The Horror!? 88: Scream Bloody Murder (1973)

This subtly titled epic's plot reminds me of the sweet tales of the Brothers Grimm. You know how it goes: Boy (Fred Holbert) kills father with some kind of farming vehicle. Boy loses hand. Boy spends years in an institution, but at least gets a nice hook. He comes back only to find his mother (Leigh Mitchell) freshly wedded to a guy wearing a pornoid mustache. Of course the boy Matthew doesn't like his new daddy and murders him with an axe. Accidentally, he kills his mother,too.

So he goes on the road, killing everyone who does anything remotely sexual, until he comes to a city where he meets the kind-hearted prostitute Vera (also played by Leigh Mitchell!). Surprisingly he kills only one of her costumers, while he has much better things for her in mind. He doesn't want his new friend to continue this icky job anymore, so he murders an old woman and her maid, moves into their house, kidnaps Vera and tries to rope (attention: bad pun!) her into being his passive and obedient new "mother". You see, it's exactly like a fairy tale.

Scream Bloody Murder is quite a successful semi-professional effort by all participants. Sure, it sometimes shows that nobody had a lot of experience, but one can feel an air of honest enthusiasm and energy throughout its running time. The actors may be amateurs, but they are doing their best, which mostly amounts to looking and sounding like real people.

Director Marc B. Ray has more than one nifty idea in his head and has no problem evading the classical static camera and boring composition of too many movies made for next to nothing.

The movie's psychology may be problematic, still small strikes of genius like Leigh Mitchell's double role or Matthew's weird ideas about friendship and love in the last act make most of the events plausible enough.

The only real problem I had was the terrible make-up used for the vision's Matthew has of his dead victims. It's so bad that it stretches my ability to suspend disbelief to the absolute breaking point and nearly ruins one or two scenes that should by all rights be absolute high points of the film.

Scream Bloody Murder's effect as a whole is typical of the Seventies films I like so much. It's at the same time darkly funny (sometimes even intentionally), harrowing and just plain nasty (people die for really nothing that's in anyone's control - you can call that honesty, of course), and I see no good reason for anyone not to at least try and watch it.

 

Technorati-Tags: american movies,horror,reviews

Music Monday: The Advisory Circle - Other Channels (2008)

I certainly didn't plan on starting off my new project of one or more smallish music reviews every Monday with a slam, but this record doesn't leave me much of a choice.

Other Channels is published on the Ghostbox label, the darling of a small, but loud mostly British group of critics who champion the concept of hauntology, something I haven't made up my mind about yet. On one hand I heartily approve of many of the artistic ancestors hauntologists like to relate to, reaching from M.R. James to J.G. Ballard to Nigel Kneale. On the other hand I have a feeling that "hauntology" often is just a different word for intellectualized nostalgia, a simple way to indulge in nostalgic impulses without being embarrassed. What exactly modern hauntological art has to say about the here and now, I'm not sure of.

And if this Advisory Circle album is typical of the music hauntologists champion, I am quite sure it hasn't anything to say at all. I have seldom heard a less ambitious and less interesting grab bag of mumbling, "important" samples, analog synthies and so-so trip-hoppy beats. The whole album just sits there, sounding like something even a bad net label wouldn't accept and leaves me absolutely puzzled. What on earth makes this important? Why would I want to sit through it? Why does all the intellectual groundwork end up sounding like this?

I would actually appreciate if someone could explain this to me.

 

Technorati-Tags: reviews,advisory circle,electronica,hauntology,music,music monday

The Horror!? 87: The Devil's Messenger (1962)

Some demonic bureaucrat in hell (Lon Chaney, jr.) sends a young, dead woman named Satanya (Karen Kadler) back into the world of the living to deliver three items. Each item causes a different strange tale to happen.

In the first one, an agent sends his client, a famous photographer (John Powell) on a vacation. There the good man not only makes some of his best photos, but also murders a woman. As is the custom in an anthology movie of this type, her picture starts to haunt him.

In the second story, a scientist develops an obsession for a frozen girl. It nearly seems as if she might be alive! Do stories of this kind ever end well?

In the third and last of the stories, a soothsayer predicts that something terrible will happen to a man. At first, he is skeptical, but he gets more nervous with each prediction that comes true.

The Devil's Messenger is an anthology film pasted together from three episodes of a Swedish TV show called "13 Demon Street" that was, as far as I could find out, quite an strange project. The great Curt Siodmak and other Americans went to Sweden and made a little TV show in English for the Swedish market.

Later, a more or less clever American producer paid Siodmak to make an anthology movie of some of the material (I suspect Chaney's scenes were shot for the film and not for the TV show. The sources about the film I could find are divided on the point.). As did happen more than once where Siodmak was concerned, he soon broke with his producer and terrible hack Herbert L. Strock wrapped up the project. It's a nice coincidence that there wasn't much Strock could do to ruin the project, so his filmography contains at least one watchable movie.

Of course, the episodes themselves are neither original nor lavishly produced, but are still products of solid craftsmanship, something that often isn't enough to hold a full length feature together, but works out fine for three nice little horror shorts. Nothing in the movie overstays its welcome or tries for things it can't achieve, so if you don't expect to see a film of the quality of the better Amicus productions, you will have a nice time.

 

Technorati-Tags: reviews,horror,swedish movies,american movies,anthology,curt siodmak,lon chaney jr.

The Horror!? 86: The Demon (1979)

A very slow and delibaretly working killer kidnaps the daughter of a burgeois family. Though he kills again and has obviously no intention of hiding his victims, the girl's body is never found. Her parents, desperate for any kind of closure, seek out the help of soldier-turned-clairvoyant Bill Carson (Cameron Mitchell, as always badly in need of his drinking money).

Since all his sniffing on pieces of clothes doesn't lead to any helpful visions, the movie merrily jumps to a pair of young women (sisters? cousins? - I am not completely sure and will certainly not watch parts of this again to find out), whose boring love lifes and all-around annoyingness will accompany us for the rest of the movie. There is hope, though, because our friend, the very slow killer stalks the two women, albeit even more slowly. From time to time we look in on him anyway, and see him standing, standing or standing and washing his mask (that seems to be able to teleport onto and off of his skull at will).

