April 16th, 2007
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The weekend horror double bill returns and to mark the occasion we’re going on a camping trip. Hope you’ve packed the essentials - sleeping bag, torch, food and of course a homisidal maniac…
The Long Weekend (1978)
This low budget ’70s Australian film is something of a lost treasure and shows that sometimes having no money can almost be a blessing. There are no make-up or special effects to hide behind and this seems to have made all involved up there game to compensate.
The film only has two characters - Peter and Marcia, a married couple whose relationship is on the rocks. In an attempt to save their marriage they take a weekend break to a secluded beach and it’s their experiences there that make up the bulk of the film. Strange sounds at night and a mysterious shape in the water are just some of the terrors they encounter and, rather than bring them closer, their trip serves to drive them even further apart.
It gradually becomes clear that Peter and Marcia are the villains here, not just attacking each other but the idyllic beach environment as well and Mother Nature isn’t happy. The characters are brilliantly realised but you don’t sympathise with them - rather you observe with a sense of revulsion as their history of infidelity and abortion unfolds.
February 19th, 2007
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This is a strange little film, a pacifist western with an ambiguous message. Clint Walker star of TV’s Cheyenne plays “Killer” Cain who upon release from prison after 18 years is determined to go straight and make an honest living. His reputation presedes however and unable to find decent work he’s ultimately forced to join a travelling sideshow and make money from his notorious past.
After a big opening action scene featuring a prison break that goes awry the film settles down to a more easy going pace with Walker travelling around looking for work, meeting artist Monica Alton (Anne Francis) and generally doing his best to avoid trouble. When he hooks up with Dan Ruffalo’s sideshow he takes the place of young sharpshooter Billy as the show’s main attraction. It’s here that the film really comes into it’s own as Billy, Ruffalo and Cain travel from town to town making an “honest” living. It’s Cain’s relationship with the two men that forms the cornerstone of the film.
As Ruffalo, Vincent Price steals every scene he’s in. He may be a conman but Price also brings a twisted decency to Ruffalo; he may be exploiting Cain but you get the feeling he’s also trying to help the guy. At the time price was usually seen either in his trademark horror roles or as a guest star on TV shows like Batman and this must have made a pleasant change for the criminaly underused actor.
February 19th, 2007
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The Movie
While Hollywood plays it safe with a diet of remakes, re-imaginings and rehashes of classic horror movies it’s down to independent filmmakers to give horror fans what they really want - original, thought-provoking films that stay with you long after the credits have ended. Lance Weiler’s second feature Head Trauma is just such a beast.
The basics are simple enough. After a 20-year absence, George Walker returns to his late grandmother’s home in the hope of saving the condemned building. Late one night he finds an intruder in the house. The ensuing struggle leads to George taking a blow to the head, and that’s when the fun starts.
George begins to experience dreams full of nightmarish imagery, including a mysterious hooded figure. Soon the lines between reality and imagination start to blur as the dreams bleed through into his waking world.
To go into more detail about the plot would be to do the film a disservice; one of its pleasures is the way the story slowly unfolds, giving us bits of information that we have to unravel in much the same way George does. Almost the entire film is told from George’s perspective and this gives the viewer a front row seat as George’s psyche becomes increasingly fractured.
February 14th, 2007
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My Bloody Valentine (1981) Region 4
An early entry in the glut of stalk ‘n’ slash films that followed the success of Friday the 13th, this ranks as one of the weakest in the subgenre, lacking not only in suspense but also in those other staples of this kind of film - sex and gore.
The pre-credits sequence features a bit of kinky sex as a miner gets it on with a hot blond down in the mine. After she fondles his air hose (no, that’s not a euphemism) he spots her heart-shaped tattoo and decides rather than get off with her he’ll just off her.
The film takes place in the mining town of Valentine’s Bluff where several years before a group of miners were trapped underground. Only one man walked away from the tragedy - Harry Warden, who survived the weeks it took to rescue him by turning cannibal. A year latter Harry went on a killing spree seeking revenge on those responsible for the accident by cutting their hearts out on Valentine’s Day. Harry was found insane and should be spending the rest of his days in a padded cell but when people start dying as the town plans its first Valentine’s Day party in twenty years, Harry seems the obvious suspect, particularly as the victims bear the marks of his trademark open heart surgery.
February 11th, 2007
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The Wild Bunch meets The Dirty Dozen was probably how the studio execs were sold on this revenge western. A simple story - rancher John Benedict’s family are murdered and he recruits a group of convicts from a Mexican prison to make them pay - is enlivened by William Holden’s performance as the obsessed rancher.
After a quick introduction showing us his idyllic home life it’s not long before Benedict’s entire family are butchered my raiding Comancheros. He only takes enough time to bury them before riding off in pursuit of the bad guys, first with a posse and then, when they turn back after the trail leads into Texas, going on solo. Realising he’s going to need a little help he breaks a group of disparate felons out of prison and enlists their at first reluctant, assistance.
Holden is reunited with his Wild Bunch co-star Ernest Borgnine but unlike that classic, Borgnine is used here mostly for comic relief. Woody Strode as the one honest man in the bunch is as underused as Borgnine, in fact only Holden’s part has any real depth to it and that has more to do with his ability as an actor rather than the quality of the script.
February 8th, 2007
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Watchers (1988) Region 2
Corey Haim out acted by a dog shock! Come to think of it Corey Haim out acts a dog would have been more of a surprise. Haim plays the teenage hero in this adaptation of the Dean R. Koontz bestseller. When he finds a lost dog he takes it home with him little suspecting the mutt has escaped from a secret research lab or that it’s probably more intelligent than he is. It was part of an experiment to create the perfect killing machine, the dog itself acting as a lure to draw another genetically engineered creature to its victim and that other creature is free as well and looking to carve itself a little Haim sandwich.
