Welcome to the film-related musings, complaints, and comments of Zack Clopton, an amateur film-critic, scholar, and screenwriter. Featured here are Director's Report Cards, essays, and other reviews. Enjoy!
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Showing posts with label grindhouse/drive-in. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grindhouse/drive-in. Show all posts
If you are reading these words, I probably don't have to explain any of the following. Indulge me, please: Rising oil prices in the seventies led to the U.S. government enforcing a national speed limit of 55 miles-per-hour. This was very unpopular with long haul truckers, under strict deadlines to make big deliveries. The drivers would employ citizen band radio to inform each other of where to find the best prices, how to avoid the highway patrol, and other such things truckers would need to know. Rather unexpectedly, this would make truck drivers, of all professions, cool. These blue collar workers were now anti-establishment types, sticking it to the man and fighting the powers that be. Or maybe it was just because of the goofy trucker's slang used over CB air waves, full of baffling jargon specifically designed to confuse authorities, began to penetrate into the wider culture. It then, essentially, became the seventies version of a modern meme. Today, the kids say “Six seven!” Fifty years ago, they said “Ten four!” The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Also much like today, the ever opportunistic entertainment industry figured they could make a little money off the latest stupid fad. The pioneer of this new trucker-sploitation movement was a very silly, very catchy song performed by the mascot from a series of bread commercials. A blockbuster film franchise and a semi-popular TV show would follow in C.W. McCall's exhaust. However, plenty of low budget also-rans and sleazy knock-offs were also there to feed America's newfound appetite for big rigs. Filmmakers already catering to drive-in audiences with B-movies about rednecks and good ol' boys were more than happy to include a truck or two to take advantage of what was hot at the moment.
Enter: Chuck Norris. The karate pro would claim, years later, that he had been offered other martial arts movies since getting kicked in the face by Bruce Lee. He turned them all down because, quote, he "wanted to do films that had a story and where the action would take place when it is emotionally right." Surely, the directorial debut of the composer of "They Saved Hitler's Brain!" would provide the kind of story-driven, emotionally nuanced film making Chuck was looking for with his star debut. Whatever the reason behind its production, "Breaker! Breaker!" would roll out into theaters two months before "Smokey and the Bandits" went into wide release. It was the right time and place, the low budget flick making a sturdy little profit and proving that Chuck could carry a whole motion picture on his burly, hairy shoulders.
When not practicing meditation, getting into bar room brawls, or perfecting that sweet Laurel canyon sound, J.D. Dawes is a truck driver by trade. He loans his little brother, Billy, his truck and lets him have a go at the family business. Billy is led by a deceptive C.B. broadcast into the obscure town of Texas City, California. Ruled over by the eccentric Judge Trimmings, whose maniacal whims are enforced by an alcoholic town sheriff, the village extorts and harasses any villages that pass through its boundaries. When Billy tries to escape, he's held captive. J.D. heads out in his van with a bitchin' eagle painted on the side in search of his brother. He tracks the trail to Texas City, where a local shoots the tires out of his vehicle. On his quest to rescue his brother, J.D. uncovers the criminal activities the town authorities are running and seeks to free those forced to live under their rule with all the spin punches and high kicks he can muster.
While “Breaker! Breaker!” was obviously trying to capitalize on the seventies trucker fad, the film is actually a weird-ass fusion of several different genres that were prominent in grindhouses and drive-ins. The film is set mostly in California. However, the sweaty faces, greasy overalls, poor dental hygiene, and exaggerated accents of the locals bring the deep south to mind. The antagonistic residents of Texas City – which, aside from the judge and the cop, include a wild-eyed mechanic swinging a tire iron – are clearly cut from the same cloth as the bucktoothed, inbred attackers of “Deliverance” and its many imitators. The narrative, of civilized outsiders stumbling into some savage hick town, brings these kind of killer redneck stories to mind.
However, these kind of good ol' boys are also the heroes of the story. J.D. also meets an ambiguously mentally disabled younger brother of one of the locals, who also speaks with a stutter and is extremely friendly in that childish manner that typically characterizes patronizing depictions such as these. JD also shacks up with a local single mom. An earlier scene has our hero playfully participating in bar room brawls and getting pointers from his wild-eyed, cowboy hat wearing pal. (Played by none other than Jack Nance!) In its last half-hour, “Breaker! Breaker!” remembers its supposed to be a trucker movie. J.D. calls in his long-haulin' friends to smash their 18-wheelers through the buildings, vehicles, and armaments of Texas City's corrupt authorities. It's a joyful explosion of mayhem, scored to hillbilly banjo music and the inanest of inane C.B. radio chatter. This inexplicably makes “Breaker! Breaker!” both flavors of hicksploitation, in which the simple country folk are both hostile freaks attacking outsiders and underclass anti-heroes striking back at the cops, lawmen, and all other enforcers of the system that oppress them.
This does not represent the end of “Breaker! Breaker!'s” eccentric mixing of genres. Judge Trimmings dresses like Boss Hogg but behaves almost like a cult leader, enrapturing his followers with his words and shouting condemnation at his enemies. You wouldn't have to change much to turn this into a horror movie, of weirdo backwoods rednecks sacrificing outsiders unlucky enough to stumble into their territory. Obviously, the story of a lone hero wandering into a beleaguered town to clear out the corrupt boss in control recalls “A Fistful of Dollars.” The climax even zooms in on Chuck's eyes, like he's in a Sergio Leone movie. Said climax is also a one-on-one showdown between the hero and villain, with roundhouse kicks and a broken liquor bottle standing in for six-shooters. This also draws attention to how the ramshackle wooden sets look like a western ghost back lot.
That final fight, by the way, ends with a freeze frame of a horse leaping over a face. It is a melodramatically shot moment, that seemingly has little connection to both this specific scene and the movie around it. Which points towards the most endearing thing about “Breaker, Breaker!” It's fucking goofy. Trimmings is played by experienced character actor George Murdock, who invests the villain with far more sinister intent and diabolic style than the material called for. He also randomly quotes Shakespeare and seems to be having some sort of puppet-based romantic role play with a doll-obsessed woman in town. This plays out against ridiculous images like Chuck's shaggin' wagon, a number of underwhelmingly choreographed vehicle chases, or a random redneck emerging to fight Chuck with a pitch fork. The film somehow manages to repeatedly top itself in terms of silly bullshit and I, for one, welcome that.
The one thing “Breaker! Breaker!” never quite feels like is a martial arts movie, perhaps solidifying Norris' claim that he chose the project because it wasn't a mindless fight flick. Don't think that means there aren't plenty of high kicks and punches here. The script seems to inject an excuse for Chuck to fight some guys about every fifteen minutes, no matter how out-of-place it might seem. This builds to a joyously silly extended sequence midway through the film, where Norris battles his way through a succession of rednecks after the other. Though this was only his first starring role, J.D. Dawes does seem to be the prototypical Chuck Norris hero in many ways. He's a soft-spoken guy who is seemingly found by violent circumstances, rather than seeking them out. Though Chuck never puts on a cowboy hat or boots, his character undeniably has that kind of rustic, western hero energy. This stands at odds with his embracing of Asian mysticism. In fact, the character seems to be teaching zen yoga techniques to some of the random rednecks he meets at a truck stop before using his meditation skills to, seemingly, heal a wound later in the film. He's a cowboy, a karate master, a mystic and a warrior monk all at once.
He's also, like many heroes played by Norris and others, kind of gay. J.D. gets a female love interest and an implied romantic night with her, sure. At the same time, his need to find his little brother is what motivates the entire plot. To the point that he has traumatic nightmares about losing the boy. When he finally does rescue Billy, he softly caresses the kid's face before pulling him into an embrace I thought for sure was going to turn into a kiss. The bond between the two is also introduced with some on-the-ground, in-the-dirt roughhousing, that ends with both of their blue jean clad asses up in the air. Maybe these two are brothers in more of a communal sense, if you get my meaning. That's when you notice the contrast between muscular, hirsute Norris and the smaller, skinnier, hairless Terry O'Conner as the brother, making me wonder how in on the joke the producers were. Who knows what kind of stuff two strapping bucks might get up to during those long, lonely nights on the road?
