfire, however, when Lovett\u2019s customers begin to find hair and human body parts in their produce \u2013 something that is amplified by the interference of the Lovetts\u2019 innocent employee Johanna (Annabella Wood) and her fianc\u00e9, sailor Jarvis (Michael Cox).<\/p>

The film opens with lyrical Greensleeves-type music, lulling the audience into a false sense of security before taking us into a scene in the barbershop, where Todd slits the throat of an Irishman who has been in London for only two weeks, then uses a meat cleaver to hack off the corpse\u2019s hand in order to take the victim\u2019s ruby ring. Thus, Milligan establishes \u2013 to use the corporate parlance of our current era \u2013 the \u2018mission statement\u2019 of Todd and Lovett: Todd kills the victims, Lovett butchers them, and the pair share the victims\u2019 money and jewellery.<\/p>

\"andy<\/p>

Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/em> <\/b>offers a Milligan two-fer: there are not one but\u2026 count \u2018em\u2026 two toxic families in this picture. Todd is put-upon by his shrewish wife, Becky (Linda Driver). Becky is an alcoholic who torments Todd emotionally, with the result that in one scene Todd lashes out, spitting in Becky\u2019s face and slapping her. She falls to the floor \u2013 perhaps unconscious, possibly dead \u2013 and Todd strips her and subjects her to a sexual assault from which, thankfully, Milligan (or US distributor William Mishkin, who reputedly edited the film heavily in order to avoid any issues with the MPAA) cuts away. (In advance of Jarvis\u2019 marriage to Johanna, Todd offers him a curt piece of advice: \u2018That very first day you\u2019re married, don\u2019t let her have her own way.\u2019) The Lovetts (and their family business), too, are highly dysfunctional. John Lovett, Maggie\u2019s husband, is a kindly invalid who is cared for by the Lovetts\u2019 female employee, Johanna, and abused by their other employee, the spiteful and sleazy Tobias (Berwick Kaler). Tobias\u2019 treatment of the sweet and well-intentioned Mr Lovett, who appears wholly innocent of his wife\u2019s crimes, borders on the sadistic \u2013 including, in one scene, cutting him. Meanwhile, poor Johanna is subjected to workplace harassment and, eventually, attempted rape by the cruel Tobias, though Maggie tries to persuade Johanna to ignore Tobias\u2019 lecherous behaviour.<\/p>

As the icing on this proverbial cake of unhappy relationships, Tobias also has a relationship with the na\u00efve Rosie (Ann Arrow). When Rosie reveals that she is pregnant with his child, Tobias insists that she send her parents a letter stating that she is going on a holiday to Aberdeen. \u2018I ain\u2019t none too good at writing,\u2019 poor Rosie declares. \u2018You ain\u2019t none too good at a lot of things. But you knows I loves ya,\u2019 Tobias tells her with abject insincerity: \u2018Make me a cheese sandwich, won\u2019t ya, love? [\u2026.] You know I gets awful \u2019ungry before sex.\u2019 With this, Tobias takes Rosie in a fatal embrace, plunging a knife into her back. Every romantic relationship in this film is toxic: a bed of fermentation for resentment and murderous impulses. With the sexual relationships in this film, in particular, but also in his other pictures, Milligan seems to offer a backhanded comment on the sexual licentiousness of the \u2018free love\u2019 era. His worldview may be dismissed by some as conservative \u2013 but, arguably, Milligan\u2019s outwardly deadpan approach belies the layers upon layers of irony within his narratives. What Milligan deconstructs here, and in many of his other films, is the heteronormative depiction of sexual relationships; in this way, his films may be compared with the work of, say, Paul Morrissey (for example, Morrissey\u2019s trilogy of Flesh<\/b><\/em>, Trash<\/b><\/em> and Heat<\/b><\/em>) and, perhaps, a picture such as John Cassavetes\u2019 Faces<\/b><\/em> (1968) \u2013 a film by an equally uncompromising and independent filmmaker \u2013 which is a profoundly impactful study of a toxic marriage.<\/p>

