DARK HOUSE [2009]

 DEATH LIVES HERE. 

One of that bunch of Fangoria Frightfest films they were making about a decade back, DARK HOUSE is fun and entertaining up to a point but isn't quite fun and entertaining enough to be a hoot and a holler.  14 years ago a little girl named Claire went into a spooky old house -- only to find a passel of murdered children and a madwoman (the murderer) shoving her hand into the kitchen sink's garbage disposal.  Claire passes out and we fast forward to the present and Claire has no idea what they hell happened to her in that house . . . only that she somehow survived.  The now adult Claire (Meghan Ory) is an acting student in college.  During an acting class, a nutty guy called Walston Rey (the nicely nutty Jeffrey Combs) barges in and announces that he's hiring actors to populate his Halloween Haunted House that's going to have a big media blitz of publicity for him.  A group of the acting students (including Claire) agree to do it (there's quite a wad of pay up for grabs); unfortunately Rey has bought the same murder house from which Claire survived 14 years earlier.  Claire must face her fears.  

Rey's Haunted House-a-palooza is complete with a high-tech control room and sensors placed all around the house which, when they pick up fear and excitement from the punters, materialize life-like holograms of a bunch of monstrous . . . .well, monsters.  Evil clowns, claw-fingered ghosts, mad butchers and the lot.  Unfortunately, there also happens to be a real malignant ghost in the house:  Janet Darrode (Diane Salinger) the murderer of all those kids.  And she's out to get some more victims.  And she's pretty good at getting them too as Janet takes control of the holograms and somehow makes them lethally corporeal.  So when the holograms attack now . . . they really kill you!

Now, this is a pretty neat idea for a body count horror movie.  And it's almost as fun and entertaining as it needs to be.  Jeffrey Combs and Diane Salinger are wonderful as always.  Jeffrey Combs is . . . well . . . .God.  And Diane Salinger was the Penguin's Mom (in BATMAN RETURNS) so . . . . yeah.  She's wonderfully malignant and unhinged.  And this is good because the "pretty models" that populate the rest of the cast are pretty forgettable with not much personality between them. 

Meghan Ory is pretty good as our "heroine" Claire but tends to go a little OTT in the crying scenes; but otherwise she's perfectly good here.  The haunted house is waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay overlit but still looks pretty good since it's technically not supposed to be a traditional haunted house but one that's gonna have holograms jumping out at you . . . so I suppose you gotta be able to see dem.  The CGI effects are . . . well, laughably low rent and look like they are from the early 1990's instead of 2009.  Sure, they're awful but that's all part of the fun, right?  I'm not talking about the monster holograms here, though, because they're all realized with practical effects, makeup and costumes.  I keep using that word "fun".  And fun is what this movie is (with a few sections that lag).  If only things had been allowed to get a little more bonkers, this would be a bad movie classic.

HAMLET [2015]

 

Maxine Peake's HAMLET was praised to the statosphere when it stormed the box office for the stage performance.  Such hyperbole can be a little hard to live up to so I was cautiously optimistic when I popped in the DVD of the filmed performance (I was never lucky enough to see it live on stage).  While I do feel that the entire production was excellent, I can't help but feeling just a little underwhelmed by what I saw on the DVD.  Maxine Peake was excellent as Hamlet (with one exception which I'll come to later on) with John Shrapnel (as Claudius), Gillian Bevan (as the now female Polonia) and

Claire Benedict (as the Player King) particularly superb as well.  Katie West as Ophelia seemed not to make as much as an impact as her character usually does despite West's fine performance; I suspect maybe some of her lines or scenes may have been excised.  "The Mousetrap" scene by the roving players, which can often be a slog, was here excellently mounted in an exciting way.  Maybe it was too absorbing as Claudius' cry of "Give me some light!" was something of an anti-climax.  I also found very interesting the use of piles of assorted clothes to represent the dirt of the gravesite for the burial scene; indeed, even Yorick's skull was represented by a craftily-knotted sweater which approximated the shape of a skull.  All in all, quite a superb production.

Now, my (very) slight disappointment does not mean I was let down.  As I said, I thought the whole production was excellent.  There is only one problem I had and no other review of the DVD I've seen has mentioned it.  It seemed to me that Maxine Peake had a cold when this performance was recorded. 
I have no idea if this is true but her voice is terribly hoarse throughout; ranging from very hoarse to extremely hoarse such that, instead of finding myself absorbed in the play and the performances I was instead waiting for her voice to give out any second.  Peake's voice was also very thick and congested-sounding so that many lines were not as clear as they could be.  She can be seen wiping her nose often and seemed . . . well quite snotty and sniffy, I have to say.  Now this is a terrible shame because, if it is true that she was sick when this performance was recorded, it doesn't really document her "actual" performance in the role of Hamlet.  And yes, this would be a shame because her performance here on the dvd is nearly magnificent . . . if it wasn't for her seemingly congested and hoarse voice.  Everything else about Peake's performance is top notch and she brings many nice touches to the role including genuinely funny humour, a great command of the role and new angles to the "mad" scenes.  It's just that I feel her performance would have been titanic if not for her voice.  I've seen some reviews that call her performance on this dvd "shouty" and it's true; however, I think if she actually was sick then she had little choice but to shout many of her lines or else risk her voice totally giving out on her.  As I've said, I have no idea the facts of her health when this dvd performance was recorded but it's the only explanation I have for how Peake's voice sounded here.  And if she indeed had a cold or something like it, then we are not really seeing her true performance on this dvd.  And that's a shame.  Because Peake shows many flashes of brilliance which may indicate what her stage performance was truly like at the height of her powers.  And Maxine Peake's powers as Hamlet are way up there.  

