British Invasion edited by Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon, and James A. Moore

This review originally appeared in somewhat different form on The Green Man Review. Copyright 2008. Reprinted with permission.

Oh, the things people get themselves into over drinks. To hear the British Invasion trio of editors Christopher Golden, Tim Lebbon, and James A. Moore tell it (in their foreword): "No one had properly chronicled [the] extraordinary number of British writers [impacting] the American horror and fantasy scene." Ten minutes later, they had sold this alcohol-inspired idea to Cemetery Dance Publications. (This quick sale actually makes a lot of sense since an anthology with this loose of a theme seems like its audience is built-in.)

In an anthology that set no restrictions on its contributors other than they be British and write horror, James Lovegrove sets himself one in the writing of "At One," the story of one man's individual hell. The restriction is unnoticeable until Lovegrove reveals it, but it gives "At One" a great deal of punch that sets it apart. (Interestingly enough, "At One" is a reprint from 2002 in an anthology that Cemetery Dance advertises as having "all new dark fiction.")

Sarah Pinborough recalls a previous British invasion (the one that changed modern music) with "The Nowhere Man," a dark fantasy (or is it?) about a boy's search for his disappeared sister. With an ending that deliberately leaves out information, Pinborough cements the unsettling effects of what preceded it. "Beth's Law" by Joel Lane is a haunting tale of how the disappearance of another young girl turns into a vendetta against outsiders.

Allen Ashley's "The Spaces in Our Lives" isn't even a horror story — unless you consider the mundanity of daily life horrific. If you do, you'll love Gary Fry's "Black Dogs," which delves deeply into a family's psychology. With "The Crazy Helmets," Paul Finch presents a "rise from the grave for revenge" story, then pulls a completely unexpected twist that changes the perception of everything involved.

Phillip Nutman's "The Misadventure of Fat Man and Little Boy, or How I Made a Monster" is by far the best. The story involves low-budget filmmakers, a naive screenwriter, a succubus, and an accidental murder. With chapters named after Warren Zevon songs, it is based on real events (Nutman is himself a low-budget filmmaker). It goes from reality to fantasy and from horror to pathos in the span of a paragraph, and contains enough actual story for a novella, making it seem deeper and wider than its mere 24 pages.

The centerpiece of British Invasion is a piece called "British Horror Weekend" by the ever-prolific Anonymous, an extraordinarily funny story of mass murder at a genre convention. It seems someone wants to kill off all the British horror writers (several contributors to this anthology make cameo appearances) and so devised to gather them all in one place. Cross-pond politics of course play a role, as does a certain amount of Anglophobia when the killer is revealed to be an "Amrk'n" tired of "imagination" in horror and eager for more "close-up detail." One imagines this to be the work of two or more of the editors, since the tone is British and the voice of the "Amrk'n" is frighteningly authentic.

Peter Crowther, whose short-story collection The Spaces Between the Lines so impressed me, does it again with "Leaves." Crowther has a fascinating ability to make the mundane terrifying (what is less frightening than a leaf?), and "Leaves" brings real chills, especially during the supposed "slow" scenes when Crowther is just setting up the situation and we're waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Late in the anthology, Mark Morris impresses with "Puppies for Sale," where a man's life is destroyed by a different kind of vampire that only operates via long-distance. And speaking of "blood-suckers," Adam L.G. Nevill knows there are few things worse than an uninvited flatmate who won't bathe — or leave! — and he expresses it with textured sensation in "Yellow Teeth."

Of the 21 stories in British Invasion, only the few above rated mention, but none of them were really turkeys; they simply were not as effective as their brethren. I'm not sure how to take the fact that the under-the-radars seemed to do a better job at scribing scares than their more famous colleagues, but it's good to know that fans of British horror have a lot to look forward to.

Yojimbo and Sanjuro, both directed by Akira Kurosawa (starring Toshiro Mifune)

Yojimbo (1961). Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa and Ryuzo Kikushima from a story by Akira Kurosawa (based on the novel Red Harvest by Dashiell Hammett).

