In case you thought that Manos: The Hands Of Fate had a monopoly on pointless driving scenes, well, think again.
Panic (aka Bakterion)
Grade: D-
"Dreadful actors, don't you agree?" says the dashing Captain Kirk -- wait, Captain Kirk?! -- to his cohort. And perhaps we're inclined to agree as well, but the real problem is the direction. Or is it the plot? Which is: lab accident, dangerous pathogen, brilliant scientist becomes monster, attacks residents of small and unusually swarthy "English" village, blah blah blah and you know the rest.
(Oh, and there's a mutant rodent who shows up once and then disappears, muttering something about April not cutting him any slack, either.)
Except that we don't know the rest, actually, because it doesn't make any damn sense. If the pathogen's so virulent that the military wants to nuke the village, why doesn't anyone else come down with it? Meanwhile, Captain Kirk's package grows ever-larger, the town drunk provides some monsteriffic amusement, and the Academy Award for Best Make-Up was never even a possibility. Unmemorable dreck.
Pointless driving: The build-up to one monster attack scene takes place in a theater full of moviegoers who, as far as we can tell, are watching a film that's entirely about driving. Every time we cut back to them it's cars, cars, cars.
Piranha (aka Piranha, Piranha!)
Grade: D
From the tone and "look" of the thing, it was almost impossible to believe this one wasn't a TV-movie -- but it doesn't fade out every 12 (or 27) minutes, plus there's a pretty graphic hunting sequence which we presume is real. Not that you get piranha out of it, those don't show up for at least an hour.
To that end, down to Venezuela we go, where three unsympathetic twits bait A Creepy Hunter Dude because one of them doesn't watch Sesame Street. Who the hell goes to South America and doesn't know what "muy peligroso" means? It's no fun being a something something.
There are subplots about diamonds and photography and things, as well as a walk-in/walk-out love interest aka "Girl", who gets her three minutes of sub-Marisa Tomei face time right at the start and has no other credits on IMDB. (We wondered: which member of the production team was she screwing?) But ultimately it's all about bear-baiting, and we all know how that comes out.
The scenery's gorgeous and chock-full of candid location shots, the flinty-eyed villain is pretty unsettling, and if you liked the chick from Enter the Dragon, well, she's here too. Otherwise, it's half a movie, though the fight sequence at the end is kind of amazing if you know the story behind it.
(Vienna sausage? Really?)
Pointless driving: A motorcycle race sequence that spends 10 minutes wandering more or less aimlessly through the countryside, with neither plot relevance nor point. This is in addition to some traveling scenes early on that reminded us of our ol' favorite, Angel of Death/Commando Mengele.
Monday, December 14, 2009
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Set the controls for the heart of the daughter
Three overdue quickies united in romantic pursuit by remote control:
Night Fright
Objective grade: D
Camp value bonus: C-
Ludicrous extraterrestrial monster vs. John Agar (whom we remember fondly from Zontar) as upstanding sheriff. Eventually, the beast loses, thanks to a clever ruse involving explosives and a RealDoll. In the meantime, "teenagers" frolic, make out, get killed. You'll remember the absurd dance scenes, night vistas lit by headlights, and John Agar givin' those kids what for; you'll forget the rest. Which is fine, really.
Robot Pilot (aka Emergency Landing)
Grade: C+
Hey, Goofus: what'll win the heart of that bratty rich bitch? Kidnapping, imprisonment, and a new invention that lets you manoeuvre aeroplanes by wire? Yes, that's right, and as a bonus, your pal gets some too. (Gallant's spending the night alone with the Sears catalog: sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing, or vice versa.) Basically a silly early '40s romantic comedy (the Mill Creek folks apparently didn't buy Webster's, nor the "H" volume of Encyclopedia Britannica), and your enjoyment of this is predicated on your enjoyment of that. But it ends on a high note, thanks to the best (ahem) "little person" cameo ever.
Frozen Alive (aka Der Fall X701)
Grade: B+
Human cryogenics, in both senses, and so this film's focus on character development and relationship dynamics is a pleasant surprise. Of course plot takes over eventually, but that's true of Greek tragedies as well, right? And -- others may disagree on this -- we actually cared about what happened to these people and their interesting faces, which is a welcome change too. Still, there must have been something keeping this from scoring in the A range, unless it's just the memory of P.'s credulous friend who came back from American Beauty saying "Dude, I just saw the greatest movie ever": who wants to be that guy? (The Academy, apparen'ly.)
Persistent images: gun safety violations, expatriate academics who stonewall for a good cause, and an unexpected explosion of Africanisms that took us by surprise.
Night Fright
Objective grade: D
Camp value bonus: C-
Ludicrous extraterrestrial monster vs. John Agar (whom we remember fondly from Zontar) as upstanding sheriff. Eventually, the beast loses, thanks to a clever ruse involving explosives and a RealDoll. In the meantime, "teenagers" frolic, make out, get killed. You'll remember the absurd dance scenes, night vistas lit by headlights, and John Agar givin' those kids what for; you'll forget the rest. Which is fine, really.
Robot Pilot (aka Emergency Landing)
Grade: C+
Hey, Goofus: what'll win the heart of that bratty rich bitch? Kidnapping, imprisonment, and a new invention that lets you manoeuvre aeroplanes by wire? Yes, that's right, and as a bonus, your pal gets some too. (Gallant's spending the night alone with the Sears catalog: sometimes the wrong thing is the right thing, or vice versa.) Basically a silly early '40s romantic comedy (the Mill Creek folks apparently didn't buy Webster's, nor the "H" volume of Encyclopedia Britannica), and your enjoyment of this is predicated on your enjoyment of that. But it ends on a high note, thanks to the best (ahem) "little person" cameo ever.
Frozen Alive (aka Der Fall X701)
Grade: B+
Human cryogenics, in both senses, and so this film's focus on character development and relationship dynamics is a pleasant surprise. Of course plot takes over eventually, but that's true of Greek tragedies as well, right? And -- others may disagree on this -- we actually cared about what happened to these people and their interesting faces, which is a welcome change too. Still, there must have been something keeping this from scoring in the A range, unless it's just the memory of P.'s credulous friend who came back from American Beauty saying "Dude, I just saw the greatest movie ever": who wants to be that guy? (The Academy, apparen'ly.)
Persistent images: gun safety violations, expatriate academics who stonewall for a good cause, and an unexpected explosion of Africanisms that took us by surprise.
Saturday, October 24, 2009
Are you there Puma? It's me, Rygor. . . Puma? Puma!
And we're back! Took a bit of an unofficial break for summer . . . and the beginning of fall . . . but to start things off again, here are a couple films we saw way back in May, but have put off reviewing until now. Neither of these is too obscure, so if you're reading this, you probably already know what there is to know. Puma!
Ring of Terror
Objective grade: F
Camp value bonus: C+
What's scarier than trying to get a ring off a dead guy's finger?
These are just some of the many horrors that await you in Ring of Terror! Actually, this is really about all to expect from the unintentionally(?)(ok probably not "?") campy/kinda funny/slapped-together turd of a film . . . but there are just enough horrors to put this one on our "watch it at your next party" list.
Mistress of Atlantis
Grade: C
Artistic value bonus: C+
The first thing that needs to be said about this film is that the print is fantastic. So fantastic that for a good long while we wondered whether modern-day footage had been spliced in to replace damaged sections of the original. It wasn't. However, it does appear that some of the opening credits may have been compromised, and were redone in an appropriately old-timey script by a different company (Festival Films, from which Mill Creek must have borrowed -- or "borrowed" -- this print). But anyway, blah blah blah, enough with that -- onto the film!
This one is certainly artier than the various serials and things we've seen from this era -- more in a league with Maciste in Hell than with, say, The Phantom Empire (which is still great, just more straight-up). Atlantis -- not buried under the sea, but in the North African deserts -- is home to the smoldering Queen Antinea, who is prone to luring men into her lair and driving them completely bonkers. Dialogue is limited, so the film suffered a bit from being completely confusinghalf most of the time. I must say, though -- the sudden cutaway to the can-can hall was completely disorienting and amazingly brilliant. Still confusing, but artfully so.
Fun fact -- this film was shot in different languages (English, French, and German) all at the same time, so there are three distinct versions out there, with a unique mix of actors in each. I almost wish more films were shot like that these days, rather than slapping subtitles over everything or (shudder) overdubbing. Imagine the debates one could have regarding the relative merits of each version! But I digress. Bottom line -- you like old, you like artsy, you like being a little baffled: go for this one!
Ring of Terror
Objective grade: F
Camp value bonus: C+
What's scarier than trying to get a ring off a dead guy's finger?
- Med school frat "boys" who looked like they should have been out golfing in funny pants, or having mid-life crises; seriously, none of these guys could have been younger than 30. Leading man George Mather, who plays pledge Lewis B. Moffitt--23 years old, according to his gravestone--was actually somewhere close to 40(!) at the time of filming. Not a particularly young 40, either.
- That band member who forgot to fake it along with the music. Nothing like playing a smokin' sax solo with your horn still resting on your knee.
- Fat people! Nobody was worried about being too politically correct in those days. I do like that fat dude defended his fat girlfriend when she entered that swimsuit contest, and for good reason -- she didn't look all that bad!
- Terrible "skips" in the film that make poor Rygor jump two feet to the left in the middle of his monologue. This, oddly, was our biggest laugh-out-loud moment of the entire film -- couldn't really tell you why, though.
These are just some of the many horrors that await you in Ring of Terror! Actually, this is really about all to expect from the unintentionally(?)(ok probably not "?") campy/kinda funny/slapped-together turd of a film . . . but there are just enough horrors to put this one on our "watch it at your next party" list.
Mistress of Atlantis
Grade: C
Artistic value bonus: C+
The first thing that needs to be said about this film is that the print is fantastic. So fantastic that for a good long while we wondered whether modern-day footage had been spliced in to replace damaged sections of the original. It wasn't. However, it does appear that some of the opening credits may have been compromised, and were redone in an appropriately old-timey script by a different company (Festival Films, from which Mill Creek must have borrowed -- or "borrowed" -- this print). But anyway, blah blah blah, enough with that -- onto the film!
This one is certainly artier than the various serials and things we've seen from this era -- more in a league with Maciste in Hell than with, say, The Phantom Empire (which is still great, just more straight-up). Atlantis -- not buried under the sea, but in the North African deserts -- is home to the smoldering Queen Antinea, who is prone to luring men into her lair and driving them completely bonkers. Dialogue is limited, so the film suffered a bit from being completely confusing
Fun fact -- this film was shot in different languages (English, French, and German) all at the same time, so there are three distinct versions out there, with a unique mix of actors in each. I almost wish more films were shot like that these days, rather than slapping subtitles over everything or (shudder) overdubbing. Imagine the debates one could have regarding the relative merits of each version! But I digress. Bottom line -- you like old, you like artsy, you like being a little baffled: go for this one!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Trading in that one-way ticket for a round trip
As these movies prove, it's one thing to go on a journey to a strange land -- but finding your way back can be quite a different matter.