At this point I had high hopes to at least see the clairvoyant guy again, but no chance. Carson is finally able to tell where the killer lives. He even seems to have an especially good day concerning visions - he also prophecises that the father will not survive his short moment of Charles Bronson vigilantism against the Slow One.

All of this comes true, but of course The Demon still finds the time to show us the sisters of boredom again and again and again.

Actually, it shows us the two that often and extensive that there isn't much time to wrap the film up, so Cameron Mitchell is disposed of in one of the stupidest twists imaginable and the killer can finally strike.

Oh, there are South African horror films? I hesitate to call this a horror film, I even hesitate to call it a film.

It's an absolutely dire attempt to make a slasher movie (at least I suspect it is meant to be one), one of those films that don't get anything right except a nearly mystical aura of utter cluelessness and boredom.

At least I know what to do the next time I can't sleep.

 

Technorati-Tags: horror,cameron mitchell,reviews,slasher,south african movies

The Horror!? 85: The Blancheville Monster (1964)

A few days before her 21st birthday, Emily de Blancheville (Ombretta Colli) returns to the castle of her family. Her college friend Alice Taylor (Iran Eory) and Alice's brother John (Vanni Materassi), who is in love with Emily accompany her. Shortly after they have arrived at the castle, the strangest things begin to happen. Elephant noises turn out to be the product of Father de Blancheville, thought dead by Emily.

In truth, her brother Rodrigue (Gerard Tichy) lied about their father's dead to spare Emily the shock of learning that her dear father wasn't only terribly disfigured in a fire, but also lost his mind and now dreams of killing his daughter right before her birthday to lift a not really specified "family curse".

Of course the mad old man escapes and starts to threaten more than just his daughter's life. Or is it possible that the shifty acting Dr. Lerouge (Leo Anchoriz), who seems to share secrets with the new housekeeper (Helga Line) is the one who uses remote hypnotic powers to lure the young woman into danger?

If a cliché exists in Gothic Horror movies, you will find it here. It feels as if the Corbucci brothers who wrote the script had used a checklist and wouldn't stop until they could squeeze every single Gothic element known to science into their script.

It's a tactic that doesn't usually help to create masterworks, and of course The Blancheville Monster is none either. What it is, is a living lexicon of its genre full of melodrama and slightly over the top acting, but also some fine mood pieces by director Alberto De Martino.

De Martino was no Mario Bava, not even an Antonio Margheriti, still he was able to somehow keep the disparate mixture of fainting spells, "are you sure it wasn't a dream"s, hypnosis, premature burials, disfigured madmen, evil plots, absurdly sinister looks, puzzling non-logic and American accents for people who are supposed to be quite posh, from completely falling apart.

This does not lead to the kind of movie I would recommend to people who don't have a certain affinity for Gothics, but people who do should have at least a little fun.

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,horror,gothic,sergio corbucci,alberto de martino,reviews

The Horror!? 84: Panic (1976? 1982?)

In a town in what is supposed to be England, a highly infectious (as proven by the fact that exactly one person is infected in the whole movie) and deadly (as proven by the fact that said victim is remarkably spry) contaminates a certain Professor Adams (Roberto Ricci), turning him into a red-scaled, blood-drinking, green-goo-oozing monster. The professor goes on a minor killing spree, as befits his new state. The British government likes to be on the safe side when oh so terrible diseases are on the loose and orders "Plan Q" to be enacted. This means the total quarantine of the town and after a few hours the total eradication of its populace through the "accident" of a plane carrying nerve gas crashing into town.

The town will only be spared if Special Services agent Captain Kirk (!) (David Warbeck) can find and kill Professor Adams.

Well, this is a slightly cheesy, very silly monster movie with a badly thought through evil Government angle. It's mostly entertaining if you like this kind of thing (which I of course do) and even has a few effective scenes. You don't see a grunting mutant attack a catholic boy's choir very often. Only in Italy...

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,horror,reviews,david warbeck

The Horror!? 83: Werewolf in a Girl's Dormitory (1961)

Mary Smith (Mary McNeeran), an inhabitant of a progressive reform school, is murdered in a most vicious way. Although the facts indicate some members of the local wolf population as the killers, Mary's best friend Priscilla (Barbara Lass) begins to snoop around for a very human perpetrator and his (or her?) motives.

There certainly is no shortage of suspects. From sado-masochist Sir Alfred (Maurice Marsac) to new teacher in town Julian Alcott (Carl Schell), every man in the school seems to have some very dark secrets.

One of them might even be a werewolf.

Werewolf... reminds me very much of the German Edgar Wallace krimis, a series of movies that started in 1959 and were an important influence on the Italian Giallo. Both tend to combine some Gothic trappings with an often quite illogical mystery plot. The biggest difference here is that no German film at the time would have dared to use an actual supernatural entity (even if like here explained in semi-scientific terms) instead of someone using local superstition for his own ends. Effectively this makes no great deal of difference to the movie, since the werewolf kills very deliberately and planned.

But this isn't the only thing the krimi and Werewolf... have in common. They also share the tendency to waste their relatively high budget and very talented artists in front of and behind the camera on slow and conservative scripts.

Everything is just a little too cautious and a little too inoffensive to be worth watching.

At least Werewolf... is interesting as an early connection between the krimi and Italian filmmaking. I can't recommend it to less historically minded viewers, though.

 

Technorati-Tags: italian movies,horror,reviews,mystery

The Horror!? 82: Haunts (1977)

A small rural community is plagued by a series of rapes and murders. The scissor-loving black-gloved killer seems awfully interested in puritanical farmer Ingrid (May Britt), at least he not only tries to rape her, but decorates her chicken coop with a corpse, too. The local sheriff (Aldo Ray) hasn't a clue how to handle the situation. Things don't improve when the rapist is caught in the act and shot. Someone still wants to do Ingrid, whose traumatic experiences bring some terrible happenings from her childhood back to the surface of her memory, harm. Standing on the verge of a nervous breakdown, she even starts to doubt her uncle (Cameron Mitchell).

