Respected doctor Herbert Lyutak (Mickey Hargitay - former Mr. Universe!), who regularly works with the police in helping solve murders, picks up a girl at a bar and brutally murders her. He is identified by an eye witness when in police custody, but then another murder takes place in the same fashion. The police are forced to release Lyutak, who we begin to learn is a very disturbed man. His wife knows of him murdering the girl, but is so in love with him that she is prepared to satisfy his violent desires. As the murders build up, a bizarre cat-and-mouse game starts between the police and Lyutak, where apparently no-one knows what is really going on.
First of all, I watched this believing it was the Delirium from the Video Nasty list, made in 1979, only later to find out I had watched the wrong film. But it was a welcome mistake, as the 1972 Delirium is actually quite good. This is one of the more extreme giallos I've seen. Usually the style eclipses the gore, and if the gore is heavy, then it usually comes with paint-red blood and an extra slice of cheddar. Here, although most of the violence is far from convincing, it is certainly unpleasant. One scene sees a girl being masturbated as she lies doped up and being strangled. It is the sexual edge that gives the film its unpleasantness, and the film is carried by a pretty good performance by Hargitay.
Even for a giallo, the focus on the sexual is heavy. These type of films are always filled with beautiful 70's Italian women who are not afraid to show a bit of flesh, but here it dominates practically every scene. More disturbingly, it features highly during the murder scenes. Shirts and gowns open to reveal breasts, and legs twist and bend to reveal panties, all as they lie dying or dead. As well as being heavily exploitative, it also adds to the sleazy tone of the film, and makes the film just that bit more unnerving. This is one of the most bonkers giallos I've seen - there were moments when I just didn't know what was going on - but stick with it and it's lots of fun.
"Mr Dean is a Yank from the States." Oh yes, this is the level of dialogue in this cheep, farcical tale of the fabled Scottish monster. There are several issues with the film, but where to begin? The story (if that's what we can call it) focuses on primarily American scientists who are studying the loch, in search of Nessie. There is Jack Stuart (Doc Livingston) who is the stereotypical Scotsman, kilt and all, who has lived at the loch most his life. He owns a magic telescope that has the power to defy both space and perspective, when early in the film his fixed position scope at one time looks down on a plane that is clearly high above mountainous terrain, then is parallel to the lochs surface, as the monster's head protrudes from the water.
Bizarrely, there is no indication that there had been any monster attacks in the past, but all of a sudden, Nessie decides that it's about time it started chowing down on some human flesh. Although, as we later discover, Nessie has standards, and is most certainly a moral killing monster, as it only attacks the wicked! Incredible! The monster itself (as you can see in the picture here) is pretty lame. But I have no issues with it. It is a low budget film, and it is actually quite a well constructed prop. However, for a monster that is attacking people, and is supposed to add a bit of horror into the film, you just have to look into the eyes, and actually the monster is a little cute.
The film is clearly not at Loch Ness, in fact, it is not even in Scotland. IMDb does confirm that it was filmed at Lake Tahoe in California. This shows, as the trees are wrong, and even the sounds of wildlife are native only to North America. Now onto the actors - a term used here very loosely. I have never heard so many appalling attempts at a Scottish accent in my life. I can do a better Scottish accent, and I'm rubbish at any accent! As I was watching, I could only guess that when casting, they were simply asked if they could roll their R's - "Yes." "You're hired."
Whilst it is easy to ridicule this film for almost everything in it, it is still incredibly fun to watch. I guess that it would qualify for one of those so-bad-it's-good labels. But it really is bad. For some bizarre reason, there is also the story of a Nazi propaganda plane that crashed into the Loch during the war. Odd, stupid, full of some of the worst acting ever, but a bit of harmless fun. The Wrath of Blog, watching films so you don't have to.
Errol Morris has throughout his filmmaking career, found some interesting subjects. From the groundbreaking The Thin Blue Line (1988) - that actually produced evidence enough to release a man from death row, - to The Fog of War's (2003) view of modern American political history according to Robert McNamara (reviewed here by Tom previously). And with Tabloid, he has yet again discovered a story that defies belief.
Joyce McKinney was former Miss Wyoming. She became a British tabloid darling in the late 1970's when she came over to the UK and kidnapped a young man, holding him hostage. The film tells the story of McKinney's various obsessions; she became obsessed with a young Mormon missionary, but his faith was compromised and, as far as Joyce was concerned, the Mormon church stole him away from her, taking him to England to restore his faith.
The levels of obsession are exposed progressively throughout the film. Joyce's fixation on this one person who she claims to love unconditionally is actually quite sad. She states late on in the film that there is only one love, and she loves the Mormon, and will love no other. This stubborn focus on one love has seen through to her old age, as she fills this love with a dog. The obsession of one love is also propagated in her love of her dog, that once dead, she spends thousands of dollars to get it cloned in South Korea.
