Tarkan vs. the Vikings (1971): A Visual Review

Look, folks, I'm no historian. There's lots I don't know about The Past, and I'm particularly shaky on what life was like at the height of the Ancient Turkish and Norse cultures. It's a failing, I realize.

For instance, I don't know whether, as Attila the Hun's army rampaged across Asia, the Emperor of China sent his daughter and a small squadron of warriors to forge an alliance with the Vikings in order to kidnap Attila's daughter from her home village in Turkey. I don't know whether the Vikings of that era built huge castles on the Mediterranean, complete with iron-barred dungeons, spring-loaded portcullises, and Roman-style marble baths. I don't know if Vikings had the knowledge of marine biology necessary to domesticate a giant octopus and use it to get rid of their enemies. I don't know whether the Vikings invented the bikini brief. And I've got no idea whether ancient Norway had a huge population of wild Muppets, the skins of which the Vikings used to decorate their armor, drums, weaponry, and just about everything else.

But I'll tell you this: after watching Tarkan vs. the Vikings, one of the grand historical epics of 1970s Turkish cinema--I WANT TO BELIEVE.

Franzetta the Hun

Tarkan (Kartal Tibet) is a loner hero in the Conan the Barbarian mold, a near-invincible Hun Turk who for some reason was left behind in Turkey when his lord Attila left to conquer the known world. Along with his two German Shepherds wolves, Kurt and Kurt Jr., he serves as the bodyguard of Yonca (Fatma Belgen), Attila's daughter, accompanying her to at a Hun village/stone fortress (?) on the banks of the Mediterranean. The early part of the movie is spent establishing Tarkan's extremely close relationship with his dogs, demanding that they be served at the same table and with the same food he is. He's particularly proud of the elder Kurt, who has seen many battles with him and "is raising his son like a good Turk!" Which apparently involves mastering some very complicated rules for table etiquette. Who knew the Huns were such sticklers?

Unbeknownst to the Turks, renegade Viking general Toro (Bilal Inci) is en route, bringing Hell with him in the form of a few dozen galley slaves, several badly wigged Viking warriors, and Dragon-Lady extraordinaire Lotus (Seher Seniz), the daughter of the Chinese Emperor. Apparently His Earthly Godhead has decided to hit Attila where it hurts by kidnapping Yonca and holding her ransom, and further figures the best way to do that is to utilize the military might of the Norsemen. Beating their oarsmen like dusty carpets, the Vikings pull into the harbor and set the fur a'flying! And when I use that term, I mean it more literally than you can imagine.

Once Sesame Street: Mongolia was cancelled, Cookie Monster and Elmo were never seen again.

Vikings: Hard as Nails, Furry as Fuck

To the victor go the shag toilet covers

A fierce battle follows, as the Vikings show why you can't judge a warrior by his hilariously fluffy shield:

Split ends used to be a much bigger problem

One of at least two babies gutted in this scene

In a surprising turn of events, Tarkan the Hero is brought down Boromir-style by a hail of Viking arrows, leaving his faithful dogs to carry on the battle. Kurt and Kurt fight bravely, but unfortunately the elder wolf is skewered by Toro's pom-pommed spear. With Tarkan out of the fight, the rest of the Hun Turks fall like dominoes, and the Viking/Chinese alliance heads back to Norway with all their gold, their surviving women, and Yonca the Hunette lashed to the mast.

It takes more than a couple of arrows to put Tarkan down for good, however, and with the help of Kurt Jr. he's soon bandaging his wounds and burying his fallen lupine brother. At Kurt Sr.'s grave, Tarkan swears eternal vengeance on every Viking unfortunate enough to cross his path. Showing the soul of a poet, the fierce man of war says goodbye to his friend:

Farewell, Kurt--
We are together no more.
No more will you run
beside my horse across the steppes!
You were my everything;
No human being could be as kind,
as loyal and true as you were.
You were dearer to me than anything
And now you are no more.

But I will avenge you--
I will live for revenge!
As long as this spear stands here,
May the whole world know:
Blood will flow and no Viking head
will be safe from my sword
Until the blood of my brother Kurt
is avenged.

It's such a moving extemporaneous work of art, even Kurt Jr. is moved to tears:

"If you prick me, do I not bleed?"

