Unholy (2007): or, Some Things are Better Left Unknown

 October Horror Movie Challenge, Day 9!

Pianist and GMILF Martha (the lovely and legendary Adrienne Barbeau) has her life turned upside down when her daughter Hope (Siri Baruc) commits suicide in the family cellar, after warning her mother cryptically to "beware the experiment." With her mostly useless stoner son Lucas (Nicholas Brendon) in tow, Martha starts digging into the dark history of their small town, which leads her to menacing encounters with the local creepy recluse Gertrude (Susan Willis, whom I mistook for Cloris Leachman until I read the end credits), the worlds most threatening florist (Richard Ziman), and into the bowels of local folklore involving Lester Krauss (Joseph McKenna), also known as The Necromancer. Much more than just a bedtime boogeyman, Krauss was apparently a Nazi occultist working on the "Unholy Trinity" of parapsychological powers--Invisibility, Mind Control, and Time Travel--under the post-war auspices of a shadowy US Government agency. As the plot unravels, Martha learns that not only was Hope a subject of Krauss's experiments, but so also was the entire town--herself and her son included. Soon she finds herself in a race to find out what really happened to her daughter, and perhaps to save history from the evil machinations of a time-traveling Nazi warlock--the worst kind!

I remember when Unholy was being hyped by certain horror websites and on messageboards back in '07--fans were of course excited to see Barbeau working in anything, and the Nazi occultism plot seemed a can't-miss premise. (If memory serves, I think there was even some kind of abortive Augmented Reality Game launched to build anticipation for the flick.) Then the hype seemed to disappear, and I forgot about the flick until it turned up in the Netflix instant queue.

Well, some things are indeed better left unknown, including the entirety of this terrible, terrible movie. It's hard to tell which is more at fault--the nonsensical script by Sam Freeman or the clunky direction of Daryl Goldberg--but both smell up the joint with alarming consistency. Goldberg substitutes dissonant orchestral stings for suspense, leaves out huge chunks of context, and drops in some of the worst CG I've seen since Barbie: Fairytopia. Barbeau gives it a decent shot (I wonder whether she realized what kind of stinker she had somehow signed on for), but even an actress of her ability is consistently hamstrung by the script's wooden dialogue and intelligence-assaulting contrivances. Ziman is entertaining as the confrontational storekeeper, and for his part McKenna makes a very creepy Nazi doctor, but the rest of the acting is uniformly bad--though again, perhaps we can't blame the actors, given what they had to work with.

Unholy tries to set up a time-twisting mystery thriller, but the only mystery I was interested in solving was how they got Barbeau to agree to be in it in the first place. 0.75 thumbs. Avoid.

"Get my agent out here...RIGHT NOW!"

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (1972): or, Creating a BDSMonster

Damn it, Jess, you just WON'T make it easy for me, will you?

Much as I want to love the cinema of Jess Franco without reservation, after getting a smattering of his work under my belt I still find myself maddeningly on the fence. My early experience of Oasis of the Zombies put me squarely in the "Jeez, what a hack!" camp; but then he hit me with the beautiful Vampyros Lesbos, and I had to recalibrate my judge-ometer. The Awful Dr. Orloff, while not without its charms, left me cold (sorry, Kate), but then I was blasted into giddy glee by his much more colorful and MAD retelling of a similar story in the excellent Faceless (1987). Succubus hypnotized me with imagery and dreamlike narrative on par with the best work of Vicar-fave director Jean Rollin, but 99 Women seemed pale and uninvolving by comparison. The charming, enthusiastic interviews Franco is famous for only make it that much harder, since often he manages to convince me the movie I just watched was much more impressive and enjoyable than my initial viewing experience would indicate.

I guess what I'm saying is that for me, Franco more than lives up to his billing as a "difficult" filmmaker. And my latest foray into his inarguably unique cinematic vision, 1972's The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein (Ritos de Frankenstein, La maldición de Frankenstein), did little to settle the matter. On the one hand, it's largely a poor production with laughable effects and a story so incoherent it would have the late, great Paul Naschy shaking his head in bewilderment; on the other, it has some gorgeous compositions, tasty psychedelic lighting, and enough sexy-horror MADNESS to prevent my dismissing it entirely. Hack or genius? HACK OR GENIUS? GAHHHH!

"My creature will be the greatest Solid Gold Dancer the world has ever known!"

Ritos de Frankenstein hits the ground running and seldom stops for breath. Skipping all preliminaries and niceties, we open in the sparsely appointed lab of Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price), in flagrante de genesis. Highlights here include a nicely disgusting brain in a jar, Franco himself assaying the role of the doctor's skeezy assistant Morpho, and monster makeup consisting of a bodybuilder (Fernando Bilbao) with a cereal box flat-top covered from head to foot in metallic silver body paint! Seconds later the monster is jolted to life and utters his first words--"It HURTS!" Flush with success, Dr. Frankenstein explains that since he put a human brain in the monster, it now has the power of speech and is thus perfect!

There's no time for celebration, however, as at just that moment a strange visitor arrives at the doctor's house. Clad in a full-length robe, anachronistic shiny red platform boots, and little else, Melisa (Anne Libert) is the right-hand girl of the mysterious Cagliostro, an occultist hip to the doc's discoveries and wanting to get in on the action. Together with distinctly Vampyros Lesbos-era Morpho-like henchman Caronte (Luis Barboo), Melisa invades Frankenstein's lab, kills his assistant, and then makes short work of the doctor, revealing under her robe some strange bright green feathers and talon-like fingers, about which there will be more to say in a moment.

