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 kung-fu chop socky. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kung-fu chop socky. Show all posts
Mr. Norris' previous three motion pictures were all produced and distributed by American Cinema Releasing, proving to be some of the low-budget company's most successful films. Unfortunately, as is too often the case, the studio overextended itself by trying out some bigger budget projects. A few flops and expensive re-shoots on “I, the Jury” led American Cinema Releasing to close their doors by 1981. Chuck was on a roll though and would have no reason to slow down his one-a-year pace. He simply roundhouse kicked his way over to Avco-Embassy, a company that had their name on so many cult favorites in the eighties. In no time at all, he was right at work on “An Eye for an Eye,” the Chuck Norris vehicle of 1981 How does it stand up to those that came before and after?
Once again, Chuck plays a city cop on the narcotics beat. He's Detective Sean Kane and, along with his partner Dave, they are meeting an informant in a dark alley. It turns out to be a set-up, Dave getting shot, crushed by a speeding car, and burned alive. In a vengeful rage, Kane immediately hunts down the shooter and punches him out an apartment window. The driver of the car remains unidentified and Kane turns in his badge, haunted by the memories. It also haunts Dave's widow, a respectable TV reporter named Linda Chan. She digs into the case further, uncovering something that gets her pursued by a giant Asian man. She calls Sean in a panic before being brutally strangled to death by her attacker. Sean teams up with Linda's dad, a martial arts master who taught him how to fight, and takes the law into his own hands. They soon uncover that the Triads are running an international drug running operation out of the city and it's connected with some powerful names
The first act of “An Eye for an Eye” resembles a darker, gritter type of action/crime movie than what you usually expect from a Chuck Norris flick. When Dave is murdered – the first of several times Terry Kiser would appear as a corpse in an eighties movie – there's a close-up on the body's burned, bloodied face. Afterwards, Kane is driven into such a rage that he's pointing his gun at old ladies in the hallway. There's a visible pissed-off aura radiating from Chuck in these scenes that is intense and different from the kind of roles he's played up to this point. This leads into the sequence of a terrified heroine being pursued by Professor Toru Tanaka, all his mass squeezed into a turtle neck and propped up on one elevated shoe. It's a surprisingly tense chase, ending with a shot of Tanaka's fist exploding through a door like it's Jason Voorhees' machete. I found myself wondering if “An Eye for an Eye” was going to continue in this mold, bringing some slasher energy to its gritty inner city setting.
I would have liked to have seen a little more of that but this grim first act doesn't really represent what “An Eye for an Eye” is like. Instead, the film immediately veers in a much lighter direction. I guess a few weeks off from the force is enough to mellow Kane out, cause he almost seems like a different character in these scenes. He has an adorable dog, who has a habit of running off with his shirts. This is the focus of several scenes, including when he brings his love interest home. That love interest would be Heather, played by Maggie Cooper. Her and Norris have actual chemistry, better than the leading ladies in his prior movies. When he does things like carry a stack of VHS tapes or promises her she'll be safe in his home, it actually comes across as sweet. There is some tonal whiplash from swinging so hard between a gritty action flick and a cutesy romantic comedy but, weirdly, it works.
That's the mood “An Eye for an Eye” operates in for most of the rest of its runtime. Chuck cracks a few quibs here and one actually got a laugh out of me. Most of the film pairs him with Mako, as John Chan. It's another example of the obviously Japanese actor playing a Chinese character. (Professor Toru Tanaka, who was of Hawaiian/Chinese lineage in real life despite his stereotypically Japanese stage name, is as well.) However, Mako slips into the role of a martial arts master really easily, to the point that I'm surprised he didn't do it more often. Either he's doing some of these throws and tumbles himself or the stunt team did a good job of matching him. Either way, he has an amusing gimmick where he always criticizes Kane's martial arts, no matter how much he just saved his ass. The two do not tag along with each other for the whole movie, “An Eye for an Eye” stopping just short of being a proper buddy cop action flick. However, I would have happily watched a whole movie of Mako being Chuck's smart-ass sensai type as they fight the bad guys together.
This is another Norris vehicle that seeks to compensate for any lack of charisma the star might have by filling out the supporting cast with reliable performers. Aside from Mako, Richard Roundtree shows up as the police chief. Definitely needed a few more scenes of him gruffly reading the cowboy cop the riot act. Christopher Lee plays the head of the network, a role the script does a very poor job of disguising is villainous. Mostly because they cast Count Dracula in the part. Stock though the role may be, Lee was a master at elevating nothing parts to grand poetry. An exchange he has about his preference for Asian woman drips with sinister intent that I don't think a lesser performer could have sold with the same weird level of dignity. Matt Clark, another instantly recognizable but not always easy to name character actor, also has a memorable part. If nothing else, he gets the grisliest death scene in the whole movie.
After his first few films almost seemed to apologize for being martial arts movie, the eighties finally let Chuck Norris fight more than a few times in each of his flicks. This trend continues with “An Eye for an Eye,” which features some excellent action over all. The showdown between him, Mako, and a horde of Triad enforcers is very well done. Chuck's trademark moves, not only the roundhouse kicks but when he delivers multiple blows in quick succession or trips someone up by hooking his leg around their necks, all get a big workout here. The gag of kicking some bad guys off a railing or cliff is repeated a few times and works nicely. The proper finale of the film is the showdown with Toru Tanaka. It's a stand-out because Chuck actually gets his ass kicked during it, tossed across the room repeatedly. Much like “The Octagon,” the finale doesn't merely focus on Norris kicking and punching his way through the villain's army. There's plenty of that – an amusing beat-down takes place on a pool diving board – but throws in some shoot-outs and explosions too. Basically giving the audience as big of a bang for their buck as possible.
If you go back and look at the reviews of “An Eye for an Eye,” you find a succession of critics saying that it's simply another Chuck Norris movie, doing all the same things his other films have done. This is basically true. If you aren't already a fan of this strain of bullshit, you are unlikely to find much compelling here. However, “An Eye for an Eye” actually presents some interesting tonal shifts that keep the same old kicking and fighting more compelling than usual. When combined with some strong action choreography and a supporting cast full of familiar faces that you are always happy to see, it makes this one go down real smooth. [7/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 2 outta 5] [] Facial Hair [] 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
Bruce Lee's unexpected death in 1973 would leave a number of his proposed projects unrealized. The most well-known is probably his TV martial arts western that may or may not have morphed into “Kung Fu.” The most notorious is the partially filmed “Game of Death,” which later emerged as a widely loathed hodgepodge. Unlikely to be mentioned is a project Lee supposedly intended to star in for Lo Wei, his “The Big Boss/Fists of Fury” director. “Yellow-Faced Tiger” was to be about a jaundiced martial arts master. It would eventually be filmed as “The Man Called Tiger” with Jimmy Wang Yu in the starring role. That original title, however, would later be reused for a different project of Wei's. Starring the much less famous Wong Tao, 1974's “Yellow-Faced Tiger” furthered the Lee connection by emulating “Way of the Dragon” and casting Chuck Norris as the bad guy. The movie remained in obscurity until the early eighties, after Mr. Norris had been established as a box office attraction in his own right. A U.S. distributor scooped it up, dubbed it, cut out twenty minutes, re-titled the film “Slaughter in San Francisco,” and stuck Chuck's name above the title. The movie immediately fell back into obscurity after that, subsequent VHS releases furthering the misleading claim that this was a lost Chuck Norris vehicle. Cult movie nerds, however, rarely forget. Recently, Eureka Films would give it a Blu-Ray that includes both the original “Yellow-Faced Tiger” cut alongside the abbreviated American edit.