Another positive surprise. Director Herb Freed had the fabulous idea to use most of the aesthetics and techniques of the Giallo while making Haunts. The Giallo influence isn't just superficial, the whole film seems to be constructed in the same way Giallos are. Nobody ever seems to have asked themselves if certain events in the movie were logical or plausible, the emphasis lies wholly on the atmospheric and emotional truth of the scenes. Even the ending only makes sense if you are willing to suppress the wish for sensible explanations and plot-logic. Of course, in my world this is a good choice to make.

What makes Haunts even more interesting is its coupling of Giallo style with the Seventies grittiness I like to rave about, as well as the kind of hyper-realism you get when you have to shoot most of your film in more or less shabby real-world locations other film makers wouldn't even look at.

In addition to all this, the film (or Herb Freed) shares the deep distrust of male authority figures we know and love from many Giallos. Fathers, uncles, sheriffs, priest - they are ineffectual at best and actively malevolent at their worst.

The acting is solid throughout, especially Aldo Ray and Cameron Mitchell make some difficult moments work.

May Britt surely is no Catherine Deneuve (whose role in Polanski's Repulsion is another obvious touchstone for this picture), but we doubt her Ingrid not for a moment. That her prettiness is a little more real than Deneuve's only helps us relate to her easier. Too much distance to her would kill the movie fast.

 

Technorati-Tags: may britt,cameron mitchell,aldo ray,herb freed,horror,giallo,thriller,reviews,american movies

The Horror!? 81: The Creeper (1977)

Five doctors of medicine who have been knowing each other for a long time, go on a camping trip far into the wilderness. The morning after the established their camping site they find that their boots are gone.

D.J. (Gary Reinike) organized the trip and is the only one who actually brought a second pair of shoes (some people are even less children of nature than I am), so he decides to trek to a comparatively close dam.

In the evening of the same day, someone plants an atrocious piece of wilderness art made of the always fashionable combination of sticks, a dead deer and a snake. The doctors panic and barely wait until daybreak to start to follow D.J., missing boots be damned.

Very soon, their unseen enemy starts to attack them in different ways to herd them in the direction he wants them to take.

Today seems to be the day of badly cut movies. The Creeper is also known under the title of Rituals, as far as I know featuring about ten minutes more footage.

Surprisingly this truncated version is still excellent. If not for some very rough edits I wouldn't have suspected anything untoward.

Some films seem to be produced to push as many of my buttons as possible.

Lets's see:

• Not one of the characters is a teenager. They are all real adults with a life and glimpses of a believable past.
• The film depends highly on the uncanniness of nature, our fear of helplessness and exposure in the face of something we don't understand.
• The picture also has the sense of grittiness that many movies of the Seventies just seem to wear naturally. It doesn't look like anyone was trying to achieve a special kind of flair, it seems a natural part of the proceedings.
• In addition to this The Creeper also has a necessary sense of cruelty. The kind mainstream pictures today are afraid of and too many horror films are trying too hard for.

What I didn't mention in the above is the excellent photography and the all-around great acting. Everybody goes for authenticity here...and succeeds.

Sure, the plot doesn't do much more than cross John Boorman's Deliverance with slasher elements, but the effect it achieves is much more important than originality.

Technorati-Tags: canadian movies,horror,reviews,slasher,hal holbrook

The Science!? 15: The Fury of the Wolf Man (1972)

Famous doctor Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) has a small problem. Since he returned as the only survivor of some expedition or the other (you'll have to live with never hearing or seeing any details about anything when watching a Paul Naschy movie) he is cursed with The Curse of the Werewolf (no, what Tibet and werewolves might have to do with each other is never explained either).

Up until now, he has been able to suppress his transformation by pure manly awesomeness (Naschy wrote the script, too, as usual in his body of work), but when he learns that his wife his having an affair, he transforms into a weird looking ape a werewolf and kills them both. To this viewer's glee, Waldi is as clumsy as he is silly looking and has never learned to keep away from electrical current. Which ends his killing spree prematurely.

But don't cheer too soon. His ex-girlfriend Dr. Ilona Elmann (Perla Cristal) is an honest to God mad scientist, and so has nothing better to do than to revive him and use him for experiments involving mind control.

She acts out her hobbies in the cellar of her ancestral home, where she also hides a lot of freaks and semi-freaks.

Of course the dog-faced boy escapes, goes on a very sedate killing spree, returns again(!) and is experimented on and tortured a little longer.

My comments here are for the six minutes shorter, dubbed version of the film contained in one of my Mill Creek box sets, so some of the films faults may not be Paul Naschy's fault alone. Although the uncut Naschy vehicles I have seen aren't a base for optimism.

Most of actor/screenwriter and sometimes director Paul Naschy are talking of the palpable love for classic monster movies that his work exudes like a geeky odor. I can't disagree with that. Actually I think the man loved his classic monster movies so much that all he did was take their important and useless elements, threw them all in a bag and then started to randomly draw them out and write them, with the addition of a bit more blood and sex, down just like he found them, without any thought for sense or style, and without ever trying to do more with them than to reproduce them. In many cases this would lead to movies that at least are exciting or stupidly charming, but somehow Naschy's films always walk the line between the boring and the annoying. I'm not sure why.

The Fury of the Wolf Man itself is even worse. The editing is senseless, most plot points are not thought through in the less, everyone acts so far away from basic human reactions that it is just astounding.

Obviously, the missing scenes in this version don't make these problems any better, but most things here happen only because they have also happened in other (better) films, so comprehensibility wasn't high on the list of priorities for anyone responsible here anyway.

Naschy himself tends to the sort of slightly smug overacting I normally explain as the result of an ego bigger than the actor's talent (see also Tom Cruise, Robin Williams), but here he is the only person not completely made of wood, and I am too thankful to be snarky.

