DADDY, CAN I GO OUT AND KILL TONIGHT?



IT! (1967)
Roddy McDowall, Jill Haworth, Paul Maxwell, Alan Seller, Aubrey Richards, Ernest Clark, Ian McCulloch
Directed by Herbert J. Leder
[With no relation whatsoever to child-hating killer clowns in dank sewers, Prince Albert in a can, or rock fights set to Anthrax]. From Warner Bros.-Seven Arts and made in a send-up style of Hammer Horror, IT! is about the Jewish myth of the golem, an ancient Hebrew creature summoned by those who've been wronged, and dispatched to exact justice -- or revenge depending on one's point of view. In the role just before he would don monkey make-up for the next 7yrs; in 4 out of 5 pictures, and a short-lived CBS TV series, Roddy McDowall here plays mousy Arthur Pimm, a mama's boy, and London museum assistant. Like Norman Bates, he keeps his mother's mummified corpse which he talks to, adorns with "borrowed" jewelry and like Dr. Frankenstein, arrogantly plays God by controlling a mold of life; unaware at first that unleashing an abomination unto the world will only bring about catastrophic disaster. Pimm's path first begins after finding an undamaged stone artifact (go on, guess) that survived a museum warehouse fire and killed the curator, Harold Grove. Another museum death later, he discovers the secret to awakening the golem (with help from a local rabbi) by sticking a scroll in its mouth and using verbal commands. [Wait. How was the golem able to kill before being revived? Oops]. Anyways, moving between remorseful and crazed as he feels he's in line for a promotion, Pimm becomes obsessed with righting wrongs, and striking back at enemies real and imagined. He offs his uppity boss, and is corrupted by his power of using the indestructible monster.

With Scotland Yard sniffing behind him, Pimm is driven mad as he further broods about the woman he jealously desires, Ellen Grove (Harold's daughter) who has him permanently friendzoned. To impress her, he has the golem destroy London's Hammersmith Bridge. Huge, misguided turn-off. She doesn't reciprocate his advances and Pimm's lustful daydreams are all he has because Ellen is in love with his rival -- Jim, an American museum curator from New York, if that isn't the living end(!) Jim wants the golem for his collection, and doesn't buy Pimm's straightlaced charm for a second. He alerts a Police Inspector about Pimm being insane thanks to murder & mayhem. The officer finds the decomposed body of dear old Ma and has Pimm locked up in a lunatic asylum but the little weakling uses perceived telepathy(!) and busts out of the looney bin with the help of the golem. Once on the lam, he grabs his mother (now being kept with the undertaker), steals a hearse, kidnaps Ellen (who remains fabulously calm) and hides out in a country mansion. The golem pulls guard duty on the outside gates. Pimm and Ellen's 'reunion-straight-into-honeymoon-jazz' doesn't spell promise as Jim follows closely behind with the Inspector and the Army. Both men faceoff in a flamboyant fight for the damsel in distress. As Pimm finally came to his senses too late in actually having tried to destroy the monster, it will take a final climax against a nuclear warhead -- which if you believe the Army, will only affect anything within 5 miles, while observation will be safe behind sandbags. Yeah, right.

[The end comes with a farewell stroll into the sea which had me thinking that scene today could be played out to Procol Harum's 'A Whiter Shade of Pale']. First filmed in Germany in 1915, 1917, and 1920 combining for a trilogy; again in 1936 as a France-Czechoslovakia co-production; and Czechoslovakia once more in 1952 (the first in color), the interesting thing about 1967's crude golem (a pointy-headed, imposing walking statute that looks like a cross between a melted candle and a tree) is that I got a sense of some conflicted sentiment in the monster. For as its original purpose in Hebrew lore is an avenger meant to protect community, even if it didn't outright seem so, it felt as if there was a slight bit of reservation and anguish due to the chaos it is ordered to unleash, which is perhaps more of the curse it has to bear. (Or perhaps just down to the fixed expression on its face). Aka ANGER OF THE GOLEM, and CURSE OF THE GOLEM, this strange and silly movie (in its first English-language rendition) is an enjoyable matinée romp with an early McDowall who is a lot of fun with his campy & hammy performance akin to many a mad scientist, albeit much prissier. And by way of Pimm's dirty mind, it probably goes without saying that seeing Ellen in more semi-nude-manner would have been a bonus. In closing, IT! is also a take on the age-old warning of "when staring into the abyss, you'll see the reflection of your true self," and that man is sometimes tragically undone by becoming the ugly negative that he initially sought to destroy.




THE MUMMY (1959)
Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, George Pastell, Yvonne Furneaux, Felix Aylmer, Raymond Huntley, Eddie Byrne
Directed by Terence Fisher
Egypt 1895: British archaeologist John Banning (Cushing), with his father and uncle find the 4,000yr old tomb of Princess Ananka, the high priestess of the great god Karnak. Before entering the tomb, a devout Egyptian named Mehemet Bey warns all parties involved in the dig that graverobbers will meet an ancient curse of death. He is ignored, and amongst the priceless relics, father and uncle find Ananka's sarcophagus, with the father reading aloud from the Scroll of Life. This awakens Kharis (Lee), a mummified high priest who was Ananka's lover. When she died, he blasphemously tried to resurrect her and was punished with his tongue cut out, his body wrapped in bandages, and being sealed alive; condemned to guard the tomb for eternity. With Dad scared shitless into a vegetative state, the men are back in England with Dad in a Mental Institution. 3yrs have passed when he sends for John telling him that during the expedition, he unknowingly invoked Kharis who is coming to kill them for being desecrators. A vengeful Bey (under an alias) has followed the defilers with Kharis in a crate. An accident by a pair of drunken horse-carriage drivers, carrying the cargo to Bey's house, cause it to sink in a swamp. Worshipping Karnak, Bey uses the Scroll of Life to raise the speechless Kharis from the muddy marsh and orders him to seek retribution against the infidels. The still-confined father is murdered first, and then the uncle the next night with John shooting Kharis but to no avail. When John tells the Police Inspector who's investigating the 2 deaths about the mummy, the officer thinks John has flipped his wig but growing confirmation from the locals convinces him everyone might not be so crazy after all. Bey again summons Kharis (now residing in Bey's house) and sends him to kill John at his home. When Kharis see's that beautiful wife Isobel looks just like a reincarnated Ananka, he is completely transfixed and leaves, returning to Bey.

Bey prepares to haul ass back to Egypt thinking Kharis has completed their mission, but to his chagrin is paid an unexpected visit by the still-alive John who suspects him of being the wicked mastermind behind the evil deedery. Bey with Kharis pay John a housecall to finish him off for good. With his home guarded by police, Kharis knocks out the Inspector while Bey takes care of 2 other reinforcements. Once inside, Kharis is impaled by a spear which acts as little more than a splinter, and as he chokes a shouting John, Isobel rushes into the study and lets her hair down like Rapunzel, causing John to be released. Bey orders the distracted Kharis, who can't take his eyes off this spitting image, to kill Isobel but the command is refused. [Seriously, even as a monster, the loins of Kharis have considerably been stirred by Isobel]. Bey himself steps towards her with a knife, a defiant Kharis kills Bey instead by breaking his master's back like a snapped toothpick. Kharis carries the fainted wife into the swamp but John, the Inspector and a squad of officers arrive right behind them. Will Isobel be saved or will she sink with Kharis into the murky slime for a resumed eons-ago affair in a drowned afterlife? Often mistaken as a straight remake of Universal's 1932 same-named original that starred Boris Karloff, the 1959 version is infact a much-improved retelling that dry humps 3 out of 4 movies from the 1940s' Universal Mummy series -- a second wave that comprised THE MUMMY'S HAND (1940), THE MUMMY'S TOMB (1942), and THE MUMMY'S GHOST (1944). [The last installment, THE MUMMY'S CURSE (1944) continues several years after TMG]... Aside from taking plenty of the earlier elements, and helping to solidify Hammer Horror Studios as a major player, 1959's movie was the 7th collaboration of the immortal Cushing and Lee.

The 2 were very close friends & frequent co-stars as a fiend-and-foil tandem whom in a span of 35yrs, appeared together 24 times with their last film-pairing in 1983. [The duo's final work with each other was narrating FLESH AND BLOOD: THE HAMMER HERITAGE OF HORROR, a 2-part TV documentary. Sadly, Cushing died in August 1994, only 5 days after the program's broadcast]. Lee makes a splendid mummy; an aggressive killing machine with his 6'5 height enhancing both his slumbering pursuit of victims, and bulldozer-ish crashing through windows & doors. With his strong, jerky movements he is a physical, towering tour de force, and it's especially the depth of pathos in the eyes that betray his tragic fate. [And to say Lee was a trooper for the injuries he suffered on set would be an understatement: he had burn marks from being shot, dislocated a shoulder when he rammed into a door which was accidentally bolted shut, and threw out his back carrying Yvonne Furneaux]. Cushing as usual with his sophistication provides an excellent example of his ability to exchange & verbally duel when in conversation with an equally intelligent man -- seeing refined John and vindictive Bey politely but carefully circle each other while both know exactly who they are dealing with, masked with malice, is high craft. Furneaux as Isobel (whom along with Lee is in the lengthy and exotic flashback of how Kharis became the mummy) has a relatively light role here as she shows up in the last 25min of the movie. Oh, and a little history: some liberties have been taken here as 'Karnak' in reality is a location on the eastern bank of the Nile in Luxor, known for its complex of temples, rather than being the name of any deity. Ultimately, THE MUMMY is an exciting, well-paced, absolute staple in British horror that set the bar high. A superb classic in every sense of the word.

