PIECES (1982)

It was during my 9^th grade year that I saw my first European horror film and it was on the big screen. Lucky me!

In the 9^th and 10^th grades I attended a boarding school in Chattanooga. Being trapped in a campus dorm Monday through Friday made some type of escape on the weekend absolutely necessary. Not being overly interested in drugs and only marginally interested in alcohol I usually spent a few hours each Saturday in a movie theater sucking up whatever Hollywood would throw at me. But on this particular Saturday night I was in for something a bit more…..odd.

Several of us had spotted the newspaper ads for PIECES and were taken aback by the forwardness of the rather lurid image. By this time I had heard of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE but had yet to see it so this seemed even more dangerous. If this was striving to top that film what might be sprayed across the screen? A few of us teenage boys made plans to see this sucker no matter what. Understand- we were under no illusions about the nastier elements of the film. Hell! That’s why we were daring each other to go! We saw PIECES as a test of our masculinity, a rite of passage that without experiencing might point towards us becoming less than we were capable of being. We were men in training and we could handle anything this film could throw at us! Take your best shot!

Needless to say we were appalled by what we saw. Stunned. Shocked. Sickened. Grotesque on a level none of us had seen before we were reduced to trying to ‘man up’ by making fun of the gore and pretending we weren’t scared when the sounds of a chainsaw (or, in a smart cheap scare, a motorcycle) roared out of the screen. Luckily there were enough ridiculous moments to allow us the respite of humor to salve our raw nerves. I’ll never forget one of my buddies’s stunned reaction to the killer getting into a small elevator with an intended victim while hiding the chainsaw under his coat. His ‘Is that woman blind’ was one the biggest laughs I’ve ever had in a movie theater to this day.

Although I didn’t know it at the time this was a turning point in my love of the movies. Not immediately but over the next few years I began to return to the horror genre more often and found that I preferred it to all others. The thrills of scary movies have remained my favorite viewing and exploring the European horror films has been the most fascinating area of this most frowned upon hobby of mine. Oh well.

Recently I’ve gotten the urge to revisit this movie. I know there are several cheap DVDs out there as somehow PIECES has fallen into Public Domain. But what I really want is a (God help me) Special Edition with extras. I know! I’m nuts. But there were rumors a few years ago of just such a thing from Grindhouse. And having discovered that the Spanish director of this one made a film called SLUGS a few years later I’m now interested in seeing more of Juan Piquer Simon’s…..oeuvre? With titles like MYSTERY ON MONSTER ISLAND, JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH (soon to be released!) and SEA DEVILS on the list my curiosity is aroused. Of course, he also made POD PEOPLE which was one of the worst pieces of crap Mystery Science Theater ever heckled.

So, I’m looking over the various DVDs of PIECES and I’ve ordered SLUGS. I don’t know if I’m going to enjoy this venture into the movies of one of Spain’s least known horror directors but I’m looking forward to the journey.

Horror reviews for October- Sequels nobody asked for!

A few years ago I started reviewing a lot of horror films during the month of October and emailing the mini-reviews out to my unsuspecting friends. This year I'm going to do it here! First- a few of the older ones to get me in the mood. I use a 5 star rating scale.

STARSHIP TROOPERS 2: HERO OF THE FEDERATION (2003)-- I’m one of the few, the proud, the fans of the first film. I loved its black humored satiric take on Heinlien’s rah-rah patriotism and the fact that most people miss the social commentary only makes me happier. That type of intelligent vitriol can rarely be maintained so I was unsurprised when they didn’t even try. More of a horror film than anything else, the story centers on a small number of troopers trapped behind enemy lines on a bug planet. Holing up in an abandoned fortification they slowly discover they’ve been infiltrated by a new kind of bug that takes over a human host body. Poorly written, poorly directed and just generally crappy this is one to avoid. If not for the pretty good special effects I would have dozed off. (1 star)

BEYOND RE-ANIMATOR (2004)-- The joy is gone. While I consider the original a classic and loved the madness of the first sequel this third trip to the well comes up dry. Herbert West has been in prison for his earlier crimes for 13 years when he is given the chance to continue his experiments behind bars. It’s great to see Jeffery Combs playing the cold-blooded West again and the movie has flashes of fun but it never comes together. A mess, but at least it leaves the door open for another sequel that might be better. Produced in Spain and at times the (funding mandated) need to have a mostly Spanish cast is a major hindrance. (1 & 1/2 stars)