LAURIN [1989]

A GRIMM'S FAIRY TALE SET AT THE TURN OF THE 20TH CENTURY. 

This Hungarian/German (actually West German at the time) co-production has something of the flavour of mixing VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS with Ray Bradbury's SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES.  Or not.  Only small flashes of those two appear in the 1989 film LAURIN along with the dark-forest atmosphere of the Brothers Grimm combined with David Fincher's ZODIAC.  Again . . . .or not.  But you may see now how many different angles the film manages to juggle and pull off well.  Laurin is our titular heroine:  a young girl growing up in a (I presume German) port town in a house in the woods along with her father Arne, her mother Flora and wheelchair-bound grandmother Olga.  Arne is a sailor who is often away for months at a time and he is off to sea again.  Flora walks Arne down to the harbour to see him off under the darkening skies of an impending storm.  Night falls and the storm breaks as Flora makes her way home . . .only she never gets there; she is discovered dead in the river.  Flora's death is put down to a terrible accident; however, other disappearances have occurred and the same night as Flora's death, Laurin glimpsed a young boy crying for help as he was being attacked by a mysterious man dressed in black.  Laurin is convinced there is an evil presence in the town; a feeling strengthened when another boy named Stefan disappears.

LAURIN is a gorgeously-photographed film by Nyika Jancsó with a wide colour palette depending on what is required:  a muted pallet for grey overcast skies, a warm orange glow for candlelit interiors, vibrant green in the dense forest or deep, saturated shadows for night scenes and vibrant red lighting for scenes of danger.  The film is truly a masterclass in cinematography.  The direction by Robert Sigl is deliberate and Peter Weiresque as the foreboding tale unfolds.  I also must bring up the masterful use of sound by István Wolf which creates quite a few jump scares which do not feel cheap or lazy but earned. 

At first, you might think that watching the film in German with subtitles would be the proper thing to do; however after about 10 minutes I noticed that all the actors mouths were speaking English so I switched to the English soundtrack.  Curioser and curioser.  In fact, this movie was full of surprises as I bought the German blu ray clearly labelled 'Region B' but, when I accidentally put it in my US blu ray player, it played!!!  Dóra Szinetár as Laurin isn't really the best child actor in the world but she is perfectly fine in what she is given to do; she has very little dialogue and most of her performance is in her eyes and her impassive gaze which convey exactly what the film needs.  Brigitte Karner as Flora Karner has limited screen time due to her early exit but she is excellent in portraying melancholy and genuine affection for her daughter - - - and she's the spitting image of Kate Nelligan which is OK by me!  Károly Eperjes is excellent as the town's new schoolteacher (and son of the town parson) Mr. Van Rees while Hédi Temessy is quite good as grandma Olga.  

GYPSY

Tonight we lost our sweet, loving cat Gypsy.  She had stopped eating and drinking and was suffering from liver failure, kidney failure and anemia.  So tonight we had to say goodbye.  We loved her so much and, as every pet owner knows,  the hurt is awful.  This comes only 5 months after we lost our other cat Tippy to a tumor.  All this on top of my friends having lost their two cats Frodo and Gandalf as well as their dog Bumbler all this year as well.  I knew and loved them their whole lives too.  So the hell with this year.

DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS (1989) aka DEADLY GAMES

 "THEY REMADE MY FILM!"

 

That's what director René Manzor gasped when he first saw HOME ALONE.  And it's true that, once having seen "3615 code Père Noël" aka DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS, HOME ALONE looks veeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeery familiar.  It's not a complete steal but . . . .well, almost.  Thomas is a very precocious little kid who lives in a mansion with his mother (who owns a huge department store) and his invalid grandfather.  Thomas is a fan of action movies in the Rambo vein and plays soldier around the house; including building elaborate snares and trap doors with which he and his beloved dog play "Rambo"-type games.  It's Christmas Eve and Thomas' mother has to spend it at the department store so Thomas is left alone with his invalid grandpére.  At the store, a strange bearded man gets a job as a department store Santa; when he scares a little girl with inappropriate behaviour, Thomas' mother sacks him.  While going to hand in his costume, the odd man gains knowledge of the owner's home address.  He shows up at the mansion still in his Santa suit, spray-paints his beard white and murders the caretakers at the front gate.  Meanwhile, Thomas has a scheme to catch sight of Santa so he is waiting under the pool table when the killer Santa comes down the chimney and promptly kills Thomas' dog.  The evil Santa chases Thomas through the house.  The boy reaches his grandfather through his series of secret passages and hides him; then proceeds to build various traps and snares with his toys and other equipment in order to incapacitate the evil intruder.  Sounds really familiar.

