In the early eighties, Stephen King was really pumping 'em out. In the first four years of the decade, he released nine novels. If you round down by excluding the three published under the Richard Bachman pseudonym, that's still an astonishing output. This constant stream of new King Kontent still wasn't enough to satisfy a public ravenous for the author's work. 1983 saw three feature adaptations based on his writing, with another two following the next year. While most of these King movies were high-profile studio projects, one was more low-key. “Children of the Corn” was made for a little over a million dollars by Hal Roach Studios and distributed by New World Pictures. The actual budget was supposedly lower than that, after King demanded more money following his own script being rejected. Either way, the investment would pay off. “Children of the Corn” grossed over 14 million at the box office, became a VHS rental sleepover party favorite, and has remained a cult classic among genre enthusiast.
Nestled deep within Nebraska's corn country is the small town of Gatlin. The parents totally unaware, the children in the town begin worshiping a pagan deity they call He Who Walks Behind the Rows. One day, the pint-sized cultists murdered everyone over the age of 18 in the town. Three years later, soon-to-be-doctor Burt and his girlfriend Vicky are driving through Nebraska. They run over a boy on the road, soon discovering that the boy was already dead from a slit throat before they hit. The couple arrive in Gatlin looking for any sort of help. Instead, they find the Children of the Corn. Burt and Vicky do what they can to escape this small town hell, helping out Job and Sarah, the only kids in town rebelling against Isaac and Malachi, the cult's leader.
Like a lot of his work, Stephen King's short story exploits a revulsion of Christian fanaticism, which is carried over into the film. Whatever religion the Children are practicing, it's a weirdo cross pollination between Bible-thumping fundamentalisms and a Earth-worshipping paganism. The icon of the crucifix is warped into the image of a dead body strung up on a cross made of cornstalks. Isaac and Malachi are teenage Fred Phelps, spewing hellfire on anyone that has transgressed their moral code. But I think whatever power “Children of the Corn” has comes from another idea. Namely, what's the matter with kids these days? That the corn cult springs up under the parents' noses, germinating naturally among the youths, speaks to any moral panics about young people getting involved in something frightening that grown-ups don't understand. We, as a culture, can't escape this fear that the Kids Aren't Alright. That young minds are vulnerable to insidious ideas, which turn them into killers.
Despite being a cult classic among the kind of horror fan circles I tend to run in, I've never loved “Children of the Corn” much. Re-watching the film brings it flaws to light. There's quite a lot of goofiness on display here. An obvious dummy is creamed by a car. Corny optical effects proliferate in the last act. The acting, especially from the younger performers, veers towards the overblown and stilted. John Franklin as Isaac has a nasally voice that makes him hard to take seriously as a threat. Courtney Gains, as Malachi, delivers his lines in a stilted, sweaty fashion. On the page, it's a lot easier to take killer kids and malevolent cornstalks seriously. On-screen, the inherent silliness of these ideas become more apparent. Especially once Burt smacks Malachi around or gets entangled in some roving corn silk. Ultimately, the editing and cinematography in the film can be quite shaky at times.
Miss Muerte
It seems to me that Jesús Franco spent his career bouncing back and forth between two modes: Gothic horror and artsy-fartsy eroticism. The two tones often influenced each other but one usually took precedence. As censorship restrictions became more lax in Europe through the sixties and seventies, Franco started making a lot more films like "Vampyros Lesbos" and fewer films like "The Awful Dr. Orloff." This is what I've observed as a relative novice to Franco's staggering body of work, having only watched three of the over two hundred movies he made. From the brief tastes I've had, I think I definitely prefer his black-and-white horror flicks over his softcore fantasmas. This is why, in my latest attempt to familiarize myself with the director's many cult classics, I picked up "The Diabolical Dr. Z" from 1966, seemingly a direct attempt to recreate the success of "The Awful Dr. Orloff."
The sickly Professor Zimmer has been working on a machine that can separate the good from the evil within human beings. His sadistic daughter, Irma, convinces him to test the robotic mechanism on a recently escaped murderer, Hans. The result turns the man into an obedient slave. Zimmer tries to present his findings to his peers but they laugh at him, causing him to die of heartbreak. Irma fakes her own death (burning her face badly in the process) before beginning an elaborate scheme of vengeance. She kidnaps a burlesque dancer named Nadia – stage name Miss Death – and programs her to seduce and kill the men she blames for her father's passing.
