What cult movies have you been watching lately?, Here are a few of my recent viewings

CREATURE WITH THE ATOM BRAIN (1955)--Directed by Edward L. Cahn. Stars Richard Denning, S. John Launer, Michael Granger, Gregory Gaye. One of the all-time great titles adorns this Columbia science fiction movie, which doesn’t quite live up to its name, but what could? It’s pretty entertaining nonetheless, and clips right along at a just-right 69-minute pace. Denning is perfectly cast as a police scientist investigating a series of murders that appear to have been committed by a bulletproof assailant with super-strength. Revenge is the motive, as exiled gangster Granger returns to Los Angeles to kill those responsible for his imprisonment. He recruits a former Nazi scientist (Gaye), who electronically returns corpses to life as obedient radio-controlled zombies, which are then sent by Granger to crush his enemies. Of course it’s silly, but also quite fun, and even manages to be poignant when Denning’s best pal, detective Launer, becomes one of Gaye’s creatures. By the way, there are actually several “creatures” in the film, and one highlight is their fight with cops on the front lawn of Granger’s estate. Also with Angela Stevens, Tris Coffin, Pierre Watkin and Linda Bennett. Watch for a blooper when Denning sends the little girl playing his daughter upstairs to her room. In the background, you can see her stop and sit at the top of the stairs, probably because that was the edge of the set!


MADMAN (1982)--Directed by Joe Giannone. Stars Gaylen Ross, Tony Fish, Paul Ehlers. A slow pace mars this routine slasher flick highly influenced by FRIDAY THE 13TH. It also shares the same plot as THE BURNING, which was made in upstate New York at the same time MADMAN was filming on Long Island, causing Giannone to radically rewrite his screenplay to change the antagonist from a backwoods hulk named Cropsy to a backwoods hulk named Madman Marz. A bunch of youths attending camp are stalked one night by the mysteriously deformed Madman Marz, thought to be an urban legend that axed his family to death many years earlier. The plot goes no farther than that; the kids go into the woods and are murdered in numerous gruesome ways, the most memorable being a girl fixing her truck’s engine who is beheaded when Marz jumps onto the open hood. There are a few okay gore effects, and DAWN OF THE DEAD’s Ross is a stalwart Final Girl, but MADMAN is nothing special.


GIRL ON A CHAIN GANG (1965)--Directed by Jerry Gross. Stars William Watson, Julie Ange, Ron Segal, Matt Reynolds. Gross is better known as a distributor of low-budget drive-in movies (I DRINK YOUR BLOOD) and something of a huckster, but he also directed a couple of them earlier in his career. Watson, a very busy TV guest star during the 1970’s playing killers and rapists on cop shows, demonstrates why he got those roles as Sonnie Lew, the brutal corrupt sheriff of a small Southern town who picks up a trio of young college liberals, extorts them, kills the men, rapes the girl (Ange), and sends her to prison to serve on the end of an all-male, all-black chain gang. Shot on Long Island not long after the events documented in MISSISSIPPI BURNING, the protagonists are unusual in that one is a woman, but not romantically involved with her male companions, and one is a black man. Gross uses too few setups and unsuccessfully attempts to pass off someone’s yard as a swamp teaming with cottonmouths, but I imagine the subject matter and black-and-white photography played well enough at the bottom of drive-in double features. Gross’ followup was TEENAGE MOTHER, in color and featuring a young Fred Willard (A MIGHTY WIND).


TEENAGE MOTHER (1967)--Directed by Jerry Gross. Stars Arlene Farber, Julie Ange, Howard LeMay, Frederick Riccio. Make sure you don’t screen this one in mixed company. What plays for its first hour or so as a routine but outdated juvenile delinquency drama decrying the effects of sex education on horny teens takes a turn for the bizarre when Gross splices into it an actual birth of a baby. It’s quite jarring to suddenly, without warning, have a close-up of a spread vagina pushed right into your face. Erika Petersen (Ange) arrives in a regular American town from Sweden (!) to teach sex ed at the local high school. Meanwhile, good girl Arlene (Farber) is dating baseball star Tony (LeMay), but sometimes flirts with bad boy Duke (Riccio), who attempts to rape Erika. When Arlene announces that she’s pregnant, her indignant dad blames the school system for teaching her about sex, leading to a town council meeting where the beautiful/horrifying birth film is shown. As usual for this type of film, the performers are much too old for their roles. However, it’s fun to see Fred Willard, later of FERNWOOD 2-NIGHT and many fine film comedies, playing it straight as a baseball coach. Filmed on Long Island, and featuring Gross’ earlier film, GIRL ON A CHAIN GANG, playing at a drive-in.

