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Bill’s Bizarre Bijou: SHE DEVIL (1957)

Posted in 1950s Sci-Fi Films, 2013, 50s Horror, Bill's Bizarre Bijou, Femme Fatales, Insect Horror, Lost Films, Mad Doctors!, Mutants! with tags 50s Horror, Albert Dekker, Jack Kelly, Kurt, Mari Blanchard, Neumann, sci-fi, She Devil on April 11, 2013 by knifefighter

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou

William D. Carl

This week’s feature presentation:

SHE DEVIL (1957)

Welcome to Bill’s Bizarre Bijou, where you’ll discover the strangest films ever made. If there are alien women with too much eye-shadow and miniskirts, if papier-mâché monsters are involved, if your local drive-in insisted this be the last show in their dusk till dawn extravaganza, or if it’s just plain unclassifiable – then I’ve seen it and probably loved it. Now, I’m here to share these little gems with you, so you too can stare in disbelief at your television with your mouth dangling open. Trust me, with these flicks, you won’t believe your eyes.

Kurt Neumann is the well-known director of one of the greatest mad scientist/monster movies of all time, THE FLY (1958). We’ve all seen it, and we’ve all quoted the infamous “Help meeee!” line in a falsetto voice. Neumann, however, was quite a prolific filmmaker, with many terrific little movies under his belt, including KRONOS (1957), CARNIVAL STORY (1954), ROCKETSHIP X-M (1950), and numerous Tarzan titles. Yet, everyone remembers him for his creation of a bulbous, fly-headed human. Far less known, is Kurt Neumann’s other insect/mad scientist horror movie, SHE DEVIL (1957), which he also wrote. No, this isn’t the Rosanne atrocity, but a full-blooded, low-budget shocker that surely freaked out the drive-in crowds.

The film opens in glorious black and white – A Regal Film (a company that went bust just after the release of SHE DEVIL, which explains the obscurity of the title…also, the movie was shot in Cinemascope, and most theaters weren’t able to handle the technology). We see a view through a microscope of an obviously hand-drawn fruitfly, which is what Dr. Scott (Jack Kelly of CULT OF THE COBRA, 1955 and FORBIDDEN PLANET, 1956,) is looking at when he gets a visit from his colleague, Dr. Bach, played by stalwart character actor Albert Dekker (who was in THE KILLERS,1946, THE FURIES, 1950, EAST OF EDEN, 1955 and THE WILD BUNCH, 1969, but who is probably best known to genre fans for his portrayal of DR. CYCLOPS, 1940,). They discuss Scott’s new research, in which he is using the invulnerability of the fruitfly, which can heal itself through adaptation to its environment. Since fruitflies are the most adaptive of all insects and produce the most neutons (?), he creates a serum that has worked wonders on lab animals. “These guinea pigs were tubercular, and the serum cured them in three days!” His leopard turns from spotted to black after taking the drug, and it grows very aggressive (uh-oh!). He needs a human test subject, but, darn it, nobody wants to volunteer to ingest the serum during their final days.

Enter gorgeous Kyra Zelas, a dying woman in the final stages of tuberculosis, played by the lovely Mari Blanchard (ABBOT AND COSTELLO GO TO MARS, 1953 and DESTRY, 1954). She has no relatives or friends or money, and no hope of surviving. The perfect subject for Scott’s serum! They inject her, and in just six hours, she is doing much better. In another day, she is fully recovered and admiring herself in a mirror. Her hair was never so lustrous! Dr. Scott starts to fall for Kyra, even after he can barely get a needle through her newly-strengthened skin. Luckily, it seems it has also given her a Max Factor makeover that is permanently beautifying her face.

Dr. Bach (Albert Dekker) operates on Kyra.

Dr. Scott decides she should be kept under observation in case there are any side effects, so when she is released, she will be living with the good doctor so he can, ahem, keep an eye on her. When she heads to his house, she informs the men that “From now on, I’m going to do only what I want…everything I want. I’m going to get everything I can out of life. Everything I always wanted.” She starts by going to an expensive boutique where she observes a sugar daddy buying stuff for his woman and flashing a lot of cash around. She grabs the money, bashes the man over the head with an ashtray, and heads for a dressing room. By shaking her hair out, shampoo-commercial style, she changes from brunette to blond, a really cool special effect for the time. After changing into another dress, she fools everyone, even the police, and uses the stolen money to buy a new wardrobe.

Dr. Scott is easily fooled by the beauty, but Dr. Bach sees her for the conniving little tramp she is. He discovers she hasn’t dyed her hair blonde; she is mutating! His warnings fall on deaf ears as Scott throws a sort of coming out party for her. This is where she meets insanely wealthy no-goodnik Barton Kendell (John Archer of DESTINATION MOON, 1950 and BLUE HAWAII, 1961) and his shrewish wife Evelyn (Fay Baker of NOTORIOUS, 1946 and THE STAR, 1952). “Now, Evelyn, you know we never quarrel till our third drink.”

Barton flirts shamelessly with Kyra, who encourages his attentions, but when Evelyn says she wants to leave the party, Kyra does her head-shake again, turning her blond hair brown (there’s a Crystal Gayle song in there somewhere.) Then, she kills Evelyn in the garden by using her super-strength to strangle the older woman. She’s spotted, but everyone is looking for a brunette, and she’s reverted back to blond again!

Scott and Bach decide to create an anti-serum in case Kyra gets out of hand. They are too late, however, and she’s had a taste of freedom. She allows the black leopard in the lab to claw her, and the bloody wound heals in seconds. She can’t be injured, no matter how badly she is attacked. They try to drug her, but she wakes up and threatens them before departing for richer shores.

She marries the smitten millionaire Barton Kendell, but she grows bored with him quickly and their marriage turns sour. “Stop pawing me!” she cries out. On a drive, she spins the car’s wheel, sending the car over the cliff with Barton and herself inside. “Stop it, Kyra, you’ll kill us!” “Not US, Bart. Not US!” (The car crash footage is from a Robert Mitchum movie, ANGEL FACE, 1952). At the bottom of the cliff, she emerges unscathed from the wreckage and walks back to Dr. Scott, who welcomes her with open arms, even though he knows how evil she is!

Blonde she-devil Kyra meets the leopard.

Will Dr. Bach convince Scott of what a monster Kyra has become? Will she succeed in taking out Bach and living with the man who loves her? Can they operate on her to restore Kyra to normalcy (in other words, not a murderous, thieving witch with fabulous hair)?

SHE DEVIL is loaded with bitchy, fun dialogue (“I’m not creating a scene. You are.” “Oh yeah? I’m not the one necking with this trollop!” SLAP! “You don’t want a divorce; you might actually have to marry one of your girls.”). Sometimes, the script gets a bit too talky for its own good, but when the words coming out of the characters’ mouths are so tasty, who cares? The crisp cinematography is by the great Karl Struss, who worked on SUNRISE (1927), Chaplin’s THE GREAT DICTATOR (1940), and ISLAND OF LOST SOULS (1932), before moving on to trashy greats like THE ALLIGATOR PEOPLE (1959) and Neumann’s own THE FLY. The acting is fine, if a bit over the top, with Mari Blanchard standing out as the murderous, monstrous, indestructible femme fatale. She gyrates and whispers and is sex personified. Plus, that hair trick is awfully cool.

On a side-note, co-star Albert Dekker, the star of so many terrific, Oscar-nominated films, is also the victim in one of Hollywood’s most notorious death scenes. In May of 1968, he was discovered on his knees, dead in a bathtub with a noose around his neck, hand-cuffed, a ball gag in his mouth, blindfolded, with sexual words written on his body in lipstick! The coroner declared the death was “accidental”, and he was cremated. Today, he is remembered more for his sexually kinky death than his body of work, and that’s a sad thing. We at Bill’s Bizarre Bijou loved the guy’s over the top performance in SHE DEVIL, as well as his nuanced portrayals in other, more mainstream films.

Kyra as a brunette.

SHE DEVIL is a fun sci-fi/horror hybrid with an unforgettable female lead and more than a few memorable moments. Plus, Olive Films has released a stunning Blu-Ray of the film which looks absolutely beautiful.

I give SHE DEVIL three fruitflies out of four.

Cinema Knife Fight/New Filmmakers Edition: CELL COUNT (2012)

Posted in 2013, Body Horror, Cinema Knife Fights, Conspiracy Theories, Disease!, Indie Horror, Mad Doctors!, Mutants!, New Filmmmakers, Science Fiction with tags Body Horror, Cell Count, Daniel Baldwin, Haley Talbot, Indie Horror, Robert McKeehan, Todd E. Freeman on March 25, 2013 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT.NEW FILMMAKERS EDITION
CELL COUNT (2012) Directed by TODD E. FREEMAN
Review by Michael Arruda & L.L. Soares

(THE SCENE: A lab, almost prison-like, with plain gray walls, and security doors and cameras all around. Several “patients” sit around a table. The security door buzzes open and MICHAEL ARRUDA & L.L. SOARES enter wearing lab coats.)

L.L. SOARES: Welcome everyone to a special edition of CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT. Today we bring you the latest installment in our “Up-and-Coming Filmmaker” series, where we review movies by new directors who are trying to make a name for themselves.

MICHAEL ARRUDA: So today we are reviewing CELL COUNT (2012) by writer/director Todd E. Freeman.

But let me say first, that our good friend, best-selling author Rick Hautala passed away unexpectedly on Thursday, and both out of respect for Rick and his family, and out of genuine grief, I’m not much in the mood for joking today. I almost prefer a straight review.

LS: I agree that it was sad news, but knowing Rick, I don’t think he’d want us to tone down the column on his account.

MA: True. For me, it’s more that I’m not in a joking mood this weekend, but I don’t see why we couldn’t throw in a few jokes here and there, I guess.

Anyway, let’s get things started. CELL COUNT is—.

PATIENT #1: Excuse me? What are we doing here exactly?

LS: You’re our audience.

PATIENT #1: We didn’t sign up for this. We’re supposed to be—.

(LS suddenly Tasers the guy, who falls to the floor, writhing in pain.)

