Suspiria.

Review #2461: Suspiria.

Cast: 

Jessica Harper (Suzy Bannion), Stefania Casini (Sara Simms; Silvia Faver as the English voice), Flavio Bucci (Daniel; Gregory Snegoff as the English voice), Miguel Bosé (Mark; Gregory Snegoff as the English voice), Barbara Magnolfi (Olga Ivanova; Carolyn De Fonseca as the English voice), Susanna Javicoli (Sonia; Susan Spafford as the English voice), Eva Axén (Patricia "Pat" Hingle), Alida Valli (Miss Tanner), and Joan Bennett (Madame Blanc) Directed by Dario Argento.

Review: 

“It’s true, almost everyone is female in Suspiria, all the heroes and villains are women, and the few men are either blind, mute or useless. But I don’t know if it is feminist, people tell me it is… The truth is I like working with women, I have always been fascinated by them. When I was very young I went to a school close to my mother’s studio; she was a photographer, famous for her portraits of actresses in the 1940s and 50s. After school, I would run there and sit in the front room where the actresses would do their make-up and get changed into glamorous dresses, and I would see these marvellous women transform. I would watch how my mother lit their faces and bodies, and when I was shooting Suspiria I remembered this.”

Well, it did seem time to cover a Dario Argento movie, so why not just go with the obvious? The son of a film producer and photographer, Argento was a film critic and a columnist before he became a screenwriter, and one of those scripts that he did work for was Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). He became a director with The Bird with the Crystal Plumage (1970). Influenced by American movies of the 1950s and 1960s along with the works of producer Val Lewton, the movie apparently played for years in Milan, with the movie often being associated as among the big ones of the "giallo" genre (which basically combines some form of the slasher, thriller or psychology). Suspiria was the first of what ended up being three movies that took inspiration from the collection of essays Suspiria de Profundis by Thomas de Quincey (as first published in 1845). He was inspired by a trip he had done through various European cities and a particular spot where France, Germany, and Switzerland meet ("Magic Triangle") while being quite serious about the occult and witchcraft. Argento wrote the movie with his partner Daria Nicolodi that also took inspiration from fairy tales such as Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. The imbibition process was utilized to make for more vivid color rendition that previously had been done for films such as The Wizard of Oz (1939); it was among that last movies to be processed in Technicolor. The movie ran 99 minutes in its native Italy but for the original American distributed release, 20th Century Fox cut some minutes out and even used a shell company to show the movie to audiences, which apparently was quite a hit there. The following two films in a so called "Three Mothers" trilogy were Inferno (1980) and Mother of Tears (2007). After years of attempts to do a remake of the film from American hands (most notably David Gordon Green), a "homage" was released in 2018 that was directed by Luca Guadagnino; Argento was quoted as personally being underwhelmed by what he saw in the film, save for the design. Argento directed a film as recently as 2022 with Dark Glasses. 

It may interest you to know that most of the dialogue in the movie is dubbed over by actors in post-production (save for, well...) because that is how it was for a good deal of Italian movies for the time. It does tend to fit the movie in a strange and unnerving way to look upon the flourishes of color and hear voices that aren't exactly the same as the people saying them. Argento aimed (in his eyes) to make color that would remind you of Snow White (along with early Westerns) what you get is a movie that seemingly comes right out of his mind like a dream - or a nightmare. The study by Argento and cinematographer Luciano Tovoli clearly was worth it in the soul. It goes hand in hand with the progressive rock score by Goblin, who did it collaboration with Argento before the movie was actually shot. The darkness within ourselves can be a powerful force, even for a movie that dances around its narrative like it was a ritual, not dwelling on its absurdity (apparently, the cast was meant to be inhabited by younger people before bowing to the hesitation of the producers). Apparently, Harper's performance in Phantom of the Paradise (1974) influenced Argento to cast her. Harper enjoyed the filming experience (four months in Rome, by the way), complete with getting mail every now and then about the movie and she even made an appearance in the 2018 Suspiria. She provides the vulnerability and grace required of a person who basically is thrust in a fairy tale nightmare, one that is delightful in her ballet from oblivion. The violence of the film looms over the movie with such stark execution that might as well be laughing at you in its defiance of what you might see coming. The logic of the movie is all about what you want it to be, at least when you don't consider some of the convenient exposition. But it all comes down in a great swoop for its climax that just burns down on you with its bouts of imagery and sound. The great terror isn't so much a coven of witches but the coven of one's doubt in their mind about what really is real beyond form and the blood of ourselves. It isn't so much a murder mystery or even a movie about what lurks beneath the coven but instead a movie all about the fear and strange things that lurk in us. The movie is exquisite to view in practically any scene for what you are seeing in its reds and blues that make for devastating effect with the gore in a way that you don't see nearly that often in movies, horror in particular. It is the kind of jagged movie that will leave an impression on its viewer more than just for its gore but for the things that it will inspire the next time one is left in the dark by themselves.

Overall, I give it 9 out of 10 stars.

Happy Halloween. Get ready for Halloween: The Week After: The 7th Time

Green Room.

Review #2460: Green Roon.

Cast: 

Anton Yelchin (Pat), Imogen Poots (Amber), Alia Shawkat (Sam), Joe Cole (Reece), Callum Turner (Tiger), Patrick Stewart (Darcy Banker), Mark Webber (Daniel), Eric Edelstein (Big Justin), Macon Blair (Gabe), Kai Lennox (Clark), David W. Thompson (Tad), Brent Werzner (Werm), and Taylor Tunes (Emily) Written and Directed by Jeremy Saulnier.

Review: 

"In Green Room, the gasps are real. People are sort of white-knuckled watching this movie. That’s what I love. The involuntary response their bodies create. It’s pretty hard to do, to make people actually terrified. It’s about making the characters relatable. It’s about breaking a few rules, not just to break them, but to keep things off-balance. Let people know that they’re not going where they’re supposed to go. You go where the characters take you, which is terrifying because these people have no fucking idea what they’re doing. As for the violence, because there’s so much brutality in Green Room, and there’s some full-frontal gore, it can be perceived as sensational. But the way I treat it, if you look and scrutinize every moment, it’s very reverent."

Sure, let's go with a vicious little thriller to feature for once. This was the third film of Jeremy Saulnier, who started making films in his early twenties. The Virginia native became a feature filmmaker with the horror-comedy Murder Party (2007), which he wrote and shot himself. His next film was the Kickstarter-funded Blue Ruin (2013), which he also wrote and shot with the idea that it could've easily been his last movie with the time required to raise his family. The impetus for making this film was his desire to make a movie with a green room, with his experiences at concert venues as a person who used to be in a punk band shaping a short film that he made in 2007 staying in his mind for when he could make a film the way he wanted. You may or may not be surprised that punk had a bit of the skinheads in there, particularly ones that liked to wear uniforms (and conversely there also existed Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice). What Saulnier had the most fun was in realizing what he wanted to do for years and yet not have a clue just where he wanted to take it before figuring out where both sides of the door would go in their choices without playing into too many genre tropes; he specifically stated that there was nothing sadistic in the film but instead "brutal difference and self-preservation" and one choice act of unmotivated violence that leads to the clash. Premiering at the Cannes Film Festival in 2015 but not getting a release in theaters until spring 2016 (first limited before wide), the movie was not a big success at the time, but Saulnier has continued to make films with Hold the Dark (2018) and Rebel Ridge (2024).

