The Twonky - 1953 9 Oct 2021 9:05 AM (3 years ago)

“I had the twonkies when I was a child.” - Coach Trout

“It shaved me today.” - Kerry West

“Something is happening, but you don't know what it is.” - Bob Dylan

A philosophy professor battles The Twonky. Colleges will survive into the dystopian period.

Writer-Producer-Director Arch Oboler has one of the great punchline names (3 vowels and 3 consonants.) He directed Five (1951), The Bubble (1966), and Bwana Devil (1952.) Hans Conried was in Peter Pan and The Great Dictator and The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. Janet Warren appeared in The Ghost of Frankenstein and Buck Privates. William H. Lynn was in The Outcasts of Poker Flat. The movie is based on a short story by Henry Kuttner. The title music by Jack Meakin sounds like a bonk, a plonk and a twonk.

Meet the device with a 'super-atomic brain.' To give away the secret of 'The Twonky' would be a miscarriage of justice. Maybe the secret of 'The Twonky' is a thing we weren't meant to know. Post-war America met its greatest enemy in the ubiquity of the television set. It is true that no one could anticipate the long-term ramifications of beaming visual media into the home. Conried's character is a philosophy professor; philosophy was dead the minute the television was invented. Finally, in the dystopian future of 1953, Technology will ultimately and totally control our lives; we should have listened to Hulot in Mon Oncle. Conried's protagonist character lives in a palace with a twelve-inch television. Hollywood loves deflating stuffy intellectuals with the introduction of unknown phenomena. Early on there's a joke about 'obstetrical history' that has to appreciated for its ironic understatement. What exactly is a 'red cent'? Who doesn't love a 'wubba-wubba' soundtrack? 'Coach Trout' is a humorous character name. That character is the voice of cynical realism (one who's usually less than functional except to deliver exposition) At one point, Coach Trout drops a load of incredibly detailed information pertaining to the fantastic, and one goes, 'Wait. How did he know that?' Coach Trout orders his students to 'Smash the Twonky!' That's sagacious advice. Then the elderly Coach looks at the co-ed's backside and implies something rather sexual. That wouldn't fly today. An absent wife is compared to an “entertainment.” 'I got no complaints' sounds like a motto of middle-class conformity. There's some special fx magic as the Twonky ties a knot for Kerry West. Disney might have taken this premise and overcharged in the color go-go 1960s; alas, until the third act, most of the movie takes place in Conried's house, and that tends to limit the scope. The trilling on the soundtrack is incessant. The middle part of the last century was a time of much humorous drinking. That television prefers Sousa over Mozart, which might be a preference for the popular over the high-brow. The police threaten to send our protagonist to Alcatraz. The sassy black maid tells Conried that she has a larger television. The college is integrated, so I guess that's progressive. The Twonky can change genders. That's progressive too. A clerk brags about his experience with 'time-payment merchandise.' The Twonky is as nightmarish as a Dalek. This is something like a slightly more humorous take on a body snatching movie. Women come to collect money and never leave. Is this a horror movie or a comedy? Is The Twonky Oboler's masterpiece? Stay tuned on your orthicon tube to this very channel.

The Twonky is on Youtube in atrocious quality, missing, in fact, the title card. It was apparently recorded from a television broadcast. I want to live in any town where they show on The Twonky on television. I might even watch The Twonky on my Twonky! The movie is 69 minutes long, so there's that to its credit. Other sources give a running-time in the 80+ minute range, so I don't know if anything is missing. No one wanted a partial Twonky. File it next to the Babadook and The Hidan de Maukbeiangjow.

The Head (1959) 2 Oct 2021 7:17 AM (3 years ago)

“Put down that telephone. You really are insane.”

“I think that, on the contrary, men are certainly going to look at you.” - Dr. Burke

“Are you an undertaker? You hold me like I was dead.” - Lily

“The last chance was to perform the dog operation on your head.” - Dr. Oud

A mysterious stranger arrives. Something's coming to a head at the Tam-Tam club.

Director Victor Trivas has a few directorial credits, but his writing credits are more numerous, including Hell on Earth (1931) and The Stranger (1946.) Barbara Valentin was a sex symbol in Horrors of Spider Island (1960.) Producer Wolf C. Hartwig produced that film and a whole bunch more. Christiane Maybach was in A Study in Terror. Horst Frank was in The Cat o' Nine Tails (1971.) Michel Simon worked from the mid-20s to the mid-70s. Karin Kernke was uncredited in Schoolgirl Report 12 (1978.) Paul Dahlke had a career from the mid-30s to the mid-80s.

It is an important lesson: Science will not stop until it destroys us all. Another lesson: Someday our matter will become the matter of others. Better lesson: The soul of a harlot is scientifically transportable to the body of a deformed virgin. We have here a German variation on the mad scientist trope. That character says things like, “I have beaten death” and “I have saved your brain for mankind” and “You'll learn that everything is possible!” and even "The price of my genius was madness." Well, that's all pretty clear. Our good doctor is a real tragic superman, alright. He makes something 'Serum Z,' and that's nothing but fun. Such films wrestle with the dangers of becoming addicted to the erotic tease of scientific progress. Sex is science, after all. It's a clear progenitor to The Brain that Wouldn't Die. This is a better produced film by far, but you may have more fun with 'Jan in a Pan.' Stan in a pan? The film picks up the thematic trope of 'obsessive, doomed love' too. The good doctor says things like, "You belong to me alone!" Unfortunately, the development of the plot sinks in a gloomy black and white swamp. There's some cool tech in the lab to keep the film in line with its type. Vital signs are indicated by a polygraph type squiggle. I suppose only very rich people in the 1950s had TVs installed into their walls. The film provides the expected continental sex appeal, uh, for those who care more for anatomy than surgery. The sets are spacious, if unrealistic in practical function; a spiral staircase runs through the center of the house, from the lab to the upstairs quarters. Your ostensible noble scientist is a drunken Lon Chaney Jr type with a Nietzsche mustache; his less than noble colleague takes it to another level of science to keep him alive. That shot of the moon looks a lot like a blacked-out shot of the sun. The wide trick shot is unconvincingly matted. A lab is destroyed with a superimposition. The serious German inspector is a classic type, but he plays a very small part, doing not much in the way of inspecting. The end title card is in a fun, spooky font. There's a painting in the artist's studio that I don't think you would have seen in an American film at this time. At one point the stripper refers to being in 'Europe,' so there's that geographical certainty. But, really, how many other films give you a female hunchback? Come on, Irene!

'The Head' can be viewed on Youtube in a dubbed print of abysmal quality. Some reels have visible matting at the top of the frame. Does the harsh splicing of music indicate the removal of offending material? Use your, uh, noggin, and figure it out.

Miami Golem (1985) 10 Sep 2021 3:00 PM (3 years ago)

Golem - “An artificial human being in Hebrew folklore endowed with life.” - Merriam Webster.

“Your face. It's all banged up. We should stop at a hospital.” - Joanna Fitzgerald.

A television reporter finds himself drawn into a plot to steal an incredible scientific discovery. A ditzy secretary has had enough of the Man's crap.

Alberto De Martino (1929-2015) had been writing and directing films since the early 1960s (Will anyone claim this veteran as a personal favorite?) It appears Miami Golem was his very last directing credit, topping off two and a half decades of solid work. Among his credits are westerns and comedies and western-comedies and peplums too. Holocaust 2000 (1977) was not Kirk Douglas' proudest Hollywood hour. De Martino directed the Neil Connery vehicle Operation Kid Brother too. Miami Golem comes subsequent to the particularly infamous Puma Man (but let's forget it was mentioned) Star David Warbeck is here only a few years removed from having crossed over to The Beyond. Laura Trotter was one of the residents of Nightmare City. John Ireland had been in films since the mid 1940s. Miami Golem belongs to that trend of Florida-set Italian films of the period, including American Rickshaw, Cruel Jaws, Miami Supercops, Cut & Run; itself a subset of the group of Italian films set in diverse American locations.

We love Italian films because the filmmakers understand the necessity of zipping along; in other words, keep exposition minimal, and, as quickly as possible, find the most interesting and exploitative element of the story. Stay on target! Deploy your nudity strategically when the plot begins to sag in the second act. Helicopters and explosions are super cinema value! Splatter the orange stuff around as much as possible. Over here in America, Roger Corman had a similar model; even his PG movies keep it going with the Ramones or the occasional car action. True to fashion, we can say that Miami Golem keeps it moving and does not overstay its welcome. Something new happens every ten minutes. This is not a film laboring under the illusion that it's an 'important' treatise. Unfortunately, there's no visual flare here, no Spontaneous Spider Attack, no raison d'etre for anything really, and so it's harder to overlook the illogical progression of this particular sequence of events. The love interest is a total blank – Nice Body, Unfortunate Hair. You would think any story involving other worlds would tend to raise the dramatic stakes. Alas, it's just another sunny day in Miami. Don Dohler did more for the promotion of aliens out in the hinterlands. Here, alas, there's no money in the budget for an amazing technicolor saucer. Warbeck's character is pushed along through action and exposition; as for motivation, the viewer is left to infer that, maybe, he's in it for the excitement of the news game. He's a near zero on characterization. The basic frame of the movie is a Hitchcockian plot of a man finding himself in over his head, albeit with splashings of Ghostbusters, Close Encounters. It's not as much fun as it sounds. A fan boat chase precedes Miami Vice. There was one in Invasion, U.S.A. too. This is not one of those Italian films from the later 80s fortunate to have been shot with live sound; the whole thing bogs down under its canned audio. That's a cool poster. It should be tattooed on the moviegoer's neck: “The woman on the poster is not in the movie.” There's a strobing climax right out of Alien. The thing is in the jar like The Jar. People are tossed around like The Exorcist.

An alternate title is Miami Horror. Times are strange when American Rickshaw has a fancy special edition bluray (but then Martino surely gets more respect than De Martino.) Can Miami Golem stay forever a stepchild in the cold? Like an avid beachcomber without his matching carcinogenic tan? In the meantime, while we wait, the curious can find the film on Youtube in awful quality with Turkish subtitles or slightly better quality with Japanese subtitles.

Journey To The Seventh Planet (1962) 15 Aug 2021 12:34 PM (3 years ago)

People once gazed at the stars in wonder and dreamed of awesome possibilities, those blinking lights in a black canvas firing creative imaginations in print and on screen. Pulp magazines of the 1940s and 50s were filled to the brim with tales of rocket-ships roaring through space and swashbuckling heroes of Mars. These bled into Hollywood b-movies throbbing with radioactive giant insects and invaders from Mars alongside mad scientists and beasts from under the sea. This leads us to Journey To The Seventh Planet, from 1962, a film produced between Denmark and AIP studios, directed by Sid Pink. Mr. Pink (haha!) is an interesting character, somewhat an early pioneer of 3D movies and was an early distributor of spaghetti westerns before the Leone boom. He produced or distributed a string of genre movies from the early 1950s to the 1970s, along with a smattering of films to his own name of which this is one.

Journey To The Seventh Planet is set in the year 2001, when the world is now unified behind the United Nations and in echoes of Star Trek, rockets blast into the cosmos as part of a space fleet to explore. A crew of five square jawed astronauts land on Uranus to find, not the world of sun seared rocks they expected but a lush land of pine woodland. Nothing is what it seems, with dream women appearing out of nowhere and a picture postcard village, complete with windmill. The rugged space adventurers pull on their nifty spacesuits to investigate and adventure ensues! They find that nothing is what it seems, and encounter strange beasts in dank caves and a glowing space brain than plans to use them for nefarious purposes! Gasp!

I had a lot of fun with this, I expected nothing and got a lot back. It had a pea sized budget but the makers got a lot out of their money as far as I can see. There is nifty costumes, including fab blue spacesuits, and even some stop motion monsters and some good old bug eyed aliens. Yes there is some stock footage of rockets but its inserted into the picture well. Hell the movie is cheesy and dated and sexist as hell, but zips along at a rocket pace, never dwelling too long on any particular area before rolling on to the next scene. on the negative side the cast is a bit of a charisma blackhole apart from 50s sci-fi mainstay John Agar, but they are all Danish actors dubbed into English. But its not Kubrick's 2001 and the film doesn't try to be. Agar is my favourite part of the film, he comes across as a Flash Gordon type that probably has a whisky bottle shoved down his trousers and three women in every spaceport. Story wise alas with the passage of time its a plot folk will have seen before, over and over, particularly the Star Trek episode "Shore Leave" but at only 77 minutes its a breezy pulp tale and doesn't outstay its welcome. I dug it.

Most Valuable Thing: John Agar. His randy but cheery astronaut brings a dose of spark to the crew.

Make Or Break: When the crew put on their suits and go exploring.

Score: 6 outta 10

The Evil That Men Do (1984) 1 May 2019 7:17 AM (5 years ago)

Over the span of his career, Charles Bronson worked with a variety directors on more than one project. The director that most fans associate with Bronson would likely be Michael Winner. After all, Winner was directing Bronson when the actor was at his peak and the two collaborated on the first three films in the iconic Death Wish series. Together, Bronson and Winner made six films together. There was, however, one other director that Bronson worked with more than Winner. That director’s name is J. Lee Thompson and the duo would end up making nine movies together! Thompson is probably best known for directing such films as Cape Fear and The Guns of Navarone, but in the 80’s Thompson and Bronson made several violent B-movies for production companies such as Cannon Films. Both men were in the twilight of their career and resorted to low-budget exploitation to keep the checks coming in. Some of these films turned out to be pretty entertaining pieces of trash cinema. Films like 10 to Midnight, Kinjite: Forbidden Subjects, and the film being reviewed, The Evil That Men Do.

A sadistic expert of torture, notoriously referred to as “The Doctor”, contracts his services out to oppressive governments who want to keep their dissidents in check. After a failed assassination attempt on The Doctor, the rebellion reach out to Holland, a retired CIA assassin, to kill The Doctor and end his cruel methods of torture. Holland decides to go undercover and present himself as a family man so that he may get close to The Doctor and take him out before he is forced to leave Guatemala. Along the way, Holland will have to go through various henchmen and villainous characters before he reaches his target. Scenes of action and bloody violence transpire as Holland lay waste to this evil cast of characters.