Lastly, and definitely something I can't blame poor Naschy for, the dubbing is quite bad. As if the bored delivery of the dubbing actors wasn't damaging enough, we are also granted one of those dubbing scripts that permanently don't quite make sense. Most of the time you can imagine what is supposed to be meant by the things people say, but it never is what they actually say.

 

Darling of the Day:

"If there's a killer, there must also be a victim. Our problem now is to find them both."

(See, it's just like a Zen koan. It makes less sense the longer you think about it.)

 

Technorati-Tags: spanish movies,horror,paul naschy,reviews

The Science!? 15: The Fury of the Wolf Man (1972)

Famous doctor Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) has a small problem. Since he returned as the only survivor of some expedition or the other (you'll have to live with never hearing or seeing any details about anything when watching a Paul Naschy movie) he is cursed with The Curse of the Werewolf (no, what Tibet and werewolves might have to do with each other is never explained either).

Up until now, he has been able to suppress his transformation by pure manly awesomeness (Naschy wrote the script, too, as usual in his body of work), but when he learns that his wife his having an affair, he transforms into a weird looking ape a werewolf and kills them both. To this viewer's glee, Waldi is as clumsy as he is silly looking and has never learned to keep away from electrical current. Which ends his killing spree prematurely.

But don't cheer too soon. His ex-girlfriend Dr. Ilona Elmann (Perla Cristal) is an honest to God mad scientist, and so has nothing better to do than to revive him and use him for experiments involving mind control.

She acts out her hobbies in the cellar of her ancestral home, where she also hides a lot of freaks and semi-freaks.

Of course the dog-faced boy escapes, goes on a very sedate killing spree, returns again(!) and is experimented on and tortured a little longer.

My comments here are for the six minutes shorter, dubbed version of the film contained in one of my Mill Creek box sets, so some of the films faults may not be Paul Naschy's fault alone. Although the uncut Naschy vehicles I have seen aren't a base for optimism.

Most admirers of actor/screenwriter and sometimes director Paul Naschy are talking of the palpable love for classic monster movies that his work exudes like a geeky odor. I can't disagree with that. Actually I think the man loved his classic monster movies so much that all he did was take their important and useless elements, threw them all in a bag and then started to randomly draw them out and write them, with the addition of a bit more blood and sex, down just like he found them, without any thought for sense or style, and without ever trying to do more with them than to reproduce them. In many cases this would lead to movies that at least are exciting or stupidly charming, but somehow Naschy's films always walk the line between the boring and the annoying. I'm not sure why.

The Fury of the Wolf Man itself is even worse. The editing is senseless, most plot points are not thought through in the less, everyone acts so far away from basic human reactions that it is just astounding.

Obviously, the missing scenes in this version don't make these problems any better, but most things here happen only because they have also happened in other (better) films, so comprehensibility wasn't high on the list of priorities for anyone responsible here anyway.

Naschy himself tends to the sort of slightly smug overacting I normally explain as the result of an ego bigger than the actor's talent (see also Tom Cruise, Robin Williams), but here he is the only person not completely made of wood, and I am too thankful to be snarky.

Lastly, and definitely something I can't blame poor Naschy for, the dubbing is quite bad. As if the bored delivery of the dubbing actors wasn't damaging enough, we are also granted one of those dubbing scripts that permanently don't quite make sense. Most of the time you can imagine what is supposed to be meant by the things people say, but it never is what they actually say.

Darling of the Day:

"If there's a killer, there must also be a victim. Our problem now is to find them both."

(See, it's just like a Zen koan. It makes less sense the longer you think about it.)

Technorati-Tags: spanish movies,horror,paul naschy,reviews

The Horror!? 80: Bad Taste (1987)

Those damn alien bastards again! An extra-terrestrial fast-food business has a plan that will finally help to put all its competitors behind it - secure the market for the newest exotic delicacy, human meat.

Alas, aliens have a food safety authority, too, so our food-producing friends first have to deliver some samples. And what better place to get them than in a small New Zealand town?

As it turns out, New Zealand isn't as helpless as one might think. A shadowy figure sends The Boys in, a quartet of deranged proles who will teach us a lot about alien and human anatomy and especially bodily fluids.

Ah, the classics. A young Peter Jackson (acting, writing, directing, editing, special effects, producing) and a bunch of friends created one of the best backyard splatter comedies I know.

Bad Taste is one of those films that really shows how little of an excuse for the quality of a movie a non-existent budget is. The important thing is creativity and the ability to work with and not against the deficits of your production. You have no real actors? Then don't try to make them act out psychological nuances. Instead go for overdrawn loonies.

You have to draw the shooting of your movie out over a long time? Replace continuity with tempo, deepness with broadness.

Of course it helps when some people involved in the movie are as rawly talented as they are enthusiastic.

And of course it helps even more when you are able to make your film into a living Warner Brothers cartoon with added gore.

And you might just get me to laugh hysterically at everything in your film that is meant to be funny.

 

 

Technorati-Tags: comedy,horror,new zealandish movies,peter jackson,reviews,splatter

The Science!? 14: The Lost World (1925)

Professor Challenger (Wallace Beery), an eccentric scientist with a big anger management problem, starts an expedition into the depth of the Amazon basin to proof his theory of the survival of some dinosaur species on a difficult to reach plateau.

After he and his companions reach this Lost World and survive some adventures, they are able to return to their home in London, bringing a mighty big Brontosaur with them. The dinosaur turns out to be a true pioneer and starts a mild monster rampage.

This first screen adaptation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's book is mainly of historical interest as a relatively early work of stop-motion pioneer Willis O'Brien (eight years before King Kong). If you just fast forward through the human interest parts to the dinosaur footage, you won't really miss anything of interest. And even the effects are not completely up to O'Brien's standards.

In this The Lost World shows itself to be a precursor of the modern blockbuster, which also deals in a combination of sentimentality and spectacle.

But hey, at least there is a rampaging giant monster.

