Curse of the Undead.

Review #2593: Curse of the Undead.

Cast: 

Eric Fleming (Preacher Dan), Michael Pate (Drake Robey), Kathleen Crowley (Dolores Carter), John Hoyt (Dr Carter), Bruce Gordon (Buffer), Edward Binns (Sheriff), Jimmy Murphy (Tim Carter), Helen Kleeb (Dora), and Jay Adler (Bartender) Directed by Edward Dein.

Review: 

Now you might wonder: a vampire Western? Well, if you could combine cowboys with big monsters for The Beast of Hollow Mountain (1956), why not go with something that apparently started out as a gag idea thought up by the Deins? Edward Dein had written a handful of screenplays since the 1940s, which ranged from Baby Face Morgan (1942) to co-writing My Gal Loves Music (1944). There were six scripts that he wrote and directed that were done in collaboration with his wife Mildred, with this being the last of the bunch. Dein directed one more film by himself with The Leech Woman (1960) before mostly doing numerous episodes for television, most notably with Hawaiian Eye (there is a credit listed to him as co-director of "Una vergine per un bastardo"). Released by Universal-International (apparently often on a double-bill with The Mummy [1959]), I can't really find that much info about the movie being a hit or flop, but it was a low budget B-movie, so who knows? 

I suppose when compared to stuff like Billy the Kid versus Dracula or Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, this might seem like a curious gimmick to actually check out, since who wouldn't want a little bit of variety in their Western? Honestly though, even with a runtime of just 79 minutes, it does begin to wear a bit thin before it actually circles to the inevitable gunfight climax. It probably would make a curious double-header with, say, The Vampire (1957) with how it handles the vampire with its own attempt at a distinct killer not beholden to the usual expectations of seeing said creature on screen (which, well, means no death by sunlight or having problems with garlic but still having trouble with crosses). It deals with a vampire established as one of the former people who lived on the land that apparently killed themselves after killing his brother that apparently led to him becoming cursed (Drago Robles going into Drake Robey, get it?). The vampire here dresses in black and only is noted for the fact that he seems to be impervious to bullets (well, except one) and just sleeps during the day. The same year that Fleming appeared in this film saw him star in the show that defined him with Rawhide (famously being one of the co-stars with Clint Eastwood for the first seven seasons), and it feels like there is meant to be something really compelling about a preacher who turns to a gun. But he mainly comes of as just terse and not particularly exciting in the actual scope of things. It almost livens things to see Pate try to play a vampire gunfighter that basically is cursed to feed in perpetuity (as one does when not really controlling many people). All of that description and all of that blarney I said probably goes further than the actual movie, since it barely shows any type of vampire action in the first place, as if it was "obligation" that made it a western-horror rather than a real mix of the two. It isn't even worth mentioning Crowley or the under-utilized Gordon (who disappears for a time because heaven forbid). You'll never believe it: a guy has his bullet include a crucifix/thorn carving in order to take down the vampire. In general, the movie is curious even in its unwieldy experiment of finding horrors within gunfighters of the Old West. Whether you find it to be a gimmick or something different for the season of dirt and blood, it's relatively easy to find, which I suppose is a lasting victory for something that really did just start out as an oddball premise.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

Scream 2.

Review #2592: Scream 2.

Cast: 

Neve Campbell (Sidney Prescott), Courteney Cox (Gale Weathers), David Arquette (Dewey Riley), Sarah Michelle Gellar (Cici Cooper), Jamie Kennedy (Randy Meeks), Laurie Metcalf (Debbie Salt), Elise Neal (Hallie McDaniel), Jerry O'Connell (Derek Feldman), Timothy Olyphant (Mickey Altieri), Liev Schreiber (Cotton Weary), Lewis Arquette (Louis Hartley), Philip Pavel (Officer Andrews), Christopher Doyle (Officer Richards), Duane Martin (Joel), Rebecca Gayheart (Lois), Portia de Rossi (Murphy), with Roger L. Jackson (voice of Ghostface), David Warner (Gus Gold), Omar Epps (Phil Stevens), and Jada Pinkett (Maureen Evans)

Directed by Wes Craven (#474 - A Nightmare on Elm Street, #558 - Scream, #633 - Red Eye, #939 - Swamp Thing, #1156 - Wes Craven's New Nightmare, #2135 - The Last House on the Left, #2306 - The Hills Have Eyes, #2455 - Vampire in Brooklyn)

Review: 

To be perfectly honest, I never really got into Scream the way I expected to. Sure, I liked the first film (as released in December 1996) just fine, but I honestly forgot that I saw it way back in 2014 and honestly forgot that, yeah, there were pretty clever moments to serve as the attraction for folks that maybe squirm a bit when confronted with horror stuff in a horror movie*. Sure, it was the brainchild of Kevin Williamson being inspired by both his experiences watching horror films like Halloween (1978) and also the idea that maybe movies just make psychos more creative than actually create them. The opening sequence, well, that's the showstopper, and that's the one that got Miramax to buy into it and eventually corral Wes Craven into doing it. You basically got a who-dun-it with enough pieces for folks to enjoy putting together before the inevitable TV-to-the-head. It took a few weeks, but it became a hit that led to clamors for a sequel. Naturally, Williamson actually had a few ideas in mind for potential sequels pretty early (why entice buyers with one movie when you can sell the potential for a franchise?) and production for a second movie was greenlit three months after its release. After a brief fling with having Robert Rodriguez direct, Craven elected to return instead for a film that started filming in the summer for a winter release. By this point in time, Williamson attracted enough attention to become involved in TV with his development of Dawson's Creek, which meant that he shuttled between sets that saw most of the script pages for Scream 2 written when on set. A leak of a script (with one ending stated by Williamson as a "dummy draft" meant to keep details under wraps) on the Internet did not help matters, but the film was released on time to, well, enough success to inspire further sequels, with Scream 3 (which did not have Williamson back) coming out three years later in 2000.

I don't know, man. I did like this movie just fine, mainly when it actually does engage with the actual premise of gore and also with some of its ideas of just who would go around wearing a Ghostface mask after all that happened the first time around, but it really is a case where it almost outsmarts itself with actually getting to the point by the time its two-hour trek is over. The new characters prove to be more of a cipher than really developed, which is a curious move in what is meant to be a "guess who?" movie, and in general it just feels like a movie that needed more time in the oven. The opening sequence (involving a busy movie theater with death in the seats) probably sets too high of an expectation/delight from what actually happens afterwards, and that is saying something for something that pales a bit from what one saw in to open the first film. Campbell does carry the movie pretty well in the vulnerability of someone who I suppose would do better than most in living the hell of life after seeing people you know be murdered get turned into both a book and a film (or worse yet, get played by Tori Spelling) and then see it happen all over again (minus one quibble*). It goes a bit better when seeing the interactions between Cox and Arquette, who probably share the best scenes, mainly in seeing that tension slowly melt away for fondness that is a bit fun to see (it does get a bit distracting hearing that Broken Arrow cue again and again though) in the show of just how much fun-loving bravery can be enough in one guy when pooled against opportunism (or in a different scene with Cox, getting slapped for their trouble). It lifts the film plenty when compared to the new blood with O'Connell-Olyphant-Gellar-Neal, who, well, are just not the kind of folks to really roll with besides a mild flick of my eyes, particularly when I was more interested in the wormy nature of Schreiber (given a bit more to do from the last film, if you recall). 