Wong stars as Wong, a Chinese man born in Korea and raised in the United States. He is a cop and close with his partner, John, the two fighting crime with their mutual kung-fu skills. An attempted arrest results in John being beaten by thugs on the beach, Wong killing one of the attackers to save his friend. He is arrested and his badge taken away. Years later, Wong and John remain good friends. After witnessing a bank robbery, John is pursued into the backyard of the Chus, where he's killed. The crooked police chief assumes the Chus are connected and locks them up. Looking to avenge his friend and protect the innocent Chinese family, Wong starts to investigate the crime. He uncovers a web of corruption involving the San Francisco police force that leads all the way to the city's most powerful drug lord.
Depending on one's perspective, “Yellow-Faced Tiger” represents either an interesting melding of a few different cinematic styles or a desperate chasing of several trends at the same time. Setting a kung-fu movie in San Francisco, right away, shows an intent to have a more international appeal than most Golden Harvest productions. Teaming up Wong with the afro-ed Robert Jones was clearly an emulation of Jim Kelly in "Enter the Dragon," speaking to the crossover in audiences between kung-fu flicks and blaxploition movies. This is also rather evident in the film's funky soundtrack, heavy on the groovy bass and rolling rhythm. The choice in setting was possibly influenced by "Dirty Harry" as well, another film about a vigilante cop. That aligns "Yellow-Faced Tiger" with the noir genre a little bit. That connection is most visible in the movie featuring a few too many story lines on the hero's way to confronting the bad guy. The corrupt police chief, a time skip, references to drug running, and the subplot about an innocent family and their imperiled lawyer feel like attempts to put more narrative meat on the script's bones. While it is interesting to see how the film blends various elements that were floating around in pop culture in 1974, it's not the most successful fusion. John's story line never feels fully formed, the conspiracy is underwritten, and the legal subplot drags the pacing down.
Many a fight movie has overcome a shaky script thanks to the quality of its action and its star's charisma. Don Wong Tao doesn't have the magnetic physicality or charm of Bruce Lee, who he is clearly called upon to imitate a few times. However, he's not bad either. He does a lot with an angry glare, conveying the hero's outrage at injustices going unpunished. He can't be as funny as the script needs him to be when shaking down witnesses but he otherwise does okay. He's also a competent fighter and the action in "Yellow-Faced Tiger" is solid throughout. His moves are fast and acrobatic. This really peaks during the last act, when Wong finally confronts the bad guy at his base of operations. There's an impressive mid-air double kick, a shovel being used as a melee weapon, a thug being kicked head over heels, and a few well done suplexes. While the final fight with Norris features a few awkward steps around a fountain, it still makes for a satisfyingly drawn out showdown.
And what of Chuck? The "Slaughter in San Francisco" cut renames his character Chuck Slaughter while the original version only refers to him as "The Boss." Amusingly, some prints seem to credit Norris as himself, giving the impression that the karate champ had a side gig as a West Coast drug kingpin. He doesn't appear until over an hour into the movie and doesn't actually fight anyone until the finale, save for some random sparring practice. When asked to smirk wickedly behind big sunglasses, put a cigar out on a waiter's hand, or make offers you shouldn't refuse, Norris does not seem that confident. The Boss' villainous attributes are more informed than detailed. However, a sequence where he unsuccessfully attempts to assault the female lead clarifies that this character is a real scumbag and not only one by reputation. There is indeed some novelty in seeing Chuck play a cocky rich bastard with no redeemable qualities. When operating as a physical force against the hero, he manages to be intimidating. I'd go so far as to say he does more actual acting here than he did in "Way of the Dragon," a role that didn't ask him to do much more than fight.
The more widely available "Slaughter in San Francisco" largely excises the subplot concerning the Chu family and their attempts to defend themselves against a crooked system. This also links the movie to Bruce Lee's work, by adding an element of Chinese people and Chinese-Americans as social outsiders in a racist city. A local committee in Chinatown has to pool their resources to fund the Chu's defense team and the lawyer meets an unfortunate end as part of an organized cover-up. An innocent Asian family being accused by a white cop of being involved in an unrelated crime is clearly meant to comment on how the system protects the wealthy and persecutes the powerless, like racial minorities. The elder Chu tries to bribe the cop at first, knowing these guys only respect money but is still punished for not doing things the "right" way. This bends towards an unavoidable A.C.A.B. subtext. Wong is kicked off the force, turning in his badge, and that is when he really begins to protect the innocent and fight crime. The idea seems to be that true justice can not be served by an unjust system. Unfortunately, "Yellow-Faced Tiger" backs away suddenly and awkwardly from any bolder themes in its last act. The dirty chief is imprisoned, a good man takes his job. The cops arrive to restore order at the end, Wong being reinstated treated like a triumphant victory. It's a bummer that the movie takes aim at the status quo at first before seemingly changing its mind and deciding that the status quo is actually great at the end.
Perhaps this last minute backtracking on the powers that be is an indicator of the time "Yellow-Faced Tiger" was made. Other indicators of that include everything else about the movie, most noticeably it's fashion, music, and interior designs. Which makes it pretty funny that, at the start of the eighties, some producers tried to sell this as a brand new movie. (Also, the subtitles show Wong referring to John as "Blackie," which definitely suggests to me that no Americans were involved in the writing of the dialogue.) The "Slaughter in San Francisco" cut is badly dubbed and I would recommend the original version if you get a chance to see it. I don't know how successful the film was in Asia. Don Wong Tao got top billing in a few other martial arts movies, mostly made in Taiwan, but his career doesn't seem like it took off to the degree that many of his contemporaries did. Clearly, it didn't do much for Chuck Norris' career either. However, taken on its own merits, it's a not-bad fight flick with some interesting elements to it. [6/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 3 outta 5] [X] Facial Hair [] 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
The cultural legacy left behind by Carlos Ray Norris, far better known as Chuck Norris, is a varied one. Within the world of professional competitive martial arts, he was a respected elder statesman. Experts in such matters seems to be regard him as actually a good fighter. For those within cult movie circles, he was the second of Cannon Films' go-to action stars, the bridge between the classic Americana school of stoic masculinity represented by Charles Bronson to the waxed and glowing karate camp of Jean-Claude Van Damme. For people who grew up watching too much television in the nineties, he might be a source of fleeting nostalgia as the star of an inexplicably long-running, cheesy cop show and endless Total Gym infomercials.
