The Intruder (1981)

THE INTRUDER (1981)
Article 3850 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-18-2012
Posting Date: 2-28-2012
Directed by David F. Eustace
Featuring Tony Fletcher, Pita Oliver, Gerard Jordan
Country: Canada
What it is: Mysticism

A tall, dark stranger arrives in a small town with the intent of putting on a presentation of some kind. How will it effect the members of the town, who deal with their daily sins, temptations and crimes, large and small?

IMDB classifies the movie as “horror”, but, despite the fact that the movie acts ominous on occasion, it really isn’t. It’s more of a fantasy, and if I had to pick a movie that might have served as a model for this one, it would be 7 FACES OF DR. LAO. Unfortunately, this one is more abstract and harder to pin down; when the key term for what the stranger brings to town involves the term “self-actualization”, you know you’re in a vague area that’s more likely to be navigated by psychologists and mystics rather than the general public. The first two-thirds of the movie is primarily concerned with setting up all of the various relationships and situations; we then have the stranger’s presentation, followed by the final part of the movie, where we see what impact the presentation has on those who attended it. As far as I can tell, the stranger’s gift is that he endows the characters with the focus to “be who they are going to be”, which is probably why not everyone has their personal problems solved. It’s interesting and offbeat, but it’s also somewhat unfocused and doesn’t make much sense on occasion; I have no idea what the whole business with the tree is about. Ultimately, I don’t think the movie really works, but I’ll give it some credit for trying something different.

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The Final Eye (1982)

THE FINAL EYE (1982)
aka Computercide
TV-Movie
Article 3849 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-17-2012
Posting Date: 2-27-2012
Directed by Robert Michael Lewis
Featuring Joe Cortese, Tom Clancy, Susan George
Country: USA
What it is: Science fiction mystery

In the future, the last remaining private eye undertakes an investigation for a woman who claims that a hospitalized man that is believed to be her father is actually not; he’s twenty years too young. In order to find the truth, he and the woman pretend to be married artists to infiltrate a private paradise community with a secret.

I can’t get a confirmation of this, but I’m willing to bet this was an intended pilot for a TV series; not only did it not result in a series, but this pilot sat on the shelf for five years before even getting shown on network TV. I’m not surprised. As a potential TV series, the premise is flimsy but not unworkable; however, the pilot itself is pretty weak. It’s not the acting, which is fairly decent, and it’s not the writing, which is passable; it’s the production itself that is at fault. It’s an action/suspense premise with little action and no suspense, at least partially because the whole movie takes a sort of wry comic tone that is at odds with any sense of tension; the movie seems to slowly lope from one not-quite-funny scene to another. It certainly doesn’t help that the theme music resembles the theme from the TV series “Get Smart”; if you’re going to try to conjure up something like that, you’d better be a lot funnier than this one is. In the end, the movie just never becomes more compelling than a half-smile is; as a series, it would have died on the vine. In the end, Donald Pleasence steals the movie if for no other reason than he’s Donald Pleasence, but let’s face it, it really didn’t take much.

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The Adventures of Ultraman (1981)

THE ADVENTURES OF ULTRAMAN (1981)
Feature version of edited episodes of “Za Urutoraman”
Article 3848 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-16-2012
Posting Date: 2-26-2012
Directed by Nagayuki Toriumi and Takeyuki Kanda
Featuring the voices of Gary Morgan, Sean Reilly, Buck Kartalian
Country: Japan
What it is: Space opera

A military task force finds themselves faced with an invasion from an intergalactic tyrant. Can even Ultraman face such a dangerous foe… or is it possible that Ultraman may bring forth even greater help?

For some reason, this movie does not have a listing on IMDB, though its sequel (which is cut from the same cloth) is listed. When I first was able to find this movie, I was disappointed to find that the TV series was animated; I’ve seen the original series from the sixties, and for me, much of the charm came from the fact that it was live action. As I actually watched this movie, I was also surprised to discover that the story was more of a big space opera rather than a series of monster encounters, but I suspect that this was due to the fact that this movie was edited from the last four episodes of the series, which delves into Ultraman’s origins and provided a big climax to the series; if the series description on IMDB is correct, most of the series involved the usual monster antics. Only one monster appears in this movie, and it’s not until near the end of the movie. It’s limited animation anime, with lots of explosions and silly dialogue. For what it is, it’s passable enough, I suppose, but I still miss the live-action charm of the original series.