Story of my life.

I was pretty surprised to see a similar up-close-and-personal live childbirthing scene at the end of Altman's DR T AND THE WOMEN, too - maybe the first and only such shot to be included in a non-porn feature? - but it reminded me of how prevalent such scenes were on UK TV documentaries in the let-it-all-hang-out 1970s; they seemed to be on all the time, but that might just be memory playing tricks. Still, once seen, never forgotten. (At least one gay friend of ours has stated that these shockumentary moments played a large part in his subsequent gender orientation, and although I'm not sure how much faith we can place in such remarks, it certainly amused me at the time.)

Here are a few titles I have seen lately -

MURDERBALL - Took this in last night at the local arthouse and was absolutely blown away by it. For anyone who doesn't know, it follows a group of paraplegic rugby players and their games for the 2002 & 2004 Paraplegic Games. But the documentary is far more than that, diving into the lives of several of the men and the various situations that caused their conditions. It is one of the most heartbreaking and inspirational films I have seen in years.

THE CENTERFOLD GIRLS - It ain't easy being sleazy but this film tries its hardest and succeeds. Andrew Prine stars as a repressed young man who decides to "help" centerfold models by killing them. That is the entire plot. The film does do something interesting in that it is an anthology with three seperate stalking stories. At the same time, this could easily be the poster child for anyone who belittles horror films and believes they are nothing more than young naked women being killed. Prine is the film's biggest asset, reminding me of a cross between Val Kilmer and Michael Palin.

MIRROR MASK - Neil Gaiman's riff on THE WIZARD OF OZ. Outside of the OZ influence, it is so refreshing to see something so utterly original still being made. There are some very unusual and vivid characters in this one. It definitely has a target audience (young girls) a la LABYRINTH (a film it has been compared to a lot) but I think it succeeds in drawing in other viewers with lots of bizarre imagery. I was shocked to hear it only cost $4 million dollars. Destined to be a cult favorite in the years to come.

THE EVIL BELOW - this underwater adventure rode the wave of waterlogged films coming out in 1989 (THE ABYSS, DEEP STAR SIX, LEVIATHAN, THE RIFT, LORDS OF THE DEEP, etc.). While the excellent cover sells the horror aspect (see below), the film is closer to THE DEEP with treasure diving adventure taking up a majority of the running time. Horror elements do pop up though in the form of black magic, a big killer eel and a undead protagonist (who is never really explained). Stars Wayne Crawford of JAKE SPEED fame.

This post has been edited by Marty McKee on Aug 28 2009, 01:36 PM

Baby birth films were prevalent during the "road show" era of exploitation cinema soley to "titillate," which is really bizarre when you think about it but, during those times, it wasn't too often that viewers got to see this part of the body on screen (and maybe not even in the privacy of their own bedrooms). I suppose this was a weird precursor to straight gynecological porn because, perhaps, it was difficult to find women who would willingly show all for the camera...not to mention any moral trepidations. What is the link between this kind of road show mentality and hardcore, one wonders...

99 and 44/100% DEAD - This Frankenheimer action film didn't live up to my expectations as it wasn't quite as over the top and cartoonish as some descriptions I've read had made it out to be. Richard Harris is great though and the movie starts with a wonderful scene featuring corpses at the bottom of a river but the action never really heats up. I think Charles Napier would have been a better choice for the one-armed villain, "Claw", played in the film by Chuck Connors. The female lead is a little dull as well. I bought this used on VHS for $5 so I can't complain too much.

JIMINY GLICK IN LALAWOOD - Horrible. I really dug Martin Short's Prime Time Glick on Comedy Central but this full-length feature is wretched. Short does a pretty spot-on David Lynch (for no good reason) but doesn't do much else worthwhile in the film. John Michael Higgins, a veteran of Christopher Guest's mockumentaries, is extremely unfunny in this, and Janeane Garofalo, who was a good sport on the TV show, is completely wasted here. To be honest I turned it off at the 50 minute mark. Avoid at all costs.