Technorati-Tags: american movies,reviews,giant monsters,willis o'brien,adventure

The Horror!? 79: Oasis of the Zombies (1981)

During World War II, a secret Nazi convoy transporting gold through the desert is destroyed by soldiers (some kind of partisans? The screenwriter surely doesn't know either) while camping at a desert oasis.

The battle's only survivor is the commander of the attackers who is found by a band of desert nomads.

Years later, an old Nazi officer seeks him out to find out where exactly the nice little heap of gold his subordinates transported is situated. The other guy helps him out without batting an eyelash. Talk about forgiving and forgetting. Of course, the evil Nazi bastard is far less lenient and kills him.

Soon he and a few other people are on their way to the oasis, only to have an unlucky encounter with the resident Nazi zombies, who don't show any respect for his rank.

At about the same time a young man, Robert, who is the son of dead soldier guy, experiences the wonder of time travel. Although he lives on another continent, he already knows about his father's death and studies his father's documents. He, too, learns of the gold and flies with a bunch of friends (the meat) to Morocco.

Very soon most of them are going to be zombie chow.

When I read the above synopsis the plot sounds a little more sensible than it actually is. Probably because I didn't mention most of the flashbacks, sub-plots and unrelated scenes. I can certainly promise you that it won't make a lick of sense when you are watching the actual movie.

Nonetheless I can recommend watching it, if (and I know this is quite a big "if") you are able to enjoy Jess Franco's work for more than the laughs.

Oasis of the Zombies is one of the films Franco made for Eurocine, which means even lower budgets and much worse actors than in his earlier films, as well as much more exploitational themes. Theoretically.

In fact, Franco treats his (dreary looking) zombies with disinterest, if not contempt. It's quite obvious that neither the zombies nor the plot are of any greater interest to him.

Instead, he tries to show us a very different way of seeing, a singular way of filmmaking, that -as is the case with his brother in spirit Jean Rollin- breaks most of the rules of "correct" filmmaking and asks the viewer to forget those rules - or be bored to death.

Because what most reviews of the film say is completely true: Oasis is cheap, slow, circumcisious and (seen as a piece of normal horror cinema) just plain boring. But if you are able to watch it while keeping a different perspective, as if it were the first film you have ever seen, you can find in the way the scenes are framed, in the deliberateness of all movement, the insistence on strangely insignificant details, something (and I know how pretentious all this sounds) that is the visual equivalent of a poem, beautiful, ugly and captivating.

 

 

Technorati-Tags: jess franco,reviews,french movies,horror,zombies

The Horror!? 78: Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Daughter (1966)

Jesse James we understand
Has killed many a man
He robbed the union trains
He stole from the rich
And gave to the poor
He'd a hand and a heart
And a brain

A small village somewhere at the border to Mexico is slowly turning into a ghost town. Only an older pair and their daughter Juanita (Estelita Rodriguez) still live there in the hope their son might still come back from the castle of Maria Frankenstein (Narda Onyx) and her brother Rudolf (Steven Geray). But word gets down to them, that their son, too, died of "a highly infectious illness" the doctors Frankenstein weren't able to cure.

While the Lopez flee from town, we learn that the poor guy was the victim of Maria's continuation of her grandfather's work (Jesse James meets Frankenstein's Granddaughter wouldn't have been an acceptable title, it seems) of implanting an artificial brain in a fine new body. Unknown to her, her brother slyly sabotages her experiments by injecting the subjects with poison (from a bottle with a big white skull and crossbones the good woman must be blind not to see). So she thinks the real problem have to be her victims subjects, as "mere children" completely inferior to "big, strong man". She needs "a real brute".

Soon, she will find one, since at the same time Jesse James (John Lupton) and his partner Hank Tracy (Cal Bolder) - a big, strong man - are learning some sad truths about the life of an outlaw - people want to kill you, some, like Lonny Curry (Rayford Barnes), a traitorous member of the Wild Bunch will even betray you to get on the good side of the law.

Jesse and Hank barely escape from Curry's trap, but not before Hank receives a grievous wound.

While they are on the look-out for a place to hide and a doctor, they meet the Lopez family. Juanita instantly falls for Jesse's expressionless face and his manly mustache and agrees to lead the men to the Frankenstein estate (without a word about possible dangers, but oh well).

There, they make Maria Frankenstein very happy - not only does she get the big, strong man she always wanted to play with, but also the hope to make Jesse her partner, when she will finally build an empire with the help of an army of one not exactly bulletproof creature.

At least her experiment succeeds and Hank, whose new brain makes him her obedient slave, can take to his new role in life, as well as his new name - Igor.

I can't possibly imagine why the good Doctor doesn't let him wear a shirt.

I think it is possible that I discovered a slight sado-masochistic subtext in the film. Could it be possible?

Anyway, I wasn't aware at all that films that looked and felt so very much like classic Poverty Row movies were still made in 1966. Well, director William "One-Shot" Beaudine had made quite a lot of films on poverty row, and I can't say he had learned anything since then.

But when you're talking about a film depicting the meeting of Jesse James and Lady Frankenstein, this isn't such a bad thing. Beaudine obviously knew a lot about letting his actors do their worst - the male actors, especially our hero, of course, are as wooden as they get, while our female leads (glorious, glorious, evil dominatrix-scientist Narda Onyx!) are completely over the top in each and every moment.

You can't do anything but love a film where the mad genius is a woman who rechristens her servant Igor, talks her own brother into subservience, and rants and casts melodramatic looks around permanently.

All of this is obviously terribly silly, but at the time so...beautiful you just have to love the movie and its true heroine.

 

Darling of the Day:

"You are no longer Hank Tracy! You are now - Igor! Do you understand? Igor! That is how you will be known! I am Maria Frankenstein! As I think, you will think! We are one! I will command, you will obey! You will live as long as I will it! You will die when I command it! Remember, you are always under my control! You are now Igor! I command you to arise! Igor! I am Maria Frankenstein! I created you! I created you! I command you to get up! Get up, Igor!"

