SAMOYED BOY (1928)
aka Samoedskii malchik
Article 4462 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-27-2014
Directed by Valentina Brumberg and Zinaida Brumberg
No cast
Country: Soviet Union
What it is: Animated Soviet propaganda

A young Eskimo manages to defeat a polar bear, but the greedy shaman master to whom he is employed steals the bear for his own food. Can the boy exact revenge?

Sometimes, for one reason or another, I’ll have a movie on my hunt list for a while before I realize that I have a copy of it; sometimes this is due to the size of my collection and sometimes it’s because I was unable to correctly document its existence in my collection. As it turns out, I had this movie in a collection of Soviet animated propaganda that I had picked up for another movie on my hunt list, but at the time of my purchase, there was no listing for this short on IMDB and so I lost track of it. This being propaganda, it needs to be taken with a grain of salt, but it can be evaluated on how well it illustrates its point. On this level, it works well enough for most of its running time; the shaman is obviously the capitalist who takes everything for his own and rules by fear over those under him, using an idol which can supposedly move of its own accord; in reality, it’s being manipulated by a worker. As long as the story focuses on the conflict between the boy and the shaman, it works well enough and is even mildly entertaining, at least partially because the animation is well done. However, after the story has properly ended, the short has the boy leaving the North and going to a worker’s school in the Soviet Union to be properly indoctrinated, a development that adds nothing to the story and only seems to be designed to pound the messages home. That’s propaganda for you, and that’s why so much of it is pretty weak. The existence of the shaman and his idol provide the fantastic content.

THE STRANGE WORLD OF COFFIN JOE (1968)
aka O Estranho Mundo de Ze do Caixao
Article 4450 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-14-2014
Directed by Jose Mojica Marins
Featuring Luis Sergio Person, Vany Miller, Mario Lima
Country: Brazil
What it is: Bizarre horror

Three stories are told. In the first, a gang of ruffians decide to rob a dollmaker and have their way with his daughters. In the second, a balloon seller is obsessed with a beautiful woman, and his passion does not end with her death. In the third, a reporter and his wife visit the home of a professor with strange ideas about the true nature of love… and he won’t allow them to leave until he demonstrates his theories on them.

If there’s one thing you can say about Coffin Joe, it’s that he certainly doesn’t have any sentimental views about the nature of man. Each of these tales is awash in perversity, sickness and cruelty, and you find yourself thankful that the weird and jarring use of sound makes for a strong distancing technique; otherwise, this might have proved unwatchable. The first story is the most conventional, in that it follows a familiar horror theme of evil men having the tables turned on them. The second is a tale of necrophilia, and though I do admire that the whole sequence is told with no dialogue, it’s still the weakest of the lot. The third is obviously the centerpiece of the movie, and it features Marins himself as the professor. Its basic theme is that civilization is a pretty thin veneer which can be stripped away from someone, turning them into little more than a beast that will do anything to survive. I’ve seen this theme trotted out several times, but Marins has a strong sense of the political nature of his message, and that adds some power to his statement. For all of the sickness and perversity, the movie isn’t quite as harrowing as it means to be, but it’s still pretty strong stuff.

SHREE KRISHNA JANMA (1918)
aka Shri Krishna Janma
Article 4448 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 2-12-2014
Directed by Dhundiraj Govind Phalke
Featuring Bhagirathibai, D.D. Dabke, Neelkanth
Country: India
What it is: Indian legend

The invocation of the child god Krishna takes place.

IMDB lists the length of this movie as 12 minutes, and that is the approximate length of the footage I have. However, I was informed that the actual length of the movie was much longer; it was about forty minutes long. Furthermore, not all of the footage I have has been necessarily established to be from that movie, though the first section is. This means that I’m really only covering a fragment of the movie, which is cheating a bit, but I’ve done it before. There are approximately three sections to this footage. The first has worshiping villagers calling from Krishna to come out of the river, which he does in the coils of a great snake. We than have a few encounters with him, including one where he harasses an enemy by appearing to him in duplicate forms. The second section has people paying obeisance to several devotees, which involves people leaving gifts to people standing on pedestals. The last section of the footage feels like it may be from a different film, but it is interesting in itself, and it seems to have its own storyline; a prince seems to be in the throes of religious ecstasy, and he is condemned to be executed by several methods, all of which he seems to miraculously survive. The footage ends abruptly at this point, so we don’t see the result of the last attempt. All in all, the footage was worth seeing, even if some of it may be from the wrong movie.

