Halloween 2022: October 20th

Congo (1995)

One really can't undersell how big of a cultural phenomenon “Jurassic Park” was in the nineties. It renewed the public's fascination with dinosaurs. It opened the floodgates for digital effects. It also made a shit ton of money, from both ticket sales and merchandise. Studios were eager to recreate that level of success. And what better than another Michael Crichton adaptation, with heavy sci-fi/horror elements? Crichton had actually conceived of “Congo” as a movie first back in the eighties, as a star project for Sean Connery. By the time it actually got made, the film was clearly being positioned as the massive summer blockbuster of 1995. Things didn't quite work out that way but, in the years since, “Congo” has become something of a camp classic among nineties nostalgists. 

Communication company TraviCom has sent an expedition into the Congo rain forest to find diamonds, to power their satellites. Instead, the team is mysteriously killed by unseen creatures. A second team, headed by Dr. Karen Ross, is assembled. Meanwhile, primatologist Peter Elliot seeks to return Amy, a gorilla he has taught sign language, home to Africa. An eccentric Romanian businessman agrees to pay for the trip but only because he thinks it will lead him to Zinj, the legendary lost city and home of King Solomon's mine. Karen talks Elliot into combining their expeditions. Once in Africa, mercenary Monroe Kelly leads them through the war-torn country to their destination. As they draw closer to Zinj, they encounter a race of highly aggressive, gray gorillas. 

“Congo” was a fifty million dollar, big studio production with a plum June release date. Director Frank Marshall, formally of “Arachnophobia,” shot at least some of the movie on-location. IMDb tells me the movie was filmed in Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda – but not the Democratic Republic of the Congo –  as well as Costa Rica. (Where I suspect the majority of shooting was done.) Despite that, “Congo” feels weirdly cheap. Frequently, the camera focuses on the actors standing around a couple of trees, making it look like they're on a set. The normally insanely talented cinematographer Allen Daviau lights most of the movie in a bland, flat fashion. Despite the scope of the story, and the scale of the African continent, “Congo” feels strangely cloistered in. One wonders if Marshall wasn't working a little too hard to imitate the look and feel of jungle adventure B-movies from the fifties.

In its best moments, “Congo” leans into this B-movie sensibilities. The film is at its best the wackier it is. The most thrilling moment is a hippopotamus attack, which is no laughing matter but it's presented in a cartoonish manner. The movie casually tosses around far-out ideas, like sci-fi laser technology or people warding off heat-seeking missiles with flare guns. The funniest moments probably involve Amy, a talking gorilla brought to life through some stiff animatronic suits. Scenes of her slurping down a Martini, burping, or demanding tickles can produce only giggles. By the finale, where some rather unconvincing lava effects are ripping through the lost city of Zinj, “Congo” has embraced its trashy roots entirely. 

Maybe “Congo” becoming a big, goofy camp-fest was inevitable. After all, Bruce Campbell appears within the opening minutes. (Albeit only to be violently murdered by a gorilla shortly afterwards.) It seems the cast was all too aware of what level the material functions on. “Congo” is full of beloved character actors hamming it the fuck up. Ernie Hudson plays Monroe, adopting a ridiculous refined accent through most of the movie. Not to be outdone, Tim Curry affects a ludicrous Eastern European accent as Herkermer, chewing the scenery gratuitously in only the way he could. Joe Don Baker repeatedly screams to the heavens as the greedy businessman. “Congo's” cast is so stacked that two great character actors – Delroy Lindo and Joe Pantoilano – go uncredited. Lindo yells about sesame cakes and Joey Pants rips it up on an airport runway.

Such a cast being ridiculous in a movie about killer gorillas should be a blast, right? And yet “Congo” is strangely lifeless for long stretches of its runtime. Maybe that's because Laura Linney and Dylan Walsh, in the leads, are playing things too straight. Perhaps that's because the evil gray gorillas don't really show up until the last third. Or was “Congo” just pulled between its status as a tentpole release and its when-animals-attack tendencies? The gorilla scenes are weirdly cut. An attack in the temple employs some truly distracting slow-motion. Once the beasts are on-screen, the film always cuts away before they rip people apart. I seriously wonder if this wasn't cut down from an R rating to a PG-13. Heads are ripped off and smashed but they are all awkwardly framed off-screen. A bad gorilla getting its arm zapped off is the goriest moment and even it feels censored. 

