Dawn of the Dead (1978)

DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978)
Article 3840 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-8-2012
Posting Date: 2-18-2012
Directed by George A. Romero
Featuring David Emge, Ken Foree, Scott H. Reiniger
Country: Italy / USA
What it is: Zombie apocalypse movie

Four people, trying to escape the onslaught of man-eating zombies, take refuge in a shopping mall.

On the surface, George Romero’s sequel to his classic NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD comes across as another take at the original story with the antes upped; it’s the same basic premise with fewer (but better trained) trapped humans and a more expansive setting (a shopping mall rather than an isolated house), with more gore and in color as well. What makes it a classic in its own right is that it takes a different tone; there’s are wicked streaks of humor and satire at play here, while the pristine shopping mall settings and the often ludicrous elevator music underscore its jaundiced look at consumerism. It’s not as intense or scary as the first movie, but it manages to take a fresh and fascinating look at the situation at hand and the world that is being created in its wake. It even had an ending that surprised me, though a different ending was at one time planned.

After I finished watching this movie (for the first time, I might add), I found myself checking the quotes on IMDB to see if it featured the line of the movie that will most stick with me. It wasn’t there, but for me, it was the most telling line of the film. I can’t remember the exact words, but it involves a character pondering as to “what has become of us”. It’s the type of line you’d expect from someone thinking about how brutal they’ve become in their battle for survival, but here, it’s about how they’ve take to petty squabbling when they feel relatively safe and secure. Somehow, the idea that the battle for survival makes them more human than they are when they are in idle comfort is a telling critique of human nature. All in all, I found this movie fascinating and satisfying.

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The Prophecies of Nostradamus (1974)

THE PROPHECIES OF NOSTRADAMUS (1974)
aka Nosutoradamusu no daiyogen, The Last Days of Planet Earth
Article 3839 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-7-2012
Posting Date: 2-17-2012
Directed by Toshio Masuda
Featuring Tetsuro Tanba, Toshio Kurosawa, Kaoru Yumi
Country: Japan
What it is: Disaster movie

A professor believes that a recent rash of ecological disasters fits in with the prophecies of Nostradamus… and that the end of the world is at hand.

Just from the titles, I was expecting a documentary of some sort, albeit one from Japan rather than from Sunn Classics. Instead, it’s an attempt at the ultimate disaster movie. For the record, I’ve seen the full 114 minute version in Japanese with subtitles instead of the dubbed pan-and-scan version; I’ve not heard good things about the latter, and the movie’s low rating of 4.8 on IMDB is probably at least partially due to this other version. However, even uncut and letterboxed, this is no classic; it’s perhaps the preachiest movie I’ve ever seen and has its share of silly moments. Still, it has some good moments amid the sound, the fury, and the chatter. Two of the scenes take the disasters on a despairingly human level (a fisherman tries to commit suicide by walking into the sea after the fish have all been poisoned, and a prospective grandfather becomes enraged when his first grandchild is born with genetic deformities), and it’s hard not to be effected by these scenes. There’s also at least one startling special effects sequence in which the sky becomes a large mirror reflecting the surface of the earth. There’s also a memorable sequence in a cave in New Guinea that will probably stick in the memory. Other scenes are just bizarre, such as the scene where a bunch of motorcyclists drive over a cliff, and the attempts to attach these sequences to quotes from Nostradamus will often leave you scratching your head. All in all, it’s just way too heavy-handed to be truly effective, and you may want to prepare yourself for a real fake-out at the end of the movie.

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Beiss mich, Liebling (1970)

BEISS MICH, LIEBLING (1970)
aka Bite Me, Darling; Love, Vampire Style
Article 3838 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-6-2012
Posting Date: 2-16-2012
Directed by Helmut Fornbacher
Featuring Eva Renzi, Patrick Jordan, Amadeus August
Country: West Germany
What it is: Horror comedy

A psychiatrist, jealous of the sexual escapades of the town’s new mailman, plots to kill him only to have his plans backfire.

Yes, it’s a vampire comedy (one of the alternate titles makes that clear enough), so why don’t I mention anything about vampires in my short plot description above? It’s because I generally limit any plot description I have to the first half of the movie, and this movie is a good three-quarters through before we get any vampire antics at all. The three-quarters mostly plays out like a bawdy comedy. My copy of the movie is in unsubtitled German, but the movie is one of those that uses a lot of visuals to tell its story, and if you know the premise, it’s pretty easy to follow. It really doesn’t seem to have much of a plot for the first half; it’s not until the psychiatrist begins his plans to kill the mailman that it seems to follow a story thread. Still, there are some plot points that are lost in the mix; I’m not quite sure why the psychiatrist becomes a vampire, though a scene where he discovers he has grown vampire fangs does seem to indicate that he is prone to it for one reason or another. The humor comes through even without subtitles, and though it’s hardly a great movie, it has its moments; my favorite has the vampire, denied access to his coffin, finding a substitute container for the night. Incidentally, I watched the 85 minute version, which is how it was originally shown in theaters; the longer 102 minute version had extra hardcore sex footage edited into it at a later time. My thanks to doctor kiss for this tidbit of info.

