CRY FOR THE STRANGERS (1982)
TV-Movie
Article 4551 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-2-2014
Directed by Peter Medak
Featuring Patrick Duffy, Cindy Pickett, Lawrence Pressman
Country: USA
What it is: Ghost story

A psychiatrist and his wife move to a small coastal town and discover that something is killing off people on dark, stormy nights… and that it targets strangers and newcomers.

There’s some truly atmospheric shots of storm clouds coming up over the horizon that are very effective during the opening sequence of this movie; this sequence is very eerie and effectively draws you into the story. The movie manages to ride that eeriness throughout the first half, even though you can see the movie succumbing to a few of the “strangers in a small town” cliches that pop up in movies like this. It’s only at about the halfway point when I really found myself realizing that they were getting an awful lot of mileage out of that storm cloud footage; it’s not the same identical footage each time, but it’s obvious it’s all footage from the same shot, and it’s at this time that the relentless use of that footage starts calling attention to itself. And therein lies the problem with the movie; it goes to the same well too often, and the law of diminishing returns sets in, and I found myself getting more annoyed by the movie as it went along. The movie then throws in a surprising but very disappointing revelation, and then backtracks so that the movie can have it both ways, a strategy that is truly unsatisfying. Well, at least there’s Jeff Corey to keep us entertained; he seemed to have cornered the market on a certain type of crazed local color.

THE COMMITTEE (1968)
Article 4543 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-24-2014
Directed by Peter Sykes
Featuring Paul Jones, Tom Kempinski, Richard Langdon Lloyd
Country: UK
What it is: Odd little art film

A hitch-hiker decapitates the man who picks him up, but changes his mind and sews the head back on. A few days later, he is called to be on a committee, and he discovers the man who he decapitated is also there. Could the purpose of the committee have something to do with the earlier event?

From what I gather about the way this 56 minute film is promoted, it is mostly remembered nowadays for having a soundtrack featuring Pink Floyd. The odd thing is that despite their presence, the most interesting musical moment comes from a performance by Arthur Brown (of “The Crazy World of…”). Even at that, I’m not sure the performance has any real connection with the rest of the movie, which seems to be mostly conversational speculation on the way we relate to the world and other people. There are some really striking moments here as well as some rather dull moments; probably the two scenes that will stick in the mind the most are the aforementioned performance by Arthur Brown and the opening sequence with the decapitation. At least there is clear fantastic content involved in the story in that once the decapitated man has his head back, he returns to life and carries on as if nothing has happened; a lot of art/experimental films have much vaguer fantastic content. Even at the movie’s short length, it’s a bit overlong; it probably should have been done as a short. It’s odd and often interesting, but not completely successful.

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.

CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST (1980)
Article 4521 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 5-1-2014
Directed by Ruggero Deodato
Featuring Robert Kerman, Francesca Ciardi, Perry Pirkanen
Country: Italy
What it is: Italian cannibal movie

An anthropologist undertakes a mission to the jungles of South American to find out what happened to four filmmakers who disappeared while on a mission to make a documentary about the primitive cannibal tribes of the region. He manages to acquire the footage they shot.

If I learned anything from watching this movie, it’s that I’ve developed a high tolerance for gory and repugnant footage; I managed to get through the whole thing without flinching. This is, of course, the most legendary and notorious of the Italian Cannibal genre. It has been banned in several countries, and the director himself was charged with murder; he was only freed when he was able to gather up the cast members (who had signed a contract to disappear for a year after the movie was released so as to seem as if they had really died) and have them show up in court. The most offensive thing in the movie is easily the slaughter of the animals; the human violence was faked, but the animals were really and explicitly killed. The main question that needs to be asked is this – was their a point or a purpose to the parade of atrocities on display here? Deodato does seem to be trying to make a point; some of the atrocities are not committed by the native tribes, but by the documentary filmmakers themselves, and it’s obvious that he’s trying to get the audience to ask themselves who the real monster are. Unfortunately, two things blunt the effectiveness. One is that he makes the filmmakers so vile that they stop feeling like human beings and more like symbols. Secondly, despite efforts to the contrary, the “documentary footage” doesn’t always feel convincing; there are moments where it looks overly-edited and where it feels like there are more cameramen around than is supposed to be on the journey, and the addition of a musical score makes it seem even less real. This, combined with the fact that much of the atrocity footage seems very gratuitous, undercuts the movie somewhat. As a result, despite the fact that the violence is quite extreme, I have a feeling that the movie hasn’t really risen above its exploitation roots enough to truly disturb me. Or perhaps it would be better to say that I’m more disturbed by what was done to make the film than by what it was trying to say.

