The Last Horror Film relates the sad tale of Vinny
Durand (Joe Spinell). A New York cab driver, Vinny
has dreams of becoming a Hollywood film
director but as the film begins he lives at home with his mother (Spinell's
real-life mom). Obsessed with horror film actress Jana Bates (Caroline Munro),
he's convinced that if he can just speak to her she will recognize his genius
and be thrilled to star in his movie. He is, of course, delusional — and if
there is any doubt seeing his bedroom covered in photos of Ms. Bates from floor
to ceiling will put them to rest. Determined to overcome all obstacles he loads
up his 16mm camera and sets off to the annual Cannes Film Festival to somehow
meet with his beloved actress.
Once he's in France Vinny begins darting around Cannes , camera on
shoulder, trying any way he can to get in front of Jana and attract her
attention. The actress is being feted about town and spoken of as 'in the
running' for awards for her roles in a string of horror movies — my favorite
unbelievable element of the film. At the same time someone starts killing
movie-makers at the festival... all of whom are connected to Vinny's favorite
actress in some way. Is the clearly unstable Vinny doing the slicing and
dicing? Or is there something else going on? And who is sending notes to Jana and
her filmmaker boyfriend (Judd Hamilton, Munro's actual spouse) stating that
they have made their "last horror movie"? Is it Vinny? Someone with a
16mm camera certainly seems to be able to catch Jana's reaction to the
discovery of her dead ex-husband on film just before the body mysteriously
disappears.
Does our erstwhile obsessive film fan have more than a
single screw loose or is he just a determined man misunderstood by less
discerning people trying to hold him back? Actually, that's a silly question.
Vinny is obviously nuts! Unable to hold his shit together long enough to watch
a gore film, or control his lustful urges while a nude woman dances in a club,
he's the classic repressed sicko with no good way of expressing his feelings.
The film tries hard to slather a sense of social commentary over these goings
on with a reoccurring voice-over that lets us partially inside Vinny's mind,
but it doesn't work very well. Even less effective is the repeated, intrusive
radio news broadcasts relaying violent real-life incidents from the year the
film was made. The filmmakers were trying (I guess) to underscore the harsh,
terrible reality of the world that makes horror movies such a tame thing in
comparison, but it just comes off as pointless. I agree with what I think the
film is saying with these inserted news stories but it would take a better
movie to effectively communicate the idea without seeming inane.
There comes a point while watching a movie when the viewer
realizes that they are watching a bad 'un. No matter when this moment comes
it's immediately followed by a conscious decision to either keep watching or to
move on to some other, less crappy thing in life. I almost always opt for
sticking through to the bitter end just to see if there is anything of note in
the disaster onscreen. Often this can be a fool's game and a real waste of
time, but on occasion there are benefits to my drive to complete whatever film I've
started. In the case of The Last Horror Film there are a number of
reasons I'm glad I stayed until the end credits — but the script is not one of
them. The reasons to soldier on are the two stars and the one stroke of
brilliance the filmmakers mustered up: shooting the entire thin tale on
location during the 1981 Cannes Film Festival. The movie could be a whole lot
less good and still be worth watching simply to see the amazing sights of Cannes in full movie
spaz-drag. I found myself pausing and rewinding several times to get a better
look at posters, theater marquees and strange advertising gimmicks that litter
the French landscape. My favorite is the hotel entrance made up with the
artwork for the Bond film For Your Eyes Only that places the doorway
between a pair of shapely female legs. Mon dieu!
5 comments:
I'll sit through anything with Munro in it. I sat through Slaughter High because of her. Have you seen that one? If you have, what did you think of it?
Have not seen that one yet. I understand all the actors are far too old to play the characters they are playing- is that right?
Yes, that is correct. The characters are all unlikable and dumb. Two characters sneak away from the group to have sex when they know they are being killed off one by one!The script is bad too. It does boast some entertaining death scenes and of course Caroline Munro.
Caroline Munro's appearance will cause me to see it one day, I assure you!
You can pick it up pretty easily with several other movies. They're mostly terrible, though. Waxworks is the best movie in the set.
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