Whatcha Craven?: The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988)

There are certain things that you could not pay me enough money to mess with. Gypsies, Ventriloquist Dummies, and Hairless Cats spring to mind, but there is one thing that looms larger above all of these, Voodoo. The rituals, the chanting, the trances, it all freaks me out. As a fervent non-believer of practically everything, it may seem kind of strange that a religion would freak me out so much, but it’s movies like tonight’s film (and the book it was based on) that convinced me that it was not to be trifled with.

The Serpent and The Rainbow (1988) recounts Dennis Alan’s (Bill Pullman) investigation into the secrets of Haitian voodoo. He has been sent there by a major American drug manufacturer who is interested in the process of zombification, and Dennis soon finds himself embroiled in a world that he can barely understand or explain. As he goes in pursuit of the powder used to make zombies, each layer he peels back finds him deeper and deeper until he finds himself six feet deep and still alive.

When Wes Craven set out to make this film, he was in the middle of a creative drought. The success of 1984’s Nightmare on Elm Street had translated to big box office, but not to better films. The 1985 made for TV film Chiller and the lackluster sequel to The Hills Have Eyes had failed to impress audiences. Wes then moved on to the film Deadly Friend which is about as divisive as they come. It’s been many years since I’ve seen it, but I remember the film fondly although it was not without a certain clunkyness.

Based on Wade Davis’ book about his experiences in Haiti, The Serpent and the Rainbow was the film that reinvigorated Craven and began a new era of his creativity. The film was perfectly suited for Craven’s voice. It contained elements of the supernatural invading everyday life. I think it is no coincidence that the Haitian revolution plays a part in the film. Putting this everyday struggle in the background of this heavily supernatural film gives the setting a very real feeling, and it makes the events that unfold before out eyes sparkle with veracity. One of Craven’s greatest strengths in his films has always been to bring the plausible into situations no one could believe. This is why the first Nightmare on Elm Street will always be the best, and why The Serpent and the Rainbow is such a chilling film.

While the story is plenty freaky enough on its own, the effects shots that Craven captured were what really sold the film. The evil voodoo Dargent Peytraud (Zakes Mokae) can enter and affect the dream world, and being no stranger to baddies in your nightmares, Craven handles these sequences effortlessly. As Pullman’s investigator is drawn into the Voodoo priest’s world, he confronts actual zombies, skeletal brides, and being trapped in a coffin filling with blood. Each of these scenes unfolds expertly, and as they get progressively worse, the nightmarish visions intersect with the real world in the end sequences.

If there is a weakness to the film, it does come from lead actor Bill Pullman. Pullman, who is probably most known as the President in Independence Day, has never been one of my favorite actors (although I do make an exception for Spaceballs). I can’t quite put my finger on what I feel is wrong with his performance, but it often seems like he’s holding back when the film is not calling for him to summon terror to his visage. I will have to give it up for him in those scenes. Whether he’s about to be buried alive or have a nail put through his scrotum, Pullman can look plenty scared.

There are a couple very fine performances in the film. Paul Winfield (Trouble Man, Star Trek: The Wrath of Kahn, Damnation Alley) turns in a heck of a performance as the good voodoo priest Lucien Celine while Zakes Mokae (Dust Devil, Cry Freedom, Outbreak) is terrifying as Celine’s nemesis. However, if I were going to name one actor who really impressed me it would be Brent Jennings as Louis Mozart, the man with the zombie powder. Jennings made appearances in Witness (1985) and Alone in the Dark (1982) before going into a career of small roles in television. As Louis Mozart, he is Dennis Alan’s key to the secrets, and he gives an inspired wide-eyed performance that will stick in my memory long after the freaky effects are forgotten.

When Wade Davis, the author of the book The Serpent and The Rainbow, saw Wes Craven’s picture, he deemed it the “one of the worst Hollywood movies in history.” It sounds very much like sour grapes from a man whose work had been primarily discredited. I read the book some years back and found it very thrilling and interesting, but it did not contain some of the broader scenes that Craven envisioned. There’s nothing wrong with a little Hollywood taking a little license to make the film more exciting, but there is something wrong Davis taking the facts a little liberally to begin with. The “zombie powder” be brought back with him has been disputed among researchers for years, and many believe that Davis sensationalized the affair to move copies of his tome.

