Foster on Film – Page 82 – The Film Criticism of Matthew M. Foster

Night of the Werewolf (1981)

Oct 181981

In the 1600s, witch-vampire Countess Elizabeth Bathory (Julia Saly) is locked away while her enslaved werewolf servant Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) is executed with a silver cross-dagger. In modern times, gaverobbers pull out the cross, resurrecting Daninsky, who takes up residence in an abandoned castle. Meanwhile, three researchers, Erika (Silvia Aguilar), Mircaya (Beatriz Elorrieta), and Karen (Azucena Hernández) come searching for Bathory’s tomb, but secretly Erika is a witch who has come to resurrect the Countess. With their car broken, they are taken in by Naschy who hopes that Karen will fall in love with him, and use the cross to destroy him forever. Erika is successful, setting up a battle between vampires and werewolf.

A little background: Paul Naschy (real name Jacinto Molina Alvarez) was the most important horror filmmaker in Europe, though he is almost unknown in the United States. As he repeatedly stated, Spain’s culture looks down upon any type of fantasy, particularly horror. There’s no history of fantastic literature, and horror films were unknown. At an early age Naschy saw Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man and it made quite an impression. He starred in nearly 60 horror films, playing every monster you can name, and added writing, directing, and producing to his resume, almost single-handily creating horror cinema in his home country.

While low budget films, his features boasted sharp color—with rich red blood, and beautiful exteriors; an advantage of filming in Southern Europe is the prevalence of real castles and ancient ruins. He also sprinkled in a dab of nudity with a great deal more skill than Hammer, and a general feeling of fun.

He is best known as the cursed Polish werewolf Waldemar Daninsky that he played in twelve pictures. He identified with Daninsky, so it isn’t surprising that he made a heroic, brave, and strong, if someone sensitive, character. And with a mash-up as his inspiration, his werewolf generally fought one or more other monsters: vampires, the mummy, Frankenstein’s Monster, demons, Dr. Jykell, and even aliens. The films ignored continuity, with Daninsky sometimes being a modern man, sometimes a medieval knight, and being made into a werewolf in at least three different ways. He even remade his own movies.

Naschy loved the mash-up of the Wolf Man and a vampire queen. He first put them together in Walpurgis Night (1971) which was retitled The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman in the US. He returned to the team-up in 1973’s Curse of the Devil, and here he does it again, though this time it might be considered a remake of the first film. There’s certainly a lot of similarities, including the “scientist” girls researching the tomb of the vampire and bringing her back to life, one of them being turned into a vampire, the vampire waiting for the full moon when she can summon Satan and take over the world, the secluded location where Daninsky stays with one female sidekick, the prophecy that he can only die at the hands of a woman who loves him, a rapid romance with one of the visiting girls, the silver cross dagger that is effective on all evil, a lot of time searching for the crypt, and a few more that I’ll skip as it would be revealing too much.

The big apparent change is making Daninsky four hundred years old instead of around thirty, but it turns out not to matter. Except for his choice of clothing and his skill with a crossbow, he acts like a modern man and knows about current events. Naschy plays the character the same as before, except he’s ten years older and has a beard, both of which look good on him. The actresses are all beautiful and competent, as they were before. The sets are a bit nicer, and they found a striking old castle for their exteriors. There’s some gothic vampire fun, a touch of nudity, blood, and the final dust up as there was before.

So which film is better? Naschy goes with this one, which isn’t surprising since he took over the director’s chair, but he’s wrong. There’s just too many “What the Hell” moments that pulled me out of the film. Time doesn’t make any sense, with Daninsky just waking up, but having to have been there for years, and a servant who can’t be fit into any timeline. Weeks will pass between scenes with no more notice than a night. No one acts sensibly. Daninsky not only doesn’t lock himself up during the full moon; he just hangs around the castle; not a good idea when you don’t want to kill your new love. He could have easily stopped Erika before she woke the Countess, but he doesn’t bother. By the rules they lay out, his loving servant should have been able to kill him, but that’s ignored. The Countess says she must have the werewolf as her slave to survive until the ritual, but then she doesn’t need him at all and just wants him for after. Likewise, Daninsky says he’ll only be strong enough to face her when he’s become a wolf, but then he just reverses that, deciding that he must face her only when he isn’t one.

