Wanna go tree

Our themes this time out include shotguns, sausages, and spears:

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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.

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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.

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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.)

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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...