As with all Morris documentaries, this is a little gem, and is never outwardly judgemental of it's subject matter. It is a tragic tale, and whilst it has been Joyce's own choice, her strong morals are quite touching. However, strip all sympathy aside, and she is simply mental!!
Ageing horror actor Byron Orlock (Boris Karloff) has just finished what will be his final film. The campy nature of the horror films he stars in, and the decline in moral society leads him to believe that horror films are no longer scary, especially when compared with what is happening in the real world. Young director Sammy Michaels (Peter Bogdanovich) has just written a great script especially for Orlock, and tries to persuade him to re-think his retirement plans on the build-up to Orlock's final public appearance at a drive-in for his new movie The Terror. Meanwhile, suburban husband and gun-obsessive Bobby Thompson (Tim O'Kelly) is planning a massacre using his sniper rifle, starting with his wife and family.
As usual when it comes to Roger Corman productions, the story behind the film is just as interesting (often more so) as the film itself. Karloff apparently owed Corman a couple of days work, so he was handed to Corman protege Peter Bogdanovich, and told him to make whatever film he liked - as long as it was cheap, quick, included footage of his film The Terror (1963), and drew on the recent Charles Whitman killings. So, with the help of screenwriter Samuel Fuller, Bogdanovich crafted an intelligent, shocking, and extremely interesting film that what way ahead of its time.
Targets is many things. On one hand it is a warm love-letter to the legendary actors of old. In one scene, Michaels enters Orlock's hotel room, them both being drunk, and watch the end of Howard Hawks' The Criminal Code (1931), which starred a younger Boris Karloff. They briefly discuss the genius of Hawks and Michaels comments on what a fine screen presence Orlock (really Karloff) was, and still is. It is also a first-rate thriller. Tim O'Kelly is very effective as the clean-cut, all-American boy, who is becoming increasingly shaken about the person he finds himself becoming. In real-life, Whitman was found to have an aggressive brain tumour that was believed to be the cause of the sudden killing spree. The violence, though not gratuitous or exploitative, is shocking and nasty. The murder scenes are shot with a slow and detailed precision that are scary given the real-life occurrences.
Most interestingly, the film is a commentary on the generation gap, in both society and in cinema. Michaels states that "all the great films have already been made." Of course, this is not true - America was about to enter its true golden age, when the likes of Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Dennis Hopper, Francis Ford Coppola, Michael Cimino, and Bogdanovich himself shook Hollywood to its core. But Michaels is reflecting Orlock's fear of the new. Orlock is retiring because "it's a young person's world," and he feels he no longer has his place. The film builds up to the inevitable meeting of Orlock and Thompson - the old vs. the new, if you will.
Targets is quite hard to sum up. It is genuinely a hidden gem, and a true original that should be seen by anyone interested in cinema. Karloff would sadly pass away a year after this film was released, and he gives what is possibly his finest career performance. He has no scary make-up or sets to drown him out. He is simply an old man, walking stick and all. Although he made a couple more films after this, Targets seems his true and fitting exit from cinema. This is close to an 'A'-movie that I've seen a B-movie get, and again proves that Roger Corman was a true cinema genius.
Dr. Orloff (Klaus Kinski) is a London doctor who has the unfortunate compulsion of murdering prostitutes. When he kills a young girl at the start of the film, a begging blind man picks up his scent and recognises the smell of a rare plant found only in the Botanic Gardens. Orloff murders his victims there and has their bodies disposed of by a woman infatuated by him. Inspector Selby (Andreas Mannkopff) is assigned to the case, and with the help of the local prostitutes and the blind man, is determined to track down the man dubbed Jack the Ripper.
One of the most prolific of the cult directors, Jess (or Jesus) Franco directed over 150 features. The majority of these were awful, low-budget horror or skin flicks, and he drifted in and out of porn for a large chunk of his career. When he was on-form, he was actually quite talented. Whereas Jack the Ripper isn't a very good film at all, it certainly displays some of Franco's talents. For a director so fond of breasts and genitals, Ripper is pleasantly genital-light, and even more surprisingly, rather low on gore. It's more interested in Kinski's Orloff and the police investigation that followed him. Historically, of course, it's a load of bull shit. There's very little (if any) fact on show, but this is forgiveable as it is a low-budget horror after all.
The ever-watchable Klaus Kinsi is memorable in the role, even though he is clearly sleep-walking throughout the film. But if you've read his fascinating autobiography you would know he had very little love for his art, so it's a testament to his ability that he manages to be so good with so little effort. But it's the police investigation that is the most entertaining in the film, as Selby is assisted by his ragtag group of witnesses, and a man that has to be the campest police chief in film history.
