Thursday, December 13, 2007

The Stuff

     The Stuff is a comedy film disguised as a horror movie, that ultimately becomes a story about marketing and commercialism. Up from the ground comes a bubbling white creamy substance. Some guy stumbles upon it, tastes it, and decides that it's so delicious, he simply must sell it to others. The world loves it, but some people, a Texan detective and a kid in particular are highly suspicious. The detective is hired to find out what The Stuff is made of and a kid starts seeing this yummy dessert moving about his fridge and his family members become overly obsessed with its supposed healthiness. 

      People start showing clear signs of dependency on The Stuff and are turning into yogurt zombies called "Stuffies", encouraging everyone to eat The Stuff, because it's so tasty and good for you too. The Texan detective and his new child sidekick discover that there is no mixing or processing of The Stuff, it's just being mined out of the ground without even being tested. 

      The Stuff is pretty aggressive in large quantities and can attack at will. The detective sneaks into the factory where The Stuff is being distributed and plants a few land mines and blows up the geyser that the Stuff is bubbling out from. The Stuff is outed as a mind-altering bacterial substance and people vow to get rid of all of it. 

      In the end, when all seems right with the world, you see what looks like some kind of drug deal, and you learn it's a couple of Stuffies getting their fix and transporting it like a drug cartel. This has been a great cult favorite and also a great time capsule from the early 80s too.  Entertaining but not to be taken too seriously either.

Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Nosferatu

     This is a true masterpiece of film. It has reached a high cult status and is just as scary today as it was when it was released in 1922. It's taken almost verbatim from Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula", which didn't sit well with Stoker's widow who had never given away rights to the story. Therefore, she demanded that all references to "Dracula" must never be used and then she went a step further and decided that it was completely plagiarized and tried to have all copies of the movie destroyed.  

     Fortunately, she was unsuccessful at halting the movie entirely. Director F.W. Murnau changed a few characters' names, and slightly altered events, including the name of the movie to Nosferatu, A Symphony of Horror. Instead of Count Dracula, we have Count Orlock. Even with the changes, this is without a doubt, an obvious adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. 

      Rights or no rights, we have it today to enjoy and that's all that really matters. The part of Count Orlock was played by Max Schreck, who was a very eccentric person who actually thought he was a vampire in real life, who only filmed his scenes at night and traveled around in a coffin at all times. He ate bats and rats and pretty much freaked out anyone who had the disadvantage of being around him.  

     Due to his vampiric ways, the movie took much longer than anticipated, special sets had to be built on a ship because Max Schreck refused to film on a real ship. Despite the controversy about Max Schreck and the ongoing problems that plagued the making of the film, he delivers a bone-chilling performance. His appearance is so creepy looking, it literally gives me chills and has been scaring the hell out of people for almost 100 years now. 

      The filming of this movie and the antics of Max Schreck have been legendary for years and were used as the topic of a recent film called "Shadow of the Vampire" starring John Malkovich and Willem Dafoe.  Since it is in the public domain, we can, fortunately, see it on YouTube, both in its original Black and White and a very unnecessarily colorized version.

Jail Bait

     This was Ed Wood's second movie, but his first actual feature film. Glen or Glenda had a horrible reception and seemed more like a semi-autobiographical horror-themed documentary on transvestites, when it was originally supposed to be about sex changes. 

      I think with Jail Bait, Ed was just trying to make some money. Crime dramas were very big at the time and he thought he could cash in on it, then take the profits from that and make a sci-fi horror flick as was his usual M.O. Miraculously, a young Steve Reeves (Hercules) managed to make it into this little flick. 

     Crime drama wasn't really Ed's favorite medium, but he did the best he could with it. Not a bad story really. I mean, of course, it has all the trademarks of being an Ed Wood film... deplorable acting, totally improbable plots, and cheap sets. Speaking of sets, the ones used here are exactly the same ones from Glen or Glenda, (this being the first film following Glen or Glenda, I guess Ed thought he could successfully recycle sets without anyone noticing). It also had all the same actors which again just made it seem like Glen/Glenda was a murderer having plastic surgery to alter his/her face to escape the police or something, therefore watching them together is quite humorous. 

      Basically, the story is about a guy who commits a murder, then he himself is murdered. His murderer tries to blackmail the original killer's father (a prominent plastic surgeon) into altering his appearance to escape the authorities. The plastic surgeon thinks his son has only been kidnapped but soon learns that his son is dead. He performs the plastic surgery (at the guys' house, armed only with a scalpel and a tub of hot water) and when the police finally start to catch up with killer #2, it becomes a convenient time for the unveiling of bandages to prove that he's someone else. Amazingly, the father managed to completely alter his face to look exactly like his dead son that was wanted for murder. He's shot by the cops...the end. 

      As I said, this isn't all that much like most of Ed's stuff but still has that totally cheaper-than-cheap feel to it that we've come to love in all Ed Wood's movies.

Good Times

     Contrary to popular belief, "Chastity" was not Sonny and Cher's first movie attempt. Before Chastity, there was "Good Times". This movie is a relatively unknown attempt from Sonny and Cher that went practically unnoticed since the day it was released. At this stage of their career, they were looking to do something different aside from just singing to support their act and keep it alive and up to date.  All kinds of musicians and bands were making movies as well, and this was their first attempt at doing the same, therefore it is the ONLY movie that stars both Sonny and Cher. It looks like it's gonna be a great comedy played by a famous duo, but it ended up coming out boring and depressing. 

      I think the folly of this film is that Sonny not only wrote it, but he also played all the major roles. Cher by contrast isn't allowed nearly as much screen time. And let's be honest, between the two, who would you rather watch? 

      Anyway, Sonny and Cher play themselves (painfully honest it seems). They are solicited by some weirdo director named Mr. Morticus (George Sanders, who committed suicide not long after making this pile of crap) to make a movie about Sonny and Cher because he rather "fancies them" and thinks they're "with it, man.". Mr. Morticus is a truly strange dude who has people wrestling and fighting in his office and stewardess-looking women who are delivering drinks and whatnot to everyone (a truly bizarre scene that is never explained).  

     Morticus and Sonny strike a deal that leads Sonny to believe that a sincere movie about their career is gonna be made, but Mr. Morticus tells the writers to just plagiarise "Rags to Riches" and merely change a few names around. Sonny and Cher hate it and Morticus gives them ten days to come up with something themselves using props from the studio. 

      The rest of the movie is Sonny trying to think of a cool movie theme (still thinking that they actually have a say in the movie's story). Sonny has a western-themed scene, a jungle-themed scene, and a sort of Dragnet with Girl Friday-themed scene. All are pretty boring as Sonny does most of the talking and singing, and Cher is just this stubborn spoiled side dish that gripes about anything and everything throughout the entire movie, but she does get to wear some of the wildest clothes I've ever seen, which I later learned had actually been designed by Cher herself. 

      Morticus hates all of Sonny's ideas (who wouldn't?) and still insists on the "rags to riches" story. They say "no", and he says "You'll never work in this town again, blah, blah, blah." Sonny and Cher walk out and happily stroll down the street. The End. 

      What can I say... in this movie, Sonny is stupid and annoying and Cher is just a complaining bitch the entire time. Painfully contrast to the squeaky clean image that they had at that time, which as we've since found out was anything but the truth, so maybe this was their attempt at telling the world about the real Sonny and Cher, so who knows. 

      As a funny side note: This film was directed by William Freidkin who famously made The Exorcist and Cruising. From Sonny and Cher to vulgar demon possession and leather S&M serial killers. A bit of a leap there Mr. Friedkin?

