HEFILM Reviews

Curse III: Blood Sacrifice (1991)

When the slasher film was all horror was, inepty directed

[3/10 · 20 April 2024]

Panga is, I guess a hooked African Knife and that's what the film was sold as, until it failed and instead became part of the shaggy series of dog movies under that title.

But now it should just be seen and called Panga, it reflects the 80s everything is about knives cutting people era of horror. Now to be clear this film has little gore, it does feature bits of sexual exploitation in two scenes, Harrison self-consciously holding up her breasts to make them look larger. She isn't actor enough to carry the movie which has plenty of other problems.

Though we have Christopher Lee top billed, he barely has anything to do or is even in most of the film. Eventuallly a monster does appear, though even the monster must still lumber around, briefly with the Panga.

So do we don't get lots of killings, which might help a film where nothing really happes for half it's running time. The few times the Panga kills someone we have a shot of the blade rising and falling through frame--as if it's a TV movie, and even these shots don't birng any fear or, if you're after it, any blood or terror.

It's directed by an editor of the Least of the first three Star Wars films and one that drew criticism in part for doing a lot of intercutting between scenes making all the scenes seem less important individually than creataing any tension that that happens in this film too, which may make it sound more like it has some style than it does.

The film just can't pull off any kind of action at all, even if it's two people walking up stairs the camera seems awkwardly placed and the action artificial. The director, has no feel for the genre, there are only one or two kinda of moody shots and one long tedious walking around a dark empty house scene. He never directed another movie.

The obnoxious cheap sounding electric music score took two people to push some kind of cheesy thin synth momentum into the non eventful proceedings. It wasn't good then and it's worse now as far as hurting not helping the movie.

Harrison is a big problem, she's all surface, bugging out her eyes and letting her mouth hang open, getting messy and then suddenly having perfect hair and make up again. There is one of the unintentionally funniest reaction shots in genre history. She finds a body and screams while messing up her hair with both hands like she's in a hair commercial showing off how much body her hair has, then she slow walks out of the room and has perfect hair again. It's a high or low light that has to be seen to be believed.

Lee finally has a good moment telling his characters backstory which sounds much better than anything we've had to sit through in this movie. If he and the possibly interesting African supernatural elements had been allowed to take up more time the film could have been better. Or if it was going to be a slasher film then where is all the slashing and elaborate set-piece suspense scenes? Not in this movie that's where!!!

Then the film climaxes with not one but two totally unlikely and increbibly huge instant fires. The climax takes place in the rain yet one lantern instantly ignites a large very gree cane field!

So interesting perhaps as an example of a movie failing to pull off older horror elements while including trendy ones of the day. Ligthing is often done very flatly and though dolby stereo it doesn't do anything creative or effective with its sound either, and the cheesy synth music sounds like it's playing on a poolside AM radio of the day.

All said a loser, but not the worse of THE CURSE movies if that says anything. As others point out and like most of THE CURSE movies it's wasn't made to be one in the first place.

A Snake of June (2002)

Powerful and unusual stuff

[9/10 · 27 March 2024]

Why all this is called A SNAKE OF JUNE is beyond me, but this is a powerful and effective film, that builds of the strengths of director Tsukamoto's film TETSUO IRON MAN, while showing that he's made a much deeper film that at the same time is less graphic but more moving.

He seemed to be progressing in the same way that David Cronenberg did up to a point where his least graphic film, DEAD RINGERS is his most powerful and disturbing because he's internalized all the gross out gags he used on the way to making that great film. Since then Cronenberg has largely lost his way, had no where else to go, or perhaps just failed to find the right material to continue his growth with. Likewise Tsukamoto may well reach a dead end eventually too, but not yet.

Any film about sex has lots of baggage to carry and overcome, or be overwhelmed by. The problem with films that feature sexual themes and situations is that they usually parade as art but are really exploitation and/or masturbatory fantasies's both for their makers and their audience. If you're making a sex movie then make a sex movie don't try to tell anyone, especially yourself, that you're making art. The problem with turning a camera on and aiming it at a naked person is that the audience will always go, "wow, they are naked!" All character and the artifice of the story has built, the crucial suspension of disbelief will instantly vanish. The movie instantly becomes a sea of cheap sexual thrills. Whole magazines have sprung up just to show off the latest naked freeze frames of actresses mostly, not exclusively, who bare it all. The argument that pornographers make that screen sexuality is forbidden while screen violence is accepted don't understand, or pretend not to know, that nakedness is real where screen violence is false. The audience knows it. The characters in the movie aren't really dead at the end. But, wow, did you see her she was totally naked!!! Oh and women out there, don't pretend you don't talk about butt shots male actors indulge in, I've heard you while you thought I wasn't listening.

Now stay with me just a moment longer. Some filmmakers like Paul Verhoven for example are so thrilled to show off the nudity and outrageousness in general that their enthusiasm can be infectious and you go along with them. Or of course you can just ignore what the press releases and what critics say and just enjoy this type of film as a good peep show. For example, Roger Ebert is openly hot for certain actresses and will almost invariably love movies they are in when they are naked, but his endorsements of the films don't admit this fact, it skews his judgement. I'm saying if you want to go to enjoy the cheap naked thrills for what they are that's great. But that's all it is. Love it for what it is, not for what it's not.

A SNAKE OF JUNE is loaded with elements that could make it a perfectly fine art house (remember that this term in the 60's was a euphemism for a place to see racy foreign films which featured nudity before it was allowed stateside) sex film. But Tsukamoto successfully makes a genuine film about sex/voyeurism/obsession/ and redemption all at the same time. He also manages to make the sex sexy when he wants to and disturbing when he wants to as well.

The lead, Asuka Kurosawa, is a large part of this. She is believably mousy at the start and the remarkably beautiful and more importantly sensual later on. Tsukamoto saves he on screen nudity for close to the end of the film, this helps as well. And when it does come, it comes at a moment when all the three main characters share the moment at the same time. So it's a climax on many levels for all characters at the same time.

The stalker/photographer character is driving her to a sexual awakening and his dealing with his own obsession with his own illness. The actual awakening is portrayed as being humiliating and more painful than pleasurable, but he'll show the pleasure by the end as well. There's a wonderful moment that shows this power of sexual love as healing that I can't reveal here without ruining it.

The story is broken into sections the first of which is the wife's view of the story, and then the husband's. There is, unlike in THE GRUDGE, no overlapping repeated time elements, but the story is seen from the husband's point of view for he back half. This works surprisingly well. The husband seems like such a freak in the beginning that it is surprising how we get to know him and route for him to become what his wife really needs.

The whole story is about what the characters really need and finding that to be a successful human being.

Now there are problems in this second half of the film. Ironically the more obviously weird elements or now post cyber punk elements aren't really needed and are confusing. How and why does the husband find himself with a bunch of other men suddenly watching women being drowned in a tank? Why does he make no mention of this ever happening to him or call the police afterwards? Why does the photographer suddenly have a doctor Octopus type of metal penis thing that he grabs the husband with at one point? (Maybe this is the Snake of the title, June is the rainiest month in Japan) The director himself confesses in one of the featurettes he doesn't even know what the penis thing is doing in the movie.

Perhaps these things are only in the husband's imagination but that's not clear and frankly it's a stretch on my part to forgive these out of place elements. These things aren't needed in the film, it's strange and compelling enough without them. These are just left over images that worked much better in an overtly gonzo film like TETSUO than here.

The film is deliberately paced and not so much shot in black and white as in blue and white. It feels like what it is 16mm blownup and printed on color stock, but it's frequently and always effective. The jerky hand held moments are intercut with more deliberate and forceful compositions, but watching closely the hand held elements are used only when the characters are uncertain, not just put in to make it look like a reality TV show. The sound mix available in 5.1 or in DTS doesn't really demand or use either very much. Post dubbing of the actors voices is distracting at times. Chu Ishiwawa's mostly synthesized music score is effective except in some of the more overtly horror scenes where is sounds like bad horror movie music.

