B.L.O.G Presents Starcrash (1978) with Caroline Munro

A few weeks back, I started my review of Halloween III by boldly stating that I didn’t care for Michael Myers. This week I’m going to go out on a further limb. I’m not really a fan of Star Wars. Sure, I liked it when I was younger, who didn’t, but as the years passed, the less I wanted to War and the more I wanted to Trek. By the time Lucas barfed up that prequel trilogy, Star Wars was all but dead to me. Yet there is something that Star Wars gave the world that I do really, really enjoy, the Star Wars rip-off. I thoroughly enjoyed Turkish Star Wars, Star Chaser, and Battle Beyond of the Stars. So when I saw that Cinema de Bizarre was offering Luigi Cozzi’s entry into the genre, Starcrash, I had to check it out.

In the place of a young farm boy, our hero is Stella Star (Caroline Munro), a smuggler that’s more Han than Luke, and along with her partner Akton (Marjoe Gortner), she makes a living salvaging whatever she can from deep space. The duo is finally caught by Chief of Police Thor (Robert Tessier) and Police Robot Elle (Hamilton Camp) and sentenced to hard labor. They get released from jail by the Galactic Emperor (Christopher Plummer) to aid in finding a missing ship which had been attacked by Count Zarth Arn’s (Joe Spinelli) forces. The Emperor dispatches the duo along with Thor and Elle to discover what secret weapon Zarth Arn is wielding and to see if his son, Simon (David Hasselhoff) had survived the attack. Along the way they must battle Amazons, giant robots, and roving bands of Neanderthals before facing off against Zarth Arn with the fate of a galaxy on the line.

From the very first frame of Starcrash you know two things about this film. First, you get an extended shot of a huge space frigate floating along so there’s no mistaking exactly what they were ripping off. This is followed shortly by a block of floating text (French in the version I watched) detailing the back-story of the conflict between the Emperor and Zarth Arn. Secondly, from how terrible the effects are, you get an idea of how fast this film was turned out to capitalize on Star Wars mania. Not only does the ship in space look bad, but when it’s attacked by Zarth Arn’s secret weapon, which shows up as a globulous red overlay inside the ship, all I could think was that they were being attacked by the light show operator from the Fillmore East. (That was a joke for people over the age of 50 more than likely, but I like it so I’m keeping it.) The effects never get better, but it kind of adds to the campy majesty that is Starcrash.

Of course, we’re here today because of the star of the film, Miss Stella Star herself, Caroline Munro. If ever there was a woman who more deserved to be inducted into the ranks of the Beautiful Ladies of Genre, then I don’t know who that is. Munro started her career as a model and made her leap to the big screen with an un-credited part in 1967’s Casino Royale. The first big role she landed was that of the deceased wife of Vincent Price’s Dr Phibes, and she followed that up with a spot of Hammer horror, Captain Kronus- Vampire Hunter. It was her role in the 1977 James Bond film The Spy who Loved Me that brought her to wide attention. In that film she played the evil assassin Naomi, the first woman ever verifiably killed by James Bond. Then in 1978 came Starcrash. Stella Star is of course there to be our hero, and to provide something for the fellas to look at as well. This is made quite clear when she’s sent to prison in her converted bathing suit outfit and knee high leather boots while her fellow prisoners are dressed in rags. Her performance is just what it should be. She plays it serious, and with campy material like this, that’s exactly what it called for. After Starcrash, Munro would continue in genre work. She made a pair or films, Maniac and The Last Horror Show, with her Starcrash co-star Joe Spinelli, Paul Nachy’s 1987 film Howl of the Devil, and reunited with Cozzi for 1989’s The Black Cat before she all but retired from the business to focus on her family and children.

While Munro is the reason we’re talking about Starcrash today, she’s, by far, not the only noteworthy performer on hand. Personally, I have a soft spot for the lesser films of Marjoe Gortner. I discussed Gortner's childhood as an evangelist in an earlier review of Mausoleum so I won’t rehash that here. Gortner has a unique look about him, and he was perfect casting for Stella Star’s sidekick with mysterious powers, Akton. Gortner is also only one of three actors (the others being Chris Plummer and The Hoff) who dubbed their own voice for the film. While it would be a year later in 1979’s When You Comin’ Back, Red Ryder? that Gortner would give his best performance, Gortner is as entertaining to watch as ever in Starcrash.

The supporting cast is a verifiable “who’s who” of people that it’s hard to believe appear in this film. Let’s start with Christopher Plummer. Now Plummer would go on appear another of my favorite science fiction movies when he showed up as General Chang in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but he’s probably best known for his turn as Baron Von Trapp in The Sound of Music (1965). Plummer has never been snobby about appearing in mainstream and genre film work, and that’s something I really respect in an actor. In Starcrash, he has very limited screen time, once appearing only as a hologram, but he brings gravitas the role of the Space Emperor which was probably much needed.

Next up, Joe Spinelli, which horror fans will know from the aforementioned films Maniac and The Last Horror Film, shows up as the Emperors’ nemesis Darth Arn. Wait did I say Darth? I, of course, meant Zarth. Anyhow, Spinelli plays Zarth Arn with relentless over the top gusto all the while looking like Ming the Merciless’ ugly brother. I have to admit that every time he hit the screen I giggled a bit, but this is the kind of film that will have you laughing already so one more won’t hurt. Chief of Police Thor played by Robert Tessier might be a familiar face as well. He’s done a ton of character work over the years, and he began his career with a role in the first Billy Jack film 1967’s the Born Losers. Over the years he also appeared with Charles Bronson in Hard Times, as the Dutchman in the 1967 Doc Savage movie, and in Peter Yate’s The Deep. Meanwhile his sidekick, Police Robot Elle was voiced by Hamilton Camp best known for his character roles and providing voices on the cartoon Duck Tales. Whose choice it was to make Elle a robot with a southern accent is anyone’s guess, but I could not have enjoyed it more. I mean how can you not like a robot that sounds like a hick saying things like, “Is time for a little robot chauvinism.”? Classic, I tell you.