Whatever the truth may be, it holds little sway over the quality of film delivered by Wes Craven. I have known very few people I could mention this film to without them commenting on how it had scared them. I can’t say that I blame them. Very few things give me the creeps, but this convincing tale of actual zombies does the trick every time. If this one has passed you by, then by all means check it out, and I’ll see you back next week with the next Craven film, a personal favorite of mine that doesn’t get near the attention it deserves.

Bugg Rating

B.L.O.G Presents Entrapment (1999) and The Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect

Ahh, 1999, that was a good year. Well, if you enjoyed the Y2K panic, the premier of Spongebob, or were like, hell yeah, what the world needs as The Euro, then you probably were taking the Purple One’s advice and partying like it was 1999. There’s one specific reason that I remember the last year of the century fondly. It was the last year that Catherine Zeta-Jones was hot.

There are many scientific theories about how life, the universe, and everything happens. I am not a scientist, but in my spare time, as a hobby, I have come up with one universal theorem, and that is the Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect. In 1999, Me and Ms. Zeta-Jones had a thing going on, The Phantom, The Mask of Zorro, count me in. Then came along Entrapment with Zeta Jones’ erotic dance through laser beams (more on that later), plus Sean Connery and Ving Rhames, and director Jon Arniel following up a film I really liked, The Man Who Knew Too Little.

Sean plays an art thief named Mack, and Zeta-Jones as Virginia Baker, an agent dispatched from an insurance company to bring him down. She forms a partnership with him to steal an ancient Chinese mask, and the two embark on a rigorous regimen of training for the job. Mack soon finds out that Virginia might not be what she seems, but when she tempts him with a job worth eight billion dollars, he agrees to pull the job with her. It all ends up in a series of double and triple crosses where allegiances switch at the drop of a hat.

Connery only had two more films in him, and unfortunately, they were Finding Forrester (“You’re the man now, dog!”) and Allan Moore’s favorite film The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Sean sleepwalks his way through Entrapment, and Mack never rises above the printed page to be any kind of engaging character. His worst scenes by far are the ones he shares with Ving Rhames, Mack’s underworld contact. At least Zeta-Jones and Connery have some sort of chemistry because when Rhames and Connery take the screen it’s like these two have never met. Rhames is playing the same cool tough guy he played in pretty much every film post- Pulp Fiction while the former Bond looks as if he’s pondering how he would rather still be making Zardoz.

Then there’s Catherine. While her acting is not the best I’ve seen from her, she does seem to be trying which is more than I can say of her esteemed cast mate. I have to admit fully this film is mediocre at best, and my love of this flick comes from how beautiful Zeta-Jones looks in nearly every single frame of this film. As good as she looks while thieving, going to fancy parties or just waiting for Connery to wade through his lines, there is not a better sight than Catherine Zeta-Jones in a skintight sweats weaving her way through a series of practice laser beams. Okay, in fairness, there are probably better things, but when I was twenty-three, yeah, let’s just say the scene spoke to me and leave it at that.

There’s not much else to say about this flick. It should have been much better than it was. It never manages to ramp up any kind of excitement, suspense, or thrills. Jon Amiel doesn’t make great films. Sure, The Man Who Knew Too Little and Entrapment were entertaining, but one film does make up for Copycat (1995), Somersby (1993), or The Core (2003). So by this point in the review you might be wondering why in the hell I would:

A) Bother to review this

B) Admit to watching it more than 10 times or

C) Think anyone might still be reading at this point.

All good questions, but good things come to those who wait. Thankfully, the wait is over. I want to share with you folks what The Catherine Zeta-Jones effect is all about. Here’s a picture of Catherine in 1999 looking totally hot.

Ok, now here’s a picture of her in 2001.

See the difference? No? Then let me explain. The Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect is very simple. A famous woman who a guy has a crush on is only as hot as the guy she is currently dating or married to. In 1999, Catherine was smoking hot, and sure, she had dated some questionable men, producer Jon Peters being chief among them, but then she went and filmed Traffic (2000) and met and fell for Michael Douglas. Now I have nothing against Mike personally. I like many of his films and his dad was quite the asskicker, but after she married him, I noticed a change. There just wasn’t the same sparkle in her eyes anymore. Me and Mrs. Zeta-Jones Douglas, we no longer had a thing going on.

I began to notice that the CZJE (Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect for those not keeping up) was not limited to just that one occurrence though. It happened all the time. I used to love me some Sandra Bullock, but then she got with Jesse James of Monster Garage fame. There are even some that hurt me deeply. Drew Barrymore is a longtime crush, but really, the dude that’s an Apple? The CZJE strikes again.

