A day late, sure, but the content's all here, my lovelies.
This was a much more middle-of-the-road week (most of the entries are Cs or Ds. Sigh.), but there were some laughs to be sure. Quite a few garnered a C+, but that seems kind of too convenient at the time of this writing (something, something, bell curve at the end of the month). An odd trifecta of 'show-biz' movies happened quite by accident (Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence > Madhouse > Targets), but was a pleasant surprise. The latter two films were more poignant in this regard, but don't be fooled, HC2 is also very much about show business (revolving around one specific film, but more on that later).
Here's how the grading system works:
A =
Excellent, a must see
B = Very
good, I’d watch it again
C = Worth
Seeing
D = Maybe
don’t bother
F = Worthless
+ = Superior
for this grade
- = Just
barely makes it into this grade
I caught some cross-talk for grading again (happens every year), so, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you folks that if it's not an F, I liked the movie at least a little (D's are usually a single element). So don't fret if I gave a movie you love a poor score - I'm just one man, with one set of tastes.
On the subject of movies you love, I SPOIL EVERYTHING this week. It might not be in the first paragraph (see below review), but I absolutely do not care to hold things back. If you have a problem with this, close your browser and come back after you've seen the film (or maybe just skip to the next one... that's probably better for me).
Let's get to it:
The VVitch (Robert Eggers) - C+
It's early in the process of colonizing America, and William
and his family choose to be exiled from their plantation somewhere in New
England. They build a cabin and are fine, for a time, but events conspire to
turn against them when baby Samuel vanishes while in the care of their eldest
daughter, Thomasin. The family is overwrought, but it only gets worse when
eldest son Caleb goes missing too. The family turns on one another, mostly blaming
Thomasin (she's the perfect age for witchcraft). She hopes her name will be
cleared once she finds Caleb, naked and hanging off the goat pen. The family
rallies their frontier medicine to try and save the boy, but he dies, leaving
the mother aghast, and the remaining children point fingers at one another
desperately to escape punishment. William boards the rest of his children in
the goat pen for the night, but the next morning, he wakes to find everything
in the pen, except Thomasin, dead. And
that’s when the goat comes at him…
Look, straight up, this might be a better movie than I'm
letting on. I can't argue that it's beautifully shot, nor that every single
actor in it does a great job (even the child actors, who drive a good portion
of the story). The supernatural effects are sparing, but effectively done
(Caleb spitting up an apple was my favorite). The gore effects are few, but
effective and realistic when they appear. The technical aspects of the film are
nearly flawless.
Where it lost me was the story, especially the ending, in
which everyone but Thomasin dies, and she wanders into the wilderness after she
makes a pact with the devil (who suddenly appears on screen and is… some kind
of thespian?) to becomes a witch herself. I've heard theories that this implies
she was indeed a witch the whole movie, but I don't see how that's possible
when a different woman takes Caleb, and another woman is in the goat pen when
she and her younger siblings are boarded inside. Even the fact that Black
Phillip, one of the family goats, was a conduit to Satan was an idea introduced
too late into the movie that I can't help but feel it was a lazy decision (the
only possible lead up to this choice was it having the same color eyes as the
witch rabbit that was running around the woods). If you take the ending
literally - that they're being plagued by a witch - then a bunch of the choices
made by the characters are puzzling. For example, why not scour the woods for
evil before immediately declaring your children the pawns of Satan? It all
feels a little convenient, which, in a movie with strengths in so many other
ways, is almost tragic. I felt cheated. It's still worth watching for its merits,
though, and they are ample.
Elves (Jeff Mendel) - F
Kirsten, and her friends Amy and Brooke, go out into the
woods to perform a ritual. It seems not to work, but – surprise, surprise - it
does. Meanwhile, Mike, an ex-cop/ex security guard manages to get a job as a
Santa after the last Santa mysteriously gets his balls cut off. The two
characters unite when Kirsten's after-hours party at work is gunned down by
some Germans. Mike, who happens to have been one of the greatest detectives on
the force, quickly uncovers a Nazi conspiracy to crossbreed the creature with a
perfect genetic sample to engineer a master race. Things get dicier still when
it is revealed that Kirsten just so happens to be that perfect genetic sample
(her ancestry, as it turns out, would make the Lannisters look normal), and she
must be the mother of Elves. The only possible hope of salvation for Kirsten
comes in the form of shoving a crystal back into the original hole she summoned
the Elf out of in the first place. Gotta love when these things come
full-circle.