Now I haven’t mentioned one person in this cast because his role doesn’t come in until the last third of the film, but what a treat to see a young, pre-Knight Rider David Hasselhoff hamming it up as only The Hoff can do. Long before he was lounging around shirtless eating burgers, he appeared in a couple of low budget features including Starcrash and 1976’s Revenge of the Cheerleaders (where he’s credited as Boner making it a must see). Hasselhoff is exactly what you would expect from him. He’s younger, but his acting was no better. Still, I bet his appearance in the film somehow made this flick huge in Germany.

All in all, Starcrash is a Star Wars rip off that didn’t even take the fact that it was a rip off too seriously. It manages to be funny, both intentionally and accidentally, have some good old fashioned cheesy effects, and entertain for ninety solid minutes. I found the film overall to be worthy of a recommendation, but don’t go into this film expecting to see a masterpiece. If you do, you’ll find yourself disappointed. What you’re going to get is a campy, stupid, cut rate space opera that if taken on face value will deliver no more than it promises. If given the choice between watching a Star Wars film or Starcrash, it would be a pretty easy choice. Well, except then I’d remember how much I like Empire. I suppose a double feature would be on tap then.

Bugg Rating

I, Madman (1989)- Reading Might Be Fundamental, But It Can Be Murder!

Once again, it’s time to throw open the video tape vaults here at the Lair and delve into another diabolical selection from the world of VHS. That’s right; it’s time for another thrilling installment of It Came From Video Tape. Today’s selection, I, Madman, is one that I recall staring at me from the racks of my local video emporium, and now that I got my hands on a copy, I cold not resist firing up the old VCR and giving it a whirl. Plus, I love things that start with I and a Comma, I, Robot (Asimov’s book not Will Smith’s travesty), Christopher Lee’s I, Monster, and the British mini-series I, Claudius come to mind. So with a name like I, Madman and the director of The Gate at the helm, it’s time to press play and see if I‘ll be a happy Bugg or if it ends up with me being I, Mad Man.

Virginia (Jenny Wright) just can’t get enough of Malcolm Brand’s books. After reading his first novel, Much of Madness, More of Sin, she scours the used bookstore she works in to find his other tome, I, Madman. She can’t find it, but when she comes home from acting class, she finds a package containing the book on her doorstep. Virginia can’t put the book down much to the chagrin of her boyfriend Richard (Clayton Rohner). She is deeply disturbed by the book, but can’t get enough of the story of the demented Doctor Kessler. In the book, Kessler is harvesting facial features to make himself more attractive to a girl who says he is ugly. As Virginia gets deeper into the book, the book gets deeper into her world. Murders that are eerily similar to the ones Virginia reads about begin to happen around her, and Virginia begins to be stalked by a man she believes to be Dr Kessler.

Apart from a few supporting players that stumble in their roles, I found I, Madman to be a highly entertaining film. While it doesn’t ever rise too far above the average, it contains an entertaining mystery, some bloody murders, and a trio of solid performances from the lead actors. I, Madman was the follow up to director Tibor Takács’ demons in suburbia film, The Gate. I saw The Gate years ago, and I can’t quite recall what I thought about that one so unfortunately I can’t comment on if this one was better. Takács brought the script by writer David Caskin (Nightmare on Elm Street 2, The Curse) to the screen with exceptional style, and I really liked how it seamlessly moved from 1989 Los Angeles to the noir world of the book. The film has a quality that felt like what might have happened if Dashiell Hammett and Steven King had a baby and it wrote a book. Sure, it would be ugly as hell, but the book it could write would combine horror, suspense, and paranoia with a helping of detective fiction.

While Takács directed the film with a steady hand and it has its share of cinematic tricks that kept me wondering what would happen next, the film really shines when it comes to the acting. Jenny Wright’s Virginia is a fascinating heroine, and she never comes off as weak or corny. While everyone else thinks she’s off her rocker, she continues her amateur investigation without pause. She also looks pretty good doing it, and her first appearance in a nightie and lace panties instantly grabbed my attention. Wright is probably best known for her role as Mae in the excellent 1987 neo-vampire flick Near Dark, but she also starred in such cult gems as 1989’s Twister with Crispin Glover, the Michael Caine thriller A Shock to the System, and, less impressively, The Lawnmower Man. While Near Dark has all right to be her best known film, I, Madman deserves a special spot on her résumé.

It took me some time to place her co-star Clayton Rohner. Turns out that my geek knowledge paid off, and I realized that he had played an Admiral that aged backwards on an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. Meanwhile, my wife who was watching this with me pulled out even more geek knowledge when she pegged him as appearing on an episode of Joss Whedon’s Doll House. Rohner was very good in the film, but I would have to say that playing a cop is not his strong suit. The scenes where he was less cop and more boyfriend were much better overall. He also has a seriously hair sprayed coif in parts of this film, and at one point, I feel certain it extended four inches straight from the front of his head.

Really putting on a show was Randall William Cook, a man usually known more for doing effects than being them. A couple of years back Cook picked up an Oscar for his special effects work on Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, but someone should have given him some kind of award for his intensely creepy role as the psycho from literature. Cook also headed up the make-up department, and he did a hell of a job with the Kessler makeup that goes from a featureless gruesomeness to an even freakier look later in the film. I’m glad they held off on the reveal of the character in full until the climatic scene as it added to the mystique. While Kessler is not a character that could or should have returned for sequels (even though the cover of Fangoria featuring this film read “Move Over Freddy"), he is a character I will not soon forget. I also have to mention that Cook provided some really cool looking stop animation for this film, and it made me happy seeing practical effects done with such style.

At one point in the film, Virginia describes Malcolm Brand’s book by saying it “makes Steven King read like Mother Goose. It’s horrific, but passionate like Poe.” While the film never reaches such a horrific height as she describes, it surely stands out among a sea of mediocre films from the same era. For a night of literary horrors, may I suggest throwing on Tenebre, I, Madman, and In the Mouth of Madness for a triple features of books exacting horror on real life. While I, Madman may be the lesser of the three films, I think you’ll find it an entertaining and all but forgotten film. So check it out. It just goes to show again that you never know what you’ll get when It Came From Video Tape.