Cagliostro, as played by Franco regular Howard Vernon, is a perpeturally reborn supervillain with incredible powers that are apparently based on a combination of telepathy, psychokinesis, and "magnetism" with a dash of Eeevil Spirituality thrown in--sort of a Caligari-meets-Crowley with a bit of R'as Al Ghul added for flavor. By summoning the legions of the dead in service of the great devil-god Panthos, Caligrosto hopes to create a new race of supermen to rule the earth, leveraging Frankenstein's technology to breed his monster with a yet-uncreated female creature.

Caligostro learns the perils of the Taloned Handjob

Melisa is apparently an earlier failed experiment in the whole "perfect being" sweepstakes, a hybrid of a Eurobabe and a bird of prey (hence the talons and feathers) that didn't quite live up to his hopes. However, though she turned out all blind and feathery, Melisa also inherited a bit of clairvoyance and the ability to transmit Caligostro's "magnetism" over great distances, sort of a relay tower between him and his creatures of the night. ("I receive images through your magnetic waves! Pleasure, blood, death! I can see Frankenstein's creature raping beautiful virgins to satisfy your desires!" All righty then!) And all she asks in return is the occasional half-naked woman (or in one case a young boy) chained to the dungeon walls in Caligostro's castle where she can find them by echolocation and drink their sweet hot blood. You know, just like a bird of prey does.

Back at Castle Frankenstein, one of the late doctor's colleagues, Dr. Seward (Alberto Dalbés, who played a pretty good mad scientist himself in Paul Naschy's Hunchback of the Morgue) has arrived for the funeral, along with the sole heir, Vera Frankenstein (Beatriz Savón), herself a fledgling mad scientist intent on plumbing the depths of her father's discoveries in order to avenge his death. At this point, my monster-kid brain kind of went into overload--we have Dr. Frankenstein, his creature, La Hija de Frankenstein, a Caligari-figure, a blind, blood-drinking, clairvoyant bird-woman, and the doctor from Bram Stoker's Dracula all tussling with each other with the fate of future generations in the balance. Could it get any crazier?

Have I mentioned the BDSM subtext yet? Well, hang on!

Frankenstein's Daughter: More than a Little Cross

So Vera and her female Igor quickly liberate the body of Dr. Frankenstein from his tomb and hook him up to the old rejuvenating ray, half-succeeding in bringing the old man back to life. Dear Dead Dad tells Vera that only Caligostro could be behind his death, and she swears to hunt him down and make him pay. Meanwhile Big C is sending Frankenstein's monster out to kidnap beautiful women and bring them back to his Build-A-Bride workshop so that he can pick the most perfect parts and stitch them together to create his Eve. Vera has to jolt Dad to life a couple more times (really, she uses him like a Living Dead Magic 8-Ball), but finally manages to trick the slow-witted monster into kidnapping her (instead of one of the other naked Eurobabes he went after) and thus infiltrates Caligostro's compound.

Of course Caligostro sees through the ruse right away and chains Vera in the dungeon along with all Melisa's tasty snack treats. There's already been a lot of leering bondage with these nameless unfortunates, but here Franco kicks the fetish up several notches. Dissatisfied with Caronte for allowing the monster to bring back the wrong dame, Caligostro concocts a fiendish system to kill two birds with one stone: he chains Caronte and Vera together back to back, places them in the center of a roomful of poisoned metal spikes,and decrees that whoever pushes the other onto the fatal spikes and survives will be released. To make it more interesting, he summons a legion of the wandering dead to watch, gives the Monster a cat o' nine tails, and has him get all whip-happy on them till someone dies.

To recap--you've got a mostly naked couple chained to one another surrounded by poisoned spikes, being whipped by a musclebound, silver body-painted Frankenstein's monster, while a bunch of skull-faced zombies look on. "Jaw dropping" is not really the word, but it's all I've got.

There's something you don't see every day.

Vera wins the challenge, earning the right to become Caligostro's mindless slave and work on putting the Bride together. Meanwhile Dr. Seward and the local police inspector have jolted Dr. F to life one more time to find out where Vera went. It turns out it's one time too many, as the Dead Doc becomes a shambling zombie and goes after Seward. Luckily the cop has a jug of hydrochloric acid in hand, which he splashes on the dead man and which immediately dissolves his head to a bloody stump! I mean, in less than a second! Good thing Seward didn't get any splashback.

It all ramps up to a scene where the Bride is brought to life in a wonderfully pervy and very BDSM-tinged scene, and the Monster prepares to mate with her while the Dead Army of Panthos cheers him on. Seward arrives in time to break it to the monster that Caligostro killed his papa, which leads the creature to interrupt his coitus and go after the bad guy for the Final Confrontation.

Oh, and there's a bunch of scenes with Lina Romay as a gypsy writhing by a creek while Caligostro sends her mental messages that really seem to have nothing to do with the rest of the movie at all.

Most Romantic Honeymoon Ever

Like I say, the madness of the plot is certainly appealing, and the BDSM subtext and kitchen-sink sensibility is something I can get behind even if I can't quite sort it all out. It's about as far removed from the lyrical tristesse of Succubus as you can get, but I've got plenty of room for both under my pleasantly pitched tent.

Where it gets maddening in a bad way is the split-personalty nature of the way the film is made. Franco gets in some truly gorgeous shots here--standouts are an early scene with some henchmen bringing a crate containing Frankenstein's monster up the beach to Caligostro's castle (again reminiscent of some of Rollin's best work, all bright colors and weird visual poetry) and shots of the Children of Panthos creeping through the fog-drenched forest, wrapped in their burial shrouds--just creepy and lovely. However, much of the rest of the movie looks like it was shot by an epileptic ape and edited with a blender. The monster's makeup is "My Kid's First Super-8" level stuff, as is the haphazard feathering of Melisa. The scenes in the dungeon with the chained models are grimy in a grindhouse way that's either terrible or great depending on your perspective. And close-ups of Panthos' Kidz in the final scenes are frankly laughable. And despite my previous statement, sometimes the plot seems SO pulled strait out of Franco's drug-addled ass, some of the joy gives way to frustration.

