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Political corruption has been a key plot point in Hollywood movies for decades, from the “aw shucks” mentality of Frank Capra’s Mr. Smith Goes to Washington to the pessimism of Alan Pakula’s All The President’s Men. In Robert Rossen’s fantastic 1949 film All The King’s Men, we are introduced to a crusader who ends up playing both sides of the political fence, starting out as bright and optimistic about government as Jimmy Stewart’s Jefferson Smith, only to be transformed into the very man he initially wanted to overthrow.
Newspaper reporter Jack Burden (John Ireland) is assigned to cover the campaign of Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford), a small-town yokel running for Treasurer. Burden has been told that Stark is a rarity in the world of politics: he’s an honest man. While following Stark, who is harassed at every turn by his political rivals, Burden realizes everything he’s heard about Willie is true.
Burden writes a series of articles on Stark, who he sees as a decent yet naïve man who ultimately has no hope of winning the election. Sure enough, when the votes are tallied, Willie has been defeated.
As a reward for accepting the assignment, Burden takes a vacation, traveling home to spend time with his mother (Katherine Warren) and family friends, including Judge Monte Stanton (Raymond Greenleaf), the Judge’s nephew Dr. Adam Stanton (Sheppard Strudwick) and Adam’s sister Anne (Joanne Dru), with whom Burden is deeply in love.
Something happens, however, in the months that follow Willie Stark’s defeat: an accident in a school building kills a dozen children, the result of shoddy construction. Which just so happens to be one of the issues Willie Stark was trumpeting during his campaign: construction contracts going to family and friends of the current council members, regardless of qualifications. Remembering his stance on the issue, the public heralds Stark as a voice for the common man, and this newfound popularity lands him a nomination for Governor of the state.
With Burden and Sadie Burke (Mercedes McCambridge) as his advisors, Willie Stark makes a series of informative but uninspiring speeches, not realizing until it’s too late that his nomination was nothing more than a sham, a move designed to split the vote of the “common man” to clear the way for the crooked incumbent to return to office.
Those who set Willie Stark up to take this particular fall, however, come to regret their actions. As it turns out, they’ve only managed to awaken a sleeping giant.
All at once, an angry Willie Stark transforms into a political dynamo, delivering fiery speeches and riling up the “hicks”, who, like him, have had enough of the current administration. Within 4 years, Willie Stark is elected Governor, winning in a landslide.
But he is not the same man he once was; in fact, as his term stretches on, Willie Stark proves himself the most corrupt politician of them all, a fact that grows more apparent to his old pal Jack Burden with each passing day.
Broderick Crawford won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Willie Stark, the political optimist who, before long, lets power and his role as “the voice of the people” go straight to his head. Early on, Crawford plays Stark as a lovable fool, a man who has good ideas but lacks the grace and tact to get them across to the voters. The moment of his transformation (which, incidentally, also comes the day after he got drunk for the very first time) is a tremendous scene, with Willie, enraged by the realization he was just a patsy, delivering a speech that riles up the very people he was meant to corral and placate. Crawford plays it wonderfully, and, like Burden and Sadie, we the audience are happy that Willie Stark has finally unleashed his inner politician.
Willie rides this newfound vigor all the way to the State Capital, where, over time, he’ll make backroom deals with shady characters, doing so for what he calls the “greater good” (this includes the construction of a free hospital that he wants Adam Stanton to run). But as director Rossen shows us, in a hard-hitting manner, all power corrupts, and it isn’t long before Willie Stark has become the type of government official he had initially fought against.
Mercedes McCambridge, in her screen debut, also won a much-deserved Academy Award for her turn as the cynical Sadie, who falls for Stark’s rhetoric a bit harder than most. In addition, Rossen’s expert direction brings an interesting flow to the story: mannered at the outset, frantic in the final act, mirroring first Willie Stark’s humble beginnings, then his meteoric rise.
Even by 1949, corruption of power was a time-honored (read cliché) topic for motion pictures to explore. Yet All The King’s Men does it in a way that never feels like it’s treading on familiar ground. It is a movie that continues to resonate, and is just as vital as ever. Rating: 9 out of 10
I’m convinced that, of all genres, the western holds the greatest potential for uncovering a hidden gem. From big-budget productions to low-budget indies, filmmakers across the globe have been exploring the American west for well over a century now. Just imagine how many thousands, if not tens of thousands, of westerns are out there for the taking. When I sit down to watch a new western, I always hold out hope that it will be something special.
Dead Man’s Burden, the 2012 directorial debut of Jared Moshe, is something special.
Set a few years after the American Civil War, Dead Man’s Burden tells the tale of two siblings attempting to reconnect, each hiding a secret from the other that could ruin any chance of a happy reunion. Wade McCurry (Barlow Jacobs), a former Sergeant-Major in the Army, receives word that his estranged father is dead. Having stayed away from the family’s New Mexico farm for ten years, Wade finally arrives home, where he is reunited with his younger sister Martha (Clare Bowen), now the wife of Heck Kirkland (David Call).
With their father gone, Martha intends to sell the farm to a mining company, whose representative E.J. Lane (Joseph Lyle Taylor) has made them a very generous offer. Though disappointed (he was hoping to settle down and farm the land), Wade quietly steps aside to allow Martha and Heck to do as they please.
It isn’t until he visits family friend Three Penny Hank (Richard Riehle) that Wade discovers his father’s death might not have been an accident (the old man supposedly fell off his horse). Hank even believes Lane may have had a hand in it (Wade’s and Martha’s father refused to sell, while Martha let it be known she was anxious to move as far away as possible).
Armed with this new information, Wade attempts to bring Lane to justice, though the truth of what really happened to his father may be more than he can bear.
Writer / director Moshe doesn’t conceal either Wade’s or Martha’s secrets from the audience. In the film’s opening scene, we watch Martha gun down her father (played briefly by Luce Rains) as he is riding away. As for Wade, while still making his way home, he has a run-in with two brothers (Adam O’Byrne and Travis Hammer) who are out hunting. Wade tells them his family originally hailed from Texas, but when they ask which Confederate General he served under, Wade is hesitant to reply. That’s because Wade did not fight for the Confederacy. He was a Union officer, which is what caused the initial rift between he and his father. In fact, when Wade first arrives at the farm, Martha believes he’s an imposter because she was told Wade had died years earlier while on his way to enlist with the Confederates.
Yet even with their secrets, a fondness develops between Wade and Martha, who have a genuine love for one another. Martha tells Heck that Wade was always more a father to her than their actual dad, while Wade is clearly pleased that the young girl he left behind has matured into a smart, hard-working woman. We know more than they do, of course, and once the truth is out about them both, their relationship will likely be ruined. One of the film’s strengths is that, because we see the love they have for one another, the weight of their inevitable falling out grows heavier with each passing scene.
Moshe does a fine job developing his characters while also taking advantage of the picturesque New Mexico landscape (there are some truly stunning shots in this film). Still, Dead Man’s Burden does stumble a little in the third act when a gunfight breaks out. While most of the movie was shot in a classical style, a la John Ford, this firefight took a more modern approach, with rapid cuts that not only feel out of place, but make the action confusing and hard to follow.
Fortunately, this was the film’s lone weakness. A dramatic, well-crafted tale of family bonds stretched to their breaking point, and featuring a cast of mostly unknowns, Dead Man’s Burden did, indeed, prove to be a hidden gem. Rating: 8 out of 10
Initially titled The Traveler, The Devil Incarnate is a fascinating, occasionally riotous take on the human condition, all from the point of view of an outsider. A cynic of potentially supernatural origin, the film’s lead character is convinced there is very little good to be found in people, and spends the majority of the movie trying to prove this hypothesis.
