What a cool, creepy little flick!
Once again Mill Creek's 50 Chilling Classics pack comes through with a movie I wouldn't have watched on my own, but nonetheless found interesting, entertaining, and more than a little creepy. Crypt of the Living Dead, aka Young Hannah, Queen of the Vampires, is a vampire movie with a difference, starring a couple of well-known (to 70s trash-horror fans like me) faces and boasting some strange but periodically very effective cinematography, Crypt of the Living Dead might have benefited from my low expectations going in (as with most movies I like, the internet reviews are generally savage), but as the Duke and I often say, there's no virtue in refusing to allow yourself to be entertained, and this flick gives you more than ample chances.
We open the way every atmospheric, gothic movie about old school monsters should: with a hunchback in a lightning storm. As an intense dude in robes drones in Latin over a massive marble tomb--IN THE CRYPT!--an older man prowls the cathedral above apparently searching for him. When he's startled by the hunchback the elderly expeditioner falls through a hole into the catacombs below, and once he gets his breath back draws that much closer to his goal. Once he finds the tomb, however, he is quickly overpowered by Intense Dude and the Hunchback, who knock him out and stuff him under the tomb, which we now see is raised on four marble feet. As our explorer opens his eyes the henchmen take after the two nearest supports with sledgehammers, and a moment later the tomb falls with a crunchy thud on the chest of our would-be hero. Ouch! Haven't seen that one before!
Next we find ourselves standing by the dock of the bay, watching a young skinny dude with a porn-stache putting ashore at a small fishing village. In a very strong, somewhat creepy scene the young man tries to ask the villagers where he can find the church, but they only scowl creepily and continue mending their nets, while an unsettling music-box score plays in the background. I really think that the outsider going into a creepy, unfriendly village and meeting creepy, unfriendly people is one of the more effective set-ups in horror, and it's done excellently here.
Soon a friendly face appears in the form of Peter (Mark Damon, whose acting I also just enjoyed in the excellent, soon-to-be-reviewed sexy horror The Devil's Wedding Night). We learn in short order that Stache Man, aka Chris Bolton (Andrew Prine), is the son of the professor who got crushed in the crypt, and has come to collect his old dad's remains. Peter was the professor's assistant, helping the old man excavate the crypts while researching for a historical novel he (Peter) is writing about the island. As they head off toward the church we see a familiar malformed face in the bushes: the hunchback watches them go.
(It should be said that it's fairly obvious that Peter was the robed man from the prologue who helped kill the prof. I was never quite sure if there was meant to be some air of mystery about this fact, or if the director hoped to set up some dramatic irony with the character, us knowing he was bad when nobody else did. Either way, I was taken with the atmosphere and story, so I rolled right along.)
It turns out the old man's corpse is still under the tomb, which is so massive and in such an enclosed space that no one can move it. As luck would have it, though, Chris is an engineer, and quickly determines he can set up a pulley system to lift the tomb and pull the pressed patriarch free. But he'll have to do it in two parts--first the lid, then the lower section--which of course means opening the tomb.
That's bad, because the tomb supposedly contains the remains of Hannah, a medieval princess who in the 13th Century was put ashore here in a shipwreck, contracted vampirism, and took over the whole island, converting the entire population into her undead minions. When her fiance Prince Philip arrived to rescue her and found her a bit too bitey for his tastes, he slew all her henchvamps and buried her alive(-ish) in the tomb, carving upon it the warning, "For the peace of the dead, and for the sake of the living, let no one disturb this tomb!" Nice, eh?
Well, it wouldn't be much of a story if they heeded Prince Philip's warning, and before you can say "Great Gobs of Garlic!" Chris has lifted the lid and revealed the body of Hannah to the air for the first time in seven hundred years. To everyone's surprise, not only is she uncorrupted, she's HAWT! While Chris takes time off to woo Peter's sister Mary (also the prof's assistant when she's not teaching at the local school), the villagers get nervous, remembering the lore about Hannah the Vampire Queen. Wolves are sighted in local cemeteries, fishermen's dogs are killed and drained of blood, and Peter keeps acting stranger and stranger.
Crypt of the Living Dead has a pretty interesting story for a vampire flick, and though it's deliberately paced it's never boring. Scenes with Hannah awakening, breathing for the first time after 700 years, are actually well done and a little creepy. Teresa Gimpera as Hannah is a vision, otherworldly and seductive, and manages to do quite a bit with an essentially mute character, imparting her with a malevolence and intelligence that lets you know she's calculated everything. And a scene where she appears in the bedroom of a small girl and stands looking hungrily at the cowering child is really very effective.
The final confrontation is very brisk compared with the slower pace of most of the film, and I found it pretty exciting. Peter tries to sacrifice Mary to Hannah in order to secure the happiness that has eluded him, only to be rescued by Chris. Mary returns the favor when Chris is attacked by Hannah in her wolf-form, and then at the last Chris ignites the Queen of the Vampires and sends her plummeting off a cliff like a goddamned meteorite! But it's not over yet--when the burned vampire arises again to take on a circle of villagers, the makeup and sound FX are really wild (especially the sound FX--listen for the cat howl from hell!), though it leads to the expected conclusion.