Those a little younger than that probably best know him as an internet meme. Chuck Norris' later fame became inseparable from the farcical “Chuck Norris facts.” These exaggerated claims of bad-assery expanded so far outside of their target audience of irony-poisoned message board dwellers that most people don't seem to know that the joke was originally that everyone thought Chuck Norris was a ridiculous figure. He was so worthy of mockery and scorn that suggesting he could do anything as cool as what he did in his movies was a source of laughter. How soon we forget the Walker, Texas Ranger lever. The late Mr. Norris would mostly use that resurgence to express support for his shitty political and religious beliefs, cutting multiple ads endorsing Mike Huckabee for president. Which did very little to dissuade the notion that we should only be laughing at this clown, not celebrating him.
But to me, he was always Dad. I mean, not really. However, my mom's taste in guys tended towards burly mountain man types, meaning Chuck Norris was her most prominent movie star crush for many years. I attribute this to her having access to HBO in the mid-eighties when she was single and lonely. While not usually a fan of cheesy shoot-em-up flicks, she had a fondness for his films because of his hairy-chested macho appeal and a slight willingness to make fun of himself from time to time. This led to many light-hearted jokes about how Chuck was my “real father” and how, surely, any day now would be returning to claim me. Alas, I don't think that's gonna happen now, ma! What this really meant is I grew up with the roundhouse kicking star being an unusually common presence in my childhood. All of which is to say that I have a fondness for the work of Mr. Norris that extends beyond just being a fan of eighties action schlock and watching people get kicked, sometimes through windows.
I haven't done one of these action star retrospectives in, uhh, about nine years but I always had a really good time with them. Chuck has been on my list of careers to do a proper retrospective of since the beginning. Once you start watching through every movie one of the “Expendables” guys has made, you kind of have to watch all of them. Obviously, with his recent passing, now would be the best time to pay tribute to whatever merits Mr. Norris had as a performer, a screen presence, and a kicker of men. Like I have done in the past, I am ripping off my buddies at All Outta Bubble Gum. When writing about Norris' movies, they would sometimes include a list of trademarks Chuck often does in his movie. I'll be doing this too, so I'll be watching out for these tropes as I work my way through four decades of this guy.
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS] [] Facial Hair [] Jumps or Kicks Through a Window or Wall [] Performs Spin Kick or Spin Punch to Enemy’s Face [] Shows Off His Hairy Chest [] Sports Some Cowboy Getup
I don't know how much of “Walker, Texas Ranger” or “Chuck Norris: Karate Kommandos” I'll be watching for this. Depends on how bored I get, I guess. Anyway, let's put on your action jeans and get kickin'.
Of all the iconic faces and names in cinema, few have been as mythologized as Bruce Lee. In addition to being the most beloved and imitated martial artists of all time, he was a philosopher, a poet, a teacher, a roof top brawler against punk-ass Triad kids. Lee's screen presence and style was such that every movie he starred in essentially belonged to him. However, Bruce only officially directed two films and only completed one within his life time: Known in its native language as “Ferocious Dragon Crosses the River,” released in the U.S. after Lee's passing as “Return of the Dragon” and today best known as “The Way of the Dragon.” The film's overseas setting would show Lee's commitment to his belief that martial arts could have a place in any culture. To further that idea, he would cast an American karate champ he befriended as the movie's final boss, inadvertently launching another star's career along the way.
Lee wrote the script for “Way of the Dragon” too and you can tell he didn't want to complicate matters too much for his directorial debut. It's a simple story. Tang Lung arrives in Rome, at the behest of Chen Ching-hua and her uncle Wang. Their Chinese restaurant has come under fire from local gangsters, who desperately want the land the building resides on for otherwise undisclosed reasons. The co-workers are skeptical of this “Chinese boxer's” prowess at first until he shows off his considerable skill by fighting off the mob enforcers. This infuriates the local boss, who sends more thugs, assassins, and bribes to get Tang out of the picture. When the martial artist continues to fight off their attempts, the gangster call in an American karate expert named Colt to escalate matters. The two men end up fighting to the death within the Coliseum, the entire reason, one suspects, the film was set in Rome in the first place.
In addition to its standard “fighting to protect somebody's business from the mob” plot, “Way of the Dragon” is generally light-hearted in its approach. Lee introduces himself by gulping down four giant bowls of soup. This proceeds multiple moments where Tang Lung has to use the bathroom. The supporting characters are flatly ridiculous all around. There's a flamboyant, swishy Chinese middle man working for the baddies. Most of the other guys in the restaurant provide further comic relief. No attempt is made to flesh out the characters beyond their roles in the simple story. Chen not even getting enough distinction to classify as a damsel in distress. An attempt to add a little variety to the plot via a last minute betrayal doesn't quite land because the cast is so thinly sketched.
As a visual storyteller, Lee does not exactly distinguish himself with “Way of the Dragon” either. The camera movement is sometimes shaky. The editing is occasionally choppy. Even when watching the meticulously restored Blu-Ray release, a few moments are a bit dimly lit. The non-fisticuffs scenes tend to drag a bit, the movie feeling rather slow at times. If not for the presence of, oh, the greatest martial arts star of all time, “Way of the Dragon” would probably be a pretty forgettable motion picture. Of course, Lee designs the film around his abilities as a fighter and star. That makes all the difference. His physicality, a wag of his finger, a sideways glance, is enough to intimidate his opponents. A sequence of Lee disrobing and stretching is enough to convey his superhuman fighting skill, to make him seem like a massive man on-screen. And once the punches start flying, “Way of the Dragon” becomes pretty damn impressive. To quote a man far wiser than myself, those cats really were fast as lightning.
The sequences devoted to Lee kicking a sparring partner into a wall of boxes, fighting off a crowd with swirling nunchakus, or turning a simple mop handle into a powerful weapon hit with a quickness and power that would become the blue print for a thousand fight movies after this. That's where “Way of the Dragon” shines. I'm no Lee scholar but I know that fighting was more than just roughhousing for the star. You can see his philosophy expressing itself through these fight scenes. Strictly through body language, Lee expresses his Style of No Style, mixing different techniques and fast foot work to catch his enemy off-guard. The final bout with Chuck Norris is inter-cut with an innocent kitten watching, a placid contrast to the violent acts. Upon brutally dispatching his opponent, Bruce covers the corpse and prayers over it. There's a sense throughout that the film's heroes use violence largely as a defensive reaction to the more predatory forces against them.
