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Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012)
You get what you pay for!
It's the end of World War II. Amid a shootout between American soldiers and his own troops, Dr. Josef Mengele escapes Germany in a plane with something in a weird-looking machine. Flash forward to modern day Antarctica where scientists Paige and Mark are out on the ice drilling for core samples, when they uncover the (surprisingly well-preserved) Nazi plane Mengele escaped in.
Suddenly gas mask Nazis! The Nazis politely but firmly insist they come with them. And by politely I mean they clobber Mark and kidnap him and Paige, then throw a potato masher grenade to destroy the drill, the plane and the scientists' snowmobile. Except - it's an energy grenade! Boom! The evidence vanishes in a CGI explosion.
They awaken in a dark cell somewhere. Nazi soldiers in gas masks come and take Mark away, where he ends up strapped to a table with our pal Dr. Mengele (who hasn't aged a day!), who surgically removes his face because reasons.
Back at the scientists' base camp, we meet Paige's kinda sorta boyfriend, the flannel-shirted microbiologist Lucas, who butts heads with chief scientist, the very, very blonde Dr. Reistad (Jake Busey and his horse teeth) who is very much an ends-justifies-the-means kinda guy with a bad track record of losing his teams in reckless endeavors. The other scientists include Reistad's Norwegian mountain climber girlfriend Silje, Brian, Jewish scientist Blechman, curly-haired Rahul, May, and finally Angela.
When Paige and Mark don't report in, they all pile into a sno-cat an drive off looking for them. They find the destroyed plane and stuff and follow the footprints that their friends' kidnappers helpfully left for them, which end at a great wonkin' hole which they climb down.
Back in Nazi Land, Paige escapes her cell and discovers that Mark has been skinned (!) and his face has been transplanted onto Nazi soldier Hoederer. She's recaptured and Mengele is about to do something really nasty with a saw, until he realizes she's of German descent as well as a doctor, and is extremely interested in what she has to say about modern medicine.
Meanwhile, the others discover Nazi Land is at the center of the Earth (just like the title) and consists of a gigantic cavern with a jungle and a huge artificial sun. They head towards some buildings and go inside the first one they come across and get surrounded by Nazis in gas masks, and then Mengele appears with Paige in a Nazi uniform. She's one of them now! And so is Reistad! Who knew the jerkish blonde guy with the Teutonic name was gonna turn into a Nazi!
Mengele reveals he and his men are basically undead, kept alive by organ and tissue transplants, but they still keep rotting. He enlists the assistance of the captured scientists to help solve the problem of them decaying. Except Blechman. Upon learning he's Jewish, Mengele blasts him out of existence with his laser-firing Walther P38. 'Cause he's a dick like that.
Can the others escape?!
Ugh!
It's like Wolfenstein and Iron Sky had a twisted mutant baby. One without a decent budget. Containing such cheerful things as a fetal abortion with a vacuum cleaner, zombie gang-rape, and two scenes of someone having their face ripped off, plus Robo-Hitler (!), Jake Busey as a mad scientist, zombies melting from being injected with flesh-eating bacteria, and a laser-firing Walther P38 that completely disintegrates people. I dunno if the movie is offensive, stupid, hilarious, disgusting, or somehow crazy- awesome... or all of the above. Did I mention zombie gangbang?
The Phantom (1996)
Slam Evil!
The Bangalla Jungla. 1938. A group of men, led by the surly Quill, forces a young native boy to guide them to a cave deep in the jungle, despite the boy's protests that the area is forbidden, protected by a being known as "the ghost who walks." Quill's three men Styles, Breen and Morgan are skeptical but Quill knowingly rubs a scar on his cheek in the shape of a tiny skull and tells them not to worry about this "ghost."
Leaving the kid tied up in their truck, Quill and his men enter the cave, where they find a silver skull with green jewels for eyes. It quickly becomes apparent that this is what the men have come for. Despite a small setback (if you can call Styles being killed by a skeleton that inexplicably comes to life and strangles him a "small setback"), the crooks successfully exit with the skull and other ill- gotten loot, only to come face to face with the jungle's protector, a masked man in a purple body stocking astride a white stallion, accompanied by a ferocious wolf. No one is more terrified than Quill, who orders Breen to shoot the man. To their surprise and horror, the man, the "ghost who walks," shoots Breen's gun right out of his hand with a firearm of his own!
He is the Phantom. His horse: Hero. His wolf: Devil. He is the ghost who walks. And he protects the jungle.
The Phantom easily defeats and captures Breen and Morgan, and rescues the native boy, but Quill escapes with the silver skull. Turning the criminals over to the Jungle Patrol led by Captain Philip Horton, the Phantom returns to his cavern lair and seeks the guidance of his father's spirit. Through him, he learns that the silver skull the looters came for is one of the mystical Skulls of Touganda. There are three - one made of silver, one made of gold, and one made of jade. If all three are brought together they'll produce a powerful supernatural force deadlier than any weapon known to mankind. And Quill still has it!
In New York, Diana Palmer visits her uncle, Dave Palmer, who owns the Tribune newspaper. She finds him butting heads with businessman Xander Drax, after which Drax is compelled to leave following insinuations he has ties to the mob. Dave reveals that he's learned through a source at the library that Drax has been researching the Skulls of Touganda. He wants to go to the Bangalla Jungle to talk to Captain Horton of the matter; however, due to his age, Diana decides to go in his stead. She boards a plane for the Orient the next day, unaware that crime boss Ray Zephro and his brother Charlie are watching her, and inform Drax of her departure.
After disposing of the librarian who spoke to Dave Palmer by tricking him into looking through a microscope that has knives come out of the eyepieces, Drax sends his all-female pilot corps to intercept Diana's plane. They force it down over the sea. Diana surrenders to the pilots' leader, Sala, to spare the other passengers, and is taken captive aboard Quill's ship. The Phantom learns of her abduction from Horton, and manages to rescue her. He still fails to recover the silver skull, though. After seeing her safely back to New York, the Phantom, realizing it is Drax who is the one who is behind everything, also heads to the Big Apple in an effort to prevent the ruthless businessman from obtaining any more of the magical skulls.
Quill and Sala have delivered the silver skull to Drax. Quill tells his boss about the Phantom, claiming to have encountered and killed him before, insisting the "ghost who walks" can't die. Drax is unconcerned because he knows the location of the jade one. Worse, when the first two are brought together they'll reveal the location of the third. And with the Zephro family and the corrupt Commissioner Farley at Drax's beck and call, the Phantom is going to have his hands full fighting evil in the big city...
Billy Zane as the Phantom makes a wonderfully charismatic and jolly hero, very much in the swashbuckling, old movie serial vein, whilst Treat Williams chews the scenery and spits it out as the villainous Drax, who simply loves being sadist and evil more than any villain I've ever seen. Kristy Swanson (the original Buffy!) is decent as Diana, while I find Catherine Zeta-Jones as Sala just plain annoying. The supporting cast is pretty good, particularly James Remar as Quill and Shang Tsung himself, Cary- Hiroyuki Tagawa, as the pirate lord Kabai Sengh, a prominent villain who doesn't show up until the end.
The locations and action sequences are good, and the sets are mostly decent except for the pirate lair at the end, which looks pretty fake. The Phantom's rescue of the native boy from the truck hanging off the collapsing bridge, the escape from Quill's ship in a biplane, the chase on horseback through New York, and the climactic swordfight with the pirates all excite and delight. Only the finale is a letdown, with the magical skulls' destructive power being pretty underwhelming, performance-wise.
Blood and gore is minimal. It has a few scary bits, such as the skeleton coming to life and killing Styles, but this is nothing that I haven't already seen in a Mummy movie. Drax's death is all special effects-y and more cartoonish than violent, and even the blinding of the librarian by the infamous killer microscope occurs entirely offscreen. Really, the most violent deaths are when we see a pretty brutal direct hit from a cannonball, and when someone gets eaten by sharks. Lots of blood there. But by and large it's all fairly tame.
Bottom line, The Phantom is fun. The type of superhero movie they don't make anymore.
The Hideous Sun Demon (1958)
Don't drink and do science!
The moral of this film is don't drink and do science at the same time! Alas, Gilbert McKenna had to learn this the hard way. He went to work at the radioactive isotope lab with a severe hangover, and, surprise, surprise, there was an accident. Poor Gil went and got himself exposed to a new type of isotope he and his colleagues were working on. He's rushed to the emergency room, but shows no immediate signs of injury. No burns on anything, thoroughly stumping the ER doctor. Ann Russell and Frederick Buckell, his aforementioned colleagues, are concerned about what kind of side effects exposure to their pet isotope may have.