In other words, I went into “Breaker! Breaker!” expecting a standard seventies redneck car chase movie that starred Cordell Walker in the fetal stages of his career. Basically, “Convoy” but with Chuck Norris kicking people intermittently inserted. While that isn't an entirely inaccurate description of the film, it's also much wackier than I expected. This is the kind of fast and loose B-movie the seventies ran on, where the audience never misses the feeling that the filmmakers would randomly make up a new set piece every day. I mean that as a compliment, as it lends the motion picture a giddy, unhinged quality that makes it ridiculously entertaining for its entire runtime. The MST3k boys riffed on it recently for a RiffTrax special but I honestly can't imagine the film being funnier or sillier than it already is. In other words, quality drive-in entertainment. Zack says check it out. [9/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5] [] Facial Hair [X] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall [X] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face [X] Shows Off His Hairy Chest [] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
If you are an American horror fan who grew up during the later stages of the video store era, for many years there was a question that gnawed at your mind. You'd look through the Hs and find “House,” “House II: The Second Story,” and then... “House IV!” Where was “House III?!” No store had a copy in stock and no clerk could locate it. Why did this franchise skip the number three? Eventually, the well-spring of all knowledge that is the internet would resolve any confusion. “House III” is “The Horror Story,” James Isaac's killer-returns-from-the-grave slasher from 1989. The film would begin life as the third installment in the wacky horror/comedy haunted house series, producer Sean S. Cunningham in tow. Partially due to “The Second Story's” box office take and simply because of how the script developed, the decision was made during production to turn “House III” into more of a serious horror movie. The result was so different in tone and story – including not featuring much of a haunted house – that it was released stateside as “The Horror Show.” Overseas, however, the film would maintain the “House” branding. Whether you call it “The Horror Show” or “House III,” either title is equally relevant to the plot.
Police detective and family man Lucas McCarthy is finally the one to bring in “Meatcleaver Max” Jenke, a serial killer that has been terrorizing the country. That's only after Lucas sees Jenke murder his partner and decapitate a little girl. He continues to have nightmares about the killer, concerning his wife and two kids. McCarthy attends the execution of Jenke to make sure he's dead. Jenke takes two volts from the electric chair and threatens to get his revenge on Lucas. Afterwards, the horrifying dreams continue and McCarthy begins to see Jenke tormenting him throughout the day. When his teenage daughter's boyfriend is found dead in the basement, Lucas is the main suspect. Instead, a doctor studying the nature of evil reveals, the truth is far stranger: Evil exists as an electric frequency and, via micro-dosing himself with shocks throughout his life, Meatcleaver Max has returned from the grave as a phantasmic being.
Exploitation filmmakers were ready to leap on the success of “Halloween,” slashers full of masked murderers flooding cinemas by 1980. I guess they took longer to catch on to Freddy's status as the next horror icon. Whatever the reason, four separate movies released between 1987 and the end of the decade would be about vengeful killers returning from the electric chair to kill again. Two of them were blatant Freddy wannabes. Both Craven's “Shocker” and “The Horror Show” make a serious mistake in emulating the Freddy movies. Part of what gave “A Nightmare on Elm Street” a universal appeal was its simplicity. Freddy can only get you in your dreams and, if you die in the dream, you die for real. “The Horror Story” can't seem to make up its mind about what rules govern Max Jenke. Sometimes, like “Shocker's” Horace Pinker, he exists as a living electrical signal, jumping around various appliances. (And, in a blatant imitation of the “Nightmare” films, spends a lot of time in the basement furnace.) Other times, he seems more like a classic ghosts. Jenke also appears in Lucas' dreams and visions. At least once, something that happens in the dream rolls over to waking hours, a wound appearing on Lucas' chest. Jenke is also able to manifest in reality, becoming a physical threat again in the last act but still using some of his supernatural powers. The explanation cooked up, about the abstract concept of evil being an electric wavelength and volts being both Max's weakness and the source of his power, clears nothing up.
Adding further to this confusion is “The Horror Show's” inability to pick a tone. The filmmakers clearly intended Max Jenke to be a wise-cracking Freddy-like figure. He has a trademark, a nasally chortle. At one point, he appears in the guise of a TV stand-up comic, cramming half-a-dozen lame one-liners into a single scene. At the same time, the script tries to make Jenke into a vile serial killer. He gruffly croaks out profanity at his enemies. I mean, he cuts off a little girl's head early on. That's fairly extremely. There's an obvious degree of sexual menace in his interactions with McCarthy's wife and daughter. When he drags Lucas' wife into his power plant lair at the end of the movie, the implication of what he plans to do to her are obvious. Other scenes, that focus on McCarthy being in court-appointed therapy or being investigated by internal affairs, feel like something from a grittier cop-versus-killer thriller. In general, “The Horror Show” feels pulled between wanting to be a farcical horror/comedy, a grim gore-fest, and something more like a typical eighties cop flick.
It's easy to imagine the script for “The Horror Show” beginning life as another “Dirty Harry” imitator, something closer to “Cobra” than “Nightmare on Elm Street.” Lance Henriksen stars as McCarthy, his voice as gravelly as ever. He grimly swears and pulls his gun when pursuing the killer, acting a lot how you'd expect Lance Henriksen to perform in such a role. Brion James, himself a vet of action flicks, is Meatcleaver Max. Like in many an action movie, the bond between hero and villain seems deeper than mere hate. Jenke is obsessed with Lucas, to the point that he returns from the grave for him. The two men make repeatedly references to “getting their ass” and “nailing” each other. In the last act, while holding McCarthy's wife hostage, Jenke demands the cop crawl over to him and kiss his feet. When paired with a scene where Jenke pretends to be his enemy's teenage daughter and tricks her boyfriend into stripping for him, or dresses in drag as McCarthy's wife, points towards a casual homoeroticism. This seems to be a natural side-effect of the movie's heavy-handed machismo, of the plot device of two men being totally obsessed with each other.
The manly longing Jenke has for his archenemy is more interesting than the movie's horror elements. Brion James goes way over the top as Jenke, in a way that straddles the line between fun and overbearing. Lance is a reliable hero. The cast playing his family play their notes at a cartoonish level, especially Aron Eisenberg as the would-be con artist son. The movie does cook up some memorable special effects gag. A noteworthy sequence has Jenke's face appearing in a roasted turkey, the cooked bird becoming some freakish Brion James/fowl hybrid. That was cool. An early scene, where Lance stalks the killer through a dinner littered with severed heads and hands, looks cool as hell. Mac Ahlberg, Stuart Gordon's regular D.P., does the cinematography and creates some moody, foggy, deep blue night shots. There's a lot of ingredients here that should work, simply put.
Instead, as all too often happens: It's the Script, Stupid. “The Horror Show” simply doesn't have a compelling story. As a slasher flick, it never quite delivers, most of the beheadings happening off-screen. I guess because it's ostensibly a “House” movie, most of the film is confined to the McCarthy home. This limits the creativity of the set-pieces the movie can cook up. The inability to figure out what the villain can and can't do, as well as how the viewer is suppose to feel about what they are seeing, keeps this from being better. Despite making him look like Jason on the U.S. one-sheet and multiple advertisement's comparing the film to Freddy, Max Jenke did not become a Halloween costume. I guess the film is a little less annoying than “Shocker,” if not as gloriously camp, and not quite as generic as “Destroyer,” if you want to compare it to the other electric chair themed revenge-from-the-grave flicks. Ultimately, perhaps it's for the best that this was destined to be the “House III” most of us wouldn't know about. “The Horror Story” can't compare to the giddy heights of “House II” or the reliable creature feature fun of the original. [6/10]
Is there a single European country Jesús Franco didn't make a movie in? I mean, probably. However, there's no denying that ol' Jess sure did get around. He worked in Spain, Germany, France, Italy, England, Belgium, Portugal, and Liechtenstein. Yes, Liechtenstein, the semi-constitutional monarchy, all of sixty-two square miles wide, that is wedged between Austria and Switzerland. Despite its relative tininess, Franco would actually make a couple of movies within the country. Most of these fall more on the sexploitation side of his style but at least one is classified more as horror. That would be “Nightmares Come at Night,” which started out as a fragment Franco made sometime in 1970 that was then padded out to feature length with some additional scenes. It was one of Franco's more unseen film during his glory days but, like everything the prolific cult director touched, would eventually get DVD and Blu-Ray presentations far nicer than the grindhouses it was designed for.
Anna worked as an exotic dancer in a nightclub in Zagreb, often dissatisfied with her work and feeling a growing sense of de-personalization. That is until she notices a beautiful woman, visiting the club to watch her every night. The woman introduces herself as Cynthia and, after meeting Anne in her dressing room one night, the two began a passionate love affair. That was some time ago though. Now, Anna is in the grips of a serious mental health crisis. She has haunting dreams every night, which often seem to cross over into her waking hours. Her live-in doctor does not seem to be helping her fracturing psyche any. Growing increasingly frustrated and cold with Anna, Cynthia begins to bring home other lovers. Anna begins to have murderous dreams, beginning to wonder if she has taken a life in reality as well. Or is something more sinister going on?
