Eaten Alive.

Review #2281: Eaten Alive.

Cast: 

Neville Brand (Judd), Mel Ferrer (Harvey Wood), Carolyn Jones (Miss Hattie), Marilyn Burns (Faye), William Finley (Roy), Stuart Whitman (Sheriff Martin), Roberta Collins (Clara Wood), Kyle Richards (Angie), Robert Englund (Buck), Janus Blythe (Lynette), and Crystin Sinclaire (Libby Wood) Directed by Tobe Hooper (#348 - Poltergeist, #1297 - The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, #1909 - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, #2134 - Lifeforce)

Review: 

"I like the unknown and strange, bizarre things. It's really weird because I've had people ask me about making these films. Do they scare you when you're making them? No, it's not at all scary. When you shoot these things and you see that they work, you're laughing, and it becomes a comedy to you."

It sure is weird to get a runaway classic on your second try as a director. In 1974, Tobe Hooper and Kim Henkel wrote the screenplay to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, which you already know would be Hooper's crowning achievement. However, less people might know of his next effort with this film, one that was written by Henkel, this time co-writing it with Alvin L. Fast and Mardi Rustam. The movie apparently took inspiration from the serial killer Joe Ball, who killed at least two people in the 1930s and had an alligator pit (he apparently didn't throw people in there, but "Alligator Man" was one nickname applied to him anyway) in his place in Texas. The film apparently has had several alternate titles (probably because Mars Productions didn't exactly make a killing on original release), such as "Death Trap", "Horror Hotel", and "Starlight Slaughter". Incidentally, Hooper grew up to a family that operated their own theater. Hooper had a few disagreements with producers (supposedly leaving the production before it finished), with the money that had come to do the film apparently only coming with the stipulation that he would do the film, which had a bit of handwringing in writing. However, he would keep busy in the next couple of years, directing a TV miniseries of Salem's Lot in 1979 before he got his first prominent studio film with The Funhouse (1981).

It's funny, if you make a hokey little movie with some commitment to gore or at least one energetic performance, you have my attention. Of course, this is a movie that decides to start itself off with a hooker rejecting the advances of a man trying to get behind for his services, so one has a feel that this is going to be a weird one. With a film filled with a key eccentric performance and a few sticking points of would-be and known names to go along with one strange set piece, you have the stage for a curious bit of low budget sleaze hokum. I actually kind of like this ridiculous movie. The whole film was shot on a sound stage at Raleigh Studios in Hollywood, complete with a large pool that doubled for the swamp. Hooper aimed for a "surrealistic, twilight world" with the hotel in terms of lighting, which is amusing to see play out for such a delightful exploitative film that would be right at home for people who liked, say, Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), complete with little to really say about the characters beyond mayhem. Brand went through the gamut of acting as a heavy (Western or otherwise), tough-guy roles and the occasional lead for film and plenty of TV. Here he clearly was given the light to just go nuts and have fun, complete with getting to use a scythe at one point. He makes for a capable unstable monster worth following along with, a terror in his own square of squalor that seems to like his space and his gator. The movie isn't really that big on showing the alligator, showing it only for scenes involving, well, the body count, but I don't mind too much (others might be weirded out by one pet death, but, well....). You have your mix of actors of varying experience of familiarity like Burns (returning to work with Hooper in probably her second most known film role), Jones (in her penultimate film role), Ferrer (a career vet on the mend), and Englund and Richards (in the horror film before each became more well known, although Englund did work with Hooper twice more with Night Terrors [1993] and The Mangler [1995]). Burns probably comes out the best when it comes to reacting to terror, although there is something amusing about seeing Englund play a sleazeball with ease (Jones is more a cameo than anything). The 91-minute runtime might not be the easiest sit for everybody when it comes to weird and alluring sleaze, but there is something curious about the whole affair that keeps me going even when it just looks like a vehicle for death, mostly because that hotel set really is quite striking to get stuck looking into. As a whole, Hooper was a curious director that used his fascination with the strange and murky things to make a film that works for a specific kind of interested horror fan that goes in knowing Hooper was more than just a one-trick pony. In that sense, it might be for you.

Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.

Death Race 2000.

Review #2231: Death Race 2000.