Well, Ann Turkel was married to Richard Harris, so where he goes, she goes, I guess.

I haven't heard much good about the Jiminy Glick movie. The television show was frequently hilarious (Dave Thomas and Eugene Levy appeared together on one), but I had my doubts as to how Short could sustain the gimmick for 90 minutes, and I'm not surprised to learn that he can't. I think Short is a very talented fellow, although I think he's funnier as a storyteller and talk show guest than as a comic actor. He and Catherine O'Hara do a MST3K-style commentary on one of the SCTV episodes that's great fun.

Last week I watched four Japanese cult movies: SEX AND FURY, its sequel FEMALE YAKUZA TALE: INQUISITION AND TORTURE, THE KILLING MACHINE (my favorite Sonny Chiba film--now in widescreen with a Japanese-language track), and FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION: JAILHOUSE 41. Two of them, SEX AND FURY and FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION were just mind-boggling, unlike any other films I'd ever seen in terms of style. In fact it was the similarity of SEX AND FURY to LADY SNOWBLOOD (one of the inspirations for KILL BILL VOL. 1) and the similarity of parts of the sequel to KILL BILL VOL. 1 that inspired me to watch my DVD of the Japanese cut of KBV1 one more time. (Songs from LADY SNOWBLOOD and FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION are on the soundtrack of KBV1.)

I must say that I've had second thoughts about all of this viewing since yesterday when I went down to Japan Society here in NYC to see a 160-minute documentary called JAPANESE DEVILS, which includes over a dozen interviews with elderly ex-soldiers in Japan who'd served in China during the war. Each of them describes, in varying degrees of graphic detail, the atrocities they'd personally committed in China, including rape, murder, mass killings, arson, torture, surgical experiments on human guinea pigs, etc., etc., etc. It was a wearying experience and I couldn't look anybody in the eye, especially Japanese people--including a friend of mine who works there, when I left the screening.

What makes it worse was that two of the Japanese films listed above include references to the war in China. THE KILLING MACHINE opens in China where Chiba is working as an undercover agent who infiltrates Chinese guerrillas. When he is i.d.'d by them as a Japanese, he fights and kills them all before learning from his superiors that the war is over and Japan has surrendered. Later he defends a Japanese girl from being taken by Chinese officers. In JAPANESE DEVILS, one of the ex-soldiers describes his experiences as a spy in China and how he used his position to kill lots of people. Yet in KILLING MACHINE, the guy is a hero.

In FEMALE CONVICT SCORPION, about a group of women prison escapees, there is a scene on a bus filled with sightseers where a man drunkenly brags to his friends how he'd raped a girl in China during the war. Without including spoilers, I'll just say that the man goes on to do something bad and gets his comeuppance much later at the hands of the women escapees. I'll grant you that the film deserves some credit for at least ACKNOWLEDGING the wartime rapes committed in China by the Japanese. But, still, it left a bad taste, especially when I knew I'd be going to see JAPANESE DEVILS a day later. Also, there are two scenes where small children are treated very roughly, causing them to cry what I believe are genuine tears of fear. This disturbed me and undercut any appreciation I might have had of the film's visionary surrealism and mysticism and the superb acting by the seven actresses playing the escapees.

So those are my recent cult movie encounters.

These sorts of threads always inspire me to poke around in the vhs bargain bin. I did so yesterday and came up with a couple. Last night I saw


A RETURN TO 'SALEMS LOT (1987)


man oh man oh manohmanohman. Awesome!



MASSIVE SPOILERS

-- Michael Moriarty, probably one of the unsexiest actors ever, actually gets lucky twice. The movie's worth seeing just for that alone.

-- I bow before the chutzpah of basing a story in 'Salems Lot and not referencing the first story at all.

-- All sorts of enjoyable vampire lore, just kinda tossed out as an aside. Best bit, I thought: the vampires came over on the Speedwell, which I think was an actual boat. Vampires are seen here as a kind of old-school conservatism, conservatism in the sense of keeping to a traditional, quieter sort of life. Why, they actually wear ties to school!