Sure, you could call it a punk rendition of Assault on Precinct 13 (1976). But it has its own type of relentless dread and brutality that make for a resounding success in unsettling the viewer with how fast things can go down in the pit of bleakness and keep going. The horror is the fact that everything that could go wrong for these folks in the film can in fact can be much worse to actually see play out. The parts you see within the land of skinheads and their type of organization (right down to the dog-training) are probably most unsettling because it seems so natural in a way that it hits all the marks required to strike bone. Yelchin (who tragically passed away in 2016) manages to sell the quick-rising fear that comes in going from having one's trouble evolve from where to maybe siphon gas to most definitely seeing someone with a knife in their head. Granted the group of rockers do have a bit of time to show the toil of punk rocking in a world that doesn't really seem to hear the notes for a few chuckles (note that they play at a Mexican restaurant early on). Poots and her weary expression to pair with Yelchin for a good chunk of the film makes for a fascinating one to see, one with a cracked sense of self that seems authentic in the all of the strange sad ways possible. Technically speaking, Stewart is not in the film too much, coming in and out of the darkening situation (figuratively and literally, if you consider one of the last lines of the film) but he makes the most of it with a unsettling sense of calm that reminds you that there are people like him somewhere in the world that are content with who and what they believe in without needing to turn to unnecessary bombast. Others who make an impression include Blair and his shaky presence at the powder keg of ugliness or the small moments that show the strange place that we are having to look upon (at one point you've got a guy willingly getting into a stabbing incident to help distract a cop). The movie earns its stripes of making you care about the violence and how it could easily happen to any of us who find ourselves in a bad spot and can't rely on people adhering to cliches and tricks, with the climax allowing for only the slightest of relief of the stark nature we just saw for 95 minutes. As a whole, Green Room manages to show the terror of places you couldn't imagine exist and shows that one can have their stomach churn in its simple brutality and solid execution.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

Night of the Demon.

Review #2459: Night of the Demon.

Cast: 

Dana Andrews (Dr. John Holden), Peggy Cummins (Joanna Harrington), Niall MacGinnis (Dr. Julian Karswell), Athene Seyler (Mrs. Karswell), Liam Redmond (Professor Mark O'Brien), Peter Elliott (Professor Kumar), Maurice Denham (Professor Harrington), Reginald Beckwith (Mr. Meek), Rosamund Greenwood (Mrs Meek), and Brian Wilde (Rand Hobart) Directed by Jacques Tourneur (#998 - I Walked with a Zombie, #1898 - Cat People, #2280 - The Leopard Man)

Review: 

"The real horror is to show that we all live unconsciously in fear. Many people suffer today from a fear that they don't begin to analyze and which is constant. When the audience is in the dark and recognizes its own insecurity in that of the characters of the film, then you can show unbelievable situations and be sure that the audience will follow. For another thing, people love to be afraid."

Naturally, this was a movie loosely based on an old short story. M. R. James wrote a handful of stories for More Ghost Stories of an Antiquarty in 1911, and "Casting the Runes" was one of them. Charles Bennett had the rights to the story and thus made a screenplay ("The Haunted") that loosely took inspiration from the short story. He sold the story to producer Hal E. Chester (much to Bennett's regret, because he later found that people like Robert Taylor and Dick Powell were interested in being in the film*) who ended up making changes that resulted in him getting a co-credit, although it was really blacklisted writer Cy Endfield who crafted significant parts of the screenplay. For whatever reason, the movie was called "Curse of the Demon" in the States (often with a double feature pairing with 20 Million Miles to Earth) with a runtime of 82 minutes that cut certain sequences from the original 96-minute cut. This was the last horror movie Tournier made as a director (famously, he apparently rejected the term "horror movies", stating once he made "films on the supernatural" because he believed in it). Tourneur was involved in the project because Ted Richmond (the producer of his prior film Nightfall) gave Chester a recommendation, which in turn got Tournier to show the script to Andrews.  Apparently, the demon was a contentious aspect of the movie for the filmmakers. Hal E. Chester and his co-producer wanted to show the demon at the start and end of the film, but Tourneur and Bennett weren't happy about it, with the latter being once quoted as saying that if Chester was up at his driveway, he would shoot him (a book about the making of the film by Tony Earnshaw contends including the demon was planned from the start anyway). Tournier claimed that the movie was "ruined" by showing the demon from the beginning, stating that he shot just one scene with the idea of a demon in the cloud sequence. Tourneur did five further movies as a director: The Fearmakers (1958), The Giant of Marathon (1959), Timbuktu (1959), The Comedy of Terrors (1964), and City Under the Sea (1965).

Let's get one thing out of the way: of course you show the damn demon on screen. This was the 1950s man, you can't go with the power of suggestion and "maybe" seeing something, at a certain point you're going to do something when "Demon" is in the film title (showing a cloud only for a movie like this would be silly, arguably). At any rate, what we have here is a solid little movie, managing to evoke a sense of dread through mood and atmosphere, one that arguably is Tournier's best horror movie when compared to Cat People (why anyone would reject the term horror movie is beyond me). It lurks in the shadow of noir that gradually makes you wonder just what may be beyond what eyes and ears can sense. It helps that Andrews (who apparently wasn't a fan of Chester either) is the right type of rigid for this role, one whose skepticism can only come from a place of flustered vulnerability that we understand that some can look mystery in the face and see a bottomless pit. Sure, we know there's something lurking beyond the wind rustling, but it helps to have a movie that is patient in the push-and-pull of belief and devotion. MacGinnis is practically the same in that regard when it comes to vulnerability, mainly because he is not merely a mad magician but is instead one who is consumed by a force greater than one could imagine, one who could play tricks for the youth but instead plays tricks on himself and those around him. The rest of the cast do a pretty fine job in that usual dignity of a horror movie that isn't about body counts or creature effects (the demon does look good, in close-up anyway) but instead of the terror of imagination going awry. My one little gripe is with the ending, specifically the very last scene. After spending a whole movie getting his ideas about the supernatural all mixed up, complete with seeing a cloud of smoke and something that may be a demon inflict fear on someone else for the climax...he doesn't go to inspect the body, instead leaving with the girl. I don't know man, I know these movies love to make sure to set the guy up with the girl at the end but c'mon, some things really are better to know. In general, what we have is a pretty neat movie involving the power of belief and what comes from those who are engulfed by it to subservience and those who know exactly where the road leads. It's one of those esteemed old movies that definitely deserve a look, that's for sure.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Oh who cares about Taylor and Powell when you have Dana Andrews?

Death Line.

Review #2458: Death Line.

Cast: 

Donald Pleasence (Inspector Calhoun), Norman Rossington (Detective Sergeant Rogers), David Ladd (Alex Campbell), Sharon Gurney (Patricia Wilson), Hugh Armstrong (The Man"), June Turner ("The Woman"), Clive Swift (Inspector Richardson), James Cossins (James Manfred, OBE), Heather Stoney (W.P.C. Alice Marshall), Hugh Dickson (Dr. Bacon), Jack Woolgar (Platform Inspector), Ron Pember (Lift Operator), Colin McCormack (Police Constable), James Culliford (publican), Christopher Lee (Stratton-Villiers, MI5) Directed by Gary Sherman (#1199 - Poltergeist III)

Review: 

I did want to so this film last October but honestly didnt have time. Hey, what's another year when talking about a British-American effort. This was the feature film debut of Gary Sherman, who actually described himself as an artist in search of a medium from a young age. He studied at IIT's Institute of Design and one professor told him that instead of design, he was the type that should aim to be a photographer. One of the ways that he was working his way through schools was play in a band and they inquired about trying to record at Chess Records. Sherman's ability to read music helped him in getting to sing backing vocals and lurk around the place, which intersected with him finding an 16mm Arriflex camera at school when work wanted to assign someone to photograph people at work. He ended up becoming a filmmaker when it came to a chance decision to film a recording session involving Bo Diddley at the studio. The result was a 30-minute short called The Legend of Bo Diddley in 1966. He then was asked to do a "music performance film" for The Seeds (among other groups) and the result was that he was asked by an ad agency if he wanted to shoot ads and commercials for them; he moved to London by 1968 apparently due to his experiences at the 1968 DNC. Years later, when working in London, his producing partner Jonathan Demme kept telling him to make a movie. While writing essentially stuff for themselves, John Daly of Hemdale Film came up and suggested to write something somebody would want to make, which, well, why not horror? Sherman came up with the story while Ceri Jones wrote the screenplay for a production that was financed internationally between Paul Maslansky, Alan Ladd Jr and Jay Kanter. Apparently, American International Pictures bought the film out from the financiers in what was called "cross-collateralization" (or bullshit in Sherman's eyes) and they essentially hacked the film away for American release as "Raw Meat", complete with a lurid poster making it look like a zombie movie that Sherman hated completely. At any rate, while the AIP experience burned him out a bit, Sherman did eventually make a few more theatrical films when not doing work on commercials, most notably with Dead & Buried (1981).