Writer / director Paul Naschy stars as Leonardo, who, over the course of the film, will use his wits and quick thinking to get the upper hand on everyone he meets. With Tomas (David Rocha), a young man he rescued from a cruel master, as his companion, Leonardo lies, cheats, steals, screws, and murders his way through 16th century Spain.
Tomas believes Leonardo is a very intelligent man, the perfect mentor to instruct him in the ways of the world. But the truth is Leonardo may not be a “man” at all. In fact, all the evidence points to him being the devil in human form!
More a series of random adventures than a straightforward narrative, Naschy’s The Devil Incarnate is a bleak sermon on the baser elements of humanity, a sermon the filmmaker delivers with gusto to spare. After killing the first person he meets (a down-on-his-luck soldier) and saving Tomas, Leonardo makes his way to a small farm, where he seduces Ines (Silvia Aguilar), the farmer’s wife, before making off with she and her husband’s entire savings. Though a sweet girl when they first meet, Leonardo lures Ines into bed with a few choice words. Once the deed is done, he humiliates her, takes her money, and carves his “brand” into her backside. Tomas expresses regret at how Leonardo treated Ines, but Leonardo excuses his actions by reminding his young companion she was, in the end, a fornicator who was more than happy to cheat on her husband.
The Devil Incarnate progresses in much the same way from that point on: Leonardo coerces potential victims into wrongdoings, bringing their greedy or lustful ways to the forefront before robbing them blind. Naschy gives a bravura performance as the “devilish” Leonardo, spewing cryptic dialogue on the weaknesses of humanity, yet doing so with such exuberance that it’s clear he had a blast playing the part.
Leonardo’s saddest encounter comes when he enters the home of Dona Aurora (Sara Lezana), a once-proud member of the aristocracy who has fallen on hard times. Her husband dead and her money all but gone, Dona Aurora is also mourning the inevitable loss of her young daughter, who doctors say is suffering from a fatal illness. Leonardo claims he can save the girl, but only if Dona Aurora will afterwards spend the night with him. She agrees, and the girl immediately recovers, leading to a prolonged sequence in which Leonardo and Dona Aurora make love (being a ‘70s genre film, there is no shortage of nudity and sex in The Devil Incarnate, this scene included). Without spoiling it, what eventually happens to Dona Aurora after her encounter with Leonardo results in the film’s most heartbreaking moment.
That said, there is plenty of comedy to be found in The Devil Incarnate as well, everything from a humorous showdown with a stuttering moneylender (Pepe Ruiz) and his nagging wife (Paloma Hurtado) to a romp at a brothel, sped up via fast-motion, that features music and physical humor so outlandish it could have been lifted from an episode of Benny Hill. Naschy also shows off his range as a director, infusing The Devil Incarnate with an energy that never falters while also capturing some truly remarkable images (a late “crucifixion scene”, set in the ruins of a monastery, is striking in its beauty).
On top of everything else, the actor / director offers up “food for thought” throughout The Devil Incarnate, providing one shocking revelation after another on the human condition. At one point, Tomas laments the state of the world, and tells Leonardo he is holding out hope that the future will be much brighter. With a smile, Leonardo predicts his young friend will, that very night, dream of the future. When Tomas closes his eyes, he is horrified by images (via black and white stock footage) of the atrocities of World War II, everything from Nazi bombings to concentration camps. Naschy’s point is clear: mankind’s barbarity remained not only constant through the centuries, but has gotten worse.
This is certainly not an uplifting message, yet The Devil Incarnate somehow manages to be an uplifting film, for both the craft on display and the sheer joy that Naschy took in making this movie. His efforts would be rewarded: The Devil Incarnate was nominated for Best International Film at the Fantosporto Festival, and took home an award at 1978’s Eurocon. And the film feels just as fresh and original today as I’m sure it did upon its initial release.
The Devil Incarnate is a movie to treasure. Rating: 9.5 out of 10
The first directorial effort of Paul Naschy, who by then had firmly established himself as a star of the horror genre, 1977’s Inquisition tells a story of religious fanaticism during the middle ages, when so-called “holy” men went from town-to-town, executing anyone accused of witchcraft.
Set during the days of the French Inquisition, the film stars Naschy as Bernard de Fossey, whose sole purpose is to expose heretics and those who are in league with Satan. Along with his assistants Nicholas (Ricardo Merino) and Pierre (Tony Isbert), de Fossey makes his way to the prosperous French village of Peyriac, where he informs the authorities that witchcraft is running rampant in the area.
Shortly after his arrival, de Fossey falls in love with Catherine (Daniela Giordano), the daughter of the town’s mayor. Catherine, however, is already in love with Jean (Juan Luis Galiardo), who has promised to marry her.
Like a good many of these movies, Inquisition points out how easy it once was to execute someone for witchcraft, and how the accusers themselves were often as evil, if not more so, than the condemned. A servant named Renover (Antonio Iranzo), who is blind in one eye, had been constantly ridiculed by the young women of Peyriac, and he takes revenge on them by accusing first one and then another of witchcraft. Each girl is brutally tortured until she confesses (the interrogation of Denise, played by Jenny Llata, is particularly tough to watch). Once convicted, they are burned at the stake.
But Inquisition goes a step further than most by including scenes with actual witches, who have given themselves over to the darkness. When Jean is found murdered on the side of the road, a distraught Catherine turns to her good friend Madeleine (Monica Randall) for comfort. Madeleine takes the grieving Catherine to visit Mabille (Tota Alba), a purported expert in the black arts. Mabille promises to reveal the identity of Jean’s killer to Catherine if she, in turn, dedicates her life to Satan. Convinced that de Fossey had a hand in Jean’s death, Catherine also seduces the holy man in an effort to discredit him among his peers. Already attracted to Catherine, de Fossey proves easy prey. As disturbing as the initial scenes of Inquisition are, when innocents are sent to their deaths, it’s in the second half, when witchcraft and devil worshipping take center stage, that the film delves even further into the horrific.
Along with its well-paced story, Inquisition features costumes, settings, and even make-up effects (during one of her “trips” to the sabbat, or black mass, Catherine encounters a demon that looks damn eerie) that convincingly transport us back to this most unfortunate moment in human history.
In later interviews, Naschy himself said he was proud of this movie, claiming the reviews at the time of its release praised his efforts, especially as a novice director. And rightly so: Inquisition stands alongside The Witchfinder General and Mark of the Devil as one of the best entries in this particular subgenre of horror. Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Having not directed a film in almost two decades (the last being 1971’s Von Richthofen and Brown), B-movie guru Roger Corman was lured (by a $1 million payday) to helm 1990’s Frankenstein Unbound. It would prove to be his final directorial effort.
A sci-fi / horror mash-up, Frankenstein Unbound has more in common with Corman’s Poe films of the 1960s than the low-budget but entertaining schlock he churned out in the decades that followed.
The story opens in the year 2031, in the city of New Los Angeles. Dr. Buchanan (John Hurt) has developed a powerful weapon that emits a particle beam, one strong enough to vaporize enemy combatants, yet at the same time precisely focused, meaning it will not damage the surrounding environment. Unfortunately, Buchanan’s weapon has one very serious side effect: it fractures time and space, and opens a portal that transports him to the past.