Bronson plays Holland, the former CIA agent, who’s retired to the Cayman Islands to work on his tan and befriend stingrays he’s affectionately named Quasimodo. Bronson’s limitations when it comes to emoting actually work to his advantage in this role. His character is cool, calculating, and has no reservations about murder if the end justifies the means. This is the kind of role that fans of the actor have come to expect when they go into a Bronson film. There are plenty of scenes in The Evil That Men Do where Bronson gets to show off what a badass he is. We get to see him toss a guy off the balcony of a high-rise apartment, throw a knife through a man’s neck, and the highlight of the film: squeeze a sexual predator’s testicles until the attacker passes out! There are some half-assed attempts to make Holland appear to be a man with morals and a belief in the rebel’s cause by having him do the job for free, but mostly he’s just shown murdering people with extreme prejudice.

Much like 10 to Midnight the year prior, J. Lee Thompson brings the violence and sleaze to his direction of The Evil That Men Do. Right from the opening, Thompson treats the audience to a torture scene involving electrodes applied to a man’s nipples and testicles. The scene ends with the grisly death of the man and this opening will set the tone for the rest of the film. I’ve already referenced some of the scenes of violence that can be found in this film but it wouldn’t be a Bronson / Thompson collaboration without some sleazy moments in between. After all, Thompson is the man who was able to convince Charles Bronson to not once but twice act in a scene where he holds a sex toy while he delivers some dialogue. I guess Chuck really needed the cash at this point in his career. In The Evil That Men Do we get a scene where Bronson convinces a goon to join him and the woman posing as his wife in a threesome back at their hotel so he may set a trap for the unknowing victim. Another scene has Bronson hiding underneath a bed, waiting to strike while two lesbians have sex above him! Thompson’s collaborations with Bronson may not have reached the depths of Michael Winner’s Death Wish films in terms of depravity, but he certainly gave Winner a run for his money.

It may be predictable, but The Evil That Men Do provides exactly what most fans of Charles Bronson want from these type of films. Bronson is really nothing more than an instrument of death who massacres one despicable baddie after another until there are none left. If his victims were camp counselors he might be mistaken for Jason Vorhees! Because the villains of the film are so awful, we take joy and excitement from their gruesome death scenes. I do feel that it was a bit of a misstep in not making Bronson’s character more vulnerable. His seemingly indestructible presence doesn’t allow for any suspense or tension to occur. There was a missed opportunity to have The Doctor capture Bronson and put him through one of his torture sessions only to have Bronson amazingly survive the torture and escape. I guess by this point ol’ Charlie Bronson couldn’t be bothered to break a sweat in one of his latter-day films.

MVT: Bronson and Thompson both deliver but they’ve had better efforts. The cast of villains are the type of deplorable characters you want to see get their just deserts. Therefore, they collectively get my Most Valuable Thing.

Make or Break Scene: The moment when Bronson grabs a handful of an attacker’s genitals and squeezes until the man passes out.

Score: 7/10

House of Traps (1982) 5 Mar 2019 10:48 AM (6 years ago)

As film fans, we all discovered our favorite directors as we’ve navigated through a sea of movies and each one’s specific filmography. It usually starts with one amazing film and afterwards we must seek out the rest of this person’s output. This is followed by a domino-effect of knocking off one great film after another until you reach the more obscure and less than perfect films released. Selfishly, we want to turn our friends and family onto these filmmakers so that we have someone to discuss their work with, but also to take some credit for turning them onto great cinema. Additionally, we want them to have the same thrilling experience we had when we saw these films for the first time and have them thank us for the recommendation. That’s why when attempting to convert our friends to liking what we like, we always give them the best of the best. It’s too risky to give them one of our favorite filmmaker’s lesser efforts if we intend on them continuing on with the rest of their works. For instance, if you were trying to convince someone that they should check out the work of Brian De Palma you probably wouldn’t have them start with Raising Cain. Not a bad film, but it likely won’t knock their socks off. The masterworks should take priority over all others. The flawed films should be explored once they’re hooked. In the case of master martial arts filmmaker, Chang Cheh, his 1982 film, House of Traps, falls into the latter camp. By no means a bad film, but rather one that should be seen once all of the classics have been viewed first.

Potential viewers of House of Traps should know one thing going in; the plot to this film is convoluted as hell! We are quickly given the back story to a family feud that has raged on for generations. The information dump is so quick that we as viewers are a bit confused if the current state of the feud is over greed and the desire for power or simply revenge. A prince is planning a revolt against his uncle, the emperor, and anyone who wants to join the revolution must break into the emperor’s palace and steal one of the empire’s priceless valuables as a way of showing devotion to the cause. Anyone who joins the rebellion signs a contract which is kept, along with the valuables, in the titular House of Traps. This is when things begin to get complicated. Numerous characters come in and out of the story, there are several double-crosses, and we’re not sure if we’re supposed to side with the prince who’s leading the rebellion or the emperor who has dispersed spies to infiltrate the enemy and learn the mystery of the House of Traps. Because the plot is so confusing and Cheh is giving us perspectives from both sides of the feud, we’re given a lot of exposition and scenes of dialogue that I can only assume is an attempt to keep the viewer up to speed on everything that’s going on. It makes for a frustrating watch, especially if you’re just looking for a kung-fu film that’s light on plot and heavy on fight sequences. It’s best to just let the movie wash over you and not get too caught up with the overly-complicated plot.

There’s still plenty to like with this Shaw Brothers’ production, despite the confusing storyline. House of Traps has the usual production value that makes these films so charming and what one comes to expect from the Shaw Brothers if you’re already a fan, especially of their kung-fu films. You get the colorful costumes, stagey set design, awesomely fake facial hair, bright-red blood, excellent fight choreography, supernatural abilities, cool weapons, and cool characters with cool names like the Black Fox. Most importantly, the movie has the House of Traps and it sure delivers on its promise. The multistory house has three levels of potential death within it for all those who attempt to take back the emperor’s valuables and the rebellion’s list of supporters. The ground level has guards hidden behind a sliding wall (How do they occupy their time waiting behind that wall the whole time?) and spikes that rise from the floor. The second level has trapdoors and the third and final level has a spiked cage and one more surprise that I won’t disclose, as it’s not revealed until the finale of the film. It’s a very cool set that’s utilized three or four times throughout the runtime and each time it is we learn more about the secrets that the House of Traps has in store.

House of Traps finishes on a high note with amazing fight sequences and plenty of bloodletting. The very end is comedically ironic, immediately following all of the carnage that has just taken place. It left a smile on my face and made it easier to forgive the convoluted plot. It should be noted that this film features the Venom Mob in one of the group’s last films together. If I were trying to turn a friend onto Chang Cheh’s films, or just classic kung-fu films, this isn’t where I would have them start. The Five Deadly Venoms or The One-Armed Swordsman would definitely be a better option to begin your education on Chang Cheh, the filmmaker. For those of us who’ve seen our share of martial-arts films, this is solid and definitely worth a watch if you’re a fan of the Shaw Brothers’ aesthetic.

MVT: The actual house of traps, of course!

Make or Break Scene: The first introduction to the house of traps.

Score: 7/10

The People Who Own the Dark (1976) 25 Feb 2019 8:05 AM (6 years ago)

More than fifty years on and the influence of Night of the Living Dead can still be felt in modern day filmmaking. Certainly, Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend novel came first and was a source of inspiration for George Romero and other filmmakers to adapt the story. It’s pretty apparent, however, that NOTLD had a larger and more direct influence on genre-cinema following its release. There must be a countless amount of films that were either influenced by or shamelessly ripped off from NOTLD and the range of their quality is as wide as Romero’s influence on the horror genre. The People Who Own the Dark is an example of a film that wears its influences on its sleeve but does enough different to stand out from the rest of the imitators. Clearly, it takes as much from Omega Man, a more direct adaptation of I Am Legend, as it does from NOTLD, but the Spanish setting and distinct touches made by director León Klimovsky give this film its own identity.

The film is slow to get out of the gate. We’re introduced to each of the characters one by one as they go about their day-to-day lives. Each of the characters are preparing to attend a party later that evening, hosted by a pair of wealthy socialites. The location of the party takes place at a hillside castle in rural Spain. The castle setting adds to the gothic mood of the film and works perfectly once the siege starts to occur. I should mention that I watched the 82 minute US cut of the film. The Spanish release, apparently, runs 94 minutes with additional scenes of dialogue. Even at 82 minutes, the film does feel slow at times. Especially for the first act, when all of the characters are being established and the introduction to the party occurs. If you stick it out through the initial setup, I think most will get something out of the remainder of the film and be glad they stuck with it.

Director León Klimovsky’s subtext and social commentary within this genre-film begin to reveal themselves once we learn exactly what kind of party is taking place. It seems these members of the social elite have a taste for decadence and have arranged a masquerade party where they may indulge in their most animalistic desires with the female partygoers, who turn out to be paid prostitutes. Anything goes, as long as it’s out in the open in front of the rest of the guests. Stanley Kubrick’s Eyes Wide Shut definitely came to mind as this scenario played out. Before any kind of orgy can breakout, the castle starts to shake and the partygoers believe they have just experienced an earthquake. The partygoers return from the cellar to discover all the housemaids who remained on the ground level are now blind. After a trip into the local village where it’s discovered that everyone on the earth’s surface is now blind, the partygoers realize they’re dealing with something much worse than an earthquake. It’s deduced that a nuclear explosion has occurred and the survivors must leave the area to avoid any fallout. They decide to return to the castle but not before one of them turns paranoid and stabs one of the blind villagers. This act of violence triggers the socialites’ gradual demise and sets up Klimovsky’s commentary on class division and unrest between the working class villagers and the wealthy elite.

This is the point in the story where it starts to feel like a real horror film. The blind villagers swarm the castle much like the zombies in NOTLD trying to enter the farmhouse. In some ways, the situation in The People Who Own the Dark feels more terrifying than NOTLD. Because the threat are actual people and not undead, shuffling zombies, the danger that the partygoers find themselves in feels more real. To add to this, the blind mob work together and are able to strategize as how to besiege the castle. They come through the ceiling, they’re able to drive cars, they start fires, and they’re capable of using firearms. This makes them feel more threatening than any braindead zombie. As is usually the case in these kinds of films, characters start turning on one another as the situation turns dire. Spanish cult film star, Paul Naschy, is amongst the cast playing a Harry Cooper type character.

I certainly don’t want to spoil the ending of this film, but let’s just say that it’s bleak as hell! There’s an excellent use of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony during a bus ride at the end of the film. As I’ve discovered more of these Spanish horror films from the 60’s and 70’s, my appreciation for their quaintness and leisurely paced storytelling has really grown on me. The first act of the film could certainly stand to move more briskly but the third act finishes so strongly that I was able to overlook that. The Spanish horror films from this era would be a nice bridge from some of the Hammer horror films that came out of England in the 50’s and 60’s to the more extreme horror films produced in Italy during the 70’s and 80’s. On the surface, The People Who Own the Dark may look like just another adaptation of I Am Legend. Personally, I think director León Klimovsky brings enough originality and subtext to the production that it makes for an interesting viewing experience.

MVT: León Klimovsky

Make or Break Scene: The bus trip with Beethoven’s 9^th playing on the radio.

Score: 6.75/10

Hit List (1989) 18 Feb 2019 9:47 AM (6 years ago)

If you’re a child of the 80’s and had an obsession with movies, you know what a wondrous place the video store was at the peak of the video rental boom. Walking through aisles of VHS covers and having those lurid covers tantalizing your preadolescent mind was quite an experience. It almost gave you a feeling that you were somewhere you shouldn’t be. The VHS sleeves for movies like Zombie, I Spit on Your Grave, and Driller Killer will forever be imprinted on my brain. Then there were the odd or curious looking box art. The ones that had you guessing what they were about and what type of movies they were. Films like Happy Birthday to Me or The Exterminator had interesting but somewhat ambiguous covers. If it weren’t for them being shelved in a specific section of the store, you weren’t sure what you were in for. One such film, for me anyway, was Hit List. The image of the car running over a man always piqued my curiosity. Was this a horror film? An action film? What was it? Once I discovered it was directed by William Lustig and involved a psychotic hitman played by Lance Henriksen, I had to track it down. And the fact that this movie remains available only on VHS makes it that much more curious.

Essentially, Hit List is a crime-thriller with flourishes of action and horror. After a gangster is arrested for drug trafficking, he’s forced to turn state’s evidence and testify against his criminal boss. The mob boss, worried that his lieutenant will rat him out, decides to put a hit out and ensure that no testimony is made; except that the hitman makes a vital error and goes to the wrong house during his assassination attempt. After disposing of a man and woman he assumes are federal agents providing witness protection, he kidnaps a boy he believes to be the son of his target, whom he can’t find anywhere in the house. This sequence of events sets in motion the revenge / rescue angle of the film and will make up the majority of the runtime going forward.

Jan-Michael Vincent plays Jack Collins, the family man whose son has been kidnapped, wife attacked, and friend murdered during the home invasion. Collins is hell-bent on rescuing his son and finding the person responsible for turning his life upside down. In order to make this happen, he’ll have to recruit the help of the gangster turned informant and intended target, Frank DeSalvo, played by Leo Rossi. DeSalvo has his own vendetta to settle, now that he knows his boss (Rip Torn) tried to have him whacked. Together, Collins and DeSalvo will have to fight off mafia thugs, elude the police, and battle a highly trained killer in order to save the kid and win the day.

