Foster on Film – Page 84 – The Film Criticism of Matthew M. Foster

The Quatermass Conclusion (1979)

Oct 101979

Society is falling apart, with a majority of youths either joining violent gangs or roaming the countryside as part of new age cults. Those who are older are callous, accepting the disintegration of the cities with a shrug. In this setting, retired rocket scientist Bernard Quatermass (John Mills) comes to London in search of his granddaughter. Rescued from thugs by astronomer Joe Kapp (Simon MacCorkindale), he returns to Kapp’s home/observatory in the country in time to see a mass of teens and twenty-year-olds killed in an ancient stone circle by an energy beam. With a bit of his old drive forced upon him, Quatermass sets out to discover what is killing the young, and determine how to stop it.

The last and strangest of the four Quatermass films, The Quatermass Conclusion is a fitting sendoff for the brilliant professor. It is darker and sadder than the others, filled with death and despair, but this also makes it more emotional and more affecting. For all the fantastical situations, it feels real.

The brash, powerful, force-of-nature Quatermass from the earlier films is gone. Age has had an effect, and he is now, as he admitts, an old man who is no longer as sharp as he once was. He doesn’t care about grand adventures or great discoveries any more. He isn’t a broken man, but if he had his preference, he would now be a quiet one. But that isn’t allowed to him. His sixteen-year-old granddaughter has run off, and all he wants to do is find her. That search leads him not only to an unknown menace, but to a possible explanation to her behavior, and the violence of youth. Mills is a wonderful Quartermass. It is easy to see the continuation from Andrew Keir’s version in the previous film. This is the man you would get if you started with Keir’s, and then added twenty years and many failures.

The setting is as good as the lead. Few films have so powerfully presented a world in freefall. Bodies lay in the streets, money is worthless, and the government has little power. Corrupt pay-cops patrol only what is deemed financially worthwhile, and street vendors sell books that are “guaranteed to burn well.” Quatermass is attacked as soon as he steps onto the streets, an event that interests the TV station’s employees only to the extent that the bruises may look bad on camera. There is no hope, which is hammered home by the new age Planet People, who are disgusted by scientists and insist that everyone “stop trying to know things.” It is occasionally frustrating that the few people trying to help underestimate the dangers in this apocalyptic world. I wouldn’t go anywhere without a loaded submachinegun and maybe a few explosives, but on multiple occasions, Quatermass tries to reason with religious fanatics while unarmed. I think he would have learned after the first attempt.

While the first three Quatermass stories were broadcast on the BBC as multipart serials, before being re-shot for the big screen by Hammer Pictures, things worked differently for The Quatermass Conclusion. The four part, 240 minute series, titled simply Quatermass, was filmed simultaneously with the feature. But the movie is not just a chopped-up version of the TV show, nor is the show a padded version of the film. Instead, Nigel Kneale wrote two different, but similar, scripts, molding the development of tension and the pacing for each medium. In some cases, different scenes were shot for the feature. The whole thing was made for the cinema (although I’ve only been able to find “full screen” presentations), and it had a relatively large budget. When effects scenes would have cost too much, we aren’t given shoddy versions. Instead, we’re shown what the characters see, and as they cleverly turn away from things that might kill them, the biggest events happen off screen. We do see Wembly Stadium, covered in the ash of seventy-thousand burnt bodies, and that’s all the effects that are needed.

The development of the project was complicated, and sometimes it shows in the finished picture. Kneale was commissioned to write the fourth entry in the Quatermass sage in 1971, but due to financial considerations, it wasn’t developed. When Thames picked it up almost eight years later, with the understanding that there would be two versions, Kneale stuck with the basic ideas he’d already written. So, the film was dated even before it came out. The new age Planet People are flower children, who would have been prevalent in the early ’70s, but look pretty odd a decade later. Viewed from an additional twenty-five years, they are hard to watch without an occasional snicker.

Everything about The Quatermass Conclusion is seeped in the cultural upheavals of the late ’60s and 70s. It is the thoughts of an older man who does not understand teenagers. Throughout the movie, it is stated that youths are the target, but this almost never means children. Instead, these “youths” are in their twenties and late teens. They are rebelling against society, which was really happening at the time, and it is clear that Kneale didn’t understand why. Anyone under ’30 is given little respect and all their actions are misguided and controlled by strange forces. He wants to think of them, deep down, as children from some mythical golden age. But I shouldn’t be to hard on Kneale. His view of anyone older isn’t much better. The middle-aged are cruel, stupid, and uncaring. And the old are dim, slow, and obsolete. A prevailing theme throughout the picture is that humans suck.

