STILL OF THE NIGHT (1982)
Article 4513 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-23-2014
Directed by Robert Benton
Featuring Roy Scheider, Meryl Streep, Jessica Tandy
Country: USA
What it is: Hitchcock homage

When one of his patients is killed, a psychiatrist becomes involved with a woman who the patient had been having an affair with… and who just might have been his murderer.

One name that is probably not going to pop up very often in this series is Meryl Streep’s. She has the reputation of being one of the finest modern film actresses, but she rarely appears in anything that even comes close to the genres that I’m covering; in fact, I can only think of one other movie off the top of my head that I’ll be covering of hers. I’m even a bit surprised that she appears in this one, but I’m assuming that it may have something to do with the fact that director Robert Benton’s previous film was KRAMER VS KRAMER, which won several Oscars, including one for Streep. Still, I don’t begrudge her her reputation; it’s fascinating to watch how she physicalizes her character and makes it live and breathe. The movie is a Hitchcock homage; it’s played very subtly, and many of the Hitchcock references (I see some to REAR WINDOW, VERTIGO and PSYCHO, and if I were up on my Hitchcock, I’d catch some more) feel organic and well-placed within the story. Scheider does his usual fine job as well, and I do like the Hitchcockian sense of humor that pops up now and again. Overall, I’d say it’s very well done, but it’s one of those movies that seems a little less than the sum of its parts; individual moments work quite well, but as a whole, it’s not quite satisfying; it feels second-hand (probably because it is a homage) and the mystery seems a little obvious. In short, it’s good, but it’s not a classic while reminding you of many movies that are.

THE SWORD AND THE SORCERER (1982)
Article 4512 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-22-2014
Directed by Albert Pyun
Featuring Lee Horsley, Kathleen Beller, Simon MacCorkindale
Country: USA
What it is: Sword and Sorcery, what else?

An ambitious tyrant plans a coup to take over the entire civilized world, but he must face the vengeful son of a king he killed, as well as a sorcerer he betrayed.

The opening scene, in which a group of men invade a tomb and resurrect the sorcerer, is a wonderful sequence; if the rest of the movie had lived up to this scene, it would have been a winner. Unfortunately, after the first twenty minutes or so, the movie starts to fall into a sequence of rescues, failed rescues, bloody mayhem, torture, and occasional touches of swashbuckling lightheartedness, and though there’s lots of action, the thing gets rather tedious. This was the first directorial effort from Albert Pyun, and for a first movie, it’s not too bad. Still, it’s the type of movie for which I need a solid story to hold my attention, and on that level it’s pretty trite. The movie promised a sequel called TALES OF THE ANCIENT EMPIRE; Pyun would eventually get around to making one called TALES OF AN ANCIENT EMPIRE three decades later.

STRANGE NEW WORLD (1975)
TV-Movie
Article 4511 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-20-2014
Directed by Robert Butler
Featuring John Saxon, Kathleen Miller, Keene Curtis
Country: USA
What it is: Failed TV pilot

Three people emerge from suspended animation aboard a space station to discover that 180 years have passed, Earth has undergone an apocalyptic disaster, and their mission will be to return to Earth, find the location of their hold headquarters, and revive the members of their team who were put in suspended animation there. On their journey, they have many adventures.

The minute I saw John Saxon and heard the name of the organization Pax, I knew what we were dealing with; this is a third attempt at salvaging a TV series out of Gene Roddenberry’s GENESIS II concept. The main thing missing this time is Roddenberry himself; I see his name nowhere in the credits (in the movie or on IMDB), and certainly, the details of the central concept have been changed quite a bit from the first two movies. Maybe it’s his absence that explains why this is the first of the three movies that doesn’t feel like a self-conscious attempt to emulate “Star Trek”; it has its own vibe to it. Instead of using the whole length of the movie to tell a single story, it’s constructed like two episodes edited together, so it gives more of a feel of what the TV series would have been like. There are some interesting ideas here, but neither of the two halves seem to be particularly well written or directed, and some of the ideas (such as a society building its law and culture around an old wildlife ranger guide) seem pretty silly. As a result, it’s hard to get excited about this one as a prospective series, which may well be the reason it didn’t end up selling. I think this was the last attempt to salvage the concept.

