Forgotten Scares: An In-depth Look at Flemish Horror Cinema

On October 22nd, 2014, the movie “Cub” premiered in Deurne, Belgium.

The press states that this feature debut of Jonas Govaerts is...

...the very first Flemish horror film.

Articles stating that "WELP/CUB" (2014) is the very first Flemish horror film.

Is that the first Flemish horror movie? Yeah, right.

Every Journalist who knows a little about his work would never dare to state this.

Everybody rewrites a bit his own history.

There is no real horror culture in Belgium.

If you are a fan, you have to find it.

Horror is, just like western and musical, a genre that we Belgians normally don't make.

I beg to differ, Jan.

Try telling this to Harry Kümel. -"Malpertuis" is made before "Cub",

"Daughters of Darkness",

"The Pencil Murders".

The films of Johan Vandewoestijne...

This is our legacy.

Harry Kümel is unique.

It's the biggest director we have. He

doesn't direct that much, but he is our Orson Welles.

He has such an ambition and vision. We don't have anyone like that anymore.

I don't know if it's typical for Flanders or Belgium,

but... we don't have a lot of respect for our pioneers.

Nobody of my generation doesn't know him and that is bizarre.

My generation and the following can make these films, because of guys like De Hert,

Hendrickx and Harry Kümel.

And it's a travesty that they have been swept under the rug.

Especially because a few of these films, still stand firmly as a brick house.

And that somebody as Harry Kümel, is seen In many countries as an important director.

"Daughters of Darkness" and "Malpertuis” are two movies released in

the UK and France.

Especially "Daughters of Darkness" is a big hit in the USA and cherished

among cult-fetishists.

"Daughters of Darkness" is the only Belgian movie that has been a mainstream

success in other countries.

Producers approached me to make a commercial stylish film, but I had

no idea what to make.

Then I saw at a newspaper stand a "Historia" magazine about "The Blood

Countess" Bathory and I bought that.

I came back to the producers and told them: "Fantastic, she killed 600

virgins to stay young".

The producers told me I was crazy.

600 costumes, that would be an expensive film...

It was our ambition to create a genre-film,

which you could describe as a real horror,

but... also could exist outside the horror genre.

People still try to tell me that it's not about vampires.

But of course it is a vampire movie.

We tried to play with every convention in the genre, but also expand it.

We tried to approach it differently.

Sure, it was a low-budget film. 750,000 Belgian Francs, even in those days this was

not a lot of money for a feature.

But made with international financing.

We were very happy,

that we made a tax-shelter deal with America,

for $50,000.

Try to imagine, $50,000 was a lot of money in 1970.

That was...

a miracle.

Years later I produced "Toto Les Heros" for Jaco Van Dormael,

and I needed to go to New York, to negotiate about the remake rights.

I enter a huge office building full with lawyers with experience in these

kinds of meetings...

"You produced Daughters of Darkness", a lawyer says.

"Our Tax-shelter was fantastic, right?"

Yes of course.

"Fantastic, that you put our $900,000 to such good use."

I decided to keep my mouth shut.

That means that $850,000...

in the meantime vanished without a trace.

The Flemish film started with amateur-films

and most of these you can describe as genre-films.

Sadly this has been completely killed.

This has to do with the press and psychological movements.

They want to make you believe

that other kind of films are more important than genre-films.

But you can see where those end: in the trash bin of film history.

The graphic-novel aspect in Daughters of Darkness is of course very important,

and that is also the reason why Delphine(Seyrig) had agreed.

And in that context Harry Kümel was the most aesthetic of all our directors.

For the story it needed to be a vacation resort, with the atmosphere of

the Belgian coast.

The architecture of the Ostends Thermea Palace Hotel

was of course perfect.

The unique look of that building, the strong atmosphere.

This was something real, that we needed.

But then came the problem that I couldn't shoot inside.

Because it was a ruin inside. Today it

still wouldn't be beautiful enough to shoot inside.

I wanted to shoot the interior scenes in the Metropole Hotel in Brussels.

But they wouldn't let me. Oh boy, they regretted that afterwards.

Yes, it is true that you find every television show on DVD,

but that it's impossible to find "Daughters of Darkness" on DVD.

That is a real pity, but no idea why or who made that mistake...

Because we had so many producers, we had some copyright-problems with

a French producer.

He signed a contract, with Francois de Roubaix, without knowledge of the other

producers, for 40 years.

This was of course a huge catastrophe for the film.