Oddly, his old fashioned view of “youth” doesn’t harm the film. After all, it is the story of an old man. And, unlike the earlier movies, the plot isn’t that important. It is the characters that pull you in. While in the earlier incarnations, Quatermass and his crew solved mysteries, here they suffer.

As this is the end of the journey, this isn’t the best place to start if you are uninitiated into the Quatermass fan club. But you don’t have to start at the beginning. Quatermass and the Pit and The Quatermass Conclusion would make an excellent double feature and give you everything you need to understand the character.

The other films in the series are: 1955’s The Quatermass Xperiment (The Creeping Unknown in the U.S.), 1957’s Quatermass 2 (Enemy from Space in the U.S.), and 1967’s Quatermass and the Pit (Five Million Years to Earth in the U.S.).

Aliens, Reviews Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

Dracula (1979)

Oct 091979

Yet another film of the stage play, Count Dracula (Frank Langella) moves to England for new hunting grounds and to seduce Lucy Seward (Kate Nelligan). However, vampire hunter Van Helsing (Laurence Olivier) and Jonathan Harker (Trevor Eve) fight to keep Lucy in polite society and to destroy the king of the vampires.

The problem with all Dracula movies is that the basic story isn’t very good. It’s a xenophobic tale that assumes that middle class English society is the only correct society and foreigners are not to be trusted. Nor are women who are weak by their nature. Nor the lower classes who are inherently inferior. Nor, of course, any of our “base” urges as they are not sanctified by The Church. This is the world of the novel Dracula, a puritanical world, and it explains why Harker and Company are so dull and proper. By the nature of the story, the good guys are bland, and we are supposed to like them. But I don’t like them. I like Dracula, even when he oozes evil (Lugosi). In this version, Dracula has been made seductive, so I find myself hoping he will destroy drab society (represented by Harker) and the institutions that support it (Van Helsing). Unfortunately, the Dracula story wasn’t written for anyone to cheer for the “villain.” Ah well.

Within the non-functional framework, this is a pretty good adaptation. Yes, all the male “heroes” are either colorless or insufferable and the pacing is off, but that’s true of every version. Laurence Olivier puts in a particularly annoying performance, but then who could play the voice of righteousness in an engaging way? It shines, as all watchable versions do, on its Dracula. Frank Langella, even with his ’70s hair, is an extremely good-looking man with a fluid voice and piercing eyes. This Dracula seduces both his victims and the audience. Kate Nelligan, as a misnamed Lucy, puts in a capable performance as the seduced. As long as they are on screen, this is sensual and moving. That makes this a love story, and a very good one. Too bad Dracula isn’t a love story.

Reviews, Vampires Tagged with: Four Reels

Fright Before Christmas (1979)

Oct 091979

On Christmas Eve, The Tasmanian Devil (voice: Mel Blanc) is accidentally dropped from an airplane and falls into Santa Claus’s suit, which is on a line to dry. Bounced into Santa’s sleigh, “Taz” shows up at Bugs Bunny’s (voice: Mel Blanc) house, but, as always, the ferocious devil can’t get the best of Bugs. 7 min.

The 1950s Warner Bros Looney Tunes cartoons were the high end of the art of animation. Cutting edge works such as One Froggy Evening, Rabbit of Seville, Duck Amuck, and What’s Opera Doc are as a funny as anything put on celluloid, and smart entertainment. But the light had dimmed by the ’60s. By 1979, there was nothing left.

Even with Friz Freleng—who worked on Bugs Bunny cartoons during the glory days—at the helm, the magic is gone. The animation is cheaply done, far below the standards of the earlier WB work and in no way standing out from the average Saturday morning fare. The script is drab, without a joke even attempted till the halfway point. When the gags finally start, it just gets sadder. It’s as if Freleng and company forgot what made Bugs funny.

The great Looney Tunes cartoons may not have Christmas themes, but any one of the ’50s classics would bring far more merriment to your holiday than this limp effort.

The Fright Before Christmas is available on the Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales tape, along with Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol, and Freeze Frame.