 

Technorati-Tags: american movies,reviews,horror,western,narda onyx

The Internet Jesus asks his readers nicely(!)

to put a link to his and Paul Duffield's webcomic Freak Angels on their blogs. Seeing that Duffield's art is gorgeous and Ellis has been one of my favorite comic writers for a long time now, I can't help but comply.
Even though nobody reads this thing here anyway. ;-)

The Science!? 13: UFO: Target Earth (1974)

A communication technics scientist (or something) accidentally finds the trail of a crashed (landed?) UFO. Together with a medium (or something), and later some university colleagues, he tries to solve the mystery of its existence (I think).
Um, U:TE is what happens when the director/writer of a cheap UFO movie tries to be clever and philosophical. A barely watchable mess of people reciting pseudo-philosophical nonsense in such a bored tone that even hardened viewers like myself have a hard time of not getting as bored as the characters obviously are. The direction tends towards the non-existent.
The only moments of note are two or three scenes featuring the medium. She can't act any better than the rest of the people on screen, but at least she's trying for moments of sweet, sweet laughable overacting.
Agents Scully and Mulder to the red courtesy phone, please.

The Horror!? 77: Funeral Home (1980)

A young woman named Heather (Lesleh Donaldson) comes to her grandmother's (Kay Hawtrey) home for the summer to help with the start of her tourist home. Up to the disappearance of Heather's grandfather a few years ago, the family home also served as a funeral home. Now Mrs. Chalmers has to take on annoying guests to make ends meet.
It doesn't take long for the viewer, and only a little longer for Heather, to learn that this part of small town Canada is plagued by a strangely high rate of disappearances (or shall I call it murder?). Is it possible that this has something to do with the strange shuffling, whispering person (or creature) Grandma Chalmers keeps behind a locked door in the cellar? Or with the mentally handicapped handyman of the house who is seldom seen without his axe? And why exactly does summer guest Mr. Davis (Barry Morse) sneak around so suspiciously? And isn't Mrs. Chalmers moral code a little strict?
Well, new deputy Joe Yates (Alf Humphreys), the only person on the police force who treats the town's little problem seriously will certainly answer all questions.
Funeral Home is a pleasant little movie. It succeeds well in mixing modernized elements of the old dark house movies (without gorillas) with a mild bit of the slashers while paying homage to a quite famous movie about a killer and an old dark house I will not name here to keep the review away from spoiler territory.
Although the plot twists and final solution of the murder mystery shouldn't be all that surprising for the average viewer. Still, the film stays enjoyable even if you know where all this is going to end, mainly thanks to solid direction and pacing courtesy of William Fruet, as well as some effective acting. Kay Hawtrey is especially good, but there is no-one on screen who doesn't do at least decent work.

The Horror!? 76: The Phantom (1931)

Quite deranged killer breaks out of prison before he can be executed and now terrorizes the DA who was responsible for his conviction. It follows the usual romp through not just one but two dark old houses (alright, one is an asylum), some stuff about brain transplants and a plot that can only work if one ignores the existence of photographies.
One of the barely endurable films of its kind. The two young heroes are especially annoying, trumping each other with some hardly bearable moments of wooden acting that nearly drove tears into my eyes.
Of course, if you believe the IMDb, this is one of the fun movies of its kind. Some people probably call anything fun that doesn't outright put them to sleep - and here's way too much screaming and whining of "comic" relief characters to fall asleep.

The Science!? 12: Cosmos: War of the Planets (1977)

Captain Kirk Hamilton is a man's man. In an age when most of humanity loves peace, he solves interpersonal difficulties with fisticuffs. In an age when most of humanity doesn't like all that icky touching their ancestors used when having sex, he prefers the old fashioned approach. In an age when most of humanity lets their thinking be done for them by machines, he hates those gigantic things with their blinking lights. Still, when an alien signal disrupts the communication systems of Earth and two or three small alien vessels attack, his ship is the one closest to the signal's origin, so he and his crew are mankind's only hope. After crash-landing on the source planet, the intrepid adventurers learn that it was once the home of a thriving civilization, until the civilization's machines rebelled and made their creators their slaves. Later, an atomic explosion seems to have destroyed most of the machines and started the natives on their way of genetic regression to a point where it seems sensible for them to eschew the use of all clothing except loincloths. (And no, they don't seem to have any women, sorry.) This is the point when the movie's plot becomes more or less impenetrable, but I am relatively sure that the terrible machines consist of one killer robot that the production designers of early Doctor Who would have been ashamed of and a computer who really likes to use the word "Earthlings" a lot. Also, there is a kind of twist ending.
Of course, words can hardly describe the singularity of the SF work of Alfonso Brescia. War of the Planets starts quite innocently and linear, though soon silly and unnecessary details, circumcisious scenes that don't seem to belong where and when you are seeing them, important plot points that are never explained and leave the viewer with the vague, uneasy feeling of having fallen asleep for a few minutes without realizing it, the slapshot and deeply strange production design and the puzzling and hysterically funny dubbing, push the film into the realm of the deeply unfathomable.
A possible explanation for all this is another theory I have about Brescia's work: In truth he was a member of a secret order of avantgarde film makers who effectively infiltrated the Italian filione production system and unleashed their experimental works on an innocent viewership. This makes War of the Planets a highly metaphorical work about a man named Alex Hamilton (or is even his name a delusion inspired by space opera writer Edmund Hamilton?), who cannot cope with the alienation and automatization that sets the tone of modern life and tries to escape from his troubles into a better life, in which he is a helpless cog in a machine, but a man of action who is able to cope with anything life throws at him. But even in his fantasies Alex can't escape a reality that slowly conquers even them.