You might remember Kennedy's character as the one who explained the rules of surviving a horror film in the previous movie, but I'll be honest with you: I don't care (geek or no geek, I think I'll take the bus). If you're going to dispatch anyone who happened to be around from a previous horror movie, if you're going to do kill someone off to raise the stakes, if you're going to do so in broad daylight, he fits the bill, so it is quite a way to go out. It probably isn't too much of a spoiler to say that one of the new blood ends up being a killer, and I have to say that the motive is actually pretty interesting, as if someone wanted to crib lovingly from Natural Born Killers (1994), but then it gets a bit too cute with its other dangling twist, because heaven forbid one killer isn't enough, no, it runs off the oldest tricks of the book in the guise of "cleverness", as if hanging around so long in plain sight (oh hi familiar face from TV) along with, well I'm sure you can get the rest. In general, there are a few fun moments in actual mayhem (and that one fateful moment of triumph) to make for a fairly decent sequel that gives you a few scares within its scrapes of gore and playful attempts at digging into familiar slasher territory that works more often than not.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Tiniest sidenote: When doing these cast listings, sometimes I have to adjust them because for whatever reason, billing is sometimes done *alphabetically* (as noted on the poster and on Wikipedia), which is the stupidest way to do credits. You know and I know who is the star, so why bother?

*You ever hear people whine about horror movies being too gruesome or possibly being a bad influence on the youth? I laugh too.

*The only quibble I have with Sidney comes in the sequence when she gets into a car-wreck. So she escapes a wrecked car, goes a couple of feet and decides, no, I need to go back to try and unmask Ghostface just because. Nay, I won't go to see if that cop on the hood has a gun so I can straight up shoot him, I'm just going to get close and- oh golly gee, the girl I'm with is dead! On an unrelated note, I do wonder if Sidney ever considers getting a gun in the sequels because, screw it, what could go wrong?

Resident Evil (2026).

Review #2591: Resident Evil (2026).

Cast: 

Austin Abrams (Bryan), Zach Cherry (Carl), Kali Reis (Maxine), Paul Walter Hauser (Paul), Will Merrick (Dave), Andrea Miltnerová (a pedestrian), Karel Dobrý (a farmer), Zoé Bellas (Birdie), Chris Lew Kum Hoi (Stanley), Griffin Newman (Wade), and Jo Martin (Andrea Vasquez) Directed by Zach Cregger (#1894 - Barbarian, #2412 - Weapons)

Review: 

“This movie follows a person from point A to point B. It’s like a real time journey, where you just go deeper and deeper into the depths of Hell. And it’s really a love letter to the games. Because I love those games. This is a story that I would’ve wanted to write whether I got the IP or not. I just happen to be able to have these Resident Evil people be down. So I get to play in that sandbox. I’m doing it because I think this movie is going to be fucking awesome.”

To be honest, I really never considered what mattered most in a video game movie. Of course, when I saw the first bunch of movies based on the Resident Evil games (as developed and published by Capcom in 1996 through the brainchild of Tokyo Fujiwara and direction by Shinji Mikami), the only thoughts I had were "is that all that can be done with the name? this?". The close of the original film series with The Final Chapter in 2016 didn't lead to a quick death in filmmaking, because Welcome to Raccoon City (as directed by Johannes Roberts) came out in 2021 with the intent on being a reboot with its own select references and story and an unrelated TV show came out on Netflix in 2022. Neither were particularly great successes, but Constantin Film and Sony went with, well, an enticing choice with Zach Cregger right as Weapons (2025) was coming around. Cregger co-wrote the script with Shay Hatten. Honestly, I forgot that Cregger openly stated that he wanted to make a "story that could take place in the Resident Evil world, but wasn't telling a story that the games had already told", and honestly, it just seemed apt to wait a few weeks just to keep my curiosity on a medium level (a fairly well-regarded movie on release*? Well, there's always the one outlier...*), because if I'm going to laugh with a movie, a half-empty one on a late night might as well be the way to go.

Sometimes I wonder if I really do need to actually play one of the games. You'd think I would I would be a big fan of horror games, but it honestly isn't too big on my radar besides The House of the Dead (Overkill is the one that comes to mind for fun*). Maybe I would enjoy the ride better to understand the quibbles with what's there in one's inventory and the journey of things getting worse and worse the longer one walks forward on the road to hell. And yet, somehow in its 94-minute runtime, I just wish I enjoyed the movie better. In the road of trying to balance levity with the horrors of seeing grotesque globs and a world that seemingly is going further into hell, I eventually had the sinking feeling that the movie I really wanted to see...was the one that surely would be happening *after* that last shot. It's funny, the old movies tried to do an ensemble (when not focused on Alice doing random stuff like telekinesis or fighting dogs, I suppose) and didn't exactly succeed while this film basically is a one-man show that happens to encounter people that seemingly serve to just increase the body-count. Abrams does make a compelling enough presence to serve as our rational irrational guy to try and make sense out of having to make snap decisions (maybe it's a silly quibble, but if you're tasked with a delivery and you hit some random passerby only to see footsteps, wouldn't it just be easier to simply keep driving and roll the dice?*) that is mostly fun. The roller-coaster ride of blood and guts is mostly held firm in the first half with his levity, honestly. I just quibble at the things that come and go (Reis and Hauser get used to do one bit of exposition and then...that's about it, bye!), where the high points (the rooftop scene would be one) ride out the inevitable climax that is stuck in the space of where I've moved on past the point of caring what happens to the lead because, well, damn it, a face-off of goofy scientists and panic-stricken dudes can only go so far before I throw up my hands. I struggle with assessing the film because of my initial curiosities. Cregger and company succeeded in making a movie of real-time action/horror that is mostly effective with its beats and yet I felt like I wanted more from it that isn't merely a case of "it's not long enough". At any rate, you'll get some entertainment from it regardless of if you seek some action with your horror or some chuckles within gooey spectacle, so I suppose it all works out for this particular time and perhaps beyond. So it goes.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Hereditary comes to mind. Not-quite spoiler alert: Resident Evil (2026) isn't the best video game movie, mainly because I had more fun with, say, the Sonic the Hedgehog movies, and those don't exactly go for straight adaptations either. Incidentally, with its impending release in the month, I do wonder when I'll make time for Street Fighter (2026).

*Unrelated: how the fuck was there not a sequel to Overkill? Such a neat time. 

*He never does seem to dwell on being a direct cause of a cop's life to die because of that decision, does he? Incidentally, I tried to hold back in rolling my eyes at the scene where he dwelled about wondering if he really did want to be a father. At least it's a moment where he isn't going "fuck" or "shit" like he seems to do about once every five minutes.

*This is one of those times where I'd rather regret being too harsh on a movie than give it a half-hearted 8/10.

Tales of Terror.

Review #2590: Tales of Terror.

Cast: 

"Morella" 

Vincent Price (Locke), Maggie Pierce (Lenora Locke), Leona Gage (Morella Locke), and Ed Cobb (Coach Driver)

"The Black Cat"

Vincent Price (Fortunato Luchresi), Peter Lorre (Montresor Herringbone), Joyce Jameson (Annabel Herringbone), Lennie Weinrib (Policeman), Wally Campo (Barman Wilkins), John Hackett (Policeman), and Alan DeWitt (Wine Society Chairman)

"The Case of M. Valdemar"

Vincent Price (Ernest Valdemar), Basil Rathbone (Mr. Carmichael), Debra Paget (Helene Valdemar), David Frankham (Dr. Elliot James), and Scott Brown (Servant)

Directed by Roger Corman (#368 - The Little Shop of Horrors, #684 - It Conquered the World, #852 - The Terror, #931 - Not of This Earth, #1007 - Attack of the Crab Monsters, #1039 - Five Guns West, #1042 - War of the Satellites, #1136 - Gas-s-s-s, #1147 - X: The Man with the X-ray Eyes, #1186 - A Bucket of Blood, #1423 - The Wild Angels, #1425 - The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, #1674 - Machine-Gun Kelly, #1684 - Creature from the Haunted Sea, #1918 - House of Usher, #2030 - The Trip, #2113 - The Undead, #2211 - The Intruder, #2275 - The Wasp Woman, #2295 - The Pit and the Pendulum, #2434 - The Premature Burial, #2534 - Frankenstein Unbound)

Review: 

Welcome to Trove Tuesday, the first of four featuring anthology movies for the horror season.