Christmas Shorts, Christmas Shorts, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Quintet (1979)

Oct 051979

Essex (Paul Newman) and his pregnant lover travel across the frozen wastes to an ancient city where he hopes to find work. Instead, she is murdered, along with Essex’s brother. Essex seeks out the murderers, and tries to determine how the killings tie into the game Quintet, which the inhabitants of the ice-covered city play fanatically.

Listen as I blow your mind:

Whiteness. Bleakness. The human soul is but a minute ice crystal in the vastness of the snowscape which is the never ending void of existence. It is layered within the slush of the psyche of the cold reality of humanity.

Is it blown? If so, you’re going to love Quintet, a movie which asks the question, is there a limit to how pompous a film can be? Director and “auteur” Robert Altman, who has never met a long period of silence he didn’t like, is completely at home with this soul withering excursion into pretension.

It’s not surprising that a movie this overblown is also obscure. For nine-tenths of the film, it’s impossible to figure out what is going on. It doesn’t help that the picture is indistinct, with a blurry frame surrounding the picture. Penthouse photo shoots use less Vaseline on the camera lens. The film introduces us to an ice-encrusted, dying city of the future, with no comment on how it works, or giving any real idea of what is happening in it. Dogs outnumber people, and eat the dead who are left where they fall. Everyone plays a game, but we’re given no idea what the rules are. Some people have jobs, but most don’t, and no explanation is given as to how anyone survives. People wander into rooms, make vague statements about the “sixth man” or the “sixth side,” and then off they go. No, that sentence implies something happens quickly. Before anyone goes off anywhere, there are five or six long pauses and a few close-ups accompanied by dramatic music. It’s as if Altman watched Zardoz and said, “That flying head and those immortals in tuxes make far too much sense. I can make a film that will be completely impenetrable to everyone.” It’s hard to imagine what other motivation he had for making the film.

And after all the pseudo-intellectual rhetoric and unexplained antics, it all turns into the simplest story imaginable. In the last five minutes, I realized that this is really a ten minute short, surrounded by meaningless babbling.

Quintet is a movie with a lot of ice, and that’s about it.

Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Bugs Bunny’s Christmas Carol (1979)

Oct 031979

Scrooge (a.k.a. Yosemite Sam) is up to his normal skin flint ways. His treatment of Bob Cratchit (Porky Pig) is this the last straw for Bugs Bunny, who declares, “This means war!” Grabbing a sheet, Bugs pretends to be a ghost to scare Scrooge into some Christmas spirit. 8 min.

The Looney Tunes, do Dickens, and it’s…alright. The jokes are adequate, the animation is acceptable, and the characterizations aren’t bad. Yup, The Looney Tunes, once the top rung of animation, manage only mediocre farce. It’s eight minutes, so it doesn’t wear out its welcome. I guess that’s some kind of recommendation.

What sticks in my mind is how tepid everyone (everytoon?) is. Bugs’ wildest act is smooching Sam. His most sinister plot is telling Sam he’s going to Hell. Is this the Bunny who forced an opera singer to bring a building down upon himself? The old Bugs would have shown up in drag as the Ghost of Christmas Past, and coaxed Sam to step out the window, smiling as he plummeted to the ground below. Sam’s pretty wimpy too. One threat, and he’s willing to give in. They’ve become bland, PC versions of themselves, sanitized to protect the children. And far worse, they aren’t as funny.

Many of the old characters show up to fill out the scenes, but only Sam, Porky, and Bugs (playing himself with a touch of Scrooge’s nephew) get any screen time. Tweety is Tiny Tim, Sylvester is…Sylvester, Scrooge’s cat, and Elmer Fudd, Pepe Le Pew, and Foghorn Leghorn are carolers.

If you feel compelled to pick this up, it is available on the Bugs Bunny’s Looney Christmas Tales VHS (no DVD yet), packaged with two other limp efforts, The Fright Before Christmas, and Freeze Frame.

Christmas Shorts, Christmas Shorts, Reviews Tagged with: Two Reels

Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)

Aug 201979

The Original Series crew reunites to stop an all-powerful alien spacecraft headed for Earth. Kirk has weaseled his way back onto the bridge, demoting its new Captain, Decker. Along for the ride is new navigator Lieutenant Ilia, an empath, who has a romantic history with Decker.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture is the most cinematic feature in the Trek series, in every way that can be taken. It is by far the most competently made film. It has the finest direction, due to having the finest director in Robert Wise, and it out performs the other films in basic qualities such as camera angles, lighting, over all cinematography, sound design, and scene transitions. No Star Trek film looked better till Abrams threw loads of money at the franchise. The scoring is superb, giving the project a sense of power. This is an epic film, dealing with aliens, gods, the breadth of the universe, massive powers, love, aging and acceptance, and the meaning of life. It also contains a sense of wonder almost completely lacking from the later films. This is a science fiction film with purpose, not just the action popcorn movies that would come later. And it is more than an overlong episode of the TV show. This is a movie of grand scale. It introduces us to new characters, who could have taken their place amongst the original series pantheon if their path did not lead them elsewhere—and did pop up slightly altered in the Next Gen as Riker and Troi. There is emotion here.