The Science!? 11: Eegah (1962)

Roxy Miller (Marylin Manning) is driving through the desert one night when a gigantic, club-wielding caveman, who -as we'll learn later- is called Eegah (Richard Kiel), appears before her. Only tactical fainting (and believe me, this won't be the last time she's going to faint) and the sound of her car's horn save her from some sweet sweet caveman-lovin'.
To my great surprise both her boyfriend Tom (Arch Hall jr., who can't sing and can't act, just like Jennifer Lopez) and her father (director, writer and producer Arch Hall sr.) believe her, when she tells her story. Her father goes even further. If there is something like a giant still alive, he has to find and see him. So he charters a helicopter to fly him into the desert, where he promptly meets Eegah. Eegah doesn't clobber him, instead he drags the poor bastard into his cave (incidentally a cave in good old Bronson Canyon, the same cave acting as Ro-Man's home in Robot Monster). When the helicopter can't return to the desert at the promised time, Roxy and Tom jump into Tom's dune buggy to come to the old idiot's rescue. Soon Eegah abducts the girl. What follows are scenes of Arch Hall jr. trotting through well known landscapes, spiced up with scenes from Eegah's cave, where Mister Miller and his daughter try their best to distract Eegah from the sweet feelings that are swelling in his breast (at least he brings flowers this time).
After a long, long time father, daughter and useless boyfriend escape and return to the big city.
Not even the mummified bodies of his ancestors can comfort Eegah, so he wanders off into the city (which suddenly seems to be about a minute away from his home) to find the love of his life again. We all know how this must end.
Oh, Eegah, where have you been all my life? This wonderful, wonderful picture really has everything one can ask for from a bad movie: Bronson Canyon! The sweet memory of Robot Monster! Ray Dennis Steckler in a small role! Dialogue so stupid you can't help but be completely enthralled. A script full of those little details (mummified ancestors, sulphuric water as the reason for Eegah's existence etc etc) that make all the difference between a merely bad movie and the kind of bad movie the connoisseur cherishes and loves.
Even better is the acting. I am completely at a loss to decide who gives the worst performance - Junior? Senior? Marylin Manning? The mighty Eegah? Still, no none is lackluster or disinterested, everybody gives his enthusiastic best, even if it may not be all that much.
Junior's musical numbers (and his bizarre face contortions when he performs) are just the icing on this sweet mess of a cake. Why can't every film be Eegah?

The Horror!? 75: Good Against Evil (1977)

You know the sad old tale: Satanic cult breeds a bride for their master Astaroth, influence and control her life subtly, make her successful, but lonely. Until The Boy comes along and the two of them fall in love. So our poor battered satanists have to do their worst to keep the two apart. Tragically neither accidents nor friendly suggestions nor hypnosis nor subtle seduction really do much more than keep them apart for a short time. At least the bride stays as virginal as the master wants. Finally The Boy -a good Catholic- seeks the help of a meddling priest and keeps poor Satan single for another hundred years.
A dreary and boring TV movie that tries to imitate Rosemary's Baby and The Exorcist, only without being unacceptable for anyone but certain Satanists, or without being interesting.
Old Hammer writer Jimmy Sangster probably wrote the script in a thirty minute lunch break. It could be the right movie for the time when insomnia strikes, though.

The Science!? 10: Alien Species (1996)

Bad computer animations UFOs attack! Some people in an unconvincing lab are concerned! The Professor has to know! But they can't reach him on his car phone! There is a prisoner transport with two Jerky Deputies! The Sheriff stays in town! The men in really bad rubber suits aliens abduct people! Then they suddenly start to destroy houses with their green 'splodey rays! The people in the lab are still worried! The Professor had an accident! Luckily, the transport finds him and his two female companions! The transporter is attacked with green 'splodey rays! The annoying people inside our heroes escape into a cave! Back to the lab! The aliens are now 'sploding a city! The people from the lab flee! Guy With Stupid Glasses from the lab has to find The Professor! Back to the cave! Oh noes! The cave is an alien nest! Psychological drama! Shooting! Much screaming and whining! More rubber suits! Green energy shields! An alien energy shield remote control! The Prisoner With The Heart Of Gold and the terrible action hero one-liners and surviving chicks escape! They make the cave 'splode! The aliens are angry! They try to kill our heroes! What luck! Guy With Stupid Glasses finds them! They flee! Then Guy With Stupid Glasses and his laptop and Prisoner With Heart Of Gold shut down the alien ship's shield! Prisoner With Heart Of Gold shoots ship down with the bazooka Guy With Stupid Glasses found somewhere! The alien invasion fleet retreats, having lost one of their hundreds of ships! The End!
Welcome to the very special hell of shot on video (or is it digital already? It looks terrible anyway) backyard productions! Alien Species is an especially annoying specimen of its kind, because it has the ambition to tell a story of apocalyptic proportions on a budget that isn't even big enough to tell the story of some people screaming a lot and running away from rubber monsters. It's really hard to picture the shabbiness of the proceedings or the ugliness of the production if you haven't experienced it for yourself. Let's just say it makes Robot Monster look like a hundred million dollar film. And in total contrast to that beloved classic, Alien Species isn't even the slightest but entertaining.
If the production design, lighting and camera work aren't enough to make your eyes bleed, there's always more to punish you to find, starting with a cast whose only professional actors (of course in cameo roles) are Charles Napier and a very drunk Hoke Howell (The Professor, whom the titles identify as a "Dr. Chambers"). The rest is one of the most talentless bunches of people that has ever come together in a single room. Bad emoting, bad line delivery, there's nothing these people can't do very very badly.
I think my plot synopsis says enough about the quality of the script, I'll just add that I'll never want to be reminded of the dialogue.
Now, after the viewer's eyes, brain and taste buds are destroyed, Alien Species offers another treat in probably the most annoying bad synthesizer soundtrack I have ever heard (and think about the movies I watch day in, day out). Thankfully this seems to be "composer" Dan Kehler's only movie work. The only other credits IMDb gives him are for the scores of a few late Sierra adventure games. Which weren't all that bad. He still deserves not insignificant amounts of physical violence.

