Month: May 2020

Fantasies (1982)

FANTASIES (1982)
TV-Movie
Article 4580 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-15-2014
Directed by William Wiard
Featuring Suzanne Pleshette, Barry Newman, Robert Vaughn
Country: USA
What it is: Thriller

Actors in a soap opera are being knocked off by a serial killer. Who is the killer, and why are they doing this?

Easily the best moment in this TV-Movie is the ending, and I don’t mean by that the resolution of the story line. I mean there’s a final little “perception change” (I can’t quite call it a twist) in the last few seconds of the movie. This moment manages to effectively underline the basic theme of the movie, which is how a TV show or a movie can become so real to some people that they lose grasp that the show is an illusion; there’s an earlier scene that also illustrates this where one of the actresses in the show is accosted by a stranger in a grocery store who treats her like she’s the character she’s playing. I wish the rest of the movie was that intriguing, but, in truth, I find that for the most part it’s one of those movies where competence and professionalism take the place of inspiration; there’s something utterly mundane in the way the movie trots out the usual red herrings and plot contrivances, though it doesn’t necessarily do them badly. Quite frankly, this is a movie that could have used a few more real surprises to make it really good. The serial killer plot is what makes it marginal horror.

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When Dr. Quackel did Hyde (1920)

WHEN DR. QUACKEL DID HIDE (1920)
aka When Quackel Did Hyde, When Quackel Did Hide
Article 4579 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-14-2014
Directed by Charles Gramlich
Featuring Charlie Joy and Edgar Jones
Country: USA
What it is: Parody of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”

Dr. Quackel comes up with a potion to make himself evil; only Seidletz powder can cure him.

I don’t know how many silent parody versions of this story exist, but here’s one that survived. Perhaps the most interesting thing about this version is that, rather than just parodying the central premise, it also parodies some of the side characters and significant scenes from the novel. The biggest problem with the short is simply that it’s not very funny; in fact, other than a couple of moderately entertaining title cards, it’s pretty lame. In fact, it’s the director’s sole credit on IMDB, which does seem to indicate that this one didn’t go over all that well. Still, it’s such a rarity that I’m grateful I had a chance to see it.

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Myrte and the Demons (1950)

MYRTE AND THE DEMONS (1950)
aka Myrte en de Demonen
Article 4578 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-13-2014
Directed by Paul Bruno Schreiber
Featuring Myrte, Harry Berg, Ludzer Eringa
Country: Netherlands / UK
What it is: Stylized fairy tale

A young girl is targeted by evil demons who wish to destroy her soul. When she falls into their trap, all of her dolls and animals friends are transformed into stone. In order to save them and herself, she must go into the dark woods armed with a candle that will only protect her while it is lit, but she has the help of a friendly goblin, two dwarfs, and the man in the moon.

This fairy tale, with its emphasis on dance, puppetry, music and mood, is more like a stylized ballet than a straight movie, and even that doesn’t quite describe this one. The story is at times quite dark (such as the scene where one of the demons sets out to kill a fluffy bunny), at other times a bit treacly (the little girl must win the demons over with her innocence), and is sometimes plain weird (the man in the moon is a rather unnerving presence). It most resembles Cocteau’s BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, though it isn’t quite as successful in sustaining its sense of poetry and magic. Nonetheless, this is an interesting and unique fairy tale, and I’m glad its appearance on YouTube has allowed me to rescue it from my “ones that got away” list.

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Lifeforce (1985)

LIFEFORCE (1985)
Article 4577 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-12-2014
Directed by Tobe Hooper
Featuring Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Apocalyptic science fiction/horror

An outer space probe investigating Halley’s Comet brings to Earth several human-looking figures in suspended animation they found aboard a huge ship they discovered in space. However, the figures turn out to vampire-like creatures with a goal of draining the life from the planet.

Part vampire movie, part zombie movie, part science fiction thriller with touches of ALIEN (Dan O’Bannon was one of the screenwriters), and (most interestingly) part Quatermass-style epic, one can’t help but admire at the very least the sheer ambition of the movie. I will say this much; the movie was interesting enough to hold my attention to the end. I’m just not sure I can say I was quite satisfied with it. It’s quite uneven at times, especially during the awkward and clumsy opening ten minutes of the movie. It gets better after that, but it never quite draws me in completely. Part of the problem is that the movie seems to be trying too hard to be big; there’s something about the rousing score, the occasional descents into histrionics, and the special-effects-laden climax that really had me wishing the movie had tried for a quieter form of suspense rather than loud spectacle. Ultimately, as interesting as it was in some ways, I found it hard to feel any real emotion about it at all. As such, I doubt that the movie will have any real lasting impact on me, and I’ll probably see it more as an interesting failure than a success.

