Some time back I was approached by B-Sol of The Vault of Horror to participate in a survey of horror writers to determine the Top 50 Horror Movies of All Time . I was quite flattered to be included in the ranks of the "Cyber-Horror Elite" (a tongue firmly in cheek title I assure you.) with the likes of Zombo's Closet of Horrors, Brad from Bloody Disgusting, Karswell of The Horrors of It All, and many many others who I don't have time to list, but you should truly check them all out. I know I have.
Long story short (too late I know), the list has been up for a couple of days, but I haven't had a chance to pop a post in to link it. It's making the rounds now and I know It's stirred up quite a bit of controversy over on the Bloody Disgusting and Fangoria online. It's not a perfect list, but there are not perfect lists of anything anyhow as likes and dislikes are the most subjective thing in the world. I just wanted to pop up a little post so my readers could have a chance to look at it, and to thank B-Sol for including me in the process. For a horror review who hasn't been around for too long, it was an honor to be chosen.
In the interest of full disclosure here are my choices as well. I put a lot of thought into it, but they were the one's I chose that day, and perhaps would not be what I would have picked on another day. "The Best" is always changing in my mind.
1. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Dracula (1931) 3. Night of the Living Dead 4. 2000 Maniacs 5. Zombie 2 6. House on Haunted Hill 7.Evil Dead 2 8. Halloween 9. Hellraiser 10. Nightmare of Elm Street
Heya, Moonies. As you may have noticed I made a few changes to my weekly lineup. Gone are the Sunday Funnies and in it's place you'll now find The Grab Bag. I've started this segment because I felt that I had given myself precious little wiggle room on what to cover, and some of what I was losing is my original focus on horror. So with The Grab Bag on Sundays, It Came From Video Tape on Mondays, and Terrifying Tuesdays, it will give me more of a chance to cover Horror flicks, but don't be surprised to find a comedy, musical, or who knows what on Sundays. I just review what The Bag tells me to, and can you blame me that Bag looks crazy. Without further ado, I give you....
What Have You Done To Solange? (1972) starring Fabio Testi, Karin Baal, Cristina Galbo, Joachim Fuschsberger, and Camille Keaton. Directed by Massimo Dallamano.
Enrico Rosseni (Testi), a gym teacher at a Catholic high school in London, is having an affair with Elizabeth (Galbo) right under the nose of his stoic wife Herta (Baal). One afternoon while they are out together, Elizabeth claims to see a murder happen, but Enrico does not believe her until the next day when it is reported on the news. He rushes to the scene and sees it was where they were yesterday. Enrico comes under suspicion when a picture of him at the crime scene turns up in the newspaper. Soon the police and his wife learn of his dalliances.
As other girls begin to turn up dead, the heat is turned up on the teacher, but when Elizabeth becomes a victim and a priest is seen leaving the scene, Enrico is finally cleared. Soon the gym teacher is on the case as well, and clues lead him to learn of a mysterious girl named Solange(Keaton). If he can find out what happened to her, he may learn the identity of the killer. How many more times will the murderer strike before the deadly plot is revealed.
Film Facts
--Camille Keaton is well known to genre fans as Jennifer Hills from I Spit on Your Grave.
--As with most Italian films of the era, the film was shot without sound and all the dialog was dubbed in later. Unlike most of these films this one was shot with the actors speaking English. The looped lines are so well done many people did not know it was dubbed.
--Director Massimo Dallamano was also a successful cinematographer and worked on A Fist Full of Dollars as well as it's sequel For a Few Dollars More.
The Bug Speaks
As you may have noticed the synopsis of this film gives precious little of the pot of the film. Trust me that is very much by design. The mystery of this film is very well woven and leaves you guessing right up until the very end. The red herrings which seem to be so easily dismissed in other giallo have staying power here. I probably changed my mind on who the killer was at least 5 or 6 times during the film, and I even managed to still end up wrong. (Although my lovely wife did figure it out.)
The performances are good with some little exceptions. Testi is believable as a school teacher that teenage girls might have a crush on, but as he is hurtled headlong into some crazy situations, his reactions are very moderated and not at all what I would expect from a man in his position. When he is cleared of charges and begins to investigate on his own it seems easier to accept his passivity, but when the law is after him and his students are being killed, it seems unlikely that he would not be more tense.
Karin Baal is very good as his wife, but her change from suspicious wife to supportive spouse is also hard to accept. She plays Herta as a very hard German lady until she learns that her husband only made out with his girlfriend, but never sealed the deal. Now, I don't know about you fellows out there, but even if I got caught hugging a teenage girl, my wife would hang me out to dry and probably keep my cajones in a jar by her bedside. So to watch the sea change that comes over Herta from ice queen to soft (and softly lit) princess is incredible.