Finding himself in Switzerland in the year 1817, Buchanan meets none other than Victor Frankenstein (Raul Julia), who is reeling from the recent death of his younger brother. Justine Moritz (Catherine Corman), the child’s former caretaker, has been accused of killing the boy and is currently standing trial. But Buchanan knows the truth: it was the monster that Frankenstein himself created (played here by Nick Brimble) who committed the murder.
Eager to save Justine from the gallows, Buchanan enlists the help of Mary Godwin (Bridget Fonda), a young writer who has taken a keen interest in the trial. Recognizing her as the eventual author of Frankenstein, and therefore perhaps the only person who can prove Justine’s innocence, Buchanan visits Mary on a nearby island, where she is vacationing with her lover Percy Shelley (INXS’s Michael Hutchence) and Shelley’s friend and fellow poet Lord Byron (Jason Patric).
But there is more at stake here than the life of an innocent nanny. It seems the monster, which continues to roam the countryside, is demanding a mate, and has threatened to kill Frankenstein’s fiancé Elizabeth (Catherine Rabett) unless Frankenstein creates one for him. With his knowledge of electricity, Buchanan might be able to help Frankenstein save Elizabeth, but is he willing to assist in bringing yet another potentially violent creature into the world?
It is a fascinating story, with strong performances by Hurt, Brimble, and especially Raul Julia, whose Victor Frankenstein proves at times even more monstrous than his creation. Yet as he did with such Poe outings as The Masque of the Red Death and The Tomb of Ligeia, it’s the world - or should I say worlds - Corman and his team conjured up throughout Frankenstein Unbound that most impressed me. Starting with the future’s New Los Angeles (brought to life via futuristic gadgets, matte paintings, and Buchanan’s pretty kick-ass talking car) through to early 19th century Switzerland, the sets and costumes are all very convincing.
The same can’t be said for the special effects (including one rather strange scene where a Mongol emerges from the time rift and attacks Buchanan), which are on-par for a film from this time period, meaning they have not aged well. That said, the make-up (especially that of the monster) and various gore effects all looked awesome, and did their part to update this classically-themed story for modern-day horror aficionados.
All this, plus the film’s thought-provoking ending (in which Buchanan is forced to contemplate his own life’s work and its parallels to Victor Frankenstein’s), served as proof positive that Roger Corman hadn’t lost his touch. As gorgeous, as entertaining, and as challenging as anything he made previously, it’s a damn shame that Corman didn’t direct more movies after Frankenstein Unbound. Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Also released as Beyond the Door III, director Jeff Kwitny’s 1989 horror film Amok Train is a movie so insane, so amazingly, impressively crazy, that, even as you’re watching it, you won’t believe your eyes.
A class of American students is invited to Yugoslavia to observe a ritual that is performed once every hundred years. When they arrive at their destination, they are met by Professor Andromolek (Bo Svenson), who guides them to a remote countryside village. The students are led to some rundown shacks and told to rest up from their long journey. As they do so, the locals board up the doors so that the students cannot escape, then set fire to the structures.
One student, Richard (Jeremy Sanchez), is killed in the blaze. The others manage to escape, and take off running into the woods.
The group eventually makes its way to some train tracks, and attempts to hop a passing train. Four students; Christie (Sarah Conway Ciminera), Kevin (William Geiger), Angel (Alex Vitale), and Beverly (Mary Kohnert), climb on board, while two others, Larry (Ron Williams) and Melanie (Renee Rancourt), are left behind.
But none of them are out of danger just yet. It seems that Beverly, who is of Yugoslav descent, is destined to play an important part in the upcoming ritual. In fact, she has been chosen as the future bride of Lucifer himself! And not even a speeding train can outrun pure evil.
Shot on-location in Belgrade, Amok Train is even wilder than the above synopsis might suggest. Soon after the frightened students board the train, its conductor Milutin Micovic), spots some burning timbers lying across the tracks, and stops in order to clear them off. As he is doing so, the train rolls forward, crushing Milutin and decapitating him. At the same time, Milutin’s assistant (played by Ratko Tankosic), who is still on the train, is sucked by an unseen force into the fires of the coal engine.
As this is happening, the cars carrying the other passengers break away, crushing the engineer (Mario Novelli) in the process and leaving Beverly and her friends alone on a runaway train.
The gore in the above scene is not the most convincing, but it’s good enough, and sets the stage for more carnage to come. And while this sequence would surely rank high on the insanity meter, it can’t top the absurdity of what transpires over the remainder of Amok Train!
Combining a number of different scenarios (Beverly’s realization of her fate; the other students attempting to stop the train; Larry and Melanie on foot trying to make their way to safety; and the railroad executives wondering why the train refuses to make its scheduled stops), Amok Train takes its audience on a ride ten times wilder than any rollercoaster, with scenes so outlandish that it’s impossible to predict what’s to follow. For example, I always thought a train needed a track to get from point “A’ to point “B”. Well, a regular train does, I suppose, but a train under the control of pure evil? Seems like it can do anything, go anywhere, hunt anyone!
What’s more, we eventually find out that the students aren’t as alone on the runaway train as they thought. Sava, a stowaway thief (Savina Gersak), and Marius (Igor Pervic), a mysterious man in a cloak who never stops playing the flute, are also along for the ride.
There are some brutal deaths in this film (one in particular, involving two train cars, is especially gory), and there’s no shortage of impending catastrophes, chief among them the runaway train, which somehow turns completely around and starts traveling in the other direction (don’t ask how… you have to see it for yourself), putting it on a collision course with another passenger train!
And just when you think you’ve seen it all, there’s the grand finale, where Satan himself makes a cameo.
A lot of what happens in Amok Train doesn’t make a lick of sense, and you’re just as likely to laugh out loud as be frightened and amazed by it all. But it is a relentless movie. Amok Train does not let up! From the moment the kids run into the woods to escape the fire, Amok Train barely stops to take a breath.
Whether you’re having a good time with the lunacy or rolling your eyes throughout, the one thing I guarantee is you will never, ever be bored by Amok Train! Rating: 7 out of 10
A 1993 horror anthology produced for the Showtime cable network, Body Bags is a hell of a lot of fun.
Hosted by a creepy coroner (played by director John Carpenter), Body Bags features three tales of the macabre. First up is “The Gas Station”, in which college student Anne (Alex Datcher) spends her first overnight shift as a gas station attendant worrying about a serial killer on the loose.
The second segment, titled “Hair”, centers on Richard Coberts (Stacy Keach), a middle-aged man who is losing his hair. Fearing this will affect his relationship with girlfriend Megan (Sheena Easton), Richard tries everything to keep from going bald, finally deciding to put his trust in Dr. Lock (David Warner), who has developed a revolutionary new procedure that is guaranteed to grow hair.
Closing out the trilogy of tales is “Eye”, the only of the three not directed by Carpenter (Tobe Hooper took the reins for this one). Minor league baseball player Brent Matthews (Mark Hamill) is on a hitting streak, and is sure to get called up to the big leagues. Unfortunately, a car accident costs him his right eye, bringing his career to an abrupt end. But all is not lost; Dr. Lang (John Agar), a surgeon, tells Brent about a potential medical breakthrough, a procedure in which Brent will receive an eye transplant. The operation proves a success, but when Brent starts experiencing grisly visions, he can’t help but wonder whose eye he received.