The gore is quite low like I said, but when it appears it is quite gruesome. There's breast removal, stabbings, corpse-raping, not of which is done convincingly, but it is a shame because the film does occasionally elevate itself above it's shlock roots. It's actually beautifully filmed in some scenes, especially when the moon shines through the trees in the woods scene. It's all a bit too funny-because-it's-bad to be any good, but it's certainly not terrible, and it's actually made me want to check out some of Franco's vast filmography. But I'll probably leave out the porn.
The film begins with the story of a rich man being given a slow premature death by his money-grubbing housekeeper. The elderly man has shunned his actor grandson, who visits him and, after discovering the housekeepers use of poison, is sent away. He returns disguised as a travelling cinema worker, who, upon getting into his grandfather's house, proceeds to show them the story of Herr Tartuff. Rich landowner Herr Orgon (Werner Krauss) brings his new friend and religious fanatic Tartuffe (Emil Jannings) home, much to the dismay of Orgon's wife Frau Elmire (Lil Dagover). After she spurns Tartuffe's sexual advances, she sets out to prove to Orgon that Tartuffe is an imposter who is seeking to inherit Orgon's vast estate.
Why director F.W. Murnau decided to use the film-within-a-film device in his adaptation of Moliere's famous play, I'm not sure. Maybe it was to put his own new spin on what is now a well-known story and moral tale, or perhaps it is just to bring it up to date. Either way, it's an effective device, and allows Murnau to advertise his unbelievably advanced film-making techniques and ideas. His better known classics such as Nosferatu (1922) and Sunrise: A Song of Two Humans (1927) showed his ability for expressionism and breakthrough techniques, but Tartuffe displays his eye for the science of cinema. Every frame, every camera movement, and every cut is sheer beauty. And everything is helped by one of the giants of silent cinema, Emil Jannings.
Tartuffe is an absolute monster, and it needed a true monster to play him. Jannings is colossal - his hulking frame making him look like a kind of evil spectre, capable of anything (what a shame that Jannings would later commit career suicide by becoming Goebbels pet propaganda tool). The film takes some surprising risks (for its time) as well. During the opening scenes, before we are introduced to Tartuffe, we see the young grandson being booted out of the house. Then something amazing happens - he walks up to the camera and looks at us, the audience, smiling. He assures us that the matter is not finished, and that he will be back to avenge his grandfather. This was back in a time where directors felt they had to have the characters looking a certain way went conversing, and that camera shots had to be at a certain level, for fear the audience simply wouldn't understand what was happening. Directors were simply terrified to try new techniques, but not Murnau.
There is also a shocking scene involving the first exchanges between Tartuffe and Elmire. She is in the midst of demanding him to leave, when the camera droops down from her face, and lingers on her cleavage, which is slightly visible due to the way she is looking down upon Tartuffe. All is seen from Tartuffe's point of view, and this happens a number of times. Surprisingly saucy given it's age. Murnau is simply a genius, and you can watch almost any of his films to realise this. Tartuffe is not his best, and even if it seems to be breathlessly sprinting for the end in the final ten minutes, it is still a brilliant film.
A tour bus carrying a handful of archetypal American tourists is making its way around Barcelona, hosted by an eccentric and sleazy tour guide. Mark Burton (John Richardson) has taken his mistress along with him who he is telling everyone is his secretary. Amongst the others in the group, there's a hip lesbian couple, a fun-seeking young daughter, a couple with a bit of an age difference, and a priest. They are all handed red raincoats to protect them from the torrential Spanish rain, when one of them is murdered by being repeatedly stabbed and having their eye removed. Burton suspects his ex-wife, who is apparently in Barcelona. Soon the tour group are being picked off by this mysterious, red-raincoat wearing psychopath.
My experience with Italian giallo director Umberto Lenzi is only limited at current. The only other work I've seen of his is the rather bad Video Nasty, Cannibal Ferox (1981). From what I've read, his work seems to be up and down, as is the case with the majority of the prolific Italian horror directors of his era. Eyeball, surprisingly, is not bad. It is, of course, unoriginal, cheesy, unsurprising, and rips-off horror master Dario Argento something rotten. Lenzi also makes the strange decision to have the murders take place in broad daylight, in public view. But it's also quite fun, and has a premise that is enjoyably ridiculous and a climatic revelation that blows it out of the water.
