Heartbeeps (1981)

HEARTBEEPS (1981)
Article 4330 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-8-2013
Directed by Allan Arkush
Featuring Andy Kaufman, Bernadette Peters, Randy Quaid
Country: USA
What it is: Romantic robot comedy

Three robots (two of which have fallen in love) escape from a factory to live in the wilderness. However, the employees and the factory want them back, and a crime-busting police robot is on their tail…

I’m going to come right out and admit that I was actually a bit moved by a sad scene near the end of this movie, an admission I make with the understanding that it reveals me to be the old softie I am. It is an embarrassing thing to admit, though, because when you come right down to it, the movie isn’t really worth it; though the central idea is interesting enough, the script is woefully underdeveloped, and unless you’re into recycled Henny Youngman jokes, it’s terribly short of laughs. The movie tries to get most of its laughs from the robotic spin that the two main characters give to their conversation, but ultimately that’s more lightly whimsical than actually funny, and it gets old long before the movie is over. This is Andy Kaufman’s sole leading role in a movie, but he’s really not the type of performer whose style lends itself to the movie medium, and though I like the physicalization he gives his character, there’s not much he can otherwise do with it. In the end, I had more fun seeing familiar faces pop up in small roles; Richard B. Shull, Dick Miller, Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel and Christopher Guest all pop up. Ultimately, the movie is quite bad, but it is at least an offbeat curio.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Lisa and the Devil (1973)

LISA AND THE DEVIL (1973)
aka House of Exorcism, Lisa e il diavolo
Article 4329 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-7-2013
Directed by Mario Bava and Alfredo Leone
Featuring Telly Savalas, Elke Sommer, Sylva Koscina
Country: Italy / West Germany / Spain
What it is: Tale of the supernatural

A woman gets lost in a foreign city, and ends up staying with a strange family in a creepy home. And this family has its share of skeletons in its closet…

This movie came into my list under the alternate title THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM. I was originally going to watch a copy of the movie under that title that I had, but the print was in such poor shape that I opted to watch a streaming rental of it instead, and because I’d heard in advance of the compromises made to the movie in its initial release, I opted for the original version titled LISA AND THE DEVIL. For the record, the original movie was unable to find a distributor, and so footage was added to turn it into a “possession by the devil” movie similar to THE EXORCIST; it was that version that was released as THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM. For the record, I’m glad that I did; I don’t see how possession footage added to his movie would have done anything more than render it a piece of tripe.

Not that I find the original movie to be perfect; after a creepy opening section, I find much of the first half of the movie to be a little on the dull side, and the title character (Lisa, not the devil) is one of those characters whose sole purpose seems to scream when necessary; if her situation wasn’t nightmarishly captivating and she wasn’t easy on the eyes, I’d have no interest in her at all. However, the nightmare she is going through is indeed fascinating; some of the secrets and events are truly grotesque and even perverse. Then there’s an amazing performance from Telly Savalas, who, though on the surface appears as the family’s manservant, is probably the other title character (the devil, not Lisa). His reactions are unexpected, often humorous, and quite unsettling. It’s one of the best performances I’ve seen from him. The whole story itself is made from some very familiar elements, but they’re assembled in a creative way, and I like the movie enough that I’ll even forgive it’s rather pat final twist. I’m really glad I opted for this original version.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Hercules in New York (1969)

HERCULES IN NEW YORK (1969)
Article 4328 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-6-2013
Directed by Arthur Allan Seidelman
Featuring Arnold Stang, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Deborah Loomis
Country: USA
What it is: Fish out of water story

Much to Zeus’s anger, Hercules leaves Olympus and goes down to Earth after many centuries of inactivity. He ends up in modern New York and befriends a pretzel salesman.

You know, the concept of sticking Hercules in modern times might make for an interesting comic idea; the trouble is, despite the fact that there is some humor in the movie, it more or less takes itself seriously. Granted, I’m not sure that, with the talent involved, making it a comedy would have helped; the comic moments are as flat as the rest of the movie. It’s unimaginitively directed, most of the acting is poor, there’s nothing fun in the special effects department, and the movie just limps along from one setpiece to another until it ends. It’s more interesting for its trivia value; it was Arnold Schwarzenegger’s first movie, and because he was an unknown, he was billed as Arnold Strong so that it would fun to see the name billed next to Arnold Stang’s. His accent was considered too thick to be understood, so he was dubbed on the released print; the undubbed print is available, though. The most fun I had during the movie was seeing a poster for a movie called HERCULES AGAINST THE MONSTER, because I couldn’t help noticing that the monster that appears on the poster is Godzilla; now there would be a movie to see. There also seems to be a little controversy on one point; does John Candy make an appearance in the movie? Some people insist that he isn’t, but all I know is that early in the movie, an actor who resembles and sounds like him says a couple of lines; he’s not listed in the cast, though. Incidentally, I had the choice of watching the version with Schwarzenegger dubbed or undubbed; I chose the dubbed for this viewing.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Yolanda and the Thief (1945)