-- Enjoyable bits of gore here and there -- surprisingly so, really. I especially liked how holy water just doesn't burn 'em, it actually melts their face off.

-- Early on the kid is surprisingly good, nicely sullen and a pain in the ass. Unfortunately it soon becomes apparent that's all he can play, but he does do sullen Very Well.

-- Future exploitation star (and star of innumerable Maxim spreads) Tara Reid is in here as a hot-to-trot 12 year old. As a devoted fan of this unrecognized thespian, may I say the movie's worth watching just for this alone.

-- And best of all, crotchety Sam Fuller, of all people, limping around staking vampires and screaming obscenities and faking suicides and recovering from bear trap wounds. That there's a man among men.

Instant classic!

doug

This post has been edited by Doug Bassett on Oct 19 2005, 06:27 AM

I think these might all count as "cult," to varying degrees...

Prayer of the Rollerboys In the post-apocalyptic future, Corey Haim must take down a gang which is basically a neo-Nazi mafia...only all its members must rollerblade in V-formation everywhere they go!! The movie was totally absurd, but most of its jokes work (like a quick flash of a newspaper headline regarding Americans illegally migrating to Mexico for jobs), and I'm a sucker for dystopian futures which mostly involve graffiti and fires in oil cans (Dead End Drive In, The Super Mario Bros Movie, Future-Kill, etc.). Definitely a bargain bin classic.

Cowards Bend the Knee Guy Maddin's latest film to hit DVD tells the a story of a young man named Guy Maddin who is torn between several different women and believes the hand of a murderer has been transplanted onto his own arm. The movie is only an hour long, and some of the Super 8 1930's-style images Maddin has captured are beautiful, but unfortunately his camera darts about frenetically and refuses to linger for even a moment. In fact, the pace of the editing is so fast that I had to shut my eyes a few times to keep from getting a headache. Maddin seems uncharacteristically ill at ease on the commentary track, probably because this film is semi-autobiographical and touches on a lot of personal issues he isn't 100% comfortable discussing in front of an audience. I appreciated learning more about the director himself, but I prefer most of his other works to this one.

Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madame I felt so trashy while watching this film, yet it was so engrossing I just couldn't help continuing on. It's an expose of a woman who ran a high class prostituion ring in LA in the early 90s. Nick Broomfield interviews his subjects (call girls, the director of Starsky & Hutch, an elderly madame who looks and acts exactly like Mink Stole in Pink Flamginos, a gruff voice on the phone belonging to "Cookie" the bodyguard, and eventually Heidi herself) again and again, eventually trapping them all in a web of lies. It's impossible to figure out who is telling the truth, if the people involved are just having a chuckle at Broomfield's expense, or if they're all so wigged out on coke that they legitimately have no idea what is going on. In exchange for interviews, Broomfield actually hands his subjects huge wads of cash on camera, so at first he seems like the sucker (or, oddly, like he's applying the prostitute/john relationship to the structure of his documentary), but really he's buying a career move while they're just making themselves look silly. Overall I think Broomfield had the last laugh by exposing how absolutely ludicrous some of these Hollywood types are. Broomfield is a shameless sensationalist...but he certainly knows how to bring out the hilarity and surreal nature of otherwise serious subjects.

This post has been edited by Kate Duffy on Oct 20 2005, 07:28 AM

DARK MISSION: FLOWERS OF EVIL - I took this one in tonight. Nothing says cult more than a film directed by Jess Franco starring Christopher Lee, Chris Mitchum, Brigette Lahaie and Richard Harrison. Only Jess Franco could mess up an all-star cast like that. CIA agent Derrick Carpenter (Mitchum) heads to an unnamed Latin American country to take on big time drug dealer and former Castro buddy Luis Morel (Lee). Along the way, he unwittingly falls in love with Morel's naive daughter (Cristina Higueras) and keeps running into the wife (Lahaie) of his recently killed partner. All this mixes to create a movie that isn't too exciting.

