These Are The Damned (a.k.a. The Damned (1962)
In the extensive catalog of Britain's Hammer horror studio, you'll find nothing quite like this film.......a disturbing swirl of melodrama and end-of-the-world science fiction.
To begin with, you won't find the name of any of Hammer's usual in-house stable of directors attached to it. In the director's chair was American expatriate Joseph Losey, who'd fled to Britain in the early 1950's to escape the career-killing clutches of Hollywood's infamous blacklisting inquisition.
( But even after he crossed the Pond, toxic politics still loomed. Losey's first chance to direct a Hammer horror, 'X The Unknown' was vetoed by the film's rabidly right-wing American star, Dean Jagger.)
'These Are The Damned', with its broad daylight noir-ish qualities and its dire warning about the mushroom shaped nuclear Armageddon always hovering over us, proved a perfect fit for Losey, a purveyor of unsettling, challenging cinema.
You couldn't possibly guess where this film is headed from its opening sequences, set in sunny Weymouth, a seaside town on England's south coast. Amid the tourist crowds, a predatory black leather motorcycle gang stalks the streets They're led by King (Oliver Reed), a volcanic-tempered thug who's decked out like a well dressed 'Teddy Boy'.
(And they're accompanied on the soundtrack by their own irresistible, ominous anthem -"Black Leather, Black Leather...kill, kill, kill.")
King, incestuously obsessed with and way protective of his voluptuous sister Joan (Shirley Ann Field), uses her as a honeytrap for rich men tourists. Those poor suckers then end up robbed and beaten to a pulp by King and his leather boys.
But Joan, looking to escape her controlling brother, returns to the gang's latest victim, Simon (Macdonald Carey), an American who's touring the coast on his own boat. He's entranced with her enough to help her flee, even with King and gang in vengeful pursuit.
The chase around the coastal cliffs, leads Simon, Joan and King into hidden caves and the discovery of nine, distinctly odd schoolchildren. The kids have no adult supervision anywhere in sight and they're ice cold to the touch, as if they're walking corpses.
Then the film lays out all its frightening reveals. The children, born to irradiated mothers during a nuclear accident, are permanently radioactive, yet surviving. Rendered poisonous and lethal to anyone who comes near them, they're imprisoned in the caves by a military funded bigwig Bernard (Alexander Knox). His grand experiment, to raise and educate the kids like human lab rats, will prepare them to assume their inevitable destiny as the only humans left who can breathe the nuked, contaminated air.
All this doesn't bode well for Simon, Joan and King, and also Freya (Vivica Lindfors) the sardonic, worldly-wise sculptress who's been carrying on a lifelong on-and-off affair with Bernard. To director Losey's credit, he stays true to the film's bleak, nihilistic world view to the very last haunting moments.
Though Hammer Films excelled in giving their low budget horrors a sheen of high gloss with rich production design, literate scripts and skilled actors, the company's goals never included high art. Whether intentional or not, "These Are The Damned" stands as an expertly written and directed 'elevated' horror (as it's referred to today).
.....and it's stayed in our memories far longer than all of the studio's Draculas and Mummies combined.
A must-see for all Hammer, horror/sci-fi viewers. 5 stars (*****).
(And prepare to never rid yourself fully of that "Black Leather, Black Leather" earworm.....)
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