For the fourth film in Roger Corman's Poe cycle by American International Pictures, what better way to mess with expectations by making an anthology movie? (sure, purists would probably say the way to really mess with people would be to make "more faithful" adaptations, but, well, apples to oranges). You get three stories loosely adapted that all happen to have Vincent Price play a part in each of them (complete with a voiceover prior to the start of each segment) with varying levels of entertainment for the price of one. Production quickly commenced in November of 1961 before release the following year that actually did re-use footage and setting from House of Usher. Richard Matheson wrote the screenplay and apparently stated his favorite of the three was the last one due to it being played "pretty straight". While the movie had a few mixed responses (Cormanmania isn't for everyone, what else is there to say?), it was enough of a hit to continue the loose filming of Poe tales with Price and Lorre in The Raven (1963); incidentally, Price and Lorre would work together with Rathbone that same year with Jacques Tourneur's The Comedy of Terrors (which happened to be written by, well, Matheson).

I do enjoy the curiosity with looking at the varying quality of anthology movies, particularly ones where one segment seems to have been given the most attention or just to see what you can do with a particular presence in a particular amount of time. It goes like this: either you roll with the cliches present in stuff like this or you roll your eyes and wonder where the time has gone. Maybe I'm just a sucker for AIP stuff with their casual nature to filmmaking and maneuvering the action depending on what genre or fad they really want to draw on. This works in the favor of a movie that is fairly average in execution but at least has the power of Price to lead the way in three distinct doomed types: one warped in delusion, one warped with some light fun, and one basically stationary until needed. The first story is "Morella" (which lasts roughly 22 minutes) that at least has the benefit of not being full-length. It has the cliches present from other AIP movies (decaying houses, loony Price, a totally big twist) while Pierce basically just yields the floor in presence to Price, who makes things casual when a lesser actor would've made one consider getting the remote (or, if one likes watching online, the mouse*). Things happen, you maybe remark, "eh", you await the next one. The second story in "The Black Cat" is the longest of the bunch, lasting roughly 38 minutes, and it actually combines elements of "The Cask of Amontillado" (oh hey, a Poe story I actually did have to read in high school). I think you can see why this one was given the most attention and care, who could resist the charms of seeing Price and Lorre paired up? The scenario is delightful, as they first meet due to a boast after stumbling onto a wine tasting event. The sequence of the two tasting wine (one by the usual sensations in testing and the other in simply drinking the damn thing) is likely the highlight of the film to listen to, honestly. Naturally the partnership cannot last for long, since, well, Lorre is the adversary of the tale with conviction in his coarse nature in reaction to revelations (or imagining things such as a moment where his head is being played around with) and also, well, one little black cat*. By the time he has finished burying people (done in the same way you might be in dealing with cleaning out the sink), it all sounds like it's going to go one way, and it surely does, but the fun is seeing Lorre squirm like an old pro. The final story with "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdmar", lasting roughly 25 minutes, is more of a brief showcase of Rathbone in conman elegance. Nearing his seventies by this point, he just carries the arrogance of hypnosis and would-be plans to take one man's house and maybe eventually figure out what really lies beneath life and death. The only other noted thing in the story is the mud pack to show the decomposition that apparently used a mixture of stuff like glue and makeup paint that was heated and poured for very brief usage due to the heat that probably wasn't a fun thing for Price to go through but it at least looks like it was worth to see on film. As a whole, the movie is filled with one B+/A- (generousness is where your milage is at the time) story and two other stories of that range from either B- to C+ for a pretty decent time depending on your levels of curiosity for what Corman and company sought to do in macabre fun.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day! 

*Sometimes I have no choice but watch a movie on my laptop/desktop while simultaneously doing some writing. 

*You gotta love the Wikipedia page for the film, which includes an image of cats in "audition" for the film. No, really.

Previous Corman-Poe movies, for those who like easy links to click:

House of Usher - Vincent Price & Mark Damon in a desolate mansion, a family curse and plenty to burn

The Pit and the Pendulum - Price and company in a desolate castle with madness and a cool torture device

The Premature Burial - Ray Milland leads the way in a man gripped by the fear of maybe being buried alive!

Saw V.

Review #2589: Saw V.

Cast: 

Tobin Bell (Jigsaw / John Kramer), Costas Mandylor (Mark Hoffman), Scott Patterson (Agent Strahm), Betsy Russell (Jill), Julie Benz (Brit), Meagan Good (Luba), Mark Rolston (Dan Erickson), Carlo Rota (Charles), Greg Bryk (Mallick), and Laura Gordon (Ashley) Directed by David Hackl.

Review: 

"I wanted to make sure it was a good solid story. I didn't want this to feel like all the flashy parts were there from a regular Saw movie, but rather to have everything tied together nicely in the story. I wanted that to be the underlying tone. In order for someone to be frightened by those traps there has to be some emotional investment in the characters, and without that emotional investment the traps are just like any gory horror film. I really wanted to make sure that that didn't happen. I wanted you to know who the people are in the traps, why they're in the traps. I wanted you to feel something for the people in the traps."

Sure, every year required a Saw movie, so why should it be any different the longer that John Kramer is dead? (outlines were being prepped the month that IV came out to theaters). Making his feature film debut was David Hack; the Toronto native actually was a second unit director/production designer on the previous three films. Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, the co-writers of Saw IV (2007) are here for the rest of the original run of these films, which you may remember was the one that took place basically in parallel with the third film (i.e. the one that foolishly decided to kill Amanda off). If you go by what Hackl said at the time of IV's release, there was a whole week to writing an outline, a script by the end of a month before having their little adjustments and things changed right as filming is to end (of course they had full storyboards on set, so I guess they had this stuff ready). Made on a budget of over $10 million, well, you know the movie was a big hit with October audiences.

I just look back at the first two movies and sigh at the following follow-ups that came in the wake of believing that Kramer was a vigilante (yeah, I totally never killed anyone guys, I just merely put them in traps that require somebody to cut people internally or cut themselves to get free) and also had plenty of flashbacks to tell certain people about that makes him still important to look on. At least this time around, they try to give some sort of motive and time to Hoffman (while in turn diminishing Amanda, since only one dead person can stick around in flashbacks) going around as the guy with his own game looming over his head. It just so happens to come around in a movie that has a litany of folks being wrapped up in a game that are given the bare minimum to really do (while killing off the possible most interesting person early) before setting up the inevitable sixth movie with the twist that is at least not nearly as much of a cheat this time around. I should note that having Bell around in "flashback mania" isn't exactly a criticism, since he is his usual convincing self that really does go around with the belief that his crusade is a meaningful one with unnerving conviction. Sure, it might have been more fun when it felt like a path of "hey man, I'm doing this because you don't like life" rather than "so in my flashback of how I became Jigsaw, the vigilante who totally never killed people in a long-winded plan that brings multiple accomplices in the fold...", but at least he isn't phoning it in. 