Sherman apparently was influenced by the classism he saw by the British (specifically in how apparently construction of certain tunnels saw mistreatment for the workers) alongside the legend of Sawney Bean. The legend apparently was about a person that was said to be the head of a Scottish clan in the 16th century that cannibalized over a thousand people in a span of 25 years. It was the kind of thing that could be found in the literature of the streets (you might recognize that The Hills Have Eyes [1977] took its own inspiration from the tale). So in essence you get two stories: the strange world of the outside world through class and the underworld toil for survival. Power matters, I suppose. Undeniably, the movie has one really entertaining presence: Donald Pleasance, who practically never seems to fail in the great art of scene-chewing with the confidence to back whatever needs to happen for the particular role. Its hard to toe the line of competent and odd for an authority figure, but he achieves that with such gusto that you can't help but smile at seeing him basically stumble into weird things beyond the usual fare. This basically covers for the fact that Ladd and Gurney are merely just okay, since they don't get much to really do when not engaged in banter (maybe there is something about the differences between Pleasance and Ladd in interrogation, but it doesnt really go anywhere). Apparently, Lee wanted to do the movie to be on the same set as Pleasance, even taking scale pay. Of course, Lee and Pleasance* have a bit of a height difference (eight inches), but its just as well to have him there for a moment not needing to bare fangs. Sherman wanted Armstrong for the cannibal right from the jump, even when the possibility of casting Marlon Brando (the first agent of Brando in Kanter approached him), but Brando had a family emergency so Sherman got Armstrong. He doesn't get to say much,  but his weary beaten-down nature makes for a relatively capable performance in evoking some pity for the lone creature of the dark. The movie rides on atmosphere and dwelling on what matters most for the supposed "British dignity" that is sometimes curious and yet sometimes feels a bit wanting, though it at least is paced fine at 87 minutes despite its puzzling ending. As a whole, Death Line is a solid first effort from Sherman and company that might inspire interest in what it ends up showing in its realm of having one solid performance carry things to the finish line in relatively quirky and sometimes involving horror for the season.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Next: Halloween extravaganza.

*Famously, Christopher Lee was one of the people who rejected the role of Sam Loomis in Halloween (1978).

Jennifer's Body.

Review #2457: Jennifer's Body.

Cast: 

Megan Fox (Jennifer Check), Amanda Seyfried (Anita "Needy" Lesnicki), Adam Brody (Nikolai Wolf), Johnny Simmons (Chip Dove), J. K. Simmons (Mr. Wroblewski), Amy Sedaris (Toni Lesnicki), Kyle Gallner (Colin Gray), Cynthia Stevenson (Mrs. Dove), Chris Pratt (Officer Roman Duda), Carrie Genzel (Mrs. Check), Juan Riedinger (Dirk), Juno Ruddell (Officer Warzak), Valerie Tian (Chastity), Aman Johal (Ahmet) Directed by Karyn Kusama.

Review: 

"I was blessed to read this script at a moment where the producers were meeting with directors and it just knocked me out. It was just so original, so imaginative. That’s what it is about this script and the world is that it feels like a fairy tale gone psycho and I think that’s what most fairy tales actually started as. So, they’ve just been sort of neutralized over the years and there’s something about this story that felt old, like coming from old stories but totally fresh, and I just went to bat for myself, I guess."

It isn't often you see a film poster that bills the talents of its writer, but here we are. In the buildup to the sensation that was Juno (2007), Fox Atomic (a short-lived label of 20th Century Fox and Searchlight that was aimed for comedy and genre film distribution) bought the rights to a certain script by Diablo Cody, the blogger-turned-stripper-turned-writer that, well, wound up winning an Academy Award for Juno (hence the film poster); Jason Reitman served as a co-producer for Jennifer's Body. Cody stated in interviews that she wanted to “pay tribute to some of the conventions that we’ve already seen in horror, yet, at the same time, kind of turn them on their ear" while also saying that her macabre sense of humor played into how it became a comedy-horror movie. As it happened, the movie was directed by Karyn Kusama. Kusama previously had directed Girlfight (2000) and Aeon Flux (2005). According to Cody, the movie (distributed by 20th Century Fox after Atomic closed down), which made nearly double its $16 million budget back in its release in 2009 was marketed terribly, as it apparently was marketed to target “boys who like Megan Fox” (which is how you get a poster that has Fox in a miniskirt) as opposed to trying to target, well, girls too; in recent years, with the growing cult audience for the movie, Cody has stated her wish to do a sequel to the movie, while Kusama noted her appreciation for the following the film has developed in recent years.*

It helps that the movie basically is a fairy tale of two growing women who have rapid change befall them, right down to the line actually said in the film of Hell being a teenage girl...that just happens to run with one of them becoming a succubus that actually reminds me a bit of Rosemary's Baby (hey, when the high schoolers get mowed down and "honored" in a manner not exactly more dignified than Heathers, why not crib from one of the alleged great horror movies too?). I thought it was a pretty funny movie, to be honest, mainly because I went in with mild expectations of expecting a bit of humor and gore that hopefully wouldn't crash and burn up and found a delight. Sure, you can probably understand where people may not have got what it really was going for 15 years ago beyond just leering at its star and waiting for things to happen. You've got a succubus who for her first act (that we see) of trying to cope with their new surroundings of desire go up to a person's house to try and eat an entire rotisserie chicken only to vomit goo, fail to bite someone and then just leave. In that sense, Fox does a tremendous job in the lead role, managing to be quite funny along with unnerving in the plight of a person who goes from a creature that might as well be the parasite in their one friendship to a very hungry creature that could be the parasite for all people (hey, an equal opportunity succubus) involved if she had her way. Her dynamic is compelling with Seyfried in ways that work far better than just simply being a creature bereft of comic timing. Seyfried's journey of change is just an interesting, mostly because it is a self-realization story that perhaps one of the miserable people lurking in the world today actually can get lucky for once beyond just being lumped in as a needy odd-duck. It is a worthwhile time to see the two of them engage in banter all throughout that shows just how one can really view somebody they've known for years when the grisly details are presented so clearly. The rest of the cast is fairly interesting in parts, whether that involves the conniving group of wannabee music icons led by Brody or the hook-handed straight-laced Simmons. The gore sequences (as could be read in some part here) involving the unfortunate souls being led in to the promise of, well, flesh (three) is pretty well done as well. The 102-minute runtime does prove worth it, although one wonders if the real ending is worth being in the credits. As a whole, Jennifer's Body is a delightfully macabre film about the perils of growing womanhood that happens to involve blood and guts for a solid curiosity that really did take time for its audience to really find it and appreciate its merits.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Hey, they even did a Q&A of the movie just this week. 

Hell of a coincidence: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRGd7sHN1io

Let's Scare Jessica to Death.