Bugg Rating

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Netherworld (1992)- I Wish It Has Been Called Never-See-It-World

When you put in a DVD and the Full Moon Pictures logo comes up, you generally know what you’re going to get. Sure, occasionally there’s a Puppet Master or Trancers, but just as often, you end up wondering why you’re watching Evil Bong II or Mandroid. Now I’m not saying their movies are all bad, but their track record is not astoundingly brilliant. Still, I was cruising the virtual racks of Netflix and came across David Schmoeller’s 1992 film Netherworld, and I decided to give it a shot even with the Full Moon label on it. After all Schmoeller had made two of my favorite Full Moon flicks with the aforementioned Puppet Master and the Kinski in lipstick classic Crawlspace. I also have a soft spot for films set in Louisiana as long time readers will know. So I put it in the queue, I moved it to the top, and I awaited the red envelope with a strange mixture of high expectations and dread. At least I had one of those emotions was right.

Netherworld is the story of Corey Thornton (Michael Bendetti), a typical early nineties guy with a typical half mullet full of L.A. Looks gel. When his father dies, he inherits dear old dad’s massive home located in the backwaters of the Louisiana countryside. From the moment he arrives and is greeted by lawyer Beauregard Yates Esq. (Robert Burr) who is dressed in a powder blue suit paired with black leather fingerless gloves, Corey starts to get a strange feeling. Arriving at the house after meeting the caretaker and her jailbait daughter, Corey receives his father’s diary from the lawyer. When he sits down to read it, he discovers that his father had become obsessed with a prostitute named Delores (Denise Gentile) who has the power to bring people back to life and works at the nearby bar, Tonk’s. The elder Thornton wants to bring himself back after his own death with her powers. Corey quickly becomes obsessed with Delores, and he goes straight to Tonk’s. There he meets a variety of oddball characters, and even though people are being murdered by a mysterious flying stone hand and people all but tell him, Corey doesn’t seem to get the drift that the whorehouse is actually a front for a coven of witches.

The script for Netherworld was written by Schmoeller and Charles Band, head honcho of Full Moon, and it just could not have made less sense. At different points at the film I debated if this movie was supposed to be horror, a tongue in cheek comedy, or intentionally terrible. In the end, I never could decide. It’s hard for me to believe that Schmoeller, who has done some great things, and Band, whose has had his share of good ideas, would have intentionally put together a film in such a slapdash way. This is the kind of film that makes Plan 9 look like Citizen Kane. Netherworld started strong, and its first 10 minutes intrigued me. The big haired prostitute Delores was being raped and the flying stone hand kills the crap out of the rapist. Sure, the effects were bad, but it was atmospheric and pretty effective. The problem is that the rest of the film didn’t have the same tone at all. There was a good idea here, but somewhere between either the idea stage and the page or the translation from page to screen something went horribly wrong.

The acting really was not helping matters. Michael Bendetti is best known for his year run on 21 Jump Street as Officer Mac McCann, but unlike his Jump Street co-star Johnny Depp, Bendetti left the show to do Netherworld and a couple episodes of Red shoe Diaries before fading into obscurity. There’s nothing in Netherworld that is going to send anyone into fervor for a comeback. Bendetti seems to have two expressions, confused and “huh, is the camera on?” and neither impresses. I wish I had more to say about Mr. Bendetti, but he really leaves very little mark on the film, but I bet that with all that gel in his hair he leaves quite a mark on his pillow.

The rest of the cast fares little better. As the large haired mystical hooker Delores, Denise Gentile definitely looked the part, and she is probably the best actor in the film. Not that that’s something you would want to brag about. Twenty six year old Holly Floria who plays the caretaker’s “jailbait” daughter was terrible casting to say the least, but at least she was not terrible. Floria even ended up with a job after Netherworld when she landed a role on the syndicated TV show Acapulco H.E.A.T. The few other characters that seemed interesting at all didn’t get enough screen time to make a difference. Robert Burr’s lawyer with the deformed hands and strange fashion sense, I wanted more of him. George Kelly as town drunk/ psycho Bijou, I wanted a whole film about that nutter. I would have even settled for more time with Billy C., the bottle-twirling bartender played by director Schmoeller.

Just a couple more things, and they're more questions than comments. How can you have a movie about witchcraft wielding hookers that contains no nudity? Also, if you're going to have a woman playing a prostitute who claims to be Marilyn Monroe brought back to life, can't you hire someone who doesn't have a face like a foot? I'm just saying. Netherworld is bad. Not the worst film I’ve ever seen, but it’s definitely going to get a solid ‘1’. Unless you have a desire to work yourself though all the Full Moon releases, this is one you never need to watch. I would seriously recommend Evil Bong II and Mandroid before I would this one. So enter at your own risk. You may not end up in the Netherworld, but you will wish that you had spent the last 90 minutes in some other dimension.

Bugg Rating

The Mercenary (1968)- Sergio Corbucci Gets Revolutionary

Last week I kicked off Once Upon a Time in Italy by talking about a horror film. This week I decided to go with the other genre that the Italians are primarily known for, the western. During the late ‘60‘s and early ‘70‘s, there were hundreds of Spaghetti Westerns made, and the big star to come out of this movement was director Sergio Leone. Leone made many, many great Westerns, but today I want to talk about another lesser known and hailed Sergio. After directing a number of films over fifteen years, from sword and sandals epics to horror and war movies, Sergio Corbucci made his indelible mark on the Western genre with his 1966 film Django. For this film alone and the influence it had, Corbucci should be held up as one of the genre’s best directors, but he would go on to continue to make many more great films that get much less attention.

One of those films made its debut only 2 years after Django and reunited Corbucci with that film’s star, Franco Nero. The Mercenary (Italian: Il mercenario) stars Nero as Sergei Kowalski, the Polish, a mercenary who is first hired to find out what became of a shipment of silver. When he arrives at the mine to investigate, he discovers that it has been taken over by would be revolutionaries Paco Roman (Tony Musante) and his band of rebels. Sergei takes a job with Paco teaching him how to plan a revolution, but of course, there is plenty of money in it for him. They are relentlessly pursued by Curly (Jack Palace) a foppish American with a grudge against both men, and soon the revolution is undone by Curly’s devious plans, Kowalski’s greed, and Paco’s misplaced bravado.