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A Place to Die (1972)

A PLACE TO DIE (1972)
Feature-length episode of British TV Series “Thriller”
Article 3837 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-5-2012
Posting Date: 2-15-2012
Directed by Peter Jefferies
Featuring Bryan Marshall, Alexandra Hay, John Turner
Country: UK
What it is: Small town with a secret…

A doctor takes over a practice in a small community. His lovely wife, recovering from a foot injury, is greeted with joy by the community because she fits the description of a woman in an old superstition. Unfortunately, that means the wife is in deadly peril…

For the second day in a row, I’m watching a movie in which the heroine is saddled with a limp. In yesterday’s movie, it was there to up the suspense factor by making it difficult for her to escape from her pursuer; here, it’s the Maguffin that drives the direction of the plot. Now, I’ve seen a number of episodes from the British TV series “Thriller” for this series, and a good number of them have been very marginal in terms of their genre content. That’s not so with this one; it falls clearly into horror territory, and fits in well with any assortment of movies involving people moving to strange and hostile towns that harbor deep, dark secrets, though it’s nice in this one that the villagers react with a strange joy and generosity that is perhaps even more unsettling than simple hostility. There are some problems with story logic in this one; for example, if you were trying to get answers to questions about the town’s secrets, would you really question the town’s weirdest character who also happens to be a mute? Despite the clumsiness, this is nevertheless one of the better episodes of the series, and it does feel genuinely creepy on occasion.

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Blood Song (1982)

BLOOD SONG (1982)
Article 3836 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-4-2012
Posting Date: 2-14-2012
Directed by Alan J. Levi
Featuring Donna Wilkes, Richard Jaeckel, Antoinette Bower
Country: USA
What it is: Psycho-killer movie

A teenage girl, recovering from a leg injury, begins having visions of a psycho having escaped from a mental institution and engaging in a series of murders. Unfortunately, everyone believes she’s just stressed out… but she’s destined to discover that these aren’t just dreams…

Given the year of this movie, I was expecting something more along the lines of a conventional slasher, and, yes, I do think there is a difference between psycho killer movies and slasher movies. For one thing, characters are usually better developed in psycho killer movies, and this one goes quite a ways in developing the heroine, so much so that you really become attached to her. There’s also an interesting love/hate relationship between her and her father (well played by Richard Jaeckel), and though it does seem extraneous at first, it sets up one of the most interesting scenes in the movie when he encounters the escaped psycho. Unfortunately, the script fumbles the character development of the psycho; he’s given a quirk (he likes to play the flute) and is given lots of psycho things to do, but he never feels like a real character and remains a hodgepodge of psychoses. Frankie Avalon does as well as he can with the character, but I’m afraid it required more acting chops than he had at his disposal. There are other touches I like in the movie; in particular, I like the way the movie sneaks in the explanation for the girl’s dreams without ever spelling it out. Unfortunately, the ending is one of those that tips the movie in the negative direction for me, because…
SPOILER
… I also believe there’s a difference between being artistically nihilistic and being just cruel and mean-spirited, and I’m afraid this one falls on the wrong side of the line.

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Paper Man (1971)

PAPER MAN (1971)
TV-Movie
Article 3835 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-3-2012
Posting Date: 2-13-2012
Directed by Walter Grauman
Featuring Dean Stockwell, Stefanie Powers, James Stacy
Country: USA
What it is: Thriller

Four students take advantage of a computer error that causes a credit card to be issued to a non-existent person named Henry Norman. When complications arise, they enlist the help of a computer expert to plant information about the non-existent man into a computer. But the non-existent man begins to take on a life of his own… and the deaths begin.

I remember the TV ads for this one; it looked a bit mysterious, but there was something about it that had the air that I would be disappointed by its fantastic content. Having watched it now, I know back then I would have been too young to appreciate it. However, that’s not to say that I’m totally thrilled by it now; it does have an intriguing premise, and the first two-thirds of the movie are fairly eerie, but I’m afraid I find the direction rather static and lifeless, and the script is uneven. The fantastic content has to do with the possibility of the computer actually creating a real entity from someone who only exists on paper, and though the movie eventually moves in things in a decidedly non-fantastic direction, it doesn’t quite let go of the fantastic content altogether; there’s one final twist before it’s all over. It’s interesting, if not quite successful.

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One Spy Too Many (1966)

ONE SPY TOO MANY (1966)
Feature version of two episodes of “The Man from U.N.C.L.E.”
Article 3834 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-2-2012
Posting Date: 2-12-2012
Directed by Joseph Sargent
Featuring Robert Vaughn, David McCallum, Rip Torn
Country: USA
What it is: Spy thrills, TV style

A latter-day Alexander the Great has a plan to take over the world while breaking the ten commandments. Napoleon Solo and Ilya Kuryakin are sent on a mission to defeat him.