The menu pages are all hyped up, especially the opening menu page that essentially shows you the first shots of the movie. When you press play you seem to be seeing the menu page twice in a row when actually it's the start of the film. A poor choice on the DVD producer's side.

The two featurettes are both interesting and worth the time to hear the actors and crew talk seriously about something worth talking seriously about. Director Tsukamoto, who plays the stalker/photographer himself talks about how he found the character less and less threatening the more he thought about it, this attitude makes the film much richer than it would have been had he made the film earlier in his career as he would have liked to.

Though Tartan on the original dvd US release, puts a banner on the box that says ASIA EXTREME this is not a film likely to be endorsed by the large Asian, especially Japanese, anime/ pornography crowd. It will be too slow and way too non graphic for them.

There is far too much going on in this film to talk about much of it here especially without ruining it if you haven't seen it. The script has some admittedly willfully obscure elements both of story and of character, but the film probably rewards repeated viewings that will make just what the hell is going on make more and more sense on many levels if you care to really delve into this interesting and powerful little movie.

Face (2004)

If you're into Asian horror there isn't much new here.

[4/10 · 27 March 2024]

Let's face it (no pun intended) the best and most influential horror films from the start of 21st century came from Asia, mostly Japan and more recently Korea. Of course the influences aren't just on our own domestic horror films but on other Asian films as well. Films like Korea's FACE for example, which is really a second tier film but still one worth seeing, especially given the large selection of crap that hovers dangerously nearby on the DVD shelves as a genre fan goes out to rent or more riskily buy a horror film to watch. Given those options, I'd say this is more of a rental.

I stay away from plot synopsis in reviews as much as possible, but the one on this box is perhaps typically of this distributor, Tartan, not really what the film is about. The focus here is on a forensic facial reconstruction worker whose daughter he, and we, quickly believe has been given a transplanted heart from a donor who is really a victim of a serial killer. This premise is an excuse to see the ghost crawling on a ceiling and peeking out through the now overly familiar long straight black hair with its overly familiar blood red eyes. One scene has the little girl open her closet and act afraid, it really looks like she has a THE GRUDGE poster in her closet, it's that much alike. For all the very professionally done and controlled style of the movie and the well timed scares, the scares themselves are now mostly been-there-done-that in other Asian films. And every scene in the first third of the movie is about some kind of scare or another.

Then the movie becomes more about the mystery of who is the killer and the scares mostly go away. The wrap up of the killer's identity is a typical and slightly confused rush job. There are too many early scenes that end in a jump and too few later on for the film's own good. The well acted and ultimately important romantic subplot is fine other than the fact that the set up for it is ridiculous, really a cliche, in this case from American films, of the good natured but not too bright female assistant/side kick who eventually charms our hero into caring for her despite the fact she has no reason to be there in the first place.

First time feature director Hyun has done numerous short films and says in his interview that he doesn't see this as being any different than those. Well, yes and no, he doesn't know how to pace a feature yet, though this one isn't overlong at 88 minutes.

For a film about the rarely used and slightly controversial procedure of basically sculpting a clay face over a skull in an attempt to identify the victim, it doesn't do enough with the procedure. Where is the scene with the clay face talking or bleeding or melting? Instead we cutaway to the always exciting (not) nearby computer monitors where the CG image of the head can spin around (you see it looks more 3D if it spins around) as it has skin magically morph onto it, etc. There were opportunities here to do more original and specific scares related to the premise, than the end result shows.

Director Hyun also reveals in a rather poorly shot interview (which ends abruptly) that his intentions with this film weren't to make a brutal ghost film but a more human one. He does succeed at this, he does not however, despite his claims in the same interview, succeed at fresh horror and ghost imagery. It almost seems like perhaps someone else "got to" the film after he did, as he speaks about imagery that is not in the finished film. A bit more of this imagery is seen in two trailers (one hidden as an Easter Egg) that might have helped overcome the GRUDGE/RING elements that pull this otherwise worthy film down a notch.

The image on the cover art is striking, more so than the actual appearance of the face in FACE. Tartan's DVD presentation is all pro (though for an Asian Extreme movie there isn't much in it gore wise or exploitation wise to call extreme) with moving menu pages and the always welcome DTS as a sound option. The three separate interviews with cast, crew, director may not be action packed but they are also mostly hype free and that alone is kind of refreshing and a nice inclusion.

The surround sound is used effectively if not perhaps as much as it could have been. The music score is effective if unmemorable the same can be said of the actors' performances. FACE is a real film, not a pandering festival of ineptitude like the last 5 horror rentals I've seen. There is one interesting ghost appearance involving a type of split screen effect that you can see works even better in the trailer. Again, I wonder who's responsible for some of the final edit choices in the film, I get the feeling it could have worked better than it does.

Then again, this is still much better than most of what's out there to choose from and better than many American remakes and films "inspired" by Asia's leadership in the field.

Searching for Haizmann (2003)

Another failed Found Footage movie, probably not worth finding.

[2/10 · 27 March 2024]

The problem with this movie is that it should have been photographed more poorly. I actually can't remember ever thinking that until watching SEARCHING FOR HAIZMANN. It's a problem because this is yet another BLAIR WITCH PROJECT knock off, coming long after the cycle seemed to be mercifully over.

As soon as BLAIR WITCH started making money it divided people sharply into the "one of the greats" and "not even a film" camps of opinion. Regardless of if you thought it was a fake display of bad acting and shaky camera work I think you would still agree that virtually all of the rip offs and attempted parodies of BLAIR WITCH prove that the original does contain enough unrepeatable lighting in a bottle moments that it should be left alone. Well a good case has been made by the makers of the, starts-off-well-but-ends -badly, THE LAST BROADCAST to prove that it inspired THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT which in a way makes BLAIR the best of the knock offs of the basic relatively new mockumentary genre.

This time the real, or claimed to be real, subject matter involves a lost soul-eternal-man-antichrist named Haizmann who three kids who are internet pals decide to go after while at the same time hoping for some romance along the way. A documentary crew decides to go along for the ride. Are you convinced by any of this set up yet?

Now searching for the Antichrist hasn't previously proved to be a fertile ground for movie characters to use to find true love, or at least a roll in the hay, and it's a pretty bogus reason on the surface, but then again much of the downtime in Robert Wise's near masterpiece THE HAUNTING is filled by the characters trying to drink and joke their way into proving life after death so perhaps SEARCHING FOR HAIZMANN still might have a chance. Actually it's kind of a reversal of the crappy horror movie set up where kids go out to have a roll in the hay and decide to "have a seance" or "raise the devil" or "go into the haunted house/ funhouse/woods/etc..." as part of their evenings fun. The lesson here I guess is that going out to party and have sex really should be enough fun for everyone, and isn't that a message we can all get behind?

SEARCHING FOR HAIZMANN starts off with some dreadful fake actors pretending to not be actors talking to the camera that immediately let you know you're in trouble. After that things occasionally get better before they ultimately get worse. Along the way it tries to recreate, sometimes more than once, it's own version of BLAIR WITCHES instantly trademark moments, like the panicked run through the woods and the tilted angle final shot. The acting here can't be just said to be bad as much as it's confused since you have actors trying to act like they aren't acting. To try to alleviate this endemic problem one character is actually supposed to be an actor in "reel" life.

So I'm back to my "it should have been shot more poorly overall problem." It all looks the same. Doesn't matter if it's supposed to be "real" footage of things happening, or videotaped "interviews" it all looks artificially lit and theatrical albeit in a low low budget fashion. The rather good music and spooky 5.1 sound job further reminds you always that you are watching a movie not a documentary. One of the unsung virtues of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT was it's excellent use of sound but it never made you think you were watching a movie as the sound effects do here. Of course nothing wrong with fiction films that are just fiction, but HAIZMANN'S story structure has to have some of it be "real" to hold your interest and it never is.