One of the most entertaining aspects of Body Bags is its cast. “The Gas Station” co-stars Robert Carradine as Anne’s co-worker; David Naughton as a customer who drives off without his credit card; and filmmakers Sam Raimi and Wes Craven, who turn up in cameos. Along with Keach, Easton and Warner, “Hair” also stars Debbie harry as Dr. Lock’s flirtatious nurse, with brief appearances by model Kim Alexis and make-up effects artist extraordinaire Greg Nicotero. In “Eye”, Hamill and Agar are joined by Twiggy (as Brent’s wife) and Roger Corman (as Brent’s first doctor). Even Carpenter’s wraparound segments feature a couple of fun cameos when co—director Hooper and Tom Arnold turn up at the end as a pair of Morgue workers.
Still, there’s more to Body Bags than its star-studded cast. The segments themselves run the gambit, giving us thrills and suspense (whenever a new customer turns up in “The Gas Station”, we, like Anne, wonder if it might be the serial killer); comedy (there are some funny scenes, and a couple of laugh-out-loud moments in “Hair”); and psychological horror (Hamill does a fine job in “Eye” as the baseball player tormented by violent visions he cannot explain, and which may be transforming him into a killer).
Tying them all together is John Carpenter, clearly having a blast (under some fairly grotesque make-up) as the wise-cracking morgue attendant who enjoys spending time among the dead, especially those corpses that met a violent end.
Body Bags was initially designed to be a half-hour television series, to rival HBO’s hugely popular Tales from the Crypt. Showtime, however, nixed the idea, so what would have been the first three episodes of a new show instead became this anthology film.
And as entertaining as Body Bags is, I can’t help but wonder what might have been had the series been green-lighted. Rating: 8.5 out of 10
“World War IV lasted five days. Politicians had finally solved the problem of urban blight”.
It is 2024 A.D., several years after nuclear war has transformed the world into a desert wasteland. Eighteen-year-old Vic (Don Johnson) has managed to survive thanks to his dog, Blood, who, voiced by Tim McIntire, advises him every step of the way.
Vic is the only one who can communicate with Blood, and the two have a tempestuous relationship. Blood relies on Vic to find the food, and Vic expects Blood to repay him by helping him get laid, tracking down eligible females in what seems to be a mostly-male society.
Vic steals some food from a band of traveling brigands, at which point Blood points him in the direction of Quilla June Holmes (Susanne Barton). But before Vic can force himself on her at gunpoint, they are surrounded by several dozen travelers, a nasty bunch that Blood assumes is also interested in the pretty Quilla June.
To Vic’s surprise, his intended conquest helps him fend off the invaders, and before long – and against the advice of Blood – Vic falls in love with Quilla June, who suggests that Vic follow her to the “Down Under”, where they can live happily ever after.
Though reluctant at first, Vic says goodbye to Blood and follows Quilla June into what proves to be an underground society of several thousand people, who have fashioned their world to resemble early 20th century Topeka, Kansas!
Co-written and directed by L.Q. Jones, A Boy and His Dog is a wild, sexy, funny look at nuclear devastation, and the special relationship that exists between its two main characters. Vic is the brawn, brave and not afraid to fight. Blood, who communicates via telepathy, is the brains of the duo, and does what he can to keep Vic out of trouble. Blood often insults Vic, who isn’t very bright, and Vic is resentful of the shoddy treatment. Their exchanges are, at times, hilarious (during an argument, Blood calls Vic a putz. “A putz?”, Vic shoots back, “What’s a putz? It’s somethin’ bad, isn’t it? You better take it back or I’m gonna kick your fuzzy butt!”).
Johnson is solid as the hot-headed Vic, and McIntire brings a real humanity to Blood. Watching them rely on one another time and again, always a bit annoyed that they must do so yet absolutely trusting each other, keeps the laughs coming. Also good in support are Benton as the pretty but conniving Quilla June and Jason Robards as one of the leaders of the underground society, who, along with the others on the “council”, have built a utopia that demands total subservience. Questioning the council’s authority, or even having a “bad attitude”, usually results in a sentence of death.
Director Jones and his team create two convincing worlds in A Boy and His Dog: the barren desert up above (which reminded me a little of George Miller’s The Road Warrior), and the farming community down below (think The Music Man without the tunes). But it’s Vic and Blood you will remember. They can have you howling with laughter one minute and in tears the next. Rating: 9 out of 10
Set during the Jacobite rising of 1745, Delbert Mann’s Kidnapped is a grand adventure, based on not one but two novels by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886’s Kidnapped and part of its sequel, 1893’s Catriona).
Rallying around Bonnie Prince Charlie, who landed in Scotland to restore his father, James Stuart, to the English throne, the Scottish clans of the Highlands have just been handed a crushing defeat by the British army and Scot Loyalists at the Battle of Culloden.
At the same time, young David Balfour (Lawrence Douglas) arrives in Edinburgh and pays a visit to his uncle Ebeneezer (Donald Pleasance). Ebenezer has been holding the family estate, the House of the Shaws, until David came of age. Now that he has, the house and all the surrounding land is to be transferred to David.
But Uncle Ebenezer has other plans. After failing to kill David himself, he makes a deal with Ship’s Captain Hoseason (Jack Hawkins), who kidnaps David, brings him aboard his ship, and sets sail for the Carolina’s, where the young man will be sold into indentured servitude.
During the voyage, the ship collides with a smaller boat, and its lone passenger, Alan Breck (Michael Caine), is brought aboard. Breck, a rebel Highlander and a member of the Stewart clan, befriends David, who overhears that the ship’s crew intends to kill Breck for his money. Teaming up, David and Breck manage to fight off the attack, and with little of its crew left, the ship crashes into a rock formation and sinks.
Washed ashore in Scotland but in the territory of the Campbell’s, a clan that remained loyal to Britain’s current monarch, Breck and David make their way to the home of Breck’s cousin, James Stewart (Jack Watson). Their hope is that James can provide them with money for their journey to Edinburgh, where Breck will board a boat for France and David will settle matters with his treacherous uncle. James is only too happy to assist, and David develops a crush on their host’s pretty daughter Catriona (Vivien Heilbron). But an encounter the next morning with the Campbells, during which the clan’s head, Mungo Campbell (Terry Richards) is gunned down, leads to a skirmish. James Stewart is injured and other members of his family killed, causing Breck, David, and Catriona to flee.
Along the way, the three discover that James survived the gunfight, but is being held by the British for the murder of Mungo Campbell. David, who was standing next to James at the time, knows it was not he who killed Campbell, and plans to visit the British Lord Advocate (Trevor Howard) to plea for James’ release.
But these are treacherous times, and by coming forward to testify against the Crown, David may be putting his own life on the line.
The opening scene, where we see the bloody aftermath of the Battle of Culloden, had me thinking at first that Kidnapped was going to be, at least in part, a film about the Jacobite uprising. It is a large, sprawling sequence, with hundreds of dead bodies littering the ground, and loved ones mourning the loss of their young men as Loyalists take prisoners and execute a few survivors. It’s a scene that would have been at home in any epic war film.
From there, however, Kidnapped narrows its focus, following instead David Balfour and his adventures, as well as his ever-changing opinions of new friend Alan Breck, the Scottish Highlands, and the current state of law and order in Scotland.
To the film’s credit, it does not totally praise or condemn (at least not for its entire runtime) lead character Alan Breck, the Scot Rebels, the Loyalists, or the Government officials who are holding James Stewart, and who intend to continue with his execution even after learning of his innocence. As played by Caine, Alan Breck is a brave fighter who stays loyal to the cause of putting James Stuart back on the English throne, even when his fellow rebels, including cousin James, say the fight has been lost. Breck, who is clearly a skilled warrior, is also prone to act foolish, and in the end refuses to help save James from the Gallows, for what he sees as the “greater good” of Scotland.