GINGER SNAPS BACK: THE BEGINNING (2004)-- While I really liked both of the first two GINGER SNAPS films this one just doesn’t quite make it. It’s not bad but it has many elements that felt too 20th century for me to take the 1815 setting seriously. Still, there’s a lot in the film to like, including the ending. This one tells the tale of how the werewolf curse came to be loosed on the countryside (i.e. Canada) by events surrounding a pair of orphaned sisters attacked by beasts in the woods. Brought into a lycanthrope-besieged fort by an Indian warrior they try to survive and rid themselves of the shape changing disease. (2 & 1/2 stars)

THE HITCHER 2: I’VE BEEN WAITING (2003)-- This unnecessary sequel isn’t in the same league as the original but it isn't the disaster I expected either. C. Thomas Howell returns as the poor sucker scared forever by Rutger Hauer’s serial killer John Ryder. Still troubled by the past he and girlfriend Kari Wuhrer return to the Texas crimes to lay old ghosts to rest. Unfortunately they run across hitchhiker Jake Busey who Howell immediately suspects is Ryder reborn. Busy is great doing his patented psycho performance capped by the scene in which he removes his own finger to appear innocent. The movie isn’t bad but it isn’t great either. It is beautifully photographed and well paced but succumbs to the common sequel problem of following the original too closely. By the time a character is strung between a tractor-trailer and a truck you know they couldn’t top the first film’s darkest moment. Also it has one nagging ‘Oh, give me a break’ moment near the climax that should have been rethought. Overall, not bad and worth seeing for the sharp opening sequence at least. (2 &1/2 stars)

One of the best of the Summer

A SCANNER DARKLY- The first animated adaptation of a Philip K. Dick story that I’m aware of turns out to be one of the best. The film follows the tale of undercover cop Bob Artor (Keanu Reeves) as he wallows in the shallow end of the drug sub-culture searching for criminals worth busting. There is very little wrong with this film and it is fantastic on nearly every level. Capturing both the detail and feel of Dick’s novel it remains very close to the book…..probably too close for it to have been a financial success. While it is very funny the downbeat ending assures it of escaping the imaginations of most of the slack-jawed mouth-breathers that would go to see this film because of its ‘drug’ plotline. This is a smart and thoughtful movie that will wear well over the years. Easily one of the year's best so far.

Movies that can't be as cool as their poster art

I have actually seen this film and, even though I like it, nothing could live up to this great poster. That's one gorgeous image folks! I think I'll have to dig my old VHS out and watch this one again soon.

Summer review- Part the first

Although the Summer isn’t quite over yet at the local multi-plex I think its time for an overview (brief though it may be) of the movies. I caught a good number of films this blistering season and while there were some good things out there on the whole it wasn’t a great year. I’ve already posted about POSIDON and MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3 both of which were OK without being at all memorable. Maybe that start should have warned me….

X-MEN 3- I refuse to call it X3- It’s the third X-MEN movie not the third movie entitled X. Easily the weakest of this ‘trilogy’ of movies. It should have been the crowning achievement but the loss of Bryan Singer made sure that just wasn’t gonna happen. The resultant film is good, a solid effort but it lacks the human touch of the first two and the feeling of competence behind the camera that Singer is capable of. Even with a hack director the story is still pretty damned good but I can’t help but feel that a better movie was possible- one that would have wrapped up things in a more satisfying and smart way. As it stands, X-MEN 3 felt like there were some things left out that might have improved the characterizations which are unfortunately paper thin. Perhaps a longer cut will be offered at some point on DVD. The actors did their best, I think, but were ill served by the weaknesses that might have been fixed with a more hands-on creator. More thought needs to be expended next time on character motivation and relationships. It’s easy to blow things up—it’s harder to make us care who might be blown up.