YOLANDA AND THE THIEF (1945)
Article 4327 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-5-2013
Directed by Vincente Minnelli
Featuring Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Frank Morgan
Country: USA
What it is: Musical

An American con man hiding out in a fictional South American country decides to swindle an heiress by pretending to be her guardian angel. But he doesn’t reckon with love showing up…

Let’s talk plot logic for a minute. You have a girl who is going to be the heiress of a large fortune and the head of the biggest business in the country. In preparation for this responsibility, she is raised in a convent away from the world for twelve years, and the only business advice she is given is to trust in her guardian angel. All I can say is that whoever came up with that plan fully deserves to have the fortune lost to the first con man that comes along.

I could go on in this vein, but let me just sum up now by saying that the story is silly, trite and unbelievable. Still, that’s not necessarily a fatal problem; after all, this is a musical, and one of the specialties of the musical form is to take pieces of fluff like this and bring them to life. And I will say this about the movie; it certainly does that; in fact, it not only brings it to life, it jolts it with so much sugar and caffeine that the resulting rush is almost hallucinatory at times. This is one weird movie, especially during a dream sequence in which Fred Astaire has to deal with such things as being held prisoner by a gang of washerwomen, lighting the eight cigarettes of an eight-armed man, and watching a horseless horse race. This is one of those movies where I’m often enthralled and appalled at the same time; there are times where I’m blown away by the beautiful Technicolor spectacle of the costumes and the sets while being horrified at the way they’re used in such excess. In a similar way, I find it hard to reconcile the way it juxtaposes incredibly naivete with strong sexual undercurrents, particularly during Yolanda’s bath sequence. I can see why the movie was a box-office failure; it was probably too much for the audiences of the time. However, I am willing to bet that this one has a cult following of some sort.

As for the fantastic content, on top of having a mythical country of Patria where the action takes place, there’s the whole plot involving the con man pretending to be a guardian angel. Given the type of movie it is, I’m not surprised ultimately that before it’s all over, the heiress’s real guardian angel shows up. Still, I might have classified it as a fantasy even without these elements; one of the first impressions I got from the visuals in the opening scenes is that wherever this movie took place, it was certainly nowhere in the real world.

For me, the movie has at least one huge flaw; it’s a musical featuring Fred Astaire and you have to wait at least forty minutes before he does his first dance. That is a crime in itself.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Halloween II (1981)

HALLOWEEN II (1981)
Article 4326 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-4-2013
Directed by Rick Rosenthal
Featuring Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasence, Charles Cyphers
Country: USA
What it is: Slasher sequel

Michael Myers is still alive and killing anyone who stands in his way. Can Laurie Strode survive another encounter with this killer?

One of the things I felt about the original movie in this series (which basically kicked off the whole slasher craze) was that it was actually quite a bit of fun in the way it set forth its thrills; it just seemed like a wonderful movie for Halloween. Well, one of the earlier scenes in this sequel has a mother bringing her little boy to the hospital because he’s got a razor blade stuck in his mouth, no doubt the result of someone planting one in a candy bar. That’s the sort of event that can really take the fun out of Halloween… and, unfortunately, that event became something of a metaphor for my reaction to this movie. It’s bloodier, and the body count is higher; I’m sure some people would consider these as plusses. But the surprises are gone, and the suspense and thrills are lacking; if the original kicked off the whole slasher cycle, this one is just another slasher movie. Jamie Lee Curtis can’t really help much in this one; she’s given little more to do than project terror and fear, and though she’s good at it, it’s still a one-note affair. For me, the best thing about this one is Donald Pleasence, whose character Dr. Loomis is a piece of work; you’re never sure just how sane he is. Overall, I suppose it’s passable for an entry in the slasher genre, and there are a couple of decent moments, but I have to admit that for me, the fun wasn’t there.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Godzilla vs. Hedorah (1971)

GODZILLA VS. HEDORAH (1971)
aka Godzilla vs the Smog Monster, Gojira tai Hedora
Article 4325 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-3-2013
Directed by Yoshimitsu Banno
Featuring Akira Yamauchi, Toshie Kimura, Hiroyuki Kawase
Country: Japan
What it is: Monster mash with a message

When a creature that thrives on pollution manifests itself, Godzilla sets out to destroy it.