Just like his prior films, Lustig’s cast for Hit List is made up of recognizable character actors. Lance Henriksen, Leo Rossi, Rip Torn, and Charles Napier, who plays the lead FBI agent, are all familiar faces to movie fans and they all do a solid job in their respective roles. Henriksen and Torn, in particular, are a lot of fun in their over-the-top performances as villainous characters. The only issue with the cast is the leading man role, played by Jan-Michael Vincent. Most will probably know Vincent from the TV show, Airwolf. According to a 2008 interview, Lustig states that Vincent was drunk during the shooting of the film and it’s pretty apparent from the moment he steps onscreen. He seems to struggle delivering his lines and I think you can even see him have trouble staying upright in some scenes. In addition to this, he just simply can’t emote the grief that is necessary for his character. When it’s explained to him that his wife is in a coma and that she has lost their unborn child, Vincent’s reaction to this soul-crushing news seems more appropriate for someone who has just been told that their favorite flavor of ice cream has been discontinued. Lustig does his best to limit Vincent’s dialogue and shoot around his embarrassing performance, but there’s only so much you can do when your leading man is a disaster. Jan-Michael Vincent almost sinks this entire film. Fortunately, the rest of the cast brings it and a strong third act saves this movie from being a dud.

In that same interview, Lustig admits that he needed work and that this project was a director for hire job. It definitely has that feel when compared to his earlier efforts, such as Maniac and Vigilante. Hit List doesn’t have the same grit or nihilism that those films had. Also, this film was shot in sunny Los Angeles instead of the rough streets of a pre-Giuliani New York City, where Lustig filmed his previous movies. This gives Hit List a more polished aesthetic, overall. Still, Lustig delivers on the violence and action set-pieces, especially in the finale of the film. There are a few memorable sequences that occur within the film. There is a scene where Henriksen slips into a prison like a ninja and assassinates a potential witness after he takes out the prison guards. There’s a fun shootout that takes place in a laser tag arena. And there’s the standout car chase that eventually leads to a crazy sequence where Henriksen’s character is hanging from a truck as he tries to kill the driver. I don’t want to spoil the end of this wild scene, but let’s just say that there is truth in advertising in regards to the VHS box art for this movie.

Nobody would claim that Hit List is one of Bill Lustig’s best films; including the director himself. It doesn’t have that grindhouse feel of his earlier films and it doesn’t have a screenwriter like a Larry Cohen to inject some social commentary into the film, as he did for Maniac Cop. And it certainly doesn’t help that your leading man is blotto through the film’s entirety. Lustig and the supporting cast manage to somehow save this movie from being a complete disaster. It’s a testament to Lustig’s skills as a director that he was able to salvage this film from what must have been a difficult shoot and turn in a decent action-thriller. It may not be a cult classic, but Hit List deserves better than to linger in VHS obscurity.

MVT: The supporting cast of Lance Henriksen, Leo Rossi, Rip Torn, & Charles Napier

Make or Break Scene: The action packed finale!

Score: 6/10

Hide and Go Shriek (1988) 6 Feb 2019 8:26 AM (6 years ago)

When you’re a horny teen desperately looking for a place to party, you’ll go anywhere you can to pound cheap beer and try to score with your boyfriend or girlfriend. God knows how many odd locations I’ve gone to all in an effort to escape parental authority and take part in some juvenile behavior with my closest friends. The group of teens in the late period slasher, Hide and Go Shriek, choose, of all places, a furniture store to party at. After store hours, of course! Now, we never had a furniture store available to us, but I’m certain my friends and I would have jumped at the chance to drink and get wild in such a place. So, this location doesn’t seem like an odd setting for a slasher movie to me. Luckily, my friends and I were never stalked and chased by a psychopathic killer through our party spot. The same cannot be said for the kids in this film; and if that’s the tradeoff for getting to drink and screw in a furniture shop after hours, then you can have it!

The group of kids in Hide and Go Shriek are made up of your stereotypical teens in slashers. We have the prankster, the creep, the nerd, the slut, the virgin, and the couple in love. Being that it’s the late 1980’s, we also get some amazingly bad fashion and hairstyles! The clothes are mostly baggy and loud. One character is even wearing a pair of dinosaur earrings! As expected, the hair on the female cast is BIG and the males are a mix of mini-mullets and spiked hairdos. One of the male characters seems to have modeled his look after the 80’s fictional character, Max Headroom. The character even wears his sunglasses in doors…at night…Big Corey Hart fan, this guy. The cast that make up the teens are mostly unknowns. The only face I recognized was Sean Kanan, who plays John. Most will know him from The Karate Kid Part III, as “Karate’s Bad Boy” Mike Barnes. There is really only one cast member that stands out from the rest and that’s Bunky Jones, but I’ll come back to her later.

The film opens with an anonymous character applying makeup in the mirror. In the next scene, the character is shown picking up what may or may not be a transgender prostitute and later murdering the prostitute in a back alley. It’s quickly established that there’s a killer on the loose and we’re not certain of their gender. Clearly, an attempt to keep us guessing who the killer is. We’re then introduced to our group of teens and then we’re off to the furniture store for some post-graduation partying! As odd as this location may seem for a party, it does make for a great setting for a slasher film. Because it’s after store hours and the teens want to avoid drawing any attention to the shop, the interior of the store is dimly lit, creating a lot of shadows. There are also several mannequins spread about the store which keeps the viewer guessing as to whether or not it’s the killer. When the killer does arrive on the scene we get POV shots of the killer lurking about and peeping in on the teens as they strip and get down to business. This all adds up to a pretty unnerving setting which makes for some genuinely creepy moments.

Slasher fans who expect their slashers to be bloody and gory shouldn’t be disappointed with this one. When the killer starts attacking the teens, the film doesn’t shy away from the gruesome details. There are two standout deaths in the film. One where a character is impaled onto an art sculpture and the second being a decapitation by freight elevator, thanks to some early special effects work from Screaming Mad George. Some may feel that the body count isn’t high enough. Personally, I found there to be enough stalking and slashing to satisfy my needs as a fan of the slasher sub-genre.

Hide and Go Shriek is not without its issues. Firstly, it’s a darkly lit film. Too dark, in some scenes. I realize it’s intended to be dark so that the killer can hide in the shadows, but it can be difficult at times to make out what exactly is on screen. I can’t even imagine what it must have been like to watch this on VHS back in the day. Also, after the initial setup, the film drags a bit until the killer begins to attack the group. The group of teens work within the tropes and trappings of the slasher genre, but individually they’re not that interesting. The actors are mostly serviceable but no one really standouts until the final act and that is when Bunky Jones, playing Bonnie, gets her moment to shine. Once Bonnie discovers the mutilated corpses of her friends, she comes completely unraveled. Bunky Jones’ portrayal of a teenage girl who is terrified beyond belief is one for the ages. Some may find all of her shrieking and whining to be shrill and overbearing. I, however, found her performance to be a highlight of the film and I appreciated that she swung for the fences with her depiction of the hysterical Bonnie. Her reading of the line “I DON’T UNDERSTAND!” has to be heard to be believed. Highly entertaining.

I don’t think anyone would claim that Hide and Go Shriek is a top-tier slasher. Not even the hardcore slasher fans. It is, however, a solid entry into the sub-genre with several entertaining moments scattered throughout the runtime. It has an eerie setting, bad fashion, gory murder scenes, overacting, unconventional moments, and an ending that reaches giallo levels of absurdity. This film doesn’t attempt to reinvent the genre, but it does enough different to make it a memorable watch and not come off as just another disposable slasher, which there were more than enough of during this period.

MVT: Bunky Jones. She goes for it in the final act!

Make or Break Scene: The reveal of the killer. This will likely make or break the movie for you.

Score: 6.75/10

Psychic Killer (1975) 30 Jan 2019 6:27 AM (6 years ago)

The ability or power to perform acts of vengeance through astral projection would be quite desirable to anyone who had an ax to grind. Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t use this power for acts of murder or violence but maybe something embarrassing for my enemies. For example, a depantsing of one of my foes in a public place. That would probably bring me satisfaction. If one were more bloodthirsty and felt their enemies deserved death for what they had done, you could potentially make a pretty interesting film from that premise. Psychic Killer from 1975 attempts to tell a thrilling story from this idea, but unfortunately the idea is the only thing interesting about this movie in the end.

Psychic Killer is an early example of the slew of psychokinesis horror and thriller films that were being made during the 70’s and early 80’s. Psychic Killer even came one year earlier than Carrie, which is the film that launched this sub-genre into popularity. Unlike Carrie, Psychic Killer fails to generate any sympathy for the suffering protagonist, Arnold Masters, played by Jim Hutton. Hutton does his best with what he’s given, but after the first act his character spends much of the movie sitting in a chair as his unseen spirit does the violent deeds. The film also fails at being an effective proto-slasher. Psychic Killer and Patrick, from 1978, share a lot in common. With the exception of one kill, Psychic Killer simply doesn’t deliver when it comes to a good murder sequence like Patrick was able to do three years later.

We’re introduced to Arnold Masters as he awakes from a nightmare and attempts to escape from an institution for the criminally insane. He claims he’s innocent of killing the doctor who treated his now deceased mother. Masters holds a very strong grudge against those who incarcerated him and those he feels neglected his mother prior to her death. Masters befriends another imprisoned patient who, with the help of an amulet, teaches Masters the art of astral projection. After the real murderer of the doctor is convicted, Masters is exonerated and released from the institution. He is now ready and capable of exacting his revenge on those who have caused him so much pain through his newly learned powers.

The film starts off promising. Hutton does well early on expressing his character’s torment and we begin to get behind him. There’s a pretty amazing dummy death in the first act and an introduction to a slimy psychiatrist who’s taking advantage of one of his female patients. The setup of the astral projection is decent and makes for an interesting mode for revenge. Unfortunately, when we get to the scene with the psychiatrist the film begins to slowly go downhill. Masters chooses the psychiatrist as his first victim but there’s really no payoff with his death. He’s killed off-screen with just a dribble of blood running from his mouth as he lies motionless on the ground. Most of the murder sequences are a letdown. The film doesn’t go far enough with the gore, with the exception of one scene but by then it’s too little too late, and it fails at building any suspense.

At times it didn’t seem like the filmmaker was sure what kind of film he wanted to make. It’s setup like it’s going to be a thriller but there are no thrills or suspense. The editing doesn’t work and the score is forgettable. Because our killer can’t be seen stalking his victims, we’re never on the edge of our seat waiting for him to strike. It just sort of happens. The film doesn’t work as a horror film either due to the already mentioned lack of violence and gore. There’s a shower scene death that’s decent but not that memorable and a death at a butcher shop near the end that’s pretty good but by then you’re pretty much checked out of the movie. It even at times feels like the director was going for some dark comedy. An attorney, whom Master’s blames for his imprisonment, is shown singing opera at a construction site just before he is crushed flat by a pillar like in a cartoon. The intentional comedy falls flat and there isn’t enough unintentional comedy to save the picture.

It doesn’t help that the film is a bit confusing at times. This should never be the case in a low-budget B-movie, such as this. When Masters is preparing for his out-of-body experience, we get quick black and white dreamlike sequences that show a person harming Masters’ mother. We’re not sure until later who these people are. In the case of the lawyer, I wasn’t sure who he was and why Masters wanted him dead until I had deduced that he could be the only character left on Masters’ hit list. Another example of this is the murder of the butcher, played by Neville Brand. There is never a motive given for why Masters wants this character dead or how the character is linked to Masters’ mother. It just seems like the filmmakers wanted to increase the body count and they had access to Neville Brand for an afternoon.

The psychokinesis thriller is an interesting sub-genre that has brought audiences many entertaining films over the years. Psychic Killer has the honor of being one of the first of its kind and perhaps even inspired some of the films that would follow. Sadly, that’s as much praise as I can give this one. When I think of some of the most entertaining movies that could be lumped into this sub-genre, films like Carrie, Scanners, and The Fury, I’m reminded of their spectacular endings and having to pick my jaw up off the floor. When I think back to the end of Psychic Killer, I’m reminded of its lackluster ending and having to pick my eyelids up off my face.

MVT: The premise of the film. It had so much potential.

Make or Break Scene: The murder of the lawyer. This scene broke it for me. No suspense, no gore, no laughs.

Score: 4/10

The Sisterhood (1988) 23 Jan 2019 7:26 AM (6 years ago)

Having now seen six films from Cirio Santiago, I know what I’m in for when I hit play on one of his movies. A paper-thin plot, wooden acting, explosions, sloppy fight choreography, shoot-outs, and female nudity. Santiago knows how to check off all the boxes for genre filmmaking. His films are never great but I never find them to be boring or truly awful, either. I like to describe Cirio Santiago’s films as cinematic junk food. They satisfy when you have a craving but they’re not going to have much long lasting value. The Sisterhood is yet another example of Santiago’s vending of cinematic junk food and that’s OKAY! As long as you go into his movies knowing what to expect.

The Sisterhood is a sort of mashup of the post-apocalypse and sword and sorcery sub-genres that flooded VHS rental shops back in the 80’s. The characters’ costumes are either made up of tattered shirts and shoulder pads or capes and furs. Most of the locations used in this film were either shot in a rock quarry or a desert location; AND the two primary modes of transportation in this post-nuclear landscape seems to be either horseback or repurposed combat vehicles. Tropes from both sub-genres are present. We even get some sorcery and magic powers, likely mutations brought on by nuclear fallout, and the “sisterhood” are even referred to as witches.

Santiago attempts a female empowerment angle to the proceedings, which isn’t new territory for the director. Previous films, such as Silk and The Muthers, also showcased strong women capable of holding their own against the vicious men who act as their adversaries. Unfortunately, Santiago’s good will and efforts towards feminism is undercut by topless shots and female characters scantily clad and dolled up with makeup. Cosmetics are a necessity in a post-apocalyptic world? Granted, this is a low budget genre film targeted at a specific audience and I appreciate the effort, but still, it comes off as disingenuous. This film would actually make an interesting double with Mad Max: Fury Road as a contrast and compare exercise.