Giallos often don't make sense. Even some of the best works in the sub-genre, for example Argento's excellent Tenebrae (1982) is so mind-fucking and far-fetched that it just makes the whole experience that much better. I wouldn't go that far in the case of Eyeball, but Lenzi's sheer audacity come the climax made me chuckle, and gave the film that all-important charm. The murder scenes are filmed rather badly with no effort made for set-piece or tension, but there's plenty of enjoyment to be had here. Lenzi clearly knows this as he even throws a bonus lesbian scene in the middle, seemingly just for the hell of it, and there's plenty of humour that comes from the mismatched band of characters. Nothing to give Argento and Fulci sleepless nights then, but for fans of giallo and Grindhouse, definitely worth a watch.
Twenty years after Pearl Jam's debut album Ten took the music world by storm, Cameron Crowe directs this documentary that chronicles and celebrates the band's history, impact and longevity. Crowe starts way back in 1988 when guitarist Stone Gossard and bassist Jeff Ament were part of Mother Love Bone, a band that were popular due to singer Andy Wood's charismatic personality and song writing talent. After Wood's overdose and untimely death, Gossard and Ament founded Pearl Jam, along with the hugely talented singer Eddie Vedder and lead guitarist Mike McCready. The band went on to be one of the most successful bands of the 90's, and were seen as the natural rivals of fellow 'grunge' band Nirvana.
Crowe's documentary is hugely detailed, combining the standard talking heads with old interview footage, home video, and concert footage. Crowe apparently worked his way through 12,000 hours of footage of the band for the film. It was well worth it, as we get to see rare, grainy footage of Wood's exciting performances with Mother Love Bone, as well as the extremely moving performances by Vedder and Soundgarden frontman Chris Cornell as part of Wood tribute group Temple of the Dog. The talking heads are no mere conduits that progress the film along, they are as informative and moving as the performances, as Vedder and Cornell, especially, open up and give tearful recollections.
It also covers the band's battle with ticket giant Ticketmaster, and how they objected to the fact that their fans were getting ripped off just to see a live band. It shows Pearl Jam as one of the few bands that remember their roots and are a dying breed. It was strange for me to watch this film, viewing the likes of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Soundgarden as part of music history. I grew up with my old brother listening to the music, so I remember the whole 'grunge' craze quite well. I really only remember stripy shirts and long hair, but Pearl Jam Twenty reminded me of how good the music actually was. This is a must-see for fans of the band or the era, or for those enjoy an involving documentary. Crowe clearly knows his shit (he was a journalist for Rolling Stone after all) and his passionate touch is all over it.
Set amongst the Guarani-Kaiowa community in their native Brazil, Birdwatchers depicts the breakdown between the white settlers and the ever-decreasing tribe. Tired of living in a designated settlement, stoic community leader Nadio (Ambrosio Vilhava) decides to take back the land that their ancestors are buried on. Only the land has been taken over by white farmers who are making a wealthy living from the land. Tensions increase further when the young Osvaldo (Pedro Abrisio Da Silva), who is learning to cut out indulging in things like red meat and women to become a shamen, begins a friendship with the farmers daughter.
Over the past number of years, hundreds of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe have committed suicide. Their religion is based around a God they call Nande Ru, and they worship the land they live on and so respect. Like many indigenous tribes, they have seen their land raped and poached, and have been driven off to seek underpaid labour. The film depicts the suicides early on, as Nadio finds two women hanging from nearby trees. He is not shocked, as he has seen this happened many times before. The film gets its real power from the fact that this is reality, and shocked me at my ignorance and the failure of any real coverage of this decreasing community.
The film is also funny, beautiful and moving. Most hilarious is the scene in which Mami (Eliane Juca Da Silva) seduces one of the farmers in order to get hold of his gun. He is seen as a bit of an idiot throughout the film, and Mami and the other tribeswomen mockingly dub him as 'long dick'. As he has sex with Mami, she is laughing shouting 'long dick!' at him. It's a strangely funny scene. The actors are probably so effective due to the fact that these are actual members of the Guarani-Kaiowa tribe, and had to be introduced to the concept of cinema before receiving their brief acting lessons. I suspect they didn't need acting lessons, and their emotions and history are written all over their faces.
The film wisely doesn't show everything so simply and one-sided. It is a complex issue that deserves a complex depiction. The farmer Moreira (Leonardo Medeiros), dismayed at the tribe settling on the land where he grows his crops, explains how this is the farm he inherited from generations before him. The land belongs to him as much as it does to the tribe. This is the only land he knows, and what a beautiful land it is. The Brazilian landscape is filmed with a natural beauty, which allows us to understand why the Guarani-Kaiowa worship the land so. A powerful film, and when director Marco Bechis flashes up the charity dedicated to preserving the tribe at the end of the film, it will fill you with guilt that you can live in a world that would fail to recognise their struggle and plight.