Ever the lover of the theatre, Milligan works into this narrative a sidebar story that focuses on Todd\u2019s relationship with a showgirl, Anna (Susan Cassidy). Anna has a terse relationship with her employer, the lecherous Abe Fisk (a role credited to \u2018David Pike\u2019; but this writer feels near-certain that this, again, is Milligan acting under an adopted name). This enables Milligan to work into the picture a number of scenes set backstage at Fisk\u2019s theatre, where Anna and Fisk engage in verbal fireworks. (\u2018You\u2019re breaking me \u2019eart,\u2019 Fisk whines; \u2018You \u2019aven\u2019t got an \u2019eart,\u2019 Anna responds, \u2018You\u2019ve got a tuppence where yer \u2019eart should be.\u2019) Like Danny Blood\u2019s scenes in The Man with Two Heads<\/b><\/em>, Fisk and Anna\u2019s relationship resembles that of an S&M sub\/dom couple. Threatening to leave the troupe, Anna forces Fisk to get on his knees, snarling \u2018Look at me!\u2019 She makes Fisk say \u2018I adore you\u2019 before she spits in his mouth! All the while, jaunty piano music plays in the background, offering an auditory counterpoint to the verbal and emotional cruelty taking place onscreen. These backstage scenes also feature a drag performer (another recurring character type in Milligan\u2019s work), Corky (George Barry), who treats Anna sympathetically.<\/p>

A wonderfully lurid picture, a number of Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b>\u2019 moments of violence were reputedly curtailed by distributor William Mishkin \u2013 which is perhaps the exploitation cinema equivalent of painting over the Mona Lisa\u2019s smile. Amidst the film\u2019s many memorably gruesome incidents is a scene in which a young couple find a very intact and recognisable female breast (complete with nipple) in a pie bought from Maggie Lovett. (Aside from her other crimes, Maggie seems guilty of not preparing her pies properly.) The young couple takes said foodstuff to the local constabulary, which is the incident that blows the roof off the Todd-Lovett conspiracy. Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em> is, regardless of Mishkin\u2019s attempt to take the picture off at the knees, a superb example of cinematic Grand Guignol, faithful to the spirit \u2013 if not the word \u2013 of its \u2018penny dreadful\u2019 source material.<\/p>

\u2026 And with that, Andy Milligan returned to the US.<\/p>

So what did Andy Milligan think of the differences between US and UK culture, and how one regards the other? Two scenes from Milligan\u2019s British films, in particular, seem quite telling. In The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em>, when Rev. Ford suggests the family should relocate to America because it seems the police may be closing in, one of the vampiric sisters, Elizabeth (Judith Heard), protests: \u2018What is America? What is it made of? Pimps? Prostitutes? Thrown out of England just a few short centuries ago! They\u2019re the scum of the earth!\u2019 The final scene of Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em> echoes this scene. At the end of Bloodthirsty Butchers<\/b><\/em>, having witnessed the cruel horrors of Sweeney Todd and Maggie Lovett\u2019s treatment of their victims, Johanna and Jarvis reveal to a female friend their plans to go to America. Offering a dark mirror of Elizabeth\u2019s summation of American culture in The Body Beneath<\/b><\/em>, this woman says, without a trace of irony in her voice, \u2018Oh, how exciting! It\u2019s such a new country. But be careful: they\u2019ve got Indians there. I hear tell they\u2019re cannibals. They\u2019ll cut your head off and\u2026 oh, I forget!\u2019<\/p>

Aside from the period settings, what arises out of these films is a lack of regard for conventional filmmaking technique \u2013 and an emphasis on period settings. Dialogue takes primary importance, betraying Milligan\u2019s chief interest in the theatre. Amidst the carnage and Milligan\u2019s clear love of dressmaking and costume design, the films break into some incredibly wordy scenes \u2013 like a panto in which the comedy is broken up by monologues that have Shakespearian aspirations. Every conversation becomes an argument; foreplay breaks out into outright hostilities; sex and murder become indistinguishable through the near-identical manner in which Milligan presents both; and every relationship \u2013 particularly, every heteronormative relationship \u2013 is filled with spite. Bubbling away in the background are allusions to S&M culture \u2013 which by all accounts was Milligan\u2019s own peccadillo.<\/p>

Truly independent, his sources of financing often mysterious, Milligan was a filmmaker who refused to compromise. Gay and apparently conflicted about many aspects of his life, it\u2019s not too much of a stretch to compare him with the equally combative Rainer Werner Fassbinder. What is ironic about Milligan\u2019s excursion to the UK is that, ultimately, none of his British films would be distributed theatrically in Britain, owing to the outbreak of hostilities between Milligan and Curtis Elliot. His work is often discussed alongside the pictures of gore pioneer H. G. Lewis, but \u2013 and this is in no way to diminish Lewis\u2019 pictures \u2013 Milligan\u2019s films seem more centred on some core debates at the heart of the human experience: principally, our relationships with our sexual partners and our families\u2026 and, perhaps, with ourselves: the hidden aspects of our personalities, and our secret sadistic and\/or masochistic impulses. Perhaps most prophetically, in the 1982 interview with Bill Landis mentioned earlier, Milligan said that \u2018Film, of course, will be out in another 40 years. It’ll all be video. Why should we be worried about celluloid and developing and all that crap when we have video. Film will be extinct in another 40 or 50 years, except in the archives. Remember that. This will be before we hit the year 2020 [\u2026.] There won’t be such a thing as film; it\u2019ll be extinct. It won’t be called filmmaking, it’ll be called picturemaking or whatever. It\u2019ll look the same and people won\u2019t know the difference.\u2019<\/p>