One thing that sets The Mercenary apart from the other Westerns is the setting of the film. The place was Mexico, but the time was the early 20th century, the era of real revolution in Mexico. There are several films in the sub-sub-genre, such as Leone’s A Fistful of Dynamite and Damiano Damini’s A Bullet for the General, that have been labeled the Zapata Western. These films usually rely on political themes, and they feature a different world from many other Westerns. They are set in a time when planes fly across the skies and cars share the roads with horses. The Mercenary also does a very good job of capturing the era though these means, but it also had the additional boost from terrific costuming. There is a distinct look and feel to the film, and from the opening frame you can tell this will not be the typical Western film.

Instead of the wide open panoramic John Ford inspired look that Sergio Leone had in many of his films, Corbucci’s work often has a much darker tone. For this film, Corbucci worked with cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa who would go on to work on Fulci’s 1969 film Perversion Story and Ercoli’s Forbidden Photos of a Lady above Suspicion. The camera work is visually stunning, and often I was amazed how much depth the film had when so much of it was limited to a brownish color palette. While the cinematic style of the film was much different, Corbucci employed frequent Leone collaborator Ennio Morricone along with Bruno Nicolai to score the film. As is typical for Morricone, the score is stirring and features many of his trademark signatures, primarily the use of whistling. The theme song to The Mercenary, L’Arena, might sound familiar to genre fans as well as it was used by Tarantino in his film Kill Bill Pt 2.

The acting in The Mercenary is what really sets the film apart from so many of its contemporaries. I make no secret that I am a huge fan of Franco Nero, and The Mercenary features some of his best acting. His character, Kowalski (most often called Polock in the film), is not he grim hard-ass that Nero has played so many times. He is surely a cool customer and a bit of a jerk, but there is also a good amount of levity in his performance. The Mercenary does a good job of including humor without becoming a farce like 1971’s They Call Me Trinity, and much of the credit has to go to Nero and the other lead actors. I also want to point out that Nero’s character can light a match anywhere, your foot, a bullet, a heaving bosom, or even someone’s teeth. This was a pretty interesting little piece of characterization and added another dimension to the role.

While Nero plays cool and controlled with only a bit of humor, Tony Musante’s Paco Roman stars as a revolutionary, but he ends up working as a clown. Musante’s role was the trickier of the two leads, and in the hands of another actor, Paco could have easily descended into clowning long before he donned the makeup. Musante is extremely charismatic, and even though his flaws, he shows us why people would follow Paco into a revolution. He is a visionary and a dreamer who needed the guidance of Kowalski to show him the realities of conflict. The relationship between the two men is fraught with tragedy, but ultimately it becomes an uplifting tale that is far more important than the political subtext of the film. Musante would have a lengthy career including 2009’s We Own the Night, but if you haven’t caught his performance as Schibetta on the first season of HBO’s Oz, I thoroughly recommend checking that out.

The Mercenary also features two well played supporting performances. I never thought a film would make me want to see more and less Jack Palance at the same time. His character Curly is an intriguing villain, and it was interesting to see Palance play against type as foppish dandy. (It’s also interesting to note that his City Slicker’s character was also named Curly.) The only detraction from Palance’s part was that he has precious little screen time and I really wanted to see more of him. There were a few moments that I needed less of Jack though. When Paco and Kowalski capture Curly, they strip him naked before sending him out to walk across the desert. So while I needed more of Palance’s performance, I could have used less of his bare ass. The other good supporting player is Giovanna Ralli as Paco’s love interest Colomba. Where Kowalski teaches Paco about the logistics of being a revolutionary, Columba teaches him what is at the heart of the revolution. She also looks damn good doing it which doesn’t hurt either. She also has a great scene where she's disguised as Jesus and opens fire on a crowd of Mexican regulars with a machine gun. If that doesn't entice you, I don't know what will.

The Mercenary is a different kind of Western than what you may be used to. It doesn’t have the dry, dusty quality of Leone’s films, the weird imagery of Fulci’s Four of the Apocalypse, or even the darkness of Corbucci’s own film Django. The Mercenary moves along at a great pace, fuses humor with violence, and even provides an anti-fascist political message along the way. The last few moments of the film will now rank among my favorite endings, but I would not want to spoil a second of them for anyone. Unfortunately, The Mercenary has yet to have a DVD release, but hope is not lost. You can pick up this title over at Cinema De Bizarre, and I can guarantee you will be pleased by the crisp, clean print they can provide you with. So head on over and pick up and copy, and don’t forget to tell them the Bugg sent you.

Bugg Rating

An Evening with Klaus Kinski: Aguirre, Wrath of God (1972)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to my newest feature, An Evening with Klaus Kinski. For the next two months I’ll be talking about some of my favorite Kinski films, and a few new ones that I haven’t seen yet. When it comes to actors or directors, I love someone with a big personality, and they just don’t get much bigger than Klaus. His performances are always larger than life, and his off screen antics were sometimes even crazier. In the course of tonight’s film alone, Kinski shot off a man’s fingertip, almost killed another with a sword, and cause the director to threaten to shoot him. The film I’m speaking of is Aguirre, Wrath of God, his first with frequent collaborator Werner Herzog. His fevered performance made me a die hard fan, and I hope that my review will encourage a few folks to check out this flick.

The titular Aguirre, played by Klaus Kinski, is part of Fernando Pizarro’s expedition into the rainforests of South American in search of El Dorado, the fabled lost city of gold. When Pizarro finds his group hopelessly lost, he sends out a group of forty men to scout ahead for supplies or information on their quest. He gives leadership of the group to Don Pedro (Ruy Guerra) who is accompanied by his wife Inez (Helena Rojo). Pizarro also dispatches Aguirre, his daughter Flores (Cecilia Rivera), Brother Gaspar (Del Negro), and Guzman (Peter Berling) to join the exploratory force. Almost as soon as they depart, they find themselves beset with troubles from the raging rapids and Indian attacks. Aguirre soon undermines Don Pedro’s authority causing to the leader being shot and his second in command being imprisoned. Aguirre plans to have the easily controlled Guzman installed as the “Emperor of El Dorado”, but soon Guzman is caught up in his part and becomes mad with power. As they continue down the river, things go from really bad to much, much worse, and Aguirre’s quest for fame and power leads all to a bitter end.