We get to find out soon enough. While convalescing outside in the sun, Gil starts feeling a little... weird. He freaks the hell out and thoroughly terrifies some poor old biddy who'd joined him, and, realizing that he turns into a hideous sun demon when exposed to direct sunlight, he flees home and shacks up with lounge singer Trudy Osborne, in whose home he decides to hide. But, unfortunately for all concerned, Trudy has a jealous boyfriend, and said jealous boyfriend has a gun (whether it's a Colt or a Luger the editor apparently couldn't decide). He forces the competition outside at gunpoint, whereupon Gil promptly turns into the hideous sun demon and murders him (and of course he doesn't think of actually using the gun to defend himself), then escapes.
Lt. Peterson of the police and his men are soon hot on poor Gil's trail, despite the objections of Ann, Fred and their friend Dr. Hoffman, who may or may not be German. His accent can't decide. Ever the by-the-book cop (i.e. a talking plank of wood without a personality), Peterson is hellbent on hunting and killing Gilbert, sun demon or not. The thoroughly goofy pursuit sees Gil the monster kill some cops before one particularly tough officer chases him to the top of an oil tank in the middle of nowhere, where the hideous sun demon finally meets his ultimate foe: bullets and gravity.
Pure schlock, but I loved it.
Sergeant York (1941)
A very heartwarming tale of one man's journey towards betterment.
Alvin York is a good-for-nothing hoodlum in his Tennessee hometown. At least, that's what most of the townsfolk think. The most they ever really see of Alvin is when he and his buddies get boozed up and ride around hootin' and hollerin' on horseback, shooting their guns and generally being a dangerous nuisance.
But Alvin's mother knows the truth, that there is a different side to her son. His drinking problem and his violent temper aside, he's done a commendable job of looking after the York family ever since the death of his father, working their farm and pretty much singlehandedly taking care of his mother and his two younger siblings. He's also one of the finest sharpshooters in town. When he's sober, anyway. Unfortunately, the times when Alvin is sober are few and far between lately.
Desperate, Mrs. York asks their cousin, local preacher Pastor Rosier Pile, to try and talk some sense into her hellraising son. It doesn't go so well - Alvin isn't in much of a mood to listen. During one of his rare moments of sobriety, Alvin meets and falls in love with local girl Gracie Williams, but his brutish and antagonistic nature, including beating up and driving off a fellow suitor, aren't exactly endearing him to her. Not quite getting the hint, Alvin gets it into his head that if he can own his own piece of land, Gracie will come around and agree to marry him, so he swears off the booze for a while and starts doing odd jobs in an effort to buy some land.
However, when the man selling the land swindles him and sells it to the suitor Alvin beat up, a despairing Alvin hits the bottle again and becomes worse than ever. One dark and stormy night, he drunkenly decides to get his rifle and go and murder the land salesman for cheating him, over the objections of his buddies. On the way, though, a bolt of lightning strikes his gun, and an instantly sobered-up Alvin comes to the conclusion that this is a sign from God.
He swears of drinking and becomes a pacifist. He begins making amends with everyone he's ever wronged and everyone who's ever wronged him impressing Gracie with his new ways and making her fall in love with him. But just as things are looking up for Alvin, the US enters the Great War against Germany. Alvin, who now considers violence and killing morally wrong, tries to opt out as a conscientious objector, but the military isn't having it. His sharpshooting skills are just too good for them to pass up.
Fortunately, his life in the Army isn't all that bad. His superior Major Buxton is sympathetic to his views, and Alvin also meets and befriends "Pusher" Ross and Bert Thomas. His shooting skills soon earn him a promotion to corporal as well. All too soon, though, they're being shipped off to Europe. They aren't there long before Bert gets killed by enemy mortar fire, and, under the command of Sergeant Early, they storm a heavily-fortified German machine gun position.
An attempt to flank the Germans goes disastrously wrong. Although they capture the Germans' commanding officer Major Vollmer, enemy fire forces everyone to take refuge in a trench, where they're pinned down. A wounded Early gives Alvin command and tasks him with taking out the machine gun nests. Can the conflicted Alvin find a way of winning the battle by killing as few enemy soldiers as possible? Is there a way to stop the killing but still hold true to his pacifist beliefs? Leaving the captive Vollmer with Pusher, Alvin gathers his courage and charges across the battlefield towards his destiny.
Sergeant York is an amazing movie that shows how a man can change himself to become a better person, and take this betterment with him to use his pacifist ideals to bring a conflict to as non-violent a conclusion as possible, actions for which he'd earn the Medal of Honor.
Rope (1948)
Holds you from beginning to end!
This is probably the oldest film I've ever recommended, an Alfred Hitchcock film from 1948 starring Jimmy Stewart. But despite its age it's definitely one of Mr. Hitchcock's most suspenseful films, right up there with Rear Window and Vertigo.
Behind the drawn shades of an upscale late 1940's apartment, while the rest of the city carries on about its business in blissful ignorance, college students Brandon Shaw and his best friend Phillip Morgan have just done the unthinkable. They've just gotten finished murdering their classmate and supposed friend David Kentley by strangling him with a length of rope. After finishing up and stuffing the corpse into a convenient antique trunk in the living room, they open the shades and begin preparing to host a dinner party, which, in a way, the dearly departed David will be the star of. To attend will be David's father Henry Kentley, his girlfriend Janet Walker, best friend Kenneth Lawrence, and the three boys' own professor, Rupert Cadell.
Brandon and Phillip, you see, are homicidal maniacs. Or at least Brandon is. They've committed the murder and are arranging the party as what they consider an intellectual exercise. The two are believers in the concept of the "supermen" as proposed by Friedrich Nietzsche and taught to them in school by Rupert in his philosophy class. They view themselves as superior to other people, and want to prove it by committing the "perfect murder" and getting away with it. Brandon sees the party at which all of David's friends and family will be attending as the "finishing touch" on the crime, seeing it as a means of flaunting his cleverness right under everyone else's noses, complete with serving a buffet off of the top of the trunk holding David's body, despite Phillip's misgivings and increasing unease.
Phillip is concerned Rupert (who the duo view as being a fellow "superman") will catch on to what has happened. Brandon is counting on it. Since Rupert is the one who taught them all about Nietzsche's philosophy, he is eager to impress the professor, partly, it seems, because, to him, Rupert's approval will justify the murder. He never says this outright, though.
The guests begin arriving and of course everyone notices David's absence. Especially Rupert. As the evening wears on and the party grows more and more tense, thanks particularly to Phillip drinking a lot more than he ought to in an effort to steady his nerves, and Brandon becoming increasingly more and overt in the little hints he keeps "cleverly" dropping, it begins to look like things are building towards an explosive climax. But what will happen? Will the two killers get away with their crime, or will someone find them out...?
Rope was a film that suitably impressed me the first time I saw it (on YouTube of all places!). Very gripping from beginning to end and it must've been quite daring at the time to have the killers be the protagonists, and have them be strangely likable (if utterly unsympathetic of course). The structure is also unique to me. We know who the murderers are, as well as the how and the why, and even where the body is hidden. We, like Brandon and Phillip, are one step ahead of all of the other characters. The question consequently becomes not "who killed David" but "how will they get caught?"
The arrival of Jimmy Stewart as Rupert amps up the tension, since he is just as smart and clever as our murderous duo and it becomes a subtle and weirdly polite battle of wits between him and Brandon as we watch Rupert start to slowly unravel what we already know. I think this just might be my ultimate favorite Hitchcock film besides North by Northwest and Vertigo.
Much has been said of the fact Rope is done in only a few shots. I wanna discuss how Stewart enters the picture. Most of the other guests are shown arriving via the front door, but not Rupert; the camera pans over during a wide shot of the living room and he's just suddenly there, as if he materialized out of thin air. It's subtly jarring in a way and helps set him apart from the other party guests as Brandon and Phillip's nemesis and also helps underscore how his relationship to them unfolds - he is expected but unexpected; they know he's coming but he just shows up out of the blue in a slyly startling way, and although Brandon is expecting (or hoping) Rupert will solve the mystery, Rupert's reaction to the revelation is the last thing Brandon expected.
People have said Jimmy Stewart was miscast as college professor Rupert. I totally disagree. He has a laid back, lazy, subtle and sly aura of what I can only call "benevolent menace" to him (if that makes any sense) and it helps keep the audience (as well as Brandon and Phillip!) guessing as to how much Rupert knows. His end speech is one of the most utterly powerful and emotional performances in his career I think. John Dall as Brandon deserves special mention as well.
The Satan Bug (1965)
A Deadly Game of Find-The-Virus!
Based off of Alistair MacLean's novel of the same name, The Satan Bug concerns Station 3, a top-secret research facility in the California desert where the US government engineers designer germs. One day, thieves manage to circumvent security and gain access to the main lab, where the murder chief of security Reagan and chief scientist Dr. Baxter and abscond with several specimens in airtight flasks. All but one of the flasks contain botulinus. The other is the one and only existing specimen of a new strain of polio codenamed "Satan Bug." It's so deadly that if it were unleashed, it could wipe out all life on Earth in two months.
