Jekyll and Hyde… Together Again (1982)

JEKYLL AND HYDE… TOGETHER AGAIN (1982)
Article 3790 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-19-2011
Posting Date: 12-30-2011
Directed by Jerry Belson
Featuring Mark Blankfield, Bess Armstrong, Krista Erickson
Country: USA
What it is: Comedy

Brilliant surgeon Dr. Jekyll plans to give up surgery to concentrate on research in the hope of developing a drug that can increase the animal instinct of survival in human beings. He ends up addicted to a drug that turns him into a sex-starved maniac.

This parody of the Robert Louis Stevenson story is aggressive, energetic, and, with its obsession with sex, drugs and general crudeness, doesn’t allow anything like good taste stand in its way of getting a laugh. This would be all right if it actually accomplished its purpose, but, sadly, I didn’t laugh once. I’m not surprised it has a bit of a following; those who like general outrageousness, for example, will probably like this. I just wished it would pull back a little from the loud, obnoxious quality of the presentation; the movie seems to be working far too hard to get its laughs. As it is, the thing I like best about the movie is that the reason for Dr. Jekyll’s experiments seems to me to be one of the more convincing explanations for the research he’s doing, and that has little to do with the humor. The joke I found the funniest comes at the very end, and has to do with Robert Louis Stevenson’s grave, and I bet you can figure that out without seeing the movie. On a side note, the sexy nurse is none other than Elvira herself, Cassandra Peterson.

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The New House (1972)

THE NEW HOUSE (1972)
Pilot episode of “Ghost Story”
Article 3789 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-18-2011
Posting Date: 12-29-2011
Directed by John Llewelyn Moxey
Featuring David Birney, Barbara Perkins, Sam Jaffe
Country: USA
What it is: A ghost story, of course

A man and his pregnant wife move into a new house. The wife hears strange sounds and believes the place to be haunted. She discovers the house was built on the site of a gibbet, and that the last execution there was from a young woman who was also buried on the site. Could this woman be haunting the house?

So why am I covering an episode of a TV show that isn’t even feature length? According to the John Stanley book, there was a TV-Movie called DOUBLE PLAY, which featured pilot episodes for two series – this one, and the one from the show “Movin’ On”. Why these two shows were combined in a single movie is beyond me; the other show was about two truckers and apparently had no fantastic content. Given that IMDB does not have a listing for DOUBLE PLAY, I chose to represent it in my hunt list by the episode from “Ghost Story”. When the pilot episode showed up within easy reach of me (I found it on YouTube), I did a similar search for the “Movin’ On” episode and came up blank. I made an executive decision; instead of holding up my review to find an episode of a TV show that had no fantastic content and that I wasn’t particularly keen on hunting down in the first place, I decided to watch the one with the fantastic content and be done with it. Yes, I suppose I’m cheating a little, but it’s not the first time.

The show itself was produced by William Castle (and I believe I caught him in a cameo early on) and was an anthology series, with a different story each week. If the ratings on IMDB are a gauge, this one was of average quality for the series. I wasn’t particularly impressed with it myself; the setup of the story seemed pretty rote to me, the attempts to add suspense seemed hackneyed (you know, where they try to make the final scenes scarier by having it take place during a thunderstorm) and the final twist was a little more silly to me than scary. Still, it might be interesting to see a few other episodes of the series just to see if they do something more with the framing sequences featuring Sebastian Cabot. As it is, I can’t place this episode on the same level as William Castle’s better movies.

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The Island at the Top of the World (1974)

THE ISLAND AT THE TOP OF THE WORLD (1974)
Article 3788 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-16-2011
Posting Date: 12-28-2011
Directed by Robert Stevenson
Featuring David Hartman, Donald Sinden, Jacques Marin
Country: USA
What it is: Adventure story

A tycoon from the turn of the century sets out an expedition by airship to find his missing son, who is believed to be in a legendary island in the Arctic regions.

As entertainment, this movie works well enough. It has a nice pace, keeps the action moving, and keeps from being boring. It is, however, just what you’d expect from a Disney adventure movie from the period; it has touches of silly cuteness (such as the comic relief Eskimo character and the French poodle) and a strong degree of predictability; you know, for example, that every time one of the heroes seems to have come to a bad end, that they’re not really dead and will show up to save the day at some point in the story later on. The special effects are usually good enough to pass muster, though they’re probably at their dodgiest during the trek through a volcanic valley. And, of course, there’s that air that this is all just a movie and not to be taken too seriously. There’s a mythical island of Vikings and a whale graveyard for the fantastic content. In short, it’s entertaining, but rather devoid of surprises.