As far as the rest of the cast goes, they all seem to do a very good job although they have precious little to do really. I especially liked the performance of Antonio Aneili who played a Jim Kelly Jr. looking photographer, and I almost missed director Joe D'amato (Anthropophagus et al.) in a blink and you miss him cameo.
The real stars of the film are the director and the composer of the score. Dallamano flexes his cinematographer muscle and the movie is better off for it. While he does not have the mastery that might be evident in a Bava film, it is still readily apparent that the flick is being guided in a visual manner. Some the shots are plain stunning, and one particular cut had me running the film back and forward to see how it was accomplished. However it is to be noted that the director did not carry all the weight on his own as Joe D'amato performed as the cinematographer under the name Aristide Massaccesi. As far as the music, it is stunning.
The arrangements by famed composer Ennio Morricone frame the movie very well. There are many very experimental sounding pieces in the film which fit well with both the jarring violence and emotional subtext of the film.
So while the acting could have possibly been improved, the mystery, look, and feel of the film more than make up for it's faults. I think there will be a certain amount of the modern western audience (probably the Godless heathens among us like myself) who will be surprised at the moral lesson the movie seems to be imparting. However this seems to be more of a product of the times (and possibly religion) than the main thrust of the movie. In the end, even if the moral lesson seems less than worthy, the film is so well constructed and thrilling that it showcases all the best things that giallo can offer. This is one I would highly recommend to anyone seeking to get into these types of films for that very reason.
Sometimes a movie in and of itself is not very good, but the characters or actors in it elevate the material. The skill of some actors to work beyond the lines they are given is often key to a film. This is the way I have often heard people speak of actors like Brando or Pacino. However I believe that lesser known character actors are usually the ones who really breathe life into the little unrewarding and often demeaning roles they are given. This film surely has a great example of one of those actors, and his performance alone is worth well more than the dollar I spent on this DVD, but I don't want to get to into that just yet because first I must tell you about the...
King of the Zombies (1941) starring Dick Purcell, Henry Victor, Mantan Moreland, Joan Woodbury, and John Arthur. Directed by Jean Yarbrough.
Bill Summers (Arthur) Jack McCarthy (Purcell), and Jack's valet Jeff (Moreland) are on a mission to locate a missing Navy Admiral when their plane crashes on a mysterious island. With no way to escape they seek refuge in the home of Austrian doctor Miklos Sangre (Victor). Jeff keeps having strange occurrences around the house including a run in with zombie slaves, but his employer dismisses Jeff as being hopelessly paranoid.
Deep in the night, after a spectral visitor convinces them that Jeff is telling the truth, the two men explore the house and Bill gets attacked by a zombie. The next day they go back to the wreckage of the plane to salvage the radio, but find it has been stolen in the night. With no way off the island, they are at the mercy of the doctor who seems to be using voodoo and hypnosis to aid an enemy of the United States.
Film Facts
--The role of Miklos Sangre was first offered to Bela Lugosi. When he proved to be unavailable, their second choice was Peter Lorre. After that fell through it was eventually given to Henry Victor who had portrayed the strongman in Tod Browning's Freaks.
--Produced before the start of WW II, it never the less hinted to the foreign power that the mad doctor was working for to be Germany.
The Bug Speaks
This movie in and of itself is a fairly average affair. In fact the same year it was produced gave birth to classics like Citizen Kane and The Wolf Man. So King of the Zombies was in no danger of winning any accolades (that is except the music which was Oscar nominated.) The plot is thin but fun, and it's always nice to kick back with a good old fashioned voodoo zombie flick. It was kind of funny when the evil doctor admonished the men that "Zombies do not eat meat." Ahh, how times have changed.
How times have changed indeed. That is what I really want to talk about tonight. While the performances in the movie are very textbook the actor that truly rises above the pedestrian material is Mantan Moreland. While his role is seeped in stereotype and shades of the old Stepin Fetchit type routine, he manages to make his character both the only person with any sense and the only relatable character.
Mantan had been performing in films for years by the time he made this one. He starred in many of the Charlie Chan movies (themselves a bastion on stereotypes) as Chan's chauffeur. He would go on to appear in movie and TV work until 1973 and for genre audiences he might be most recognizable from his bit part in 1958's Spider Baby. He was a comic genius who's prime era of work was marred by the institutionalized racism that was inherent in his parts. (For anyone with doubts about his comic prowess let me say that none other than Moe Howard considered him for inclusion in the Stooges after the departure of Shemp.)