In the most complex of the theorem’s equations has to involve Jennifer Anniston and Brad Pitt. I was always a bigger fan of Courtney Cox than Anniston, but when the two of them got together, she was under the effect of the reverse Catherine Zeta-Jones Effect, being with Brad Pitt made her hotter somehow. Then after the breakup both of them suffered the regular CZJE with Pitt shacking up with serial adopter Angelina Jolie and Anniston finding solace with John Mayer. Thankfully the rumor has it that Jen had taken up with Midnight Meat Train’s Bradly Cooper so there’s hope for her yet.

By this time if you’re still with me, then you think this is one of the more amusing things you’ve read in a while or you think I have serious issues. Either way is fine, and both are probably equally true. There are just some movies that become moments in time, and for me Entrapment is one of them. It was the last time in my life I could just look at Ms. Zeta- Jones without a leering Gordon Gekko entering my brain as well. The movie is pretty much crap, but the innocent time before I discovered The Catherine Zeta-Jones effect is what will always bring me back to this film.

Bugg Rating

Hitch on the Hump: Vertigo (1958)

It could have been called Darkling I Listen, or Fear and Trembling, or From Among the Dead, but it wasn’t. Associate producer Herbert Coleman told a tale of the script’s early incarnation in the documentary Obsessed with Vertigo: “He (Maxwell Anderson) turned in a screen play called Listen Darkling, and that will tell you the whole story. No one could tell you what it meant, and the screenplay was exactly the same.” Thankfully clearer heads prevailed, and the film became known as Vertigo (1958). The film’s title is surely meant to reflect the main character’s fear of heights and the whirling dizziness that accompanies it. Perhaps it also describes the unsettling feeling the film’s visual style, swirling music, and unconventional narrative leaves the audience with.

John ‘Scottie’ Ferguson (James Stewart) was a policeman. He quit after his debilitating fear of heights lead to another cop’s death. Now directionless, he gets a call from an old college chum who has a case for Scotty. The man believes his wife, the beautiful blonde Madeline (Kim Novak), is possessed by the spirit of her great grandmother, Carlotta Valdez. Scottie takes the job, and after saving Madeline from drowning herself in San Francisco Bay, he begins to fall for her. When she recounts the details of a bad dream to him, he takes her to the old Franciscan mission that she has described in order to ease her fears. When they arrive, she races up into the bell tower and leaps to her death as Scottie, powerless to stop her, is wracked by a bout of vertigo. A year later, Scottie meets another woman, Judy (Novak), a brunette who looks strikingly like Madeline.

If I gave someone who had never seen Vertigo that synopsis and told them it was for a film by David Lynch hat would happen? Sure, they would embellish the tale in their mind with fetishists, midgets, and dark grainy camera angles, but the plot itself would be totally believable in Lynch’s noir world. The final script to the film, written by Samuel A. Taylor, the writer of Sabrina (1954) and Hitchcock’s Topaz (1969), is challenging in its structure, and rather unlike how films were paced in the era. Hitchcock has said that Vertigo is broken up into two parts, the first being about a broken man who finds hope in a new love, and the second being his obsessive decline into madness trying to recreate that love through another living woman.

It’s desperately hard to describe the film and not spoil it. The first half of the picture depends on the surprise that kicks off the other half. Then conversely, the surprise becomes the Hitchcock patented suspense (back to what the audience knows, and the characters don’t again) for the second half of the movie. While this structure would not seem out of the ordinary now (at least it was sequential), in 1958, many people disliked the film for the simple fact that the mystery was solved by middle of the second act. It wasn’t until it’s re-release in 1983 that it was hailed as one of Hitchcock’s great masterpieces.

As with many of Hitchcock’s films, much of the character development in the film is done without words. To accomplish this on screen takes a very special kind of actor or actresses, who can say as much with a look than a word. Thankfully, the two leads in Vertigo fit this bill perfectly. James Stewart needs no introduction, and if he does, then don’t tell me that ’cause it will only make me sad. This was to be the last of Stewart and Hitch’s films together. In an effort to pin the picture’s initial bad reaction on someone, Hitchcock stated that audiences felt the 50 year old Stewart was too old for the romantic lead. If anything, I could see people having trouble with the type of character that he played more than his age. Scottie Ferguson is a far cry from the affable fellow Stewart was known for playing.