The entire film is oddly disjointed. The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman had a rushed romance, but in this one it takes place off screen. Daninsky and his servant speak about how the girl, who he has not spoken to yet, is his one hope of love, and after a cutaway, Daninsky and Karen are kissing on the walkway and swearing their love.

This all sounds negative, but take it as a comparison to the earlier film. This is still a Naschy werewolf movie. It looks good and has all that sexy, gory monster fun. The flaws just pull it down, making The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman your better choice.

Foreign Language, Horror, Reviews, Vampires, Werewolves Tagged with: Two Reels

Wolfen (1981)

Oct 061981

When a rich industrialist and his wife are murdered, psychologically unstable police detective Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) and coroner’s assistant Whittington (Gregory Hines) find that wolves are involved. Dewey’s only lead is an ex-con, Indian activist (Edward James Olmos).

In a year where traditional werewolves were making a big comeback, Wolfen took a different route. For those who haven’t seen it, I’m afraid I’m not going to tell you what that route is.

I enjoyed Wolfen a great deal back in ’81, but except for the final scene, it isn’t a movie that calls me back. It isn’t an “exploitation” film, where heads are ripped off just for the sake of the gore. Not that the heads aren’t ripped off, along with hands, but it’s all supporting a story and a theme, and once you know those, there’s not a lot of reason to return.

This is a sharply directed, steadily paced thriller. Its lupine point-of-view shots have been copied over and over, most notably by Predator.

Albert Finney leads the cast, twisting the police stereotype to make an interesting and bizarre character. He’s not a pretty-boy, maverick cop. Hurrah! And you have to love any character that eats over an autopsy. Hines adds humor, and another character worth my time. This was early in his career, and also early in Olmos’, who was only better in Blade Runner. Olmos adds to Wolfen’s unusual amount of male nudity as he strips before he howls at the moon (and no fear gentle readers, I haven’t given too much away).

Director Michael Wadleigh (Woodstock) is a bit heavy handed with his message, having the zoologist (Tom Noonan) spout off philosophically about the wonder of wolves and the destructiveness of man. Wadleigh continues this trend, having Finney voice a coda containing the film’s moral. If the movie communicated what it was supposed to, there’s no need to state the theme. I agree with Wadleigh’s views, and I think it’s too much.

Constructed as a mystery, Wolfen suffers by not being one. Yes, the explanation of the killings doesn’t come till the end, but the viewer knows from the beginning that a wolf (or wolves) is doing the killing. It’s an hour before Dewey knows, and all that time, he’s gathering information that has been spelled out for us. It’s not until he’s caught up to the audience that new twists pop up. Perhaps it should have been hidden from the audience that a wolf ripped apart the industrialist, so that we could discover it, but then a title change would have been in order.

Reviews, Werewolves Tagged with: Three Reels

The Howling (1981)

Oct 061981

Newscaster Karen White (Dee Wallace), traumatized after being attacked by the oddly hairy serial killer, Eddie Quist (Robert Picardo), is sent to a woodland retreat by her psychologist, George Waggner (Patrick Macnee). Accompanied by her husband, Bill (Christopher Stone), Karen meets a strange collection of locals, including a suicidal old man (John Carradine), a sexy back-to-nature beauty (Elisabeth Brooks), and the sheriff (Slim Pickens). While the forest is filled with the sounds of wolves, Karen’s co-workers Chris and Terry (Dennis Dugan, Belinda Balaski) investigate the disappearance of Eddie Quist’s body and the possibility that he is a werewolf.

After more than three decades of drek, and not even much of that, 1981 saw the rebirth of the werewolf film with the near-sacred (for werewolf fans) trinity of An American Werewolf in London, Wolfen, and The Howling. All three were remarkable leaps forward in storytelling and effects, though it didn’t take much to leap ahead of Moon of the Wolf.

The change most often discussed deals with makeup and transformations. Gone were the days of stop-motion hair growth. Now it all happened on-screen in real time using air-bladders and animatronics. Hair grew, claws extended, and even a muzzell appeared. It looked fake bordering on silly, but it was onscreen. This technology dominated werewolf films until CGI took over starting with An American Werewolf in Paris.

A much more interesting change was in the basic storyline. Before 1981, almost all werewolves felt themselves to be cursed. They were bitten and they didn’t like it. Their fight was to keep their humanity. The Howling introduced the werewolf pack. The wolves were primitive and they liked it that way. That change made the plot something different, and more complex than the sub-genre was used to.

