Halloween 2024: September 30th

Achoura (2018)

To the 1.9 billion people who identify as Muslims, the concept of the djinn is a well-known one. These invisible creatures, with insubstantial bodies made of smokeless fire, are mentioned 29 times in the Quran. They remain a consistent presence in the folklore of Muslim majority countries. Though the Quran is clear that djinn have free will, as capable of good or evil as human beings, myths usually portray them as mischievous or sinister figures that possess or trick people. In the Anglo world, the concept is still best known through the bowdlerized idea of the wish-granting genie. The morally ambiguous, spirit-like djinn of traditional lore has been making more in-roads in pop culture lately though. In the last decade, they've been the subject of a big budget Hollywood movie and multiple low budget horror flicks from around the world. An example of the latter is "Achoura," advertised as the first monster movie made in Morocco. French-Moroccan director Talal Selhami's film was completed in 2015, released locally in 2018, and found wider distribution in the English-speaking world in 2021. 

Long ago, during the Islamic festival of children, a young girl named Bashira was abducted by an otherworldly creature. Decades after that, a group of four kids – Nadia, Ali, Stéphane, and Samir – were lured into an abandoned house by her spirit. There, they unknowingly unleashed a child-eating djinn known as Bougatate. Samir was made the unwilling host for the creature, taken by the man devoted to keeping it trapped. Years pass and the four grow up. Ali becomes a cop, marries Nadia, and fathers a son with her. Stéphane uses his childhood horrors as inspiration for his career as a painter. When Bougatate is unleashed and Samir comes back into the group's life, they band together again to stop the monster before it takes Nadia and Ali's son. 

The opening scene of "Achoura" shows Bashira, who looks no older than twelve, being the child-bride of a much older man. Ali's specialty in the police department seems to be hunting down child molesters and pedophiles. This does not prevent him from being cold, or physically violent, towards his own son. Stéphane, meanwhile, remains locked in the headspace of his childhood trauma, painting the monster that attacked him over and over again. The anomalous antagonist is unleashed when a young boy approaches Samir, who has been reduced to a crouching, slurring vagrant after years of carrying an evil spirit in his belly. This scene obviously brings scenarios of kids being abducted or abused by random weirdos to mind. The way the script constantly references how the evil creature preys on and devours children – clearly inspired by the Bouchenka and other boogeymen of Morrocan lore – makes the intentions clear. "Achoura" is a film about how our childhood trauma molds us, how it creates both our strengths and our weaknesses. The ending makes it clear that the heroes hope to break this cycle, of abused kids turning into abusers themselves, before it is too late. Wrapping such a premise in fairy tale-like terms is a potent idea. 

It's also a story that bears more than a passing resemblance to Stephen King's "IT." "Achoura" was filmed before the release of the hugely successful 2018 adaptation of King's book. However, the similarities are still hard to ignore. Both stories are about adults reuniting with their tight-knit group of childhood friends, in order to banish the child-eating monster they faced before in their youths. Both groups forget about the horror they fought as kids, except for one who becomes an expert in the subject. King's eldritch terror taking on the form of a clown brought obvious suggestions of kid-diddling perverts to mind, a subtext "Achoura" engages with in ways both more and less direct. King's book, its cinematic adaptations, and "Achoura" all have the heroes entering into a spooky old house to confront the beast. Most obviously, "Achoura" and the literary "IT" cut back and forth between the protagonists' current adulthoods and their childhood days to tell their stories. This presents the biggest problem for Selhami's film. King's book is a sprawling epic that spans over a thousand pages. It has more than enough room to develop its wide cast of characters, digging into their backstories and histories. "Achoura," meanwhile, is only a little over ninety minutes long. It doesn't have time to properly establish its cast as either adult or kids, as well as tell its story of confronting a demon. The result is a film full of thinly developed characters facing off against a mythic villain who never seems to be more than a vague concept. I almost always believe that horror films are best kept short but this is one that very much needed a longer runtime to properly tell its story. 

Since the characters are never more than archetypal, it's difficult to be invested in which ones live and die. Stéphane is only a neurotic artist. Ali is only a hard-ass cop, while Nadia is nothing but a wife and mother dealing with a difficult husband and son. Samir's bizarre circumstances leave him as a walking plot device. Without characters we can attach to, "Achoura" is unable to create any foreboding ambiance. Selhami and cinematographer Mathieu de Montgrand create some decent looking gothic atmosphere, especially once the creepy old house becomes the primary location. However, the central monster is mostly brought to life through CGI of wildly varying quality. Sometimes the creature – whose face resembles a plague doctor mask, a rabbit skull, or an insect with especially yonic mandibles – looks okay. When lurking in a dark corner or under a bed, it's a decent effect. Other times, however, the beast appears as a deeply unconvincing computer-generated model, that never seems to be on the same plain or existence as the performers or sets it interacts with. Instead of keeping the thing in the shadows, the filmmakers thrust it into the light far too often, leaving little chance for it to spook or unnerve the viewer. 

Dismissing "Achoura" as a foreign knock-off of King's work isn't fair. It is steeped in too many culturally specific ideas for that to be the case. However, it seems unlikely that King's book didn't at least inspire center aspects of the movie. Aiming for that universality means the film isn't as distinct as it could have been either. Mostly, a script that doesn't develop its characters enough and some truly mediocre special effects keep this otherwise decently produced motion picture from being more enjoyable. Selhami and his team are talented and I look forward to what they might do in the future, provided they focus less on middling CGI. Ultimately, "Achoura" left me hoping that the next monster movie that gets made in Morocco is better. [5/10] 

The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955)

Earlier this year, we lost a titan of the genre. I can only be referring to Roger Corman, the man whose ability to spot talent while always understanding what an audience wanted made him a pioneering independent filmmaker and a grand elder statesman of the genre. Of course, that's not what Corman is truly famous for. Instead, his ability to stretch a penny as far as he could and crank out B-movies at an astonishing rate was his most notorious talent. Corman's first movie as producer was “Monster from the Ocean Floor” and his first horror movie as director was “Day the World Ended.” Officially anyway. After making his first two pictures of a three picture deal for the nascent American Releasing Company –  not yet known as American International Pictures – the still learning Corman overspent a little on “Five Guns West.” This left the third movie, “The Beast with a Million Eyes,” only 29,000 dollars to work with. Running into issues with the unions, Corman took over directing from credited filmmaker, David Kramarsky, to get the flick in the can. This gives “The Beast” the somewhat dubious distinction of being Corman's technical first horror movie.

Somewhere in the Coachella Valley, Allan Kelley and his family – nervous wife Carol, tomboy daughter Sandy – reside on his struggling date farm. The only other people for company is a strange, mute workhand who only goes by “Him” and the family dog, Duke. The tensions in the household peek when a strange aircraft passes overhead, shattering all the glass in the house. Afterwards, Carol notices that Duke is acting violently. All the animals in the area are behaving strangely. Both Sandy and Him start to wander off into the desert in trances. Allan becomes increasingly convinced something has landed near-by. He's right: An alien entity without form and driven only by a cruel intelligence has arrived, observing the humans through the eyes of all the animals it can possess. 