Mandylor just feels like a cipher with the bare minimum that basically handcuffs him to not being nearly as compelling of a threat as you would hope; you'd think a cop that goes around making their own Jigsaw-type devices (i.e. the one in the intro, which begs the question where he got the voice from, as it is revealed to have been done when Kramer was alive but, well, not doing stuff like that) would be more unnerving, but, well, maybe VI will actually let him breathe. It comes and goes with Patterson in the lone wolf type that makes me miss the days of Danny Glover in the first film. Of the group of new folks in the game that takes up what you might call the B-part of the film (or whatever you call this 92-minute movie), it only sounded interesting that a reporter (Rota) was among the mix of the usual people with "well, I did this one thing that led to a few people's lives being ruined" qualities. Naturally, this can't do, because he goes down the tubes quickly for the would-be final folks with Benz and Byrk and the supposed lesson learned from playing the game (I suppose it's meant to be funny that a series of tests meant to have people work together ended up going in a way where a survivor ends up murdering people anyway). The gore is on the usual level of "oh that does look painful", even if it still has the quirks of editing/color that make you occasionally roll your eyes. As a whole, Saw V doesn't elevate the series, but being a mediocre sequel is better than being an insulting one, so I suppose there are worse things in life than continuing further with whatever happens next.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Since I'm too lazy, here's a link to each of the films reviewed in the series

Saw - the one where Cary Elwes and Danny Glover are in it for a bit before the killer arises from the ground

Saw II - the one with Donnie Wahlberg, more of Tobin Bell and that particular twist for the end

Saw III - the test of Amanda and other things

Saw IV - the mystery of the final game of the killer, at least in theory

Saw X - the one set between 1 and 2 with Jigsaw and Amanda

The Legacy (1978).

Review #2588: The Legacy.

Cast: 

Katharine Ross (Maggie Walsh), Sam Elliott (Pete Danner), Roger Daltrey (Clive Jackson), John Standing (Jason Mountolive), Ian Hogg (Harry), Margaret Tyzack (Nurse Adams), Charles Gray (Karl Liebnecht), Lee Montague (Jacques Grandier), Hildegard Neil (Barbara Kirstenburg), and Marianne Broome (Maria Gabrieli) Directed by Richard Marquand (#115 - Return of the Jedi)

Review: 

Sure, why not a co-production between the States and the United Kingdom for an original (i.e. one that actually isn't based on a book) horror movie? Apparently, Hammer mainstay Jimmy Sangster wrote the original script before further work was done by Patrick Tilley and Paul Wheeler. At the helm to direct for the first time was Richard Marquand. Born in Wales as the son of a politician, he started out as a TV/documentary director in the early 1960s. Marquand ultimately directed a total of seven films (most notably Return of the Jedi*) before his sudden death at the age of 49 in 1987. For whatever reason, the movie was released first in the UK in September 1978 and then an American release...in September 1979 (got to love a poster that actually advertises the "best-selling" book of the movie right then and there). With a budget of over $2.5 million, the movie did make some money with audiences, even if cast members weren't too fond of it; Anne Coates later stated that despite being convinced to do the film by Marquand, she felt he "clearly didn't know what he was doing at all", while Sam Elliott once called the film "fifteen years behind its time". Regardless of all the quibbles, it found a steady life on TV and home video.

With a plot that might as well have been cribbed from Rosemary's Baby (1968), The Omen (1976) and any movie involving old dark houses (with a bit of Ten Little Indians present just for the hell of it), you may get at least some entertainment from just ridiculously it all comes together in such an ersatz experience. You might be wondering, what could possibly be the "legacy" in the plot? Well, it involves six people all being invited to a rambling country estate in where else but jolly old England where odd butlers and spooky cats lurk within a few casual revelations involving, well, birthright and the craft. Somehow, within the powers of "witchcraft", escape or getting a ring off one's finger is basically impossible and somehow, a whole bunch of people start dying because, yes, six living heirs actually translates to "the Devil does in fact have takesies-backsies". It falls to Ross to try and sell the shock of not only being stuck in a strange new place (what, it's the English*) and I wish I could say she sells it, but no, it just feels like she is more on a bland trip of "oh I guess I'm going a bit nutty, that'll flush out", but I guess you could say the chemistry between her and Elliott* is curious. It just feels like a series of mild inconveniences, and sometimes I wish it was more about Elliott and his wiseass attitude towards the ridiculousness of this whole thing (imagine being told that your woman looks like someone in a painting while people are randomly dying and *then* you get stuck in a warp where you can't drive away). You wish there was more from Daltrey (as best known from his work with the Who*) or with Gray before they inevitably kick the bucket, which probably sticks out more; one dies through choking on a chicken bone and the other catches fire in a manner that makes sure the house is left totally unscathed. There just isn't a big enough ham or real villainous threat (Standing is barely present in a bed) to actually generate anything besides chuckles with seeing unsavory people getting offed. There are some pretty shots and fine gore, but it really does feel like a movie warped out of time without the energy to match. Even the ending feels too casual to actually work - imagine seeing what you've seen, climax and all and it just ends on more ring-giving. As a whole, it's a goofy little movie that doesn't exactly conjure up anything besides a few gore scenes and some offbeat conclusions to jump through by the time it concludes its tale of death and despair. It's the kind of movie you stumble onto and wonder, where the hell did the time go in all of the chuckles for such a mediocre time.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*A damn good movie, as I'm always prone to reminding people.

*Look man, willingly getting on a plane doesn't sound like my cup of-oh hell, throw the tea out.

*Incidentally, Elliott and Ross eventually married each other, so at least someone got a happy ending.

*The Who are neat, that's the note.

The Ghost Ship.

Review #2587: The Ghost Ship.

Cast: 

Richard Dix (Captain Will Stone), Russell Wade (Third Officer Tom Merriam), Edith Barrett (Ellen Roberts), Ben Bard (First Officer Bounds), Skelton Knaggs (Finn, the mute / The Narrator), Edmund Glover (Jacob "Sparks" Winslow), Lawrence Tierney (Louie Parker), Paul Marion (Pete a.k.a. "the Greek"), and Sir Lancelot (Billy Radd) Directed by Mark Robson (#1797 - Home of the Brave, #1931 - Valley of the Dolls, #2431 - The Seventh Victim)

Review:  

Now you might be saying, what, a ship-bound movie to look on for horror? Well, this is another one of Val Lewton's productions for RKO and it often is lumped in with his previous stuff such as Cat People (to the point where it was released alongside the others for the "Val Lewton Horror Collection" set in 2005), so why not? RKO wanted a use from the ship set they still had from Pacific Liner [1939], so obviously giving Lewton a task to make a ship-bound movie with a "Ghost" in the title sounded up his alley. It may interest you to know that for many years, this film was not available to actually see. Sure, the screenplay was credited to Donald Henderson Clarke and the story was credited to Leo Mittler, but Lewton had his key influence in shaping the film (so, uncredited work) ...and then the aftermath of the release of the film saw a lawsuit filed by Samuel R. Golding and Norbert Faulkner. Go figure, RKO somehow lost a suit for plagiarism (specifically citing the 1942 play "A Man and His Shadow") that saw the film taken out from circulation (not to be mean to Golding or Faulkner*, but nobody speaks for them and the alleged "plagiarism" case, so either the viewer is the true winner or Lewton that got the last laugh in the long run). Robson wound up directing three more movies for Lewton with Youth Runs Wild (1944), Isle of the Dead (1944), and Bedlam (1946). At any rate, since the movie fell into the public domain, it is now readily available to view anywhere you want on the Internet.