Basically if you take the inept housebreakers from HOME ALONE and turn them into a homicidal Santa, you have DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS.  Unfortunately for John Hughes, this film came before his.  Director Manzor and his studio came within a reindeer-whisker of suing but never actually did.  John Hughes always maintained he'd never seen Manzor's film.  We'll never really know . . . . but HOME ALONE is really similar to the earlier French film. 

Alain Lalanne is actually incredibly good as Thomas (and this is coming from someone who usually hates child actor performances).  Lalanne (the director's son) has to handle a range of emotions and does all of them very well.  Unlike HOME ALONE, DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS is a very dark movie with real threat and violence directed toward a young boy by a psychotic killer so Lalanne is called upon not only to portray a normal kid but also to cry and portray extreme fear -- all of which he does quite well.  The young actor would soon decide he didn't want to act anymore and quit acting but he sure did have the chops in this movie.  Veteran actress Brigitte Fossey (FORBIDDEN GAMES, CINEMA PARADISO) is quite good as Thomas' mother but isn't given a lot to do.  Patrick Floersheim as the homicidal Santa Claus is superb and really sells the extreme threat and frightening evil of the character with almost no dialogue! 

DEADLY GAMES:  DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS is not your jolly little Christmas film; it's extremely dark in places and has a pretty downbeat ending.  Just the ticket for the dark nights of December.  I'd frankly rather pull my own eye teeth out than to have to sit and watch HOME ALONE so it's nice to have basically the same movie but without a horrendously bad child actor like Macauley Culkin and with a proper Santa Claus -- the murderous kind!  So far this is my one and only concession to Christmas in my movie-viewing this December -- and it may be the ONLY Christmas movie I watch -- owing to the spectacular Vinegar Syndrome slip-cased blu-ray  which looks absolutely gorgeous!  

HAPPY HALLOWEEN, SCOOBY-DOO! [2020]

 IT'S THANKSGIVING DAY . . . .AND WHAT BETTER WAY TO CELEBRATE THAN BY WATCHING A HALLOWEEN SCOOBY-DOO MOVIE! 

Yeah, that's how I do.  The new Scooby-Doo feature film will now become a yearly Halloween rewatch because (spoiler alert!) it's wonderful.  I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed this one.  It's true, as many people have already said, that's it's the Scooby-Doo Mad Max movie or, as I prefer to say, Scooby-Doo in the WACKY RACES!  At least half of the entire film takes place while our heroes are being chased by our monsters down a seemingly endless highway.  But I'm getting ahead of myself here.  The gang of Mystery Incorporated are at a Halloween parade headed by none other than Elvira, Mistress of the Dark when a creepy Jack O'Lantern-noggined Scarecrow attacks with his flying pumpkins. 

The ever-intelligent Velma surmises that the flying pumpkins are in fact just drones and uses a phone app (provided by Freddie) to short-circuit them.  The scarecrow villain is unmasked and revealed to be . . . . the Scarecrow!  Yeah, the Batman villain from Gotham City (really cool, that!) and Dr. Crane is carted off in an armoured police van.  As Shaggy and Scooby wander off for a little trick-or-treating, they discover a leaking toxic waste truck next to a pumpkin patch which turns the gourds into flying jack o'lantern monsters!  At the same time, the poor Mystery Machine (which was totalled in the previous scarecrow attack) is towed away and is replaced by a new state-of-the-art Mystery Machine X by none other than Bill Nye the Science Guy. 

From here, the giant Jack O'Lantern Monster and it's flying pumpkin toothy minions attack and the gang has to team up with a local guy named Mike and his young daughter, Elvira, Bill Nye . . . .and they even at one point have to bust out The Scarecrow to help them!!!  

At the start of the film, when I saw Elvira, I thought this would be another example of a "guest star" who is dropped into the film for 5 minutes as a cameo.  But no.  Thankfully, Elvira (and Bill Nye) are integral parts of the plot and are in the entire film; Bill Nye as a hologram in the souped-up Mystery Machine X -- the script even makes a KNIGHT RIDER jokes about it referring to him as "The Nye Rider".  I appreciated how these guest stars were totally integrated into the plot and didn't show up as a gratuitous cameo.  The lengthy road chase is actually exciting and has so much going on in it that it never drags.  There are also plenty of good laughs.  There is also a LOT of pumpkin carnage going on; sure, it's only pumpkin guts but it scores high on the bloog & gore-o-meter while you're watching.  Matthew Lillard is back voicing Shaggy and here he sounds really old for some reason -- similar to how Casey Kasem sounded in his latter days.  Get some rest, Matthew; you sound tired.  But other than Lillard's occasionally wheezy voice, he's still the perfect Shaggy.  Frank Welker (who actually IS kinda old) sounds bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as Freddie.  Also appearing as Mike is Bumper Robinson who portrayed Victor "Cyborg" Stone in the DC animated movie JUSTICE LEAGUE:  DOOM. This is one action-packed Scooby movie that I'll be rewatching every Halloween for sure!  I had a blast!