Richard Harrison does his one minute at the beginning and 2 minutes at the end bit too. He gets the best line though at the beginning. He is the head of the CIA and says to Mitchum's character, "I don't like you. You are a drunk and a womanizer. But we need you. You are the only one here who knows Spanish." There are a other few funny bits like when Mitchum and his girl head to a hospital to check out drug addicts. They wheel one body past the girl and she says, "Oh God! It is my best friend Maria!" Perhaps the funniest bit is a dinner scene that Franco decided to do with synch sound. No problem there except someone locked some dogs in adjacent room and they bark at all the wrong (right) moments. Hilarious. There is one big action scene at the end (relying heavily on stock footage) and it appears to have been edited by a blind man. But at least we get to see Christopher Lee get blow'd up (that should make Peter Jackson happy).

I love this movie and always check it out every couple of years. I think your review reminded me that it is due for another run. Thanks!

TENDER AND PERVERSE EMANUELLE - So I decided to give ol' Jess another try last night and watched this one. She's tender! She's perverse! This is just an attempt to cash in on the EMMANUELLE series (shocking from Franco, I know!) but this was made before the first EMMANUELLE film in 1974. One has to assume that it is a title slapped on at a later date because the lead female is actually named Barbara. The odd thing is that in the dubbing she is referred to as Emanuelle and Barbara at different points. Confused? Good because it is only gonna get more convoluted. Okay, so Emanuelle's husband Gordon invites his shrink Michel (Jack Taylor) to come to the house for the weekend to help Emanuelle (Norma Castell), who is slowly breaking down. The day after he arrives, Emanuelle is found dead at the bottom of a cliff. The cops begin investigating her apparent suicide with Michel as the main suspect and many twists, turns and lovers are revealed. This is a pretty entertaining timekiller. The mystery is actually pretty well done and culminates with a bizarre twist. Franco fills the running time with lots of softcore sex scenes involving nearly the entire cast (including the cute Lina Romay).

Am I the only one watching movies? Or just the only one foolish to admit to watch some of these? Anyway, tonight I took in

EXTREME CHALLENGE - This Golden Harvest production is set in the near future when internet fighting is the world's favorite sport (even surpassing soccer!). Anyway, a group of people get together and beat each other up on a very intricate obstacle course. Two of the competitors are former pupils of the same master. Oooooohhhh, there's gonna be some drama. The film is 80% fighting and the fights are good. Or I should say entertaining in a comic book way. They are sped up a tiny bit and the director uses lots of freeze frames, swipes and quick pans so you never stick on one fight/shot for too long. The other 20% of the film is spent on some amazingly funny dialogue. I watched the dubbed US release but you can tell the English speaking actors really delivered thier lines. This is acting that makes Jean Claude Van Damme look like a Elia Kazan protege. Still, combined with the fast action and professional look, this c-grade acting combines well to make a entertaining 90 minutes.

The World Series is on, man!

Don't worry--I'll post a couple in a day or so.

Okay, Will. Here're a couple of quick ones, although I can't really say that I watched them. They were just on while I did other things...like sleep:

John Russo's MIDNIGHT - Awful. Zonked out half way through and sent it back to Netflix the next morning.

SANTA'S SLAY - Former pro wrestler Bill Goldberg plays a demonic Santa Claus. This was on Spike TV last night...watched a little while I was drawing...also awful...go figure. Worst wrestling related Santa movie since Hulk Hogan's SANTA WITH MUSCLES.

THE INVINCIBLE BARBARIAN (1982)--Directed by Franco Prosperi. Stars Pietro Torrisi, Sabrina Siani, Giovanni Cianfriglia, Rita Silva, Emilio Messina. This guy sure gets his ass kicked a lot for someone allegedly “invincible.” Even a girl beats him up without even working up a sweat. Twin boys are born to a woman who dies at childbirth as her entire village is destroyed by evil warrior Nuriak (Messina) and his goons. One of the babies is to be “The Chosen One”. Both are rescued and reared by an army of bodacious Amazons, but no one knows which is to receive the super mystical sword and medallion and battle evildoers. When they reach adulthood, the Amazon queen (Silva) orders them to fight to the death. The bad actor in the ill-fitting blond wig (Torrisi) wins and takes the name Zucan. He lets the loser, the bad actor in the ill-fitting dark wig (Cianfriglia), live, but his evil twin kicks his ass and poses as Zucan, only to get his ass killed by Nuriak’s men. The real Zucan hooks up with a hot slave girl (blond Siani, a veteran of terrible Italian exploitation movies), making the Queen jealous. First she sentences Zucan to exile, but after he gets his ass handed to him (again) by an Amazon with a magic shield, she lets him stay. Instead, she captures Siani and turns her over to Nuriak as ambush bait. More slow-motion swordfights follow, the kind where the actors don’t try to hide that their fake swords are bouncing off their victims. Zucan and Siani survive a deathtrap where she is stripped and forced to lie naked on top of her lover as spikes tear into her back. Several minutes of ponderous narration and stock footage of the solar system and fighting dinosaurs get the movie off to a dull start, but eventually the bad dialogue, dubbing, fight choreography and storyline draw you in, not to mention Sabrina Siani’s body. Not nearly as difficult to watch as I had expected, and parts of it are really funny.