This is a notoriously awful direct-to-video effort, starring
Dan Haggerty, aka Grizzly Adams. His delivery is pretty unbelievable on some
lines, but this might be the only charming aspect to the movie. There are kill
scenes, but the gore is cheap. You get the occasional look at bare boobs or
lingerie-clad ladies, but given the material they're disrobing for, you kind of
feel bad for them. Everywhere Elves tries to win you over, it fails.
The premise, Nazis using mythical elves to form a master
race, is pretty out there. The story happens on a pretty small scale, though,
so it barely strays into irreverent Nazi humor. The only actress that pulls out
a decent performance is Kirsten's reprehensible mother (who drowns the family
cat, Agamemnon, in the toilet). She is a woman you'll absolutely love to hate,
until she gets electrocuted in her bathtub. It has some wacky moments for sure,
but there's better low budget efforts that achieve this end more successfully.
ZaAT (Don Barton & Arnold Stevens) - D-
Dr. Leopold will be laughed at no more. He injects himself
with glowing goo, and turns into his ultimate weapon; ZaAT. A human/catfish
hybrid. While still flying under the radar, the nightmarishly slow ZaAT first
disposes of his colleagues that ridiculed his ideas, and injects his mutating
agent (which, naturally, is highly radioactive) into local waterways to further
his wicked schemes. But when he changes his focus to procuring a bride (by
stealing ladies and giving them the ZaAT formula), he attracts the attention of
the local sheriff, and Rex, a marine biologist. Finding that the local lakes
and rivers are filthy with radiation, Rex calls in Walker and Martha from
INPIT, a dedicated ecological survey organization. Will the combined forces of
local law enforcement combined with INPIT be able to stop ZaAT? Or will he kill
them all and spread his plague to the ocean?
It's the latter. And while this film is amateur to its celluloid
bones, there's a lot of fun to be had with ZaAT. From the endless footage of
marine life that pads the film's run-time, from the actor wearing the ZaAT suit
(it's a rubber suit, in case you couldn't tell) constantly stumbling, to the
most superficial wounds being fatal, to a soundtrack with lyrics written about
the film, this baby is packed with the very best of b-movie charm. The sexual
tension between the two INPIT employees is atrocious. The sheriff is a
surprisingly charming character, who sits in on hippie love-ins, and then
persuades the whole pack of them to get locked up in the county jail overnight
- for their protection, of course. These gives the film a bit of goofy color, and I could not fail the film outright.
But, at the end of the day, ZaAT is a rubber-suited monster almost
falling over, and terrorizing people around a body of water. It has heart, and
it's certainly not the most godawful piece of crap under the sun, but it is
definitely limited. But, when you compare it to something like Elves, ZaAT definitely feels like a cut above.
Martin is a deeply troubled man that works the security desk
in a parking garage. He is also obsessed with the original Human Centipede movie. So
obsessed, in fact, that he's been cooking up his own little plan: a human centipede
made out of twelve people (four times the original number). Using his trusty
gun and crowbar, Martin manages to get his dirty dozen - including an actress
from the first film, Ashlynn Yennie, by lying to her agent and claiming she was
up for a Tarantino audition - killing his mother, psychiatrist and a few other
rotten apples in the process. Of course, Martin isn't a surgeon, like Dr.
Heiter in the first film, so a lot of the work he does is... Let's say...
Shoddy. He knocks teeth out with a hammer, injects them with laxatives so he
can watch them poop, and otherwise torments them. Eventually, one of the pieces
does manage to escape (a daring escape it is, though it is not without
penalty), and then the damn thing comes apart, so it's back to the drawing
board for Martin, and nighty night for the big centipede.
You're probably not going to believe this, but Centipede 2
is actually a pretty engaging movie. I absolutely can't recommend it, as it is
blatantly disgusting in many, many different ways (if you've seen it, you might notice I pulled
some punches in the above synopsis), yet, thematically, it's more interesting
than its predecessor. Martin (who despite being a gross, little bastard is arguably
our protagonist) never utters a word through the film, and the look and
mannerism of actor Laurence R. Harvey is spot on. Martin has been tortured
endlessly through life, and, if he wasn't on this reprehensible killing spree,
probably would be subject to any number of awful fates himself (his mother
attempts to murder him on screen BEFORE she finds out about his obsession, his
psychiatrist is angling to use his sexually abusive past to rape him, and I'm
sure that’s just the tip of his life's iceberg). You never feel bad for Martin
(he is too disgusting to identify with), but you understand that a life so
tragic has consequences. The first hour of the film is kind of sickly
fascinating. You don't want Martin to succeed, but literally everyone he comes
across is also a piece of shit, and with few exceptions, you don't feel bad for
them either. It moves along at a good clip too, largely without dialogue. Add
all this to the black and white filming, and you almost feel like you're
watching the most intense student art film ever made
But, the last 30 minutes (the fateful surgery, and the
events following it) are gross beyond measure. Definitely not for the faint of
heart. Supposedly, Tom Six was given carte blanche to be as repugnant as he
wanted, and he went big. Given the bleak world the characters live in, you
don't expect anyone to make it (the escape was a genuine surprise), and sure
enough, no one really does. As I've said, this is not a popcorn movie or
something to watch on a date night, this one is for tortureporn fanatics, gorehounds
and horror movie aficionados. I might not have given it an F, but John Q.