The Lost City (Parts 1 & 2)
Objective grade: D-
Camp value bonus: B-
This feature version of The Lost City (1935) was specifically edited for Mill Creek for inclusion on the Nightmare Worlds box set. They were apparently expecting a typical 70-80 minute serial reduction, and in fact, there were already several existing feature versions around, all of them two hours or less. But thanks to a miscommunication, the film editor instead assembled this 204-minute epic, which includes just about all of the content in the serial's 12 chapters, minus the chapter titles (except for Chapter 1) and recaps.
So what we have here is a very rare bird indeed: not just original editing/authoring work from Mill Creek, which is unusual enough to begin with, but something that literally isn't available anywhere else. Kinda cool. (Note that the division into halves is totally arbitrary; I suspect Mill Creek just needed to be able to count it as two movies for purposes of their "50 movie box".)
As for the film itself, what can we say, really? It's slapdash in every conceivable way; they literally wrote the script as they went along, and the production and acting are thoroughly half-assed. The villain is amazingly, hilariously useless throughout the second half of the movie, quite literally "phoning it in" -- apparently because the actor was thoroughly drunk (he died shortly after filming) and basically got written out of the script.
But the notoriety attached to The Lost City mostly has to do with its racial politics, which really have to be seen to be believed. The simplest way to describe it is that all the black characters are either: (a) seven-foot zombies in Afro wigs; (b) scrambling, subservient, superstitious savages; or, (c) part of a tribe of spider-worshipping white midgets (I kid you not), thanks to a magic serum that transforms the natives from black to white.
Given all this, The Lost City should be approached with caution, but I suspect most people will find it too ludicrous and over-the-top to be genuinely offensive. There are some dull stretches, and at 3 1/2 hours it's probably best watched over two nights (as we did), but if you're not too put off by its treatment of race, it's a genuine camp classic.
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger: Menace From Outer Space
Objective grade: C-
Camp value bonus: C+
Edited together from three episodes of the 1950's Rocky Jones TV show, this good-natured space opera has lots of gee-whiz charm, some decent visual effects, and not much else, really. Invented slang and neologisms abound ("Super-stellar!" is a popular one), as do plenty of inadvertent double-entendres, starting with the trick Rocky uses to defeat his first adversary.
Rocky's various cohorts are mostly stock characters, cardboard cutouts in performances that range from hilarious to grating; as so often happens, the only one who shows a hint of having real acting chops also turns out to be the one who met a scandalous and untimely end. So it goes.
Maciste In Hell (1925)
Grade: B+
We won't say much about this one, except to note that P. had heard good things about this infernal saga, and it lived up to the hype. Maciste all'inferno was allegedly the inspiration for Fellini's directorial career, and you can certainly see why would've blown a young moviegoer's mind; visually, it's quite spectacular, full of eye-popping set pieces and special effects.
The version on this set clocks in at 60-odd minutes long, and was taken from a Grapevine Video release (it even has their logo on a couple of the intertitles). The score, meanwhile, was a loose assembly of classical pieces, including the opening movement of Schubert's "Unfinished", that exactly duplicated the pieces used on The Lost World; since it's generally much more appropriate here, we're guessing that it was probably initially put together for Maciste...but maybe it was just serendipitous coincidence and we're just gettin' all Dark Side and Oz on you, man.
There's apparently an uncut version out there somewhere that's about a half-hour longer, but hasn't been released on commercial DVD, and only circulates between traders. We'll reserve final judgment until we see that version, and/or a copy with a proper musical score.
The Lost City (Parts 1 & 2)
Objective grade: D-
Camp value bonus: B-
This feature version of The Lost City (1935) was specifically edited for Mill Creek for inclusion on the Nightmare Worlds box set. They were apparently expecting a typical 70-80 minute serial reduction, and in fact, there were already several existing feature versions around, all of them two hours or less. But thanks to a miscommunication, the film editor instead assembled this 204-minute epic, which includes just about all of the content in the serial's 12 chapters, minus the chapter titles (except for Chapter 1) and recaps.
So what we have here is a very rare bird indeed: not just original editing/authoring work from Mill Creek, which is unusual enough to begin with, but something that literally isn't available anywhere else. Kinda cool. (Note that the division into halves is totally arbitrary; I suspect Mill Creek just needed to be able to count it as two movies for purposes of their "50 movie box".)
As for the film itself, what can we say, really? It's slapdash in every conceivable way; they literally wrote the script as they went along, and the production and acting are thoroughly half-assed. The villain is amazingly, hilariously useless throughout the second half of the movie, quite literally "phoning it in" -- apparently because the actor was thoroughly drunk (he died shortly after filming) and basically got written out of the script.
But the notoriety attached to The Lost City mostly has to do with its racial politics, which really have to be seen to be believed. The simplest way to describe it is that all the black characters are either: (a) seven-foot zombies in Afro wigs; (b) scrambling, subservient, superstitious savages; or, (c) part of a tribe of spider-worshipping white midgets (I kid you not), thanks to a magic serum that transforms the natives from black to white.
Given all this, The Lost City should be approached with caution, but I suspect most people will find it too ludicrous and over-the-top to be genuinely offensive. There are some dull stretches, and at 3 1/2 hours it's probably best watched over two nights (as we did), but if you're not too put off by its treatment of race, it's a genuine camp classic.
Rocky Jones, Space Ranger: Menace From Outer Space
Objective grade: C-
Camp value bonus: C+
Edited together from three episodes of the 1950's Rocky Jones TV show, this good-natured space opera has lots of gee-whiz charm, some decent visual effects, and not much else, really. Invented slang and neologisms abound ("Super-stellar!" is a popular one), as do plenty of inadvertent double-entendres, starting with the trick Rocky uses to defeat his first adversary.
Rocky's various cohorts are mostly stock characters, cardboard cutouts in performances that range from hilarious to grating; as so often happens, the only one who shows a hint of having real acting chops also turns out to be the one who met a scandalous and untimely end. So it goes.
Maciste In Hell (1925)
Grade: B+
We won't say much about this one, except to note that P. had heard good things about this infernal saga, and it lived up to the hype. Maciste all'inferno was allegedly the inspiration for Fellini's directorial career, and you can certainly see why would've blown a young moviegoer's mind; visually, it's quite spectacular, full of eye-popping set pieces and special effects.
The version on this set clocks in at 60-odd minutes long, and was taken from a Grapevine Video release (it even has their logo on a couple of the intertitles). The score, meanwhile, was a loose assembly of classical pieces, including the opening movement of Schubert's "Unfinished", that exactly duplicated the pieces used on The Lost World; since it's generally much more appropriate here, we're guessing that it was probably initially put together for Maciste...but maybe it was just serendipitous coincidence and we're just gettin' all Dark Side and Oz on you, man.
There's apparently an uncut version out there somewhere that's about a half-hour longer, but hasn't been released on commercial DVD, and only circulates between traders. We'll reserve final judgment until we see that version, and/or a copy with a proper musical score.
Sunday, May 10, 2009
I can't stand it, I know you planned it . . .
Sure, it's a common theme in a whole ton of movies, but these three were a bit tougher to link together than most.
How Awful About Allan
Grade: D
No, we won't go on about how awful (har har) this one is, because it isn't. In fact, it's something just a bit worse than awful: predictable. Maybe that's not worse per se, but it sure makes for a dull evening. P. had the ending pegged after only 15 minutes, which left us with about an hour to wait and see how the movie got there.
To be fair, this is a made-for-TV cheapie, and Psycho's Anthony Perkins turns in a fine performance as the title character, struck with psychosomatic blindness after accidentally killing his dad in a house fire. The shadowy camera work is often genuinely creepy, and for added realism Perkins wore special contact lenses that limited his vision. However, to anyone who's seen even a few "psychological thrillers" of that era (and this one too, actually) the "twist" is just too obvious, and isn't twisty enough to be interesting.
SABOTAGE: Somebody wants to hamper Allan's recovery (or worse!) . . . but who could it be???
The Lost World
Grade: B
No, not the Jurassic Park sequel -- who needs CGI when this 1925 silent adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel is so much more fun to watch? This is the original dino movie, with all sorts of advanced (for the time) effects involving split screens, stop motion, double exposures, and the like. The film does get off to a somewhat plodding start: all sorts of exposition and backstory to make sure we all know who's heading down to South America and why. Once the mission is underway though, it's all about those dinosaurs, with a love triangle and some mildly offensive blackface action thrown in for good measure.
There are several versions of this film floating around, including a version shown only through the George Eastman House -- a good history is at this site, which reviews the Image Entertainment release. What we saw was pure Mill Creek, all the way down to the ludicrously inappropriate soundtrack. That they probably lifted the score from another film [EDIT: probably Maciste in Hell; see the next post] became abundantly clear as we watched a knock-down, drag-out fistfight set to the strains of some lovely Romantic piano and violin piece. We hadn't laughed so hard at something for quite some time.
SABOTAGE: A kindly Brontosaurus (sorry, Apatosaurus) cuts off the party's exit from the high-up dino plateau . . . how will they ever escape?
The Phantom Creeps
Grade: D
Another edited-down serial starring our main man Bela. This is the sixth one we've seen him in (not counting Ed Wood, which didn't have the real Lugosi anyway), and out of these half dozen only Shadow of Chinatown ranks lower. Lugosi hams it up as Dr. Zorka, who uses a powerful meteorite to make all kinds of crazy gadgets: a giant attack robot, an invisibility belt (hence our title), and even a few dastardly exploding spiders! Naturally the government wants in on this, and even more naturally, Dr. Zorka would rather destroy the world than share. Add a few stock characters (chiseled lawman, plucky female reporter, shifty henchman) and we've got ourselves a serial.
(An aside: do all the bad guys, scientists, and aliens in sci-fi films really need names beginning with Z? Zorka, Zontar, Zarkov--enough!)
Like Shadow of Chinatown, and most of the other edited serials we've seen, this one suffers from a disjointed, rushed, and somewhat confusing plot, with nothing compelling enough to really draw us in. Radio Ranch is a great example of how an edited serial can be successful, but this one just didn't survive all the cuts. A full 70% of the original material didn't make it into the re-edit, and it makes us wonder (at least a little) about what we missed out on.
SABOTAGE: Zarkov's assistant makes off with the meteorite in hopes of making a quick buck . . . what's an evil scientist to do?
(Oh, and did you know that it was Dr. Zorka who really caused the Hindenburg disaster? Look for it towards the end.)
How Awful About Allan
Grade: D
No, we won't go on about how awful (har har) this one is, because it isn't. In fact, it's something just a bit worse than awful: predictable. Maybe that's not worse per se, but it sure makes for a dull evening. P. had the ending pegged after only 15 minutes, which left us with about an hour to wait and see how the movie got there.