SUPERMAN RETURNS- This is what Bryan Singer jumped ship to make. Is it good? Yes. Is it great? Sadly, no. Superman returns from a five year absence to find Lois with a son, Lex loose and the world maybe not needing a Super Dude. There are a lot of great things in the film and overall I like it a good deal but there are problems. First, it is a bit TOO much of a re-hash of the first two Superman film from the 70’s. I know that this was done as a direct sequel to those to movies but there are a few too many copycat scenes here. The script even provides some good reasons for the scenes but they are still unnecessary. Don’t get me wrong- I liked the film but once again I felt like some vital pieces of the story had been left out of the picture. While sitting in the theater I thought there seemed to be gaps in the natural flow of the movie and afterwards a little online checking confirmed this. More than 25 minutes were trimmed to get it to a more marketable length. I’m sure we’ll get to se this missing material eventually but I’m beginning to dislike the fact that what I’m seeing theatrically often ISN’T the finished film as the creators want. Must we always wait for the Special Edition DVD to watch the full movie? Dammit! I would have loved the Krypton stuff, the new romantic relationship Ma Kent has, the scenes between Clark and his mother and anything else they had on tap. This stuff makes these movies richer for me and I don’t really care about the length. Oh- and for future reference—its time to retire Lex Luthor as the Superman villain of choice. Might I suggest Brainiac, The Parasite, Metallo, Toyman, Myzplytyk, Darksied or even Doomsday. There are a host of good Superman stories to tell. Luthor’s bizarre infatuation with real estate was good once but reusing it for this film was really pushing it.

PIRATES OF THE CARIBEAN: DEAD MAN’S CHEST- One of the best things about the first film was its mind bending desire to be gloriously complicated. It went completely against the standard Hollywood script for making a Summer Movie®. Too many characters, too many plotlines, too many mysterious questions and far too many strange things happening. After hearing a chorus of terrible reviews I was worried that the sequel was going to be awful. Imagine my surprise when it turned out to be the most entertaining ‘event’ film of the summer. Hysterical (in two senses of the word), eye-popping, beautiful, fast and wonderfully strange this is almost the opposite of what I’d have expected. No coasting on the good will of the audience here, folks. I could almost hear the filmmakers saying, “We have a new, bigger, weirder and more convoluted story to tell and we’re going to just go berserk.” I found the negative reviews to be truly funny reading afterwards. Sometimes it’s easy to spot the reviewer’s bias against a film and there were a lot of them with the knives out for PIRATES. I think a few of these reviews were written before they saw the film! I guess it was time to take Johnny Depp down a peg. Idiots. And this was the rare film that, although loooong, didn’t wear out its welcome before the credits rolled. This is what I go to the movies in the summer to see. Big, fun and funny. I cannot wait to see the third and final film next year. Chow Yun-Fat as a Singapore sea captain? I am there!

Planet of the Vampires (1965) poster art

This is easily the best poster art for the Mario Bava masterwork PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES that I have ever seen. I found this image a few months ago and was stunned that I'd never seen it before. Haunting and beautiful, this is the perfect artwork to entice folks to see this wonderfully spooky science fiction film. Or at least folks like me!

At times I think PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES is my favorite of Bava's movies. Mostly I think of DANGER:DIABOLIK as my favorite and THE MASK OF SATAN as the best but this movie really hits all my geeky buttons. Science fiction/horror/hot Italian babes/cool alien landscapes/possession/a derelit alien spacecraft with dead aliens. That's a lot of buttons! And the creepy score is great too.

I've watched the great MGM DVD of this more than 10 times over the past few years and since learning that the Italian DVD print is slightly longer I've been very tempted to buy it as well. The added bits are not supposed to be significant but.........

Films that need a DVD release! (Another series)

A few years ago I decided to scratch an itch I’d had since childhood sightings of the big omnibus editions and finally read a Doc Savage novel. Encouraged in this by friends Jack Daves & Randy Fox I picked up a few in a used book store and have been reading them ever since. At first I read them as I could get them but at Randy’s suggestion I’m now going thought them in publication order. This is fascinating as you can watch the Doc Savage ethos slowly evolve. In the first few stories Doc was much less interested in rehabilitation with real bullets flying and necks being snapped! Later stories have him refusing to kill criminals and inventing a surgical ‘cure’ for the bad men he encounters.

The Savage books are wonderful Hero Pulps that exhibit all the strengths and weaknesses of that genre. I recommend them to curious readers with only one caveat- they are addictive and may lead to even more outrageous Pulp characters like WWI pilot/spy G-8 or the bloodthirsty vigilante The Spider! Don’t say you haven’t been warned!

As far as the George Pal film- I feel much kinder to it than I used to even though its second half feels impoverished and rushed. My first viewing of it in my teens resulted in shrugged shoulders with the only lingering after effect being the itch to read the books. The regrettable camp feel is always going to anger me but the cast is pretty good with Ely doing a fine job. I must admit that if a nice DVD was available I’d pick it up- especially if there were some nice extra goodies covering the history of the character.

I know, I know--- But I can dream.