Capricorn One (1977)

Charles Brubaker (James Brolin), Peter Willis (Sam Waterston) and John Walker (O.J. Simpson) are the crew of the first manned mission to Mars. Or rather, they are supposed to be, for just before launch, a couple of gentlemen in suits drag them out of their capsule and transport them to some hidden base out in the desert.

There, the Mars project’s architect, Dr Kelloway (Hal Holbrook), explains to the men that some last minute checks on the capsule have uncovered some catastrophic material flaws that would have turned disastrous for them as well as the mission. Because there’s supposedly no true political backing for something like manned space flights anymore, Kelloway and some other powers that be have decided not to disclose the problems to anyone, but to instead fake the Mars landing. Obviously, he needs the help of the astronauts to produce this hoax.

They, on the other hand, think Kelloway and whoever is backing him have gone crazy. The scientist, however, is very quick with threatening the lives of the men’s families, so they grudgingly accede to his demands. Particularly Brubaker is only waiting on a moment or a way to somehow turn the tables, but for now, there’s a Mars landing to fake.

During the months the astronauts are involved in this, muck-raking - but not terribly successful at it - reporter Robert Caulfield (Elliott Gould) stumbles upon hints that suggest something strange is going on with the Mars project, though he can’t really figure out what kind of strangeness at all. Fortunately, the conspirators are so heavy-handed in their approach to any perceived threat, they attempt to murder him early on. Caulfield being the kind of guy he is, he is bound to see that as prove that something particularly shady is going on and will get at the truth somehow.

Peter Hyams’s Capricorn One is certainly one of the more peculiar examples of the 70s conspiracy thriller, with a plot that moves the generally at least somewhat down to Earth sub-genre not just towards the really rather implausible but the outright absurd. Attempting to understand the logistics and plans of the Mars fakers is an obvious way to traditional Lovecraftian madness, and while there’s certainly the genre-typical criticism of Power, Secrecy and their misuse, and a couple of perfect moments of paranoia, in many ways this more of a romp than any other film of its sub-genre.

I’m not complaining about that, mind you, for Hyams’s flights of fancy – sometimes even whimsy – here are generally gloriously entertaining and tend to lead to one of the director’s patented go-for-broke action sequences. Capricorn One may not be great as a deep criticism of the military-industrial complex, but absolutely makes up for it with sequences like the climactic biplane versus helicopters chase through desert and canyons. Because that scene clearly wasn’t crazy enough, the filmmakers decided to put Brolin (well, his stuntman) on the biplane’s wing while it flies loops and destroys modern helicopters. And because that’s yet still not crazy enough, the plane is piloted by a scenery chewing Telly Savalas who just pops into the film for the final act.

Particularly in Gould’s plotline, Hyams appears to have a lot of fun with just letting his actors patter through probably at least in part improvised dialogue that finds the midpoint between old Hollywood homage and sheer bizarreness and dances a merry little jig on it. Gould is, even by his standards, particularly gleeful in these sequences, so they turn into the sort of joyful little cinematic gems you can’t believe actually made it into the final cut of a film so well-made, and are all the more wonderful for it. Just watch the “I don’t like you” scene between Gould and his editor – or the bizarre flirting scenes between Gould and Karen Black – and become happy for at least the next hundred years.

That all of this actually somewhat works as a straightforward thriller as well is thanks to Hyams’s gift for the great action scene, as well as how cleverly he leaves all the weird stuff to Gould and co, whereas Brolin, Waterston and Simpson are left to play everything straight, the two plotlines only converging at the late point when a viewer has either bought into the whole thing, or, sad creature, already left the film in a huff.

The Unholy (1988)

After young Catholic priest Father Michael (Ben Cross) against all reason survives being thrown out of a window by a supposed suicide without even the slightest injury, New Orleans’s archbishop Mosely (Hal Holbrook) and a blind, mysterious and hysterically overacted elderly priest we will later learn to be called Father Silva (Trevor Howard) look upon him with rather different eyes. Why, he might just be “the Chosen One”, which, as you know, is a very important part of Catholic doctrine that just happens to not be written down anywhere, certainly not in that book, whatsitcalled? Right, the Bible!

Anyway, his potential Chosen One status earns Michael his own parish, a church somewhere in what looks like one of the poorer, predominantly black, parts of New Orleans, yet which still harbours that whitest of things – a Satanist themed nightclub. The nightclub and its boss, one Luke (William Russ), aren’t too troubling for the rather modern Father Michael at first. He’s got worse problems to cope with: turns out his two predecessors in his church were both murdered right in front of the altar. The police were so helpless to solve the crimes they even asked the Church to close the place down; which they did before sending Father Michael. As the audience knows – and Michael will take quite a while to accept because he doesn’t believe in the devil or demons – the priests were murdered by a demon appearing as a pretty nude sexy (though curiously grown-up and female) woman (Nicole Fortier).

So clearly, some temptation of the flesh in form of one of Luke’s baristas is on the menu for Father Michael, as well as some theology lessons and other random nonsense.

Camilo Vila’s The Unholy is a deeply flawed film that I nonetheless love quite passionately. Its worst flaw is obviously the pacing: it starts, stops, starts, comes to a halt again, repeats plot points for no good reason to then get going again, and has about as much flow as a German rapper (don’t ask). I also can’t deny that it is much more talky than it needs to be, again tending to repeat ideas and plot beats for no good reason whatsoever. Then there’s the Ben Cross factor. While I don’t have anything against the man as an actor, the film’s slower parts could have used some enlivening by a leading men who is a bit more outwardly charismatic and whose acting style isn’t quite as dry as Cross’s.

Having said all that, here’s why The Unholy is awesome: living as we do in a time where all religiously themed horror (at least the Christian kind) seems to be inevitably about exorcisms, it is such a wonderful change of pace to see a film that just makes up some wacky bit of mythology it adds to Catholicism and then proceeds to tie things up with the sorts of things demons in the Christian interpretation are rather more interested in than possession. Temptation, particularly of priests (and saints) is rather a big thing in this mythology, and there aren’t too many films directly about it, even though this approach potentially adds fine opportunities for actually talking about morals, the complexities of the human heart and getting some nudity into your film.

The Unholy doesn’t stop there, though: in its final twenty minutes, it climaxes in (some might say devolves into) a very 80s horror concoction with multiple crucifixions, a thematically pertinent demonic parody of the Catholic mass, a ridiculous yet inspired demon (who also still looks like said sexy redhead in actually rather disquieting intercuts), his adorable assistant demon dwarfs, a short descent into hell with quick snippets of DEBAUCHERY! CANNIBALISM! LESBIANISM! ICKY STUFF!, and a sudden awakening of Cross’s inner scenery chewer. And while there’s certainly too much feet-dragging before, even earlier in the film there’s still space for fun stuff like Trevor Howard’s channelling of the spirit of Vincent Price in a really outrageous week, or the ten minutes in which Luke (who is only a fake Satanist for publicity reasons, by the way) turns into our short-term protagonist and visits a dramatic yet less than helpful medium who basically explains to the man afraid of the bad shit that’s going down that bad shit is going down and she’s utterly useless.


All of that is directed by Vila in spurts of somewhat stylish 80s colour, some dry ice fog, shot in some cool and some not so cool locations. What’s not to like (except for all that stuff I already mentioned)?