BUGGED OUT IN BRITAIN



HUNGERFORD (2014)
Drew Casson, Georgia Bradley, Tom Scarlett, Sam Carter, Kitty Speed, Nigel Morgan, Paul Radziwill
Directed by Drew Casson
Cowen Rosewell is a slacker student in Berkshire who looks like an odd cross of Robert Plant meeting Andrew WK. He and his 3 friends -- prudent Philippa, her jock-ish brother Adam, and nerdy Kip -- live in a small apartment, and for his media studies course, he is recording a week in his life. Everything will make it on to film. After introducing the arguing trio on camera, a thunderous loud bang is heard out in the street where they and several others see an ominous, evil-looking, black storm cloud with a purple flaming center. Impressed by the sudden alarm, the group drink, party & joke around. Shortly afterwards, the group is invited by friend Janine to a party. On their way to her house, they pass an oddly detached mailman standing still in an alley but he is ignored. 2 hooded men who appear to be beating up a pedestrian are also ignored; presumably the usual type of shit that happens in this town. Once arrived, the group mingle and Cowen talks to Janine. Both are attracted to each other. When Cowen sees Janine's father bashing his already bloodied forehead against a window, he runs panicked to Adam, just as the girl Adam is talking to inexplicably coughs up blood and collapses. The night before, Janine's father had stumbled & fallen in a crosswalk but was dismissed as being drunk. Adam is accused of drugging the girl and the next morning, Cowen calls Janine to explain but is rebuffed and basically told to piss off. Phil is attacked by the mailman from the alley, who crashes through their kitchen door attempting to strangle her. First Cowen then Adam each struggle with him. When the mailman grabs a kitchen knife, Adam plunges it into the mailman's stomach but unaffected, the stabbed attacker merely pulls it out and lunges at Adam.

When Adam sprays aerosol deodorant in the man's eyes, it causes a burning sensation causing the mailman to retreat screaming into the living room where he drops dead. His face is horribly disfigured. After this violent incident, the panicked group contemplate either calling the police or disposing of the body in a garbage bin. They are spooked when their police officer buddy, Terry, pays a visit but are relieved that Constable Friendly (who apparently is the ONLY cop in town) has simply dropped by to score some weed. The body is to be 'trashed' and while wrapping it in a blanket, Cowen finds a strange hole in the back of the neck. Kip annoyingly repeats their action is a bad idea but Mr. Mailman is dumpstered. Cowen is bothered by the wound he saw in the neck and believes it to be part of something else terribly wrong. He convinces Adam to spray a random stranger to see if the hairspray thing will happen again, thus confirming a belief of 'I told you so' weirdness indeed going on. A reluctant Adam sprays a passerby in an alley, and the 2 friends chase the man into a field, to a nearby abandoned factory. Finding a gathering of townsfolk, both men are split up when Adam runs off. Cowen returns to the flat, followed by Adam in viral-rage who is sudbdued by the spray. When he falls to the floor, an insect-ish/cockroach-like creature bursts out of the back of his neck which Cowen impales with a knife. An alive Adam describes having the creature (which burrow into their victims) in his head speak to him; using humans as hosts and controlling them in a slave-ish manner. The group plan on getting Janine but first break into a supermarket to grab a fuckload of deodorant spray. [Kip works there and with the crazy shit going on at present, the twerp is worried about getting fired]. The mission is unsuccessful and they return home to collect weapons, then set off to Janine's place where they collect her after smacking down her father.

The 5 sidestep various infested to return to the flat where that night, Phil films herself announcing she is going to retrieve Janine's father's car. Adam desperately goes after his sister in the morning but Cowen instead takes his place (Kip is in tow with the videocam). They run into Terry who clears their path with a trusty shotgun. The infested are out in force but Phil is found safely with the car. As Terry drives and tells the trio of the mayhem that has taken hold, a group of infested in the middle of the road causes him to rollover. An injured Phil is dragged out by the horde, while Kip and Cowen awaken to find her gone and Terry dead. Hiding in a forest from would-be attackers, the 2 friends make it back to their now deserted street and inside their blood-smeared, ransacked flat, they find Adam and Janine nowhere to be found. A video shot on Adam's phone shows the pair being attacked. Re-armed and again outside, the 2 friends find a young girl and her baby sister left in a minivan. As Kip takes the girls to find shelter & safety, Cowen heads to the factory hoping to find Phil, Adam and Janine. In a darkened basement he finds several bodies encased in webbing like cocoons, and is grabbed by a man resembling a butcher. Taken to a room, he finds Adam and Janine, and the 3 are rescued by armed officers who battle their way up a stairwell. Swarms of infested are gunned down as they make it back to the street and are reunited with Kip. An enormous UFO in the sky comes into view and a final quick cut has Cowen filming himself on a roof with an armed Adam at his side. In testimony, he tells of the alien invasion that has swallowed Europe with its parasite creatures and of a resistance that needs to fight back. He swings the lens over to a burning cityscape, lastly promising to find Phil.




THE DARKEST DAWN (2016)
Bethan Mary Leadley, Cherry Wallis, Drew Casson, Tom Scarlett, Georgia Bradley, Sam Carter, Mark Cusack
Directed by Drew Casson
This is a stand-alone sequel to HUNGERFORD, taking place simultaneously to that movie's events. Chloe & Sam Murdock are sisters whose family is celebrating Chloe's 16th birthday. Given a camcorder as a present (watch out Spielberg), she sets about documenting happy hijinx in the home with fluffy reporter enthusiasm. She watches TV news with her Dad as they listen to a report about a mysterious explosion in Hungerford. The worried Dad feels that his wife should perhaps stay home from work but she sees nothing to be bothered about and off she goes. As the day passes, there is no word from the wife, and speaking into her videocam -- with the movie told predominantly from Chloe's POV all the while speaking to her mother as a coping mechanism -- she addresses Mom; imagining various scenarios to rationalize the disappearance, and to alleviate her own growing concern. The night passes with the mother still missing. By morning, military helicopters are in flight, and the Prime Minister speaks on the radio of what is an apparent alien invasion having taken place. He appeals to citizens to not succumb to brutality in the spreading terror, and the wake of what will be hardship. London is under attack, air raid sirens blare, and soldiers and panicked people are in the street. As Dad rounds up his 2 daughters in an evacuation, the previously glimpsed UFO appears overhead and drops a parasite roach that infests him. Dad is shot dead and Chloe -- who is filming all of the confusion & chaos from here onward -- with Sam (the elder sis and also a nurse) take shelter in an underground facility with an agitated, mentally deteriorating stranger named Bob who scrounges for supplies (and may be killing other survivors).

Cowen, Adam and Kip arrive in a tense guns-drawn standoff, but they share food & water, and their purpose of searching for Phil. Bob remains suspicious. As videographers, Cowen and Chloe bond while Adam is told to be careful of Bob. When Bob tries to kill a sleeping Cowen (over a delusion of Chole and Sam being 'his' girls), he is strangled by Adam. Now having to trust and co-operate, the 5 move through a tunnel complex, and find they are in a makeshift HQ that was being used as a mission base for an Operation called 'Ascalon'. Kip discovers Phil was there (with a movement order that has her en-route to outside of Oxford) and a dying nurse circles Manchester on a map. The men stock up on firearms and the 5 leave underground, entering war-torn London which is now a desolate wasteland. They of course take an obligatory group photo, and leave the city by boat on the Thames to find Phil. As they trek down the river, the group have a sad encounter with an old man caring for his bedridden dying wife in an abandoned mansion, and then 2 harrowing scrapes: first with a group of armed pirates at a yacht club, and then a tank on a bridge. With their boat destroyed, the group proceed on foot to the rendezvous point towards Phil. In a forest, Adam kills a small horde of infested chasing a girl and shoots the girl dead upon seeing she is mortally injured. In a moment of despair, he is about to blow his brains out but is stopped by Cowen. That night the group take shelter in a Church and reminisce about happier times but Sam doesn't partake in the lightheartedness, sharing to Kip her disturbance of Chloe having killed a man and being unrecognizable due to being unaffected.

In the morning, 2 camouflaged soldiers (Hopper and Ricky -- the dickhead duo) hold the group at gunpoint and take everyone prisoner back to a farmhouse where Cowen is recognized from the stairwell battle (aka ground zero) by the compound's officer, Sarge, involved in that rescue. The group find Phil alive (and aside from having hooked up with Sarge) she tells them that the dying nurse (Helen) circled an 'O' on the map indicating that O-negative blood interrupts the creatures from controlling humans. While Adam regards himself as a monster for all that he's done to get his sister back, Sam pleads for Chloe to keep her own same blood-type a secret but is blown off for what she said to Kip back at the Church. The compound comes under UFO attack with parasite roaches dropping down. With infested soldiers being shot, Sarge with some of his men, and Cowen's group retreat to a barn. Sarge warns of staying away from a heavily guarded cloak-and-dagger case which a snooping Chloe was kept away from moments earlier, and is alluded to as a weapon tied to Ascalon. Phil suddenly spits up blood in the throes of transforming into one of the infested and when Chloe reveals her blood-type, a hasty transfusion is conducted successfully. After Chloe sees an argument by Sarge with the dickhead duo involving the case, she reconciles that night with Sam. Sarge tells Cowen that the case indeed holds an alien weapon taken from a downed UFO, and part of Ascalon, cannot be wasted over a minor excursion. With everyone asleep, the dickhead duo abduct Chloe, and the group find Sarge dead in the morning.

Setting off to rescue her, they are captured by soldiers at an estate when Phil begins twitching as if to again undergo transformation. A power-mad Hopper has taken charge, hints at Chloe being a rape doll, and shoots Sam dead. Inside a room he removes the weapon from the case but it emits a huge, green-pulsing, electromagnetic blast beam knocking everyone down. Ricky locks the group in a basement but Cowen coerces him to release them. The blast has summoned a ship overhead meaning the arrival of parasite roaches. Back upstairs, crackling gunfire is heard from outside and as infested soldiers are shot, the group find Hopper in a bedroom, holding Chloe hostage with a gun to her head but he is shot in the arm by Kip who then pistol whips him. Another blast flattens everyone's ass (with Hopper vaporized) and Cowen answers a walkie-talkie declaring the Ascalon weapon safe. Once outside with the case, and new soldiers there to retrieve it, the UFO is seen blasting anything it can aim its grubby gamma rays at. A self-sacrificing Adam takes the weapon to wipe out the UFO while Cowen and the group are evacuated onto a helicopter with infact the empty case; it's their insurance to make it out alive. Once airborne and with the UFO in view, a massive explosion occurs on the estate grounds. Rocked by the shockwave, Phil awakens roach-free (the O-negative blood only keeps the creatures at bay in the body) and asking where Adam is. In a final recording, Chloe looks into her videocam silently and angrily pushes it down. Hitting the chopper floor on its side, it shows a mushroom cloud in the sky.