On the other side of the struggle, the Lord Advocate, ready to move forward with what is a clear miscarriage of justice, sympathizes with James Stewart’s predicament, and comes to admire David, who, though putting his own life in jeopardy, has every intention of doing the right thing. Even David’s uncle Ebenezer, a clear-cut villain at the outset, becomes a bit more sympathetic when we learn why he acted as he did.
Having never read either novel, I can only assume these dualities were present in Stevenson’s work, and I applaud screenwriter Jack Putnam and director Delbert Mann for keeping them intact.
Kidnapped is, without a doubt, a fun adventure movie, but its characters are far from one-dimensional, and that always makes for a more rewarding experience. Rating: 8.5 out of 10
Director Blake Edwards’ Revenge of the Pink Panther was the last of the series produced during star Peter Sellers’ lifetime (1982’s Trail of the Pink Panther features Sellers in excised clips from earlier films), and while it is probably my least favorite of the franchise to this point, there are plenty of laughs crammed into its 98 minutes.
To prove to the New York mob that he still has clout, Parisian millionaire Phillipe Douvier (Robert Webber, not even attempting a French accent), who is also head of the drug cartel known as the “French Connection”, decides to assassinate the city’s most decorated law enforcement official: Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau (Sellers). Of course, as we’ve seen time and again, killing someone as imbecilic as Clouseau is no easy task. But Douvier’s henchmen manage to pull it off, shooting Clouseau dead in his car, which then slams into a tree and explodes on impact.
All of France mourns the loss of a true hero, but what nobody realizes is that Douvier’s assassins killed the wrong person! Just before the shooting, Clouseau was held up at gunpoint by cross-dressing criminal Claude Russo (Sue Lloyd), who forced the inspector to swap clothes with him, then drove off in his car. With Russo dead but the world thinking it was him, Clouseau goes undercover and, with the help of his trusty manservant Cato (Burt Kwouk) and Douvier’s jilted mistress Simone (Dyan Cannon), flies to Hong Kong to stop a major drug deal and arrest Douvier.
Anyone familiar with the Pink Panther series will know what to expect from Revenge of the Pink Panther. Early in the movie, Clouseau visits the shop of his disguise maker, Professor Auguste Balls (Graham Stark), and you can just imagine the double-entendres that pop up every time this character’s name is mentioned! There is also yet another hilarious showdown between Clouseau and Cato, who is under strict orders to attack his boss every time he comes home (what the two don’t know is that one of Douvier’s hired killers, a Kung Fu expert played by Ed Parker, is also in the apartment). And while I think the previous entry in the series, The Pink Panther Strikes Again, had more laughs, I give Revenge of the Pink Panther credit for having a somewhat cohesive story, which was lacking in its predecessor.
Also back is Herbert Lom as former Chief Inspector Dreyfus, once again confined to an insane asylum. Despite transforming into an evil genius in The Pink Panther Strikes Again and attempting to destroy the world, Dreyfus is not only given a full release from the asylum but also restored to his previous rank of Chief Inspector!
Only in a Pink Panther movie.
Once back on the force, Dreyfus’s first assignment is to track down Clouseau’s killers. While he may secretly rejoice over the death of his nemesis, he does take the job seriously, even if it’s hard for him to hold back his elation. In what is my favorite scene of the movie, Dreyfus is ordered to deliver Clouseau’s eulogy (which was written by the Commissioner’s wife), with the mourners mistaking his stifled laughter each time he praises Clouseau for tears.
I’m not a fan of the grand finale of Revenge of the Pink Panther, a slapstick-riddled chase through the streets of Hong Kong, and the continuous racial slurs directed at Cato, not to mention the fact that Sellers (and other Caucasians) occasionally appear in Asian make-up, don’t play as well today as they might have in 1978. That said, I did laugh, and often, over the course of the movie. As a Pink Panther film, this was a decent swan song for Sellers. Rating: 7 out of 10
To say that Miss Meadows (Katie Holmes) has a cheery outlook on life would be an understatement. She dresses like it’s the 1950s, and has taps on her shoes, dancing her way down the sidewalk each and every day.
Like a character straight out of a classic Disney movie, she even talks to bluebirds (no, they don’t talk back). She may live in a bad part of town, but that will never keep Miss Meadows from letting the world know she is, at all times, a very happy young woman, and that she is never afraid.
Why is Miss Meadows not afraid? Because, as we see in the film’s pre-title sequence, she also carries a gun in her tiny purse, and does not hesitate to use it when trouble arises.
Miss Meadows is a naive but happy-go-lucky first-grade substitute teacher. Miss Meadows is also a vigilante, taking down any and all lowlifes that get in her way. Written and directed by Karen Leigh Hopkins, 2014’s Miss Meadows is a comedy / drama that plays like a cross between Mary Poppins and Ms. 45.
Holmes delivers a strong, occasionally heartbreaking performance as a woman who loves life, loves her job (she develops a strong rapport with the kids in her class, especially Heather, played by Ava Kolker), and talks with her mother (Jean Smart) almost every night on the phone. She’s even found love for the first time after being swept off her feet by the town’s sheriff (James Badge Dale). In one of the film’s sweeter scenes, Miss Meadows and the Sheriff go on a date, picnicking in the park and dancing to imaginary accordion music (the Sheriff confesses that, were he not in law enforcement, he would have wanted to be a professional accordion player).
Next-door neighbor Mrs. Davenport (Mary Kay Place) says that the neighborhood has gotten brighter ever since Miss Meadows moved in, but also warns that the young woman should be careful on her walks. It seems that, due to overcrowding, some 2,000 inmates from the local prison were given early parole, many of whom are now residing in that very neighborhood. But Mrs. davenport doesn’t know what we know: Miss Meadows is more than capable of defending herself and dishing out her own brand of justice, which she does on several occasions.
She even confronts Skyler (Callan Mulvey), who lives a few doors down from her, when she discovers he had served time for child abuse. In a poignant scene, Miss Meadows sets up a ‘Welcome to the Neighborhood’ tea party in Skyler’s front room, pouring him a cup while warning him that, should he harm another child, she will shoot him dead.
It’s no big secret that a trauma from her past is what drives Miss Meadows to take the law into her own hands, and it is revealed to us, piece by piece, throughout the film via flashbacks (with Anna Moravcik playing Miss Meadows as a child).
It is but one of several surprises that Miss Meadows has in store for viewers. Some of those surprises are quite dark, and it’s amazing how well the film balances its brighter aspects with the darkness surrounding its title character.
With an outstanding performance by Katie Holmes at its center, Miss Meadows proved a pleasant surprise, and is a movie I would not hesitate to recommend. Rating: 8 out of 10
Elizabeth Taylor rose through the ranks, from a well-respected child actor in the 1940s to one of the cinema’s biggest stars in the ‘50s to mid-‘60s.
For a performer of her magnitude, Taylor made some daring choices from the latter part of the 1960s onward, including a bickering, less-than glamorous housewife in Mike Nichols’ Who’s Afraid of Virigina Woolf (starring alongside her equally famous husband, Richard Burton) to eyebrow-raising performances in a couple of Joseph Losey movies (Boom, Secret Ceremony).
Many of Taylor-s die-hard fans were less than enthusiastic about much of her later work, films they that considered beneath her talents. Even sleazy.
Identikit, a 1974 Italian film directed by Giuseppe Petroni Griffi, may, on the surface, seem like one of these “sleazy” entries in Taylor’s filmography. And it is an odd movie, to be sure. But it is also fascinating as hell.