To be fair, this is a made-for-TV cheapie, and Psycho's Anthony Perkins turns in a fine performance as the title character, struck with psychosomatic blindness after accidentally killing his dad in a house fire. The shadowy camera work is often genuinely creepy, and for added realism Perkins wore special contact lenses that limited his vision. However, to anyone who's seen even a few "psychological thrillers" of that era (and this one too, actually) the "twist" is just too obvious, and isn't twisty enough to be interesting.
SABOTAGE: Somebody wants to hamper Allan's recovery (or worse!) . . . but who could it be???
The Lost World
Grade: B
No, not the Jurassic Park sequel -- who needs CGI when this 1925 silent adaptation of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1912 novel is so much more fun to watch? This is the original dino movie, with all sorts of advanced (for the time) effects involving split screens, stop motion, double exposures, and the like. The film does get off to a somewhat plodding start: all sorts of exposition and backstory to make sure we all know who's heading down to South America and why. Once the mission is underway though, it's all about those dinosaurs, with a love triangle and some mildly offensive blackface action thrown in for good measure.
There are several versions of this film floating around, including a version shown only through the George Eastman House -- a good history is at this site, which reviews the Image Entertainment release. What we saw was pure Mill Creek, all the way down to the ludicrously inappropriate soundtrack. That they probably lifted the score from another film [EDIT: probably Maciste in Hell; see the next post] became abundantly clear as we watched a knock-down, drag-out fistfight set to the strains of some lovely Romantic piano and violin piece. We hadn't laughed so hard at something for quite some time.
SABOTAGE: A kindly Brontosaurus (sorry, Apatosaurus) cuts off the party's exit from the high-up dino plateau . . . how will they ever escape?
The Phantom Creeps
Grade: D
Another edited-down serial starring our main man Bela. This is the sixth one we've seen him in (not counting Ed Wood, which didn't have the real Lugosi anyway), and out of these half dozen only Shadow of Chinatown ranks lower. Lugosi hams it up as Dr. Zorka, who uses a powerful meteorite to make all kinds of crazy gadgets: a giant attack robot, an invisibility belt (hence our title), and even a few dastardly exploding spiders! Naturally the government wants in on this, and even more naturally, Dr. Zorka would rather destroy the world than share. Add a few stock characters (chiseled lawman, plucky female reporter, shifty henchman) and we've got ourselves a serial.
(An aside: do all the bad guys, scientists, and aliens in sci-fi films really need names beginning with Z? Zorka, Zontar, Zarkov--enough!)
Like Shadow of Chinatown, and most of the other edited serials we've seen, this one suffers from a disjointed, rushed, and somewhat confusing plot, with nothing compelling enough to really draw us in. Radio Ranch is a great example of how an edited serial can be successful, but this one just didn't survive all the cuts. A full 70% of the original material didn't make it into the re-edit, and it makes us wonder (at least a little) about what we missed out on.
SABOTAGE: Zarkov's assistant makes off with the meteorite in hopes of making a quick buck . . . what's an evil scientist to do?
(Oh, and did you know that it was Dr. Zorka who really caused the Hindenburg disaster? Look for it towards the end.)
Thursday, May 7, 2009
Surviving extreme conditions: a cinematic guide
The theme for this week's batch of movies (which we actually watched several weeks back): survival in extreme conditions. In all three films, characters needed to acquire special gear in order to withstand the challenges of some harsh, unforgiving, or otherwise alien environment.
Purple Death From Outer Space
Grade: C-
This heavily edited, retitled version of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe was put together for TV in 1966, more than a quarter-century after the original came out. In the process it lost much of whatever coherence was there to begin with, but retains a certain degree of goofy enthusiasm, as well as an appealing visual style that freely mixes the impressive with the totally half-assed. (That applies to the sound design, too: we got a big laugh out of the hilariously feminine shriek they use when people fall down Ming's bottomless pit.)
Still, despite a wealth of dimestore rockets, lumbering self-detonating robots, and crackling death rays, it all feels a bit empty and slapdash: characters come and go, problems are posed and solved, and there's no real reason to care. Perhaps the complete serial would be more rewarding.
The extreme condition: the frozen wastelands of Frigia, in search of polarite
The path to survival: Prof. Zarkov's special "contra-freeze" spray-on formula
Attack Of The Giant Leeches
Grade: C
Much has been written about this Roger Corman cheapie, so we'll keep it quick. Arguably more of a Southern gothic soap opera than a monster movie, its assets include sleepy bayou ambience and better-than-average characterizations. Add to this a helping of brazen adultery, as practiced by Ms. Yvette Vickers -- Playboy's Playmate of the Month in July 1959 -- who apparently took up residence in Stephen King's fantasy life shortly thereafter.
All these things may win you over, or not; most viewers will either fall into the "slow, but thoughtful, atmospheric and pleasantly offbeat" camp with P., or the "it's not quite good enough to be good, not quite bad enough to be good" camp with K.
The extreme condition: taking on the titular leech-man in his home environment, underwater
The path to survival: scuba gear, a spear gun, and a generous helping of dynamite
Radio Ranch
Grade: B-
This feature-length version of The Phantom Empire was easily the most entertaining of all the condensed serials we've watched so far, and doesn't seem to have suffered much at all from the editing process. Neither of us had ever really seen Gene Autry before, and it's amusing to compare our modern archetype of the cowboy with his clean-shaven, almost feminine look.
The plot to Radio Ranch is completely loopy, which is of course one of its biggest assets; see here for a decent summary. None of the performances are anything to write home about, but they don't get in the way of the movie, with the possible exception of Betsy Ross King, whose portrayal of Betsy Baxter (the main girl among the Junior Thunder Riders) is strident at best, grating at worst. She makes up for it, though, with some fancy trick riding -- indeed, there's a lot of impressive horseplay in Radio Ranch.
The costume and set design are intermittently wonderful. As the link above says, the matte painting is well done, the special effects reasonably special, and the robots are totally cute. Whoever edited this did a nice job, all told -- things move at a good clip throughout, and there were only one or two places where we felt unsure about what exactly was going on.
The extreme condition: the subterranean domain of Murania, miles below the surface of the earth
The path to survival: actually, Gene did fine down there. It was the Muranians who couldn't handle our air, and needed special breathing apparatus. We're so extreme!
Purple Death From Outer Space
Grade: C-
This heavily edited, retitled version of Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe was put together for TV in 1966, more than a quarter-century after the original came out. In the process it lost much of whatever coherence was there to begin with, but retains a certain degree of goofy enthusiasm, as well as an appealing visual style that freely mixes the impressive with the totally half-assed. (That applies to the sound design, too: we got a big laugh out of the hilariously feminine shriek they use when people fall down Ming's bottomless pit.)
Still, despite a wealth of dimestore rockets, lumbering self-detonating robots, and crackling death rays, it all feels a bit empty and slapdash: characters come and go, problems are posed and solved, and there's no real reason to care. Perhaps the complete serial would be more rewarding.
The extreme condition: the frozen wastelands of Frigia, in search of polarite
The path to survival: Prof. Zarkov's special "contra-freeze" spray-on formula
Attack Of The Giant Leeches
Grade: C
Much has been written about this Roger Corman cheapie, so we'll keep it quick. Arguably more of a Southern gothic soap opera than a monster movie, its assets include sleepy bayou ambience and better-than-average characterizations. Add to this a helping of brazen adultery, as practiced by Ms. Yvette Vickers -- Playboy's Playmate of the Month in July 1959 -- who apparently took up residence in Stephen King's fantasy life shortly thereafter.
All these things may win you over, or not; most viewers will either fall into the "slow, but thoughtful, atmospheric and pleasantly offbeat" camp with P., or the "it's not quite good enough to be good, not quite bad enough to be good" camp with K.
The extreme condition: taking on the titular leech-man in his home environment, underwater
The path to survival: scuba gear, a spear gun, and a generous helping of dynamite
Radio Ranch
Grade: B-
This feature-length version of The Phantom Empire was easily the most entertaining of all the condensed serials we've watched so far, and doesn't seem to have suffered much at all from the editing process. Neither of us had ever really seen Gene Autry before, and it's amusing to compare our modern archetype of the cowboy with his clean-shaven, almost feminine look.
The plot to Radio Ranch is completely loopy, which is of course one of its biggest assets; see here for a decent summary. None of the performances are anything to write home about, but they don't get in the way of the movie, with the possible exception of Betsy Ross King, whose portrayal of Betsy Baxter (the main girl among the Junior Thunder Riders) is strident at best, grating at worst. She makes up for it, though, with some fancy trick riding -- indeed, there's a lot of impressive horseplay in Radio Ranch.
The costume and set design are intermittently wonderful. As the link above says, the matte painting is well done, the special effects reasonably special, and the robots are totally cute. Whoever edited this did a nice job, all told -- things move at a good clip throughout, and there were only one or two places where we felt unsure about what exactly was going on.
The extreme condition: the subterranean domain of Murania, miles below the surface of the earth
The path to survival: actually, Gene did fine down there. It was the Muranians who couldn't handle our air, and needed special breathing apparatus. We're so extreme!
Saturday, March 28, 2009
Warning: In case of aliens, do not fly or operate outdated machinery
Continuing with our themed entries: apparently aliens love talking with folks via now-quaint technologies (short-wave radio and old-fashioned wood-paneled television sets, respectively), and really really love to mess with prop planes (what better way to showcase their destructive power over us?) Without further ado, we bring you one unjustly under-rated gem, and one deservedly panned bomb.
They
Objective Grade: D+
Taking into account camp value: B-
AKA Invasion From Inner Earth (missing an entire reel of footage, apparently)
AKA Hell Fire (missing several scenes, including the entire ending)
AKA The Selected (the "director's cut," whatever that means)
1.6 stars, IMDB? This one deserves far, far more credit than that. Maybe it's just our soft spot for deep woods shenanigans, but this one had all the things (or some of them, anyway) that make you want to get together with a big bowl of popcorn and some good-humored friends.
An opening credits sequence set to a synth rip-off of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly could be good news, or it could be bad news; when it's accompanied by folks screaming and running away from plumes of red smoke billowing from the sewers, we quote Martha and say it's a good thing. The music is completely off-the-wall throughout, unexpectedly cutting from one "song" to the next and set at a high enough level to be slightly obtrusive at best, crazy overbearing at worst (though not nearly as annoying as furry-hatted rich grad student, theunfortunate pilot of the plane taken down by mysterious alien forces. . . good riddance).
The thing that many other reviewers seem to miss (and what makes this one worth watching, in our opinion) is the humorous thread woven unexpectedly throughout the plot. Every now and then we found ourselves turning to each other with amused and slightly perplexed looks, as if to say, "did we just see that?" Case in point: our bearded friend Stan (already the go-to comic relief guy) gets entirely slapstick while out hunting, falling head-over-heels into a snowdrift while accompanied by a goofy wah-wah sound effect; he gets up, blows snow off the end of his rifle barrel [possibly a pantomimed suicide joke? - P.], and moves on. Brilliant! (Also, watch out for wacky radio announcers, faux news interview shows, and even more crowds running away from red sewer gas, sprinkled randomly [and seemingly arbitrarily] throughout.) Truly a case of being just bad enough to be good.