Other actors in the flick range from good the not-so-good. The villagers are non-actors and it shows, especially in the deadpan voice of the Van Helsing character, a blind old fisherman who knows a little about vamps and clearly can guess the rest. Andrew Prine makes a meal of the scenery as Chris, and seems to think that to be persuasive, whether in convincing villagers to let him move a tomb or convincing Mary to sleep with him, all he has to do is throw a petulant tantrum and shout at the top of his lungs. Lucky for him this works. On the other hand, Mary is portrayed by Patty Shepard, who is no stranger to weird 70s Euro-horror, nor to vampire queen epics: she appeared as an alluring alien in Paul Naschy's Assignment Terror, and played the seductive and sinister Countess Wandessa in the mmmmmasterpiece The Werewolf vs. the Vampire Woman. Here's she's great as the headstrong headmistress who can take care of herself, and while it's not clear why she should fall for a whiner like Chris, she's a treat to watch and easy on the eyes. And I thought Mark Damon was excellent as the demented failed novelist Peter, who along with his friend the hunchback is helping Hannah in her quest to re-take the island.
Apparently the movie was filmed in color, but the print I have is in B&W--a web search reveals that other dvd pressings are in color, so I got the shaft in the hue department. Still, despite some very dark scenes, there was some good cinematography here and some interesting mise en scene, particularly when Hannah is on the prowl. I'd be interested to see how the same scenes hold up with the proper colors added.
Anyway, I give Crypt of the Living Dead a solid 2 thumbs up. An interesting story, some cool visuals, and a wild climax make this one worth looking at. Give it a chance, and don't be so stuffy.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Crypt of the Living Dead (1973): or, Hannah's Got a Crush on You
Friday, September 14, 2007
From Beyond (1986): or, Feed (Me To) My Frankenstein
You know, they just don't make good mad scientist movies anymore. For a long time, from the 30s through the early 60s, mad scientists were all the rage. From Frankenstein to Dr. Jekyll to The Invisible man and onward, the public just couldn't get enough of these figures who dared to dream of godhood, who reached beyond the petty limitations of humanity for something greater. And when they fell short, their failures were just as spectacular as their dreams.
Perhaps the fascination during this era stemmed from the growing feeling that science was going to solve everything. For a while it seemed that in science lay humanity's greatest hope, but also its greatest danger. It was the new black magic, the new religion; something the average person on the street could never hope to understand, but that could nonetheless result in his death and the destruction of the entire planet. Scary stuff, indeed, as the powerful and unknown always is.
Likewise, perhaps the fascination and fear waned as the wonders of science became more commonplace. By the 70s, though there was still the fear of nuclear war and other destructive technologies, it no longer seemed quite so magical or unknown. When you're using microwaves--once scientific mumbo-jumbo suitable for creating scarred radioactive monsters in cinematic labs--to warm up your sandwich for lunch, the idea of Doc Frankenstein's spark-throwing apparatuses is not quite so scary anymore. Though every now and then a terrifying new idea would produce public unease and a few films (gene therapy, viruses run amok, and space exploration are still fertile fields), for the most part the mad scientist working alone in his lab expanding his own vistas of unspeakable knowledge is as quaint to us now as the horse and buggy.
Enter Stuart Gordon, who in 1986 took that horse and buggy, grafted six more legs onto the horse, strapped a couple of jet engines on the buggy, and took her out of a spin. The resulting wild, terrifying ride is one of the director's undisputed masterpieces, and if not the most faithful Lovecraft adaptation, certainly one of the most cinematically successful: From Beyond.
Gordon hits the ground running from the first frame of film, as we see young Dr. Crawford Tillingast (Jeffrey Combs) frantically preparing a Frankensteinian array of computers and alien-looking equipment for a mysterious experiment. He turns on the machine, which resonates with an eerie hum and causes him to clutch his forehead in pain. But the pain is forgotten a moment later, when he sees strange, eel-like creatures swimming in the air all around him--creatures in another plane who share the same space as we do, but whom we can't see and who can't see us. But with the Resonator thrumming, all is revealed, and one of the monsters attacks Combs, leading him to shut it (the fuck) off.
Frightened but excited, he runs to get his boss, the allusively named Dr. Pretorious; horror movie buffs know that the scientist who enticed Henry Frankenstein out of retirment in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein was also a Dr. Praetorius--who might have been an ancestor of this scientist, had the elder doctor not been so obviously, flamingly gay. Our modern Pretorious is most assuredly NOT gay, however; rather he is a sensualist, seeking the ultimate experience. Having exhausted the five senses of this plane with all the deviant sex he could imagine, he's looking for other planes to explore, other creatures to fuck. After all, who wants to eat chicken every day?
"If you want my body, and you think I'm sexy,
come on, Sugar, let me know!"
On learning of Combs's success, Pretorious rushes to the Resonator and flicks it back on, refusing to turn it off even when it becomes clear that something big is coming...FROM BEYOND! Ted Sorel as the good doctor gives a great "mad scientist out of control" performance here, and Combs flees in horror and madness, only to be caught by police (called by neighbors) who, after discovering the doctor's decapitated corpse, take Crawford away on charges of murder.
And then--the opening credits roll!
We next meet Dr. Katherine McMichaels (assayed by the very studious and professional looking Barbara Crampton, in full-on sexy librarian gear), a psychiatrist with unorthodox (even dangerous!) methods--a possibly mad doctor, but of the mind! She takes on Tillingast's case and quickly moves to recreate the experiment that broke his mind in order to find out what really happened to Dr. Pretorious. Accompanied by happy-go-lucky cop and former linebacker Bubba Brownlee (played wonderfully weird by Ken Foree of Dawn of the Dead fame), she and Crawford go back, repair the Resonator and repeat the experiment of that fateful night. Only this time there's something else waiting for them on the other side--something with unlimited power and Dr. Pretorious's sick personality--something that for its own pleasure wants to consume their very MINDS...