The Stepford Wives

     Wow, what a great movie! This film is very well known by now and has spawned a few sequels and even a star-studded comedy remake, all of which are definitely in contrast to the general definition of a cult film. But nonetheless, this movie has without a doubt gathered a HUGE cult following and its remake contains popular stars like Nicole Kidman, Mathew Broderick, Christopher Walken, Glenn Close, and Bette Midler. Even so, the original is far superior to its remake in both style, creativity, suspense, and depth of character. And despite the jokes that endlessly surround the premise, it's actually a really creepy story.

      A growing family is tired of the city (and all the craziness that comes with it) and decides to move to the cleaner suburban outskirts of the city to raise their children in a more wholesome environment. They choose Stepford, a town that from the start seems a little off-kilter. For one thing, the housewives are extremely vapid, caring only about cooking, cleaning, and tending to their husband's every need with the utmost enthusiasm. When they talk, they sound like living TV commercials (If Shiny Clean Dishwasher soap were to ask me to do a commercial for them, not only would I do it, but I'd do it for free.) 

      Despite its oddities, this new couple manages to cope in Stepford. The kids are doing well in school, making friends. The husband joins the Stepford Men's Association. Only Joanna the wife is not content, believing that something is odd, but just can't quite identify it. Fortunately for Joanna, another couple has recently moved to Stepford. The two wives (Joanna and Bobbie) instantly bond and very much agree that Stepford is just plain weird. It's TOO clean, everyone's TOO friendly and the wives are all TOO sexy and gorgeous, yet they fawn over overweight ugly old men (their husbands). 

      Because all the men in town belong to the "Husbands Only" lodge Joanna and Bobbie try to organize a women's club. Only one other woman in town is interested, a wife that has only been in Stepford for a few months, named Charmaine. Anyway, after returning from a "trip" with her husband, Charmaine is now acting like all the other wives in Stepford. Cooking, cleaning, and wearing flowery aprons while dusting the house in heels (totally Donna Reed style). This is a tremendous contrast from the independent, free-thinking woman she was before who needed a recipe just to make ice. Joanna and Bobbie find this incredibly disturbing and can't understand how these transformations could possibly be taking place.  

     Then soon after, Bobbie asks Joanna to babysit her kids while she and her husband go on a "second honeymoon". When she comes back, Bobbie is wearing perfect beautiful makeup, her kitchen is so clean it's practically sanitized and she is all of a sudden madly devoted to her husband. After much questioning as to why Bobbie is now like all the other wives in Stepford who've suddenly changed, to no avail, Joanna freaks and stabs Bobbie in the stomach. Bobbie pulls out the clean, non-blood-stained knife and proceeds to go haywire like a short-circuited robot, opening, and closing cabinets, dumping cup after cup of coffee on the floor, repeating things like "How could you do a thing like that", "When I was just going to give you coffee", "I thought we were friends". 

      Noticing that it had been exactly six months after moving to Stepford that Charmaine changed and now that Bobbie has been in town for exactly six months and has now suddenly changed as well, Joanna realizes that she has been in town for almost six months herself, so naturally Joanna becomes frantic. She seeks help from a psychiatrist who ends up being the only person that believes Joanna's story. The psychiatrist advises her to get out of town now... take the kids and run. But when Joanna returns home, the children are nowhere to be found. She goes to the Men's Lodge to confront her husband and to get her kids, but the only person she finds there is the President of the Men's Association who basically tells her that she has no choice in this matter. 

      She runs and hides in a room, but to her amazement, the room looks just like her bedroom at home. There's even a replica of Joanna sitting at a vanity table brushing her hair. The replica has considerably larger breasts and completely black eyes (the assumption is that she's not quite finished with her replication process). A shocked Joanna is strangled by the replica and the next thing you know, Joanna is dressed all frilly and is obsessed with the grocery store. 

      Oh, did I mention that one of the members of the Men's Association used to work at Disneyland... making robots.  The movie ends, but no further explanation is needed at this point because suddenly it all makes sense, the wives of Stepford are being killed off and replaced with sexier, husband-adoring, cleaning-obsessed, completely docile robots with no individual personalities.  A film that came about when women's rights were being challenged more than ever by men who couldn't have cared less about their opinions, I'd say this film makes a rather profound statement.  People tend to use this movie as the butt of many jokes, but I think they're missing the overall message that it's trying to convey.  Was, is, and will always be a classic.

Redneck Zombies

     Some idiot is driving down a dirt road smoking a joint with his dog, supposedly attempting to deliver a few barrels of toxic waste, somewhere. So, in the first few minutes, the film already has all the hallmarks of a movie from Troma. Toxic waste, bad acting, and the appearance of being filmed with a home movie camera. 

      Anyway, the guy loses the barrel, and a fat redneck finds it and uses it for an alcohol still, therefore making toxic moonshine. One by one, these rednecks start becoming toxic zombies. Fortunately for the sake of inventing some sort of coherent story, there are a group of campers nearby that make for some tasty vittles. 

      This movie starts out quite comically with the stereotypical rednecks being their weird little country selves, but about halfway through the film it just turns into outright gore. Troma movies can be pretty gross, but this one is totally disgusting. 

      Not much plot, really. Just colorful characters and lots of gore. Absolutely do NOT invest ANY time trying to understand anything in this movie, because it's just plain irrelevant. Just sit back and enjoy the humorous zombie make-up, cheap special effects, and non-funny one-liner jokes.


Monday, December 10, 2007

Night of the Ghouls

     Ed Wood's Night of the Ghouls is an unofficial sequel to Bride of the Monster. There are several references to "The Old Willows Place" (Dr. Vornoff's residence and lab that explodes in Bride of the Monster) and even Lobo, the kind-hearted beast from "Bride of the Monster" makes a reappearance (with much more gruesome make-up than before). 

      A Swami scam artist that bilks people into believing that he can channel the dead, recruits an actress to play a roaming ghost at night in order to frighten people. Unfortunately for her, a real ghost dressed in black is following her with the same intentions. As the Swami (whose actual name is Dr. Acula. (Dracula, get it? Of course, you get it, you just didn't want it.) holds his fake seances, he fools people with the weirdest tricks. One is a floating trumpet, a guy in a white sheet scuttles by every now and then with a very whimsical tune that plays as he shuffles by. There were also some other "floating" (obviously on a string) objects that I couldn't even identify. All of this weirdness doesn't even phase the people at the seance. These cheap theatrics never even strikes the seance members in the slightest as being strange or odd, they actually think it's "normal", although I use that term loosely. At the seance, there are even two attendees who are dressed as skeletons wearing cheap wigs. 

      Eventually, after committing an endless list of criminal offenses, the Swami isn't taken down by the law but instead by ghosts of the families that the Swami scammed. They crowd around him and the next morning, he's gone and the "ghosts" are now just a pile of bones on the floor. 

      This Ed Wood film came a little later in the game than most of his movies. You see, Ed didn't make movies, he made crap. Therefore he was broke and fit the perfect stereotype of the starving artist. And because he was so completely and utterly broke, he couldn't even afford to have this film developed. Decades later when Wade Williams bought the rights to Ed Wood's movies after they became known for being so bad they were good, he had the film developed so that we can now enjoy this classic that was almost nearly lost forever. If you loved Bride of the Monster, then Night of the Ghouls should definitely be sought out. I actually think it's one of Eddie's better pieces of cinematic doo-doo.