Joe Dante focused on making a straight horror film. There’s lots of screams, mental breakdowns, running through the forest, nightmares, blood, hiding, and then even more screams. This is a fairly dark movie, in contrast to the semi-comedic An American Werewolf in London. It is also one of the earlier post-modern horror films, with winks and nods to genre fans; characters know the old movies and even watch The Wolf Man as well as a Big-Bad-Wolf cartoon, and keep a photo of Lon Chaney Jr. A number of the characters are named after directors of previous werewolf films, and cameos abound from the likes of Forrest J. Ackerman, Roger Corman, scriptwriter John Sayles, and Dante himself. There are also meatier roles for famed genre actors John Carradine and Kevin McCarthy (Invasion of the Body Snatchers). None of that lightens the tone, but lets you know that this isn’t an old-time film.

Besides the genre changing elements, there is a lot to like in The Howling. Though the cinematography isn’t crisp (it has that ’70s production look), it is attractive. The sets and locations have the proper feel, and there is plenty for the easily frightened to jump at. There is also the sensual Elisabeth Brooks in a sex scene that should bring warmth to all viewers. Brooks made far too few movies, though she did appear in the excellent ghost story, The Forgotten One.

The weakness of the film is in its leads. Wallace (later Wallace-Stone as she married her co-star) plays Karin as feeble and whiny, but not in a consistent way and rarely with a varying tone to her voice. Stone takes it further, showing no sign he realizes the cameras are rolling. I think he was checking his blocking in most scenes. The gap between them and all of the spot-on performances of the supporting cast is too large to ignore. I didn’t care what happened to Karin and Bill because I never believed in their characters. Luckily, there is a lot of time spent with the more able actors, but it does hold the film back from being a real classic.

It was followed by a string of mostly unrelated sequels that have become jokes in the horror genre: Howling II, Howling III, Howling IV: The Original Nightmare, Howling V: The Rebirth, Howling VI: The Freaks, Howling: New Moon Rising

Reviews, Werewolves Tagged with: Three Reels

An American Werewolf in London (1981)

Oct 061981

Two American students, David Kessler and Jack Goodman, (David Naughton, Griffin Dunne) are attacked by a werewolf while walking through the English moors. David survives, but starts having violent dreams and hallucinations of the mutilated Jack, warning him that he is a werewolf.

Comedy is almost always a good idea, and it’s so hard to do right. It is particularly important in horror, to give the audience a sensation other than fear, yet is closer to fear than most believe (ever notice how people giggle when uneasy?). John Landis understands this better than any director. He mixes the gruesome with a few jokes and hits the perfect atmosphere. And to make sure he’s got every primitive synapse firing, he adds in a bit of sex (with the help of the always-charming Jenny Agutter). Perhaps the film is best represented by a scene in a porn theater, where David has a fairly normal conversation with a group of mangled and bloody ghosts who suggest ways for him to kill himself. Gore, sex, and humor.

Much acclaim was rained upon the werewolf transition makeup and effects. Unfortunately, they don’t hold up over time (and didn’t look that good back in the ’80s, with a shot of the half-changed David on his back looking more like he’s sunk in the floor and having sex with a Muppet than becoming a wolf). What was innovative was showing the change without stop motion, darkness, or cutaways. But being better than what’s in almost every other shape changing film doesn’t make it good (since most of those were laughable) and while cutting edge for 1981, it would be another ten years before any monster transitions looked good enough for bright lights.

Though not a flawless story (the end is far too sudden and lacking in impact), An American Werewolf in London is still the standard for horror comedies, and a high point for werewolf films after the non-memorable lycanthropes of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s.

Followed by American Werewolf in Paris.

Reviews, Werewolves Tagged with: Four Reels

The Omen III: The Final Conflict (1981)

Oct 061981

Damien Thorn (Sam Neill), the Antichrist, is a dominant world financial figure as chairman of the Thorn Corporation, and is gaining political power. But there are two threats to Damien: a group of priests who have recovered seven daggers that can kill him, and the second coming of Christ.

“With all the power of evil, with fire and brimstone, with the intensity of hate and the foulness of Hell itself, I shall curse the world, condemning it to…a brief recession.”