I've had mixed feelings about the Franco flicks I've seen in the past, enjoying his gothic horror flicks over his trippier doses of erotica. “Nightmares Come at Night” falls squarely on the latter side of the equation. Franco's “Vampyros Lesbos” muse, Soledad Miranda, has a small role here as the often pantless next door neighbor. This film is also about a lesbian tryst between two strippers, another frequent reoccurring element in Franco's work. There's quite a lot of scenes of Diana Lorys and Colette Giacobine in stylish outfits, in various states of undress, lounging in bed, taking showers, or rolling around with various partners. These scenes play out against a smooth jazz score from frequent giallo composer, Bruno Nicolai. The story is extremely loose, the film operating more as a series of set pieces set at often undetermined points in the past. The pacing is languid, to say the least.
Given the above description, you would expect me to find “Nightmares Come at Night” as tedious as I found “Vampyros Lesbos.” Actually, I ended up liking this one quite a bit. Partially because, unlike “Vampyros Lesbos” mixing of elements from “Dracula” and “The Awful Dr. Orloff” into its stew of dreamy eroticism, this one never pretends to have much of a plot. From the beginning, it's apparent that this film will be a wash of the main character's memories, dreams, and hallucinations. That “Nightmares Come at Night” centers so much on its main character is what, I think, made it work for me. The film features quite a lot of voice over from Anna, which further puts us in her mindset. As she recalls her time at the night club, she describes her feeling of being treated like an object. No wonder she is starting to lose her grip on reality. Everybody around her wants and desires her but nobody is interested in actually knowing her. When the complicated nature of her mental health makes itself known, Cynthia smacks her, yells at her, and starts sleeping with other people. When Anna finds brief solace with a man, it's because he makes her feel realized and doesn't seem to want anything from her. It's a ruse, of course, another person lying to Anna to use her. “Nightmares Come at Night” ends up getting a pass for its sleepy pacing and barely existent story by taking place solely inside the head of its fractured protagonist.
Considering it was one of the Franco productions to be somewhat cobbled together, that's another reason why “Nightmares Come at Night” borders incoherent at times. A subplot about a bank robbery emerges in the second half, that never amounts to much at all. Some characters come and go with little warning. A series of last minute plot twist makes one wonder if this was supposed to be a giallo at some point. As you'd also expect from Franco, the visual approach is quite slapdash at times. There's lots of handheld footage and some rough zooms. More than a few times, the camera actually goes out of focus as it roams around the lovers wrapping their arms around each other and kissing or while Lorys cries on a bathroom floor. I watched the Blu-Ray release and it is still overly dark in spots and quite grainy throughout. While normally these would be the elements that distract me when watching Franco's films, it all blends together to make an intoxicatingly dream-like brew here.
Existing within that nightmare headspace, when your mind is groggy and your memory is foggy, when dreams and wakefulness blend together, causes a lot of “Nightmares Come at Night's” bugs to become features. Perhaps I'm warming up to Franco's particular strain of bullshit. Or maybe the girls were extra sexy enough to keep me watching. Either way, the slowness and choppiness of “Nightmares Come at Night” actually worked its spell on me. Sometimes, you simply want to slip into a fuzzy, relaxed, sleepy world of sex and murder and madness. That cool score from Nicolai doesn't hurt either. I can't decide if the English title is mildly poetic or simply redundant. When else would a nightmare come but at night? [7/10]
A very long time ago, before TLC became a non-stop freak show devoted to individuals of unusual physical dimensions, child beauty pageants, quickie marriages, family with lots of kids, or popping zits, those letters actually stood for something: The Learning Channel. If you turned on the channel around 2002 or so, you might actually acquire some knowledge. That's when the network starring airing “Mostly True Stories: Urban Legends Revealed,” a series all about exploring the likeliness, history, and meaning of those scary and ironic tales we call urban legends. Host Natasha Henstridge would present five stories, which where then presented as dramatic re-enactments. Experts and historians would then expound on whether there was any truth to the story and why such legends endure. The series had a good balance of spookiness, humor, rationality, and laid-back basic cable charm. In other words, I loved it and the show was surely a factor in heightening my fascination with modern folklore.
Not every story explored on “Mostly True Stories” was macabre or horrific in nature. The third episode also discusses the story of an unfaithful husband being caught at a surprise party in his birthday suit. However, as urban legends often do, the tales tended to veer towards the horrific. The episode discusses the tale of a choking Doberman revealing the presence of a home invader, a woman buying a new coat and being bitten by the baby snakes that hatch within, an actual mummified corpse hanging up as a prop in a carnival fun house, and what is probably the most iconic urban legend of all: Teenage lovers driving their car to a secluded spot for a romantic evening only to be interrupted by news of an escaped killer with a metal hook for a hand, who might be closer than either of them realize.
As an educational program, “Mostly True Stories” is well done. The segment on the Hook legend links its likely origins back to the infamous Moonlight Murders that plagued Texarkana in the forties. (The same case that inspired “The Town That Dreaded Sundown.”) It contains an interview with an actual doctor with a real prosthetic hook hand, who makes the case that the story propagates harmful stereotypes about the disabled. Most fascinating to me, the program gets into the cultural meanings behind this story. The Hook is deconstructed as a fable about teenage girls needing to be cautious with handsy boys and their own sexuality. My favorite part is when Dr. Susan Block, quite a colorful looking character, compares the hook itself to a “twisted phallic symbol,” pointing to the subtext of a premature withdraw and castration symbolized in the image of the car peeling out and the hook's bloody fate. All the other legends are given a similarly thorough reading. The facts of the mummy in the fun house – an actual true story – are detailed. An actual coat company CEO is brought in to debunk the snake eggs one. The show was always honest about the harmful elements of these stories too, pointing out the racist qualities of the Choking Doberman.
As a make-shift horror anthology, your mileage may vary with “Mostly True Stories.” The production values for the dramatic re-enactments were extremely modest. The acting from the usually silent actors was often quite campy. However, that didn't stop the show from occasionally producing a striking image. The Hook sequence is actually kind of creepy. The silhouetted shot of the hook man lurking in the shadow or the boyfriend's own hand being replaced with a hook are actually quite well done. When discussing the Phantom Killer, the sudden appearance of a gun-wielding figure in a hood genuinely frightened me as a kid. The other segments are anywhere near as creepy as that one but shots of a cadaver in the lighting of a dark ride or baby snakes slithering out of a coat pocket aren't without their value. Henstridge's host segments are inessential but I do like the smoky, dark set she hangs out in. While most of the shows I watch this time of year are things I'm revisiting from childhood or seeing for the first time, I'll be totally honest and admit that “Mostly True Stories” is one I've re-watched quite frequently. Something about this show is extremely cozy to me. I love this stuff. [8/10]
As far as I know, nobody in the Year of Our Lord 2025 hitchhikes anymore. This is after nearly every pop culture recreation of the activity has depicted it as utterly fraught with danger. No matter what end of the wheel you're on, you are either getting picked up by a psycho or picking up a psycho, it seems. I guess teenage girls hitchhiking to rock concerts and never being seen again was a big problem in the seventies. “Take An Easy Ride” began life as a Public Information Film, those notoriously grim British educational films largely shown in schools, intended for television by director Kenneth F. Rowles. That's when exploitation producer David Grant offered to give the film theatrical distribution if lots of sex was inserted. This is how “Take An Easy Ride” took form as a cautionary pseudo-documentary about the dangers of hitchhiking and also a super sleazy sexploitation flick, with leering camera work and copious nudity. The film follows several storylines, of young women hitchhiking to a rock concert. Some of them are picked up simply by a creepy guy. Another is lured into a hotel room with alcohol. One pair is attacked and assaulted. While another set of young women prove as dangerous as the men picking them up.
This bizarre back-and-forth is what makes “Take An Easy Ride” an interesting cinematic experience. Man-on-the-street interviews, presumably staged, have random people being asked about whether they think hitchhiking should be banned. The film's intention is made repeatedly clear by the stern-voiced narrator repeatedly telling us how unsafe this activity is. As with any PIF, the presentation is stately and frills-free. The acting is often ropey, perhaps even amateurish. Cutting between multiple different scenarios so often furthers the feeling that this was a production by largely inexperienced newbies just happy to get the intended message out there. That's paired with documentary-like footage of the Isle of Wight rock festival, which gives us a fly-on-the-wall peek at seventies hippy culture as it was happening.