Review #2456: Let's Scare Jessica to Death.

Cast: 

Zohra Lampert (Jessica), Barton Heyman (Duncan), Kevin O'Connor (Woody), Gretchen Corbett (The Girl), Alan Manson (Sam Dorker), Mariclare Costello (Emily) Directed by John D. Hancock.

Review: 

"Well, I don’t want to make a parody, I’d like to make a genuinely scary movie. If you let me rewrite this, I’ll do it.’ And they did, and I rewrote it, and changed it 80 or 90 percent. ... I grew up on a fruit farm on weekends, so that’s the first thing I did was set it on a fruit farm, and that really got my juices going,"

In fairness, the title did stick out to me for quite a few months. Apparently, the original script for this film by Lee Kalcheim was different from the finished version, as evidenced by the title he put on it: "It Drinks Hippie Blood". When John D. Hancock was approached about being involved, he insisted on re-writing the screenplay that retained the slightest of elements (such as the mute girl) while taking influence from the classic novella The Turn of the Screw alongside The Haunting (1963) to go along with childhood memories of his father (who was a sprayer) and other things. This was the feature film debut for Hancock, who had started directing on Off-Broadway in the late 1960s before getting into film with the Academy Award-nominated short subject "Sticky My Fingers, Fleet My Feet", which caught the eye of certain people that happened to own a chain of theaters and needed someone to direct a script they had. The movie was made without a distributor in mind but Paramount Pictures bought it. Studio executive Frank Yablans was the one who gave the movie its final title, as the working title was apparently just "Jessica". They apparently went with a marketing campaign all about vampires and promo ideas such as write-in contests, ticket giveaways for hearse drivers, you get the idea. Apparently, Rod Serling and Stephen King were big proponents of the film. Hancock followed this film up with likely his most known film in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and has directed a couple of movies* to go alongside theater-work in the years that followed.

I guess you can get with the movie on a level of allowing its strange charms to flow over you in ambiguity, particularly since calling it a vampire movie isn't really that fair when it comes to its varying levels of logic. Then I sigh, smirk at that title having seen the movie, and try my damndest to justify the fact that this is a really average movie to sit through. It is entirely possibly one could be unsettled by the events that occur with the movie, what with a strange drifter and an odd town that seems to not like new visitors that challenge the status quo. For me, since one knows there is something lurking in town (namely someone who decides to not kick out a drifter at first sight - hippie foolishness or just being nice - you decide), it only gets interesting when it actually shows something beyond mental unraveling, mainly because the only interesting performance is with Lampert. Of course, maybe it says something about my patience with supposed ambiguity, because I go with something being real from the jump. But Lampert does make an effective performance in vulnerability that might be relatable for those with lingering passions and doubts about who they are back in the world of the supposed stable people. Her doubts do spring sympathy because we care about who she is more than any of the other people in such a casual movie, particularly since the real threat is not too far removed from say, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956). At any rate, there are a few interesting visuals to speak of, whether that involves a certain sequence with surprise or one that is more just odd to see with a glimpse at the townspeople. I just wish by the time it was over at 89 minutes that it had a bit more to its ending beyond what you get, which might as well be the equivalent of wondering if you pressed pause on the remote. As a whole, Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a low-key type of horror movie that may or may not find ways to unnerve you based on how you approach a movie that plays its tension to a string of unnerving casualness that may be fit for your timing.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*You also might remember he was the one who supervised the ADR sessions for Wolfen (1981).

Vampire in Brooklyn.

Review #2455: Vampire in Brooklyn.

Cast: 

Eddie Murphy (Maximillian / Preacher Pauly / Guido), Angela Bassett (Detective Rita Veder), Allen Payne (Detective Justice), Kadeem Hardison (Julius Jones), John Witherspoon (Silas Green), Zakes Mokae (Dr. Zeko), Joanna Cassidy (Captain Dewey), W. Earl Brown (Police Officer), and Simbi Khali (Nikki) 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)

Review: 

"I don't think it's so unusual. Horror is very close to humor. The thing is I wanted the humor in `Vampire in Brooklyn' to come from the story - from the plot, not from Eddie. I wanted Eddie to be essentially a serious character. What I didn't want was just a black version of `Love at First Bite.' I didn't think `Love at First Bite' was very funny. I didn't want the comedy to be nearly that broad. Maybe my sense of humor is a little dry, or subtle, or whatever, but people seem to get it. I kept encouraging Eddie to play it straight.''

On October 27, 1995, a strange curiosity came into theaters: a Wes Craven movie with Eddie Murphy as the star. The story goes that Eddie Murphy was looking for something to just end his contract with Paramount Pictures and he apparently landed on a script that had been written by his brother Charlie alongside Vernon Lynch. Michael Lucker and Chris Parker were called to work on the script (ironically, they had written an Old West script that had intrigued Murphy but not Paramount). Hired to pitch it to Craven before pitching it to Paramount Pictures and then Murphy, they successfully got it greenlit in a matter of weeks. In an interview about the making of the film, Parker stated that the studio, in the first meeting about the movie, told them they wanted the movie to be funny but that Murphy didn't want to be funny and therefore they had to "trick him into being funny", while Lucker speculated that Craven had a tough time getting Murphy to be serious rather than falling back on doing jokes. The studio apparently cut the budget of the film during shooting to where they could not film the intended action scene for the climax. Amidst a production that its shares of troubles* (some from its star), the movie was only a mild success with audiences at the time, only just making double of its reported $14 million budget.* In 2011, Murphy (who at one point labeled the movie as a transitional one in his career) tried to lay blame on the sight of him with long-haired wig (as designed by makeup artist Toy Van Lierop) that was used in the film and reflected that he had to do something to get to do The Nutty Professor (1996). and later jokingly wondered if there was even an "Appreciation Club" for the film. For his part, Craven found it to be an "interesting experience" despite obvious difficulties and the limited potential that came from script/production challenges; Craven bounced back with his next film as a director with Scream (1996).

I will admit that Vampire in Brooklyn had been a longshot candidate for featuring in the past few years, but the chance to talk about a movie that is now three decades old did sound entertaining. And you know what? I liked this movie. Actually, I liked this misfit type of comedy-horror quite a bit, mainly because there is an odd frenzy to how the movie maneuvers itself that is off-putting yet always involving. Horror movies sometimes get a bum rap for being a bit too vicious and comedies sometimes get the "too low" rap, so it is a bit hard to really win with a horror comedy that has some chuckles to go along with vicious little moments that probably play to the cliches you see from certain vampire movies, which I should've seen coming from the name dropping of Blacula (1972). It starts out with a mysterious boat entering a port with seemingly nobody present, for one. The movie might seem confused for those who assume it will go straight horror or, well, comedy - a riff is fine by me (admittedly, it probably is a bit odd that one needs to get the girl before the full moon as a supposed last of his kind because I assumed you could just convert anyone to a vampire, although I guess maybe he's in the killing business instead anyway). It doesn't even take long for our title character to play puns with literally ripping a person's heart out because why not. The setup to eventually getting Murphy and Bassett in the same place just amuses me mostly because (intentionally or not), the vampire picked one of the worst folks to employ as a ghoul buddy, one who decides to resort to using a mannequin hand by the halfway point. I fail to see the problem with Murphy's hair. Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992) was the far more egregious one, mainly because I still think about that stupid beehive thing from time to time. I just see a cone-shape of hair, focus back to Murphy and move on, to be honest. Besides, the vampire effects utilized from time to time are pretty fascinating to eventually see play out (after the movie shows the various vampire habits, ranging from the wolf thing in the intro to...renovating messy rooms). And then of course there is Murphy and Bassett, who each do pretty well with what they interpret the film to be. Murphy might have had a bit of trepidation of what he really wanted to do with this film, as evidenced by a movie that has him do an opening narration to go along with playing multiple characters (for separate gags). Love it or hate it, you basically get a compromise that has peaks and valleys of humor with some interest in playing a quality villain that I like just fine. 