Bride of the Monster

     Another one of Ed Wood's classics in the can. This is officially Bela Lugosi's last movie. He is credited and seen briefly in one of Ed's later films called Plan 9 From Outer Space, but this is only because Ed happened to have some home movies of Bela and wove them (not so gracefully) into the plot. 

      Anyway, this movie is an attempt at a Sci-Fi thriller, but like all of Ed's other work, it turned out to be pure crap. Dr. Eric Vornoff (Bela) has been run out of his native country and bought an old house out in the woods called "The Old Willow's Place". Armed with his muscleman slave Lobo (wrestler Tor Johnson) he plans to use nuclear technology to create his own army of "super beings". 

      A nosy newspaper reporter named Janet Lawton is investigating the legend of the monster at the Old Willows Place (technically we're never really told what the monster is... was it Lobo, the octopus that dwells in the ditch outside the house, or what Dr. Vornoff becomes after being zapped with his own raygun). The original title of this film was Bride of the Atom, which made much more sense in regards to the storyline, but was changed to Bride of the Monster so as to have a scarier-sounding title, even though the "monster" part of the title had not been fleshed out in the movie's plot. 

   Janet gets too close, gets kidnapped, is forced to dress like a bride, and is strapped to a table, apparently to be one of the first people that Dr. Vornoff plans to turn into a super being. Lobo saves her at the last minute and instead straps the doctor onto the table in her place. Dr. Vornoff gets zapped by his own machine and turns into something, not sure if it's a super being or if it went terribly wrong and made him into a monster. The only noticeable difference is that he looks kinda burnt, with messed-up hair, and is wearing huge black 6-inch pump shoes. 

      All throughout the movie, Ed tries desperately to match endless stock footage with his own footage but fails miserably. The doctor has a pet octopus, which at the end of the movie ends up eating the good doctor for dinner, but nevertheless looks faker than fake when compared to the stock footage of a real octopus. The same with a snake in a tree... a shot of a real snake and then a shot of a rubber one in a tree that doesn't even move. 

      And as a final flaw in the movie, Dr. Vornoff's residence/laboratory explodes at the end for no reason and the explosion is stock footage of an atomic bomb that would have destroyed half the globe, yet everyone near the house isn't even blinded as they look upon what's become of a mad geniuses work. True crap, and is therefore strongly recommended for all cult fans.

Orgy of the Dead

     Orgy of the Dead was one of Ed Wood's last films. And if you thought Glen or Glenda or Plan 9 was bad, this farce makes them both look like masterpieces. Towards the end of his life, Ed Wood had already been a raging alcoholic for years and had begun making monster/nudie films. Basically lightweight porn with a vague monster theme. 

      This movie has no plot at all and only the bare bones of a story. A young couple is traveling down the road and runs out of gas near a cemetery. Day instantly becomes night as we move from an outside shot to a studio shot (one of Ed Woods's favorite continuity goofs). They are tied up by a werewolf (you can actually see the actor's whole neck because the mask is too small). 

      The infamously incorrect self-proclaimed psychic (and Ed's favorite drinking buddy) Criswell rises out of a coffin and gives some kind of speech about the creatures of the night, blah, blah, blah. He is obviously reading from a cue card, as his eyes move back and forth. He even moves his head back and forth a little too. It also appears as though he has on enough makeup to be able to carve your initials in it. He is then joined by some Vampira wannabe that looks like Elvira's younger sister, who doesn't seem to have much to offer other than a few meaningless lines and several closeups of her breasts. 

      Throughout the rest of the movie, the captive couple is subjected to striptease after striptease, by heavily endowed females jiggling around to a "spooky" soundtrack. Each girl comes out "dressed" as something different. There's the Voodoo girl, the jungle girl, the skeleton girl, the mummy girl, etc. They come out half-dressed to begin with, and "dance" around until all clothes are a distant memory. One after the other, like Halloween at a strip club. Then it abruptly ends when the couple unties themselves and escapes. I truly believe that there's something out there for everyone, so if you like large-breasted strippers on Halloween... then this film is definitely for you.

Sunday, December 9, 2007

May

     May is a pathetically lonely child whose only friend is a doll named "Suzie" that is special and isn't supposed to be taken out of her glass display case (gee, what fun). She also has a lazy eye and has to wear an eye patch to school, ensuring that she will definitely have no friends. May grows up but still has no friends (except Suzie, whom she talks to all the time). 

      Tired of being alone, she continuously seeks love and friendship. So one day she spots Adam, specifically his hands to which she has an unnatural attraction. They have a date or two until he discovers just how weird she really is. She stalks him for a while until she overhears Adam telling a friend about how he successfully dumped "that nutcase". 

      Distraught over Adam, May takes an interest in Polly, a coworker of May's at the veterinarian hospital where she works. Polly has been hinting that she likes May for some time now and May starts to take an interest in her, specifically her neck. Polly seems sincere about having a relationship with May... that is until Ambrosia (Betty Grable on steroids) comes along and soon Polly's interest in May simmers down.  Every time something goes sour in May's life, we hear the cracking of Suzie's glass case in the background, symbolically representing the cracking of May's sanity. 

     Hurt by someone for the second time now, May desperately craves love, so she volunteers at a daycare for blind kids. This works out fine until May brings Suzie to the daycare for show and tell. An accident happens and the glass case gets broken and every child in the place gets shredded with broken glass (remember, they're blind kids, they see and discover their environment through touching), thus disastrously ending her new hobby as a caregiver. 

      After some time, May is seen sitting on a city bench when some punk named Zero drops in. As opposed to his punk appearance, he's actually an overly polite nice guy. May is again searching for that one person that won't screw her over and will be her friend. Unfortunately, May had killed her cat a few days prior and stuffed it in the freezer, so when Zero goes looking for ice cubes, he gets a surprise. He calls May a freak and says that he'd never be her friend. This is the last straw and May finally snaps. She kills Zero by stabbing him in the head with scissors (something I've wanted to do to several Christian politicians). 

      May finally catches on to the phrase "If you can't find a friend... make one." She decides that she needs more parts, so on Halloween, she dresses up like Suzie and armed with scalpels and a beer cooler, she sets out to collect all the parts she needs to make her "perfect new friend". She goes on a killing spree, collecting Adam's hands, Polly's neck, and Ambrosia's legs. Nobody notices anything peculiar about her behavior because it's Halloween. 

      Once home, May sets to work "making" her new friend (May has a knack for sewing). With all the right parts being sewn together, May now has the perfect friend. One thing is wrong though. May's new friend has a fabric head (I guess May never liked anyone's head enough to use it) and therefore this new friend cannot see May. She tries putting her glasses on it to no avail. It appears that one last sacrifice is needed to bring life to May's perfect friend. She gouges out her good eye and puts it on the "quilted cadaver". Then... the arm moves slowly up to May's crying face and strokes her hair, comforting her. 

      Creepy as hell to say the least. I suppose the installment of life into this new "friend" is symbolic of May going off the deep end and no longer being sane, not that she was all there, to begin with.  This is probably one of the newest films to be awarded cult status. Released in 2002, it was slow to catch on but it has gained a huge cult following in a pretty short amount of time. It's very well done, has very good acting, especially on the part of Angela Bettis who plays May, and has become one of my all-time favorite films.  Maybe because loneliness is a powerful emotion that I think most people have suffered from at some time in their life and can surely relate to.  But as we learn from May, if you can't find a friend, make one.

Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

     Whatever Happened to Baby Jane has gained a huge cult status, despite having a large budget, two Oscar-winning actresses, and was a massive success when it was released... all of which are traits that would be really hard to include in any kind of cult film, but this one achieved it with ease. I think the reason it's gained a lot of cult status is that this was intended to be a suspense/drama and turned out to be incredibly (and quite unintentionally) funny. Unintentional humor is usually a large part of what makes a cult film. Another aspect that makes this movie great is the off-screen antics of the film's two main actresses. Joan Crawford and Bette Davis were both in constant competition for the coveted title of Queen Bitch of Hollywood, a feud that had been growing between them for years before "Baby Jane" was even conceived. 

      Both actresses were practically fossils when they made this movie and were considered very low profile and almost non-hirable. One director even stated, "I wouldn't give a wooden nickel for those two old broads." But director Robert Aldrich saw it differently and had struck upon a great idea... take two actresses who literally hated each other's guts and put them both in a movie where their characters also hate each other's guts. Absolutely brilliant!! That hatred for each other fueled some of the best acting ever put on film.

      The story goes a little like this... In 1917 Baby Jane Hudson was the child star to end all child stars, singing and dancing her way across America's heart. But then she went and committed the worst crime that a child star can do... she grew up. Fast forward to 1935, Jane's sister Blanche has now become an extremely successful actress and Jane's career has been in the toilet for quite some time. One night, the two of them are returning home from a party, we see one sister get out of the car to unlock the gate and the other sister hits the gas and flat-out runs her down. Fast forward again to "yesterday"... Blanche is old and in a wheelchair and Jane is her resentful caregiver. Basically, two old biddies living in an old Hollywood house, both have been out of the spotlight for years, one was a star for a few years as a child, and the other sister was a much more successful actress as an adult for a much longer time. 

      For years, the hatred and resentment between them have been greatly building, until Jane is quite fed up with what she considers to be the sacrifice of her career for the sake of caring for her sister. The insinuation is that Jane ran Blanche down (just to be a bitch, I guess), resulting in her being a cripple in a wheelchair, so out of guilt she takes "care" of her sister. Jane begins to treat her sister Blanche increasingly badly and we soon learn that she also appears to be losing her grasp on reality. 

      When they begin showing some of Blanche's old movies on television (before we had VCRs) Jane is terribly jealous and her abuse towards Blanche becomes bizarrely inhumane. She takes the phone out of Blanche's room, is keeping flowers and fan mail meant for Blanche for herself, and she even cooks Blanche's parakeet and serves it to her for dinner. Having no other way to cope with the situation, Jane is also now a raging alcoholic. 

     The loonier Jane gets, the more desperate Blanche becomes, after all, it's gotta be pretty scary to be dependent on someone who hates and resents you, cooks your pet parakeet, serves dead rats for dinner, is forging your signature and stealing from your bank account, and is, by all means, becoming a complete lunatic who in her mind lives only in her childhood past when she actually had a shred of respect and attention. 

      All while slowly starving her sister to death (Blanche didn't find the cooked parakeet and dead rat very appetizing), Jane is also trying to revive her childhood act as "Baby Jane Hudson". Acting and dressing like she did when she was a child star, which of course looks totally creepy on someone who is now in her late 60s. 

      In a desperate attempt at reviving her childhood career, Jane places an ad in the newspaper for a partner to help recreate her act exactly as she used to do it when she was a kid. She meets Edwin, who also thinks she's a nut, but a nut with money. He's obviously just after the cash, therefore he indulges her looniness for the sake of making some money off of her. 

      Blanche's helper, maid, and friend Elvira comes to find out why Blanche can't be reached on the phone (Jane ripped it out of the wall) and why Jane won't let her go upstairs to Blanche's room anymore.  She finally has enough of Jane's bullshit and pushes past her and runs up to Blanche's bedroom, and upon opening the door, she finds Blanche hogtied to the bed with her mouth taped shut.  She tries to help, but unfortunately, Jane clobbers Elvira over the head with a hammer from behind and kills her before she can help Blanche. That night, Jane dumps Elvira's body. 

      A day or two later cops come questioning Jane about Elvira's disappearance, so Jane panics, grabs her barely conscious sister, and heads for the beach. While lying on the beach, Jane plays in the sand like a child while Blanche lies there dying in the sun. 

      A wonderful twist ending occurs (which I normally wouldn't tell people, but what the hell, it's my blog). As a dying confession, Blanche reveals that it was actually her that was driving the car that fateful night, and not her sister Jane. Blanche had a hatred for Jane ever since they were little when Jane was getting all the attention. Apparently, Jane had been a real bitch to Blanche at a party that they had just returned home from and it was Blanche that was driving the car, and not Jane who was actually the one unlocking the gate.  In a rage, Blanche tried to run Jane down with the car, crashing into the gate, snapping her spine, and crippling herself in the process. She managed to crawl out of the car and up to the gates and when the cops arrived they naturally assumed that Jane had done it. Jane was apparently too drunk to know what had happened and ran off. When Blanche tells Jane all of this, we get one of the best lines of the entire movie... "You mean, all this time we could've been friends?". 

      By now people are noticing a dying Blanche while Jane twirls around, having finally reaches the brink of pure insanity, so pretty soon the cops arrive. The movie ends here and we're left with the assumption that Blanche gets the help she needs within minutes of losing her life and that Jane is finally carted off to the funny farm where she seriously belongs. 

      As I stated before, Joan Crawford and Bette Davis deeply hated each other so there was definitely some awful tension going back and forth off-camera (which greatly enhanced their performances on camera). A few examples: Joan Crawford was the CEO of Pepsi-Cola at the time, therefore Bette Davis had Coca-Cola (Pepsi's biggest rival) machines installed everywhere. There's a scene where Jane is kicking the crap out of Blanche, and they had to use a dummy because Joan Crawford didn't trust Bette Davis to not actually kick her. In a scene where Jane is dragging Blanche out of bed and into the hall, you can tell that Bette Davis is really having a hard time carrying and dragging her, this is due to the fact that Joan Crawford hid several heavy weights under her dress so that she would be much heavier when they had to do the scene, then kept purposely ruining the scene so that Bette Davis would have to repeatedly carry a MUCH heavier than normal Joan Crawford over and over. I could go on and on, the trivia for this movie is just as fascinating as the movie itself. Director Robert Aldrich was surprised (and no doubt very relieved) when Bette Davis opted to do her own make-up for the film which is really very frightening. He stated once that he would literally be too scared of Bette Davis to purposely make her look that bad. This truly is a great movie and despite all the elements that would normally keep a film from being considered cult, it has now really become a true cult classic. An entire miniseries was even made called "Feud" starring Jessica Lange as Joan Crawford and Susan Sarandon as Bette Davis that chronicles the tumultuous filming of the movie and the endless friction between its two bitchy stars.

Friday, November 30, 2007

Dawn of the Dead

     This is the infamous sequel to Night of the Living Dead. Dawn of the Dead was a bit more mainstream than its predecessor, mostly due to George Romero trying to outdo Night of the Living Dead after it became such an unexpected success. 

      The storyline supposedly takes place the following day, even though it's obviously not, due to the different, more modern clothes and hairstyles. Anyway, the dead are still being resurrected for some as yet unknown reason (it was hinted as space radiation in the first film, but never confirmed) and are outnumbering the police and military, and eventually starting to overrun the planet. At a television station, people are panicking and abandoning their jobs as TV informants and are heading for who knows where. 