Within the realm of vintage drive-in monster flicks, "Beast with a Million Eyes" is notorious for featuring a grotesque creature on the poster that never actually appears in the film. Knowing this still did not prepare me for how low-key exactly this particular motion picture is though. For most of its short 77 minute runtime, "Beast with a Million Eyes" is less of a monster movie and more of a suffocating melodrama about an isolated family on the verge of collapse. Father Allan begins the movie with an internal monologue about the crushing failure of farming dates. Shortly after being introduced, mother Carol admits she resents her own daughter for having youth and beauty. Later, when she's forced to kill Sandy's beloved dog, it's easy to believe that the woman would do it only to punish the daughter she despises so much. "Him," by far the strangest character in the movie, is introduced glaring at the women through the window of his shed. He decorates his walls with cut-outs of pin-up girls and clutches a girly magazine. Later, when teenage Sandy takes a dive in the local swimming hole, he climbs into a date tree and spies on her. Despite how obviously uncomfortable this creepy guy makes the women, Allan laughs it off and ignores the concerns of his wife and daughter. Lorna Thayer plays Carol as barely holding it together, a hysterical and overdone performance, while Paul Birch is nothing but a bland, stately voice of authority as Allan. The wife is losing her mind, the husband is clueless, the daughter needs someone to genuinely care about her, and the hired help seems minute away from committing a sex crime. You find yourself really wishing a monster would show up already, simply so you can get away from this dysfunctional, miserable family for a few minutes.

Not that the scenes of sci-fi/horror are much better than the plodding, miserablist melodrama. Every attempt the film makes to be scary or suspenseful proves to be underwhelming. The Beast seizing control of animals could've been an interesting premise. The scenes of simple black birds pelting a car or the family dog turned into a killer subvert commonplace creatures into objects of fear. However, the actors rarely interacting with the animals. When Duke the dog is terrorizing Carol, the actress never seems to be in the same room with the canine. A scene where a docile milk cow becomes vicious is similarly awkward in its construction, mostly composed of closeup on the heifer's face cut with people cowering on the ground. When the cast actually does touch the animals, the results are no more impressive. A scene where Carol is attacked by leaping chickens produces laughter rather than shivers. A brief opening narration explains how the titular beast has a million eyes, a desperate attempt to justify a lurid title in a film that couldn't afford a real monster. Instead, the "beast" is mostly represented by a twirling device in a cave that makes an annoying noise. When Sam Arkoff saw the finished movie, he reportedly insisted an actual monster be hastily inserted. Paul Blaisdell, in the first of his many jobs for AIP, was given all of two hundred bucks to whip something up. The result is a snarly faced miniature that appears in one blurry sequence near the end, never stepping outside of the (unconvincingly tiny) spaceship as it glares at the humans. Blaisdell said the entire scene was shot in ten minutes, so I suppose the results are actually decent considering those circumstances. 

Tom Filer's script obviously can't shine much when surrounded by such meager production values. The story is largely composed of the family bickering in their home or people wandering around the desert. Allan comes to some surprising leaps of logic concerning the threat at hand, which seems far beyond his mundane skills of observation. One attack sequence takes place entirely off-screen, Carol unenthusiastically explaining the events that brought them back to that damn farm house. Incidental dialogue from Sandy's boyfriend or the cattle rancher is mind-numbingly inane. Repeated references to a "plane" or all the glass in the house shattering are attempts to pad the script out. "Him's" backstory, the reason the dad tolerates the obvious creep's behavior, is dropped on us in one maudlin monologue. The biggest indicator of the film's cheapness is the climax, which takes the form of Allan and the family arguing with the psychic voice of the invader. How the dialogue keeps circling back to themes of love and togetherness, concepts the alien intelligence can't comprehend, quickly becomes hilariously overwrought. Those unearned pretensions continue into a philosophical postscript, which seems to add some vague religious context to all that has occurred. It is, to say the least, underwhelming. (And no "what is this thing you call love?" rambling could cover up that Flier's premise isn't much more than a rip-off of "It Came from Outer Space.")

I'm a fan of cheapie monster movies and my tolerance for B-movie tedium is higher than most. "The Beast with a Million Eyes" still had me fighting sleep, the finished film feeling much longer than it actually is. When you read about the behind-the-scenes struggles of the production – much more interesting than the actual movie, it must be said – I suppose it's impressive that a presentable motion picture was assembled at all. Clearly, Roger Corman's abilities to simply get the footage in the can, no matter how meager that budget was, were honed during shoots like this. That doesn't mean "The Beast with a Million Eyes" is good though. We were a while off from ol' Rog being able to toss together a cult classic like "A Bucket of Blood" or "Little Shop of Horrors" within a weekend. Instead, "The Beast with a Million Eyes" is largely dull, filled with off-putting characters and desperate attempts to add some depth to a story where little actually happens. An overwhelming shoddiness infects the entire picture, with little of the charm or cleverness that would characterize AIP's later monster quickie. That a nightmare production like this, resulting in such a lame movie, didn't put Corman off filmmaking forever – instead kicking off an astonishingly prolific, nearly seventy year long career with an immeasurable legacy – is a testament to his skill, talent, and sheer passion for the medium. "The Beast with a Million Eyes" mostly blows but Roger Corman will always be a hero of mine. [4/10]

The Ray Bradbury Theater: The Coffin 

Out of the roughly ten thousand stories Ray Bradbury wrote – about 9,000 of which are fucking phenomenal – 65 would be adapted for "The Ray Bradbury Theater" over the course of six seasons and two networks. "The Coffin" is one such episode. Charles Braling is a very rich, brilliant, and reclusive inventor and roboticist. His younger brother, Richard, is greedy and broke. The two had a falling out over a woman some time ago. Richard visits his brother's mansion, maintained by robotic butlers, and discovers him building an elaborate coffin. Charles, in poor health, passes away after the two have an argument. Richard is willed the house and everything within it. Shortly before his death, Charles hid his entire fortune somewhere inside the building. Having ignored his brother's wishes, Charles left the mechanical coffin in his lab. He soon deduces that the money must be hidden there, fulfilling a plot of revenge from beyond the grave. 

For its first half, "The Coffin" is essentially a two-man play between beloved character actors Dan O'Herlihy and Denholm Elliot. O'Herlihy's deep voice and commanding presence makes Richard Brasling immediately seem like the wiser, more upright of the brothers. Elliot, meanwhile, brings an appropriate weaselly quality to Charles, a cad if there ever was one. That the two stars can so quickly establish who these characters are is good, since we only have 22 minutes to tell this story. Bradbury's precise dialogue sounds extremely good coming out of O'Herlihy's mouth. After his character dies, that voice is still put to good use. Even if watching Denholm Elliot by himself, entertaining a performer as he may be, isn't as compelling as seeing these two eighties genre icons verbally spar. 

If you haven't read the original story – I haven't gotten to this one yet – it's still fairly easy to deduce where all this is headed. However, it's certainly still a ride worth taking. The robots represent the past's version of the future, meaning they are incredibly charming to see now. That's an example of "The Ray Bradbury Theater's" limited budget actually working in its favor. The climatic booby trap plays out as both black comedy and surprisingly chilling horror. As he's trapped inside the coffin, Charles is berated by a demeaning message from his late brother. The episode cuts between the panicking Charles inside the glass case and the view outside, in which his cries are totally unheard behind the sound-proof material. Unsettling! The very final image pairs the fear of being buried alive with a sense of bitter justice, a bastard done in through suitably ironic means by a lesser bastard. Exactly the kind of sci-fi tinged but deliciously macabre fables Bradbury specialized in, brought to life faithfully by some fine actors. [7/10]

The Addams Family: The Addams Family in Court

Gomez Addams' rarely utilized profession as a lawyer takes center stage in "The Addams Family in Court." While Morticia and her husband were out bat hunting, Granmama has taken up her old habit of fortune telling again. She's successful enough to attract the attention of the police, who take Granmama away to prison for a municipal code violations. It's a simple ten dollar fee but Gomez decides to take the case, his loophole heavy defense thoroughly baffling and irritating the straight-laced judge. 