Bassett holds her own with the clash that arises in oneself being challenged in who they really are beyond what the flesh shows that makes for compelling vulnerability beyond just having her be an object to be moved around. Her parts of the film are basically not too far off from what you might see in a gaslighting thriller, and she makes that count for something, arguably. Hardison and his rapid decay as the toadie fit for the streets is pretty funny in what you can show for a suck-up not too far off from old Renfield, and Witherspoon pops in occasionally to pair off for coarse amusement. Payne makes a fine ordinary performance. In general, I took the movie as just having fun playing with the audience about where it really wants to go in one trying to escape the fate of a doomed race vs having situations as ridiculous as impersonating an Italian to rob a place only to shoot down a cat. I don't even hate the climax, mainly because sure, let's end it in an apartment rather than going all out on a bridge or a church like seemingly any other vampire movie just to really curve things to an offbeat angle. I particularly like the ending, in which you can interpret as playfully saying that the more things change, the more they stay the same, even for creatures of the night. As a whole, Vampire in Brooklyn is a delightfully strange little movie, managing to evoke a sense of joy in its macabre aspects that I thought was a neat ride.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.

*Of sadder note is the loss of stuntwoman Sonja Davis, who suffered a horrific accident in November 1994 that saw her die from her injuries during a stunt.

*For reference, more people on opening weekend went to see Powder [1995], a movie made by an actual convicted child sex offender, than Vampire in Brooklyn. 

Not to editorialize, but the Ineligible List includes Jeepers Creepers 1-3 because a pedophile directed those movies.

The Black Room (1935).

Review #2454: The Black Room (1935).

Cast: 

Boris Karloff (Baron Gregor de Berghmann / Anton de Berghmann), Marian Marsh (Thea Hassel), Robert Allen (Lt. Albert Lussan), Thurston Hall (Col. Paul Hassel), Katherine DeMille (Maska), John Buckler (Buran), Henry Kolker (Baron de Bergman), Colin Tapley (Lt. Paul Hassel), and Torben Meyer (Peter)

Directed by Roy William Neill (#846 - Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, #873 - Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon, #925 - Sherlock Holmes in Washington, #936 - Sherlock Holmes Faces Death, #1021 - The Spider Woman, #1040 - The Scarlet Claw, #1056 - The Pearl of Death, #1161 - The House of Fear, #1216 - The Woman in Green, #1262 - Pursuit to Algiers, #1620 - Terror by Night, #1681 - Dressed to Kill)

Review: 

Sure, let's see someone play double for historical horror. This was made by Columbia Pictures with the original intent of being titled "The Black Room Mystery" that had Boris Karloff appear in a one-off from them, doing so in the year where you could see him in Bride of Frankenstein and The Raven but without being billed as just "KARLOFF" or with as much makeup this time around. The evident choice to direct was to go with Roy William Neill, a dependable vet for many movies (some for Columbia, as one does when directing since the 1910s) in one of his last films before moving to London for a five-year visit in 1935; for whatever reason, he is billed as "R. William Neill" in the movie. I assume from the varying levels of information one could find about the movie (i.e. one that had a story from Arthur Strawn, who was credited with writing the film with Henry Myers) that the movie has languished a bit in obscurity, but Karloff kept busy with performances at any rate.

It is a neat little movie, when you get down to it. The 68-minute runtime lends itself to a welcome surprise when you figure that Karloff really is playing three roles: a benevolent nice twin, his evil (and older) twin brother...and the impersonation of the former by the latter. You might wonder what the title is about, and, well, it refers to a room where apparently an older brother will be killed by his young brother in a certain room of the castle (yep, it's a baron who worries about his sons, particularly since he'll die before they get old). Why the room wasn't just sealed up way, way before is anybody's guess (of course it is sealed up early in the movie only to be revealed to be in use again). For a movie that has a good chunk spent in a castle setting to go along with the usual melodrama approach of its time (a bit of haughty stuff and stuff you hear about more than see, some for obvious reason). It is evident Karloff is pretty good in the movie, specifically when playing his dastardly evil twin that shows more malice in what he is shown to do more than if he was simply in an effects-laden role (or in a less subtle movie about someone throwing women in a pit). His impersonation of the good twin (remember he is meant to have a bad arm) is especially fascinating, one that we know has cracks in the foundation but is still amusing to see how long he could actually pull off the act of benevolence. The rest of the actors are fine, with Marsh pulling in a bit of despair to come from being the object of a supposed nice person that can't even write their own fate (spoiler, it is a dog who plays into the climax). At least the climax is a hoot, finding a way around the whole "wait, how does one die by someone's hand?" thing before swiftly ending. In a way, it is like a fairy tale (okay Joe Dante said that [in regard to the sets], but judge for yourself anyway) with a dash of macabre that is worth looking into more than just being for those who like Karloff. In general, you have a solidly fine movie, not a great one by any means beside possibly its set design and ways around having someone play two roles on the same screen, but it is still a neat one to go with for those who like a bit of Gothic melodrama.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Attack of the Puppet People.

Review #2453: Attack of the Puppet People.

Cast: 

John Agar (Bob Westley), John Hoyt (Mr. Franz), June Kenney (Sally Reynolds), Michael Mark (Emil), Jack Kosslyn (Sergeant Paterson), Marlene Willis (Laurie), Ken Miller (Stan), Laurie Mitchell (Georgia Lane), Scott Peters (Mac), and Susan Gordon (Agnes) Produced and Directed by Bert I. Gordon (#929 - Tormented and #2297 - Earth vs. the Spider)

Review: 

Okay, bring out the effects-laden movie by Bert I. Gordon for the holiday season. This was the eighth feature film directed by Gordon, and he had a hand with the writing in the story department, which he had done with a few of his other movies; George Worthing Yates, a semi-regular writer of the first couple of Gordon movies, wrote the screenplay. As you might expect, the movie was done in the wake of The Incredible Shrinking Man, which had come out in 1957. American International Pictures obviously knew where to go with trying to make a movie about small people, although apparently Gordon wanted to call the movie "The Fantastic Puppet People" (the teenagers they wanted to see the movie probably didn't think about the fact the shrunken down people don't really attack anything, to say nothing of that poster of them with a knife). What better way to remind people of one of your films than to have it play: a drive-in sequence early on shows the characters watching The Amazing Colossal Man (1957). Funny self-promotion I guess. Apparently, the movie was paired in certain drive-ins with Gordon's War of the Colossal Beast (1958).

So, you get a sci-fi youth movie about shrinking people. At least Dr. Cyclops (also a movie that does a cutaway from the shrinking moment around 30 minutes into the runtime, coincidentally) had a scientist trying to shrink stuff down with some idea based in science, this is a movie that has the owner of a doll manufacturing company shrinking people down because (you're never going to believe this): he's lonely and therefore puts them in and out of suspended animation when he has the feeling for it (notice how there are several people besides the main group that are shrunk but aren't restored at any point); I guess hookers or beer just wasn't ideal to float around in the 1950s (remember: don't try that at home). This would be an interesting quandary if it wasn't for the fact that it just doesn't lead to much beyond him and his interests in the little things. Hoyt is fine in that regard, I guess. The people aren't really given agency beyond one of them doing a song and bland platitudes. Agar and Kenney have the energy of being stuck at a bus station with no working TV. You don't get a sense of tension, and the effects don't really help all that much because it just looks a bit flimsy in the first place. The sequence near the climax of our lead subjecting these people to a puppet show of Jekyll and Hyde is almost too silly for words in making it, well, really easy to see how things will go when they outnumber him.  The ending isn't exactly much better, mainly because it just ends right at the part when you think it might be interesting: a guy about to be cornered for shrinking people. It just...ends, with him alone. I almost expected him to light the place up or do anything other than just sit there (or hell, throw in his dopey machine being used on him just to reverse him, the dude used it on a cat). Since it really isn't a role that evokes much pity, you really do need to show him get some sort of comeuppance. As a whole, Puppet People just isn't as impressive as it could've been in the look upon loneliness and general adventure in small-ness, managing to instead just toil in bland surroundings that make Dr. Cyclops from nearly two decades prior look better in comparison.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.