LS: You’re also the comic relief. Anyone else have any questions?

(Other patients shake their heads.)

LS: Good. Let’s continue.

MA: So much for toning things down.

As I was saying, CELL COUNT is a science fiction horror movie about a group of people subjected to one very weird and unsettling medical experiment.

The film opens with Russell Carpenter (Robert McKeehen) comforting his dying wife Sadie (Haley Talbot) in a hospital. It’s clear that these two are very much in love. Russell is informed by Dr. Victor Brandt (Christopher Toyne) that his wife is going to die in no uncertain terms, unless…and then he makes Russell an offer. He tells Russell that he’s involved with a special study that is seeking test subjects like his wife in order to treat this deadly disease. He tells Russell that he can guarantee his wife will be cured. But Russell will have to be part of the experiment as well if he wants to come with her.

I guess Russell never heard “if it sounds too good to be true, it really isn’t” because he agrees…

LS: Of course he agrees! He doesn’t want to lose his wife.

MA: … and he and Sadie find themselves inside a weird prison-like facility with other “patients.” All of them have small incisions in their chests, where Dr. Brandt supposedly implanted the powerful viral cure into their bodies. In addition to these patients, there are also two “special” patients housed in a secure part of the building—two convicted criminals who are highly dangerous.

When the group begins to suffer from weird side effects, they begin to suspect that something is wrong, and they discover that Dr. Brandt’s vision of a cure isn’t quite what they expected. They’ve been implanted with a strange worm-like creature that burrows out of their mouths at will, and does some other things as well, like one wrapping itself around its victim’s face, forming a mask that resembles an alien in a bad science fiction movie.

LS: I actually thought the “mask face” thing looked pretty cool.

MA: I liked the idea of the “mask face” but I didn’t think it looked good. It looked like Dumb Donald from FAT ALBERT.

So, it’s up to Russell and Sadie to lead their fellow patients out of Dr. Brandt’s high security lab, while trying to defeat the monstrous “cure” that they now have inside their bodies, a cure put there so it can literally eat the disease. The trouble is it devours other things as well.

(Patient #1 keels over onto the floor, and a large worm-like creature oozes out of his mouth. LS Tasers the worm creature and then stabs it with a giant fork. He carries it across the lab and deposits it into a huge pot.)

LS: Gotta let this simmer.

PATIENT: I’m cured! I’m cured! Thank you for curing me!

LS: Keep your shirt on. You’re not cured yet.

PATIENT: I’m not?

LS: Not until after you’ve had my soup.

MA: If you survive his soup, (Points to large pot on stove.) you’re cured.

PATIENT: Couldn’t I just take a pill instead?

LS: And skip my all-natural worm soup du jour? No way, buddy. Soup for everyone!

(There is a collective groan.)

MA: I hear it tastes like chicken.

Anyway, CELL COUNT succeeded in drawing me in initially. I liked the opening scene where Russell comforts his wife, and then listens as Dr. Brandt entices him with his offer to cure her. Anyone who’s had to deal with very sick loved ones can attest to the temptation of doing whatever it takes to cure that person, no matter how unconventional the method may seem. So I bought this set-up.

LS: Yeah, I got hooked early on, too. While I don’t think they ever actually say it’s cancer during the course of the movie (they just say “the disease”), it seems pretty obvious that’s what is going on here. And it would make sense that people would do just about anything to avoid the inevitable.

MA: I liked the acting performances, even if they weren’t as polished as you might find in a mainstream movie. I enjoyed Robert McKeehen in the lead role as Russell Carpenter. He made for a believable hero, and I bought that he’d go the extreme route to save his wife. Admittedly, there were a few scenes where his performance was uneven—the scene where he first sees the worm thingie climb out of someone’s throat, for instance, his over the top reaction made me laugh out loud. I don’t think that was the reaction he was looking for.

LS: Yeah, I agree there are a few missteps, but overall, McKeehan is really good here. He looked like an elongated, big-eyed Christoph Waltz to me at times.

MA: I also enjoyed Haley Talbot as his wife Sadie.

LS: Sadie was my favorite character. Once she gets “better” and has a major role in what’s going on, I found her strong and very likable. Despite “the disease,” I think she’s the strongest one in the movie. Kudos to Haley Talbot.

MA: I agree. Christopher Toyne made for an effectively mysterious Dr. Victor Brandt, although at times, especially towards the end of the movie, he tends to overact.

LS: I actually thought was a little over-the-top from the first time we meet him. He’s effective here, but he does tend to ham it up. Which isn’t completely bad. He’s entertaining at least. He’s just not as believable as some of the other characters, and you distrust his motives right away.

MA: The supporting cast is actually very good. Adrienne Vogel and John Breen stand out as fellow patients Mary Porter and Billy Mayor, and Ted Rooney’s performance as Abraham Walker, one of the “violent inmates,” who it turns out isn’t such a bad guy after all, is especially memorable.

LS: I liked Rooney a lot. Don’t forget Judd Eustice as Timothy“Tiny Tim” Jacobs, He’s the other dangerous criminal who “agreed” to be part of the experiment, and he’s pretty creepy. He’s the closest thing the movie has to a human villain, except for maybe Dr. Brandt.

MA: Even one of the Baldwin brothers shows up, Daniel Baldwin, in what amounts to nothing more than a cameo, so I guess someone needed a paycheck!

LS: Yeah, what was up with that? I know he was hired to give the movie a little bit of star power, but his role actually made me laugh. He comes onscreen like he’s some heroic figure, but he’s actually kind of a dud.

MA: Again, the set-up to the story works. I believed that these people would subject themselves to this kind of test treatment if they believed they would be cured. The middle part of the movie, where you really weren’t certain as to what was going on, and who to trust or who to believe, reminded me a little bit of some those early episodes from the TV show LOST, where you weren’t sure what Benjamin Linus and his family of “Others” were up to.

LS: This movie looks great. But I had trouble understanding some of the motivations here. And the way the “facility” was set up—I know this abandoned prison must have seemed like an amazing location to set a film, and it is—but there were more than a few things that didn’t make sense to me.

For example, in one part, Billy takes Russell through the facility. You have to press your hand against a pad so that it can identify you and give you access to certain areas. They go to this locker room where Billy’s dog, The Kid, is. We hear Dr. Brandt tell them that they shouldn’t really be interacting with the animals that are part of the experiment, but then he pretty much says it doesn’t matter. Later, in another scene, Mary Porter brings the dog back to where the people are, and Dr. Brandt comes to visit. He doesn’t have any problem with them having the dog there. Then why make an issue of it initially?

MA: Yeah, that didn’t make any sense to me either.

LS: Also, characters are able to get into the section of the facility where the dangerous criminals are located. When they get to that area, a recorded voice tells them that this is a dangerous area, and they should turn back. Why not just have the door there coded so that it denies access? That didn’t make any sense to me.

MA: Right. I kept thinking there was a reason Dr. Brandt wanted his test subjects to interact with the dangerous criminals, but we’re never given that reason. And then later the recorded voice does announce that it’s time to intermingle, and the dangerous prisoners are released, but for what reason is never explained.

LS: There’s another scene where they “coax” one of the worm monsters out of someone, and instead of trying to pull it out when it makes an appearance, they simply take this as a sign that the person in question is beyond help. Why not just try to get it to come out again and grab it?

MA: And, when it gets to pay-off time, the film falters. First off, visually, the special effects weren’t all that special. I’ve seen worse, but the effects here weren’t good enough for me to buy into them. And several key moments, which could have made for some very dark grisly scenes, were glossed over, as the camera would cut away at the last minute. I expected that this was going to turn into a gruesome—or at the very least, intense—horror movie, but it never reaches that level.

LS: Well, this is a low-budget movie (although, once again, it looks great). So it makes sense that in certain scenes, the camera cuts away. They probably couldn’t afford to show everything they wanted to.

I didn’t think the effects were bad. For the most part, they worked for me. I really liked how Tiny Tim’s insides come out of his mouth and then cover his head for that “bag head” effect. That was pretty cool. The worm thingies weren’t perfect, but they looked good, too.

MA: At times, it seems to be striving for that WALKING DEAD feel—a story about a group of survivors against a deadly threat—and while the characters in this movie are somewhat interesting—enough so that in a better movie I’d follow their plight—the situations they find themselves in here never become so riveting that I was really into it.

For the most part, I liked the story, as written by writer/director Todd E. Freeman, but I certainly could have used more information. I never really had a firm grasp on what the cure was or even what the disease was. I understood the reactions of the victims, but I didn’t understand the motives of the guy causing all the trouble, Dr. Brandt, other than a generalized notion that he was seeking a “cure.” While the patients seemed real, Dr. Brandt played like a mad scientist in a bad science fiction movie.

LS: I wasn’t always clear why people did the things they did. Motivations seemed cloudy to me. It was almost like they did things to further the story, but they weren’t necessarily things that made sense.

I just thought that the script, also by director Todd Freeman, was the weakest aspect of the movie.

And yeah, Dr. Brandt does seem like your typical mad doctor. It would have been nice if he had more depth to him. Early on, he says that he was the first patient to be experimented on, when they first created the cure. That was a step into humanizing him more, but the script really doesn’t flesh him out much more than that.

MA: Behind the camera, director Freeman does an adequate job, but his effort needed to be stronger. There are some cool scenes here, but at the end of the day, it’s simply not enough. The film needed more of an edge. Perhaps it was budget restrictions that caused those unfortunate cutaways and mediocre special effects. If this was the case, then more creative direction should have been in order. I just wasn’t feeling it at the end.

LS: I wasn’t completely sold on the ending, either. I wasn’t clear on why some of the characters did what they did.

MA: But I’ve seen much worse, and for the 90 minutes I spent watching CELL COUNT, I was entertained.

I give it two knives.

LS: I thought there were a lot of strong aspects about this movie. I liked Freeeman’s direction for the most part, the actors were mostly good, the effects decent (considering the budget constraints), and I just thought the movie looked slick and professional (the cinematography is by “The Brothers Freeman,” i.e., Todd and Jason Freeman). But the script was uneven. I give it two knives as well.