THE FIVE MAN ARMY (1969)--Directed by Don Taylor. Stars Peter Graves, James Daly, Bud Spencer, Nino Castelnuovo, Tetsuro Tamba. If you’ve ever wondered what MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE would look like as an Italian western, here you go. Graves’ casting as The Dutchman, who plans an elaborate, split-second scheme to rob a train using four specialists, couldn’t have been coincidental. During the Mexican Revolution, The Dutchman recruits explosives expert Augustus (Daly, then starring on MEDICAL CENTER), burly Mesito (Spencer), master swordsman Samurai (Tamba) and cocky young Luis (Castelnuovo) to steal $500,000 in gold from a moving train guarded by Army soldiers and monitored at regular intervals along the track. Co-written by horror specialist Dario Argento, THE FIVE MAN ARMY is solidly directed by American Taylor, whose editors could have trimmed some padding to make the 105-minute film flow better. Action fans will get their fill, and the major setpiece--the train robbery--is handled extremely well with plenty of suspense. Give credit to the actors for finding their characters with little help from the screenplay. Graves badly imitates a Mexican accent at one point, but he performed others on M:I and wasn’t any good at those either. Outstanding score by Ennio Morricone. Filmed in Arizona.


NIGHT SCHOOL (1981)--Directed by Kenneth Hughes. Stars Leonard Mann, Drew Snyder, Rachel Ward. The director of CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG directs a slasher movie. Boston is ravaged by a mysterious killer in a leather jacket and motorcycle helmet who decapitates young women and deposits their heads in containers of water--fish tank, bucket, sink, etc. Detective Austin’s (Italian actor Mann) main suspect is anthropology professor Millett (Snyder), who appears to be boffing every student at the girls’ school where he teaches, including his live-in teaching assistant Eleanor (24-year-old Ward in her first major feature). Despite a screenplay written by a woman, Ruth Avergon, NIGHT SCHOOL still carries the whiff of misogyny typical to the genre, as well as a twist or two that will likely fool few. Hughes gets the most from his Boston surroundings, but despite the professional sheen, NIGHT SCHOOL receives a C- at best, and only for revealing Ward’s sumptuous bum during a kinky shower scene. Composer Brad Fiedel (THE TERMINATOR) and cinematographer Mark Irwin (AMERICAN PIE 2) certainly went on to better things, as did Ward, who soon appeared in SHARKY’S MACHINE and became an international star in the TV miniseries THE THORN BIRDS.


SUPERMAN AND THE MOLE-MEN (1951)--Directed by Lee Sholem. Stars George Reeves, Phyllis Coates, Jeff Corey. Before Reeves starred in the first season of the syndicated THE ADVENTURES OF SUPERMAN, Lippert Pictures produced this 58-minute feature that was later cut into a two-part episode, “The Unknown People.” Daily Planet reporters Clark Kent (Reeves) and Lois Lane (Coates) travel to little Silsby, home of the world’s deepest oil well, which drills more than six miles below the surface. Unfortunately, it has drilled a tunnel to the underground home of a race of “mole people”--phosphorescent midgets with hairy backs and big foreheads--who crawl to the surface and run around accidentally frightening humans to death. They may also be radioactive, spurring the hotheaded citizens, led by rabblerousing bigot Luke Benson (Corey), to form a lynch mob to murder the strange creatures. Superman (Reeves in a padded suit) shows up in time to rescue the invaders and teach Silsbee a lesson in tolerance. Welcome exterior filming and a sturdy performance by the reliable Reeves helps this minor SF number go down easily. Coates is the best screen Lois Lane, no simp like the version played by Noel Neill in the series’ color episodes, and perhaps even sexier than Teri Hatcher. Also with Margia Dean, Stanley Andrews, Walter Reed and Billy Curtis. Harry Thomas’ special mole man makeup is unconvincing.