      A helicopter pilot, his girlfriend, a military buddy, and his friend take to the skies, trying to figure out what the hell to do next. They come across a huge shopping mall (another storyline continuation discrepancy since they didn't have malls when the original film came out in 1968) and land on the roof. There are a few zombies roaming around, but not many. They soon realize the benefits of staying there for a while. They rid the mall of the few zombies it has in it and blocks off all the entrances to the mall with freight trucks. 

      Finally, after getting some sleep, they milk the mall for all it's worth, which is quite a lot. Food, clothes, televisions, radios, and ammunition as far as the eye can see. While placing the freight trucks, one of the men gets bitten on the leg by a zombie. Three days later, he dies, then comes back, then dies again, and is buried in the mall garden courtyard. 

      All goes well for a while until the mall is raided by a gang of motorcycle bandits. In fighting for what he has claimed as his, the helicopter pilot flips out and fights back. He ends up wounded and then attacked by zombies, dies, resurrects, and comes after the only two remaining live people he knows of. The rest of the zombies follow him and bombard the upstairs sanctuary they've created, leaving the military guy and the pilot's girlfriend to escape in the only way possible... straight up. They fly off in the helicopter (thankfully, he taught his girlfriend how to fly it) and that's the end. 

      I have to say that I was a little disappointed when it ended. There were just too many unanswered questions. Near the beginning of the movie, we find out that the pilot's girlfriend is pregnant, but she's like 18 months along at the end when they fly away. Also, where the hell did they go with almost no fuel left? I guess it was so that they could make another sequel (which they did, and much like this one it differs greatly in time discrepancy). The movie basically ends right where it began, so it makes a good transition between part one and part three. 

     The movie seems to be making a statement about consumerism, seeing that the zombies are attracted to the mall because it's what they remember from their life before dying and the need to buy stuff.  The message from the first film was that if everyone had worked together and not been fighting continuously, they might have actually survived.  This movie was recently remade and unlike the great majority of movie remakes, this one is actually pretty damn good. Scary as hell, mostly because the zombies could run and were a hell of a lot more threatening.


The Children

     The Children is another wonderful yet practically impossible movie to find. It's one of Troma's least popular movies (at least in comparison to "Toxic Avenger" and "Class of Nuke 'em High).  I can't imagine why because it's a jewel of a movie. It's a totally classic film featuring Troma's most patented story plot, the side effects of nuclear waste. 

      A school bus is bringing happy singing kids home and passes through a suspicious yellow cloud. We learn that a nearby nuclear facility has had an uncontainable leak of toxic waste. The bus and children do not arrive home as scheduled and when the school bus is finally located off to the side of the road, the bus driver and all the children are missing. 

     Pretty soon, the youngsters are seen walking around in a trance-like state and have mysterious black fingernails. When parents go to hug them, the parent begins to smoke, burn, and are eventually reduced to a blistered pile of goo that only sort of resembles a human. The children hug and melt parents, siblings, babysitters, etc. for most of the movie (very cheesy special effects that are really side-splittingly funny). 

      Pretty soon the problem is recognized and the children are exterminated. All seems well, but soon afterward when one of the main characters' wives gives birth... the child has mysterious black fingernails. Much like the movie "Village of the Damned", this film has a special kind of creepiness to it because it uses innocent-looking children as murderous monsters. One of Troma's better films and well worth seeking out!

Sunday, November 25, 2007

Killer Condom



     This is another gem from Troma. A little different though, it's in French, thankfully with subtitles, and actually had an air of quality to it that most Troma movies lack, due to the fact that H.R. Giger (artist, most popular for having designed the creature in the high budget film Alien) was recruited to design the Killer Condom. 

      Anyway, the story goes... a man in a sleazy motel gets his penis bitten off and the woman performing fellatio on him is the presumed culprit. She's soon exonerated due to many other attacks on different men's penises around town. Inspector Mackaroni, a gay chain-smoking sleuth with one testicle is on the prowl for what's attacking men all over town. 

      They soon discover vicious, hungry organisms that look like condoms and are biting off weenies left and right. That's right, it's the rubber that rubs you out. The condoms are hilariously fanged and can even run. Inspector Mackaroni soon discovers that these creatures are being genetically manufactured by a woman scientist with a hatred for men, especially gay men (I guess if one penis makes her mad, then two penises really pisses her off.) It's a very funny film with a lot of laughs and definitely worth seeking out.

Class of Nuke 'em High

     Class of Nuke 'em High is one of Troma's greatest hits. For those of you who don't know what Troma is... it's a production company that for a while had its own actors that repeatedly starred in most of its early films. Troma also buys and reproduces old and otherwise lost cult films. They're also known as the Troma Team. Some of their more recent self-produced films have been beyond awful, even for cultfiends like us.  They certainly do have a few very entertaining movie gems though, but the rest look like they were filmed with a simple camcorder and have some of the worst acting ever. As always, it's a matter of taste. But the fact remains that Troma has an undeniable cult following and deserves its rightful position among the strangely elite. 

      Class of Nuke 'em High is a great movie with a really fun plot. As with most of Troma's movies, this one centers around the topic of nuclear waste. A nuclear plant that is next door to Tromaville High School begins to leak toxic waste and starts turning teenagers into violent thugs. 

      A certain gang of drug pushers starts selling pot that is grown out of toxic chemical waste and when a high school preppie named Warren and his girlfriend Chrissy smoke a toxic joint at a party, they start undergoing strange changes and bizarre happenings. Warren turns into a green drooling sort of disgusting superhero, that is compelled to fight crime and his girlfriend Chrissy belches up a weird worm-like creature that gets flushed down the school commode and ends up in a barrel of toxic waste where it grows to an enormous size. 

      When a gang of thugs known as The Cretins gets kicked out of school for violence and drug dealing, they take revenge by trashing the school. Unbeknownst to The Cretins, there is a huge, tall, slimy, worm thing in the school basement that seems pretty pissed off (maybe because he's protecting his "mommy" Chrissy). 

      The worm thing eats Cretins left and right and when it gets its tentacles on Chrissy (Mommmiee...), Warren finds a laser and beams it at this wormy thing. It lets Chrissy go and everybody gets out (well, almost everybody). Moments later, the worm monster explodes, and the school explodes too and creates a lot of really happy students (school's out!!!) Reading, writing, and radiation! Great fun!


Saturday, November 24, 2007

Motel Hell

     This campy little classic has grown in cult status over the years. At first, it was hard to find but eventually, a DVD of it came out both on its own and as a double feature, coupled with a film based on the exploits of Ed Gein called "Deranged". 

      It stars an almost ancient Rory Calhoun as Farmer Vincent, who along with his sister Ida (Nancy Parsons, most known for her role as Coach Balbricker from Porky's) runs the famous (at least locally) Farmer Vincent's Smoked Meats, the tastiest barbecue and beef jerky in the south. 

      Vincent has all sorts of booby traps that he uses to ensnare hapless victims who are then buried up to their neck in a sort of human garden, have their vocal cords severed so they can't scream (just gurgle a lot), and are kept there with bags over their heads until they are "ripe for the picking". He then cleans them, smokes them, and sells them to the greater southern populace who loves his meats and keeps coming back for more. His basic philosophy is "Meat is Meat and Man's Gotta Eat". 

      Eventually, Vincent traps a couple on a motorcycle, plants the boyfriend in the "garden", tells the girlfriend that he died, and since the girlfriend is pretty, Vincent decides to keep her, not exactly sure why because he treats the girl more like a lost puppy than a scared young woman. Vincent's brother (conveniently the sheriff, and one of the biggest cannibals in the whole county) also falls for the newcomer, but to much amazement, she decides that she wants to marry Vincent (what could a pretty young blonde in her 20s possibly want with a 75-year-old Rory Calhoun?) 

