SOME CALL IT LOVING (1973)
aka Sleeping Beauty
Article 5120 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-28-2016
Directed by James B. Harris
Featuring Zalman King, Carol White, Tisa Farrow
Country: USA
What it is: Modern re-imagining of a fairy tale

A jazz musician purchases a “sleeping beauty” act (with an authentic sleeping beauty) from a carnival. He awakens her, but as a result, finds himself taken on an unexpected emotional journey.

According to IMDB, this movie was a sensation in Europe, but died a quick death in the U.S. due to poor critical reception and poor distribution. And, truth to tell, it is an art film and not one that easily gives up its secrets. The reviews on IMDB do seem to indicate that the movie is often disliked and dismissed, and the small number of them also indicates that few people have really seen it. Me, I have to admit to being entranced and fascinated by it; though it often made me think of other movies I’ve seen (both NIGHT TIDE and LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD come to mind), it carves out a special niche for itself. I think the main theme of the movie may be the concept of control; the main character longs both for control and loss of control, but the latter is also something he fears. Once I realized this, the existence of Richard Pryor’s character here as the musician’s best friend who appears to be an addled junkie, while initially seeming out of place, actually makes a great deal of sense; his total lack of control makes him the perfect alter ego to the musician. I ended up being quite moved by the movie, but I can also fully understand those who might be put off by it. Incidentally, the fantastic content is the “fairy dust” that surrounds the “sleeping beauty” concept, but, in its own way, the movie does feel like a fantasy.

SUPER FUZZ (1980)
aka Poliziotto superpiu
Article 5106 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-12-2016
Directed by Sergio Corbucci
Featuring Terence Hill, Ernest Borgnine, Joanne Dru
Country: Italy / Spain / USA
What it is: Super cop comedy

A policemen gains super powers after being caught in a nuclear explosion, but every once in a while they vanish. He seeks to find out why, and gets on a case to catch some counterfeiters.

I haven’t seen a whole lot of the work of Terence Hill (who is mostly famous for having played the character of Trinity in a series of spaghetti western comedies), but I rather like him. He has an easy-going style and a lightness of touch that helps alleviate the fact that some of the comedies he’s in are a bit heavy-handed. The basic concept of this one isn’t too bad, but the script is terribly uneven and it only works in fits and starts. Sometimes it’s just dumb rather than funny, some of the humor feels forced, and there are a few dull stretches to contend with as well. The cop’s superpowers aren’t clearly defined; he can float, has super strength, can run super-fast, can see through walls and buildings, has telekinetic powers, etc. but none of them are used consistently and they vary from scene to scene. Ernest Borgnine is on hand as his partner, but he’s mostly reduced to yelling a lot and his character gets old. The plot is as inconsequential as the crime itself; the counterfeiters specialize in one-dollar bills. Despite a few good moments, the movie is mostly ho-hum. The cop’s funniest superpower – he can talk to fish. His most disappointing superpower – he can make Ernest Borgnine dance like Fred Astaire. Okay, the last one would have better had they pulled it off, but though Borgnine gives it his best shot, he comes nowhere near.

STARSHIP (1984)
Article 5098 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 3-4-2016
Directed by Roger Christian
Featuring Adam Cockburn, Tyler Coppin, Ralph Cotterill
Country: Australia / UK
What it is: Science fiction action

A resistance movement tries to prevent an evil robot empire from killing off six hundred people on a mining planet and replacing them with worker robots.

Every once in a while I run into movies where it seems to me that the director’s intention is to kill all interest I could possibly have in following the story. Granted, when a movie opens with an endless scene of a spaceship landing on a planet while a voice on a monitor spews out an endless stream of science-fictiony jargon, it’s off to a bad start anyway. The characters are a bunch of bland ciphers; granted, in a simple “good guys vs. bad guys” story such as this one, you don’t really need heavy character development, but it should have enough so that you at least get a sense of what you’re supposed to feel about the characters, and it fails to do that. The plot does not seem inclined to keep the viewer tuned in to what’s going on and there’s an annoying addiction to extreme close-up shots (which seems to be less from the desire for you to know the character’s faces and more to keep you from getting a good look at the sets). In the end, the movie inspired only apathy in me; for much of the time I did not know what was going on, and I cared even less. The only sequence that might catch your attention is an action sequence on a huge desert-roving truck, and that isn’t particularly well done. This one was just plain dull.