The film's opening credit sequence features a colorful if video looking series of overlapping images and computery- looking graphics that are supposed to be old texts from ancient books. Later in the film some of these same title graphics are layered over top of events occurring in the film which only further reminds you you are watching a movie during what should be shocking moments. Actually it reminds you of the opening credits which make you wonder just when all this tediousity might end.

Another problem is that the scope of this story is too large for the filmmakers to pull off. BLAIR WITCH was set is largely in a too bland looking forest, here the story spans both time and the globe, yet all we see are the interiors of various crew member's apartments.

Despite a case of budget impoverishment they did manage to get performances from a number of name (or former name) actors. Their presence is distracting but Clint Howard and especially Tippi Hedren come off well. Stephen (ANIMAL HOUSE, THE UNSEEN) Furst seems to loose weight as he gets older and is doing a rather good Woody Allen impersonation here in his small part that of course totally takes you out of any mood of being scared. The three "kids" who are the leads are pretty bad, though Jenny Mollen as Grace Robin does manage to have a few good hysterical moments.

Production values though suffer, especially in the prop department, there are some pretty fake looking headless chickens in one scene and some really bad paintings supposedly done by the demonic Haizmann over the course of many years that look like they were done by a fifth grader five minutes before they were plopped down in front of the camera. Now maybe those were real chickens and maybe the actual paintings did look like that. So what? They both look bad and fake here. I've never heard of Haizmann and though the filmmakers claim in a short extra that he's real that of course proves nothing in the context of a mockumentary like this.

The DVD presentation, I watched, is decent by the low standards of Brentwood Entertainment that is. Some artifacting comes and goes but the 5.1 sound is nice and there is a short extra, curiously called a commentary, that is actually an interview with the directors.

Too busy trying to be real in parts to take off as real suspense or horror, too artificial to be convincing as a documentary SEARCHING FOR HAIZMANN ends up as being not much of either.

Japan (2002)

Sensual? Eh, if you close your eyes and imagine something else

[3/10 · 27 March 2024]

Review of the Dvd released by Tartan Video

This is a well packaged film with all the right kind of reviews and accolades on the box to make a foreign or art film lover (and those are among my loves) at least rent it. Unfortunately the actual film suffers from many things that make people hate foreign and art films.

I was going to watch this of course to review it, but had my brother and a good friend of mine who like this kind of film insist on watching it with me. About 50 minutes in they were begging me to turn it off. Why?

Well for starters you can see by the running time above. This is a long movie but it feels much longer. It's a small story, really about two people and they are either in small grimy interiors or large barren exteriors. A review on the box compares it to a Tarkovsky movie. Japon actually starts with a long but interesting drive from the city out into the wasteland and the sequence is much like the long driving sequences at the beginning fo Tarkovsky's version of SOLARIS. But this film is paced for people who think that Tarkovsky or Werner Herzog's movies move too fast for them. It feels here, unlike with those two sometimes great filmmakers, that the pace is a result of a first time director not knowing what to really take time with and so then he just takes too much time with everything.

The story is about a semi hobbled older man who goes out to the middle of nowhere to kill himself. He finds only a bleak lonely wilderness wasteland environment. He stays at an old woman's shack for a while and that's all that happens until about 50 minutes in. He has a inexplicable dream of a bikini clad beauty kissing the old woman a moment put on the back of the DVD box I suppose to try to ensnare some of the gay art house audience.

The old woman tells him a story about a relative of her's who was in prison and used to masturbate to a picture of the virgin Mary. That night the man is about to shoot himself and instead decides to graphically masturbate. I guess the story has awakened in him what the DVD box promises the film offers "raw sexuality."

This is a way distributors sell foreign films to American audiences. You'll see real sexy stuff done by those uninhibited foreigners we all wish we were, or at least enjoy seeing being decadent. Well you do get to watch two horses have pretty graphic real sex from start to finish. Then you also have one of the longest most awkward joyless-feel-bad-for-the-actors sex scenes in film history. Neither of the leads are the type of people you want to see naked. They don't have any chemistry together, though the stilted slo-motion paced dialogue never allows them to either. In fact Magdalena Flores' whole performance feels like what it is, a confused non actor dealing with a script that is probably unplayable and then being pushed around in this really distasteful sex scene. In fact her filmography shows that her previous experience in films before this was as a continuity person! The male lead Alejandro Ferretis also feels like a non actor though he does have presence and a strong profile. He has since been murdered so this is his sole film credit.

Oh you do get to see several real dead, or really killed on or almost on camera and or rotting animals. Pretty sexy stuff watching that decapitated birds head blink and gasp for air for an eternity. This is momentarily fascinating but in a real pornography of violence way. The film just all starts to seem grimy and pointless a short ways in and then you just think it will never end at all.

Look many or most American films especially right now have almost no connection to real life. But this film doesn't either. This isn't the way people act or speak in real life and this story doesn't have enough going on any level to justify the running time or the graphically ugly moments. It seems like a first time director out to shock the audience for fear of rejection of his ideas. The film only ends up being tedious and unpleasant, not stirringly, shocking or deep.

Widescreen 2:35 photography is sort of washed out looking and the hand held walking around shots at the beginning are pretty hard to watch without getting motion sickness even on the smaller home screen. There isn't much music but it is really effective when it does play as is the occasional expressive use of sound. I was only watching a screener so I did not have the interview with the director that is on the actual release version. Honestly I sort of wonder what he was thinking at times, perhaps that would give some answers, but would not make it a better film.

There may be promise of better things to come in moments of Japon for first time director Carlos Reygadas but the rewards he's gotten for this film aren't deserved yet. I freely admit I ended up fast forwarding to reach the end of it. I think most people will probably just hit stop.

Kunoichi ninpô-chô: Yagyû gaiden (1998)

Senseless and badly dubbed into English, so bad it's good???

[27 March 2024]

KONOICHI LADY NINJA came out in the U. S. in 2002 105 minutes on DVD from Media Blasters/ Tokyo Shock line of releases.

Like cigarettes certain DVD boxes should probably warn viewers of certain risks. This one would say WARNING: THIS IS PART SEVEN IN A SERIES OF FILMS AND WILL MAKE NO SENSE AT ALL TO ANYONE WHO HASN'T SEEN ANY OF THE PREVIOUS FILMS, THOUGH WE DON'T WANT TO TELL YOU THAT OR YOU WON'T RENT OR BUY IT.

That said I get the feeling it would still be mostly senseless but that's not to say it's not fun in a Hi Octane wacky Asian way. There is almost never a shortage of ideas in Japanese fantasy films and this one is no exception, but at over 90 minutes and with no sense of story or purpose it's a bit of a trial to get through.

It seems like it will be simple enough when it starts. A group of bad guys, one of whom wears anachronistic glass goggles, attack a convent. One of the bad guys pulls out both his eyes and throws them on the ground so that they can turn into monsters to help in the battle. They kill some people fly around in the air spray blood, not spurt, spray blood in all directions and then leave without finishing the job. Sort of a Pearl Harbor kind of attack, they just make their enemy really mad. It would seem that the rest of the film we be a revenge movie as the female survivors track down the outlandish baddies and kill them real good with more gushering blood and goofy super powers. The group of sisters, Ninja's I guess, are called Konoichi, but like much of what is in this movie that's only a guess. These sisters in their quest for revenge do occasionally bear their very very small breasts, at one point this is done to invoke what they call NINJA MAGIC: NIPPLE SHOCK WAVE!

Sort of like a Power Rangers type thing in the middle of a fight a character will yell out things like, NINJA MAGIC: RED PHOENIX, FLYING BULLET POWER, or ROTTING EGG CURSE, or ENERGY BALL and unconvincing but bizarre powers will suddenly become part of the fight scene. The women to combat the ENERGY BALL thing sit on the ground spread their legs suck the energy balls into their, well you know, and then blow the bad guy into a thousand pieces. After this scene you can pretty much stop watching, it never tops this moment.