Why Uncle Wang's restaurant is so valuable isn't important. That the Chinese family are outsiders in this European land, however, is much more pointed. Lee faced discrimination both in Hong Kong and aboard for his mixed heritage. This theme informed “Fists of Fury” and reoccurs here as well, the foreigners persecuted by the locals simply for the crime of being outsiders. The contrast between the different schools of martial arts – especially Japanese karate against so-called “Chinese boxing” – is repeatedly referenced. When presented with the ruins of the ancient city, Wang Tung points out that it reminds him of the slums back home. Later, he's visibly unimpressed with Roman architecture. Lee's ego is almost as legendary as his fighting skills and it's difficult not to sniff that out here, in a story of Bruce single-handedly proving his mastery over everyone else around him. The final scene presents Tang as a mythic wanderer, going where ever he is needed to right wrongs. However, “The Way of the Dragon” also represents a cultural outsider standing up to the homogeneity of the land. No wonder these movies were so popular with urban black cultures in the seventies, despite the sole black character being a cartoonish bad guy.
I don't think I'm making any observations here that haven't been previously made a hundred times. One assumes that the relative small size of Lee's output, when compared to its massive influence, makes these the most studied and overturned of any kung-fu movies. “Way of the Dragon” is a sluggish, fairly goofy movie except for when the fists start to fly, at which point it becomes electrifying. Lee's titanic presence is unmistakable and his charisma could not be chained by shadowy direction or mediocre dubbing. As the world's introduction to Chuck Norris, “Way of the Dragon” is also pretty interesting. That final fight is legendary for good reason, the bodies in movement being almost poetic before the killing blows become brutal. While Chuck doesn't have much to do besides glower and kick – he doesn't show up until the movie is nearly over – the fact that he makes an impression in Lee's own movie is a feat on its own. [7/10]
[THE CHUCK OF NORRIS: 2 outta 5] [] Facial Hair [] 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
I've been doing this all ass-backwards, as is too often my nature. Completely unintentionally, I realize now that I've been watching Sergio Martino's acclaimed run of seventies giallo in reverse order. In 2022, I started with the sleaziest of the lot, "Torso." The next October, I progressed backwards to the dreamier "All the Colors of the Dark." Finally, during last year's Blog-a-Thon, I covered "Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key." That was the one that finally truly won me over to Martino's particular take on the Italian style of murder thrillers. Now, I return to the beginning and reach "The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh," Martino's first stab at this subgenre. Made after he directed two mondomovies and a spaghetti western – not to mention years working as a writer, assistant director, and cinematographer – it would be Martino's proper breakthrough and establish him as a voice onto his own in the Italian film industry.
Once upon a time, Julie and Jean were lovers. A cruel man, he allowed her to explore her sadomasochistic fantasies and erotic fascination with blood. Eventually, the abuse became too much and Jean married Neil Wardh, a diplomat. The couple arrive in Vienna at the same time a razor blade-wielding murderer is targeting the city's women. Julie begins to receive flowers with threatening notes, signed by Jean. At a party, she meets the handsome George and his cousin, Carol, who recently inherited a great deal of wealth. Neil is an inattentive husband and Julie falls into George's arms. The sinister notes continue, soon escalating to threatening phone calls and black mail. Carol is killed by the same murderer terrorizing the city. The man sets his sights on Julie next. Jean insists he has an alibi. Julie, overcome with frighteningly erotic nightmares and pulled in different directions by the men in her life, feels like a sinister force is closing in on her.
There is a scene about half-way through “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh” that might be emblematic of what we think of as a giallo. It concerns Julie's friend going in her place to meet the blackmailer in the park. She is watched by a man wearing black gloves, the camera assuming his point-of-view. He soon reveals a straight razor and attacks the woman, slashing her to death. Martino doesn't bring the style, intensity, beauty or poetry to the table of an Argento or Bava. He makes up for it by giving the audience exactly what they want. Another stalk-and-slash sequence in a parking garage is more suspenseful, focusing on Julie's panic as she's pursued by the armed man. It concludes with a brilliant misdirection involving someone coming up the stairs to her apartment. If the film wasn't made during the peak of the genre's popularity, I would almost take it as tongue-in-cheek at times. The ending has two accomplices swerving around on a country road in a way that seems deliberately absurd to me. But the audience paid for razor blade slashings and that's what they get.
This is not the only way in Martino's film is unapologetically lurid. The movie is filled with female nudity, women having their gowns tore off more than once. As the title indicates, the sexual fantasies of Mrs. Wardh are a frequent topic of conversation. Edwige Fenech and her male co-stars kiss and entwine and jiggle their asses. More than once, the film takes us inside her troubled dreams. I don't know how “strange” these vices are exactly – I've seen “Singapore Sling,” this shit ain't nothin' to me – but they certainly are very vice-ful indeed. Such dreamy imagery are paired with a score from Nora Orlandi. It mixes the groovy bass lines and jazzy dissonance with electric organ, mournful flutes, and sigh-like choral singing. When combined with the similarly flashy sets and costumes, as indicative of hip Europe in the swingin' seventies as possible, the tone of a confused but irresistible erotic nightmare slowly encloses around the viewer.
Perhaps “The Strange Vice” is preoccupied with taking us inside the troubling, lurid fantasies of the titular character simply because it provides the most flesh and blood to the audience. In gialli starring men, the protagonist are usually logical detectives trying to figure out the limited clues before them. When women are the stars, the stories usually concern a descent into madness. This says some clear things about traditional gender roles in Italian culture. At the same time, Martino's film comes off as entirely sympathetic to poor Mrs. Wardh. Her husband can't please her. Jean could but was also a creep and an asshole. George seems like the kind of swarthy lover she needs but he has secrets as well. No wonder her desires are driving her mad. This woman can't get a good fuck and a man who treats her like an actual human being. One imagines this is a plight that many a female has had to navigate. The film doesn't come close to escaping the leering sexism of seventies Euro-sleaze but, simply by centering the audience with a troubled missus, it forces us to consider the pain of a woman beset on all sides by vile, manipulative men.