THE CREEPING FLESH (1973)
Article 4410 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-2-2014
Directed by Freddie Francis
Featuring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Lorna Heilbron
Country: UK
What it is: Horror hodgepodge

A Victorian scientist arrives in England with a skeleton from New Guinea that could revolutionize the theory of evolution. Further research convinces him that the skeleton is pure evil, and he uses it to create an inoculation against evil, which he gives to his daughter before it has been fully tested. Tragedy ensues.

Quite frankly, this is a weird one. But then, that’s also what makes it an interesting one. It certainly doesn’t summarize easily; if I were to describe it, it reminds me of a mad scientist version of HORROR EXPRESS with touches of DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE and THE SKULL as well as THE CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI and a twist that you’d expect from E.C. Comics. I really don’t buy the central premise of “evil” being a scientifically-defined quality, and the plot really does rely on a massive series of coincidences, yet the ending of the movie is one of those which nullifies any criticisms of plot absurdities. So perhaps the best way to deal with this movie is to roll with the story as it unfolds, and since the movie features two mad scientists, several lunatics, skeletons in the closet, a skeleton in the lab, and a large hooded monster capable of regeneration, there’s plenty to keep you occupied. Though I can’t quite call it great, it certainly is not a bore, and that’s something.

CHRISTINE (1983)
Article 4406 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-29-2013
Directed by John Carpenter
Featuring Keith Gordon, John Stockwell, Alexandra Paul
Country: USA
What it is: Killer car movie

A high school outcast buys a dilapidated 1958 Plymouth Fury whose former owners have suffered horrible deaths. He becomes obsessed with the car and undergoes a change of personality. Soon, some of his enemies begin dying…

I’ve not read the Stephen King novel on which this was based, but I can only assume that he must have felt very confident of his powers to take on what, to my mind, seems a very dodgy subject for a horror novel; quite frankly, a killer motor vehicle is a concept that seems more likely to net horselaughs than shivers. I do know that it’s a tribute to John Carpenter’s skill as a movie maker that the concept more or less works here. That’s not to say that the movie doesn’t have a few problems. Certain scenes seem superfluous, while I sense that certain scenes are missing; I, for one, would have liked to have seen the outcast’s change of character take place more gradually, as well as having his friends undergo more specific experiences with the car to help us feel their growing distrust of it. Still, the movie does accomplish the task of making the car scary rather than silly, and I do love the witty use of classic fifties rock ‘n’ roll music throughout the movie. Overall, I’d say this is a good John Carpenter movie; it’s not up their with his best work, but it’s decent enough.

CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)
Article 4405 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-28-2013
Directed by Fritz Kiersch
Featuring Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, R.G. Armstrong
Country: USA
What it is: Killer kiddie horror

A young couple finds themselves stranded in a Nebraska town inhabited only by children who have killed all the adults in the town… and plan to sacrifice any new ones that show up.

I remember that when this first came out, the critical reaction was that this was the weakest movie based on a Stephen King work to date. I’m pretty sure that worse ones have been made since, but I do agree that it’s the weakest one I’ve seen so far. It’s not that the movie doesn’t try; with a musical score that seems to be in perpetual “This is really scary” mode and the endless close-ups of the edged weapons being carried by the murderous teens, it’s obvious that the movie is trying to put you on edge. But the script is poorly though out, and it ends up having an “everything but the kitchen sink” quality about it, with, on top of the killer kids, a burrowing monster-demon in the cornfield, human sacrifice, possession, killer plants… I get the sense it’s just trying everything and seeing what sticks. I know I stopped taking it seriously once I heard the line “He was already dead when he stumbled across the highway.” It must have worked well enough for audiences in that it did result in a slew of sequels, though I can’t help but notice it took them eight years to get around to making the first one. I personally think the movie would have worked better if it had used the innate claustrophobic quality of a cornfield to increase the tension (with the use of silence and ambient sounds instead of the musical score); as it is, I found this one pretty disappointing.