The German producer had disappeared.

And one night they play "Daughters of Darkness" on Arte,

and boom, they come out of the woodwork.

That is the reason why the film did sell so well in the USA.

Because it's sold outside the system.

I also have an awesome distributor over there.

I also have a great seller in France. But "Blue Underground" is the best.

My teacher, Marc Didden, said: "Harry was born in the wrong country.

In the USA, he would have been Hitchcock".

And I believe that.

And it's thanks to the international success of "Daughters of Darkness" that

I got a lot of financial support to make "Malpertuis".

"Elodia, Elodia. Can you bring some food before I almost die of hunger here."

The problem with "Malpertuis" IS very simple:

It was cut completely wrong In the beginning.

Apart from some problems with the scenario.

The first edit was the main cause for the big failure of the movie.

But during the years, it became a phenomenal success.

Which was huge for such a small film.

I know that the whole crew was happy to be working on "Malpertuis".

The original producer Pierre Levie,

the Director of Photography... They were really glad to be working on this film.

They finally had something to go wild on.

That was the problem of this movie:

That I had a very good and talented crew, except the editor.

Then you start to compete with each other.

Especially with the DOP, who asks "Can you do this?", "Or he asks me that".

So with this, you are more thinking about the technical stuff.

"He is coming."

"Quick." "Run."

But I was still very young. 32,

I still remember that I saw "Malpertuis” when I was 10 or 11 years old,

for the first time on TV.

And what scared me incredibly was

the scene with the flames that came out of the mouth of that guy,

and the ghostly atmosphere that was apparent in the whole film.

Also they don't play the movies on TV anymore, which is a real pity.

They like it at the Cannes Film Festival, when there are a lot of stars in the movie.

It's one of their motivations In selecting a film.

And it has nothing to do with the quality of the movies.

But still it was very brave for selecting "Malpertuis".

Because some journalists - who know nothing about everything -

asked me at the press-conference if I thought this genre fit Cannes.

I was astounded, that they asked that question.

But that is so typical for journalists,

who always think only in categories. In certain boxes.

“The Pencil Murders” is absolutely a movie which belongs to the Flemish cult-

and genre pantheon.

A nice try.

But at that time “The Pencil Murders” was absolutely a remarkable attempt,

to break with the traditional Flemish films, because we were still in our

'Heimat' period at that time.

A film about a serial killer... even in America they didn't have a lot of that

kind of film at that time.

Also very down-to-earth and with humor.

Two things the author, quickly and definitely left behind.

Especially being down to earth.

"“Is it you?"

"The Pencil Murders" was my first movie, I was 29 back then,

and I wanted to make something bold

against the funded movies.

It had to be half horror, half police.

Also known as 'polard'.

Is it real horror?

There is a scene in which

a black guy is killed with a pencil in his nose in the bathtub.

Dominique Deruddere (director of Oscar-nominee "Everybody Famous'") was

my assistant director.

Oops.

A very famous editor was also on the set when shooting this film.

Because we shot in 35mm, which was very expensive.

So we had to shoot in small pieces...

20 years later, I found out that the genre I did was called 'Giallo'.

A genre that Dario Argento did, who I knew of course.

"The Pencil Murders" was linked to this subgenre,

by a professor in Edinburgh.

It stayed in theaters for 9 months.

If you now are able to stay in theaters for 9 days, you can be happy.

My film was sold worldwide, I still remember.

It played in cinemas in France, Spain and such.

I just had the funny idea of putting a pencil in someone's nose.

I can only applaud this.

Someone who wants to transform

his darkest fantasies into pictures.

It's more fun to talk about "The Antwerp Killer" than to watch the 'thing'.

Even if it only lasts for, if I am not mistaken, 65 minutes.

These are the longest 65 minutes of your life, except for the films

from Doris Wishman.

"The Antwerp Killer" is in essence a prank.

The brainchild of an 18 years old, little weird kid from Antwerp called Luc Veldeman.

"We had the idea to make something,

that could be announced as a giant thriller,

which became an experiment in film..."

Luc wanted to make a film and succeeded to persuade lots of people that he was

actually making a real movie.

When finished', "The Antwerp Killer" was more comparable to an 8mm film,

instead of a mainstream film.

One day, a young man, rang at my door and he claimed to be a huge fan

of my electronic music.

And he asked if I wanted to make music for his upcoming movie.

He asked me if I already had finished recordings that he could use.

I replied that I indeed had a tape.