Lise (Taylor) is slowly unraveling. A middle-aged American living in Copenhagen, she boards a plane bound for Rome, for what she tells friends will be a much-needed holiday. She arrives in the city during a tumultuous time; radicals are chased through the airport and there’s even a terrorist bombing.
On top of that, local detectives and Interpol agents are circulating pictures of Lise, asking questions of anyone and everyone who came into contact with her recently. Through it all, the emotionally unstable Lise continues to meet people, including Bill (Ian Bannen), an oversexed Brit who swears that the macrobiotic diet has changed his life; a member of the English aristocracy (played by none other than Andy Warhol); and Helen Fiedke (Mona Washbourne), a kindly elderly woman with whom Lise goes shopping one afternoon.
But Lise is looking for more than a good deal at the mall. She wants to form a connection with the “right person”, someone she hopes will be willing to help her carry out a very specific task.
Taylor holds nothing back in her performance, taking Lise from excessively arrogant one moment (she is condescending to sales clerks and maids) to confused and out-of-touch the next (while shopping with Mrs. Liedke, the two head into the bathroom. When Mrs. Liedke goes into a stall and does not respond to Lise, Lise walks out, saying nothing to the bathroom attendant except that the woman in the stall might need help).
When it comes to men, Lise seems equally bewildered. She does not like Bill, yet meets with him on two separate occasions; and once even finds herself alone with seemingly Good Samaritan Carlo (Guido Mannari), who offers her a lift, then drives her to a secluded spot and attempts to rape her. Taylor handles the characters odd mannerisms perfectly, and while we do not always like her, we are captivated by Lise, and on the edge of our seats as her story unfolds.
Director Petroni Griffi expertly builds the mystery surrounding Lise, intercutting flashbacks, flash-forwards, and even a few shocking moments (like a rebel tossing a grenade at a moving vehicle).
Throughout the film, the police interview those who have had run-ins with Lise, some of whom are questioned more intensely than others. Carlo is subjected to a particularly grueling interrogation, a flash-forward that occurs before we the audience even see what transpired between he and Lise.
All the while, we’re wondering what it is that the authorities are after? Did Lise commit a crime? Did she fly to Rome to hide out? Or is it something else?
All questions are answered in the film’s final 10 minutes, and I admit I was surprised by a lot of what transpired towards the end.
Based on the Muriel Spark novel “The Drivers Seat” (which was the film’s title in North America), Identikit is, along with its more bizarre elements, a beautifully shot motion picture. Cinematographer Vittorio Storaro occasionally interjects moments of natural beauty, which momentarily break the story’s tension. This plus the soft piano score by Franco Mannino make Identikit a movie of contradictions, where art occasionally eclipses the chaos.
Thanks to Liz Taylor, and an intriguing storyline that seems fractured at first only to be expertly assembled over time, Identikit is incredibly engaging. Rating: 9 out of 10
Girl Happy has the formula for an Elvis Presley film down pat: pretty girls, a tropical setting, and lots of songs for Elvis to sing. This 1965 movie is especially jam packed with tunes; there are six musical numbers before it hits the half hour mark!
Rusty Wells (Presley) and his band (Gary Crosby, Joby Baker and Jimmy Hawkins) are a smash-hit at the Chicago night club owned by Big Frank (Harold J. Stone). Not wanting to lose his best act, Big Frank refuses to let Rusty and the others leave for Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
Big Frank has a change of heart, however, when he learns that his beloved daughter Valerie (Shelley Fabares) is herself heading to Fort Lauderdale with some of her college friends. Issuing orders for Rusty and his buddies to keep an eye on Valerie, Big Frank sends them to Florida, all expenses paid.
But what the guys hope will be a relaxing time in the sun, surrounded by pretty college girls, quickly turns into a 24-hour job when Valerie is romanced by Italian playboy Romano (Fabrizio Mioni). Fearing what Big Frank might do to them if he finds out, Rusty and the others do whatever it takes to keep Valerie and Romano apart, even if it means getting her to fall in love with Rusty himself!
As with many of Elvis’s films, there isn’t a whole lot of story in Girl Happy. But it has its charms. Chief among them is the music, which, though it doesn’t feature any of Presley’s better-known hits, boasts energy to spare. Especially catchy are "Spring Fever" (sung by Presley and Fabares), "Wolf Call" (a duet of sorts where Presley is joined by co-star Mary Ann Mobley, who plays his early love interest Deena), and "The Meanest Girl in Town" (where, to keep her away from Romano, Rusty convinces Valerie to join them on-stage when this song is performed).
While the music is absolutely the selling point of Girl Happy, it does offer up a few entertaining non-musical moments as well, including a very memorable scene in a jail house that features both Jackie Coogan (Uncle Fester in the ‘60s TV sitcom The Addams Family) as an overzealous cop and Elvis himself… in drag!
Like Blue Hawaii, Girl Happy takes advantage of its tropical setting, and features more than its share of bikini-clad beauties. But make no mistake: it’s Elvis’s golden voice that will keep you watching until the end. Rating: 7.5 out of 10
I never read the Stephen King short story that inspired 1995’s The Mangler, but if it’s anywhere near as silly as this Tobe Hooper-directed movie, I won’t be checking it out any time soon. The Mangler is a mess.
There’s been a tragedy at the Blue Ribbon Laundry factory, a business owned by eccentric millionaire William Gartley (Robert Englund). Soon after Gartley’s adopted daughter Sherry (Vanessa Pike) injured her hand on the folding machine (a large, imposing piece of machinery nicknamed “The Mangler”), her elderly co-worker Mrs. Frawley (Vera Blacker) was pulled into the folder and killed.
Detective John Hunton (Ted Levine) is sent in to investigate, and over the course of a few days - and a few conversations with his late wife’s brother, Mark (Daniel Matmor) - Hunton comes to believe the Mangler has been possessed by an evil spirit. But the closer Hunton comes to discovering the truth, the more pushback he gets from the town’s leaders, who seem to be conspiring to keep what’s happening at the Blue Ribbon Laundry a secret.
Ted Levine is manic as the oft-angry cop with a chip on his shoulder (his wife’s death in a car accident a few years earlier is the catalyst for his aggressive behavior), and while I wouldn’t call it his best performance (it’s no Buffalo Bill from Silence of the Lambs), he at least is interesting enough to keep us watching and rooting for him. Sporting leg braces and plenty of make-up, Robert Englund is also kind of fascinating as the villainous Gartley.
Where The Mangler falls apart is not in its ridiculous story of a possessed machine, but the manner in which it is told. This movie is all over the place. Characters jump to conclusions with very little evidence (Hunton and Mark are planning an exorcism of the machine well before we the audience are convinced they’re right) and others seem to change personalities for no clear reason (Lin Sue, played by Lisa Morris, has a run-in with the Mangler and, before you know it, has transformed from a sympathetic character exploited by Hunton into his cold-blooded accomplice). At times The Mangler is so ridiculous that I couldn’t help but feel Hooper and company missed the boat; this should have been a comedy instead of a straight-up horror movie.
It’s hard to believe the man responsible for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Salem’s Lot and Poltergeist also turned out The Mangler. They should have run the script through that folder on the first day of shooting. Some mangling might have helped it make a little more sense. Rating: 3.5 out of 10
“Since World War II, the Philippines was home to one of the world’s most prolific film industries, producing up to 350 titles a year.
Not one of these films received a theatrical release overseas.
In the late 1960s, this all changed.
Maverick American producers – wanting to create cheap and edgy genre fare outside of the United States – unleashed a tidal wave of productions from the Philippines into drive-in theaters the world over”.