After all, after he nobly saves her from the waters of the bay, he takes her back to his apartment, and when she wakes up she’s in his bed nude, her clothes folded and drying in the other room. The implication as she rises from bed and comes into the living room wrapped in his red rope is that he’s seen her in the nude. In the second half of the film, as he becomes obsessed with turning Judy into Madeline, the shoes, the dress, the hair, it must all be perfect. When Judy finally reveals herself to him, all made up to look like his tragically dead lost love, the look on Stewart’s face is so perfect. As Francois Truffaut noted to Hitchcock during their interviews, “he’s almost got tears in his eyes.” Stewart went wonderfully against type with this film, and it enhances the impact of his mania as it emerges from an actor we equate with his most earnest roles.

Kim Novak was not Hitchcock’s first choice for the role of Madeline. He wanted to use Vera Miles who had previously starred in his film The Wrong Man opposite Peter Fonda. She was cast in the role and a portrait of her as “Carlotta” was even finished. However due to a delay for Hitchcock to have gall bladder surgery and Ms. Miles becoming pregnant, he had to go with Novak instead. Hitchcock has stated that Novak arrived on set with “preconceived notions that I couldn’t possibly go along with”. He explained to her that, “the story was of less importance than the overall visual impact on the screen.” Later he would also blame the film’s failure on Novak being miscast.

Personally I think that the notion that she was not the right person for the role is stuff and nonsense. Novak brought the proper cool iciness to the role of Madeline, a woman controlled by her obsession with a long dead relative. The balance she strikes between Madeline and Judy, so in love with Scottie that she will indulge his fantasy of another woman, is perfect. While Madeline comes off as above the ethereal and emotionless, Judy is so full of emotions that ultimately lead to her undoing. To me, the turn as Judy is the standout performance. It may well be that this is due to the more intense acting called for in the final act, but Novak, who I had only previously seen in The Man with the Golden Arm, really impressed me with the subtle performance she turned in.

Vertigo has very little in the way of a supporting cast with most of the film conducted between the two leads, but there is one actress worth mentioning. I have to wonder why Stewart’s Scottie needed to find himself a gal anyway when clearly his friend Midge was pining for him. Midge was played by Barbara Bel Geddes who would later find national fame as Miss Ellie Ewing on the long running series Dallas. I thought Midge was cute as a button, and she designs women’s underwear for a living, really, need I say more.

The “overall visual impact on the screen” that Hitchcock was going for definitely made its way to the finished product. Vertigo was just one of twelve pictures where Hitchcock collaborated with cinematographer Robert Burks. The film is awash with beautiful lighting effects, and many of them coincide with important events in the narrative enhancing the story with dramatic visual impact. The most stunning moment comes when Judy appears in her Scottie approved Madeline outfit, and she is surrounded by a blue/green light that gives her the image of being an apparition. The film also broke new ground with its “Vertigo” effect. To recreate a feeling he had when he nearly passed out at a party, Hitchcock had models made of the sets and the effect was made by combining a track out with a forward zoom.

The film also contains a special scene, the “Nightmare Sequence” designed by John Ferren who also did the design for the iconic poster. I could and would watch this part of the film over and over. This was psychedelic film ten years ahead of its time. I have to wonder between the lighting of Vertigo and its more bizarre moments how much influence it had on Italian genre cinema of the ‘60’s. There are definitely shades of things I could see influencing Bava and Argento in this film.

Vertigo’s score is a prefect match for the film. Composer Bernard Hermann got his start on the Orson Wells film Citizen Kane, and he would go on to have a career that spanned more than four decades and include music for the films Taxi Driver, Twisted Nerve, and Jason and the Argonauts. Vertigo was the third of his six collaborations with Hitchcock, and he hit the mood and themes of the film perfectly. The music is quite reserved, but the listener will soon realize how much of the music feels cyclical. There are small themes that repeat, and the music definitely conveys the whirling disorientation that would come from suffering from vertigo.

In the Animaniac’s film Wakko’s Wish, Wakko asks his brother Yakko, “Do you get vertigo?”, and Wakko replies, “Nah. I’ve seen that movie three times and I still don’t get it.” Preparing for this review, I felt the need to watch Vertigo twice before I would even attempt to start sharing my thoughts. It is a film I will definitely be going back to again for both the incredible visual style and for the subtle nuances of both the story and its performances. Hitchcock was reaching for new heights, and with Vertigo he delivered a dizzying demonstration of his skill as a film maker.

Bugg Rating

A Trio of Terror: Blood and Black Lace, Burnt Offerings, and 28 Days Later

Heya folks. I been under the weather for a couple of days, and so I don't have a full length review for you folks. It's not for lack of watching movies though and so I'm going to give you a trio of quick reviews for the films I watched yesterday. They all deserve full length reviews of their own, but I'll try and do them justice in as few words as possible.