There’s little to no plot to speak of in The Sisterhood. Basically, we follow three female characters as they travel across “the wasteland” in an effort to free their fellow sisters from slavery in a male dominated world. As to be expected, there are plenty of battles and adventures along the way. Obviously, this is a low budget affair. The soundtrack, specifically, sounds like some dude banging away on a Casio keyboard in his parents basement somewhere in Ohio. So, don’t go in expecting anything on the level of Beyond Thunderdome. Keep your expectations mitigated and turn your brain off after you hit that play button. A six pack of your favorite beer will likely help increase your level of enjoyment.

MVT: Cirio Santiago: He consistently does a lot with a little.

Make or Break Scene: The Sisters storm a rock quarry hideout with a tank!

Score: 6/10

Daughter of Darkness (1993) 9 Jan 2019 8:54 AM (6 years ago)

Ah, Category III Hong Kong cinema; How does one sell this onscreen depravity to the uninitiated? Perhaps, determining if you’re already a fan of trash cinema from other regions of the world is the best place to start. Specifically, films from Italy and Japan during the 1970’s & 80’s. If you’re a fan of films such as The New York Ripper, Night Train Murders, White Rose Campus, and Rape! 13^th Hour then Category III films are the next logical step in your education of trashy world cinema.

The Category III film Daughter of Darkness from 1993 is not a bad place to start, but probably not as infamous as say Red to Kill or Ebola Syndrome. Daughter of Darkness may not reach the heights, or depths depending on your perspective, of those films but it certainly delivers the violence and debauchery that they’re known for.

Viewers going into Daughter of Darkness for the first time expecting extreme sex and violence right from the jump may be confused for the first half an hour or so, as it kind of plays out like a twisted, slapstick sex-comedy. We are introduced to an overly animated and extremely pervy police detective played by the always entertaining Anthony Wong. Right from the start, Wong is giving a completely over-the-top performance with extremely animated facial expressions that would make Jim Carrey blush. When a young girl named Fong enters the police station claiming that she has discovered her entire family murdered in their home, our story is set in motion and it’s going to be a wild and shocking ride to the end.

It's during the beginning of Wong’s murder investigation where we get the majority of the comedic bits. Wong’s character is a Chinese Mainland detective and there’s some less than subtle commentary going on with his very goofy performance. He enters the crime scene like a bull in a china shop; walking directly through blood, posing for pictures with the bodies, and just generally disrupting the crime scene and destroying evidence. We also get to see what an absolute pervert Wong’s character is and his fascination with breasts during these opening scenes! The character of Officer Lui is setup as a morally corrupt buffoon but he eventually shows that he’s a fairly effective investigator and a somewhat likable character by the end.

Once Officer Lui gets around to questioning Fong about the massacre of her family, he quickly realizes that her story doesn’t add up. At this point in the film it becomes kind of a wacky procedural with Lui getting himself into some silly situations as he interviews the locals about Fong and her family. Lui eventually learns that a fellow police officer named Kin is somehow involved in this crime and that’s when the story starts to turn dark. It’s discovered that Kin and Fong are romantically linked and that they had planned to run off to Hong Kong to get married and escape the abusive home life that Fong was experiencing with her family. When Lui presses Kin on his involvement and the fact that the bullets used in the murders come from a police issued gun, Kin confesses to the crimes. This, however, doesn’t sit well with Lui. So, he decides to once again interrogate Fong to find out what really happened that fateful night.

Like other Category III films, such as Dr. Lamb and The Untold Story, the horrific details are told through flashback, and boy are they horrific! Fong’s home life with her family is a living nightmare! She is verbally and emotionally abused by her mother and siblings and physically harmed by her father (possibly step-father (?)). Rape, incest, and torture playout on screen before we reach the ultra-violent demise of this foul family. One can never hear the song “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” the same after witnessing this shocking and appalling scene. This entire sequence is definitely where the film earns its Category III status. The whole thing ends tragically and will leave you with a feeling of hopelessness. No doubt, this is an exploitation film, first and foremost, but there is a halfhearted attempt towards social commentary concerning Mainland China, specifically their judicial system and the way everything concludes with the case at the very end of the film.

Daughter of Darkness is a very solid exploitation film and a prime example of what some of the more infamous Category III films have to offer. It’s a bit uneven in terms of the tonal shift that the film makes about a third of the way through, but that’s also what makes the film interesting. I would probably recommend something like Run and Kill or The Untold Story to those looking to dip their toe into the cesspool of Category III, but this isn’t a bad place to start either.

MVT: Anthony Wong and William Ho as the sadistic father are both entertaining to watch, but both characters are a bit one note. Lily Chung as Fong shows a bit more diversity and really earns the MVT. A brave performance that isn’t simply a victim in this film.

Make or Break Scene: Opening – Anthony Wong’s entrance to the crime scene. Goofy antics amongst a bloodbath of a murder scene.

Score: 7/10

Season for Assassins (1975) 2 Jan 2019 8:00 AM (6 years ago)

Within the Italian poliziottesco genre, there was a sub-genre of “youth gone wild” films. These films would typically portray the Italian youth as entitled, violent sociopaths who committed crimes out of sheer boredom. Savage Three, Like Rabid Dogs, and Young, Violent, Dangerous are all examples of this sub-genre. Season for Assassins is another such film, but in this film’s case there’s more focus on the loved ones of the young criminals and how their lives are impacted by the selfish acts of said criminals.

Season for Assassins focuses on the life of a young petty-thief named Pierro, played by Joe Dallessandro. Pierro has aspirations of becoming a criminal kingpin by working his way up from the bottom of the underworld. He and his hooligan friends are shown pulling off burglaries for small sums of money, when of course they’re not riding around Rome terrorizing those who get in their path. The opening plays out much like the opening of A Clockwork Orange, but that’s as far as the comparisons go. Gradually, different characters in Pierro’s life are introduced. We learn that Pierro is a father to a newborn and that he has a wife named Rossana. Rossana is a former prostitute who is now committed to being a mother, even though Pierro is neglecting both her and the child. We are also introduced to Pierro’s family priest, Father Eugenio, who has faith in the young man and attempts to help Pierro stay on the straight and narrow, despite Pierro constantly brushing him off. Finally, a third significant character enters Pierro’s personal life, a naïve, young girl named Sandra, who Pierro strikes up a romantic relationship with. These three characters will all eventually be negatively impacted by Pierro’s selfish and destructive lifestyle. In one particular case, the impact is fatal.

While Pierro is going around wreaking havoc, a very jaded and disgruntled police captain, played by screen legend Martin Balsam, is nipping at the heels of Pierro and hoping to finally set the right trap that catches the hoodlum. Balsam’s character is supposed to act as the counterpoint to Father Eugenio. Where Eugenio sees hope for the young man, Balsam sees a thug and lost cause who will inevitably hurt and/or kill several people before he gets himself killed or caught. I suppose another parallel could be drawn from this and A Clockwork Orange in terms of the debate over whether or not criminals can truly be reformed. Unfortunately, this question is handled rather clumsily in Season for Assassins.

It’s commendable that director Marcello Andrei attempts to construct emotional depth within the characters of his piece, but most of them still come off as one dimensional. With the Pierro character, specifically, there’s a scene where he’s shown to be physically ill by the violent actions that he allows to occur against one of his loved ones. However, this is the only moment in the movie where the character seems to show any remorse or humanity. We are never given Pierro’s backstory to have a better understanding of how he got to this point in his life and potentially feel some empathy for the character. Another problematic aspect to the film is that Andrei can’t seem to decide if he’s making a melodrama or an exploitation film. The scenes between Pierro and his young mistress, Sandra, bounce from being honest and genuinely dramatic one minute to being sleazy and exploitative the next. It makes for a very uneven viewing experience.

Despite these flaws, Season for Assassins is certainly worth seeking out for the hardcore Eurocrime fans. Joe Dallessandro brings a sadistic charm to the Pierro character, which is entertaining to watch. The character may be one note but Dallessandro plays that note well here. Balsam’s portrayal of the grizzled, old police captain brings some class and legitimacy to the picture. And Andrei peppers in enough violence and action to keep things interesting throughout the runtime, even if it is 10 to 15 minutes too long. Season for Assassins isn’t going to show you something you haven’t seen before from the crime drama, but you could definitely do much worse from this ever broad genre of film.

MVT: Joe Dallessandro

Make or Break Scene: Bumper car scene – Attack on the young couple

Score: 6.5/10

Nothing Underneath (1985) 22 May 2018 8:00 PM (6 years ago)

One of the more interesting things that the Giallo genre has going for it is its dalliances with the supernatural. Many times, there will be a psychic or some spectrally focused aspect to the story, and these are often uncovered as being totally banal. Just look at the opening to Dario Argento’s Profondo Rosso, where noted psychic Macha Meril foresees death as water slops out of her mouth, and a raven flies over the audience. Or look at Emilio Miraglia’s The Night Evelyn Came Out of the Grave, where a dead woman makes appearances as characters are knocked off, one by one. The thing of it is, yes, typically these elements are nothing more than red herrings, but sometimes they remain unexplained. This shifts the atmosphere of a film, because the audience knows that the killer has to be a human while simultaneously harboring a tiny mote of doubt that maybe, just maybe, they’re not. It positions a conflict between the rational and the fantastic, generating a level of tension in its uncertainty. So, we have siblings Bob (Tom Schanley) and Jessica (Nicola Perring) in Carlo Vanzina’s Nothing Underneath (aka Sotto il Vestito Niente) who share a mild psychic connection. When Jessica is assaulted in Milan, her brother physically reacts in Wyoming, like Dumas’ Corsican brothers. But Vanzina cheats this aspect in order to give us a few Killer’s POV shots. Why would Bob be able to see what the killer sees if his rapport is with his sister, unless his sister is the killer, which she couldn’t be since she’s being stalked by the killer, right? It’s the kind of superfluous, sloppy construction that marks this film as a low rung on the Giallo ladder.

Anyway, Bob abandons his job as a park ranger to fly to Milan in search of his sister who went missing after his vision of her being menaced. There, he meets a bunch of fashion models and teams up with Commissioner Danesi (Donald Pleasance) to get to the bottom of things. Meanwhile, people are being stabbed with a very large pair of scissors (I guess at this point, they should just call them shears).

Bob is a dullard hero. He has no real personality to speak of. At the local general store, he gets all excited because his sister finally made the cover of a fashion magazine. Sure, we might all get excited when a family member succeeds, but Bob takes it to another level of gee-whiz-ness. He’s not so much a fish out of water as a fish who’s never seen the stuff before. It’s as if his job out in the wilderness has left him completely oblivious to the civilized world. Bob is intended as an everyman, an entry into the world of high fashion as an identifier for the audience. Unfortunately, all he winds up being is a sort of gormless yokel. This might not have stood out so egregiously if the audience didn’t already know more about the world (fashion and otherwise) than Bob does. The movie gives no insight, makes no revelations, about fashion, models, or anything else. Vanzina and company portray the models and their lifestyle exactly the way it’s expected to be. The interesting thing, if it can be called interesting, is that the film is adapted from a novel by the pseudonymous Marco Parma (actually Paolo Pietroni, editor of Amica magazine; you can guess what the mag’s focus is), and, from what I’ve read about it, is far more complex and, probably, more satisfying than the film version. The filmmakers appear to have stripped away any of the depth or commentary present in the book to fashion (pardon the pun) a standard-as-they-come mystery. Bob is a reflection of this, as an underwhelming protagonist in every possible way.

The world of fashion in the film is possibly meant as a cynical analogy for the apathetic carnality of people in general and the “elite” in particular. Scumbag diamond merchant George wants cocaine and sex, and he takes these things whenever he wants them. Women are nothing but holes for him to fill. Money is meaningless to him, since he has so much of it. He draws models into his web with the promise of wealth or at least a passing brush with it. They do what he wants because he can give them what they want, and the superficiality of it all is standard fare for stories about models. Naturally, Jessica stands out as the one who resists George and his advances. Certainly, she’ll do coke with him, but she won’t have sex with him, and this only brings out the even bigger asshole in George. George is the price to be paid to breathe in the rarefied air of model-dom. Resistance is met with retaliation and abandonment. Further, when models start getting stabbed, it can be seen as a comeuppance for their shallow venality. Their willingness, nay enthusiasm, to debase themselves for a glamorous lifestyle is unforgivable in the eyes of the film. It’s a moral we see constantly in stories centering on this universe, and Nothing Underneath is no different.

I think that the title Nothing Underneath is appropriate. There is nothing underneath this film’s surface that we haven’t seen before. To be fair, the film is slick as all get out (kind of like a fashion magazine, no?), though I wouldn’t go so far as to call it stylish. The characters are uninteresting, and even Pleasance’s presence is not enough to elevate this material. The central mystery of the piece is blatantly obvious (that is to say, nonexistent), and the killer’s identity is evident from the second time we meet the person. The only aspect that does remain outside the audience’s grasp until the end is the motivation, and while it is mildly intriguing, the filmmakers still don’t do anything to make it stand out (aside from a quick sexual tease, reminiscent of the film in total). Vanzina and his cohorts took something that screams out for an overdose of Eighties excess and gave us vapid vacuousness. Maybe this was intentional as commentary on the meaninglessness of lives spent looking fantastic. But the end result is as shallow as the subject is skin deep.

MVT: The women in the film are attractive enough, though some of their clothing choices are tragic.

Make or Break: Following suit with the film’s two-dimensionality, I’ll go with any scene where we see a little female skin.

Score: 3/10

Roadie (1980) 15 May 2018 8:00 PM (6 years ago)

Why did the armadillo cross the road? So Alan Rudolph could show that his film Roadie begins and ends in the state of Texas. Here’s the layout. Young, hyper Travis Redfish (Meatloaf) lives at his father Corpus’ (Art Carney) salvage company and makes deliveries for Shiner Beer. Catching sight of young Lola (Kaki Hunter), a groupie-in-training, Travis finds himself swept up into the whirlwind lifestyle of a rock ‘n roll roadie.