Eric Cavanaugh of the SDI (a fictional government organization) and Station 3 director Dr. Leonard Michaelson go to the lab's former chief of security, Lee Barrett, for assistance. Barrett is a top-notch detective, but quit his job because he disagreed with the military applications of Station 3's experiments. He now works as a lawyer. But with Reagan dead, there's no one else who knows the facility better and can have any chance of recovering the viruses.
Aided by a beautiful female operative named Ann Williams, herself the daughter of Barrett's former employer General Williams, Barrett determines that the thieves were the henchmen of a wealthy sociopath named Charles Reynolds Ainsley. Ainsley, styling himself a modern-day messiah, shares Barrett's disdain for Station 3, and threatens to unleash the Satan Bug unless the lab is closed down for good. But is this really his plan...? Barrett will need to find out and fast; to prove he means business, Ainsley has had his henchmen unleash some of the botulinus in Florida, killing thousands. The Satan Bug could be next if Barrett can't track down Ainsley and the viruses fast!
Behind the camera, The Satan Bug has an impressive pedigree. Based off of a novel by Alistair MacLean and directed by John Sturges, and featuring a score by Jerry Goldsmith. In front of the camera is a different story.
First and foremost, there's the total change in setting. Although the movie is, beat for beat, a fairly accurate retelling of MacLean's novel, the book was set in England. There wasn't really much reason beyond budgetary constraints to relocate the story's setting to America and make all of the characters American. They also changed (i.e. simplified) the villain's plan. In the novel, his threat to unleash the viruses unless the lab is closed is just a smokescreen so he can achieve something completely different behind the good guys' backs, a la Simon in Die Hard with a Vengeance. That said, despite the relocation to America, I rather slightly prefer the film to the novel.
Action-wise it's mostly limited to a couple of brief fistfights and shootouts that are over fairly quickly.
The climax aboard the helicopter is just plain silly. Without warning, the pilot stops flying and turns to try to shoot Barrett who is riding in back. This results in the aircraft going into a spin with no one flying it, whilst Barret fights with Ainsley and the pilot, all while the flask containing the Satan Bug perches precariously on the edge of the seat and threatens to roll out the open door. Barrett ultimately manages to overcome the villains, kick them out, grab the flask and regain control of the chopper. Definitely one of the goofier climaxes I've seen in a while.
The cast is good, but with the exception of Richard Basehart as Dr. Hoffman (a.k.a. Ainsley), there aren't too many familiar faces in prominent roles. I will say, though, I liked George Maharis as Barrett. In terms of the supporting cast, look for James Doohan (Scotty from Star Trek) as an SDI agent who shows up in a few brief scenes, and Ed Asner as henchman Veretti.
If Looks Could Kill (1991)
A decent if disjointed action flick.
In the European nation of Orenbourg, the wealthy Augustus Steranko is in the middle of a shady deal with France's finance minister to acquire gold. When the Frenchman attempts to back out, Steranko promptly has him killed. Suddenly Britain's top secret agent Blade assaults Steranko's mansion, fighting his way through his guards, only to be felled by Steranko's diminutive right-hand woman Ilsa Grunt and her deadly whip.
With Blade dead, the bigwigs over at MI6 need a replacement agent and fast. To this end, they enlist the aid of the CIA, who agree to loan them their best agent, one Michael Corben. A traitor in MI6 informs Ilsa of Agent Corben's impending arrival, and she leaves for America.
In America, a different Michael Corben, a high school student, has a problem. Graduation has come up, but since he cut his French classes to go partying all year long, he doesn't have enough credits to pass; and at Edsel High, if you don't pass your foreign language class, you don't graduate. Fortunately, though, French teacher Mrs. Grober is going to give him one last chance. The French class is going on a field trip to France in the summer, and is Michael accompanies them, he'll be allowed to pass.
So it is that a mixup occurs at the airport. Ilsa waylays and murders Michael Corben the CIA agent, whilst the identically-named Michael Corben the high school student unwittingly takes the dead spy's place on board the plane bound for France. He gets to sit in first class, much to Mrs. Grober's annoyance. Upon arriving in France, Michael is shanghaied by a British agent named Richardson and whisked away to a top-secret lab, despite his protests that he isn't the Michael Corben the British think he is. His protests end abruptly when he's shown the cool, gadget- laden red Lotus sports car he'll get to drive, and he decides he'll play along with the spy gig for a while if it means he gets to play with gadgets and avoid his fussy teacher.
Meanwhile, Ilsa, thinking she murdered a decoy, assigns Zigesfeld, an assassin with a golden robotic hand, to follow and kill the "real" Agent Corben. Also tailing Michael is a mysterious woman with some connection to the murdered Blade. Additionally, Mrs. Grober's noisy search for her missing student has MI6 thinking she is an assassin out to kill Michael; likewise, Steranko thinks she's working for MI6. Both groups set out to have her and her class eliminated, and when they end up captured by Zigesfeld and taken to Steranko's mansion, it's up to Michael and the mysterious woman to rescue them and stop Steranko's evil plans.
Written by The Monster Squad director Fred Dekker, If Looks Could Kill is a love letter to the over-the-top action films of the 60's and 70's. Unfortunately, it's a disjointed movie, tonally. On the one hand, it's too simplistic and juvenile for adults... but at the same time it's too complicated and violent for kids. It's definitely a film that failed to find an audience. Also, despite supposedly being a spoof (it tends to get categorized as a comedy), its content is played dead serious a lot of the time, especially towards the end.
This was supposed to be Richard Grieco's big break, but, alas, the movie underperformed and he never quite made it. The really great performances, though, are the villains. Roger Rees is a bit hard to swallow as the hammy Steranko, while Linda Hunt, who projects subtle, quiet menace as Ilsa, and Canadian actor Tom Rack, who has only one line in the entire film, and acts primarily with his eyes and mannerisms, and in so doing conveys barely-suppressed homicidal mania. He's definitely one of cinema's scarier henchmen characters.
The action sequences are hit and miss. Blade's assault on Steranko's mansion at the beginning is neat, but is over too quickly and poorly edited. The car chase in France is slow-moving and kind of uninteresting despite the soundtrack trying to convince us otherwise. This leaves the climax, involving a shootout with hordes of henchmen who can't aim (of course), a fistfight with Zigesfeld, and finally an attempted escape by Steranko which ends in one of the most hilariously awful helicopter crashes ever put to film. If the first half disappoints when it comes to action, then the finale definitely delivers.
The Beast Must Die (1974)
One funky werewolf movie!
Somewhere in rural England, a man is running. Everywhere he goes, his movements are tracked by hidden security cameras and a low-flying helicopter, which reports his movements to several armed men. The pursue the fugitive. However, each time they catch the man, despite being armed with guns, they let him go. This proceeds for some until the man runs onto the grounds of a mansion, where suddenly the armed men reappear and open fire and it is then revealed that their guns are loaded with blanks. The man - Tom Newcliffe - is unharmed.
Cut to a control room inside the mansion, where a refreshed Tom, now revealed as the wealthy owner of the house and all the land around it, is talking to a Polish man named Pavel. Pavel is an electronics expert and the head of the mansion's security. He has turned the isolated country estate into an impenetrable fortress patrolled by armed guards and helicopters, and overseen by security cameras and hidden microphones, both inside the house and in the woods. Tom was testing the effectiveness of the system, using himself as bait. He seems satisfied.
Pavel is slightly in the dark about why his boss wants all this added security. Tom isn't terribly forthcoming about his reasons. He tells Pavel he'll learn what it is he intends to hunt soon. Later, Tom and his wife Caroline are greeting some guests they've invited out to a weekend get-together. Or, should I say, Tom has invited them - Caroline has never even heard of half of the people he's invited. But Tom seems to know each of them intimately, having done extensive research on each of them. One by one, he introduces them to Caroline.
First up is Arthur Bennington, a former United Nations diplomat. Apparently, he and two others of the diplomatic corps got into a scrape and the other two turned up dead. Only Bennington survived. Bennington was exonerated but fired from his job. He now works as a TV show host.
Then we have Jan Gilmore, a former concert pianist. Once renowned throughout the world, he is unwelcome in certain European countries because every time he was in town to perform, there were grisly murders.
Davina Gilmore, a wealthy socialite, has been separated from her husband Jan following some kind of fight between them. According to Tom, every time she attends a party, they always come up a guest short.