Sanjuro (1962). Screenplay by Ryuzo Kikushima, Akira Kurosawa, and Hideo Oguni from the novel Peaceful Days by Shugoro Yamamoto.

Yet another triumph from director Akira Kurosawa and his favorite star, Toshiro Mifune, Yojimbo has long been recognized as one of the greatest samurai films. It is also one of his most influential.

The basic "man in the middle pitting two sides against each other" is lifted directly from Dashiell Hammett's Red Harvest, and has since been used twice with few real changes (but with much less effectiveness) as A Fistful of Dollars and the Walter Hill/Bruce Willis actioner Last Man Standing.

Mifune stars as Sanjuro, a run-down samurai with no current direction. He happens upon a village with two feuding factions and instantly sees the opportunity. He hires himself out as a bodyguard, first to one then the other and has them wipe each other out with little physical effort of his own.

Don't think that Kurosawa misses any opportunities to show off Sanjuro's skill with the sword, but they are few and therefore to be treasured. Mifune is perfect as the has-been samurai, and Kurosawa's dark sense of humor has never been so perfectly showcased.

Although not as widely praised as his masterpiece Seven Samurai, I prefer Yojimbo, because is more purely entertaining and more accessible to the average viewer (it doesn't require the same time commitment, for example), and is therefore a perfect introduction to the director's work.

Its sequel, Sanjuro, while surely the lesser film, is no less enjoyable. Originally a different story that was later rewritten for Mifune's samurai character, this time Sanjuro chooses sides with a group of young samurai against a corrupt official. With his help, they manage to defeat the official and rescue two women hostages.

The story is much simpler this time around, but Mifune is the whole show here. His character, so wonderful in Yojimbo, is equally fun in Sanjuro. Watching him rub his stubble in thought while he surprises people with the wisdom hidden under his rough exterior is a great joy, and I can't imagine any other actor being able to pull it off. His easy confidence is an inspiration to "not judge a book by its cover."

The final duelling scene is notable for a tremendously bloody battle between the defeated official and Sanjuro. The carnage is almost laughable in its volume, but somehow Kurosawa makes it work in the context of his story.

Those who have not seen Yojimbo would still enjoy Sanjuro as it is simpler and thus more acceptable to a mass audience, but viewing them together gives one a fuller portrait of this enigmatic freelance samurai. A man who seems to always show up when he is needed, and then move on before he has worn out his welcome.

Ran directed by Akira Kurosawa (adapted from King Lear by William Shakespeare)

Ran (1985). Screenplay by Akira Kurosawa, Hideo Oguni, and Masato Ide from the play King Lear by William Shakespeare.

In most cases, an actor will wait until he is of a certain age before attempting the role of Shakespeare's King Lear. It is odd, though, for a director to do the same. But in this case, I would have to say that it was the right decision. Ran is Japanese director Akira Kurosawa's version of Lear with samurai. He uses the basic story of the play to illustrate a period of Japanese history replete with land wars and feuding families.

Hidetora is the Lear character. As he is getting old, he wants to split his three castles among his three sons: Taro, Jiro, and Saburo. Saburo, the only one who will not blindly follow his father's orders, is banished during a long, painful scene. The remaining land is split among the two sons. Taro marries Kaede, whose family was killed and their land stolen by Hidetora in her childhood, and who therefore is now living back in her family's original home.

Kaede is the most interesting character in Ran because she has the most pure motive: revenge. She wreaks her vengeance among all the members of the family who cross her, keeping her one goal firmly in her mind: that she will never again be forced to leave this castle. Meanwhile, Taro and Jiro are quick to remind Hidetora that he placed them in charge when he tries to pull rank on them as "Great Lord."

There is a lot in Ran that could have been shortened to make a tighter story, but Kurosawa relishes in the details and gives a far more nuanced picture that takes into account character motivations and individual personalities. Many of the aspects of King Lear are evident, and nearly every character has a counterpart, but this is really Kurosawa's film, not Shakespeare's.