I really thought the apocalypse would be more apocalyptic. The Devil just ain’t what he used to be. The Antichrist has been ruling for 7 years (or 10 cubits or twelve parsecs, it’s hard to keep these prophesies straight) and the worst he’s manage to inflict upon mankind is an economic climate equivalent to what George Bush (either one) created. I guess I was hoping for more evil than the nightly news could give me.

Well, there’s nothing wrong with Sam Neill as the Antichrist. It’s a larger than life role and he plays it up big. Seductive, cruel, and generally sympathetic, Neill is what goes right with The Final Conflict.

What goes wrong? Pretty much everything else, particularly the script. The Omen worked because it took a large scale, horrific situation, and presented it in terms of the personal pain of an individual and the destruction of his family. It gave us tension we could understand from normal life, and let that flow into the larger evil. But there is no good guy whose problems we can sympathize with. Instead, the only character who is the least bit engaging is Damien. That takes any horror out of the killings and left me rooting for the bad guy. That’s fine, but makes this into a different kind of film, one where the joy comes from watching evil do really evil things. But that isn’t the film they shot. There’s not nearly enough nasty deeds, and in the end, we’re supposed to hope he fails. But then the end of the film is wrong in every way it is possible to be wrong. Things don’t climax, but just whimper away.

The writers of The Final Conflict can’t even stick with the The Omen mythology, where it took all seven daggers used in a specific way to kill the Antichrist. Now, any one dagger used in any way will do the trick. That’s a minor problem in a film that ignores the Bible to make up its own scriptures. If you’ve taken the proper psychotropics, The Book of Revelations has plenty of material for a scary, truly bizarre film. But I doubt the makers of this film have read Revelations, or even seen the first film.

What the film has is really stupid monks. This ancient order, which knows everything about Damien (at least they watched the first film) sets out to kill him by having its members moving slowly, falling down, and making sure that they are wearing their red “kill me now” shirts. In what is both the best, and the silliest scene in the film, Damien is “trapped” on a bridge between two of the monks during a fox hunt. He does his magic eye glance, and monk number one bites it. So what does monk number two do? Nothing. He patiently waits his turn to be killed. The shot of Neill with the hounds around him looks great, but the tail-wagging dogs don’t exactly inspire fear. Call this the Death of a Thousand Licks by Happy Puppies.

Followed Damien: Omen II.

Christian Mythos, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The Entity (1981)

Oct 051981

Seemingly well-adjusted single mother, Carla Moran (Barbara Hershey), is repeatedly raped by an invisible entity. Psychologist Phil Sneiderman (Ron Silver) connects her “symptoms” to an abusive childhood and troubled relationships. But when the attacks continue and others see the events, she turns to a team of parapsychologists led by Dr. Cooley (Jacqueline Brookes).

The Entity is a horror film that can get under your skin. It never terrifies, but builds a sense of discomfort that doesn’t go away. Much of this is due to Hershey’s impressive performance in a difficult role. She creates a believable, everyday woman, who is just a little smarter, a little stronger, and a little more interesting than the people you meet on the street. And because Carla Moran is so real, and yet likeable, the film sucks you in. Since the events are so traumatic, this could be unpleasant, but the situation is interesting enough that I found myself dwelling on the possibilities instead of getting mired in the darkness.

The first half is traditional possession fare, except Moran’s not possessed. She tries to get others to believe what is happening to her, but no one does, and she has no proof. During this section, it is completely Hershey’s film, and it works because of her ability to express pain, loss, fear, and rebellion.

Then the story takes a turn as the parapsychologists appear, becoming much less personal as students and professors wire up Moran’s home with fanciful demon detecting devises. It feels so much like Poltergeist (released the following year) that it is improbable that the later film didn’t borrow a few concepts. While it may sound problematic to broaden the story, the change in tone works; there is only so long that the attacks, hopelessness, and arguments with the psychiatrist can go on before it becomes routine, and in this case, it went on about five minutes too long.

The real question behind The Entity is: what is the nature of the invisible attacker? It’s clear to the audience right from the start that something real is happening. But as the film progresses, it becomes less and less likely that a ghost or a demon is responsible. He is an attacker that only goes after a woman with a horrible past, that goes after her anywhere she goes, and only affects items external to her (windows, a block of ice) when she is present, aware, and usually looking at them. It begins to sound like an updated and more engaging Carrie. The plot sets up a dichotomy between psychology and parapsychology, but neither are completely right or wrong. And with that realization, Moran become capable of dealing with her “demon” in a powerful final scene.