Despite appearing in the opening credits of every episode, Blossom Rock hasn't gotten much to do as Granmama over the course of these first twenty episodes. "The Addams Family in Court" is a rare Granmama-centric episode. Previous installments mostly portrayed her as a wild old woman fond of battle axes and darts. That characterization continues here, in amusing scenes of Rock clanging a tin cup against her jail cell bars only because she saw it in a prison movie once. This episode also established Granmama's more common attribute as an old witch with a mischievous streak. Her powers of precognition seem quite genuine but her fortuneteller act still feels like a con job. I imagine she likes it that way. Rock does get several laughs here, whenever asked to display an innocent seeming face or where enthusiastically practicing what amounts to her carnival act. 

For the most part though, this is another episode devoted to the Addamses Freakin' Out the Squares. Gomez' tactics as a lawyer seems to mostly be confusing the judge with as much nonsense as possible, while throwing around wild accusations. This is presumably why he has a perfect record of no wins or losses. A lot of the expected gags – Thing popping out of an unusual place, Fester sticking a lightbulb on his mouth – show up, while the judge looks on in shock. Hal Smith makes for a fairly tedious straight man. He's then driven off to some obscure corner of the world by his experience with the Addams, as usual by now.  However, there are some good gags in this episode. How the court case concludes is amusing enough. The discussion of bat hunting at the beginning made me chuckle, as did the cop's reaction to Uncle Fester's bald head. The episode's final scene features a cute double headed teapot, one of the many amazing props for this show that disappeared after its cancelation. [6/10]

Halloween 2024: September 29th

Nightwatch (1994)

Nattevagten

If you are a fan of slickly shot thrillers, possibly featuring serial killers or seductive femme fatales, it's probably because you came of age in the nineties. That was this particular style's brightest point in the mainstream limelight, in the time between the slasher genre's cultural dominance and before its ironic revival later in the decade. Otherwise known as the period directly after "Silence of the Lambs" won all those Oscars. This phenomenon was not limited to the United States either. In 1994, a well photographed, low-budget thriller became the highest grossing movie of the year in Denmark. That means Ole Bornedal's "Nightwatch" outgrossed "Jurassic Park" in its home country. Since then, the film has remained well regarded by the Danes and continues to pop up on comprehensive list of genre classics. 

Law student Martin, in need of funds, takes a job as a night watchman at Copenhagen's Forensic Medical Institute. His nightly duties involve checking all the keys in the building, including in the morgue. In his time off, Martin hangs out with his girlfriend, Kalinka, and his best friend, Jens. The guys like to make juvenile challenges with each other, dares that transgress the lines of politeness. Recently, Jens has become fascinated with a prostitute named Joyce. At the same time, the city's sex workers are being targeted by a killer whose trademark is scalping the bodies... Bodies that end up at Martin's morgue. After some strange incidents at the hospital, the police begin to suspect Martin might be their killer. He wonders if Jens is the murderer. Kalinka has the same suspicions. It won't be long before the butcher's identity is revealed.

Bornedal and his team obviously studied Hitchcock before making "Nightwatch." The film puts a number of the master's lessons to work. The story slowly reveals itself to be a Wrong Man narrative, Martin accused of a crime he knows he didn't commit and rushing to clear his own name before he's locked up. The script frequently puts its characters in situations where danger is lurking right next to them. Kalinka ends up in an apartment with the killer, whose gloved hand appears around the opened door as she looks on. There's a deliberate drip-feed of information to the audience, setting up several scenes in the last third where we, the viewer, know something that the character doesn't. When it dawns on them that a murderous lunatic is in the room with them, this is often accompanied by a slow zoom-in on the actor's shocked faces. If the obvious debt "Nightwatch" shows to Hitchcock wasn't already apparent, the soundtrack features some shrieking strings clearly inspired by Bernard Herrmann's "Psycho" score. "Nightwatch" utilizes these tools well, getting your heartbeat up throughout on the way to a properly exciting finale. 

The effectively tense, and at times foreboding, atmosphere "Nightwatch" captures is largely thanks to Dan Laustsen's cinematography. The film begins with a long tracking shot, through the home as the main characters have a meal in the other room. This creates the idea of being watched, which is revisited through a number of similarly shot sequences. There's a shadowy chilliness to much of the film, the color palette going for cool blues and isolating blacks that doesn't cease when the couples are together. The forensic center is a great setting too. Martin's office resides in a glass case at the end of a long hallway, continuing the paranoid sensation of being observed. Much of the hospital is framed in sickly greens or sterile whites, solidifying the inhuman, uncomfortable sensation we associate with it. This is most true of the morgue, a room always shot in such a way that we never forget there are dead bodies right there the whole time. The clever, intuitive visuals are responsible for a large part of what makes "Nightwatch" work. 

I wish the script was that strong. It's not that "Nightwatch" is badly written. However, the film begins in a much darker place than it ends. Kim Bodnia plays Jens as an always sweaty lout, with a sleaziness about him that suggests he knows plenty about the depraved side of life. Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, meanwhile, portrays Martin as a stout-chinned, blonde babe-in-the-woods, the kind of naive and handsome guy the audience can pin their hopes on. The expectation is that Jens' presence will corrupt Martin's purity in time. That's the sense you get from the scene where the friend sadistically mocks a sex worker in a fancy restaurant or Martin does something inappropriate in the morgue. However, the narrative bends in a totally different direction, blaming the violence and depravity in the story on an outside source. Jens performs a self-sacrificing act, a metaphorical atonement for his earlier bad behavior, on the way to a happy ending that seems incompatible with the film's first act. "Nightwatch" introduces bleak and disturbing themes – necrophilia, a serial killer who mutilates sex workers, men generally treating women badly – but never builds on them in complete ways. An ultimately crowd pleasing story is stuffed with sticky subjects seemingly as flavoring only. 

The result is a film that functions best as a technical exercise, well shot with likable performances and compelling characters. Bornedal nails the mechanics of creating an intense thriller. However, he gets cold feet about the darker elements that he inserted into his own story. Clearly, others don't agree with me on this one. "Nightwatch" has made more than one list of the best Danish films of all time. Bornedal has gone onto a good career, including directing an English language remake of his breakout film and, more recently, a thirty years later sequel. (Though both seem to be regarded as inferior to the original.) Nikolaj Coster-Waldau became a successful Danish export too. While "Nightwatch" can't go toe-to-toe with its influences, I am glad I watched it. Even if a great movie is obviously somewhere in the guts of the pretty good one we got instead. [7/10]

Let's Kill Uncle (1966)

Before the sixties ended, camp horror icon William Castle would make a bid for respectability by re-mortgaging his house – the second time he raised funds that way – to purchase the rights to Ira Levin's "Rosemary's Baby." The ever-savvy Castle knew that an adaptation of the bestseller could be a bridge between the B-budget gimmick horrors that brought him fame and more prestigious fare. Ultimately, Paramount exec Robert Evans insisted Roman Polanski direct the film, Castle being slotted into a producer role instead. If you look at the movies Castle made right before this happened, you can see his growing weariness with in-theater gimmicks. Of the three pictures Castle made with Universal in the middle sixties, only "I Saw What You Did" had an outrageous marketing stunt. The other thrillers to emerge from this period, "The Night Walker" and "Let's Kill Uncle," went out gimmick-less. While the former has garnered some praise over the years, you almost never see folks talking about the other. Let's try and uncover why "Let's Killed Uncle" failed to kill viewers. 