HUNGERFORD and THE DARKEST DAWN are equal parts post-apocalyptic zombie flick, sci-fi shocker, black comedy, and disaster movie, with each filmed largely in the day. The first film has more horror comedy ala SHAUN OF THE DEAD and HOT FUZZ, while the second drops the black humor for a more serious tone of THE 5TH WAVE, CLOVERFIELD and 28 DAYS LATER. Both are in the vein of DAWN OF THE DEAD meets INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. There's no doubt that Director Drew Casson is a young talent. He was just 19 and had never gone to film school when he began all this -- The first movie at 79min was originally intended as a web series (immediately after the success of his 7-part DIVINITY web series from 2013 about angels at war on earth). As the initially-named 'HUNGER FORD' episodes were shot in 9 days, they were eventually trimmed into a feature film at a slender budget of £20,000. The second movie at 73min was shot in 9 days at a cost of £43,000. As both are found footage, with ambitious storylines of doomsday, devastation, and brain slugs, the problems of this continually-criticized horror genre can't help but turn up like a bad penny with predictable and tiresome cliches: shaky cam; constant dropping; having to grow up real fast; obscured imagery in the dark; dirt and blood splatter on the lens; the lack of monsters on screen; running away from someone/something trying to kill you; nonsensibly continuing to film in life-threatening situations; and where is all the battery power coming from?...

They are limitations that don't bring anything new to the arena. That said, Casson is still promising. Even with their shortcomings/stumbling/flaws (filming yourself dumping a body(!); victims dragged off by hordes and not killed(!); loved ones being found alive & unharmed after impossible odds; the O-negative blood's potency), he manages to punch above his weight. With best foot forward, he's taken threadbare, run-of-the-mill content not unlike what would occur on the SyFy channel or in The Walking Dead (except those zombies don't look as lazily cheap as they do here), and delivers a pair of video diaries that are (for what it's worth) effective with some impressive CGI and nods to Black Mirror. What best helps overall to keep underwhelming found footage from being utter drivel are the actors. Inspite of whatever ragtag presentation, audience interest completely hinges on them investing us from start to finish -- especially when the individuals are all unknowns. For all the emotions on display, and dialogue exchanged, both these movies do a good job of showing support, closeness, confusion, drifting apart, and fear. But Casson is definitely miscast. While Cowen and his friends sound like genuine 20-somethings with their banter -- even as they are quite irritating as would be expected from roomies -- he misses more than he hits as far as exuding authority. And he looks embarrassingly awkward and comes off cheesy in romantic territory.

So are the films a vanity vehicle for Casson/Cowen? I can see those accusations being slung for how he almost shoehorned the 2 sisters out of their own picture. Atleast the relationship between Chloe and Sam make them believable as siblings. I'm sure Joss Whedon would give their understated performances a thumbs up. Adam is the most interesting character. His introduction is that of the macho mate, rough around the edges but loyal. In the ensuing living nightmare that dims the lamp on mankind and with humanity fading, he becomes hardened and uncaring, in total warrior-mode. On the surface, this change might seem like a natural inclination coming from someone already a bit of a bullish meathead who isn't far off from the frat-boy variety. He stresses an unspoken urgency for the need to be tough in this dour new world but stern as he remains, we then see his own inner conflict boil over through pangs of conscience that torture him for his ghastly trajectory -- killing without hesitancy to keep sane but finally breaking down when his sanity tallies the toll. Ultimately, this pair of movies (based on the 2nd's ending) leaves room for a 3rd entry, and a trilogy should wrap everything up. Is Adam alive? Could Janine return? Will a big name pop in for a cameo? Does Kip have what it takes to be a badass? How durable are GoPros anyway? Hopefully Casson's focus won't continue to waver. We'll have to wait and see.

For many, HUNGERFORD's name is automatically associated to a real-life horrific tragedy. I wonder if the filmmakers were deliberately trying to evoke that terrible connection. It would obviously be in very poor taste and yet I can imagine the reasoning: to have a sleepy, quiet market town absolutely shattered by another unthinkable event. [When good guy Kip takes the 2 girls from the minivan as a savior, was this a crass echo of Michael Ryan ordering a mother to leave her 2 toddlers in her car before he marched her into a forest to be shot 13 times in the back? Even the leader of the pirates (Brian), both in name and look, has a faint resemblance to Ryan. Intentional or pure coincidence?]

IT SEEMED LIKE A GOOD IDEA AT THE TIME



1922 (2017)
Thomas Jane, Molly Parker, Dylan Schmid, Kaitlyn Bernard, Neal McDonough, Brian d'Arcy James
Directed by Zak Hilditch
1922 is based on Stephen King's dark and graphic 131pg novella from his 2010 'Full Dark, No Stars' quartet anthology, and parallels Edgar Allen Poe's 'The Tell-Tale Heart'. In 1930, Wilfred James is narrating a written confession of murdering his wife, Arlette, in 1922 with the help of their 14yr old son, Henry. Told entirely from Wilf's perspective, and primarily in flashback, he is a poor Nebraska farmer struggling to make ends meet, which is getting harder & harder. His strong-willed wife (who thankfully isn't a shrew) comes from wealth and has just inherited a significant 100 acres of prime land. Excited in the belief that this golden opportunity could turn their misfortune around and at last bring about success to yield not only a profitable crop, but eventually see the farm passed on to Henry, she puts a damper on hubby's plans by announcing she wants to sell the land to open up a Dress shop in Omaha or St. Louis, and will not budge in her ambition. She is clearly unhappy and tired of farm-living. Wilf is proud of his country roots and has zero interest in relocating to be among foolish, arrogant cityslickers. Evenings on the porch to watch sunsets, and looking out upon the vastness of cornfields do him just fine. [Try not to get the 'Green Acres' theme song stuck in your head. I dare you]. The prospective buyers of her acreage would be a hog-farming company which would cause complications for Wilf having to deal with pollution. The very essence of his self-respect is on the line and further more, Arlette is seeking a divorce and she'll absolutely take Henry with her. And so with each passing day, Wilf's hate for her festers with his explained reasoning delivered in nonchalant, calm and confident manner. Steadfast in staying put, he comes to a drastic solution (feeling he has no other options) by deciding to kill her.

He convinces naive Henry to take part in the deed by telling him his mother is keeping them back, and frowns upon Henry's smitten relationship with the girl down the road, Shannon. Slaying Arlette will be for the best and is necessary to preserve their way of life. It is also despicable insurance to lock his son into being an accomplice as the pact will keep him quiet. After getting drunk and taken to bed, Arlette is brutally killed and her body is dumped down the well. After the unceremonial burial, scheming father and conniving, traumatized son tell the Sheriff she has taken off, ditching them both. No sooner than putting that lie in place, Wilf suddenly finds himself plagued by rats, and his life begins to unravel when it appears his newly deceased wife is haunting him. At first with speechless hesitancy, he begins pondering if he really is being revisited by spectral glimpses from beyond the grave. Having been manipulated into the unthinkable, and wanting no part anymore of their heinous conspiracy, a regretful Henry withdraws his loyalty to his father and runs away after discovering he knocked up Shannon, to which she is sent in shame to a Catholic girls home in Omaha. Having stolen his Dad's car, Henry springs her free and both are bound for goodness knows where. Like dominoes falling in a straight line, the farm falls into disrepair, the house disintegrates into squalor, the police are still investigating Arlette's suspicious disappearance, and Wilf's narrow, greedy actions have directly and negatively impacted Shannon's family also as her shattered parents face their own calamity. In a ghostly visit, a decaying Arlette whispers in Wilf's ear of what Henry and Shannon got up to. The young duo became 'The Sweetheart Bandits' (a nowhere near as violent, pre-Bonnie & Clyde). And forget any nomadic, teen romance.

The pair of kids were dismally ill-equipped to be desperados, and having already sadly lost their innocence, they each met heartbreaking ends. Hearing of their criminal capers and tragic outcome, and one rat-bitten hand-amputation later, Wilf later identifies his son's rat-bitten body. Despised by Shannon's father and unable to find work, the mounting weight of unease now finds Wilf self-contained in a hotel room -- unable to outrun the guilt-stricken consequences of sin that have grown to blacken his soul. A familiar scuffing & peeling of the walls has followed him, and the final end of writing his letter will bring its own physical conclusion. A gaunt, grim, brooding, squinting and drawl-accented Thomas Jane (no stranger to King adaptions, having appeared in DREAMCATCHER, and THE MIST) brings a strong, compelling screen presence, in a powerhouse performance. He is magnetic as the unlikeable & unsympathetic, bitter farmer whose troubles twist into cruelty. There is no delving into Wilf's background and we don't get any understanding of what made him the way he is, or what conflicts he has faced. From his introduction, he is immediately presented as a simple, plainspoken man who we can assume has dealt with considerable difficulties all his life. Whatever those hardscrabble hurdles, in an unforgiving era for him, they've stirred & combined to change his future for the worse. And the stereotype of an uneducated, ignorant Southerner is not portrayed here. Wilf's cold & calculating thought process demonstrates he is not a stupid man. As for the women, it would have been nice if their characters weren't so secondary, and had been expanded with extra shared scenes. Molly Parker and Kaitlyn Bernard are very good but they really only serve as plot devices for the men's actions, and there should have been more for them (especially in Arlette's case as the expression in her eyes alone reveals a sense of yearning to escape the desolation of being stuck motionless in the Midwest; going nowhere in the middle of isolated nowhere).

Instead of any jump scares to frighten viewers out of their seats, it is the lingering and bothersome imagery in this morality play that holds audience attention. And a continual question takes us from start to finish: are we infact seeing the truth? The atmosphere keeps building in spookiness with unrelenting dread, and driven by a minimalistic but unnerving musical score from Mike Patton. A crumbling Wilf and the impending 'crashing down' of his fate having been sealed, exemplifies human duality on display; having allowed decency to be swallowed whole by malignancy. What began as Wilf's hope (in the vein of a Dr. Jekyll or Dorian Gray) was doomed to utter hopelessness and the curse of madness is so imprinted on him, that his visions are an ongoing reminder of the demons of his own creation; that in his present condition, he will never find peace. Even the scratchings and swarming of the rats are a physical metaphor of human pestilence in how a diseased scheme crept forth in a poisonous action for him to ultimately destroy his family. The vermin pour forth to prey on what he's done, and he has to live with not only the figurative blood on his hands, but the consequences of the devastation he has wrought, and the infectious rot which incessantly chews away in his mind; nibbling & gnawing endlessly at his conscience. In total, 1922's bleak layering is quite impressive for how depressing, thin, and mundane content flips into chilling descent. It may look a little too slick and drag in some long spots, but the downward spiral of Wilf through contemplation, and gradual intensification, is top-notch. Lastly, for all of his unpleasantness, he incredibly elicits empathy which is astounding, given how pitiless he has carried himself.