I do wish, however, that Mrs. Julie Wardh was a little more fleshed-out. Despite the whole movie revolving around the interior life of the main character, she remains somewhat distant to us. She is tossed back and forth by the different men in her lives, each one controlling her in diverse ways. Edwige Fenech looks as glamorous as can be in and out of a succession of trendy outfits. Ultimately, her history and what actually motivates her is kept obscure from us. This is probably because the film must leap through the hoops of a classically convoluted giallo plot. The last thirty minutes is a mishmash of double crosses, intersecting schemes and ploys playing against one another. Rather than center in on the heroine, the film devotes time to supporting players that exist to be red herrings or another branch of the conspiracy targeting Fenech. All in the name of catching the audience off-guard and leaving us as confused as the protagonist.
These are flaws that Martino would improve upon in his future gialli. “All the Colors of the Dark,” which this film plays a lot like a prototype for, leans into the paranoid, dream-strewn mindset of its heroine more, determined to let us get to know her better. “Your Vice is a Locked Door and Only I Have the Key” – which takes its title from a line of dialogue here – doubles down on the depravity, madness, and style to considerable improvement. Still, there's no denying that this one is a strong slice of the kinky, twisting, bloody thrills we come to expect from the giallo concept. I guess next year I have to watch “The Case of the Scorpion's Tail,” one of these Martino made between Fenech collaborations that nobody seems to talk about much? That would break the backwards movements I've been making though... [7/10]
Cinema made on the African continent has been making some global in-roads within the last decade. My Horror Around the World tour last year included a stop-over in Nigeria, which seems to have defined the West African school of film making for most people globally. Near-by Ghana would seem to have a thriving movie industry of their own, however. (Though the Wikipedia article on the subject currently carries a disclaimer that it might contain “hallucinated information” generated by A.I., because we live in the stupidest dystopia.) Outside of the colorful and bizarre home-made posters for imported pictures, Ghanese cinema is almost completely unknown among English-speaking film fans. Simply put, it's not often distributed over here. However, proving that a silly title and an outrageous premise can still garner attention, there is one recent exception to that rule. “African Kung-Fu Nazis” would seem to be the first martial arts movie made in Ghana. It is also, one assumes, the first Nazi-ploitation movie made in Ghana. I don't know if it's the country's first zombie movie but it's probably the most prominent example, at the very least.
Recorded history would lead you to believe that Adolf Hitler died in a bunker under Berlin in 1945 and that Hideaki Tojo was executed by hanging in 1948 for his war crimes. The truth is, however, that both leaders escaped and fled, via submarine, to Ghana. Having mastered the secrets of Japanese karate, both men have reached peak human strength and conquered aging. Decades later, the Fuhrer and his minions have re-emerged in Ghana with the goal of establishing a Fourth Reich. He uses a magical flag to hypnotize the locals into Aryan zombie warriors, to build an army of super-powered slaves. Meanwhile, young martial artist Addae returns to his home town. He practices Shadow Snake Style kung-fu with the other members of his dojo. His master agrees to compete against Hitler and his Ghan-Arian goons in a contest of skills but end up murdered by the dictator instead. He also brainwashes Addae's girlfriend into becoming his new Eva Braun. Determined to avenge his sensai and save his community, Addae seeks the teachings of three great masters to become the greatest kung-fu fighter in all of Ghana.
Here in the west, the perception of African film making has mostly been shaped by the likes of “Who Killed Captain Alex?” or “Pretty Liars 1.” Basically, reducing entire nation's cinematic output down to out-of-context clips or wacky trailers marked by awkward dialogue, stilted acting, zero-budget special effects, improbable stunt work, and archetypal plotting. White nerds laughing at foreign productions because of their perceived cheesiness is a long-held practice heavy with racist connotations. However, that doesn't mean local directors in those countries aren't willing to play into international perceptions. Ghanese studios are closely linked to Nigeran ones, my sources tell me. This means “African Kung-Fu Nazis” has the heavily accented English dialogue, amateur acting, low production values, and After-Effects provided muzzle flashes we ignorant Americans associate with Nollywood productions. It is an aggressively silly movie and very self-aware of that fact. The plot depending on unlikely occurrences, like two of the Axis power leaders surviving into the modern day or entire schools of African kung-fu, is only the beginning. A portly fellow being a master of drunken kung-fu, Hermann Göring being resurrected as a large black man named Horse-Man, Tojo developing a taste for African woman alongside glowing fists and a giant dong, or Ghanese people becoming Aryan through the magical application of flour are only a few examples of the tongue-in-cheek shenanigans on display here.
I have a strong stomach for campy, self-mocking gaggery like this. “African Kung-Fu Nazis” certainly has some amusing moments. Each of the battles to the death concludes with hilariously over-the-top fatal blows, usually accentuated with knowingly clumsy digital effects. Some of the jokes are pretty good, such as Hitler describing his replacement Eva Braun as just like the old one but “tanner.” My favorite bit is the sudden appearance of a masked luchador among the combatants, who sounds a lot like “Macho Man” Randy Savage. Gratuitous product placement for a liquor brand known as Adonko Bitters – a real product, it seems – is a decent running gag. It must also be said that the fight choreography on-display isn't bad either. However, the kind of energy necessary to make fast-paced goofballery like this consistently hilarious can be difficult to come by. By the time Addae is training with the third master – a priestess in the woods who mostly speaks in non-sequiturs – or having a climatic shoot-out with Hitler, the joke has worn a little thin. You can only have a movie yell “Look at how irreverent and campy we can be!' for so long before it gets tedious.
Obviously, the mixture of classic exploitation movie tropes is part of the joke here. Conspiracies about Hitler's survival and Nazi plots, kung-fu treachery, and zombies are exactly the kind of outrageous plot points the public at large associates with grindhouse cinema of old. To the point that all three – but the Nazis mostly – have been reduced to “le epic bacon meme” status within contexts such as these. I have no idea what significance the memories of Nazi Germany and the tenants of National Socialism has among the citizens of Ghana. One imagines these plot points were picked because of their easily recognized absurdity. Nazis being rendered as cartoon supervillains in comic books, video games, and movies like these is probably part of why fascism has so successfully re-emerged in the 21st century. If we can distance ourselves from these ideas by treating them as ironic bits, it's easy to say that we “aren't like” the villains of the past. However, the plot point that Hitler is literally swaying people to his will via the power of a flag does strike me as a commentary of sorts on the insidious appeal of fascism. All throughout the film, the German tyrant repeatedly emphasizes how this is a specifically Ghanese version of Nazism. Almost as if emphasizing an idealized cultural identity, no matter how vague or detached from the actual stated goals of a movement it might be, is an important part of the fascist playbook.