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The Elephant Man (1982)

THE ELEPHANT MAN (1982)
TV-Movie
Article 3787 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-15-2011
Posting Date: 12-27-2011
Directed by Jack Hofsiss
Featuring Phillip Anglim, Kevin Conway, Penny Fuller
Country: USA
What it is: Photographed stage play

A horribly deformed man is taken in by a doctor who hopes to help him live a life of normalcy.

Though I have a great affection for the David Lynch movie version of the John Merrick story, I did have one problem with it that I mentioned when I covered that movie, and that is that every once in a while it tries just a little bit too hard to tug the heartstrings. That is not a problem with this version of the story, which strives for subtlety and comes across as more realistic and less fanciful than the Lynch version. Granted, it is a photographed stage play, and though the camera does more than just plant itself in one spot and record a performance, it does come across as drier, less cinematic, and talkier. Nonetheless, the talk is good and often very clever, it delves a little deeper into certain issues that the movie avoids (such as Merrick’s sexuality), and is equally powerful in its own way. Of course, the two versions do have a lot in common; in particular, they both deal with the possibility that the title character is ultimately being used in the same way by the doctor and the hospital as the showman did. I’m glad I’ve seen both versions, and I would watch either one again. My favorite moment in this one is when the actress decides that she is going to shake John Merrick’s right hand.

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Greaser’s Palace (1972)

GREASER’S PALACE (1972)
Article 3786 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-14-2011
Posting Date: 12-26-2011
Directed by Robert Downey Sr.
Featuring Allan Arbus, Albert Henderson, Michael Sullivan
Country: USA
What it is: Comic western Biblical allegory

A man parachutes down into the old west so he can go to Jerusalem and become a singer/dancer/actor. On the way he heals the sick, raises the dead, and walks on water. However, he discovers that his most popular method of entertainment is very different…

Once again we have an art movie that becomes a de facto fantasy because there’s no other real place to put it. Some of the reviews and comments I read on it compare it to one of the works by Alexandro Jodorowsky, and it’s easy to see why; it pretty much is mining the same surreal demented vision of the old west as EL TOPO. It’s an allegory on the Christ story, with the character of Jessy being Jesus, and several other characters are clearly stand-ins for other characters from the Gospels; I’ll give you one guess who the guy in the white sheet is supposed to be. It’s a bit tempting to want to dismiss it as a self-indulgent mess, but I can’t do that; some of the metaphors work well enough to make me wonder if I’m not just getting some of the others, and there are moments where it’s just sincere enough that I can’t quite see it as a complete joke. I’m not familiar with most of the cast by name, but there are a few that I recognize, such as Luana Anders, Toni Basil, and Herve Villechaize; the scene where the last of these actors flirts with Allan Arbus is probably one that will forever stick in my memory (albeit unwillingly). For me, the most amazing moment in the movie came when I finally figured out the metaphor of the woman who spends most of the movie dying horribly. Strange, strange, strange, and despite the religious themes, it’s probably not going to play in any church basements anytime soon.

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Images (1972)

IMAGES (1972)
Article 3785 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-13-2011
Posting Date: 12-25-2011
Directed by Robert Altman
Featuring Susannah York, Rene Auberjonois, Marcel Bozzuffi
Country: UK / USA
What it is: Mind games

A housewife who can’t tell reality from fantasy finds herself dealing with three men, a young girl, and herself… but how many of them are real?

I suppose it’s no surprise that Robert Altman’s foray into horror would owe a lot more to REPULSION than to any more conventional horror movie. And I’m grateful that the movie lets us understand early on that this woman isn’t sane instead of saving it as a final revelation. I’m also not surprised that the movie, though not considered one of his best, is in general well regarded. However, one’s view of a movie can sometimes be affected by the movies one has seen in close conjunction with it, and I’m afraid that I’ve encountered this theme just a bit too recently to be ready for another encounter so soon. And though I admire some of the playfulness on the edges of this movie (the story that Susannah York’s character reads from throughout the movie was written by Susannah York herself, and the movie features an actress named Susannah playing a character named Cathryn, while an actress named Cathryn plays a character named Susannah, while the first names of each male actor matches the names of one of the other actors’ character), I’m afraid I found spending so much time in a madwoman’s mind to be a bit more tedious than I cared for. It’s well acted, and very interesting at times, but you really have to be in the mood for it to enjoy it.

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Death Dimension (1978)

DEATH DIMENSION (1978)
Article 3784 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-12-2011
Posting Date: 12-24-2011
Directed by Al Adamson
Featuring Jim Kelly, Harald Sakata, George Lazenby
Country: USA
What it is: Martial arts action flick

A criminal known as the Pig is in possession of a bomb that kills people by freezing them. However, he loses the plans when the inventor kills himself after having hidden the secret in a microdot hidden in his daughter’s forehead. A martial arts expert is sent out to investigate.