SUPERNATURAL (1983)
aka Sobrenatural
Article 4423 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-15-2014
Directed by Eugenio Martin
Featuring Cristina Galbo, Maximo Valverde, Ramon Lillo
Country: Spain
What it is: Ghost story

When a man is badly injured in a horrible auto accident, his estranged wife comes to see him, but he dies before she arrives. The woman discovers that her husband’s angry spirit is still around, and it is malevolent…

The movie does not open promisingly; with its corny narration, it comes across like one of those pseudo-documentaries of the seventies about UFOs, the afterlife, et.al. Once you get past that point, the movie settles into a bit of a deceptive groove; it almost comes across like a rather listless TV-movie at this point. It’s not until the ghost makes a startling attack on a housekeeper that you really sense that the ghost (and the movie) mean business. It’s an effective scene in that it serves as a good counterpoint to the low-key nature of the movie as a whole; it never seems as listless afterwards, and it keeps you on edge as the movie quietly and deliberately makes its way towards its climax. I ended up quite liking this movie; it’s something like a cross between THE UNINVITED and THE ENTITY. I found this one surprisingly effective.

SPIES STRIKE SILENTLY (1966)
aka Le spie uccidono in silenzio, Spies Kill Silently
Article 4399 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-22-2013
Directed by Mario Caiano
Featuring Lang Jeffries, Emma Danieli, Andrea Bosic
Country: Italy / Spain
What it is: Spyghetti

American agent Michael Drum is called in on the murder of a scientist’s daughter in Beirut. He discovers that there’s an insidious plot afoot to kill a series of great humanitarians, and he sets out to discover the truth.

Yes, this is one of the many Italian imitations of the James Bond franchise, and since it has a lowly rating of 5.0 on IMDB, I can only assume that it’s not a very popular entry of that type. Nevertheless, I found myself caught up in the plot at an early point; once it was revealed that a criminal organization was targeting great humanitarians, I became very curious as to exactly what type of plot was afoot, and that was the hook that got me interested. I suppose I should be disappointed that the movie never ends up giving me a satisfactory reason why this particularly group has been targeted; once you meet the supervillain, his ultimate goal is very ordinary indeed, but I still give the movie credit for catching my interest. It’s also one where the fantastic content is prominent; it involves a drug that destroys the will and allows the supervillain to control his minions. In the end, the movie is quite ordinary, but because it caught my interest early enough, I was able to sit through it with a certain degree of enjoyment, and that’s a bit of an accomplishment.

SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE DEADLY NECKLACE (1962)
aka Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes
Article 4382 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 12-2-2013
Directed by Terence Fisher
Featuring Christopher Lee, Thorley Walters, Hans Sohnker
Country: France / Italy / West Germany
What it is: Sherlock Holmes movie

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson try to prevent the theft of a priceless Cleopatra necklace by Professor Moriarty.

There’s some real points of interest to this movie. It gives us something of an opportunity to see how Christopher Lee would fare in the role of the world’s most famous detective. It also gives us a taste of how Sherlock Holmes would fit it into the world of the krimi. It also gave Terence Fisher another shot at a Sherlock Holmes movie after his take on THE HOUND OF THE BASKERVILLES. However, there are some strikes against it. For one thing, it looks like it was very cheaply made. Secondly, the English dubbing was done without the help of the original members of the cast, so we often see very familiar actors with very unfamiliar voices; I did get used to the substitute voice for Lee, but I could never adjust to the voice used for Leon Askin. I actually found the story rather fun in its way; there are plot elements that capture the sense of a Sherlock Holmes story, even if the music seems jarringly out of place. I suspect the movie was intended to be part of a series, as the ending leaves one unresolved conflict, but I suspect the movie didn’t succeed well enough to justify carrying it on. And then, there’s the question of the fantastic content; there is none to be found, and I suspect that this movie was another addition to the Lentz book I’m currently using as my guide that was made without careful consideration. Some people hate this movie, but I found it to be satisfying enough on certain levels.

STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK (1984)
Article 4354 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 11-1-2013
Directed by Leonard Nimoy
Featuring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley
Country: USA
What it is: “Star Trek” movie, what else?

Kirk discovers that, before his death, Spock left his soul implanted in the body of Dr. McCoy, and in order to retrieve it, he will need to return to the Genesis planet and recover Spock’s body. However, the planet has been set off limits by the Federation, and Klingons are on hand to discover the secret of the Genesis project. Kirk defies Starfleet Command, steals the Enterprise, and heads out to the planet.