In King of the Zombies, Mantan truly becomes the main character whether that was
intended to be the case of not. He delivers his lines with great aplomb and timing. My favorite include when Mantan hears far off voodoo drums one one of his companions asks "What is that?" to which Mantan replies "I dunno, but it wasn't Gene Krupa." and "If there's one thing I don't want to be twice, zombies is both of them." Naturally to a politically correct modern ear, these lines seem callus when delivered in the exaggerated tone popularized by actors like Moreland and Eddie "Rochester" Anderson.
While we look down upon these roles now, they were roles that actors like Moreland pioneered before black audiences and portrayed in films featuring all black casts, and they don't seem so far removed from performances like Chis Tucker in Rush Hour or Richard Pryor in movies like The Toy.
Mantan was an actor taking the parts he could get and making the most of them, and in this film he really achieved that. The era it came from was full of injustices and shameful acts, but here was a performer who did not stoop to get a role. Instead he got the role and brought the whole film up to his level. So while I'm not going to rate this movie unbelievably high because it's really not that good a film (though pretty entertaining and at 67 minutes a perfect running time), I do recommend it to anyone who wants to see an unsung genius work the screen. This film is well worth a buck if you can find it, and if not it is available on the Internet Archive here for free download.
The Bug Rating
No trailer, but here's a clip featuring Mantan Morland and his first encounter with zombies.
It's the end of the month, and so that sadly brings us to the end of the Mario Bava feature. Don't fret though, there's so much more Bava I want to cover. After all there's still vikings, space vampires, sex comedies, spaghetti westerns, Vincent Price, and still more giallo waiting to be covered. So surely this is not the last we'll see of Mr. Bava here at the Lair. These four weeks have given me a greater appreciation for a director I knew precious little about other than the Boris Karloff anthology Black Sabbath. I have marveled at the skill of The Girl Who Knew Too Much, the mystery of Baron Blood, and the brutality ofTwitch of the Death Nerve, but tonight we go back to the beginning and the classic that launched the career of this horror great. You might be thanking god it's Friday and worried about having a blue Monday, but before you get there you must survive....
Black Sunday (La maschera del demonio) (1960) starring Barbara Steel, Andrea Checchi, John Richardson, Ivo Garrani, and Auturo Dominici. Directed by Mario Bava. In Moldavia in the early 1600's, it was not a good time to be a vampire/witch. Asa Vajda (Steel) is finding out the hard way. She gets tied to a stake, branded with a 'S' (for Satan), and that's just for starters. Once the mob really gets going they break out the steel spike lined Mask of the Devil and hammer it in place over her face. Then of course she gets burnt alive. However none of this happens until Asa has a chance to curse the man who has put her to this fate, her brother. She curses him and the line of his house for all eternity.
Two hundred years later, Doctors Kruvajan (Checchi) and Gorobec(Richardson) are passing through Moldavia on their way to a conference. They pay their carriage driver extra to take them on a shortcut though a haunted wood. The road is untraveled and full of holes which causes a wheel to break off the carriage. While the erstwhile driver is fixing it, Kruvajan and Gorobec take some time to explore the ruin of an old chapel. Deep inside they find the tomb of the legendary witch who is kept at bay by her iron mask and a cross resting above her. Kruvajan has a run in with a giant bat and in the process of killing it topples the cross off the tomb. The falling stone shatters the glass above the witch's head and the nosy Doctor removes the mask to reveal her hollow eyes. He also cuts himself on the glass and bleeds ever so slightly on Asa's horrific face.
On their way out of the ruin they meet up with Katia Vajda , the daughter of the local Prince and dead ringer for the slain witch. Gorobec is instantly smitten by her beauty, and he hopes to meet with her later. Little do they know that the blood so carelessly spilled on the witch has caused her to rise from the grave once again. She gains strength slowly until he can raise her servant Igor (Dominici) from his grave. She sets in motion a plan to regain everything she lost and the beautiful Katia becomes the key to it all.
Film Facts
--The film was purchased by American International Pictures for American distribution after it was screened in Italian for Forrest Ackerman. AIP paid $100,000 for the rights.
--It is loosely based on a story by Russian writer Nikolai Golgol's story "Viy".
--Barbara Steel was petrified of working with the Italian crew. She in fact refused to come to the set once after she had been told that Bava was using special film that could see though clothes.
--This was Mario Bava's first film of his own. He had previously worked uncredited on several features when the real directors had quit.
