HAMMER HOUSE OF HORROR EPISODE 6 - CHARLIE BOY (1980)

 

DIRECTED by Robert Young

SCREENPLAY by Bernie Cooper & Francis Megahy

STARRING  - Leigh Lawson as Graham Elder, Angela Bruce as Sarah, Marius Goring as Heinz Hoffman, Francis Cuka as Gwen Williams, David Healey as Peter Picardo, Michael Culver as Mark Elder, Michael Deeks as Phil Peters

PLOT - Following the mysterious death of his wealthy uncle Graham Elder inherits an African fetish doll from his uncle's private collection.

Displeased that his brother Mark has inherited the majority of his uncle's estate and rattled after nearly becoming victim to a "road rage" incident, Graham gets drunk one night with his girlfriend Sarah, and jokingly invokes a rite of "vengeance" using the doll.

Little does Graham know but he has reawakened the Voodoo curse that is attached to the doll (nicknamed "Charlie Boy" by Sarah).

Very soon Graham's brother is dead - killed in a horse riding accident - and soon after that Graham's friends (all depicted in a photograph) are slowly dying one by one...

Graham realises that the curse is working it's way down the line and soon it'll reach Sarah and after that it'll soon reach him...

PERFORMANCES - Leigh Lawson and Angela Bruce play Graham and Sarah - the couple besieged by the deadly Voodoo curse.

Both performances are good, the characters are suitably on the two dimensional side for this relatively simple story (We're in pure EC Comics territory in this episode) but needless to say both actors manage to sell the likeable natures of the two main characters.

Graham is slightly on the decadent side - he's basically a spoiled rich kid (even though he's about 35) and apparently not as bright as he thinks he is (seriously would you evoke the cursed powers of a creepy voodoo doll ? Especially if you where pissed off and drunk ?)

Graham soon comes to realise his mistake as various friends and family keep dying left, right and centre all around him. Both Lawson and Bruce sell the mounting horror of this situation very well - going from disbelief to growing awareness to outright horrified desperation.

The only slight beef I have with the performances is why did the director (or writer) tell Angela Bruce to play her character with a not very convincing Geordie accent ? I think it's supposed to indicate that Sarah comes from a more down to earth working class background as opposed to Graham's upper middle class background, but it doesn't really add anything to the story. I've met Angela Bruce in real life and she certainly hasn't got a Geordie accent when she speaks to you, so I just found this really distracting (furthermore if they wanted to give Sarah a "working class" accent why not just let Bruce use her own native Leeds accent, that has a pretty traditional working class northern twang to it ? It literally makes no sense), still it's not a deal breaker though and Bruce does do a good job in this episode.

VIOLENCE - We get a decent amount of Voodoo enhanced deaths in this story (as you'd expect).

Graham's uncle falls to his death off a ladder in the prologue.

The "road rage" motorist gets stabbed to death by gangsters.

Graham's brother gets thrown off his horse and impaled on a plough blade.

Graham's best friend gets shot by a crossbow bolt whilst filming a William Tell style stunt.

Another of Graham's friends slashes her own wrists in the bath. 

Sarah dies in a car crash.

And finally (and by far the most OTT) Graham meets his end whilst trying to burn Charlie Boy to end the curse. He accidentally stabs himself in the stomach with a blade that is embedded in the doll's body, he then trips up whilst writhing around in agony, falls, lands slap bang in the middle of the fire and proceeds to burn to death. End credits - moral of the story - Alcohol and Voodoo dolls do not mix !!!

SFX - Once again we mainly get standard blood and gore effects.

I love the design of Charlie Boy himself (he looks like he's wearing shades, he's just relaxing and chilling out whilst instigating cursed slaughter). I kept expecting to see him move but alas that doesn't happen. A missed opportunity I think.

RATING - Charlie Boy isn't the most complex or inventive episode of Hammer House Of Horror but it's still a lot of fun to watch.

It's almost like a prototype 70's/80's British version of the Final Destination movies, the way the death curse moves down the line is very similar, as are the various elaborate deaths. In fact it does make me wonder if the creators of that series may have seen this story and some point in the past and been either consciously (or unconsciously) influenced by it.

Whatever - it's still a fun way to pass an hour of your time. 3 and a half bad juju out of 5.