TOP LINE (1988)--Directed by Nello Rossati. Stars Franco Nero, George Kennedy, William Berger, Rodrigo Obregon. I didn't know a damn thing about TOP LINE when I started watching it, and a half-hour into it, I still didn't know anything about it. It picks up a little bit at that point and turns into a typically messy Italian movie with lame special effects and a wonky sense of logic. Nero is an alcoholic Italian author named Ted who discovers a 500-year-old spaceship buried in a Colombian cave. Kennedy, who could have filmed his whole part in a day, is a Nazi who chases a barefoot Nero across a cactus field. He vanishes from the film pretty early, and Nero is then chased by the CIA, the Russians, and a human-looking robot (!) with a melted face. The robot is vanquished when a charging bull knocks off its head (!), and Nero contacts his bitchy publisher ex-wife in the States and has her fly down to meet him in the jungle. Turns out she's one of the aliens, and she shows Nero her true colors, stripping off her nude skin to reveal her slimy, gooey, misshapen, sharp-toothed self. She also reveals that her race has been visiting Earth for 16,000 years and that they have infiltrated world government at the highest posts. Franco's new girlfriend ices the bitch by firing a spear into it, and the film ends with Nero "gone native", wearing a loincloth, sitting in a grass hut, writing his expose of the alien invasion that will likely never be published. Watch it and like it.


DEATH DIMENSION (1978)--Directed by Al Adamson. Stars Jim Kelly, George Lazenby, Harold Sakata, Myron Bruce Lee, Bob Minor. Mondo Crash's DVD of DEATH DIMENSION is no more than an unremastered videotape source (complete with creases and rolls). It's directed by Al Adamson, one of exploitation cinema's dullest filmmakers, although this one is pretty watchable by his standards. It still sucks though. Jim Kelly (ENTER THE DRAGON) is a cop named Ash who is assigned by his boss (former 007 George Lazenby) to investigate a plot by an archvillain known as The Pig (Harold "Oddjob" Sakata) to detonate a "freeze bomb", a weapon that turns the landscape to ice. It's nothing more than a McGuffin that never impacts the story. The Pig can't use the bomb until he gets the formula for it, which is lodged inside the head of the pretty assistant to the dead scientist who created it. The great stuntman Bob Minor is The Pig's vicious henchman (who gets hit by a car), Kelly is partnered with a Chinese actor who calls himself Myron Bruce Lee (!), and there's plenty of boring action sequences and unexceptional '70s tits to keep you mildly interested. DEATH DIMENSION is probably about as good as BLACK SAMURAI, Kelly's other film for Adamson, although that one had jet packs and midgets in it. Also with Aldo Ray, Terry Moore and Patch McKenzie. Also known as BLACK ELIMINATOR, FREEZE BOMB, THE KILL FACTOR and ICY DEATH.


HOLLYWOOD COP (1988)--Directed by Amir Shervan. Stars David Goss, Jim Mitchum, Lincoln Kilpatrick. Don’t look now, but it’s more insane hilarity from the inept Iranian director of SAMURAI COP. And like that picture, HOLLYWOOD COP's entertainment value is hard to describe. It's just as incompetent as SAMURAI COP, but with some slumming stars. The wretchedness of the film is evident from the very first shot, which begins a bit too soon with the actors standing motionless waiting for the director to call "Action!" Mobster Jim Mitchum (TRACKDOWN) wants back the $6 million a guy named Joe Fresno stole from him, so he kidnaps Fresno's son to hold for ransom. Fresno's ex-wife goes to a cop improbably named Johnny Turquoise (Goss), or "Turk" or "Turkey" for short, to get the boy back. The investigation takes several ridiculous turns, such as stopping so Turk's partner Jaguar (a mugging Kilpatrick) can make some bread oil-wrestling with two hot women. The script, filled with illogic and laughable dialogue (Turk tells a grieving husband whose wife has been raped in front of him, "Look, I know that guy fucked your wife and all, but..."), is matched in its incompetence by the inappropriate sound effects and photography. Troy Donahue, Cameron Mitchell and Aldo Ray show up to pick up a quick check. If you think you know bad movies, you owe it to yourself to give Shervan’s oeuvre a look.


