Month: May 2020

The Worm Eaters (1970)

THE WORM EATERS (1970)
Article 4540 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-22-2014
Directed by Herb Robins
Featuring Herb Robins, Lindsay Armstrong Black, Joseph Sacket
Country: USA
What is is: Beyond several pales

A corrupt city council attempts to get hold of a lake area owned by a crazy German immigrant who talks to worms. Then, one day, the immigrant discovers that those who eat his worms turn into worm people.

Ten thoughts on THE WORM EATERS.

1) Look at the title.

2) Be aware that the title is not to be taken metaphorically.

3) IMDB classifies the movie as a Comedy Horror. It is neither scary nor funny.

4) The fact that the movie is not scary is not to say that you won’t have a visceral gut reaction to what you’ll see.

5) The movie is horribly acted. If I were to describe the acting style, it would be to say that the actors deliver their lines as if they were trying to overcome constipation.

6) If the above metaphor is crude, so be it; it’s still classier than this movie.

7) Movies are designed to appeal to several senses. However, when the primary senses that seem to appealed to are those of taste and smell, that’s a warning in itself.

8) I read somewhere that no worms were really eaten during the making of this movie. If that is true, then somebody does an amazing job of special effects during certain sequences. My own opinion is that what I heard was not correct.

9) Even if it were true that no worms were eaten, it nonetheless isn’t true that no worms were killed in the making of this film. That becomes apparent in the opening scene.

10) At this point in time, I can honestly say that I’ve never seen a John Waters film. I suspect that this film may be the closest I have ever come to actually seeing one, though.

In summary, I almost find myself at a loss of words with this one. All I can say is that it lives up to its title. Take that as a warning or a recommendation, whichever you choose.

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Wonder Woman (1974)

WONDER WOMAN (1974)
TV-Movie
Article 4539 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-20-2014
Directed by Vincent McEveety
Featuring Cathy Lee Crosby, Kaz Garas, Andrew Prine
Country: USA
What it is: Superhero… uhh… action?

Wonder Woman sets out to locate a supervillain that has stolen information leading to the identities of 39 international spies.

Before Lynda Carter made the role her own in 1975, there was this earlier attempt at starting a series featuring Cathy Lee Crosby in the role. I’m glad they held out; had this one become a series, I doubt that it would have lasted half a season. When the action highlight of a super hero movie is a lethargic quarter-staff fight between Wonder Woman and a former friend from the island, and this occurs halfway through the movie, you know you don’t have a winner. Most of the movie involves people being very polite to each other, and Wonder Woman’s main superpower seems to be that everyone wants to take her out to dinner. In fact, the whole movie is singularly lacking in tension. And if you’re going to spend two-thirds of the movie hiding the face of your supervillain, then maybe you shouldn’t cast in the role a star with as distinctive a voice as Ricardo Montalban’s AND put his name prominently in the opening credits. In the end, this attempt a super-hero movie is dreary and lifeless, and seems to be mostly made for those who are into mildly witty banter.

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The Wiz (1978)

THE WIZ (1978)
Article 4538 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-19-2014
Directed by Sidney Lumet
Featuring Diana Ross, Michael Jackson, Nipsey Russell
Country: USA
What it is: Soul version of THE WIZARD OF OZ

A 24-year-old schoolteacher finds herself swept up by a winter tornado into the land of Oz, where she comes into the possession of silver slippers. She seeks a great wizard to help her return home.

I think three things were important in the shaping of this musical. The first was to make a soul all-black version of the Oz story. I have no problem with this idea, and since Motown produced the movie, at least there were some authentic soul music roots involved in the making of this (though if I’d had my druthers, I would have been much more interested in what George Clinton and Parliament/Funkadelic would have made of the story). The second was to use authentic New York locations to portray Oz; I suspect this would be most satisfying for those who either live in or are enamored of New York City, but I’m neither. The third is something I read in the trivia section of IMDB, and I think it may be the thing that is most responsible for how the movie turned out; apparently the scriptwriter was into est (Erhard Seminars Training), and the philosophies of that movement were incorporated into much of the story. I suspect this explains the preponderance of songs in the movie about “believing in yourself” that bring the story to a screeching halt. And therein lies my biggest problem with this movie. The 1939 version of THE WIZARD OF OZ is a model of how to incorporate musical numbers into a story; the songs are short, catchy, and advance the story. The musical numbers here are long-winded and stop the story short; I could easily jettison all of Diana Ross’s ballads, Lena Horne’s number, and the big dance numbers (when they get to Oz and when the Winkies are freed) because they are all unnecessary and boring. As for the rest of the movie, I’m afraid I found the manifestation of the ideas more cute than interesting, with an occasional foray into the totally bizarre (the whole subway sequence, for example). But I often found myself utterly bored, and that’s something I’ve never been by the 1939 version of the movie.