The second through the fourth movies of the Star Trek series were something of a trilogy within the series in that each of the later movies had to resolve the issues that were left over from the previous ones. In this one, the goal is to recover Spock as a character, but the cost is quite high, and it would take the next movie to sort that out. The common belief about the Star Trek movie series is that the even numbered entries are superior to the odd numbered ones, and it’s true enough in this case as it is weaker than either of the ones that bookend it. Nevertheless, this is one of the better of the odd numbered ones, and its main problems are that the script is rather uneven and, despite the fact that it features one of the more devastating events in the history of the series, it doesn’t quite have the emotional power to make it really work. There are some nice humorous touches, and each of the characters has fun moments. I would say overall that it’s a good, if not great, entry in the series.

SPACEHUNTER: ADVENTURES IN THE FORBIDDEN ZONE (1983)
Article 4352 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-30-2013
Directed by Lamont Johnson
Featuring Peter Strauss, Molly Ringwald, Ernie Hudson
Country: Canada / USA
What it is: Somewhere between STAR WARS and THE ROAD WARRIOR

An adventurer undertakes a rescue of three women stranded on a planet that has been ravaged by plagues.

Well, I will say this much; it isn’t quite the STAR WARS clone that I expected it to be from the opening credits; once the adventurer lands on the planet, the movie remains, for lack of another word, earthbound. If anything, it borrows more from THE ROAD WARRIOR at that point. I will say this much about the movie; the art direction is easily the high point of the movie; I just like the ugly makeshift junky look of everything on the planet. However, the story doesn’t have much to recommend it, the action is often confusing, the characters are forgettable, and since I saw it flat, I can’t really say how it would have looked in 3D. There’s the odd moment here and there that works, but the movie is mostly a loud, obnoxious, tiresome blur.

THE SEEDS OF EVIL (1974)
aka The Gardener
Article 4351 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-29-2013
Directed by James H. Kay
Featuring Katherine Houghton, Joe Dallesandro, Rita Gam
Country: USA
What it is: Mysterious doings with plants.

A young wife hires a gardener who loses his job when his former employer dies. The gardener proves to have an amazing talent with raising plants as well as a hypnotic effect on the women he meets… and some of the plants may not be safe.

Early on in the movie, I found myself checking the credits for the director on this movie on IMDB under the suspicion that I would discover that this was first directorial effort, and sure enough, it was. It is, in fact, his sole directorial credit, and given the fact that a number of IMDB reviews trot this one out as one of the worst movies ever made, I’m not entirely surprised. I don’t rate it that low myself, though I don’t really think it’s a success; it has an interesting premise and a definite sexual subtext, and it has a strange dreaminess around the edges. It’s also somewhat underdeveloped in the script department, with the result that there’s a fair amount of dead time in the movie where nothing much is happening. There’s also some strange, awkward editing, which was the thing that made me check the director’s credits; there’s a number of times where one scene cuts to another when the previous scene doesn’t seem to have properly ended. I think the director had a real vision, but lacked the expertise to really pull it off; it looks like he never got the chance or the desire to try again. Ultimately, it’s an oddity with some points of interest.

SI MUERO ANTES DE DESPERTAR (1952)
aka The Lurking Vampire, El vampiro acecha
Article 4340 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-18-2013
Directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen
Featuring Nestor Zavarce, Blanca del Prado, Floren Delbene
Country: Argentina
What it is: Thriller

A child believes he has a clue to the identity of a man who killed one of his classmates, but he is either unable to tell or unable to convince the authorities. Can he prevent another child from being the next victim?

This movie entered my list under the title THE LURKING VAMPIRE, and for several years, I was unable to match it to any title on IMDB; searches on the given alternate title and on some of the cast members also proved fruitless. It’s only recently that IMDB matched the alternate title (EL VAMPIRO ACECHA) to the correct movie, and I realized that part of the problem was that my other sources claimed that certain actors listed (specifically, German Robles and Abel Salazar) were not, in fact, in the cast. The above plot description is a bit of a guess, as my copy of the movie is in Spanish without subtitles, but I did know a few facts to help me along; I knew the story involved a child murderer and a boy had to battle him. The Walt Lee guide says there are a few touches that make the killer potentially supernatural, and some of the scenes look spooky enough to back that up. I really wish I could have followed this one better; it looks like a tense little thriller, and there’s a memorable nightmare sequence in the middle of the movie. It’s apparently based on a story by Cornell Woolrich. This is one I really hope shows up for me someday with English subtitles and a good print.