BA_Harrison Reviews

Satan's Slave (1980)

Pro-Islamic cult horror.

[3/10 · 7 June 2024]

After the death of his wife, father of two Munarto (W. D. Mochtar) employs housekeeper Darmina (Ruth Pelupessi), unaware that she is an evil witch who summons the dead to destroy those who do not follow the Islamic faith.

In the same way that Western vampires are repelled by Christian faith (the sign of the cross, holy water etc.), Darmina can only be vanquished by Islamic prayer. Since Munarto and his kids, Tommy and Rita (Fachrul Rozy and Siska Widowati), are not religious, Darmina finds it easy to terrorise the family, and kills anyone who might lead them to salvation. Eventually, an ustaz (a teacher of Islam) battles the witch and encourages Munarto, Tommy and Rita to join him in prayer, which does the trick, Darmina bursting into flames. The message is clear: follow Islam or be damned.

This schlocky slice of religious propaganda might have been a lot of fun if it wasn't so darn slow and uneventful for most of its runtime. An early scene lifted from Salem's Lot - Munarto's dead wife appearing at Tommy's bedroom window - is effectively creepy, but then there is not much of interest until just past the hour mark. Make it that far, and you'll be treated to some silly zombie nonsense, death by chandelier, a stabbing that results in pus squirting from the wound, and Darmina in a crazy afro wig. However, the most remarkable thing about the whole film for me was Rita's choice of decor for her room: a poster of some oranges and another poster of an almost naked woman. Weird.

The Scorpion with Two Tails (1982)

Martino loses his mojo.

[3/10 · 6 June 2024]

Director Sergio Martino started his directorial career in fine form, giving giallo fans several classics (my favourites being The Strange Vice of Mrs Wardh, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key and The Suspicious Death of a Minor); he also directed the entertainingly trashy cannibal flick Slave of the Cannibal God (1978). However, by the end of the '70s, it seemed as though he had lost his knack for thriller/horror movies: after the mediocre creature feature Island of Mutations (1979) and the atrocious Jaws rip-off The Great Alligator (also '79), Martino turned his back on gialli and scary films to concentrate on comedy and action, the one exception being The Scorpion With Two Tails.

John Saxon (Enter the Dragon, A Nightmare on Elm Street) plays American archaeologist Arthur Barnard, who discovers an ancient Etruscan tomb, but who is murdered shortly after, his head twisted so that it is facing backwards. Arthur's widow, Joan (Elvire Audray), travels to Italy to help the police with their investigations; while there, she uncovers a drug-smuggling operation masterminded by her father. Meanwhile, whoever killed Arthur is continuing their murderous ways, twisting various people's noggins 180 degrees.

Starting life as a TV mini-series comprising of seven one hour long episodes, The Scorpion With Two Tails was edited down to ninety-eight minutes and released as a feature; unsurprisingly, the film feels incredibly disjointed and is often confusing, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it didn't make much sense in its entirety either. Adding to the awfulness is the diabolical central performance from Audray (who was clearly cast for her looks), the repetitive gore-free killings, and numerous dull dialogue-heavy scenes. Fabio Frizzi provides the score, but repurposes much of his own music from Fulci's City of the Living Dead, which makes the whole thing feel even more cheap.

2.5/10, rounded up to 3 for the always reliable Saxon: if only he had been in the film for longer.

A Monstrous Corpse (1981)

A bloodless Korean remake of The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue.

[3/10 · 4 June 2024]

In A Monstrous Corpse (AKA Strange Dead Bodies), an experimental ultrasonic machine designed to kill harmful insects has an unfortunate side effect: it brings the dead back to life as bloodthirsty zombies. A young woman, Yu Si-ji, and recent acquaintance Kan Myeong struggle to convince the police about what is happening.

If this sounds familiar, it's probably because it is the exact same plot as '70s Spanish/Italian zombie classic The Living Dead at the Manchester Morgue by director Jorge Grau.

This unofficial Korean remake fails to deliver the atmosphere and the gore that made Grau's film such fun (that film's blood and guts earning it a place on the UK Video Nasty list). Also serving to make this Asian copycat far less impressive than the original are the pathetic zombies, which are incredibly slow and not very scary (the cheap make-up consisting of silver face paint), and the unremarkable cast (Grau's film starred Cristina Galbó, Ray Lovelock and Arthur Kennedy -- tough to beat that line up!).

A Monstrous Corpse may be of some interest to avid zombie movie fans, just so that they can compare and contrast, but don't expect too much... you'll only be disappointed.

2.5/10, rounded up to 3 for several unintentionally hilarious scenes: Detective Jee's reaction upon seeing the zombies (blinking exaggeratedly several times in comical fashion), the people running around the hospital in panic, and the way that Yu Su-ji loses the ability to stand up when being pursued by a zombie.

Hell (1979)

Feels like an eternity.

[4/10 · 4 June 2024]

Adulterous Miho (Mieko Harada), pregnant by her lover Ryuzo (Ken Nishida), is killed by her husband Unpei (Kunie Tanaka), but gives birth to daughter Aki shortly after dying. Aki, unwanted by her family, is sent to an orphanage and replaced by another child, Kumi.

Twenty years later, Aki (also played by Harada) returns to the village where she was born and unwittingly acts as an instrument of vengeance for her mother, who is suffering in Hell for her sins.