For such praise, my rating may seem slightly low, but things do drag in the middle, there are too many coincidences, and the parapsychologist’s plan should be absurd to anyone thinking about it. If, as they believe, the attacker is from another realm of reality, why would extreme cold stop it? If cold, why not heat, or a gun, or an electrical shock? They are wildly guessing and stating it like fact. There is also too much time away from Moran, showing Sneiderman at the University. It doesn’t go anywhere, harms the pacing, and shifts away from the heart of the story. Those are little gripes, but enough to drop a great film to a good one.

A few lines of text at the end imply that Frank De Felitta’s screenplay, and his novel that preceded it, are based on real events. I seem to remember hearing the same about the The Amityville Horror, which has since been revealed to have been a hoax. We’re in the same country here, but don’t let that effect your enjoyment of the film.

Back to Demons

Demons, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

The Road Warrior “Mad Max 2” (1981)

Oct 051981

Loner Max travels the wastelands of post-apocalyptic Australia in his souped-up car. Finding an oil refinery defended by average people is under siege by punk marauders led by the masked Humungus (Kjell Nilsson), Max makes a deal to find them a truck to move their gasoline in exchange for as much fuel as he can carry. When Max’s plans are ruined by Wez (Vernon Wells), a psychotic member of the attacking gang, Max decides to aid the citizens in their escape.

Roaring engines, lighthearted violence, humor, and non-stop action define The Road Warrior (or Mad Max 2 as it was titled in most of the world). A just-miss for my 10 most important Science Fiction films list, it solidified the standard film image of the post-apocalyptic world (deserts, dune buggies with mounted weapons, Mohawks, and fetish-wear) and made a star of Mel Gibson. It’s exciting, which is a good thing because calm observation would find far too much that didn’t make sense.

After creating the mundane and humorless revenge melodrama, Mad Max, writer/director George Miller submerged himself in westerns, samurai films, and Joseph Campbell’s views on myth. Dumping the feel, setting, and even genre of the first film, he took Max and put him into the basic hero story that’s been told thousands of times. The tale, if you somehow have missed it, has a lone gunslinger/samurai/knight coming upon a group of peaceful citizens who represent mom, apple pie, and Chevrolet. They are being harassed by some black hats who support dogs and cats sleeping together. The hero defeats the bad guys so that the common folks can live happily in their village. However, the warrior cannot join them as the characteristics that allowed him to save them are the same ones that stop him from ever fitting in. With little dialog and characters that are nothing more than easily identifiable archetypes, The Road Warrior barely varies from the pure hero story. Hey, if it has worked for all these years, why change it?

With explosions, shotgun blasts, car crashes, boomerang attacks, a tiny open helicopter, flamethrowers, and a poisonous snake, this is a fun film. I first saw it many years ago on a double bill with Mad Max, and while the audience was quiet and sullen at intermission, The Road Warrior changed those people into a cheering crowd well before it was over. Gibson is good as the troubled “man from the desert,” but it is Vernon Wells’ painted, dangerous, nutcase, leaping from car to truck, attacking with a ball and chain, and screaming, that you will remember. He is a formidable villain. By comparison, Lord Humongous is flat, and does little besides make a few speeches.

While it is an all-emotion-no-thought movie, I’d like to have seen a few seconds go into making the world a touch more reasonable. I was occasionally pulled out of the picture when, after being shown how valuable gas was, there are scenes of everyone wasting it by driving in circles (the attacking horde would be bone dry long ago). Plus there is the question of food. And transmission fluid. And break fluid. And spark plugs. And who is it that maintains the roads? Those are little things, but they do take away from the film.

The Road Warrior also produces that slightly uncomfortable feeling I get from old westerns when the noble white man is shootin’ those savage ‘Ingins.’ It is at its heart, a very conventional and conservative movie. The good guys (wearing white no less) all want to start traditional families in a traditional environment. The bad guys are homosexual (I spotted one female with the marauders), dressing in a mix of gay club-wear, BDSM outfits, and punk regalia, and using chains to lead about their submissives. What does that imply? Like most things in The Road Warrior, it’s best not to think about it, and instead smile with wide eyes as the next car goes boom.

