So 2010 is "Dead & Buried," BAM!! Just like that, and now it's 01-01-11, and what better film title could you want to begin a year like this with, than
"I Start Counting." 
"I Start Counting" is a different film on a number of different levels, starting with the 17 year old star, Jenny(Logan's Run)Agutter as Wynne Kinch! Unlike a lot of others, Jenny is still working today!. Just to show you the diversity of her talent, Jenny also sang backing vocals on the 1990 Prefab Sprout song "Wild Horses." Jenny's real love in life is charity work for The Diabetic Association and NCH Action for Children, a charity that provides homes and other help for homeless children!
Wynne is adopted and her family is a little strange, there's Billy Russell as Grandpa, Madge Ryan as Mother Kinch, and Gregory Phillips as weirdo brother Len Kinch! Madge was also in "A Clockwork Orange" and Alfred Hitchcock's "Frenzy!"
But the biggest problem is that Wynne is totally infatuated with her much older brother, Bryan Marshall as George Kinch, and George has secrets!!
"I Start Counting" is a saucy little film, and the main guy stirring the sauce on the music was composer and drummer Basil Kirchin! Basil was also co-leader of The Ivor and Basil Kirchin Orchestra, sometimes know as The Kirchin Brothers, even though Ivor was Basil's father!! Basil has some swingin' horror credits to his fine name, like "Mutations," and "The Abominable Dr. Phibes!"
Wynne's best friend is the not as cute as she thinks she is, Clare(The Best Pair Of Legs In The Business)Sutcliffe, as the obnoxious little trollop Corinne Eldridge!
I really do miss going to the record store!!
Other songs in the film are "I Start Counting" sung by Lindsey Moore, "Homemade Aeroplane" sung by Jackie Taylor, and "They Want Love" and "Children" sung by Tony Kingston. All the lyrics were written by Pat Ryan!
Every Friday George goes off to build shelves for a neighbor lady, but when Wynne investigates, she finds out that the lady doesn't really have that many shelves at all!
The olde Kinch homestead has it's own stories to tell!
Wynne has quite a vivid dream, not too unlike one I had the other night for some reason!
Wynne tries confession without much results! George is 32 and she's 15, but it's rational in her mind, because they are not really related, since she's adopted, so it's not really incest, and she tries to properly explain that to the priest!
Wynne tells the tart Corinne that she's going on a date to have sex for the first time, and as she leaves on the bus, Corinne yells at her that she's done it seven times already, "Seven Times!!!!!!!"
This composite transition shot tells the whole tale, "Your dress is too short!"
And I really miss going to the record store that had listening booths!
When Wynne goes to George's work to tell him something, she gets a good eyeful of just what a dirty mind he has! Can't get away with that these days!
See it all started when Wynne was spying on George, and she saw some scratches on his back, and then he hid a blood-stained sweater, and there has been a serial killer on the loose, so she hides in his van and spies on him to see where he really goes!!
Well, it turns out George has a secret girl friend, and while he was inside her house knockin' it out, Wynne had nothing to do except drink George's booze. So now, they called out the autorities because Wynne is missing and when she finally sneaks back in her house, The Mother gives Wynne some more booze to calm her down, and we get some great acting by Jenny Agutter!!
Dungeon longtime pal, and writer extraordinaire,
Greg Goodsell turned me on to "I Start Counting," saying it had a swinging soundtrack, and Jenny Agutter in knee socks, how could you go wrong, and he was 100% correctite!
Creepy, but way different than anything Hammer was doing around the same time! Stick with it, it takes a while, but it gets pretty dark at the end!
Good horror wrapped up with murder and incest, but don't worry, Jenny will make it, she's still got a long career ahead of her! Long out of print, I do believe I recently saw that "I Start Counting" was available on Netflix, so now it's time for you to start counting too!
This is going to be a weird year, I can just feel it, and "MANIAC" kinda just sets the scene! It's a Hammer Movie that is much more thriller than horror, and it's still put together by Hammer stalwarts, writer/producer Jimmy Sangster, and director Michael Carreras, but the real difference lies in the music! Most classic Hammer films were devoid of any quasi-mandatory club scene that made the composers stand up and swing, sure, there was almost always a pub scene with a little piano, or a rowdy drunken sing along, but most Hammer horror music was quite classically orchestrated! But over on the other side, the music by Stanley Black in "Maniac" swings like the best of Ron Stein, and is really cool for a 1963 Hammer production, I guarantee!
Forgive my ignorance, but I really didn't realize that France looked like Texas, but I guess they've got this place called "The Camargue" out there in Southern France! Paris, Texas doesn't seem like such an obscure concept anymore!
The old "Camargue" where men are men, and livestock and little girls aren't safe!
Ya'll shouldn't of had done that to my daughter!!!
Probably the stupidest thing a member of the human race could possibly do, would be to rape the daughter of a maniacal French welder! Darwin award winner circa 1963! Listen for the scream!
Enter man about town, the suave and debonair, Kerwin Matthews as Paul Farrell! I did not count them, but if you take out the time when Kerwin was smoking a cigarette, this movie would be about 15 or 20 minutes long!
About the time Kerwin is smoking his second cigarette, he goes into the local "Bar Camarguais" where he meets up with the rape victim all growed up now, Liliane Brousse as Annette Beynat. Liliane also had the role of Françoise in another Hammer Freddie Francis classic from the same year, "Paranoiac!" 
Right about the time Kerwin has his third coffin nail, Annette's Mom shows up, and it's none other than Nadia Gray as Eve Beynat!! Among all the parts this Russian-Romanian beauty has had, she will always be remembered most for her small role toward the end of Fellini's "La Dolce Vita" as a bored and wealthy socialite who celebrates her divorce, by performing a mink-coated striptease.
This rig looks like one part jukebox, one part R2D2, and one part space heater, and it blasts out some hot music by Stanley Black for the locals to rock out to! Stanley's been in these pages 3 times before for his outstanding work on "The Crawling Eye," "The Day The Earth Caught Fire," and "War Gods Of The Deep!" Stanley was one of Britain's most famous bandleaders, and sometimes worked using his real name, Solomon Schwartz! 
Annette finds a couple of free seconds in between smokes to ask Paul to dance!
"Well, they got a new dance and it goes like this......."
Have you ever seen a finer lookin' bar crowd than this?? Yeehaw!!
"Won't you please crawl out your window, use your arms and legs, it won't ruin you!" - Bobby Dylan
Hell, what better time to have another smoke and get to know Annette a little better!!
Damn, Mom showed up!!
Guess a guy's got no other choice, Mom, daughter, or another cigarette?
Later, at dinner, just to break things up a bit, Paul has a cigarello!!
Even though he was gay, Kerwin Matthews still had more women than all the straight guys! 
Kerwin gets conned into helping Nadia's husband escape from the mental hospital!!
Time to reflect, was it worth it, was ANY of it really worth it, how do I get myself into situations like this?? WTF!???
So instead of guns, French cowboys carry mop handles, is that correct Tom?
"Tell Saint Peter at the Golden Gate, that you hates to make him wait, but you just gotta have another cigarette!" - Merle Travis
Must be nice to have places like this at your disposal! "Maniac" is a smokin' hot killer thriller with a kickin' score for all fans of the genre, and Kerwin Mathews puts in another fine performance. It won't scare you out of your seat, but it should at least keep you in suspense for a while!