Then there is Paul Foote. A former medical student turned artist, Paul and some friends, while in medical school, once ate some flesh from one of the cadavers, leading to their expulsion. Later, during his career as an artist, there was a murder, and one of Paul's paintings just happened to resemble the victim. Paul claims he saw the victim's face in a newspaper photo, but Tom isn't so sure.
Lastly, we have Dr. Christopher Lundgren, who is a Swedish archaeologist by trade but whose personal hobby is cryptzoology. In particular - and here, we see why Tom saved him for last - Lundgren is a self-professed expert on werewolves.
This shocks the other guests and Tom explains that he believes without a shadow of a doubt that one of them is a werewolf, and he aims to prove it and slay the monster. The full moon is coming up, he says, and will last for three days, and with all the added security around the house, there is no way the werewolf can escape, and he vows wait until the werewolf's identity is revealed, and then hunt and kill it - after which the remaining guests may leave.
Tom's plan seems foolproof. The security system airtight. The guards well-trained. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans. Before the three days are over, the Newcliffe's guest list will be quite a bit shorter...
This is a fine and fun little werewolf film, with some great performances. We have Peter Cushing doing a Swedish accent he lapses in and out of; the smarmy, acid-tongued Charles Gray; the painfully handsome and soft-spoken Anton Diffring; and, years before his turn as Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films, Michael Gambon. There's also Ciaran Madden, although she's a bit on the wooden side; making up for this where the fairer sex are concerned is the positively gorgeous Marlene Clark.
But the true standout performances are Calvin Lockhart as Tom Newcliffe and Tom Chadbon as Paul Foote.
Lockhart lords himself over all of the other actors, even stalwarts like Charles Gray and Peter Cushing. Lockhart's delivery is a bit stilted at times, but, nevertheless, his sheer charisma and force of personality make give his Tom an utterly magnetic and engaging screen presence. He's like a modern day Captain Ahab, too, growing more and more crazed and obsessed at figuring out who the werewolf is each time he fails to kill it.
And then we have Tom Chadbon. I loved him in that, and he's an absolute joy here. His Paul Foote is quite simply the funniest and most engaging character in the entire film. He doesn't take anything seriously and is constantly making jokes, even in the most dire circumstances; clearly, Paul operates on an entirely different plain of mental existence from the other people in the mansion.
If the movie has one weakness, it's the werewolf itself. Apparently, Amicus blew its entire budget renting a helicopter, that they had zilch left over for the monster, so the titular beast is played by an actual wolf. Or, at least, a large dog that looks reasonably enough like a wolf. Still, to Amicus' credit, they keep the critter mostly offscreen and let the suspense and the drama drive the story, and, when the shaggy abomination does rear its cute head and waggy tail, they shoot the attack scenes around the animal, and it works fairly well.
Hornets' Nest (1970)
A decent little WWII thriller.
A dark and gritty World War II adventure movie filmed on location in Italy and co-produced by the Italians, this film is quite grimdark and violent, and also possibly one of the filthiest movies I've ever seen. Everyone is always sweating and in bad need of a good bath, with messy hair that needs combing, and clothes that need a trip through the washing machine. It all adds to the realism, of course; war is dirty and messy.
Hornets' Nest stars macho man Rock Hudson, fresh off his successful starring role in the big screen adaptation of Alistair MacLean's novel Ice Station Zebra, as the determined Captain Turner. He does a pretty good job in what is essentially a one-note tough guy role, although he does, later one, get to emote a bit during scenes where Turner wonders he's doing the right thing by arming a bunch of preteen and younger kids.
Other standout performances include the achingly beautiful Sylva Koscina as Bianca, whose compassionate, kindhearted nature make it truly saddening all that she endures throughout the film. She begins by denying the crimes of the Nazis, but eventually takes up arms against them herself. Still, there is the uncomfortable scene where she's almost raped by the kids, and roughed up by Turner later, and I really have to wonder what in the world directors Phil Karlson and Franco Cirino were thinking.
There's also Mark Colleano as Aldo, and wow, can that kid act! Colleano really plays the whole "psycho teen" angle to the hilt and makes Aldo a believably dangerous and reprehensible, but still somehow pitiable character. Indeed, almost all the actors playing the boys do a good job, particularly Mauro Gravina as the adorable, ill-fated Carlo, and John Fordyce as Dino. These two are really the human face of the group of children (nevermind Dino is probably close to eighteen). If Aldo represents all that is wrong with youth, then the warm and compassionate Dino and the eager, curious and hopeful (despite the tragedy that has befallen them) Carlo represent all that is good and pure in it.
This finally brings us to the German characters, who save for Lithuanian actor Jacques Sernas as Taussig, are played almost entirely by Italians doing bad Teutonic accents. The high-ranking colonels and generals are stilted and laughable, but Sernas is pretty good. His Taussig oozes despicable arrogance and casual cruelty.
The best German character, though, and, indeed, probably the best character in the movie, is the very, very blonde Sergio Fantoni as Captain Friedrich von Hecht. He's a perfect example of an antagonist who isn't a villain. He's a decent enough guy who's just on the wrong side of an unjust war and knowingly serving an evil regime, acidly making his distaste for "you SS people" known at every turn, even at the risk of his own career and maybe even his life. Most interestingly of all is how he treats his mission to find and eliminate (or capture) Turner. Von Hecht is a hunter, you see; and he sees the American officer on the loose as a challenge that he must accept and try to overcome. For him, it's less about advancing the Nazi cause (he could care less about that) and more about the thrill of the hunt. And (mild spoiler here), he isn't one of this egomaniacal hunters drunk on his own superiority over his enemy; when his own prey bests him in the end, he accepts his defeat with dignity.
If the movie has a fault (the rape scenes aside), it is that it is a little on the unrealistic side when it comes to the battle scenes, and also can't quite seem to settle on a tone or moral. We have (essentially) untrained kids mowing down countless Nazis left and right, and it can't quite seem to decide if it wants to show war as a fun adventure or as a grim reality with tragic psychological tolls that come with children becoming killers, and its efforts to have it both ways leave it feeling a bit disjointed.
Around the World Under the Sea (1966)
Decent but unremarkable undersea adventure movie.
Following the destruction of much of coastal Turkey by a massive tsunami, American scientists Dr. Doug Standish (a mugging Lloyd Bridges) and Dr. Craig Mosby (Brian Kelly playing kind of a sexist jerk) lead the crew of the submarine Hydronaut in a race to plant seismic sensors along fault lines on the ocean floor to create an experimental earthquake detection system in order to prevent other coastal countries from suffering the same fate. The crew consists of geologist Orin Hillyard (Marshall Thompson), electronics expert Dr. Philip Volker (David McCallum doing a hokey German accent) and marine biologist Margaret Hanford (the fetching Shirley Eaton as what basically amounts to eye candy). Also along for the ride is reclusive survival expert Hank Stahl (a delightfully curmudgeonly Keenan Wynn).
While at times enjoyable, Around the World Under the Sea is, alas, a bit on the boring side. It isn't that badly written, not for a movie of its type, anyway, but in its apparent drive to depict the science fiction elements as realistically as possible (in a "this is totally plausible" sort of way), it tends to bog down. We spend far too much time focusing on the Hydronaut crew planting the various sensors that midway through the film a montage of them doing it gets the bulk of that out of the way to make way for... well, not undersea adventure, that's for sure.
There is some of that, but it's few and far between and mostly, when the movie isn't methodically showing us in detail how they do various scientific tasks, it basically plays out like a soap opera set on a submarine: Volker wants to do a salvage dive for some valuable crystals but is opposed (for some reason the movie never bothers explaining) by Stahl, and the two have an epic chess game to decide whether they'll do it (Volker cheats!); Hanford is ostensibly Hillyard's girlfriend at the start, but starts falling for Mosby despite him being kind of a sexist pig, and on top of this she's Volker's ex and there is unresolved tension between them. The movie seems to think that this is all more interesting than giant eels and erupting undersea volcanoes. It would be wrong.
One thing of note is the sexism against Dr. Hanford that Craig Mosby has, and, to some extent, so does the movie. With comments like "she's as good with a skillet as she is with a scalpel," it at times feels like a movie from a much earlier film, far less tolerant of women in the workplace. When Hanford is late for the Hydronaut's takeoff, the chief concern regarding her is that they can't set sail without a cook (!). If nothing else, at least the poor woman gets support from Standish if no one else, who points out "She's a scientist and so are we" and doesn't find the idea of female astronauts at all unusual, and hires her on the spot even once he learns the mysterious and overqualified "M.E. Hanford" is a woman, whilst it is Mosby who objects to having a woman aboard the sub. Still, most of it just seems like lip service, as, despite Standish's insistence in her abilities, all supposed marine biologist Hanford ever really does is "woman" stuff like serving coffee while Stahl (who isn't even a scientist) does most of the specimen collecting and lab work.