When you approach the films of Mario Bava, there are some things you come to expect; innovations, beauty, and grace mixed equally with death, blood, and despair. To say that Bava had a singular sense of style would be an understatement, and nothing about his film Blood and Black Lace (1964) is understated. Style practically crawls out of your screen and knocks you upside the head. This is the third time I'd seen Bava's influential early giallo, and I am always impressed by the depth Bava put into the design of every shot. Sure, It's got some faults. The acting is wooden at points and the story moves along slowly, but as the story of models being slaughtered in a fashion house plays out, you are kept enraptured in the story from it's sheer visual delight. It may not be my favorite Mario Bava film, but it's definitely an entertaining film full of style, beautiful women, and the hallmarks that Bava left on the genre as a whole.

How many times do I have to say it? Don't rent creepy old houses! I really would have thought that veteran actors like Oliver Reed, Karen Black, and Bette Davis would know better, but Burnt Offerings (1976) proves that no one can resist a great deal. Reed and Black play a husband and wife who take their child and Aunt Lisbeth (Davis) to stay the summer in an eerie old manor. Needless to say things go badly, and soon the parents both start acting strangely. This is a film cut from similar cloth as The Sentinel or The Changeling, but instead of being a haunted house, this is more like the house as an entity itself. Its performed well with Reed being in fine form, Black chewing the scenery as she goes nutty, and Davis proving that, even as she pushed 70, she still had the same chops she always had. It's a creepy little film, but slow moving and anyone looking for thrills or gore will be sorely disappointed.

Seven years later, I finally got around to seeing 28 Days Later. How shall I sum this one up? Hmm, how about eco-terrorists are fucking stupid and will kill us all? Ok, perhaps a bit harsh, but they were the ones who let out the Rage infected monkeys, so I'm just saying. Anyhow, the Rage virus gets out, all hell breaks loose, and Great Britain gets quarantined. 28 Days Later, Cillian Murphy's character wakes in a hospital and goes out searching for any life in the deserted London. While Peter Boyle's 2002 film is much more of a character driven piece than a zombie film, it does harken back to Romero's quiet character driven original Night of the Living Dead film. The performances are top notch with my favorite being Brendon Gleeson as a survivalist, taxi driving dad. Gleeson is always good, but I found his performance to be quite moving in this flick. Boyle delivered a very visually arresting film, but there is very little here in the way of new ideas in the zombie genre. 28 Days Later has been hailed as groundbreaking because of the fast zombies, but I seem to recall them in some Italian pictures as well as the Return of the Living Dead films. That being said, I don't think Boyle was looking to revolutionize the zombie film, but instead he wanted to make a film that looked at paranoia, isolation, and how quickly societal norms can break down when put under pressure.

Two Lane Blacktop (1971) or How Warren Oates became a Beach Boy’s Little G.T.O.

If there’s one thing I can point at and say that I have absolutely no expertise in, then its cars. I know where the gas goes in, and the oil, and how to drive one, but my knowledge of the automotive arts ends there. I was talking to someone once and they said they were into Mopar, and for all I knew that was some kind of golf you played from a car. What I don’t know about cars, I make up elsewhere ‘cause I know movies, and I know music. So while tonight’s film features boss engines and gear heads, thankfully, the film calls on my areas of knowledge to talk about it.

Two Lane Blacktop is the story of two men, The Driver (James Taylor) and the Mechanic (Dennis Wilson) who travel the nation taking part in illegal drag races. They travel from town to town challenging one racer after another, and eventually they are joined by a Hitchhiker known as The Girl (Laurie Bird). Eventually they cross the path of pathological liar and all around fake, G.T.O. (Warren Oates), and they take off on a race to Washington D.C. with their car’s pink slips on the line.

Monte Hellman directed this 1971 flick as a kind of answer to 1969’s Dennis Hopper film Easy Rider, but in the time since Hopper and Fonda had ridden across the nation, the hippie movement had their wakeup call with the deaths at the Altamont festival, the Vietnam war continuing to grind on, and the Beatles officially calling it quits. Much of the hopefulness of the ‘60’s had evaporated and Hellman’s picture reflects the change in the hippie culture. The Driver and The Mechanic are not wide eyed idealists, instead they are gamblers living on what they can hustle from unsuspecting drag racers.

