Seizure ** (1974, Jonathan Frid, Martine Beswick, Joseph Sirola, Hervé Villechaize, Troy Donahue, Henry Judd Baker) – Classic Movie Review 10,802

‘You can’t run from them… you can’t hide from them.’

The 1974 Canadian-American comedy horror film Seizure is notable as the directorial debut of Oliver Stone, who also co-writes the screenplay with Edward Mann. Jonathan Frid from the Sixties gothic TV soap opera Dark Shadows stars as a horror novelist Edmund Blackstone, who has a recurring nightmare about three figures out of his book who terrorise him and his family and friends.

Then one weekend the nightmare becomes chilling reality as one by one, his friends and family are killed by three villains: the Queen of Evil (Martine Beswick), Spider the dwarf (Hervé Villechaize), and a giant scar-faced strongman called Jackal (Henry Judd Baker).

The independently made film is cheap and scrappy looking but dynamic and quite cleverly conceived.

Production took place in October and November 1972 in Val-Morin and Laurentides, Québec, Canada. The film had a limited release in the US by Cinerama Releasing Corporation, showing on New York City’s 42nd Street in 1974. It was released on VHS in the 1980s by various companies including Prism Entertainment and a transfer to Blu-ray was released by Scorpion Releasing on 9 September 2014. The UK video, released in 1989, included almost four minutes of extra footage to add to the 98 minutes of running time.

The cast are Jonathan Frid as Edmund Blackstone, Martine Beswick as Queen of Evil, Joseph Sirola as Charlie, Hervé Villechaize as Spider, Christina Pickles as Nicole Blackstone, Troy Donahue as Mark Frost, Mary Woronov as Mikki Hughes, Richard Cox as Gerald, Henry Judd Baker as Jackal and Alexis Kirk as Arris.

Actress Mary Woronov claimed that one of the film’s producers was the gangster Michael Thevis (uncredited), who she claimed partly bankrolled the film in an attempt to launder money, as he was under investigation by the FBI.

Stone recalled: ‘The film was my first brutal experience of film-making – call it a baptism by fire. It was as adventurous in its French-Canadian production as Salvador (1986) 13 years later in Mexico.’

Martine Beswick recalled that Seizure was filmed within a lakeside house in Quebec, which also served as housing for the cast and crew to save on hotel costs. ‘Everybody was a little crazed. I mean, the moods! The things that happened! Everybody took to drinking. We’d have gallons of wine.’

Troy Donahue (born Merle Johnson Jr., January 27, 1936 – September 2, 2001).

It was shot in the freezing cold of autumn, and Troy Donahue got hypothermia after jumping in an ice cold lake.

By 1970 Donahue’s drug addiction and alcoholism had ruined him financially and one summer he was homeless and lived in a bush in Central Park. But he had roles in low-budget films such as Sweet Savior (1971), The Last Stop (1972) and Seizure (1974) and in 1974 Francis Ford Coppola cast him in a small part in The Godfather Part II.

© Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 10,802

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Jonathan Frid from the Sixties gothic TV soap opera Dark Shadows.