This nonsense aside, it has its moments. There's a close call where Hillyard is burned by an undersea vent and has to be rescued by Volker, as well as a giant moray eel which attacks the sub, and a fairly satisfying climax involving a giant underwater volcano and a rock slide which buries the sub, trapping our heroes and forcing them to use their quick wits to escape. Recommended for viewers with lots and lots of patience. For a far better and more enjoyable undersea adventure flick, see either 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea.
Proteus (1995)
Slimer! Except with a different title!
DEA agent Alex is in big trouble with his superior. It seems a routine undercover mission to bust a gang of heroin smugglers went awry, and Alex not only didn't recover the drugs, but he didn't arrest anyone. His boss wants answers. Cue flashback (i.e. the rest of the film).
Alex and another agent named Rachel, who is also his girlfriend, had been assigned to pose as drug dealers and infiltrate a gang of smugglers. The gang, consisting of Mark, his girlfriend Christine, Paul and Paul's girlfriend Linda, are strictly small-timers. Indeed, they're so inept that they accidentally sink and explode their own yacht while transporting the heroin on the open ocean, leaving them and the two undercover agents stranded in a lifeboat.
Alex takes charge, to the annoyance of supposed leader Paul. They drift aimlessly until they come upon a dead body floating in the water, a security guard in a uniform that says "Brinkstone" on it. Afterwards, they run into an oil rig owned by Brinkstone, which it turns out is a corporation, except one none of them have ever heard of. Once they're aboard, discover the rig is actually a front for a top secret research laboratory but can find no one around. Just lots of empty clothes and discarded weapons, which of course they appropriate for themselves. They explore, finding various clues, including a big empty aquarium.
The group beds down for the night, taking the missing scientists' rooms for themselves, each couple to a room. Paul, it turns out, still has some heroin hidden on himself, and he rations some out to junkie Mark. On his way back to Linda however, something attacks him and drags him away. Alex and the others come running, but find only Paul's dropped stash of heroin. Whilst pursuing whatever it is that got Paul, they encounter an apparent survivor, a scientist named Dr. Shelley. Shelley can't answer where Paul has got to, but does reveal that what attacked him is something named "Charlie." He assures them Charlie is "under control now," and then wanders off and disappears.
Deciding to investigate more for himself, Alex finds a room with video equipment containing tapes about something Brinkstone was working on called the Proteus Experiment. Proteus was intended to create the ultimate organism which can survive anything, and adapt to any environment. The experiment turned an ordinary great white shark (the original inhabitant of that big aquarium), nicknamed Charlie by the scientists into a genetic freak which can shapeshift, turning itself into slime and absorbing the minds and bodies of its victims and also occasionally taking their form to trick more victims.
The consumed people are still conscious inside of Charlie's brain, but mostly entirely helpless; only the most strong willed (such as Dr. Shelley) can exert themselves as the dominant personality long enough to use Charlie's shapeshifting abilities to turn its body into theirs, so they can try and warn the others... but Charlie always regains control.
Trapped aboard the rig with a mutant killer, can Alex and the others survive? Well, obviously Alex will, since he's telling this story as a flashback, but what of the others, particularly his girlfriend and fellow DEA agent Rachel...?
This is a fairly decent adaptation of the novel Slimer by Harry Adam Knight (a pseudonym of John Brosnan). A much better effort than Roger Corman's horrible Carnosaur. Most likely because John Brosnan himself wrote the script. There's some swapping around of the characters' roles from the novel. For instance, in the book, Paul was the hero and Alex was a thoroughly unpleasant jerk and rapist. I'm unsure why Brosnan switched them around. Alex's douchebag qualities are divided between Mark and Paul, the latter of whom, in the farthest fall from main character status I can think of, is actually Charlie's very first victim.
They also for some reason insisted on giving Dr. Shelley a Russian accent. Funny. "Shelley" doesn't strike me as a Russian surname. Beyond these weird changes the effects are a bit lame, particularly the shark monster animatronic used to represent Charlie's true form. It leaves a lot to be desired.
But the main problem is the darkness. Apart from the brightly-lit main lab, the interior of the Proteus Experiment facilities is very dark and dreary and it's hard to make out what is happening sometimes. A far cry from the brightly-lit white corridors Brosnan describes in the book.
The final major difference of note is that Mr. Lloyd Brinkstone, mentioned often in the novel but never actually appearing, turns up at the end with a squad of armed goons. His name has been changed to "Leonard Brinkstone" (what was wrong with Lloyd?) and he's played by a thoroughly wasted Doug Bradley of Hellraiser fame, and gets killed off almost as soon as he's introduced, he and his henchmen merely providing more fodder for Charlie.
As to the ending, as in the novel, the pilot of the Brinkstone copter is revealed to be taken over by Charlie, but the survivors aren't aware of it and the film ends on a dramatic closeup of the pilot/Charlie's eye. Then cut to credits. Since the movie is told in flashback, with Alex talking to his superior officer at the DEA and telling him what happened, we're left to wonder: is Alex aware? I mean, he's telling all this to his boss in the present. It seems they were setting up for a sequel or perhaps a longer ending was cut out, since we never do return to the present to see what Alex's superior thinks of his story...
Despite this, the acting is quite good, especially from Craig Fairbrass as suddenly good guy Alex and minor details aside the plot is pretty much beat for beat an accurate retelling of Slimer. A much better effort than Corman's insultingly terrible Carnosaur.
Behemoth the Sea Monster (1959)
The Giant... Giant?
The redundantly titled The Giant Behemoth (originally titled Behemoth, the Sea Monster) is a sub-par sci-fi potboiler from director Eugene Lourie and special effects maestro Willis O'Brien. It's loaded to the gills with padding, padding and more padding, and what stop-motion animation footage was done by O'Brien and his team is looped quite a bit during the Paleosaurus' initial London rampage. That said, for what it is, it isn't bad.
Once one accepts that it's a B-movie it can be enjoyed. There's s'more stop-motion goodness to be had after the London walkabout, involving the Paleosaurus destroying some powerlines and then picking up a car with some people inside and tossing it into the Thames.
Several scenes in the film pay homage to both Lourie's and O'Brien's earlier films. The Paleosaurus picking the car up is a nod to Beast from 20,000 Fathoms apparently, while the dinosaur causing a bridge to collapse with its weight, dumping itself unintentionally into the Thames, is a throwback to O'Brien's original 1925 special effects masterpiece, The Lost World. I also love that almost all of the screams used in the film are recycled from 1933's King Kong!
The Stuff (1985)
Can't get enough of the Stuff!
A new taste sensation is sweeping the nation! The Stuff, a creamy white dessert with an addictive taste, is the most popular food in the country. Good news for the Stuff's apparent creator, businessman Mr. Fletcher, as well as all its fans (called "Stuffies"), but not so good for a little boy named Jason. Poor Jason sees the Stuff moving by itself in the fridge one night, and concludes it is alive and therefore unsafe to eat. But his parents and older brother won't listen, and become increasingly more creepy toward him as they make gradually more threatening attempts to make Jason eat it.
In the meantime, other food company owners, being put out of business by Fletcher's wonder product, hire former FBI agent turned industrial spy David "Mo" Rutherford to deduce the secret ingredients of the Stuff. To this end he woos Fletcher's ad campaign lady, Nicole, and even secures a job at the company as head of security. By happenstance he also runs into, and more or less adopts, Jason after running across the boy who is being chased by his by-now borderline homicidal family.
Together, Mo, Jason and Nicole discover the horrible truth about the Stuff. It isn't made: it bubbles right out of the very Earth itself! Worse, as Jason already knew, it is alive and takes over the minds and bodies of everyone who eats it. Finding help in the form of the mentally unhinged Colonel Spears and his militia, who believe the Stuff is a Communist plot, our heroes have to stop the evil dessert from conquering the world! The Stuff is a fun sendup of old B-movies like The Blob and Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a fun cast of characters. The special effects are a hoot, too, particularly with regard to the Stuff-possessed people. When injured or killed, they "bleed" Stuff, and sometimes, the sentient white glop decides it wants to leave a host, resulting in the hilariously gross sight of characters violently puking Stuff all over. A weak human villain and some really choppy editing keep it from being truly wonderful, but overall it's a cute little flick.
The Car (1977)
Better than expected!
The small Utah town of Santa Ynez is, in time-honored horror movie fashion, have its tranquil peace shattered. Teenagers Pete Keil and Suzie Pullbrook's leisurely early morning bike ride is rudely interrupted by a spectral black sedan which crushes Suzie against a guardrail and knocks Pete screaming off of a high bridge. Subsequently, it also brutally runs down a hitchhiker.