Stuart Gordon absolutely packs this movie to the top of every frame. The pacing is tight, and there is almost no wasted film, no throwaway scenes. Every minute of the movie propels the plot forward, and the straight-line narrative leaves you little time to catch your breath--you just have to hold on and go along for the ride. And what a ride it is! Jeffrey Combs simply OWNS the role of the young, tormented scientist here, and when the Resonator begins to effect a physical, Cronenbergian transformation on Tillingast, his horror and fascination come through the prosthetics in a very effective way. Vicar-fave scream queen Barbara Crampton is fantastic as well, playing the woman of science who can't help but pursue this dangerous knowledge in the hopes of helping humanity, but who then gets caught up in her own weaknesses, exploited by the now-otherworldly brilliance of Pretorious. (A word about her "sensual possession" scene: ZANG!) And Ted Sorel's performance as Pretorious is a thing of mad beauty, hearkening back to the classic mad scientists of the Universal horrors, but with a modern twist.
I...um...uh...sorry, I completely forgot the caption I was going to use here.
But the thing that really pushes this movie over the top into undisputed classic status is the inventive, sick, mind-blowing practical effects. In a world before CGI, when everything had to be sculpted and built and filmed with inventiveness and ingenuity, this is a tour de force. Almost as if he's trying to out-Cronenberg Cronenberg, Gordon pushes his makeup department (who deserved awards for this) into realms of body horror and ickiness previously unseen on the screen--and not seen since. (The only other movie that even comes close to this, imo, is the great and woefully underseen 1989 flick Society--directed by Brian Yuzna, who was a producer on From Beyond. Coincidence?) The absolutely jaw-dropping final battle between the transformed Tillingast and the mutated Pretorious is a thing that must be seen to be believed--a spectacle the likes of which even Miike can only stand back and applaud.
"Less filling!" "Tastes great!" "LESS FILLING!"
But while this is an effects fest, the script also bears its weight. There's some great stuff with themes of madness and obsession here that pervades the whole production. For instance, Dr. McMichael's father, a brilliant psychologist, ended his life in a sanatorium thanks to schizophrenia--it's this tragedy that drives his daughter in her obsessive search for a cure. Also, her own fear of going crazy underpins her drive, and when she is committed to the asylum late in the movie and set up for a harrowing bout of electroshock therapy, the horror is very deep and real. We understand why these brilliant people are risking everything, and that makes the horrors they unleash all the more tragic and effective.
I'd also be remiss if I didn't mention the wonderful original score by Richard Band, great weird synth music, totally in keeping with the weird technology and spiraling insanity. Fantastic stuff, and I'm thinking of buying a CD.
In short, this movie is a one of a kind, gobsmackingly over-the-top, fantastically inventive entry into the mad scientist genre, and possibly the final word on the matter. Highest possible rating. And Mr. Gordon, thanks for the ride!
PS--The special edition dvd of From Beyond: Unrated Director's Cut hits stores next week; it has features out the wahzoo and a high-def transfer from original elements, not to mention previously excised scenes of grue and sexiness. So if you've always wanted to see this, or if you're a long time fan, there's never been a better time to buy! Order now!
Thursday, September 13, 2007
At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul (1963): or, Coffin Joe's Prelude to Madness
After watching José Mojica Marins's 1967 weird-horror masterpiece This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse (reviewed on Mmmmmovies here), I was intrigued, excited, and thirsty for more. An ebay search and a few days later I had in my hands what is widely hailed as the first Brazilian horror movie from, Marins's 1963 cult curiosity At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul. (Marins has SUCH the way with titles.) I was worried that, having watched the sequel first, I might suffer cognitive disconnect and find myself in a nightmarish world of spiraling self-referentiality and chronological coo-cooity. However, both films work on their own merits, and in the final analysis I think I watched them in the right order, for reasons I'll try to remember to expound in the conclusion of this brief review.
The film opens with its star, Coffin Joe, staring into the camera and looking none too impressed with what he sees staring back at him. He delivers his personal philosophy, just dripping contempt and malice, in a few short sentences. Then we're treated to a very unsettling credits sequence. It's mostly flash-forward clips from later in the movie, but it's done to a soundtrack of screams that seem to come from the depths of the inferno, and the text is animated in cool and off-kilter ways. One thing Marins does both here and in TNIPYC is use the credit sequence to establish mood, and after this one I was ready for an unusual and disturbing flick.
Next we get a crypt-keeper-esque introduction by an old gypsy witch, who warns those who are easily frightened to leave the theater. I love that gimmick; it reminds me of the old Universal flicks. In fact the b&w cinematography throughout is very well done in the atmospheric Universal pictures way, and the sets also recall the Universal glory days. However, what goes on in those sets is something else entirely.
Gypsies give the worst head.
Coffin Joe is the diminutive and malicious (but strangely charismatic) undertaker of a small town in Brazil. Though small, he's scrappy, and when he gets mad no one can beat him in a fight. After winning a card game and finding his opponent too slow to turn over his winnings, Joe breaks a bottle and severs the man's finger with it in a surprisingly gory scene. There are also bloody beatings galore, as Joe does his best to justify the peasants' fear of him.