This clumsy, if seemingly sincere, attempt to warn the youth at large not to go hitchiking, you friggin' dummies, is paired with an extremely sleazy approach. I think every single actress in the movie get naked on-camera, often for no particular reason. There's a stop over in a sex club, with a strip tease captured on-camera alongside lots of footage of porno tapes. When the sexual violence occurs, it's photographed with extremely pervy angles that glare at the actress' exposed body. The story of a woman intoxicated and manipulated by a charming man does not seem to show much sympathy to the victimized woman. When combined with the strict moralizing tone, the effect feels like the film is chastising the characters as much as it is any perspective viewers. It adds up to create a particular viewing experience, the dissonance between the intended message and the way it's delivered properly baffling the viewer. Sleazy and uncomfortable, “Take An Easy Ride” played in British grindhouses for years, where I can't imagine it informed too many people about the threats of hitchhiking but did provide them with the cheap thrills they were looking for. [6/10]
In 1986, concerns in Hong Kong about the effects of violent movies on children led to the creation of a rating system. Three separate categories were introduced to let parents know what kind of content a film contained before their kids watched it. Category I movies were deemed acceptable for all audiences. Category II was for movies tagged inappropriate for children. (Later, this label would be divided into IIA and IIB, about equivalent to the PG-13 and R ratings we have over here.) Category III, meanwhile, was the only rating that carried legal consequences: Anyone under the age of eighteen was forbidden by law from renting, buying, or watching such a film in theaters. Rather than lead to a softening of violence in Hong Kong cinema, this new system ended up galvanizing exploitation filmmakers. They began making movies deliberately packed with explicit sex and grisly violence, to utilize the inevitable Category III classification as a marketing tactic. These "Cat-III" films would become especially notorious among international horror nerds, in search of ever-more extreme and depraved shock value. Among these notorious titles, "The Untold Story" is probably the most critically acclaimed among global gore hounds. Well, I've got a pretty strong stomach so let's sit down for this extra-rare international delicacy.
In 1978, Hong Kong resident Chan Chi-Leung brutally burned a man to death. He would destroy his government-issued I.D. and flee to Portuguese Macau, assuming the name Wong Chi Hang. Eight years later, "Wong" is operating a successful restaurant called the Eight Immortals. He claims to have won the business in a gambling match from its original owner, Cheng Lam, who then left the country with his wife and eight kids. The cops grow suspicious of Wong after receiving a letter from Lam's brother, saying he's been missing for months. When severed human limbs wash up on a local beach, one of which belonged to Lam's mother-in-law, authorities begin actively investigating Wong Chi Hang. They are right to do so. Wong is a violent psychopath, prone to murdering anyone who offends him. The Eight Immortals restaurant, and its popular barbecue pork buns, has provided him with a very effective way to dispose of the evidence of his crimes...
The very first scene of "The Untold Story" depicts a man being viciously beaten and then set ablaze. This establishes, right away, a malicious mood. While some of the violence occurs with a degree of sick humor – a corpse's buns being buttered like it's a Thanksgiving turkey, a receipt spike to the eye – unrelenting brutality seems to be the primary goal here. When Wong assaults and murders a waitress, it's the kind of limits-pushing extremity I've come to expect from international shock-fests. However, “The Untold Story” keeps going. Multiple scenes follow of people being beaten. Methods of torture, like water being injected under the skin to create blisters, are detailed. Self-mutilation and urine being expelled, consumed, and bloodied are reoccurring topics. Yau's film grabs the viewer by the throat and drags them through this world of casual cruelty, in which people are butchered and fed into the meat grinder in exactly the same manner as pigs. In which nearly every interaction is met with shouts, mockery, or punches. It's grimly impressive how “The Untold Story” manages to keep topping itself in terms of shocking, mean-spirited content. After eighty minutes of despicable violence, the film then made me audibly gasp during its climatic cavalcade of cruelty and executions.
Obviously, such punishing material makes for an uncomfortable watch. One understands the filmmakers' desire to, perhaps, provide some moments of levity in-between the beatings and cannibalism. The choices Yau and co-writer Danny Lee came up with is far less elegant. The group of cops assigned to Wong's case are bickering clowns prone to slapstick antics. Among them is a character named King Kong, also played by an actor named King Kong, a buffoon with a bowl cut. He's part of a team that includes a wannabe macho he-man type, Lee's womanizing lead officer, and the token female named Pearl. Pearl's tomboy fashion and mannerisms are a source of constant bullying from her sexist co-workers. Lee is regularly dragging sex workers into the office, parading them around in mini-skirts and tight dresses. When trying to get finger prints off a severed arm, Kong and Pearl comically hold their noses. This is the level of Keystone Coppery “The Untold Story” chooses to include to lighten an otherwise extremely grim story. The tonal whiplash that ensues is of a severity not seen since “The Last House on the Left.”
As annoying and out-of-place as these scenes are, I do think they serve a roundabout purpose. (Aside from Hong Kong filmmakers' previously documented disinterest in tonal coherence and tendency towards broad humor.) “The Untold Story” portrays the cops after Wong as incompetent. They are warned about him early on but dismiss the concerns and letters. It's only after they see him throwing away suspicious material that they think maybe he's up to something. Wong escapes police custody not because he's a criminal mastermind but because the authorities are nincompoops. When they grab the killer again, their response is to throw him into a jail cell with other crooks they know hate Wong. The police ignore his pleas for help as he's repeatedly beaten. Wong is tortured and kept awake for days until he confesses to his crimes. Basically, “The Untold Story” pits an openly corrupt and inept “justice” system against a monstrously deprived killer, raising questions of whether justice is a concept that can be said to truly exist at all.
While “The Untold Story” is largely an uncompromisingly grim exercise, there does seem to be a purpose to creating such a loveless cinematic world. Anthony Wong becomes Chan Chi-Leung by wearing giant square glasses and shaving his hair down to a widow's peak that makes his head dome-like. He juts his bottom jaw out to create an unflattering double chin, while starring ahead unblinking and pursing his lips together tightly. Wong often swears and yells at anyone he meets. When accused of cheating at mahjong, he admits that he does cheat but is still driven to rage by the accusation. The guy is despised by everyone who meets him. This makes Wong a rather accurate depiction of an anti-social personality type. He's an exposed wire, a terrifying presence that can launch into brutal violence without a moment's notice. Wong also looks astonishingly like the Chudjak meme, the modern face of petty bitterness and undirected hatred leading to mass murder. This is fitting, as Chan Chi-Leung is also a stupid, charmless person. It never occurs to him that killing his employees and putting up a help wanted sign the next day is suspicious. He is motivated primarily by greed. After accidentally committing one gruesome murder, he escalates to full-blown familicide by reasoning that there's no point in stopping now. There's something chillingly accurate in this depiction of evil not as something brilliant and charming but ugly, impulsive, senseless, and greedy. It feels truer to life than your usual cinematic serial killer.
Anthony Wong's performance was such an impressive display of aggression and ignorance that he won the Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor, the country's version of an Oscar. It's hard to imagine an exploitation film as gross and nasty as this achieving an honor like that in Hollywood. “The Untold Story” is made more disreputable by being based on fact. Or, more accurately, it is based on the sensationalist rumors that arose in the tabloids and urban legends after the actual crime. The Eight Immortals restaurant was a real place and the family that owned it was murdered following a gambling debt gone wrong. None of the cannibalism or more outrageous acts of violence depicted here are known to have actually occurred, making the film about as tacky an enterprise as possible. Despite that and some embarrassing comic relief, it is a compelling brutal motion picture, that achieves an effectively stunning impact on the viewer. Assuming you've got, uh, a taste for such things. [8/10]
Arch Hall's son was going to be a movie star. Hall, an actual cowboy who became a Western stuntman, he founded the film company Fairway Productions in 1959. His first feature, “The Choppers,” arrived in 1961. The teenage delinquent flick just so happened to star Arch Hill Jr., who also sang several songs in the film. The movie was profitable on the drive-in circuit, allowing Hll Sr. to pursue his dream of turning his son into an Elvis style rock 'n' roll singer/movie star. Archie Jr.'s lack of screen idol good looks wasn't going to stop him either. Their next features, the killer caveman/rock n roll/dune buggy flick “Eegah!” and musical “Wild Guitar,” were also mildly successful without turning Hall's boy into a teen idol. (In addition to being regarded nowadays as some of the most miscalculated B-movies ever made.) Perhaps with the thought that nobody wanted to see Arch Hall the Second as a hero, it was decided to cast him as a villain in the next Fairway Production. This was the origin of “The Sadist” which, intentionally or not, has become the best reviewed of Arch Hall Jr.'s misbegotten film career.