The local police, led by Sheriff Everett Peck, attempt to deal with the situation. But when Peck becomes the car's fourth victim in a hit and run right outside of the police station, Deputy Wade Parent must step up to the challenge. As the son of a sheriff himself, Wade has a lot to live up to. He's a recent divorcée, with custody of his two daughters and is also dating their teacher, Lauren Humphreys. Everyone takes Everett's death pretty hard, and with Wade as sheriff-by-default, he makes it the personal mission of Santa Ynez's police department to bring the mysterious motorist to justice.
But the intimidating sedan is more than meets the eye (and no, that doesn't mean it's a Transformer). After terrorizing Lauren's class and chasing them into a cemetery, where it refuses to follow, a high-speed police chase ensues wherein the car proves not only bulletproof, but apparently indestructible, as it takes out two police cars using its own momentum by doing a barrel-roll over them and crushing them. Wade himself becomes convinced there may not even be a driver in the thing after all, especially after he and he alone gets a glimpse past the car's tinted windows...
The Car is what modern horror movies wish they could be. Now, granted, the idea of an evil, driverless car (a customized black Lincoln Continental) running around killing people is more than a bit silly. But what made me really like this movie was the manner in which the human characters confront the situation. Naturally, they initially assume the car has a human driver, and go about attempting to stop him as they would any other lunatic with vehicular homicide on his mind. But after evidence surfaces that this car isn't what it seems to be comes to light, they change their tactics drastically.
There's no "Nudge nudge, wink wink" self-referential humor or even any real comic relief characters (except for the hitchhiker at the start, who is actually funny and exits the picture before he has a chance to become even the least bit annoying), and everyone generally plays it totally straight, making the absurd plot work. And the final chase sequence and the showdown with the car out in a desert canyon is well worth seeing.
The Bourne Identity (1988)
A better version than the Matt Damon one.
Based on of Robert Ludlum's suspenseful spy novel, this 1988 two-part TV movie begins with a man being shot in the head and falling off of a ship at sea, which subsequently sinks. The man washes ashore in Port Noir, France, and is found and cared for by Dr. Geoffrey Washburn, an alcoholic English doctor. The man can't remember his name; his nonfatal but nonetheless critical head wound has rendered him an amnesiac. Dr. Washburn also discovers, surgically implanted into his patient, microfilm with an account number for the Gemeinschaft Bank in Switzerland.
Bidding his benefactor farewell, the man travels to Switzerland in the hopes of rediscovering his identity. At a hotel whose name he inexplicably remembers he discovers his name is "J. Bourne" and that he works for an organization called Treadstone 71. More, but not enough, is revealed at the Gemeinschaft Bank where Bourne learns that the "J" stands for Jason, and that he is a rich man with fifteen million dollars to his name. But he still has no idea what Treadstone is, or why he recognizes the American man being interviewed on TV about the recent assassination of Ambassador Howard Leland.
Leaving, Bourne suddenly finds himself the target of hit men posing as bank employees, led by the cold-blooded killer nicknamed "Gold Glasses." He flees with the assistance of Dr. Marie St. Jacques, a Canadian economist in Switzerland for a conference. The pair, constantly dodging Gold Glasses and his men, track down various informants who know little but suggest Bourne is connected to a notorious Spanish assassin named Carlos, and, worse, that Bourne may have been hired by Carlos to kill Ambassador Leland!
Is Bourne really who he - and everyone else - thinks he is? Is he a murderer? Did he kill Leland for Carlos? Just who exactly is Carlos? Why is Gold Glasses trying so hard to kill Bourne? Who do he and his men answer to? What is Treadstone? And why does Bourne recognize the American from the television? All these questions and more will be answered by the time the film's three-hour runtime draws to a close in a satisfying (if a little jostling) finale in New York City, but not before more chases, shootouts, car crashes and tons of political intrigue and double-crosses.
A much more thoughtful and cerebral film than the remake starring Matt Damon, 'The Bourne Identity' is a bit slow in places but is never boring, and has plenty of twists and turns and surprises to keep viewers guessing. Richard Chamberlain is capable and likable in the lead role, and the supporting cast includes familiar faces like Denholm Elliott as the amusing and kindly Dr. Washburn, Shane Rimmer as stern, no-nonsense American Army General Conklin, Anthony Quayle as French General Villiers, and Wolf Kahler as Gold Glasses.
Equinox (1970)
Fun so-bad-it's-good romp.
Four friends, David, Vicki, Jim and Susan, head out into the woods to visit David's professor, Dr. Waterman. They find Waterman'home destroyed, the professor missing, and a mysterious book. It soon becomes apparent that in meddling with the book, Waterman accidentally opened a portal to another, hellish dimension, and now the demon Asmodeus (posing as a park ranger) wants to acquire the powerful book. The four friends must fight against a variety of ghoulish monsters sent after them by Asmodeus, and eventually Asmodeus himself, in order to make it back to civilization alive.
Often considered one of the best-worst movies of all time, Equinox was a student film made by a young Dennis Muren which producer Jack Woods picked up for cinematic distribution, casting himself as Asmodeus and shooting some new scenes. On the one hand, this seems like a strange movie for Criterion to release, especially in a two-disc set, however despite its ineptitude it features some charming stop-motion animation for the various monsters (and some impressive forced-perspective shots to turn an ordinary stuntman into a blue-skinned giant) and it's also certainly worthy of being preserved if only because Dennis Muren and his friends had such a piddly budget to work with that it' a miracle they even had a completed (albeit rough) film, even before Jack Woods came along.
The Beast Within (1982)
Sometimes puberty can be dangerous!
Eli and Caroline MacCleary are on their honeymoon driving through the middle of nowhere in Mississippi when their car gets a flat. Leaving his wife with the car, Eli hikes off to find a tow truck. While he's gone, a mysterious creature attacks and rapes Caroline. Upon returning, Eli rushes his wife to the hospital. Seventeen years pass. Caroline bore her rapist's child and she and Eli have raised the boy, Michael, as their own. But now Michael is suffering some inexplicable health problems his doctor can't explain. Whatever it is he's got, it's genetic.
Eli and Caroline decide that their only hope for a cure is to find Michael's biological father: Caroline's rapist. They head back to the town where she was raped and begin asking around about violent crime. All they can find is a newspaper clipping about the notorious Lionel Curwin's house burning down. Nearly everyone in town is related to Lionel, and all of them are rude and openly hostile to the couple.
The only person who is at all nice to them is Sheriff Bill Pool, who isn't related to the Curwins. He explains that Lionel was a very unpleasant man who had a rocky relationship with another local, Billy Connors, who disappeared.
Meanwhile, Michael escapes from his hometown hospital and on some impulse drives to the town where he kills and partially eats the Curwin who runs the local paper. He is found and his parents take him to the local doctor, Dr. Schoonmaker, who pronounces that Michael has somehow gotten better! Or so it seems. Something is growing inside of Michael, something that hates the entire Curwin family and wants to destroy them.
The Beast Within is an excellent little horror film, based on a novel by Edward Levy. The plot, involving a pregnancy with a monstrous origin resulting in a seemingly normal but still unusual child, and the small town conspiracy to keep the crimes of the Curwin family a secret are all quite Lovecraftian in nature.
On a note of parenthood, I liked how Eli accepts Michael as his son even though he isn't. I expected him to despise Michael and see him as living evidence of his wife's rape. Instead, Eli loves Michael and is willing to do whatever it takes to try and find out what is happening to him. Caroline likewise loves Michael dearly despite how he was conceived.
The cast is amazing. Ronny Cox as Eli is warm and appropriately fatherly. Bibi Besch as Caroline is also quite good, playing a very strong woman who doesn't let her traumatic rape haunt her. Special mention should also go to L.Q. Jones as the helpful and sympathetic Sheriff Pool, and especially R.G. Armstrong, who delivers an excellent performance as the kind and gentle Dr. Schoonmaker.
Really, the only dud in the cast is Paul Clemens as Michael. He's just bland and has little to do except growl and snarl. The script is partially to blame here, as we don't get a chance to know Michael at all. The first time we meet him, he's lying in a hospital bed. This is not a good way to introduce your protagonist if you expect the audience to care about him! Despite this, The Beast Within succeeds and is very interesting. And no review would be complete without mentioning the special effects. When what is happening to Michael reaches its zenith, he undergoes a horrifying transformation that is definitely the highlight of the proceedings.
The Fly II (1989)
A new generation of terror! Well, sort of...
In this 1989 sequel to David Cronenberg's popular grotesque remake of the 1958 classic, the problems wrought by Seth Brundle's telepods are far from over. Veronica Quaife (now played by Saffron Henderson) dies giving birth to Seth's son, Martin. As it turns out, Martin was conceived by Veronica and Seth after Seth's accident with the telepod, so Martin has fly genes just like his dad.