ELECTRA (1996)--Directed by Julian Grant. Stars Shannon Tweed, Joe Tabbanella, Sten Eirik, Katie Griffin It's pretty bad, but not boring and is easy to mock. A crippled billionaire named Roach (Eirik) with a pair of sexy, leather-clad, kung-fu-fighting sidekicks wants a secret serum that will allow him to walk again. It provides its subject with super-strength and -stamina, but the scientist who created it is dead, and the only person who knows anything about it is his son, a muscle-bound, long-haired wuss named Billy (Tabbanella) who lives with his widowed stepmother Lorna, played by late-night-Cinemax staple Shannon Tweed. The only way the serum can be transmitted to another human is through sexual contact (why?), which is why teenaged Billy has so far refused to give in to his horny girlfriend Mary Ann's desires. Lorna also has the hots for Billy, so when Roach eventually captures her and convinces her to seduce her son, she doesn't put up much resistance. And, stepmom or not, if you're Billy and strapped to a table and Shannon Tweed strides in, clad in an eyepopping leather ensemble, and straddles you, there's no way you're not going to perform. He does, and Shannon is transformed into an evil superpowered minx named Electra. Mary Ann (Griffin), who has one of Billy's power pills in her possession, pops it and receives the same powers as Electra. She kicks the shit out of the two sexy sidekicks, pulling the heart out of one of them and feeding it to the other. She also has a battle with Tweed where the two shoot lightning out of their fingers like Dr. Doom. The sad part is that Shannon only gets naked once briefly and doesn't even disrobe for her on-top sex scene with hunky Billy. Lara Daans and Dyanne DiMarco play the leggy henchwomen. Not to be confused with ELEKTRA with Jennifer Garner, although I bet this movie is more watchable.

My copy of THE BLACK ELIMINATOR was my first bootleg, so it holds a small place in my heart. I picked it up about 10 years ago along with SUPER SOUL BROTHER for a grand total of $.78 from a local Blockbuster. Anyway, the movie alternates between boredom and unintentional hilarity.

One of my favorite moments is when Odd Job tests the freeze-bomb, which is supposed to be a weapon of mass destruction. 4 old, Italian looking guys are tied up and squirming around. We see a firecracker go off in the air and a bunch of confetti falls on the Italian guys. The weapon of mass destruction freezes about 8 square feet. We later learn that the test has taken place in the backyard of a local brothel.

In another memorable scene Odd Job gets information out of a girl by holding a hungry snapping turtle to her breast. He yells, "One bite and you'll wish you were flat chested!" Truly a classy film.



This post has been edited by Ian Maguire on Oct 26 2005, 03:16 PM

I thought this scene might have been filmed in Bronson Canyon, but we don't get a good enough look at the location to tell for sure.

I'm still waiting to see that one great Al Adamson movie. Surely it exists.

Just saw TARKAN VERSUS THE VIKINGS. My eyes! My eyes!


marc

PRAYER OF THE ROLLERBOYS and DEATH DIMENSION discussed in one thread?!? I'm in cult movie heaven. In the case of the former, I was pleasantly surprised to find that every so often I would be laughing with the movie rather than at it; in the case of DEATH DIMENSION, I was undoubtedly laughing at the movie for its entire duration, while loving it at the same time.

I remember wondering why, when Odd Job's acting was so, so terrible they didn't just dub him. Then when you look at the film and wonder how little it must have cost, you probably have your answer.

DEATH DIMENSION should be required viewing for all film studies courses. It isn't actually good for anything, but damn, people need to see this film!

In a particularly great haul, I picked it up in a second hand shop on VHS along with an old VHS copy of FATAL GAMES (aka KILLING TOUCH) which is...



POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD



...hands down, the single greatest movie about a transexual javelin-throwing serial killer EVER MADE.