Previously banned in the UK after being placed on the Video Nasty list, Don't Go in the Woods is a standard stalk-and-slash flick set in that well-known terrifying terrain - the woods! Four young campers go looking for a bit of adventure but find themselves being stalked by a mysterious murderer who tries to pick them off one by one. Also in the woods in a collection of your archetypal cripples and bird watcher nerds, who are all ripe for a gruesome death. The four campers soon find themselves lost, even though their tour guide is a kind of crap Bear Grylls. Meanwhile, the local sheriff and his deputy start to investigate the various disappearances.
Apparently (according to Wikipedia), Studio Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki is a big fan of this film. Why the man responsible for great films such as Princess Mononoke (1997) and Ponyo (2008) would think that about such a steaming pile of shit is a mystery. Okay, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but it is so steeped in tedium that it becomes 80 minutes of sheer boredom. Things just don't make sense. For instance, why is a man in a wheelchair on his own in the woods, struggling to wheel himself out? Well, because he's an easy target for the killer, that's why. And the killer himself - a kind of fat caveman wielding a spear - is pathetic. Why a group of young men would be so defenceless against him is a mystery. Just throw a fucking rock at him! Or run away! And just when you think it's all over and they get out of the woods, five minutes later they're running back in. Awful stuff.
One the eve of its centennial, the small town of Antonio Bay experiences some strange events. Father Malone (Hal Holbrook) is sat in his study when a stone falls out of the wall behind him to reveal an old journal. It belongs to Father Malone's grandfather, and tells how he and the other five founding members of the town caused a ship called Elizabeth Dane to crash, and then plundered it. They planned to open a leper colony, but all of the crew on board were killed. And now a strange fog has begins to creep upon the town, carrying with it a ghostly ship. Three fishermen are killed by sword-wielding spirits, and it soon becomes clear that the crew of the Elizabeth Dane are back to claim six lives for themselves.
As mentioned by Marc in his review of John Carpenter's most recent film, The Ward (2010), Carpenter's career is a very mixed bag. Made during his early heyday, The Fog was produced on a low-budget, and contains the same kind of style and atmosphere that we saw in the excellent Assault on Precinct 13 (1976) and Halloween (1978). It's not his best film by any means, but The Fog has become an almost classic in the horror genre. To my surprise, (as other reviews I had read told me otherwise) The Fog is very good, and although isn't ground-breaking like Halloween, or as damn cool as Escape from New York (1981), or even as inspired as The Thing (1982), but it is certainly eerie, and has that 1980's feel to it that the likes of Carpenter and David Cronenberg made their own.
The premise of it is certainly silly. It's the time of thing you would read in an old collection of horror stories, and see in a 1950's B-movie. But this is essentially a B-movie, but made straight-faced by Carpenter with his golden touch that rules out any possibility that the film might come across as silly. This is pure popcorn horror, made by an old master. Especially memorable is the scene where we first glimpse the ship's crew, huddled in a church with the fog swirling around them. Their leader slowly draws his sword; his red eyes glowing, while Carpenter's self-penned atmospheric synth-score plays over. Again, silly-sounding. But it's not, it's actually beautiful and extremely cool. A very pleasant surprise, and another reminder of just how good Carpenter was before his decline. You'll have to hold a knife to my throat to watch the sequel though.
Five years in the making, director Mark Hartley's documentary is his love-letter to the films he grew up with as a child. Like the majority of us film-lovers, we would occasionally stay up late and watch whatever crap late night television would show, whether it involved giant monsters, lesbian vampires, or gruesome horror. Hartley grew up in Australia, and he witnessed first hand the boom in Australia that saw their most prolific time in movie production, producing some of the most full-on B-movies of the time. Disappointed that writings on Australia cinema always failed to recognise this sub-genre, Hartley sent his synopsis to Quentin Tarantino, a long-time fan of 'ozploitation', who helped Hartley fund the project, and himself sitting in as the key interviewee.
As much I love his work, minus the pretty shoddy Death Proof (2007), Tarantino is possibly the most annoying person on Earth. I appreciate his enthusiasm, but he's such a shameless dork that I just want to punch him. And seeing him for long periods of this pretty good documentary just brings the film down. More interesting, however, are the interviews with the likes of Jamie Lee Curtis, Stacy Keach, Dennis Hopper, George Lazemby, and probably the most famous and prolific director of the period, Brian Trenchard-Smith. The film certainly opened my eyes to a sub-genre that I have until now neglected (apart from the globally popular Mad Max (1979)) and introduced me some films that actually look pretty good (namely psychokinetic thriller Patrick (1978), which I hope to watch very soon).