Finally, there's the ending. . . and we're just going to leave that one alone. As another reviewer noted, the best thing is to see it cold--it's just that bizarre.
To all those other reviewers who claim this one is pointless, talky, and unwatchable: take a look at UFO: Target Earth and get back to us.
(Oh, and if anyone out there is into road trips, P. and I might just head out to Wisconsin to see slapstick Stan, aka Paul Bentzen, in the American Players Theatre. . . I mean, after all, why not?)
UFO: Target Earth
Grade: D-
Now HERE we have pointless, talky, and (nearly) unwatchable. A college student accidentally listens in on a couple of government types talking about mysterious spacey stuff, so he grabs all the electronic equipment he can fit in his truck and goes to a nearby lake to investigate. Along the way he gets help (and long expositions) from a number of colorful characters: there's Dr. Whitham, who looks something like Roy Orbison with snow-white hair; Dr. Mansfield, an aging female scientist who reminds me a bit of Kate Reid in The Andromeda Strain; Rivers the assistant, who happened to play Ranger Tom in Grizzly (which we only discovered after almost skipping his bio -- that'll teach us not to ignore minor characters!); and then Vivian the crazy empath. Ah, Vivian, who looks so cute in some scenes, but then has to go and style her hair all weirdly, and ruin a perfectly good outfit with hideous seafoam green wideleg pants.
This could have been one of those "good" bad films. After all, it starts out with a series of mockumentary-style interviews with abductees and ufo spotters (plus the requisite plane crash footage), along with a wacky narrator voice-over à la Plan 9. Unfortunately, like so many others in this box, there's just far too much telling, and not enough showing. Well, except for what the aliens show us at the end: a solid 3 minutes of psychedelic screen-saver action set to an equally psychedelic synth soundtrack as a trippy philosophical/psychological send-off for our protagonist. P. was kinda into it; K. says thanks, but no.
(By the way, this one was filmed in Georgia. We dipped down into the state for a few miles on our way to Alabama, but we're not too keen on going back--not enough B-movie actors doing outdoor Shakespearean theater for our tastes.)
They
Objective Grade: D+
Taking into account camp value: B-
AKA Invasion From Inner Earth (missing an entire reel of footage, apparently)
AKA Hell Fire (missing several scenes, including the entire ending)
AKA The Selected (the "director's cut," whatever that means)
1.6 stars, IMDB? This one deserves far, far more credit than that. Maybe it's just our soft spot for deep woods shenanigans, but this one had all the things (or some of them, anyway) that make you want to get together with a big bowl of popcorn and some good-humored friends.
An opening credits sequence set to a synth rip-off of The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly could be good news, or it could be bad news; when it's accompanied by folks screaming and running away from plumes of red smoke billowing from the sewers, we quote Martha and say it's a good thing. The music is completely off-the-wall throughout, unexpectedly cutting from one "song" to the next and set at a high enough level to be slightly obtrusive at best, crazy overbearing at worst (though not nearly as annoying as furry-hatted rich grad student, the
The thing that many other reviewers seem to miss (and what makes this one worth watching, in our opinion) is the humorous thread woven unexpectedly throughout the plot. Every now and then we found ourselves turning to each other with amused and slightly perplexed looks, as if to say, "did we just see that?" Case in point: our bearded friend Stan (already the go-to comic relief guy) gets entirely slapstick while out hunting, falling head-over-heels into a snowdrift while accompanied by a goofy wah-wah sound effect; he gets up, blows snow off the end of his rifle barrel [possibly a pantomimed suicide joke? - P.], and moves on. Brilliant! (Also, watch out for wacky radio announcers, faux news interview shows, and even more crowds running away from red sewer gas, sprinkled randomly [and seemingly arbitrarily] throughout.) Truly a case of being just bad enough to be good.
Finally, there's the ending. . . and we're just going to leave that one alone. As another reviewer noted, the best thing is to see it cold--it's just that bizarre.
To all those other reviewers who claim this one is pointless, talky, and unwatchable: take a look at UFO: Target Earth and get back to us.
(Oh, and if anyone out there is into road trips, P. and I might just head out to Wisconsin to see slapstick Stan, aka Paul Bentzen, in the American Players Theatre. . . I mean, after all, why not?)
UFO: Target Earth
Grade: D-
Now HERE we have pointless, talky, and (nearly) unwatchable. A college student accidentally listens in on a couple of government types talking about mysterious spacey stuff, so he grabs all the electronic equipment he can fit in his truck and goes to a nearby lake to investigate. Along the way he gets help (and long expositions) from a number of colorful characters: there's Dr. Whitham, who looks something like Roy Orbison with snow-white hair; Dr. Mansfield, an aging female scientist who reminds me a bit of Kate Reid in The Andromeda Strain; Rivers the assistant, who happened to play Ranger Tom in Grizzly (which we only discovered after almost skipping his bio -- that'll teach us not to ignore minor characters!); and then Vivian the crazy empath. Ah, Vivian, who looks so cute in some scenes, but then has to go and style her hair all weirdly, and ruin a perfectly good outfit with hideous seafoam green wideleg pants.
This could have been one of those "good" bad films. After all, it starts out with a series of mockumentary-style interviews with abductees and ufo spotters (plus the requisite plane crash footage), along with a wacky narrator voice-over à la Plan 9. Unfortunately, like so many others in this box, there's just far too much telling, and not enough showing. Well, except for what the aliens show us at the end: a solid 3 minutes of psychedelic screen-saver action set to an equally psychedelic synth soundtrack as a trippy philosophical/psychological send-off for our protagonist. P. was kinda into it; K. says thanks, but no.
(By the way, this one was filmed in Georgia. We dipped down into the state for a few miles on our way to Alabama, but we're not too keen on going back--not enough B-movie actors doing outdoor Shakespearean theater for our tastes.)
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Brazen adulterers, punished with hellfire
Partway through both of the films at hand, we get characters who commit flagrant, unrepentant infidelity. They don't just cheat, they do so without a hint of remorse, and right in front of their heartbroken spouses. Then at the end, these adulterers are cast into the fires of hell...or at least a reasonably close approximation thereof.
This is Not a Test
Grade: D+
It's tempting to remember This is Not a Test as being a better movie than it really is. Certainly, it's ahead of its time in a few ways -- for starters, in depicting a nuclear war as unwinnable madness. Add to that its portrayal of authority figures as clueless and stupidly dictatorial, and its intense, thoroughly downbeat ending, and you've got a film that, by the standards of the day, is surprisingly frank and grim.
But let's be honest with ourselves: most of this movie was a real uphill slog, poorly paced and scripted, and not especially well-acted. For instance, while it made sense for the Deputy Sheriff to be a dumb galoot, Seamon Glass makes him such an insufferable, heavy-handed dolt that most of his scenes were almost unendurably annoying to sit through. The hipster character's sub-beatnik patter was embarrassing, the psycho killer was totally tacked-on, and really, none of the characters were engaging enough to care much about.
There are some loopy moments that help to liven things up. Chief among them are two (TWO!) distinct scenes with totally bizarre, unexpected animal killings; the second one makes some kind of sense, but the first one comes completely out of left field, and may be unfeigned à la Pink Flamingos. Still, despite its ambitions (and potential), This is Not a Test just isn't executed well enough to deliver on them.
The Manster
Grade: C
If it hadn't lost steam so completely at the end, The Manster would easily have been among the most enjoyable movies we've seen so far in this 250-pack. It's tautly paced, tightly constructed, and (contrary to some reports) mostly well-acted.
Peter Dyneley is thoroughly engaging as reporter Larry Stanford, who begins the movie planning to return home from a long-term assignment in Japan. Stanford starts out as a genteel and loving husband, and turns into a belligerent, hard-drinking boor who cheats on his spouse (played rather twitchily by Jane Hylton, who was also Dyneley's wife offscreen).
Dyneley does a better job of capturing a drunk's slurred diction, without overdoing it, than any other actor P. can recall. (Maybe he just got hammered on gimlets right before the scene.) He also has the prematurely aged face of an alcoholic: we laughed when his character claimed to be thirty-five, but afterward we were astonished to read that Dyneley himself was only a few years older than that -- we'd thought him close to fifty, at least. (Same thing with his wife, actually.)
Like This is Not a Test, one of The Manster's strongest assets is its candor; the movie deals with infidelity, murder, prostitution, alcohol abuse, and other dark themes in a refreshingly straightforward way, at least by 1959 standards. Sure, there are some clunkers in the script, but unlike so many of its companions on this box set, the film has real momentum, thanks in large part to good directorial technique. (Another reviewer saw The Manster as an allegory for alcoholism, which is an interesting idea.)
Too bad it all falls apart at the end. After an hour or so of psychological drama, the film degenerates into your standard monster-movie fare: a pointless chase sequence that lasts ten minutes or so, followed by an unsatisfying climax, and capped with a hilariously stupid closing speech. Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted.
This is Not a Test
Grade: D+
It's tempting to remember This is Not a Test as being a better movie than it really is. Certainly, it's ahead of its time in a few ways -- for starters, in depicting a nuclear war as unwinnable madness. Add to that its portrayal of authority figures as clueless and stupidly dictatorial, and its intense, thoroughly downbeat ending, and you've got a film that, by the standards of the day, is surprisingly frank and grim.
But let's be honest with ourselves: most of this movie was a real uphill slog, poorly paced and scripted, and not especially well-acted. For instance, while it made sense for the Deputy Sheriff to be a dumb galoot, Seamon Glass makes him such an insufferable, heavy-handed dolt that most of his scenes were almost unendurably annoying to sit through. The hipster character's sub-beatnik patter was embarrassing, the psycho killer was totally tacked-on, and really, none of the characters were engaging enough to care much about.
There are some loopy moments that help to liven things up. Chief among them are two (TWO!) distinct scenes with totally bizarre, unexpected animal killings; the second one makes some kind of sense, but the first one comes completely out of left field, and may be unfeigned à la Pink Flamingos. Still, despite its ambitions (and potential), This is Not a Test just isn't executed well enough to deliver on them.
The Manster
Grade: C
If it hadn't lost steam so completely at the end, The Manster would easily have been among the most enjoyable movies we've seen so far in this 250-pack. It's tautly paced, tightly constructed, and (contrary to some reports) mostly well-acted.
Peter Dyneley is thoroughly engaging as reporter Larry Stanford, who begins the movie planning to return home from a long-term assignment in Japan. Stanford starts out as a genteel and loving husband, and turns into a belligerent, hard-drinking boor who cheats on his spouse (played rather twitchily by Jane Hylton, who was also Dyneley's wife offscreen).