GERALD'S GAME (2017)
Carla Gugino, Bruce Greenwood, Carel Struycken, Henry Thomas, Chiara Aurelia, Kate Siegel
Directed by Mike Flanagan
Jessie and Gerald have headed to their remote Alabama vacation house to spice up their marriage and bring some sexy back. Once arrived, he pops a viagra pill while she feeds a stray hungry dog in the driveway ($200 Kobe beef). Re-entering the house she leaves the front door open. In her silky night dress to get herself in he mood, he takes a 2nd viagra pill and handcuffs both her wrists to the bedposts. When he initiates a rape fantasy, she is immediately uneasy with the roleplay and orders him to stop and remove the cuffs. The rekindling has gotten off to a disastrous start and after an argument causes him to suffer a fatal heartattack, he collapses on her and falls to the floor. She remains cuffed and as daylight fades, the stray dog enters the house and wanders into the room where it begins to take bites of Gerald's arm. At that moment he rises from the floor to her astonishment, but she is equally stunned when she sees that the dead body is still laying there. Is she talking to a ghost or a figment of her imagination that is processing shock? When she frees herself entirely, she sees herself STILL cuffed on the bed, with Gerald at her side. What the hell is going on with these visions? Is what she sees real and not just fantasy? Are they reflections of a warped mind staring back at her? And now the manifestations of her freed self (a more confident Jessie) and resurrected hubby (a less repressed Gerald) start bickering. He negatively belittles while she positively bolsters -- which one should be listened to? Can she reach a cellphone? Or a glass of water? All the while, the dog keeps returning to the room to feast on the stiff corpse.

Falling asleep from exhaustion, she awakens that night to find a tall, misshapen sinister-looking man who emerges from a corner and shows her a case filled with bones and jewelry. Is he real or also an apparition? Gerald tells her that her vulnerability makes her unsafe to whom this shadowlurker is referred to as the 'Moonlight Man'; Death himself. When Gerald calls her "Mouse", that night she dreams of when she was 12 on a family lakehouse vacation. Her father, Tom, (Henry Thomas in a skin crawling role that will make you never look at E.T. the same again) called her "Mouse" as a pet name which triggers a dark, disgusting memory: that of sitting on Daddy's knee to watch an eclipse, to which he masturbated to his own daughter. She awakens with her wrists cramping in pain from loss of circulation. The couple discuss the blocked-out memory of molestation equating it to her choice in men -- selfish, hurtful dominaters whom she is subconsciously inclined to gravitate towards. Jessie again sees herself at 12, with her father apologizing saying he was ashamed. Tom tries to explain his behaviour by using manipulative reverse psychology and guilt to trick Mouse into keeping quiet. Gerald tells Jessie that 'Death' is coming for her, and in another dream she visits Mouse and apologizes to the girl for what Jessie believed was her fault, and essentially failing her out of fear of ruining the family. Now steeling her nerves, Jessie uses a shard of glass to cut her right hand and with the blood acting as a lubricant, she is able to squeeze free from the cuff, tearing herself badly from peeled back skin. After getting the cuff keys to undo the other hand (and bandaging her wound with tampons), she tries to grab the car keys but passes out from blood loss and dizziness.

She awakens that night, still groggy, to find the Moonlight Man has returned, standing at the end of the hall. She gives him her wedding ring and leaves in the car. Barely alert while driving, she sees the ominous, red sky eclipse from the dreams, and glimpses the Moonlight Man (looking devilish) in the rearview. She crashes into a tree but the noise has got the attention of a nearby house whose occupants come to her rescue. With the passage of 6 months, Jessie -- now narrating -- is writing a therapeutic letter to her 12yr old self, detailing the recovery, having suffered amnesia, and moving on from Gerald's death. The Moonlight Man continued to be a nightly visitor and while her wedding ring was never recovered, she used insurance money to open a foundation for young people who are survivors of sexual abuse. One day she sees a newspaper story about Raymond Andrew Joubert, a grave robber (dubbed the 'Crypt Creeper') who is the Moonlight Man. His background is highly disturbing and with Jessie having been spared, she looks to finally have a metaphorical sun eliminate the eclipse that has shrouded her entire life. Empowered through self-worth and self-preservation, she attends the courtroom arraignment of Joubert. What will happen between the very real monster, and the victim who got away when they meet face to face? Carla Gugino and Bruce Greenwood are both fantastic in their roles, and GERALD'S GAME is an exceptional psychological thriller that drifting between delirium, expertly examines how secrets and the erosion of trust are just as poignant as they are perilous. When the Gerald manifestation starts recalling episodes in their life, they begin as a means to challenge Jessie to find a solution out of her trapped situation.

Internal dialogue rationalizes in her mind to keep calm and focused. As the manifestations of the couple (as inner voices) each blame the other for marital dissolvement, this further serves as a test for Jessie to stay resolved and be committed to escaping her predicament instead of capitulating, but also brings her to reflect on minor issues that were infact heavy baggage; how past regrets and uncomfy truths that went unspoken in the marriage, are now seen as causes for each partner's growing distance. (He was the pre-occupied businessman and she the withdrawn, childless housewife who both forgot how to love each other; simultaneously going through the motions as they continued to ignore each other). The manifestations appear as truer selves for Jessie to represent strength & ingenuity, and whereas the traits may have ruptured in the relationship to Gerald, trauma now requires and demands they succeed by tapping into inner reserves one may have thought they never had. To take what has been broken for so long and turn that adversity into strength. Through symbolism in both her wandering stream of consciousness and flashbacks, the emotional endurance from pain and suffering forces her to stubbornly work around complicated hitches. Jessie's continued talking to the couple keeps her in survival mode, while talking to Mouse is about confrontation & confession; a twin burden of having upheld a parent's betrayal that is necessary to overcome in order to unshackle herself -- both in physical reality & mentally imposed -- from her locked confinement. Ultimately, the movie tackles individual personal control and how from being crushed by oppressors in various forms, one can rise resourcefully to conquer them.

CRAZY RALPH AIN'T ON THIS DOUBLE DECKER


Ki-ki-ki theme music (I still hear chh-chh-chh), a weathered hockey mask, and Camp Crystal Lake can mean only one thing. Yes, horror icon 'Jason' forever piling up a body count for his part in certainly making today's unlucky date pop-culture famous. So why am I not writing a deserving franchise retrospective for the very day itself? All in good time... But for "the 13th" by way of film, an honorobale mention should go to a virtually unknown and barely-seen-if-at-all picture, for the sole reason of whose title was the very first to use the superstitious name: FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH (1933). While not a horror movie in any way, shape or form, it preceeded Mr. Voorhees by 47yrs. This forgotten, early British talkie is about a London bus on a rainy night, driving down an empty road that suddenly swerves to avoid being hit by a large, toppling construction crane that has been struck by lightning. The vehicle is involved in a terrible crash, and the story flashes back 24hrs (with a rewind courtesy of Big Ben) to the lives of several commuters and how they came to be on their ill-fated ride. Don't be fooled into thinking that this sounds like a total snoozer because of its age. The good pacing and talented actors (already top stars of their day from stage & screen) infact makes for a fine melodrama whose premise has become quite a norm: a gathering of disparate strangers in which we get a portrait of their eclectic backgrounds, see everybody meeting up, and follow the journey right up to the tragedy.

The diverse cast of characters (arguably too many) in 7 vignettes include the cynical bus conductor; his sexy chorus girl wife (played by Jessie Matthews); the energetic school teacher in love with her; a slippery/sleazy blackmailer; a rapid-talking con man; a henpecked husband; his cheating wife; a grumpy businessman desperately following a stock market tip; his elderly ditzy wife who keeps forgetting to buy marmalade; the man's partner; a racetrack bookie; a detective; a florist; a clerk; a dance instructor; and a pair of American tourists amongst still others. It's a potpourri that definitely sounds like an overloaded offering but thankfully doesn't bog down into a bloated bore. The snappy dialogue and action is presented in a Hitchcock-like, pre-film noir, mystery narrative with a blend of humor and sorrow as we are brought to the end's reveal of who survives & who doesn't. I bet this is one film that Quentin Tarantino's style/technique for time-lapsed, interwoven set ups can be traced to. In closing, FRIDAY THE THIRTEENTH is a prim & proper slice of pre-WWII English life that wouldn't be complete without impeccable manners, pompous snobbery, and a sophisticated lady casually discussing the always sassy subject of knickers. [Now just imagine those undergarment visuals morph into a bevy of helpless, screaming young women (bra & panties, or topless is optional) trying to flee a machete-wielding madman. If that isn't full circle on this ill-omened day, I don't know what is].

BLAST RADIUS PRESSURES AND GEIGER COUNTER MEASURES 1



PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! (1962)
Ray Milland, Frankie Avalon, Jean Hagen, Mary Mitchell, Richard Bakalyan, Rex Holman, Neil Nephew
Directed by Ray Milland
Harry Baldwin and his family have set off on a camping trip in the mountains. The car radio broadcasts Cold War tensions and then they witness a mushroom cloud over the Los Angeles skyline. Needless to say, the dropping of an atom bomb with its blinding flash of light and sonic boom spoils their vacation, and they retreat to the sanctuary of a fishing retreat in the wilderness to await information & possible instructions of what to do next. New York, Philly, Chicago, London, Paris and Rome have also been hit. We're never told who is responsible but in this era of 'Leave it to Beaver', it must be the Commies. L.A. is in chaos from the nuclear attack, rife with looting and hoarding throughout the city & suburbs, and its frantic citizens descending into frenzy. Motorists have jammed the highways to escape, people have armed themselves in vigilante committees, and in times of disaster, profiteering runs rampant alongside criminal ruffian scum seizing their moment to threaten the desperate & weak. We follow the ordeal of intense Harry (who never takes off his hat), his scared and sometimes clueless wife, Ann, (whose poor mother is abandoned after an aborted attempt to return to fetch her), and their 2 teen kids (everready Rick and indifferent Karen) in the wake of nuclear obliteration. The Baldwins manage to stay calm, while other survivors fleeing to seek refuge are never in doubt of being regarded as a dangerous variety who will automatically (and problematically) compete for scarce resources. Their harrowing journey into the unknown is just beginning and avoiding hysteria will take support, strength and selfishness.