One might think, at first blush, that this film would concern itself with the idea of the call of the open road. But this is not the case. Travis has no desire to go on tour with musicians. He doesn’t feel the pull of an opportunity to live life. The only reason he becomes the world’s greatest roadie is because his mindset is antithetical to that of those around him. This comes from his background with his dad. Corpus and Travis are able to rig and create all manner of contraptions to make life easier. They have a phone booth in the house that extends itself outside if someone wants a little privacy. Travis makes his entrance (at home and in the film) on a makeshift crane/elevator that carries him between floors. Corpus surrounds himself with a multitude of televisions, all tuned to different stations. The thing of it is that the Redfishes are pretty much idiot savants (with the exception of sister Alice Poo [Rhonda Bates], who is just an idiot). To call them simple folk would be understating things. For example, none of them can pronounce “Pomona,” though Corpus’ enunciation is the one they stick with because he’s the smartest of them (hey, I had a friend who used to pronounce “San Jose” as “San Joes,” so who am I to judge?). Corpus installed homemade braces on Alice’s teeth. The best illustration of the Texans’ shitkickerhood, however, is the scene where Corpus, Alice, and BB (Gailard Sartain) are eating ribs and drinking beer. Their faces are covered in pork and barbecue sauce, and the mere idea of table manners is utterly foreign. This tableau is a snapshot of Travis. Roadie is basically Being There with Deliverance’s Hoyt Pollard as the protagonist. Or maybe just a quasi-Forrest Gump antecedent minus most of the sentimentality.

At the center of the film is the mismatched relationship between Travis and Lola. These are two extremely flawed people, neither of whose world view is all that appealing. Travis’ instant love for Lola is amusing. He declares that, “That’s the first woman I’ve ever known who I’ve cared for as a human being,” after seeing her for a split second. Lola knows that Travis is into her, and she knows how to manipulate him into getting her way. Her goal in life is to be a groupie, but first, she has to have sex specifically with Alice Cooper as a sort of deflowering ritual. Lola delights in her sexuality, but she’s naïve in its meaning and about life in general. Much like Travis, she wears blinders to allow for her point of view, because nothing else exists or, at the bare minimum, is less than important. She is thrilled to inform Travis that she’s only sixteen (the grin on her face when she labels herself “jailbait” is a bit bizarre). She picks up a box of cocaine, thinking it’s Tide laundry detergent, and has it maneuvered off her by a little old lady. Her usefulness to rock ’n roll lies in her body, not her brains, and she’s okay with that. At first.

Travis resents that Lola is eager to give it up to anybody who plays a musical instrument. He feels protective of her, but he never bothers to tell her this. It’s easier for him to react to her and lash out as needed; all emotion, no thought. Lola resents that problem solving comes so easily to Travis, and he is more desired by everyone in the music biz than she is. She feels that she is meant to be a Muse, but it’s Travis who inspires others. He powers a concert with manure and solar energy. He fixes a feedback issue with potatoes. Their odd couple relationship is essential to the film, but it loses interest due to their steadfastly willful ignorance. These two are at their best when they both dig in their heels and defy each other, even though I wanted to smack their heads together many, many times. The film, of course, resolves itself in Hollywood fashion, which not only undercuts the characters but also takes the perspective of one of them as being more “correct” than the other, when both are myopic and rather uninformed.

Any love that a viewer may have for Roadie relies on two things. First is their desire to spot all the cameos (Roy Orbison, Hank Williams Jr, Peter Frampton, ad infinitum) and listen to some music. In some ways, it’s a concert film, though it’s hardly Woodstock, being narratively driven as it is. The performances are staged detours to keep the people who don’t care about the story in their seats. Even when the characters are not at a concert, any montage on the road is accompanied by a song, using shorthand to portray bonding rather than actual bonding.

Second, and a far higher hurtle to clear, is one’s tolerance for Meatloaf. While I admire the man’s verve, he is nigh-psychotic throughout the entire film. Meatloaf is cranked up to a thousand, squirming his body all around, flopping his long, stringy hair thither and yon. You may have seen Chris Farley’s impression of Meatloaf at some time or another, but let me tell you, Farley captured maybe one-eighth of the actual man’s bounce. The thing of it is, Meatloaf does show glimmers of talent in front of the camera (and he would go on to prove that he has decent acting chops). Nevertheless, his bug-eyed performance in Roadie is both grating and a little scary. Whether this comes from his unfettered enthusiasm, his substance abuse issues, or a combination of both is immaterial. It’s all there on screen, good, bad, and ugly. There are several moments when he looks like he legitimately wants to eat whomever it is he is looking at (and I mean that in the cannibal sense, not as some crack against obese people). The film does muster up some sweetness and charm, but it also does so after screaming in your face for almost its entire length, so it feels more like apologetic backpedaling (right or wrong) than the end game intended from the beginning.

MVT: There is a wild amount of energy in the film. To the point of exhaustion, but it’s there.

Make or Break: The throwdown between Blondie and Snow White (a fictitious[?] band made up of little people) is truly glorious.

Score: 6.25/10

Dark Waters (1993) 14 May 2018 9:55 PM (6 years ago)

Directed by Mariano Baino
Run Time: 94 minutes

The word that's used a lot describe this movie is Lovecraftian and it does check just about every box on themes found in the works of H.P. Lovecraft. There's a creepy forgotten island, a cultish group hiding a secret, something evil and menacing just lurking out of sight, and the always necessary book of occult knowledge. However this movie has more in common with Argento's Suspiria and Inferno and Fulci's The Beyond and The House by the Cemetery than any of Lovecraft's works. As the overall feel and look of this film has more in common with a supernatural gaillo with Lovecraft elements than a film about horror and terror beyond human understanding.

The movie opens in the early 1970's with a group of nuns standing on a cliff holding crosses. These are nuns belong to the order of the artist nuns and will be found through out the film holding crosses in scenic locations. The focus of the scene is on a nun who's a fan of upside down crosses and a priest who looks like a low budget young stand in for Harvey Keitel. The nun is given a creepy mcguffin plate (like the one in the image at the top of the page) by a young girl and the priest is reading a book of forbidden lore during a violent rain storm. These actions cause a point of view killer to hunt down the nun and the priest in quite beautiful and grim ways to die. The room where the priest is in becomes flooded due to the violence of the rain storm and dies either from the point of view killer or a floating cross.

The nun, being the smarter of the two character, waits until the rain stops and then becomes point of view killer bait. Hoping that high cliffs may scare off the pov killer, the nun holds the evil mcguffin disk and shows it to the ocean. However the pov killer is a quick climber and shoves the nun off the cliff to her death.

Jump twenty years later and we are introduced to Elizabeth. A young woman who grew up on this strange island but after her mother's death left with her father to live in London. Upon her father's death she discovered that her father had been making payments to the order of the artist nuns. So Elizabeth decides to kill two cliches with one action by ignoring her father dying wish and visit the island where she was born. This sends her on the path to pull apart the mystery of the nuns and the terrible secret they hide.

On one hand this is a beautiful and dark film to watch. From the first to last frame this movie is full of memorable moving imagery. Along the lines of Salvator Rosa's Witches that are alive. Then there is the other side of this movie which is made of bullet riddled scraps of paper that masquerades as the plot. Mariano Baino clearly was inspired by Lovecraft and Argento but the narrative is all over the place. The nuns are a menacing force through out the film but it is never clear why. The point of view killer has nothing to do with the plot and just seems to be there to kill people at random. Which leads to the most unforgivable part of this movie, Lovecraft threats are at their best when they are not seen. I can't go into detail without spoiling it but this movie would have been better if the nameless evil was seen less.

That being said it is a solid rental movie and enjoyable dark gothic visual ride with a few bumps here and there.

MVT: The location and (I assume) the residents in the area were the movie was shot. It went a long way to selling feel and atmosphere.

Make or Break: The scene with Elizabeth in her bright red raincoat climbing up a rain swept stairs towards the monastery went a long way to selling me on this movie.

Score: 5.8 out of 10

Rat Man (1988) 8 May 2018 8:00 PM (6 years ago)

I was not a huge fan of the show Friends, even when it was at its most popular. Maybe it’s because I was severely inebriated much of the time it was first being shown. Maybe it’s because these characters and their lifestyle were so alien to me. Maybe it’s because the show isn’t very good. Maybe it’s a combination of a multiplicity of factors. Regardless, there was one bit they did on the show that has always stuck with me, and I still refer to it to this day. Ditzy blonde Phoebe is talking with smarmy Chandler, and she inquires why Spider-Man isn’t pronounced like Goldman, Silverman, etcetera. Chandler, astonished by this (more or less his permanent state of being throughout the series), explains that it’s “because it isn’t his last name, like Phil Spiderman. He’s a Spider…Man.” I catch myself far too often pronouncing the names of superheroes like Phoebe would, and, even though it’s not laugh out loud funny, I do find it endlessly amusing. This is possibly the elitist comic book fan in me taking a poke at people who “aren’t in the know” or maybe just taking a poke at elitist comic book fans themselves. That said, even though Peter Parker is not, in fact, part spider (I’m not as up on the character as I once was, so this may have changed), the little fella dubbed Mousey (Nelson de la Rosa, whom most people know, ironically enough, from the John Frankenheimer/Richard Stanley version of The Island of Dr. Moreau) in Giuliano Carnimeo’s (under the genius pseudonym Anthony Ascot) Rat Man (aka Quella Villa in fondo al Parco, which translates roughly to That Villa at the Bottom of the Park, which may very well be a better title or may simply be the film’s producers desperately trying to cash in on The Last House on the Left sixteen years later; leave it to the Italians to beat a dead horse into glue) most definitely is part rat. The problem is, he’s also part monkey, so, if anything, the film should have been called Rat Monkey, but I guess that just sounded more like a nature documentary than a horror film. I would rather watch that fictional documentary than either Friends or Rat Man ever again.

Crusty, sweaty Dr. Olman (Pepito Guerra) is set to unveil Mousey to the world at the next scientician conference when the little rascal makes good his escape. Next thing you know, bikini models like Marilyn (Eva Grimaldi) are being spied on and chased around, and her sister Terry (the divine Janet Agren) has to team up with perpetually-open-shirted crime writer Fred (David Warbeck) to track her down and save her.

Rat Man owes the entirety of its existence to two sources. One is the Slasher film. On top of Mousey’s natural predilection for murdering people thither and yon accompanied by copious amounts of blood, Carnimeo delights in two types of Slasher-esque shot whenever Mousey is around (which is constantly; this little fucker is more ubiquitous than air). The first is the classic point of view shot, and, of course, it’s from Mousey’s perspective. The thing of it is, these POV shots are overused, so they are not nearly as effective as they could be. Every now and then, it might be nice to build a little tension by not signaling to the audience that the tiny terror is lurking just out of sight. The second type of shot which is repeated early and often is the extreme closeup. There are multiple cutaways to a detail of Mousey’s dark, little eyeball. Later, there are closeups of his fangs and claws as he attacks. These shots, in my opinion, work better than the flood of POV shots, but even these wear out their welcome and detract from what the audience wants to see, namely, the “critter from the shitter” (that’s part of one of the film’s taglines, and he does, indeed, crawl out of a toilet at one point in the movie) gnawing away at young, pink flesh and innards for minutes on end.

The other major influence on this movie, as you may have guessed, is H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau. To be more precise, Carnimeo and company ignored the anti-vivisection angle of the novel, focusing on the juicier aspects. For example, Mousey is a combination of animals in humanoid form. Dr. Olman walks around in a Panama suit, was shunned by the scientific community for his activities, and cares more about proving the value of his work (the purpose of his experiments is never explained to us) than he does for any living thing. Olman has a loyal assistant, Tonio, who fills the Montgomery role, though far more incompetently. Marilyn and skanky photographer Mark (Werner Pochath) come to be at Olman’s villa because of a car wreck instead of a shipwreck, but the effect is the same. Mousey revolts against Olman and causes havoc on the villa and its occupants, and this is the heart of what the film is in its entirety. It’s little more than a drawn out, constant stream of “animal” attacks, none of which are suspenseful, and none of which are all that satisfying in the gore department, either. Why Fred and Terry are in the film at all is mindboggling, since all they do is tool around looking vaguely inquisitive, are flat as a pancake character-wise, and serve no narrative function whatsoever other than to facilitate the indifferently obvious “twist” ending (though, I’ll be honest, I could stare at Agren all day, every day).

I’ve read in several places how this film is supposed to be a sleazy piece of trash. I can verify the latter half of that statement, but the sleazy part has me confused. There’s some nudity from Grimaldi, there’s some shitty gore (including a skull sitting in a puddle of what looks like Ragu spaghetti sauce), and Mousey himself certainly appears greasy as all hell. But outside of that, Rat Man is tame stuff. Worse than that, it is hardly a movie, as it doesn’t attempt to develop a story in any way. It’s a very simple idea that, instead of doing anything interesting with, the filmmakers simply padded out with somnolent sequences that don’t go anywhere. Mousey may be a critter, but perhaps he and this film would have been better off left in the shitter.

MVT: I want to give it to Janet Agren, just for being Janet Agren, but I’m going to have to go full-pig and give it to Grimaldi for stripping down and showing off her appreciable assets.

Make or Break: Probably around the third or fourth time Carnimeo cut back to Terry and Fred driving around in the dark, as if they’re going to find anything remotely interesting in what is the ultimate in cinematic blue balls.

Score: 4.5/10

Curse of the Dog God (1977) 1 May 2018 8:00 PM (6 years ago)

I don’t know much about Folk Horror other than that, whenever it’s brought up, most people simply point meaningfully to Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, and their audience nod their heads in enlightened agreement. And fair play, because that is the ne plus ultra of the subgenre. From what I understand, Folk Horror is rooted firmly in European traditions, but, when I look at something like Shunya Ito’s Curse of the Dog God (aka Inugami no Tatari), I have to wonder why films from other cultures can’t be included? Maybe they are, and I’m simply ignorant of the fact, but a lot of Asian Horror that involves itself with the supernatural tends toward the struggle between modernity and tradition. Perhaps proper Folk Horror’s ties to religious themes is the key, since they specialize in Christian/Pre-Christian ideologies in conflict, and Christianity isn’t the religion that most think of when they think of Asia. Even in Ito’s film, the only religion represented is Shinto, but the eponymous Dog God is an ancient, rural force taking revenge on a man who is contemporary and interested in exploiting a small village for its Uranium deposits (that is, something which brings more modernity, both good and bad). Still, this man, Kano (Shinya Ohwada), quickly embraces the concept of the Dog God and the old methods employed to try exorcising it. Also, there is no ancient sect at the heart of the plot, just some paranoid, superstitious farmers (who happen to be half-right). With that in mind, I can’t say that the film is Folk Horror by definition, but it is in spirit, at least to some degree. But, hey, I could be wrong.