Tarkan says nothing about the dozens of Hun babies and women the Vikings also left steaming on a bed of their own coiled entrails, but hey, some folks is just dog people.

Meanwhile, back at Viking HQ, King Gero is wondering WTF Toro was thinking picking a fight with the Huns. ("Dude, have you SEEN those guys? You don't wear a mouth-corner moustache and topknot like that and NOT be a badass!") Thoroughly disgruntled, Toro and his men quickly usurp the Viking throne, and feed the deposed monarch to their pet sea-monster and totem, a GIANT FUCKING OCTOPUS. In a scene that clearly influenced the Kraken sequence in Ray Harryhausen's Clash of the Titans, watery tentacled death comes for the king.

Uzumaki

WTFucky?

Calamari

You'd think a rubber sea monster with a poorly-inflated head would not be that terrible of harbinger of doom, but nonetheless he gets the job done:

Before

During

After

Inside the Vikings get rapey on the Turk women while New King Toro relaxes in his marble hot tub--which I'm sure came standard in all Viking fortresses, right?

It's good to be Vi-King

Lotus seduces the new monarch into a little Oriental lovin', then drugs his mead and steals a ship, taking the Hun Princess right out from under his nose! Though since it seemed like the Emperor getting Yonca was part of the original deal anyway, this was kind of unnecessary. Still, Toro is kind of a jerk, so I guess he deserved it.

The Chinese sail back to Turkey, for some reason, and hole up at an inn where it just so happens Tarkan is also spending the night. When the Viking pursuit catches up to Lotus, Tarkan's intense hatred for anything in a horny cap comes to the fore, and he quickly destroys them all, gaining Lotus's thanks and respect. Of course he doesn't know that Yonca is right upstairs, struggling against sexy, sexy bonds.

This is the way all my dates end.

Lotus of course remembers Tarkan from the previous battle, but upon learning about his blood-oath against the Norsemen, shrewdly figures it's better to let him slaughter as many of them as he can while she and her dwindling supply of guards make good their escape. So she does her best to keep the warrior happy, which of course can only mean one thing.

"Ooh, baby, you give good hilt!"

Unfortunately another group of Vikings shows up, and since Tarkan has been drugged by Lotus as well (as well as the Princess of China, she's also the Queen of Roofia, apparently), both the putative Empress and Yonca are taken back to Norway. Once he recovers, he rents a rowboat from a local fisherman and gives chase.

Yes, he's rowing from Turkey to Norwary, in a DINGHY. And don't think he can't do it either!

Except that he can't.

Dog Tired

The Vikings spot him adrift and pick him up, thinking they need a little more horsepower in the slave galley. They leave Kurt adrift, but the canny canine swims after them, somehow jumps from the water to the boat, sneaks past all the Vikings and frees Tarkan, who then leads a slave revolt and commandeers the ship. The slaves all swear fealty and want to be his army, but since Tarkan always rides alone, he instead dives into the water and swims the rest of the way to Norway.

Kurt goes along, but doesn't seem too happy about it.

Meanwhile, back at the Viking castle, King Gero's daughter Ursula (Eva Bender) and her ARMY OF FUCKING VALKYRIES have shown up, wondering what (the fuck) happened to dear old dad. Ursula rejected Toro at some time in the past, and he's still steamed about it. To gain closure, he drives Ursula's army back to their ships, captures Ursula herself, and tries to feed her to the octopus as well.

What does a Turkish version of a Norse Warrior Woman look like? I'm so glad you asked.

A Norsewoman's Sternum Never Gets Cold

It looks like Ursula's done for, but lucky for her she's always been kind to the Keeper of the Inflatable Octopus, Orso (or as I like to call him, EEGAH), who rescues her at the last moment and takes her back to her army. On the beach she meets Tarkan, convinces him that they have the same enemy, and before you know it it's time for an all-out castle attack!