Follows Mad Max (1979). Followed by Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985) and Mad Max: Fury Road (1915).

Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews

The Day of the Triffids — Serial (1981)

Oct 051981

The light from a mysterious meteor shower blinds everyone who sees it, causing civilization to collapse. Bill Masen (John Duttine), who was undergoing eye treatment on that night, is one of the few who can see. He finds Jo (Emma Relph), a sighted woman, and they plan their survival. However, they are captured and separated by a large band of blind people and forced to guide them. An even more mysterious plague kills their captors, and Bill sets out to find Jo. Making everything more dangerous are the triffids, walking carnivorous plants, originally designed in Russia for their oil, that are spreading across the world.

This BBC miniseries is more faithful to John Wyndham’s novel than the 1962 movie, but the job of a film (or series) is not to match its source material, but to be entertaining or informative on its own terms. In some cases, the first film’s divergence from the book (such as the addition of the subplot involving two scientists barricaded in a lighthouse) made the story more complex and interesting. Granted, some changes were less inspired (the narrated ending), but at least they invoked tension or excitement or…something.

At just under three hours, this Day of the Triffids plods along.The culprits: a weak second act and an insufficient budget. Even with cheesy, psychedelic opening credits and claustrophobic sets, things start well, with Bill discovering the world has fallen apart as he slept. There are a few unnecessary flashbacks to give us information we don’t need, but there’s some genuine drama when Bill encounters both the blind and the sighted who’ve gone savage. But there’s very little dramatic, or of any interest while Bill is a captive of the blind people. He’s about as passive a protagonist as you’ll find. He could escape, fight, or lead, but he doesn’t do any of those things. His later obsessive desire to find a girl he barely knows is hard to accept when he spent so little effort in getting to her for so long. This middle section ends with a disease that pops out of nowhere and kills whoever the script no longer needs. Its only purpose is to allow Bill to have new adventures. I suppose the idea of the “sighted man in the land of the blind” segment was to look at society via its disintegration, but don’t expect any insights.

The low, BBC TV budget is visible in every scene. This is a tale of sweeping apocalyptic terror, but most of the time is spent in small rooms with people talking. The streets are strangely empty (extras cost money). London has millions of people, and the meteors only blinded them; it didn’t disintegrate them. But based on what’s shown, the metro area couldn’t have had a population of more than a few hundred. Our hero even runs into the same folks repeatedly. The streets are also free of cars and litter. Didn’t anyone go blind while driving?

A lot of cutting could still make this a worthwhile sci-fi piece. Not only could trimming help the pace, keep the story on track, and hide some of the cheapness, but it could make Bill someone I could care about. As is, he’s too placid, humorless, and indecisive to drum up much emotion from me. If he dies of a triffid sting, why should I care? Plus, without the disease (easy to remove), there would be one less disaster to break my suspension of disbelief. It’s asking a bit much of an audience to accept walking plants, blinding meteors, and a plague all coincidentally hitting at the same time. Bill does suggest an extremely unlikely tie between the three, but the less said of that, the better.

Aliens, Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Halloween II (1981)

Oct 031981

Starting where Halloween finished, Michael Myers continues his killing spree; his main target, Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis), is now a patient at the local hospital. Attempting to save her and stop Michael is Dr. Loomis (Donald Pleasence).

By the time 1981 strolled along, any originally in the Slasher sub-genre had been drained away. Dozens of look-a-like, feel-a-like films had been made. Halloween II is just another one. It’s given up on any kind of suspense or the need to introduce the characters before they are killed. Michael just walks along, slowly (can’t any of these people just run away?), and kills whoever he happens to run into, normally with a blade, but sometimes with a needle and once with hot water. He spends much of his time in the local hospital where Jamie Lee Curtis is wasted by being drugged for half the film. Apparently, this is a great hospital for psychotic killers as almost no one is in it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve gone to a hospital and found it nearly empty with the nurses playing in hot tubs due to all their free time. While the tiny hospital staff frolics, Dr. Loomis comes up with some of the dumbest dialog in any film. He sees the word “Samhain” and starts going on about druid gods and sacrifices. “Samhain” is a common word and just means the fall harvest festival. If that’s all he’s going on, he should have just said “Ah, Michael is killing to get some apple cider.”