But I do see a lot of potential here, and I’d be interested in seeing what Freeman does next.

MA: Well, we’re done here. I guess it’s time we headed out.

(DR. BRANDT suddenly bursts into the room)

DR. BRANDT: No, you cannot leave. It is too dangerous. The “cure” has infected you.

LS: What are you talking about? We didn’t have any surgery to have the cure implanted in us.

DR. BRANDT: But you did eat the meatloaf in the cafeteria!

MA: Oh no. I thought that tasted funny.

DR. BRANDT: Yes, you must stay here in Quarantine now, until I am ready to extract the cure.

LS: Screw that (Tasers Dr. Brandt, who writhes on the floor)

MA: Nice job.

LS (to other patients): Let’s blow this joint. I hear Daniel Baldwin has a bus ready for our escape. If he can start it up!

-END-

Michael Arruda gives CELL COUNT ~ two knives!

LL Soares gives CELL COUNT ~two knives.

Suburban Grindhouse Memories: THE BEING (1983)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 1980s Horror, 2012, B-Movies, Monsters, Mutants!, Nick Cato Reviews, Suburban Grindhouse Memories with tags B-Movie, Jose Ferrer, Laugh-In, Martin Landau, Ruth Buzzi, The Being on September 28, 2012 by knifefighter

Suburban Grindhouse Memories
Buzzi’s BEING in the Land of the Spuds
By Nick Cato

Released shortly after Halloween in 1983, THE BEING may very well be the epitome of low budget 80s horror/exploitation cinema. Directed by Jackie Kong (who would go on to create BLOOD DINER (1987), the first sequel (of sorts) to 1963’s BLOOD FEAST) and featuring a simply mind-blowing cast of psychotronic superstars, I don’t even know where to begin explaining the trashy goodness this baby has in store…

…once again the (now defunct) Amboy Twin Cinema hosted this gem for one week only. Opening night had a near sell-out crowd, and whether that was due to people thirsting for an ALIEN-type film, or to see Ruth Buzzi’s career continue to go down the toilet, is anyone’s guess. After a music-free opening credit sequence (I wonder if this was the director’s way of attempting to create tension?), we see some guy running for his life through a toxic dump yard (that looks more comical than the TOXIC AVENGER’s back yard) but we don’t see what’s chasing him. He manages to steal an abandoned car (because, y’know, cars in junkyards are always tuned up and ready to rock ‘n’ roll) but it doesn’t take long before something rips the roof off and tears the sucker’s head clean off: talk about a wild transition from the lifeless opening credits! THE BEING then hides in the trunk, and when a couple of brain-dead cops come to investigate the car (which has crashed into a warehouse and is covered in blood), neither one of them figures on checking the trunk.

At this point, you’re either walking out the door asking for your money back (or if you’re at home, hitting the EJECT button), or cheering in uncontrollable glee at the on-screen stupidity. No one left the screening I attended, despite several groans heard around the room. And when I realized the film was taking place in Idaho, I was even more sold on the whole project, hoping this beast would turn out to be some kind of mutated potato. Sadly, it wasn’t.

THE BEING spends a lot of time hiding in trunks and back seats, making me wonder if it was at one time a car salesman. What little we do find out about the creature is it was once human, and its mother is played by the legendary Ruth Buzzi (best known as a cast member of ROWAN AND MARTIN’S LAUGH-IN from 1967 to 1973). Toxic waste has turned the poor kid into some kind of ever-changing shape-shifter: in one sequence, it attacks a drive-in after turning itself into a slime state and oozes through the dashboard of an unsuspecting couple. In another scene, the monster looks like a large stuffed animal covered in latex gelatin. And yet again it shows up looking like a poor-man’s ALIEN (similar to the poster image above). But I guess, considering this abomination was spawned from toxic waste, anything is possible.

Filled with plenty of gore and cheap monster goodness, THE BEING also works well as a “drinking game movie”: have some friends come over and make everyone take a shot each time the film’s ‘day-to-night-differential-within-too-short-a-time’ goes down. You’ll be hammered within 25 minutes. If memory serves me, a dull single-night house party seems to go on for two or three days. Besides special effects, the producers apparently saved money by not hiring a continuity supervisor. But these are the quirks that make B-movies more entertaining than your standard Hollywood fare.

Fresh off his role as an escaped mental patient in ALONE IN THE DARK (1982), Martin Landau plays a government scientist who spews some of the worst lines you’ll ever hear in a horror/sci-fi film. While the dialogue isn’t his fault, it makes his role on the classic MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE TV series look like Oscar-worthy material. Then again Landau did win an Oscar for his role as Bela Lugosi in 1994’s ED WOOD, so maybe I’ll stop ragging on the poor guy and move on…

Ruth Buzzi plays a real whack-job here (talk about stretching things for the screen) and dies in a gloriously over-acted choking-by-mutant-monster-son-tentacle-strangulation sequence that must be seen to be believed (see picture below). With its various bodily forms, THE BEING sometimes has tentacles, sometimes human-like arms, and sometimes has a tongue that would make KISS’s Gene Simmons envious. And for some reason it decides to mutilate some victims by throwing others into walls, while allowing others to live. Perhaps the toxic waste has messed with its conscience, too?

Cult film icon Jose Ferrer stars as the small town’s mayor. I need to do an imdb check on him one day to see if he or Dick Miller have starred in the most cameos and throw-away roles. It’s probably Miller, but Ferrer seemed to be everywhere in the 70s and 80s.

With decapitations, a heart ripped out of some poor redneck cop’s chest, all kinds of cheesy blood galore, a lengthy flopping boob shot, priceless dialogue, a plot that’s beyond incoherent, and arguably the worst daytime/nighttime continuity ever to (dis)grace a film, grindhouse cinema is rarely as fun as THE BEING.

Add a HUGE plus here for the sequence where two potheads are attacked during the drive-in assault. I still laugh just thinking about it…

Ruth Buzzi faces THE BEING in one of the more absurd death scenes in cinematic history…

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Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter: THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976)

Posted in 2012, 70s Horror, Apocalyptic Films, Lady Anachronism's Fallout Shelter, Mutants!, Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel Columns, Zombies with tags 70s horror, Argentinian Horror, Blind Zombies, End of the World Movies, Lady Anachronism, Leon Klimovsky, Paul Naschy, People Who Own the Dark on September 18, 2012 by knifefighter

“Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter” Takes on
THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976)
By Sheri Sebastian-Gabriel

Pull up a chair, pass around some rations, and get comfortable. Here at Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter, I’ll take you back into time, when Atomic Age cats and dolls fretted over the bomb and visions of alien invaders flickered on the big screen at the local drive-in. Technological or political developments may have made these films obsolete, but I hope you’ll join me in rediscovering forgotten Cold War-era cinema.

THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976) is a rare treat, a mélange of science fiction and horror, all while blatantly ripping off George Romero. Directed by Argentinian director Leon Klimovsky (THE WEREWOLF VERSUS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN, 1971), the film opens to a bright bedroom. Lily (Maria Perschy) is awakened by her husband, Victor (Tomas Pico). They have to plan for a party they’ll be throwing later that night.

The scene cuts to the office of a Russian ambassador. We know he’s Russian because he calls someone “comrade,” and there’s a picture of Lenin proudly displayed in his office. He’s speaking with someone on the telephone about leaving the country. We discover something bad might happen, but maybe not, at least according to the ambassador.

We move on to the party at Lily and Victor’s mansion in the countryside. Lily and Victor discuss who will be attending. It becomes clearer that this is going to be a kinky party. Doctors and businessmen, who are instructed to wear these bizarre rubber masks, are there to have a decadent meal with plenty of wine and narcotics—and a lovely selection of prostitutes to satisfy their needs. (For the under-18 or nudity-sensitive crowd, there is no explicit sex and only a small amount of nudity.)

Before things can get really kinky, the basement room where the Marquis de Sade-inspired debauchery was to take place begins to shake violently. The ceiling cracks open. The servants come in screaming, their eyes completely white. A pigeon crashes into the house, also devoid of its eyesight.

Dr. Fulton (Alberto de Mendoza) tells everyone he believes Europe has been hit by a nuclear bomb. The cellar-level bordello is the perfect place to hide out until it becomes clearer what steps they should take.

The following day, the men venture out to the village to gather supplies in a scene that looks remarkably like something straight out of THE LAST MAN ON EARTH (1964). While there, they discover everyone in the village is blind, suffering from some strange disease brought on by the nuclear fallout. In one of the stranger scenes, the men break into a grocery store to get some food. They’re accosted by the storeowner, who is blind and doing his best to protect his store. Victor, who seemingly lacks all human decency, takes out his switchblade and jabs it into the guy.

The rest of the men attempt to deliver some of their ill-gotten food to the monastery, where the blinded masses are moaning and wandering around aimlessly. Victor wants nothing to do with their sappy, bleeding-heart charity, and he steps outside to smoke a cigarette. Some of the blind villagers find him and grab at him like zombies. He begins shooting them, but Dr. Robertson (Ricardo Palacios) strangles him to death before he can hurt anyone else.

No one tells Lily what has happened to her husband, beyond the fact that he is dead, out of respect for Dr. Robertson. Even so, murdering Victor takes a toll on Dr. Robertson. He wanders around in a catatonic state for a while, but then starts acting like an animal. The rotund doctor even takes to crawling around the mansion on all fours in the nude. Dr. Messier (Emiliano Redondo) tries to comfort the nutcase with a transistor radio. The radio has been silent since the bomb hit, but Messier tells Robertson that perhaps one day the radio will play music again.

Fulton and the lovely Clara (Nadiuska, who is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Conan’s mother in 1982’s CONAN THE BARBARIAN), find love despite the horrifying circumstances. It’s actually a believable, beautiful relationship, a bond that lasts throughout the film.

The film features Paul Naschy, Spain’s answer to Lon Chaney, who also starred in Klimovsky’s THE WEREWOLF VERSUS THE VAMPIRE WOMAN. He portrays Bourne, a man with flared nostrils who is ready and willing to shoot, punch, or kick anything in sight. Between Bourne and the blind zombie-like folks, the members of the party are in a dangerous spot.