A detailed synopsis of what happens next would take pages upon pages. Instead, I'll sum up: Tarkan is captured at least twice, but since the Vikings apparently also invented Dr. Evil-style super-villainy, they never put him to the sword--instead they put him in incredibly ornate traps from which he's unfailingly rescued by Kurt, who seems at this point to be the real brains of the operation. There's a mead-hall orgy complete with blade-throwing-for-accuracy, Viking Trampoline Torture, and wine served from a different kind of juggz. There's a huge battle, Kurt rescues Tarkan from the octopus, and then is himself rescued by his master, the Valkyries storm the castle, and the final boss battle occurs, ending with Tarkan diving off the wall of the castle into the water after the man what killed his doggie.

Please enjoy the following scenes from the aforementioned plot happenings.

He doesn't know yet, but the hawk pissed in his skull-cup.

"If you mention Arch Hall Jr. again, I'm feeding you your nutsack."

Maybe He's Born With It

Their relationship was perfect: torture the innocents, have wild sex, then sip Mochacinos and swap tips on wiggery.

Corey Feldman: He Hates Vikings

"Tell me the truth: does this Muppet pelt make my butt look big?"

"I have to push the pram a loooooooot!"

"...in the Name of Love!"

Ancinet Bikini Briefs

Yonca is not amused

Kurt the Wonder Dog to the Rescue

The rock formations in the lagoon were surprisingly regular

Anachronistic? Probably. ZANG? Definitely.

The first day of the post-Easter Fur Sale was always a madhouse.

SuperTurk

So Tarkan vs. the Vikings is NOT a good movie. The acting is terrible, the shadow of the crew is a constant companion, the sets and costumes are absolutely antagonistic toward historical propriety, and the plot makes little if any sense.

However, as my good friend Samuel Wilson of the excellent blog MONDO 70: A WILD WORLD OF CINEMA pointed out on the comments of this review, "Insofar as it's possible, the law for enjoyable bad movies is 'more!' " And by that standard, it's hard to imagine a more enjoyable bad movie than this one. The fight scenes are poorly choreographed but incredibly energetic, the plot machinations just keep getting nuttier the longer it goes on, and there's a rather endearing macho earnestness to the whole thing that I found charming. (To say nothing of the amazing wigs on those Viking warriors.) And let's face it--any movie that has three characters AND A DOG going all Bela Lugosi on a rubber octopus in a shallow lagoon is going to please any bad movie fan worth his salt.

So there you have it. Most people will hate this movie or else shut it off after 15 minutes in a state of befuddled blankness. But for those who like this sort of thing, there's nothing not to like. 3 thumbs for the most fun I've had watching a movie in a while. If you get a chance to grab the Mondo Macabro release, do yourself a favor and call some friends over. I predict you'll have a blast.

"By Odin's Beard, Vicar! IT'S HUGE!"

Many thanks to dfordoom of Cult Movie Reviews for the most excellent movie-watching suggestion!

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Silent Madness (1984): or, Spank You Very Much

It doesn't take a high-falutin' trained critic with his finger on the racing and changeable pulse of pop culture to see that 3-D is making a comeback. Superbowl commercials, sit-com episodes, CG kiddie fare, and even DVD releases are COMIN' RIGHT ATCHA in a 3-dimensional wave of excitement and enthusiasm. Yes, it seems like you can't stick your head out the window for a breath of fresh air without seeing SOMETHING in 3-D.

Of course this isn't the first resurgence of 3-D cinema since its heyday in the 50s and 60s. Many of my parishioners will recall a similar enthusiasm for le trois dimensionale that pushed its rebirthing head out of the screen in the early 1980s with a crop of horror films like Friday the 13th 3-D, Jaws 3-D, and and today's little-seen entry in the slasher sweepstakes, Simon Nutchern's Silent Madness. And yet unlike those other entries, Silent Madness is largely forgotten. Why?

Somewhere in Manhattan, the Cresthaven Mental Institution is feeling the crunch. Crowded and understaffed, the ship of the hospital's future will be sunk if the staff can't lighten the load. Therefore, the Evil British Poof in Residence, Dr. Kruger (Roderick Cook), has stepped up the release of some of Cresthaven's more harmless patients. Things start to look a little pear-shaped when bushy-tailed and frosty-haired go-getter Dr. Joan Gilmour (career TV guest-star Belinda Montgomery) notices that one of the five uncured-but-harmless patients Kruger claims he released is actually still living at the institution. And yet, five patients *were* released. What could it mean?