Here director Al Adamson shows he’s just as adept with the martial arts genre as he is with the other genres he’s worked in over the years. The science fiction aspect of the story is pure Gizmo Maguffin, and isn’t used after the unimpressive test in the opening scenes. From then on it’s an assortment of abysmal chase and fight scenes. Of the name actors, George Lazenby comes off best, whereas Aldo Ray is stuck in a bunch of bad scenes where he argues with Harold ‘Odd Job’ Sakata, as he’s billed here, and who has the villainous lead. Still, there’s a reason that Sakata is best known for a role in which he barely speaks a word; here he jabbers on constantly and exudes no menace when he opens his mouth. In fact, the final scenes where Jim Kelly has to pretend to be outclassed by the tired Sakata in a fight scene is just plain embarrassing. The movie also features an actor who has both the names Bruce and Lee in his moniker without it being Bruce Lee. At least Adamson’s horror movies had a little bit of fun to them.

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The House on Skull Mountain (1974)

THE HOUSE ON SKULL MOUNTAIN (1974)
Article 3783 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-11-2011
Posting Date: 12-23-2011
Directed by Ron Honthaner
Featuring Victor French, Janee Michelle, Jean Durand
Country: USA
What it is: Blaxploitation ‘old dark house’ movie with voodoo

Right before her death, a family matriarch sends for four great-grandchildren who don’t realize they are part of the family. They arrive in time for the woman’s funeral and await the reading of the will. Then they begin to die…

We’ve had blaxploitation vampires, Frankenstein monsters, and Mr. Hydes; why not an “old dark house” movie as well? Then throw some voodoo into the mix. Sadly, the script seems as if it was doing the bare minimum to bring the premise to life, and there are times when this movie seems to be an exercise in stretching out the undernourished script to feature length; there’s an endless driving sequence, one of those “romantic montages”, and a long voodoo ceremony to fill up running time. The first half is the weakest, because we also have to deal with an annoying and insensitive jive-talker who is fortunately the first to go; afterwards, the movie improves a little, though it doesn’t rise above the ordinary. There is, however, at least one striking visual that makes for the best moment in the movie; there’s a scene with a woman looking into a mirror that becomes juxtaposed with a skull that shows some momentary cinematic cleverness, and it almost makes the movie worth catching.

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Haunts (1977)

HAUNTS (1977)
Article 3782 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-10-2011
Posting Date: 12-22-2011
Directed by Herb Freed
Featuring May Britt, Cameron Mitchell, Aldo Ray
Country: USA
What it is: Starts out as a psycho on the loose movie, then…

A young woman who works on a farm becomes embroiled in a series of psychotic scissor murders.

If sheer unpredictability is an unmixed blessing, than this movie gets by; even knowing that there were plot twists coming down the pike, I was unable to see just which way the twists were going to go, and the final revelations were indeed unforeseen by me. Yet, in the end, I’m not sure I’m quite satisfied by the movie; there are moments when the movie feels more than a little silly, and there are moments where I feel the plot is careening out of control. But these are just moments, and meanwhile I can appreciate the acting from the three leads and the fact that the movie does seem intriguing at times. I think the dissatisfaction I have comes from the fact that there’s either something missing, or that something has been mishandled, but what it is escapes me. Still, I will say this much; a quick glance at some of the IMDB reviews gives me a movie to compare it to (which I won’t repeat here because, frankly, it gives away one of the major twists), and I don’t feel anywhere near the sharp vibe I do from that movie as I do with this one. At this point, I can only classify this one as a misfire with a question mark.

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Professor Zazul (1962)

PROFESSOR ZAZUL (1962)
aka The Mystery of Professor Zazul
Short
Article 3781 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 12-9-2011
Posting Date: 12-21-2011
Directed by Marek Nowicki and Jerzy Stawicki
Featuring Piotr Kurowski and Stanislaw Milski
Country: Poland
What it is: Intriguing enigma

A man wrecks his car and seeks help in the home of a mysterious professor who has a secret.

Here’s another movie I wish had English subtitles; it’s a fascinating little short that does some very interesting things with the flow of time and plays with dreams within dreams. I can’t quite figure it out, but the source where I found the movie says that robots play a part in the storyline, and that certainly seems likely at the point of a major revelation near the end of the movie. It’s based on a short story by Stanislaw Lem, and, like anything else I’ve seen that is based on his work, it makes me more and more interested in spending some time investigating his work. As it is, even though I couldn’t quite follow this short, I found it very interesting to look at throughout.

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