Performances are all over the place too--Vernon is great as Caligostro, sporting a truly awesome fake beard and some of the craziest wide-eyed stares it's been my pleasure to witness. Vera ranges from competent to bad, and Seward isn't given much to do. I was actually kind of moved by some of the monster's scenes, particularly his painful birth, though I don't know if that's a result of the actor's performance or my own gin intake.

"Wait--you made his wang HOW big?"

I do think The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein is an...interesting movie, with flashes of brilliance amid a sea of what-the-fuckery. It doesn't settle my Franco problem, but it's definitely worth at least one viewing--because let's face it, where else are you going to see Frankenstein's Monster whipping a couple of chained up naked folks? 2.25 thumbs.

Nota bene: I actually checked this DVD out of my local public library, which is pretty objectively awesome. The version on the disc is the domestic "clothed" version, but includes the for-export nude versions of the super-pervy scenes as a bonus feature. These improve the proceedings greatly--naked artist's models, the bride in all her birthday-suit glory, and even Vera and Caronte completely unclothed in the climactic whipping scene, offering a rare glimpse of wiggly Eurowang. You know, if that's your thing.

A few more images from The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein:

And this is your brain on really good drugs...

Caligostro: Next on MTV's Cribs

"A little to the left..."

A Haunting Scene

"I knew we should have worn our Ming Dynasty camouflage!"

Caligostro always got a kick out of Melisa's Grover impersonation

"Thow the switch, Jess! THROW THE SWITCH!"

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Sorority House Massacre (1986): or, Nagel, Nightmares, and a Near-Miss

I don't have a hard count on this, but I'd be willing to bet that nobody has his name attached to more flicks of the "Could have been great BUT..." variety than producer/director/B-Movie legend Roger Corman. I know, it's a statement that only makes sense--when you've got your fingers in as many low-budget horror and action flicks as Corman, if even a small percentage falls into that just-made-up category, you're going to be king of the hill. But Corman has a well-documented genius for finding proprerties with amazing potential, even if they falter in execution. For every certified masterpiece like House of Usher or Peter Bogdonavich's Targets, for every grade-z bomb like Vampirella or Attack of the Giant Leeches, he's got at least one or two on his resume that aren't really bad, but could have been so much more.

Today I'm ready to add Carol Frank's 1986 psi-spiced slasher Sorority House Massacre to that latter category. Like many Corman-touched efforts, in between all the bad acting and sometimes laughably cheesy filmmaking flourishes, this movie has enough interesting plot developments and occasionally successful creepy scenes to make you wonder just how good it could have been with just a little tweak here and there. It's not a bad way to spend a near hour-and-a-half, by any stretch, but it's easy to see how it might have bumbled over the line into B-movie greatness, if only...

The flick opens like such a blatant Halloween rip-off--from the imposing front-view of the titular sorority house walkway to the just-this-side of copyright infringement music-box theme--I was wondering if Frank was ironically referencing the earlier film, setting up for a wink-wink nudge-nudge self-aware horror comedy long before Craven Scream-ed it into the dirt. The rather amazing animated blood-splatter opening title seems to bolster this notion. However, for the rest of the runtime the movie plays pretty much straight with its premise.

That's the stuff

It takes either balls of brass or a brain of butter to open a flick with not one but TWO back-to-back dream sequences, but that's just what Frank does here. After a hospital bed framing story in which our heroine Beth (Angela O'Neill, sporting an impeccably 80s Alex P. Keaton hairstyle) whispers portentiously, "It must have all started the moment I entered the house...", we get a nice point-of-view tour of the empty sorority house, sunlight flooding the rooms in a dreamlike haze, the camera swooping in and out of eerily abandoned rooms before coming out onto an upper landing to peer down at a little girl standing in the front foyer--actually a rather nicely done sequence, which palliates the nothing's-really-happening opening somewhat. We then see that the dreamer is not Beth, but Bobby (John C. Russell), a guest of the aptly named Peligro Valley State Mental Hospital. After he's tied down by a couple of creepy looking orderlies, it's time to check in on Beth again.

Beth has come to stay with her friends at the local college after the sudden death of her aunt, who raised her from the time she was 5 years old. As soon as she moves into a temporarily empty room (decorated to the rafters with sexy Police-era Sting posters) she takes a nap and starts the second dream sequence, which is actually even better than the first. A creepy trio of little girls sit outside a familiar-yet-unfamiliar house, one of them playing with a dollhouse that looks EXACTLY like our sorority! In keeping with their kinda cool "Greek Fates" set-up, the girls warn Beth not to go into the house, which of course she does anyway. Inside, she finds the table set for dinner, with four EXTREMELY CREEPY LITTLE GIRL MANNEQUINS sitting around it in old-fashioned clothes. At one place-setting, a huge Bowie knife. Suddenly, blood drips from the ceiling, splashing in the water glasses and dripping down the candles. It's actually pretty unsettling, and again offsets the "when's the *real* movie gonna start" jitters. The capper where she hears a child crying upstairs and goes up to investigate elevates it almost to successful surrealist mind-fuckery.