--Steel and Dominici were fitted with vampire fangs, but they looked so bad on film they were quickly discarded.
The Bug Speaks
Bava had been working on films since 1939 as a cinematographer. So by the time he had a chance to craft a film all to his own, he already knew his way around the camera. I've said it time and time again in these reviews, but seeing as this is the last Feature Presentation, I have to say it again. Light and Shadow. From the very first scenes of torture to the final frame of the film, the balance between light and shadow guides us through the atmosphere of this film.
Every single shot was constructed to frame the actors, their actions, and what they meant. If the same plot had been filmed by a man more inferior with his craft, it could have easily come out as a hokey mess. Instead Bava infuses the movie with an existential dread that seems to creep in from every dark corner and shadowed face.
We are not only drawn into this world of shadow, but revolted by it. Perhaps the unsung talent of Bava was his use of special effects. The scenes where the witch is reconstituting herself are just as powerful, if not more so, than the resurrection scenes in Hellraiser. That they have the same impact in black and white is a testament to his skill. It also bears mentioning that Bava went uncredited for his matte paintings. They gave the film the genuine quality that hearkened both to the source material and to the grand horror films of the 1930's.
And the horror, yes, the horror. From the moment blood gushes out as the mask is hammered onto Asa's face, it is clear what we are in for. Bava's use of gore coupled with sound effects that were perfectly placed heightened the tension and impact of the scenes. By the time the witches tomb explodes around her, the scene is both shocking and totally believable. Also of note is a body that gets burnt in a fire place. I am astonished by how well the effect came off, and sad that modern film makers seem to lack the skill to pull off something like that so effectively. Last but not least, Bava goes for the eye. I don't know what it is with Italian film makers and their need to put spikes through eyeballs, but I sure as hell always like it.
The performances in the movie are very strong as well with Steel being particularly good in the duel role. She managed to make the two women distinct without being over the top about it. All the other actors seem to acquit themselves well, and a special nod goes to Dominici for his solid and totally believable role are Igor. When Igor and Dr. Gorobec rumble I had no problems at all believing that the mustachioed baddie meant the noble doctor serious bodily harm.
This film is perhaps the foremost modern classic in Bava's oeuvre of film. It should stand the test of time to be revered not just among fans of genre cinema, but cinema as a whole. In his first film, Bava managed to put on screen not just a wonderful piece of work, but a treatise on the type of director he was. The visual appeal to his films made him a master storyteller. The plot and dialog no longer the only driving force in the film, but each ray of light, each sweep of the camera, each frame of footage, compelling the story onward.
Bug Rating
Thanks everyone who enjoyed the first round of Feature Presentation. Stick around next month as Santa comes to town and it looks like people have been very, very naughty.
You know what's good on Thanksgiving? Well, very nearly everything. You've got a nicely cooked bird, some mac and cheese, some dressing, and Aunt Martha's jello salad. Now I said very nearly everything, but what if I told you that Aunt Martha makes the best jello salad you've ever had in your life? What if I told you those unidentifiable bits of fruit floating in it were actually the nectar of the gods? What if I convinced you that five star restaurants all over the world have been clamoring for her recipe? Well then you'd simply have to try it, and while I am falling out of my chair with laughter and you're chugging from the gravy boat to get the taste out of your mouth, you might be a bit angry with me for fooling you. That was not intention though. I wanted to teach you a lesson. See something might be bad, but if people build it up in your mind to be great then it's just proportionally that much worse.
That's what happened to me with this last Turkey. This was a film I kept hearing great things about so when I picked up the video on the cheap I couldn't wait to watch it. I even made Fran Goria sit through it because I thought we were going to see an obscure classic. Yet instead of the sublime wonders of a '70's grind house masterwork, all I got was a big mouth full of Jello salad and a couple of hours riding the....
Shock Waves (1977) starring John Carradine, Peter Cushing, Brooke Adams, and Luke Halpin. Directed by Ken Wiederhorn.
The film opens with the legend of a group of supernatural Nazis who fought with an unstoppable determination and used only their hands as weapons. Or as the narrator intones "No one knows who they were or what became of them, but one thing is certain: Of all the SS units, there was only one that the Allies never captured a single member of."
This seems to have little bearing on the group of vacationers who've chartered The Captain (Carradine) to take them around the Caribbean, but when the intrepid crew slams their boat into a sunken hull off the coast of a mysterious island, well, things start to go bad. They make it to shore and find an abandoned mansion which is the home to former a former SS Commander (Cushing) who warns them to get off the island. Naturally as anyone who is warned off an island will do; they ignore his advice.