Dyneley does a better job of capturing a drunk's slurred diction, without overdoing it, than any other actor P. can recall. (Maybe he just got hammered on gimlets right before the scene.) He also has the prematurely aged face of an alcoholic: we laughed when his character claimed to be thirty-five, but afterward we were astonished to read that Dyneley himself was only a few years older than that -- we'd thought him close to fifty, at least. (Same thing with his wife, actually.)
Like This is Not a Test, one of The Manster's strongest assets is its candor; the movie deals with infidelity, murder, prostitution, alcohol abuse, and other dark themes in a refreshingly straightforward way, at least by 1959 standards. Sure, there are some clunkers in the script, but unlike so many of its companions on this box set, the film has real momentum, thanks in large part to good directorial technique. (Another reviewer saw The Manster as an allegory for alcoholism, which is an interesting idea.)
Too bad it all falls apart at the end. After an hour or so of psychological drama, the film degenerates into your standard monster-movie fare: a pointless chase sequence that lasts ten minutes or so, followed by an unsatisfying climax, and capped with a hilariously stupid closing speech. Ah, well, it was fun while it lasted.
Monday, March 9, 2009
There's an angry beast loose in the hills
About ten minutes into the second of these monster movies, we couldn't help but laugh: "It's the same movie!" said K.
Indeed, the similarities are extensive. Both were made in the wake of Jaws; both are set in mountainous wilderness areas, with thriving tourist trades; both depict beasts that go berserk and start killing said tourists; in both movies, the female lead is a reporter. And so on.
So, since we watched them practically back-to-back (last Sunday night and Monday afternoon, respectively), we'd best review these two in the same manner, eh?
Grizzly
Grade: C-
Our first exposure to the films of William Girdler. P. had high hopes for this, and there are a few nice touches -- the dismembered little kid, the unexpectedly bleak ending, and some decent work by the supporting cast, especially Scott, the goofy, proto-Grizzly Man bear expert.
Still, whatever greater ambitions it might have, the movie is basically schlock, and never quite gets enough momentum to become compelling. The narrative stumbles badly in a few places: where does Allison the newsie go? What's the point of having Scott wake back up, and then do basically nothing before the bear comes back and kills him? And especially, a bazooka?! Obviously, audiences didn't mind too much, as the film was a huge financial success, but beautiful scenery and decent technical execution can't make up for the missing sense of fun and excitement.
Snowbeast
Grade: B-
Here, the beast in question is a raging yeti, slaughtering skiers at a mountain resort. The opening scenes left us little reason to expect anything more than we got from Grizzly, since Snowbeast comes front-loaded with some lousy acting from its bit players. In particular, Annie McEnroe's Aspergerian performance (as a yeti-fodder candidate who just misses the cut) makes one wonder if she might've mentored Faith Clift. And Robert Logan, as Tony Rill, comes off at first like a weirdly overbearing version of Ben Stiller, frequently talking too loud for no apparent reason.
But then this TV movie shows some unexpected class, with genuinely nuanced characters and good work from all three leads. Central to the plot is a love triangle which, instead of the usual cardboard cinematic shenanigans, is handled with the kind of quiet dignity and decency one seldom sees outside of Merchant-Ivory productions. Well, maybe that's a stretch, but it's still refreshing to see that kind of intelligence in this kind of movie: no histrionics or mustache-twiddling villains, just human beings trying to figure their lives out.
As the Olympic skier Gar Seberg, Bo Svenson was a particularly nice surprise. (If you want to develop an inferiority complex, take a look at his bio!) When he first appeared on screen, we were anticipating a typical dumb, macho jock type -- but in lieu of the stock character we expected, this Big Swede turns out to be a genuinely good-hearted and thoughtful guy. (And heck, it even makes sense that he'd be a crack marksman.)
Having said all that, Snowbeast does show its limits. Though a much better movie, it's hampered by the same lack of momentum and urgency that undermined Grizzly. Here, all the tension is in its interpersonal dynamics, not in its monster scenes: though each individual attack sequence is well-executed, the monster never really feels like a palpable, fully-fledged adversary, partly because its motivation isn't very clear. And like many movies of its kind, we lose some coherence in the last 20 minutes -- in particular, important props abruptly disappear with no explanation.
Still, all things considered, Snowbeast is a good deal better than one could reasonably expect, and was certainly pleasant fare for a snowed-in Monday afternoon. And if all else fails, the scenery and camerawork are gorgeous, with some terrific shots of downhill skiing that made P. reconsider his lifelong antipathy to the sport.
Indeed, the similarities are extensive. Both were made in the wake of Jaws; both are set in mountainous wilderness areas, with thriving tourist trades; both depict beasts that go berserk and start killing said tourists; in both movies, the female lead is a reporter. And so on.
So, since we watched them practically back-to-back (last Sunday night and Monday afternoon, respectively), we'd best review these two in the same manner, eh?
Grizzly
Grade: C-
Our first exposure to the films of William Girdler. P. had high hopes for this, and there are a few nice touches -- the dismembered little kid, the unexpectedly bleak ending, and some decent work by the supporting cast, especially Scott, the goofy, proto-Grizzly Man bear expert.
Still, whatever greater ambitions it might have, the movie is basically schlock, and never quite gets enough momentum to become compelling. The narrative stumbles badly in a few places: where does Allison the newsie go? What's the point of having Scott wake back up, and then do basically nothing before the bear comes back and kills him? And especially, a bazooka?! Obviously, audiences didn't mind too much, as the film was a huge financial success, but beautiful scenery and decent technical execution can't make up for the missing sense of fun and excitement.
Snowbeast
Grade: B-
Here, the beast in question is a raging yeti, slaughtering skiers at a mountain resort. The opening scenes left us little reason to expect anything more than we got from Grizzly, since Snowbeast comes front-loaded with some lousy acting from its bit players. In particular, Annie McEnroe's Aspergerian performance (as a yeti-fodder candidate who just misses the cut) makes one wonder if she might've mentored Faith Clift. And Robert Logan, as Tony Rill, comes off at first like a weirdly overbearing version of Ben Stiller, frequently talking too loud for no apparent reason.
But then this TV movie shows some unexpected class, with genuinely nuanced characters and good work from all three leads. Central to the plot is a love triangle which, instead of the usual cardboard cinematic shenanigans, is handled with the kind of quiet dignity and decency one seldom sees outside of Merchant-Ivory productions. Well, maybe that's a stretch, but it's still refreshing to see that kind of intelligence in this kind of movie: no histrionics or mustache-twiddling villains, just human beings trying to figure their lives out.
As the Olympic skier Gar Seberg, Bo Svenson was a particularly nice surprise. (If you want to develop an inferiority complex, take a look at his bio!) When he first appeared on screen, we were anticipating a typical dumb, macho jock type -- but in lieu of the stock character we expected, this Big Swede turns out to be a genuinely good-hearted and thoughtful guy. (And heck, it even makes sense that he'd be a crack marksman.)
Having said all that, Snowbeast does show its limits. Though a much better movie, it's hampered by the same lack of momentum and urgency that undermined Grizzly. Here, all the tension is in its interpersonal dynamics, not in its monster scenes: though each individual attack sequence is well-executed, the monster never really feels like a palpable, fully-fledged adversary, partly because its motivation isn't very clear. And like many movies of its kind, we lose some coherence in the last 20 minutes -- in particular, important props abruptly disappear with no explanation.
Still, all things considered, Snowbeast is a good deal better than one could reasonably expect, and was certainly pleasant fare for a snowed-in Monday afternoon. And if all else fails, the scenery and camerawork are gorgeous, with some terrific shots of downhill skiing that made P. reconsider his lifelong antipathy to the sport.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
The Day the Sky (and everything else) Exploded
THEME: The fiery, explosive destruction of gasoline-soaked papier-mâché Earths, brought to you by these two otherwise joyless clunkers.
Doomsday Machine
Grade: F
From what we've read, it seems this one was originally shot in 1967, shelved for a few years, then re-edited with new footage and released in 1972. Boys, you should have left it on the shelf.
It starts off promisingly enough: a spy's discovery of a dastardly device in China necessitates the quick launch of a Venus-bound rocket, with two hot chicks and one OK-looking babushka-in-training switched in for three of the original crew. The astronauts strap into their La-Z-Boy shuttle recliners, sit back, and suddenly we're up to our eyeballs in bad dialogue, shoddy set design, and just a whole lot of boring. A few funny continuity issues (e.g. two completely different models--one round like a space station, the other pointy like a rocket--are used to represent the exterior of the same ship) were all that kept us from completely nodding off. And that ending--if you could call it an ending. Yeah, that shelf sounds better and better all the time.
End of the World
Grade: F
Scientist gets strange space messages predicting various natural disasters, so off he goes with his hot wife to get to the bottom of things. Features include long, pointless aerial shots of houses with swimming pools; long, pointless, nearly-pitch-black shots of wife blundering around in the dark (and screaming her pretty little head off for no apparent reason); and finally--Rocky Horror fans take note--some aliens in human costume get sent through outer space in their "time warp" machine, complete with fake lightning bolts and groovy zappy sound effects. That's probably the best part, but it's just too little, too late. Is there room on that shelf for this one too?
Conclusion: for diehard Christopher Lee fans only. Or, maybe if you're into evil nuns -- if so, see P's previous post for another one of those.
Come to think of it, these films had a lot more in common than just prop detonation. File under:
Doomsday Machine
Grade: F
From what we've read, it seems this one was originally shot in 1967, shelved for a few years, then re-edited with new footage and released in 1972. Boys, you should have left it on the shelf.
It starts off promisingly enough: a spy's discovery of a dastardly device in China necessitates the quick launch of a Venus-bound rocket, with two hot chicks and one OK-looking babushka-in-training switched in for three of the original crew. The astronauts strap into their La-Z-Boy shuttle recliners, sit back, and suddenly we're up to our eyeballs in bad dialogue, shoddy set design, and just a whole lot of boring. A few funny continuity issues (e.g. two completely different models--one round like a space station, the other pointy like a rocket--are used to represent the exterior of the same ship) were all that kept us from completely nodding off. And that ending--if you could call it an ending. Yeah, that shelf sounds better and better all the time.
End of the World
Grade: F
Scientist gets strange space messages predicting various natural disasters, so off he goes with his hot wife to get to the bottom of things. Features include long, pointless aerial shots of houses with swimming pools; long, pointless, nearly-pitch-black shots of wife blundering around in the dark (and screaming her pretty little head off for no apparent reason); and finally--Rocky Horror fans take note--some aliens in human costume get sent through outer space in their "time warp" machine, complete with fake lightning bolts and groovy zappy sound effects. That's probably the best part, but it's just too little, too late. Is there room on that shelf for this one too?
Conclusion: for diehard Christopher Lee fans only. Or, maybe if you're into evil nuns -- if so, see P's previous post for another one of those.