Yes, this isn't RASHOMAN that's for sure.

Moments like this will keep you going through the baffling thousand characters with a thousand motivations and special skills and agendas plot. I'm sure if I'd seen at least a few of the other films this would be more involving and less frustrating and by the end tedious. If you think you've seen campy Japanese samurai type screaming in movies before, well, this is the Mount Everest of over the top screaming. The scream however does lack the conviction of the authentic over the top screaming Asian movies. By this point the filmmaker's are camping it up and know they are that robs it of a bit of the fun.

The DVD box should also say something else WARNING: THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE VERSION OF THIS FILM IS PERHAPS THE WORST DUBBING JOB IN HISTORY. It sounds like a SCTV parody of a English dub. It sounds like it was recorded by two guys, and maybe a girl or one of them just using a high voice, who do everthing. One of the characters sounds like John Candy and the other sounds like Joe Flaherty doing a dead on Yoda impersonation. It never matches anyone's lips but it sounds like what it is, two guys sitting in a room rushing half heartedly through the dialogue. It never actually sounds like it's part of the rest of the audio track or on a locations where the film takes place at. It cheapens the film enormously, just check out any scene in the much better Japanese surround mix and compare. The English one is childishly bad. Just for fun it references American action films. The lines MAKE MY DAY, and I'LL BE BACK pop up when you least expect them. Not that this takes away from anything given the nature of the film. Then again trying to make sense of this fast paced goofy story is even harder when trying to watch subtitles and keep up. It's nice they did an English track, I think done specially for this release, pity it's so poor.

The film's soundtrack isn't helped by the tinny, sounds-like-FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA'S DRACULA -done-on-1980's-keyboards music score by Torsten Rasch.

Extras on the disk reveal that certainly the filmmakers' intended much of the film to be funny. The director/ actor Ozawa is a pretty clever and amusing in person, he just needs to be a better film story teller. The extras also feature the sort of random nature that occasionally plagues Media Blaster releases. You never know when some extra will just suddenly start or stop in mid sentence. But you have to wonder, given the still unreleased titles of really classic Japanese horror and fantasy films, that this one would pop up while other more deserving ones remain lost to modern audiences both here and in Japan itself. I don't know perhaps this film is something of a relief from all the deadly serious and equally senseless RING and THE GRUDGE knock offs flooding our DVD shelves.

Best element of the film in terms of a classical look is the cinematography by Shouji Ebara. There are many classy visuals in between the grade school wackiness of the rest of it. Just imagine CROUCHING TIGER HIDDEN DRAGON directed by Lyold Kaufman and you'll have some idea, though Kaufman would have made sure it made a bit more sense and had larger breasts and more of them, and maybe you'd get to see the LESBIAN CANNIBAL HO DOWN video for the 100th time. For me that never grows old.

This is probably best watched as a party tape with some slash metal music playing over the soundtrack and the subtitles turned off. In that context it rates 4 stars.

Angel of Death (2001)

dull and forgotten, leads have no chemistry

[3/10 · 27 March 2024]

American star who's career is in trouble goes to Europe to appear in a multinational production of little distinction. Those were the days, the late 1960's through mid 1970's and unless your name was Clint Eastwood probably nothing much came of the experience as far as the finished film was concerned. Ah, I feel sort of nostalgic for those euro trash co productions that you just knew were really about tax shelters as well as being one last chance for the star to headline a movie and have a vacation at the viewing public's expense.

Well, ANGEL OF DEATH is just such a movie and it is only from 2002! The original, more germane, title is SEMANA SANTA which means Easter or Easter week, referring to the parades and celebrations that feature hooded monks, one of whom is suspected of being the killer.

No less than six countries are listed in the credits and though set in Spain part of it was shot in Hamburg Germany. I guess I'm talking about all this because all of that is more interesting than the movie itself.

Other than the pleasing distractions of the setting, the story is really really tired. Though based on a novel it really feels like the work of a tired American television cop show writer. Doing some research I found that I was half right, Roy Mitchell is a English television cop show writer. One symbolic killing sparks an investigation. It is hinted that there is some religious connection to the killing. Ultimately this isn't explored in any depth. Woman Cop forced on a male counterpart who doesn't respect her. She is shown to kick ass early in the film to excuse her becoming pretty much just a typical weak woman for the killer to throw around by the end. The dialogue is really flat. A character gets locked in a room by the killer and immediately pounds on the door and yells, "Open this door!" Pretty much all the dialogue is on this level of freshness and creativity. It sounds even worse because we have a bunch of thick accented Europeans speaking lamely written television dialogue while we (the audience) are to pretend they are all really Spaniards. Though when we see anything written down it is in Spanish. It's all just not very convincing.

In the midst of this is Mira Sorvino sporting a pretty good accent but looking very out of place with her blonde hair amid all the dark haired natives. Though it is explained she is half American she should have just died her hair. She pretty much plays the whole film with the same slightly worried or interested expression. There is no chemistry between her and co star Oliver Martinez and though her part isn't written to really carry the film she doesn't rise to the challenge to elevate the material. I guess in this case Mira Sorvino and Olivier Martinez were an item at the time and thought it would be fun to go to Europe and pretend to hate each other on film. She I guess comes off better since she seems like an actress giving a poor performance where he comes off as being a non actor trying to act mean and tough.

Speaking earlier of Clint Eastwood, Mira certainly is in need of Clint saving her post Oscar career the way he did for Hillary Swank.

Ciro Cappellari's location photography makes you want to go there but generates no suspense or style other than a surface gloss to the film. All the production levels are about on par with a really well produced cable movie but not really up to feature standards. The first crime scene is rather gruesome and the second killing is too but after that it's a dullish hunt for the killer structure. The revelation is something of a cheat but does nothing to revive your interest in the story by that point. Two supporting characters are sort of interesting, but so what? One of these is Alida Valli, who makes the most of what little they allow her to do here. She's at least an authentic 70's Euro character actress, having been in SUSPIRIA, LISA AND THE DEVIL, THE ANTICHRIST to name a few of her impressive credits. Mira Sorvino seems almost in awe of her during their scenes together and for good reason, Valli is actually acting! But Valli's presence, and she does have that, just reminds you how blandly directed the film is.

To increase the growing sense of inertia there are extended flashback sequences in the middle of the film set during the Spanish revolution revealing Valli's character's origins.

Asleep at the helm director, Pepe Danquart, got to love that name, directs a movie that cuts together properly but doesn't tell an exciting story. Nor is he able to get a good performance from his leading lady. Nothing is done poorly enough to become silly, other than one scene where Sorvino gets stuck to a staircase rail with a bull fighting pike through the hand and has to pretend she can't get free while fighting and stabbing occurs around her between the macho men.

Music score adds little except in some probably authentic Catholic parade scenes and source music. 5.1 mix does almost nothing with the surround channels.

ANGEL OF DEATH does little with anything. The DVD does offer trailers for a number of better movies available from MGM. Despite the Spanish setting the only alternate language is French which makes no sense given the large domestic U. S. video audience of Spanish speakers who might be interested in the film because of the setting. Oh well, perhaps this is a small mercy for them.

The Sins of Rachel Cade (1961)

Excellent rather tough script, just ignore some Hollywood fake scenery

[8/10 · 7 January 2024]

Anhalt's excellent script deals with issues that censors would have forbidden that help keep the film "modern" in a good way. It also deals with faith but not without questioning what that is. The story even goes into briefly the still heinous practice of removing parts of the female genitals in tribal africa in efforts to make the women not enjoy sex but want to be good mothers instead. This element, especially coming from a major studio film in the early 1960's I'd of thought would be the first thing taken out of the story. This is one of several such frank and still contemporary issues in the screenplay and film.

Now, yes, most of the film takes place in a sort of Gilliban's Island "jungle" meaning interior "fake" outdoor African sets, but you soon get over this and ignore it as the acting and the characters are vividly done.