Hidetora goes crazy while the Fool accompanies him on his wanderings, avoiding the only son who would tell him the truth, Saburo. Although the story projects a happy ending, this is, at its core, a Shakespearean tragedy in which, of course, nothing good can come of characters' prideful motives. It's still shocking to see, and Kurosawa makes it both surprising and inevitable. Ran is undoubtedly one of Kurosawa's masterpieces, and the last one of that rank that he made.

The Cranes Are Flying directed by Mikhail Kalatozov (starring Tatyana Samojlova)

The Cranes Are Flying (1957). Screenplay by Viktor Rozov from his play.

I saw The Cranes Are Flying on Turner Classic Movies several months ago, and I can't get it out of my head. I think that's the mark of a truly great movie.

The Cranes Are Flying is a sad and beautifully shot film about young love around World War II. The relationship and its aftermath are far more dark and complex than I expected — I understand the earlier restrictions in the Soviet Union on subjects suitable for filmmaking had just been lifted prior to filming.

The cinematography by Sergei Urusevsky is breathtaking (especially in the train-station scene), and the lack of sentimentality (though not of emotional impact) is refreshing. The film has obviously aged very well. It is not perfect, with a few slow spots, but even those are softened by the constant appearance of its stunning star, Tatyana Samojlova.

Words fail me regarding this gorgeous movie, so I'll just end by saying that The Cranes Are Flying won the 1958 Palme D'Or in Cannes, and you can read an essay by Chris Fujiwara at The Criterion Collection. (Those seeking more indepth scholarship can pick up a copy of The Cranes Are Flying: the Film Companion by Josephine Woll.)

Spanish Adventure Novel Quote of the Day (from Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte)

"The story I am going to tell you must have taken place around sixteen hundred and ­twenty-­something ... in which the captain not only came close to losing the ­patched-­up hide he had managed to save in Flanders, and in battling Turkish and Barbary corsairs, but also made himself a pair of enemies who would harass him for the rest of his life.... It was also the year in which I fell in love like a bawling calf, then and forever, with Angélica de Alquézar, who was as perverse and wicked as only Evil in the form of a blonde eleven- or ­twelve-­year-­old girl can be."

— from Captain Alatriste by Arturo Perez-Reverte
(translated by Margaret Sayers Peden)

Once Upon a Time in the West directed by Sergio Leone (starring Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Charles Bronson, Claudia Cardinale)

Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). Screenplay by Sergio Leone and Sergio Donati from a story by Dario Argento, Bernardo Bertolucci, and Sergio Leone. English dialogue by Mickey Knox.

"Keep your lovin' brother happy."

By the time we reach the end of Once Upon a Time in the West, hear Henry Fonda utter these intensely powerful words, and discover the meaning behind a long-awaited revenge, we have been taken on a long, leisurely carriage ride through Western folklore.

Who would have guessed that an Italian would make the best cinema of the American West? But Sergio Leone was that man. With his "Man with No Name" trilogy (A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly), he made a star of Clint Eastwood and presented a vision that none had seen before and that has yet to be matched.

And then he topped himself. Once Upon a Time in the West is undoubtedly the finest Western ever made, in a genre filled with classics. All the Leone trademarks are here: the beautiful expansive landscapes, the extreme closeups, the nameless hero (strikingly underplayed by Charles Bronson), and the operatic score by Ennio Morricone (with separate motifs for each character). But somehow they all come together as if for the first time, as if all that came before was simply rehearsal.

From an original story by the Italian triple-threat of Leone, Dario Argento (Suspiria), and Bernardo Bertolucci (The Last Emperor), Leone and Sergio Donati fashioned a screenplay that typifies and then transcends the genre.

But the plot is less important than the style. Leone's love for the West is apparent throughout Once Upon a Time in the West in how he lets the scenes flow at their own speed, never hurrying, never forcing them to a conclusion. The languid pacing makes for a much longer film (it clocks in at three hours), but also one much more emotionally real. It gives us time to really experience what we're seeing: a film about the West made by one of its biggest fans.