After Russell Harrison dies in a mysterious car crash, his five million dollar fortune is set to be inherited by his twelve year old son, Barnaby. Barnaby's guardian is to be his uncle, Major Kevin Harrison, a former spy and war hero. The major lives on an isolated tropical island. Barnaby travels there with police sergeant Frank Travis and Chrissie, a girl sent to live with her aunt by an apathetic father. The island is drought with danger, including a dilapidated old hotel and shark-infested waters. The biggest danger to the kids, however, proves to be Uncle Kevin himself. He gleefully announces his intentions to murder his nephew, so that he'll inherit his late brother's wealth. The boy and Chrissie decide to go on the offensive, plotting to kill uncle before he kills them. 

Castle's brand of goofy gimmick horror always appealed to kids. You can see the director cashing in on this, by making children the central characters in "13 Ghosts" or "I Saw What You Did." "Homicidal," "Strait Jacket," and "The Night Walker" were Hitchcock knock-offs and naturally skewed older. "Let's Kill Uncle" represents an old attempt to blend these two approaches. With the stars being twelve year olds, scheming against grown-ups, the movie feels a bit like the shenanigans-filled live action Disney movies of that decade. At the same time, the perversity of an adult plotting to kill a child being played as black comedy seems like something Hitch would do. This is paired with a light romantic subplot, of the police sergeant growing closer to Chrissie's aunt, that is reminiscent of "To Catch a Thief" or "Rear Window." This is further blended with some minor Bondian elements – what with the death traps and all the talk of espionage – and more classical horror elements. Such as that spooky abandoned hotel, some hypnotism, a blanket of foggy atmosphere over a few scenes, and a jump scare involving a scarred, legless local. 

The result is a tonal oddity that never quite comes together. The movie seems designed for kids. There are outrageous plot points, such as a shark living in a swimming pool or the evil uncle being a master of mesmerism, that a child would be most convinced by. Uncle Kevin is a cartoonish villain, played with full campy verve by Nigel Green, who gleefully announces his homicidal plans to the boy. Plot points about international spying or Uncle Kevin being part of an ancient criminal conspiracy never comes to fruition, which would probably be more readily accepted by a young audience. The kiddie approach is most evident in two ways. Firstly, the movie has a terrible, deflating ending that removes much of the tension of everything that came before, showing a sort of gee-shucks optimism that is counter to the actions of the plot. Mostly though, it's those kids. Pat Cardi is often grating as the bratty, ever-energetic Barnaby. His habit of weaving big lies – which feels like it's pointing towards a "Boy Who Cried Wolf" moral that never materializes – immediately makes him unlikable. Chrissie, played by "To Kill a Mockingbird's" Mary Badham, has a conceited smarminess to her that makes her difficult to sympathize with. This is paired with a sob story background that does nothing to make her more likable. 

That "Let's Kill Uncle" never successfully blends its different tones and plot points is disappointing. When operating as a more traditional kid-friendly horror movie, it's decently effective. That derelict hotel is the best set in the movie, the location for two of the better scenes. Such as the climax, when uncle stops messing around and starts getting serious about murdering these juveniles, that features a dead body being wheeled out of the shadows. Silly as it is, the image of a shark's fin breaking through the surface of a swimming pool taps into a common childhood fear. You can feel the movie almost leaning into that dream-like vibe, with the artificiality of the island sets or the layer of mists floating over a few scenes. The sequence where the kids plot to feed Uncle Kevin some poisonous mushrooms, playing out around a dinner table, points out what could've been a deeper theme. Namely, that kids and adults live in two different worlds. Those worlds come into conflict often, children and their authority figures frequently at odds with each other. If "Let's Kill Uncle" centered this idea more, blowing up the tension between youngsters and grown-ups into a murderous narrative, it would've been a stronger, eerier movie. Instead, it recedes back into sitcom normality whenever this Grimm's fairy tale angle starts to take focus. 

I cannot over-emphasize how bad that ending is. It's been stated that several conclusions were shot, Universal choosing the lamest one. That it comes on the back of a decently macabre climax leaves the viewer with a sour feeling. If Castle had followed this up with "Rosemary's Baby," it would've been a return to form. Instead, Polanski and Evans got all the credit for the film's success and Castle suffered through a bout of kidney failure. When he returned, he was back to making films like this, that never quite come together into a cohesive whole. There's a few moments in "Let's Kill Uncle" that shows the flair for the macabre and outrageous that the director had in his best work. However, they are fleeting among a series of competing tones and a story that never quite builds on what it sets up. [5/10]

Tales from the Darkside: The Cutty Black Sow

Generally regarded among "Tales from the Darkside's" scariest episodes, "The Cutty Black Sow" is doubly appropriate for this time of year as it's set on Halloween. In the late hours of October 30th, Jamie's great grandmother is near death. In the final minutes of her life, she warns her great-grandson about the Cutty Black Sow, an entity that steals the souls of their family every Halloween. The demon can only be held off with an elaborate ritual, involving writing the initials of each family member on stones and circling them around the All Hallows Eve fire, which must burn through the night. Jamie is tasked with taking his little sister trick-or-treating but is still determined to see the practice through, lest the Cutty Black Sow take his great-grandmother's soul to Hell. Little Gloria doesn't understand what her brother is doing and that leads to trouble... 

"Tales from the Darkside" was ostensibly a program for grown-ups. However, it seems most every fan of the show first saw it as kids, traumatized by a particularly intense episode. The producers must've been aware of the show's popularity among young people, as several of its most highly rated episodes center around children. This is certainly true of "The Cutty Black Sow," which largely plays as a horror story for children. The idea of a kid taking a grandparent's warning – delivered literally on their deathbed naturally – far more seriously than his peers seems like the kind of a thing is a kid would do. Halloween being centered as the night of the horror and the responsibility towards a younger (irritating) sibling are all very child-like contrivances. This is ultimately the tale of a kid hearing an old ghost story and creeping themselves out with it, to the point of imagining monsters in the dark. What is a more child-like experience than that? 

This approach naturally lends "The Cutty Black Sow" a somewhat hokey feeling. Huckleberry Fox's performance as Jamie is utterly ridiculous. The episode largely being confined to one living room set reflects the show's cheapness. At the same time... From its opening shot, centered on a dying old woman's face, "The Cutty Black Sow" captures a certain sinister feeling. The score is heavy on the ominous drone of bagpipes. Predatory yellow eyes, staring in from a window, glowing in the dark, is a memorably creepy image. It all leads towards a surprisingly fucked-up ending that attacks a child's mind in their most vulnerable place. Yeah, I can totally see this scaring the shit out of a kid who stumbled upon it late at night, on some obscure local channel. "Tales from the Darkside" rarely had much in the way of resources or sophistication. It could still deliver an intense shock ending when it wanted, which is very much on display here. [7/10]

The Addams Family: Cousin Itt Visits the Addams Family 

The most well-known, and perhaps most bizarre, of the extended Addams family would make his first appearance in the twentieth episode. "Cousin Itt Visits" begins with Parks Commissioner Fiske arriving at Cemetery Lane, requesting a donation to open an expansion to the city zoo. The same day, the hirsute Cousin Itt comes to stay for a night. Though beloved by the family, Morticia worries about Itt's lack of employment. Gomez soon decides Itt would make a fine authority at the new zoo. However, Fiske mistakes Itt for a wild animal and displays him in a cage. This eventually leads to a wild misunderstanding about a horrible beast escaping the zoo and moving towards the Addams' home. 