THE SPY WHO LOVED ME (1977)
Article 4508 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-18-2014
Directed by Lewis Gilbert
Featuring Roger Moore, Barbara Bach, Curd Jurgens
Country: UK
What it is: James Bond movie

When a British and a Russian submarine disappear, James Bond is sent out on a mission to get a hold of the plans for the machine that was used to locate the submarines. However, a female Russian agent is also after the same plans.

I haven’t seen all of them yet, but of the ones I’ve seen, this is easily my favorite of the Roger Moore Bond movies. It’s heavier on the science fiction gadgetry than many of the others, it’s one of the most visually attractive of the series, and Jaws (as played by Richard Kiel) is one of the most memorable henchmen in the whole Bond series. I particularly like atmosphere of the first third of the movie in Egypt; the scenery is breathtaking, and the scenes with Jaws have an almost horror feeling to them. Things get a little sillier as the movie progresses, and it all runs on a bit too long, but it’s nice to see Milton Reid pop up as another henchman, and it’s always a treat to see Caroline Munro. I couldn’t help but notice that the producers of the film changed their mind on what the next movie of the series would be; at the end of the film, FOR YOUR EYES ONLY was announced, but MOONRAKER would be the next one made. All in all, this was one of the more satisfying movies from the franchise.

THE SPELL (1977)
TV-Movie
Article 4505 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-15-2014
Directed by Lee Philips
Featuring Lee Grant, Susan Myers, Lelia Goldoni
Country: USA
What it is: Made-for-TV CARRIE

An overweight teenage girl finds herself the brunt of cruelty at both home and school. However, she turns out to have psychic powers…

Let’s state the obvious first; this movie probably wouldn’t exist if CARRIE hadn’t been such a big hit and offered itself as a model for imitation. That being said, at least this TV-Movie doesn’t try to ape its model religiously; the movie chooses to concentrate more on the girl’s home life than it does her school conflicts. When the movie explores the family dynamic of her home life, it’s at its most interesting. However, I think the movie makes one huge strategic mistake; by making the teenage girl unsympathetic (she’s petulant and sometimes as mean-spirited and shallow as her tormentors), it ends up making it very hard to care for her plight. Maybe that’s why the movie ends up spending more time with the girl’s mother than the girl herself. The more the movie strays into CARRIE territory, the sillier and less effective it becomes, though I will give it credit for having a plot twist towards the end that is actually pretty logical. And, given the discovery we make about the girl’s mother towards the end of the movie, I have to say that the latter seems rather dim in taking so long to figure out what’s going on with her daughter.

SILENT RAGE (1982)
Article 4502 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-12-2014
Directed by Michael Miller
Featuring Chuck Norris, Ron Silver, Steven Keats
Country: USA
What it is: Chuck Norris movie that thinks it’s a slasher film

When an incredibly resilient homicidal madman is fatally wounded in a police shootout, a doctor saves his life using a new serum that gives him incredible powers of healing. The madman then goes on a rampage. Can local lawman Chuck Norris stop him?

So this is a Chuck Norris film! I can honestly say that I’ve never seen one before. Yeah, I know the central question in the movie is supposed to be “Who will prevail, Chuck Norris or the superhuman madman?”, but given this is a Chuck Norris film, the answer to that is a no-brainer. The more interesting question is “Who is stupider, the sheriff’s comic relief deputy (who tried to dry off his dog by putting him in a deep-freeze) or the brilliant doctor who invented the serum (who thinks that giving a homicidal maniac super-human powers is a good idea)?” The answer is – the brilliant doctor; at least the deputy has the self-awareness to realize he did something really stupid. But that just leaves us with the next question – “Who’s most annoying, the stupid comic relief deputy or the sheriff’s panicky, screaming girlfriend?” The answer is – neither one; it’s the screechy housewife and the yelling kids at the top of the movie who are the ones who drive the madman around the bend. After spending the few minutes you do with this family, you will fully understand why someone might go on a homicidal rampage. The movie is okay, I suppose, and the gratuitous fight scene with the bikers in the bar is probably the high point. Still, when the movie tries for anything but action or horror, it gets pretty awful. And, despite the final twist, I am sincerely glad it didn’t yield a sequel.

SCHOOL OF DEATH (1975)
aka El colegio de la muerte
Article 4501 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-11-2014
Directed by Pedro Luis Ramirez
Featuring Dean Selmier, Sandra Mozarowsky, Norma Kastel
Country: Spain
What it is: Odd little horror thriller

An orphanage/boarding house sends out girls who reach a certain age to become experimental subjects for a mad doctor. When one of the girls in the orphanage spots a former resident who was believed to be dead, the police are called in.