All Dolled Up for Dinner

So Beth is staying with her sorority-sister girlfriends, who all seem to be studying psychology at the local college. After yet ANOTHER creepy surreal nightmare--this one while she's wide awake, involving a rather awesome low-tech mirror effect--Beth tells her sisters all about it. We're then treated to quite an array of pseudo-psych babblings from all involved, and there's a lot of talk about how some researchers suggest that brain waves can be transmitted over distance like radio, particularly between members of the same family. As it turns out, Psycho Bobby was locked up for trying to murder his whole family, and succeeding except for one little five-year-old girl. And before you can say "Michael Meyers wants his backstory back," Bobby has escaped and is being drawn across country as if by some radio tracking device...

So this is par for the course--Corman-associated productions have NEVER placed a big premium on originality, and for what it's worth, Frank (directing from her [?] own script) does give us those nice dream sequences and some welcome dumb humor to sweeten the taste of the Ripoff Souffle. For instance, when smart and serious sister Linda (Wendy Martel) gets to class and learns they'r having a short test on Deja Vu, she rolls her eyes and quips, "Great--a Pop Psychology Quiz!" Also, immediately post-Beth's third nightmare, flighty airhead Sara (Pamela Ross) sits through a literature class in which the teacher drones, "This author uses foreshadowing and repetition to move the plot forward..." That's meta, bitches!

But for a B-movie pleasure-seeker like me, the real fun lies in the awesomely, gleefully dated 80s fashions and decor that permeate the film. From fashion-plate Cindy's primary-color jumpsuit/dresses (the envy of *all* the girls) to Sara's Carmen Miranda-meets-Cyndi Lauper style of dress to the Patrick Nagel prints and posters of Twisted Sister on the same wall in the same bedroom, I just couldn't wipe the nostalgic grin off my face. Bonus points for not one, not three, but TWO getting-dressed montages, the greatest of which occurs once Beth and her friends are left alone in the house for a long weekend (dun-dun DUN!) and decide to try on all of Cindy's expensive clothes. You want 80s synth-rock with shots of neon-clothing flung gleefully through the air, all while providing the gratuitous nudity you crave? You got it, buddy!

"Seriously girls, how AWESOME do we look?"

As often happens in cases like this, the girls invite a quartet of boys over for the weekend, ostensibly to help them set up some decorations in the yard for an upcoming "pow-wow," but really just to bolster the body count. Frank miscalculates perhaps by trying to play the revelation that Beth is Bobby's sister and he's coming to finish the job for as much suspense as possible--you'd have figured this out long since even if you *hadn't* seen Halloween and its sequels (and let's face it, if you're watching Sorority House Massacre, YOU HAVE). The kills are nothing to write home about, though I admit that when resident Blair-in-Facts of Life bitchy sis Tracy (Nicole Rio) caught Bobby's butcher knife right between her bodacious, recently bared bosoms for a long, strangely bloodless shot, my interest was piqued, IYKWIM. People get killed, Beth brings up more repressed memories and survives thanks to her strange psychic radio connection with Bobby, and it all ends up about how you'd expect.

So we have a few good things here, but the movie really falters when it comes to the big climactic battle with the killer, which keeps it from being an overall success. The nonsensical teleportation ability of the killer might be let slide (he climbs up a fire ladder which the girls then drop off the building, and once he's recovered from the fall, appears at the 2nd story window again, with no explanation of how he got back up there), but what really sinks it is the non-acting of the threatened college students here. I mean, I don't ask a lot from my knife-fodder in an 80s slasher, but I would like them to at least *pretend* they might be in danger, and might be more than a little concerned about this fact. Here, everyone deadpans their way through every close friend's death, a life-long buddy's bloody demise apparently no more affecting than learning they're no longer offering the McRiblets at your local eatery.

"It's almost as if the killer and I have some kind of Family Ties..."

For instance, when Tracy gets her unrequested sternum piercing, she happened to have been in flagrante delicto with her boyfriend in their teepee. The boyfriend runs back to the house (naked--we get some nice streaking butt shots for the ladies), and emotionlessly informs the others inside, "Tracy's dead." Not shock-emotionless either, just matter of fact, "This is my line and I'm gonna say it now" delivery. Same goes for Beth when one after another of her friends get offed...no reaction, no emotion, no tears...not even a SCREAM in some cases for Christ's sake. It's like everyone was either stoned or performing under hypnosis, or else just so bored and sick of the whole movie-making enterprise they just stopped trying. And *that* attitude is sadly infectious.

I don't want to rag on this too much--I did get some joy out of Sorority House Massacre, and wouldn't tell anyone not to watch it. The fashions and dress-up scenes alone are worth seeing, and the dream sequences do display a bit of creepy style. 1.75 thumbs, 2 if you're a child of the 80s. It was almost, *almost* good. As it is, it's just okay--but sometimes okay is good enough.

"Act scared? What is this 'scared' you want us to act?"

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Patrick Still Lives (1980): or, You Can't Hide Your Flyin' Eyes

Way back in August of 2007 I reviewed a little-known, little watched movie from 1978 called Patrick, in which a comatose pervert with telekinetic powers goes for the poltergusto with his beautiful young nurse--a course of (in)action that obviously can end only in tragedy. While it had a winning premise and a few appealing scenes, Patrick was stifled by pacing problems and a lack of willingness to "GO THERE." I wrote at the time, "[Patrick] just doesn't go far enough off the deep end to be really enjoyable...If it had been tighter, this might have been a pretty good thriller; if more inept, perhaps a so-bad-it's-good nugget of joy. As it is, unfortunately, it just comes off as mediocre."