*Strangely, the movie played a small part of history years later. Apparently, when the Watergate burglary was playing out, the lookout Alfred C. Baldwin III was watching...Attack of the Puppet People on TV and got too distracted to see a cop pulling up right to them.

Dr. Cyclops.

Review #2452: Dr. Cyclops.

Cast: 

Albert Dekker (Dr. Alexander Thorkel), Thomas Coley (Bill Stockton), Janice Logan (Dr. Mary Robinson), Charles Halton (Dr. Rupert Bulfinch), Victor Kilian (Steve Baker), Frank Yaconelli (Pedro Caroz), Paul Fix (Dr. Mendoza), and Frank Reicher (Professor Kendall) Directed by Ernest B. Schoedsack (#283 - King Kong, #604 - Mighty Joe Young, #709 - The Most Dangerous Game, #914 - Son of Kong, #2057 - Blind Adventure)

Review: 

Okay, here's a semi-interesting thing about the movie: it was made in three-strip Technicolor that was apparently a first for the horror movie. The movie was apparently planned out on blueprints before shooting when it comes to certain sequences (you may wonder what the title refers to: late in the movie, the group takes the doctor's glasses and smash one of the lenses, which therefore means he can see from one eye, get it?). The movie was written by Tom Kilpatrick and an uncredited Malcolm Stuart Boylan (a screenwriter that apparently was the co-founder of the U.S. Coast Guard Auxillary)* This was the penultimate movie for Schoedsack as a director, who had a mix of noted work such as say, co-directing The Most Dangerous Game (1932) and King Kong (1933) to go along with stuff such as Outlaws of the Orient (1937). The last movie he did was nine years later with Mighty Joe Young [1949], as his vision became diminished in later years when testing equipment in World War II.

I really wish I could get into this, because there are some interesting things to look at and the movie has one useful performance. But it isn't that much more than schlock when you really get down to looking at it beyond the projection effects, particularly since most of the characters are really, really, not that interesting. You would think a movie that starts with a flourish of color to go with showing the initial weirdness of our title character...and that's really it. To put it mildly, Dekker is the only one who bothers to try for the movie because he has one interest in mind: shrinking stuff. But beyond the coke-bottle glasses and the bald head that reminds one of perhaps a mole-man, he only makes the movie semi-watchable because you would rather the film just be about his mayhem. Instead, he kind of takes a backseat once he shrinks folks down (the setup is ridiculous too: he summons a bunch of people to prove his stuff works, tells them to immediately leave and then gets mad - what did he think was going to happen?). No I'm not kidding, he has a sleeping habit that the shrunken folks take advantage of up to a point, with them at one point sneaking away to mess around with the new room they've discovered along with looking at books (the funny thing is his shrinking thing kind of stinks anyway, since they are only temporarily shrunk down to 12 inches). A good chunk of what people like about the movie relies on either the effects or Dekker, because the other people are really plain, with Logan being the only one that makes an attempt at something beyond stock. Dekker only has mild intensity and I really think the visual (bald, glasses) is more interesting than the actual character: it begs for something really bitter and spiteful when you're talking about someone who likes to deal in shrinkage. The effects are pretty fine quality (albeit one that makes sure to not go in close-up and makes sure to try and blend as much as possible with say, a killer cat) but again, the tension isn't really there to accompany the wonder you want to have in a sci-fi horror movie. The movie doesn't even give the villain a grisly death: they just cut a rope and boom, he falls into a pit (call me sick, but I thought they were going to try and find a way to get the shrinking machine onto his sorry self or their initial plan: wait until he was asleep to blow his face off with a gun). As it stands, it never really gets to its full potential and is therefore just a mild curiosity that looks a bit interesting but can't make it all fit together.

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

*Wikipedia once claimed it was based on the story "Dr. Cyclops" by Henry Kuttner, a prolific writer of stories in his day (such as "The Twonky" and "Vintage Season", which were also turned into movies). But hey.

Silver Bullet.

Review #2451: Silver Bullet.

Cast: 

Gary Busey (Uncle Red), Everett McGill (Reverend Lester Lowe), Corey Haim (Marty Coslaw), Megan Follows (Jane Coslaw), Terry O'Quinn (Sheriff Joe Haller), Bill Smitrovich (Andy Fairton), Robin Groves (Nan Coslaw), Leon Russom (Bob Coslaw), Lawrence Tierney (Owen Knopfler), Kent Broadhurst (Herb Kincaid), Heather Simmons (Tammy Sturmfuller), James A. Baffico (Milt Sturmfuller), James Gammon (Arnie Westrum), and Tovah Feldshuh (Narrator) Directed by Dan Attias.

Review:

It does seem prudent to cover a movie based on a Stephen King work for the holiday season. The movie is based on the horror novella Cycle of the Werewolf, which had been published in 1983 because the original intent of doing a calendar (as illustrated by Bernie Wrightston) with vignettes by King just didn't seem feasible. Making a movie apparently was a quick decision for none other than Dino De Laurentiis for Paramount distribution that was filmed in North Carolina over the span of a few months in late 1984; this was the second of two screenplays King wrote for adaptations of his work that were released in 1985, with Cat's Eye being the other one. Apparently, the design of the werewolf was contentious in production between King, who wanted it to be plain for Carlo Rambaldi (known for his award-winning work on King Kong [1976], Alien [1979], and E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial [1982]) to design, and de Laurentiis, who wanted a change, apparently because it looked like a bear. Then they had debate over the performance of the stunts between the hired dance actor...and just having McGill do it. This was the first and so far, only film directed by Dan Attias, who apparently took over the film from a departing Don Coscarelli. He has continued to direct, however, doing episodes for countless TV shows ranging from Miami Vice to It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Released in October of 1985 with a budget of $7 million, the movie was not a big success at the time with audiences*.