Come to think of it, these films had a lot more in common than just prop detonation. File under:
- Attractive blonds (End: scientist's wife; Doomsday: scientist Katie)
- Sexual rebuff (End: scientist's wife, again; Doomsday: attempted space rape ending in violent decompression)
- Spying on the communists (End: super-secret Russia-monitoring substation; Doomsday: China's got the bomb!)
- Famous guys just in it for the paycheck (End: Christopher Lee, of course; Doomsday: Casey Kasem as the voice of Mission Control!)
- Advanced alien species beaming our heroes to the far reaches of the universe (for their own good, of course) (End: voluntary; Doomsday: involuntary)
- Natural disaster stock footage overload (Both: well, something has to precede the end of the world as we know it--nothing to do with padding the films' respective lengths, of course)
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Pull the strings! Pull the strings!
Here at The Umbrellahead Review, we try to come up with common themes for our entries -- themes, that is, that go beyond merely saying "Well, these films were on the sixth disc of the box set." Sometimes it's very natural (as in K.'s upcoming entry about Doomsday Machine and End Of The World), sometimes it's a stretch, but we always do our best.
And the theme for this entry? Puppetmasters. In all three of these movies, someone has an evil, depraved agenda, and is secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes to make that agenda happen. And all these puppetmasters have servants who do their bidding -- though the servants in question run the gamut from willing accomplices, to unwilling accomplices, to no-thanks-sir-I'm-just-gonna-get-the-hell-out-of-here.
Fury of the Wolfman (La Furia del Hombre Lobo)
Objective Grade: F
Camp Value Bonus: D
We're not familiar with the other films in this series, nor any of the films of Paul Naschy, who's apparently a beloved Spanish cult horror icon. What we can say is that this one doesn't make any fuckin' sense. Ostensibly the story of a researcher who suffers from the titular affliction, within minutes it degenerates into a slapdash, wildly incoherent mess -- we had to rewind several scenes at the beginning just to sort things out. Terrible direction, jarring transitions (including footage that's obviously taken from a completely different movie), and stupid dialogue about chemotrodes and pentagrams, plus a score so overwrought and inappropriate that it makes those silent movies with random overdubbed classical pieces seem like masterworks of music editing by comparison.
If the stories are true, the director spent his days on set drunk as a skunk, abdicating most of his responsibilities to his teenage nephew. Based on the evidence, we believe it. There's a decent amount of camp value to be had, and we laughed a bit, but the sheer randomness of it gets oppressive after a while. Having said that, this version is apparently cut, removing several scenes with sexual content that are also integral to the plot. A longer version is around, under the title The Wolfman Never Sleeps, and is supposedly a minor improvement.
Good Against Evil
Grade: C
Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, the devil takes her away. With the aid of Christian iconography, boy goes after her high-maintenance ass. Then he has to fight through multiple levels of demonic opposition, occasionally ending up in his underpants somehow, and when he gets to the end of the whole thing he finds out he's not even done, and it's not the real ending...wait, sorry, that's Ghosts 'n Goblins for the NES, a game that still pisses P. off to this day.
Even so, this Rosemary's Baby-meets-Exorcist knockoff is about as frustrating as playing a session of that aforementioned, godforsaken piece of junk, since about five minutes before the end, we realized that it was not merely a TV movie (that much was obvious), but actually the pilot episode for a series that never got made...and thus, it ends without any sort of resolution. Much booing at the screen ensued, but hey, at least that means we still cared.
The damsel in distress, Jessica, is a nightmare amalgam of negative female entitlement archetypes, i.e. a completely unlikable, spoiled, neurotic ice queen; P. suspects his friend S. would classify her as a quintessential example of borderline personality disorder. We have no idea what the male protagonist, played by one Dock Rambo (!), sees in her, especially given that (1) he practically has to stalk her to get a date out of her, and (2) a young, brunette Kim Cattrall is also hell-bent on getting into his pants. (Not that K.C. is all that, but from our perspective, it'd be an upgrade.)
Speaking of K.C., it has them too, though not in the Caribbean. Am I right? Or am I missing something?
House of the Living Dead
Grade: F
A nineteenth-century South African vineyard is the setting for this interminable tale depicting the last remnants of a tortured, madness-prone expat family. Son #1 tries to get Mom to assent to his marriage, while son #2 hides in the attic, conducts mysterious experiments, plays bad organ music, and generally creeps out his future sister-in-law. British accents and picturesque locations provide a veneer of respectability, but really this movie is total crap -- muddy, dull, and tedious. The pacing is ponderous at best, the score hackneyed and trite, and we're given no particular reason to give a damn about any of the characters, except for that poor baboon.
Tries to regain some ground with a "twist" ending (which K. saw coming, P. didn't), but it's the wrong twist, and the ending proper is hilariously pathetic. It surely doesn't help that the print looks pretty lousy -- fuzzy, washed-out to the point of colorlessness, and prone to some sort of automatic level control that abruptly darkens several scenes that were already dark, rendering them basically unwatchable.
And the theme for this entry? Puppetmasters. In all three of these movies, someone has an evil, depraved agenda, and is secretly pulling the strings behind the scenes to make that agenda happen. And all these puppetmasters have servants who do their bidding -- though the servants in question run the gamut from willing accomplices, to unwilling accomplices, to no-thanks-sir-I'm-just-gonna-get-the-hell-out-of-here.
Fury of the Wolfman (La Furia del Hombre Lobo)
Objective Grade: F
Camp Value Bonus: D
We're not familiar with the other films in this series, nor any of the films of Paul Naschy, who's apparently a beloved Spanish cult horror icon. What we can say is that this one doesn't make any fuckin' sense. Ostensibly the story of a researcher who suffers from the titular affliction, within minutes it degenerates into a slapdash, wildly incoherent mess -- we had to rewind several scenes at the beginning just to sort things out. Terrible direction, jarring transitions (including footage that's obviously taken from a completely different movie), and stupid dialogue about chemotrodes and pentagrams, plus a score so overwrought and inappropriate that it makes those silent movies with random overdubbed classical pieces seem like masterworks of music editing by comparison.
If the stories are true, the director spent his days on set drunk as a skunk, abdicating most of his responsibilities to his teenage nephew. Based on the evidence, we believe it. There's a decent amount of camp value to be had, and we laughed a bit, but the sheer randomness of it gets oppressive after a while. Having said that, this version is apparently cut, removing several scenes with sexual content that are also integral to the plot. A longer version is around, under the title The Wolfman Never Sleeps, and is supposedly a minor improvement.
Good Against Evil
Grade: C
Boy meets girl, boy loves girl, the devil takes her away. With the aid of Christian iconography, boy goes after her high-maintenance ass. Then he has to fight through multiple levels of demonic opposition, occasionally ending up in his underpants somehow, and when he gets to the end of the whole thing he finds out he's not even done, and it's not the real ending...wait, sorry, that's Ghosts 'n Goblins for the NES, a game that still pisses P. off to this day.
Even so, this Rosemary's Baby-meets-Exorcist knockoff is about as frustrating as playing a session of that aforementioned, godforsaken piece of junk, since about five minutes before the end, we realized that it was not merely a TV movie (that much was obvious), but actually the pilot episode for a series that never got made...and thus, it ends without any sort of resolution. Much booing at the screen ensued, but hey, at least that means we still cared.
The damsel in distress, Jessica, is a nightmare amalgam of negative female entitlement archetypes, i.e. a completely unlikable, spoiled, neurotic ice queen; P. suspects his friend S. would classify her as a quintessential example of borderline personality disorder. We have no idea what the male protagonist, played by one Dock Rambo (!), sees in her, especially given that (1) he practically has to stalk her to get a date out of her, and (2) a young, brunette Kim Cattrall is also hell-bent on getting into his pants. (Not that K.C. is all that, but from our perspective, it'd be an upgrade.)
Speaking of K.C., it has them too, though not in the Caribbean. Am I right? Or am I missing something?
House of the Living Dead
Grade: F
A nineteenth-century South African vineyard is the setting for this interminable tale depicting the last remnants of a tortured, madness-prone expat family. Son #1 tries to get Mom to assent to his marriage, while son #2 hides in the attic, conducts mysterious experiments, plays bad organ music, and generally creeps out his future sister-in-law. British accents and picturesque locations provide a veneer of respectability, but really this movie is total crap -- muddy, dull, and tedious. The pacing is ponderous at best, the score hackneyed and trite, and we're given no particular reason to give a damn about any of the characters, except for that poor baboon.
Tries to regain some ground with a "twist" ending (which K. saw coming, P. didn't), but it's the wrong twist, and the ending proper is hilariously pathetic. It surely doesn't help that the print looks pretty lousy -- fuzzy, washed-out to the point of colorlessness, and prone to some sort of automatic level control that abruptly darkens several scenes that were already dark, rendering them basically unwatchable.
Sunday, February 22, 2009
Save us, Mister Bigpackage!
These two movies want you to know: in times of trouble or dismay, you can always count on Mister Bigpackage to save your skins.
Fire Monster Vs. The Son Of Hercules
Objective Grade: C-
Camp Value Bonus: B+
Utterly charming sword-and-sandal epic in which our hero Maxus (aka Maciste) brings peace, and/or fire, and/or interbreeding, to tribes of warring cavemen. Careers wildly from solid competence to complete absurdity, with hilarious results.
For instance: in one early scene, our hero faces down a terrific-looking giant animatronic reptile, spearing this titular fire-breather neatly through the eye. Quality work, to be sure. However, in another, later scene, he and his female companion run terrified from another "giant" reptile that abruptly appears -- but this one is obviously a blown-up, poorly-cut shot of a komodo dragon or something.
Other examples abound, the best of which is the sudden, unexpected shot of bright red (and thoroughly modern) underwear, peeking out from beneath a fallen caveman's furs in the midst of a fight scene. In between all this, we get pointless dance numbers, epic battles, bad dubbing, and beautiful scenery. Great fun.
Evil Brain From Outer Space
Grade: F
Disastrous fourth and final entry in the Starman series. Unlike the earlier installments, this one is edited together from three separate short films, and it shows. Completely incoherent, with seemingly interchangeable characters (especially the children), and surprisingly joyless -- you can tell that Ken Utsui wanted out of this role. (And that costume, for that matter: he spends a good deal of his screen time in suit and tie, even for the fight scenes.) A couple of the villains look pretty cool, at least in a Law and Order: Gay Acrobats sort of fashion, but that's about it.
Adding insult to injury, the soundtrack on this version was transferred at much too high a level, and is horribly distorted. Of all the movies we've watched so far, this was one of the hardest to get through. Avoid.
Fire Monster Vs. The Son Of Hercules
Objective Grade: C-
Camp Value Bonus: B+
Utterly charming sword-and-sandal epic in which our hero Maxus (aka Maciste) brings peace, and/or fire, and/or interbreeding, to tribes of warring cavemen. Careers wildly from solid competence to complete absurdity, with hilarious results.
For instance: in one early scene, our hero faces down a terrific-looking giant animatronic reptile, spearing this titular fire-breather neatly through the eye. Quality work, to be sure. However, in another, later scene, he and his female companion run terrified from another "giant" reptile that abruptly appears -- but this one is obviously a blown-up, poorly-cut shot of a komodo dragon or something.