Ed, Doris, and Carl are all school teachers. The trio is headed to a Dodgers game, mostly because the married Carl wants to see the single Ed and Doris get together. Some engine troubles ensue and they stop into an isolated gas station in the Antelope Valley. The place is seemingly abandoned but Carl soon finds a still-warm meal sitting on the table inside. That is when a strange young man, Charlie and his equally odd girlfriend, Judy, make themselves known. Wielding a gun, Charlie holds the three teachers hostage. He forces Ed, a former mechanic in the war, to fix their vehicle. When not doing that, Charlie and Judy torment and harasses the three adults. After Carl attempts to reach out to the young man's better nature, he beats him and shoots him in the head. That is when Ed recalls the spree killings reported in the area, realizing that the sadistic and unpredictable Charlie and Judy are responsible. And that they are aiming to make the remaining teachers their next victims.
“The Sadist” has the kind of set-up that would've been commonplace in the seventies. It's loosely inspired by notorious spree killer Charles Starkweather and his underage accomplice Caril Ann Fugate, whose crimes had shocked the nation six years prior. Attached to this vaguely true crime-like premise is a grim tone. The title is apt. Early on, Charlie beats Carl and starts playing head games with him. Judy asks the young man if he enjoys causing other people suffering, causing Charlie to merely smirk. B-movies were getting nastier in a post-”Psycho” world but “The Sadist” still seems unusually focused on the psychological torment the villain puts his victims through. Charlie constantly reminds Ed and Judy that he's capable of killing them at any point. He forces Judy's face into the dirt, instructing her to eat it, before groping her breasts. It's not that the violence or sadism is especially graphic. It's not. It's that “The Sadist” seems determined to capture a tone of hopelessness. Whenever a chance for escape comes along, it is foiled. The film only grows more downbeat as it goes along, leaving the viewer truly wondering if anyone is going to make it out of this alive.
Part of what makes this bleak quality more surprising is that it exists inside a fairly typically cornball B-movie. Richard Alden is your standard, stout-chinned, fifties style good guy. When he stripes his over-shirt off to work on the car, he warns Marilyn Manning's Judy so as not to scandalize her. Manning and Don Russell, as Carl, give especially mannered and dorky performances, seeming as square as can be. Somehow, these dorks stumbled into a proto-”Texas Chain Saw Massacre” style situation, right down to the extremely grungy looking setting. At the center of this is the bizarre anti-charisma of Arch Hall Jr. Hall's bulging eyes, pug nose, cherubic face, giant chompers, and prominent chin already give him an uncanny quality. “The Sadist” emphasizes this with a streak of make-up under his brow. He guffaws in an idiotic manner and affects a cartoonish voice for many scenes. At other times, his voice is weirdly gruff. Intentionally or not, the film seems to capture the real Starkweather's "dull normal" intelligence. Either way, Hall is such a distressingly bizarre figure that he makes for the kind of cinematic villain you can't take look away from.
Not much actually happens in “The Sadist.” Its super-low budget is apparent in almost the entire movie being set in the gas station. The script is repetitive, composed of failed escape attempts and Charlie threatening the heroes again. Every bright spot is short-lived, possibly making the film feel like a pointless exercise in nihilism. An unexpected attribute holds it together. “The Sadist” was the debut credit of cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond. As in the guy who shot “McCabe & Mrs. Miller,” “Deliverance,” “The Long Goodbye,” “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” and “The Deer Hunter.” Unsurprisingly, this means “The Sadist” is full of striking images. Zsigmond repeatedly attaches the camera to the perspective of Hall's gun as he peers at his victims. Or to the soda bottles he constantly, mindlessly gulps from. The stark black-and-white photography is paired with the flat, desolate landscape that stretches in all direction. The result is a sense of foreboding isolation, furthering the feeling that the protagonists are really out there and alone with this chuckling nut case.
It's entirely possible that Zsigmond's cinematography is the secret ingredient that makes the difference here. Director James Landis' other credits do not inspire much confidence. Hall's lack of star power is well documented and his dad would stop putting him in movies shortly after this. While it's hard to argue for the quality of “Eegah!” or “Wild Guitar,” “The Sadist” is too grim and unsettling to be dismissed. Like all the Fairway Productions filmography, this was quickly made to fill out drive-in double bills, meaning no precaution was taking with copyright. The film fell into the domain immediately and is accordingly available anywhere. However, there's enough artfulness in that carelessness to create an irritating but effective exploitation flick. I know Rob Zombie is a fan of the film and you can see it as a direct influence on his later depraved white trash killer sagas. [7/10]
The season finale of “Alien: Earth” sees, as tend to happens, the evil corporation losing control of the unpredictable super-weapon they've engineered. Wendy and the other Lost Boys are captured and held in confinement. Unfortunately, Boy Kavalier has forgotten that Wendy can seemingly control the island's entire network with merely her thoughts. She proceeds to torment the security force. She lets her brother and Morrow out of their separate cell, the cyborg soon having his showdown with resident synthetic Kirsh. Wendy goes off to protect Joe, who Boy Kavalier hopes to infect with the crawling eyeball parasite. Through it all, the xenomorph – which seems totally obedient to Wendy – lurks around and kills any one who attempts to hurt it. Eventually, the various opposing forces come to blow, certain someones will be held accountable for what they've done, and youths will be forced to grow up.
When paired with “Alien: Earth's” on-going “Peter Pan” fixation – oh god, I just realize Morrow having one hand makes him Captain Hook, doesn't it? – it becomes clear that this is a show about growing up. Considering “Alien” has always been a series fascinated with reproduction, this is a logical enough idea. However, as it repeatedly has, the show seems fixated on its ideas only in the shallowest of ways. Wendy repeatedly states that she is not human and not machine, not a grown-up and not a child. She is not a robot-girl, not yet a robot-woman. She strikes me most as an edgy teenager, discovering that the world is a shitty place, some people will try and manipulate you, and it can be hard to do the right thing. When Joe sums all of this up by saying that it is “complicated,” she gets mad with him. But he's right, man. Life is fucking complicated. Aside from her cybernetically enhance super-ability and intelligence, what does Wendy think she can do to change that?
There aren't much in the way of any answers. Certainly not to the question of how or why she can do anything she wants with nearly any other machine. There's also no explanation for why Nibs has become delusional and violent, which the other robot children don't seem concerned about. What “The Real Monsters” gives us instead is an origin story for Boy Kavalier. He describes his father as an abusive drunk that he replaced with a robot he built himself. That suggests he grew up in blue collar roots – a betrayal of not only what we know about the super-rich in real life but the show's own themes – and that he's kind of sad and pathetic inside. The show doesn't use this back story as an excuse for his behavior. If anything, this finale clarifies that Boy is an entitled little asshole. However, I don't understand “Alien: Earth's” repeated need to give all of its villains some sort of tragic origin. Why was that necessary?
I can't answer that question either and it's not the most pressing mystery anyway. No, I've left season one of “Alien: Earth” wondering why the hell anyone would want to make an “Alien” TV show and spend so much screen time focusing on other aliens. The crawling eyeball creature remains the actual extraterrestrial antagonist here, getting a dramatic showdown with the heroes and a promise that it'll be back next year. There's also a bit of gory spectacle, in the show finally displaying what the weird Venus fly trap creature can do. Sure, whatever, that's fine. Aren't we here for the xenomorph? It has a few moments of on-screen chaos but largely lurks only on the sidelines, hissing. As with everything else about Wendy's extraordinary abilities, her bond with the alien is left unexplored. That this TV show reduces one of cinema's scariest, most provocative monsters down to a subservient pet for its super-powered protagonist ultimately strikes me as deeply unsatisfying. Maybe a little insulting too.