But they're less afraid of his physical prowess than they are of his blasphemy. In a comical-to-us-now but doubtless shocking scene to staunchly catholic early-60s Brazilians, Joe orders meat on a Friday and, laughing evilly, chews the leg of lamb while penitents go by on their way to church. Later in a barroom brawl he uses the crown of thorns off a bust of Christ to disfigure the face of his opponent! This man is blasphemously bad to the bone, and doesn't care who knows it.
Surprisingly, Joe has one friend, Antonio. I guess they were kids together or something. Anyway, Antonio is unfortunate enough to be engaged to a lovely lass for whom Coffin Joe lusts. After killing his own barren wife with a spider (shades of things to come in future movies), Joe makes advances on the fiancee, with his own wife not cold in the ground. She refuses, naturally, as she's spoken for. So Joe, just as naturally, kills his one and only friend and then rapes the fiancee, so that she will bear his child and make him immortal. She can't live with the guilt, though, and hangs herself, first cursing Joe to lose his soul at midnight.
It turns out that here, as in TNIPYC, Joe's Achilles heel is a hidden subconscious guilt for his crimes, which is manifested in a fantastic scene where Joe prowls through the graveyard, challenging God to come down from heaven, or Satan up from hell, to take his soul and thus prove that they exist. It's an acting tour de force by the debuting Marins, and really a fantastic scene. This is followed by the expected supernatural intervention, as the ghost of Antonio arrives with some very cool and weird lo-tech effects, and it all ends up in a not-quite-nicely tied little bow.
Sorry, Joe, they don't want you. They're too scared.
So how was it? Pretty good, but only a hint at the achievement of TCIPYC. It seems to me that here Marins is still finding his feet, still defining the character, still figuring out what it is he wants to do and how to do it. In the sequel he's got all that under his belt, and he goes for broke. So having seen the second first, I had a better picture of the Coffin Joe character and found him more compelling than I otherwise would have, perhaps. This movie has its strengths, but really it's best viewed as a prequel, I think, to the main event.
That said, this is a solid 2.5 thumb effort, and one you should see. But after This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse, in my opinion, for the best effect.
Whoop-whoop! Nyuck! Nyuck!
Friday, September 7, 2007
Slashed Dreams (1975): or, the Feel-Good Rape/Revenge Hit of the Summer
You know, I've wasn't even going to review Slashed Dreams, because like a handful of other movies from the miraculous Mill Creek 50 Chilling Classics Pack (buy yourself one NOW!), this is not in fact a horror movie. Originally titled Sunburst, this Age-of-Aquarius era back-to-nature flick was ruthlessly re-titled on video and made to look like an I Spit on Your Grave rip-off in order to take advantage of co-star Robert Englund's subsequent fame as everyone's favorite dream killer. Like Medusa (George Hamilton as an incestuous Greek in trouble with the mob) and Death Rage (Yul Brynner as a vengeful hitman), this movie is neither chilling nor classic, and so is completely out of place on this set.
But after reading a few dozen seething, hate-filled, absolutely dismissive reviews of Slashed Dreams on the intarwebs, I felt that somebody needed to step up in its defense. Not because it's a great movie secretly awaiting discovery by the erudite few who can appreciate it, but because I felt it was basically a good-natured, harmless, moderately interesting time-capsule that in no way deserves the piles of disdain being heaped upon it. Sure, it may be a little stupid, a little naive, and a little boring, but hey, aren't we all?
The plot goes a little something like this. Fed up with her hyper-insensitive, slightly sadistic fratboy boyfriend, homecoming queen Jenny (Katherine Baumann) dumps him and goes searching for meaning in her life. Inspired by a professor's lecture on "positivity" and "the new Aquarian age" and in receipt of a letter from a former classmate who dropped out to go kick it Walden-style in the remote woods, Jenny and lifelong best friend Robert (Peter Hooten) decide to hell with school, let's go visit our buddy Michael in his little cabin! After being warned by a nutty old shop owner not to go into those dangerous woods, they spend a few days hiking through the wilderness, getting in touch both with nature and with their long-suppressed romantic feelings for each other.
That's pretty much the first hour of this 78 minute movie. A lot of reviewers have savaged the film for this, since nothing much happens except hiking montages, the couple interacting, and lots and lots of very funny 70s folk-pop music. The songs actually do comment on the action, serving as a kind of poetic narration to the kids' difficult but fun trek through the woods. During one long sequence when the hikers are trying unsuccessfully to get up a steep mountainside, we get the actually pretty funny song "Animals are Clumsy, Too," with such insightful lyrics as:
"Next time you hit your head and roll in pain,
Just think about a turkey drowning in the rain!
Animals are clumsy too!"
It's a weird narrative choice, but for some reason I didn't mind it so much. It was almost like a musical, or at least a long-form music video album. But I think what got me was the frankly excellent chemistry between the two leads. Jenny and Robert are a couple of silly, extremely likeable kids, and you can totally believe they've been best friends forever, just from their gestures, expressions, and the way they play off each other. It's really some fine acting from both of them, and even without much dialogue they completely drew me in to their burgeoning romance.
The original, much more accurate poster.When they finally get to the cabin, Michael isn't there. They settle in to wait for him, enjoying the wonderful scenery and the Walden-like pond nearby. Then they decide to go skinny-dipping together and their sexual tension begins its release, which I was actually pleased to see. Of course you know what that means: it's time for the inbreds to show up.