This title from the Godzilla series is considered by many to be one of the worst of the series. Part of this, no doubt, is due to the silliness of the original American title, but part of it may also be the streaks of preachiness and pretentiousness that pervade the movie. I myself don’t consider it the worst; there are others I like far less due to their uninspired recycling of cliches, and this one at least has the novelty of having been a change of stylistic direction for the series, no doubt due to the direction of Yoshimitsu Banno. Still, it misses as often as it hits. The movie eschews the use of the famous Akira Ifukube themes, and the results are mixed. The fight scenes mostly have no music, and this is quite effective, but the music that does pop up is either forgettable or actively annoying; Godzilla’s new theme would be more appropriate for big, stupid buffoon than for the King of the Monsters, and the theme song, which I’ve never liked in the first place (especially in the English version where the lyrics are atrocious) is overused. I love the design of Hedorah, there’s some very creative editing, I like the animated segments, but the anti-pollution theme is pretty overbearing; there are far too many shots of polluted oceans. The movie is one of the most horrific in its display of human death since the original movie in the series, but it lacks the grief that makes this sort of thing poignant. The worst moment for me in the movie is the scene where Godzilla flies; it’s neither a good idea nor well done. Nevertheless, the movie has a moment near the end that I’ve always loved, and it’s when Godzilla turns his gaze on some of the humans present, who react in fear as to what he’s going to do to them. I like this moment because it’s one of the only times that I’ve seen Godzilla acknowledge the humans that he usually ignores, and one senses the accusing nature of the look as if he’s holding us responsible for Hedorah. That is perhaps why I’ve always had a fondness for this one.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Evil Dead (1981)

THE EVIL DEAD (1981)
Article 4324 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-2-2013
Directed by Sam Raimi
Featuring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor
Country: USA
What it is: Bloody mayhem

A group of friends staying in a deserted cabin discover an evil Sumerian book that summons demons to possess them all.

I’ve been curious about this movie for some time, and I’m glad to finally have gotten a chance to see it. It’s easy to see why Sam Raimi went on to a successful directorial career; he has a definite sense of style, knows how to use sound effectively, and keeps the pace going at a frantic pace. It’s also easy to see why Bruce Campbell became such a popular cult actor as a result of his work here; much of the movie deals with him being on the only remaining human character, and he does a great job in keeping you involved with his predicament. The movie is often creatively audacious in the way it plays with, subverts, and sometimes succumbs to cliches; you’re never quite sure which way it’s going to go. And there’s something fascinating about the way it employs its nonstop barrage of gore effects. Nevertheless, it never quite becomes “the ultimate experience in grueling horror” that it claims to be; it’s merely one of the most outrageously excessive. It’s so over-the-top that it never really becomes believable; you’re in a (particularly gruesome) funhouse, and you know it. Maybe it’s no surprise that the sequel moved into the direction of comedy; with some of the stuff that happens in this one, it veers pretty close to being comic itself.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Frankenstein Island (1981)

FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND (1981)
Article 4323 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-1-2013
Directed by Jerry Warren
Featuring Robert Clarke, Steve Brodie, Cameron Mitchell
Country: USA
What it is: Horror hodgepodge of gross ineptitude

Four balloonists find themselves stranded on an island that is being used for unholy experiments.

When I covered 2 + 5 MISSION HYDRA and A*P*E, I mentioned that both films were part of an unholy trio of movies that became notorious initiation standards in a bad movie watching group I ran called “The Exposed Film Society”. This was the third, and it marks the cinematic swan song of Jerry Warren, my own personal choice for the worst director of all time.

Most of Jerry Warren’s movies are what I would classify as snoozefests; they’re long-winded, incoherent, and devoid of interesting events. In the mid-sixties, he discovered the swinging sixties action sequence, and though he proved utterly inept at them, it did at least add a smidgen of interest factor to his work, which became laughingly bad rather than sleep-inducing, and I suppose this might be called an improvement. The movie that resulted at that time was THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN; a lawsuit followed, and it would prove to be Warren’s last film for many years.