SPACE FIREBIRD (1980)
aka Space Firebird 2772, Hi no tori 2772: Ai no kosumozon
Article 5094 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-28-2016
Directed by Taku Sugiyama
Featuring the voices of Chris Hilton and Ted Thomas
Country: Japan
What it is: Cosmic anime

In a Dystopian future of the planet earth, a space pilot is the only hope for the dying planet when he embarks on a quest to find a monstrous firebird that is the only thing that can save the planet.

I don’t know if it’s because most of my sources tend to neglect anime or if it’s because the form didn’t really take off until a later period of time, but I do know that it’s still a pretty rare occasion when I cover it. This one has a bit more in the way of Western cultural influences according to IMDB; it was apparently inspired by the work of Igor Stravinsky (I’m guessing the Firebird Suite was a big part of it), some Disney animated works (PINOCCHIO is perhaps the most obvious), and it uses certain Western styles of animation (this is one of the rare examples of anime that uses rotoscoping). Still, it is very much a work of anime, and I have to confess that I’m still not quite used to the form; I find myself more apt to enjoy them on an intellectual level but I never quite get lost in them, and the emotional elements remain distant. The version I saw was dubbed into English, and that always makes things seem a little cheesier than they would otherwise be. Still, I generally like this one, and some of the scenes are positively surreal; in particular, a scene on a strange planet with bizarre wildlife is memorable. And it’s always amusing to see movies in which creatures are modeled off of such unlikely items as dice and bagpipes.

SLEDGE HAMMER (1983)
aka Sledgehammer
Article 5092 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-27-2016
Directed by David A. Prior
Featuring Ted Prior, Linda McGill, John Eastman
Country: USA
What it is: Low-budget slasher film

Ten years ago, two lovers were beaten to death by a sledgehammer-wielding psychopath in a remote cabin. Today, partying teens are staying in the cabin. Will the psycho return?

The special effects in this tiny-budgeted shot-on-video horror movie are credited to “Blood & Guts”, which is about as blunt a title as you can get, but then, what do you expect from a movie called SLEDGE HAMMER? I will give the movie credit for having a claustrophobic and surreal vibe to it, much of it probably due to the fact that it was made with an extreme low budget. Beyond that though, it’s the usual compendium of slasher cliches, badly acted and with a truly annoying slowness to the proceedings. The latter condition seems to be the result of the fact that though the copy of the movie I saw ran about 84 minutes, it looks like only about 65 minutes of footage was shot. The movie pads itself out by repeating scenes (the opening scene is almost repeated in its entirety during the middle of the movie), throwing in static shots of the house at random, and the truly excessive use of slow motion; every chase and murder just seems to drag on forever. There’s only one thing this movie does quickly, and that is it makes you hate the partying teens so quickly that you’re eager to see them offed as soon as possible. And all the cliches aren’t from slasher films, either; it’s willing to borrow from the seventies as well with a “lovers romping through the field to romantic music” sequence (in slow-motion, of course) that features such romantic acts as the boy balancing his can of beer on his girl’s head. I wish I could say that scene was intentional parody, but given that would be the only such moment in the film, I’m rather doubtful. A five-minute ending credits sequence also stretches the movie out, but if you reach that point, you may want to keep your eyes open; some of those names look highly suspicious.

SKETCHES OF A STRANGLER (1978)
Article 5091 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-26-2019
Directed by Paul Leder
Featuring Allen Garfield, Meredith MacRea, Frank Whiteman
Country: USA
What it is: Psycho killer

An artist living with his sister is a serial killer who strangles prostitutes. When the sister of one of his victims arrives in town, she decides to catch the killer on her own by… oh, no, not again!

It seems only a short time ago that I complained about this tiresome and stupid plot contrivance, but here it is again – the sister of a murder victim tries to catch the killer by putting herself in the exact same position as her sister did, and in this case, that means she takes up prostitution in an attempt to catch him. I’ve reached the point where I almost stop taking the movie seriously at this point alone. Granted, even without this plot contrivance, there’s not a lot that could save this movie; even the fact that the acting is quite good doesn’t compensate for the fact that there’s not a plot element here that I haven’t seen before, and the turgid pacing of the movie is another minus. This is one of the dreariest stretches of celluloid I’ve encountered in quite a while.