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Wait Until Dark (1967)

WAIT UNTIL DARK (1967)
Article 4537 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-17-2014
Directed by Terence Young
Featuring Audrey Hepburn, Alan Arkin, Richard Crenna
Country: USA
What it is: Thriller

A sadistic killer hires two small-time thugs to help him get his hands on a doll filled with drugs that has fallen into the hands of a blind woman.

I knew this one was going to come up sooner or later; though I knew it wasn’t a horror movie, the character of Roat is so sadistic that it nudges the film close enough to horror territory for at least one of my sources to include it. The movie has a very high reputation, but I have to admit that I wasn’t particularly looking forward to catching it. Why? Because much of the appeal of the movie is watching the plot unfold and discovering the surprises along the way, and since I’d already performed in the stage version of the story, I was already extremely familiar with it, and I knew all the important surprises that were coming. There is, however, at least one great reason to catch the movie even under those circumstances, and that is to see Alan Arkin’s fantastic and intense performance as Roat. He’s so fascinating to watch, that I was hooked every second he was on the screen. Unfortunately, because of my familiarity with the story, my mind wandered in most of the other scenes, and though all of the other performances were good, they weren’t enough to compensate. Nevertheless, it is a well made movie and a very effective thriller; I just wish I could really appreciate it with fresh eyes. And it is also one of the few movies in which it is highly effective to have certain scenes shot in complete darkness.

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Cosmic Princess (1982)

COSMIC PRINCESS (1982)
TV-Movie
Article 4536 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-16-2014
Directed by Charles Crichton and Peter Medak
Featuring Martin Landau, Barbara Bain, Catherine Schell
Country: UK
What it is: Two episodes of “Space 1999” edited together.

The residents of Moonbase Alpha encounter an alien with a desperate plan to save his planet. They also encounter his shape-shifting daughter.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, “Space: 1999” was one of the big disappointments of my life; after buying into the hype surrounding its debut, I ended up being extremely unhappy with the reality of the show itself, and even though I stuck through its first season, I can only recall a single episode that I liked. The two episodes here are from the second season which I never watched; the local TV station which ran the first season in my area dropped it by the time these episodes rolled around. For the second season, regular Barry Morse was dropped (which for me was a pity; he was the only character that seemed emotionally involved with anything that was going on) and a new character was added; a metamorph played by Catherine Schell, who is the focus of these two episodes. Based on these two episodes, the second season wasn’t much of an improvement; though it looks like the series became a little less remote and distant, it still feels like none of the characters really developed into living, breathing human beings, and it was very hard to really care anything about them. Neither of the two episodes is very good here, and though I may revisit the series some day, I’ll do so without any of the same expectations I had when it first appeared.

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Tourist Trap (1979)

TOURIST TRAP (1979)
Article 4535 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-15-2014
Directed by David Schmoeller
Featuring Chuck Connors, Jocelyn Jones, Jon Van Ness
Country: USA
What it is: Horror thriller

A group of teenagers on a trip find themselves stranded at a remote rustic museum full of wax figures with a madman on the loose… and the latter has telekinetic powers.

The basic premise here is a very familiar seventies/eighties horror theme; young people in a remote isolated location being threatened by one or more homicidal maniacs; the telekinetic ability could be just an added twist to the mix. There’s also a number of plot twists that certainly won’t be surprising. Nevertheless, there’s a downright strange vibe to this one that sets it apart from the mix. It’s anchored by an interesting performance by Chuck Connors, who finds levels and quirks in his character that you don’t often see in horror movies. It also turns oddly comic at unexpected times, and the mood switch is a bit jarring, but perhaps not inappropriately so. The telekinesis is mostly used to make the various mannequins and wax figures come to life, an effect which is distinctly eerie. It doesn’t quite hit the heights of horror it aspires to, but it is fascinatingly eerie, and is quite watchable. This one was really a lot better than I expected.

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The Vault of Horror (1973)

THE VAULT OF HORROR (1973)
Article 4534 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-14-2014
Directed by Roy Ward Baker
Featuring Terry-Thomas, Tom Baker, Daniel Massey
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Horror anthology

Five men find themselves trapped in an underground vault and tell their recurring dreams to each other. In the first, a man seeking to inherit a fortune stays too long on the wrong side of town. In the second, an annoyingly fastidious neatness freak drives his wife to distraction. In the third, a magician stoops to murder in order to get hold of a magic rope. In the fourth, a man plots a way to collect insurance on his own death, but the plan backfires. In the final story, an artist uses voodoo to exact revenge on those who have cheated him.