DRACULA 3D aka ARGENTO'S DRACULA [2012]

 I DIDN'T HATE THIS. 

One of the most lambasted of all Dario Argento's films and (as of this writing) his last film (unless you're still waiting for THE SANDMAN or even BLACK GLASSES).  The truth is that yes, this (and most of his films made in the latter portion of his career) does not in any way come close to his previous masterpieces of Italian horror.  However, DRACULA 3D is not as bad as everyone says.  It's, in fact, much better than I was expecting and totally watchable while remaining a pretty poor excuse for an Argento film.  I'd like to take this opportunity to address many of the criticisms of the film which I've heard over the years and, now that I've seen it, give my take on the matter.  

The first elephant in the room is the CGI which is definitely atrocious; however in my eye really good CGI looks almost as bad as terrible CGI.  None of it ever looks substantial or real.  Also, for horror fans who adore low budget flicks like THE CREEPING TERROR, BEGINNING OF THE END, THE GIANT CLAW, THE BRAIN THAT WOULDN'T DIE, and any number of such horror movies, isn't it common to overlook such lacking effects to enjoy the film for what it gets right?  I, for one, would much prefer to rewatch ARGENTO'S DRACULA than have to suffer through a minute of VAN HELSING or, indeed, AVATAR; both of these latter films I thought were terrible and (a worse sin) boring.   Another criticism I've heard is that the film is waaaaaaaaaaaaay too long.  I would agree that over an hour and forty-five minutes may not have been needed but I really didn't feel like it dragged much at any point.  The acting and line readings are (I think deliberately) overly dramatic and taking things uber-seriously -- but hey, this is a Dracula film - - aren't they ALL like that?  The dialogue is spoken very subdued and emphatically, I assume, because this is a period film and that's the way Dario wanted it to be played.  While the SPFX may be lacking, the look of the film is often gorgeous with Claudio Cosentino's set design beautifully photographed by Luciano Tovoli. 

The whole film, in fact, is a quite respectable (if ordinary) retelling of the Dracula tale . . . until things suddenly get really silly around the 1 hour 25 minute mark . . . . about the time when Dracula turns into a giant CGI praying mantis.  Buy hey, where the hell else are you gonna see a giant CGI vampire/praying mantis?!??!  Absolutely stupid but I love it!  I've heard criticism also that it's silly for Dracula to turn into a giant insect since he usually transforms into something the same size as he is i.e. where'd he get all that extra mass?  Well, I never heard anyone complain about Dracula turning into a bat; where'd all his extra mass GO?!?!  The story is basically the same Dracula story we've seen a million times with little variations here and there.

The acting ranges from pretty bad to really good; of course, Rutger Hauer as Abraham Van Helsing heads the "really good" list.  Sure, we'd all like to see more of Hauer (as he only first appears 2/3rds of the way through the film) but he fulfills the same role as Harvey Keitel in PULP FICTION (yeah, I just made a comparison between that film and this) in that Van Helsing shows up after all the vampiric shenanigans to "clean up" the mess.  I also enjoyed several nice, new touches to the Dracula/vampire genre that Argento includes the town officials being secretly "in on it" as they have an "agreement" with Count Dracula.  A failure of the script is that the agreement, whatever it is, is never explained (for instance, what do the town officials get out of it to let Dracula occasionally snack on villagers).  Unfortunately, the recent Dracula activity causes the officials to call a meeting to discuss their "vampire problem" and if the pact is worth it.  Count Dracula intrudes on the meeting (as a CGI swarm of flies) and massacres the back-stabbing officials in a scene that reminds me of a (less-effective and less-scary) version of the boardroom massacre scene in Kevin Smith's DOGMA.  Another nice innovation occurs earlier in the film when a bitten Jonathan Harker is accosted by sunlight coming in through a window; the light is accompanied by an "atomic" sound effect which sounds like the climax of KISS ME DEADLY.  It seems quite right that sunlight to a vampire would sound like/appear to him as some kind of radioactive atomic-powered fire from Hell coming to get him.  Count Dracula himself is played by Thomas Kretschmann (the MCU's Baron von Strucker from their Captain America and Avengers movies) and he is quite adequate is unspectacular; he does what is called for in the role but brings no spark of personality to the Count.  Asia Argento is also perfectly fine in the role of Lucy and Miriam Giovanelli is nicely petulant as the singular of Dracula's brides.  

My ultimate verdict is that DRACULA 3D is not a good movie by any means but it is a perfectly watchable B-movie retelling of the Bram Stoker tale with an enjoyably-silly final 20 minutes and a Dracula who's a really messy eater!  Wipe yer damn mouth, sloppy!!!

DEEP SPACE [1988]

 I had waaaaaaaaaay too much fun with this one!  The sainted Fred Olen Ray gave us an 80's ALIEN rip-off where the alien has not only a mouth full of spiky teeth but also a vagina dentata where it's stomach should be  --  which also spews deadly tentacles from it for our Japanese horror fans in da house.  Oh and did I mention it stars the great Charles Napier?!?!  Not only is Charles Napier the leading man/hero of this film but he also gets his end away with Ann Turkel (HUMANOIDS FROM THE DEEP)!  During all this joyous perfection, Napier also plays "buddy cops" with Ron Glass (BARNEY MILLER) against their crotchedy police captain Bo Svenson!  And before you think this abundance of riches is the ultimate he can go, Fred Olen Ray casts Julie (Catwoman) Newmar as a psychic crank!  Can any movie be more sheer perfection, I ask you?!?!?!?