Meanwhile, the blind zombies are being led around by a man who was blind before the bomb struck. He instructs them to attack the members of the party. One woman has her eyes gouged out by the horde. Another is shot in the mouth.

Suddenly, the transistor radio begins playing music. An announcer comes on to tell the survivors of the blast where they should report for further instructions. Between the blind people and the shotgun wielding Bourne, the remaining party members must fight for their lives. Few succeed.

Fulton and Clara make it after escaping into the woods while the others fight it out among themselves and the zombie horde. They flag down a bus driven by two men in radiation suits. Fulton gives them his identification. The two board the bus, which is occupied by other healthy people.

I won’t give away the ending to those who are eager to see this Spanish delight, but it left me feeling cold and frustrated. This was an exceptionally good film with an ending that fell flat for me.

It is obvious Klimovsky was heavily influenced by NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968) and THE OMEGA MAN (1971), or its predecessor THE LAST MAN ON EARTH. He brought his own style and vision to the table, and it makes for a refreshing take on the theme. The film is not without its plot holes. Some of the characters’ reactions to a horrifying situation don’t make much sense, but perhaps Klimovsky intended to demonstrate that people act irrationally when faced with a crisis. Despite its flaws, I highly recommend it.

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THE OOGIELOVES in THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE (2012)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, Apocalyptic Films, Deformed Freaks!, Demons, Evil Puppets!, Fantasy Films, Fun Stuff!, Just Plain Bad, Just Plain Fun, Just Plain Weird, Kids Movies, Musicals, Mutants!, Peter Dudar Reviews with tags Bobby Wobbly, Goobie, Insane, LSD, Marvin Milkshake, Oogieloves, Schluufy, The Apocalypse, Toofie, Zoozie on September 5, 2012 by knifefighter

THE OOGIELOVES in THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE (2012)

A Satirical Lesson in Writing and the Dangers of Drug Use

By Peter N. Dudar

With Help From Vivian (age 5)

Vivian: Daddy…Daddy, wake up. You promised we could have fun today.

Peter: Gimme a few more minutes, honey. Daddy is still tired.

Vivian: Now, Daddy! You said we could go see THE OOGIELOVES today. C’mon, get up!

Peter: What the hell are THE OOGIELOVES?

(Vivian throws the covers off her dad and drags him out of bed. Daddy chugs down a cup of coffee and then herds the family off to the car to go see the new Matthew Diamond film, THE OOGIELOVES in THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE.)

Peter: You know, I don’t remember promising this. In fact, today was the day I wanted to talk to you about something very important. I wanted to talk to you about the dangers of drug use.

Vivian: What are drugs?

Peter: I’m glad you asked. Drugs are substances used to alter the physical and mental faculties of the human body. For instance…how do you feel right now?

Vivian: I’m really excited. I can’t wait to see this movie.

Peter: Now, you see…grown-ups don’t ever feel that kind of excitement ever, ever, ever. Some adults need a little help to feel that kind of enthusiasm. They need stimulants to maintain that kind of high. I can see by the way you’re shifting around in your car-seat that you’re pretty jacked up. Cokeheads look the same way after they’ve done a few lines. Seeing YOU doing it almost scares me a little. Looks like I’ll just have to grit my teeth and ride this one out. What is this movie about, anyway?

Vivian: It’s the Big Balloon Adventure. It’s Schluufy the Pillow’s birthday, and the Oogieloves have to throw a party for her, but the balloons get all lost and stuff, and they have to rescue the balloons.

Peter: Wait, back up a second. They’re throwing a party for a pillow?

Vivian: Yeah, this is gonna be so great!

Peter: Sounds like the guy who made this movie is on drugs.

(They get to the theater and take their seats. The movie begins, and the Oogieloves come out and explain what we’re about to see. Apparently, this is an interactive movie, and they will cue us for when we are supposed to get out of our seats and dance).

Vivian: Okay, Daddy? When we see the butterflies, we’re supposed to jump up and dance.

Peter: This is such a drag. THE POSSESSION is playing in the theater right next door. Are you sure you don’t want to get up and go sneak in?

Vivian: I want to watch THIS movie!

(In the film, the Oogieloves are beginning their day. J. Edgar, the vacuum cleaner, is some type of adult/authority figure. He’s gone off to get five magic balloons for Schluufy. On the way home, the vacuum accidentally lets the balloons float away. He gets back to the stately Oogielove Manor and tells the three grown-up sized kid puppets of his mishap, so they swear by Odin’s hammer that they will retrieve all five balloons. Okay, I made that last part up.)

Vivian: This is so amazing…I love the music and the colors.

Peter: Yes…this brings us to narcotics and hallucinogens. The natural state of euphoria you’re experiencing is akin to an adult dropping some acid or ingesting some psychedelic shrooms. You may even feel like getting up and dancing. There are other types of drugs…ecstasy, for example, that will make a person lose their inhibitions and just trance out to the music. Those drugs are all very dangerous, and you should never, ever touch them. But here in the theater, it’s groovy. Get up and shake that thing. Daddy’s just gonna sit here and munch on some popcorn.

(The movie continues. Goobie—the genius of the group, Zoozie—the playful sister, and Toofie—the jokester whose pants always seem to fall down at awkward moments, begin their quest for the balloons. They are aided by Windy Window-a magic pane of glass with a hot southern accent, and J. Edgar-the vacuum. Schluufy the Pillow remains sleeping on the couch).

Vivian: Daddy, how come Schluufy never wakes up?

Peter: Well, honey…Schluufy is a metaphor.

Vivian: What’s a metaphor?

Peter: It’s a tool writers use to draw a comparison between fiction and reality. I believe that Schluufy, there, is supposed to symbolize crack babies. See how she lays there like a vegetable? No arms and legs or anything, but still sleeps peacefully with that big, goofy smile? Crack babies are infants that are addicted to drugs because their mommies were users during pregnancy. They do that all day long. That’s why the Oogieloves want to throw a big party for her. They feel bad that she’s so messed up, so they want to be really, really nice to her. Maybe the magic balloons they are off to rescue will restore her brain capacity or give her new legs or something?

Vivian: I still don’t understand.

Peter: Neither do I. Somebody was obviously tripping when they sat down and wrote this.

(The Oogieloves find the first balloon at the top of a tree. The tree boasts a tree house in the shape of a giant teapot. Inside are Dottie (an ancient-looking Cloris Leachman) and her niece, Jubilee (Kylie O’Brien). They go into this whole dance number that gets Vivian out of her seat to dance. Daddy yawns and checks his watch. The song ends, and then Toofie climbs the tree and recovers the first balloon. When he gets to the ground, his pants fall down. Vivian howls in laughter).

Vivian: Did you see that, Daddy? That was so funny!

: “Goofy Toofie, Pull Up Your Pants!”

Peter: Yeah. Hysterical. Which brings us to marijuana. Marijuana, or reefer, contains an active ingredient called THC, which messes with the doohickeys in your brain and makes everything funny as hell. The hilarity you find in Toofie’s pants falling down is childish and stupid. Marijuana makes childish, stupid things seem really, really funny to adults. And it gives you the munchies. Speaking of which, I kinda wish we had some Girl Scout cookies. Ain’t you old enough to be a Girl Scout yet?

Vivian: Shhh…I’m watching the movie.

(The movie continues, and the Oogieloves find themselves in Milky Marvin’s Milkshake Manor. The Oogieloves get caught in a milkshake-drinking contest to win back the second missing balloon. Marvin Milkshake (Chazz Palminteri begins another dance number that is actually the best song in the film. Sadly, I’ve already forgotten how it goes. The Oogieloves’ fish, Ruffy, wins the drink-off, and they escape with the second balloon.)

Vivian: I’m having so much fun. I wish this would never end!

Peter: That sounds like the cry of a heroin junkie. Now, that’s some heavy-duty stuff that you don’t want to mess with. Junkies are the lowest. It’s like throwing all your pride and your hope away. Remember that commercial where the girl breaks an egg open into a hot pan and tells us it’s our brain on heroin? Plus, sharing needles can lead to some really bad blood-diseases. You’ll end up like brainless Schluufy, drooling all over yourself. Do you want that?

Vivian: No, Daddy.

Peter: That’s my good girl.

(The movie continues. The Oogieloves find the third balloon in an airplane hangar where Rosalie Rosebud (Toni Braxton) is ready to embark on her next world-tour. Rosalie is a self-centered diva who trips on her popularity and is addicted to roses, which ironically make her sneeze uncontrollably. She, too, breaks into a dance number, and I really hate this song. But Viv loves it, so I get up for the first time and dance with my daughter. There is only one other family in the theater, and they, too, are up and dancing. Goobie somehow rescues the balloon and the Oogieloves move on.)

Vivian: She really loved her flowers.

Peter: Yes, and that’s called addictive personality disorder. It’s a metaphor for alcohol. Now, alcohol is a depressant. It numbs the senses and makes you a little tired. Rosalie needs her roses to help cheer her up, but, because of her allergies, it’s really bringing her down and destroying her life. You dig?

Vivian: You’re so weird, Daddy.

(The movie continues. Next, they track down the fourth balloon stuck at the top of an 18-wheeler belonging to Bobby Wobbly the Bubble-Blowing Cowboy (played by an unrecognizable Carey Elwes). Bobby Wobbly freakin’ loves bubbles, but he doesn’t understand why people just aren’t into bubbles anymore. Vivian disagrees vehemently and vocally as I just shake my head. There’s no end to this movie. They launch into ANOTHER song and dance, and I get up and join Viv again. It’s either that or fall asleep. This movie is assaulting all my senses, and I’m wishing the movie projector would fall apart or something…)

(After this escapade, the Oogieloves track down the final balloon stuck at the top of a windmill. But the Oogieloves can’t cross the grassy field by foot. Instead, they have to ride to it in a giant sombrero piloted by Lero and Lola Sombrero (Christopher Lloyd and Jaime Pressly). In order to get the giant sombrero to hover across the field, everybody has to dance really, really fast. I’m bummed at watching the great Christopher Lloyd reduced to a one-line cameo and beating on bongos while Lola shakes and dances across the screen. Eventually, they rescue the final balloon, and then it’s back off to Oogieloves Manor for the party.)