Turns out they should have listened because soon the island becomes rotten with waterlogged, living dead, genetic super-soldier Nazis. The Nazis rise up from the sea and start to pick off folks by drowning them in the salty waters. It's up to the few survivors to try and find some way off the island or become the victims of the Reich.
Film Facts
--Cushing and Carradine worked four days on the film and made $5000 dollars each.
--There are actually only 8 actors playing zombies in the film. Careful edits made it seem like many more.
--The original negative disappeared some 20 years ago. This is proof that in the future I will perfect a time machine.
--Director Ken Wiederhorn would go on to direct the slightly superior film Return of the Living Dead Part II.
The Bug Speaks
I had seriously heard so many good things about this film. That it was moody and atmospheric. That the Nazi zombies were scary. That Cushing and Carradine gave good performances. That it's insanely underrated. Well, folks, I'm here to let you know it's a bunch of bunk.
Moody and atmospheric? The film took place for the most part in the day in Florida (doubling as the islands) and it could not have been shot in a more workmanlike manner. There is nothing special about the direction, and even though it was Wiederhorn's first feature, it was still abysmal for those standards. The score by Richard Einhorn is one of the most headache producing bits of music I have ever encountered. I actually had to break up my viewing in bits to make it though the film because of it. It was full of shrill notes that seemed slapped on at an insane volume as if to obfuscate the drivel that passed for dialog.
Next up the Nazi zombies. First point of order, they were not zombies. The Nazis were some kind of nonliving, genetically engineered super-soldiers, and if you were not A) at one time living B) the product of an outbreak or voodoo curse and C) don't crave the taste of human flesh, then sorry, Charlie, you're not a zombie. Second point of order, drowning? Seriously, drowning? Now I'm sure it would suck to be drowned of that I have no doubt. However, how lame is it to make your big bad kill with the help of one of the most common things on earth. What's next, ghosts that kill you with the aid of a very gusty day? I will have to say that the long shots of the Nazis coming up from the water were the pinnacle of the movie and very well done, but there were also overhead shots of Nazis laying in shallow tidal pools that looked so lame that it totally destroyed the cooler imagery.
Cushing and Carradine's performances. Well they played respectively The Captain and the SS Commander. If your character can't come up with a proper name (now there are exceptions to this like Walter Hill's The Driver), then chances are there's not going to be much well fleshed out development there. The two genre stalwarts went past phoning in their performances to sending them via pony express. By the time something interesting might happen to them, their screen time is over. This leaves the film to be carried mostly by Brooke Adams and Luke Halpin. Adams seems to be taking her acting cues from the veteran stars, while Halpin a veteran himself of TV's Flipper, probably was thinking he should have stayed to the type of aquatic fare he was more familiar with. I do have to send a shout out to Don Stout in his only film role as the ship's cook, Dobbs. Looking like Ron Jeremy's doppelganger he provided some amusement to the dull proceedings.
Lastly, I've heard people express that opinion that this is a forgotten gem, a classic to be rediscovered, a underrated masterpiece. Well if you haven't guessed by now, I don't share this opinion. The sad part is with a different director, cast, and script the basic premise of the movie could be quite good, but with what it had it just falls apart. There is part of me that wonders if I hadn't heard anything about this flick, would I have enjoyed it. Probably not, but just like the cruel trick with Aunt Martha's Jello salad, the buildup is crushed by the reality.
So maybe I'm doing a few of you a service. There will be those of you who will not see this film on the basis on how bad I'm portraying it. That's probably for the best. Then there are those of you who'll think "there's no way it could be that bad, I'm going to have to see for myself.", and you might watch it and decide it really wasn't that bad. Consider this though, if I told you that Turkey tasted just like pureed garbage and then you tried it, how good it would it taste then.
Bug Rating
I could only find the trailer in German. Doesn't that figure.
Hello, Moonies. Just here to do a quick makeup post for the Men of Action I missed this week. It's going to be a shorter post, but there's really not too much I have to say about this film anyhow. This is the last film that Steve McQueen released. It feels like the swan song he might have wanted. However this might not be the movie we wanted him to leave on, and perhaps that colors my judgement of it.
The Hunter (1980) starring Steve McQueen, Eli Wallach, Levar Burton, and Ben Johnson. Directed by Buzz Kulick.
Ralph "Papa" Thorson (McQueen) is a bounty hunter. He's of a dying breed of men who should have wandered the old west, but are born in another era. He chases down the bail-jumpers by whatever means necessary, but he treats them fairly. He even gets a job for his former prey, Tommy (Burton). Life is changing for Papa though. With a baby on the way,his house always filled with hangers on and floating poker games, and money running tight, he's got to score the big jobs. As Papa begins to be stalked by someone from his past, tables are turned and Papa faces any fear to get back to his family.