So, there are some standard, predictable murders, some shouts of “he’s not human, he’s evil,” and a bit of running. The end. But a few thoughts about that end (ending spoilers ahead): Michael is not only shot and burned to death (and we see him burn), but he is also blinded. It’s just interesting to keep those things in mind for the many, many sequels.

The other films in the series are Halloween, Halloween III: Season of the Witch, Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers, Halloween 5, Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, Halloween: Resurrection.

Halloween, Reviews, Slashers Tagged with: One Reel

The Beyond (1981)

Oct 021981

A young woman, Liza Merril (Catriona MacColl), inherits a broken-down hotel in New Orleans that has a troubled past. It is built over a gateway to hell, and when the gate is opened, the dead will walk the Earth. With people dying in mysterious ways, Emily (Cinzia Monreale), a blind woman with her own secrets, warns Lisa she must leave. Of course, she rejects this suggestion, and finds herself and Dr. John McCabe (David Warbeck) confronting the forces of evil.

The strangest thing about The Beyond isn’t the hellscape, or the eye gouging, or the man who hooks up a brainwave machine to a long-dead corpse only to have it measure a heartbeat (I guess it wasn’t a very good brainwave machine). No, the oddest thing is that someone is listed in the credits as being in charge of continuity. In a movie that randomly moves a crucifixion from a basement (in New Orleans where they don’t have basements) to a bathroom, there was someone paid for continuity? What did this person do? I suppose the film might have been a random series of images without her.

Continuity aside, the film is pretty incoherent. Things happen with no rhyme nor reason. People die, sometimes in gory bloodbaths—one falls, several are attacked, one is startled by lightning—and there is seldom anything choosing these specific people or the times when they die. Scenes cut to other scenes with little concern for the passage of time. Individuals will disappear at crucial moments, and return later without comment. For such a slight plot, it should have been easy to keep everything straight. Maybe I missed some important dialog that explained everything when the overly loud and inappropriately boppy music was blaring.

Major questions are ignored. What opens the “gate to the beyond”? Dramatically, it should have been something connected to Liza, but she doesn’t do anything. Instead, it is implied that the plumber did it by picking at the wall. If that is it, erosion would have broken it open in another week. I guess they just don’t make gates to hell like they used to. Then there is the exposition-heavy character, a blind girl with rather startling but easy to see contacts. Where did she come from? Why is she there? Most likely she escaped from hell, but she is still working for the dark side. Why? How? And what was her plan? She knows about the walking dead, but stupidly strides into places where she’s bound to get caught. There is hardly a scene in the film where “why?” isn’t a reasonable question. It isn’t that the film is complicated. Rather, the director didn’t care about what happen and when. He just shot scenes that he liked and then stuck them together.

That director is Lucio “The Other Zombie Guy” Fulci. Plot was never a strong point in his work. Rather, he focuses on nightmares and gore. He is particularly famous for stabbing eyes. The Beyond may set a record for direct damage to eyeballs. Unfortunately, except for a near movie-saving ending, there is little of nightmares about The Beyond. However, blood and innards spewing across the floor are here in abundance. A zombie shoves its thumb into a guy’s eye. A woman has her head forced onto a nail, that conveniently (though not for her) penetrates her eye. Tarantulas devour parts of a man’s face, including ripping out his tongue, and, of course, chewing on his eye. Two people have their faces dissolved by acid. Sounds pretty disgusting? Nope. It would be if any of it looked real. There’s plenty of plastic and rubber, and red-tinted water is sprayed about, but nothing that could be confused for actual blood and guts appears. The tarantula scene is particularly silly as rubber spiders tug on latex makeup. For shocking splatter scenes to work, they need to have a passing resemblance to the real thing, or they are just a joke. I don’t mind jokes, but not in a film that pretends to be so very serious.

Once we get zombies shuffling after our heroes, things pick up, but even this is marred by having Dr. John act like an idiot. He retrieves a trusty pistol from a desk drawer (because all doctors keep a gun or two handy at the hospital) and plugs away at zombies: one in the gut—nothing; two in the gut—nothing; one in the head—zombie drops. OK. But then we get: one in the gut—nothing; two in the gut—nothing; one in the head—zombie drops. So, he’s a slow learner. He had to see it twice before he realized that zombies only go down if you hit the brain. So next comes: one in the gut—nothing; two in the gut—nothing; one in the head—zombie drops. AH!! Over and over this happens. We know they can only be stopped by hitting them in the head. Why doesn’t the doc figure it out?