Vivian: They did it…they rescued all the magic balloons!

Peter: Big duh! What did you think would happen?

The Oogieloves. A children’s dream come true, or an adult’s worst nightmare?

Vivian: Now they can have the party for Schluufy. I’m so happy.

(They wake up Schluufy the Pillow, and sure enough, the damn thing can’t do more than mumble incoherently and coo a lot. But she feels loved and looks happy. The Oogieloves rock out to one last dance number, and then, finally, the film is over.)

Vivian: Did you like the movie, Daddy?

Peter: I found it to be derivative.

Vivian: What does that mean?

Peter: It means that the screenwriter borrowed liberally from other sources. It’s obvious that they stole ideas and concepts from Sesame Street, Pee Wee’s Playhouse, The Teletubbies (and to little surprise, creator Kenn Viselman, actually has production ties to the Teletubbies), and Yo Gabba Gabba. But I did have fun watching YOU have fun, and that, to me, makes the last hour and a half all worthwhile. Did you like it?

Vivian: I loved it. But I’m sad now that it’s over.

Peter: And THAT, dear one, is called coming down. It’s a bummer. We had so much fun and excitement, but it all has to come to an end. But at least we’re not slumped over a toilet bowl and yarking our brains out, so bonus for us!

Vivian: I don’t understand.

Peter: I don’t, either. But let’s just be glad it’s over. How many stars would you give this movie?

Vivian: I give it a hundred zillion, million, billion stars, all the way around the earth and back.

Peter: I give it two. I’m going back to bed now. I have to work tonight.

Vivian: Thank you, Daddy. I love you.

Peter: I love you, too. And remember…drugs are bad. Just say ‘NO’.

The End

THE OOGIELOVES. A sure sign that the End Times are comin’

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Transmissions to Earth: OCTAMAN (1971)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 1970s Movies, 2012, Drive-in Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Monsters, Mutants!, Science Fiction, Trasmissions to Earth with tags 70s Movies, Harry Essex, Kerwin Matthews, Octaman, Pier Angeli, Radioactive Horrors, Rubber Monsters on July 12, 2012 by knifefighter

(Special Transmission For Fans of Nick Cato’s “Suburban Grindhouse Memories” Column: It’s not gone. Things have just been moved around. Nick’s column will now be posted on the last Wednesday of each month. In its place every other Thursday will now be “Transmissions to Earth.”)

TRANSMISSIONS TO EARTH:
OCTAMAN (1971)
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

If ZAAT (which I reviewed last week) sounded bad to you, wait until you get a load of OCTAMAN (also from1971, the same year as ZAAT).

If you like to be surprised by how the monster looks later in the movie, you’re out of luck. Not only does the monster in OCTAMAN appear early in the movie – he’s standing around waving his tentacles at us in the OPENING CREDITS, as if to say “Hi everybody, here I am!”

Scientists are in Latin America studying the effects of underwater bomb detonations on a village that lives primarily on seafood (they find traces of radioactivity in the water! Wow, big surprise!), when one of them finds a baby octopus with big, staring red eyes, and it makes a squealing noise. I’m not sure why they don’t just say “Yeah, it’s a funny looking octopus, so what?” but instead they find this to be some momentous find and go back to the lake where the guy found it.

“Close the lid, I’m trying to sleep!”

Once there, they let the octopus go, and the very rubber-looking creature crawls (badly) back into the water. Meanwhile, the hideous OCTAMAN is watching them curiously. One of the locals, who was hired by the scientists, is about to dissect another little octopus and the angry OCTAMAN appears, covered in suckers, and waving its tentacles around as it trashes the place and bitch-slaps the guy to death. It takes the little one away, which suddenly throws the movie’s title into suspicion. Is it really OCATMAN? Because its actions sure seem a lot like those of a mama protecting its young! Yes folks, this might just be, the original OCTAMOM!

When Dr. Rick Torrez (Kerwin Matthews) finds out his funding has been pulled, he goes to a carnival owner named Johnny Caruso and his partner Steve, and Johnny agrees to fund Rick’s research, as long as he can have first crack at the half-man /half fish creature that is part of local legend. The police come to investigate the murder, and then leave taking the bucket with them that formerly held the little octopus (“Let’s take this in case we get thirsty!”). It seems even traces of these things can draw the horrifying Octaman, who tracks them for awhile before killing them. The way this thing will kill you is by either hugging you to death or slapping you. Over and over again, until you’re all bloody. Oh, it can also jam a tentacle into you like a spear when it wants to. But mostly it loves slapping.

OCTAMAN will slap the eye right out of your head!

Rick, his girlfriend, Susan Lowry (Pier Angeli) and their team (including the carnival guys) drive around the coastline in a Winnebago, looking for the monster, while another local, Davido (David Essex) tells them stories his grandmother told him when he was a kid, about an octopus that walked on land like a man.

Just when they’re about to dismiss the monster as a myth, it attacks – several times. And of course, as in all of these movies, it takes a real liking to the woman of the group, and keeps trying to carry her away.

OCTAMAN has a thing for the ladies. But he gets a little CARRIED AWAY!

They finally slow the creature down by shining light in its face (it hates that!) and making a ring of fire about it (to suck out the oxygen around it!). It collapses and is wrapped up in a net, but regains its strength soon after a rain storm revives it.

The story reminded me of THE CREATURE OF THE BLACK LAGOON (1956), and it turns out that director/writer Henry Essex wrote the screenplay for that Universal classic. In comparison, however, OCTAMAN is pretty horrible.

The monster is shown constantly throughout the movie and it is an early creature creation by make-up and special effects master Rick Baker. It’s almost like the filmmakers spent most of their budget on the monster suit and wanted to get their money’s worth, showing it off as much as possible. While it looks interesting enough with its big red bulging eyes and circular mouth surrounded by tiny teeth (all set in a big, bulbous head), the monster is made of rubber, and so, it only has one facial expression (much like our old buddy, ZAAT!). No matter what it does, or how angry it gets, its face never changes, which is pretty laughable. It doesn’t take long to forget whatever is cool about the costume and just focus on how silly it is.

“Here I am!” – the monster is almost in every scene in the movie OCTAMAN!

Another odd thing is that the eyes are big and human-like, and yet when we see things from OCTAMAN’s point of view, it’s through segmented insect eyes!

Toward the end there is a big showdown in an underwater cave (just like in CREATURE OF THE BLACK LAGOON – what a coincidence!), and the monster causes an avalanche to trap the humans inside. At this point, most of them just give up, talking about conserving oxygen so they can stay alive longer. But Davido is sent through an opening to find help. It’s about two minutes before Davido wiggles his way to the beach outside, and he goes back to get the others. Pretty absurd that it was so easy to escape, and yet most of the cast just gave up and considered themselves done for. Talk about lazy! If not for Davido, they’d all be still trapped in that cave, whining about the oxygen.

Harry Essex also directed the Mickey Spillane adaptation, I, THE JURY (1953) as well as another monster movie, THE CREMATORS (1972), but his writing credits go all the way back to the Lon Chaney Jr. flick, MAN MADE MONSTER (1941). He also wrote the screenplays for the science fiction movie IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE (1953), based on a story by Ray Bradbury, and the noir classic KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL (1952). Seems to me, Essex should have stuck to screenplays instead of directing.

There is really nothing about this movie to recommend it. The plot is barely there. The acting ranges from so-so to just plain awful (they didn’t even have credits at the end to determine who played what). There are a few slow parts where nothing happens. And the monster is pretty goofy.

You might get some chuckles out of OCTAMAN, but that’s about it.

-END-

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Transmissions to Earth: ZAAT! (1971)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, 70s Horror, Campy Movies, Cult Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Mad Doctors!, Monsters, Mutants!, Revenge! with tags 70s horror, Blood Waters, Don Barton, Dr. Z, Florida Monster Movies, Marshall Grauer, Silly Monster, Wade Popwell, Zaat on July 3, 2012 by knifefighter

Transmissions to Earth: ZAAT (1971) (aka THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z)
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

This is exactly the kind of movie that inspired me to start my “Transmissions to Earth” column in the first place. I saw about ten minutes of ZAAT (then called THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z) on late night television when I was a kid. It was in the middle of the movie, and I had no idea what was going on. I just knew the monster was downright goofy looking. It took me a long time to finally track down a copy of this movie and watch it in its entirety. It was worth the search.

ZAAT begins by introducing us to Dr. Kurt Leopold (Marshall Grauer), who is working in a strange laboratory full of clunky, old-fashioned computers (full of flashing lights and making lots of cool weird sounds), and tanks full of all kinds of fish and assorted sea life. He speaks to us in voice-over, and, at first, I was worried this would be like one of those Doris Wishman movies where everyone talks in voice-over and no voices are actually in synch with the characters. But things go back to normal later. We only get the voice-over when Dr. Leopold is on screen.

Leopold tells us (well, he’s more likely talking to himself), that his goal is to create a new species that is part man, part fish. He was inspired by the “walking catfish” that were found in Florida at the time, fish that could slither around on land, as well as live in the water. What if such a creature were combined with the DNA of a human being? If this sounds insane to you, you’re not the only one. When this creaky old lab was originally being used in the 40s, Dr. Leopold worked there then as well, and was trying to do the same kind of experiments. When he asked to use death row prisoners as human guinea pigs for his experiments, his superiors balked and fired him. So, obviously, he wants to prove them wrong. And he wants revenge on them for halting his plans back then.

You don’t have to wait very long to get a good look at the monster in ZAAT!