Other examples abound, the best of which is the sudden, unexpected shot of bright red (and thoroughly modern) underwear, peeking out from beneath a fallen caveman's furs in the midst of a fight scene. In between all this, we get pointless dance numbers, epic battles, bad dubbing, and beautiful scenery. Great fun.
Evil Brain From Outer Space
Grade: F
Disastrous fourth and final entry in the Starman series. Unlike the earlier installments, this one is edited together from three separate short films, and it shows. Completely incoherent, with seemingly interchangeable characters (especially the children), and surprisingly joyless -- you can tell that Ken Utsui wanted out of this role. (And that costume, for that matter: he spends a good deal of his screen time in suit and tie, even for the fight scenes.) A couple of the villains look pretty cool, at least in a Law and Order: Gay Acrobats sort of fashion, but that's about it.
Adding insult to injury, the soundtrack on this version was transferred at much too high a level, and is horribly distorted. Of all the movies we've watched so far, this was one of the hardest to get through. Avoid.
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Two outta three ain't bad
So. . . two of these were good (surprisingly so), and one wasn't!
Counterblast (aka Devil's Plot)
Grade: B
For one reason or another, we kept putting this one off. Maybe it was the length (99 minutes), or the year (1948), or the blurb on the DVD sleeve (some nonsense about Nazi scientists -- after Black Dragons and The Nightmare Never Ends, we were understandably wary). Turns out we had nothing to worry about, because Counterblast is one of the few films we've watched in this box that stands up as a "real" movie. It's hard to say exactly what sets it apart from other films we've seen from this era, but the fact that K. didn't check the clock once during the whole thing is saying something.
Shadow of Chinatown
Grade: D-
Meh.
(To be more specific -- this is an edited-down version of a 300-minute serial [and thank god we didn't have to watch that], which fails to deliver in just about every department. Lugosi's hypnotic eyes are going strong again [sorry Bela, it's wearing thin], boyishly-dressed female cub reporter just wants to play detective, and, well. . . there's really nothing much else, except for maybe that Russian chick. Saved from F status by a fun '30s-style car chase.)
Idaho Transfer
Grade: B+
AKA Deranged (inexplicably, for the UK release)
We (especially K.) really liked this one, a little-known (well, aren't they all) 1973 effort directed by Peter Fonda. Without spoiling anything (because it's really a film that needs to unfold on its own), here are some of the high points:
Counterblast (aka Devil's Plot)
Grade: B
For one reason or another, we kept putting this one off. Maybe it was the length (99 minutes), or the year (1948), or the blurb on the DVD sleeve (some nonsense about Nazi scientists -- after Black Dragons and The Nightmare Never Ends, we were understandably wary). Turns out we had nothing to worry about, because Counterblast is one of the few films we've watched in this box that stands up as a "real" movie. It's hard to say exactly what sets it apart from other films we've seen from this era, but the fact that K. didn't check the clock once during the whole thing is saying something.
Shadow of Chinatown
Grade: D-
Meh.
(To be more specific -- this is an edited-down version of a 300-minute serial [and thank god we didn't have to watch that], which fails to deliver in just about every department. Lugosi's hypnotic eyes are going strong again [sorry Bela, it's wearing thin], boyishly-dressed female cub reporter just wants to play detective, and, well. . . there's really nothing much else, except for maybe that Russian chick. Saved from F status by a fun '30s-style car chase.)
Idaho Transfer
Grade: B+
AKA Deranged (inexplicably, for the UK release)
We (especially K.) really liked this one, a little-known (well, aren't they all) 1973 effort directed by Peter Fonda. Without spoiling anything (because it's really a film that needs to unfold on its own), here are some of the high points:
- That grainy, washed-out look of '70s films works perfectly with the barren Craters of the Moon landscape (people should film in Idaho more often), along with its hippie travelers. If nothing else, the movie is worth it aesthetically.
- P. likes that the minor characters are allowed to drift in and out, without all sorts of elaborate backstories complicating the plot. We get the impression that there are other things going on somewhere off camera, but that it's not really important that we know all the details.
- The time travel device (OK, that's a mini spoiler, but nothing more than you'd get from the DVD sleeve) actually looks like a machine that might be built by a university, rather than some crazy, flashy, fakey-fake piece of CGI nonsense. It was probably due to budget constraints more than anything else, but really, what more do you need than a big brushed-steel box, a couple buttons and levers, and an old-fashioned stick-on label warning you about wearing metal? Plus, the "being zapped through time" effect is perfect-- it looks real in a way that makes you almost forget about it, rather than thinking "oh, look at that CGI." (Take note, modern special effects guys -- THAT'S what CGI needs to be like.)
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Chicks with...stingers?
Watching these two movies on back-to-back nights: a po' idea? No, they actually go together quite nicely. (Har har.)
Wasp Woman
Objective Grade: D+
Camp Value Bonus: C+
Roger Corman B&W cheapie about a fashion mogul who uses (ahem) "wasp royal jelly" to regain her youth. Rapidly takes a turn for the silly when it starts playing fast-and-loose with, take your pick, continuity/the facts/our suspension of disbelief. (We're not just talking mixing up wasps with bees, either, though that happens a lot.) The height of absurdity comes in a priceless sequence in which guinea pigs are injected with a serum that reverses aging, but the producers couldn't find any baby guinea pigs for the substitution -- so they used white rats instead! I mean, c'mon, Roger, WTF?
A decent sense of style and pacing, but that can't quite patch the gaping holes in the narrative. The lead, Susan Cabot -- who has a genuinely interesting face -- is well-cast and gives it her all, even while wearing a ridiculous wasp mask. (This was her last film before retiring; twentysomething years later, she was bludgeoned to death by her son!)
Invasion Of The Bee Girls
Objective Grade: D
Camp Value Bonus: B+
We dipped into the Drive-In Movie Classics box set for this hilarious sexploitation piece of crap. Women in an isolated research town mysteriously transform into "bee girls", which basically means they start wearing oversized sunglasses and killing dudes with their deadly hoo-has. If that sounds suspiciously like your typical sorority, well, there you go. (Sorry, Delta Zeta.)
Full of all things gratuitous and ludicrous, and gets going straightaway, i.e. right from the wakka-wakka music at the opening, with only a few dull patches. Exploitation highlights include a scene where bee girls cocoon a newcomer with something that looks suspiciously like Cool Whip, while performing synchronized breast self-exams en masse. Highly recommended for group viewing, with the right crowd.
Wasp Woman
Objective Grade: D+
Camp Value Bonus: C+
Roger Corman B&W cheapie about a fashion mogul who uses (ahem) "wasp royal jelly" to regain her youth. Rapidly takes a turn for the silly when it starts playing fast-and-loose with, take your pick, continuity/the facts/our suspension of disbelief. (We're not just talking mixing up wasps with bees, either, though that happens a lot.) The height of absurdity comes in a priceless sequence in which guinea pigs are injected with a serum that reverses aging, but the producers couldn't find any baby guinea pigs for the substitution -- so they used white rats instead! I mean, c'mon, Roger, WTF?
A decent sense of style and pacing, but that can't quite patch the gaping holes in the narrative. The lead, Susan Cabot -- who has a genuinely interesting face -- is well-cast and gives it her all, even while wearing a ridiculous wasp mask. (This was her last film before retiring; twentysomething years later, she was bludgeoned to death by her son!)
Invasion Of The Bee Girls
Objective Grade: D
Camp Value Bonus: B+
We dipped into the Drive-In Movie Classics box set for this hilarious sexploitation piece of crap. Women in an isolated research town mysteriously transform into "bee girls", which basically means they start wearing oversized sunglasses and killing dudes with their deadly hoo-has. If that sounds suspiciously like your typical sorority, well, there you go. (Sorry, Delta Zeta.)
Full of all things gratuitous and ludicrous, and gets going straightaway, i.e. right from the wakka-wakka music at the opening, with only a few dull patches. Exploitation highlights include a scene where bee girls cocoon a newcomer with something that looks suspiciously like Cool Whip, while performing synchronized breast self-exams en masse. Highly recommended for group viewing, with the right crowd.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Three that caught us out
The common thread that runs through these three movies: all of them had a scene in which we found ourselves smugly pointing out something that seemed like a goof-up...only to discover, a moment or two later, that it was no accident. Joke's on us.
Alien Zone
Grade: D+
AKA The House Of The Dead, among other titles.
Four unrelated horror vignettes, tied together by silly framing story involving a cheating husband who visits a macabre mortician. In Story Number Three, the dude who narrated the 1980s Twilight Zone plays the world's greatest detective. That's probably the best one, though the ending is obvious from a mile away. The others are mainly pointless or incoherent, though P. thinks that Number Two's serial killer case study could pack a nasty punch if it weren't for that pathetic "Poochie died on the way back to his home planet" ending. (Yes, I certainly do.)
Was this made for TV? It sure seems that way. It's hard to imagine the guy who thought it was a good idea to call it Alien Zone -- there's nary an alien to be seen. Maybe he liked to disappoint people.
This print was disastrously poor, especially the audio. The House Of The Dead version is supposedly longer, and probably looks and sounds better. (It's available on a different Mill Creek box set, which we'll hopefully get to a couple hundred movies from now.)
How it caught us out: The radio was playing when she left the house for a moment; when she got back, it was off. We thought it was a continuity error; it wasn't. (She noticed.)
The Beast Of Yucca Flats
Grade: F
Definitely a worse movie-qua-movie than Plan 9, but it's not as much of a downer watching Tor Johnson amble laboriously across the desert. We couldn't help but admire the filmmakers' ingenuity with the dubbing, and it's actually a good-looking movie, but gosh, it's interminable. Both of us had a hard time staying awake for this one. We liked the rabbit, though.
How it caught us out: We thought the actress lying in the cave was supposed to be dead, and took the rise and fall of her chest as another symbol of this movie's half-assedness. A moment later, they find her, and note: "She's still breathing."
Eternal Evil (aka The Blue Man)
Grade: D+
Karen Black, in a funny wig (and dancing a funny jig), helps bored advertising exec to cut loose via astral projection. Mayhem ensues, and to its credit, the film leaves us guessing for a while as to who's behind it. Interesting premise, but ruined by bad dialogue, pretentious vibes, and a score that alternates between 1980s banalities and weird vocalizations that remind P. of the stuff his high school friends would sing when they got stoned between sessions of D&D.
How it caught us out: In the opening shot of the funeral scene, the camera jerked around erratically. "Nice cinematography," said P. sarcastically. A moment later, we saw that we were meant to be looking through the aperture of a handheld camera, as someone took pictures.
Alien Zone
Grade: D+
AKA The House Of The Dead, among other titles.