Or maybe it's all merely a joke. Neo-Nazis have become obnoxiously difficult to get rid of but the iconography of Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan should always be held up to mockery, right? I'm almost certainly reading way too much into an intentionally ridiculous movie. I certainly had some fun with “African Kung-Fu Nazis.” Everyone involved is clearly enjoying themselves. There's something very much to admire in directors and actors not letting a lack of resources keep them from making movies. However, this is an example of a joke that probably shouldn't support a feature length runtime. It also needed more of those pancake batter zombies. I guess their presence, the exaggerated violence, and multiple fantastical plot points is more than enough to qualify this for autumn viewing. A sequel was made this year but I think I'll want to see a Ghana-made film not pitched so clearly at snark-poisoned internet commentators in other countries next. [6/10]
Long before the Winchester brothers started their fight against evil, a different “Supernatural” aired on BBC1. The eight episodes were designed to replicate the tone of the gothic horrors of the twenties and thirties. This is evident in “Night of the Marionettes.” “Supernatural” had a framing device, where applicants to the Club of the Damned would tell a frightening story, the quality judged by whether they are allowed to live. “Night of the Marionettes” follows Howard Lawrence, a literary scholar in the 1890s, obsessed with Byron and Shelley. Alongside his wife Elspeth and daughter Mary, he is retracing the steps the poets took on their way to Villa Diodati. They stop at a mysterious inn in the Swiss alps. The remote building is staffed by strange figures. Howard discovers books related to Shelley in his room, coming to believe that the group must have stopped here on the same journey sixty years before. The inn attracts an audience with the macabre, life-sized marionette shows they put on. The puppet show – about a stitched-together corpse brought to life before it attacks and kills a maiden – disturbs Lawrence and his wife but fascinates their daughter. Lawrence begins to suspect that this bizarre performance inspired Mary Shelley to write “Frankenstein.” Also, that it's not merely a work of fiction.
“Supernatural” does a good job of matching the literary tone of the Victorian horror stories it is emulating. There are quite a lot of period costumes, proper accents, and high-minded discussion here. This program definitely had a slightly bigger budget than the anthologies series that aired on ITV. “Night of the Marionettes” layers in references to “Frankenstein,” obviously, but “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” as well. The stage-play recalls the expressionistic visuals of that film, with this monster looking quite a bit like Cesare. The play is also rather sexually explicit, the revenant pulling the sleeping maiden from her bed and humping her before thrashing her to death. That Lawrence's daughter, also named Mary, begins to mirror Mary Shelley's writing style in her journal suggests a parallel history here. When the monster inevitably invades her bedroom at the end, it brings the simmering sexuality of Shelley's book – and most gothic horror of the period – to the surface. The Frankenstein monster is the Jungian shadow of the Victorian era, all the impolite and lowly tendencies the proper society of the time sought to repress. Naturally, its rampaging libido is unleashed on the virginal young girl.
This is also one of the few riffs on “Frankenstein” that acknowledge something that's always been implied in the text: That the monster is uniquely repulsive to the living because he represents a violation of natural law. The marionette show the innkeepers put on is certainly weird. Human beings moving as if they are stiff puppets on strings does create an uncanny effect. At the same time, it's not like the performance is that horrifying. However, the show seems to shake Lawrence, his wife, and daughter to their core. After Lawrence forces his way into the laboratory, what he sees seems to briefly shatter his sanity. Over the many faithful and loose adaptations of “Frankenstein,” there's been much discussion of man tampering in God's domain. Few actually entertain the idea that the monster's mere existence – a dead thing made living again – would have the same effect on a sane man as locking eyes on one of Lovecraft's Elder Gods. Truly, there are some thing we are not meant to know.
“Supernatural” definitely seems to wear its very English pretensions on its sleeves a bit. It's as stage-like and dialogue-driven as many of the other British anthologies I've been watching this month. However, “Night of the Marionettes” does pack in some solid, old time ambiance. The isolated inn is a shadowy location. The unusually pale staff certainly reminds one of Bela Lugosi's Dracula and Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera. The largely silent presentation of the marionette play does build an eerie feeling. That carries into the increasingly grim final act. I was surprised at the amount of tension this one built up before the end. It is slow and stuffy but quite interesting from a writing perspective, with some strong performance. Maybe they should've shot it in black-and-white though... [7/10]
Someone must have decided that Ophelia Frump was too fun of a character to only use in flashbacks. Morticia's even more eccentric twin sister appears again, sending the family a message that she has been dumped by her latest boyfriend and is distraught. Minutes afterwards, she appears at the Addams' home... With her new beau besides her. That would be Horatio Bartholomew, an enthusiastic man who seems to be fabulously rich. Gomez and Morticia are immediately suspicious, suspecting he is a cad that is only after the family fortune. They go about investigating the man, discovering that the local rich boys' club haven't heard of him. Morticia then attempts a mock-seduction of Horatio, to test his loyalty. This goes quite wrong, Gomez quickly getting into a sword fight with his sister-in-law's new husband-to-be.
In her second appearance, Ophelia does get a bit more fleshed-out. It would seem being a fool for love, always seeking men who ultimately dump her, is a habit of her's. Her super-strength and fondness for Judo throws is still present. However, she comes across as a much weirder, more bipolar figure. Her mood swings wildly between giddy and depressed. That would explain why Morticia is both protective of her and a little weary around her. You can tell Carolyn Jones enjoyed playing a character that does not have Morticia's calming sensibilities smoothing out her eccentricities. A little bit where Ophelia offers Horatio a daisy to pluck out of her hair, resulting in her leg kicking upwards, is probably my favorite physical gag in this one.
A big problem facing this episode is that the conclusion is evident to the viewer early on. Our protagonists believe Horatio to be a con artist. The rules of comedic pay-out dictate that they turn out to be wrong, the man actually being a genuine millionaire who inexplicably loves oddball Ophelia. That diffuses a bit of the punch from this one. Many of the joys in “The Addams Family” emerges from watching the lovable cast play off each other Putting a new character into the mix and building most of the episode around Gomez' interaction with him isn't as much fun. Robert Nichols – previously seen in “The Thing from the Another World" – is a decent guest star, though his ridiculous mustache tells you most everything you need to know about the character. The scene where Morticia attempts to seduce him does provide us with a chance to see the usually faithful wife being a bit more seductive. I enjoyed that. That same scene features a good bit of physical comedy with Thing. Probably the best joke in this episode is when Gomez excites himself by using some French. Not a stand-out episode but Ophelia is growing on me as a character. [6/10]
In the early days of Republic-era China, Master Kau uses Taoist magic to relocate corpses to new graves for rich clients who hope to please the spirits of their ancestors. The reanimated bodies are kept under control by magic scrolls glued to their foreheads. Otherwise, they would become wild, breath-sucking jiang-shi. Kau's clownish assistants, Man-choi and Chau-sang, often get into mischief. The group is hired to relocate the ancestor of a rich businessman, Mister Yam. Kau is distressed to find the body hasn't decayed in twenty years, a sign that it's going to become a vampire. Kau attempts to keep the hostile spirit under control but Man-choi and Chau-sang's incompetency soon leads to the hopping vampire getting loose. The group attempts to get the supernatural terror back under control. Romantic rivalries, more magic, a horny ghost, and lots of kung-fu ensues.