Yes it is the most Star Trek of Star Trek films. It is hopeful without making excuses. It points to a better tomorrow while acknowledging our flaws. It suggests that battle is not the answer to our problems.

The Motion Picture could have been, and should have been, the finest Trek picture, but everything didn’t quite work out. It has become a much maligned film, often for silly reasons. The uniforms come in for a fair amount of derision, as if modern fashion sense is a clever basis for judging clothing three hundred year in the future (take a look at three hundred years in the past). Sure, to my eyes, the uniforms adopted for the follow-up film look better, but they only make sense if Star Fleet really is a military organization (which was not the original idea) that spends most of its time fighting on ice planets. I’d rather wear the breezier clothing here than the winter-wear that they went to. And people complain that the special effects have not aged well, which is true, but a trivial matter.

But there are two problems that do weigh the film down. One is understandable; the other is not. The first is the reintroduction of everything. A lot of time is spent showing us who these people are and what the Enterprise is. Each character is given a moment to do something stereotypical so that we know them, and the story slows to a crawl as they do. That seems absurd now, but in 1979, Star Trek was not so well known. The average person did not know what the Enterprise was, or who Kirk and Spock were, and even a majority of science fiction geeks were unlikely to have seen all of the old series. The problem never occurred again, with Star Trek rising out of the SF gutter to the heights of pop culture, but that came later. For this film, the studio felt it necessary to start from scratch and talking to people at the time, I’d say they were right. Unfortunately, these reintroductions are carried out in a clunky fashion. And perhaps things would have been fine if we didn’t know that Nurse Chapel was now a doctor and that Bones hates transporters and that Kirk really wants a Vulcan as a science officer. Yes, they did have to squeeze in a lot, but it wasn’t done with finesse.

That could have been excused if Wise wasn’t so infatuated with the sheer spectacle. Following in the mold of Close Encounters and 2001, the film expects the audience to be in awe of space and the enterprise and the great alien V’ger, but we’re not. Shots linger, then hover, then die, showing us gruesomely unending wiggly lines and clouds, and of course, the Enterprise itself. And because we, as the audience, need time for our reverence, we are joined in this by the crew. For every far-too-long shot of V’ger, there’s two painfully long shots of Kirk and company reacting to the shot.

Even now I suspect Star Trek: The Motion Picture could be the best of the series and generally great science fiction if Paramount was willing to do a new cut that took a hacksaw to the picture and chopped out thirty minutes. But for now, it’s a good, but too slow, movie.

My ranking of all Star Trek movies is here.

Reviews, Science Fiction, Space Opera Tagged with: Three & 1/2 Reels

Phantasm (1979)

Aug 141979

Things are just not right at the cemetery. Jody and Mike attend the funeral of their friend, only for Jody’s compulsively spying little brother, Mike, to spot the undertaker lifting the 500 lb coffin with ease. Soon, hooded dwarves are coming after Mike and a living amputated finger persuades Jody that there is evil that they will have to face, evil in the form of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).

Phantasm is some strange hybrid of horror, old-school science fiction, and afternoon special, wrapped up in a stoner’s dream. How entertaining you find it will have more to do with how many friends you watch it with and your state of mind. I suggest high.

It starts as a horror film, but then the low budget or low talent kicks in and we drop into drama mode with the most unlikely brothers you are likely to encounter. Jody apparently learned to speak by watching a combination of ‘50s biker pictures and ‘60s hippy flicks. He likes to enunciate and over-emote. He also likes to drink beers, talk about leaving town, and instantly pick up girls at bars. He stops to play guitar on his porch with his pony-tailed, ice cream delivery truck-driving friend because… I have no idea why. They found they had extra film perhaps? Mike spends his time following Jody—really following. He runs after him down the street, which is a bit odd for a teenager. He is also friends with a psychic who has the fear/pain box from Dune, and after telling Mike that fear is the mind killer, she ceases being relevant to the film and is never seen again.