The focus of the story is on Rachel Cade, and her sins which aren't exactly what you'd expect either. Director Gordon Douglas keeps it all moving along well and visually the movie from time to time uses extreme close ups on her reactions something that is done only for her character, none of the others. The cast is largely black and though Woody Strode's character sort of vanishes, several of the other supporting "native" parts are well written and performed and a real part of the story, not just primitives being saved by the white man, or woman in this case. The "natives" actually save Rachel in a way.

There is an excellent scene between Finches character and a local religious figure where they smoke and quietly agree that they can be friends privately though they must be enemies publically.

Now, yes, the story is just as much a romance than it is about faith or culture clashes. This romance is between a nobel woman and two men, one the young hot doctor, the other the older bitter military figure. But what's wrong with that? Nothing if it works and fits into balances the rest of the story.

Max Steiner's score is also a major asset, obviously a story he cared much about, a few music cues are melodramatic, but many very effective and unexpected sounding, coming from him in the later part of his career.

Angie Dickinson does really well as the center of the film, Finch is also very good, Moore does a decent American accent though it may stiffen his performance a bit, still he's well cast. Cade is really the central character in ways that are in the mold of the great, by then fading, major female stars of Holllywood in years before this, like Hepburn, Davis, Stanwick, Crawford--all of whom were by this point to young to play this type of role. Dickinson would often in her pre police woman films be a supporting or decorative character, not so here.

It's kind of odd actually that the film hasn't been remade, not that it needs to be, but it would serve modern actresses well.

Good Grief (IV) (2023)

Ok Grief, Woody Allenish relationship melodrama

[5/10 · 7 January 2024]

Not a bad effort from star writer director Levy, but first timer mistakes keep it from really taking off. It's also all rather mild in all regards, be it as romance or drama or semi tragedy or comedy it dabbles in all these to not very exciting funny or moving ends. All the characters tend to speak alike and the performances are also of the soft-just above a whisper variety that make you want to shake them and ask them to speak up at times.

The title is kind of funny, with it's Charlie Brown allusions. It's no spoiler to say the film is about Levy's character dying at the start and how this effects his husband and his husbands friends.

It's really about this group of friends, two gay men, former lovers, and their gal pal a sort of actress. They are all seemingly very well off finacially which makes this a sort of mild neurotic problems of the upper class story, how bad can you feel as they all wear expensive clothing and hang out in the beautiful locations beautifully decorated. The story sets up possible financial issues for Levy's character but these are dropped. You really kind of feel not much is at stake, Levy's character is kind of sad, never seems on the verge of collapse though, nor does he display much bitter wit--aside from one very funny line.

It feels like a pretty good first draft of a script, there is one good twist early on that doesn't really go anywhere after that, you wish some real bitter comedy or real soul shattering grief might errupt but never does. Levy is a talented performer getting to make his his movie here, but as a filmmaker and feature length writer he shows his lack of experience and a lack of being able to look at the material from an audience point of view. The valid points the film does make about grief and friendship tend to just get repeated over and over again in the dialogue. It's pretty much all talk actually, the two kind of dramatic scenes happen off screen. One nice "date scene" at an art gallery is an exception.

Visually it's all smooth and pretty looking, the only thing that stands out is Levy's glasses, often they glow in an otherwise dark scene, this happens over and over again, is this to highlight his eyes, it tends to take away from the expression in them actually, it seems like either just a choice or a try at something that doesn't totally work.

Location work in Paris and London are beautiful, music score doesn't add much life toany of it. The fact that the film could probably be exactly the same with a male and female married couple rather and a gay couple sort of points to the generic polite middle of the quiet road the film remains on all the way through.

Also as a first time director and writer Levy's influences show, most of them being from Woody Allen, perhaps mostly Annie Hall which is far superior.

The Pale Blue Eye (2022)

Preposterous as a whole a few good bits, not very Poe like

[5/10 · 6 December 2023]

It seems that no one involved really read any Poe, and possibly not the original novelist either. Of course if you dont' know Poe's work whill that bother you? I can't say, but I think the disjointed nature and mismatching of elements will still leave you feeling like it's a jumble.

It also goes on a bit long, with some additional killing thrown in more to keep the story going that develop the story itself and a whole Hammer Horror movie element suddenly emerging only to then, hopefully, be forgotten if we are to accept the ending.

So as a detective movie it kind of works for awhile, as a horror film it doesn't work, as a sort of Historical figure, Poe, brought to life it does succeed at times and that give the movie some heart--no pun intented given the nature of the story.

The acting is pretty good, though it does dip into the mumbling and face making that seems on the one hand to try to make it seem more natural and on the other hand to make sure we know it's a period piece. The sound mix is the type which has people turning on the subtitles to read what they can't hear--a trend that shows real disconnect in current habits of production and "consuming" of filmed shows and movies. No doubt this film was seen as having little or no commercial value as far as being released theatrically and so was sold to Netflix.

It's really Poe and Poe's character, very well acted, who is portrayed as a nerdy unattractive figure that give the film any weight, but then again with the Detective Bale plays being the main character, the film loses momentum when he is off screen especially in the kind of long middle section of the film which seems to want to explain Poe's fiction by creating a fictional real life encounter/romance/mystery element--for awhile.

I don't think screenwriter/director Cooper really has a feel for horror and perhaps not really for period this time around.

Gillian Anderson is mostly wasted and a bit, though appropriately, wasted looking in the film. Howard Shore's score doesn't add much in the way of propelling the story or binding the elements together, it seems to play briefly once in awhile to let us know we are transitioning from one scene to another one.

The look of the film is one of those bluish not much color affairs, though feels big budget and pretty authentic to locations and the time period. Like the film itself it's slick without having much personality though it doesn't try to be too hip either visually.

Any detective story will shift gears and the fun is either liking that or feeling ultimately cheated once you know the whole story. This one it feels a bit like a cheat but the issue is it's long and one of those shift in gears doesn't really work and makes no sense at all.

Castle of the Creeping Flesh (1968)

heart surgery and alot of talk

[3/10 · 24 September 2023]

Yes it's true there is no creeping flesh in this movie and not that much flesh really either.

I watched the restored and uncut version released by Severin and it's mostly a lot of talk, terrible acting and terrible dubbing and music. There is a lot of eye rolling, the lead villain is especially terrible.

Howard Vernon looks younger than I'm used to seeing him, but the voice they use to dub him sounds like it's from some giant of a man it's pitched so low.

There is little style to the direction, save one flashback scene to a rape scene, but there isn't much sleaze to be enjoyed here unless you like lots of shots of real heart surgery--interestingly enough the director had a bad heart, perhaps that's why he found this footage so interesting as it goes on and on.

The movie to goes on and on, lots of sitting around a big table eating and talking then walking around the castle and talking, it's really quite dull and protracted. Every scene just goes on and on to try to make the film longer.

Nudity is brief, there are two rape scenes that aren't very convinging, the plot doesn't make much sense which wouldn't matter if there were suspenseful set pieces. The real castle they shot at gives a bit of production value but they don't do much with it.

I'd say skip this one, don't be fooled by the title as that's not what the movie is about. I should mention there is a beat attack, a pretty shoddy bear attack and bear suit but at least something threatening happens.

Poorly made and dull dull dull.

A Covenant with Death (1967)

A thriller a romanic potboiler a bit about race, No, it's NEITHER!

[2/10 · 18 August 2023]

Earl Holliman is really good in this movie. Often in films he came off as being rather stiff but if you fast forward to his moments in the film you are seeing the only virtues it's got.

Sold as a thriller it has very little thrills or courtroom drama either, it spends most of it's time with the young judge splitting his time in the sack with a white Blonde of a Mexican black haired girl, guess which one his mother prefers. There is a bit of frank talk but not much heat to these romanic elements and one long travelogue day in Mexico seuqence that tries to convince us we aren't just on the Universal Backlot the whole time.