Aguirre, Wrath of God may sound like a historical epic, but don’t let that discourage you from the film. While the setting may be the 16th century Amazonian jungle, the film’s real journey is an unsettling decent into madness. In some ways, it could even be considered a horror film exploring the horrors that erupt in men’s minds in a quest for glory and power. Aguirre, Wrath of God made its debut in 1972, the same year Unberto Lenzi delved into the jungles with his film The Man from Deep River and kicked off the Italian cannibal genre. While Aguirre and his companions have a run in with cannibals and quite a few hostile native peoples, Herzog stops short of graphic violence and cannibalistic mayhem choosing to augment his films with creepy imagery. Aguirre is also set apart from its Italian counterparts is the lack of animal violence. In fact, it was quite the opposite as Kinski was bitten by the monkeys that shared one of his climatic scenes. Lenzi and Herzog made two vastly dissimilar films, but both involve western peoples invading the primordial jungles and finding themselves in over their heads.

Werner Herzog first came up with the idea for the film when he read half a page about Lope de Aguirre in a friend's book. From there, the film was written in at a fevered pace while Herzog was on the road with his football team, but his first draft was destroyed when a team mate puked on it. Herzog hurled the pages out the window of the bus they were traveling in, and unable to recall what he had written, he began again. The finished product had little to nothing to do with historical fact. As the film begins, it purports to be the recollection of Brother Gaspar from his journals. While the historical Gaspar was part of an expedition with Pizarro, Aguirre, Don Pedro, and others were part of a later group searching for El Dorado. Instead of an ill fated attempt to form a new country in El Dorado, the real Aguirre devised a scheme to oust the government of Peru instead. Herzog’s film was a pastiche of historical events, but he was not looking to make a document. Instead the director wanted to talk about modern issues of fame, power, and corruption through the lens of the past.

When Herzog set out to make this film, his first choice for the role of Aguirre was an actor who stayed with his family as a boarder, Klaus Kinski. After reading the script, Kinski was thrilled by the script, but the mercurial actor had his own ideas on how to play the part. Kinski wanted to portray Aguirre as a raving madman, but Herzog favored a more subdued, threatening performance. In order to get what he wanted, Herzog deliberately would irritate Kinski before a scene was shot working him into a furor. When Klaus’ had calmed down, the cameras would finally roll. Herzog got what he wanted, and the film is better for it. Kinski’s Aguirre is a man full of menace that lingers just beneath his placid laconic demeanor. This performance is essential for the film, and Kinski was rarely better than in this first collaboration with Herzog.

As I mentioned earlier, the production was not without its problems, and they mostly stemmed from conflict between Kinski and everyone around Kinski. When he got irritated by noise on the set from a group of card players, he fired a gun into the hut the game was going on in and shot off one of the player’s fingertips. As if that wasn’t dangerous enough, while filming a scene where Aguirre is driving his men, he hit one of the other actors over the head with his sword. If it was not for the small protection of the actor’s conquistador helmet, Kinski would have killed the man. The ultimate confrontation on the set came when the actor tried to leave the film. The story goes that Herzog followed Kinski, and brandishing a gun, Herzog declared that he would sooner shoot Kinski and them himself than let the actor leave. Kinski returned to the set.

While Klaus demands your attention as his limps across the screen, he did not have a monopoly on great performances on this film. Peter Berling’s Guzman provides some much needed comic relief, Ruy Guerra brings Don Pedro the essence of stoic nobility, and Del Negro’s Brother Gaspar is the guide though this world. Yet the other great performance comes from one of the most understated characters and characters. I was truly enchanted by Helena Rojo as Don Pedro’s long suffering wife Inez. Not only does she possess a unique natural beauty, she also gives a subtle performance that relies on pure acting more than dialog. I could read her worry, her fear, and her anger in every frame of film she appeared. Looking over her catalog of films, I don’t recognize any of the credit’s the Mexican actress has to her name, but I will surely be on the prowl for anything starring this beautiful and skilled actress.

One of the most astounding things about Aguirre, Wrath of God is that Werner Herzog did not plan a single shot in the film. Instead, shooting with a 35mm camera he liberated from film school, Herzog and cinematographer Thomas Mauch set up each shot on the fly. To have captured the stunning panoramas and intimately framed close up that the film contains is nothing short of a miracle. Mauch and Herzog would collaborate on ten films during their career, and Aguirre was the fifth of these. These two must have had an extremely good working relationship and a skilled eye for their work. The film is beautiful, but it also creates an oppressive, claustrophobic atmosphere in the wide open expanses of the jungle’s river basin. This is also a great score to the film by German electronic musician Popol Vuh who would score several more Herzog films. The score reminds me a bit of the works of Claudio Simonetti, and while it would seem counterintuitive to have such a modern sounding score, it adds to the nightmarish quality of the film.

If you can get past the period garb, and those peaked conquistador helmets are silly as hell, then you get rewarded by a film that plays out like an alternate universe version of Apocalypse Now. In fact, Coppola has stated that he got quite a bit of inspiration from Herzog’s film when he made his own decent into jungle madness. I really can’t recommend this film highly enough. If you’re unfamiliar with Herzog or Kinski, this is a great place to start, and I think lovers of genre film will film plenty to like here. In weeks to come, my further selections from Kinski’s catalog will mostly not be as high minded or artistically driven as this film, but, as you can tell, I had a few things to say about Aguirre. I hope you all enjoyed it, and I’ll see you back here next Saturday for another Evening with Klaus Kinski.

Bugg Rating

Here's the trailer, and it seems to be dubbed into English. I've only watched the film in the original German with subtitles before. I always enjoy watching Spanish conquerers speaking German.

B.L.O.G. Presents They Call Her Cleopatra Wong (1978)

Take two ounces of blaxploitation, an ounce of James Bond, a quarter cup of Bruce Lee style kung fu, add in spices from Singapore, The Philippines, and Hong Kong, finish it off with a hot chick, and what do you get? Well, generally, you get a strange looking concoction that begs you to kill it, but every once in a while, if you combine everything just so, you can get a film like They Call Her Cleopatra Wong. Let me just say right off that, like Death Bed: The Bed that Eats, this is a film I picked up from Cinema de Bizarre on title alone. I didn’t need to know who was in it, what it was about, or when it was made. All I needed to know was how soon I could get it to my house so I could watch it. Unfortunately, it arrived right at the beginning of October, and it just didn’t seem like a Halloween type title. So finally, I get a chance to see it, and let me tell you, it does not disappoint.