Scientists working for the government engineer a weaponized monster (said ALIEN ripoff) and shoot it into space (for some reason).  Then, as happens in these movies, it then plummets to earth in a fiery crash (a la THE BLOB) and is witnessed by an old wino and a couple necking teenagers (aged 35) who are busy fixing a flat tire -- seriously, couldn't you fix the tire AFTER making out?!?!?!?  Anyway, said brilliant teen decides to poke the large cocoon-like giant roach egg at the crash site; awakening the monster which quickly tears the teenagers to chunks.  Detectives McLemore and Merris (Napier and Glass) head on out there to investigate.  The two detectives find a couple of "giant roach eggs" and take them home (as you do).  Police Captain Robertson (Bo Svenson) continually orders the detectives to see him in his office . . . . for no particular reason.   Another of the "cocoons" is brought to the police lab where it hatches a scuttling spider-like creature that is just as good at tearing people into chunks (as the police lab doc finds out).  Detective Merris puts his "giant roach egg" under the sink while he makes meat loaf.  Detective McLemore (no relation to STAX) and Police Officer Sandbourn (Turkel) bring their "giant roach egg" to a wacky scientist who decides poking it with a drill would be a good idea.  Cue scuttling spider monster attack!  Things and junk and stuff happen from then on to the enjoyment of us all!  Bless director Fred Olen Ray for providing us with not only monster fights but also mega-explosions and car jumps for no reason other than because they're cool!  

My favourite movie is an early 60's B&W art film by Michelangelo Antonioni.  My second favourite film (sometimes 1 & 2 switch places) is an early 60's B&W art film by Ingmar Bergman.  My favourite directors besides these two fellas are Yasujiro Ozu, Howard Hawks, John Ford, Andrei Tarkovsky, Luis Bunuel and Akira Kurosawa to name a few.  Just as much as I love critically-acclaimed cinematic masterpieces, I love movies like DEEP SPACE as well.  Not in that self-aware, 'so-bad-it's-good" way of looking down on these films because I'm so superior.  No, for the appreciation of the sheer entertainment they provide and for the chutzpah these filmmakers show in bringing their work to the screen.  If someone feels that they are "too good" to watch a low-budget flick like DEEP SPACE, I feel sorry for them.  I don't watch critically-acclaimed art films because I'm "supposed to" like them but because I enjoy them and I'm entertained by them.  The same goes for any film; either by Ingmar Bergman or Fred Olen Ray.  Don't limit yourself.  Be open to genres you don't think you like.  The first half of my life I didn't like westerns but now I love them; this is because I slowly watched westerns which were considered "the best of the best" and then I "got it".  This does not mean that you shouldn't know technically what makes a movie better than another.  You should.  However, this doesn't mean that the technically not-so-hot movie cannot be enjoyed for what it is.  Knowing that a movie is "technically bad" does not mean you cannot still enjoy it for entertaining you; even while acknowledging the severe faults the film may have.  I try not to limit myself because I want to experience as much as I can while I'm here.  So that's why I can dearly love both LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD and HORROR OF PARTY BEACH for different reasons.  Losing one or the other of those films because of a prejudice against them would be MY loss . . . . and I don't wanna be a movie "loser".

ZAPPA IN BARCELONA [1988]

 

One of my favourite Frank Zappa live albums is "THE BEST BAND YOU NEVER HEARD IN YOUR LIFE" and this concert in Barcelona consists of the exact same band during the exact same European tour in 1988.  Originally only available as a bootleg, ZAPPA IN BARCELONA became more widely available in 2007 and it's a happy occurrence!  The concert is taken from a Spanish TV broadcast so yeah, the sound may not be optimal but it's fine.  The performances by FZ and the entire band are superb (no surprise there) and most of the set list consists of different songs than are featured on the "BEST BAND YOU NEVER HEARD" double live album so it's a win win!  It's hard to believe, watching this concert, that Frank would be gone in 5 years; his guitar work is off in the stratosphere.  The monumental Ike Willis (rhythm guitar, fuzzy dice & Captain's Hat) and Bobby Martin (keyboards) share lead vocals along with Frank.  Believe it or don't, at the moment anyway the full concert is available on youtube.  The concert took place on May 17, 1888.  A fun time is had by all.

Set list:

The Black Page #2 

Packard Goose 

Sharleena 

Bamboozled By Love 

Black Napkins 

When The Lie's So Big 

Planet Of The Baritone Women 

Any Kind Of Pain 

Jesus Thinks You're A Jerk 

Sofa 

Find Her Finer 

Big Swifty 

I Ain't Got No Heart 

Love Of My Life 

The Torture Never Stops 

Bolero 

Watermelon In Easter Hay

Whipping Post 

I Am The Walrus 

The Illinois Enema Bandit 

Strictly Genteel 

THE MURRAY HILL RADIO THEATRE PRESENTS THE GREEN HORNET

 NEW VINYL OF AN OLD FAVOURITE! 