I wonder how long the idea for FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND germinated; it has the air of having been cobbled together from fifteen years of story ideas. It’s a very loose remake of the director’s own TEENAGE ZOMBIES, and on top of having zombies (most of whom seem to resemble Elton John), it incorporates the Frankenstein legend, references to the Dracula story, a race of bikini-clab Amazon extraterrestrials, the extension of life, communications from the dead, arty psychedelic touches with Freudian undertones, black magic, Poe obsessions, disembodied brains, and strange pains induced by the mention of other places that is supposed to be similar to telepathy (or so the dialogue tells me). Throw in such touches as an annoying laughing man, a toy devil’s pitchfork that induces vampirism, a rotating pink ammo box and random appearances of the ghost of John Carradine talking about power and the golden thread, and you have a working definition of movie clutter. Trying to make a coherent whole of this mess would have taxed the best writers, directors and editors in the world; with Jerry Warren in all three capacities, the result is some of the most ambitious low-budget ineptitude to make it to the screen. Though the movie has several genre name actors, most of them seem lost and confused, and who can blame them; only Cameron Mitchell seems to maintain focus, and even his character (a captive sea captain mourning his lost Lenore) is so contrived that it’s a losing battle. It’s all topped off with an ending which recycles one of the worst cliches of all time, and the lab fight may be the single worst action sequence of all time.

Yes, I’ve seen it several times; in its own way, it’s something of a marvel. I just make sure not to try and figure it out; that would only give me a headache.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

The Flesh and Blood Show (1972)

THE FLESH AND BLOOD SHOW (1972)
Article 4322 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-30-2013
Directed by Pete Walker
Featuring Ray Brooks, Jenny Hanley, Luan Peters
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Homicidal maniac on the loose

A troupe of actors are called together to put together an improvisational show at an old rarely-used theater on a pier. Then someone begins knocking off the actors one by one…

Before I started this series, I’d never even heard of Pete Walker. My first encounter with him was with the movie FRIGHTMARE, a movie so savagely horrific that I mentally marked him as a director to reckon with. This movie marks my fourth encounter with him, and I’m beginning to think that FRIGHTMARE was the exception rather than the rule. The title may be the best thing about it, as it seems to promise sex and mayhem in equal doses; as it is, there’s a lot more flesh than blood here, and more of people standing around talking than either one of them. The movie suffers from a bevy of uninteresting characters, a general lack of suspense, and a sense of obviousness; you’ll probably be connecting the dots a lot earlier than the movie does if you haven’t already been lulled into a state of apathy. This is the most disappointing movie of Walker’s that I’ve seen, but then again, it’s also the earliest one of his that I’ve seen; perhaps he needed to hone his craft a bit.

0 CommentsLeave a comment

Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972)

DR. PHIBES RISES AGAIN (1972)
Article 4321 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 9-29-2013
Directed by Robert Fuest
Featuring Vincent Price, Robert Quarry, Valli Kemp
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Campy horror sequel

After three years, Dr. Phibes arises from his tomb with a plan to bring his beloved wife back to life… and he won’t let anyone stand in his way.

The common view of this film is that it is the inferior sequel to THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES. Still, I have to count myself in that minority of people who like it better than the original. No doubt part of the reason is that I saw the sequel first, and after experiencing its campy floridness and over-the-top stylish excesses, I found the original to be somewhat on the dry side. Vincent Price gets a lot more dialogue in the sequel, and I love to hear him talk (though admittedly, much of what he says is redundant). The cops are, if anything, even more dimwitted here than they are in the original, and for me, the most nightmarish murder occurs in the sequel (the one with the scorpions). The sequel gives me more of a hint as to how the character would work in a continuing series of movies, and I would gladly gladly trade ten sequels to FRIDAY THE 13TH for a couple more Dr. Phibes movies. I won’t deny it has its fair share of flaws; in particular, I couldn’t help but notice this time that the script is more than a bit threadbare. Still, when I want to experience a Dr. Phibes movie, this is the one I’m likely to choose. My favorite joke is one that I didn’t catch until a third or fourth viewing; when one of the policemen suggests that they need a ram to open a door, notice where the other policemen looks.

0 CommentsLeave a comment