As someone who finds the clichés of classic horror fascinating, not infuriating, I can certainly appreciate what "The Diabolical Dr. Z" sets out to do. However, the film's story still feels like an undisciplined mishmash of different plot elements. The opening, of a strangler escaping a crypt-like prison, suggests one movie before he collapses at Dr. Z's gates. The mad scientist plot moves forward next, featuring a bizarre device with robotic arms driving needles into people's spines. This then crashes into the idea of a brainwashed exotic dancer killing men with her poisonous fingernails. How exactly Irma decided this complicated path is the best way to avenge her father, I don't know. Meanwhile, Irma's face getting burned is a element that never truly effects the story, thrown in seemingly for the hell of it. Hot on the murderesses' trail is an eccentric police detective, exhausted because his wife recently gave birth to triplets. This comedic touch feels like it's from yet another type of movie. The writing in "The Diabolical Dr. Z" is silly and senseless, such as in two separate scenes where Irma convinces two different women to be alone with her after talking to them for a few minutes.
In short, "The Diabolical Dr. Z" is cheapie, sleazy Eurotrash that happens to look great. The puerile attitudes that would largely drive Franco's work are present, such as when a clueless hitchhiker decides to go skinny dipping with our murderous scientist. Or extended sequences of Hans stalking scantily-clad distressed damsels. The gore and brief nudity – Nadia has several prominent disrobing scenes – where assuredly quite salacious for 1966. The jazzy, discordant score similarly roots the movie to a specific time and place. No matter how dumb, derivative, and mixed-up I found the writing, the gorgeous images, evocative shadows, and dream-like cinematography greatly elevates the experience. Franco would remix the "Orloff" story many more times after this and I'll probably check some of those out down the line. Yet I'm really beginning to wonder if the guy didn't lose something in the leap from black and white to color. Without its monochrome visuals, "The Diabolical Dr. Z" would be a largely tedious experience. With them, it's damn near a classic. [7/10]
A few years back, I reviewed an episode of "'Way Out," the first anthology series hosted by Roald Dahl and one of the few horror shows legitimately canceled because the public thought it was too scary. That first episode was quite good and I've been wanting to get back to it. "I Heard You Calling Me" begins with Freda checking into what she describes as an "unfancy hotel." She is waiting for George, who is leaving his wife to go to America with her. Freda begins to receive phone calls from a threatening woman who insists that she knows what her and George are up to. That Freda will be leaving with her instead. The hotel operator insists no calls are incoming but the phone keeps ringing. Freda grows more terrified as the caller reveals she's on her way. Further clues suggest that, whoever this woman is, she's not alive...
"'Way Out" clearly didn't have the production values of "The Twilight Zone" or "Thriller" and all the surviving episodes are rather grainy and washed-out. Despite that, "I Heard You Calling Me" remains a very compelling half-hour of television. Confining itself largely to Freda's hotel room, we watch an already nervous woman crack up more as the threatening calls continue. The episode builds suspense through what is surely one of the oldest techniques in horror fiction. Someone is told that a force is coming to get them, that it's useless to fight back, and all they can do is wait for it. This tension is amplified by Constance Ford's genuinely fantastic performance, as a woman growing increasingly terrified. Every time she calls down to the operator, she's greeted with the cheeriest old woman, with a whimsical British accent, saying "Numba' pleese!" George has no idea what's going on either, each clue Freda reveals baffling him. It's like the whole universe is mocking Freda, as she is given nothing to do except anxiously dread the arrival of whoever it is that's after her.
“Gomez, the Politician” reveals that the Addams family has a history of getting involved in local politics, using their wealth to always drive candidates to loose spectacularly. Upon hearing that Sam L. Hilliard, the truant officer from the first episode, is running for town council, Gomez decides to back him. They especially enjoy his focus on swamp-related topics. The family promises to donate generously, though Hilliard wants nothing to do with the eccentric family. They continue to campaign for him anyway, in their own chaotic way. This has predictable results on Hiliard’s results on Election Day.
A goofy sitcom like “The Addams Family” doesn’t provide much in the way of biting, political commentary. However, there is a surprisingly sharp observation in “Gomez, the Politican.” When Gomez hears that Hiliard promises to “drain the swamp" – a term a lot older than Trump, it seems – the family takes it literally. And the idea of dreary, gloomy swamps being removed horrifies Morticia. Of course, Gomez also knows that politicians never keep their promises, assuming Hiliard has no intention on touching the swamps. It’s a wacky case of reverse psychology to play on a would-be city councilman. A family sitcom suggesting that a figure of authority might be dishonest or misleading showed that “Addams Family” really was trying to subvert some of the establishment morality of the day.
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