      Anyway, eventually, she learns the secret of Vincent's marvelous meats, appropriately disagrees, and is put on some type of meat-slicing machine alive, all the while Vincent and little brother Sheriff have a chainsaw duel (Vincent wears a pigs head, really creepy), just to have the damsel in distress be saved by the lovelorn sheriff at the last moment. 

      As for Ida... well, one of the "garden people" gets loose, releases all the others, and together (massively gurgling the whole way) hunts Ida down and buries her in the garden... upside down. It's funny, at the end of the movie there's what appears to be a poignant moment when Vincent is dying and explaining his horrible actions to his brother, which you think would be remorse for forcing cannibalism on his unknowing customers, and yet his most horrible action of all... he used preservatives.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

The Evil Dead

     The Evil Dead was the first movie collaboration with Director Sam Raimi and actor Bruce Campbell. It spawned two more sequels making it a trilogy, plus a remake and a sequel to the remake. 

      The story starts as a group of 5 young people takes a vacation in a deserted cabin deep in the woods, far from where anyone can hear you scream (sounds like the ideal getaway doesn't it). During their mundane partying, they hear noises in the basement (which appears to be about three times bigger than the house itself) so they investigate. They find a tape recorder, a strange dagger, and a book (Noturam Demontos, book of the Dead). As they listen to the tape recorder, a man describes how the reciting of the passages of the book can awaken the evil beings that haunt the forests and dark bowers of man's domain. The man on the tape recorder recites the passages and before long the forest starts to come alive. 

      One by one, the happy vacationers are possessed by evil demons and start killing and eating each other. The main character "Ash" is for some reason, never possessed, but has to deal with his sister, girlfriend, best buddy, etc... all getting possessed and turning into vigorous flesh-eating evil possessed creatures. 

     Unfortunately, they can't leave because the surrounding forests seem to be possessed also. One girl tries to escape and is actually raped by a tree. Poor Ash goes through hell just trying to survive the night because hopefully, the demons will recede back into the forest when the sun rises. Until then, he has to dismember and bury his girlfriend (which doesn't really work). He gouges eyes, chops up friends, and gets lots of blood splattered everywhere. 

      When he finally becomes the only non-possessed, non-dismembered person there, and it's almost dawn, he thinks he's gonna be alright...not in this film.  In this, the first entry in the Evil Dead franchise, the movie seems to be trying to be as scary as possible but comes out a bit humorous.  Then in the second entry, it's meant to be humorous but oddly comes out much scarier.  Then part three came along and was just full-out Three Stooges comedy.  Not appreciating such slapstick humor, I didn't really like part three at all.  Stick with this one, it's by far the best of the lot.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

Strait-Jacket

     This little gem starring Joan Crawford is a must-see. It covers all the essentials... campiness, a stupid plot, bad acting, and an aging Hollywood superstar with nothing else to do but try desperately to save her failing career. This film was made by William Castle (House on Haunted Hill) who had always used gimmicks with his movies (buzzing theater seats for "The Tingler" and a flying skeleton for "House on Haunted Hill").  He was told that he couldn't use gimmicks anymore (why not, they were such fun?) and then stumbled upon the perfect gimmick of all time when he found Joan Crawford. She had been making movies for a hell of a long time, with a hit here and there, but it appeared that she was losing ground as an actress. "Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?" made Joan Crawford a hot item once again, but it didn't last for long. This film followed soon afterward and really is a pretty good performance on Crawford's part, proving that she could still be an incredible actress when she wanted to (can't say anything good about anyone else in this movie though). 

      Alright, so the movie opens when Lucy Harbin (Joan Crawford) comes home early from a trip and catches her husband screwing an old girlfriend. She takes an ax, chops them to bits, and is carted off to the loony bin. Their daughter witnesses the entire event. Fast forward twenty years, Lucy is finally released from the asylum and goes to stay with her daughter. All seems fine... the daughter is a pretty young woman now, is a sculptress, and is engaged to a handsome young man. 

      Things couldn't be going better... until Lucy starts to have nightmares about the murders and wakes up next to two severed heads and hears an eerie nursery rhyme about herself repeated incessantly (Lucy Harbin took an ax and gave her husband forty whacks and when she saw what she had done, she gave his girlfriend forty-one) which is set to the tune that was originally made up for Lizzie Borden. 

      Strange events begin to happen and people start disappearing. Everything points to Lucy, of course. We also learn that the gentleman that Lucy's daughter is engaged to be married to is the son of a wealthy, prominent, businessman. Lucy's daughter Carol is positive that her fiances' parents are not going to allow their son to marry a woman whose mother is a certified but rehabilitated lunatic. So she assumes that having her mother recommitted (and out of the picture) is the only solution. 

      Lucy, herself actually walks in on someone who looks just like her in the process of committing an ax murder. A scuffle ensues and the "other" Lucy Harbin has their mask pulled off. Surprise, surprise... it's Carol. Having made the mask from a sculpture she had created of her mother's face. Including the severed heads that Lucy found in her bed.  All done by Carol in an attempt to drive poor Lucy over the edge again, so she can have her stupid fiances parents like her. Kinda dumb, but still very entertaining.  

     Joan had some rather difficult policies that she enforced on set that everyone else had to just grin and bear, simply because she was the obvious star and knew that she was gonna get her way.  She insisted that the temperature on the set be kept at basically below freezing because she believed that this kept her face taunt and wrinkle-free.  Joan never did handle aging very well.  William Castle used her in a few more movies but soon gave up on remaking her into the star she once was.  Maybe he just got tired of always being so damn cold all the time. 

Divine

     Divine. The name says it all. One of my favorite actors/actresses in the entire world. Born Harris Glen Milstead in Baltimore Maryland, he grew up with childhood friend John Waters. The two became synonymous for quite some time, at least until Divine died from sleep apnea in 1989 (the result of years of carrying excessive weight). John Waters and Divine created some of the best cult films ever made. Divine starred in all but one John Waters movie (Desperate Living, in which Divine was slated to be in but had to pull out due to his touring schedule) until his untimely death shortly after starring in John's biggest hit "Hairspray" (which spawned an actually pretty amusing musical on Broadway in which Harvey Fierstein very appropriately played Divine's role as Edna Turnblad). Right on the brink of actual stardom, Divine was gone and the world truly did mourn.

      Divine remained with John Waters for 90% of his career making cult classics like "Pink Flamingos" and "Female Trouble", but in the late 70s/early 80's when he began to gain some actual fame, Divine began to spread his wings a little and starred in a few plays such "The Neon Woman" and also starred in other motion pictures like "Lust in the Dust" with Lainie Kazan and Tab Hunter. Divine also had a strenuous singing/touring career as a disco queen, and actually had some pretty big hit songs like "I'm So Beautiful" and "You Think You're a Man". She was no ordinary drag queen, Divine was a drag terrorist. She sent the best of them running (in six-inch heels), screaming for their lives. 

      Even though it was her trademark, it was also to be her downfall... excessive weight. Divine had been overweight for the majority of his life and eventually began to have some difficulty breathing and soon developed sleep apnea. When Divine (who was well known for his professionalism and punctuality) didn't show up for work one morning (when I say "work" I mean that Divine failed to show up for his first taping on the show "Married with Children" where he was to star as a regular guest character), I think most everybody's heart began to sink. 