Well, leave it to the Italians to pick up the slack and do the shit RIGHT. Directed by Italian TV specialist Mario Landi, 1980's Patrick Still Lives (Patrick Vive Ancora) throws caution to the winds, jumps in with both feet, and cranks the insanity setting up to twenty. Absolutely bursting with blood, boobs, and J&B, this sequel* takes its original movie's premise, throws in a healthy dose of mad science, revenge tragedy and alcoholic perversity, and then hits "puree." The result is, in a word, delicious.


*It should be pointed out that Patrick Still Lives is a sequel to patrick in the same way that Fulci's Zombi is a sequel to Romero's Dawn of the Dead (and hence was originally released as Zombi 2)--70s Italian film companies were not at all above appropriating/remaking/revising foreign product for domestic audiences--though not the the same extent as the Turks. You can see why they'd want to cash in on something like Dawn of the Dead, but the motivation for ripping off an obscure psi-killer movie hardly anyone saw is still a little obscure. Just chalk it up to one of history's fortunate foibles and enjoy.

The movie opens with Professor Herschell (a wonderfully weird and menacing Sacha Pitoëff) stranded on the side of the road with car trouble, while his Peter Tork-lookalike son Patrick (Italian pop-star sensation Gianni Dei) fiddles around under the hood. Tragedy is quick to strike (and I mean QUICK--as in, less than 15 seconds into the movie's runtime) when the driver of a passing car throws a bottle out the window, which hits Patrick in the face, knocking him straight into a coma! There follows some effectively creepy surgery POV shots, with Herschell looming over his unresponsive son, and then we get the credits and some kinda cool low-rent Goblin-imation music courtesy Berto Pisano that's also HEAVY on the theremin--that's a plus, kids.

This is How Science Looks

Years later, a motley group of strangers has been summoned to Dr. Hershell's asylum/clinic/bed-and-breakfast resort for a free vacation/therapy weekend. In attendance are Member of Parliament Lyndon Cough (Franco Silva) and his nymphomaniac Eurobabe wife Sheryl (Carmen Russo), Stella Randolph (Mariangela Giordano) and her may-or-may-not-be lover Peter Suniak (played to total helmet-haired, fur-chested, porn-stache Eurosleaze perfection by John Benedy), and "fortunate son" diplomat-spawn David Davis (Paolo Giusti). Dr. Herschell's freshly hired assistant Lydia Grant (the SMOKIN' HAWT Andrea Belfiore) and dog-loving housekeeper Meg (Anna Veneziano) round out the cast.

The movie wastes no time establishing that, with the possible exceptions of David and Lydia, most of the weekend guests are fairly horrible people bringing more baggage than what's contained in their suitcases. The obviously alcoholic Mr. Cough is being blackmailed by some unknown political adversary, leading to friction with Sheryl (though not of the sort she'd like--despite her penchant for walking around with her nipples poking out the top of her bra, she can't get her performance-challenged spouse to give her a parliamentary seeing-to). The also-alcoholic Stella reveals quickly that she used to be a high-priced call girl, and spills the beans on Suniak's past as a drug dealer over an uncomfortable welcoming dinner. After a glass tumbler explodes in Lydia's hand at the same dinner (leading Dr. Herschell to scold, "Ms. Grant, in the future check the crystal PERSONALLY!"), spooky-chick Meg warns David to leave the clinic before something terrible happens. Of course the hunky Mr. Davis, smitten as he is with Lydia, won't listen.

The mystery of the asploding glass is soon solved when, having seen his guests settled in for the night, Dr. Herschell moseys down to his underground lab to visit his comatose son Patrick, who thanks to Daddy's mad-scientastic ways has been imbued with murderous telekinetic powers. (How Dr. H was able to accomplish this is unclear, though it obviously has something to do with the impressive bank of buzzing machinery and trio of horribly scarred, green-lit and naked coma patients he keeps behind glass just across from Patrick's room.) Turns out Dr. Herschell has spent the last several years narrowing down his list of bottle-throwing suspects, settling at last upon the group of possible coma-causers now bickering and getting drunk in his guest rooms. Under Daddy's direction, Patrick sets about taking revenge on those who might be responsible for his affliction in the most awesome and insane ways possible.

"Daddy is a tiger, and widdle Patty is a Lion Tamer! Awww, come on, son, this used to be your favorite game!"

First to go down is Lyndon Cough, who even if he didn't toss the bottle that put Patrick under still deserves what he gets for taking an early morning swim in the type of skimpy black speedo that no sixty-year-old man should ever wear, I don't care HOW Italian he is. Once mercifully underwater, Lyndon is attacked by a pool full of dry ice and BOILED ALIVE! His Oscar-Meyered body is found the next morning by Stella, who graciously gets her tits out for the occasion. Dr. Herschell determines that Cough died of ACUTE ALCOHOLISM, which apparently is known by Italian physicians to cause spontaneous being-boiled-alive-itis. This leads him to deliver the second-most quotable line in the movie: "It's clear that Mr. Cough's death was due to a fatality!" You know, Doc, I think you may have NAILED it there!

Meanwhile, Lydia is assigned to watch over Patrick while the doctor does his mad-doctory thing, and before long the horny terror is putting the telekinetic moves on her, asploding more glasses in her hand, typing messages like "I am waiting for you" on her office IBM Selectic, and hiking her skirt up with the power of his mind. (Note to self--subscribe to Pazzia Scienza Mensili STAT.)