Cast: 

David Carradine ("Frankenstein"), Simone Griffeth (Annie Smith), Sylvester Stallone (Joe "Machine Gun" Viterbo), Mary Woronov (Jane "Calamity Jane" Kelly), Roberta Collins (Matilda "The Hun"), Martin Kove (Ray "Nero the Hero" Lonagan), Louisa Moritz (Myra), Don Steele (Junior Bruce), Joyce Jameson (Grace Pander), Carle Bensen (Harold), Sandy McCallum (Mr. President), Paul Laurence (Special Agent), and Harriet Medin (Thomasina Paine) Directed by Paul Bartel (#955 - Eating Raoul)

Review: 

"Most of my guilty pleasures in this film were ripped out by the roots by Roger Corman before the film ever saw the light of day and substituted with crushed heads and blood squibs. Nevertheless, there is a joke about the French wrecking our economy and telephone system that I still find amusing. And I am pleased by the scene introducing the Girl Fan (played very effectively by my sister Wendy) who is to sacrifice herself beneath the wheels of David Carradine's race car and wants to meet him so that the gesture will have 'meaning'."

Okay, so you have managed to encounter a Roger Corman-related production. Gratuitous and all around weird is what one might expect from a film that was inspired by the publicity that came for the film Rollerball, which was slated for release in June of 1975. Corman found a short story to crib for an adaptation with Ib Melchior's "The Racer", which actually had been inspired by the revulsion Melchior seemingly had when he saw a death at a motor race. Script troubles meant that the film had a prolonged production schedule, which initially had a script written by Robert Thom before re-writes were done by Charles B. Griffith and its eventual director (Corman would play influence when it came to looking over tone, naturally). At director was Paul Bartel, who had made his first noted film with the short The Secret Cinema in 1968 (after several years of shorts, which included work for the United States Information Agency) before becoming a feature director with the horror-comedy film Private Parts (1972), which was produced by Gene Corman; the following year, Bartel did second unit work on Big Bad Mama. Interestingly, Carradine wanted to pick a movie to help his film career after spending three seasons as the star of Kung Fu, the television show he is perhaps most famous for (having seen the show, this is probably true), and the film was released one day after the final show airing; he came around after Peter Fonda was approached and had declined (of course, there was a moment in time during the turbulent production that had Bartel thinking about replacing Carradine with Lee Majors (!), but the two eventually bonded). The film was a hit in the general sense; Bartel's next film was Cannonball (1976), which had Carradine as star that aimed for comedy within its inspiration based on a real race (as you might know). In 1978, Corman, having a contract with Carradine, spearheaded a push for another vehicle-related film with motorcycles that that eventually became Deathsport (as directed by Allan Arkush and Nicholas Niciphor), which was not particularly successful. In 2008, a remake of the film was done by Paul W. S. Anderson, which was the first of five "Death Race" films that were either follow-ups to the 2008 film or in the case of Death Race 2050 (2017, as produced by Corman), a sequel to the original.

So, here is how the future is envisioned by 1975 standards: to pacify the population under a tough regime dealing within crisis comes the "Transcontinental Road Race" that has seen twenty years of violence and gore because of combat of cars and, well, people. You get to see the gauntlet of just who would do these kinds of races: people who dress up like gangsters...and Nazis. In the land of B-movies, it really can come down to just how much fun one sees on screen when it comes to execution and commitment. This is aa pretty neat one that surely delivered a tiny bit of inspiration for Mad Max (1979). The conflict of nudity and gore with the attempts at comedy (the latter was favored by Bartel and Carradine to an extent) makes for a curious experiment that may have a random viewer wondering just what the hell they are supposed to think about its 80-minute runtime of lean and mean nature. That strange casual blend (in of itself a "Frankenstein" creation of Corman and Bartel) of guts and the occasional chuckle that arises from people watching the violence of car-on-man (or in the case of point-seeking to the extreme, the elderly) is a feeling that one always hopes to find in an exploitation film. I particularly like hearing from Bensen and his mimicking of Howard Cosell when it comes to being a voice from the crowd (alongside other "journalists"). Carradine just has a natural charm to him that attracts one's curiosity in what is left said and unsaid within that everyman nature that comes out for a role that if played by a lesser talent would've been just a film with less interesting impact in terms of (pun intended) drive. He has the gumption to roll with the inane goofiness that is apparent even with the real assertion one could argue about just how much curiosity people really have about violence (in living color). It's interesting that two of the early roles for Stallone before Rocky (1976) were Corman productions, with this and Capone being released in 1975 (the same year that he got the inspiration for, well, Rocky). He provides a few good heel chuckles in a cast that is mostly fine in those silly one-note mannerisms (which ranges from the aforementioned Nazi helmeted person to, uh, bits of nudity). There is just a mayhem and energy here that works so well in making light of the obsession that arises from violence in terms of the spectator or opportunistic journalists that is hard to match. The climax is pretty neat in one lasting chuckle that really does prove Bartel had the right idea in mind (Corman wanted to film an ending where the FBI shoots an annoying reporter rather than, well...) in making a film with useful timing in manic commitment without having to be broad about it. In the long run, it is a neatly cheap movie with the idea of conveying what people seem to think about seeing violence play out right in front of them that goes with the entertainment value of the film: fun on the run.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.