As with "Encounters of the Spooky Kind," "Mr. Vampire" is a loosely plotted film, with intervening subplots and set pieces that don't have much to do with the primary story. Man Choi seems to be attracted to Mr. Yam's daughter – the debut role of future action star Moon Lee – while her military officer cousin also pursues her. This leads to a slapstick sequence where Man Choi uses magic to manipulate the officer's body and humiliate him. A lengthy subplot involves Chau-sang falling under the sway of a female ghost, whose frantic lovemaking threatens to exhaust him to death. She's introduced in a musical number, where she attempts to hitch a ride on the young man's bicycle. That leads to a wild sequence where Master Kau has to fight off the spirit, which results in her hair turning into spikes and her head floating around the room. Later, Man Choi is bitten by the jiang-shi and must hold off the transformation by constantly dancing on a bed of glutinous rice. (Which seems to have a similar effect on these Eastern vampires as garlic does to European ones.) None of these plot threads or sequences have much to do with the story of the leaping vampire getting loose. This results in "Mr. Vampire" playing a lot like a gag comedy, the main narrative being nothing but a clothes line to hang a series of increasingly outrageous stunts and jokes on.
And when those stunts and jokes are this entertaining, who can complain? As in many of the films of Hung, Jackie Chan, and their collaborators at Golden Harvest, "Mr. Vampire" smoothly combines acrobatic martial arts and physical slapstick comedy. The action scenes are endlessly inventive and fast paced, constantly showing off the skills of these performers. A sequence where Kau and his students ensnare the vampire with a net of enchanted thread is fantastic, playing out like an elaborate ballet of stunt work and action. The finale features Chin Siu-ho, as Chau-sang, effortlessly running up walls, leaping over props, and using chairs and tables as weapons. An earlier scene, where the hero is nearly branded and has to juggle the buffoonish police officer while fighting off another revenant, shows off how adapt the movie is at getting both thrills and laughs out of these action scenes. Mostly because the film is equally good at both elements. An earlier scene, where Chau-sang mistakes the daughter for a prostitute, got a lot of laughs out of me. As did the Marx Brothers-esque bodily possession sequence. The totally physical performance does lead to a few overbearing gags. Ricky Hui mugs furiously as Man Choi, especially during an inexplicable moment of homophobic gaggery. Overall though, the stunts and comedy work perfectly in sync to create a consistently entertaining motion picture.
As a light-hearted monster movie, "Mr. Vampire" is a lot of fun too. Director Ricky Lau and cinematographer Peter Ngor make a good looking film. The nights are beautifully dark, often cast in gorgeous shades of blue and dark green. Many of the sets and locations have a charming artificial quality to them, the film fully transporting the viewer into its fantasy land. Mostly, I came away from the movie understanding why the jiang-shi would become such a pop culture icon after this. The stiff-limbed movement of the vampires is such a cool visual, an interesting physical stunt and a fittingly uncanny feature. These vampiric creatures hunt by sensing people's breath, leading to several mildly suspenseful scenes of people holding their breath while the monster hovers near-by. Yuen Wah, another member of Chan/Hung's troupe, plays the main jiang-shi and his make-up gets more beastly as the film goes on. The ghost scenes are also a hoot, featuring bizarre special effects and visually inventive camera work. I don't know if it's ever scary, exactly, but "Mr. Vampire" maintains a spooky, kooky tone throughout that is perfect for the Halloween season.
A wild horror/comedy circus of a film, "Mr. Vampire" rarely slows down. Something crazy, cool, or funny is happening on-screen nearly every minute of its runtime. Lam Ching-ying, as Master Kau, remains an ideal straight man throughout and somehow manages to make a unibrow intimidating. Much the same way "Encounters of the Spooky Kind" did, the movie gets right into the action and ends the minute after the threat is resolved. I've got to respect economic storytelling like that. "Mr. Vampire" is considerably smoother than Hung's earlier supernatural kung-fu comedy, with more likable characters, funnier gags, and cooler gimmicks. In other words, this is the stuff of cult movie legend and exactly the kind of third-eye stimulating madness I seek in Hong Kong movies. After years of grainy bootlegs and subpar releases, the movie finally has a lovingly restored Blu-ray release, so check it out right away. [9/10]
Who mourns for the VHS gimmick box? If you're of the right age, to have wandered video stores during their hay days, you know what I'm talking about. In the eighties and nineties, any goofy feature on the VHS box, to make your title leap off the shelves at customers, was a worthwhile investment. Horror movies were especially fond of these. Boxes with embossed covers or lenticular holograms were always a good bet. Some went further and decorated their cardboard sleeved with monsters with blinking eyes, monsters that roared, or monsters that propositioned you. Low-budget Canadian horror movie "Hemoglobin" was written by the same team who made "Alien," based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, and starred Rutger Hauer. You'd have thought that would've been enough to sell the movie but its distributor had another thought. They cut out four minutes of nudity, retitled the film "Bleeders," and stuck a plastic sleeve full of squishy fake blood on the front of the box. Maybe this was the right instinct because, seventeen years later, that box gimmick is still the main thing people remember about this movie.
Three hundred years ago, the Van Daam family got kicked out of Holland because they loved incest too much. The family eventually settled on an island in the Northern Americas. In the modern day, last of the bloodline John Strauss arrives on the island in hopes of finding an answer to the mysterious blood disease that is slowly killing him. Instead, he finds a dead end small town where the biggest new story is that the local cemetery is being dug up, due to cheap coffins causing bodies to fall out... That's what everyone in town thinks is happening. In fact, a clan of inbred, mutant dwarfs live under the island and have been feeding on the town's dead bodies for centuries. Now that their food supply is being removed, the monsters are coming above ground for fresher meat. John Strauss, his devoted wife, and the alcoholic town doctor investigate and discover that John has a very predictable connection to these damnable creatures.