      Divine was dead, but far from gone. Thankfully, his amazing talent was all caught on film and he left us with some of the most bizarre, hilarious, outrageousness we'd ever seen. She was bold, she was beautiful, she was... Divine. As a humorous footnote to the story, when the "Married with Children" show sent flowers to Divine's funeral, the card read "If you didn't want the job, all you had to do was say so".

Monday, November 19, 2007

Siouxsie and the Banshees

     I don't usually include real people on Cultarama because it's about cult films, but every now and then I will make an exception if that person managed to achieve stardom through word of mouth, much like a cult film can do. Siouxsie and the Banshees were a punk/goth band that formed in the late '70s. The lead singer Siouxsie Sioux (Susan Ballion) formed Siouxsie and the Banshees with Steven Severin and drummer Budgie. It was a rough start, but by the early '80s, some actual hits began to come out. 

      Siouxsie and the Banshees began to get bigger and bigger and racked up more and more hits, with each album becoming more successful and popular than the previous one. They weren't quite as mainstream as their counter band, The Cure. But instead kept their own style and were rather original.  

     Siouxsie, with her wild hair and severe makeup, became an 80's signature look and before long the band was all the rage. From albums like "Kaleidoscope"," "Ju Ju" and "Tinderbox" came some even bigger hits like "Happy House, ", "Spellbound" and "Cities in Dust". 

      In the late '80s, Siouxsie and the Banshees produced an album called "Peepshow" featuring the hit song "Peek-a-boo", which quickly rose to the top of the charts and reached #1 in Europe. In the early '90s, Siouxsie and the Banshees changed their image a little. Siouxsie's makeup and hairstyle had been tamed quite a bit and for once we saw how beautiful she actually was. Their new album "Superstition" was much tamer than previous albums, but was still another great success, with its #1 hit "Kiss them for me" (a ballad to Jayne Mansfield). The band was bigger than ever and was asked to be one of the performing bands at the first Lollapalooza Festival along with bands like "Living Color", The Jesus and Mary Chain" and "Jane's Addiction". 

      When the movie "Batman Returns" was being made, Siouxsie was approached to play the part of Catwoman. She declined, stating that she was a singer, not an actress. Instead, she composed the movie's theme song "Face to Face" and the part went to Michelle Pfeifer. This was to be their last big hit and sadly, their follow-up album "The Rapture" failed to deliver any hits, and by now, the band was frankly getting kind of old and facing extinction. 

      Siouxsie and the Banshees called it quits after over 20 years on the Billboard charts. Siouxsie married the band's drummer Budgie and started a new band called The Creatures. Not much success there, most likely due to the constant comparison to the Banshees. In 2003, the band reunited for a filmed concert called "The Seven Year Itch" in which despite the amazing performance that it was, it was quite apparent that Siouxsie was losing her voice. High notes in songs became flat and painfully low baritone. It would appear that this was the end of the story of Siouxsie Sioux and her Banshees. 

      Then a surprise. Siouxsie (alone, no Banshees or Creatures) had a new album coming out in November of 2007 called "Mantaray". I'm not sure if she regained her voice or if it was just some studio magic, but she sounded great. A hit song and a vibrant new video to accompany it was released for a song called "Into a Swan", with Siouxsie looking her gothic best. Sure, she's a little older, but as they say... "Like fine wine". Siouxsie tours on her own now and though she's in her 60s, she seems to be doing great, and many of her fans are truly thrilled to see her again!  Welcome back Siouxsie!! We missed you!!

Sunday, November 18, 2007

Night of the Living Dead

     This movie probably has the largest cult following of all time. Most Cultfiends know it word for word (and I'm sure that it would make for some interesting karaoke). This is another film that was made on a shoestring budget and definitely not expected to be an Oscar winner, but instead, has very much become art personified and still delivers a frightening punch that is truly scary and still very effective. 

      I have an admitted obsession with "living dead" movies. I'm not sure why, I guess it's because of having been through mortuary school and worked in funeral homes, I just find the subject to be most disturbing, terrifying, effective... and also wonderful! Anyway, this is also another movie to be recently colorized by Off Color Film, very interesting. 

      Ok, so Johnny and Barbara are at the cemetery putting a wreath on their dead father's grave. In a joking manner, Johnny teases his sister saying "They're coming to get you, Barbara." and "Look, there comes one of them now". Barbara notices a man stumbling towards them and wants to apologize for her brothers' rudeness but instead, he attacks her. 

      She barely gets away with her life which is more than I can say for her brother. She makes it to an old farmhouse (the owner turns out to be a meat salad at the top of the stairs) and holes up there with a man who manages to get to the farmhouse just as his truck runs out of gas. He tells her about other attacks going on outside, she slowly loses it and becomes hysterical and then is basically mute for the rest of the movie. 

      Soon we learn that there are people hiding in the basement. A young local couple and an obnoxious man and his barely tolerant wife. Their kid is also downstairs and is sick due to being bitten by one of those "things" out there. 

      One gripping aspect of this movie is the dynamics between all the people in the house. They fight and bicker over everything, but if they'd only gotten along and helped each other, they might have made it through the night, but instead, they all pulled in different directions, and eventually, everybody is killed sooner or later.  Calm nerves are now a distant memory, having been replaced by shattered ones now that creepy walking corpses keep banging their way through the windows and doors. 

      This film was the beginning of the careers of two of the most respected people in the movie industry... George Romero and Tom Savini. George Romero went on to have a hugely successful directing career and Tom Savini is one of the largest names in the special effects department for more movies than I can count. 

      Night of the living dead has spawned multiple sequels and had countless copycat movies made, including a remake by Tom Savini himself in the early '90s. But who better to do a remake than someone who was there from the beginning? Most remakes are really bad, but I can honestly say that it was actually really well done and stuck to the original script except for an interesting new twist ending.  

     Night of the Living Dead was also credited for being the first movie to have a black man as the main hero of the film, which didn't happen much in the 1960s.  George Romero has addressed this by simply saying that he wasn't really trying to be revolutionary, Duane Jones just happen to be the best actor out of all our friends.  This is as classic as they come. A must for any Cult fanatic!


Lipstick

     This is another one of those movies that had huge expectations that couldn't possibly have realistically been met. As was typical in movie making, the powers that be chose one of the biggest and most popular faces of the time (the late 70s) the incomparably beautiful Margaux Hemingway (Ernest's granddaughter) to be the lead character. Margaux, who was never really shy about taking on challenges, was offered her first chance at acting and even though she hadn't taken even one acting lesson in her life, she jumped at the chance to be in a film. The producers figured that her incredible looks were enough to carry a movie, but just in case, they hired veteran superstar Anne Bancroft and newcomer Chris Sarandon. Margaux's little sister Mariel even got a part in the movie as what else...Margaux's little sister. 

      Margaux Hemingway plays a model (I guess they thought that putting her in a familiar environment would enhance her acting performance) named Chris McCormick who is introduced to her little sisters' school music teacher (Chris Sarandon). Apparently, it was common to have music playing in the background of modeling sessions and this teacher thinks he can maybe use Chris as a way to get his music noticed. One day he comes to her apartment to let her listen to his music and possibly have it used during one of her modeling sessions, but unfortunately, it really sucks (irritating no-beat screechy techno mixed with whale song). It's obvious that she doesn't like it and being a model, she's very busy and usually in a hurry. The music teacher becomes irritated when she finds more important things to do than listen to his shitty music, so he becomes enraged and gets revenge by violently raping her (which is very realistically depicted and extremely hard to watch), he then trashes her apartment before finally leaving. 