Thoroughly into its first season, "The Addams Family" was a well oiled gag delivery machine by this point. "Cousin Itt Visits" begins with the memorable sight of Thing playing castanets, the first of several amusing bits. Such as Morticia naming off whatever French words she can think of, to further Gomez's excitement. (Later, Gomez admits that he also excites himself when speaking French, a line John Astin makes hilariously perverse.) Or an absurd exchange of dialogue that concerns what objects in the house Fester can shoot with his blunderbuss. Really, the cast has settled in with these characters so totally that they can make almost any bit of dialogue amusing. As seen in Ted Cassidy deadpanning a line about how Itt exits the house or Jackie Coogan's spirited reaction to the climatic injustice. 

Naturally, the episode's best absurd joke is Cousin Itt him/itself. The foreign Addamses with bizarre physical features usually only exist as off-screen jokes. That the show manages to make the first to actually visually appear stranger is a compliment to the writers. A four foot tall wig walking around is odd enough but, this show being what it is, Itt is portrayed as nothing but charming. He performs magic tricks, tells jokes, and is implied to be the life of the party wherever he goes. A surprising degree of personality is given to this squawking hairball. (Under all that shag is Felix Silla, a short actor who would have quite a storied career in genre television and film.) It's a strong enough episode that the expected bits of Alan Reed as the Parks Commissioner responding with shock to the Addams' home are quite funny. [7/10]

Halloween 2024: September 28th

Sweetie, You Won't Believe It (2022)

Zhanym, ty ne poverish

Located geographically and culturally between Russia, the Middle East, and China, Kazakhstan is a country that probably seems remote to most Americans. It has a population of 20 million but global awareness is such that a not inconsiderate amount of people thought it was invented for "Borat." Pop culture is one of the most powerful tools for spreading general culture around the world. The films of Kazakhstan rarely gets much exposure outside its borders, leading to the country's cinematic output unfortunately being obscure. Hopefully that is changing, as more Kazakhstani imports are becoming available over here. And it was only a matter of time before one of them crossed over into that most profitable of all genres. Produced in 2020 by Yernar Nurgaliyev, "Sweetie, You Won't Believe It" is probably Kazakhstan's first horror/comedy. It's certainly the first to make any in-roads in America, thanks to Shudder picking it up.

Relentlessly henpecked by his pregnant wife, Dastan hopes to forget some of his troubles by taking a day long fishing trip with two old buddies, Arman and Murat. The trip gets off to a bad start. Murat throws a bottle of urine out the window and into an on-coming vehicle's windshield. The trio has to improvise a raft from the blow-up dolls Arman sells as part of his sex toy business. While floating down the river, the bickering trio witness a quartet of would-be gangsters assassinate a man that owes them some money. The four take chase after Dastan and his friends. The already tense situation escalates further when a mysterious man with one eye and super-human strength – looking for revenge for a family dog they struck and killed with their car – begins to pursue and brutally kill the crooks. A perverted gas station owner, his lonely daughter, and a helpful horse also become entangled in the proceedings. Dastan, Arman, and Murat attempt to make it out alive and return home before Dastan becomes a father.

At one point in “Sweetie, You Won't Believe It,” there's a shot of a spooky, isolated cabin with a strangely large moon superimposed on the sky above. This immediately made me think of all the similar shots from “The Evil Dead.” It's easy to imagine this as an intentional homage, since Nurgaliyev's film has an similar sense of comedic carnage. The film is an escalating series of bloody mishaps. A key, early sequence has Dastan loosing his pants following a close call with a fishing hook. This is shortly followed by Arman getting his ear lob ripped off in similar fashion. Not long after that, Murat is shot in the ass, a wound he carries all throughout the film. Scenes like this establish the film's  tendency for madcap running gags. Such as the fruitiest member of the criminal gang fainting at the sight of blood. Or one oddball misunderstanding after another, climaxing with Dastan trying to explain to his attempted murderer what exactly is going on. “Sweetie, You Won't Believe It” quickly captures a tone of wacky humor, bringing its various reoccurring gags and set-ups back around in increasingly funny ways. 

While the movie is packed full of belly laughs, there's also some strong filmmaking on display here. Nurgaliyev directed four films before this one and has made four since, while cinematographer Azamat Dulatov has quite an extensive resume. Both are clearly professionals, which is likely why “Sweetie, You Don't Believe It” is such a good looking movie. Off-beat point-of-view shots are utilized, as are some cleverly disorientating Steadycam sequences. A stand-out moment has Marut barely avoiding detection from the killer, ducking behind walls and objects right as the guy turns his back each time. It's an impressive scene, that skillfully balances both suspense and comedy. The finale features some well-done fight choreography too, showing a definite influence from Hong Kong action movies. The whip sharp editing further emphasizes the clever camera movements, acting much like punchlines to jokes. The movie's visual construction and its loopy comedic tone are right in line with each other. 

I'm admittedly fairly ignorant about Kazakhstani culture. While “Sweetie, You Won't Believe It” surely reflects the unique attributes of its filmmakers and storytellers' lives, the script also focuses on universal themes. Dastan being an expected father, in over his head and overwhelmed, is something that can be found in any country. The movie ultimately centers around the meaning of manhood. Dastan's friends mock him, saying he's whipped by his controlling wife. Murat claims to be a police officer, greatly exaggerated his own achievements. Meanwhile, the quartet of gangsters are all tightly bounded with each other, despite their constant bickering. Once the bloodshed starts, the shotgun-wielding Petok becomes obsessed with avenging his fallen brothers. More is revealed about these guys' backstories as the film goes on, the different men standing up for one another. Dastan learns to defemd himself against his brutish wife but the movie's thesis is less macho and woman-hating than that suggests. The script ultimately decides that standing by, and standing up for, those you care about is how actual manliness should be valued.

“Sweetie, You Won't Believe It” is my favorite kind of discovery: A movie I went into with no expectations that ended up surprising and delighting me. The cast are all fully committed to their parts, the script smartly giving us a clear idea of who these people are very quickly simply through the way they act and look. While the influences are evident – “Texas Chain Saw Massacre” is another one, Leatherface's legacy spreading across the globe in a way Tobe Hooper surely couldn't have anticipated – the movie manages to bring them all together in a fresh and funny way. Only some iffy special effects, used to display the killer's superhuman abilities, stick out to me as a negative. Even if the bizarre subplot about the gas station owner and his daughter never quite goes anywhere, I had fun with it too. This is an energetic, consistently hilarious, cleverly engineered genre hybrid. [9/10]

Bizarre (1970)

The DVD era was truly a time for unearthing forgotten, weird films of years passed. I don't think streaming or the Blu-Ray/4K days will dig up as many baffling obscurities. A good example is a British anthology film from 1970 known in its native land as "Secrets of Sex" but released abroad as, simply, "Bizarre." The directorial debut of Antony Balch, the film was subject to censorship and re-cutting when new. Afterwards, it would sink into obscurity before Synapse put it out on disc in 2005. That's when I first read about it and the mixture of mummy movie, kinky skin flick, and anthology horror stuck with me. No physical re-release has followed since but the movie is available on various services, meaning it's time for me to catch up with this one. 