Apparently, some people took the movie as a comedy (Roger Ebert called it "either the worst movie ever made from a Stephen King story, or the funniest"), because it apparently wasn't exactly a scary yarn. But I thought it was just a neat yarn anyway, engaging in the weird bits that come around in "ordinary" life, namely that really anybody can be a jerk. The movie is narrated by the older version of a sister (this takes place in 1976 so either the narrator [37-year old Feldshuh] is telling this from a very distant future or she aged really badly) that can't help but be annoyed at her brother (the title is two-fold: the silver bullet is both the weapon of choice at the end and the name of the high-powered wheelchair/motorcycle and no I'm not joking). Eventually, the movie gets interesting because of Gary Busey showing up, particularly when he makes an actual wheelchair/motorcycle (when your movie is 95 minutes long, damn the torpedoes, bring up the chair). Of course, this is after the townspeople get themselves into a mob to try and attack the creature that ends up with them being fogged out (including one guy who thought bringing a bat from his bar was going to be the problem-solver). Apparently, Busey was allowed to ad-lib his lines at times because the filmmakers liked what they heard from a guy who, well, was being played by Gary Busey (before the accident, and, well, yea). And he pretty much saves the movie from what could've easily been a family mush-fest because of his entertaining qualities that arise in eccentric nature built on love for the family he cares about the most that could've easily just have been an oaf (besides, I think we know alcoholics in real life that are just straight losers* as opposed to the lovable one presented here). He wants to do right by his nephew and niece and damn it, he makes me smile when he tries to play skeptic to the whole wolf thing. The eccentric-turned-reluctant hero could've easily been the whole movie at the hands of Busey, if you think about it. That's not to say that Haim and Follows aren't great, because they do at least sell the troubles that arise in being a youth in a world that looks stranger and stranger as the years get older, particularly when a wolf happens to be around (to say nothing of their first idea together in what to do about the wolf: send letters that basically say "sir, we know who you are, kill yourself!" - okay maybe that was meant to be funny on purpose). You don't exactly get the most prominent supporting cast beyond a scene or two, but they prove serviceable, mostly with McGill and his pained attempts to justify just who he is (okay maybe the movie could make it a little less obvious who the wolf is, but hey). I don't see the problem with the werewolf design. It's a mythological creature that goes around tearing people apart, the bar is not exactly that high for me to think "oh, a beast". Sure, there are better-looking wolves in other movies (An American Werewolf in London), but calling it a werebear doesn't really tell the whole story, and besides, I kind of like looking at it, particularly since a good chunk of the time is spent seeing it with one eye. Admittedly, the climax does stretch itself a bit to really justify everything that happens (i.e. housebound with, well, one bullet to use), but I think it works itself out in that strangely sweet type of way that reminds you that in the ordinary things of life, you can find weird things to box you in or find ways to connect with people to confront said thing. Or something, because this was a strange movie to ultimately see play out, but I was never bored with it, so I'd call it a win. Maybe it wasn't a scary movie, but older movies got away with the same amount of stuff anyway. As a whole, it is a goofy but earnest little film to seek out for those who like strange execution in family-bound stories or wolf movies beyond the usual suspects, and a movie that has just turned four decades old seems like a good place to start.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*At least Attias was willing to be interviewed about the movie. Didn't have the time to check it out, but I'm sure it has some insight - Silver Bullet! Interview with movie Director Dan Attias #stephenking #silverbullet

*There are alcoholics out there, I imagine, that are annoying as hell when not drunk.

The Invisible Man's Revenge.

Review #2450: The Invisible Man's Revenge.

Cast: 

Jon Hall (Robert Griffin / The Invisible Man), Leon Errol (Herbert Higgins), John Carradine (Dr. Peter Drury), Alan Curtis (Mark Foster), Evelyn Ankers (Julie Herrick), Gale Sondergaard (Lady Irene Herrick), Lester Matthews (Sir Jasper Herrick), Halliwell Hobbes (Cleghorn), Leyland Hodgson (Sir Frederick Travers), and Doris Lloyd (Maud) Produced and Directed by Ford Beebe. 

Review:

You may or may not remember that The Invisible Man wasn't exactly the Universal favorite. It took seven years from the release of The Invisible Man (1933) to merit a follow-up and, well, they never appeared in one of the Universal crossover movies, so you got The Invisible Man Returns (1940). Instead, you got stuff like The Invisible Woman (1940), a comedy feature (starring Virginia Bruce) and Invisible Agent (1942), a spy movie that happened to have Jon Hall play the title character. With this movie, Hall became the only actor to play an Invisible Man in multiple movies. The movie was directed and produced by Ford Beebe, a grab-bag man of directing various genres for cheap, whether as the Western with Overland Bound (1929), the serial such as Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938) or the adventure with Bomba, the Jungle Boy (1949-1955). The movie was written by Bertram Millhauser, who had written for several mysteries such as four Sherlock Holmes movies. Previously, Beebe had directed a horror movie for Universal with Night Monster (1942).  Universal did one other Invisible Man, albeit as a spoof, with Abbott and Costello Meet the Invisible Man (1951). There were movies abroad that cribbed from the H. G. Wells novel such as The Invisible Man Appears (1949) and The Invisible Avenger (1954), which each had effects work by Eiji Tsuburaya and there was also the Japanese feature The Invisible Man vs. The Human Fly (1957). And then of course there was some overrated Universal movie in 2020.

Now we are in the realm of pushing mad scientists to the sidelines for tired plots about revenge. To put it out of the way, this is the weakest of the three Invisible Man movies. You would think a movie that relies on draining blood from people to maybe become visible again would have an effect on you, but nope, the whole thing is just played for mild-mannered scare. The story (77 minutes long) isn't even that involving either, since the lead character is presented as just a weird guy trying to get revenge, so even if his motives were interesting beyond "maybe" being screwed over in safari, he does his stuff in the most complicated of ways, because it isn't enough to target two people, no, he wants to get their daughter married to him as well. He gets rescued by someone and decides, yes, I'm going to give them a bit of a boost and try to help them win a game of darts too. The ending is sheer audacity in ridiculous: the loyal dog of the guy the Invisible Man kills ends up being responsible for his demise, because he just happened to wander all the way through. Hall in general is too bland to really make this path of "revenge" that interesting. Carradine at least looks enthused to not be in a Universal movie with makeup (he played Count Dracula a few times) but he isn't even allowed to really go off for curiosity. Sure, his plan to help a guy gain visibility (dog gets drained of blood) sounds mad but he is quickly disposed of anyway. To say nothing of the bland triangle between Hall, Curtis, and Hendrick is the easiest thing, because really, getting money sounds more compelling than having to get visible just so you can "get" a girl. Everything is stacked in just doing things in the corniest of ways that don't even make for a great showcase of invisible effects this time, save for a scene or two. As a whole, for a studio that pumped out stuff such as House of Frankenstein the same year as this, you get basically the same amount of rushed ham-handedness for a pretty tired movie. 

Overall, I give it 6 out of 10 stars.

The Wolfman (2010).

Review #2449: The Wolfman (2010).

Cast: 

Benicio del Toro (Lawrence Talbot / The Wolfman; Mario Marin-Borquez as Young Lawrence Talbot), Anthony Hopkins (Sir John Talbot / Wolfman), Emily Blunt (Gwen Conliffe), Hugo Weaving (Inspector Francis Aberline), Geraldine Chaplin (Maleva), Art Malik (Singh), Antony Sher (Dr. Hoenneger), David Schofield (Constable Nye), David Sterne (Kirk), and Simon Merrells (Ben Talbot; Asa Butterfield as Young Ben Talbot) Directed by Joe Johnston (#060 - Captain America: The First Avenger, #322 - Jumanji, #2023 - Jurassic Park III)

Review:

"We wanted to make it period but we didn’t want to go back to the period of the original, 1941. I wanted it to be very much a vision of Edward Gorey’s London, which is Victorian London. There’s nothing more gothic and shadowy and horrifying than that. They had already decided on that when I came on so it wasn’t my choice, but I thought it was the perfect period to go to. It’s all about the darkness. "

Well, the remake comes for every horror movie at some point. You might remember that George Waggner's The Wolf Man (1941) had been written by Curt Siodmak to a general success at the hands of Lon Chaney Jr as a star. Sure, the follow-ups with Chaney weren't so much direct sequels as basically shuffling chairs, but it did at least take a few decades to try and revamp the werewolf for a Universal horror movie, at least if one doesn't count stuff like The Monster Squad (1987) or Van Helsing (2004). Plans were first announced in 2006, and at least they got the star they wanted with Benicio del Toro from the jump. Mark Romanek was tapped to direct the movie by 2007 that saw him involved with pre-production (such as hiring Rick Heinrichs for production design to go along with location scouting)..he was out by 2008. Joe Johnston was hired to direct the film in February 2008, a couple of weeks before the film was to be shot in England, and he stated later that he took the job due to having a "cash flow problem"*. Rick Baker and makeup effects supervisor Dave Elsey won the film's only notch of mainstream praise for the makeup, although they were locked out of doing the transformation sequences, which was done in CG. While Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the initial screenplay, Johnston hired David Self to provide re-writes. The movie was delayed over and over again for release, going from late 2008 to early 2009 to, well February 2010. Made for a budget of over $100 million, the movie was not a success at the time, with the then-president of Universal Studios (Ronald Meyer) calling the movie "crappy" and among the worst movies they ever made (of course he thought Babe: Pig in the City (1998) belonged in the same category, so take those words with a grain of salt). For the DVD release, an "unrated director's cut" was included by Johnston, which added 17 minutes to the runtime that had been deleted so audiences "would get to the first Wolfman transformation sooner", which most notably had Max von Sydow and the origins of the silver cane-sword. 15 years later, Universal did a "reboot" with Wolf Man (2025). For the purposes of this review, I covered the uncut movie.

