Re: *** Official 9th Annual HTF October Scary Movie Challenge
10/02/08: GORILLA AT LARGE (Harmon Jones, 1954)
I had originally watched this one a long time ago during my childhood days on a now-defunct Sicilian TV channel; in hindsight, it can now best be considered as a guilty pleasure and, besides, the fact that it isn’t really a bona-fide horror film (given that the murders are not actually committed by the titular beast but rather by somebody conveniently donning a simian costume) might perhaps endear it to those film buffs who normally shun the genre.
The terrific cast is also a definite attraction here: Lee J. Cobb and Lee Marvin are particularly fun to watch as, respectively, the cigar-chomping Police Detective heading the murder investigations under the Big Top and a loudmouth but sleepy-eyed cop left to guard the caged gorilla but, inevitably, ending behind its bars himself! Cameron Mitchell, Raymond Burr and Anne Bancroft – who, arguably, never looked lovelier onscreen than she does here as the star trapeze artist of husband Burr’s circus – all have good roles and gleefully enter into the fun spirit of the thing. Interestingly enough, both Cobb and Burr were about to embark on their signature screen roles that same year in, respectively, ON THE WATERFRONT and REAR WINDOW! The gorilla keeper (Peter Whitney) is also a noteworthy and malevolent presence, particularly when trapping a victim into his self-designed mirror maze and when offering to teach Mitchell how to raise ex-wife Bancroft over his head for the crowd's pleasure!
The belated identification of the real killer is a big surprise – which makes the sequence of Burr taking on the blame for the circus murders and his eventual revelation as a cripple by Mitchell in front of Cobb a moving one and the film’s highlight. While the ape itself is clearly a man in a suit, it’s not a particular liability to one’s enjoyment of the show; the 3-D effects are not especially obtrusive either and are limited to the beast swinging by rope or walking into camera and passing through the revolving merry-go-round at the film’s climax. In conclusion, this modest production proved to be highly enjoyable hokum – although, admittedly, the nostalgia factor may have had a hand in how much I wound up liking the whole thing. Being a picture originally distributed by Fox, it was surprisingly (but thankfully) added to the coveted “Midnite Movies” line of DVD releases (which has recently been taken over by Fox from MGM) along with the unrelated Spanish adventure effort MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND (1981) featuring genre icons Peter Cushing and Paul Naschy and which I will get to later on during this Halloween marathon.
10/03/08:
TROLL (John Carl Buechler, 1986)
Among other things the 1980s was a decade of fairy-tale movies teeming with cutesy puppets standing in for monstrous creatures – THE DARK CRYSTAL (1982), LABYRINTH (1986), etc. Then in 1984 came the Joe Dante-Steven Spielberg modern-day concoction GREMLINS – whose irresistibly anarchic protagonists turned a gory children’s horror comic into a box office champ. Needless to say, cheap imitators started to raise their ugly head almost immediately – GHOULIES (1985; which I’ll be revisiting presently), CRITTERS (1986) and, obviously, the film under review which brought medieval forest creatures into present day U.S. suburbia – although, curiously enough, the indoor sequences were shot in an Italian studio!
Directed by a make-up artist, one can hardly expect in-depth character studies here but what we do get – a typically eccentric turn from Michael Moriarty (energetically dancing around his living room to a revamp of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues”); musician-turned-actor-turned-politician Sonny Bono as a lifelong bachelor/would-be chick magnet (clearly modeled on Dudley Moore’s character in FOUL PLAY [1978]; Hollywood veteran June Lockhart (of SHE-WOLF OF LONDON [1946] notoriety) as another tenant in the condominium which turns out to be the incarnation of the witch now hunting down the troll, who used to be her betrothed in human form(!); Jenny Beck as Moriarty’s little daughter who is transformed into a vengeful creep screaming for “Ratburgers!” when overtaken by the sprit of the troll and who, consequently, likes to beat the crap out of horror film-buff older brother; and diminutive Phil Fondocaro, a dwarf who, in mistaking him for an elf, the troll takes an immediate liking to – are, surprisingly enough, not unentertaining company for some 80-odd minutes or so.