SILENT MADNESS (1984)
Article 5090 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-25-2016
Directed by Simon Nuchtern
Featuring Belinda Montgomery, Viveca Lindfors, Solly Marx
Country: USA
What it is: Slasher film

A clerical error results in the release of a homicidal maniac from a mental hospital. A female doctor tries to track him down while the rest of the staff institutes a cover-up.

This movie throws in a conspiracy/cover-up subplot to augment the usual slasher set-up, which has the novelty of giving slightly more plot to the mix. Nonetheless, gorehounds will probably find this one rather disappointing; despite a fairly high body count, there is very little blood here (unless it’s to be found in the six minutes of footage that appears to be missing from the print I saw). The movie was apparently filmed in 3D, but some of the effects used to highlight it look pretty pathetic, especially one of a thrown axe that looks singularly unreal. The movie looks shoddy and is rather tacky and sleazy as well. About the only satisfaction that the movie gives is when the killer does away with a couple of characters even slimier than he is. This is not essential viewing.

SCARED TO DEATH (1980)
Articles 5089 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-24-2016
Directed by William Malone
Featuring John Stinson, Diana Davidson, Jonathan David Moses
Country: USA
What it is: Monster movie

Something is killing people in the Los Angeles area. Will an ex-detective help the police in locating whatever it is that’s doing the killing?

I’m going to start out by giving some credit to actor John Stinson; he takes a potentially annoying character with bad dialogue and manages to craft a likable character out of it. However, it doesn’t quite cover up the fact that his scenes during the first half of the movie are so divorced from the main story of the movie that you’re tempted to fast-forward through them. That’s more the fault of the script, though, and that’s the biggest weak point in this very low-budget movie. It’s partially modeled off of ALIEN, though it’s hardly a slavish imitation. Given the fact that the budget was only $74, 000 for this movie, I’m actually a bit impressed with what director Malone pulls off here; it looks more expensive than it is, and the acting is mostly competent enough to compensate for script and pacing deficiencies. Still, there are lots of dead spots, and the pacing drags until the last twenty minutes. It’s certainly no classic, but I’ve seen a lot worse movies with much bigger budgets.

SPLATTER UNIVERSITY (1984)
Article 5070 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-4-2016
Directed by Richard W. Haines
Featuring Forbes Riley, Ric Randig, Dick Biel
Country: USA
What it is: Slasher film

A paranoid schizophrenic escapes from a mental hospital. Three years later, students and teachers at a university are being knocked off by a serial killer. Who could it be?

Sometimes a title will tell you all you need to know. Just looking at the title of this one, I figured it would be a not-very-good slasher movie. And, sure enough, that’s what I got – a not-very-good slasher movie. I had the killer picked out ten seconds into the character’s first scene, and that was before the movie began bending over backwards to try to convince me it was someone else. To give you an idea of the sloppiness of the production, there’s a scene where two women are having a conversation on a park bench, and it keeps cutting back and forth between two camera angles, one of which has a purple filter and the other of which does not. The movie is loaded with tiresome, uninteresting characters, especially when it comes to the students. I’ll give the movie credit for having one surprise up its sleeve; unfortunately, it’s so late in the game that it can’t compensate for the dullness and predictability of the rest of it. Don’t enroll.

EL SECRETO DE LA MOMIA EGIPCIA (1973)
aka Lips of Blood, Love Brides of the Blood Mummy
Article 5057 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-22-2016
Directed by Alejandro Marti
Featuring George Rigaud, Michael Flynn, Catherine Franck
Country: Spain / France
What it is: Not the best eighty minutes I’ve spent

A revived mummy needs blood to live. Women are kidnapped for their blood. Movie goes around in circles and then gets weird.

I’ve only been able to find this one in Spanish without English subtitles. Still, this one isn’t really all that difficult to figure out. Most of it is told in flashback with snatches of narration and very little dialogue, so it relies on visuals a lot. Unfortunately, one of the problems is that there isn’t a whole lot of story here; once it’s established that the mummy has been revived and needs blood to live, it’s just a series of kidnappings, mummy attacks and blood-drinking until someone decides that they’d better get rid of the mummy. The most interesting element in the story is a sequence involving a crawling hand that features a bit of stop-motion animation, but you should be able to figure out what’s going on there as well. I get the feeling that those drawn to the movie for its campy alternate English title will emerge a little disappointed. Ultimately, I found the movie to be tiresome and lacking in suspense; unless there’s something really interesting buried in the Spanish dialogue, there’s not much here.