There are varying story beats in each film, as in both movies the Talbots are reunited to bury a newly deceased brother and both movies involve a climax of father and son confronting one another. Of course the older film used fortune tellers and even a spell to get to where it is, but there you go. Honestly, I get why some wouldn't be particularly big on the movie, but...I kind of liked it. Sure, you get the Gothic sensibilities of murky colors and period stuff (set in the final years of the 19th century in jolly ol' Victorian England) to go with CG effects, but it is a neat little romp that gave me what I was hoping for: a charmer. You can't exactly top John Landis' An American Werewolf in London (1981) or even Joe Dante's The Howling (1981), but you can still have a bit of fun anyway. It is a bit cut and dry with what to expect from a werewolf movie, what with the big thing about full moons, having one's clothes still wearable even after being a wolf (okay that was in the 1940s movie too), and naturally: not really going too hard about a woman falling for a man with big fur (okay I don't care about the last part, but maybe there are werewolf movies where people care about romance). But, really, how much "tension" do you need in a movie where you know there's going to be R-rated wolf-tearing? Johnson may have done the movie strictly for the money, but I think he did fine with the situation presented in making a useful thrill ride. Del Toro does a reasonable job with the material provided, managing to balance the tightrope of man and monster for decent tragedy that isn't making one just think back to Chaney. Hopkins chews the scenery up in hearty conviction to make the family drama of the food chain (and who merits being on top) a fashionable one to watch. Sure, they might overshadow Blunt, who tries her best to sell why anyone would in fact cling around to the situation presented that is sometimes believable (I suppose anyone can fall for those stuck in a situation they can't control). Weaving plays a character with a name inspired by the actual chief inspector Frederick Abberline, a prominent figure in the investigation of Jack the Ripper in 1888. He doesn't get much to really do but is at least fashionable for the eventual climax. In general, the movie rests on building to hairy mayhem and a few fashionable Gothic sensibilities that I was generally on board with. It never really kicks into high gear, but it satisfies most of the boxes one would hope to see in wolves and action, complete with finding a way to have two wolves face each other in good ol' fashioned hokum. Quality wise, it probably is a smidge about The Curse of the Werewolf (1961) for wolf movies and in general is about on par in the "amp up old monsters" category with The Mummy (1999). As a whole, The Wolfman is a fine remake, doing most of what you would hope to accomplish with taking a familiar focus and giving it some fresh air that may be worth looking into beyond calling it a missed opportunity.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

*Apparently it was four/three weeks of prep time. Cinematographer Shelly Johnson stated that he had two weeks of prep time here: The American Society of Cinematographers | Bad Moon Rising: The…

The Manster.

Review #2448: The Manster.

Cast: 

Peter Dyneley (Larry Stanford), Jane Hylton (Linda Stanford), Tetsu Nakamura (Dr. Robert Suzuki), Terri Zimmern (Tara), Jerry Ito (Police Supt. Aida), Norman Van Hawley (Ian Matthews), Toyoko Takechi (Emiko Suzuki), Kenzo Kuroki (Genji Suzuki), Alan Tarlton (Dr. H. B. Jennsen), Shinpei Takagi (Temple Priest), and George Wyman (the Monster) Directed by George Breakston and Kenneth G. Crane.

Review: 

Sure, you might think the title is a bit of a tell that things are going to be a bit off for the movie. Appearances can be deceiving, but I imagine it probably won't seem true for this oddball movie. It seems oddly appropriate that a movie about two heads has two directors. George Breakston was originally an actor in his young days, having moved to Hollywood from his native France. He served in the US Army Signal Corps with the Officers Candidate School for photography. He became a director with Urubu (1948), which he happened to produce and co-star in. He was the producer and contributor to the story of Tokyo File 212 (1951), the first Hollywood feature to be made all in Japan. He directed a variety of movies overseas, whether that was Geisha Girl (1952) in Japan or Golden Ivory (1954) in Kenya. Breakston would produce and direct all the way until 1966, whether that involved African Patrol (1958-59) or The Boy Cried Murder (1966); he died in 1973 at the age of 53. The screenplay was written by Walter J. Sheldon as based on "an original story" by Breakston. The movie was co-directed by Kenneth G. Crane, who is also listed as "supervising editor" in the opening credits. He started out as an editor for such movies as The Iroquois Trail [1950] and added directing to his foray for a brief time with such works as Monster from Green Hell [1957] and When Hell Broke Loose [1958] (he also directed English-language scenes for the American edit of Ishiro Honda's Half Human in [1957]). The Manster was his last work as a director. Crane continued to be an editor in films all the way to Soul Hustler in 1973; he died in 1995 at the age of 87. The movie had a mix of American and Japanese people working on the film, which was done in Japan; Shinpei Takagi worked on the effects of the "manster" (get it, man, monster, man-monster?). For whatever reason, the movie opened first in Japan in 1959 before being released abroad starting in 1960. Apparently, in 1962, it was enough to justify being on a double feature with Eyes Without a Face (you might remember that it was called "The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus" in some places).

In a sea of head movies such as The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant (1971), The Thing with Two Heads (1972) and How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989), The Manster is probably not very high on the list. You might wonder what the significance of the movie being set in Japan with a handful of Japanese actors involved. Well, not much really, since the movie basically just cribs from Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde while featuring the local scene for about two minutes before finding ways to cut around the terror and the fact that the monster isn't even seen that clearly (particularly in daylight). Sometimes it reminds one of a sack, but the effect beforehand where it is just an eye on the shoulder is at least interesting to look at. Dyneley was probably better known for his work on Thunderbirds (yes, really) than this film. But at least there is a semblance of an idea in basically doing a midlife crisis horror movie. But it doesn't feel tragic enough to be anything more than a goofy ham-handed performance that happens to share time with a guy playing the monster. This was the only movie for Zimmern, a Macau-born woman of varying Eurasian heritage that happened to marry Breakston in 1959. Interludes spent with her would be more interesting if you really felt a sense of doom or anything other than "oh, hey, a woman", and that goes doubly for the mostly forgettable Hylton (who actually was married to Dyneley at the time). You would think Nakamura would have something to do as the mad scientist. But no, he only mildly shows up from time to time, talking about evolution and things that one does when living around a volcano that at least has one interesting thing: he tries to knife himself off before getting disposed of. The climax, for a movie that runs at 72 minutes anyway, does have some silly execution (everybody's got to get to the volcano, ready to erupt) but at least you get to see a fight on a volcano between a man and his manster self that is as delusional as it sounds. As a whole, The Manster is pretty cheesy and pretty crappy but altogether there are a few chuckles and curious moments to be had in watching the two-headed spectacle play out. In the bottom of the barrel, being middle-of-the-road is not as bad as it could be.

Overall, I give it 5 out of 10 stars.