Casting the lead roles in the film with first time actors/musicians James Taylor, of Fire and Rain fame, and Dennis Wilson, the drummer from the Beach Boys, was quite a risk, but it’s one that pays off perfectly. The film contains sparing dialog, and its strength is in the comfortable and uncomfortable silences that appear between the two leads. I was especially impressed with Taylor, a musician I respect but loathe. His performance as The Driver is pitch perfect, and gives a proper character examination to someone whose passion is street racing. That is if you can call it passion. Both Taylor and Wilson seem devoid of any real joy, and they are the very definition of the placid, disaffected youth. They seem real, raw, and completely in control of their roles.

Laurie Bird and Warren Oates characters could not be more different than the two lead characters. Bird’s youthful Girl is perhaps too young to know that times have changed, and she seems very much like the hippy chicks portrayed in films only a few years earlier. She sleeps with both The Driver and The Mechanic, and then wonders if she’s being used, but it doesn’t seem much like she’s the victim. It is more that she is using the two men as an outlet to have adventures on the road. Warren Oates’ G.T.O on the other hand seems very much like a foretelling of the years to come. From his store bought hot rod to the numerous stories of his past he regales hitchhikers with, Oates is the kind of smarmy faker who would populate disco clubs or singles bars in years to come. Oates, as usual, is quite enjoyable to watch, and my favorite scene of his is played against a young Harry Dean Stanton who shows up as a gay cowboy hitchhiker with a craving to “pay” for his ride.

I think I should take a moment to talk about Monte Hellman. Monte came, as so many of the maverick directors of the ’70’s, from the house of Corman, and he was one of the many unaccredited directors of The Terror as well as helming the Beast from Haunted Cave (1959). Working on The Terror was Hellman’s first collaboration with Jack Nicholson, and the two soon paired up for a couple of Westerns, Ride in the Whirlwind (1965) and The Shooting (1967). He would go on to direct the TV movie which launched Baretta (1975), the Warren Oates/Fabio Testi western China 9, Liberty 37, and Silent Night, Deadly Night III.

The real stars of the film are, of course, the cars. The Driver and The Mechanic tool around in a heavily modified ’55 Chevy (identifying ’55. ’56, and ’57 Chevys is one car skill I do have) while Warren Oates' character G.T.O. oddly enough drives a souped up 1970 Pontiac G.T.O. in bright yellow with red trim. One of the rival cars seen in the film went on to a bigger cinematic pedigree. It’s a green ’32 Ford and it would be seen two years later in George Lucas’ American Graffiti when it was driven by Harrison Ford’s character.

The racing, and all the driving footage, are handled perfectly. While they are not central to the film, racing is a large part of the narrative, and if these scenes were mismanaged, then it would have taken away from the film. They are also very thrilling, and the film makes a point to make them look special. This fits in with the characters as well. The Driver never races unless money is on the line, and the one time he lets someone get the best of him, he nearly crashes the car. All of the cinematography is excellent and captures the open road, the racing, and the quiet disaffection of the characters. This is captured by the pair of cinematographers who worked on the film, Jack Deerson and Gregory Sandor, the latter of which would end his career working on the Richard Elfman freakout film, Forbidden Zone.

Since Two Lane Blacktop veers more toward a character study than a racing film, it is a far cry from films like Cannonball (1976) or Fast Company (1979). However, the racing footage in it is quite good enough to keep the film from heading into navel gazing territory. Plus you get James Taylor actually being a convincing race car driver which I would have thought to be impossible. For anyone who is a fan of early ‘70’s cinema, this is one that should not be missed. Like me, the novelty of the two musicians in lead roles may be what attracts you to the picture, but if you give it a chance, you will find a very agreeable film about a time in America’s youth culture where directions were starting to shift.

Bugg Rating

Happy 4th of July from the LBL!

Happy Independence to all you folks out there. I hope everyone has a good holiday, and I'm going to give you a little something today with the trailer and cover to the most patriotic of horror films,

Whatcha Craven?: The Hills Have Eyes (1977)

It’s the start of the July the 4th weekend, and many people will be taking this opportunity to travel. So I thought as a service to my readers, I would impart a little travel advice by way of this month’s featured director, Wes Craven. When traveling through an area you’re not familiar with, don’t go off down a dirt road that’s not on the map, and if you’re still thinking you might, and the local gas station attendant tries to warn you off then take his advice. After all, he lives around there and you don’t. He might know things like how the area might be chock full of imbred mutated rednecks with a taste for human flesh.