Kano and his co-workers race around the countryside looking for Uranium to refine. On their way to the village of Kugamura, they pull a trifecta of transgressions. First, they spy on a pair of maidens skinny-dipping (this is really the most innocent of the three, though the women play a crucial part in the remainder of the story). Then, they run over a shrine (guess who it’s devoted to). Then, they run over a young boy’s dog, and then they split. No amount of business success is going to save these guys at this point.

Outside of the Folk Horror shadings, Curse of the Dog God is a story of supernatural revenge that stems from several sources. First, it is pure vengeance, as the outsiders take advantage of the villagers and their land. Granted, the villagers are paid for their property, but the fact that this company rolls in and starts digging in the mountains, despoiling its natural purity is important. Kano marries Reiko (Jun Izumi), daughter of one of the men whose land Kano wants to lease. Despite Reiko and Kano’s statements that they are genuinely in love, it still feels exploitive, or maybe it was at first, but true love developed (we’re never shown this progression, so we have to fill in some blanks). Therefore, on the one hand, the Dog God is attacking to protect its home turf and for the disrespect it has been shown by these outsiders. On the other hand, there is the angle of human love and jealousy. The Dog God, apparently, does not invoke itself but rather is invoked through someone else in a Pumpkinhead sort of way. The person accused of this is Kaori (Emiko Yamauchi), Reiko’s longtime friend and daughter of a farmer who refused to lease his part of the mountain to Kano and his cohorts. Kaori also loves Kano, and since she didn’t win his favor (because her dad didn’t acquiesce to Kano’s business dealings, most likely), she wants to remove the competition.

Yet, even this doesn’t completely explain the mechanics of this sinister force. In fact, it’s never entirely discernible exactly what, who, or why the Dog God is what it is or does what it does. There is no exposition clearly detailing what the Dog God wants, what will sate its appetites, or why it chooses whom it does to possess. It is nebulous and fickle, like the natural world from which it springs. The one thing it definitely desires is the destruction of Kano and anyone in contact with him. Even when Kano makes a strong connection with the village and becomes genuinely concerned for the welfare of its inhabitants, he is still a target. Kano becomes the redemptive hero once certain events and facts come to light, but the Dog God truly doesn’t care. This encompasses a level of innocence corrupted, not only of the land but of its people. Young Isamu’s (Junya Kato) innocence dies with his dog, Taro. The boy is bent on making Kano’s life miserable, going so far as to pelt him in the face with a rock at Kano’s wedding. The villagers themselves become corrupted, physically by the byproduct of the Uranium mining and spiritually by the superstitions to which they cling. The turmoil of their traditions vying with their more mercenary desire for money and what this allows into the village breaks them down. They do not accept that their choices caused any catastrophes they experience. It has to be caused by the Dog God, so the obvious thing to do is attack the only family in the village who didn’t join in selling out, and that would be Kaori and Isamu’s. Interestingly, their family were outsiders before any of this happened. When things go tits up, they are only further ostracized and persecuted. Finally, there is Mako (Masami Hasegawa), Reiko’s younger sister. She is friends with Isamu, and she alone tries to bridge the gap between the oddball family and the rest of the village. Nevertheless, there is a secret in her own family that marks her as corruptible as well, and the Dog God is, if nothing else, an equal opportunity defiler.

Ito brings a nice sense of style to the proceedings, just as he did to no less than three of the famous Female Prisoner Scorpion films, including the arguable best of the bunch: Jailhouse 41. There are Dutch Angles galore, and Ito does some truly haunting things with lighting throughout the film. My main problems are twofold. First and foremost is the point that none of the characters are interesting, with the exception of Mako. Confoundingly, she also gets the least development and/or attention paid to her until the very end, but by that point, anything that happens to her feels like it’s brought about simply because she’s one of the last characters in the film. Kano is a slab, and both Reiko and Kaori’s fawning over him is inexplicable, even moreso since we have seen none of how their relationships grew to start off. There’s no real reason for the audience to care about them. Additionally, is the fact that the Dog God appears to play by a set of rules we are not only not privy to but that change at a moment’s notice just because. While this part of the whole setup, it makes for some chaotic viewing. Thus, Curse of the Dog God is mildly intriguing for how different it is, but this is also the same reason it just doesn’t succeed like it should.

MVT: Ito’s professionalism and devotion to his craft shines through.

Make or Break: The big finale plays it as straight as the film ever will, and this part, at least, works like gangbusters.

Score: 6.5/10

Sodoma's Ghost (1988) 24 Apr 2018 8:00 PM (6 years ago)

Nazis make the perfect monsters. Steven Spielberg has often said this is the reason why he used them more than once in his Indiana Jones films. They are the embodiment of cruelty, of hatred, of everything that normal, decent people are against. Further, they allow for a higher (or lower, perspective depending) level of transgression in narratives. After all, these are people who tortured and murdered millions of human beings for nothing more than the circumstance of their birth. Depicting the fictitious shenanigans they can get up to feels somehow grimier while also being far easier to believe because of this.

Sure, there are films which gave their Nazi characters some nuance, tried to make them, if not sympathetic, then at least more well-rounded. But Nazis function best when they are pure villains. Pairing them together with attributes of actual monsters just makes them more intriguing. This is why films like Shock Waves or Hellboy or Outpost work as well as they do (to whatever degree). This is not to say that they always work. There are enough Nazi Monster movies that fall flat to make this sub-genre a truly mixed bag (See Oasis of the Zombies, if you doubt). It’s rather surprising, considering Italy’s rich tradition of Nazisploitation films that they didn’t churn out more of them that added in supernatural components. But if Lucio Fulci’s Sodoma’s Ghost (aka The Ghosts of Sodom aka Il Fantasma di Sodoma) is any stick by which to measure, maybe that’s for the best.

Six teen jerks (let’s assume they’re American for the sake of convenience) dick around in the French countryside until they wind up at an old villa. Holing up there for the night, they soon find more than a few surprises waiting for them, not least of which is the fact that the manse played host to an ill-fated Nazi orgy forty-five years earlier. And the revelers still want to party.

Roger Ebert’s film glossary defines the Dead Teenager Movie as “a generic term for any film primarily concerned with killing teenagers, without regard for logic, plot, performance, humor, etcetera.” Part of the genius of the Dead Teenager Movie is that (when done right) it makes us want these kids dead. We watch for the kills. This is why the virginal female character is typically the Final Girl. She is virtuous, nice, even bland, but she is worth more to the human race than the remainder of the characters surrounding her. The rule of thumb with this sort of film is that, if characters do drugs or have sex, they are marked for death. I could see going one step further (or maybe just putting a little shading on it). The reason these kids are lined up for death stems from their sense of entitlement. The majority of times, these are people who behave like the world owes them something, and, goddammit, they’re gonna take it all. This is why they indulge their every whim like they do. They don’t care, because they deserve to be allowed to be reckless (the converse argument can be made that this recklessness is from the natural maturation process, and their slaughter is a stymieing of this, a way for youth to be kept in check, but I like my theory more). With this in mind, the Ugly Americans of this film break into a house they were not invited into, because they are due a roof over their heads rather than having to rough it for their bad decisions. They eat food and drink wine that doesn’t belong to them, because it’s available, not because they earned it or even plan to pay for it. They make themselves at home and snoop through the entirety of the estate, because they have no regard for other people’s stuff. They are takers. This is much like the Nazis and their orgy. The Nazis took advantage of every vice they could get their grubby, little dick-beaters on because they were “The Master Race.” They were entitled to it. Both the Nazis and the teenagers in the film are punished for hubristic narcissism far more than for acting on their baser impulses.

It’s well-known that the Nazis had a penchant for documenting, in gruesome detail, all of their atrocities. This translates into Fulci’s film in two ways. During the prologue, young, rat-stache-having Nazi, Willy (Robert Egon), stumbles around the party with a film camera, gleefully recording everything around him. At several points, he aims his camera in direct address to the audience, as if he were filming us. We are partakers in the orgy. We are enjoying the flesh, sweat, and depravity as much as the Germans, because this is a part of why we are watching this movie in the first place. Willy’s film is (magically?) developed and screened for the participants (I assumed that same evening, since there’s no separation of time, direct or indirect). They watch the things we also watched, while we were also being watched. Moreover, the teenagers that infest the house also engage in this act of looking and self-reflexivity. As they are separated and “attacked,” each is shown a mirror through which they see their innermost desires and/or selves revealed while being watched by what’s on the other side (the fact that this is done via mirror goes to my point about narcissism, though far more overtly in this case). Mark (Joseph Alan Johnson) is horny and inebriated, so he sees a naked woman enticing him to the point that he plays Russian Roulette to get her. Anne (Teresa Razzaudi) sees Willy and is seduced by the promise of rough sex she would never tell anyone she secretly wants. Predatory lesbian Maria (Luciana Ottaviani aka Jessica Moore) sees her heart’s desire, Anne, getting hot and heavy with Celine (Maria Concetta Salieri), causing a fit of jealous rage. Everyone in Sodoma’s Ghost, including the viewer is watching and being watched, partaker and partaken.

Anyone who hears the name Lucio Fulci in association with this movie might get a little excited to check out one of his lesser known works. Don’t be. This film is a mess from front to back, technically, stylistically, and logically (I realize few people watch Fulci’s films for their logic, but the best of them have some internal sense of it that they follow to some extent or another). The use of handheld camera is out of control and sloppy, even when it’s motivated. The editing is disjointed (the best example of this is a sexual rendezvous between two characters that ends abruptly and is followed by a scene where one of the characters despairs that his sex partner turned into a monster, which we are deprived of seeing entirely; I get that there was no budget for this thing, but come on). Outside of the grating characters, the shit dialogue, the turgid melodrama, the plank-like acting, is the ultimate discovery that there is absolutely nothing threatening about anything that happens (with one exception), and these grabassers just spent eighty-four very long minutes of YOUR life learning diddly-shit other than that they should just continue with their tour of France as if all of this never happened. I guarantee you, if you watch Sodoma’s Ghost, you’ll wish you could continue with your life as if it never happened, as well.

MVT: It’s the obvious co-winners of the copious female nudity and some decent gross-out effects.

Make or Break: The finale and denouement are just infuriatingly unsatisfying.

Score: 2/10

Death Before Dishonor (1987) 17 Apr 2018 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

There is no way in Hell I can talk about Terry Leonard’s Death Before Dishonor without discussing the greatness that is Stephen J Cannell’s Hunter (I know, so jejune, right?). Back when cop/private dick shows were fun, more than a little exploitive, and downright formulaic, Hunter hit an eleven-year-old me right in the kisser. The true beauty of the show (outside of Cannell’s stylistic thumbprints) was the dual charm of its leads. Stepfanie (I still can’t get used to that spelling of her name) Kramer was fiery brunette Dee Dee McCall who launched a thousand pubescent you-know-whats. She was equal parts feminine and steely, sexy and flinty. To this day, she is one of my all-time favorite female cop leads, and not simply because of her sex appeal (Mitzi Kapture, I’m also looking at you). Of course, as befits this specific review, the other half of this dynamic duo was Fred Dryer as Detective Rick Hunter. The character is a total Clint Eastwood/Dirty Harry pastiche, but Hunter had a bigger heart and even, perish the thought, just a bit more charisma than Callahan. Dryer, a former defensive end in the NFL, had a gruff but endearing (apologies for the cliché) magnetism that translated well to the screen. I watched this show religiously, something I couldn’t say about Cannell programs like Riptide or Hardcastle & McCormick (though I definitely could for Stingray, 21 Jump Street, and Wiseguy). Hunter had some harsh storylines, and the characters got put through their paces. The episode I loved the most was “Dead or Alive,” which starred Wings Hauser as a cowboy-outfitted bounty hunter with a nasty streak wider than Hunter and McCall’s combined. I recall it distinctly because it may very well have been the first time I saw a “good guy” kill a villain on a television show (I may be misremembering this, but I don’t believe so, otherwise it may not have been as impactful). I’m truly surprised that Dryer’s acting career never really took off like some of his contemporaries (maybe he came into the action genre just a little too late, who knows?), though films like this one give plenty of evidence that even an actor as likable as Dryer can only raise some material up to a certain level.

Dryer plays the gruff but endearing (I am going to run this motherfucker into the ground now) Gunnery Sergeant Burns, an old Devil Dog trying to teach his young pups some new tricks. Burns is picked by his mentor Colonel Halloran (Brian Keith) to lead his security detail in the (fictitious) Middle Eastern country of Jemal, where they run afoul of “Freedom Fighter” Abu Jihad (Rockne Tarkington, Black Samson himself) and his army of terrorists.