In days of old, the lover of a judge's wife was locked in a trunk and cast off a cliff. Now an immortal mummy, the man has watched the battle of the sexes play over the centuries. He presents six tales: A naïve man poses for a torture themed photoshoot, unaware of how far the female photographer plans to push things. A childless widower marries a younger woman with the intention of producing an heir, unaware that she carries a strange hereditary condition. A married man catches a female burglar attempting to rob his house, a game of seduction ensuing. A socially awkward American orders a call girl, hoping to share his fetish for reptiles and dinosaurs with her. An old woman captures the souls of her lovers in the flowers in her garden. The lengthiest segment involves Lindy Leigh, a lady spy recruited to use her sex appeal to gather secrets from a foreign dignitary. 

"Bizarre" can be classified as an odd fusion of comedy, erotica, and horror. The segments that veer towards the macabre and strange are strongest. The first episode, about the bondage photoshoot, is by far the best. It revolves around a distressing torture device called the Spanish horse, the story mining a bit of suspense out of the boundaries between pleasure, pain, commerce, and the battle between the sexes. The fetishistic angle returns with the call girl sequence. Using fish-eye lens effects and exaggerated sound design, the story shows accurately how our sex drives and otherwise innocent interests can become entangled in our youths. It also features a prominent role for the Crystal Palace Dinosaurs, pieces of infamously bizarre Paleo art that add an amusingly off-beat flair to the middle section. Sadly, the segment doesn't have much of an ending. A similar complaint can be leveraged at the second and final stories. Both are rather dialogue heavy, largely composed of two people talking around a dinner table or in a greenhouse. The scientist plot does feature one startling bit of special effects, briefly glimpsed though it is. 

At the very least, these episodes come the closest to achieving the film's apparent goal of showing us what a kink-focused Amicus movie might look like. As a comedy or a piece of softcore pornography, "Bizarre" is rather dire. It's a cliché that the British sex comedies of this era are neither very funny nor all that sexy. I'm not familiar with the genre but if "Bizarre" is any indication, I'm inclined to believe it. The burglar story features lots of shots of the leading man and lady's asses in unflatteringly drab underwear. (The movie seems quite fixated on the buttocks, usually clad in ass crack exposing briefs.) The segment builds towards some unenthusiastic dry humping and the extremely odd use of a telephone. The spy story is "Bizarre" at its most belabored. Magazine style graphics flash on-screen throughout, trying to inject a level of cartoonish wackiness the segment simply can't match. All the actors seem deeply uninterested as they march through the obvious double entendres that lace the screenplay, on the way towards a deflated punchline of a final scene. There's a story nested inside this one, of a slapstick silent movie the characters watch that is far more painfully unfunny. There's nothing worse than bad comedy, goofy incidents desperately trying to wring laughs out of the viewer but lacking the timing or wit to achieve that.

Besides his work as a director and an exploitation distributor, Balch is probably best known as a collaborator of William S. Burroughs. The wrap-around segments are when this is most obvious, when the film shows a flair for artsy weirdness. A long scene devoted to women in lingerie being splattered with food, before shirtless twinks with tommy guns attack, is too odd to forget. The mummy host is voiced by Valentine Dyall, a character actor whose distinctive baritone was put to good use on British radio. Dyall has a talent for delivering absolute nonsense with a convincing seriousness. This is most evident in a long, hypnotic montage of various men and women, the mummy asking us to imagine making love to each one. If "Bizarre" had stuck to this weirdo approach, abstract scenes loosely illustrating its themes of sex and gender conflict, it probably would have been an all together more satisfying film. 

All omnibus features are uneven. If the 1st and 5th stories were presented on their own, they would be decent short films. When stacked alongside the dreadful third and fourth episodes, and the fairly listless second and sixth, the result is an off-center film that never finds its footing despite the obvious creativity on display. With its history of censorship, I expected "Bizarre" to be more explicit. I suspect its queer elements, of crossdressing and men-on-men kissing, is what most offended the guardians of decency of days past. Balch's life story – a gay genre film enthusiast who wormed his way into the industry he adored through sheer force of will, meeting many of his heroes along the way, before dying young of cancer – is likely more interesting than any of his movies. The idea of a horror-tinged skin flick hosted by a melodramatic mummy sounds irresistible but "Bizarre" never quite lives up to that logline. [5/10]

The Hitchhiker: Windows

If you see Page Fletcher and his weird mullet babbling pseudo-philosophical gobbledygook, you know you're watching "The Hitchhiker." "Windows" follows Jake, a struggling artist living in a weirdly spacious apartment somewhere in Paris. He's having a hard time selling any paintings, putting a strain on his relationship with his girlfriend, Sophie. While observing the temperamental couple in the building across from him, Jake paints a scene of the man shooting the woman. His creative block removed, Jake starts to paint constantly... But is disturbed when he seemingly sees his neighbor actually shoot his wife. He becomes convinced that his paintings predict the future. When Jake paints himself killing Sophie, he becomes delirious. 

The stereotype of the young and hungry artist is usually a passionate, high-minded individual who pretentiously rants about how no one understands their art. Whether this is true or not, it's certainly what's depicted in "Windows." Jake is kind of an asshole, honestly. As played by the whiny David Marshall Grant, the character comes across as totally self-absorbed. Sophie, played by the very blue-eyed Annabelle Mouloudji, is nothing but kind to him. Their conversations still usually end with him yelling at her. The protagonist totally ceases to be sympathetic when he screams at her about the true meaning of art as she flees his studio. (Especially since his paintings look more like comic book panels than high art.) By the time he's smacking her around – an incident his brush strokes naturally predicted – you want to see this guy get his comeuppance. While the implication is that Jake's paintings are the result of some unexplained precognition, they strike me more as self-fulfilling prophecies. Especially by the conclusion, where he basically talks himself into trying to murder his girlfriend. 

If this was an E.C. Comics style fable about a lousy crook getting their just desserts, such a spiral might be more compelling. Instead, I think we're supposed to root for Jake. Or at least relate to his artistic constipation. That's certainly the impression I get from Rene Manzor's music video style direction. The episode features lots of Dutch angles and evocative lighting, most notably in the scene where Jake photographs himself posing with a gun. Some of these images are definitely cool. The final shot, of a shadow crossing a painting and looking like a gravestone's cross, is neat. However, Manzor can't bring the sense of hyper-reality to this half-hour potboiler that he displayed in his feature, "3615 Code Pere Noel." "Windows" is among the highest rated episodes of "The Hitchhiker" but I'm not sure why. Some flashy direction isn't enough to redeem an unlikable protagonist and a lack of tension. [5/10]

The Addams Family: The Addams Family Splurges

The space race was big news in 1965, leading "The Addams Family" writers to draw inspiration from it. "The Addams Family Splurges" has the kooky clan deciding their next vacation should be to the moon. The supercomputer in their basement, named Whizzo, calculates that they only need a billion dollars to fund such a journey. Gomez decides to raise the money by betting on race horses, with Whizzo predicting the winners. Their financial broker, Mr. Hulman, finds the whole situation absurd and refuses to make the bets. However, Whizzo's predictions come true. This leads to Mr. Hulman aghast at how he'll pay the Addams back.  

By now, maybe the creative staff of "The Addams Family" realized the gag of folks being frightened of the family was getting a bit overdone. This is the second episode to feature an outsider unaffected by the Addams' house dressing. Instead, Roland Winters' Mr. Hulman is simply the straight man in the ridiculous situation the family has engineered. Winters is good at getting laughs from exasperated reactions to everything that unfolds. Probably the highlight of the episode is a circular conversation between him, Gomez, and Morticia about the morality of gambling. There's also at least three jokes about Hulman considering suicide and two about Uncle Fester threatening to shoot him in the back. I don't think "The Andy Griffith Show" was cracking one-liners like that. 