It’s too bad that Big Bob Carter (Russ Grieve) didn’t heed that kind of advice. Instead he takes his family and their camper into the craggy desert in search of a silver mine given to him and his wife on their silver anniversary. Swerving to avoid a rabbit, he crashes the car and busts the axel, stranding his family. They soon finds themselves in a fight for their life against Jupiter (James Whitworth) and his band of homosapien snacking mutants, and thus begins Wes Craven’s second film, The Hills Have Eyes (1977).

One of the taglines for the movie says, “A nice American family. They didn’t want to kill. But they didn’t want to die.” Wes Craven often brought the average American family into a world of twisted horror in his films such as The Last House on the Left and A Nightmare on Elm Street. One of the running themes in his films is to explore the dark places people can go to when their lives are on the line, and the Carter family (and well, their dog, but more on that later) is no exception. It does take them a while to get there, and that is both a blessing and the curse of The Hills Have Eyes. The first half of the film is quite a slow burn, and I don’t ever feel as if tension is built very effectively. Sure, you know things are going to go badly, or it wouldn’t be much of a film, but until the hill people show up there is little, that is unsettling about their plight.

However, when the baddies start to terrorize the family it does ramp up quite quickly, and much if the credit has to go to the actors who played the cannibal clan. James Whitworth strikes quite the imposing figure as clan patriarch Jupiter, Lance Gordon’s Mars looked a little bit like David Hess’ ugly brother (and that’s saying something), but the most memorable performance comes from Michael Berryman. The unique looking actor had come to the screen first in 1975’s Doc Savage film and followed that up with Milos Forman’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, but it was The Hills Have Eyes that set him on a path to become an iconic actor in the horror genre.

Something has to be said for the family though because there are quite a few good performances here as well. Susan Lanier stars as the Carter’s youngest daughter Brenda, and I thought she did quite a good job though sometimes it verged on being too much. Then there is Robert Houston as Bobby Carter. When the other men go for help, Bobby is left in charge to defend the women folk, and Houston effectively makes Bobby quite the misguided jerk. He was such an ass that it made it quite hard to root for him, and if it were not for Ms. Lanier as his sweet and rather freaked out sister then I may not have. Yet compared to the ruthless and terrifying members of the cannibal clan, Bobby being a little bit if a jerk is not that big of a transgression.

The last performance I’d like to talk about is the best in the film, but sadly, it is one of the most limited ones. Doug Wood (Martin Speer) is the Carter’s son in law who is married to their eldest daughter Lynn (Dee Wallace). Once Lynn is killed in a struggle to defend her baby from Mars, Doug reacts as any father would and goes after his kidnapped baby. Speer is featured very little in the film, but I found him to be the most natural of the actors.

While the last half saves the flick, The Hills Have Eyes is not the flawlessly executed film that many have lauded it as being. Personally, I prefer the rawness of Last House to the slow burn build of Hills. I feel like the cinematography is quite jumpy and dark in spots even in the remastered version I watched, and while some of the acting was good, many of the roles were filled with actors clearly not giving the parts their all. It also fails to deliver on much harrowing violence. Sure it brings a couple of fairly gruesome deaths and a rape scene, which like every rape scene, is hard to watch, but the best killing in the film comes by way of the family dog getting a hold of Pluto. This was no doubt my favorite part of the film, and will go on my shortlist of favorite onscreen deaths.

The Hills Have Eyes is an important film because it, like Last House, was important in the development of Wes Craven as a director, but it will never rank among my favorite of his films. To me, the film seems messy and builds too slowly for the ending to have much of an impact beyond the shocking. I know many people hold it in high regard so my opinion of it may well turn out to be unpopular, but while I feel it is worth seeing, I don’t feel like it achieves what is needed for it to become a classic film.

Bugg Rating

Isn't It Bromantic: The 13th Warrior (1999)

As Chris Kattan taught us on Saturday Night Live, Antonio Banderas is “too sexy“. Now I have no comment on that other than to say he’s a good lookin’ fellow. That’s not what this new feature, Isn’t It Bromantic, is about. While B.L.O.G has gone on for some 20+ weeks about the ladies of genre film that I love, the men have been put on the backburner. Now I want to give some dudes the props they deserve. Now, don’t fret, the B.L.O.G.s will be back again soon. I’m going to be trading back and forth on Thursdays between the sexes.