Instead of observing any typical aftermath of war such as a bombed out L.A. looking like Dresden; or military quarantines; or control rooms teaming with HQ activity; or hospitals and rescue centers overflowing to capacity; or victims of radioactive fallout, we stay with the family as they gather supplies and take shelter in a cave. They listen to war news on a portable radio. Harry has already stolen from a hardware store and gas station, and beaten up the owners. He's adopted extreme methods (revealing a latent violence previously unknown) to protect his family, and has refused to share food with neighbors -- the husband & wife hardware store owners. The Baldwins' defining confrontation comes via a young trio of lawless hooligans, who were encountered earlier on a roadside, and have since robbed, raped and killed. The husband & wife hardware store owners are murder victims of the threesome. 2 of the delinquents are scared off by a rifle-wielding Ann after their attempt to rape Karen while she was doing laundry near a stream. This occurs while the 3rd goon is absent, and mother & daughter return to the cave. The Baldwin men head out to deliver a dish of some strong, hot justice on the trio. At a farmhouse, Harry shoots the 2 would-be rapists dead, and father & son rescue a young teen girl, Marilyn, who was being held as a sex slave. The 3 assholes murdered her parents and she returns with them to the cave. The 3rd thug returns and happens upon Rick and Marilyn who are out chopping wood. As both men fight, Marilyn shoots scumbag dead, who in the struggle has shot Rick in the leg. The injury requires urgent medical attention and will involve a long drive to a Doctor. All the while, radio bulletins from the UN have been providing news about the world situation. Will order be restored? Can normality resume? Will a life be saved?

When such tragedy hits, it is in this understanding of why nicety is forsaken as a necessary counter to fight back against the worst impulses of those who've deep sixed all decency. But this too runs the risk of the weary individual heightening their suspicion & paranoia, which can erode rationality and result in casting off compassion. It is this loss of trust that a hardened Harry struggles with when 'every-man-for-himself' carries the day. Doing whatever it takes to survive in a very battle for existence brings on heavy ethical & moral dilemnas; at what depths & lengths will one go to keep themself and their loved ones safe? And Harry's forcefulness in a frightening new world that sees humanity going the way of the dodo, poses the question: is it possible to be, and remain, truly civil when civilization has fallen, and society is surrendering to savagery? [Hmmm... does this sound like a current hit AMC TV show about a band of survivors, ploddingly facing the same plight]? This low budget B-movie has one main gripe: it starts and ends on some upbeat, swinging bouncy jazz, and the music is out of place for the subject matter being grim. PANIC IN YEAR ZERO! was released 3 months before the Cuban Missile Crisis when in October 1962, the whole world held it's collective breath as JFK and Nikita Khrushchev played a deadly 2-week game of missile-chess that put mankind on the brink of the end-of-days. As the fear in that episode in history was very potent, the content of armageddon itself in the movie is very restrained. In total, the emphasis here is on behaviour in crisis, and how sometimes with the best of intentions to preserve hope in the face of cataclysm, the methods to achieve such can be a bothersome combination of the awful becoming alarmingly more simple.




THIS IS NOT A TEST (1962)
Seamon Glass, Thayer Roberts, Aubrey Martin, Mary Morlas, Carol Kent, Alan Austin, Mike Green
Directed by Fredric Gadette
It's 4AM and Deputy Sheriff Dan Colter in his cruiser is called to set up a one-man roadblock along a belt of empty highway to capture an escaped psycho killer. In the dragnet, several vehicles on a barren backwater are detained, and among the drivers -- who haven't been told why they've been stopped -- are a grandfather with his granddaughter in a pick-up who are hauling crates of chickens; a young hipster couple returning from Las Vegas with a jackpot of $175,000; a trucker with a hitchhiker; an older bickering couple with a little dog who are on their way to Mexico; and a late-arriver on a Vespa scooter. The mixed party interacts with each other immediately and the hitcher is promptly identified as Clint Delaney, the wanted fugitive in the manhunt. He's chased by the state trooper but runs away. Colter and the motorists then hear over the police radio of an emergency warning about a looming nuclear attack. Yellow alerts turn to code reds and forced by events beyond their control, panic quickly ensues. After confiscating everyone's keys, the officer becomes increasingly stern to keep rules in place. The trucker tells everyone that location wise, they are sitting ducks and a prime bullseye target for an explosion. When people beg to get the hell out of dodge, the hipster is bashed in the back of the head by the barrel of Colter's shotgun for daring to cut loose with his beatnik-speak and mano-a-mano attitude. Sheriff Hard Ass isn't putting up with anyone's shenanigans nor does he give a damn about their griping. He organizes a hectic preparation to convert the truck into a makeshift bomb shelter, imagining they'll have to stay for 2 weeks.

As boxes are unloaded, the women help themselves to fur coats and the granddaughter (June) who has zero intention of shacking up in the truck, runs away to some nearby bushes. She meets Delaney who is hiding out. He isn't playing with a full deck and after somewhat putting the moves on her, is firm in wanting his left behind suitcase. June rejoins the group and sadly reflects at the thought of never seeing another Christmas. Meanwhile the trucker and wife-with-the-dog have gotten chummy and are now flirting. As the contents of the truck are being removed, Colter destroys all the liquor bottles. There'll be no drunks on this watch but the hipster couple have secret booze on hand and they amuse themselves merrily. The hipstress is a lush and as she gets tipsier, she cries at the heartache of the wedding she'll never have. Delaney slips in & out to steal canned food with Colter giving the shotgun to the trucker to go after him. [Sure, just hand over your weapon with no risk whatsoever of it being used against you]. Another bulletin blares that all looters are to be shot. The wife follows the trucker to bushes up ahead and they both make-out. For her it's an expression of an unhappy marriage. For him, it's pure dumb luck and he has no problem getting some tail at a time like this. They are caught by the husband (who has the shotgun) and instead of truckie getting shot and she getting pimp-slapped by someone who looks like he's about to snap, the lovebirds are calmly asked to return to the group. An interesting contrast seeing as hubby is a high-strung type who keeps getting anxious in the middle of all the activity.

For all his whining worry, no one ever tells him he's a pain in the ass who needs to calm down. Colter orders everyone to proceed with the truck to a further clearing. Driving the rig, the trucker is joined by the wife as the husband (looking catatonic) watches both pair together. This marriage is clearly over. For his absolute determination in the single-mindedness of what he's doing, Colter makes it plain that unbecoming for a lawman, he is a simpleton. He feels if people can survive Hiroshima, there's no reason why they simply can't in the truck. End of argument. He wastes precious water to create mudpacks to cover the screens of the truck's air vents to help act as an air-filter that will block radiation seepage. Wow, sound logic. He just will not hear that his transport conversion will not stand up to the magnitude of heat that will melt them all in milliseconds. [Also: Just how long are they gonna be sitting there piled in the back? What happens when the Spaghetti-O's and Ritz Crackers run out? Is there anything else to drink besides grapefruit juice? What about hygienic/sanitary conditions? What about bowel movements? Did anyone see any toilet paper? Is sex out of the question? And most terrifying of all -- Is Colter really going to remain in charge?] Delaney comes back to the now abandoned cars, gets his suitcase (we never find out why it was so important), and with none of the vehicles containing their keys, he flips out by attacking the defenseless poultry. Had they seen it, the chicken ranchers would have been mortified.

Speaking of which -- Grampa, June and scooter-boy are having none of the truck business and take off down the road. The husband has the shotgun again and this time kills himself -- not because the end is nigh but because of his wife's infidelity. Colter gets in the truck with the trucker, the wife (who's taking her hubby's permanent absence rather well), and the hipster couple. Once inside, everyone is mainly silent, seemingly lost in personal contemplations. After June and scooter-boy get Grampa some water from a spring, he remembers a disused mineshaft and sends the 2 there, convinced it will provide better shelter. Gramps won't be joining them. The future (if there is one) will belong to the young. Hopefully they can rebuild the world and not fuck shit up. This oldtimer is gonna check out by climbing to the top of a mountain to watch the globe blow itself apart. Back in the truck, Colter the brainiac states the wife's little dog (which he actually stares down(!) will use up too much needed oxygen. Solution? Strangle it and toss it aside without a shred of emotion. Perhaps he likely also thought it would be an irritating flea-bag that wouldn't shut up in its yapping fits. Yep, a real Einstein to rationalize that a small harmless animal could put everyone of them in serious peril by merely breathing. The senseless incident proves the last straw for the claustrophobic hipstress and she bolts for the door to get out which causes a fight. She gets smacked aside by the canine executioner, while her boyfriend (who was fanning himself with his Vegas money) gets knocked over and the trucker gets punched out.

Hipstress gets the door open and the 4 find a group of 7 men standing outside who heard the commotion. They are looters declaring themselves their own law and looking for gas. Explaining his mobile lodgings, Colter still steadfastly refuses to hear that the truck will be useless protection from instant incineration. As another bulletin announces incoming missiles, the 7 men overpower Colter for his keys to his cruiser and the sleaziest man in the bunch abducts the wife. Only 4 of the men drive off with her as a countdown of 2min25sec-til-impact is heard over the radio. The trucker, the hipster and the 3 ditched looters barricade themselves in the truck. Delaney pulls another random pop-in and confronting Colter (who is awakening from being knocked out), runs away again. The Sheriff calls to him to come back to get in the truck but no dice. So much for a truce and Colter now finds himself locked out. Delaney watches him desperately bang and yell to be let back in, only to be denied & ignored which elicits a genuine look of feeling sorry for Colter, knowing what will happen to him outside. Delaney's own calm indicates he's already accepted his fate. And then comes annihilation's farewell to thee. For his boorish & bullying behaviour of brutish authority, Colter could never see what everyone else could -- that he was the odd man out from the beginning. He is a bastard but not without a grain of empathy: Having gathered all the motorists, he felt it his duty to keep these civilians safe. He refused to let anyone leave and told them there was nowhere they could go that would be all right.