The documentary itself is obviously designed to be as entertaining as possible. Images, interviews, effects and film-clips fly at you at a relentless speed. Trying to keep in tone with the fast paced enjoyment of the B-movies it is showing, it does this at the cost of allowing the audience to absorb all the information. I don't mean it's hard to keep up with, I would just have liked the pace to slow down a touch so I can differentiate between the films it shows, and the various anecdotes given about their production. At the end of the film I could barely remember any specific films, just a blur of scenes. But like I said, it's certainly fun, and some of the visuals are wonderfully designed, especially the title sequence. Overall, a must-see for exploitation fans - the film is very well researched and Hartley clearly knows his shit - but nothing exactly ground-breaking for documentary fans.
Psychotherapist Dr. Hal Raglan (Oliver Reed) has founded a breakthrough technique called 'psychoplasmics'. This unconventional new technique involves sessions where deep rooted anxieties and memories manifest themselves in a kind of hypnotic state where the patient and doctor can play different roles. This causes the patient's bodies to change as a result of these sessions. Frank Carveth (Art Hindle) discovers bruises on his daughter's body, and knows that it is the doing of his mentally unstable wife Nola (Samantha Eggar), who is under Raglan's care. As Frank tries to form a case against Raglan, various people begin to be murdered by disfigured children who seem to be protective of his daughter.
It's a glowing testament to Canadian director David Cronenberg that a film such as The Brood, a relatively low-budget, silly-sounding horror, can get itself made, let alone avoid being a catastrophe. For a film about killer-children that appear out of nowhere that butcher people in various and inventive ways, the film is remarkable. It's not scary like I would imagine it once was, but it is certainly unnerving. But this isn't just a great horror film, this is simply a brilliant piece of film-making. This simply should not work. But it does. And it is possibly his finest work to date.
Cronenberg's style is unmistakable. His distinct style of character-building before unleashing shocking pieces of crazy horror is usually backed-up by a great script and genuinely brilliant film-making. It is a style that he would hone and develop into other great films of this era - Scanners (1981), Videodrome (1983), The Fly (1986), Dead Ringers (1988) - all fantastic films, all memorable pieces of horror. The Brood really comes alive in the exchanges between Raglan and his patients. Opening with a long scene in which Raglan and an emotionally damaged patient with some serious father issues interact in front of an audience, the scene is blandly shot with a black background. Yet for what is just a long conversation becomes immediately engrossing thanks to some fantastically complex dialogue, and builds a tense atmosphere that would prevail throughout the film.
The film is amazing throughout, but nothing prepared me for the ending. Obviously I won't reveal it, but it's a divine mixture of the truly inspired, the sickening, and the outright ridiculous. No other film-maker could make such a scene so horrifying and effective, yet not make you question what you are seeing. I'm not sure what was happening in this era, but there was definitely a fear of women and their capabilities when it comes to birth, and this was reflected in some films of the time - Larry Cohen's It's Alive (1974), Rosemary's Baby (1968), Xtro (1983). Directors seemed to have a fascination with the gruesomeness of birth and the power that it holds. Cronenberg has calmed down of late, making dramas such as A History of Violence (2005) and Eastern Promises (2007). Both are solid films but his true legacy lies in the films made between 1975 and 1988, where he made some of the best horror films ever made.
Charlestown, Boston - a gang of bank robbers are preparing a heist. They break into the bank, rough up some of the employees, and gain access to the main vault. They escape, taking bank manager Claire (Rebecca Hall) with them. They eventually release her, telling her to walk until she feels the sea at her feet. It seems they have gotten away with it, but gang member Jem (Jeremy Renner) is restless and wants her taken care of after discovering she is from the same neighbourhood and may be able to identify one of them. Doug (Ben Affleck) takes responsibility, and he starts following Claire. They eventually start talking, and Doug finds himself falling for her. With FBI agent Frawley (Jon Hamm) closing in on the gang, Doug becomes disenchanted with the life of crime and longs to give it up, but will Jem, and more dangerously, will notorious big boss Fergie (Pete Postlethwaite), let him?
There's been a lot of interest in Boston of late. Most have focused on the element of crime and the way it seemingly flourishes there. The most popular are Martin Scorsese's The Departed (2006) and Ben Affleck's debut film as director, Gone Baby Gone (2007). Affleck originated from Boston himself, and although he depicts it as a dangerous place to live and a place that bleeds criminals, he clearly has a love for the place. The Town benefits from this fact, as although its storyline is seeped in cliche, the film has a genuine authenticity to it that gives the film heart, and a real feeling of place.