Produced in in 1978, They Call Her Cleopatra Wong starred Marrie Lee, the stage name given to Doris Young Siew Keen. This was Lee’s first film which she got when she responded to a newspaper ad that read, “Are you smart, sexy, and seductive?” The ad was placed by BAS film productions headed up by director Bobby A. Suarez. The company was looking for a girl who could ride a motorcycle, and Lee, who auditioned in a miniskirt and heeled boots, landed the part. When the film went into production, she was given the name Marrie Lee, and for years, people would ask her if she was indeed Bruce’s Younger sister.

They Call Her Cleopatra Wong is, as you would think, all about Cleopatra Wong, Singapore’s top policewoman and agent for INTERPOL. Cleo is out to bring down a ring of counterfeiters determined to bankrupt five Asian countries by destabilizing their currency. She travels to Singapore where she passes some of the counterfeit bills, and soon is picked up by the gang who intend to kill her, but their best fighters are no match for Cleopatra Wong. After a quick escape, it’s time to head out for Hong Kong and the Philippines as Miss Wong keeps on the trail of the phony money. She eventually tracks down the headquarters of the operation located inside of a convent staffed by machine gun toting nuns. INTERPOL teams Cleo up with four other top female agents to form a strike force known as the Super Sirens, and the new team forms an attack on the fake convent. The nuns carrying guns is not the only secret this headquarters hides, and when the Super Sirens finally face down the three big bosses, it’s up to Cleopatra Wong to save the day.

I’ve been having a lot of fun catching up on horror flicks and all, but it’s been quite some time since I saw an action film that was quite so over the top fun. I swear that for most of the film not more than five minutes goes by before Cleo is kicking someone’s ass. I mean this gal can do anything, and they prove it in the opening sequence. She’s a deadeye with a bow and arrow, better with a gun, a master of karate, and a master on the disco dance floor. If I weren’t a happily married Bugg, Marrie Lee would definitely rank up there as perfect mate material. Lee is not only good looking throughout; she makes all the action scenes look great too. From what I’ve read, she wasn’t shy about doing her own stunts, and the few places where it should have been a double, it really added something when you could see it was her throughout.

There’s not really anyone else built up in this film to be a character, and I really wish that Cleo had been given a supporting cast to interact with, not just beat up. It might have stymied the frenetic pace of the film, but a little character development goes a long way. The baddies are all entertaining, but it’s hard to say if that’s a result of the acting or the bad dubbing. The problem is that the two things that hold this film back for me are in opposition.If there were more quiet scenes of character development, it would just lead to more scenes with poor dubbing. The problem is the clichéd gripe of the standup comedian, the words and the actors mouths seem to be in two different films. So occasionally they keep talking when the dialog is done or, even worse, their mouths are flapping and no sound is coming out. It didn’t really take away from the film as much as prove to be more distracting than I would have liked. I would really like to get my hands on a nice subtitled version of this one someday, but with the rarity of this gem, that may never happen. Don’t let the dub job scare you off from this one. It’s well worth checking out even if the soundtrack is off a bit and, thankfully, at least the voice actors mesh well with the characters.

The last thing I have to talk about was the producer director Bobby A, Suarez. Now here’s a guy who never met an exploitation film he didn’t like. With films like They Call Him Chop-Suey and Asian Cosa Nostra on his résumé, you can probably see what I mean. Cleopatra Wong is actually the first of a trilogy by Suarez, and you best believe that I’m going to have the other two, Dynamite Johnson and Devil’s Three, high up on my wish list. It’s not that Suarez is a great director, far from it. There were plenty of directors working with similar material who made much better films, but something about the whole cut rate style gives the film a certain charm that I really liked.

Cleopatra Wong is a film that kicks off, and doesn’t let you go until the last frame. If you like martial acts, action films, kick ass chicks, blaxploitation soundtracks, and nuns with guns, then this is definitely a film for you. (Paging Rev. Phantom) If you think the miscued dubbing would be too much for you, then you might want to avoid it, but I heartily encourage you to give it a shot. After all, are there many times that you’ll get to see a woman in an orange, skintight bodysuit with hot pants beat up four or five guys at once? If I haven‘t got you sold on this film yet then let me throw out one last tid bit. Quentin Tarantino has said that Cleopatra Wong was one of his inspirations for Kill Bill, and if it’s good enough for Quentin, then it’s more than good enough for this here Bugg. Head on over to Cinema de Bizarre and pick up a copy, but don’t forget to tell them the Bugg sent ya.

Bugg Rating

No trailer to speak of, but here's a clip. This one is the opening title sequence, but don't go to the website advertised looking for the film. It's not there, just lots of Asian porn.

The Plumber (1979): Peter Weir's Film Will Rattle Your Pipes

Hello, folks. As you may have noticed, it’s Wednesday, and there’s no Mr. Hitchcock to be found. Well, I’m giving Hitch a little rest to make way for a returning segment. I buy a lot of video tape. In no way could anyone ever describe me as a format snob. I’ll take films any way I can get them. So anytime I’m at a flea market or thrift store, I’m always on the prowl for the box of VHS castaways. Usually it's nothing more than instructional videos, kids movies, or unlabeled generic tapes whose contents tend to scare me away, but every once and a while you can dig up a gem. With so many piling up, I thought it was high time I brought back a short-lived segment I like to call It Came from Video Tape. Each week please check out my Wednesday review for a title culled straight from the days where VHS ruled and Betamax drooled. Without further ado, let’s get into tonight’s selection, Peter Weir’s The Plumber.

After 1982 and his film The Year of Living Dangerously, Peter Weir became established as a skilled filmmaker. He would go on to high profile projects like Witness with Harrison Ford, Dead Poets Society with Robin Williams, and The Truman Show with Jim Carrey. Before his Hollywood career took off, Peter was part of the new wave of Australian filmmakers, and two of his films from this period, The Cars That Ate Paris (1974) and Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975) rank among my favorites. When I uncovered The Plumber in a local used CD store, I snatched it up. I wondered why it hadn’t ever come up on my radar, but this film had kind of an odd past as I found out.