And with the above text scroll, writer / director Mark Hartley, who previously tackled Ozploitation (Not Quite Hollywood) and would eventually set his sights on the craziness that was Cannon Films (Electric Boogaloo), kicks off 2010’s Machete Maidens Unleashed, his venture into low-budget filmmaking in the Philippines, an era that stretched from the late 1960s to the mid-80s.
Featuring archival footage, plenty of interviews, and stories so batshit they will make your head spin, Machete Maidens Unleashed takes us back to the beginning, when American producers tapped Filipino filmmakers Gerardo de Leon and Eddie Romero to turn out a number of low-budget horror movies. The resulting films, known as the Blood Island movies (Brides of Blood, Mad Doctor of Blood Island and Beast of Blood), were financed and released in the U.S. by Hemisphere Pictures. The main star of these movies was American John Ashley, who accepted the roles as a way of getting over his recent divorce. Ashley fell in love with the Philippines, and would remain there for years.
It was Ashley who tipped off his old pal Roger Corman, who was so intrigued by the stories of cheap local labor that he sent director Jack Hill and a film crew over, resulting in the women-in-prison movie The Big Doll House. It was a huge smash, and led to a string of other exploitation films that featured all the blood and nudity that kept drive-in patrons of the day happy.
Corman would eventually hire local Filipino directors to helm these movies, chief among them Cirio Santiago (Fly Me, TNT Jackson). The benefits of making movies with government assistance (martial law was declared by dictator Ferdinand Marcos in 1972, and he was only too happy to assist his American friends by lending out military troops and equipment for their movies) would even Francis Ford Coppola to fly to the Philippines, where, after years of turmoil and hardship, he would turn out one of the greatest movies ever made: Apocalypse Now.
Many of those interviewed for Machete Maidens Unleashed, including directors Eddie Romero, Jack Hill and Brian Trenchard-Smith as well as actors Sid Haig, Pam Grier, Gloria Hendry and Margaret Markov, had first-hand experience of the insanity that was shooting a movie in the Philippine jungles. In the early days, many of the locals carried guns (Jack Hill claims that he and several of his crew saw a man shot to death in a hotel lobby), and relied on local “talent” for everything, even pyrotechnics! From the excessive heat to the large bugs and rodents (Sid Haig claims he watched a rat carry off a kitten), not to mention a lack of any sort of safety protocol (several local stuntmen were killed over the years), it was, as Trenchard-Smith called it, the “Wild East” of low-budget filmmaking.
Many actresses, hoping it would lead to better parts in the future, stripped to their birthday suits and allowed themselves to be put into some dangerous situations. One was tied down naked and, with only a sheet of glass to protect her, found herself face-to-face with a venomous cobra!
Yet, thanks to the low costs associated with these productions, the movies continued to make money. According to Roger Corman, who admitted he “Did not care” for The Big Doll House, it cost $100k to make that picture and it took in over $4 million!
As with Not Quite Hollywood and Electric Boogaloo, Hartley brings an incredible energy to Machete Maidens Unleashed, cutting back-and-forth from interviews to film clips at a pace that makes the documentary, at times, feel like an action film. This, plus additional commentary by the likes of John Landis, Danny Peary, and the duo of Joe Dante and Allan Arkush, who in the ‘70s were tasked by Roger Corman’s New World Pictures to cut trailers for these Filipino movies (Corman admits at one point that the trailers were often better than the movies themselves), Machete Maidens Unleashed is a fascinating glimpse into, as the movie’s subtitle states, The Wild, Untold Story of the Filipino exploitation explosion.
If you’re like me, the minute Machete Maidens Unleashed is over, you’ll be seeking out many of the titles mentioned, if for no other reason than to see if the movies themselves are as crazy as what went on behind the scenes. Of the ones I’ve watched already, I can tell you: they absolutely are! Rating: 9 out of 10
Tokyo at night. An intertitle informs us it is Day three of the Lunar Cycle. A well-dressed man in a white suit runs through the streets, shouting that “she” is after him.
Reporter Akiru Inugami (Sonny Chiba), whose nickname is “Wolf”, leaps from his car and approaches the near-crazed guy. Still in a panic, the man, a criminal named Hanamura (Rikiya Yasuoka), tells Inugami that he is running from a Tiger, and that the “Curse of Miki” is coming for him.
Inugami follows him into an alley, where Hanamura is torn to shreds before his eyes. There is no tiger that we can see; he was seemingly slaughtered by an invisible force.
Thus begins director Kazuhiko Yamaguchi’s Wolf Guy. Based on a 1970 manga, Wolf Guy is jam-packed with action, mystery, and even horror. Sonny Chiba alone usually guarantees a fun film, and for my money this is one of his most entertaining.
With the help of his partner Arai (Harumi Sone), Inugami discovers that Miki is, in fact, signer Miki Ogata (Etsuko Nami), who was once engaged to the son of a powerful politician. None too happy with the match, this politician, with a little help, had Miki kidnapped and gang-raped by a band of Yakuzas, an encounter that infected her with uncurable syphilis. Her engagement off and her spirit broken, Miki now makes a living belting out tunes at a strip club, and begging for money to support her drug habit.
Inugami takes a special interest in Miki, whose hatred and anger is unleashed in the form of an invisible tiger, one that exacts revenge on those who ruined her life.
Inugami wants to help Miki in her quest for justice, but as we learn over time, he does so for his own reasons.
The first half of Wolf Guy is shrouded in mystery. Immediately after the strange and very violent pre-title sequence (blood flows from Hanamura’s deep gashes), the opening credits play over a flashback, in which an entire village is gunned down, leaving no survivors save a very young boy. This and many of the film’s other questions will eventually be answered, with each new revelation (including a cool one at the halfway point about Inugami’s heritage) more jaw-dropping than the last.
Along with the mystery, the movie boasts plenty of action, with Sonny Chiba kicking ass time and again as he takes on the gang that has basically enslaved Miki. Much like Chiba’s The Street Fighter and The Bodyguard, he puts a hurting on his opponents.
Which brings me to another facet of Wolf Guy: its blood and gore. The attacks by Miki’s “tiger” are violent as hell, as are Chiba’s fight scenes. That said, the movie also features what might be the single most disturbing torture sequence I ever sat through, a moment so graphic and shocking that, to decrease its impact, the filmmakers tinted it with psychedelic colors.
The film’s full title is Wolf Guy: Enraged Lycanthrope, and while it does occasionally delve into Werewolf territory, fans of that particular subgenre will likely be disappointed (it becomes more of a plot point in the final act, yet is never explored as much as I would have liked). Still, with action aplenty, a jazzy score, some stylish camerawork (chase scenes are shot hand-held), and a final showdown that you won’t soon forget, Wolf Guy is as exciting, intriguing, and amazing as they come. Rating: 9.5 out of 10
When his film Trash Humpers premiered at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival, director Harmony Korine warned the audience that its title should be taken literally (“I named it Trash Humpers because I didn’t want to fool anyone”, he later said in an interview).
Sure enough, the opening images are of the three main characters: Buddy (Brian Kotzur), Momma (Rachel Korine), and Travis (Travis Nicholson), all wearing masks that make them appear elderly, grinding into trash cans and humping fences. One even fellates a tree branch!
But they’re just getting warmed up.
From there, we follow the characters as they destroy televisions and boom boxes, vandalize public property, and mock a child as he plays basketball. They take in two men (Kevin Guthrie and Charles Ezell) wearing what appear to be hospital gowns. The group forces the two to cook pancakes, then makes them eat the pancakes after dousing them with dish soap. The trio also meets a crossdressing singer (Chris Gantry) who performs for them. Before long, the singer is lying dead on their kitchen floor, the back of his head smashed in with a hammer.