Out in the open and exposed, they would be toast. When people actively expressed wanting the free will to fend for themselves nonetheless, Colter shut them down and forcefully prevented this by saying that staying together was the only way they would have a chance, futile as it was. His stubborn insistence on obedience helped tear down an already splintered group dynamic, complicated by private separate matters converging into a public mess. Having lost final control, and failed at what he tried so hard to manage, fittingly, it is irony that punishes Colter. THIS IS NOT A TEST, like other films of this ilk, is a character study. Made on a shoestring budget (and boy does the Z-grade show), and clocking in at only 73 minutes, the cast are unknowns in roles that however shallow are atleast not stupid, and acting which is serviceable more than shoddy. NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, LIFEBOAT and 12 ANGRY MEN are excellent examples of making use of singular settings with small surroundings. Those actors and their exchanges gave major bang for the buck. This movie operates in the same format and while obviously sharing nowhere near the same skill, success and praise, it's still commendable that the "What if" topic of incoming bombs about to vaporize unlikely travelers stopped at a desolate hillside road (somewhere in the California desert) has the potential to be relatable. Has it been done much better with an offering of more tension? Yes, but this quickie flick is honestly sufficient if not satisfactory. Monotone and melodramatic in places but I've seen duller and drier duds. It's crude but not an embarrassment.

One flaw that can be seen with the script is that Delaney could've easily been written out after he first runs away but it appears the writers kept him to hang around on the peripherals to provide some full-circle pity for Colter's last ever encounter; alone and all for naught. From the movie's opening, capturing Delaney is the whole point and when apprehending him is unsuccessful, it ceases to be a priority in the face of more pressing concerns. Done differently: having Delaney exit as someone still presumed on the run and who we don't see again, presents a reasonable & workable view that even for a criminal, his evasion and non-return could be interpreted as probably luckier & better off than the rest of the motorists who are trapped by Colter's concrete intransigence. And what of the dialogue? It's really no different than what can be found in a passable 30min. TV anthology episode, and discussions by the characters about how they'll all turn out deal with an actual seriousness. It is the stress and unraveling of these people that maintains any interest. If this movie was a stage play, I imagine a particular idea being explored: whether rendering whatever 'worthwhile' amounts to nothing more than being 'worthless' for in the race against time ahead of the impending end-of-the-world strike, we see how in an exact moment of nearing-catastrophe, the folly of our characters too late in their predicament. They are representative of a larger whole in the doomsday playbook -- of never thinking that such an eventual, from the impossible, is destined to become the inevitable. It's a conundrum that should you give THIS IS NOT A TEST a chance (and these days, who doesn't have an hour for youtube?), you might find the quandary interesting rather than inane.

DISEMBODIED DAMES



WHAT LIES BENEATH (2000)
Harrison Ford, Michelle Pfeiffer, James Remar, Miranda Otto, Amber Valleta, Joe Morton, Wendy Crewson
Directed by Robert Zemeckis
Dr. Norman Spencer is a university genetic research scientist married to Claire, a retired concert pianist who was in a serious, near-fatal car crash the previous year. Their daughter (Norman's stepdaughter) has just left home for college. Claire is bored & lonely and has taken to spying on the neighbors next door, the Feurs. With binoculars in hand, she is fascinated with the movements of the couple, and then convinces herself that the aloof Warren Feur is an abuser who has murdered his wife, Mary, when she seemingly vanishes without a trace. Sensing their own under-renovation Vermont home is inhabited by a forceful presence, Claire begins hearing voices and experiencing eerie incidents involving doors, mirrors, picture frames, their startled dog barking at the unseen -- and particularly unsettling -- seeing the face of a similar-looking young woman reflected in water (first in the nearby lake and later in the bathtub). Are the unexplainable voices & visions real, or is it all a projection of her subconscious, stirred up by a snooping obsession that got out of hand? When Claire tells her gruff workaholic husband of the occurrences, he is dismissive and emotionally unsupportive but she won't drop it, so he urges her to see a therapist. When she tells Doc that she believes a ghost is haunting her house, he advises making contact with the spirit. [Seriously. A trained & licensed professional psychiatrist is recommending to a highly vulnerable and suggestible patient, unstable & unhinging, that to probe her fears beyond being an extraordinary figment of imagination, damn the torpedoes and seek out this phantom by implement & procedure. Go on, indulge. Allow yourself to reach into the paranormal domain populated by scary boogeymen... Jesus. Welcome to 2000 and the new millennium].

Claire tells all to her flaky best friend, Jody, who provides the light comic relief in contrast to the brooding suspense. One ouija board later, the ladies hold a séance in the bathroom. But whatever this apparition, it will not go away. In her growing terror, Claire was sure that Mary's ghost was stalking her to reveal the truth of her death at the hands of foul play but that certainty proved false. The mystery of the unusual phenomena however reveals someone else entirely -- a girl named Madison Elizabeth Frank (introduced by Claire's computer turning itself on and the initials 'MEF' typing themselves repeatedly). The entity revs up in malevolence and now has a bone to pick with Norman, who in a few instances of observing spirit-possession take hold of his wife's body, himself begins wondering if his eyes & brain are playing tricks on him. Learning of Madison, Claire visits the girl's mother and accuses Norman of betrayal. He confesses having had an affair but when he broke it off, she threatened killing herself or Claire, and then disappeared. Jody knew about it too but said nothing fearing her bestie would harm herself and turn suicidal. Water now plays its deadly final hand as guilt drives Norman to the bathtub with a hairdryer to electrocute himself, and Claire to the wharf to drown herself. Husband is saved by wife, who in turn is saved by husband. A jewelry box that Claire spotted in the lake is retrieved by her and a key that she found earlier in a floor vent, unlocks it to reveal a clue as to what really happened to Madison. Norman tells the truth at last but when he pretends to call the police with information about the still-missing girl, Claire is attacked by him and in a relentless fight for her life, she races to keep from becoming another buried secret.

The storytelling has a clearly Hitchcock-style with its themes of doubt, delusion and deceit, obviously playing peekaboo with REAR WINDOW. As well, we also have one of Hitchcock's favourite framing mechanisms (besides using blondes as female leads): presenting the surface as an exterior mask before we unveil to reveal disturbing interior. (Hence the movie's title). On the outside, Norman (whose name alone in the Hitchcock-verse should be a dead giveaway that he is an illusion of innocence) and Claire look like a picture-perfect pairing but they have this considerable baggage underneath the coating of happiness, and what unravels leaves us with 2 people who are suddenly strangers to each other, unable to trust their partner. The direction makes good use of imagery and noise, and keeps you second-guessing with sudden turns. For those that might find WHAT LIES BENEATH contrived, I say the redemption lies in the more than effective acting. Michelle Pfeiffer as Claire is in almost every scene and does a great job making the viewer believe that Claire is heavily invested in everything happening to her. Her need to understand makes her sympathetic without overdoing it. Not an easy balance. The always reliable Harrison Ford as Norman is also solid in a satisfying departure from his more familiar 'reluctant-hero-swept-into-action' fare. Playing against type, he needs to be something other than what he seems and he pulls it off. In total, the movie is not altogether unpredictable and its trailers are far more to blame for ruining plot developments and character revelations, but this fault aside (thanks to marketing jackasses for the bad promo teasers), it's still very watchable enough to keep you hanging on -- and even as the restlessness begins to run off the rails, the resolution is reasonable.




THE UNINVITED (1944)
Ray Milland, Ruth Hussey, Gail Russell, Donald Crisp, Alan Napier, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Barbara Everest
Directed by Lewis Allen
May 10, 1937. Rick Fitzgerald is a composer & music critic vacationing with his assertive sister, Pamela. The Londonite siblings buy a neglected 18th Century cliff-top home called Windward House on the Cornish seacoast in Devonshire at an incredibly low price. It's a bargain too good to pass up and the owner, Commander Beech, is only too willing to get rid of it. At first tight-lipped, he tells the duo of the house's unsavory past involving his daughter, Mary, who fell to her death from the cliff in 1920, having committed suicide (but rumored in the village as murder). Equally maternal as he is morbid for his unhealthy fixation on Mary's memory, Beech's shy/child-like/insecure granddaughter, Stella, objects to the sale and is displeased that she's been forbidden to enter but she cannot stay away, and Rick (who is already a protective man) grows sweet on her and will later write a piano song entitled 'Stella by Starlight'. The Fitzgeralds move in and the charm of their new manor soon evaporates when they find an unlocked room at the top of the house, an artist's studio. The history of the house also comes furnished with strange incidents such as inconsolable sobbing & moaning, cold chills, the wafting fragrance of flowers, and bumps in the dead of night. When the superstitious Irish housekeeper also senses the heebie-jeebies, it becomes apparent the manor is haunted by a hostile spirit supposedly being Stella's late mother Mary, who seems to mean her own daughter harm even though Stella idolizes her. Stella is deeply affected and in one abrupt moment, runs to the edge of the dangerous cliff and is caught by Rick just in time.

Another edge is the verge of a nervous breakdown for Stella which is not far off. Despite Rick's initial cynicism, he conducts a séance which backfires resulting in Stella being temporarily possessed, and bringing on another discovery: the house being inhabited by a 2nd ghost which looks to protect Stella. With these spectral visitations, the assistance of a local doctor helps in Stella being sent to a sanitorium run by Mary's friend, the cold & repressive Miss Holloway. The 2nd spirit is that of Carmel, a Spanish gypsy & model whom Stella's painter father, Llewellyn, was having an affair. When Mary found out, she took Carmel to Paris and dumped her there. But Carmel came back to Britain and in revenge, stole infant Stella, pushed Mary off the cliff during an argument, and later died from pneumonia. When the Fitzgeralds visit Stella still under medical treatment, Miss Holloway tells them that after the scandal, she nursed Carmel but the siblings find the doctor's journal which suggests she may have been responsible for the despondent woman's death. With Beech now in failing health and told by a doctor of his granddaughter's deteriorated situation, Miss Holloway deceptively sends Stella back to Windward House. Stella finds her grandfather in the studio and is again begged to leave but she stays at his side. One ghost makes an appearance and Beech suffers a fatal heart attack. The Fitzgeralds return as Stella makes another dash to the cliff where again she is saved. Back in the house, the group are drawn to the doctor's journal revealing the truth about the 2 tragic women; a dark secret that leads Rick to a confrontation in a dramatic ghostly showdown.