In ZAAT, the monster is not much of a surprise. We don’t have to wait through most of the movie to finally get a good look at him. This is because as soon as Dr. Leopold gives us that speech in the beginning (punctuated by all kinds of stock footage of undersea life, presumably to save money), he takes off his clothes (leaving on his oversized boxer shorts) and transforms himself into a giant man-fish. This involves injecting himself with a giant needle of green fluid, and then sticking a hose into a pool of water. Something coming out of the hose turns the water bright red (thus the alternate title of this movie, THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z, even though there is no Dr. Z in this movie, only Dr. Leopold), and he submerges himself in the pool. The scrawny scientist arises from the water in one of the worst monster costumes in the history of cinema (and now a different actor, Wade Popwell, is in the suit). The ZAAT monster is almost as bad as the Styrofoam and Ping-Pong ball monstrosities you can see in early Roger Corman flicks of the 50s.

And, unlike a lot of monster movies, Dr. Leopold cannot change back to his human form. Nope. Once he changes into ZAAT, it’s permanent. So he has to continue with his experiments with clunky, oversized hands and a big, bulky body. A lot of times he stumbles around. It’s kind of funny.

Zaat’s name, by the way, is actually a chemical formula: the combination of two new elements that Dr. Leopold discovered (Za and At), which are also the ingredients of his “secret formula.” How clever!

His first order of business is to track down the fellow scientists who laughed at his work. One man is fishing in a boat with his wife and kid, when Zaat tips the boat over and drowns them. Another scientist is home watching television when Zaat comes up behind him and strangles him to death. Also, his claws don’t just rip open flesh, they burn! Must be that radioactivity in the formula.

Even though the monster is big and clumsy, it takes a long time for anyone to catch on to what is happening.

ZAAT’s was also released (and shown on late night television) as THE BLOOD WATERS OF DR. Z, even though there isn’t a Dr. Z in this movie!

Meanwhile, Sheriff Lou Krantz (Paul Galloway) has called in marine biologist Rex (Gerald Cruse) to take some tests in the area to determine why there is a sudden influx of “walking catfish,” those fish we saw earlier than can wriggle around on land. It turns out they’re also very aggressive and have been eating other fish, and bothering people, who see them as pests. Rex takes all kinds of water samples. At one point, he determines that there is a trace of radioactivity in some of the samples. When Sheriff Krantz asks what he means, Rex says “In your language—pollution.”

Meanwhile, Zaat is going around with a spray bottle spraying the ponds and lakes with some kind of weird substance. His plan is to contaminate the area and mutate all of the underwater life to be more like him. He wants to bring about an apocalypse that will get rid of all the pesky land dwellers.

Based on Rex’s findings of radioactivity, the government sends in a couple of INPIT agents to investigate. They are Martha Walsh (Sanna Ringhaver) and Walker Stevens (Dave Dickerson). They’re young and they’re hip and you can tell Rex likes hanging out with them.

Once Zaat has killed some of his enemies, he turns his attention to girls in bikinis. Because, as you ‘ll know if you’ve seen any of these kinds of monster movies, the monsters always eventually want to kidnap human women and mate with them. It’s just what monsters do, and it’s almost always what leads to their downfall.

Dr. Leopold/Zaat wants to turn a woman into a monster like him, so that they can spawn a new race of fish people to repopulate the earth when they get rid of all the humans. Since he’s only killed a couple of people so far, Leopold sure has high hopes of his plan succeeding to such a degree that he will inherit the earth. But I guess we all have to have goals. And it’s no surprise that Zaat’s goal involves sex.

Zaat kidnaps a hot blonde in a bikini and brings her back to his lab, where he injects her with the big needle and dumps her into the pool of rumbling red water. But it doesn’t work and she dies. Zaat goes nuts and starts trashing his equipment (but he can’t be doing much damage—the next time we see the lab, it’s back to normal). He then dumps the poor girl’s body into a pool of acid that turns her into a skeleton!

Back to the drawing board!

And for Zaat, it really is a drawing board. He has this giant wheel on the wall of his lab, where he writes down all his notes. It looks like a really primitive version of the WHEEL OF FORTUNE that Pat Sajak spins every night on TV. Pinned to the wheel are photos of his enemies (which he crosses out with a marker once he gets rid of them) and he draws pictures of the girls he seeks to mate with before he dumps them in the red pool (he’s actually a good artist, considering his oversized paws).

ZAAT has his very own WHEEL OF FORTUNE! Wanna play?

Once Rex and the INPIT agents see Zaat in the flesh, they convince Sheriff Krantz to declare a state of emergency and the lawman tells everyone in town to stay inside and lock their doors. This leads to a scene where the Sheriff finds a bunch of long-haired hippies in an abandoned building playing guitars and singing. After sitting down and enjoying their music for a spell, he leads them, like a Pied Piper, to the jailhouse where he locks them up. He says it’s to “keep them safe,” but you know he probably just wants an excuse to lock up hippies.

After Walker stabs Zaat in a confrontation, the monster later breaks into a pharmacy and gulps down antibiotics, before trashing the place (the counter holding the cash register has ads for “Pillow Cases $1.00” and “Shower Caps 11¢”). He then attacks a couple of kids making out, and after he claws up one kid, he starts drinking his blood (a new development in his evolution? Or just another way to make Zaat more creepy?)

ZATT goes on a drug-drinking binge at the local pharmacy. Must be the influence of them hippies!

Zaat has a thing for blondes and is soon abducting government agent Martha to become his mate. The Sheriff, Rex and agent Walker try to stop him. Of course, while hunting down the monster who took his girlfriend, Walker is bitten by a water snake and has to tie a tourniquet around his leg, making him much less of a threat to the vicious Zaat.

Zaat’s attempts to transform Martha are interrupted, but that doesn’t stop things from ending on a creepy note. I actually found the ending satisfying in an odd way.

The acting isn’t great, but the actors are a little better than you usually find in these kinds of movies. And despite the completely laughable monster costume, I found myself really liking this movie. In the version I saw, director Don Barton explains how the movie disappeared after its initial theatrical release for almost 30 years (I guess he doesn’t count the movie’s stint on late night TV under its alternate title), yet fans didn’t forget about it, and demanded it finally get re-released on video. He also says that, when it was time for his small Florida film studio to make its first feature film at the time, they decided to make a “creature feature.” A cult of rabid fans developed, which isn’t a surprise for this kind of movie.

ZAAT is not for everyone. Some of the chase scenes are a little slow, and there’s way too much stock footage of fish, but it’s worth wading through the weak parts to see Wade Popwell stumbling around in his hilarious monster costume, searching for blonde bikini babes.

-END-

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CHERNOBYL DIARIES (2012)

Posted in 2012, Animals Attack, Cannibals, Cinema Knife Fights, Doomed Tourists, Mutants! with tags Bradley Parker, Chernobyl Diaries, Jonathan Sadowski, mutants, Nathan Phillips, Olivia Dudley, Oren Peli, Paranormal on May 28, 2012 by knifefighter

CINEMA KNIFE FIGHT: CHERNOBYL DIARIES (2012)
By Michael Arruda and L.L. Soares

(THE SCENE: A spooky, abandoned building at night. MICHAEL ARRUDA and L.L. SOARES explore, waving flashlights)

MA: And to think, I could be sitting at home, watching TV.

LS: Oh, come on. This is fun. Exploring abandoned cities.

(Suddenly, there’s a loud clicking)

MA: What’s that?

LS: Our Geiger counter! The radioactivity here is going through the roof!

MA: You still think this is fun?

LS: Sure I do!

MA: Well, I think we should get out of here. Those radiation levels are dangerous.

LS: But we’ve got a movie to review.

MA: And we couldn’t have done it somewhere safe?

LS: Of course not! We’re Cinema Knife Fighters. We don’t play it safe!

(There is a loud howl coming from one of the floors above them)

LS: What was that?

MA: I don’t want to find out. Why don’t you start our review, so we can get out of here.

LS: Okie doke.

Our movie this week is CHERNOBYL DIARIES, brought to us by director Bradley Parker. This is his first movie as director. Previously, Parker made his name as a visual effects guy on a variety of films including FIGHT CLUB (1999), the Vin Diesel action film xXx (2002) and LET ME IN (2010). And it shows. CHERNOBYL is visually interesting. But the person who is getting a lot of credit in the marketing campaign for this one is Oren Peli. He’s the guy behind the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies and also was one of the creators of the recent ABC series THE RIVER (which, unfortunately, didn’t last beyond its first, short season). Peli wrote the screenplay for CHERNOBYL DIAIRIES, based on a story idea by himself, Carey Van Dyke and Shane Van Dyke. Peli is also one of the producers. And, to be honest, this movie looks a lot like an Oren Peli movie, even though Parker directed.

MA: And it’s a neat idea for a horror movie. The story grabbed me right away, and I was more than willing to go along for the ride. I just wish it had been more thrilling.

LS: Like a lot of these kinds of movies, the story is pretty simple. A guy named Chris (Jesse McCartney), his girlfriend, Natalie (Olivia Dudley) and their good friend Amanda (Devin Kelley) are traveling around Europe and decide to pop in on Chris’s older brother, Paul (Jonathan Sadowski), who now lives in Kiev. The plan is that they will be going to Moscow to check out the sights, with Paul as their guide. But, Paul gets other ideas. After talking with his friend Uri (Dimitri Daitchenko), an ex-Russian military guy who now runs an “Extreme Tourism” travel agency, Paul suggests that instead of going to Moscow, they take a trip to Chernobyl instead.

For those who don’t know, Chernobyl was the site of a nuclear accident twenty five years ago, and the facility, as well as the nearby town, Pripyat, which was where the Chernobyl workers lived, have been abandoned since the incident. Uri offers them a chance to explore the deserted landscape, something he claims to only offer to special travelers. Of course, when the group agrees to it, they find out that they’re not so special, because another couple, Australian Michael (Nathan Phillips) and his new Norwegian wife, Zoe (Ingrid Bolso Berdal) is tagging along as well.

Uri takes the group of them into the heart of Pripyat, now a ghost town, after sneaking past some military check points. Pripyat has a very eerie quality to it as the young tourists explore its buildings. Uri tells them as long as they are not there for more than a few hours, they won’t be affected by the radiation (which has gone down to manageable levels over the years). And everything seems to go well, until they attempt to leave, and find out that someone or something has tampered with the van’s engine, and they are stuck here, in the middle of nowhere.