Michael Mann's Heat (1995) is the main source where The Town takes its influence from. Without capturing the same neon beauty of Mann's crime masterpiece, The Town films its bank robbery set pieces with the same attention to detail, and exciting, breathless shoot-outs. It also has it's fair share of impressive performances - Renner, as the films token loose-canon, brims with subtle menace and eagerness to harm. He is very good, and fully deserves the attention he got from The Hurt Locker (2008), and the two Academy Award nominations that came from that and this. Jon Hamm looks like the film star he could become once he's done with Mad Men with a performance of fierce determination and arrogance, as his FBI man looks to catch these career criminals before they rob any more banks.
But with the good, comes the cliche. The central romance between Affleck and Hall is believable - they're two lost souls looking for someone to help them escape the existence that they currently hate - but you can't help thinking how gullible Hall is and how stupid Affleck is for getting involved with someone who could put him in jail for many years. Yet while the movie is ultimately formulaic, and contains character archetypes seen many times before, it remains frequently riveting. Complete with mumbling, Boston-accented dialogue, and real locations, the film's authenticity lifts the film out of the good and into the very good. Affleck may be a better director than actor, but he gives a strong performance here. If he does ever decide to go back into acting full time, let's hope he doesn't forget about directing, and hopefully he's sacked the agent that brought him the likes of Pearl Harbor (2001), Bounce (2000) and, of course, Gigli (2003).
We all know the story of Count Dracula by now - as well as Mary Shelley's original novel, he has been immortalised in countless film adaptations that both stay close to the source material, and put fresh spins on the story and legend. Hammer's 1958 adaptation makes several changes to the story, but if this was due to budget limitations or simple artistic expression I do not know. Jonathan Harker (John Van Eyssen) arrives at Dracula's (Christopher Lee) castle as a newly employed librarian. He soon meets Dracula's captive who begs Harker to set her free and help her. Rather than Harker being a real estate agent sent to Transylvania to broker a deal with the Count, here Harker is a vampire hunter sent to bring Dracula to his doom.
The rest I'm sure you know, but in this version Harker becomes a vampire briefly only to be staked by his friend Van Helsing (Peter Cushing). Christopher Lee was still relatively early in his career when he took up this role, although he had previously starred at Frankenstein's monster in Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957). He had starred in many films before this, albeit in smaller and uncredited roles, yet here he looks likes he's been doing it for years. Apart from his comically camp trot down the stairs in his dramatic entrance scene, Lee makes a massive impact in what is a relatively limited role. He has very few lines, and very few scenes. But he leaves a lasting impression that compliments the sheer colossal power of his presence.
This is by no means a great film. But Hammer never strived for greatness. Their films were mainly about money-making on a small budget. Dracula ends at around the 80 minute mark, yet it feels about 10 minutes long. It moves at lightning pace, jumping from scene to scene with breathless pace that seems suck out all atmosphere and genuine chills. But what it lacks in atmosphere, it makes up for in sheer enjoyment. This never comes close to the gothic brilliance of Tod Browning's 1931 adaptation, or the lavish beauty of Francis Ford Coppola's 1992 effort, but this has a British thespian quality and that Hammer touch that no other production company seem to be able to replicate. Far from the definitive version, but certainly the most fun.
I have decided that I wanted to tackle an entire franchise of films. When posing this idea to Tom, he immediately stated that I should see all of the Star Trek films. Eek, I thought!! Not ever being a fan of it, I had only been exposed to the original series that was shown constantly on BBC Two as I was growing up, and the later series The Next Generation, that I had seen a few episodes of from the late '80's, and I was never enamored by it - I am certainly no 'Trekkie'. My only experience of the films was the very recent J. J. Abrams 'reboot', that I have to say I thoroughly enjoyed. With trepidation, I began the series, inevitably, from the very start. And I have to confess I was pleasantly surprised with it, despite it being an odd number film (if you are unaware, the fan world suggests that only the even numbered Star Trek films are any good).
The main crux of the story focuses on an unidentified phenomenon that is heading towards Earth, destroying everything in it's path. This brings back together the original crew of the Starship Enterprise: Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Bones (DeForest Kelly), Scotty (James Doohan), et al. Their task is to stop the strange enemy. The villian of the piece is certainly an interesting one. A more cerebral monster, in a state of existential crisis, the team have quite a task to penetrate it's unknown dangers.
Aside from the awfulness of Shatner - he genuinely can't act - the characters are interesting, and with Kirk's usurping of the Enterprises captain at the start seems to create an interesting duality. This is quickly thrown to the side. There is an interesting and theoretically disturbing scene at the start of the film, we see the teleportation units that 'beam up' crew members go horribly wrong. The result - whilst not seen - is horrifying, as the fundamentals of teleportation require that the body is broken into it's most basic molecules and reconstructed in a different place. This transaction was never completed, and therefore the bodies of the travelers, are never fully restructured.