The Horror!? 74: The Legend of Bigfoot (1976)

This bills itself as a documentary about the Bigfoot "expert" Ivan Marx, containing real life footage of the big B. Actually it is a lot of (surprisingly sharp) animal stock footage, permanent and from minute to minute more paranoid and absurd sounding crackpot raving and a little footage (unsurprisingly out of focus) of people in Bigfoot suits. I don't know if Marx has a place in the history of cryptozoology, and if he has, what it might be, but since I know that not everyone interested in the possibility of the survival of previously unknown species is an idiot, I have the hope he is seen as a fraud at worst and a crackpot at best.
The film itself drifts between moments of utter boredom (the bizarrely edited animal footage) and hilarity (Ivan Marx and the Indian rituals, see Ivan invent his "theory" about the Bigfoot as a migratory animal - based on, um, nothing).
In case you want to take it a little more seriously, you could read it as the case study of a man who quickly glides from something resembling sanity into full grown delusions. But honestly? I think this interpretation would make it sound much more interesting than it deserves.

Grindhouse Theatrical Cut (2007)

There has already been said so much about Grindhouse that I will only add a few thoughts:

- Miramax really thought this would do well in cinemas??

- I love the incredible affection both sub-pictures (though I would argue Tarantino's half is actually two films paying homage to totally different styles, but connected by Stuntman Mike) have for their sources. Which doesn't mean they don't see the troubling tendencies and stupidity inherent in Grindhouse movies, but that they try to work with, against and on them, instead of just being smugly superior, like Scream and its ilk do.

- I honestly find the scene in which El Rey gives Cherry her machine gun leg both actually romantic and funny.

- I also wasn't aware before that Rosario Dawson and Rose McGowan can act.

- The fake trailers are a thing of beauty. My problem is that I will never be able to see Machete, quite clearly the greatest Italian action film never made. So I am all the more thankful that Robert Rodriguez' Planet Terror is the best Italian zombie movie ever made outside of Italy.

The Science!? 09: Giants of Rome (1964)

Gaul during the Gallic Wars. Julius Caesar (Alessandro Sperli) is just one step away from being recalled back to Rome and being branded unsuccessful in the conquest of Gaul. He knows he must win a decisive victory against the Gallic forces. The trouble is that a very important mountain pass is blocked by a terrible secret weapon the Druids invented. To remove this obstacle, Caesar sends a small commando unit, lead by a certain Claudius Marcellus (Richard Harrison), behind the enemy lines to destroy the weapon. Of course the troop gets captured, escapes with a few prisoners including the mandatory love interest, fights dangerous battles and is hindered by a cowardly traitor in their midst. There may even be a heroic sacrifice or two.
Antonio Margheriti has, as a typical filione director, made films in every genre imaginable, some of them not suited to his directorial strengths. He was at his best when he worked either on Gothic Horror or war movies (his love for science fiction lead to fun, but very uneven films). Here, he uses a classic war movie formula in a historical setting and the results are quite satisfying. The action is much more dynamic and gruesome than I'm used to in movies (not produced in Asia) of the the first half of the Sixties. This is one of the few cases of Western movies of this time where I would even use the word "choreography" when speaking of the fights.
Story and characters are neither surprising nor original, but Margheriti expertly diverts the viewer's attention by keeping a high tempo and a high body count.
I could now criticize the many historical inaccuracies and stupidities the film contains, but really - who watches these films for the historic truth? Especially when the basic story could take place in any time and any war, just with different weapons.

The Science!? 08: Radio Ranch (1940)

Gene Autry (playing himself) is quite brilliant in making enemies. Surprisingly, the people who hate him in this film aren't disgusted by the stupidity of his songs, but have problems with the location of his Radio Ranch, his brand new broadcasting center and a kind of predecessor of Michael Jackson's Neverland. Firstly there are a shady scientist and his henchmen, who are searching for a huge radio deposit and the ruins of the underground civilization of Mu, and won't even stop at framing Autry for the murder of his two main sidekicks' (he has a whole horde) father. Secondly there is the still very much alive underground city of Murania and its elite troop, the Thunder Riders. They want to kill Autry because of his immense popularity that draws the eyes of the world on their home. And nobody would care if they killed him!
Oh well. Radio Ranch is the movie cut of the 1935 serial The Phantom Empire. Very typical serial stuff and relatively fun thanks to its wacky concept.
Your enjoyment will depend on your tolerance for really bad country music. We are not talking Hank Williams here, to be sure, more the Western brother to bad Vaudeville.
Autry is the film's biggest problem anyway. His acting is not just bad, he is also incredibly uncharismatic, making a less than convincing two-fisted hero.

Doctor Who news of the Day

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/may/20/bbc.television2

I may have already mentioned that I take Moffat to be the best New Who writer by far? Since when are the right people getting the promotions?

The Science 07!?: All the Kind Strangers (1974)

Photographer Jimmy Wheeler (Stacy Keach) drives through the American countryside. On his way he meets a little boy struggling with a paper bag of groceries. Since Jimmy is a nice guy, he promises the boy Gilbert (Tim Parkinson) to take him home. "Home" turns out to be a big house far off the main roads and six more children, as well as a woman the children call their mother (Samantha Eggar). Jimmy soon realizes that she isn't her mother, but a friendly soul like himself who wanted to help a child and is now held prisoner by the little psychos. And, since Jimmy is such a nice man, he'll surely have no problem with being their new Dad. If not, he will probably learn what happened to his predecessors as head of family.
All the Kind Strangers turns out to be a very competent and effective little film. It looks surprisingly good for a TV production of the time, probably thanks to director and old workhorse Burt Kennedy, who knew how to make things work on a budget. The basic idea of the movie is weird enough to charm every friend of the American Gothic.
The acting is fine, even the child actors don't annoy. The script is comfortably simple and uses the always effective technique of hinting at certain things more than showing them.
A slight feeling of wrongness runs through many of the scenes, hinting at country life as claustrophobic and not too helpful for one's state of mind.
I can even overlook the much too friendly ending. It still is a TV movie, after all.

Dave Sim in "misogynist doesn't like to be treated like he would treat a woman" shocker

http://pwbeat.publishersweekly.com/blog/2008/05/20/alove-unmourned-and-unloved/