Lamont Johnson had a long career doing good television work, but all his features feel like bad tv movies and this is no exception, even though it's shot by Robert Burks who shot many Hitchcock films this feels overlit and small scale, though it's supposed to be a period film all the costumes look like costumes freshly cleaned in between every shot.

Even Gene Hackman doesn't make any impression here. Really for the most part this tries to be a kind of light weight romance with the young judge bantering with his Mexican mom. Then once in awhile we cut abruptly to something related to the supposed race against the clock to save a man's life.

The film could have sordid elements but probably the censors at the time forbid this so there is nothing much to shake you out of waiting for the next commercial, which doesn't happen as it's not really the television movie it feels like.

Bafflingly happy to lucky Leonard Roseman score, as if told, hey let's push the romance.

The thriller plot is pretty goofy really but perhaps the few twists there might work if the movie was at all interested in being about the murder of the law. It might have had something to say. Who knows maybe they tried to keep too much in from the novel so everything feels undeveloped except the judge's romance and that hardly is about a Covenant with Death--something a rushed speech near the end mentions very briefly because, why should a movie with that title have anything to do with that subject matter.

A dud.

Blind Waters (2023)

from the man who made bad shark films a pop culture thing.

[1/10 · 18 August 2023]

Anthony Ferrante is now left to direct small scale shark movies in the aftermath of his Sharknado films becoming both the summit and pit of such things. That was all awhile ago now. Those films had larger and larger budgets and probably helped crasht the Science Fiction channelas they finally stopping making their lousy CGI ANIMAL attack movies. The fact that is over is something to be thankful for, but sadly Ferrante was unable to escape from the cheap but still clutching at him movie produced by The Asylum, a company that pays so little the State of California Labor board was actually after them for awhile.

In this one a too skinny girl and her too handsome boyfriend encounter a too much like BIlly Zane in Dead calm guy, rather well acted by Francisco Angelini. It'd be nice to see him have a real career, his take on the "Indianapolis" speech--if you dont' know what that is then you've never watched a shark movie before--is well done, though somewhat ruined by a sudden need, by the director, to shake the camera around, perhaps thinking this is the Blair Witch confessional/goodbye cruel work, mom I loved you, moment from that film. Hard to keep the iconic rip off moments straight I guess.

A couple of the cgi shark shots look okay, none of the shark attacks are convincing or scary or exciting. Some nice drone shots, which could be stock footage but probably aren't. A choppy ineffective music score credited to three people--probably just reused music from other Asylum produced movies.

It takes them 53 minutes to figure out they can use a cell phone to call for help and that's the least of the logic problems in the movie.

The movie is bits of other shark movies and basically runs out of ideas about an hour in so the lead gal then becomes more of less blind and we get back to a kind of Dead Calm plot for a bit. There are a numbe of soft focus shots supposed to be the point of view of our hapless lead gal, but none of them match what would be her natural perspective, the point of view shots aren't her actual point of view, though they often try to be. Someone kicks her and is aiming way off camera, this type of thing happens over and over.

It's just after so many years and so many shark movies you'd think Ferrante would have it down to an art or at least a craft, then again these are now made for so little money is so little time maybe there just isn't any art or craft that can escape. Ferrante is left to try to do what he can in the remains of Asyulm the production company. Too bad for him, but as viewers we can look elsewhere in this case.

This film is better than SWIM which Ferrante just wrote, to be even more terribly directed by Jared Cohnhead. Swim I believe was the first movie to bear the shame of the TUBI ORIGINAL brand, one we can only hope leaves behind what was done to death and badly a few years ago to do some films that can be more like Tubi's wide ranging titles. To be clear I like Tubi as a streaming network and I hope for better from this ORIGINAL BRAND, but I've not gotten it yet.

I suppose this film could be a drinking game with every time a character yells, "Faster." or "Swim," of or course "Shark."

The Sword and the Dragon (1956)

Saw the Deaf Crocodile release of full length Russian original version

[4/10 · 10 June 2023]

Uneven, clunky, copnfusing and occasionally vivid and startling.

This film is finally available in restored form and that's the version I'm reviewing. I've not seen the original release which was recut and revoiced, though I sense that version may be better in some ways. An impressive production that's not particularly interesting as far as the way it's directed.

The original version feels very long and often makes very little sense, characters come and go and it's hard to keep track amid the many beautiful travelogue footage of a mythically perfect Russia--no doubt a selling point and reason the film was made by the Communist Government of the time.

The pacing is ponderous and also features slow fade to blacks, on that level it's all pretty primitive filmmaking even for when it was made. Acting is all shouting and posing though broken up by many songs. The male charcters pose and yell like Soviet heroes but interesting most of the women's roles are mostly songs.

All this being said, the photograhy is mostly beautiful and though the special effects are uneven there are some well done painted shots that you can't really tell if they are real or painted. Big heavy costumes must slow the actors movements too. Optical effects are mostly excellent after a weak opening sceen involving a giant.

Some startling images and impressive scope of ships and forces mostly come later in the film, as does the one giant monster in the film. So if you come only for those elements you might as well start watching 20 minutes before the ending.

This is a story that could./would make more sense if you already know Russian folk tales and yes, it's epic is size, but few scenes feature lots of creatures or fantasy elements.

There are some vivid moments and images, a few recall Kurosawa who was a major international influence on films of the time, though could just be coincidence. Frankly this needed a better filmmaker and much better script to really hold together.

The Cursed (2021)

Self consciously pretty, over long, not well written

[5/10 · 27 September 2022]

The many possible surface layer virtues this film has or should have don't add up to much ultimately, that's not to say it doesn't seem poised to take off at times. It just never does.

I think a problem is the script, the longer it goes on, it starts then keeps reminding you of other better movies. By the time you have a sort of Saving Private Ryan style seqence it's just distracting and almost needless.

The director does a nice job shooting his own movie but probably would have done even better working for a different director to remind the cameraman that they are here to tell a story not just shoot pretty moody fog so slowly creeping around.

The story is pretty old hat really, it seems like it will delve a little more into the gypsy backstory from the original Universal film but after the first act this is pretty much forgotten as the film instead remembers various scenes and evne some lines from Carpenter's THE THING. The Thing they obviously has other influences here as far as tentacles, though branch like, creeping out of people.

There is a scarecrow that keeps showing up in people's dreams, until that grows tiresome. I think the whole film feels episodic and refuses to build to a proper climax.

The werewolves themselves are kept just out of full view, which is kinda of good ultimately as they do eventually turn into a rather dull CGI monster.

It's a well produced movie with a good cast--but neither the good cast or the production really serve or are demanded to tell a great scary story. This seems too bad where perhaps more lively innovative indy filmmakers in the horror genre don't have enough money to have the slickness that sort of papers over the undercooked script this movie has.

The film also probably has too many characters to really develop many of them, some protracted attack sequences happen to character who really juist arrive on the scene in order to get killed.

And wtf is up with the maid?

Suspense: The Far-Off House (1951) Season 4, Episode 12

mistake ridden over acted failed episode.

[3/10 · 31 July 2022]

I'm a fan of this show but have to say this is one of the worst ones I've seen. Various distracting live tv problems, lingering out of focus shots, a crew man standing in what's supposed to be an emtpy house and a bad camera shadow at an important moment.

I guess this was just a day when nobody did their best work. Judith Evelyn tries too hard to look scared, other performers are just bad, only Henry Jones comes off well--as he usually does.

The story is pretty dull though there is one twist that might have worked if anything else in the episode had. The organ music is distracting and poor and regular director Robert Stevens shoots this all in tight kind of awkward shots that make it feel really phoney.

I'd hate for someone to see this and think it's typical for the series--it basically has the elements you'd find in most episodes only this time few of them work.