THE UNINVITED is a gothic, multilayered Hollywood classic and groundbreaking for being considered the first film ever to treat the haunted house genre with seriousness and intelligence. Whereas previously, ghosts in such yarns had always been depicted in a comedic tomfoolery-fashion such as slapstick trotted out by the likes of Abbott & Costello, or as costumed capers to cover-up crime much like in Scooby Doo. Adapted from the 1941 book 'Uneasy Freehold' by Dorothy Macardle, the movie is rich in spooky atmosphere, is very similar to mysteries of the period, and it's elegance (soft and almost poetic) is equally effective for not only the clever love-triangle at the heart of the story, but in how the characters treat the apparitions with real curiousness as to why their manifestations are taking place. This is further underpinned with relationships having been fraught with power struggles, sexual frustration and latent lesbian overtones. With comparisons to Alfred Hitchcock's REBECCA, the Fitzgerald's could be mistaken for a married couple but otherwise, here they are perfectly nuanced with lighting, cinematography, sound and film score -- all of which help build up our imagination that stands in for the deliberately unseen. And what we do see in the few instances is in misty/wispy form, which is handled with restraint. There's a subdued understatement in the ethereal materializations but the eerie mood & tone, and especially great performances enhance the overall air of creepiness. Subtle and superb, this vintage spine-chiller should not be missed.

SUCH A PRETTY GIRL



ALICE, SWEET ALICE aka COMMUNION, and HOLY TERROR (1976)
Linda Miller, Paula Sheppard, Brooke Shields, Jane Lowry, Mildred Clinton, Niles McMaster, Rudolph Willrich
Directed by Alfred Sole
Before she became the wet dream of millions of boys after THE BLUE LAGOON. Before she did or didn't hit a pipe with Bad Brains frontman H.R. Before posing for pictures with Johnny Rotten and Michael Jackson. Before her supermodel superstardom beginning with Calvin Klein. And long before feuding with Tom Cruise (and taking potshots at his then child bride) about postpartum depression, an unknown prepubescent Brooke Shields took her first step to celebrity fame in this macabre and effective thriller. Set in 1961 Paterson, New Jersey, Shields (in her film debut for a whopping 5 minutes) plays spoiled 10yr old (or is she 9?) Karen Spage who while in a church sacristy preparing for her communion, is violently strangled to death by someone in a yellow raincoat and creepy Devo-ish mask. The rumor mill quickly skyrockets that troubled 12yr old sister Alice (Paula Sheppard in also her film debut, who was actually 19 at the time, and resembles a young Karen Allen) did it. Alice becomes the prime suspect, notably for being a sulking sibling who displayed jealousy, smouldering resentment, and emotional instability (this girl has serious control issues), no doubt twinned to some adolescent sexual awakening/confusion. It also doesn't help that as well as her bullying disdain for regarding Karen as a princess and Mommy's pet showered with too much attention, Alice has a disturbing penchant for wearing masks, burning incense in their rundown apartment building's basement, keeping cockroaches, and playing cruel pranks.

When other family members (particularly her hateful & hyper Aunt Annie who has moved in) as well as neighbors (Mr. Alphonso, the obese pedophiliac and downstairs landlord with too many cats, and spending his time fanning his grimy sweat with a Chinese fan while listening to old showtunes), are savagely attacked, we are left wondering if she truly is the 'bad seed' knife-wielding killer and capable of inflicting such abhorrent mayhem, or if someone else is actually the guilty party intent on taking down her family. Outwardly accused and adamantly proclaiming her innocence (and with condemnation from a bad track record at school), even as Alice is briefly sent away to a psychiatric institution and kept under surveillance by a caring doctor, with damning evidence still condemning her, the murders continue after she is released, and her relationship to Mom only gets colder. Her distraught & beleaguered mother, plagued by harassing phone calls, begins to believe all the non-stop rumors that her daughter is not innocent. Alice's estranged and desperate, philandering father who has returned for the funeral, along with a trusted Priest (Father Tom, his former brother-in-law, whose too-much-interest in Karen was icky), make it their mission to find the killer and clear the young girl's name from all the chaos and fingerpointing, but each man meets with terrible results. Annie's own problematic daughter comes under suspicion and Alice returns to old habits. Is there anyone that can stop the sadism? And is it ever ok to scare cranky immigrant housekeepers? The movie is a weird but intelligent entry that either predates slasher flicks (2yrs before 1978's HALLOWEEN) or is one of the early starters (2yrs after 1974's BLACK CHRISTMAS).

There are a few drawbacks: slow pacing, a shoddy police investigation and unmistakable, and inappropriate grossness from a couple of unpleasant detectives during a lie detector test (who wouldn't even be tolerated in Barney Miller's squad) come to mind, but ALICE SWEET ALICE with its largely Italian-American cast, objectionable dodgy grown-ups, and one mistreated kitten, is still one of the great unnerving yet stylish giallo-esque horror classics from the 70's (albeit more on the mystery side) featuring visceral, shocking brutality and an admittedly polarizing twist. Considered a post-EXORCIST clone bunched with other evil kid movies such as THE OMEN, AUDREY ROSE, and THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE, that presented appalling adolescence as opposed to just young rebellion, the movie has its detractors not only for the then-taboo combo of children linked to murder which for too many was crossing a line, but from an addition of an uneasy ambiguity: just when the end is upon us, we're never quite sure. Loaded with grief, tension, trauma, suffering & disintegration, running parallel is the flirtation between mild attempts at resilience and holy retribution due to the Catholicism running throughout the background -- and drenched in imagery heavily upfront with its lingering on crosses, the pain-filled face of Jesus, angelic Virgin Marys, and themes of sin, guilt and deterioration. Religion on display here is that of repression, helplessness, hopelessness, and the redemption of Christ nowhere in sight. At times it even feels like a bitter rejection (if not an outright denouncement) of the Church and God which further helps the film to be snuggled nicely beside 1973's DON'T LOOK NOW as it too (along with its Euro arthouse feel) psychologically deals with the devastating parental loss of a child, the adult breakdown that ensues from the terrible void that is left, and murkiness of things not always appearing as they seem.




LET'S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (1971)
Zohra Lampert, Mariclare Costello, Kevin O'Connor, Barton Heyman, Gretchen Corbett, Alan Manson
Directed by John Hancock
Beginning in a voiceover to a long flashback, Jessica has just been released from a 6-month stint in an asylum after a nervous breakdown. She and her husband, Duncan (a Symphony cellist), along with family friend, Woody, bail on New York's crazy rat-race-pace to help in her post-recovery. Taking off in Woody's hearse, the trio take up residence in a stuffy, ramshackle, old Connecticut farmhouse where they plan on starting an apple-growing business. (Could it get any more bohemian?) They meet carefree hippie Emily (who at times looks like a cross between Holly Hunter and Reba McEntire), a Manson-Family-looking squatter who was staying there while it was unoccupied. Woody has an instant woody for her [and that riff on his name is indeed appropriate as his character is pretty wooden as well]. Emily quickly becomes their guest and from her extended stay, she just as quickly makes an impression on both men (as she has on all the elderly men in town, who have bandages covering scars) and manages to convince everyone to take part in a séance. Speaking of the town, the elderly locals are suspicious, unfriendly and downright rude as they don't take kindly to the newcomers. From the get-go they aren't right and their coldness could be taken as a small commentary on the close of the 1960's and 'post-free-love' society, but isn't delved into deeper. Seeing as Jessica is fascinated by death and has a penchant for tracing cemetery headstones, she spots a mysterious blonde girl staring at her from a distance. This unknown female (who may or may not be trying to reach out to her) will fuel her paranoia to come but in the meanwhile, she grows uneasy with Duncan's attractiveness to Emily. Needing money, the trio look for items around the house to sell and in the attic, Jessica tries on some Victorian clothing and finds an old picture frame of the family who used to live there, the Bishops.

An antique store owner named Sam (also a New York native escaping the urban sprawl/hustle n' bustle of the big city) tells her that the woman in the photo, Abigail Bishop, drowned in the lake in 1880 just before her marriage was to take place. Her body was never found and supposedly she continues to roam the nearby area. Jessica is mesmerized by the story and having swam in the lake, is convinced that something grabbed her leg in the water but both men dismiss her fears. Could the legend be true? While Emily (who always seems to be sporting a forced smile and incidentally looks exactly like Abigail) continues to entertain with her stories and guitar playing, Jessica follows the blonde girl to a cliff where Sam's bloody body is found below near a stream. When Jessica brings Duncan back to the site, the body is gone but hubby and wife see blondie atop the cliff. After a chase, they attempt to question her but blondie doesn't speak a word. Then Jessica's pet mole (actually played by a mouse) which she found in their apple orchard also turns up dead, all carved up in a glass jar. Duncan, worried about his wife's mental health, suggests returning to New York to continue her treatment but he is spurned. When the Bishop portrait is found back in the attic, Jessica feels the upending of tranquility and trust, and herself alienated from the household, now believes she's hearing Abigail's ghostly voice in her head and that nefarious figures are coming for her. With Emily having seduced Duncan and made sexual overtures towards her, Jessica's own unbalanced psychosexual state, and jealousy teeters over the edge. Is Jessica relapsing and sliding into insanity? After agreeing to go swimming with Emily, is she really seeing the returning dead, vampires, spirits, and other supernatural possessed beings?

Or are these haunted manifestations all a product of a still mad and fractured mind? Can she keep all the voices in her head at bay? As she frets internally about appearing crazy, she externally pretends to keep herself in check, but will the emotional see-saw from the difficulty of deciphering between the unreal prove too much? With a low-key and dream-ish slowburn start, many early reviews criticized the movie for a narrative that was heavy on misdirection, and for unsettling disorientation -- particularly the climax with Emily biting Woody, Duncan's absence, Sam's reappearance, hubby and wife back home in their bedroom, Duncan's cut neck, knife-carrying Emily with her male mob of geriatric groupies, the discovery of mute blondie (gotta love the diy casket), the discovery of Woody, trying to board a ferry, and the film's final act after paddling in a rowboat into the middle of the lake... This end sequence of doom was a whirlwind of events that ponders whether or not a conspiracy took place, but the shifting mood of the picture as a whole is on Jessica's struggling interplay between somber and sinister. What initially looks peaceful and appealing, switches into a foreboding atmosphere that builds its apprehension amidst the foggy/hazy New Englandy cinematography of calm, country landscape and rural subtle scenery. Overall, LETS SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH (try to a imagine a Woodstock generation gap in a CARNIVAL OF SOULS setting) is a subdued, eerie horror offering that plays far more on whispered warnings and slipping fragility than the heavy sensationalism of what would become gutteral fare in scary 70's films. Even with its conclusion and unanswered questions, through all the creep factor, we are never sure of what is real or unreliable.