I’d have to double-check, but I suspect that this is the last of the Amicus horror anthologies that I’ll be covering for this series. Like TALES FROM THE CRYPT, the stories are taken from EC comic books, though it appears that none of them actually came from “The Vault of Horror”, though four of them did appear in “Tales from the Crypt”. It’s a decent enough anthology; none of the stories really stand out, but there aren’t any real clinkers, either. My favorite is perhaps the fourth story about the man faking his own death to claim the insurance; there’s a sense of humor to this one that somewhat sets it apart from the other stories. One advantage this movie has is that with five stories and only eighty-three minutes to tell them, none of them outstays its welcome; one disadvantage is that all five stories are basically variations on the same plot, which is about the comeuppance of a man who has succumbed to his evil impulses. I also rather like the framing story, which is rather charming in its simplicity.

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The Spirit of 1976 (1935)

THE SPIRIT OF 1976 (1935)
Short
Article 4533 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-13-2014
Directed by Leigh Jason
Featuring Walter Woolf King, Betty Grable, Lynne Carver
Country: USA
What it is: Utopian satire

In the Utopian society of 1976, the new leader outlaws work and opens the treasury to the people so they can live in perpetual leisure and vacation. However, after several months of this, a rumble of revolution is heard among the people, who start participating in the illegal activity of work.

What we have here is a 21-minute musical, and if you think about it in any realistic terms, it’s pretty silly. Still, that doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have its uses as satirical science fiction. For one thing, it explores the attractiveness of illegal activities, and it’s pretty easy to find the parallels here to Prohibition and bootlegging, as the short makes it pretty clear. It also deals with the issue of man’s need to create, an activity that clearly requires work. Still, I think the ultimate theme being explored here is that of moderation; after all, the solution the short ends up tendering to solve the Utopian problem at hand is even more ridiculous and extreme than the initial premise, and it’s pretty clear that the public will soon get even more sick of the solution than the problem. In short, despite the fact that what we have here is a silly musical short, it does provide food for thought and speculation.

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Vampire Circus (1972)

VAMPIRE CIRCUS (1972)
Article 4532 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-12-2014
Directed by Robert Young
Featuring Adrienne Corri, Thorley Walters, Anthony Higgins
Country: UK
What it is: Vampire movie

15 years after the residents of a small town stormed a castle and destroyed a vampire, they find themselves blocked off from the rest of the world due to a plague running rampant. Somehow, a circus manages to get around the roadblock, and it sets out to entertain the villagers, but one of the members of the circus is a relative of the vampire, not to mention being one himself, as are other members of the circus.

I must be nearing the end of the Hammer horror movies, so there’s a possibility that this may be the last one I cover. It’s heavier on the exploitation elements (there’s a lot of blood, nudity and sex), but it has a certain offbeat quality to it, especially during the circus sequences. This is the first directorial credit of Robert Young, and he gives the movie some interesting stylistic touches to add to the mix. I like the first two-thirds of the movie very much, but the final third gets predictable and silly; in particular, I find it hard to swallow that a vampire would be terrified of a vaguely cross-shaped metallic adornment on a crossbow. One of the more interesting aspects of this one is that it emphasizes one aspect of vampirism that is often ignored or underplayed by other vampire movies, and that is that children would be considered prime targets for vampires; if I recall correctly, that’s one of elements of Bram Stoker’s “Dracula”.

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Timerider: The Adventure of Lyle Swann (1982)

TIMERIDER: THE ADVENTURE OF LYLE SWANN (1982)
Article 4531 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-11-2014
Directed by William Dear
Featuring Fred Ward, Belinda Bauer, Peter Coyote
Country: USA
What it is: Time travel story

A motorcyclist is caught up in a time travel experiment and is sent 105 years into the past. He meets a girl. Villains see his bike and want it for their own. Stuff happens.

There’s some mildly diverting motorcycle stunt work in the movie. The acting is adequate, and the cussing in the script, unlike that of TWILIGHT’S LAST GLEAMING, doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb. It’s also interesting to note the presence of former Monkee Michael Nesmith in several production capacities, including co-writer and uncredited co-producer. I also do not hate this movie, which is a good thing. I do think, however, that there really isn’t very much to the story here; it’s basically about a guy who goes into the past with a modern invention (the motorcycle), and a bunch of villains from the past try to get hold of the invention, and, with the exception of a not-entirely-original time paradox twist near the very end, it is utterly predictable. As far as I can tell, this is one of those movies that is simply not special in any way.

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