Sure, it's hard to try and go into the movie without some sort of expectation or guess when it comes to "Ghost Ship", but you really will have quite the time just going into it cold, with its 69-minute runtime not being a deterrent to how fascinating it ends up being. The horrors of being gripped at the helm of authority and wavering in actually recognizing the difference between power and authority is one thing, try being part of a ship filled with deterrence to what "seems best with the man in charge". There could be storms on the horizon, there could be danger from an unknown enemy, but damn the torpedoes, one rolls with the captain when they have made their final decision...or so one may believe. We all know at least one situation where people would probably go down with the ship (in a figurative sense) rather than ask any questions about just who is really trying to guide past the storm. We all know that one person who micromanages things with perhaps a bit too much enthusiasm, as if everything has to be drawn up and down just because they can. You can in fact be petty when it comes to holding the crew to a "standard" and you can in fact try to bury things if it comes to a head. The responsibility of holding the command and all the responsibilities and calamities that come in both body and mind goes to Dix (in one of his last roles prior to dying in 1949), who makes for a compelling presence specifically because of his seasoned nature. It may not be a big A-movie, but his imbalanced feel for the crew and what his role is in the grand scheme of his position is compelling without striking as too cartoonish, especially when shown in the non-sea trappings with Barrett in one instance. Wade had done several years of playing an extra before getting an RKO contract to be a featured guy for stuff such as this, although he would stop acting after 1948. He makes for a suitable lead to jump in to said quibbles with solid likable qualities to sell the perspective of a newcomer into a bubbling boil. The racket with Knaggs, who has a few monologues as basically a "Greek chorus" that only works best in the last sequence, honestly, and the crew (which includes a young Tierney and calypso singer Sir Lancelot) only get to show flashes of individuality (as if they've just become cogs to change in and out). By the time of its climax, as held in murky lighting to heighten the tension, all the stops have been put out in pulpy and lean enjoyment that makes it a solid Lewton (and company) accomplishment.  Melodrama, suspense thriller, horror, hey, it all can be relative in what you can infer from your own perspectives, at least when you consider the dangers that come from what is seen and unseen in the careful lighting (hooks, fights, lockless doors, what have you). In that sense, it makes for a pretty good recommendation for any type of month or occasion.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*Oh who am I kidding, those jerks did lose in the court of "time". Really, plagiarism?

The Invisible Ray.

Review #2586: The Invisible Ray.

Cast: 

Boris Karloff (Dr. Janos Rukh), Béla Lugosi (Dr. Felix Benet), Frances Drake (Diana Rukh), Frank Lawton (Ronald Drake), Violet Kemble Cooper (Mother Rukh), Walter Kingsford (Sir Francis Stevens), Beulah Bondi (Lady Arabella Stevens), Frank Reicher (Professor Meiklejohn), Paul Weigel (Monsieur Noyer), and Georges Renavent (Chief of the Sûreté) Directed by Lambert Hillyer (#297 - Dracula's Daughter)

Review: 

Now you might say, hey, this is one of those multi-genre movies, is it really that important to feature it for the sake of horror? With all of the "thrillers" that basically double as horror, I find nothing wrong with giving a bit of credit to one that dabbles in science fiction and horror, and, well, why not enjoy another team-up of Karloff and Lugosi? There were six team-up movies of importance between the two (okay actually it was eight, but who cares about a cameo in Gift of Gab [1934] or a comedy with You'll Find Out [1940]?), and here we are watching the one that came out after The Black Cat [1934] and The Raven [1935] (after plans to make something called "Bluebeard" stalled). Stuart Walker was the original intended director but had quibbles with the script that saw him drop out for Lambert Hillyer. Hillyer was a considerable veteran director who did westerns, crime movies and, most notably, the 1943 Batman serial (the very first time the character was on screen), going all the way to the advent of television before he died in 1969 at the age of 75. He made this movie for over $200,000 that apparently went over-schedule and budget. Universal paired Lugosi and Karloff twice more with Son of Frankenstein [1939] and Black Friday [1940]. John Colton is credited with the screenplay with Howard Higgin and Douglas Hodges was credited with the story. Stock footage from Frankenstein [1931] (specifically electrical machinery) apparently was utilized here to go along with select sets from the Flash Gordon serial that was filming at the same time (in turn, footage was later utilized in the 1939 Universal serial The Phantom Creeps). There were apparent plans to make another venture with the two with similar beats that apparently was abandoned for a few years before being re-purposed for what became Man-Made Monster [1941]. The movie starts with a foreword about scientific fact and how stuff of the current day once "burned as a fantastic fire in the mind of someone called mad" and how stuff presented here is basically a "theory whispered in the cloisters of science" that maybe someday could startle as a fact. Or something.

Okay, so there's a few scientists who hear about a meteor crash in Africa with a big mass (as told to us by exposition involving a telescope and looking back at a galaxy and such) that is in fact a real thing to go on expedition for (Karloff and five others, because obviously two wives had to come). Obviously, it means plenty of time spent in Africa (don't ask about the dated aspects when it comes to seeing the natives) before you get the realization of just how "Radium X" really is beyond, well, making stuff glow, and it is Karloff who gets to play the over-the-top adversary rather than Lugosi, go figure. The 79-minute adventure even has some time spent looking at a planetarium that actually is pretty neat to look at, possibly even more so than the actual effect (as coordinated by John P. Fulton) of making a luminous man (as done by just adding a glow). As a movie, it is pretty average, mainly because it can only go so far in actually showing mayhem involving glowing men and revenge (as represented by statues because god help us in showing more than one death by glowing - but did I forget to mention the exploding boulder?). But it's pretty neat to enjoy the company of Karloff anyway, particularly with the momentary time spent with his on-screen mother because, sure, why not? Karloff holds it together in the doomed story of a man who really can't get out of his own way with his neuroses and habits for the usual dignified type of performance. Lugosi basically had two types of performances: doctor or hammy villain, but at least here he makes for a capable man of reason who only wants to see science furthered (well, I mean besides curing blindness, which both characters do at one point) rather than quibble about paranoia. The rest of the people are fairly forgettable (who among us cares about a love story or people that either serve as side characters/dead meat?), suffice to say, with the newspaper exposition moments (who says people didn't get spoon-fed info even in the old days?) probably being the most interesting thing about them. That, or the death scene at the end where one dies before they even hit the ground (after being told off, naturally). So, you get a few neat moments of glow and paranoia to make up for a pretty standard affair, but since I enjoy the company of Karloff and Lugosi lurking around the corners of what folks loosely called horror, this is fine by me. If you liked the previous pairings of the two or just like to see either one with a fairly decent role to chew on, you'll be fine here.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

Videodrome.

Review #2585: Videodrome.

Cast: 

James Woods (Max Renn), Debbie Harry (Nicki Brand), Sonja Smits (Bianca O'Blivion), Peter Dvorsky (Harlan), Leslie Carlson (Barry Convex), Jack Creley (Dr. Brian O'Blivion), Lynne Gorman (Masha), Julie Khaner (Bridey James), David Bolt (Raphael), and Reiner Schwarz (Moses) Written and Directed by David Cronenberg (#816 - Crimes of the Future, #1127 - eXistenZ, #1220 - A History of Violence, #1239 - Stereo, #1624 - Shivers, #1712 - The Fly [1986], #2132 - Crimes of the Future [2022], #2276 - Rabid [1977])

Review: 

 "I've always been interested in dark things and other people's fascinations with dark things. Plus, the idea of people locking themselves in a room and turning a key on a television set so that they can watch something extremely dark, and by doing that, allowing themselves to explore their fascinations."