The troll is immediately found by the girl in the basement of the apartment house and is soon gruesomely turning the other tenants into shrubbery and many another troll who, alarmingly, have a penchant for bursting into bouts of communal harmonic singing which provokes hysterics in the viewer more than anything else. For what it’s worth, Lockhart keeps a live, friendly mushroom companion by her side – in clear imitation of GREMLINS’ amiable Gizmo – and the film itself (which was followed by a sequel in 1990) is being remade as we speak.
P.S. Could it be just sheer coincidence that Moriarty’s character in the film is named Harry Potter(!) and that he is (albeit unsuspectingly) surrounded by hordes of trolls and wizards? For the record, I haven’t read any of J. K. Rowling's phenomenally successful books or watched any of their cinematic adaptations – but the similarity seemed too conspicuous to go by unmentioned.
10/03/08: GHOULIES (Luca Bercovici, 1985)
This is another revisit from long ago but, instead of time having added to its luster
a` la my recent screening of GORILLA AT LARGE (1954), it has only revealed it as the silly piece of junk it always has been. Sporting several of the same crew members who would later be reteamed for TROLL (1986; see my comments above), it deals with the Satanic goings-on in an abandoned Italian villa perpetrated by the long-lost son of a Cult leader (whose demise occurs at the film’s very start) to the eventual indifference of his goofy, pot-headed group of friends (including Mariska Hargitay, the daughter of Mickey Hargitay and Jayne Mansfield, who had escaped unscathed in the freak car accident which took the life of her actress mum).
Unfortunately, unlike the preceding Gremlins or the later Trolls, the titular creeps don’t have much of a personality; they are the handiwork of John Carl Buechler who later stepped behind the camera to inflict on an unsuspecting world such works of dubious artistry as TROLL (which, actually, wasn’t half-bad), FRIDAY THE 13TH PART VII: THE NEW BLOOD (1988; which has already receded irretrievably into my subconscious) and even GHOULIES III: GHOULIES GO TO COLLEGE (1991)!!
Apart from a mercifully brief but equally embarrassing turn from David Lynch mascot Jack Nance at the start and end of the film, the cast is peopled by obnoxious characters – from the hero who turns green-eyed when in the throes of Satanic possession to the clumsy, lock-jawed Morrissey-lookalike hunk of the party. Not that it matters but, for some reason, the end of the film reverses most of the evil that had happened throughout, making this a singularly pointless venture in the annals of screen history (and its being followed by three sequels all the more baffling)!
10/04/08:
MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND (Juan Piquer Simon, 1981)
Unfortunately, this one constituted another gaffe within my ongoing Halloween challenge since it’s not really a horror film despite title, director (he’d later make the gory PIECES [1983]) and presence of genre icons Peter Cushing and Paul Naschy! In fact, it’s a typical Jules Verne adventure (based on his much-filmed “Mysterious island”) which proves surprisingly palatable – thanks also to a lively score – though unbalanced by comedy relief from the youthful hero’s bumbling/cowardly sidekick, a Professor of Elocution whose name is constantly mispronounced (“T. Artelet not tartlet!”).
Cushing is the protagonist’s rich uncle who has purchased an island, to which the boy is sent and where he meets a variety of dangers (pirates, cannibals, monsters) – eventually, there’s a twist with respect to most of these, which thankfully explains the sheer poverty of the creatures on display! On the other hand, Naschy has a very small role at the start as a man who has struck gold – which is then coveted by his associates. The latter include Terence Stamp who, for obvious reasons, was Cushing’s chief rival for the acquisition of the island; later on, he turns up on it (ludicrously shrouded from top to bottom complete with anachronistic goggles!) with his bandit horde to take the gold by force – to this end, he even plants a female ‘shipwreck victim’ to lure the hero into divulging the loot’s whereabouts.
Coupled with the far better GORILLA AT LARGE (1954; see above) on Fox's-by-way-of-MGM "Midnite Movies" banner, it offers the film both in English and Spanish. At first, always the stickler for a film's native country being its original language, I started watching the film in Spanish but when a narrator began translating the credits into Spanish and the English subtitles proved to be of the descriptive "hard of hearing" variety, I soon gave up my puritan pretensions and watched it with the more 'user friendly' English soundtrack on. At least, one does get to hear Cushing and Stamp reciting their own lines this way...