Danker and Levón could be hillbillies, bikers, trappers, or just skuzzy dropouts scrounging for mushrooms in the woods. (That's the problem with nature--there's too damn many PEOPLE in it!) It's never really explained, nor does it really need to be--they're just two other people in the world, and people you don't want to know. They menace the nude swimmers and then retreat, allowing Jenny and Robert to consummate their romance in Michael's cabin.
Then, in the part that got it repackaged, the bad guys show up, knock out Robert, and after some monologuing, rape Jenny. It's a strange scene, because it flows very much like a scene from a stage play to me. Levón, scarred and ugly, has a fairly well-written speech about his ugliness giving him power, and how Jenny can't stop what's going to happen. However, when Jenny faints and won't fight him, he can't go through with the assault. He shakes her, pleading, "Come on, fight me! Hit me! Wake up and hit me!" but to no avail. Danker takes over, though, beating and raping Jenny until Levón pulls him off out of, apparently, jealousy. There's a weird dynamic going on between the two bad guys, as we'll see more in a moment.
The rapists leave, and Jenny and Robert are left to deal silently with their scars while yet another narrative song plays over them. Finally Michael arrives, having been hiking for 2 days to gather tea, or something. It's pretty shocking how handsome and young Robert Englund looks here, and his caring, hippie character is also a shock, but he pulls it off well. In fact I'd say the acting is above average across the board in this flick--Danker and Levón included, which may be why I wasn't especially bored.
Here's another part the haters savage--trying to help Jenny out of her emotional shock, Michael tells her to "take some meaning from it," and try to use it to find some "truth." "You have to think about the good things," he tells her, "and drive that devil out of your house!" Some see this as his just saying, "Get over it, girl!" or worse, saying the rape was necessary for her personal growth. I didn't see it that way at all--I just thought he was trying to find a way to help her cope with her bad experience and come out of it stronger. It's the same way people tell grieving relatives that their loved ones' deaths are "God's Will"--it sounds a bit callous, but sometimes it helps people to deal. So I didn't mind Englund's new-agey stuff here.
Robert, guilt-stricken over having "allowed" Jenny to get raped, goes off into the woods with his little hatchet, seeking revenge. He finds the rapists, apparently still bickering about what happened last night. Again, this scene plays very much like a scene from a stage play, but that's not entirely bad--the writing is good in a stagey way, and the weird psychology between the two bad guys--Danker wants to go back for more, accusing Levón of being mad he "couldn't get it up" and "still has that Cheeks disease" or something--which leads to a fight in which Levón hamstrings the beefier Danker with a hunting knife. Ouch!
The odds suddenly even, Robert jumps out and attacks Levón, leading to a long fight between the two that's actually well-staged. Then end up wallowing in a mud-puddle, significantly, and when Michael and Jenny show up, the rapists hobble off into the woods, leaving an exhausted, weeping Robert covered in mud. He realizes it "wasn't even worth it," and he's "ashamed of himself." We get another song about healing, a poetry reading about living through pain in order to arrive at peace, and that's pretty much the end.
Now I can see why someone expecting a horror flick would hate this. It's slow, there's lots of goofy music, and if it's meant to be a rape-revenge flick, where's the revenge? But maybe because I wasn't expecting it to be such--I read a few reviews beforehand--it didn't feel like a betrayal to me, and I was able to watch it a little more open-mindedly. Because what this really is, I think, is a New Age Rape/Revenge flick, in which the spiritual seekers forgo the revenge in the end and are better for it. It's that positivity stuff the prof was talking about. Jenny and Robert find truth not because of the rape/revenge, but because by looking inward they're able to overcome the bad stuff. Or at least I think that's the point.
Some people find that idea stupid and contemptible, and I can see that--like I said, this movie comes off as more than a little bit naive, in a Hair/Flower Children kinda way. But maybe b/c of the mood I was in, I didn't mind--it was a sweet naivety, the kind you almost wish could be true. A time-capsule of a simpler, sweeter time. With rape.
So that's my defense. Not a great movie, but I think a fairly decent one. Good acting from all involved, a fairly good (if stagey) script, a definite sweet side, and a few interesting directorial choices that even if you don't agree with, you have to give props for. Or at least I do.
I give Slashed Dreams 1.75 thumbs--a little above average, and the kind of thing you might be able to enjoy, if you approach it from the right direction. And don't forget: animals are clumsy too.
Positivity. Give it a try.
Thursday, September 6, 2007
Happy Birthday, Paul Naschy!
Yes, today is the nativity of Spanish horror icon and Mmmmmovie favorite Jacinto Molina, aka Paul Naschy. In honor of the occasion I'm posting my review of Paul's first starring role, Frankenstein's Bloody Terror, which is amazing and wonderful and awesome.
The indefatiguable Naschy has made dozens of movies in his career and is still working--in fact his latest directorial, script-writing, and starring effort, EMPUSA, is due out next year! Here's a plot synopsis from the movie's very own blog (bookmark it NOW!) that should make any Naschy fan giggle with uncontrollable excitement:
Abel (Naschy), an ex-actor who has become an occultism enthusiast, and Victor, an old sea captain, take long walks on the beach talking about the good old times. During one of those strolls they find the arm of a woman slashed below the elbow, with a rare symbol drawn or tattooed on the wrist. Obsessed by the awesome discovery, Abel decides to take home the maimed arm and investigate the symbol. In an old book of Greek mythology he finds out that it´s the ancient seal of the Empusa, a hybrid being that's a cross between a vampire, a snake and a seagull.See, lesser filmmakers would stop with the vampire/snake hybrid. Not Naschy, though. No fuckin' way.