CHARLIE BOY / THE THIRTEENTH REUNION (1980)
Article 4404 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-27-2013
Directed by Robert Young and Peter Sasdy
Featuring Leigh Lawson, Angela Bruce, Marius Goring, Julia Foster, Dinah Sheridan, Richard Pearson
Country: UK
What it is: Two episodes of “Hammer House of Horror”

Two stories are told. In the first, a couple comes upon a fetish doll that can be used to cause the death of others. In the second, a woman reporter is assigned to do an expose on a questionable weight loss group, but uncovers a macabre plot.

This isn’t the first time I’ve covered two episodes of “Hammer House of Horror” for this series; the John Stanley guide lists a handful of them that were apparently released as VHS cassettes, though I don’t know if they were strictly edited together to make a movie. For my purposes, I just watched the two episodes in question back to back to try to recapture the experience.

The previous two episodes I saw were apparently some of the weakest ones from the series, based on the ratings at IMDB. These two are of average quality for the series, and they both have their good points as well as their weaknesses. The first one works a little too hard on contriving its central situation, but it does have a nifty final twist. The second one has a set-up which is at the very least, very unusual, and the mystery kept my attention for the first half of the episode. However, once the mystery turned to the question as to what is being done with the dead bodies, I was able to hit upon the answer long before the episode was ready to reveal it, and waiting for the other shoe to drop proved to be a bit of bore; it also doesn’t help that the very final twist in the story is one of those that is hard to care about. Still, I’ll probably end up covering a few more of these before it’s all over, so until then, I won’t make an overall assessment of the series.

THE CAT O’ NINE TAILS (1971)
aka Il gatto a nove code
Article 4403 by Dave Sindelar
Directed by Dario Argento
Featuring James Franciscus, Karl Malden, Catherine Spaak
Country: Italy / France / West Germany
What it is: Suspense thriller

A blind former journalist and a newspaperman combine forces to solve a mystery about a break-in to a pharmaceutical research company in which it appears that nothing was stolen. However, when a man who knew the true motive for the break-in is murdered, they find themselves also targets of whomever wants to keep the truth hidden.

This movie is mainly a mystery/thriller. However, the pharmaceutical company is doing some research into genetic dispositions for criminal behavior, and this pushes it slightly into science fiction territory. The movie also features a serial killer and a scene involving a raid of a crypt, and these give the movie some horror content as well. That being said, this was Dario Argento’s second directorial effort, and I’d have to say this is the most disappointing of the movies of his I’ve seen to date. That’s not to say it’s bad; it isn’t, and it’s a decent movie for the most part. It is, however, overlong, somewhat padded, and there are stretches where his stylistic muse seems to desert him. According to IMDB, there’s a 90 minute cut of the movie out there, and I wonder if that one might work a little better; my print ran 111 minutes, and is a little dull. Still, it does work pretty well when things start moving towards the end.

THE CLOCK-MAKER’S SECRET (1907)
aka Le secret de l’horloger
Article 4393 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-16-2013
Directed by Gaston Velle
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Deal with the devil

A clock-maker wins a contract to build a clock in the town square with a plan given to him by the devil. When the clock proves impossible for him to build, he is tempted by the devil to sell his soul for the help to build the clock.

Here’s another silent short saved from my “ones that got away” list, as was yesterday’s short. On the surface, this is similar to the one from yesterday as well; both involve people tempted to make deals with the devil to advance their careers. This one is a much more ordinary film than yesterday’s was, though; instead of hitting any dramatic marks, it’s a standard example of the effects-laden trick films of the era. So we get bizarre nightmare visions involving clocks, not to mention the ubiquitous dancing girls that were all too common to the era; in this short, the latter seem especially gratuitous, as they bring what story there is to a grinding halt whenever they appear. It’s passably entertaining, but hardly one of the better films of the era.