While the novel this is based on had an equally silly premise it was still able to craft some effective moments most notably the climax which manages to elicit the reader’s sympathy for the “bad” beastie. There’s none of that here, everything is black and white. With the best moments of the novel excised this has been turned into a simple boy and his dog tale albeit with horror/SF slant. Nothing wrong with that per se, I’ve enjoyed many a shaggy dog story but then they never starred Cory Haim. He’s all 80’s hair and zero acting ability, I really wasn’t kidding about the dog having superior thespian abilities.
February 2nd, 2007
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Two years after Clint Eastwood made A Fistful of Dollars in Italy Audie Murphy went to Spain to make this revenge western but while Clint helped to reinvent the genre for the modern era Murphy was still playing the conventional cowboy hero complete with white hat.
It’s a simple story - Jess Carlin (Murphy) returns to the town he was driven out of by Luke Starr (a past his prime Broderick Crawford) when he hears that his brother has been killed in a gunfight, I bet you already guessed that Crawford’s the man who killed him, right? Throw in a little romance with Kit O’Neal (Spanish actress Diana Lorys) a lady Crawford also has his eye on (the dirty old man) and that’s about it for the plot.
I’ve always liked Audie Murphy but he was never the greatest actor in the world and rarely got the chance to break out of the western hero stereotype, The Quiet American and No Name on the Bullet being rare exceptions. Here, with just two films left before his untimely death, he seems to have accepted his lot and gives a workmanlike performance as Jess Carlin.
Crawford on the other hand was an Oscar nominated actor but by this stage of his career (he was in his mid 50’s) he couldn’t convince as a fast gun let alone as a romantic rival to Murphy. He’s clearly only there for the money and possibly some Spanish sunshine and sleepwalks through most of the film.
February 1st, 2007
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Spiders (2000) Region 2
When you’re dealing with giant spider movies you can be pretty sure you’re in for some cheese, the question is will it be tasty cheddar or stinky gorgonzola. Well in the case of Spiders it’s definitely the latter.
What we have here is an attempt to merge Alien with Arachnophobia, with a secret government experiment to combine extraterrestrial and spider DNA. A dim-witted reporter and her equally intellectually challenged crew stumble on to the scheme and end up trapped in a secret base with the hybrid spider.
The DVD sleeve says this is from the FX team who created From Dusk Till Dawn, Spawn and Wishmaster. That may be so but here they are responsible for some of the worst CGI effects I’ve ever seen. It’s bad enough when the film stays in the confined space of the base but when things head outside for the over the top climax with a spider of King Kong sized proportions, it’s so bad it’s not even funny.
Ineptly directed by Gary Jones, a man whose career highlight was working on the Xena and Hercules TV series, this was a real chore to sit through. Lead actress Lana Parrilla is a familiar face having had recurring roles in 24, NYPD Blue and Boomtown but here, with everything working against her, she’s not up to the task of saving a very bad movie, still even Sigourney Weaver couldn’t have salvaged this one.
January 25th, 2007
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Kirk Douglas plays the title character but spends more time fighting his fellow white men than he does Indians. Returning to the West after the Civil War he hopes to broker a peace with the Sioux. Unfortunately he hasn’t taken into account the gold on the Indians land or how far men will go to get it.
The real bad guys here aren’t the Indians but a couple of greedy whites played by Walter Matthau and Lon Chaney. Matthau is probably best known for his later comedy roles but he could be a convincing villain and he makes the most of a fairly limited part here. Lon on the other hand just gets to act big and dumb.
This is an all action western with little time for character development. We never really learn why Douglas changed from Indian fighter to Indian lover (literally). With a star of lesser magnitude this might be a problem but Kirk carries the film with charisma to spare.
The movie is short and many of the scenes feel truncated but whether this is down to director André De Toth or interference from star/producer Douglas (this was the first venture for his new production company Bryna) I don’t know. One thing is for sure the film may lack depth but it doesn’t lack pace with eighty-five minute flying by. Toth made several westerns both for the big and small screen (he even directed a couple of episodes of Peckinpah’s short lived The Westerner series) but is probably best known for being at the helm of the Vincent Price version of House of Wax.
January 24th, 2007
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The Legend of Hell House (1973) Region 2
This is similar in structure to Rober Wise’s The Haunting with a group of paranormal investigators spending a few days in a haunted house and like that film was based on a novel, in this case Richard Matheson’s Hell House. The films also share similar plots with the groups gradual deterioration as the oppressive atmosphere of the house weighs on them evident in both films. Hell House is the less subtle of the two films, there’s nothing here to compare with the classic ‘holding hands in the dark’ scene in Wise’s classic.
What it does have going for it is a powerful sense of dread generated by the inventive direction of John Hough, who uses odd angles and reflections to keep the viewer off balance. Hough was also responsible for Hammer’s underrated Twins of Evil but sadly most of his work was in TV.
Adding to that oppressive atmosphere is an exceptional score by Brian Hodgson and Delia Derbyshire both of whom worked on the BBC’s Doctor Who in the early years of that show. Here they mix electronic sounds with more conventional instrumentation to great effect.
As for the actors all give decent performances with Roddy McDowall relishing the chance to take a more central role as Benjamin Franklin Fischer the only survivor of a previous expedition. I’ve always been a fan of McDowall and this is one of his best parts (at least out of ape make-up) and he’s clearly having a ball.