Film Facts
--Levar Burton's role was not in the original script. However McQueen felt the young actor should have more work and had it written for him.
--The real Papa Thorson was killed by a car bomb in 1994.
--When Steve McQueen arrived at his hotel, he discovered the crew was staying at a cheaper hotel. He checked out and went to stay with them.
The Bug Speaks
The real problem with this film is the plot. It is very weak and the film basically falls apart. The story of Thorson's stalker is poorly done and holds no suspense, and the rest of the film relies on Thorson going out time and time again to bring in bail jumpers. He always gets his man.... or
causes them to blow up their car in a tragic dynamite mishap (which was the high point to these sequences). The problem is with one chase coming after another I had no idea who he was after at any given time or why. McQueen seemed to be exploring the layers of the character, but he has no where to explore them. Anytime that the movie moved out of the stalker or hunting story lines, it was either to interject a the tough guy at lamas class gag or another joke about Thorson's bad driving. Yep, McQueen spoofs himself and plays an inept driver. I enjoyed the joke once, hell, maybe even a couple of times, but it got hammered into the ground.
This film is good enough for a watch though. I mean it's still Steve McQueen. If I can sit though Le Mans then I can make it through this. For folks who love Steve and want to see everything he did, then this is worth checking out. If you want to preserve those perfect moments you've had watching The Great Escape or Bullitt, then pass this one on by.
Bug Rating
I could find no preview, but here is the section of film with the most "dynamite" part!
Maybe I was just in the right mood. Maybe it was because it was late and the lights were out. Maybe it's because of all the creepy weirdos. Maybe it was Chis Sarandon's pornstache. I don't know what to attribute it to, but tonight's feature really got to me, folks. That's no easy task either as I've seen only a few truly scary films in my time. I'm not talking frightening with jump scares, revolting scenes of rape/gore/animal violence or any combination of the three, or atmospheric and moody. I'm talking straight up, no shit, hang onto your ass and make you think about getting religion (but not for long) scary ass shit. Now I know it might just be me. I like a ghost story, but that doesn't exactly describe what is happening in...
The Sentinel (1977) starring Cristina Raines, Chis Sarandon, Ava Gardner, Burgess Meredith, John Carradine, Jose Ferrer, Eli Wallach, Chistopher Walken, Beverly D'Angelo, Jerry Orbach, and Jeff Goldblum. Directed by Michael Winner.
Alison Parker (Raines) has got it all. She's a successful model with a lawyer boyfriend, and not a care in the world. That's right not a care, free as a bird, totally relaxed and confid...hmmm, what's that? So she's tried to commit suicide twice, and the first time was after she saw her daddy having an orgy with a couple of Rubenesque ladies. Well, maybe she doesn't have it all worked out, but Allison knows what she needs to get her head straight. She should get her own place. Somewhere she can go to clear her head. Somewhere in Brooklyn.
She finds a place through Miss Logan (Gardner), a rental agent. It's just what she's been looking for, a creepy, fully furnished, second floor apartment in a ramshackle old house in Brooklyn. The price however is too high at $600 a month, but it gets dropped to $400. It's too good to be true, and it is.
Allison moves into the apartment over the objections of her boyfriend Michael (Sarandon), and she soon starts making friends with the new neighbors. There's nice old Charles Chazen (Meredith) an eccentric sort with his pets, a bird and cat and the lesbians downstairs who aren't afraid to get a little too friendly. The strange noises at night and the blind priest in the window that stares at nothing all day. At first it seems nice enough, but after attending a birthday party for Chazen's cat, Allison starts thinking something seems a little off.
The next day she inquires with Miss Logan about the other residents, but she learns that other than the reclusive priest there are no other apartments rented out. As Allison's nights get stranger, she encounters her dead father in zombie form and cuts him to shreds. There's no evidence anyone was there, but poor Allison is beginning to lose her mind. As her reality twists there's no way to tell if it's the people she loves, her own instability, or paranormal forces closing in on the girl. There's a price for redemption, and sometimes it's your own life.
Film Facts
--Kate Jackson was first attached to star and passed.
--There was controversy around the film when Director Winner cast actual freaks as freaks a la Tod Browning.
--Originally Don Siegel, director of Dirty Harry, The Shootist, and The Killers, was asked to direct. He passed on the movie out of a discomfort with the subject matter.