When Phantasm settles on a protagonist, it is Mike, who breaks into the cemetery ushering in the second horror section of the movie. But it is horror movie weird, not horror movie scary. Stuff happens. Some of it is amusing. Some of it would be gory if it looked anything close to real—instead it is more like a Monty Python sketch. None of it makes a great deal of sense. Yes, we get answers to the big horror/sci-fi questions, but that doesn’t help to decipher why people do what they do.

Even die hard fans admit it all falls apart at the end. Mike and Jody’s plan, and how it comes to fruition, is unlikely to put it politely. The “twist” that follows makes most of the movie irrelevant.

If I sound harsh, well, we’re in so bad it is good territory, so many of the flaws are also virtues. The iconic flying killer orbs are pretty cool if you’ve had enough beer, and The Tall Man is an enjoyable villain if looked at either through the haze of time or a haze of pot smoke. Even sober, the Goblin-inspired music is excellent, setting a tone the film can’t live up to.

Some have tried to claim the film is either a parody or an homage to ‘60s and ‘70s drive-in horror. Seeing it as a parody is reading in far too much, but it certainly borrowed liberally from earlier films.

Looking for scares or art or good filmmaking? Look elsewhere. Looking for a good party film? You’ve found it.

Horror, Reviews Tagged with: Two & 1/2 Reels

The Phantasm Series

Aug 131979

Surrealistic or just nonsensical, the low-budget to low-low-budget Phantasm films (four with a fifth past-due for release) have a reputation for being original fright-fests. That’s unfortunate as that raises the wrong expectations. Far from attempting for originality, the series is a conglomeration of what came before. Scenes and even lines are taken from previous films. They are painfully self-aware, name-dropping horror icons and putting Alex Murphy (RoboCop) in the cemetery. Phantasm wasn’t something new, but an ode to drive-in schlock horror of the ‘60s and early ‘70s.

As for scares, again, that’s not the tone. We are walking the line between horror and comedy, gleefully and randomly leaping back and forth. Phantasm comes from the pool of The Evil Dead movies, though in the shallow end with nothing like Ash to distract from myriad plot holes. There’s plenty of blood and related fluids, supplied between jokes and “cool” one-liners, chainsaw fights, and the occasional bare breast.

Writer/Director Don Coscarelli has worked the better part of thirty years on the Phantasm world. Outside of it, he’s known only for the sword & sorcery The Beastmaster and the horror-comedy Bubba Ho-Tep. With such single-minded devotion, I’d have expected the series to make more sense, but if one word can sum up the films, it is incoherent.

Phantasm (1979)

Things are just not right at the cemetery. Jody and Mike attend the funeral of their friend, only for Jody’s compulsively spying little brother, Mike, to spot the undertaker lifting the 500 lb coffin with ease. Soon, hooded dwarves are coming after Mike and a living amputated finger persuades Jody that there is evil that they will have to face, evil in the form of The Tall Man (Angus Scrimm).

Looking for scares or art or good filmmaking? Look elsewhere. Looking for a good party film? You’ve found it.

Phantasm II (1988)

Mike is released from the insane asylum he’s been in since the first film and immediately Reggie’s family is killed. That means it’s time for revenge. The two set off on a road trip, from cemetery to cemetery, with Mike’s dreams of a girl in need of their help as their guide, searching for The Tall Man.

Since the first movie ended with one of those not-so-clever twists that imply much of what we saw didn’t happen, there were several ways this film could have started. Coscarelli went with the worst option—to the extent that he decided anything. Apparently, most of Phanstasm was a dream and The Tall Man won. Since Mike’s version of events and Reggie’s don’t match, there’s no way to know what was supposed to have happened specifically. All we know is The Tall Man exists and Mike and Reggie want to kill him, even if Reggie doesn’t agree that The Tall Man did most of the things he did. This isn’t weird, “question-reality” filmmaking. Just lazy scripting.

And it is lazy instead of threadbare as Universal pictures was now paying the bills. Money does make a difference, even if it is only three million. Low-budget is a big step up from the first film’s no-budget and it shows in set design, locations, editing, and camera work. This is a far more competent film than Phantasm. The acting is better as well, including from a recast Mike, and though dialog is still painful, it is less painful. So everything that was bad in Phantasm is less bad.