Bartok Science Industries, who funded Seth's work and were mentioned in the previous film, take custody of baby Martin after Veronica's death. They also acquire the two surviving telepods. Martin is raised by uncaring and callous Bartok employees, completely isolated from the rest of the world, as Bartok CEO Anton Bartok takes a "wait and see" stance on whether Martin will turn into a mutant fly creature like his father. In the meantime, they experiment with the telepods using a dog, with predictable results.
Once he's a grown man, Martin is allowed more freedom around the facility so he can fix the malfunctioning telepods. His willingness to cooperate wanes after he finds out about the dog, though. He meets staffer Beth Logan and falls in love with her but a meddling Bartok puts the kibosh on their budding romance, though, by reassigning her to another building. At around this time Martin discovers he is indeed beginning to metamorphose into a fly monster like Seth, and his already thin patience with his hosts finally snaps after he learns Bartok wanted him to transform all along, so that they could experiment on him.
Soon, Martin will complete his transformation, and when he does, nobody at Bartok Industries will be safe! Let the acid-spitting, blood-n-guts mutant fly rampage begin!
Stepfather II (1989)
If at first you don't succeed, try, try again!
Despite seeming to be quite dead after being stabbed in the chest and taking a tumble down some stairs at the end of the first film, the titular stepfather, still using his most recent name "Jerry Blake," is incarcerated in an insane asylum. Needless to say, it isn't long before he escapes, murdering his psychiatrist in the process.
The stepfather soon moves to California where he starts a new life for himself, and begins searching anew for his perfect family. Posing as a psychiatrist named Gene Clifford, the stepfather begins a romance with Carol Grayland, the real estate agent who sole him his new house. Carol is a recent divorcée with one son, Todd. Ideal for "Gene" to begin setting himself up as husband to Carol and stepfather to Todd.
Everything is going swimmingly for Gene until Carol's ex-husband Phil returns and starts trying to get back with her, threatening to edge Gene out. In the meantime, Carol's friend Maddy is suspicious of Gene. She doesn't believe he's actually a psychiatrist, and begins trying to dig up his past. Things being unraveling quickly for him, all headed towards the inevitable disastrous, blood-drenched climax.
This was a completely unnecessary (and theoretically impossible!) sequel. Fortunately, it's also quite good, thanks to a fairly good story and of course the acting. Terry O'Quinn returns as Jerry/Gene and delivers the same strong, terrifying-yet-sympathetic performance he did before, and Meg Foster and her gorgeous eyes as Carol is the other half of this doomed romance.
The Stepfather (1987)
He'll kill for the perfect family!
Recently widowed Susan thinks she's met the perfect new husband in Jerry Blake. Unfortunately, Jerry has a dark side to him, and only his stepdaughter Stephanie suspects the horrible truth: that "Jerry" is actually a serial killer who married widowed or divorced women with kids, plays the happy stepfather for a little while, before something sets him off, prompting him to murder every single one of them and move on to a new family and town after changing his name and appearance. Can Stephanie convince those around her of Jerry's true nature before it's too late for her and her mother? Or will Jerry's cycle of insanity and murder continue? Much has been said of Terry O'Quinn's powerful performance as Jerry and I have little to add except that I agree he's excellent in the role. His violent mood swings are truly terrifying to behold and yet, when he's calm, he honestly seems like he's trying to be a loving father.
Island of Terror (1966)
Bone-sucking horrors!
Reclusive oncologist Dr. Lawrence Phillips is on the verge of curing cancer. He and his assistants have set up shop on the remote Petrie's Island, somewhere off the coast of Ireland, an island with no working phones, a weekly visit by a supply ship, and only one cop. Dr. Phillips' experiment is reaching a head, when, suddenly, something goes wrong. There is a flash of red light, and some breaking glass...
That night, local farmer Ian Bellows is walking home through the woods when he hears a strange, electronic warbling noise coming from inside a cave. He decides to investigate...
When Ian doesn't return home, his wife contacts Constable John Harris, who finds the waylaid farmer in the cave after searching the forest. But his corpse is in such a state that Harris rushes to get Dr. Reginald Landers, the island's doctor. An examination of Ian's corpse confirms Landers' worst fears; the dead man is completely boneless! At his wit's end, Landers heads to the mainland to see his old friend Dr. Brian Stanley in London. Unfortunately, although Stanley is Britain's foremost pathologist he has never heard of a disease that dissolves human bone.
Undaunted, Stanley takes Landers in turn to see hotshot young osteopath Dr. David West, currently attempting to talk his way into the pants of Toni Merrill, a former patient. West is confounded by the tale of a boneless corpse, but agrees to return to Petrie's Island with the other two doctors. Toni, who has a rich father, offers the use of daddy's private helicopter with which to fly to the island, provided the three men let her tag along. Upon arrival however, Toni's father requires the chopper for some last-minute business. The pilot is forced to drop the four people off at the island and then fly away, leaving them effectively stranded until he can return.
The doctors set immediately to work. They discover Ian was injected with a new enzyme that dissolves calcium phosphate, but can't figure out what produces it. The local clinic doesn't provide sophisticated enough equipment, so Landers suggests they go and see Dr. Phillips, as Phillips' laboratory, located in an old mansion in the woods, is better equipped. Upon arriving however, they discover that Phillips and his assistants are all just as dead as Ian Bellows... and just as boneless. Reasoning that whatever Phillips was mucking around with started all of this, West, Stanley and Landers gathers up the dead scientist's notes to study them.
As soon as they've left, another farmer comes to complain to Constable Harris that one of his horses has been found dead and, shall we say, relieved of its skeleton. Harris hurries to the mansion, but misses the doctors. Doing a little exploring of his own, he is drawn to one room they didn't go into by a strange electronic warbling... only to be seized by the throat by a green tentacle!
A minor cult classic of British horror that has sadly fallen through the cracks of time, 1966's Island of Terror is a movie that certainly deserves more fame than it's gotten over time (especially a proper American DVD release!) due to some stellar performances by a mostly unknown cast, headed by stalwart Peter Cushing, and also due to its frankly creepy central premise.
The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
When you play the most dangerous game, you play to win!
American author and big game hunter Robert Rainsford is aboard the pleasure yacht of a friend en route to South America to hunt jaguars, having just returned from hunting tigers in India. One of the other passengers, a doctor, points out that animals who kill to survive are considered savage, whereas humans, who kill purely for sport, are considered civilized. To emphasize his point, he asks Rainsford whether he would trade places with the tiger he killed. A bemused Rainsford merely says, "There's two kinds of people in this world; the hunters and the hunted, and I'm a hunter." Suddenly the yacht hits some submerged rocks and sinks. Only Rainsford and the ship's captain survive, but soon a shark eats the captain. Rainsford swims desperately to a nearby island and heads inland, where he discovers a large mansion. The house turns out to belong to the mysterious Count Zaroff, who, having read Rainsford's books, eagerly welcomes his unexpected guest.
He introduces Rainsford to the other people staying with him, Eve Trowbridge and her alcoholic brother Martin. Hunting is Count Zaroff's one and only passion in life. But hunting animals has come to bore him, and he has found a new prey. Rainsford and Eve discover just what that prey is when Martin disappears and, searching for him, the two discover Zaroff's "trophy room" filled with human heads mounted on the wall or in jars! Zaroff, catching them, confirms he does indeed hunt humans, and when Rainsford refuses to see eye to eye with the Count, Zaroff vows that the American will be his next quarry. Now Rainsford will finally know what it is like to be the tiger! Based on Richard Connell's fantastic short story of the same name, The Most Dangerous Game is a wonderful adventure movie that more than holds up today thanks to wonderful acting, a great villain, and most importantly, the action sequences! There's a really great, lengthy foot chase through the jungles of the island towards the end, with Rainsford and Eve pursued by Zaroff's bloodthirsty hunting dogs, and, at the climax, Rainsford has a really good fistfight with some of Zaroff's men (watch for the part where he breaks a guy's back!).
The Eve Trowbridge character wasn't in Connell's short story, but her inclusion here isn't at all distracting, as Fay Wray makes her more than a shoehorned-in love interest. Other changes, including Rainsford's first name (it's "Sanger" in the story) and Zaroff's title (he's a general in the story) are minor and easily overlooked. The movie is faithful to, and expands on, Connell's story.
The Mouse and His Child (1977)
Do What You Want to Do, Not What You're Wound to Do!
A father and a son. A pair of windup toy mice. Permanently joined at the hands, when you wind up a key in the father's back, he dances around and swings his son by the arms joyfully, as a real parent might. But life is not so joyous for the titular mouse and his child. After coming into existence in McMacken's Toys the two (especially the son) question their reason for being alive. The other toys tell them it is to do what they're "wound to do" to entertain the humans.