As the night goes on, things get more and more dangerous as animals, and other more formidable predators, come out when it’s dark, and the kids find themselves under attack.

(There is a loud crash.)

MA: What was that?

LS: How should I know? What am I, a mind reader?

(The door crashes open, and a large WINNIE THE POOH bear runs through the doorway.)

POOH: Oh, bother. I’m all out of radioactive honey, today. Where did I put my honey? Think, think, think.

LS: Can you think somewhere else? We’re reviewing a movie here.

POOH: I do believe I placed it next to Rabbit’s 8 foot long radioactive carrot. Yes, that’s where it is. (POOH skips by them right through a wall, leaving a huge Pooh-shaped hole in his wake.)

MA: Eight foot carrots? Oversized Pooh bears? We’ve got to get out of here!

LS: Keep your shirt on. We won’t be here long enough for any of this radiation to do any damage.

Where was I?

MA: The folks in the movie were under attack.

LS: Yes, but just who or what is this threat to their lives? And, with no way to contact the outside the world (cell phones don’t work, no one answers Uri’s walkie-talkie, and the nearest checkpoint is over 12 miles away—and, worst of all, NO ONE KNOWS THEY’RE THERE!), will they be able to get out of this place with their lives?

(A door crashes open again, and this time YOGI BEAR and BOO-BOO enter.)

YOGI: Okay, Boo-Boo, we’re almost there.

BOO-BOO: Yogi, I don’ t think we’re anywhere near Jellystone Park.

YOGI: The power of positive thinking, Boo-Boo. Follow me! (They exit through the Pooh shaped hole.)

LS: What’s with all the bears anyway?

MA: I guess bears live around here. Don’t you remember the huge bear that nearly mauled the folks in the movie?

LS (whispers): Shhhh, I was playing dumb on purpose. I was hoping they’d be surprised.

MA: It’s so noisy here. Maybe we should go to another floor to continue this review? Or better yet, why not go outside?

(They enter another room.)

LS: Like Peli’s other films, I thought CHERNOBYL DIAIRIES did a good job of ratcheting up the suspense through most of the movie.

MA: Really? I thought the suspense was lacking in this one. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of suspenseful moments in CHERNOBYL DIARIES, but they weren’t as intense or as disturbing as I expected them to be.

LS: I like that just about anyone can die at any time. And even though Parker is directing, he uses a lot of Peli’s tricks, like having us focus on the main characters as they talk or argue, while strange things are sometimes happening in the background. With these movies, you have to pay attention to the background as well.

MA: Yes, be on the lookout for strange things happening in the background!

LS: The cast is pretty good. While no one here is a movie star, a couple of the cast members may be familiar to you, like Olivia Dudley, who recently appeared in the horror anthology film CHILLERAMA (2011); Nathan Phillips, who was backpacker Ben in the 2005 horror flick WOLF CREEK—another tale of tourism gone bad, and a favorite of mine—and SNAKES ON A PLANE (2006); and especially Jonathan Sadowski, who looked very familiar to me right away, and who was in the 2009 remake of FRIDAY THE 13^th, but who was also the lead in the TV series $#*! MY DAD SAYS, with William Shatner.

MA: Yep, I liked the cast too, and that was one of the reasons this story worked so well for me, in spite of the fact that I didn’t find it as scary as I hoped. The characters in this movie are likeable. There wasn’t anyone I wanted to see become food for the pack of wild dogs that kept hounding them. Or the worse dangers…

I enjoyed Jonathan Sadowski a lot as Paul. I liked his take-charge on-the-edge personality, and I was grateful that he didn’t come off as a jerk, which I think is a testament both to Sadowski’s performance and Peli’s writing.

I also enjoyed Devin Kelley as a Amanda, and she made for a strong female lead. And I thought Nathan Phillips did a standout job as Michael, the Australian traveler. There was something very sincere and genuine about his performance, and I think the same can be said for all the actors in this movie. They come off as real people.

Again, a lot of the credit here for these characters should go to Oren Peli’s screenplay. The dialogue is excellent.

LS: Despite the fact that I thought the movie was effective and had a few nail-biting moments—

MA: Too few.

LS: —it’s also true that there were parts of this movie that reminded me a lot of the remake of THE HILLS HAVE EYES (2006), especially the scenes in that movie that took place in a strange, abandoned town that had been once been the site of nuclear tests.

MA: Oh, absolutely! It’s THE HILLS HAVE EYES IN RUSSIA for sure.

(There is a knock at the door. A HILLS HAVE EYES mutant enters.)

MUTANT: Are you guys looking to rent an apartment here too?

LS: No! We’re trying to review a damn movie. Go away!

MUTANT (wanders back out into the hall): I hear the rates are very reasonable!

LS: Scram!

CHERNOBYL moves at a brisk pace, the characters seem to be constantly moving, and , as I said before, you can never be sure who will live, and who will die. And I liked the ending a lot. Yet, I did find myself feeling a little disappointed as the mysterious threat revealed itself.

MA: Same here.

LS: I was hoping for something a little more..well…surprising. In some ways, CHERNOBYL DIAIRIES really isn’t offering us anything we haven’t seen before, but it does it in a visually suspenseful, tension-filled way, that worked for me. And the location is great. I just wish there were a few more surprises. That said, I give it three out of five knives.

MA: I agree with everything you said, except I was a little more disappointed than you in both the ending and the intensity of the scares in this one.

I definitely liked the beginning of this movie. The premise caught my interest immediately, and you can’t go wrong with the setting, Chernobyl. I mean, this part of the film is extremely refreshing.

I liked the characters’ trek into Chernobyl, or Pripyat I guess, since that’s the actual town they travel to, and at this point the film has done an excellent job of setting the stage for the scary things to come.

When they find themselves stranded there overnight because their van won’t start, because it appears someone tampered with it, which in itself is creepy because no one else is supposed to be there, the suspense grows and at this point I was really enjoying this one.

But a funny thing happened along the way. I realized the thrills and chills here weren’t all that thrilling and chilling. Oh, they were okay, and some of the scenes were fun, but I didn’t exactly find them nail biters.

For example, at one point they’re searching the abandoned city when they come across a pack of very scary looking wild dogs, and these dogs start chasing them, and the folks run away. I’m thinking, “Don’t run! You can’t outrun dogs! Hide or something!” But they run, and then I’m thinking, this isn’t going to turn out well. Someone’s going to become wild dog food in a few seconds. Brace yourself.

LS: I was thinking the same thing. You can’t outrun dogs, especially over a long expanse of woods like that…

MA: Now, I’m not going to give anything away, but this scene doesn’t exactly end in a flurry of nail biting seat squirming sequences. Again, the scene is okay, but there’s no need to look away, and there certainly weren’t any loud screams in the theater at this point.

LS: And I wish they’d shown us more about those cool mutant fish!

(A giant version of the three-eyed MUTANT FISH from the beginning credits of THE SIMPSONS pops up, standing upright on its tail fin)

MUTANT FISH: Me, too. Those fish were cool!

(MA and LS scream, and the MUTANT FISH scuttles away)

MA: The same can be said for several scenes when Paul and the others are searching through abandoned buildings. There is plenty of mild suspense here, but very few of these scenes jumped out at me as being masterful.

LS: And there were the usual scenes where characters go in to certain rooms and you’re like “Don’t go in there!” But in this case, it makes sense. They’re not just going into dangerous situations out of curiosity or because they’re dummies. They’re going to save members of their group who have been kidnapped. Although I don’t know if so many people would be this brave in real life!

MA: I did like the one sequence where Amanda gets separated momentarily from Paul and Michael, when they’re searching a building, and she’s trapped, hiding on her hands and knees from an unknown threat that is there in the room with her. I have to admit I was getting ready to nibble a nail during this scene.

I also didn’t like the ending. Compared to the rest of the movie, the ending isn’t anywhere near as creative. It wasn’t anything I hadn’t seen before, and I think the writers dropped the ball here. It seemed a convenient simple way to wrap up an otherwise inspired storyline.

LS: I liked the ending. I admit, it’s not totally original, but it worked for me. It just seemed like the logical conclusion, after all that came before it.

MA: Logical, but a letdown. This is definitely a case where the threat is more interesting when it’s unknown than at the end when it’s known.

CHERNOBYL DIARIES is a great concept, it takes full advantage of its excellent location, and it gives us likeable characters in a well-written storyline. However, it suffers from a mediocre execution and a disappointing resolution. After a refreshing set-up, it needed to have a much wilder, scarier, and intense second half, or at the very least something creative, but we get neither. Instead, CHERNOBYL DIARIES takes a path we’ve all seen before and doesn’t do anything new with it.

I enjoyed this one, but I didn’t love it. I give it two and a half knives.

So, now that we’re done, can we go home before I become a walking slab of radioactive bacon?

(There’s a loud SIZZLING noise)

LS: You do like to exaggerate. Radioactive bacon! And here I was thinking that for our next review we’d take an extreme tour to chase down tornadoes.

MA: Ha, ha! Good one! You can do that one solo!

(Suddenly, HOMER SIMPSON appears from out of the shadows, the guys scream!)

HOMER: D’oh! I didn’t mean to scare you guys. I just thought I should say something, since I’m a nuclear expert. You two are completely safe here. So don’t worry at all. You will not get contaminated!

LS: Then why is the skin on your face sizzling?

HOMER: Ha ha! So’s yours! You two should look in a mirror. This is so funny! Hee hee.

MA: Um, I’m not laughing!

(HOMER notices something in the corner)

HOMER: Is that a donut? (he wanders away from the guys)

LS: I admit, it looks grim, but we’ll find our way out of here.

(There is a howl and a loud crash from the floor above them.)

MA: All right, for one last time. What is that?

(Suddenly, the ceiling is ripped away, and a huge, radioactive PORKY PIG peers down menacingly at them.)

MA: Whoa! How’s that for some radioactive bacon?

LS: I guess you weren’t exaggerating after all!

MA: Let’s get out of here!

LS: I think I see the exit. Quick, run this way!!

(MA & LS flee, as PORKY PIG looks at the camera and shrugs.)