Weir’s film premiered at the Sydney film festival on July 19th 1979, and the next day it was shown on TV across all of Australia. By 1981, it got a limited release in the United States, and good old Media Home Entertainment released the tape I watched in 1984. For the film, Weir assembled a cast comprised of actors recognized for their work in Australian soap operas, and with a script inspired by friend’s story about an obnoxious plumber, the director crafted a film that bent the thriller genre back onto itself.

The titular Plumber, Max (Ivar Kants) arrives unexpectedly at the new home of anthropologist Jill Cowpor (Judy Morris) and her husband Brian (Robert Coleby). Max claims there is something wrong with the pipes, and after he helps himself to a shower, tells Jill that her house has some serious problems. Max’s repairs go on for days, and the plumber begins to make himself more and more at home. By the time that Max is bringing in his guitar to sing songs to Jill when he should be working, she starts getting really freaked out. Her husband, a doctor, is more worried about their impending visit from an official from the World Health Organization.

If a guy like Max ever showed up at my door, there is no way he’d be getting into my house. Ivar Kants looked like a cross between David Hess and Abbie Hoffman, but I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t want to get into a political discussion with the guy, I mean he wears a jacket that says on the back “Liberals = Less Tax”. I don’t even want to think about trying to figure out what would mean in late ‘70’s Australian politics. Luckily I don’t have to, I can just tell you about Kants’ performance. His oddball Plumber by day / a folk singer by night has to be the most threatening tunesmith that I’ve ever seen, and discovering if Jill is in danger from him is quite an interesting ride. Kants is definitely a performer that I would keep my eye out for in other titles, but from a look at his résumé, the bulk of his work after this film was still in Aussie TV.

Judy Morris, who played Jill, has a similar career path to Kants, but she had the distinction of also appearing in the Aus-ploitation killer pig classic Razorback (1984), Morris is really the heart of this film, and her experience with the maniacal plumber would be enough to freak anyone out. Weir’s film paints Jill and her husband Brian as out of touch intellectuals, more on tune with ancient times and rare fertility rights. Both Morris and Robert Coleby, who played Brian, nail this part of their character. Coleby does manage to make his performance as a tertiary character known with some of the film’s broader comedic moments.

On the whole, The Plumber plays out like a dark comedy, and I can see why others have drawn a comparison to Jim Carrey’s film, The Cable Guy. However, unlike the latter film that features Weir’s future star, The Plumber was much more entertaining to me. The Cable Guy’s humor was much more over the top where The Plumber was a more subdued film. I don’t think I’ve seen another film where one of the tense scenes revolved around the threat of eating a piece of cake. Everything down to the pipe organ laced soundtrack plays on the conventions of the genre, and the cinematography by David Sanderson, an alum of the camera department on Hanging Rock, suits the film’s tone as well.

If you’re looking for a film that contains horror, blood, guts, and gore, then The Plumber is not what you’re looking for. This is, after all, a film released to Australian TV. It has some great strange moments, and if you like Bob Dylan at all when The Plumber starts singing his new song “I’m Me, Babe” there’s more than a few chuckles to be had. If you’re a fan of the stalker or thriller genre, then I definitely recommend you checking it out. It’s currently out of print in the states, so keep an eye out in those video dump bins and you might just find a gem that came from video tape.

Bugg Rating

Death Bed: The Bed that Eats (1973): Your Sleep Number is 666

Like most people who come on contact with Death Bed: The Bed that Eats, I had to see it on the strength of the title alone. If the film was terrible, so be it. Why does it matter when the title says it all? I’ve heard about this film for quite some time, but my real inspiration was when I was listening to one of my Patton Oswalt CD’s. I had forgotten the bit on his album Werewolves and Lollipops about this film. It ends it saying it inspired him to write Rape Stove: The Stove that Rapes People. I thought it was high time to see this picture, (Death Bed not Rape Stove), and since I’d been talking about so many heady horror films in the end of October, I thought this would be a welcome change.

If you imagine a film made in the ‘70’s called Death Bed: The Bed that Eats, then you’re not too far off from what you get. It’s very important that the title gives no distinction about what it eats. As you would imagine, it eats people, but it will also drink your bottle of wine or eat your bucket of chicken (and return the bones and bucket). That’s not to say that people are not its snack of choice. Anyone who messes with the bed is generally covered in yellow bubbles and sucked down into the bed’s digestive juices. People have tried to stop the bed, but their attempts have been futile. It should have been obvious that you can’t shoot a bed, and the fool who tries to stab will get all the flesh eaten off his hands.

The Death Bed as you may expect, is possessed by a demon, and the story of the bed is told by one of its victims, an artist (Patrick Spence-Thomas) that was consumed and somehow his spirit kept behind a painting. We learn a bit about the demon and its origins, but more importantly we learn about the people that the bed had eaten over the years. In its history, it had devoured criminals, consumed old women, and even lunched on a child. The biggest meal it ever had was when an orgy was held on it, and it got to chow down on six people at once. After learning about the past, we are taken to present day where Diane (Demene Hall) travels to the bed’s house as a getaway provided by a friend of hers who is dissolving the estate. She brings a couple of friends with her, and the bed, which hadn’t eaten in 10 years, begins to get really hungry.

Death Bed director George Barry made this film as a labor of love, and as far as Barry knew, it never got released. In his introduction to the film on the DVD, Barry described how he stumbled across posts on the internet about his film and some grey market copies that were available. Seeing that his film had developed a cult fan base, he struck a deal to get the movie out officially for the first time in 2007. Barry’s film is laughable, let’s get that out of the way right off the bat. It’s about a bed that eats people after all. Now, I’ll give him some credit, it’s not a story that I’ve heard before. Perhaps because of all household furniture, the bed ranks pretty low on the threat level. That being said, there’s something about Barry’s film that I found, for lack of a better term, charming. With its gothic themes and setting, Death Bed had the same kind of feeling that one might get from a Hammer film. It’s actually pretty impressive how good the film looks. Barry didn’t really have a budget as much as he scraped together what he could, and the film looks far better than that.

Not everything about Death Bed was quite as charming as its conceit. The acting is just terrible, and I won’t waste anyone’s time detailing these performers. One after another, actors parade across the screen without a thought to line delivery. I will give a reprieve from my generalization for Dememe Hall who does perform fairly well, and she had a great look like reminded me of Teresa Graves. A few of the ladies do show some ‘70’s skin giving their screen time a boost, but there’s not enough to give the film a sleazy quality. Overall, the only real character is the Death Bed, and I enjoyed the anthropomorphic qualities given to the bed more than any of the actors. I've never seen bed that snored before, but somehow I was not surprised.