These types of action setups can be tricky to pull off. Burns is a career SNCO (Staff Non-Commissioned Officer), and this doesn’t naturally lend itself to a film that needs to be cartoonish for the sake of the genre’s fans. What this means is that Burns will have to go rogue at some point, all the more to satisfy the audience, but the script seems to not want to let him go full Rambo/Braddock/etcetera. The filmmakers eventually let him cut loose, but he is, always and forever, a starched shirt (one could argue that this is an example of how “We” are superior to “They”). The sort of antagonist in the picture also needs some distinction, because terrorists tend to be faceless masses until they distinguish themselves individually. While the caricature-esque Jihad (literally “Holy War”) provides a nice physical threat for the towering Dryer, the true villains of the piece, the spotlight hogs, are the Teutonic Maude Winter (Kasey Walker) and Gavril (Mohammad Bakri). Both are icy in demeanor, reptilian in their methods, and as hand-wringingly arch as Snidely Whiplash ever was. Nothing that comes out of their mouths isn’t laced with menace. They have a purpose. They believe in what they do. But they are also totally mercenary about it. Of the two, the real attractant (sort of like Dee Dee McCall, minus any nuance) is Winter, with her pixie haircut, leather jacket, and oh-so-suggestively holstered pack of smokes. The instant she shows up in the film, you want to know more about her. Needless to say, we’re not given much more than superficial flourishes, but, I will admit, that was enough for me here. I would strenuously argue that the characters of Simon Gruber and Katya in John McTiernan’s Die Hard with a Vengeance are taken directly from Death Before Dishonor’s contemptible couple but given far more shading. Regardless, in juxtaposition to Gavril and Winter, how could our True-Blue heroes possibly measure up?

Movies of this ilk can be seen as jingoistic, or they can be seen as simply a sign of their time and enjoyed on their generic merits. Or both. The protagonists and antagonists are depicted as zealots on both sides. The difference lies in their cause. Burns and his men are about brotherhood, even more than they are about a love of their country. During training for the newest recruits, the young men are hazed by chugging helmets full of beer. They are then inducted as Brothers of the Golden Wing. Dryer takes a golden pair of Force Recon wings and jams the pins directly into the newbies’ chests. Then each soldier in the platoon takes a turn punching the wings until crimson blots their tee shirts. These men are now united as brothers-in-arms, baptized in blood. They stand up for each other, and their deaths mean something to their fellow Marines. They have earned respect. Jihad and company are religious fanatics, and this is easily comparable to patriotism. However, the filmmakers clearly place the former over the latter in terms of nobility. The terrorists also haze their recruits. Young jihadi Amin (Daniel Chodos) is held in a headlock during a bomb training exercise, watching in terror as the lit fuse burns down. Unlike the Americans’ hazing, this is no fun. The contradistinction is further illumined in a couple of interrogation scenes. In the first, Amin is intimidated (dare I say terrorized?) by Burns. You can see he has been roughed up a little, but he’s far from crippled. There is no music in this sequence. In the second, Sergeant Ramirez (Joseph Gian) has had the living crap kicked out of him by the terrorists. He is bloody, brutalized, and the score looms ominously. We’re meant to give a shit about Ramirez. Amin is just a gormless youth. Further to this is the idea of sacrifice, again shown by these two characters. Both give their lives for their beliefs, but Amin’s is senseless, destructive, and the boy has been manipulated through his convictions into this fate. Ramirez’s sacrifice is in service of his superior officer, his country, and his brothers. It is honorable, and it is his choice, made with eyes wide open. It is obvious which of these has the moral high ground in the film.

Leonard, being primarily a stunt man (this is his only directing credit), naturally handles the action in the film very well. The big car chase, admittedly, is standard, but just about everything else is gratifying enough. The script by John Gatliff (this is his only screenwriting credit) puts forth a nice amount of effort, and there are a couple of reveals that twist nicely. But the film’s biggest detriment is the general banality of its protagonists. Granted, they are meant to identify to a certain segment, but they are dry, even when they strain halfheartedly to be colorful. While hardly a standout of the action genre from any decade, Death Before Dishonor certainly can’t be called dishonorable. More like undistinguished.

MVT: As much as I like Dryer, I have to give it to Leonard and his able-bodied handling of a mostly solid action film.

Make or Break: The finale cuts loose just enough and finishes with a moment that almost lives up to the promise of its premise.

Score: 6.75/10

Burning Paradise (1994) 10 Apr 2018 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

As God is my witness, it had nothing to do with Ed Kowalczyk. The erstwhile singer for Live used to have a largely shaved head with a long, braided ponytail. This was something I wanted to do with my hair. This was also back when I was initially going bald and fought tooth and nail against this by growing what hair I had long (I’m slightly ashamed to say that, yes, Virginia, there was a skullet). I wanted to just have a small patch of hair growing from the back of my head and a wicked long tail forming from it. The difference between Mr. Kowalczyk and myself (I assume) is that I was inspired by a lifelong love of martial arts films. It was to the point that I actually wanted to dye this thing white like the great, old, cinematic Kung Fu masters of old (the better to toss over my shoulder and cackle malevolently). Thing is, not only was I going bald (something I swiftly learned to accept and let go of fairly gracefully), but what hair I had was insanely curly, so, no matter what length I grew my tresses out to, they wound up being about down to my shoulder once the follicles dried after a shower. This was in no way like my idiotic attempt to mimic Kurt Harland of Information Society’s locks (a tale I told in a previous review; track it down, if you dare). This was more like…I hesitate to use the word “serendipity.” More like dumb luck or shitty coincidence. Either way, every single time I watch a film like Ringo Lam’s Burning Paradise (aka Huo Shao Hong Lian Si aka Destruction of the Red Lotus Temple aka Rape of the Red Temple), I’m reminded of this ignoble chapter of my life. Thank Christ, I went completely bald before I was able to get this thing off the ground (but, sadly, before bald was considered sexy).

Burning Paradise is yet another in the long list of films about the legendary Wuxia hero Fong Sai Yuk (here played by Willie Chi). He and his Shaolin brothers oppose the vicious Manchus, and, while escaping from their clutches, he and his elder Chi-Nun (Kuei Li) meet the lovely Tou-Tou (Carman Lee). Needless to say, the Manchus clutches are, in fact, inescapable, and our protagonists find themselves prisoners of the reptilian Lord Kung (Kam-Kong Wong), warden of the Red Lotus Temple. Much martial arts mayhem ensues.

I am in no way an expert on the character of Fong Sai Yuk, and, frankly, I simply don’t have the time to correct this. I do know that he is an extremely popular character (I’m still confused whether or not he was an actual person, but that’s neither here nor there when discussing films like this one). The picture’s scenario is one we’ve seen many times before. Fong is young, highly skilled, and a staunch opponent of a totalitarian government. This is nothing new in the Wuxia genre. Truly, a great many movies from a great many countries center on this type of struggle. The two cinematic genres that best capture this conflict, to my mind, are martial arts films and science fiction films. This is because it is more palatable to a mass audience to augment the totalitarianism on display to encompass wild flights of fantasy. It entertains while making a point, one that needs no true reinforcement since most people empathize, on some level, with the notion that their own government is not on their side. Or worse, they are apathetic to the common folks’ plight (as people love to wryly exclaim, it can never happen here, right?). What Lam and company do with this movie, and this is something that one could argue that the vast majority of martial arts films do, is play with elements of the western. It is set in the desert. The house at the beginning of the film is straight out of the American Southwest (I kept thinking of Stagecoach and The Wild Bunch whenever it was on screen). The characters are more hands-on versions of gunfighters, their skills being continually challenged until a final duel settles all scores. The heroes come into a situation where they are required to free a “town” (okay, here a prison full of Shaolin devotees) from a gang of “outlaws” (here an entire government; the major difference between the two genres being this dichotomy). The heroes are attempting to civilize a savage land (here through their Shaolin beliefs and practices). The dynamics are essentially the same despite the divergences in the details. I would argue that Lam understood this connection, because he not only embraces it but also borrows (as just about every filmmaker in existence has, consciously or unconsciously; just ask Orson Welles) from the visual vocabulary of John Ford. Burning Paradise is littered with frames within frames, and there is even a direct reference to Ford’s famous doorway shot from The Searchers. This, layered on top of some classic Hong Kong action stylings helps push this film into the top tier of the genre, in my opinion.

The film also centers heavily on the idea of passions. Fong is passionate about his fight against the Manchus. He is passionate about how he finds his Shaolin brother Hong (Yamson Domingo) in the temple prison. He is passionate about Tou-Tou, and not just physically. Similarly, characters like Boroke (Chun Lam), Kung’s right hand, have passions outside the martial world. She craves the touch of a man, allowing her feelings to sway her professional decisions. Tou-Tou is a former brothel worker, a place where passion is rented, yet she cares enough about Fong to sacrifice her freedom for him. The setting for the film is a metaphor for Hell, its inhabitants working constantly at blazing forges, shaping weapons for their enemies to use against the prisoners’ friends and families. Perhaps the most significant symbol of passion is the villain Kung. In public, he is aloof, can’t be bothered with these gnats that pester him so. In private is another matter. When he goes to Tou-Tou for the first time, he wants her to resist, to fight back, to give him some sense that he’s still alive. His bigger passion, however, is art. He paints throughout the film, dark, ominous images, reflective of his soul. He even incorporates art into his Kung Fu style, using paper like flying daggers and paint droplets like bullets.

Burning Paradise is as kinetic, inventive, and awe-inspiring as any Hong Kong action film I can think of (perhaps even moreso than many). Lam marries the darker elements (and there are some pretty dark elements in this thing) with fast-moving action with bouts of gore with some great humor beats (that are refreshingly un-cringeworthy and mesh nicely into the rhythm). It does all of this while giving its characters some depth and compelling us to want to follow the villains as much as the heroes.

MVT: Lam’s near-flawless union of the variegated components.

Make or Break: The bedroom scene between Kung and Tou-Tou is simultaneously scary, insightful, and melancholy.

Score: 8/10

The Stick (1988) 3 Apr 2018 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

So, today, in a fit of ridiculous candor, I've decided to tell you all about a dream I had recently. I never remember my dreams, so this is, indeed, as rare as hen's teeth. Anyway, it went a little something like this. I just moved somewhere new with my family. It was somewhere sort of desert-y, maybe Arizona or somewhere in California (why I would move there is beyond me; nothing against the denizens of California, but it just ain't for me). The apartment building we moved into was somewhat rundown, in a seedy area, but the apartment itself was like a one story, austere, white adobe kind of house on the inside, with windows soldered together like stained glass that leak like sieves in the rain. Some young woman was there, a friend of a family member, and she was very flirty. Nothing, naturally, came of this (it so rarely does in my dreams, boo hoo).

Next thing I know, I'm coming home from being out somewhere, and I passed by an apartment with an old school stereo setup playing some decent music (garage style stuff I’ve never heard before) outside it. The door was open, so I wandered in to tell the owner I liked the music. Inside the apartment was like some ancient, independent publishing outfit (and by that, I mean it was like a closet with files, and folders, and papers stacked everywhere). As I talked to this guy (did I mention I almost never dream about people I know?), the apartment became a small bar (not much larger than the original closet apartment). It had a nice atmosphere, and the people filtering through were interesting. I guess you could call them hipsters, though they felt earnest to me. So, the actual owner of the bar/apartment (not the same guy I initially met) comes around, and he's very Eye-Talian and very wacky. He brandishes a knife at me, but it's more absent-minded, not menacing. He says some crap about finding myself or somesuch and throws a bunch of disparate toys on the bar for me to "assemble" like some 3-D Psych test. I do something or other with the toys, and the owner gets elated. He offered me a job. As the day turns to night, some Mario-Adorf-ian fella comes in saying everyone at home is waiting for me. And then I woke up. Make of that what you will, but it's a bit like the semi-dreamy atmosphere of Darrell Roodt's The Stick, a film as ethereal as it is politically barbed (by the way, not that I’m saying my dream was political in any way).

The film takes the perspective of Cooper (Greg Latter), a soldier in apartheid-torn South Africa. He's the sole survivor of a surprise attack by native rebels painted (or are they?) white like ghosts. He's sent back out with another stick (read: squad) on a search and destroy mission. But Cooper and his new team are in for some unpleasant surprises from within and without.

The Stick is as much a Vietnam film as it is an anti-apartheid film as it is a fantasy film. The first two of these go hand-in-hand. Naturally, Vietnam was not a race war, per se, but some of the soldiers in it did allow their bigotry to get the better of them. It was a hopeless conflict against an enemy that didn’t “play by the rules.” Now, I completely admit my ignorance of the exact intricacies of apartheid other than that it was an odious practice better off dead. I know there were uprisings, but this film posits an outright war that has lingered far too long, its soldiers dead inside, disillusioned and desperate for escape from the grind of senseless killing for a future full of nothing. This is reflected in Cooper and his antithesis, the unhinged O'Grady (Sean Taylor), a soldier whom the war has defeated but wrongly believes that he still has some control. He displays this by being insubordinate and bloodthirsty. He fronts that he's a cold killing machine (and partly he is), but his actions clearly derive from fear and exhaustion of a world that is insane and drives those who partake in to insanity. He joins in the senseless slaughter of women and children, but he holds Cooper to blame for the frightened killing of the local Witch Doctor (Winston Ntshona). O’Grady tries to abrogate his complicity in the events that now haunt and threaten him by putting it on someone else for the killing of this very special villager. The soldiers are picked off by the spirits of those they persecuted and executed. Even though Cooper did kill the Witch Doctor, he himself is left alive, not once but twice, to bear witness to the madness this world has become as well as to exist under the burdensome nightmares hands like his have conjured.

Roodt's direction is sharp. He orchestrates the film's action dynamically, and his compositions encompass the grandeur of the locales, isolating the soldiers against the backdrops, making them small and petty. One could argue he overdoes the crane shots, but it's for a purpose. It symbolizes the ghosts of South Africa omnisciently bearing down on those who attack it. The director also does an exemplary job of balancing the war and supernatural elements. It never throws the audience into pure fantasy. There's almost always a possible explanation for what's going on. But by depriving the viewer of that explanation, at least partially, he strengthens the power they have. Much of the film is a bit too predictable to fully elevate it beyond very good. But it's message is strong and delivered with enough violence and action to make the bitter pill go down a little smoother. It's just a damn shame it's something that needs to be said at all.

MVT: Roodt's direction is strong and sure-handed.

Make or Break: The opening ambush gives you a taste of everything the film has in store.