First off let me just say a few words about what Isn’t It Bromantic will be about. It will be about genre film actors I love to watch, it will be focused on one specific movie each time, and it will not be a sexiest or most handsome contest, but rather a place for me to talk about my man crushes. Now don’t front, gentlemen. I know you all have man crushes. There’s always an actor whose roles makes you want to be more like him onscreen and off. They’re the characters that are cool as ice, slick as shit, and always ready to throw down in called upon. That’s why to kick this whole thing off I went with a film and an actor who I feel is quite under-appreciated...

Antonio Banderas was almost not an actor at all. Up until the age of 14 he was poised to be something of a soccer sensation in his native Spain, but a broken foot put an end to those dreams. After seeing a stage production of Hair, he decided he wanted to peruse a career in acting which eventually lead him to a series of collaborations with Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. He made the leap to Hollywood in 1992 with The Mambo Kings and in 1993 got much praise as Tom Hank’s gay lover in Philadelphia.

So far his career had been dominated by high minded films helmed by serious directors, but soon a job given to him by one of those artistic directors, Neil Jordon, would bring Banderas into genre film. He took on the role of Armand in Jordon’s adaptation of Ann Rice’s Interview with a Vampire (1994). Say what you will about that film, I always find a lot to like there and Banderas is definitely part of it. The next year saw his first pairing with Robert Rodriguez in the director’s American remake of his own El Mariachi. Desperado told a slightly varied and more polished tale than the original, and Banderas was well on his way down the genre film path. Over the next few years he starred in Four Rooms (1995), opposite Stallone on Assassins (1995), and donned the legendary disguise in The Mask of Zorro (1998).

Then came tonight’s film, The 13th Warrior (1999). Based on the book Eaters of the Dead by Michael Crichton, The 13th Warrior came out at the end of a long string of successful films based on the author’s work including Jurassic Park, Rising Son, Disclosure, and Sphere. The film was set to be directed by one of the better men to have behind an action epic, John McTierman, the director of Die Hard, Predator, and Last Action Hero, but in the end the film failed miserably at the box office and became one of the biggest flops to date. The thing I could never get my head around was why. Banderas was a marquee level star and The 13th Warrior was based on the classic legend of Beowulf with a hint of The Seven Samurai thrown in for good measure. Since the first time I saw this flick, it fast became one that if I turned it on, well, I was going to be doing something for the next two hours.

As I mentioned, The 13th Warrior is a twist on the epic poem Beowulf with a twist. A far flung Norse village is being terrorized by a creature, and Ahmed Ibn Fahdhan, a poet banished from his Middle Eastern homeland for romancing the wrong woman, has been sent out as an Ambassador to the lands to the North. He is in attendance when the warriors are chosen for the quest, and he, no Northman, must become the 13th of their number. He journeys with Buliwyf (Vladimir Kulich) and his men to the village where his life takes him into the dark mysticism of the Norse.

The story relies on Ahmed to guide the audience through the mystic beliefs of the Norse. They believe there is a giant fire beast, but Ahmed sees it as a legion of men with torches. The Grendel of the story is a tribe of men in bear heads called Wendol, but it takes Banderas’ poet to see them as not monsters. Some of it feels forced at times, but the film eases us into believing in the Arab’s intellect. Early in the film, he understands nothing of what the Norsemen are saying, but through a series of deftly cut scenes, the film illustrates how he learns to communicate with them. Sure, it requires some suspension of disbelief, but you’ve already got a Spaniard playing a Middle Easterner, so if you’re going to go with it, it’s best you just put your worries to the side and enjoy.

It’s kind of surprising that any kind of film could have come from the harrowing post production process that it endured. The original cut of the film did not test well, and at some point Crichton took over directing changing the title from his own original title Eaters of the Dead to The 13th Warrior. The film was also originally scored by Graeme Revell (composer for Grindhouse, From Dusk Til Dawn, and Boxing Helena) with Dead Can Dance singer Lisa Gerrard. It was completely replaced by Crichton with a score from legendary film composer Jerry Goldsmith. While I quite like the music, I would like to see the film with the other score intact to compare.

While The 13th Warrior surely deserved no Oscars, I find it to be an enjoyable action epic that didn’t get a fair shake. At the time it was released, it was one of the most expensive flops in movie history (not Waterworld bad, but bad none the less.) Since its release, it’s had a second life on video and DVD, and that’s the sign of a true cult film. It’s the kind of flick that when I mention it to my friends, we’ve all seen, we all enjoy, but somehow we never knew that there were other people that liked it. So in short, Antonio, he’s a badass here the Norse teach him to be, and he makes The 13th Warrior into a pretty badass flick.

Bugg Rating