Wild Oranges (1924)

Wild indeed---overdone

[4/10 · 26 July 2022]

This film's plot is pretty thin and virtually everything about it is cartoonish melodrama. Now this does make you appreciate the really great silent film acting of Lon Chaney, for example, as everybody here has too many chances to mug and bug their eyes out. It does vaguely suggest the overheated romantic/sexual tension that director Vidor later brought to DUEL IN THE SUN, this in a way could be called Duel in the Swamp.

Especially poor is the villain, described as a man-child, Vidor allows such ham bone body language and a sort of giggling attitude that the part and therefore the whole movie is hard to take seriously.

There is an interesting sequence where the sailor remembers his recent and not so recent past in ghostly fashion.

Also the rather silly, but at times rather creative, and very long final fight and escape sequence at least gives the, until then, static film an exciting Holywood type climax.

The restored version that TCM shows could be better restored today, 2022, and the new music score helps it but also gets a bit silly or is trying to sound like silent movie chase music at a few times, still better than old stock music library music track and recorded with real instruments it holds up better than some other TCM restorations of the era which now often sound very synthesized and or cutesy or both!

So for King Vidor fans, and certainly he's still worthy of fans for many reasons, this should be seen for those who want to see everything he's done. He's done much better but....

It's hard to overemphasize how melodramatic this movie is, nearly everything it played for big gestured sketch type presentation, no incident no matter how minor, doesn't result in some eye rolling and "silent movie" over-acting. Perhaps Vidor realized the story is kind of thin so had to press every moment. The movie would probably have been better at perhaps even half it's length.

Tyfelstei: An Alpine Horror Tale (2014)

Silent Hill and Jacob's Ladder monster in long winded low budgeter

[4/10 · 2 July 2022]

Storms isolate various mountain villages and a lone man with nightmares about the killing of a baby crashes his car into THE DEVIL'S STONE during the story and the rest of the movie is spent in an incredibly dry looking--after supposed storms--with the guy have nightmares waking up, talking to people, walking around, having nightmares, waking up, talking to people, walking around, having nightmares....

You get the idea. The lead is not a very good actor nor memorable looking. Supporting cast is better really the moodiest thing is a large abandoned building in the village and some effective static shots of various rooms in various degrees of decay.

The impact of the nightmares is weakened by either low budget special effects and that fact they all come from slicker movies. Though it's been years since I've seen anyone do the twitching sped up head movements from Jacob's Ladder.

The backstory to the town is finally revealed and fairly routine for fans of classic horror films, yet then they go on the reveal other small backstory deatils that really aren't needed.

There is lots of talk and what amounts to the action scenes--steadi cams running around, don't really cut together very smoothly and the blood effects and Silent Hill type patients and nurses are either rather cheesily done or shot with too much light on them, or both. There is something about whatever format the "film" was shot on that tends to make the admitedly in focus images look a bit flat and videotapish.

The ending doesn't make much sense and comes about 30 minutes after it should. Music score is occasionally effective, if you stick with the end credits there is a short little bit that's kind of effective.

Overlong, overly talky, under funded, under acted.... Some potential here occasionally but not realized. A few nice mountain trail and rocky locations but for the most part you don't get much Alpine here.

Agony (2020)

Done without a feel for the genre and at a slow pace

[4/10 · 23 March 2022]

Argento's ex husband directs or rather co-directs this sluggish and obvious story without a real feel for the genre and with no forward momentum in this want-to-be Mario Bava film.

Argento and really the whole cast give ok performances but the casting for the most part is bland. The film was filmed in English but it feels like none of the actors are very confident speaking in English or were cast because they could speak the language rather than for their acting ability.

Veteren Franco Nero should have more to do.

Argento pretty much hits the ground running with an either sad or crazy look so has nowhere to go from there, with direction this would have been a good part for her, but she plays every scene in the same way and that may not be her fault as the scenes don't go anywhere either. Admittedly there is a decent set up for the film but once we reach the inherited gigantic estate house there is nothing new left to see and the fact that some scenes attempt to homage Hitchcock or Bava just show how unable this film is to capture those masters magic.

The story is also bland mixing a few elements of Rebecca without any real conflict or shocks. Scenes end and shots linger on and the music score has no drive or character to it either. It's a movie made by people who don't really understand the type of film they are making or Mario Bava whose creativity is sorely lacking in this would-be homage to him.

The photography is nice but there are pretty shots just there to be pretty, the style doesn't add up to anything and this is the fault of the director(s). It all feels rather mechanical, oh, yes, now it's time for the eye close up and then we cut to the tilted angle because that will make it look crazy. There are some almost good post production color effects and title sequences that have more punch than anything in the rest of the story.

The location of a giant run down house with a decaying castle next door could be good but it doesn't seem credible and is mostly just a few nice postcard images.

I don't know if the whole production was taken away from Argento's ex or if there was never really anyone truly committed to making this film good. It feels like a failed film finished by disinterested hands. You feel like Argento's father, at least in his prime, would have at least understood that the set pieces and visual style hast to be energized and unpredictable, and or that Bava's director son, Lamberto, would have done a better job.

A waste of time and money as neither time or money were lacking here.

Taking Tiger Mountain (1983)

Naked erect skeleton in Paxton's closet escapes at last

[3/10 · 14 November 2021]

There is a disturbing and Misogynystic opening sequence of woman talking about changing the sex of a male experimental subject but this idea isn't really followed up and the rest of the film is Bill Paxton wandering around in low budget sci fi fashion through what's supposed to be a dystopian future and eventually during the end credits you find out what the title of the movie means. It's all well shot in widescreen Black and White, there is one funny scene involving Parents watching their son having sex, but the rest would be more at home back in the 1970's.

Paxton fans might be shocked or interested or aroused to find Paxton fully naked and with erect penis in various scenes and getting an on screen blow job, no special effects just well, there it is. How this could have effected his career while he was alive is anyone's guess, I'd assume he was perfectly happy knowing the film would not be released during his lifetime. Paxton is also credited as being the production designer, there is one cool sculpture garden otherwise it just looks like they shot in un changed real life small town places, it's never convincing as being set in the future at all. Paxton's performance, no pun intended, is fearless-to say the least- and pretty good really, different from the "game over" persona that made him a semi star after Aliens until the unfortunately early death that eventually ended his career.

The film really would still not be too great but much more at home in the late 1960's or 70's before hard core pornography came along and so it's easy to see why it just sat unreleased for so long after it was made in 1982. Other than the good photography it really seems like some half scripted arty student film that overstays its welcome as a feature.

Paxton fans beware or be aware of your chance to see all of him, the rest of us can skip it and not miss anything.

Swim (I) (2021)

bottom of yesterday's barrel comes back to get you

[1/10 · 24 August 2021]

Well, just when the Sy Fy (hate that abbreviation) channel stopped showing and funding these identical and usually terrible monster movies it seems Tubi will take up that awful baton and beat you in the head with it.

This is a real shame as Tubi is one of the best streaming services out there with a wide diverse collection of movies old and new to watch, so when they started doing their own films I had hopes, all of those dashed by this.

This "movie" is from the same folks who made them for Sy Fy, this time the budget is probably a little lower which may be why Sharknardo director Ferrante is only the writer on this one and they went with Fred Olen Ray impersonator Jared Cohen to direct. You might think I'm using this to insult him but Cohen has actually said he aspires to be Olen Ray, so I guess he's succeeded at failing and doing so as boringly as possible over and over again. This isn't even by the numbers directing as many numbers are missing, the way he shoots scenes is identical from one to the next and key things he should show you he just doesn't. Actors expressions change from shot to shot though they are supposed to happening at the same time, it's just a sloppy careless joyless lifeless thing. Forget about talent there is no skill displayed here and for as many times as Cohen has been making a movie he doesn't seem to know what to do or, even worse, was just getting pay check and rushing off to the nearest bar to try to forget it all.