What does “The Real Monsters” leave us with, aside from that hilariously grandiose title? There's a fight scene between Babou Ceesay's Morrow and Timothy Olyphant's Kirsch that is mildly entertaining. It says a lot about this show's constant need to re-affirm its own cleverness that, seconds away from winning the fight, Morrow starts rambling about John Henry instead. Ya know, it's weird that this future set series keeps referencing contemporary pop culture! Ultimately, season one of “Alien: Earth” proved to be such an immensely unsatisfying experience to me that I don't think I'm likely to bother with another big budget serialized streaming spin-off series any time soon. Rehashed premises from the older films under the guise of something new, characters that ranged from one-note to annoying, themes and social commentary that was deeply shallow but self-important, and that ever-present god-awful pacing made this season mostly a chore to get through. [5/10]
One assumes that, when the idea first arose to turn “The Hunger” into a horror anthology show, David Bowie was always intended to be the host. I guess the Thin White Duke must have been unavailable at first though. Season one was, instead, presented by Terence Stamp. I had no plans to revisit “The Hunger,” since the episode I watched last October was annoying, but Stamp's recent passing has motivated me to give an earlier installment a try. “The Secret Shih Tan” follows Craig Yun, the owner of the Golden Tail, the fanciest Chinese restaurant in town. One night, millionaire Hugo Lawery appears with his female companion, Zan. He asks Yun to prepare a rare, poisonous fish and watches him cook the dish. Afterwards, he's given a business card promising access to the Secret Shih Tan. That would be a mythic cook book said to contain the most delicious and forbidden recipes, which drove the last man who made a meal from it insane. If you are guessing the main ingredient in these secret recipes is people, you'd be right. Horrified at first, Yun is compelled by curiosity and blackmail to make Lawery a meal from the book. The young and beautiful Zan, purchased by Lawery at a young age to do with whatever he pleases, is chosen to be the main course, the recipe calling for her to be slain at the height of sexual pleasure.
“The Secret Shih Tan” is based off a short story by Graham Masteron and directed by Russell Mulcahy, two storytellers who know how to make trashy material entertaining. The episode reveals fairly early on that the secret ingredient is people, in an effective sequence where we watch Yun thumb through the legendary cook book. Jason Scott Lee, an underrated performer, does some excellent face-acting in this scene as he notices that all the diagrams in the book are of human beings. “The Secret Shih Tan” does have a twist ending, an act of misdirection that's fairly easy to predict. However, it does fulfill the gruesome promise of the premise while also providing a surprisingly potent taste of social commentary. The rich already figuratively consume the poor and this set-up merely makes that literal. The ending is upbeat while grimly suggesting that participating in this act of classist consumption is the only way to advance in this world. Either way, it does make for a fittingly ironic ending.
“The Hunger” being a slightly disreputable late night, premium cable series, the kind of flesh that's eaten is the only one on display here. The script simply had to include that detail about the young women being in orgasmic ecstasy before being cooked, leading to a predictably softcore love scene. Compared to how obnoxiously directed the two episodes from the Bowie season I've seen were, “The Secret Shih Tan” looks calm in comparison. Only the montage where a body is prepared is prone to shaky camera work and overly frantic editing. Otherwise, Mulcahy brings the level of cool slickness you expect from him here. Not a bad little morbid morsel, this one. As for Stamp's host segments, he makes the totally bullshit narration seem profound and sells the seriousness with only a few glares. The man was an utter professional, that's for sure. [7/10]
Here are the things we know to be true. In 1974, after losing their previous home in Hurricane Agnes, the Smurl family – Jack and Janet, their daughters Dawn and Heather, and his parents John and Mary – moved into a duplex on Chase Street in West Pittston, Pennsylvania. The home was an admitted fixer-upper, with a creaky foundation, in a town plagued with sewer piping issues and built atop a honeycomb of old mining areas. Eighteen months after moving in, the family reported your standard poltergeist activity: Missing objects, weird smells, creepy voices, and knocking sounds coming from the walls. (Especially the wall the grandparents shared with the bedroom of their teenage granddaughters.) After Janet gave birth to twins, Shannon and Carin, the family claims the haunting intensified. Supposed incidents include a light falling from the kitchen ceiling, Dawn being pushed down the stairs, Shannon seeing floating figures in her room, and a pet German Shepherd being lifted into the air and thrown into a wall by an unseen force. Most notoriously, Jack – a devout Catholic who underwent brain surgery in 1983 – says a succubus raped him in an episode that aligns closely with sleep paralysis symptoms.
The family went to the press with their claims, who crowded the streets to such a degree that the neighbors complained. Several Catholic priests performed exorcisms in the house and stayed overnight, reporting nothing unusual. The family refused psychological counseling and denied writers from skepticism based publications enter their home. The help they did seek out was from Ed and Lorraine Warren, the infamous "parapsychologists" who claimed that the Amityville Horror hoax was still a legitimate haunting. The Warrens said multiple ghosts and at least one demonic entity were inhabiting the home. Ed Warren said he saw demonic black masses forming in the air and heard evil voices. Around this time, the money strapped Smurl family was also negotiating book and movie deals about their story. This is why actor Jason Miller visited the house during this period. A book co-written by the Warrens, entitled "The Haunted: One Family's Nightmare," was published in 1986. It was poorly reviewed. A made-for-TV film adaptation followed in 1991. The paranormal activity stopped rather anticlimactically sometime before the Smurls moved out of the house in 1987. Subsequent owners of the property have reported no ghostly events.
This we also know to be true: "The Conjuring" cinematic universe, extremely loosely based on Ed and Lorraine's career, is the highest grossing horror franchise to date, having made over two billions dollars across nine or ten films. The last three entries in the series have been slightly less successful than the ones before them, the third "Annabelle" and "Conjuring" entries and the second "Nun" all failing to cross two hundred million at the global box office. While that's still a lot of profit, it does suggest some diminishing returns. This might be why it was announced that "The Conjuring 4" would be the final entry about the Warrens themselves, a climax of sorts to "phase one" of the cinematic universe. In other words, a possible finale, the "Avengers: Endgame" of the "Conjuring"-verse. Michael Chaves directed two of those slightly less popular recent sequels but was still retained as director of this one. The subtitle "Last Rites" ensured that everyone knew this was possibly the final movie. Since the Smurl case is chronologically the last of the Warrens' truly attention grabbing "investigations," it provided the basis for the sequel.
This is the story invented for the sequel: Early in their ghost hunting career, Ed and Lorraine Warren investigated a haunted mirror. The incident was so traumatic that it pushed a very pregnant Lorraine into labor. Their daughter, Judy, arrived stillborn and nearly died, which the couple attributed to the evil spirits within the mirror. In 1985, the Warrens have basically retired from demon battling because of Ed's worsening heart condition. Judy is all grown up and engaged to a man named Tony. Around the same time, the aforementioned spooky mirror ends up in the home of the Smurl family in Pennsylvania, kicking off a horrifying series of events. Old friend of the Warrens, Father Gordon, is so distressed by what he encounters in the home that he commits suicide afterwards. This attracts Judy – who has been experiencing strange visions herself – to the Smurl residence. Her parents follow closely behind, discovering the haunting's connection to one of their earliest cases.
The best films in “The Conjuring” series still tend to feature more jump-scares, those loud and obnoxious jolts that sacrifice genuine tension for a quick jolt, than I'd prefer. The weaker ones rely almost entirely upon them, alongside too much CGI and ideas stolen from better movies. Chaves' first contributions to this cinematic universe, “The Curse of La Llorona” and “The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It,” were utterly kneecapped by this. His third film, “The Nun II,” was a little better. “Last Rites” does prove that the filmmaker and his team are capable of creating a genuinely eerie horror set-piece. My favorite moment in the sequel involves one of the Smurl daughters re-winding a home movie, in order to spot a demonic face in the grainy darkness of the footage. Her own face is reflected on the TV screen as each repetition comes. It's a well-done moment that builds nicely and plays off understandable anxieties, of our private moments and home being invaded by a malevolent outsider. Naturally, this scene immediately leads into a loud and very goofy sequence of a ghostly murder-hillbilly chasing the girl around the living room. So it too often goes with the “Conjuring” movies.
There are a number of moments like that throughout the sequel. As the evil mirror is crushed in a trash truck, one of the Smurl daughters vomits up a torrent of blood, spraying it around the room. Judy stands in a mirrored room at a bridal shop, before a creaking open door allows in a malevolent spirit. In a set piece that feels like it could've been from one of the better “Omen” sequels, Father Gordon is harassed by demonic spirits in a gorgeously lit room. Any time a suitably tense or freaky feeling is established, it's immediately squandered on a big, loud special effect. “Last Rites,” in particular, seems to greatly miscalculate what is and isn't genuinely scary. It's spectral menace is a generic evil hag with a cartoonish clown grin, which made me chuckle every time it appeared. As the film goes on, it only gets sillier. The entire last act is a barrage of excruciatingly loud, CGI-driven spectacle. An eight foot tall version of Annabelle juts out of the darkness, there's a weak-as-piss revival of some “Exorcist” shenanigans, before the entire climax revolves around the evil mirror. Oh boy, does “The Conjuring: Last Rites” grossly overestimate how scary a mirror is. Even when you used computers to make it do all sorts of wacky shit.