Paramount clearly had high hopes for “Congo.” The film was supported by a flood of merchandise. There was a whole line of action figures, which warmed clearance rack pegs for years to come. There was a video game, a fondly recalled Taco Bell promotion, and even a pinball machine. And the movie was a hit, grossing 152 million worldwide, but that fell far short of “Jurassic Park's” massive run. That, along with the negative reviews, is probably why the film was regarded as a failure at the time. Considering everything it has going for it, I suppose I can't help but be disappointed that “Congo” isn't more fun, more often. I don't blame folks who look past its flaws and only remember the gonzo moments or amusing stars that prove most memorable. Yet the movie as a whole doesn't hold together for me. [6/10]

The Oily Maniac (1976)

I'm going to lay this on the table here: I'm woefully inexperienced to Hong Kong cinema. I know it's insanely my kind of thing but there's just so much of it. That's intimidating. But I do know that Shaw Brothers Studio was one of the leaders in insane martial arts cinema. I also know that, in addition to their countless kung-fu movies, Shaw Bros. also made a good number of oddball horror movies. Obscure in the states for years, these movies have been getting more exposure worldwide in the past decade thanks to DVD and Blu-Ray releases. One such title is “The Oily Maniac,” a loose remake of a Malaysian series of films inspired by a monster from local mythology. Sounds like a great place for me to start my Shaw Bros. exposure. 

Shen Yuan gets around on a pair of crutches, do to having polio as a kid. He works in a law office. One night, he and his childhood crush, Yue, witness a group of tough guys trying to intimidate his uncle. His uncle kills one of the guys in self-defense and is sent to trial for it, getting the death sentence. In his final hours, his uncle shows Shen Yuan a tattoo on his back that gives magical instructions on how he can be avenged. Digging a hole into the earth under his home, Yuan becomes the Oily Maniac, a greasy and slimy entity with incredible powers. He uses his new abilities to punish the wicked. Yet the line between justice and madness is a thin one.

As a monster movie, “The Oily Maniac” is delightfully nutty. The titular creature has glaring eyes, exposed jaws, and a drippy body made of black sludge. He can turn into an oil slick, allowing him to sneak into any number of places, such as through a bath drain or into a car. He can use it to pursue people more quickly. This is depicted via wonderfully goofy animation. The Oily Maniac's presence is always proceeded by a sound-a-like of the “Jaws” theme playing on the soundtrack. Shen Yuan, played by “Inframan's” Danny Lee, transforms into the monster whenever he covers himself in oily substances. This is a more common occurrence then you'd expect, the unlikeliness of the situation peaking when he crawls into a oil barrel on a busy street. The oil is also fatal to other people, the maniac smearing it on his victims face. In one of the film's funniest scenes, he even sprays it as a projectile. 

“The Oily Maniac” isn't just a monster flick though. The film is, in fact, a delirious genre hybrid of horror, martial arts action, superhero plotting, and exploitation thrills. Despite moving incredibly stiffly in the monster attack scenes, the Oily Maniac is still able to kick some ass in later scenes. Considering the Shaw Bros. pedigree, it should be unsurprising that the fight scenes are well choreographed. But these are even better, because the main fighter is wearing a rubbery oil slick suit. The scenes devoted to the Maniac quickly running off or scaling buildings and construction sites are hysterical. The violence ranges from simple strangulation, head bashing, and sword fights, to someone being beaten to death with a bicycle. 

The crud-covered cherry atop this greasy sundae is a heaping dose of sleaze. A deep vein of misogyny flows through “The Oily Maniac.” Through his job at the law firm, Yuan learns about a lawsuit where a woman accuses a man of rape. We see both his version of events, where she seduced him, and her version, where he violently assaulted her, play out on-screen. It seems the accusations are false and the Oily Maniac hunts her down afterwards. Later, the Maniac attacks a surgeon who deformed a woman's breasts during surgery. Apparently, she makes extra cash by repairing the hymens of girls being pimped. This is not the extent of “The Oily Maniac's” sleaziness, as there's other instances of female nudity, gratuitous sex, and women being abused. Moreover, part of Yuen's rampage is motivated by his childhood crush friend-zoning him... But the script makes sure she gets “punished” too, in the only plot choice that made me genuinely uncomfortable. (To make the film further politically incorrect, there's a heaping dose of ableism concerning Yuen's crippled status.)

