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