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Electric Dreams (1984)

ELECTRIC DREAMS (1984)
Article 4576 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-11-2014
Directed by Steve Barron
Featuring Lenny von Dohlen, Virginia Madsen, Maxwell Caulfield
Country: USA / UK
What it is: Science fiction romance

A nerdy architect buys a computer to keep himself organized. A freak accident causes the computer to become sentient, and when it begins making music for a beautiful female cellist who has moved to a floor above, she thinks it’s the architect and initiates a romance with him. The architect tries to hide the truth from her, but the computer is intent on meeting the woman, and it’s gaining power…

I’m not sure what it would have been like to have seen this movie when it was new, but watching it now is somewhat akin to entering another dimension, especially when one considers how the computer works in comparison with current computer technology. It has the primitive look and graphics of computers from the eighties, but it has a working touch screen, is capable of running all of the appliances in the house, is capable of independently composing music, emulates human speech, etc. In its time, these innovations would have probably been considered sheer fantasy, but when I look at what computers are capable of doing nowadays, the movie seems suddenly prescient. As for the story itself, in some ways it’s as old as the hills; it’s a love triangle in which one point consists of a sentient computer. Part of me feels this movie shouldn’t work, but I end up quite liking the characters (particularly Virginia Madsen’s cellist character), and I find myself caring quite a bit what happens to them. The music by Giorgio Moroder is actually quite good, and I did recognize the hand of ELO leader Jeff Lynne in a couple of the compositions. In the end, I liked this one much more than I thought I would, but at least part of that is the fascination of seeing a movie from thirty years ago envisioning the future of computing. Incidentally, Bud Cort supplies the voice for the computer.

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The Strange Death of Adolf Hitler (1943)

THE STRANGE DEATH OF ADOLF HITLER (1943)
Article 4575 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-9-2014
Directed by James P. Hogan
Featuring Ludwig Donath, Gale Sondergaard, George Dolenz
Country: USA
What it is: Wartime propaganda thriller

In occupied Austria during World War II, a clerk with an amazing facility for voice mimicry is arrested by the Gestapo after giving an uncanny imitation of the Fuhrer. His family is led to believe he has been shot as a traitor; in reality, he is forced to undergo plastic surgery to make him resemble Adolf Hitler. The motive behind this is that he will serve as decoy to stave off assassination attempts.

This is first and foremost a piece of wartime propaganda, with the intent of showing the evils and the brutality of the Nazi regime, though one should bear in mind that the movie was made before the death camps were public knowledge. It’s somewhat similar to THE MAGIC FACE, though that movie was made after the war was over. It’s a decent enough thriller and propaganda piece, but I most like to speculate about its fantastic content. As a movie of its own era, it might qualify in terms of being speculative political fiction in that it takes place on the world stage. However, it’s also the type of movie that, if events had fallen out a certain way, might have qualified as alternate history after the fact. Without engaging in spoilers, I can’t give away whether the events fall out that way; suffice it to say that the movie remains pretty marginal in terms of its fantastic content. The most interest theme here involves a discussion as to whether or not the death of Hitler alone would be enough to undo the Nazi cause, a question I’m not sure history has really answered. This one is not bad for what it is.

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Nightmare at Shadow Woods (1987)

NIGHTMARE AT SHADOW WOODS (1987)
aka Blood Rage
Article 4574 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-8-2014
Directed by John Grissmer
Featuring Louise Lasser, Mark Soper, Marianne Kanter
Country: USA
What it is: Slasher film

At a drive-in, one of a pair of twins murders a man and frames his shocked brother for the crime. Years later, the innocent brother escapes from the asylum, which prompts the guilty brother to go on a killing spree.