PORKY PIG: I was only going to say, “Th-th-th-that’s all, folks!”

(HOMER SIMPSON comes up from behind PORKY)

HOMER: Would you like to share a donut? (sniffs) Someone’s cooking bacon! Yummy.

—END—

Michael Arruda gives CHERNOBYL DIAIRIES ~ two and a half knives!

LL Soares gives CHERNOBYL DIAIRIES~three knives.

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Transmissions to Earth: THE VULTURE (1967)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 1960s Horror, 2012, Animals Attack, B-Movies, Bad Acting, British Horror, Hard To Find Movies, LL Soares Reviews, Mutants!, Mystery, Trasmissions to Earth with tags Akim Tamiroff, Animal People, British Horror Films, Broderick Crawford, Lawrence Huntington, Robert Hutton, Teleportation, The Vulture on March 23, 2012 by knifefighter

Transmissions to Earth: THE VULTURE (1967)
(Obscure) Movie Review by L.L. Soares

It’s been awhile since I wrote an installment of TRANSMISSIONS TO EARTH, where I’ve been focusing on strange and often overlooked movies, but I recently saw a flick that fit this column perfectly. Too bad it isn’t very good.

THE VULTURE is an odd little British film from 1967, directed by Lawrence Huntington, whose first movie was way back in 1930 (AFTER MANY YEARS) and who directed most of his movies in the 40s and 50s with titles like WOMEN AREN’T ANGELS (1943) and THERE WAS A YOUNG LADY (1953). His specialty seemed to be low-budget mysteries and noir wannabes. The fact that nothing he did was all that famous is certainly a bad sign. THE VULTURE was Huntington’s last film as director, and a foray into horror and science fiction that is neither very horrific or very scientific, although it pretends to be.

It begins with a woman walking through an old graveyard at night and seeing a grave open up, followed by the sound of flapping wings above her. The incident scares her so much to faints and her hair turns white (!). We find out later, when she recovers from “shock” in the hospital, that what she saw was a “great black bird with the head of a man.” Of course, nobody believes her. That is, until Dr. Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton) comes to Cornwall, England to visit his wife’s uncle Brian Stroud (Broderick Crawford) and gets wind of the strange occurence. Lutens is a man of science (back home in America he is part of the “Atomic Program”) and finds the story too irresistible to ignore, despite the fact that everyone around him thinks he’s nuts to pursue it. Everyone except his wife Trudy (Diane Clare), of course.

There is a strange parchment that tells of a curse placed upon the Stroud family by Frances Read, a sailor who owned a mansion a hundred years ago and who had a pet vulture he brought back from Easter Island. Accused of a crime he didn’t commit, Read was buried alive with his pet, vowing revenge on the descendants of the Strouds, which in current time include tycoon Brian, his brother Edward Stroud (Gordon Sterne) and Trudy Lutens, in that order. They are all marked for death.

There are also a few suspicious characters including Melcher, the Sexton (Edward Caddick) who sneaks around warning people not to interfere with the curse, and a German antiquarian expert named Professor Hans Koniglich (Akim Tamiroff) who walks with two canes after a “bad fall” and who finds Dr. Lutens’s theories about the mystery to be quite fascinating.

The incident at the gravesite turns out to include the theft of a box of ancient gold coins from the opened grave, and the “scientific” explanation of events that involve an experiment in teleportation (like THE FLY, 1958) and someone’s atoms being combined with those of the corpse of Frances Read and his pet vulture. And, like THE FLY, it involves someone who has acquired the appendages of an animal, in this case, the titular vulture.

The mystery isn’t all that hard to figure out, even if it does make no sense.The acting for the most part runs the gamut for serviceable to atrocious—with character actors Crawford (best known as the star of the TV series HIGHWAY PATROL from 1955 to 1959) and Tamiroff, who had previously been in tons of the movies, including the Orson Welles films MR. ARKADIN (1955) and TOUCH OF EVIL (1958) being the big draws here.

The “horror” scenes, being what they are, occur mostly off camera, but we do occasionally hear the flapping of giant wings and see the talons of some giant bird swooping down and grabbing people, to carry them away to their doom. The talons are especially awful-looking and stiff, like they were made of papier mache. The Vulture himself, when his identity is finally revealed, is onscreen for mere seconds—the giant bird with the human head (and hands) —and isn’t convincing at all.

There aren’t any scares to be found in THE VULTURE, and the plot moves pretty slowly for the most part. The effects are dismal, and the “scientific” explanation is laughably absurd. So there isn’t much to recommend this movie. It is pretty hard to find, though, and I’d seen stills from it years ago and was always curious to find out what the movie was actually about. Of course, these kinds of movies rarely are as good as you’re lead to believe, and this one is no exception. THE VULTURE is pretty forgettable, except for some scenes of goofy dialogue and the completely silly solution to the not-so-chilling mystery.

Not worth the effort it took to finally track it down, but at least I finally saw it.

THE VULTURE
91 minutes
Directed and Written by Lawrence Huntington
Starring: Robert Hutton, Akim Tamiroff, Broderick Crawford and Diane Clare

Beware! THE VULTURE will get you if you don't watch out!

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Suburban Grindhouse Memories: THE CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH (1986)

Posted in "So Bad They're Good" Movies, 2012, Campy Movies, Monsters, Mutants!, Nick Cato Reviews, Suburban Grindhouse Memories, Troma! with tags Grindhouse, Lloyd Kaufman, mutants, Nuke Em High, Richard W. Haines, troma, Tromie on February 9, 2012 by knifefighter

SUBURBAN GRINDHOUSE MEMORIES
Dawn of the Nuclear Slime…
By Nick CatoReleased about six months after the unlikely success of THE TOXIC AVENGER, Troma Films’ second take on radioactive raunchiness, CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH (1986), is another New York/New Jersey-lensed exploitation epic that Lloyd Kaufman’s crackpot film company managed to sort-of get right…at least if B-movies are your thing.

While I wanted to see this in Times Square (being it wasn’t in wide-release), a small theater in New Jersey actually featured it for one week only. I conned a couple of my buddies to join me on my quest for Tromaville, and we headed to the Garden State hoping this would at least be half as good as the first TOXIC AVENGER.

Warren and his cute girlfriend, Chrissy, are among the few clean cut students at Tromaville High, which happens to be located right behind a nuclear power plant. The punk students (who look like rejects from a really bad ROAD WARRIOR rip-off) grow marijuana right outside the plant, and begin selling radiation-laced pot around the school. One early sequence of government officials checking the power plant for toxic leaks had the audience in stitches; some men fell to the ground stone-cold dead as others kept about their jobs, unaware of what was happening to their colleagues. It’s a nice bit of old-fashioned slapstick that worked among the coming gore, slime, and radioactive boobies.

Despite their nerdiness, Warren and Chrissy decide to partake of the toxic weed. As a result, Warren gains incredible strength, and Chrissy becomes incredibly horny…which leads to a wicked spin in the sack with her boyfriend…which leads to a pregnancy. Before long the entire school is having strange side effects, the best being Chrissy’s baby who turns out to be a ten-foot tall radioactive monster who eventually helps to wipe out the toxic punk drug dealers.

If you’ve never seen a Troma film before, CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH is a prime example of the style that gave them notoriety during the splatter-film craze of the 1980s. One sequence, where an enraged Warren goes after a punk who has messed with him one time too many, features a silly (yet effective) special effect where he rams his fist down the guy’s throat. The New Joisey crowd ate this scene up, cheers growing louder as Warren’s arm eventually goes down further than his elbow with puke-inducing sound effects.

You don’t go to see something called CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH for artistic value.

While THE TOXIC AVENGER had a better crafted (if familiar) story, CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH is basically pure chaos: the simple premise is set in motion when a nerdy student freaks out during the opening scene, oozes green slime from his ears, then jumps out the second-floor window. The atomic marijuana is then introduced, along with an endless array of whacky characters. The two directors (Lloyd Kaufman and Richard W. Haines)—for some reason it took two directors to create this!—then let everything go ballistic in a brain-dead, toxic high school gore/sci-fi romp that (at the time) was a pure blast for its intended teenage audience. I’ve seen the film a few times over the years on VHS and DVD, and while there are still some laughs to be had, much of it gets tedious and it doesn’t hold up half as well as THE TOXIC AVENGER or Troma’s other fluke of a hit, TROMA’S WAR (1988). But I’m betting younger exploitation fans will still get a real charge out of this high-octane trip to Tromaville.

NUKE ‘EM HIGH’s horrible soundtrack, trademark Troma bad acting, and high school students who look way too old to be high school students has a certain charm that many modern-day made-for-cable/DVD exploitation films just don’t have. So throw your biohazard suit on and check this out for a near-lethal dose of old school Troma-rificness. And remember the tagline: READIN’ WRITIN’ AND RADIATION!

You’ve been warned.

(This film also spawned two sequels: CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH PART 2: SUBHUMANOID MELTDOWN (1991) and CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH 3: THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE SUBHUMANOID (1994). While part 2 had its moments (especially a gigantic rodent named Tromie the Nuclear Squirrel), you’re not missing anything. Part 3 was one of the worst films I’ve ever seen. You’ve been warned again!).

The lovely Chrissy (Janelle Brady) realizes something is DEFINITELY wrong with her rapidly-growing radioactive baby…in THE CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH!

Archive for the Mutants! Category

Bill’s Bizarre Bijou: SHE DEVIL (1957)

Cinema Knife Fight/New Filmmakers Edition: CELL COUNT (2012)

Suburban Grindhouse Memories: THE BEING (1983)

Lady Anachronism’s Fallout Shelter: THE PEOPLE WHO OWN THE DARK (1976)

THE OOGIELOVES in THE BIG BALLOON ADVENTURE (2012)

Transmissions to Earth: OCTAMAN (1971)

Transmissions to Earth: ZAAT! (1971)

CHERNOBYL DIARIES (2012)

Transmissions to Earth: THE VULTURE (1967)

Suburban Grindhouse Memories: THE CLASS OF NUKE ‘EM HIGH (1986)

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