The Duke and I are as excited as two Frenchmen who have just invented self-removing trousers about this, and you should be too. So keep checking the EMPUSA blog, the wonderful Mark of Naschy website (your best online Naschy resource), and right here for the latest info.
And happy birthday, Paul!
Frankenstein's Bloody Terror (1968): or, Don't Bring a Vampire to a Werewolf Fight
On Halloween Night 2006 I got to sit down and witness the birth of a god. Except it was even better than Venus rising from the waves, Athena leaping from the split skull of Zeus, or a manger-cam showing the bloodied but eerily silent Savior entering the world through Mother Mary's buh-gina: this was FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR! This was the film debut of Jacinto Molina, known ever after to legions of grateful and worshipful horror fans as Paul "Freaking" Naschy, and also the first movie to feature that international horror icon Waldemar Daninsky as a character. (Not to mention being Jacinto's first screenwriting credit.) In this movie we see the beginnings of everything that would make Naschy's later movies tick, from the doomed love affair with the aristocratic redhead, to the internal battle between the cursed man's better nature and his bestial id, to the external battle between the ferocious but still partly human werewolf and more sinister supernatural forces. We even get a little devil worship and sensuality thrown in at no extra charge, though these elements would not achieve and even paradoxically surpass their potential until later flicks like Curse of the Devil and WWvVW. Yes, this movie almost has it all, and what it lacks, it points the way toward for the future. This is where it all began, so if you're a Naschy fanatic (and how could you not be?) it's 91 minutes of joy.
We start out with a prime example of the low-budget charm of most of Jacinto's efforts. Because the American distributors wanted to be able to package their horror films for drive-ins as "theme double features," they needed another Frankenstein flick to go with some piece of dreck (maybe Frankenstein vs. the Monster from Space or something), and so inserted a gleefully nonsensical animated credit sequence to turn this movie (originally titled La Marca del Hombre-Lobo, or The Mark of the Wolfman) into a Frankenstein flick. Get clear on this from the start--there is NOTHING about Frankenstein in this movie. Absolutely zilch. Not even so much as a glancing mention. Everything that ties this movie to Frankenstein happens in the first 2 minutes after the opening credits, all in animated and voice-overed format.
After the title splash of FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR!, we are informed deliciously that the movie is shot in "70mm Chill-O-Rama!" And let me tell you, I can totally feel the difference between Chill-O-Rama and regular 70mm. It's chillier, and much more festive. Anyway, then we get a cartoon pic of the Frankenstein monster, and a voice-over informs us that the ancient family of monster makers, because of their crimes, were cursed with the mark of the werewolf! And so FRANKENstein became WOLFstein! All this while the cartoon monster changes into a cartoon werewolf, and the caption reading "Frankenstein" mutates into the word "Wolfstein." The v-o even repeats it a few times, with the words and pictures flashing back and forth like neon lights: FRANKENstein! WOLFstein! FRANKENstein! WOLFstein!" Having firmly established the link between this flick and Mary Shelly, we're ready to move on.
See you later folks! Enjoy the show!
When the movie proper opens, we're at a costume ball in the mansion of the local Count. The count himself is NOT a vampire, but rather a bully-looking elderly lord joking through his fuller-brush whiskers to a friend of his about their kids, who are dancing together and apparently something of a romantic item. The lord and his friend deliver a lot of helpful exposition while we admire the finely dressed ballroom set and the cool old-style masquerade outfits. Then a strange figure appears in a flamboyantly crimson rogue's costume, complete with pantaloons, a red Robin Hood hat with audaciously long feather, and black mask that fails to conceal the virile masculine handsomosity beneath--yes, it's Naschy, and he looks AWESOME. Of course this stranger heads straight for the young red-haired countess and her boyfriend Rudolph, quickly driving the scrawny lad away by sheer force of manliness. As they begin to dance, we get one of the best introductory lines in any movie ever.
Young Countess: "Who are you?"
Naschy: "Haven't you guessed? I'm His Satanic Majesty!"
Oh, Paul, take me NOW! Right here by the punch bowl!
It's not long before we're at La Casa de Daninsky, learning more about Waldemar (for yes, of course 'tis he) from another pair of old folks delivering useful exposition. This is a device that is sorely underused--like the Greek chorus, whenever you have two old folks talking to each other, you might as well throw in loads of exposition. I mean, they're old, what else have they got to do? The young countess gets exposed to more of Jacinto's powerful pheromones, and it becomes clear that sooner or later she will be his. Rudolph will have to make do with sloppy seconds.
Still, the countess tries to play both sides against the middle, going on a nature walk with Rudolph to the old abandoned castle near Waldemar's property. They decide to explore ("It'll be fun! What could possibly happen to us?") and the door slams ominously behind them. Is it some revenant satanic monk returned from the grave to wreak vengeance? No, it's just Waldemar, who is making sure that the countess gets a chance to compare Rudolph's physique to that of His Beefy Satanic Majesty. Poor Rudolph.