Back at another distinctly Malabimbesque dinner scene, Stella comes in drunk and starts shit with the grieving widow Cough, leading to an energetic cat fight that coincidentally features a thinly veiled pussy. Embarassed by his friend's behavior, Suniak escorts Stella back to her room and pours all her J&B down the sink. When she tries to assuage him with sex, he replies archly, "I usually bang women, not whiskey bottles!" Stella shoots back that "The drugs have turned you into a faggot!" She shouldn't oughta said it, though, as Suniak blasts her with the all-time discussion ender prize-winner: "DIE ALONE, WHORE!"

Really, what can you say in response to that?

Patrick is just as surprised as you are, folks.

Things get sleazier and crazier at an alarming pace from here on out. Davis gets some disturbing messages from his inexplicable hobby-deck of tarot cards, Stella tries her seduction powers out on him only to get the shit slapped out of her repeatedly by the up-until-now hero of the piece, and Davis pays for his hooker-beatin' ways when Patrick forces him to hang himself over a well by a conveniently-placed steel hook through the neck!

Just when you think things couldn't get sleazier or more perverse, Stella goes down to the kitchen for a midnight snack and finds a flayed rabbit/dog/squirrel or something in the fridge--for no reason that's immediately apparent--and when Patrick finally gets around to doling out his telekinetic vengeance on the drunken former working girl...well, let's just say you might think twice before ordering the rotisserie chicken next time you're at the deli.

This movie just doesn't let up once it gets rolling, either. Patrick uses his psi-powers to summon Lydia to his room, plays Strip Nude for Your Paralytic, and engages her in hands-off psychic sex in a lengthy, awesome scene. Meanwhile Suniak and the Widow Cough try to escape, but the multi-tasking coma-god uses carbon monoxide and power-windows to make short work of them. It seems justice has been served, albeit with collateral damage (a medical technician is electocuted for no reason, and the presumably innocent Meg goes for a nude stroll and gets eaten by her dogs Jezebel-style), but when Papa Herschell informs his son that Lydia is also on the bottle-chucking shortlist, Patrick must decide whether to stick with the plan or make a last-minute revision to the scheme. No points for guessing which he goes for.

Coma Chameleons

Patrick Still Lives is a movie so insane, it could really be the poster child for "Only in Italian Exploitation" category. Gore, nudity, perversity and wild plot-developments galore, the movie just keeps giving and giving it to you until the climactic non-ending wraps everything up in one sleaze-dripping package.

As if that weren't enough, the disc from Media Blasters/Shriek Show also offers an interview with producer Gabriele Crisanti (who also produced sleaze epics Malabimba the Malicious Whore, Satan's Baby Doll, Mondo Cane 3, and Burial Ground) who has a lot of interesting things to say about the production--for instance, that Stella's sleazetastic death scene was not scripted, but conceived on-set after the writer had a bitter argument with the actress. (FWIW, that TOTALLY makes sense.) There's also an interview with aging pop star and total man-of-leisure Gianni Dei, who despite his high-billing and massive immobile screentime admits that he doesn't even remember the movie.

So if you're a lover of Italian Sleaze, Gore, and Sexploitation films, Patrick Still Lives is really more than you could even ask for. An improvement on the original in every way, this one gets 3 thumbs for sheer audacity. See this one. You won't believe your floating green eyes.

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Tourist Trap (1979): or, Mama Slausen Didn't Raise No Dummies

1979's survivalist/psychic psycho/mannequin terror mishmash Tourist Trap may have its faults, but it's safe to say that nonchalant, leisurely pacing is NOT one of them. We're barely out of the whimsically-scored opening credits sequence before we're right in the thick things--a broken down car on a deserted country road, a feathered-haired, bandana-sporting hunk rolling his damaged tire toward an eerily-deserted roadside shop, his scantily-clad girlfriend left back with the car to await some forthcoming friends. Before we can warn our muscled slab o' manflesh not to go exploring under any circumstances, the Nobel Prize-winner has wandered into a back room stuffed with incomplete mannequins and haphazardly stored cutting tools. It's a surprise to him and no one else when the door slams shut behind him. It's almost as if it were a trap.

Once the trap is sprung, though, a lot of things happen at once, all of them batshit insane. A mannequin crashes through the room's one window--from outside--and its head rolls into the room; then the disembodied head opens its mouth like an egg-eating snake and starts howling in a very disturbing manner. Then a closet on the other side of the room opens, and a troll-faced dummy springs out shaking and laughing in the most demonic, maniacal manner you could ask for! As the blond hunk picks up a length of pipe and knocks a hole in the now-hermetically sealed door, the dummies continue their psychological assault, all laughter and screams and funhouse jerky motions. The muscleman reaches through the hole to unlock the door, and something grabs his arm, cementing him in place and forcing him to drop the pipe.

Cabinet doors open and close, cans of paint fly across the room and smash against the walls, and a large knife zings from a toolbench at our hapless hero, missing his face by mere inches. Just when the set-piece has gone on so long you think there's bound to be a "haha, gotcha! It's all a trick!" reveal, the pipe levitates off the floor and impales the blonde himbo where he stands, his life's blood draining through the tube onto the dusty, brightly-lit floor. The cackling troll and howling head fall silent. Clearly, their work here is done.

Meanwhile, back at the broken-down car, the blond buff-boy's girlfriend Eileen (Robin Sherwood) has hooked back up with her friends, among them Sha-Na-Na reject Jerry (Jon Van Ness), micro-shorts and halter-top model Becky (softcore legend and That 70s Show dingbat Tanya Roberts, smoldering here in a straight black wig rather than her customary strawberry blonde 80s curls), and good-girl Molly (Jocelyn Jones), who in her pigtails, white sack dress and wide-brimmed hat looks like nothing so much as a kinder, gentler Nellie Oleson from TV's Little House on the Prairie! Figuring they'll catch up with Woody (their piping-perforated companion) further down the road, they all pile into Jerry's jeep and motor on down the dirtway.