This one of the episodes that really emphasizes the kooky over the creepy. Gomez' supercomputer makes all sorts of goofy noises, Fester puts on an elaborate space helmet, and the episode ends with the announcement that Tristan and Isolde – the family's pet piranha – have devoured each other. Gomez and Morticia are also seen doing some sort of bullfighting themed pet play. Good for them. Thing gets some good chuckles here, Ted Cassidy conveying a lot of amusing emotion with only one hand. I'm beginning to think this show really was a lot weirder than "The Munsters." [7/10]

Halloween 2024: September 27th

November (2017)

Rehepapp

When people look back at the last ten years in horror, what trends in the genre will leap out to them as the defining movement of this time? Will it be the trauma-rehashing “elevated” horror films of A24 and Neon? Or, instead, will the rising popularity of folk horror be seen as more relevant in retrospect? It's a term I don't think I had heard much until the release of “The Witch” in 2015. After that, it was suddenly everywhere, especially in the indie scene. Europe, it almost goes without saying, dominates the folk horror subgenre. In our Anglo-centric worldview, we still think of the European continent as the center of most folkloric beliefs. The further into Europe you go, the weirder things tend to get. A good example of this rule is “November,” probably the first monster movie to come out of Estonia.

While German nobles near-by live in luxury, the members of an isolated Estonian village must resort to witchcraft to survive. Despite nominally being Christians, the villagers regularly makes deal with the devil to animate kratts, minions cobbled together from household objects and animated with stolen souls. Rakk has regularly been cheating the devil, signing with currants, instead of blood. He has sold his daughter, Liina, to a drunkard in town. Liina, however, is in love with Hans, a handsome boy from the village. Hans, meanwhile, only has eyes for the sleepwalking daughter of the rich family. The two seek out magic spells to attract the objects of their affections. Their melodramas play out among the ghosts, witches, demons, and manifestations of the Black Plague that threaten the village. 

Most of the attention “November” received revolves around the movie's apparent weirdness. Within its opening minutes, a spider-like creature assembled from a skull and some farming implements abducts a cow before flying through the air like a helicopter. That's only the first of many strange sights our eyes behold in “November.” The distinctive black and white cinematography from Mart Taniet goes a long way towards establishing an otherworldly atmosphere. The shadowy interiors, wider vistas among the desolate landscapes, and close-ups on a collection of exceedingly captivating faces have the visual language of a dream. The home-made special effects of the kratts are unlike anything I've seen in a modern film in a long time, stiffly animated puppets composed of common objects that still move and speak like living things. The result is “November” immediately transports us to its strange world.

Kratts, by the way, are actual figures from Estonian mythology, the Baltic equivalent to the Icelandic Tilburi and the Norwegian Bjara: Creatures made by a wizard or witch to steal supplies from them. That's a good example of how writer/director Rainer Samet – adapting a novel by Andrius Kivirahk – pulls from actual folkloric traditions. The story of meeting the devil at the crossroads, attempting to cheat him only to pay the price some other way, is another classical story recognizable from any number of countries. “November” swirls many of these ideas together into a loose narrative. Subplots involve the ghosts of ancestors passing through the village on All Souls Night or the town leaders finding a compromise with the manifestation of the Black Plague. (Who appears, alternatively, as a beautiful woman, a goat, and a cutty black sow.) Not all of these stories blend together in a satisfying way. A subplot about a man seeking out a love potion to win over the servant girl he loves, which collapses into violence, doesn't link much with the main story. “November” still proves to be a fascinating swirl of strange, old tales.

The idea of a black-and-white Estonian film seeped in the obscure folk traditions sounds, all the world, like what you'd expect from an inscrutable, maudlin art house movie. While “November” won't miss any accusations of being weird, the movie proves to be a surprisingly funny and down-to-earth morality play at times. The class conflict ideas contained within are self-evident. The villagers live in cramped cabins, hoarding what little valuables they have, often appearing covered in mud and grime. (Making this a clear example of “mudpunk,” a less populous subgenre to emerge last decade.) The estate of the German nobles are large, never short on food and fancy clothing. The tendency of the workers to steal from their bosses is summed up in a funny direct way that doesn't dismiss the social commentary at work here. This stands alongside a version of the devil that acts more like Caesar Romero's Joker and more jokes about pooping, farting, and fucking than I expected. The result is a surprisingly funny and insightful script.

Linking these various plot threads together is a premise that is universal: Unrequited love. Wanting someone who doesn't want you is among the most human of all feelings. Liina sees Hans as a way to escape the tyranny of her father. Hans is unaware of her, instead enraptured by the beauty and glamour of the nobleman's daughter. The solutions both find to their problems – communing with a wolf, summoning a magic arrow, and foolishly creating an immobile kratt out of snow destined to melt – represent the kind of desperate moves young people make when they are in love and isolated. Stories like this are the most common among fairy tales and folklore, furthering the feeling that “November” taps into something older and intrinsic as it plays with extremely culturally specific concepts. How this love story plays out, moving towards an ironic and tragic ending, wraps “November” up on a bittersweet, oddly funny, and quietly touching note. 

I can't say I've had any exposure to Estonian cinema before this one. However, “November” is such a distinctive, unique, and immersive experience that Rainer Sarnet is definitely on my list of filmmakers to watch out for now. (Not content with only making his country's first monster movie, his most recent film is also Estonia's first martial arts movie.) The relative obscurity of Estonian cinema means you aren't likely to recognize most of the cast here... Except for Dieter Laser, of “Human Centipede” infamy, in a small part. When the punishing glare of Dieter Laser is the closest thing to a movie star a motion picture has, that should give you an idea of the utterly distinctive facial features that fill this narrative. In other words, “November” is a wonderfully weird, quietly funny, and wholly unique cinematic experience. If you've got a taste for any of this kind of stuff, I highly recommend it. [9/10]

Octaman (1971)

Special effects legend and monster kid icon Rick Baker, despite a generally soft-spoken attitude, has done his fair share of self-mythologizing over the years. If you have any interest in practical creature effects, you've likely heard Baker talk about his early days, baking foam latex in his mother's stove and making elaborate make-ups in his bedroom for local productions. Baker's first professional, paying credit is often listed as making the two-headed gorilla in “The Thing with Two Heads,” widely credited with getting him the "King Kong" gig a few years later. Baker would probably prefer that to be true but this is not the case. Instead, Baker's first Hollywood job as a monster maker – while still a teenager – was an often overlooked and little loved piece of schlock from 1971 called “Octaman.” When the movie is remembered at all, it's usually because of the Baker connection. If it's remembered beyond that, it's as a laughably bad attempt to revive the rubber suit monster movie at the start of a decade when such things were long out of fashion.

Dr. Torres and his assistant, Susan, travel to an isolated Mexican lake to see how radioactive run-off has affected the local wildlife and fishing community. They soon discover a mutated octopus with strangely human-like eyes. They take the creature back to America but fail to secure funding for another trip... Until they catch the eye of Johnny Caruso, a carny and circus promoter interested in capturing a monster to display at his freak show. They travel back to the lake, via winnebago, to find their research partners horribly murdered. The indigenous population speaks of a mythical beast that is half man and half octopus. It seems those stories are true, as the scientists are quickly pursued by such a hybrid. After the monster becomes fascinated by Susan, the team captures this octopus man... But can such a beast be contained? 