10/04/08:
BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS(Emilio Vieyra, 1967)
This is the second horror film I’ve watched from Argentine director Vieyra – the other being the better-known but overrated THE CURIOUS DR. HUMPP (1967/71); I had long considered purchasing Mondo Macabro’s SE DVD but was doubtful about its quality – besides, I recall being bored by HUMPP (even if that one had extraneous footage added to it for export versions). Now that I’ve caught up with this one (acquired from ulterior sources), it’s hardly any more engaging (in fact, the film doesn’t even have a plot to speak of!) – but, at least, the dream-like/lethargic atmosphere throughout is reasonably effective.
That said, the striking pre-credits sequence (including the animation accompanying the titles themselves, curiously presented here in Italian!) is immediately stymied by a lengthy modern-day sequence which, amid numerous psychedelic trappings (such as gaudy fashions and go-go dancing), allows one no chance to get to know the characters – resorting to some rather embarrassing stream-of-consciousness editing instead! Incidentally, the suave head vampire is given little of substance to do here: though he gets to bite a couple of girls, his conflicted lover (who actually regrets her undead existence) – a beautiful blonde whose natural attributes are frequently and gratuitously exploited by the director – is at least as much to the fore and does some enslaving (albeit of a sexual kind) of her own! For what it’s worth, the couple have a manservant roaming about the apparently uninhabited castle looking sinister and generally mysterious and who’s involved in the film’s concluding twist.
Though clearly no more than a footnote in vampire movie lore, as I said, this is a watchable enough effort (and, thankfully, a compact 75 minutes) marked by flashes of eroticism, gore (the film was even banned on its home-turf when originally released!) and weirdness (a particularly nice effect is created by the recurring red-tinted shot of flying seagulls).
10/04/08:
VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES (Leon Klimovsky, 1973)
This is the tenth film featuring Spanish horror star Paul Naschy that I’ve watched; though best-known for his series of “Waldemar Daninsky” werewolf movies, he made all kinds of genre efforts – even scripting many of them himself under real name Jacinto Molina.
Given the film’s title, this one obviously highlights the living dead – but, thankfully, it doesn’t follow the then-prevalent flesh-eating pattern cemented by George A. Romero; the plot, in fact, is pretty complex and also involves transcendental, voodoo and occult rituals as well as a masked assassin! Naschy, by the way, plays three roles here (though one of them, a horned demon, is only featured in a sequence depicting the heroine’s nightmare) – another finds the star at his most Brando-like (albeit inspired by the Method actor’s variable stint in the psychedelic star-studded concoction CANDY [1968]!) as a mystic and the last is the latter's evil brother, the disfigured man behind the mask who masterminded the titular plot.
The gory bits include a harmless old man getting a hatchet implanted in his face, a woman being memorably beheaded, a morgue attendant hilariously killed by having a soda can(!) viciously pressed against his neck, while the impalement of a pair of oblivious lovers clearly rips off Mario Bava’s far superior A BAY OF BLOOD (1971). As for the zombies, their attacks are rendered a bit more effective than would have otherwise been the case by the use of slow-motion. Typically, the lounge score (curiously highlighted by some otherworldly chanting!) is notable, as are the Swinging London settings; incidentally, the hero is a Spanish actor appearing under the name of Vic Winner – similarly, his character is hilariously named Laurence Redgrave, while that of the Scotland Yard Inspector is Hawkins who has an assistant that goes by the name of Basehart! Naschy...er...Molina presumably intended these as a tribute to their Hollywood namesakes, but they came off as unintentionally amusing instead (as is the film's very opening scene in which a couple who are hard up for cash decide to have a go at grave-robbing, to their eternal chagrin!).
The film has been released on DVD by BCI Eclipse but, since I can’t say that I’ve been all that impressed by the star’s outings so far, I don’t own any of them in this format: in fact, VENGEANCE OF THE ZOMBIES itself came via a full-frame English-dubbed edition sourced from a damaged VHS and accompanied by forced Finnish subtitles!
But there you go.