BAD HARE DAY



KOTTENTAIL (2004)
Nathan Faudree, Patricia Bellemore, Noel Francomano, Bridget Marquardt, Kristin Abbott, Heather Darling
Directed by Tony Urban
Approaching the Easter holiday in smalltown Pennsylvania, 2 devout animal liberationists (Robin the smart one, a newspaper reporter, and Lizzie the dumb one, a hooker) are not happy with the "Overlook Animal Research Laboratory" conducting work on genetic engineering. Everything in the lab thus far has been carried out by 2 scientists, the male Dr. Pez and female Dr. Scarlet Salinger (Bridget Marquardt, a former Playboy playmate, and ex-girlfriend of Hugh Hefner). Their test subject is a rabbit named Frederico (a plush toy in a cage that can be seen pulled by a visible string). Pez uses cruel torture with an electric prod while Salinger is the caring, sensitive one. One night Robin and Lizzie (and the ALF they are not) decide to set Frederico free (in the parking lot). They have no idea that the bunny's genes are a screwy mess from being subject to experiments, and once released, anything the vicious little bugger bites will turn into a deadly, giant, mutant rabbit-hybrid. Enter German immigrant farmer Hans Kottentail. He finds Frederico in his carrot garden, is bitten on the hand and then passes out. This however will be more than just a case of getting a shot for rabies. He quickly begins to change as he grows fur, gets pointier earlobes ala Dr. Spock, sprouts a considerable bucktooth overbite, poops pellets that look like malteasers (or Cocoa Puffs), starts hopping, and looks like a cross between the Donnie Darko rabbit and a werewolf. In no time at all, murderous fury has overtaken Hans -- now morphed into full rage-mode creature -- and he goes on a killing spree. He needn't worry about bloodstains on his fluffy coating as he still dons his blue jean overalls and plaid shirt.

Robin and Lizzie (actually just Robin) grow suspicious that the news reports of the research facility break-in make no mention of a missing rabbit, and have treated the incident as a typical prank. Dr. Salinger has retrieved Frederico which was captured by an Animal Control officer who saw one of her reward fliers. She reads lab reports that discuss testing flaws detailing highly infectious contagion that if spread to humans, would prove disastrous. When the boyfiend of a young sorority pledge named Marissa (who looks great in an orange bikini) is killed by Hans, she at first is dismissed by a detective but meets Officer Yvonne Mikita (whose running joke is that she is treated by everybody as little more than a meter maid) who investigates further. Lizzie recognizes Hans (from before his transformation) as one of her johns, and she & Robin meet up with Officer Mikita. The intrepid officer speaks with Dr. Salinger who she senses is hiding the truth, and is uncooperative with information about the rash of ravenous murders connected to Frederico. Mikita along with the 2 activists & Marissa abduct Dr. Salinger forcing her to reveal what she knows and she finally comes around. The 5 ladies meet at Mikita's place to form a plan. Robin (with her non-shortage of slutty outfits) dresses them into a quintuplet of sexy centerfold commandos (complete with bunny ears, white fuzzy-lined bikini tops, tight pink skimpy shorts with puffy tails, and of course black kneehigh boots). In a montage of each stripping down to don their costume, once ready, they head out in slo-mo to Hans' house in a face-off to stop him from turning all the remaining locals into human hasenpfeffer.

KOTTENTAIL is a low budget indie production with its tongue firmly in cheek. It's ridiculous and knows it (right off the bat, a journalist and a prostitute sounds like the set-up to a bad joke) but told with okay-ish comic panels (animation in keeping with its graphic novel presentation would've been better than blur), the story unfolds with surprisingly good narrative flow and editing. The acting definitely isn't great and there are plenty of instances where the delivery is just phoned in. The body count is high (including an apartment landlord, 2 basketball youths, 2 detectives, 3 city councillors who were hiding Easter eggs, and 3 bitchy sorority sisters -- with another Buffy & Muffy pairing in that trio -- are all slashed, nibbled & chomped to death) and a few of the women who show skin clearly didn't have any problem with their brief T&A nudity (which to an extent could have been a little more gratuitous as you kind of wait for it anyway in lieu of the gore being light). There was even an Elmer Fudd quote waiting in the wings. Observing the limitations due to lacking funds can't be helped: a same room is both the Animal Control Dept. and the Research lab. Actor John Karyus who plays Agent Chapman the Animal Control officer is also Detective Fulci -- a separate character. Hans wears a plain bunny horror mask, has a little prosthetic make-up, gloves with pasted on fur & clip-on claws, and is smeared with Halloween prop-store blood. Moneybags this ain't. You're bound to laugh at this movie more than with it but as far as effort goes, it's very apparent that this is deliberately nutty and never dares to take itself seriously. At all. How could it? At every step of the way, the filmmakers and cast know what they are involved in is goofy. It still would have been nice if a little more had been put into KOTTENTAIL but hey, atleast they didn't deliver another tiresome, knife-wielding/gun-toting, rampaging adult in a full bunny suit or plastic bunny mask.




NIGHT OF THE LEPUS (1972)
Rory Calhoun, Stuart Whitman, Janet Leigh, DeForrest Kelley, Melanie Fullerton, Paul Fix, Henry Wills
Directed by William F. Claxton
Exasperated Arizona cattle rancher Cole Hillman is dealing with a problematic massive herd of jackrabbits swamping his land now that they needn't worry about coyotes who have been killed off. With his livestock endangered, Hillman gets help from a cranky local college president, Elgin Clark, to find a method which will humanely & safely resolve the matter. Also brought in are a pair of husband & wife zoologist researchers (the Bennetts) who inject the rabbits with chemicals. What could possibly go wrong? Well for starters, how about the failure to consider the catastrophic consequences of their intended hormone control? Genetically mutated blood (a serum provided by the Public Health Dept.) is used to disrupt rabbit reproduction by causing birth defects in the hopes of restoring a balance (as other ranchers want to use cyanide poisoning) but in the experimentation, the Bennetts' annoying daughter fancies herself wanting a pet. She secretly switches an injected test bunny she admires, named Romeo, with one from a control group supplied by Hillman. She takes Romeo to the ranch, who soon escapes. Who saw that coming? Large animal footprints lead to a cave, and a prospector, truck driver, and family of 4 are soon killed. [The doctor examining the trucker's body states he was killed by a predator with a bite like a sabretooth tiger. That is one helluva prime suspect]. As the rabbits breed like crazy (and man, do they multiply according to biology), they turn into overgrown, wolf-ish, mongrel mutants, overpopulate even more, and start devouring everyone they can twitch their little snot-running & ketchup-smeared noses at. And bloodthirsty badasses they are as they take down horses and man-alike. No veggies on this menu. As the scientists desperately work to fight the transformed menace they have created (the Bennetts vs. the Cadbury bunnies -- it's on!), more munched-on bodies pile up.

Mr. Bennett and a rancher enter the cave to get photographic evidence and they observe tunnels. Dynamite is laid on top of the cave and once the 2 men are outside, the explosives are detonated but fail to blow the rabbits to smithereens. That night, the rabbits attack Hillman's ranch & house in a thunderous stampede (in a cowboy-ish feel like buffalo) and as he hides in the cellar with his family, the rabbits maraud their way into a small town, ransacking a general store and killing another rancher. In the morning, Mrs. Bennett & her daughter leave for safety but their camper van gets stuck by a desert road where they are trapped till nightfall. The rabbits cause a hurried evacuation, return the next night for round 2 as they head towards the city, and the National Guard is eventually called in to wipe out these goddamn, ambushing motherhoppers once & for all, with some impromptu assistance from a helicopter rescue, drive-in movie goers, car headlights, high voltage railroad tracks, and help from the local power company. Based on the 1964 satirical sci-fi novel 'The Year of the Angry Rabbit' by Russell Braddon, to call NIGHT OF THE LEPUS a bad movie would be a gross understatement. It is 100% preposterous. From mediocre acting & directing, and hokey sfx, this widely panned and far-fetched feature goes above & beyond just being a poor movie -- it is laughably absurd to the max. And it is for these very same reasons why it is also admired and loved by connoisseurs of truly substandard cinema. The movie has gained a cult status for being unintentionally hilarious as we see the little critters jumping about on miniature model sets in zoom close-ups, have actors dressed in bunny suits for attack scenes, and rabbits heard with dubbed-in lion's growls & roars. We also get to see them in slo-mo roaming the desert plains, terrifying cattle. Overwhelmingly is how rabbits are just incapable of being scary. It's impossible. Period. Even hordes (or 'warrens') of them.

Make them as big as you can and they'll still never stop being cuddly, benign and adorable. Anything that immediately evokes wascally Bugs Bunny is not going to sell you on being frightened. Even the German & Austrian movie poster tries boldly to do so with its artistic depiction going for rabid, screaming carnage, but ultimately ends up looking instead like a surprised beaver. Monty Python masterfully tackled the 'ferocious killer bunny' angle so much better in 1975, and while LEPUS pre-dates HOLY GRAIL by 3yrs, it nevertheless feels like it's paying some homage and a shared lineage of sorts to that cute, little, carnivorous cave guardian of Caerbannog. For all of the unconvincingness of LEPUS, there is a some small retro enjoyment to be had as one of several 1970's 'nature strikes back' eco-thrillers of it's day. That said, it could be argued that perhaps it was trying to evoke some 1950's nostalgic throwback to giant creatures that run amok because of science gone wrong. If the movie has only one thing going for it, that would be not getting bogged down in any subplot. Everything right off the bat is cause & effect. What was interesting was the opening newscaster talking about the rabbit epidemic in Australia in a documentary style. That prologue provided an actual dose of reality of how the introduction & infestation of an invasive species to a countryside could be environmentally detrimental in the long run, and how rabbit containment requires necessary culling. One wonders if the 4 main actors were in such dire straits of really needing to pay the bills to appear in this clunker. And credit to them for not looking like they are embarrassed to be part of everything here. LEPUS has been called one the worst horror movies ever made (more dumb than lousy, infact) and continues to be regarded as a shambles. And that's being nice. How MGM amazingly even greenlit this is probably just as mysterious as it is miraculous. Seriously, who (and how many) thought this was a good idea? Simply put, it has to be seen to be disbelieved.