Here’s another theatrical version of two episodes of “The Man From U.N.C.L.E.” grafted together, in this case, the two part story “The Alexander the Greater Affair”. The title, like ONE OF OUR SPIES IS MISSING, has absolutely nothing to do with the story. It starts out with a Gizmo Maguffin in the form of a special gas devised by the military designed to make enemies docile, but once the gas is stolen, it ceases to play any active part in the plot other than to be occasionally mentioned; this is pretty poor use of a Maguffin, if you ask me. Overall, this seems to be one of the weaker of these movies; it’s a lot heavier on the comedy, which often feels stale and forced, and the pacing is a bit too turgid for the action sequences to keep things interesting. Even a potentially interesting scene in an Egyptian architectural dig falls flat. There’s a few fantastic touches here and there, including a sequence where a mad scientist tries to turn Ilya Kuryakin into a mummy, but I really suspect that this worked a lot better as two episodes of a TV series than it does here.

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El misterio del rostro palido (1935)

EL MISTERIO DEL ROSTRO PALIDO (1935)
aka The Mystery of the Pallid Face
Article 3833 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-1-2012
Posting Date: 2-11-2012
Directed by Juan Bustillo Oro
Featuring Carlos Villarias, Beatriz Ramos, Natalia Ortiz
Country: Mexico
What it is: Mad experiments gone awry

An unbalanced scientist, obsessed with finding a cure for leprosy, takes his son on an expedition to study native medicines for a cure. Eight years later the scientist returns… and brings with him a strange man in a white mask.

Juan Bustillo Oro is apparently considered the father of Mexican horror for some of the films he made during the thirties. This one has a solid rating of 7.1 on IMDB, which seems to indicate that it’s pretty good, and I’m willing to bet it is if you can find a copy subtitled in English or can understand Spanish. Sadly, neither is the case with me, and though there are a few interesting visual moments, this is one of those movies that relies heavily on talk, especially during the first half. Still, Carlos Villarias (who played the title role in the Mexican version of Browning’s DRACULA) is memorable as a mad scientist; here he looks a bit like George Zucco. I was fortunate to to be able to find a plot description after I watched the movie to help me understand it a little, but I think it’s really going to take some good subtitles to make me appreciate this one. Maybe someday someone will release a set of Oro movies complete with subtitles; he does appear to have been a very interesting horror director.

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Night of the Cobra Woman (1972)

NIGHT OF THE COBRA WOMAN (1972)
Article 3832 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-31-2012
Posting Date: 2-10-2012
Directed by Andrew Meyer
Featuring Joy Bang, Marlene Clark, Roger Garrett
Country: USA / Philippines
What it is: Bizarre snake woman thriller

During World War II, a nurse is bitten by a rare snake that gives her eternal life as long as she gets a combination of sex and snake venom to keep her going. However, new problems arise when her snake is killed and her supply of venom stolen…

Though I would hardly call this a “good’ movie (it’s badly directed and some of the acting is awful), the movie has such a bizarre premise and a strange story line that it almost becomes fascinating despite itself. The story eventually degenerates into confusion, but there are some grotesquely interesting moments, such as the scene where the cobra woman sheds her skin like a snake. At times it almost comes across as a comedy, but that may be due to the awkward direction. In fact, the whole movie comes across as awkward in one way or another, but somehow that just adds a bit more to the fascination. And let’s face it; any movie that features an actress named Joy Bang and an actor named Slash Marks (the latter’s only movie) is one to be reckoned with. Probably the most familiar face to me here was Vic Diaz, who popped up in THE BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT. Strange, strange, strange.

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Battle Beyond the Stars (1980)

BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980)
Article 3831 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-30-2012
Posting Date: 2-9-2012
Directed by Jimmy T. Murakami and Roger Corman
Featuring Richard Thomas, Robert Vaughn, John Saxon
Country: USA
What it is: STAR WARS rip-off

When a peaceful planet is threatened by evil invaders, one of the residents escapes in a spaceship to gather mercenaries to do battle with the invaders.

Yes, it’s another ripoff of STAR WARS, but it’s probably the one I enjoy most of that type. I think the main reason is that it has a decent script from John Sayles, and just the right kind of star power to pull this sort of thing off. Given that George Lucas borrowed from Akira Kurosawa’s THE HIDDEN FORTRESS for his movie, I think it’s pretty fitting that Sayles borrows from another Kurosawa film – namely, THE SEVEN SAMURAI – for this one. It works because the mercenaries end up being a fairly interesting bunch, and the script is strong enough that neither the attempts at humor nor the attempts at pathos fall flat. If anything, it manages to be somewhat more adult than its model, especially with some of the bizarre and daring costumes they give to Sybil Danning. It’s silly at times, and the battle sequences are more confusing than entertaining, but the character bits will stay with me. My favorite line comes when a child asks the ruthless Mercenary Gelt (Robert Vaughn) if he was bad even when he was little, and he replies “I was never that little.”

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