I've probably told this story before (in fact, I did -- right here on my companion blog) but I got into what is known as "Old Time Radio Shows" in the late 70's -- probably 1977 or thereabouts.  At that time, I took out every old-time radio record that my middle school library had available -- which wasn't much but sufficient to get me started.  Among that first handful was my first encounter with The Shadow on a 3-record set produced by Murray Hill Records.  And here it is:

This 3 record set was something like the holy grail to me and I checked it out of the library over and over and over again!  Such a long-time familiarity obviously caused everything about this record to become iconic in my mind:  the 6 Shadow episodes listened to repeatedly and the cover art which I stared at continuosly while listening to the records.  I mean, just look at that pulp cover artwork sandwiched into the speaker of a vintage radio with "THE MURRAY HILL RADIO THEATRE" emblazoned at the top.  Just the sight of any Murray Hill record of old-time radio hits me in the nostalgia-noggin!  

Well, lately in the last year I've taken to Discogs to buy some vinyl which I've known about and coveted for decades but never got a chance to pick up.  And one of those I just received in the mail:  THE MURRAY HILL RADIO THEATRE PRESENTS THE GREEN HORNET seen above.  What a beauty!  The box itself is in near-perfect condition and so are the records themselves!  Now, I have billions of old-radio shows in my vault but there's just nothing like listening to them on vinyl; which is the way I first listened to them oh those many decades ago. Since by this time I've picked up about a dozen old vinyl treasures (not all old-time radio shows, either) for myself, I thought I might even post about some of the more interesting of them here because they're boffo keen!

IN SEARCH OF . . . (2018 - )

 THE HISTORY CHANNEL REVIVAL OF THE CLASSIC SERIES. 

One of the great joys of my youth was watching the original IN SEARCH OF... series with Leonard Nimoy that was always on in syndication.  As I recall, in the late 70's, it was aired on either Saturday or Sunday afternoons (or both) around that time when all the Saturday morning cartoons had finished up for the day.  In 2018, the History Channel decided to revive the series with another half-Vulcan as host:  Zachary Quinto.  Of course, this isn't the first revival of the series, as there was a brief one in 2002 hosted by THE X-FILES' Mitch Pileggi.  Neither that one or the new one eclipse the classic Leonard Nimoy run but the Pileggi one was OK and the Quinto version is maybe a little better -- if indeed very different.  The new version of IN SEARCH OF... consists of hour programmes (including commercials) and, unlike the Pileggi version, only focuses on one subject.  The pilot episode entitled "ALIENS" (what ELSE would the History Channel pick to be the pilot episode?!?!?!) began as the first series meant to continue on with Quinto actually travelling to the different places mentioned in the programme and talking face-to-face with the people interviewed.  Quinto is really good in his interactions with his interview subjects and also proves to be a very hands-on host as he straps himself into an "alien abduction simulator" which lifts him blindfolded up into the air after being submerged in a pool of water!  Quinto seems to be really into the investigation portion of his remit as he parachutes out of a plane (a personal fear of his) in order to test a theory on memory function, travels down into a dangerous sinkhole or peers into a frosty container full of actual corpses in the cryogenics lab of Alcor Laboratories in Arizona.   In fact, despite being half Vulcan, Quinto proves to be particularly empathetic in his interactions as he tries to soften the blow when an "alien abductee" who insists on a polygraph test fails it on every UFO abduction question -- or when delicately interviewing a man whose brother was killed when the family home was swallowed up by a giant sinkhole.

Even some of the episodes which delve into subjects in which I'm not particularly interested (such as Artificial Intelligence or SuperHuman Abilities) were surprisingly absorbing and held my attention.  On of these episodes, the aforementioned "Sinkholes", had no prior interest for me but proved to be oddly riveting.  The first series of the programme also includes episodes on "Monsters of the Deep", "Time Travel", "Mind Control", "Life After Death" and a two-parter on "Atlantis"; all of which I found quite interesting.  Oddly, the second series has none of the globe-trotting Zachary Quinto but instead features him only as narrator and in filmed intros and outros of the episodes.  I don't know if Quinto's schedule didn't allow him to actively take part in each episode as in series one, but his more traditional role does somewhat make the show seem more like another History Channel show and I rather missed that aspect of it.  I guess the personal touch was kinda nice.  Series 2 features all good episodes on such IN SEARCH OF... old favourites as "The Loch Ness Monster" (a two-parter), "The Lost Colony of Roanoke" and "The Bermuda Triangle" and is just as interesting as the first series.  Unfortunately, I don't see anything so far about a series 3.  As a lifelong lover of everything weird and unexplained, I certainly hope they'll eventually make another series because we all need mystery in our lives! 

HALLOWEEN IS OVER, AND THE GREAT PUMPKIN DIDN'T SHOW UP AGAIN

 

WHODUNIT? [1982] aka ISLAND OF BLOOD

 "BOIL ME!  BOIL ME!" 