We do love our technology, don't we? Now more than ever, the lines between reality and what we actually see for "entertainment" (television, phone, what have you) is blurred. The human body is the battlefield for what is "too far" and it probably goes without saying to consider how far the word "goon" has gone beyond its original meaning. People will believe what they see and hear from their screens, and you could figure that out in the time when people still used tapes (hell, in different future days, there were people who believed what they heard on the phone from alleged cops). One man's reality is another's delusion, and it goes doubly for how far things have moved from TV being reality and therefore reality being less than TV, as they say. Apparently, when David Cronenberg grew up in his native Toronto as a kid, he could tune into American TV signals from Buffalo in the States when the Canadian stations went off the air and the idea of maybe seeing something he shouldn't see lingered in his mind. The ideas gestated in his head (as one does when knowing about Marshall McLuhan, who taught at the University of Toronto when not being the one considered the "father of media studies") before getting a good chance to do the film with his particular growing reputation. With partial financing from Universal Pictures (it should be noted that this was the last film of his made in the Canadian "tax shelter" era) and filming in Toronto, Videodrome actually did get released to hundreds of theaters in February 1983 and promptly died in theaters, with Cronenberg once musing it wasn't an "exploitation sell [or]...an art sell." At any rate, it soon developed a cult following (various videos exist involving the making of the film, as seen here).

You get a shelter that has homeless people gather to watch television, people who communicate through a TV screen, a certain point where the lines between reality and fantasy blur, and, oh yeah, gooey body horror moments within the actual horror of what really does lurk beyond "special names" and manipulation of people's obsessions. It's not what you see that's important in terms of the "videodrome", it's the fact that reality can in fact be shattered by those who live on the screen that really matters in control. It all leads to Woods and his commanding presence in a cynic with no sense of philosophy beyond "there's an outlet somewhere" (wiser minds wondered if it was really the medium that was the message). There is a killer instinct within Woods to just make a role look so intense by the way you see him maneuver with his expressions more than anything that reaches to the heart of all with the perverse rot in one's soul (which, well, is the type that can be alluring to a certain type of stimulated person). His certain type of "soul" does go hand-in-hand with how Harry (the vocalist of Blondie who dabbled in acting such as Union City [1980], this and Hairspray) treats the world of over-stimulation and curiosity. Her awareness of craving pleasures and pain (for whatever you might read when seeing someone stuff a cigarette on their chest) is the type of alluring "question mark" (well, if you go with that from an interview with her); with so much time spent in a box, you almost could call it a virtual performance (compared to the v-tubers of the now, I suppose being told about the flesh is an improvement). In the battlefield of what airwaves are to be seen in the mind to take the bed with you, one sees the dueling sides with Smits & Creley and Carlson & Dvorsky to sobering effect, well, at least when you consider that both want to shape would-be users for a certain type of evolution. Sure, the plot of the movie is loose, particularly when it comes to really figuring just what is hallucination (full-scale, if you will) and what is the horrors of actually seeing a new type of hell (slits in the abdomen and appendages to the arm that might as well be a new type of sex organ). You just have to enjoy the ride of raveling and unravelling in stimulation to see that, yes, the video screen really can be a tool or weapon and you are living in that world right now. With an efficient pace of 89 minutes that rides the wave of grime and bleak nature of what it really means to see beyond the flesh, it's a pretty good way to unsettle oneself in the eyes of stimulation.

 

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

It begins. We're going to try and get as many horror movies as we can, which will run the gamut from franchise stuff such as Saw V all the way down to anthology picks to the oldies to beyond while having time for spectacular fun in November. Stay spooked.

The Monster (1925).

Review #2584: The Monster.

Cast: 

Lon Chaney (Dr. Gustave Ziska), Johnny Arthur (Johnny Goodlittle, amateur detective), Gertrude Olmstead (Betty Watson), Hallam Cooley (Amos Rugg), Charles Sellon (Russ Mason, a constable), Walter James (Caliban), Knute Erickson (Daffy Dan), and George Austin (Rigo) Produced and Directed by Roland West.

Review: 

I did consider doing this movie a few years ago, because why not cover a movie that was on the cusp of turning a century old? Billed in some ways as a "mystery thriller / love adventure" and sort of falling into the lines of comedy-horror, it was based on a 1922 play of the same name by Crane Wilbur (likely best known as the male lead in The Perils of Pauline that dabbled in writing/directing until the early 1960s), with Willard Mack and Albert Kenyon serving as the writers and C. Gardner Sullivan writing the titles. You get a few things that sound interesting, mainly with the "old dark house" and a few spooky things that, well, maybe would've impressed someone who didn't know anything about movies beyond The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) or even early stuff like Frankenstein (1910). West had a brief run of movies of note, whether that was his adaptations of The Bat (silent in 1926, sound with The Bat Whispers in 1930), the Academy Award-nominated Alibi (1929) or Corsair (1931). For whatever reason (divorce or the possible involvement in the death of actress/mistress Thelma Todd*), he didn't make a movie again after 1931 prior to his death in 1952 at the age of 67. The movie, while receiving a few mixed reviews, was a decent little hit upon release. As is the case with all surviving 1925 movies, it is readily available in the public domain.

You aren't going to get much in the way of, say, horror or anything other than "blithering house comedy", that's for sure. Older movie fans will find better satisfaction with Waxworks (1924) or The Cat and the Canary (1927), that's for sure. It isn't terrible, mainly because it at least has some interesting moments within its housebound elements in a dark place with odd stuff happening (such as an opening capture of someone via car wreck) that at least suggest the idea of atmosphere. It just so happens to be in a movie that constantly reminds you (with the power of "ingenuity") that it has to be "funny" and goes on and on with its "young boob wishes to make good" story that probably would've made Harold Lloyd gag. Sure, some folks will find it amusing with Arthur's antics, and some might anticipate Chaney going for the oddball scientist looking for the chuckle, but I just throw up my hands and go "whatever". Besides, Chaney doesn't pop in until the 30-minute mark, and you only really still spend time going along with the bumbling trio of Arthur-Olmstead-Cooley (for whatever reason, there are certain angles where it looks like Olmstead is looking at the camera differently), with just a few flashes of other people (no comment on the makeup used on "Caliban"). This was the kind of movie one could make when "correspondence schools" were still a thing to make random stuff up (in one instance a character gets gifted a diploma and also a gun). Eventually, through enough dilly-dallying, you get to hear about a mad scientist for more than a few seconds, complete with a hare-brained scheme about doing an experiment at last on a woman (no, not to have sex with her but to somehow transfer a dude's soul into said body). So yes, it's an absurd-sounding movie that maneuvers for 86 minutes with a hit-or-miss quality in the aims for chuckles with the tension of wondering just what lies beneath a big spooky house when the mystery wasn't something to call a cliche just yet. As a whole, if you like to go around checking out old movies with at least one familiar face and have time to kill in imagination and like to watch creaky stuff in the dark, this may or may not be up your alley. I couldn't get into its hokum, but your milage may vary.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Next up: October looms for spooky season.

Song of the day!

*Well, it's not like you could find proof of it or no proof nowadays.

I would be silly to not mention a different take on the movie and, well, why not share links every now and then - The Monster (1925) A Silent Film Review – Movies Silently

Dead Heat (1988).

Review #2584: Dead Heat.

Cast: 

Treat Williams (Roger Mortis), Joe Piscopo (Doug Bigelow), Lindsay Frost (Randi James), Darren McGavin (Dr. Ernest McNab), Vincent Price (Arthur P. Loudermilk), Clare Kirkconnell (Dr. Rebecca Smythers), Keye Luke (Mr. Thule), Robert Picardo (Lieutenant Herzog), Mel Stewart (Captain Mayberry), and Professor Toru Tanaka (Butcher) Directed by Mark Goldblatt.