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Cruise Into Terror (1978)

CRUISE INTO TERROR (1978)
TV-Movie
Article 3847 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-15-2012
Posting Date: 2-25-2012
Directed by Bruce Kessler
Featuring Dirk Benedict, Frank Converse, John Forsythe
Country: USA
What it is: Evil incarnate at work

A ship finds itself stranded in the Gulf of Mexico near an underwater tomb built by the Egyptians many years ago… and containing a sarcophagus of terrible evil.

Well, the premise is pretty far-fetched, but that hasn’t necessarily been a stumbling block for movies of this ilk before. However, the script suffers from an appalling lack of subtlety. It’s one of those scripts where you feel the author had some interesting ideas about the various character relationships, but had no idea how to express those relationships in other than the most ham-handed ways possible. Problems like this don’t seem fatal at first, but when it persists throughout a whole movie, it does make the affair very tiresome, and the movie wears out its welcome long before it’s over. In the end, the movie is stolen by Stella Stevens, if for no other reason than that she’s very easy on the eyes. Still, this is one movie that could have been better than it is.

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Picnic at Hanging Rock (1975)

PICNIC AT HANGING ROCK (1975)
Article 3846 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-14-2012
Posting Date: 2-24-2012
Directed by Peter Weir
Featuring Rachel Roberts, Vivean Gray, Helen Morse
Country: Australia
What it is: A puzzle and a tragedy

During a picnic to a natural landmark called Hanging Rock, several girls and a governess vanish without a trace.

Is it a horror movie? If you’re expecting monsters, gore, and violence, then no, it isn’t. But if you’re expecting encounters with the inexplicable, then it is. I’ll tell you at the outset that no explanation is ever found for the disappearance of the girls and the governess, but I don’t see that as a spoiler; the movie isn’t really about the solving of a mystery, but rather it’s about how the lack of any solution impacts all those connected with the girls and the disappearance. There are hints that something unearthly has happened to them, and even if the movie doesn’t make clear exactly what has happened, there is a sense of real dread that grows out of the sexual repression of the era. That repression plays a big role in the proceedings; there are two characters who potentially might know what actually happened, but if they did, they wouldn’t be able to find a way to express it in this repressive world. It’s an art film in many ways, and it prefers subtlety and silence, but if you can respond to it, it’s a gripping and fascinating movie. It’s one of my very favorites.

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La mujer y la bestia (1959)

LA MUJER Y LA BESTIA (1959)
aka The Woman and the Beast
Article 3845 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-13-2012
Posting Date: 2-23-2012
Directed by Alfonso Corona Blake
Featuring Ana Luisa Peluffo, Carlos Cores, Ruben Rojo
Country: Mexico
What it is: Psycho killer thriller

A doctor and a nurse get involved with a series of knife killings. Could the murderer be the nurse’s insane sister who has recently escaped from an asylum?

I had to get the plot from another source since my copy of the movie was in unsubtitled Spanish; I wasn’t quite able to figure out certain details of the story without it. As is often the case, there is a lot of talk in the movie, but there are some interesting visual moments that help make the viewing process more interesting. The most interesting visual touch is that the murders all take place near the railroad, and the train has such a striking visual presence that it almost becomes a character in the story, with its belching forth of smoke and its whistle going off at crucial moments in the story. There’s at least one major plot twist that you should be able to get if you’re armed with the plot description above. Overall, the movie looks to be only average, though it does seem a little better produced than a lot of Mexican horror movies. Still, there are definite high points here.

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Class of 1999 II: The Substitute (1994)

CLASS OF 1999 II: THE SUBSTITUTE (1994)
Article 3844 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-12-2012
Posting Date: 2-22-2012
Directed by Spiro Razatos
Featuring Sasha Mitchell, Caitlin Dulany, Nick Cassavetes
Country: USA
What it is: Carnage

A substitute teacher turns out to be the last remaining android of a line designed to teach in schools… and who see the students as the enemy and will stop at nothing to destroy them.