Public almost certainly would.
Paul Toombes seems to have it all. His Dr. Death a
character, a fixture in 50s and 60s horror, is doing quite well, he has an
excellent partnership with his writer, Henry, and he has just gotten engaged to
Eleanor, a co-star. But, at a Hollywood party, Eleanor is decapitated, her body
discovered by Paul, causing him to have a psychiatric break. Three years later,
Paul is released, and Henry begins to push him back into his film franchise.
Almost immediately though, the starlets working in his reboots are murdered.
The film wants you to believe Toombes is hypnotized by seeing his old character
on screen, compulsively causing him to slay people, but he's actually being
framed by Henry. Henry had written the Dr. Death character for himself, and has
carried a grudge against his old friend ever since Toombes got the part.
Toombes only find this out by spectacularly faking his own death in a fire, and
coming after Henry once everyone assumes he was done for. Classic Price.
Made by the same team that made MMMMM favorite The
Abominable Dr. Phibes, Madhouse stars Vincent Price and Peter Cushing, and
offers a silly, if not effective, look at the life of a horror star in the 70s.
It's unlikely the character of Toombes is directly allegorical to Price, but
one can't help but wonder, as the character rubs shoulders with genre icons
playing themselves (friends of Price, like Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff
have fun cameos), if there's not a bit of Price in Toombes. The script is more
or less a formality, with the slayings serving to drive the mystery ever onward. What you're really here to see is Price ham his way through
confrontations, and otherwise be a darling of the silver screen.
But there's more to like: some of the gore effects are
strikingly well done (like Eleanor's head coming off), and some of the kill
scenes are downright hysterical (the killer skewers two grieving parents attempting
to blackmail Toombes on a sword). This is all in keeping with Price's other 70s
AIP efforts, and while Madhouse has more polish, I'd still say watch Phibes
first, as it is arguably more entertaining (if not formulaic). Nevertheless,
Madhouse is just good fun, and goofy to the extreme.
Targets (Peter Bogdanovich) - C+
Byron Orlok is a Hollywood horror star that long for
retirement (played by horror movie legend Boris Karloff in the twilight of his
own career). Bobby is a young man that has a few screws loose. These are our
two protagonists, and they drive the movie in very different ways. Byron deals
with trying to mysteriously get out of all acting-related appointments
(including introducing one of his old movies at the local drive-in). Bobby,
seemingly inexplicably, goes on a killing spree, first blowing away his
inattentive wife, his mother, and some young fella helping them bring the
groceries in. The two plots come together in the final act, when Byron has a
change of heart and decides to make his drive-in appearance after all. Bobby
just so happened to hole up at the same drive-in to lose the cops after the
last leg of his shooting affair. Bobby, a crack shot thanks to his conservative
father, has problems with fleeing his sniper nests, and an angry mob seeks him
out after he causes more carnage. Byron finds him first, literally slaps him silly, and then the police take
him away. The End.
It feels almost like you're watching two different movies.
Bobby's story feels like pure exploitation cinema (how many people can this man
gun down before he's stopped?), While Byron's story feels almost like an
anachronistic drama. Who cares why grandpa doesn't want to make movies anymore?
There's a dude taking shots at motorists on the freeway! Don't get me wrong,
most of the fun moments in the movie happen in the Byron storyline. But that's
not why anybody saw this movie - they came to watch a man snap and start
shooting people. Surprisingly, however, for such a violent film, it's pretty
light on gore (perhaps not that surprising, in 1968 gore effects were unheard
of, except in super obscure gorehound features, such as the works of Herschell
Gordon Lewis). All you get are smears of red paint, and even those are sparse.