It's pretty fucked-up but, if the rampant sexism doesn't make you queasy, “The Oily Maniac” can be enjoyed as an utterly nuts cult movie experience. The plot is highly episodic and repetitive, mostly devoted to Yuen discovering a crime, turning into the Oily Maniac, and attacking. While the movie raises questions of when justice becomes lunacy, when destroying evil turns you evil, it's not at all concerned with cerebral issues. In fact, after the Oily Maniac is vanished, the film abruptly ends. Which couldn't be more perfect, honestly. “The Oily Maniac” is the exact kind of midnight movie madness I crave. Incredibly sleazy, morally fucked-up, energetic, and totally unexpected, it's an slimy treat for those with a taste for this kind of thing. [8/10]

Ghost Stories: All Night Diner

I enjoyed the previous episode I watched of extremely obscure and very low budget anthology series “Ghost Stories.” So here's another. “All Night Diner” follows Teri, a frustrated housewife and mother of two who leaves home in the middle of the night to pursue an affair. Along the way, she's stopped by a highway patrolman, who warns her a killer is on the loose. She finds the man soon enough, a shoot-out with the cop following. Fleeing the scene, Teri nearly gets into a wreck. She pulls into Moe's Diner to catch her breath. She finds the staff inside uncomfortably familiar and drives away. Yet it seems Terri can't escape the all night diner, as every path leads back to it.

“Ghost Stories” aired on Fox-Family, the network that was the Pat Robertson owned Family Channel before then. The network – which is now the Disney-owned Freeform – has done everything it can to distance itself from Robertson's puritanical lunacy. Yet “All Night Diner” suggests “Ghost Stories” reflected those conservative Christian values more than expected. This is a half-hour of television all about punishing a woman who dared to abandon her role as wife and mother. The only glimpses we get of her home life are the nagging, whining recollections of her husband and kids we hear in her head. I can't blame her for wanting to get a release from that. But before she can even make it to her midnight booty-call, Terri is caught in a cycle of karmic punishments. She's terrified and then damned to a purgatory for just considering cheating on her husband, not even going through with it. That seems a little harsh.

If it wasn't apparent already, “All Night Diner” is heavy-handed. From the minute Terri arrives at the diner, it's clear she's already died and is now a ghost. The workers and customers of the diner harangue her for her poor moral choices. The script rubs it in further, when we see what happened to her husband. In addition to the one-note story, “Ghost Stories” also looks like it was shot extremely cheaply and quickly. There's an extremely random shoot-out and explosion in this episode but it all looks like it was shot in someone's backyard. There might be more charms hidden in “Ghost Stories” somewhere. I enjoy Rip Torn's melodramatic host segments. But this episode is lame enough to make me reluctant to give further episodes a look. [5/10]

Final Curtain (1957)

I thought I had reviewed every horror movie Edward D. Wood Jr. had a hand in making. However, I recently learned of the existence of “Final Curtain.” That would be a pilot for a TV series called “Portrait of Terror” that Ed Wood created in 1957, which the networks declined to pick up. It disappeared for 55 years until fans uncovered a copy in 2012. “Final Curtain's” plot and production values are meager even by the standards of Ed Wood movies. The pilot follows an actor wandering an empty theater after dark. He looks around and gets creeped out by nothing in particular. He discovers a mannequin of a female vampire, paws it, and then she smiles. He then descends into the basement and uncovers a box, calls it a coffin, and climbs inside. The end? 

“Final Curtain” distills the Ed Wood aesthetic down to its purest form. All 22 minutes are devoted to Duke Moore standing around in a darkened theater. He looks around at the shadowy corners, wide-eyed and gasping. All the while, Dudley Manlove provides some extremely overwrought narration. As you'd expect from Wood's writing, the dialogue is circular, bizarre, and oddly poetic. As if the entire thing couldn't get any more Woodian, Moore makes sure to caress the female mannequin's clothes after he discovers her. (I can't tell if her clothes are angora or not but I'm going to assume as much.) The ending is as abrupt and non-conclusive as possible, doing nothing to answer what any of the proceeding footage means. 

The entire thing is hilarious, nonsensical, and inexplicable. I am not exactly shocked that every TV network in 1957 passed on this. The only conventionally competent element of the film is that the shadowy photography is halfway decent. Otherwise, this is pure Ed Wood insanity, nothing but dramatic faces, insane narration, and random fetishism. I can't even imagine what a whole TV series of programs like this might've looked like. Taken on its own, “Final Curtain” is another fascinatingly weird peek into Ed Wood's nightmare netherworld. [7/10]