Here I take another unexpected leap into the nineties with a sequel to a movie I have yet to see. In fact, if IMDB is correct, the original (CLASS OF 1999) was a sequel to CLASS OF 1984, which I also haven’t seen. At any rate, it’s one of those movies that primarily feature three types of character; victims, people who threaten them, and the people who kill the ones that threaten the victims. There’s lots of explosions, lots of gunplay, the occasional post-kill one-liner, people who should be dead still wandering around so we can see them killed again, lots of people doing stupid things so that we can maximize the carnage, and a stupid twist ending. It’s the type of movie that makes me understand why science fiction movies are now lumped in with action movies in the stores where you can buy DVDs. I hope the earlier movies in the series have more substance than this one does.

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Mother’s Day (1980)

MOTHER’S DAY (1980)
Article 3843 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-11-2012
Posting Date: 2-21-2012
Directed by Charles Kaufman
Featuring Nancy Hendrickson, Deborah Luce, Tiana Pierce
Country: USA
What it is: Psycho killer with touches of satire

Three female college roommates get together for a reunion/mystery weekend and camp out in the wilderness, where they are abducted by a family of psychos, whose matriarch has taught her sons to murder, rape and torture for her enjoyment.

Most horror movies of this era with holidays for titles were slasher films, but this one kind of falls somewhere between THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT with touches of satire sprinkled into the mix. I remember it was somewhat reviled in its time, and I can see why; the attempts at humor juxtaposed with the brutality and suffering on display is an uneasy mixture to swallow, and since it’s another example of the victims turning the tables on their captors and employing equally violent means in the process, it’s in a very manipulative subgenre which is both seductive and repellent. My own take on the movie is that it doesn’t really work, largely because the attempt at satire doesn’t seem to have a real point to it; for example, it fails to really establish why the pop-culture obsessions of the psychos has any real bearing on their madness. It does manage to successfully pull the manipulative strings at times, but that’s not too difficult with this type of story. The final twist is unnecessary and rather stupid.

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Child’s Play (1984)

CHILD’S PLAY (1984)
Feature Length episode of “Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense”
Article 3842 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-9-2012
Posting Date: 2-19-2012
Directed by Val Guest
Featuring Mary Crosby, Nicholas Clay, Debbie Chasan
Country: UK
What it is: Lateral thinking movie

A family wakes up to discover that their house is surrounded by an impenetrable wall.

I’ve taken to calling them “lateral thinking stories”. Basically, they’re stories that set up a totally inexplicable situation that is almost impossible to figure out, and the answer, hidden until the very end of the movie, hinges upon being made privy to the truth by looking at it from a perspective that is hidden to the main characters of the story. As a good example, think of “Six Characters in Search of an Exit” from THE TWILIGHT ZONE, and you’ll know the type of story I mean. The trouble is that once you’ve got it pegged that this is the type of story you’re watching, you’ll know when the explanation will come and you’ll know that you’ll just have to sit it out until then, so the burden really falls on the writers/actors/directors to do enough to hold your interest until then. That’s not too difficult when you’re watching an episode of a half-hour TV-series, but when your episode is feature length… well, to keep things short, let’s just say that I got pretty annoyed with the characters (especially with the obnoxious kid and the always-on-the-edge-of-hysteria wife) to make the wait much fun. And truth to tell, given the title of the story, I can’t say I was all that surprised by the final revelation. For the record, this episode has characters discovering logos on all sorts of things, and there’s slime dripping down the chimney; these might give you a hint if you’ve seen it before and can’t remember its name. It has a rating of 7.0 on IMDB, which leads me to believe that it has its fans, but for me, it was just a little too familiar.

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Cinderella 2000 (1977)

CINDERELLA 2000 (1977)
Article 3841 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-10-2012
Posting Date: 2-20-2012
Directed by Al Adamson
Featuring Catharine Burgess, Jay B. Larson, Vaughn Armstrong
Country: USA
What it is: Sexploitation Sci-Fi Musical

In the future, sex is allowed only by those chosen by computer to mate. A young woman with an evil stepmother and two evil stepsisters hopes to meet the man of her dreams and have the laws changed.

I found a version of this movie free on YouTube, though its 78 minute running time indicates that it has been cut by about 11 minutes, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what has gone by the wayside, especially since the movie originally had an X rating, while this version was rated R. Therefore, I’m really in no position to describe how well Al Adamson does as a director of softcore sex scenes, but given that the movie has a 2.4 rating on IMDB, I’m guessing he didn’t turn out to be a master of the form. For the rest, we have bad acting, stupid songs, threadbare production, and lame comedy. It wasn’t even the best softcore musical version of the story from that year, which you’d think might have been a small enough universe to have at least accomplished that.

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