This film was made in 1983 but sat on the shelf for several years before it was released. I’m not surprised; despite the fact that it has a few rather gory murders, the movie is virtually scareless. For some reason, the movie fails to conjure up an iota of suspense during its run. This is especially surprising given its premise; with identical twins running around, one sane and one mad, you’d think the movie could at least gain some mileage by making us wonder which one we’re dealing with. However, you pretty much know which brother you’re dealing with during every moment of the movie, and though some credit is due to actor Mark Soper (who plays both of them) for helping make them distinct, he fails to make the mad brother scary. In fact, there are moments where I feel that he and the movie are playing for laughs, which is an odd sort of vibe in a movie that really has no laughs. The most interesting thing about this movie is the presence of Louise Lasser, who is most famous for starring in that bizarre soap, “Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman”. In the end, I found the movie curious and odd, but not successful.

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Les cinq gentlemen maudits (1920)

LES CINQ GENTLEMEN MAUDITS (1920)
aka Five Doomed Gentlemen
Article 4573 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-7-2014
Directed by Luitz-Morat and Pierre Regnier
Featuring Luitz-Morat, Pierre Regnier, Andre Luguet
Country: France
What it is: Thriller

When five gentlemen humiliate a merchant in a Tunisian bazaar, the latter curses them, telling them the order of their deaths within a given time frame. The men begin to die in the order they were chosen…

This title ended up on my “ones that got away” list, but I was pointed to a cut-down print of the movie that broke it up into ten episodes; the whole thing probably runs about twenty-five minutes; I’m assuming the full version is lost. It seems to tell the full story, but as is often the case with cut-down versions, the story points are rushed and the emotional impact is somewhat damaged by this; furthermore, the action in the final episode is somewhat confusing. Still, it’s nice to see a version of the story with a translation; I’ve seen the 1931 version, but had trouble following it due to the lack of English titles. All in all, I quite enjoyed this version.

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Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers (1988)

HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS (1988)
Article 4572 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-4-2014
Directed by Fred Olen Ray
Featuring Gunnar Hansen, Linnea Quigley, Jay Richardson
Country: USA
What it is: Gore exploitation comedy

A detective looking for a missing girl stumbles upon a cult of chainsaw-worshipping hookers who dismember their clients.

When I knew I was going to be watching the movie, I found myself speculating what I was going to say about it before I even watched it. I shouldn’t have wasted my time; if there’s one thing I learned tonight, it’s that it’s best to not worry about the review until you’ve actually seen the movie; you’ll know what to say when the time comes. The title seems to promise lots of gore, some outrageous comedy, and a fair amount of exploitation (read: nudity). As for the gore, it’s nowhere near as extreme as the title would lead you to believe. I was tempted to blame this on the lack of financial wherewithal to pull it off, but that didn’t stop Herschell Gordon Lewis, so I’m going to attribute it to not being the primary area of concern to the filmmakers. As for the outrageous comedy, let’s just say that just because the subject matter is so exploitative, that doesn’t change the fact that the comedy is mostly just lame; still, the movie did get one laugh from me when I heard the answering machine message for the homicide division. So let’s just settle in and point out that the movie’s main appeal will be for those in it for the nudity, of which there is plenty. In short, the movie’s lame, but those drawn to it by its title will probably be more or less satisfied; for those of us not drawn to the title, there’s no reason to check out this one.

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Hunter (1973)

HUNTER (1973)
Article 4571 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 7-3-2014
Directed by Leonard Horn
Featuring John Vernon, Steve Ihnat, Sabrina Scharf
Country: USA
What it is: Spy movie

A special agent who works by taking on the personas of other people takes on the personality of a security agent for a top secret project who may have been brainwashed into killing an associate.

Back when I covered THE WIZARD OF OZ, I ended my review by noting my affection for the scariness of the flying monkey sequence of that movie. It’s fascinating to find that that sequence plays a pivotal role in the story of this movie; part of the brainwashing technique involves the use of several characters and ideas from that movie, with the flying monkeys being the most prominent. This movie sat on the shelf for two years before being released, and I can’t help but wonder if it was intended as a series pilot. In truth, I found the story here to be fun and clever enough that I almost wish that it had made the transition to a series, especially if it retained the decent writing and the bizarre plot elements. Unfortunately, I don’t think the premise of having the hero taking on the personalities of other people would have worked as a regular feature, so maybe it’s just as well. At any rate, this one is solid, and features fine performances by John Vernon, Steve Ihnat, and Fritz Weaver. This is one that ended up on my “ones that got away” list, but someone pointed my way towards a copy, and so it finally makes it here.

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