I don't know how Vinegar Syndrome does it?  I mean, they find absolutely stunning, pristene prints of these almost unknown, crappy horror movies and then they dress it up is gorgeous slipcovers with beautiful new art.  So it really doesn't matter that WHODUNIT? aka ISLAND OF BLOOD is a convoluted, uninspired slasher film that doesn't even have internal logic -- it's STILL a wonderful release!!!  The blurb on the back of the VS blu ray calls it a reimagining of Agatha Christie's AND THEN THERE WERE NONE -- it's SO not.  There are a bunch of people on an island and they get picked off one by one.  That's the beginning and end of any similarity.  Otherwise every one of 100 slasher/body count films is also a "reimagining" of Agatha Christie too.  A group of rather unpleasant people go to island where they plan to make an optimistic, family feel-good movie.  They don't bring a film crew or anything like that with them.  I guess they'll arrive next week?  I guess they're there to maybe rehearse?  Nothing is really explained in this movie and you really have no idea what's going on other than somebody with a Sony walkman likes to play a really bad punkish song while they murder people one by one.  And frankly, I'm with the killer.  Because not only are these people rather unlikeable but they're incredible stupid and reinforce the stereotype that victims in slasher movies do stupid things no one in their right minds would do -- like knowing there's a serial killer on the loose and, while attempting to staple-gun some sticks together to make a getaway raft on the beach, to holler at the top of your lungs that the killer won't get YOU . . . . thereby letting the killer know exactly where you are.  But hey, at least ONE slasher stereotype is broken in this film; that is, unlike most slasher movies where the cast all look like supermodels, here we have extremely ordinary-looking people.  Unfortunaley, most of the movie's running time consists of uninteresting, unfunny dialogue scenes between people you couldn't care less about.  Fortunately, every once in a while there's a wacky death scene such as someone gets boiled alive in a swimming pool (because the thermostat is malfunctioning???  I mean, how is that even POSSIBLE to get a swimming pool to boiling point?!?!?!) or someone is nail-gunned to death (stapled to the wall with about a dozen nails fired into their forehead).  So, is the movie a total loss?  No, not really.  Can I recommend it?  No, not really.

THE BLACK CAT [1966]

GRITTY.  GRIMY.  SLEAZY.  SLIMY.   

The most low-down film version of Poe I've ever seen.  The leading man and leading lady never made another film and the director only made one other film called SEX AND THE ANIMALS so you know we're in the relative skid row of film making.  I'm not sure if Pluto the black cat ever made another movie either.  In fact, I'm not sure Pluto even made it out of THIS film; although all assurances are that the cat was never hurt during filming.  There are however several scenes in which the cat is treated fairly roughly.  This is why I have such conflicted feeling about this film since I hate it when Pluto is manhandled and tossed around but then love it for it's grimy, queasy fascination.  There something here which is some sort of creative spark which elevates it from the gutter is so happily wallows in.  

Lou and Diana are celebrating their first anniversary in the large mansion they've just inherited at the recent death of Lou's mother.  Lou gives Diana a bracelet for an anniversary present and she gives him a black cat that Lou names Pluto.  Lou is fond of pets as he has an entire room devoted to his many caged animals from capuchin monkey to racoon to toucan.  Oddly, Lou then bids his wife good night and goes to spend his anniversary with Pluto and the rest of the animals while Diana is left to cry herself to sleep.  Here we have the first intimations that Lou ain't quite right as he prefers to spend his anniversary night with his pets and not his wife.  With the help of inheritance money, Lou fancies himself a novelist but gets nowhere and starts to drink heavily.  His behaviour becomes even more erratic and he picks fights in bars and knocks his wife around; causing Diana and the maid to walk out.  Now quite out of it, Lou then gouges out the cat's right eye with a switchblade thinking it's a demon or the spirit of his hated father.  The next morning, Lou is sober and guilty over what he did to the cat.  Diana and the maid return but, still drinking Lou is convinced the cat is his father and strings Pluto up with electrical wire and electrocutes it.  This causes a short which burns down the mansion. 

After discovering the house and contents were not insured, a now broke Lou has a breakdown and is sent to a mental hospital where he is subjected to shock treatments.  Once released, the couple move to a house in the suburbs but Lou eventually relapses and keeps drinking.  One night on a bender, Lou finds a black cat that looks very much like Pluto and brings it home.  Lou eventually relapses into thinking the cat is a returned Pluto who is the spirit of his father and decides to kill it again.  When Diana asks Lou to help her get something from the basement, the cat follows them down and Lou goes after the cat with an axe.  Diana attempts to prevent him for harming the cat and Lou buries the axe in Diana's blonde head.  Lou walls up Diana's corpse behind a brick wall in the basement.  The maid reports Diana missing and the police show up to search Lou's house.  As in Poe's story, the cat is heard meowing from behind the brick wall and the police tear it down discovering Diana's corpse.  Lou runs out to his Jaguar and leads the police in a car chase.  While speeding down the road, a black cat appears in front of him and Lou swerves and dies in a fiery car crash.