"Let's play...Global...Thermonuclear...War..."

Well, after a little unauthorized snooping on the asylum's state-of-the-art computer system, Dr. Gillmore learns the shocking truth: due to a data-entry snafu, instead of releasing harmless paunchy retard John Howard, the doctors in fact cut loose convicted Sorority House Massacre perpetrator and still-dangerous psychopath Howard Johns (Solly Marx). Which, if you think about it, is totally understandable. I mean, God knows how many times I've placed an online order for Lady Fingers, expecting a delicious Italian dessert treat via post, only to end up receiving some kind of invasive vibrating sex apparatus. So often that I don't even bother sending them back anymore, at least. Same thing here, I would imagine. Honest mistake.

ANYWAY, horrified at the idea of having loosed a maniac upon an unsuspecting and perky populace, Gillmore goes to her superior, kindly supervisor-cum-Power Matron Dr. Anderson (Stanja Lowe, who looks like nothing so much as Harry Shearer in drag), begging her to call the authorities. Though Anderson seems to take the do-gooding Gillmore Girl's side, it soon becomes apparent that she sympathizes more with Dr. Evil Poof's CYA plan, which involves claiming Johns died in their custody weeks ago and thus the computer glitch did no harm. That way the hospital's reputation is preserved, the public is not needlessly panicked, and the psycho has the opportunity to return to his hometown and start hacking up co-eds again. See? Win-win-win.

Meanwhile, the footloose and sanity-free Johns is on his way to the local College For Women, just itching to make up for lost time. Along the way he happens upon a horny young couple out for a camping weekend in what has to be the MOST BITCHIN' FUCK-MACHINE ON WHEELS ever committed to film. Check it: blue Dodge van, bare mattress in the back, deeply tinted windows, and a lush interior that boasts not only a hanging plant (for that homey feel, you know), but the most luxurious long-haired blue shag it has ever been my pleasure to witness, affixed to nearly every surface: the walls, the ceiling, the dashboard, the instrument panel, EVERYTHING. Seriously, it looks like someone hit a sale on Cookie Monster at the Jim Henson Tannery Workshop.

Don't Bother Knockin'.

After the girlfriend performs a textbook pointless t-shirt change to provide us with our first glimpse of 3-D tech in the film (I thought she'd put my eye out!), Johns attacks, smashing the van up with a sledgehammer before going all John Henry on the van owner (of course we get Victim Hammer View, as required). He follows that by tossing a toy hatchet STRAIGHT AT THE SCREEN to finish off the shrieking girl. Moments later he arrives on campus and kidnaps a random skater grrl, dragging her into the basement of the sorority house and crushing her head in a vise. Say what you will about Johns, but he's not one to sit easy when there are victims out there just waiting to be killed.

The rest of the flick stays pretty much on the slasher-movie rails, with one or two notable exceptions. Disgusted by the stonewalling back home, Gillmore channels her inner Donald Pleasence and heads off to college to see if Johns has returned. Befriending the off-puttingly smarmy star reporter of the local newspaper, Joan decides to go undercover at the Delta Omega sorority for...some reason. There she meets the current Delta-Os, a likable if acting-ability-challenged group of girls who stayed a few days after classes were out in the hopes of getting horribly murdered.

Despite the Crazy Ralph-esque warnings of crotchety house-mother Mrs. Collins (a wonderfully warped-as-always Viveca Lindfors, of Creepshow and Exorcist III fame), Dr. Gillmore presses forward, leading to the expected body count, final confrontation/battle, and a twist that might as well have been delivered by Samuel F. B. Morse himself.

Put your glasses on...NOW.

Overall, Silent Madness is no great shakes as a slasher film. It shamelessly rips off the Halloween score and half of that movie's ideas, only without the style or mystery required to make that a good thing. There are a few interesting shots and Tales from the Crypt-ish lighting set-ups, but mostly the direction and cinematography are pedestrian and unremarkable. The acting proves definitively that with a cue card and a dream, you too can be a star. And as for the 3-D effects--well, even in the surviving 2-D version of the film, you can tell they wouldn't have been much to write home about anyway.