The mouse child disagrees. He wants to stay in the toy store and be a family with the other toys. Specifically, he wants a windup pink elephant for his mother and a tin seal for his sister and live together in a dollhouse. This small hope is seemingly dashed when the pair fall off their shelf (despite a valiant attempt by a jack-in-the-box to grab them). The fall breaks the father's legs and so Mrs. McMacken throws them out. At the junkyard, a kindly homeless man repairs the father's legs.
Now able to walk again, the toy mice can't really go anywhere. Even when unwound, they're alive and can talk and move to some extent, but they cannot walk unless kept wound up. So it is that the pair find themselves enslaved by a vicious gang of junkyard rats led by the urbane and snobbish Manny. Manny has dozens of imprisoned windup toys working for him and is quite the sadistic slave driver; whenever a toy can't work anymore Manny has it dismantled for parts. Manny keeps the toys wound up... in exchange for their devotion and servitude.
Fortunately for our father and son duo, Manny sends them to assist his idiotic henchman, Ralphie, in stealing some "treacle brittle" (imported peanut brittle) from the Meadow Hoard & Trust bank. Ralphie gets himself eaten by the bank's security system, a hungry badger, leaving the unattended father and son to escape. If only they were wound up! Here the pair meet a friendly fortune-telling frog who used to work for Manny, and, the first true kind soul they've met since leaving the toy store, the frog offers to help them.
Each wants something different, yet linked. The son is still on about wanting the elephant as his mother and the seal as his sister, and for them all to live happily ever after in the dollhouse, whilst the father wants him and his son to be "self-winding," i.e. not depend on others to keep them going anymore. The frog can solve both problems it seems. He knows of a tin seal in the vicinity, and if they find her they can conceivably also find the elephant, and as for the father's request, there is also a brilliant (if scatterbrained) muskrat inventor who might be able to make the mice "self-winding." The trio set off on their journey. But happily ever after is not something that is going to be easily obtained, because back at the junkyard, Manny has just learned of Ralphie's death and the mice's escape. Determined that a pair of stupid windup toys aren't going to make him look like a fool, Manny hops into his remote-control sports car and heads off after them...
The Mouse and His Child is based on the novel of the same name by Russell Hoban and is one of the most emotionally fulfilling and touching animated films I've seen outside of Don Bluth's early work. The decidedly dark film has a distinctly Secret of NIMH feel to it in places, and also like some of Bluth's work, it has several scenes that are pretty disturbing. Standouts include the demonstration Manny gives on a windup donkey who says he can't work anymore, and what he does to the father and son when he finally catches up to them. I won't spoil anything except to say don't worry, everything turns out all right in the end. But I cried and cringed all the same. Your mileage may vary, though, depending on how you feel about abuse towards cute toy mice.
The voice acting is superb. Alan Barzman as the father and Marcy Swenson as the son are so naive and cute that I'm convinced whoever doesn't instantly love them has a heart made of stone. Andy Devine as the frog radiates friendly paternal warmth, while Peter Ustinov as Manny positively oozes vile sadism in every line. At least, early on. As the movie goes on, main villain Manny actually gets some character development, and one other thing about the film that impressed me was the message it seems intent on sending kids about how to treat people who have hurt you in the past.
But I'll spoil no more. This is another "Goddamn it it's not on DVD?!" movies, however it can be viewed on YouTube so if you wish to see it, I highly recommend it, as well as Russell Hoban's novel which can be found for reasonably prices on eBay all the time.
My Science Project (1985)
Fun 80's sci-fi adventure!
1985's My Science Project is a childhood favorite of mine. Despite some awesome special effects, it's mostly forgotten today.
It begins in the 1950's. President Dwight D. Eisenhower is brought to an Arizona Air Force base and shown a crashed UFO. He orders the high-ranking generals, "Get rid of it!" Flashforward to modern times (a.k.a. the 1980's). Mike Harlan is a student at a high school in Carson, Arizona, known as "Motorhead Mike" to his friends because of his love of cars. He has problems. His single father is remarrying to an Avon saleswoman, he's recently had a bad breakup with his bitch girlfriend Crystal, and on top of everything else, he's going to flunk science unless his science project is, as the teacher (played by Dennis Hopper!) puts it, "dino-supreme." Mike is asked out on a date by nerdy girl Ellie Sawyer, and, to spite Crystal, he agrees, but Mike's idea of a date is to drag Ellie along to the nearby decommissioned Air Force base, now used as a junkyard. His brilliant plan is to find some random doo-dad to fix it up and pass it off as his science project. What he finds is a futuristic device which is apparently the engine or power source to the crashed UFO seen previously. It resembles a lightning globe from Spencer's Gifts.
After getting the "gizmo, " as Mike's deadbeat best friend Vince Latello calls it, back to school, Mike discovers that the thing gobbles up raw energy like a cop on a donut factory (to steal a line from Ghostbusters 2). Hooking it up to a car battery causes A) the battery to drain and melt (!), and B) a Grecian vase to appear out of thin air. Consulting school nerd Sherman Reardon, Mike and Vince learn that the device is capable of creating a time warp when it has access to power.
They show it to the science teacher who rather stupidly hooks it up to an electrical outlet, which results in him being zapped into the future, and, after some further complicated shenanigans, Mike, Ellie and Vince are forced to raid Mike's dad's hardware store for some dynamite, which they use to blow up an electrical tower, stopping the "gizmo" from feeding off Carson's power station. This gets them arrested. Well, Mike and Vince anyway. The cops ignore Ellie for some reason.
To prove their story and spring her kinda-sorta boyfriend, Ellie returns to the school to get the machine, where she encounters Sherman the nerd. Intrigued, Sherman repeats the science teacher's mistake and plugs the device back in, only this time, with nothing stopping it (the powerlines have been fixed), it starts sucking up so much energy that soon all of Carson is blacked out. Mike and Vince use the confusion to escape custody and quickly discover their school is now the center for an ever-expanding time warp threatening to consume all of Carson, and eventually the world.
Venturing within, our heroes have to find and rescue Ellie and unplug the device and stop the warp before it expands and destroys all of creation. To do so, they'll have to fight their way past a variety of grouchy individuals teleported in from other time periods, including a Roman gladiator, a caveman, Viet Cong soldiers, mutants from the future, and, in my personal favorite sequence, a giant tyrannosaurus rex.
So, it's a fairly small-scale film in terms of special effects. The tyrannosaur is the movie's big setpiece, but they went all-out on him. He's gorgeous. He's (apparently) a combination of a back-projected puppet and a full-size animatronic, and he looks very realistic for 1985. In fact I'd go so far as to say that he's the best-looking dinosaur made prior to Jurassic Park.
Master of the World (1961)
Enjoyable Jules Verne adaptation!
Enjoyable low-budget romp based off of the Jules Verne novels Robur the Conqueror and Master of the World, but, oddly, using only the second one's title. Vincent Price stars as self-proclaimed "master of the world" Robur, inventor of a giant flying zeppelin named the Albatross, who abducts Charles Bronson's stoic police inspector and Henry Hull's blustery balloonist and his daughter, played by the fetching and strong-willed Mary Webster. Also along for the ride is Webster's idiotic, cowardly fiancé played by David Frankham who does nothing but whine and be a jerk.
The screenplay by Richard Matheson is on the talky side with little in the way of action, but it's intelligently written and has some extremely quotable scenes. Prince really sinks his teeth into the part of the determined and passionate Robur, providing a less manic and composed alternative to James Mason's intense Captain Nemo in Disney's earlier 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.
Although Matheson insisted Charles Bronson was "miscast" as John Strock, he does his best in a pretty basic hero role that just calls for him to be square-jawed, stoic and punch henchmen. The stoic and square-jawed Bronson is perfect for punching henchmen, so I'm unsure what Matheson is talking about. His cool, quiet demeanor acts as a nice counterbalance to Price's more animated, over the top (but still enjoyable) performance.
Mary Webster's Dorothy is little more than someone for Bronson and Frankham to fight over and for Hull to act protective toward, but nevertheless, she does have an arc, albeit a pretty standard one, wherein she finds the guts to stand up to wimpy heel Frankham's Phillip and choose the manlier Strock. This just leaves Henry Hull. Many viewers complain that he overacts in his role as Dorothy's father, but, frankly, that's what makes his role so enjoyable. He's hilarious and provides much better comic relief than Vito Scotti's horrific performance as the Albatross' resident "French" chef. His dinner table debate with Price as Robur is one of the film's best scenes.
Add a few steampunk sci-fi elements like a cool giant airship and "futuristic" flintlock pistols (basically just embellished with some added on silver parts) and you've got yourself a pretty solid, but not great, movie. The only thing that sinks it is its low budget which necessitates the over reliance on stock footage. Beyond this, I found it just as enjoyable as the earlier Verne epics Disney's 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and Fox's Journey to the Center of the Earth.