Score: 7/10

John Dies At The End (2012) 31 Mar 2018 8:31 AM (7 years ago)

Directed by Don Coscarelli
Run time: 99 minutes

This movie came about because of a love of the Phantasm movie franchise and a love of zombie novels. David Wong (real name Jason Pargin ) is the author of John Dies at the End and a massive fan of the Phantasm movies. According to the forward Don Coscarelli wrote for John Dies at the End, his favorite guilty pleasure is reading zombie novels.When an online book retailer suggested that Don Coscarelli would like to read a book with meat demons, parasites with plans of planetary domination, weird parallel dimensions, bratwurst cellphone, and a street drug called soy sauce that gives the user all kinds of weird abilities. Leading Coscarelli to buy the book, devour the book, and turn the book into a weird fun film.

Like the book, the movie opens with the riddle of the universe. The riddle is this, the guy who you shot a few months ago comes back and kicks your door in. You grab the ax purchased and take the guy out again. In the process of defending yourself you break the handle and have to go back to the store with a bullshit story about the blood stains on the handle. Armed with a fixed ax you go home to find an inter-dimensional slug thing in your kitchen. Taking your ax you proceed to kill the thing and notch the head on your kitchen table. So back to the store, another bullshit story, and a new ax head. Returning home you find the guy you killed twice back again, his sewn back on with hedge trimmer wire, and looking for a rematch. He also is looking at you like your the guy who killed and that is the ax that did the job. Is he right, is that the same ax that killed him?

The story is centered around John and Dave. Two college drop outs that after being exposed to the drug soy sauce have been chosen to be defenders of Earth and Earths in parallel dimensions. With the aid of Marconi (Clancy Brown), a infomercial guru with supernatural powers, these two screw ups go on a strange adventure to save Earth from a bizarre invasion. The reason for this invasion sis the drug soy sauce. Aside from giving people strange supernatural powers, it's alive, and can act as a gateway for creatures to go from one reality to the next. Because of this a parasite with track record of destroying worlds and our slackers are the only ones destined to somehow step up and be the big damn heroes.

Overall this is a fun but incredibly strange movie. There are some issues with the movie because of the off the wall insanity. Best example of this is Dave uses soy sauce to go back in time to prevent his own murder. It is insanely clever use of time travel but part way through his time travel trip Dave ends up in some post apocalyptic nightmare for no reason. Other than that, the film has sold preferences by it's cast. There is a cameo by Phantasm's own Tall Man Angus Scrimm as the last priest you would want to talk to on a exorcism hotline.

I highly recommend John Dies at the End if your a fan of crude humor, general weirdness, and bizarrely amusing horror movies. Though this is a movie review I also highly recommending the book as well.

MVT: The scene that shows how this society dealt with people who did not except this organic A.I. as their overlord. Because the historic record was too graphic for John and Dave to comprehend the society made an incredibly graphic and violent cartoon to show a graphic and bloody purge.

Make or Break: What made it for me was Dave's character arc. He grows and changes as a character but he never stops being cynical jerk.

Score: 7.5 out of 10

Project Vampire (1992) 27 Mar 2018 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

Horror and Action movies love to open in media res. That’s smart. It instantly draws the audience in with the mystery of what the hell is going on, and it gives the filmmakers some breathing space to develop their characters and stories. One of the great clichés of this type of opening is to have characters running away from someone or something, and Peter Flynn’s Project Vampire is no different. Three scientists (we know they are scientists because they all wear bright white lab coats, all the better to hide from their pursuers) jog down various streets in Los Angeles (remember, always pronounce “Angeles” with a hard “g,” like in “gator”). Invariably, these sequences end with the hunters catching up with their prey. Of these particular three, one gets killed, one escapes and becomes villainous, and one gets picked up by student nurse Sandra (Mary Louise Gemmill) and, by default, becomes the hero of the film. Wouldn’t it have been more interesting to have her rescue the one who goes bad? At any rate, the opening of this movie does enough of what it needs to do. We get a quick feel for the timbre of the film, we are introduced to most of the main players (including the cartoonishly colorful henchmen Hopper [Kelvin Tsao] and Louie [Ray Essler], who, tragically, is not “the guy who comes in and says his catch phrase over and over again”), and we get interested enough to give the film some more time to win us over. Project Vampire could have been given a hundred years to win us over, and it still would fail miserably.

As to the plot, it involves the flagitious Dr. Frederick Klaus (Myron Natwick), an ancient vampire who has created a serum by which he can psychically control the vampires he creates. Former fellow scientist Victor (he of the white lab coat and introductory trot to freedom, played by Brian Knudson) sets out to stop him.

Science and the supernatural have gone hand-in-hand ever since Dr. Frankenstein stitched together pieces from a bunch of corpses and imbued it with life. What’s wonderful about this idea is that it has the opportunity to expand on a legend and give it a new spin, a new vantage point. That doesn’t mean modernizing hoary stuff, per se. After all, the classic Universal monster movies were set in contemporary times, but they still clung tenaciously to the old school, gothic atmosphere from which the base legends sprang. What I like is things like Event Horizon which is basically a haunted house story set on a spaceship that has a literal gateway to Hell on it. Brilliant. Project Vampire has scientific elements in it, but there’s not much thought put into them. The biggest leap this film takes is in expanding drastically on a vampire’s ability to control the minds of others. That’s fine and dandy, but it also does so with no real explanation of how this works to begin with. It doesn’t ground Klaus’ supernatural powers in the real world (even with a bunch of techno-jargon). All it does is puts Klaus in some medieval-esque piece of equipment (I immediately thought of all the old horror films where naked women are held captive in some mad scientist’s lab with straps just large enough, and strategically placed, to not show us any of their naughty bits) that makes him “vamp out.” Flynn and company, in fact, go so far as having bio-chemist Lee Fong (Christopher Cho) ask his computer, “What is a vampire’s most powerful strength?” The thuddingly stupid response is, of course, “His psychic spell. Destroy the vampire, destroy the spell.” In terms of scientific breakthroughs, this ranks up there with Timmy Spudwell’s vinegar-and-baking-soda volcano experiments and Amanda Hugginkiss’ famous potato clock revolution. Naturally, films like this don’t need to use real, hard scientific data to back up their ideas, but they do need to be convincing with what they serve up. Project Vampire is simply dumb and confusing. I re-watched segments of this film multiple times to try and make sense of what these people were saying, and all I did was further bewilder myself. Would I have been more forgiving if this were a Eurohorror film, where I expect idiocy in its rationales? Possibly, but I would have been no less nonplussed.

One of the more intriguing things this film gets up to and almost develops satisfyingly is its idea of eternal life and addiction. This stems, primarily, from the core of the vampire mythos. It’s not just that they need blood to survive. They crave it. It both enflames their passions and sates them. Their fangs, like, say, hypodermic needles, pierce the veins of their victims. Their victims, then, become like junkies, lusting for the return of those teeth to their skin, chasing the proverbial dragon. Tom (Christopher Wolf) goes to a pal’s party, specifically looking for a blood meal. He finds one in a woman he drags into the bathroom and begins to make out with before putting the bite on her. Alongside the obvious sexual angle, I found myself thinking (perhaps in a severe bout of thematic overreach) of people sneaking off to go snort some coke. In this scenario, Tom’s victim would be the coke. In the film, it’s intimated that Lee used to make drugs for wealthy clients (I may have imagined this; so much of this film is nebulous even when it’s being blunt as fuck). Klaus provides his Project Alpha serum to the wealthy elite who want eternal life, which is injected. The price of this lifespan is their thrall to Klaus and his drug, especially once Klaus chooses to exert his psychic abilities over them. Klaus is the pusher, long life is the drug, loss of identity is the come down/price of addiction.

Even in trash cinema, there should be something to not make you want to take a nap. The thing which comes possibly closest to that herein is the henchmen, Hopper and Louie. Louie is the Renfield character. He limps, wears an eyepatch and a white-on-black suit, and grovels ceaselessly. Hopper is a bald chunk of meat with a sadistic streak, a Kurgan who burns in the sun’s rays. Their old married couple routine is almost entertaining. Otherwise, the film’s leads have absolutely zero chemistry (see what I did there?). Klaus and his mistress Heidi (Paula Randol-Smith) are as threatening as a comfy chair. Lee has one of the worst “Oriental” accents ever put to film. The script is terrible, muddled, and rote. There isn’t nearly enough action, tits, or gore to paper over the film’s flaws. It is painful to watch, not just in experience but in cinematography. It looks bad. I can see now who the filmmakers were targeting this film toward, because you would clearly need to be on a ton of bad drugs to enjoy it.

MVT: Hopper is just an oddball.

Make or Break: There’s a decent burn stunt at the film’s climax. Credit where it’s due.

Score: 3/10

Something Creeping in the Dark (1971) 20 Mar 2018 8:00 PM (7 years ago)

It was a dark and stormy night. Ten jerks find themselves in an old, dark house, and weird things start to occur. This is the premise for Mario Colucci’s Something Creeping in the Dark (aka Qualcosa Striscia nel Buio aka Shadows in the Dark), and this set up, if nothing else, is one of the most clichéd of the horror and mystery genres. The reason is obvious. Storms act as visual portents, bad omens of things to come. They also give dramatic tension to scenes, because the characters are usually a bit stressed from the effects of the storm (the dangers of driving, being stuck out of doors in the rain, etcetera). Maybe they bicker more than usual. Maybe they’re a bit more anxious or cranky. But, assuredly, they reveal themselves, because the strain and tumult of the tempest makes them forget their normal polite facades. The director opens this film with his characters driving through the rain, and many shots are obscured by it, keeping the viewer off kilter, never quite sure of what they are seeing while still being recognizable enough. Like the characters, the audience becomes embroiled in the restlessness of the environment in this way.

Storms also act as a means to gather a disparate group in one location and see what happens when things go south. Here, the characters wind up in the manse of the late Lady Sheila Marlowe (a clear reference to Christopher Marlowe, the author of Doctor Faustus, played in portraiture only by Loredana Nusciak), a place that looks as ornately musty yet still kind of like a medieval dungeon as any ever put to film. Rather cleverly, the film gives us an Agatha Christie-esque layout, and the expectation is that any oddities that happen will be explained away by the end as the doings of a human. It’s a classic weird pulp framework, those stories that, essentially, became the formula for every episode of Scooby Doo (and quite a few gialli). However, Colucci takes a sharp right turn and brings the actual supernatural into the mix, and the film plays both sides of the fence up until its conclusion, even while it tells us flat out that a specter is involved. This is done by the introduction of Spike (Farley Granger), a “homicidal maniac” whom Inspector Wright (Dino Fazio) has captured and is bringing to justice. This means that the characters can act out some of their darker impulses, because they have an easy scapegoat. For example, Joe (Gianni Medici), the housekeeper, threatens his girlfriend (Giulia Rovai) with murder, knowing he can lay it off on Spike, who makes a habit of escaping throughout the film. Sylvia (Lucia Bosé) fantasizes about seducing and then murdering Spike, a sharp contrast to the dull, bitter relationship she has with her husband Don (Giacomo Rossi Stuart). Basically, the storm washes away all but the innermost desires of the film’s characters.

Something Creeping in the Dark is a brooding film, filled with a sense of doom, and it contains much superficial philosophical musings on existential matters. The characters recognize their flaws, and the inescapability of their situation traps them inside themselves (in much the same way that they are trapped in the house). They are left to act out their repressions or be consumed by them (possibly both). The ghost of Lady Marlowe is the impetus for this. She passes from character to character, possesses them for a time, and either kills them or shows them up for what they are. Susan West (Mia Genberg) is the flinty assistant to Doctor Williams (Stelvio Rosi). The doctor was en route to perform an emergency surgery, something which he quickly gets over when he finds out that he won’t get there in time. Susan clearly harbors unspoken feelings for him, and Marlowe provides her the opportunity to express them. Yet, after they consummate, Susan doesn’t feel freed of her emotional constraints. She feels violated instead of satisfied, and she rejects Williams’ attempt to console her. Rather than bring them together at long last, the playing out of Susan’s desirous impulses may keep them apart forever because her agency was taken away (or was her “possession” an act she now regrets?).

The filmmakers portray Marlowe’s ghost via a high angle tracking camera (with fish eye lens) that floats down hallways, extinguishing lights as it approaches. It is an omniscient viewpoint, and Marlowe is, virtually, God (and a capricious God, at that). She toys with her playthings, enjoys making them dance for her amusement. It is also conceivable that Marlowe’s possession of various characters is her own attempt at breaking out of her purgatorial/existential prison, of finding some meaning to the spiritual torment she is in. Finding no satisfaction in this, it’s just as easy to kill her toys in a spiteful, childish lashing out against ineluctable circumstances.

The film is difficult to recommend, though I really would like to. It takes tropes and plays with them, juggling between the corporeal and the preternatural. It is loaded with style, and Colucci dives into some psychedelia, but he makes it work by anchoring it within his characters’ minds rather than as some overwrought visual display to take the audience on a “freak out.” The director also takes about a half a page from Robert Wise’s book (i.e. his direction of the superlative The Haunting), using suggestion as much as he does directness. It is entirely possible that human hands are behind the film’s nefariousness. It is entirely possible that the human hands behind the film’s nefariousness are being manipulated by a supernatural force. It is entirely possible that a malevolent spirit alone is behind the film’s nefariousness. And Colucci allows that it may be all three simultaneously. The major problem with the film is that it is both repetitive and sluggish. Spike makes off into the nearby woods and has it out with the cops not once, but twice. The Spike character is also, in my opinion, underutilized, considering his potential (and Granger’s talent; he does give his all here). When the characters aren’t standing in the living room talking circularly or shooting barbs at one another, they are in their individual rooms talking circularly or shooting barbs at one another. Interesting ideas are brought up and then left floating, and the climax is both predictable and a bit silly in its aftermath. Something Creeping in the Dark is a film worth seeing (I finally made up my mind), though maybe not on a dark and stormy night, because you may fall asleep during it.

MVT: Colucci brings a thoughtful sense to his direction.

Make or Break: The séance scene is tense and creepy, while being distinctly Italian and a little goofy.

Score: 6.5/10

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