Review: 

Well, I suppose any film with the term "buddy cop action zombie comedy" is worth looking into, obscurity be damned. So, who's here and why are we here? Well, it was written by a first-timer with Terry Black (and yes, that is a sibling of Shane Black) that apparently saw uncredited work done by Darren Starr (the future creator of shows such as Beverly Hills 90210 and Sex and the City) and directed by a first-timer in Mark Goldblatt, who is more known for his editing (he later got an Academy Award nomination for Terminator 2: Judgement Day). What could go wrong? Oh, plenty, since this was a late-stage New World Pictures movie that basically screams "help!". Dead Heat didn't exactly gain a curious cult audience, at least when compared to Goldblatt's only other directorial credit with The Punisher [1989]; you can at least find the movie on formats beyond VHS nowadays. Black subsequently wrote for Tales from the Crypt, and he dabbles nowadays as a column writer.

I'm sure you get the picture of the buddy movie with at least two of the following: the wiseass, the no-nonsense guy, the loose cannon, the "new partner", and so on, and so on. Some are better than others with, say, 48 Hrs. (1982) over, well, stuff like this. Sure, you get your bits of things that sound different: a lead character who actually does die in the first 25 minutes (to come back to life via go-go magic resurrection device). It maneuvers itself for 84 minutes with the energy of a zombie for middling jokes, has a storyline that doesn't really go anywhere, and is only bolstered by the occasional gooey effect and seeing name actors pop in for a brief moment. It's barely a buddy movie in general because Williams and Piscopo have the smallest semblance of chemistry together, which is barely preferable to say, being stuck next to the guy at the checkout line who really needs to tell you about the bird they saw in the ceiling*. It never feels worth it to actually experience the gears turning in "gee, dead bodies coming back to be used as henchmen" because it never actively feels exciting to be anywhere near these folks, especially with Frost and Kirkconnell, who basically only exist just to elevate the body-count (which ranges from rapidly decaying resurrected people to a body exploding). Williams (likely best known for Prince of the City [1981]) just feels like he is on autopilot with this film, as if the perils of knowing one is to die a second time feels like a stubbed toe more than a real crisis (to say nothing of that wise-ass final scene).

You might recognize Piscopo from his run on Saturday Night Live or perhaps that one episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation or, well, those moments in time where he dabbled in films (being in an obscure Brian De Palma movie like Wise Guys [1986] is still noteworthy, at least when compared to Johnny Dangerously [1984], Sidekicks [1992], and, well, How Sweet It Is [2013]*). He...does not have it here to make the role anything other than an excuse to string lame one-liners together, as if he simply believes he can ride the macho wave out to be the next Mel Gibson. The highlight is seeing bits and pieces of McGavin, Luke, and Price in this shambling mess about trying to get as much money as possible from dead guys and, well, rich people because if you can't conjure a smile at ol' folks getting at least some sort of paycheck in exchange for basically the bare minimum of things to do, what's left? As a whole, Dead Heat might as well be an apt title for the whole experience: middling action, a lack of real charm for anything going on with its main two guys, and a general feeling that you can find better things to do. So it goes.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*In fairness, I do go to an H-E-B that does actually occasionally attract birds to fly inside. 

*Or being name-dropped in that one Tom Petty song - "Jammin' Me"

The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Review #2583: The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.

Cast:

Brendan Fraser (Rick O'Connell), Maria Bello (Evelyn Carnahan-O'Connell), John Hannah (Jonathan Carnahan), Russell Wong (General Ming Guo), Liam Cunningham (Mad Dog Maguire), Luke Ford (Alex O'Connell), Isabella Leong (Lin), Michelle Yeoh (Zi Yuan), Jet Li (Qin Shi Huang), Anthony Wong (General Yang), Jessey Meng (Colonel Choi), David Calder (Professor Roger Wilson), Albert Kwan (Chu Wah), with James Bradford (Jameson), and Freda Foh Shen (the Narrator) Directed by Rob Cohen (#043 - The Fast and the Furious, #924 - The Boy Next Door, #1089 - Stealth)

Review: 

"I think it's the charisma of the idea of the undead and how they are cursed because they can't be successful denying mortality. I think we ascribe powers to the undead--if something has transcended death, it can't be normal. And whenever something unsettling has power, it makes a great villain. Movies are made by great villains, not by the heroes. A movie like this depends on how bad the bad guy is, so the good guys can rise to the occasion."

You know, with The Mummy [1999] (as devised by Stephen Sommers, Lloyd Fonvielle, Kevin Jarre, which in turn was a loose remake of the 1932 movies of the same name), you could see the appeal of having a good ol' adventure within a loose deal of romance within tinges of horror, and, well, some humor. The Mummy Returns [2001]...was almost as decent. Maybe it was rushed, maybe it was a bit too hollow to really make for a quality sequel, but it was still a crowd-pleaser. Seven long years later, there was a third The Mummy movie for folks of the new millennium to enjoy. I suppose it seems timely to cover a film that won't even be considered a "direct sequel" to Returns (2001) by 2027 because somehow, someway, there is an impending Mummy movie (okay, there was that one Mummy movie released in 2026, but let's not get into that now*). By 2004, Stephen Sommers, director of the previous Mummy movies, was not keen on coming back for a third movie, feeling that it would just be too hard to make it really come together like the first two, although he did co-produce it; directing duties went to Rob Cohen*. Screenwriting duties went to the duo of Alfred Gough and Miles Millar (you might recognize them from such scripts as Lethal Weapon 4 [1998], the Shanghai movies [2000, 2003]). Made on a larger budget than the last two films (estimated at over $145 million), the movie was a mild success with audiences.

It's not exactly a mummy movie, if you want to be technical, since the Emperor and his army is actually just encased in clay as part of a curse that draws upon actual history, mainly the Terracotta Army (the real Army is a collection of ceramic sculptures of the armies of Emperor Qin Shi Huang that was buried with him in his mausoleum). Now, are we talking about archeology (because sometimes I have links for that) or we talking about a middling sequel? Honestly, I didn't have many expectations for this movie, mainly because the recasting of Rachel Weisz for Maria Bello could not possibly be a good omen for a film that will also feature further moments within the parent-son dynamic of adventure that surely isn't a discount version of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (incidentally, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull came out two months before Dragon Emperor). And, well, it is a pretty mediocre movie, filled with possibly even less energy between the people you want to see (our human goofballs stumbling around in the history books). But it is sometimes funny within all of the stops thrown in to try and elevate this shambling spectacle that honestly is almost more interesting than the previous movie. You get CG catlike yeti, Shangri-La (who else but crib from Lost Horizon?), attempts to look like 1946 that doesn't really look that timely, further CG amusements involving dragons, the Great Wall having a litany of dead folks coming out of it, and more within a 112-minute runtime that somehow seems rushed to oblivion. Fraser* just doesn't have that much to genuinely do besides be stuck in cartoonish dynamics with a present-only-in-spirit Bello and present-in-theory Ford, who each can't deliver anything other than tired remarks and only hints of an actual connection. How hard is it to have gone with a plan to move on from Arnold Vosloo in the whole "evil mummy with a reign of terror"? Evidently, not too easy of a plan. It isn't even worth trying to see Li or Yeoh try to pull the local flavor of "go-go mystic bullshit" because honestly, there is barely anything worth mentioning that you haven't seen in some way before in constrained drama (they are the ones who start the movie, mind you, hence the narrator credit) that goes for little charm and little everything, honestly. Hannah might as well be sleepwalking through the experience, which isn't something worth saying for the only other regular besides Fraser to be in all three movies. After a while, you really do just go through the motions of watching this movie do the bare minimum. The magic of the first movie was those folks (Fraser, Hannah, Weisz) intermixing with mayhem for actual warmth and fun. The second just ran with the spectacle at the expense of really challenging anything and the third just feels tired when undead folks are going around mowing each other down or in its evitable finish of folks getting the girl and so on. You can do better than checking out this middle-of-the-road movie.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars,

Song of the day!