Four unrelated horror vignettes, tied together by silly framing story involving a cheating husband who visits a macabre mortician. In Story Number Three, the dude who narrated the 1980s Twilight Zone plays the world's greatest detective. That's probably the best one, though the ending is obvious from a mile away. The others are mainly pointless or incoherent, though P. thinks that Number Two's serial killer case study could pack a nasty punch if it weren't for that pathetic "Poochie died on the way back to his home planet" ending. (Yes, I certainly do.)
Was this made for TV? It sure seems that way. It's hard to imagine the guy who thought it was a good idea to call it Alien Zone -- there's nary an alien to be seen. Maybe he liked to disappoint people.
This print was disastrously poor, especially the audio. The House Of The Dead version is supposedly longer, and probably looks and sounds better. (It's available on a different Mill Creek box set, which we'll hopefully get to a couple hundred movies from now.)
How it caught us out: The radio was playing when she left the house for a moment; when she got back, it was off. We thought it was a continuity error; it wasn't. (She noticed.)
The Beast Of Yucca Flats
Grade: F
Definitely a worse movie-qua-movie than Plan 9, but it's not as much of a downer watching Tor Johnson amble laboriously across the desert. We couldn't help but admire the filmmakers' ingenuity with the dubbing, and it's actually a good-looking movie, but gosh, it's interminable. Both of us had a hard time staying awake for this one. We liked the rabbit, though.
How it caught us out: We thought the actress lying in the cave was supposed to be dead, and took the rise and fall of her chest as another symbol of this movie's half-assedness. A moment later, they find her, and note: "She's still breathing."
Eternal Evil (aka The Blue Man)
Grade: D+
Karen Black, in a funny wig (and dancing a funny jig), helps bored advertising exec to cut loose via astral projection. Mayhem ensues, and to its credit, the film leaves us guessing for a while as to who's behind it. Interesting premise, but ruined by bad dialogue, pretentious vibes, and a score that alternates between 1980s banalities and weird vocalizations that remind P. of the stuff his high school friends would sing when they got stoned between sessions of D&D.
How it caught us out: In the opening shot of the funeral scene, the camera jerked around erratically. "Nice cinematography," said P. sarcastically. A moment later, we saw that we were meant to be looking through the aperture of a handheld camera, as someone took pictures.
Friday, January 9, 2009
Wanna go tree
Our themes this time out include shotguns, sausages, and spears:
All The Kind Strangers
Grade: C-
Creepy kids corral Good Samaritan photographer into becoming their "new foster father" (though none of them are named Ndugu) in this made-for-TV flick. Sustains its ominous atmosphere for a good while, but ultimately deflated by pointless musical sequences and an artificially tidy ending. Stacy Keach, gamely clad in a Hawaiian shirt, leads a serviceable if unremarkable cast, most of whom seem to have disappeared from the acting world shortly after this film.
The Disappearance of Flight 412
Grade: D
Another TV movie, this one about Air Force flyers who have a mysterious brush with a UFO, and catch hell for it. Reasonably well-acted and well-paced, could've been pretty good, but it's missing two crucial things: first, the UFOs, which never appear onscreen; and second, a point to the story, which ultimately fails to offer any kind of satisfying resolution or sense of purpose. Also hampered by heavy-handed A-Team style narration at the beginning, which suggests "action flick" (which this isn't) rather than "psychological drama" (which this sort of is). Note that, with the exception of a brief scene with the colonel and his wife, this one's strictly a sausagefest.
The Wild Women of Wongo
Grade: F
Camp Factor Bonus: D+
Though this goofy prehistoric rendition of the Ladder Theory picks up a bit in the second half, it's ultimately doomed by, among other things, the acute absence of both T and A. (Which weren't an option in 1958, really, but them's the breaks.) Mostly draggy and dull, without enough camp value to quite redeem it, and a few too many cringeworthy and annoying sequences (like that execrable parrot).
Still, the dance, the girlfight, and that winking at the end. So what's it like to be cast as "the ugly chick" in a movie, anyway? (Paging Heather Matarazzo.)
On the non-Mill Creek (and creepy children) front, we also watched:
Who Can Kill A Child?
Grade: C
Stylish but disappointing, this provocative movie is sabotaged by incomprehensible behavior on the part of the two leads, who ignore the all-important "why aren't you getting the fuck out of there?" clause at every turn, leading to much swearing at the screen and gnashing of teeth. Maybe it's allegorical, but it doesn't play its cards quite right if so.
Also loses major points for opening with almost ten minutes of actual footage of atrocities committed against children (Holocaust, Biafra, etc.), which really seems exploitative and tasteless in this context.
Still, it's got balls, and the movie's key scene -- the antepenultimate one or so, by P.'s count -- is appropriately unsettling, especially the expression on the kid's face...
All The Kind Strangers
Grade: C-
Creepy kids corral Good Samaritan photographer into becoming their "new foster father" (though none of them are named Ndugu) in this made-for-TV flick. Sustains its ominous atmosphere for a good while, but ultimately deflated by pointless musical sequences and an artificially tidy ending. Stacy Keach, gamely clad in a Hawaiian shirt, leads a serviceable if unremarkable cast, most of whom seem to have disappeared from the acting world shortly after this film.
The Disappearance of Flight 412
Grade: D
Another TV movie, this one about Air Force flyers who have a mysterious brush with a UFO, and catch hell for it. Reasonably well-acted and well-paced, could've been pretty good, but it's missing two crucial things: first, the UFOs, which never appear onscreen; and second, a point to the story, which ultimately fails to offer any kind of satisfying resolution or sense of purpose. Also hampered by heavy-handed A-Team style narration at the beginning, which suggests "action flick" (which this isn't) rather than "psychological drama" (which this sort of is). Note that, with the exception of a brief scene with the colonel and his wife, this one's strictly a sausagefest.
The Wild Women of Wongo
Grade: F
Camp Factor Bonus: D+
Though this goofy prehistoric rendition of the Ladder Theory picks up a bit in the second half, it's ultimately doomed by, among other things, the acute absence of both T and A. (Which weren't an option in 1958, really, but them's the breaks.) Mostly draggy and dull, without enough camp value to quite redeem it, and a few too many cringeworthy and annoying sequences (like that execrable parrot).
Still, the dance, the girlfight, and that winking at the end. So what's it like to be cast as "the ugly chick" in a movie, anyway? (Paging Heather Matarazzo.)
On the non-Mill Creek (and creepy children) front, we also watched:
Who Can Kill A Child?
Grade: C
Stylish but disappointing, this provocative movie is sabotaged by incomprehensible behavior on the part of the two leads, who ignore the all-important "why aren't you getting the fuck out of there?" clause at every turn, leading to much swearing at the screen and gnashing of teeth. Maybe it's allegorical, but it doesn't play its cards quite right if so.
Also loses major points for opening with almost ten minutes of actual footage of atrocities committed against children (Holocaust, Biafra, etc.), which really seems exploitative and tasteless in this context.
Still, it's got balls, and the movie's key scene -- the antepenultimate one or so, by P.'s count -- is appropriately unsettling, especially the expression on the kid's face...
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Do I look pale? I feel pale.
We watched Ed Wood a couple months back and were inspired to skip ahead in the box to a few of Bela Lugosi's earlier films (and by earlier, I mean earlier than Plan 9, which was of course the last film he did [well, was posthumously inserted into, really]. We saw that one too, but we'll skip the review--everyone's said enough about that one already). Anyway, no masterpieces here, but the more we see of Bela, the more we just want to invite him over for coffee and give him a hug. Or, at least K. does.
Black Dragons
Grade: D
War! Espionage! Something a little different from Bela's regular horror-type films--well, except for all those murders. An intriguing premise, but half the time we just had no clue what was going on (and the poor quality of the audio track didn't help matters). A word of advice if you plan to see this one: DON'T, under any circumstances, take a look at anybody's plot synopsis. Most of them seem to give away the ending without much thought, spoiling the twist that helps keep the film out of F territory.
Invisible Ghost
Grade: C
Sorry, Bela. I know you're the murderer and all, and you do a great job being creepy with your hypnotized twitching zombie walk, but the real star of this film is Clarence Muse as Evans the Butler. In a role that could have easily played into the stereotype of cartoonish "yes, massah!" black servant, Muse delivers his lines (incluing that gem regarding paleness) with a dignity and sly, subtle humor that steal the show. A genuinely good actor. Look for him in over 150(!) other roles, none of which we've been fortunate enough to see (including Snoe in The Black Stallion, or "that horse movie," as P. put it).
The rest of the movie? It was fine. Oh, and you know in those old-timey movies when a newspaper comes spinning out of the background to help clue the audience in on key current events? We got a laugh out of this headline: Engineer Accused of Murder; Declares Innocence When Charged With Murder of Attractive Blonde.
One Body Too Many
Grade: C+
A fun, spooky little murder mystery of the eyes-following-you-from-behind-the-painting variety. Bela gets to be the butler in this one and plays it mostly straight, while Jack Haley (of Tin Man fame) does a fine job as a cowardly-yet-loveable insurance salesman who just ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Follows a familar formula (get a bunch of people together on a stormy night in a big creepy house when there's money at stake, and then wait for somebody to get killed), but for a poverty row flick, not too terrible. Extra points for a nice shot involving goldfish.
Black Dragons
Grade: D
War! Espionage! Something a little different from Bela's regular horror-type films--well, except for all those murders. An intriguing premise, but half the time we just had no clue what was going on (and the poor quality of the audio track didn't help matters). A word of advice if you plan to see this one: DON'T, under any circumstances, take a look at anybody's plot synopsis. Most of them seem to give away the ending without much thought, spoiling the twist that helps keep the film out of F territory.
Invisible Ghost
Grade: C
Sorry, Bela. I know you're the murderer and all, and you do a great job being creepy with your hypnotized twitching zombie walk, but the real star of this film is Clarence Muse as Evans the Butler. In a role that could have easily played into the stereotype of cartoonish "yes, massah!" black servant, Muse delivers his lines (incluing that gem regarding paleness) with a dignity and sly, subtle humor that steal the show. A genuinely good actor. Look for him in over 150(!) other roles, none of which we've been fortunate enough to see (including Snoe in The Black Stallion, or "that horse movie," as P. put it).
The rest of the movie? It was fine. Oh, and you know in those old-timey movies when a newspaper comes spinning out of the background to help clue the audience in on key current events? We got a laugh out of this headline: Engineer Accused of Murder; Declares Innocence When Charged With Murder of Attractive Blonde.
One Body Too Many
Grade: C+
A fun, spooky little murder mystery of the eyes-following-you-from-behind-the-painting variety. Bela gets to be the butler in this one and plays it mostly straight, while Jack Haley (of Tin Man fame) does a fine job as a cowardly-yet-loveable insurance salesman who just ends up in the wrong place at the wrong time. Follows a familar formula (get a bunch of people together on a stormy night in a big creepy house when there's money at stake, and then wait for somebody to get killed), but for a poverty row flick, not too terrible. Extra points for a nice shot involving goldfish.
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