Robert Frost is quite good as Lou; depicting his escalating madness without chewing the scenery.  Robyn Baker is good as well as Diana but has considerably less to do.  The best performance in the film is surely Ann McAdams (better known as Annabelle Weenick) as an aging whore Lou meets in a nightclub; her world-weariness and hurt at being constantly buffeted by a cruel world are palpable. Weenick has a long genre pedigree appearing in DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, ENCOUNTER WITH THE UNKNOWN, DEADLY BLESSING, CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION, DON'T HANG UP, Larry Buchanan's IT'S ALIVE, CURSE OF THE SWAMP CREATURE and THE TRIAL OF LEE HARVEY OSWALD.  The soundtrack of the film features jazzy music as well as rock & roll.  Scotty McKay and his band play such old rockers as BO DIDDLEY, BROWN-EYED HANDSOME MAN and SINNERMAN.  One beautiful bit of direction occurs right after Lou gouges out Pluto's eye; we cut to McCay and his band rocking the nightclub and each band member is wearing an eye patch over their left eye!  Brilliant! 

THE BLACK CAT was thought to be lost until the late head honcho of Something Weird Video Mike Vraney discovered a print back in 2001.  The film looks even better on the recent Hemisphere Pictures blu ray box set which is where I watched it.     

THE CHURCH [1989]

 MICHELE SOAVI ROCKS MY SOCKS!!! 

The director of probably my favourite horror film of the 1990's (or at least in my top three) CEMETERY MAN here directs an absolutely fantastic movie.  Originally meant to be DEMONS 3, Lamberto Bava bowed out and the project changed into what would become THE CHURCH with Dario Argento's protege Michele Soavi taking the directorial chair.  Argento also produced and co-wrote the film which opens in a medieval European village which the Church and their Teutonic Knights decimate in a terrible massacre because the town is suspected of being devil-worshippers.   Shots of the dead villagers being dumped into a massive pit are uncomfortably close to films of Nazi atrocities which is surely a deliberate touch. 

The church representative decides that a large church must be built on top of the mass grave so that it can contain the evil underneath.  Fast forward to the (1989) present day and the cathedral built over the massacre is having renovations done.  Researcher/restorer Evan arrives to find art restorationist Lisa already working on a fresco.  At one point, the seal covering the medieval crypt underneath the cathedral is broken and a evil force is released possessing first Evan and then a group of tourists who are all locked in the church by clockwork medieval safeguards which are designed to seal off the cathedral when the evil is released so that it doesn't spread to the outside world.  Here we see the remnants of the DEMONS 3 storyline with the cathedral substituting for the movie theatre in DEMONS and the TV-watching apartment building in DEMONS 2.  THE CHURCH also finds mass possessions and mayhem aplenty.  

If CEMETERY MAN is a definite masterpiece (it is), then THE CHURCH is a near masterpiece with Soavi showing what a super director he was and would continue to be.  It's absolutely loaded with atmosphere with some exteriors filmed in Budapest.  The sets are absolutely fantastic as are the special effects which are practical.  An odd thing is that the film really has two leading men.  Tomas Arana as Evan is clearly the leading man in the first half of the film while Hugh Quarshie as Father Gus takes the leading man honours in the film's second half.  Arana is excellent as Evan; especially when he's possessed by evil and menaces a 14 year old Asia Argento as the sacristan's daughter. 

Shakespearean actor Hugh Quarshie is also excellent as the down-to-earth Father Gus who tries to defeat the evil in the church.  Tomas Arana has a long career in films such as GLADIATOR, HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY, THE BODYGUARD, L.A. CONFIDENTIAL, Soavi's next film THE SECT and . . . hey! . . . .FRANKENFISH!  Hugh Quarshie appeared on stage in Shakespearean productions including his ground-breaking performance as the lead in OTHELLO; he also appeared in such films as NIGHT BREED, HIGHLANDER, STAR WARS EPISODE ONE:  THE PHANTOM SCREENPLAY and in the DOCTOR WHO storyline DALEKS IN MANHATTAN/EVOLUTION OF THE DALEKS. 

Actor/director Asia Argento is well known for DEMONS 2, TRAUMA, THE STENDHAL SYNDROME, Dario Argento's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, LAST DAYS, Romero's LAND OF THE DEAD, THE MOTHER OF TEARS and ARGENTO'S DRACULA.  Leading lady Barbara Cupisti appearing as Lisa also has an impressive genre Cv including THE NEW YORK RIPPER, STAGEFRIGHT: AQUARIUS, OPERA and CEMETERY MAN before going on to an award-winning career as a documentary filmmaker. 

The Bishop is played by venerable Russian actor Feodor Chaliapin Jr.; son of the world-famous opera singer Feodor Sr.  Chaliapin Jr. played a similar role as this in THE NAME OF THE ROSE as well as becoming best known perhaps for his role in MOONSTRUCK; other film appearances include Dario Argento's INFERNO, Val Lewton's production of THE SEVENTH VICTIM, the Abbott & Costello comedy LOST IN A HARM (!), Fellini's ROMA and FOR WHO THE BELL TOLLS.