I picked this film because it was highly regarded, and yet
very few people bring up Targets in casual discussion of 60s horror cinema. I
theorize that this likely has to do with the frightening rate at which many
Americans seem to be saying 'fuck it', and gunning down as many people as they
can these days. In the modern landscape of reality, Targets may hit a little
too close to home. Most of the literature I’ve read on the film claim that
Bobby was a Vietnam vet, but for the life of me, I do not recall seeing a scene
in which this is explicitly stated or alluded to. At the time, this was a fresh
premise that was likely seeking a new way to scare a movie-going audience. Now movie-goers need to watch out for a Bobby of their own.
So, how was the movie? A little uneven. Karloff steals the
show as a doddering old star that wants to be done with his life. The
implication of the ending is that he faced death (Bobby only grazes him in the
head as he comes in for the slaps), and no longer has to worry about it. That's
fine, I suppose. Ironically, Madhouse also deals with the story of an actor
past his prime struggling to remain relevant. The difference is Madhouse comes
at this theme from a fun angle, as opposed to a dramatic one. Writer/Director
Peter Bogdanovich (who would go on to direct The Last Picture Show) also plays
the part of Sammy, an aspiring nebbish scriptwriter that is incensed by Orlok
not reading the screenplay he wrote before his sudden retirement. He's dating
Orlok's assistant, Jenny (who happens to be Chinese - something the script
reminds us endlessly). None of these goings-on are overly dramatic or
captivating, and are a world away from the actions of Bobby, who, once he
starts killing people, doesn't really say another word. What we end up with is
almost a Hitchcockian thriller, but without a lot of the flair of the renowned master
of suspense. Bogdanovich has a good eye for framing and unique cinematic shots,
but the editing is kind of wacky here and there (This was a very early film in
his repertoire, and today is considered the peer of directors like fellow
Hitchcock-“Borrower” Brian de Palma and Francis Ford Coppola). Ultimately,
Targets is a worthwhile film, but our modern expectations of this sort of
violence make it feel awfully tame.
Cat People (Jacques Tourneur) - C+
Oliver and Irena fall in love after a conversation. Within a couple of months, they are married, but there is a problem: Irena, a native
of Serbia, believes she will turn into a ferocious panther if she is roused by
passion or jealousy, so no kissing (and presumably that goes double for making
whoopee)! Oliver sets her up with a psychiatrist, Dr. Judd, but he's got other
issues: his coworker Alice tells him she's in love with him, and darn it, he
might just love her back. Irena gets wind of this, and begins stalking Alice.
Oliver, wanting a simple annulment of his marriage attempts to reason with
Irena, but instead, she almost ambushes him, along with Alice at their
workplace. They manage to get Irena to come to her senses, and she flees to Dr. Judd. The good doctor attempts to make a move on her, leading her wild
side out, and she slays him as a panther. Distraught, she runs to the local
zoo, where she commits suicide by freeing a hungry, regular panther. Panthers, man! They'll fuckin' kill ya.
Cat People has all the charms of a well-made film of its
day, but its supernatural elements are ill-defined. Director Tourneur is a
visionary of camerawork (and possibly the best horror director of the 40s and 50s), but this feels inferior to his film I watched last
year, Curse of the Demon. While you cannot argue that the film is breathtaking,
both in set pieces and camera work, it's story is just a little slow to
develop. Scenes that happen by midway through the film dispel any notion that
Irena is wrong about what she is, so why continue to try and fool us? It would
have been impossible for a 1940s film to reasonably fake a panther, but the
tamed panther in the movie looks bored and confused. That's kind of how I felt
too.
It's a rich film, full of dazzling sets, and a cracking
romance. Scenes that seem inconsequential upon first viewing likely foreshadow
later scenes (Irena feeds the zoo panther a dead canary earlier, likely a nod
to her later slaying by that same panther). There are even some genuinely frightening moments (such as when Alice senses someone, or something, following her as she walks the streets at night. Visually, this is the best sequence of the entire film) But as grand as all this is, it has
trouble holding up to other films of its ilk (I Walked With a Zombie, another superior Tourneur film, springs to
mind). The leading actors do a good job, but much like the VVitch, I found
myself wanting more from the story.
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The next week is already underway, starting with 1970's The Vampire Lovers. We're only just halfway through the month now, but the choices are getting fewer and fewer. For sure, this week, I'll be checking out the Canadian coming-of-age werewolf movie Ginger Snaps (Thursday!), and much, much more.
See you next week, horror homies.
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