Baby dolls appear throughout, and are also destroyed with hammers, closed up in plastic bags, and tied up with rope before being dragged from the back of their bicycles.
Trash Humpers is chaos to the hundredth power.
Korine shot the entirety of Trash Humpers on low-quality VHS, then edited the film on two VCRs, giving it a documentary / found footage vibe (Korine himself plays the fourth member of the group, Herve, who is the one supposedly working the camera. He is seldom seen, often making his presence known by way of grunts and shrill laughter). Because of this, the images are often grainy and hard to see, and the editing far from smooth (by design, I’m sure). The audio also suffers from time to time, tinny at its best and, at its worst, indecipherable.
Still, like Gummo before it, Korine’s Trash Humpers offers a fascinating glimpse of the urban landscape (the film was shot in the seedier neighborhoods of Nashville, Tennessee), and how a group of depraved individuals fend off boredom by unleashing anarchy. Whether it be humping a trash can at night under a streetlight or defecating in front of someone’s garage door, there seems to be no line these derelicts won’t cross. Yet there is a sense of freedom about it all, both the freedom to do as they please and the freedom of not giving a damn what anyone else thinks about it.
As with Gummo, Trash Humpers falls somewhere between art and, well… trash! And it’s the combination of the two that kept me watching. Rating: 7 out of 10
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil doesn’t waste any time, introducing us to the twisted thinking of lead character Anne (Jeanne Goupil) immediately after the opening credits.
It’s nighttime at a Catholic boarding school. A nun makes her way past the sleeping girls. Anne, however, is not actually asleep.
The nun walks behind a drawn curtain and undresses as Anne, now turned onto her side, watches. The curious young girl then hides under her covers and grabs her journal, where she makes the following entry:
“Friday, 29th June… a good day. Celine Crespin got the blame for me fooling around in class. She’ll be kept in on Sunday. I confessed two sins of impurity that I hadn’t committed. That really gave me a thrill. Lore and me get such pleasure when we do something wrong. To sin has become our chief aim. Let the other idiots live their lives doing good. We shall dedicate our lives to Satan, our lord and master.”
And with that, this 1971 French film by first-time writer / director Joel Seria is off and running.
Anne and her best friend Lore (Catherine Wagener) get into all sorts of mischief, which they manage to hide from their teachers as well as their parents. Doing everything from collecting eucharist hosts and stealing a chalice from the sacristy (both of which they intend to use in an upcoming Satanic ritual) to antagonizing the farmer’s son Emile (Gerard Darrieu), the girls delight in the chaos they create.
It isn’t long, however, before their friendship leads them to bigger crimes, including arson and even torture.
For Anne and Lore, flirting with older men and spying on their teachers is nothing more than good fun. Until the night they take things a bit too far, an incident that could bring their entire world crashing down around them.
Based in part on the Parker – Hulme murder case in 1950’s New Zealand (the very same killing that inspired Peter Jackson’s excellent 1994 film Heavenly Creatures), Don’t Deliver Us From Evil is, at times, a shocking movie, both in the sexually explicit behavior of its two leads (though they portray teen girls, both actresses were nearly 20 when the movie was made) and the lengths (and depths) they go to in proving themselves worthy of a life dedicated to Satan. Perhaps the movie’s most chilling scene comes when Anne and Lore sneak into the room of Leon (Michel Robin), a caretaker at Anne’s estate, and poison his pet canary (the camera lingers on the poor creature as it convulses and then dies).
Not even the near-miss of Lore being raped by Emile (after playfully showing off her body to him) is enough to slow them down. To get back at Emile, they visit his family’s farm one night and set fire to the haystacks in the field as well as all the hay in the barn.
There are moments scattered throughout Don’t Deliver Us From Evil in which director Seria takes aim at what he sees as the rigid morality of the Catholic faith, and the effect it can have on stirring up rebellion; at one point Anne and Lore, who have snuck into the convent, hide from two nuns running down the hall, giggling. The two sisters eventually make their way to a secluded room, where Anne and Lore, peering through the keyhole, see them kissing one another. This comes just after a scene in which the priest, during mass, delivers a stern sermon on lust, and how it is the most deadly of the seven sins (in a humorous scene, Anne has a fantasy of the priest delivering his homily naked, and being laughed at by the parishioners).
Don’t Deliver Us From Evil is not an easy movie to sit through. It was banned in its native France and given an “X” rating in Britain (it also never played theatrically in the United States). But if you can look past some of its more troubling aspects (the on-screen death of an animal is never pleasant), it is a well-made, well-acted film, relating a story of friendship that crosses into obsession, and of two girls who have discovered a unique and horrific way to stave off the boredom of their restrictive lives. Rating: 9 out of 10
Prior to today, I had seen three of director Serguio Martino’s Giallos: The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh from 1971; Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key from 1972; and 1973’s Torso. All rank among my favorites of this particular subgenre, weaving intriguing storylines into a narrative style that is as sexy as it is visually engaging.
Now, I can add The Case of The Scorpion’s Tail, also released in 1971, to this amazing list of movies.
When her wealthy husband dies in a mysterious airline explosion, London resident Lisa Baumer (Ida Galli) learns she was the sole beneficiary of his life insurance policy, worth one million dollars.
Soon after flying to Athens to collect the money (which she took entirely in cash), Ms. Baumer is brutally murdered in her hotel room, and the chief suspect in her slaying is insurance investigator Peter Lynch (George Hilton), who was tasked with looking into possible irregularities in her case.
As more people associated with the Baumers turn up dead, both police inspector Stavros (Luigi Pistilli) and John Stanley of Interpol (Alberto De Mendoza) become convinced that Lynch is, indeed, behind this sudden rash of murders. To prove his innocence, Lynch teams up with (and romances) French reporter Clea Dupont (Anita Strindberg), in the hopes she’ll uncover a clue that will clear him once and for all.
One cannot discuss Sergio Martino’s output in the subgenre without also mentioning Ernesto Gastaldi, who wrote (or co-wrote) all of the director’s Giallos. The story of The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, which twists and turns in a number of directions, throwing one potential suspect after another our way, is a definite strength, and keeps us guessing the whole way through.
That said, it’s the visual style Martino brings to the table that pushes it over the top.
In what is, for me, the strongest sequence in The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail, the killer stalks Lara (Janine Raynaud), a pretty redhead who, earlier in the movie, tried to blackmail Lisa Baumer for the insurance money. Lara, it seems, was the late Mr. Baumer’s mistress, and claims he intended to divorce Lisa and marry her. Lara said she was in possession of a letter that would prove Lisa Baumer wished her husband dead (Lisa herself had a lover, played by Tomas Pico). Naturally, when Lisa then turns up dead, Lara and her accomplice Sharif (Luis Barboo) are considered prime suspects.
That all ends when Lara herself becomes the killer’s next target, a scene that utilizes POV, a clever use of slow motion, and a fair amount of blood. When Sharif barges in before the killer can flee the scene, it leads to a tense rooftop chase that also ends in bloodshed.
Shot on-location in London and Greece, The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail is, along with its other attributes, a gorgeous motion picture, and proof positive that Martino is every bit the master of the Giallo as fellow countryman Dario Argento (Bird With the Crystal Plumage, Deep Red). I still have a few of Martino’s Giallos to check out, and now I chomping at the bit to dive into them! Rating: 9.5 out of 10