The Bug Speaks
This is one for the books. It's the stuff of myth and legend. And let the gushing begin. Nah, I'll try and hold back just a bit for now. Let's start at the top. The foremost thing to notice about this film is the cast. Let's give it up for Casting Director Cis Corman. This lady happens to have a hell of a track record. I mean Death Wish, Nighthawks, Raging Bull, Once Upon a Time in America. I could go on, but you get it, she knows what she's doing. This movie sure as hell proves it.
Everyone fits to a T what they need to be, and the small cameos by familiar faces gives the movie a dreamlike quality that it might not otherwise have. Jeff Goldbum shows up as Allison's photograper, and Jerry Orbach is looking really young as a frustrated commercial director. Burgess Meredith was a long way from with The Penguin or Mickey with his totally creepy portrayal of Charles Chazen as if he was Truman Capote's butcher cousin. Eli Wallach and Christopher Walken as the police investigators were very enjoyable anytime they showed up, but I'm fairly sure that Walken only has one actual line. Still it's nice to see the young Walken at work (and incidentally Miss Corman will later cast him in The Deer Hunter.) I also like to see Chis Sarandon showing up in some more genre gold.
This cast seems to be going on forever and I haven't even gotten to John Carradine as the blind priest, Beverly D'Angleo masturbating, or Tom Beringer showing up with Nana Visitor for a 30 second cameo. Needless to say all that happens. Yet I need to get down to what was happening. Unfortunately ( or fortunately) for you folks there's precious little I want to give away about this one. I went in basically off reading the cast list and knew nothing about the film. I really think that might be what gave it the impact it had.
That being said this story was put together quite nicely, and the tension mounts with all the
right elements to build suspense. Director Winner who helmed Death Wish1,2 and 3 deftly wove elements of supernatural horror, gore, Hitchcockian suspense, and classic mystery into one concise package. In doing so, he creates such a feeling of unease in every scene it is easy to feel empathetic to our troubled heroine.
A great cast, a great story, and well executed directing. It's really nice to see all those things come together. I must say that I can't end this love fest without speaking on what might be the only real detraction from the film. The first 45 minutes or so is quite the slow burn. That coupled with some subplots that are never more than red herrings, and the movie can feel a bit bewildering at times. However, how do you think Allison feels? I mean if you went to a birthday party for a cat who may not have been real, then you might be a wee bit bewildered yourself.
This is one to see, and see soon. If you've got Netflix this one is available to rent or to use their play it now thingie to watch it right on your screen. Whatever way you can see it, check it out. This has to be one of the most underrated films that I've ever come across. Now if you'll excuse me I have to take some nerve pills and and a lie down. Whew.
Bug Rating
This is not the real trailer,but a remade trailer for the film that I think is very well made and much more indicative of the film. Under it will be the real trailer in English and French versions.
Hiya, folks. I know this should be Men of Action Monday, but I'm not feeling too well. So instead I wanted to post this. We'll catch up with Steve McQueen in The Hunter very soon, but in the meantime,I was tagged by the good Rev. Phantom from Midnight Confessions and Lisa Bee at Horror Happenings to take part in The Alphabet Meme project started by The Blog Cabins . I think I went a little off course with what they were asking for. They wanted A-Z of peoples favorite films. I went with A-Z of films I really want to get around to covering soon. Many of them I have seen and really love, but many I have not. Anyhow here's my list and the original rules to the meme.
Aliens Blue Velvet Cannonball Run II Duck Soup Every Which Way But Loose From Russia With Love Girl Hunters House of 1000 Corpses Idiocracy J-men Forever King of Comedy Love Actually Motorama No Country for Old Men Ocean Drive Weekend Pink Flamingos Quills Red Sun Star Trek VI:The Undiscovered Country Touch of Evil Uturn Vice Academy Who killed Roger Rabbit Xanadu Yellowbeard Zardoz
The Rules
1. Pick one film to represent each letter of the alphabet.
2. The letter "A" and the word "The" do not count as the beginning of a film's title, unless the film is simply titled A or The, and I don't know of any films with those titles.
3. Return of the Jedi belongs under "R," not "S" as in Star Wars Episode IV: Return of the Jedi. This rule applies to all films in the original Star Wars trilogy; all that followed start with "S." Similarly, Raiders of the Lost Ark belongs under "R," not "I" as in Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Conversely, all films in the LOTR series belong under "L" and all films in the Chronicles of Narnia series belong under "C," as that's what those filmmakers called their films from the start. In other words, movies are stuck with the titles their owners gave them at the time of their theatrical release. Use your better judgement to apply the above rule to any series/films not mentioned.