Much has been made of “Last Rites'” status as a send-off to the Ed and Lorraine that exist solely within these movies. Despite Patrick Wilson looking as yoked out as a 52 year old man could, the film repeatedly draws attention to Ed's worsening heart condition. You're expecting him to die by the end or something. Similarly, repeated references are made to Annabelle and Judy's connection to the demonic doll. Despite that, the sequel barely connects to any previous adventures. Considering the Disciples of the Ram – the Satanic cult present in the first “Annabelle” and third “Conjuring” flicks – seemed like they were being set-up as the Warrens' arch-nemesis, I was disappointed they are totally tossed out in favor of this lame-ass mirror. The script desperately attempts to make this last minute addition to “Conjuring”-verse lore into an enemy grand enough for a final movie. It simply doesn't work, instead feeling more like series architects David Leslie Johnson-McGoldrick and James Wan – and the other two credited screenwriters – were out of ideas.
It's something of a bummer too. Whatever merits these movies have, the chemistry between Patrick Wilson and Vera Farmiga remains adorable. It says a lot that some of the better moments in the film involve no demons or spectres at all. Instead, scenes of the two cooking pancakes or bantering around a dinner table prove far more charming. Farmiga and Wilson have played these ridiculous characters long enough that they feel fleshed-out and lived-in, despite mostly still being caricatures. The new additions to the Warren family here also prove unusually charming. Mia Tomlinson, as Judy, has got those diamond eyes and button nose that immediately makes you want to see her protected. Ben Hardy plays her fiance as a sincere dork who proves surprisingly likable. One of the biggest flaws of the sequel is that it splits time between the Warrens and the Smurls. Clearly, the former are the stars of the show but the latter motivate the plot. The actors playing the tormented family are fine, making them all seem like decent people, but their plight often feels pushed to the margin of the story.
“Last Rites” ends with an extended epilogue, clearly designed to function as both a heart-felt goodbye to the cinematic Ed and Lorraine with call-backs to past adventures. It's also clearly a passing of the baton to a new team of heroes, should the franchise continue. Considering the fourth installment has already made more than its predecessor – and that the real life Tony Spera has kept his in-laws' grift going to this day – that seems extremely likely. (WB has already announced a streaming series, at the very least.) “Last Rites” is not the worst film to appear out of this very silly franchise, nor is it an especially riveting or frightening one. The leads are nice, it's got one or two moments, but the whole thing remains an immensely silly and self-serious affair. At least it's not as suffocating in its status as Catholic propaganda – the generic virtues of familial love taking precedence over the power of God – as the other ones. Hopefully whatever form the “Conjuring” universe takes next, it'll be about something more like that ghost werewolf and not a fuckin' scary mirror. [5/10]
Starting in 1963, Herschell Gordon Lewis would direct a series of garbage bag horror movies that made up for their lack of plausible storytelling, realistic acting, and professional camerawork by throwing a bunch of blood and guts around. The complete rejection of good taste evident in Lewis' films naturally attracted an audience. However, the novelty of sheep intestines heaped on Playboy bunnies had worn thin by 1967. HGL then started experimenting with other exploitation sub-categories. He dabbled in topics like LSD, biker gangs, all-girl rock groups, wife swapping, and the birth control pill. Emerging out of this period was “Just for the Hell of It,” the director's attempt to make a movie about teenage delinquents. (Which he did without casting any actual teenagers.) The resulting motion picture features the same mixture of technical incompetence and weird, outsider perspective as the rest of the filmmaker's output.
Like most of Lewis' productions, “Just for the Hell of It” is set in a sunny, Floridian suburb. The otherwise idyllic town is beset by a group of rowdy youths who call themselves Destruction Incorporated. Led by the criminally insane Dexter, the group performs random acts of violence on any local unlucky enough to stumble into their path. In-between terrorizing people on the street, they throw wild parties, do drugs, and wreck small businesses. Why do they do this? For no apparent reason at all, perhaps other than to amuse themselves. Their victims are too frightened to testify against them, making the police powerless. Doug is a former member of Dexter's gang who has cleaned up his life, dating a nice girl named Jeanne. He is the only person willing to stand up to the troublemakers. His sense of justice makes him an enemy of the hellraisers, Dexter and his lackies soon deciding to make his life a living hell.
“Just for the Hell of It,” without any production logos or opening credits, begins right away with a drawn-out scene of the juvenile delinquents wrecking an apartment. The scene goes on and on, shot in a mix of static medium shots and shaky, handheld close-ups. The titles finally begin, playing out over a montage of the kids attacking random people around town. Over the scene, an extremely goofy folk-rock song plays. This, in fact, is how most of the film plays out. Dexter's gang get into fist fights in dinners and wreck them. They spray paint “FUZZ GO AWAY” on a wall. They very gently place a woman's baby in a trash can before smashing her baby carriage to pieces. An old lady is sprayed with a hose, a blind man beat up, a guy on crutches attacked, a newspaper is set on fire without the woman reading it noticing. Many of these montages of destruction are set to that same warbling, repetitive song. All of it is done with the resources, budget, and skills we've come to expect from Herschell Gordon Lewis. Which is to say very little.
The movie was obviously an attempt by its director to cash-in on the cultural hysteria around the hippy movement. The theme song refers to the violent teens as hairy animals and one of the bystanders decries them as “monkeys.” Except these rebel-rousers don't have long hair. They don't appear unshaved, unwashed or even somewhat slightly dazed. They have cleanly cropped hair cuts and wear tucked-in and button-down shirts. This is undoubtedly an exploitation movie. Three teenage girls are lured to one of the gang's party, presumably sexually assaulted, and intimidated into not reporting to the incident. A random blonde on a beach is raped while the hero's girlfriend gets violently brutalized. However, in a rare display of tact, Lewis doesn't include any nudity in these moments. Which surely would've been permissible by 1968. The hokey soundtrack feels very much like a hopelessly out-of-step square attempting to replicate what the kids were listening to. The dialogue is a hilariously awkward attempt to copy contemporary slang. What hippy would call the cops “fuzz” and not “pigs?” These riotous teens rarely do drugs, never have on-screen sex, and seem unusual gentle with what chaos they do reap.
As it often does, the odd mixture of tedium, do-it-yourself scrapiness, camp, and mean-spirited violence makes “Just for the Hell of It” nearly as hypnotic and entombing as Lewis' more notorious motion pictures. Most of the movie is composed of the aforementioned montages, making this nearly eighty whole minutes of nothing but senseless destruction. The plot is thin as can be, Dexter's rivalry with Doug not being introduced until the eighteen minute mark and only cropping up a few other times before the end. This makes “Just for the Hell of It” feel as nihilistic as the teenage psychopaths it is about. The ending, as slapdash as the rest of the production, is downbeat in its abruptness. A brief epilogue has a character clarifying that none of this matters, before a final reprise of the theme song assures us that no moral can be taken from this telling. I'm sure Mr. Lewis was simply being as crass and commercial as ever. People wanted movies about the kids not being alright and going wild in the streets? Lewis was going to give them that and nothing else. However, the filmmaker's sheer inability to ever aspire to higher art almost makes “Just for the Hell of It” a statement on hedonistic mayhem for its own sake. Few other movies about meaningless violence feel quite as meaningless as this.
Naturally, the acting is stilted and otherworldly. Ray Sager, the future Montag the Magnificent, plays Dexter as a weirdly vamping marionette while everyone else are stiff as boards. The filmmaking craft on display is rough. When the gang destroys the diner, its owner seems to yell at them from an entirely separate dimension. Aside from that cornball theme song, the soundtrack is composed of jazzy dissonance and random electronic farts. There are unexpected bursts of artier touches, shots of the unhinged antagonists giggling in brightly colored cutaways. It's not as funny as HGL's better remembered horror movies. Nor as weird as, well, “Something Weird.” Often boring or annoying, “Just for the Hell of It” is still too fascinatingly fixated on the idea of senseless violence not to be somewhat interesting and too miscalculated in its attempt to say hello to the fellow kids not to entertain. [5/10]
If you say the words “Tales of the Unexpected” to most fans of classic genre television, they will probably assume you are talking about the British series that ran from 1979 to 1988. That Roald Dahl-hosted program did air in the U.S. as well, in syndication throughout the eighties. However, if you're talking to a real hardcore anthology aficionado, they might recall an earlier, American “Tales of the Unexpected.” This one was produced by the prolific Quinn Martin, of “A Quinn Martin Production” fame, going so far as to include his name above the title. (Providing a convenient way to differentiate it from the identically named program that began two years later.) This “Tales” aired for five hour long episodes in 1977, getting crushed in the ratings by “Charlie's Angels” and “Baretta.” I guess, as some sort of stunt to raise ratings, the sixth episode took the form of a feature length special. If that was the intention, it didn't work. The show went on hiatus for sixth months before burning off the last two episodes in August. The longer episode, entitled “The Force of Evil,” would eventually be released on VHS as a stand-alone movie. Along with a handful of other “Tales,” it now floats around the internet as blurry uploads.