As for the good, that’s a harder call. This is less of a party film and more straight horror with a heaping helping of road picture. It is pretty silly horror, with blood just for the sake of blood and boobs because all horror films of the period had boobs, but at least it is clear what kind of film you are watching. Even more than the first, it tries to be cool rather than make sense while nodding to every type of horror film (and sometimes just other films and directors—yes Sam Raimi’s name is on a cremains bag). And like the first, the twist ending makes it all pointless.

Still, if you want nothing more than some weird midgets, an evil mortician, a lot of running around, and some flying bladed orbs, Phantasm II has you covered. This is lowest common denominator horror, but it isn’t boring.

Phantasm III: Lord of Death (1994)

The Tall Man captures Mike, who he wants for his cryptic psychic powers. Reggie follows, finding himself in a ghost town when he is attacked by crazy looters because in the Phantasm universe things just happen. He picks up a gun-toting kid and a martial arts woman who both want revenge and the three, along with a friendly silver sphere, attempt to rescue Mike and stop The Tall Man for good.

Here we are again, with The Tall Man and Reggie and Mike, played by the original actor since Universal, who insisted on the change for Phantasm II, is no longer paying the bills. The female character that was supposed to be of such great importance in the last film is killed off in the first minute, which is odd since The Tall Man wanted her alive, but sense has never been part of the Phantasm series.

Mike’s brother, Jody, from the first film, is back from the dead, and he’s aged while dead, as well as gotten a hair cut. He’s also become a silver killing ball…because… Oh, really best not to think about it.

Like its two predecessors, Phantasm III is more about scenes than a story. It answers some questions but only by asking many more and leaving as many gaping plot holes as before. There’s more action this time around, and The Evil Dead factor is ramped up, with comedy zombies making an appearance. The powers of The Tall Man are left undefined, allowing him to do whatever is desired at the moment, and making it clear (if it wasn’t already), that no action taken by anyone matters.

With Mike sidelined for most of the movie, Reggie becomes the protagonist. He fits the sidekick role better and mainly continues in that vein, getting into awkward sexual situations and having monsters run up his pants leg. The new additions, including the kid who is supposed to remind us of Mike in the first film, if Mike was an unnaturally good shot, get to be the bad asses, killing zombies over and over, only for them to get up again.

Once again, the ending is a statement that nothing in these films matter and leaves things open for yet another sequel.

Phantasm IV: Oblivion (1998)

Mike, having found out that he is going to become an alien, or is already an alien, or is carrying an alien in his head (it’s not clear, and is never made clear) goes off on his own, chased, often in his dreams, by The Tall Man. Reggie tries to either rescue Mike or kill The Tall Man—again, it’s not clear.

The fourth outing in the Phantasm series is cobbled together from outtakes from the first film combined with new footage. The effect is what you’d expect. Things happen because they had old shots of those things. The new stuff is just as incoherent as ever, leaving a film that’s nonsense even by Phantasm standards. Some of that nonsense is fun, but it is still nonsense.

For much of the film, Reggie is on his own, running into the occasional zombie or monster. He journeys through empty towns and picks up a girl with peculiar breasts but for the most part does nothing related to the story for the first hour..

Mike spends this time in surrealist landscapes that sometimes are dreams and sometimes aren’t. He also develops telekinesis, which is later ignored, attempts suicide, and travels in time. The last is the strangest as it is a new power that comes out of nowhere, is then suggested to be the answer to everything, and then comes to nothing.

The plot, such that it is, doesn’t move much till the end. It is just “stuff happening.” With that stuff, the mythology of Phantasm gets switched around and any answers we’ve gotten the past are thrown out. The Tall Man is no longer an alien, a good guy is now a bad guy, Jody died in a car crash while his parents were still alive, and Mike’s alien side isn’t at all what it was implied to be in the last film. And Tim, one of the lead characters in that last film, is absent without comment. There could be multiple well considered reasons for all that, but I tend to think it is related to two of Coscarelli’s statements: First, that he’d run out of ideas after Lord of Death, and second, that he was only making another Phantasm film for the money.

Does all that make Phantasm IV weaker than its prequels? Not really. It is the same meaningless, flightless, surreal drug trip that any Phantasm fan should expect.

The ending is annoying, being even more open ended than in previous installments, but these films never left anyone with a sense of completion.