*Honestly, I didn't have time to see it. Who the hell releases a mummy movie in April? Also, who the hell thought it would make sense to call it "Lee Cronin's The Mummy"? Are you kidding me? Really? Oh but it was to alleviate the confusion from other "The Mummy" movies - shit, just put the year in the title to really set yourself apart. Quibble over.

*In 2019, Cohen was accused of sexually assaulting his trans daughter as a child. Incidentally, he has not directed a movie since 2018.

*There are some movies that have future Academy Award winning actors, why not two with Brendan Fraser and Michelle Yeoh here?

Shock Treatment.

Review #2582: Shock Treatment.

Cast:  

Jessica Harper (Janet Majors), Cliff DeYoung (Farley Flavors, Brad Majors), Richard O'Brien (Dr. Cosmo McKinley), Patricia Quinn (Dr. Nation McKinley), Ruby Wax (Betty Hapschatt), Charles Gray (Judge Oliver Wright), Barry Humphries (Bert Schnick), Manning Redwood (Harry Weiss), Darlene Johnson (Emily Weiss), Jeremy Newson (Ralph Hapschatt), Wendy Raebeck (Macy Struthers), Betsy Brantley (Neely Pritt), Christopher Malcolm (Vance Parker), Little Nell (Nurse Ansalong), Rik Mayall ("Rest Home" Ricky), Eugene Lipinski (Kirk), Barry Dennen (Irwin Lapsey), and Gary Shail (Oscar Drill) Directed by Jim Sharman (#1449 - The Rocky Horror Picture Show)

 

Review: 

Sure, why not? You may remember that The Rocky Horror Picture Show (released in 1975 as based on The Rocky Horror Show) was initially a flop, mainly because, well, some people do in fact want a supposed tribute and also parody to the "kitsch" science fiction/horror movies* of the old days to actually...be interesting besides a campy facade that did not sway me beyond the most average moments (even a double-bill campus re-release with Phantom of the Paradise [1974] didn't help). But let's be fair: an idea by a Fox executive to give a midnight run gave the movie lasting cult appeal, with a good chunk of screenings in later years being joined with a live performance by a cast of fans. Returning alongside producers Lou Adler & Michael White, Jim Sharman and Richard O'Brien collaborated with each other on the script (with Sharman as director) for what basically would be a spiritual (with most of the folks returning in different roles), although Susan Sarandon did not return due to wanting more money, Bostwick did not return due to being unavailable and Curry, well, he just said no. They wanted to film in Dallas and England but the Screen Actors Guild strike in summer 1980 scuttled those plans to where it ended up being filmed in England in the fall of 1980. Production designer Brian Thomson delivered a reworking of the story that saw the film shot in a giant studio that saw him get credited for "additional ideas" Trying to get in on how Rocky Horror got its cult appeal, Shock Treatment only played in limited engagements with midnight screenings that started around late October 1981...which flopped, but there is a small enough following (even with O'Brien once labeling it as an "abortion"). Sharman hasn't directed a theatrical film since, although he has done numerous productions in the theatre and last year was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia.

I admit to only knowing this movie because it was covered by The Cinema Snob many years ago. So it goes. An odd-looking town is now swallowed up by a TV network studio, complete with a medical facility, that's your starting point. I really did try to go with an open mind for the movie, complete with a 95 minute runtime. I suppose it is an attempt at a compliment to say the movie is roughly around the same level of curiosity of the Rocky Horror film, but I then realize that isn't saying much because good God, I still don't have a real favorite person to watch for either of these movies. For all of the singing and all of its attempts to curtail any idea of horror for straight musical comedy, I can't stand much of these bastard people and its incessant averageness. I will say it is amusing as hell that they really tried to aim at appealing to those who were already big on the Rocky Horror stuff (specifically the ones who know the stuff by heart for a midnight screening), complete with a tagline of not being a sequel or a prequel but instead an "equal"...that basically splatted right on the pavement. Harper tries her best in trying to give something to a role that is gripped in the swaying power of would-be fame, which is sometimes curious and sometimes neat, but I can't help in thinking she just had a better time with a fellow box office failure-turned-cult classic musical comedy horror with Phantom of the Paradise; it's not so much that she can't hold it together for an ensemble, it just feels like she needs a real person to actually bounce off as opposed to being in the bin with the loons. It's entirely possible I just don't have patience for certain musicals (incidentally, you could put the film and The Music Man [1962] on at the same time and have nearly enough time to see the former again). Humphries and DeYoung basically are trying to fill the hole left from no Curry to really hold the screen together in insidious elusiveness that just isn't as pronounced as you wish it was. It's middling spoof material that begs for more than being stuck in a fishbowl setting that might as well make you wish you could drill a hole in your head to escape. Some have said that it had a predictive hand at reality TV. Well, that is pretty silly, mainly because An American Family exists, complete with an eight-year headstart that even had its own spoof with Real Life [1979]; one of the people of the aforementioned Family show even once said "Television ate my family" (at any rate, if we are talking about movies with interesting perspectives on the blurring of reality and TV, The Truman Show [1998] humiliates Shock Treatment many, many, many times over*). "Influencer culture", well, argue that for yourself, and the style for certain moments within its cloying studio is sometimes interesting, but if I don't care for the scenario or the songs beyond "okay", then it doesn't really matter what "prescient" thing has been accomplished. I honestly can't get a grasp on the characters now played by DeYoung and Harper other than wanting to throw dangle them over a pit, or, alternatively, bashing my head in. I don't care about who is supposed to be the "emotional cripple" or who doesn't know what they really are with attention focused on them, but maybe you will. Maybe it becomes the movie you see again to really experience for what it really, really means in the soul. So it goes.

 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

Song of the day!

*For something that wants to be campy and fun, I found more fun in actually just watching 1950s horror movies. You get more out of something like I Married a Monster from Outer Space than Rocky Horror Picture Show in entertainment value, and I will die on that hill. Besides, the former doesn't go on the "cinematic experience" of catcalls and toilet-paper throwing to get its kicks. Are you fucking kidding me?

*Okay that last film was mentioned because O'Brien apparently argued that The Truman Show certainly had some inspiration from Shock Treatment (as stated here or here). I'm....trying not to laugh.

Incidentally, here's a quote from an LA Times article about An American Family in 2003 upon the airing of a look back on the family from two of the original film crew: 

The Raymonds, whose most recent work is the HBO documentary “Children in War,” find it a “mixed honor” to be credited, as they often are, with the creation of modern-day reality television. “We don’t do shows for MTV. I don’t care to take credit for ‘The Real World,’ ‘The Osbournes,’ or [the] ‘Anna Nicole [Show],’ ” said Alan Raymond. “They’re terrible.”

Or, alternatively, a 2011 New York Times article.

 Mr. Gilbert and the Raymonds do agree on at least one thing: that “An American Family” has been unfairly credited with — or blamed — for starting reality television. The immersive, leisurely rhythms of the series are a stark contrast from the artificial situations (lab-rat housemates, gladiatorial contests) that dominate today’s reality programs. With its grainy look and distanced camerawork, it resembles an art film more than any reality show.