      He's soon caught and the whole thing goes to trial, but he insists that Chris wanted him to do this to her in some sadomasochistic fashion because that's what turns her on. The court (for some unknown asinine reason) finds him innocent (despite a great performance by Anne Bancroft as Chris McCormick's attorney). He walks free and now the totally defamed Chris is hemorrhaging modeling contracts at an incredible rate. Due to her severe trauma, she can't even concentrate on the few modeling jobs that she has left. 

      Anyway, soon afterward, Chris has a modeling session to do and her little sister Cathy goes with her. The actual modeling session proves pretty boring for little Cathy so she goes roaming around the large building where the session is being held. She stumbles upon Mr. Stuart (the music teacher that raped her sister) who is there giving a musical presentation of his work mixed with lasers and dancers (underage students that are mostly Cathy's friends since they were all in the same music class). He lures Cathy into a dark area and makes some very inappropriate advances toward her. She runs, he catches up with her and rapes her as well. Cathy stumbles, beaten, and half-clothed back to her sister's modeling session and when Chris sees this she completely flips. She grabs a shotgun from her jeep and runs to find Mr. Stuart (all in a beautiful red beaded fabulous couture that's to die for) and proceeds to blast off every appendage he has. With a final shot to the crotch, her rage is beginning to fade. She's handcuffed and carted off to jail for his murder. 

      The one-minute epilogue is a shot of Chris back in court being acquitted of his murder. I bought this film because I'm very much in love with Margaux Hemingway (even though she died in the early '90s). At first, this film really pissed me off, because it was as though Chris McCormick just couldn't win, even when the odds were totally in her favor. In fact, the producers and directors were sincerely trying to get the topic of unreported rapes out there so the public could walk away with renewed courage to be able to report more sex crimes, but ultimately this just left me pissed off. It felt like an exploitation film, with the rape scene taking center stage in the most tasteless way possible.  

     The movie tanked at the box office, Anne Bancroft was ridiculed for being part of such a bad film when she was always known for being in Oscar-winning movies.  Poor Margaux got terrible reviews, and unfortunately, her sister Mariel managed to steal the show with an unknown talent for acting and went on to have a pretty lucrative career, while Margaux basically lived out the fate of her character, losing modeling jobs left and right.  Before she took this acting job, Margaux Hemingway was the highest-paid model in history, scoring the first million-dollar job as the official model for Faberge perfume.  But after the film came out, the modeling jobs disappeared and she was forced to take roles in cheap B-movies that went nowhere and barely paid the rent.  A woman who managed to make the cover of every high fashion magazine in the world, including the cover of Time, became an overweight alcoholic, making a living by endorsing a psychic hotline, before ultimately committing suicide.  Such a shame that one bad movie would rob us of one of the most beautiful women ever to walk this earth.

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Village of the Damned

     This movie is particularly creepy, mostly because the evil villains in this film take the form of innocent-looking children. The movie begins when the small town of Midwich falls under some sort of mysterious blackout. People, as well as animals, all fall into a deep coma. Anyone that goes near Midwich instantly falls down unconscious. Scientists and the military surround the town. After a few hours, the coma lifts but the blackout is never explained. 

      Shortly afterward, all of the women in Midwich are soon discovering that they are now pregnant and that the date of conception goes back to the day of the mysterious blackout. From the beginning, the pregnancies are strange. For one thing, one of the women was a virgin when she got pregnant. Since this phenomenon hasn't gone unnoticed by the military, they set up a base in town to monitor these bizarre events. 

      The babies are all born on the same day (fully developed after only 5 months) and all have very similar characteristics, almost as if they're siblings from the same set of parents. They all have white hair (some really cheap-looking wigs), elongated fingers, and very strange eyes. They also grow very quickly and are extraordinarily smart. They also seem to be telepathic and can read people's minds, and if one child learns something, the others somehow immediately know it as well. By the age of three, they have the appearance of children about ten years old and have strong enough minds to be able to read anyone's thoughts and can force people to do their will. 

      The military eventually learns that other "blackout children" have been born in other locations around the world. Determined to discover the source behind this phenomenon, the military and scientists disregard the children's growing powers in order to continue studying them. 

      A cheap but effective camera trick is used when the children stare and use their eyes to control other people. The film negative was flipped over just the eyes of the children, making them appear to glow a bright white (or bright blue if you like the colorized version). When it's learned that the other cities with "blackouts" have been destroyed by the children who now want to disperse and likely "grow" others like themselves. They must be stopped!! It's obviously gonna take a suicide bomber for this job!! 

      Very creepy mindfreak of a movie that spawned a relatively weak sequel called "Children of the Damned" which had "blackout children" from every country you can name, come together for what seems like nefarious reasons but actually just want world peace.  Village of the Damned was remade in the early '90s and even though it got bad reviews, I personally thought it was very well done, by none other than famed horror director John Carpenter.  It stuck to the original story, had cool special effects, and was coincidentally Christopher Reeve's last film before his horse riding accident that eventually took his life.  A line spoken by the children that always stuck with me was them calmly stating "We know what you're thinking"

The Gore Gore Girls

     This is one of H.G. Lewis' better movies. The acting is slightly improved (but still pretty bad). The jokes are funny and the characters have more depth than most of his other movies. This is my personal favorite among H.G. Lewis' gore films because of the incredible amount of humor that was poured into it. 

     Anyway, as the story goes, Go-Go Girls are being mutilated all over town, one gets her face smashed into a vanity mirror, one gets her butt pulverized with a meat tenderizer (very effective use of red jello, I might add), y'know the usual. 

      An overzealous reporter seeks out one of the snarkiest and most sarcastic detectives of all time to help her solve the case of the Go-Go Girl killer after a somewhat famous stripper named Suzie Creampuff is murdered. This film gives a whole new meaning to "Live Nude Girls"! After all, they're a lot more fun than all those dead nude girls that permeate this movie. 

      Watch for the cheesy striptease contest where even the reporter gets into the act (after downing quite a few cocktails, that is). Great fun! Keep an eye out (no pun intended) for a special appearance by Henny Youngman.

Color Me Blood Red

     This is the third (but not at all final) installment in the H.G. Lewis "Blood Trilogy". Color Me Blood Red has a tamer story than most of his other films but with a much more interesting idea. A frustrated artist is obsessed with finding the right shade of red. He tries many mediums but none of them quite have the perfect red that he's been seeking as the one element that will make his artwork into true masterpieces. 

      One day he accidentally cuts himself and notices how beautifully red his blood is. He smears the blood on a canvas and finally finds what he's been looking for. He starts cutting himself repeatedly to obtain more of that beautiful blood red. After a short time, he notices that he can no longer use his blood, as there isn't enough of it and you can only cut yourself so many times before it becomes an issue. 

      By now his paintings are actually starting to sell, but unfortunately, he no longer has a healthy blood supply to satisfy the ever-growing demand for his new and wonderful artwork. So he starts luring vapid and unassuming models to his home for some bloodletting ...oops sorry, I meant modeling.

      His artwork, with its brilliant use of the color red, is now greatly sought after (which confuses me because blood turns brown when it dries, doesn't it?) Strangely, the whole movie is framed in a comical "Annette Funicello beach party type" setting, with young people dancing in the sand and enjoying various water sports, which is an odd yet interesting contrast to the goriness of the plot. 

      An interesting note is that when these movies were finally released on DVD, the producers enhanced the color of all the blood seen in the films, so it's REALLY REALLY red and has a striking contrast to the rest of the movie's color. My television can barely handle the enhanced red blood, but it's a great idea to go with since all H.G. Lewis' movies are filled with lots and lots of blood. Great fun!