We learn that the family who used to own the property, name of WOLFSTEIN, were rumored to have werewolves in the bloodline, and that Lord Wolfstein even now lies in the crypt, a soon-to-be-familiar silver dagger rooted between his ribs. Contrary to expectations, the group leaves well enough alone, but as Rudolph drives away, petulantly jealous (as well he should be), he nearly runs a pair of gypsies off the road, greatly angering them. (B-Movie rule of thumb: NEVER PISS OFF A GYPSY.) Waldemar shows up a moment later, gallantly helps them out, and suggests they go to Castle Wolfstein for shelter from the upcoming storm. They do so, but quickly show themselves to be gypsies of the dirty thieving variety by stealing wine from the cellar, getting drunk, and planning to rob the grave of the lord of the manor. Predictably one of the first things they steal is the silver dagger from Lord Wolfstein's tomb, with all too predictable results. A werewolf is on the loose, and it's NOT Daninsky!
After a couple of aristocrats are killed offscreen, the Count organizes a wolf hunt to rid the countryside of the scourge. Waldemar and Rudolph end up hunting buddies, and even though Rudolph is very rude, Waldemar still risks his life to save Rudolph from the rampaging wolf man ('cuz that's how Waldy rollz), once again with predictable and tragic results. Now cursed with La Marca del Hombre-Lobo, he and his newly grateful best friend Rudolph must return to Casa Daninsky and chain Waldemar up before the full moon comes.
You think these huge pecs are just for decoration?
Of course THE CHAINS, THEY DO NOTHING! After an interesting transformation sequence (a sort of melting-screen), Waldemar is on the loose. As usual, it's always the peasants who get hurt. A pair of field laborers end up on the wrong end of Waldemar's fangs, in a thrilling sequence where we get our first LEAP ATTACKS, which are also some of the best (at least until the somersault off the balcony in Curse of the Devil, which is the all-time gold standard). The female peasant is mauled and murdered, but the poor male peasant is beaten, has his throat ripped out, and then gets SET ON FIRE. That's Dethklok-style brutality, right there.
The next night we find the countess searching for Waldemar while Rudolph tries to protect her from a knowledge that will only bring her pain. She's persistent, though, and finds Waldemar in the dungeon of castle Wolfstein, locked up, pleading for death before he kills again. They instead do a little reading in the castle library and discover some letters from Lord Wolfstein to a Dr. Mikelhov, who was working with the wolfed-out lord to find a cure before his first death. Though the letter is 40 years old, they try to contact Dr. Mikelhov, who agrees to come and do what he can for Daninsky. However, when the good doctor and his wife arrive in the fog in a wonderfully shot sequence, it's clear something's a bit off about them. Instead of curing Waldemar, the doctor chains Daninsky to a wall while Ms. Mikelhov tempts and seduces Rudolph, revealing just before he falls into her bed a set of bright white fangs.
Yes, they're VAMPIRES. What are the chances, huh?
And then I sang another chorus, and the crowd went NUTS!
So Rudolph becomes the blood-slave of Ms. Mikelhov, the young countess is similarly hyp-mo-tized by the Doctor, and somehow the vamps capture Lord Wolfstein and chain him in the same cell as Waldemar, for who knows what evil purpose. But when the full moon hits both cursed men wolf out, teasing us with the thought of a ww vs. vamp tag team death match. But it's not to be, as Lord Greywolf foolishly attacks Waldemar, and is turned to ww-jerky by the younger, beefier lycan. The next night Waldemar returns, stakes the lady vamp, and finds the coffin of Dr. Mikelhov, who rises from his grave just as the full moon comes up. What timing! LET'S GET IT ON!
But the vampire is too smart to throw down with Daninsky, instead whisking the countess away in the first of the patented dreamlike vampire sequences: very operatic costumes with slow motion and stylized choreography. Waldemar follows in full ferocious wolf-out mode, a nice contrast with the almost ballet-graceful movements of the vampire. The final battle is anticlimactic, though, as Waldemar puts the doctor down like a sick chipmunk and then is pumped full of silver by the young countess for a tragic but satisfying conclusion.
So there's a lot of great stuff here. The cinematography isn't great, with the exception of the vampire dance sequence, but the plot is convoluted and wild, the visuals nicely put-together, and the action pretty constant. Also being able to see the very beginning of the Daninsky mythos is a real treat, and Naschy does spectacularly in his first acting assignment, his charisma just bleeding through the screen. The only thing lacking is the crossing of that line from sensuality to out-and-out eroticism, as this first flick had none of the nudity that would spice up the later Daninsky chronicles. But there is definitely a hint of that here--the female vamp is very seductive, and the gypsy girl early in the movie has a vitality and natural sexiness that cannot be denied. And the countess, of course, is a Eurobabe hottie. (In one particular scene Rudolph and Waldemar find her sprawled atop the vampire's coffin in a pointedly post-coital pose.) And there's lots of great stuff and fun to be had. 3.75 thumbs for this genesis of all things Naschy.
You want a piece of me? DO YOU, PUNK?
There's also a great interview on the DVD where Naschy talks about the movie and some of the difficulties making it, and also claims his rightful credit for coming up with the vampire/werewolf war (the subtitler even uses the term "lycans"--take that, Underworld!). It's poorly subtitled otherwise, though, as when Jacinto is talking about Lon Chaney Jr.'s movies and the character Lawrence Talbot, which the subtitler inexplicably writes as "Lawrence STEWART." Come on, Jacinto is CLEARLY saying "Talbot"! But a good interview and worth watching.