Loosely adapting Lovecraft's "The Lurking Fear," "Bleeders" does show some of the author's favorite themes poking through. Such as the curse of a degenerate family bloodline dooming the protagonist to an ultimately inhuman existence, grave robbing ghoul monsters, and old legends in burned down homes. Unfortunately, the film follows another one of Lovecraft's recurring tropes too closely. Namely, a protagonist who is a totally inept dork. John Strauss spends most of the movie in a sickly stupor, his nose frequently gushing blood, and often falling unconscious. His voice is spaced out, he speaks of insatiable urges, and generally acts like a weirdo. It's hard to believe his wife would be so totally devoted to him. When the easily foreseen truth about John's genetic destiny is revealed, the character falls into more disturbing behavior. That could've made for an interestingly sordid story of a descent into depravity. However, Roy Dupuis as John and Kristin Lehman as his wife both give such unlikable performances. Dupuis is stilted, Lehman is somehow both blank and overemotive. They share zero chemistry, no matter how much graphic humping they do in the uncut version. Their tragic love story is played as contrived melodrama, leading to a thoroughly unconvincing final moment.
Bafflingly, the story of the Strausses digging up his horrible family history often feels like it's playing alongside an almost unrelated second movie. Much like Full Moon's "Lurking Fear" from three years earlier, "Bleeders" is also a schlocky monster movie about a small town being overwhelmed by cannibalistic underground humanoid dwellers. The creature effects that bring the deformed ghouls to life aren't bad, their hunched and tumorous bodies being properly grotesque. Scenes devoted to the creature surfacing, attacking people at the docks, yanking victims through open graves, or pulling little girls underground is when "Bleeders" is at its most lively. This element peaks early, when Hauer's doctor enters into the tunnels under the cemetery. After a hurricane blows in and everyone takes shelter in the town lighthouse, "Bleeders" becomes a repetitive siege picture. Tension free attack scenes continue until the movie blusters towards an underwhelming climax.
In general, "Bleeders" is a movie with an off-balance tone. The musical score is composed of Indian sitar music and wailing guitars that would be more at home in a Skinnemax erotic thriller. The film has the plot of a low-brow creature feature but approaches everything with deadly seriousness. For an example of that, it opens and closes with comically self-serious narration. This conflicts with the characters, most of whom are written as cartoonish assholes. The married couple stay at a hotel which also functions as the town mortuary. The woman who runs the place is utterly obnoxious, while her daughter is so soft-spoken as to barely exist. While hanging around the burned house, John encounters an old woman in a wheelchair who speaks with a hilariously exaggerated Mainer accent. The little kids and fishermen around town are all played in this weirdly broad manner. The only actor in the film, perhaps unsurprisingly, that strikes the right balance of camp and gravitas is Rutger Hauer. The scene where he performs an autopsy on one of the creatures, dryly commenting on its hermaphroditic nature, is the highlight of the movie. When Hauer announces to everyone in town what's happening, it's the right kind of campy exuberance that this movie needed significantly more of. Always a pro and a joy to watch, Hauer manages to wring something like actual pathos out of his character's standard backstory of alcoholism and failure. (Delivered minutes after he's introduced.) Really, if the movie had been completely about him and cut out the married couple entirely, it easily would've been improved.
Depressingly, this would be the final screenwriting credit of Dan O'Bannon and Ronald Shusett in the former's lifetime. Considering the quality of the duo's output, and the obvious respect O'Bannon had for Lovecraft, it's difficult to believe "Bleeders" represents their original screenplay too much. I guess that's the difference between getting a Ridley Scott or Paul Verhoven to direct your script versus getting the guy who made "Witchboard III" to direct your script. Having now seen the film, I actually understand exactly why the distributors threw a cheap Halloween decoration on the box to help sell the movie. Despite its strong pedigree, "Bleeders" is a limp mess. It's held back by a weirdly split story structure, unappealing characters, and a general lack of dramatic tension in its execution. Lumpy, formaldehyde-slurping, subterranean hermaphrodites and a boozy Rutger Hauer go a long way but it's not enough to salvage this forgettable feature. [5/10]
Owing to shared custody weekends with my dad, and his Carl-like taste in music, I watched a lot of VH1 during 2001. Based on the success of shows like "Behind the Music" and "Storytellers," the network was continuing to drift away from just playing music videos into more music-adjacent programming at that time. They started to produce scripted movies and shows too. Such as "Strange Frequency," which was described as "the rock 'n' roll version of the Twilight Zone." Beginning as a TV film, thirteen half-hour episodes would spawn from the premise. I never watched it at the time but, considering the amount of folklore around the music world, it always struck me as a good idea for an anthology.
"Soul Man" revolves around Mitch, a much abused roadie for temperamental rock star Jason Armstrong. He also lusts after Nicole, his boss' main squeeze. While looking to replace a broken guitar, Mitch stumbles upon a piece of music written in blood. It's supposedly the last song composed by Jimi Hendrix, on the night he died. Legend has it that playing it successfully can summon the devil. Mitch does so and, afterwards, is approached by a manager from Iscariot Productions. Later that night, Jason injures his hand and Mitch is asked to fill in for him. The resulting concert turns Mitch into a star overnight and wins Nicole's heart. That's when he figures out who his manager actually is. Soon, the shredding roadie is in a contest for his very soul.
There's no rock legend more persistent than musicians selling their souls to the Devil for talent and success. This might be because signing contracts with record companies already feels like a Faustian bargain. (An observation made many times before, in classics such as "Phantom of the Paradise.") "Soul Man" – a clever title, I'll admit – is a standard take on this premise. After signing with his new manager, Mitch stumbles into success without realizing what he's gotten himself into. However, probably owing to "Strange Frequency's" low budget, the episode can't explore this idea too thoroughly. Mitch goes from his incredible first concert to a moral questioning immediately in the next scene. The only bad thing that happens is Nicole getting pushed aside by a wave of shrieking groupies. The middle act feels like it's missing, the episode heading right into the climax of a "Devil Went Down to Georgia"-style duel. Which is set in the same music store location we saw earlier, one of seemingly three sets in the entire episode.
The script is rushed. The budget is low. There's a lot of close-ups of someone's fingers rockin' on the guitar, while the actor's faces appear in a totally different shot. Despite its obvious flaws, I still kind of liked "Soul Man." Mostly because of its leads. Roger Daltry acts as both the show's host and plays the Devil. Probably because I watched too much "Highlander: The Series" as a kid, I'm abnormally fond of Daltry as an actor. The devil is exactly the kind of hammy role he excels in. He even gets to put on a hick accent in the double role of the music store owner. James Marsters, "Buffy's" Spike, is serviceable enough as Mitch. We only see a little bit of his considerable charm here, stuck in a fairly one-note part. It's also funny that the show so obviously uses a double for the guitar playing scenes, when Marsters is actually a decent guitarist in real life. Maybe I'm nostalgic for pre-9/11 basic cable schlock like this – check out the low-rise jeans the girls wear – but I kind of enjoyed "Soul Man." I would've much preferred VH1 pivot to shit like this than reality TV trash. I hear there's an episode with Eric Roberts as a murderous hippie? Oh sweet Satan, help me resist. [6/10]