I was amused by an Italian’s view of the United States. There’s the “Do Not Entry” sign, but that’s just a mistake of language. Better is what I leaned about U.S. health care. Doctors make house calls, which is handy as there are no ambulances. A painter falls off a scaffolding and for reasons unknown to the biological sciences, blood pours from his mouth. For this bizarre injury, he is moved inside, but otherwise, nothing is done for him till the doc shows up. The doc cleverly decides this man needs to go to a hospital. Do they call for an ambulance? No. The doc grabs one end and tells the second painter to grab the other, and out they walk. Now, were they going to stuff him in the back of the doctor’s car, or were they planning to carry him all the way to the hospital?

At least while watching this Italian film, you don’t have to concern yourself with reading subtitles. The stars are from England and New Zealand. It is the Italian that is dubbed.

It is part of Fulci’s Death Trilogy, along with The House by the Cemetery and City of the Living Dead. Fulci previously directed the faux-Dawn of the Dead sequel, Zombi 2.

Foreign Language, Reviews, Zombies Tagged with: Two Reels

Dragonslayer (1981)

Sep 281981

When Ulrich (Ralph Richardson), the last wizard in the world, dies, his apprentice, Galen (Peter MacNicol) takes on the job of killing a dragon. But the King has devised a lottery where one virgin is chosen as a sacrifice to the dragon in order to keep it placated, and is not happy with anyone upsetting the status quo.

So many Fantasy films have a young hero learning his strengths and then meeting and defeating the great evil. It’s the whole Joseph Campbell mythic warrior thing, and it’s been done to death. The only thing that Dragonslayer has in common with that too often told tale is a young protagonist striding out to do a heroic deed. But here, things don’t turn out like you expect. Galen learns something very different than the use of standard Sword & Sorcery powers, the epic struggle isn’t between who you think it will be, people die who never die in these types of films, and the credit for the great deed goes to the wrong people. Dragonslayer plays things differently, and it’s such a relief.

Galen is a good-natured lead, played with quirky affability by Peter MacNicol, who would go on to make a career of playing people in need of serious therapy. He’s annoying and arrogant early on, which makes the film’s final so very satisfying. MacNicol shares the screen with an excellent supporting cast, including Sir Ralph Richardson, who dominates every scene he is in; it doesn’t hurt that Richardson gets all the best lines. Fans of Star Wars may recognize Ian McDiarmid as a monk, years before he became Senator Palpatine. I’m not pointing out one of the finest performances because to do so would give away a rather important plot point. OK, it’s something that most of you will figure out early on, but just in case you don’t, I’m leaving it a mystery.

The dragon is magnificent, the finest put on the screen at the time, and even now, almost twenty-five years later, only a few can touch it. This is the monster I’d read about in books, but never seen onscreen. When he breaths flame, it’s not a cheap drizzle or drawn in effect. It’s a full inferno (thanks to a pair of military flame throwers). The creature was realized by the then new ILM, which created a variant of stop motion animation that included computerized movement, eliminating the jerking that had always been present in the technique. It works like a charm.

Another innovation is the world. It is poor and dark and primitive—the way the dark ages should be. The village is shabby, the clothing is simple, starvation looks very possible, and it’s not all that much better in the castle. Yet, it all has a simple beauty, as long as you don’t have to live there. The hills, crags, and forests of Wales and Scotland are responsible for much of the lush, but forbidding, scenery.

So, what you end up with is a surprisingly original story, engaging characters, top notch effects, impressive sets and locations, exciting action paced with drama and comedy, and a take-no-prisoners style that includes some needed gore (sadly left out of lesser films). This is how fantasy should be. Plus, it makes a few biting comments on society. It is the politicians who lay claim to saving the day, when all they did was interfere. More interesting is the church, that does absolutely nothing (except instigate a fiery homage to The War of the Worlds), yet takes credit through the power of prayer. The people all mindlessly accept invisible salvation because it’s easier than dealing with the difficulties of life. It’s quite sad.

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Fantasy, Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: Four Reels