Wednesday, September 5, 2007
The Brainiac (1962): or, Brains is Brain Food
I was first exposed to El Barón del Terror, aka The Brainiac, as a clipped scene in a trailer compilation tape I owned called Horrible Horror. In the included scene, an attractive young woman turns around to discover that the man she was just talking with has changed into a hideous, troll-headed beast with a long forked tongue and fingers reduced to two tube-like prongs--incongruously still wearing a suit and tie. As he walks toward her, someone behind the scenes with a bicycle pump is obviously inflating and deflating the monster's rubber head, giving it a low-tech pulsation not unlike the famous transformations in An American Werewolf in London and The Howling. The girl screams, the monster advances--and then, a scene from The Attack of the Giant Shrews.
Of course I was fascinated. What was this movie? What was this strange creature? Who devised this (for the time) pretty amazing makeup? And could a movie that included such a singular beastie really be that bad?
Well, I got the chance to find out as I spun my dvd copy of The Brainiac, which I now know was filmed in Mexico in 1962. And after viewing the film, like the Brainiac's victims, I am of two minds. But before we get to that, a little about the flick:
We open in Mexico City, 1661, in the court of the Inquisition (no surprise there--EVERY Spanish/Mexican/Hispanic horror film seems to start with the Inquisition!), where the mysterious Baron Vitelius d'Estera is being tried for a laundry list of crimes that would make Alec de Margnac proud, including sorcery, necromancy, and of course heresy. Strangely, no one knows where the baron comes from, or what his family history is--just that he's a bad mamma jamma and no mistake. As the Grand Inquisitor reads the chargers, the Baron only laughs; they describe his trial by torture, and he just smiles. Finally, a nobleman steps forward to defend the Baron, and is sentenced to 200 lashes for his trouble. In the end the Inquisition sentences the Baron to be burned at the stake. But as he's led away, the Baron defies them again by saying, "If my body is to be burned, it will not be in chains," and magically transfers his shackles to the feet of his guards, which causes him no end of mirth. You've got to take pleasure in the little things in life, no?
Flash forward to 1961, 300 years and one comet circuit later. We meet a couple of young astronomy students in love, who under their crotchety old professor are tracking the rare comet as it comes back into view. And find it they do--but strangely, it shoots off a sparkly disco-ball of destruction and then disappears. The young lovers go to investigate, but before they can find it, a passerby witnesses the impact of a mountain-shaped meteorite that lands just like a Monty Python 16-ton weight and then becomes the troll-headed monster from the Planet of the Brainsuckers. Growling like a lion, the beast attacks the hapless hombre, sucks his brains, and magically steals his suit. (He leaves the corpse its underwear, though--apparently, alien sorcerers like to go commando.) Transformed back into Baron D'Estera, the creature meets our young couple and recognizes the boy as the descendant of his defender, the girl as a descendant of one of his judges. Talk about a small world! After some pleasantries, they part, promising to meet again.
Another brain feast (this time from a middle-aged hooker in Mexico D.F.) and an off-screen jewel-heist later, the Baron is back in his palatial estate and planning a party for all his "old friends." Meanwhile a Joe Friday-style police detective and his comic relief sidekick are looking for the brain-sucking fiend who is leaving scantily-clad corpses all over the federal district. After the party the Baron makes his way through each of his judges and their children, freezing them with his Bela Lugosi stare and then transforming and sucking their brains. The best of these scenes involves a history professor and his daughter; the prof, frozen in terror, gives one of the most amazing bug-eye pops in the history of cinema as the Baron first seduces and then slurps the man's daughter. Great acting there.
Caramba!
Sounds great, eh? Well, it is, partly. There are definitely some great things about it. The monster design and early air-bladder fx technology are quite interesting, and the grim conversations about empty-headed corpses whose brains have been sucked out must have seemed pretty intense in 1962. Even moreso the scenes later when the baron, alone at home, breaks out a platter full of brains and goes at them like ice cream! The actor playing the Baron is quite impressive too, with his cold, evil looks and strange allure--he really could be a Mexican Bela. A late scene before the wild finish also seems ahead of its time, as the Baron terrorizes a young chica on her honeymoon, who keeps calling to her new husband, in the bath in the next room. The Baron lets her go to the bathroom and discover her husband, hung upside down from the shower, his head submerged in the running water below! Quite shocking for 62, as are a few of the corpse shots--one of them a charred skeleton. And it's fun to mark the craftsmanship of the numerous painted backdrops, on which no expense was spared, obviously. Pretty much all the outside shots were studio shots, and some painters did a lot of hard work for this, it's clear.
That's the good stuff. The bad is, I'm afraid, that it's all rather boring. I know, sounds impossible, but even at 77 minutes this movie seems to drag quite a bit. After the first kill, every monster scene is pretty much a repeat, and it gets old. The talking scenes in between are very padded, and stop the movie dead. The voice acting is occasionally hilarious (the Jose Friday cop is particularly good, with lines like, "I wish they could find a way to control the subjects a man studies. A maniac with a lot of knowledge is a threat."--yeah, keep 'em stupid, Jose!), but more often just dull. In fact, if it weren't for that slam-bang ending with the shower-kill and the flamethrowers, it might have been a complete dud.
But it DOES have that ending, so like I say, I'm of two minds. In the end I guess I have to give it a 1-thumb "poor" rating, but raised .5 thumbs thanks to that ending, for a final of 1.5--"average" Worth seeing once, but no world beater.
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