Still, the movie *does* have a few things going for it, and those things constitute the notable exceptions I referenced earlier. For instance, in addition to the standard "killer comes home to kill again" angle, there's a frankly bizarre substrate plot centered around the asylum's mysterious "Ward L," which is where Johns had been kept until the computer error set him free. Far from being your standard "Ward for the Criminally Insane" set-up, this is a total mad science development center where patients are kept in medically induced comas and fed through tubes, their muscles kept from entropy by cutting-edge electroshock exercise. The shadowed factory-space, beeping machines, bubbling tubes, and plastic-wrapped bodies in Ward L seem to come straight out of another, creepier movie--a movie I'd frankly have preferred to see.

The flick also boasts a few bit characters that are just off-kilter enough to be interesting. The Ward L attendants are a pair of wonderfully slimy gallows-rejects, one a New Jersey-accented Igor with definite rapey tendencies and the other a skeletal Spider-man villain reject with a wonderfully overblown eeevil laugh. These two do get a little more screentime when they're sent to retrieve both Johns and the rogue Gillmore, leading to a nice mid-rape drill-press kill and a 3-D skewering that have to count as highlights.

Better Living through Mad Science

Lindfors's turn as Mrs. Collins is pretty awesome, and recalls her triumph as Auntie Bedelia in the best possible way. (Her collection of creepy dolls adds nothing to the proceedings, but I'm so glad it's there.) But my FAVORITE bit character has to be Sheriff Liggett, portrayed by Zelda Rubenstein's fraternal twin brother* Sydney Lassick. A lawman in the time-honored "sit on my fat ass eating burgers and discouraging anybody from investigating ANYTHING" mold, Liggett steals every scene he's in with his foul-mouthed Truman Capote delivery. (Imagine this sample dialogue spoken in a high-pitched, nasally whine: "Well well well--the Sexy Shrink returns!" "That's the best news I've had since the mayor dropped dead!" And when the reporter tries to get him to help Joan, "Just because the goddamn broad is so good-lookin' don't mean we all have to think with our dicks! Huh? Right?") He may bear an ugly neck scar from his previous run-in with Johns (a scar that makes NO sense in light of the movie-ending twist), but he's no Ahab--he'd just as soon drink cokes and scarf Big Macs and let someone ELSE handle the psycho this time. In short, he rules.

*Not really. As far as I know.

"Don't go toward the light, cocksucker!"

Also in the movie's favor: an almost imperceptible undercurrent of deviant sexuality to the whole thing that only became apparent to me on my second time through, scanning for screengrabs. For instance, we get a black-and-white flashback of the original Delta-Os having an ill-fated initiation, in which panty-clad butts are spanked repeatedly (in 3-D!) with large Greek-lettered paddles. When the younger, helmet-wigged Johns is discovered spying on them, the girls pull him from the shadows, bind him with rope, force liquor down him, and then take off their shirts and give him a sound spanking for good measure. In a word, zang.

This is meant to explain his murderous rampage, of course, but it doesn't stop there. Later Johns captures Joan in the basement and ties her up with a truly unnecessary number of knots, duct-taping her mouth for added security. Igor and the Vulture drive Johns off, and then the New Jersey Jerkinator begins to take advantage of the BDSM scenario in which he finds himself, before a power surge thwarts his plans. Add an extremely phallic cattle-prod appearance, and I think we can speed-dial Dr. Freud.

Finally, added bonuses for the reporter's tied-up, behind-the-back pistol shot miss (A for Effort), a death by upside-down hanging via gravity boots and a dumbell on a jumprope, a Dragon's Lair arcade game used as foreshadowing, and a surprisingly brutal neck-stab to wind things up.

Game Over

In the final analysis, it's easy to see why Silent Madness has been forgotten, and I wouldn't expect a big-budget remake anytime soon. Still, if you can use the little weirdnesses to buoy yourself up through the boring and inept bits (of which there are plenty), you might not have too bad a time. Since I like a good bondage/spanking as much as the next guy (so long as the next guy is the Duke), and since Sheriff Liggett rules so much, I'm giving Silent Madness a soft 2 thumbs.

Now--does anyone know a good auto-upholsterer? I'm thinking the Vicar-mobile needs a new look...

Good God, it's COMIN' RIGHT AT US!

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