Horror, Reviews

The Amityville Horror (1979)

Jan 011979

George and Kathy Lutz (James Brolin and Margot Kidder) and their three kids move into a house where there had been a mass murder a year earlier. The house is possessed and affects everyone who enters it. A priest (Rod Steiger) attempts to save the family from the Satanic forces, but is driven away.

The Amityville Horror greatest claim to fame is as a hoax. The film is based on a book which claimed the evil events really happened, and many gullible people bought it. It was years later that it was finally admitted to be a fake. Sorry folks, neither ghosts nor the Prince of Darkness showed up in the Amityville house.

If there is a deep truth in this film, it is that Satan is a wimp. As the king of hell, you’d think he could do some big time evil, but all he manages in The Amityville Horror is to rock furniture, give people the flu, mess with doors and windows, and swipe money. And he does it slowly. This is a plodding movie that builds and then ends. Apparently they forgot to film a climax. The sub-plot with the priest could still be removed (and should be) as he never interacts with the Lutzs. With that out, The Amityville Horror could have dropped the demon angle and been a ghost story; it would have been a poor ghost story, but that’s better than what it is.

The cinematography is pure movie-of-the-week and the acting doesn’t help. Margot Kidder is believable (and very sexy in the scenes designed to show her off), but she’s the only one. Brolin and Steiger combine to form one actor, with Brolin displaying nothing except what appears to be constipation while Steiger tosses his arms around, yells, and pounds on his breast. Subtle acting for a subtle film.

Back to DemonsBack to Christian Myth

Christian Mythos, Demons, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Oct 101978

People begin to act differently, losing interest in their normal activities and becoming emotionless. Public health chemist Elizabeth Driscoll (Brooke Adams) notices the change in her boyfriend, and tells coworker Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland). Bennell assumes she is having emotional problems and brings her to pop psychologist David Kibner (Leonard Nimoy), who explains that her fears are due to the lack of commitment in her relationships. But when spa owners Jack and Nancy Bellicec (Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright) find a half formed body, they all realize that humans are being replaced.

By the late ’70s, America was a very different place than it had been when the classic 1956 Invasion of the Body Snatchers was made. Gone was the fear of reds hiding under the bed as well as goose stepping McCarthyism. But paranoia is omnipresent and new fears ruled. It was a time of growing impersonalization, with the cozy neighborhood eclipsed by the urban jungle. It was also the time when people looked back and realized that the idealism of the ’60s was gone. Flower children had become Wall Street brokers. In other words, it was the perfect time for a retelling of the ultimate tale of isolation.

This version isn’t a remake. It has an entirely new set of characters, in a new place and time, undergoing horrors similar to, but not the same as those in the original film. If it wasn’t for the gap of twenty years, this would be a sequel. It even has a cameo by Kevin McCarthy (the star of the original), yelling a warning in the streets.

Like the first, it conjurers up a world of paranoia which should have you glancing uneasily at the person sitting next to you (personally, I wouldn’t trust him!). Shadows abound, and even the day is gray and unpleasant. I can’t recall if the sun ever shines. Even when the leads are doing nothing more than strolling down the street, everything looks off. People are constantly staring or in the wrong place (an unaccredited Robert Duvall, as a priest on a child’s swing, is particularly unnerving). Then there is Nimoy, who is disturbing, particularly when he’s smiling and tossing out useless self-help slogans. There are no moments when you can relax. It’s a tense world and a tense film.

But this time, I was never completely brought into that world. Director Philip Kaufman makes the mistake of supplying no entrance. In the ’56 version, we see the world through the eyes of a nice, normal, rational guy, and are taken with him into paranoia. But here, we are first presented with the already-paranoid Elizabeth, who is a believer in evil possession from moment one. Additionally, Adams plays her too sedately, as if she has already lost her soul. It’s harder to care about the population of the world being replaced by emotionless clones if everyone is already half way there. Then the point of view switches over to Sutherland’s Matthew. Now I enjoy Sutherland, but he is never warm and cuddly. Is there any difference between a Sutherland pod-person and a Sutherland non-pod-person? He’s pretty creepy no matter who he is playing. Goldblum amps up his nerd stereotype to make Jack such an annoying person that I want him to be gobbled by the nearest alien plant, and while Cartwright’s Nancy is better, I can’t say that I was deeply concerned with her welfare. When the situation is so bleak and strange, some kind of happy normalcy is needed to trick you into joining the party, and to show you what is being destroyed. Here, it looks like the world was lost before the movie started, and we’re just along to watch it gasp.