Death Bed is not a film that requires much discussion, and I think Barry knew what kind of film he was making or he would have taken out the scene where the bed drinks Pepto Bismol. So in a way you get exactly what you expect, but Death Bed remains an unclassifiable, singular film. I thoroughly recommend for maximum enjoyment of this film invite some friends over, crack open a few beers, and let the laughter begin. Just be careful what furniture you set your beer down on, or you might just find it empty when you pick it back up.

Bugg Rating

No trailer I'm afraid, but here's a fairly nice clip:



And here's Patton Oswalt's routine about the film:

Buio Omega (1979): Why "Til Death Do Us Part" Is a Good Advice

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the first post of November, and to the first installment of Once Upon a Time in Italy. I’ve covered plenty of Italian films here in the last year, and I wanted to give them a regular home. So each Monday you can stop by and check out a selection from everyone’s favorite boot shaped country. I’ll be looking at the entire spectrum of Italian cinema and everything they have to offer so expect everything art house, drama, comedy, western, action, and of course horror. Even after the 31 Days of Horror in October, I’m not quite ready to move on, and today I want to bring you a film from Italy’s Joe D’Amato.

He was born in 1936 as Artistide Massaccesi, the son of an electrician working at one of the largest of the Italian movie studios. He entered his film career in 1961 with a job as an assistant cameraman on Mario Bava’s film Ecrole al centro dell terra (Hercules at the Center of the Earth, and eventually he worked his way up the ladder to being a cinematographer. After a while he started directing films under a variety of pseudonyms to prevent any to harm his career. It was not until the ’70’s that he hit on the name Joe D’Amato, intended to emulate Italian-American directors Brian DePalma and Martin Scorsese. Under that name he directed basically all kind of films, but the sleaze and horror titles are always the most memorable. Looking back into D’Amato’s catalog you find films like Anthropophagous and Absurd nestled between gems like Emmanuelle and the Porno Nights and Erotic Nights of the Living Dead.

In there you might find tonight’s film, Buio Omega (1979) which played under the titles Buried Alive, Beyond the Darkness, and The Final Darkness in various corners of the world. In the film, Taxidermist Frank Wyler (Kieran Canter) is having trouble dealing with the death of his young wife Anna (Cinzia Monreale), and it’s not really helping that his creepy housekeeper Isis (Franca Stoppi) is pretty blatantly trying to seduce him. Frank decides that the only thing to do is steal his wife’s body and preserve her as he does animals. With Isis' encouragement, Frank works his way up to killing buxom beauties, and of course, getting a little necrophilic action along the way. The love triangle between Isis, Frank, and the stuffed body of Ann finally blows up when Ann's sister make a surprise visit.

Some of D’Amato’s previous films had mixed tinges of horror in with the erotic, but many have labeled Buio Omega as his first true horror film. It is not a film that hesitates or shies away from the graphic or disturbing. When Frank brings home his wife to stuff the body, it is shown as a detailed process, and though I am not generally squeamish, it made me glad that I wasn’t having a plate of spaghetti for dinner tonight. It's immediately followed up with a scene of fingernails being ripped out that really put my nerves on edge. Ultimately. D'Amato was working on a shoestring budget, and it does show with a few effects taken straight out of the H.G. Lewis playbook. That's not always a bad thing, and D'Amato brings it off well enough to be overlooked.

Even though this film was more slanted toward the horrific, Joe was not about to to sugarcoat the erotic aspect either. Frank’s fetishistic behaviors are unsettling to so say the least, but thankfully this isn't 1978's Nekromantik. So the unconventional love story never gets too intimate if you know what I mean and I think you do. While Frank is undeniably a creep, horny housekeeper Isis takes it to a whole different level with her deviant Cougar act. First she wants to breastfeed Frank which is bad enough. Then later, after they dissolve a whole girl in a bath of acid, she comforts him by giving him a hand job while he stares at his wife’s body. Later, feeling like he's been outdone, Frank brings home a pretty jogger, gets her in his bed, and tries to get it on while showing Ann's stuffed body off. I’m all for having pride in a job well done, but seriously, there’s a time and place for that.

Buio Omega revolves around atmosphere primarily, and dialog is used sparingly throughout. D’Amato doubled as his own cinematographer (billed under his real name), and as is usual with his work, he knows how to set up nice shots and execute them. A few of the gore scenes are hampered by the substandard props, but it didn't really effect my enjoyment any. A real bonus in Buio Omega is the score by Italian horror film regulars, Goblin. Their synthy prog fit this era of film so well, and it definitely gives a great flavor to the film. D’Amato also made some smart decisions like keeping some scenes, like as the incineration of Frank’s victim, silent.

This film really just revolves around the two lead performances, and while there is a supporting cast, no one has any scenes of characterization no matter why they've appeared. The male lead, Frank is played by Kieran Canter, He had only appeared in a single film before this role. After, he landed a few other roles, most of them being X Rated titles. I thought his acting was quite good on the whole, but the sparse dialog might have played to his strengths. The star of the film is clearly Franca Stoppi as Iris, the devious housekeeper. While Frank perpetrated all of the violence, it's Iris who encouraged him in order to gain what she desires. Stoppi does a wonderful job as the shrewish, scheming woman. I didn’t find it at all surprising that after this film she had a short career filled with diabolical roles. She became a favorite of Bruno Mattei who cast her as a devious nun in The Other Hell (1981) and vicious Prison Guard in Violence in a Women’s Prison (1982).

I'm still wading back into D’Amato’s back catalog, and checking out this early horror entry, it seems like an auspicious debut to kick off a run in the genre. Later in his career when he would make a living ripping off successful films, but this time D’Amato found an original story and that lent itself to his eerie and disturbing style. Though I didn’t find the film near as fun as Anthropophagous or Absurd, it maintained my interest with decent gore and themes of obsession that could be described as Hitchcockian. If you’re a fan of Italian cinema or D’Amato then Buio Omega is one that you should watch. Well, as long as you’re not planning to have a big dinner or a romantic evening, it would probably put a damper on your plans.

Bugg Rating