Pop Quiz: Which of these characters will be the Final Girl?

It's not long before they come upon Slausen's Lost Oasis, a roadside attraction from days gone by featuring an amateur wax museum and a crystal clear swimming hole, complete with paradisaical waterfall! Of course it takes little convincing for the three girls to shed their clothes and go for a mid-afternoon dip while Jerry tries to figure out why the jeep's battery died just as they rolled into the Oasis's parking lot (dun-dun-DUNNN!). Unfortunately here the flick loses some of the brownie points it gained with that crazy opening, as none of the skinny-dipping actresses show so much as a fully naked back. I mean, come on! Tanya Roberts got buck nekkid in Beastmaster AND Sheena, and BOTH of those were rated PG! What does it take, guys?

Luckily, things pick up shortly thereafter with the appearance of TV and movie legend Chuck Connors! Now I've always held Connors as one of only two actors of the same period who could go toe-to-toe in a "quietly terrifying twisted tough-guy" contest with the granddaddy of all quiet psychos, Jack Palance (the other? Robert Mitchum. See the original Cape Fear), and here Chuck is in rare form as Mr. Slausen, owner and proprietor of Slausen's Lost Oasis, who has come down to the swimming hole (shotgun in hand!) to ask the trespassing skinny dippers WTF is up.

From here on out it's all Connors's show, as he effortlessly outshines the other purported "actors" in the flick with his natural, menacing professionalism. He's all smiles and good ol' Southern politeness, but in every line and under ever smile is an edge of threatening psychosis you're just aching to watch come cresting to the surface. He graciously invites the stranded motorists back to his gift shop-cum-wax museum, where he shows them effigies of Buffalo Bill, Chief Running Bull, and one special manniquin that's a tribute to his late wife, who expired shortly after the "gub'ment" built the new freeway and robbed them of the tourism on which they made their living. (Chuck's wounded, angry retelling of this history lets you know that he will NEVER be over it.)

"IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII...ain't got no body!"

When Eileen asks who lives in the huge house behind the museum, Slausen tells her only he and his brother Davey live there--Davey is the wax artist and mechanical genius in the family, and the dummies are all his handiwork. I wonder if we'll get to know Davey better as the story goes on?

While Slausen and Jerry go back to see if they can fix the jeep, Eileen, Becky, and Molly are left to their own devices, and it's not long before firebrand Eileen has ignored Slausen's warnings about coyotes and headed on up to the house to meet Davey. No points for guessing that the house is absolutely packed with mannequins, whose cold dead eyes follow the hapless young woman as she explores. Eileen follows the crazy-sounding voices that may or may not be their friend Woody. Before you can say "Uri Geller!" we learn that not only is Davey a talented sculptor and animatronic engineer, he's also a maniac with TELEKINETIC POWERS that enable him to do just about anything his twisted mind desires! It don't rain but it pours, huh?

Like all good psychic psychos, Davey wears a wickedly disturbing doll-like mask (reminiscent of Leatherface circa TCM: The Next Generation, except, you know, NOT ridiculous), and quickly uses his mental powers to bring all the dummies to life and capture Eileen. He gets Becky too when she follows her foolish friend to the mansion, while good girl Molly waits patiently for Jerry and Mr. Slausen to return.

"Whassa matter? Dontcha damn kids LIKE puppet shows?"

Now if you are disturbed by mannequins at ALL, Tourist Trap is tailor-made to creep you the fuck OUT. Not only does the telekinetic Davey use these abominations in humanoid form to torment his prey in an evil cat-and-mouse game, he also goes all Vincent Price on Eileen in the basement, pouring plaster over her face and narrating how it will heat up and peel the flesh from her cheeks, how once her eyes are covered she'll "never see anything again," and finally covering her mouth and nose so that her "heart will explode from FEAR!" All this while Becky and Jerry (long story) watch on helplessly from the sidelines. It's a very disturbing set-piece, and Davey's froggy, deadpan voice certainly doesn't make things any less horrifying.

To reveal anything more would be cheating, but suffice to say Davey isn't the only maniac in the family, and it's an absolute joy to watch Chuck Connors just get more and more unhinged as the flick goes on, indulging his fascination with Molly (who reminds him of his wife, naturally) to an unwholesome and genuinely disturbing degree. By the time the not-very surprising twists are revealed and the final showdown between Molly and maniac rolls around, you'll be shocked, creeped out, and more than a little entertained--that is, if you're anything at all like me.

There are things about Tourist Trap that I can point to as almost weaknesses, though in the final analysis I'm not sure that they're not strengths. For instance, the aforementioned whimsical score continues throughout the movie, a music box/carnivalesque motif that seems always on the verge of going right off into cartoony camp, but somehow never quite gets there. Similarly Davey's changing masks, his over-the-top narrative quips (including one borderline hilarious exchange about the quality of the crackers he and Chuck are having with their soup), and his bombastic telekinetic outbursts almost push the proceedings into comedy, but again seem to stop just short. It's too disturbing to be funny, but just funny enough not to be too disturbing. It's strange, and I'm not sure I've ever seen another movie walk that line with similar...well, the only word I can encompass it with is "grace."

The family resemblance is uncanny.

But then there are the parts that you can call strengths without reservation--Connors's powerhosue performance as Slausen, the middle-of-nowhere setting, the creepy snake-mouths of the mannequins when Davey makes them sing, and just about any scene with Davey talking to his automaton "friends." Though looking back there was surprisingly little blood, there was the torturous face-plastering scene, a couple of hair-raising nightmarish mannequin attack sequences, at least one surprising protagonist demise, and a last shot with final girl Molly driving away to freedom that will either make you chuckle or raise the hairs on your neck, and possibly both.