A third, slightly less successful version, entitled Body Snatchers, was made in the early ’90s, and Sutherland starred in the similarly themed The Puppet Masters in ’94.

Aliens, Reviews Tagged with: Three Reels

Damien: The Omen II (1978)

Oct 061978

Damien, apparently not living with the President as the end of The Omen implied, has been adopted by his uncle (William Holden) who runs the powerful Thorn corporation. Like in the past, those who get in Damien’s way die and things will only get worse when he learns who he is.

Sequels—so many ways to fail. The Omen II chooses the repeat method. The same things happen as in the first, but without the originality, impact, or mystery. While The Omen unfolded before Robert Thorn, a sympathetic character that allowed the viewer to enter the film’s world, the story of The Omen II is laid out at the beginning without any character to follow. Thoughts of the coming apocalypse are forgotten and fierce dogs have been replaced by crows (apparently, an adult human female cannot overpower a crow). It might have been interesting to see Damien struggling with the knowledge that he is the Antichrist, but we’ll never know as that is just one of many plot threads that were dropped. There is the suggestion that the Whore of Babylon could be pertinent, but that is dropped as well. With its simple plot, undeveloped characters, and meaningless murders, The Omen II flows more like a Slasher than a horror story based on Christian myth, and not an entertaining one.

Christian Mythos, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

Oct 051978

Self-conscious Sarah (Kay Lenz) and her prom-queenish sister Patty (Morgan Brittany) start college, and concentrate on the only thing important: getting into a sorority. Patty is accepted as a pledge at the house where all the girls are pretty but bitchy, while Sarah is only wanted by the smart-but-plain house. Naturally, the bad girls, led by Jennifer (Morgan Fairchild), abuse Sarah, and her sister does little to help. But they didn’t take into account Sarah’s innate telekinetic powers that come out when she gets angry (“You wouldn’t like me when I’m angry”). The weird house mother (Shelley Winters) wants Sarah to use her powers for revenge, which, as this is a late seventies TV movie, means things are not going to end up well for anyone.

What kind of college did the filmmakers go to? Were there schools like this in the ’70s? Or in the ’50s when the writers went to school? The college dorm is a single room with bunk beds, and every girl pledges a sorority (hey, who wouldn’t with the entire freshman class in close quarters). A house mother with no sign of a degree gets to teach a class on “magic” while the psych course has no connection to psychology. The classroom (the only one shown) is large, but most of the seats are empty. This gives the few freshmen who show up an opportunity to ask questions that could only pop up in a teleplay written by people who have no idea what Psych 101 is like: “Do you believe that a person could be both good and evil?” Ummmm. Is that in the text? I suppose I shouldn’t count it as odd that all the students are far too old to be in college—that’s normal for film.

So, what’s here once you get past the unlikely campus? Carrie. There are changes, but it’s far closer to that high school telekinetic shocker than most remakes are to their “inspirations.” That doesn’t mean it’s all bad. Copies can exceed the original, and Carrie is one of the most overrated horror films. Still, this isn’t a case of the rip-off replacing its predecessor.

For a made-for-TV flick, it looks good, with better than average production values and direction that’s more than workman-like. I wouldn’t have been surprised to see this at a theater. The characters are generally well drawn, and while stereotypes abound, they are fleshed out stereotypes.

But the whole thing gets tiring. I’ve seen enough insecure-nerd-rising-up flicks for a lifetime. Sarah gets annoying very quickly, which is a problem when we’re supposed to be on her side. Why do people with superpowers always whine about them? “Oh no, I’ve harmed the guy who was assaulting my sister; how can I live with that?” Hey, give me the ability to move things with my mind and you won’t see me crying about it. “With great power comes great responsibility.” Yeah. Right. Only if you feel the need to dress in spandex.

There are surprisingly few answers given to the many questions brought up over the hour and a half. Sometimes ambiguity and uncertainly lend an air of suspense and terror. Sometimes they do nothing but leave gaping holes in the story. This is an example of the second. It feels like a half hour was chopped out by the assistant to the associate editor.

Most of the flaws could have been overlooked if the ending had been more satisfying. Carrie at least knew how to be cathartic. Not here. Instead we get a more socially acceptable finale, and what’s more exciting than being socially acceptable.

It was remade in 2006 as The Initiation of Sarah.

Reviews, Witches Tagged with: Two Reels

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