According to Baker, "Octaman" was shot in all of ten days, leaving him and one other guy a week to whip up the monster suit. Considering the limited time and resources they had to work with, I think the effects team did an admirable job. The filmmakers were certainly proud of Baker's work, as no attempt is made to disguise the monster. Octaman is right on camera within the opening minutes. All throughout "Octaman," the camera often cuts away to a shot of the creature milling about in the lake or watching from the trees. Key sequences feature the octopus man brightly lit by a ring of fire or leaping about in broad daylight. This approach not only destroys any attempt to build suspense, any mystery surrounding the beast's nature ruined by it being out in the open, it also does a discredit to Baker's work. The longer you look at Octaman, the goofier he seems. With his flailing tentacles, awkwardly human-like gait, and beak permanently locked in an open-mouthed scream, Octaman looks all the world like something a child would draw. Honestly, I find the titular monster likable and goofy, in much the same way I find the cheesier tokusatsu monsters charming. Yet scary is something Octaman, the monster and the movie around it, simply never is. 

"Octaman" was written and directed by Harry Essex, a veteran screenwriter who gifted the world with "It Came from Outer Space," "Man-Made Monster," and "Creature from the Black Lagoon." The latter most film was the clear blueprint for "Octaman." Essex swipes the structure of his earlier work, with a suspiciously similar story of scientists travelling to a remote body of water and encountering an amphibious monster murdering the locals, who then develops a crush on the expedition's sole female. Presumably, scenes of Octaman watching Susan swim were cut due to the production's paltry budget. The character of Johnny Caruso, a cynical capitalist interested only in exploiting this scientific curiosity for cash, recalls Richard Denning's Mark from "Creature." (And that character shouts out "Kong," the clear inspiration for both movies.) A scene of a downed tree blocking the winnebago's path is also similar to the Rita being trapped in the lagoon. While the Gillman's story shoved its ecological themes into subtext, they are blatantly discussed in "Octaman." The characters openly consider the impact of pollution and radiation on the people, animals, and environment. Though whether Octaman is the result of toxic waste or local legend, as the native population speaks of the critter, remains frustratingly vague. 

Considering the title beastie is constantly pursuing a baby mutant octopus, I'd question him being an octaman if not for the clear fixation on Susan. Precluding the existence of a bisexual octawoman anyway... Such confusion as that speaks to the rushed quality of "Octaman's" script. The characters are strictly archetypal. Kerwin Matthews' Dr. Torres is nothing but the benevolent scientist hero. Davido, a native man played by Essex's son, is a patronizing depiction of another culture. Pier Angeli's heroine is given nothing to do but scream and be abducted by the monster. The script literally moves in circles at one point, during a long scene of the cast wandering through Bronson Cave. Several long dialogue driven scenes exist to pad the film out to a still brief 78 minute runtime. The abrupt ending – also reminiscent of "Black Lagoon" – further suggests the crew were eager to get this one in the can and move on. Essex's direction is no more fine-tuned than his writing. "Octaman" often features clumsy camera work, murky cinematography, and blunt editing. Those fractal lens monster POV shots are kind of neat though...

In other words, "Octaman" shows all the signs of being a hideously cheap rush job. Also rushed was the film's copyrighting process, as "Octaman" is seemingly in the public domain. This has led to it being mocked in later productions like "Gremlins 2" and RiffTrax. (How this didn't end up on one of the iterations of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" is a mystery to me.) And "Octaman" is an easy movie to mock, with almost every element being subpar. I'm not going to argue that the film is good by any means, as there are many dull stretches. However, I am susceptible to the charms of a big dumb rubber octopus man. "Octaman" has the kind of cozy, B-movie vibes that I find relaxing and enjoyable. All that is missing are some zippy host segments from Elvira or Count Gore to make this an ideal film to drift asleep to. I don't know if that's a recommendation or not but a certain breed of monster movie dork knows exactly what I'm talking about. [6/10]

Tales of the Unexpected: Poison

Of Roald Dahl's thriller stories, "Poison" is one of his best known. It was in my high school English textbook and I'm sure that was true for others. The story has been adapted several times as well, as an episode of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" and more recently by Wes Anderson. In-between those two takes, it was also made into an episode of "Tales of the Unexpected." It concerns newly sober Harry Pope, an English teacher stationed in India during the British Raj. While in bed one night, a highly venomous krait slithers up under the sheets. Harry lies perfectly still, fearful to move lest the snake bites him. His roommate, Timber, arrives afterwards and quickly calls a doctor, a local named Ganderbai, to help deal with the serpent. This version adds a subplot about Timber bringing a married woman back home with him and a new, meaner ending than Dahl's original story. 

While "Tales of the Unexpected's" status as a horror program was always debatable, "Poison" features an undeniably frightening premise. Any ophidiophobics are likely to find the scene of a viper squirming under Harry's bed sheets, until its head pokes out onto his chest, utterly nerve wracking. Subsequently being held captive in your own bed for hours, terrified to move an inch or potentially face death, is truly the stuff of nightmares. "Tales of the Unexpected" could definitely mine this scenario for more tension but it's not badly handled either. Director Graham Evans utilizes the camera sliding pass the walls of the set quite well to create a sense of movement. The many close-ups of Harry's sweaty, frozen face give you an idea of what he's going through. If the episode can't get you wholly invested in its characters, that's as much a fault of this being a twenty minute TV presentation as anything else. 

Of course, the title doesn't only refer to the venom of a deadly snake. Harry Pope is an alcoholic, attempting to stay dry as he prepares to move back to England. Booze is referenced all throughout the episode, a milder form of poison that dulls the senses and brings out the ugliest side of people. Harry is also a bigot, hateful of the Indian locals and throwing slurs at the doctor who tries to save his life. Prejudice is a poison too. Both that hatred and the liquor is what truly cost him his life. The subplot of Timber hooking up with a philandering wife is an odd addition though. I imagine the cheating woman is meant to be a metaphorical snake of sorts, though that never pans out. Despite that, "Poison" is a solid episode of "Tales of the Unexpected," more than worth seeing for that squirm inducing shot of the snake appearing under the bed sheets. [7/10]

The Addams Family: Uncle Fester's Illness

The running gag of Uncle Fester powering a light bulb forms the entire backbone of "Uncle Fester's Illness." While attempting to power some of Gomez's toy trains, Fester's energy supply seems to be running low. This threatens to cancel an upcoming family outing, where Fester was expected to light the way while Wednesday searched a cave for spiders. Home remedies are no help and the family's usual (witch) doctor is unavailable. This forces the Addams to call on Dr. Milford, a local physician who reacts as you'd expect when making a house call to the kooky, spooky brood. 

Over halfway through the first season, "The Addams Family" must have been deemed a success by the network. It seems to have led to an uptick in the budget. "Uncle Fester's Illness" cuts to an African village for a short gag involving the family's witch doctor. Later, there's a good bit in which the family goes "moon bathing," which seems to feature a new set. The episode is full of chuckle-worthy jokes like that, such as Thing coming down with a mysterious illness himself or Gomez calling a (rude) electrician when Fester first loses his spark. Wednesday's visible disappointment when the trip sounds like it'll be canceled is another highlight. Once again, Lisa Loring's adorable reactions prove to among the show's best secret weapons. 

Most "Addams Family" episodes revolve around outsiders coming into the home. One supposes that Dr. Milford's visit was probably the one-line pitch for this installment. This sequence still works, because of two factors. Lauren Gilbert is a good straight man to the ooky antics. Secondly, the weirdness of Fester's body is played up. What happens when a stethoscope is put to his chest or a thermometer is inserted into his mouth are good ones. This episode also marks the first time Morticia's referenced pet vulture, Zelda, actually appears on-screen. Maybe that was a result of a budget increase too. [7/10]