With some science consultancy from the great sci-fi writer, Isaac Asimov, the film surely had some credentials. The special effects were overseen by Douglas Trumball and John Dykstra, and the results are often astounding, even today. Whilst not capturing the fun and excitement of Star Wars (1977), this more cerebral, esoteric space adventure, offers a more 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) stance on space than the Flash Gordon/Buck Rogers elements of Star Wars. It's not a great film, but I was absolutely amazed that it was actually good. However, at an exhausting 132 minutes, the film could have been tighter with a few trims here and there. It would have benefited with a 100 minute running time.
Whilst Jean-Luc Godard focused on a more politically motivated form of cinematic expression in the late 1960's, his friend Francois Truffaut continued his own personal form of human experience cinema. Now that of course is no bad thing, when you consider this perfect little gem of a film. Not one of his most famous films, The Wild Child tells the true story of 18th century doctor, Jean Itard (Truffaut himself), and his discovery of the later named Victor (Jean-Pierre Cargol), a ferel child found in the forests and brought into Parisian civilisation.
The film is a more sociological exploration of what it means to be modern and civilised. When the boy is brought into the modern world, he obviously experiences many things that frighten and confound him. The child is forced to conform to what civilisation sees as correct. But what exactly is correct? Is order and formality the key to progression, or is it simply an understanding and connection with the natural world? It's interesting that Victor never cries, until he is in the stages of being civilised. It is exactly this kind of order that upsets the boy. Which raises the question, are it the confusions and pressures of civilisation the root cause for modern extremes of emotions?
Well, of course, we are not able to answer any of these questions that the film raises, and the film does not try to offer any. This aside, the film, shot in black and white, is a fundamentally beautiful story of the human condition, and the utter absurdity of the structures and societies we have constructed around us. The film was later reproduced for Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes (1984), but was not nearly as successful in creating such beguiling reactions, and questions on the nature of reality. Wonderful.
I wrote a review for Lars Von Triers previous film, Antichrist (2009), so I won't reiterate his 'agent-provocateur' profile outside of his films. I also have to confess that I've never really been much of a fan of his work. The aforementioned, I found intriguing, The Idiots (1998) was OK. Other than Breaking the Waves (1996 - which whilst utterly depressing, was a fine film), I can't say that his films have enlightened me in any way. His approach has always been interesting though. Now to his most recent effort. Melancholia, whilst forming around the concept that a planet (Melancholia) is heading towards Earth, the film is largely focused upon the relationship between siblings Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg), who are, emotional, polar opposites. The film is split into two chapters, each with the sister's names as titles.
The first half focuses on Justine, and specifically her wedding reception. This part of the film plays much like another of the Dogma '95 films, Thomas Vintererg's excellent Festen (1998). We are introduced to Dunst's character as someone fleeting. She constantly leaves the party, sporadically moving around outside of family and friends. We know from this that she is without conscience when considering people around us. We see in this section that Justine is a person attracted to chaos; she despises order. This is perfectly illustrated in a scene in the bridal suit, where coitus is about to take place. Her new husband, Michael (Alexander Skarsgard), begins taking his clothes of, folding each element of garment and carefully laying them down. This show of order seems to frighten Justine, as she leaves.
In chapter two, the main focus is on the sister, Justine. She has a seemingly austere life, married to John (Kiefer Sutherland) with a young son. They stay in what seems to be a manor house. Justine, who is now staying with them in the throws of deep depression. Claire, unlike Justine, is petrified with any form of disorder. All things have to be in the right place. From the start of the film the presence of the approaching planet is referred to. As it gets ever closer Claire's husband constantly reminders her that it will most certainly not impact with Earth. The film progresses as each character comes to terms with their existence in the face of utter destruction.
A drama which alludes to science fiction, it is an interesting film on two very different people living with the idea of total destruction. It is without question an utterly beautiful piece of cinema, with some exceptionally great performances, particularly from Dunst, in what must be her finest role.
First of all, I watched this believing it was the Delirium from the Video Nasty list, made in 1979, only later to find out I had watched the wrong film. But it was a welcome mistake, as the 1972 Delirium is actually quite good. This is one of the more extreme giallos I've seen. Usually the style eclipses the gore, and if the gore is heavy, then it usually comes with paint-red blood and an extra slice of cheddar. Here, although most of the violence is far from convincing, it is certainly unpleasant. One scene sees a girl being masturbated as she lies doped up and being strangled. It is the sexual edge that gives the film its unpleasantness, and the film is carried by a pretty good performance by Hargitay.