Of course the non-nude skinny-dipping scene hurts it. That shit is just NOT DONE.

Still, it's a wild, wacky late-70s horror ride that I was glad I took, and you should take too. 2.5 thumbs, and a wonderful acting debut for Shailar Coby as Davey. Whatever happened to that guy, anyway? :)

Sleep Tight!

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...

Patrick: or, The Dirty Nun and the Comatose Killer

Early on in 1978's psychic psycho-thriller Patrick, protagonist Kathy Jacquard (played by Pia Zadora clone Susan Penhaligon), an ex-nurse and new divorcee is being interviewed for a job as a nurse at doctor Roget's private psychiatric clinic. For some reason the Roget Clinic, despite being a private research center, is staffed largely by nuns, or at least nurses in uniforms that look like nuns' habits. Matron Cassidy, played with Mother Superior intensity by Julia Blake, asks and pointed and pointedly bizarre question:

"Why did you choose the Roget Clinic, Mrs. Jacquard? We tend to attract certain types--lesbians, nymphomaniacs, enema specialists..."

As young Kathy gasps for air, the Matron regales her with tales of one male nurse who would sneak into the comatose ward to smear himself with the patients' excretia. All this delivered in a tone of disgust, accusation, and barely-concealed fasination that makes one wonder if perhaps in her younger days Dame Cassidy was a member of Ilsa the She-Wolf's staff of research scientists. Luckily for Kathy (and for us) Dr. Roget comes in at just that moment, learns that Kathy is a divorcee (a strike against her in the Matron's book) and hires her on the spot. Though Cassidy throws a few more barbs at Kathy before she leaves--"I can fire you for any reason, at any time!"--Ms. Jacquard is well on her way to her preordained meeting with our titular comatose terror.

As the low girl on the totem pole, Kathy is assigned to watch over Patrick, a mystery patient with no family who's been comatose for three years. (Sporting a gaunt face, a piercing blind-eyed stare, and a plentiful white-boy 'fro, Patrick's look prefigures Brad Dourif's Oscar-snubbed tour de force as the Gemini killer by twelve years.) Though we know through an artfully-directed pre-credits sequence that when he could move around Patrick spent his leisure time murdering his mother and her lover by tossing an electric heater into their hot tub--twice!*--apparently neither Kathy nor Dr. Roget is aware of this. Despite his lack of function over the years, Patrick's muscles have not atrophied, and most of the time his eyes remain stubbornly, unblinkingly open. Also, occasionally, he spits. Director Richard Franklin gets a couple of jump scares out of Kathy or another nurse leaning in to adjust a blanket and then having the bug-eyed Patrick expectorate like an irritated llama. When Kathy asks why he should do such a thing, Dr. Roget shows that the Matron is not the only queer duck in this pond, demonstrating reflexive muscle reactions by decapitating a live frog and shocking it with his pocket electrode.

It doesn't take long for the viewer to figure out that Patrick does more than spit--three years deprived of his five ordinary senses have allowed him to develop his sixth, psychokinetic sense to a previously unheard-of degree (as helpfully theorized by the swingin' young doctor who is trying to get into Kathy's white linen pants), and now he's a veritable incorporeal killing machine. When Kathy shows him kindness he falls in love with her and starts writing her love notes on the IBM Selectric that happens to be in his room, things like "How about a hand job?" and other sweet nothings. People treating Patrick bad start to die, and rivals for his affection with Kathy--her ex-husband, for instance, as well as the aforementioned handsome doc--are in trouble as well. It all leads to an understated Carrie-esque showdown in Patrick's hospital room, and if you think you know how it ends up...well, you probably do.

I almost feel that I should have liked Patrick more than I did. There's lots of weird wacky stuff here. Matron Cassidy is fantastic, but woefully underused. The doctor, looking like Klaus Kinski's paunchy twin, has some good scenes too. Even the sub-plot with Kathy's husband trying to reconcile with her is delightfully askew: for instance, when he starts his plan to win her back by hiding in her new apartment dressed in a ski mask and attacking her. when she protests, he shrugs and laughs, "So much for women's rape fantasies!" And he wonders why Kathy won't return his calls.

Maybe it just doesn't go far enough off the deep end to be really enjoyable. While the acting is bad, it's more smirk-bad than ROFL-bad. And certain scenes are really shot and constructed well--the opening kill flashback, for instance, and Matron Cassidy's unfortunate electrocution. And this is probably the only movie I can think of that ends with a jump scare that must have required an off-screen catapult! But the pacing is off, and other scenes--the pool party manifestation of Patrick's powers, or the hubby trapped in the elevator at the clinic, trying and failing to escape--drag badly and completely stifle the movie's momentum. If it had been tighter, this might have been a pretty good thriller; if more inept, perhaps a so-bad-it's-good nugget of joy. As it is, unfortunately, it just comes off as mediocre.

In the end I didn't hate Patrick, and I'm glad I watched it--but then I live for this kind of shit. To the average viewer I would say skip it. I give it a 1.25 thumbs, with an added quarter thumb for the kickass trailer included on the Lightning Video VHS version I've got: THE SCORPIO FACTOR! Synth rock, Trans-Ams, and curled mullets have got to be worth something after all. So final score, 1.5 thumbs--entirely average.

And always remember, ladies, from Kathy Jacquard's mouth to God's ears: "The last thing [you] need is someone with a case of the galloping gonads." Even in trash there is wisdom. Yea, verily.

MORE MADNESS...

Summary only...