\u2018Picturemaking\u2019 or not, Milligan\u2019s films deserve to find a consistent audience.<\/p>

NB. Anyone interesting in Milligan\u2019s films is urged to check out Jimmy McDonough\u2019s superb biography, The Ghastly One: The Sex-Gore Netherworld of Andy Milligan<\/i><\/b>.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sources<\/u>:<\/p>

[1]<\/b> Landis, Bill, 1982: <\/i>\u2018Milligan!\u2019 In: Fangoria, Issue 20 (July 1982): Pp. 36-9<\/i><\/p>

[2]<\/b> Claris, memorably essayed by Maggie Rogers, who would appear in a number of Milligan films until her death in 1970.<\/i><\/p>

[3] <\/b>Some sources dispute how these films were financed, but in the interview with Bill Landis, Milligan states explicitly that whilst waiting for the dispute with Curtis Elliot to settle, he \u2018made two or three more films for Mishkin in 16mm in London\u2019.<\/i><\/p>

[4]<\/b> Thrower, Stephen, 2012: \u2018<\/i>Milligan in London\u2019. In the booklet produced to accompany the BFI\u2019s Blu-ray release of Nightbirds as part of their \u2018Flipside\u2019 imprint.<\/i><\/p>

[5]<\/b> A-ha! A reference to Milligan\u2019s 1984 film Carnage.<\/i><\/p>

[6] <\/b>Milligan, quoted in Landis, op cit.<\/i><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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PhD, MA, BA(Hons), PGCE, FHEA | Writer: pajlewis.contently.com | Community Photographer | Filmmaker @ grimnirpictures.co.uk | Film \/ Lit \/ Photo Lecturer | Cinephile<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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\"psychomania\"<\/a><\/div>
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\n\t\t\tPsychomania (1973)\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t23\/05\/2021\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tEmily McQuade celebrates the absurd delights of the cultish, kitsch and unique Psychomania (1973)...\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/article><\/div>
\"the<\/a><\/div>
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\n\t\t\tDavid Lowery\u2019s The Green Knight\u200b (2021)\t\t\t<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t22\/12\/2021\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tGraham Williamson digs into the 2021 adaptation of the Arthurian legend...\u200b\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t<\/div><\/article><\/div><\/div><\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
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<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

American filmmaker Andy Milligan’s extremely low-budget work was consigned to his homeland until 1968 when he ventured to the UK and made five horror films over a two-year period. Paul Lewis examines Milligan’s films in detail…\u200b<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":123073,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"elementor_header_footer","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[690,518],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/02\/Andy-Milligan.png?fit=1008%2C631&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7600"}],"version-history":[{"count":29,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":123098,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7600\/revisions\/123098"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.horrifiedmagazine.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}

Approximately ten years after Milligan\u2019s The Man with Two Heads<\/b><\/em>, in 1981, Polish filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk directed Le cas \u00e9trange de Dr Jekyll et Miss Osbourne<\/b><\/em> (also released as The Bloodbath of Dr Jekyll<\/b><\/em>, Dr Jekyll et les femmes<\/b><\/em>, Blood of Dr Jekyll<\/b><\/em> and under numerous other titles). Borowczyk\u2019s film foregrounded the sexual sadism of the character of Edward Hyde, the honourable Dr Jekyll\u2019s alter-ego. (I wrote a lengthy piece for DVDCompare about Borowczyk\u2019s film when it was released on Blu-ray by Arrow Academy in 2015; this article can be found here<\/a>.) This was something that many \u2018respectable\u2019 adaptations of Stevenson\u2019s novel had downplayed or buried within the subtext. Milligan\u2019s film, however, practically slaps the viewer across the face with the sadistic sexuality of Danny Blood. (Why Milligan chose not to use the name \u2018Hyde\u2019 is not entirely clear: perhaps he felt it too subtle.) Even the film\u2019s title, The Man with Two Heads<\/b><\/em>, foregrounds the film\u2019s focus on sex. But if anything, this isn\u2019t a sex picture: like many of Milligan\u2019s films, it\u2019s more of an anti-sex film. Every sex act depicted in the film is transactional and unfulfilling (or terrifying) for one or both participants.<\/p>