“Force of Evil” follows Dr. Yale Carrington, a beloved husband to Maggie and father to two kids, John and Maggie. Seven years earlier, the crematorium operator at the hospital named Teddy Jakes raped and murdered a girl. He came to Dr. Carrington, asking him to provide an alibi. The doctor refused and Jakes went away for the crime. Now, however, he is out on parole. Jakes begins to show up at the doctor's office. He harasses Maggie in the parking lot of the grocery store. The family's stables burn down mysteriously and a friend of Maggie is struck by a boat while jet-skiing, both crimes attribute to Jakes. Carrington has his brother, the town sheriff, put some pressure on Jakes but it only increases his stalking. The doctor takes justice into his own hands, poisoning Jakes' daily insulin, and dropping his body down a well... This does not stop the man's will to torment Yale Carrington and his family, his vengeance continuing from beyond the grave.
The few times retrospective reviews of Martin's “Tales of the Unexpected” pop up, it is usually criticized for a perceived lack of creativity. The episode “The Nomads” is a direct remake of the pilot of earlier Martin series, “The Invaders.” Another episode, “A Hand for Sonny Grey,” transplants the old “Hands of Orlac” premise into the world of baseball. Then there's “Force of Evil” which is, to put it kindly, an extended homage to “Cape Fear.” To put it bluntly, it's a direct rip-off. The profession of the main character is changed from a lawyer to a doctor and the location is shifted from the deep south to the American southwest. Otherwise, the similarities are hard to ignore. It's not only the general set-up of a now paroled rapist harassing the family of the man he blames for his imprisonment. In both “Cape Fear” and this episode, the protagonist has the local police pressure the crook, only for that plan to backfire. While in prison, Teddy Jakes read up on law books, much the way Max Cady did. Most blatantly, the climax of “Force of Evil” also sees the family man, his wife, and daughter hiding out on a house boat, only for the assailant to follow them and set the boat adrift from the dock. The episode is credited to Robert Malcolm Young, without acknowledging John D. MacDonald's original novel or James R. Webb's screenplay, but it seems implausible to me that the parallels are coincidence.
Part of what makes “Cape Fear” a compelling story is how the hero is constantly tempted to violently strike back at his stalker but ultimately shows himself to be morally superior. This is not present in “Force of Evil.” Dr. Carrington and his wife outright plot to murder Teddy Jakes, going so far as to hide his body. This does insert a new angle to the telling. Jakes is a vile man, a remorseless predator who delights in intimidating and terrifying his enemies. However, Carrington taking the law into his own hands, setting out to murder Jakes, at least makes the man's revenge understandable. This could have been built into a meditation on the nature of justice, what constitutes self-defense exactly, and how people consolidate their moral compass. “Force of Evil” doesn't really get into that though, leaving the morality of its protagonist mostly unexamined. The supernatural element that is also hinted at never amounts to much either. The script seems to confirm that Jakes is dead half-way through, his body being dragged out of the well, while also flirting with the possibility that he simply somehow survived the assassination attempt. It's all very vague and half-assed.
There's some suggestion that “The Force of Evil” could have been a little more than a low-rent TV rip-off of a classic film. Lloyd Bridges stars as Carrington and makes for a sympathetic protagonist. He has good chemistry with Pat Crowley as his wife. William Watson is especially effective as Teddy Jakes, putting off a greasy kind of charisma while also coming across as a totally repugnant human being. You can see how he would be able to con his way into various scenarios while never forgetting what a threat he is. Cinematographer Paul Lohmann has some notable other credits, such as “Coffy,” “The White Buffalo,” and a few Mel Brooks movies. He occasionally adopts a cock-eyed visual direction, adding an uneasy tension to a few moments. Despite these strengths, “Touch of Evil” is sluggishly paced throughout. This story truly did not need to be almost two hours. Moreover, the characters are all thinly written, leaving the talented cast little room to expand on the material.
As the title implies, there is something of a twist ending here. More like an ambiguous ending, to be frank. It is mildly interesting. William Conrad provides opening and closing narration, as he did on a few other Martin productions, which helps this feel more like a proper anthology series. However, if this represents the overall quality of this “Tales of the Unexpected,” it's not hard to see why it didn't catch on. “Force of Evil” goes out of its way to remind the viewer of superior material while never grappling with the moral themes it brings up or weirder ideas batted around by the script. “Quinn Martin's Tales of the Unexpected” does seem fondly remembered by some seventies nostalgists. Stephen King shouted the show out in “Danse Macabre,” his non-fiction essay on the horror genre... Except the scenario he describes is actually from an episode of “Ghost Story,” meaning this series actually has zero cultural legacy. Good theme song though. [5/10]
“The Addams Family” is not a show that you would refer to as topical most of the time. However, “Fester Goes on a Diet” roots itself to the late sixties in two specific ways. The main plot involves Uncle Fester receiving news that Yvette, his latest pen pal from France, will be visiting him soon. After Pugsley is caught exercising, in hopes of impressing his own lady friend and much to his parents' horror, Fester gets the idea to loose some weight himself. He consults fitness guru Jack LaLanne – whose eponymous show was already fifteen years into its 34 run by 1966 – and quickly gets on the exercise regiment supposedly used by U.S. astronauts. That last detail leads Gomez and Morticia to believe that Fester has been selected to be an astronaut, the two quickly becoming fearful that his electric physicality would be dangerous within the high-oxygen environment of a space shuttle. The Saturn IB round of Apollo missions would start shortly after this episode aired, which is probably why the topic was on the show writers' minds. The episode does not end with Fester going into outer space, which he wouldn't accomplish until he started fighting aliens in 1989.
You never know if older programs such as this will hold up to modern standards. By which I mean I was worried this episode would be full of fat jokes. “The Addams Family” has rarely used Jackie Coogan or Ken Weatherwax's physical appearances as the butt of jokes but you never know. It was the sixties, man. Thankfully, “Fester Goes on a Diet” doesn't mock either actor for their appearance much. The idea of Pugsley getting into weight training is a joke because his parents are aghast that their child would be into something wholesome like exercise, not because he's a husky kid. Jack LaLanne, beloved pop culture figure though he might have been, was not much of an actor. He does deliver a few stiff lines about Fester's appearance. However, most of the humor is derived from the weirdness of the uncle's body, not his weight. Fester's attempts at knee bends or arm reps go wrong because he's more like a corpse than your average person. It's goofy physical comedy, not mockery of a fat guy. The ending – fairly easy to predict – could even be read as fat-positive through a 2025 lens, though unintentionally. Still, I didn't cringe much.
In fact, “Fester Goes on a Diet” is a fairly amusing episode. Once again, season two gets some decent mileage out of pairing up characters that haven't interacted much before. I don't recall Fester and Lurch having too many scenes together before this. When Fester tells the butler that his lady friend will be paying him a visit soon, the stocky man-servant's unusually vocal reaction got a good laugh out of me. So did some of the shenanigans of the two attempting to exercise together. Once Yvette appears in the last act, there's a solid gag based of Fester attempting to replicate Gomez' passion for French. A doctor is called in to give Fester a physical, which gets a little more weird than your standard joke of an outsider reacting with horror to the family's antics. Also, there's a cool shot of some fog billowing through the house, the result of Fester using a sarcophagus as a steam bath. Ya know, how come there's not more fog on this show? I'd say the Addams and the Munsters are about evenly matched in most regards but Herman and Lily definitely have the moodier abode. I guess gratuitous amounts of cobwebs and dust and a grand staircase say “haunted house” to me more than a moose head, a fireman's pole, and a two-headed turtle. No offense meant to any of the latter, of course. [7/10]