Most of the blame can be laid on his door as there is never a good angle or performance in the whole thing and some of it barely cuts together, no action scene ever builds any tension or excitement and well, what's left to botch when it doesn't deliver any of that. In fairness the script is bad, kind of a let's take the cheapest scenes from Sharknado and make a whole movie around them, but the performances are just dreadful even given the warmed over leftovers from Sharknado's "serious" or "character" moments.

Ok but how are the CGI sharks? Well there's only one of them and it's better than the worst CGI sharks you've seen, but the kills are ineptly done and there aren't many of them.

Terrible sound job and music but the film doesn't deserve any better.

I think with this movie I'd have to say there are more terrible shark movies than almost any other genre. Sad boring day for tubi fans, I'm sure there is more just like this waiting to darken your life.

Dave Not Coming Back (2020)

A bit too polite and light on story details

[7/10 · 25 June 2021]

If you don't know anything about this story, one that has failed to be made as a feature but now does get told through a feature length documentary--though one that uses recreated material almost more than real material recorded during the real events. The story is interesting and as one written account of the events explained well, this story almost doesn't sense unless you believe in ghost stories. And this film isn't interested in telling and showing the more ghostly elements and that's a failing as what's left is more routine and at a distance.

The trouble is if you search around on line a bit you'll find more complete versions of this story told in less time, both in print versions and an early shorter video version. Some of the unpleasant details need to be included and are left out here. They spend a bit too much time with pretty shots and recreation/reenactments of minor details while leaving out some admittedly horrible details that explain and give the true story real punch in it's critical moments.

The filmmakers want to respect the privacy of the tragedy, perhaps because they interview the real life people as part of the film, but this leaves out the drama in favor of a safe distance approach to these people's feelings. It doesn't challenge the people about if there is a legitimate reason the story happened at all.

There is a real question as to if Dave's quest was more to prove something to himself or really just give himself a bigger thrill, to find more worlds to conquer than it was some humanitarian effort. In bits filmed at the time Dave is shown being just a bit self aware and what soon proved to be overconfident in his own abilities. For one thing he doesn't really seem to be in very good physical shape.

Dave wore a camera on his head and eventually the film is building towards showing that point of view footage to explain and experience what his friend don says is in part a Snuff film. They end up showing so little of this footage that you are never really in Dave's shoes, Dave is trying to recover and body and the filmmakers seem intent on not showing you that body so only the murkiest parts are even shown and with very little explanation as to what's happening. Again others have done a much better job of handling the graphic and explanatory elements of Dave's mistakes and end, so it's not like an impossible task, just one this film fails to do well.

The film doesn't really come out with an answer if all this was worth it, though it suggests fairly successfully that diving is in a sense it's own reward, but in this case it's the survivors who really pay the price for that.

The center of this film is really Dave's friend Don and on that level it is at it's best.

The Plague (2006 Video)

Poor acting, poor makeup, poor zombie movie, poor viewer

[2/10 · 27 May 2021]

This is all too typical of Canadian films at their tax shelter worst. Dull and a bit cheap. The opening is interesting but gets silly pretty quickly with kids kept in a school gym on cots for ten years! Why? Because it's cheaper than having to deal with a Hospital set.

This is really just an excuse for a zombie movie with racoon type black circle's around the "kids" eyes. Gore make up is just blood splashed around and dark gel blood.

Every time something dramatic happens, usually finding a dead body, the movie holds for a long time on the actors silently pouting, it would make a good drinking game.

Occasionally there is a good shot but it's usually ruined quickly by shots of the "kids" with fake veins drawn on their faces or pretty nice haircuts on the girl zombies for someone who has been asleep for ten years.

The dialogue is all soap opera as is the level of the acting. Dee Wallace comes off better than most in her very brief part. James BDB can't do anything other than pull the same serious face over and over again.

And like the haircuts, the supposedly ruined world looks like it's in pretty nice shape, all the yards are mown nicely and it just all seems to lack any attention to detail to give it mood or conviction.

None of the action or special effects are very effective, again mostly done as quickly and cheaply as possible. Too much of the film takes place on nice sunny days in what looks like a nicely kept neighborhood, not in desperate times at the end of the world.

Have Gun - Will Travel: Tiger (1959) Season 3, Episode 11

Rather lame

[3/10 · 27 October 2020]

The story is a rip off of Cornel Woolrich's THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES which had been made into a film before this, officially.

If you don't know the story it may hold your interest but this is a pretty shoddy episode with only Richard Boone saving a few moments. One with him looking disgusted by his host/clients various outrageous ugly behavior, and a great one where he bursts into laughter when made to apologize to a tiger. Also Boone does well with some exposition and comes off rather Bond-like by suddenly revealing his knowledge of an Indian language.

Roddenberry's script and the performers also offer up leering a women, fortune cookie English in scenes that are painfully dated and sexist and racist today but would have seemed clunky and overdone at the time. It offers none of the Captain Kirkish moments Roddenberry he gave the series in other much better episodes. I guess the only progressive element would with it being against Colonialism, but there is no interesting dialogue or much to the script that isn't better done in the Woolrich original.

Don Taylor directs flatly and lamely, none of the limited action is staged worth a dam. All the guest stars are both over the top and not very good, though the script doesn't do them any favors either.

Don't get me wrong I like the series but this ain't one of the best. Coming later in the series perhaps it was just the show running out of gas in most departments.

The Twilight Zone: Passage on the Lady Anne (1963) Season 4, Episode 17

Nonsensical adaptation. Little happens and it takes a long time to not happen.

[5/10 · 5 June 2020]

The story is basically one where nothing externally happens, that's really the point. The slow pace of the trip, the discovery of love, the loss of the old world. But this episode, while retaining large chunks of dialogue from the short story, has conflict and mystery forced upon it. but not enough to turn it into a thriller or into a supernatural tale either. It's also like these elements were put in to make it TWILIGHT ZONEY and to try to have little cliff hangers before commercial breaks. A bigger problem may be in having the lead couple be bitter bickering people we are then forced to spend time with and watch smoke and drink in classic 50's era fashion.

So I'm saying the short story works, the longer screenplay, for the most part, doesn't.

The results are these changes don't track into the story leading to an obscure mystery ending that also doesn't track back to the moments of TV drama injected into it.

For example one cliff hanger moment has a nice old lady saying. "It means we don't have to kill you." Come back from commercial and the lead couple doesn't even seem worried or curious about this comment. The comment doesn't really make sense by stories end either.

The ship interiors themselves are pretty impressive, no doubt sets from some shipboard film, maybe even the, at the time, recent Titanic film. The cabin the couple has is carefully overdecorated as a honeymoon suite might be. Also an asset is a long involved music score by Rene Garriguenc, a regular and under appreciated part of the series crew.

The other thing forced onto the screenplay is almost to, Serlingize it. Instead of the loving newly weds of the original story we here have Beaumont(if indeed he did the adaptation himself) turning them into a typical Serling 1950's victim of the corporate rat race bickering with his wife who then turns to drink. It's hard to relate to this bitter lead couple as they basically hate each other and everybody else. It's also Serling like in that people talk and talk and talk.

So their encounters with the ship and the nice old couples aboard is supposed to transform the couple, but how any of this does that is a mystery. There are moments where the couple seems to want to get along, the actors do what they can, but the story never shows them change, they just suddenly are in love again. So, of course, the old people around them almost gain your sympathy and interest--only for the odd threatening moments.

The wife vanishes in mid sentence at one point leading to the husband running around looking for her only to have her reappear without explanation. This then is supposed to make the husband now appreciate his wife, but really, having to look for her for five minutes overcomes all? The wife has no such moment at all. Initially she is the hopeful one, this hope then gets crushed but we see no recovery.

The end of the short story is clear, if budget busting, ship exploding and sinking, in the episode it rides off into mystery and is never seen again, though you can still, I guess it may well have sank rather than get scrapped.

Like many of the hour long episodes the story is padded but in this case the padding doesn't match the rest of the piece of furniture that could be lovely.

So yes, fans of the older cast can enjoy some nice monologues they are given, but it all doesn't add up.