The movie seems fairly obvious to begin with; it’s a “sadistic girl’s school” movie mixed with a mad scientist flick. However, the movie unfolds in an unexpected fashion, the details that hover around the edges of the story are pretty interesting, and after a while I found myself wondering just what the story was leading to. It wasn’t until I was well into the movie before it occurred to me that the movie had just the feel of a krimi, and I certainly didn’t expect anything like that coming out of Spain in the seventies. The deliberate pacing does sometimes slow things to a crawl, but that was only a minor problem for me. I ended up quite liking this one, and it does have one very unexpected but rather satisfying twist towards the end. I always like it when a movie surprises me, and this one does.

SATURN 3 (1980)
Article 4500 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-10-2014
Directed by Stanley Donen and John Barry
Featuring Farrah Fawcett, Kirk Douglas, Harvey Keitel
Country: UK
What it is: Sci-Fi thriller

Two scientists researching hydroponics in the asteroid fields around Saturn are visited by a disturbed technician who builds them a robot to help them. However, the robot is programmed from direct input from the technician’s mind, and his lust for the female scientist is transferred to the robot, which then threatens everyone.

Well, it looks nice visually, I’ll give you that. But that’s about it for what I can say nice about this one. From what I gather, the movie had a very troubled production history (including the replacement of the director in mid-production and a sudden cut in the budget), and this, coupled with the fact that the story wasn’t all that good to begin with, seems to have really damaged the movie. Even the acting is weak; I expected very little from Farrah Fawcett in the first place (and that’s what I got), Harvey Keitel sounds stiff and weird (and that may not be his fault, as I hear that he was redubbed by another actor), and Kirk Douglas seems more interested in showing us what good shape he was in at 64. It’s one of those rare movies where I find myself not caring or feeling a thing about anything that happens in the movie or anyone in it, and for a movie that seems mostly interested in tapping into the same dread of ALIEN, that’s not a good thing. All it really leaves behind is a messy, confused vibe. This one is not recommended.

SCREAM, PRETTY PEGGY (1973)
TV-Movie
Article 4499 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-9-2014
Directed by Gordon Hessler
Featuring Ted Bessell, Sian Barbara Allen, Bette Davis
Country: USA
What it is: You’ll figure it out

A college girl takes on a housekeeping job with a famous sculptor who is caring for his invalid mother. She soon discovers that this family has some skeletons in the closet…

Bette Davis always adds a bit of authority to whatever she appears in. And I have to admit that Sian Barbara Allen has an odd but refreshing style that I find quite interesting. Gordon Hessler also does a good job at directing this one. Unfortunately, none of this really covers up the fact that the story itself is cobbled together from some very familiar elements of other well-known stories; in fact, if I were to come up with a thumbnail description of this one, it would be that it’s something of a cross between a “Jane Eyre” style gothic thriller and… a movie that is extremely well known. No, I’m not going to give away what that movie is, but I saw it coming long before the movie was over. The fact that the movie feels like a compendium of cliched situations certainly didn’t help things, either. It actually has a respectably high rating on IMDB, so it no doubt has its fans, but for me, it ended up being a very long wait for the second shoe to drop.

SCREAMER (1974)
Episode of “Thriller”
Article 4493 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 4-3-2014
Directed by Shaun O’Riordan
Featuring Pamela Franklin, Donal McCann, Frances White
Country: UK
What it is: Thriller

An American woman visiting in England is traumatized by an attack by a serial rapist. After she is released from hospitalization, she sees her attacker, despite the fact that the police claim to have caught him. Is it just her imagination?

The British TV series “Thriller” is very uneven, but this is definitely one of the best episodes I’ve seen from the show. What makes this story intriguing is a plot element that is introduced early in the episode when the woman is hospitalized; she sees the face of her attacker in every man she encounters. As a result, when she starts seeing the attacker after she’s released, we’re never quite sure whether she’s seeing the man himself of someone else with her imagination supplying the face. It’s a clever concept, and this movie-length episode makes very good use of it throughout; though I had a good guess as to what the final revelations would be (and I turned out to be right), the suspense of not being really sure was quite palpable. The story involves a descent into madness, and that’s where it veers into horror. This one is very well done, and features a wonderful performance by Pamela Franklin.