4. Films that start with a number are filed under the first letter of their number's word. 12 Monkeys would be filed under "T."
5. Link back to Blog Cabins in your post so that I can eventually type "alphabet meme" into Google and come up #1, then make a post where I declare that I am the King of Google.
6. If you're selected, you have to then select 5 more people.
For almost as long as I can remember, I've been a fan of the classic era of comedians that emerged from vaudeville. I am a huge fan of Chaplin, The Marx Brothers, Fibber McGee and Molly, and Abbott and Costello. I used to sit up late into the night with a Walkman and tapes of old time radio shows and try and contain my laughter since I was supposed to be asleep. If any comedians could break me up (and ultimately get me in trouble), it was always Burns and Allen or W.C. Fields making an appearance on The Edgar Bergan and Charlie McCarthy program. That's why when I discovered the existence of this film I had to see it, and before I completely loose all you genre fans out there with my babbling about pre-historic comedy, I have to mention that this flick also stars one Bela Lugosi. It's a cavalcade of stars as they all pile into the....
International House (1933) starring W.C. Fields, George Burns, Gracie Allen, Bela Lugosi, Cab Calloway, and Rudy Vallee. Directed by A. Edward Sullivan.
The International House hotel in China is a hotbed of activity. It seems Doctor Wong has invented a technique that will revolutionize that new fangled technology known as Television. Everyone is out to get a hold of his patent for their country, and Tommy Nash has been sent by the United States Electric Company to get it for the good old U.S. of A. His main rival is the villainous Gen. Nicholas Petronovich (Lugosi) of Russia. However Nash is waylaid when he comes down with the measles and is put under the care of Dr. Burns and Nurse Allen.
Petronovich finds out about Nash's malady and goes to the local health inspector in order to get the him quarantined, but the General foils himself as the whole hotel is locked down with him on the outside. That night another guest arrives in the form of adventurer Prof. Henry R. Quail (Fields) who flies in on his gyro copter and lands on the rooftop dance floor. Doctor Wong assumes that Quail must be the American representative and begins negotiations with the blotto blowhard. Later Wong demonstrates his device and we're treated to performances from Rudy Vallee and Cab Calloway. In the end its a crazy grab as all the countries pull out the stops to get the patent for themselves.
Film Facts
--During the filming Fields and the director orchestrated a fake earthquake on the set. They used the footage in newsreels to promote the film, and it is still sometimes accepted today as real footage of a quake.
--This film marked the first full length feature for Fields who had previously only starred in a couple of short talkies and silent films.
--Director Edward Sullivan would go on to direct the 1939 Laurel and Hardy film The Flying Deuces.
Bug Rating
This film really feels like the great granddaddy of films like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Cannonball Run, and either version of Oceans 11. It's great to the see the stars of the time interacting on film, and since it came out before the Hays Office rose to censoring power, some of the off color humor seemed very surprising to see on film. At one point, Fields is trying to find a room to flop in and peeks in a keyhole. When he stands up he shakes his head and says, "Well, what will they think of next?" While this is obviously not blue material, it is a line that a couple years down the line would not make it on the screen.
Fields is really at his best in this film. Coming years before alcoholism dulled the edges of his wit, his drunkard character carries not only a bottle with him, but also a razor sharp wit. Burns and Allen as the Doctor and Nurse nearly steal the show. Gracie brings her ditsy character from the radio show onto the screen perfectly. She seems so naively sweet and cluelessly cute it is no wonder that George was so in love with her. There's one scene that Fields and Allen share that proves that Gracie could hold her own with any comic around, and it was perhaps my favorite scene in the film. It's also very cool to see Lugosi in a non horror role. He's still playing a villain, but he gets time to show off his comedy chops and it's a shame that he never really go another chance to do so.
The big problem with the film is the length. With a running time of only 68 minutes, the film is eaten up with a dance number and several musical interludes. For the most part I had a hard time sitting though a child singer and Rudy Vallee, but when Cab Calloway took the screen and sang his song "Reefer Man", I was thrilled. The song and performance were both very funny, and seeing Cab in his heyday was very cool.
I don't know if I can really recommend this film to anyone who isn't a nut for old comedies like me. The good part of the short length is if you don't like it it'll be over soon. However, the dated material and numerous musical numbers will probably numb the mind of anyone not down with the classic funny-men.
Bug Rating
No trailer for this film, but having seen the trailer on the DVD that's no big loss. Instead I found the clip from the film featuring Cab Calloway doing "Reefer Man".
(DVD).jpg)
.jpg)
