Name: Seizure (1974) review
Item: Seizure
Rating: 4
Author: Darren Evanson

Seizure (1974). Long before Oliver Stone was being nominated for awards for his earnest films on Vietnam and political conspiracies, he was writing and directing this twisted home-invasion Canadian thriller.

Horror story writer Edmund is haunted by a recurring dream of three bizarre characters he has created for his latest book. When a weekend of invited friends is interrupted by the arrival of a hirsute dwarf, a mute African executioner and a vampish Queen of Evil, you know this is going to get weird. The cast includes Hervé Villechaize as the Spider, Henry Judd Baker as the Jackal and Martine Beswick as the Queen of Evil, in charge of the wickedness meted out by her two accomplices. Another notable cast member is Mary Woronov, who never fails in her duty to entertain and puts on a bravura performance as guest Mikki.

“Don’t ask who we are or where we come from, our only purpose is death” intones the cruel Queen to her captives.

The invaders subject the writer and his friends and family to games of death. The purpose is to eliminate them one by one until there is only one survivor. The viewer is asked: has Edmund brought them to his house to eliminate his family and friends so he can start again?

He fights to stay alive and even sells out his own son to the Queen of Death, only to be thwarted by the protective ghost of Edmund’s wife, Nicole.

I did say it was weird. With a head crushed by bare hands, a fight to the death, a face scarred with corrosive face cream and a beheading on a chopping block, there is a lot going on. The twist at the end is almost expected but still works as a plot device. A similar scenario was used in Dead of Night (1945) to better effect. Woronov would later claim the film was partially bankrolled with mob money to evade seizure by the FBI, which was not uncommon in grindhouse filmmaking in the 1970s.

The film had a limited cinema release, mainly playing in New York’s 42nd Street fleapits until its release on VHS brought a new audience to this forgotten classic. It was filmed in rural Quebec and, like Death Weekend (1976), the stunning Canadian locations form the backdrop to the horror that is unfolding in the isolated homestead. Hervé Villechaize would go on to become family favourite Tattoo in Fantasy Island, with his calls of “De plane! De plane!”

For Stone, he would go on to make films without the need for financing from the mob.