I wasn't a big fan of the 1960 film Jigoku, which I felt was overlong and extremely tedious, the only good thing about it being its gory depictions of punishments in Hell during the final act. This 1979 loose retelling from Toei is even longer (by about half an hour) and its vision of hell less impressive, making the film even more of an endurance test. The only real positive about the film is Mieko Harada, who is extremely attractive and takes her clothes off a fair bit: it's not hard to see how she could lure most men to their death.

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for the people-grinding machine, Miho impaling her hands and feet on spikes, and the funny flesh-eating bugs.

Lowlifes (2024)

Tubi or not Tubi? The answer is yes, in this instance.

[7/10 · 3 June 2024]

Tubi original Lowlifes breathes some new life into the old 'city folk vs. Hillbillies' genre, blending comedy and gory horror to great effect. It's best to go into the film blind, so I'm not going to summarise the plot or mention any spoilers, suffice to say that it serves up some neat twists along the way.

Directors Tesh Guttikonda and Mitch Oliver deliver a fun movie that isn't to be taken seriously and their cast act accordingly, putting in enjoyably campy/comical turns. This doesn't mean that the horror is any less effective when it happens though: there's some genuinely nasty stuff in the film with plenty of graphic splatter along the way.

Don't watch this one expecting it to be a game changer -- I don't think the film-makers had such aspirations -- accept Lowlifes for what it is... a bloody good time with its severed braised tongue firmly in cheek.

The Sleep of Death (1980)

Gothic claptrap.

[2/10 · 3 June 2024]

As I type this, there is only one IMDb review for The Inn of the Flying Dragon (AKA The Sleep of Death). I'm not that surprised: the film is so boring that I can't imagine many people would watch it to the end and that even less would actually be arsed to write about it.

Based on the 1872 novella The Room in the Dragon Volant by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu, the film stars Brendan Price as young Englishman Robert Terence, who, whilst travelling through France with his manservant Sean (Niall Toibin), becomes besotted with Countess Elga (Marilù Tolo), wife of the mysterious Count St. Alyre (Curd Jürgens). Believing that the countess is being held against her will by her tyrannical husband, Robert endeavours to help the woman escape, unaware that he is being fooled: the count and countess are thieves who, before robbing their victims, drug them with a potion that renders them cataleptic.

A dreadfully dull pace, dreary performances, and a plot that suggests some kind of vampire is at work before revealing the far less interesting truth, all go to make The Inn of the Flying Dragon a total snooze-fest, one that has been all but forgotten, and deservedly so.

2/10. Struggling to remain focussed, I found the ending very confusing: why was Robert riding a horse naked and how did the count end up taking his place in the coffin?

Tattoo (1981)

She got off lightly... she could've been turned into a walrus!

[6/10 · 2 June 2024]

Tattoo is a precursor to films such as The Human Centipede and Tusk, in which psychos force people to undergo body modification. Tattoo isn't quite as extreme as those examples, but the essence is the same, including the victim's despair, horror and disgust at their predicament.

Bruce Dern plays the wacko in this instance, unhinged tattoo artist Karl Kinsky, who becomes obsessed with fashion model Maddy (Maud Adams), stalking her and then abducting her, taking her to his remote beachside home where he proceeds to cover her in ink.

Dern makes for an excellent lunatic (former model Adams is not so great as his somewhat unlikable victim), but the film's plot is extremely slight, director Bob Brooks compensating with some flashy visuals and by throwing in plenty of gratuitous nudity and a good deal of sleaze. What we end up with is a classy looking piece of exploitation, nothing more, nothing less.

As a fan of trashy movies, I enjoyed Tattoo for its salacious subject matter, but I suspect that the average viewer might find it less impressive than me.

6/10.

Sobrenatural (1981)

The greatest mystery man must face... his most fantastic adventure: Death.

[3/10 · 31 May 2024]

Terrorized by the spirit of her tyrannical dead husband, Julia (Cristina Galbó) seeks help from a medium and a parapsychologist while her concerned boyfriend Victor (Máximo Valverde) struggles to come to terms with matters of the supernatural.

At the end of Supernatural, I couldn't help but think how much better it might have been had Lucio Fulci been calling the shots: the film is screaming out for some of his otherworldly atmosphere and trademark over-the-top splatter.

Admittedly, director Eugenio Martin does try in a couple of scenes - an attack in a fogbound car is creepy and Julia's housekeeper being slashed by a flying electric carving knife is fun - but, for the majority of the time, Martin adopts an extremely slow-burn approach, his film largely consisting of confusing pseudo-scientific claptrap, Kirlian photography, alternate dimensions, silver energy cords, and astral projection amongst the baffling gobbledegook spouted by the parapsychologist.

The ending of the film makes no sense whatsoever, as Julia's dead hubby materialises and stalks her through her home before being lured into a trap that banishes him to another realm. Very perplexing!

3/10.

Dracula's Last Rites (1980)

The budget only stretched to one pair of fangs.

[4/10 · 27 May 2024]

My quest to see every Dracula movie ever made brings me to this low-budget regional vampire film in which bloodsuckers in a small town, all prominent local citizens, feed upon people who have been wrongfully declared dead by A. Lucard (Gerald Fielding), the local mortician. To prevent their unwilling blood donors from joining the ranks of the undead, the vamps stake them once they are all done slurping; unfortunately, unforeseen circumstances sees one victim escaping their clutches and rising from her coffin...

The idea that these vampires have successfully carried out their operation for a long period of time without being rumbled is highly unlikely, but I'm willing to accept this, the film at least attempting to pump some new blood into an old genre. What I cannot forgive, however, is director Domonic Paris's languorous storytelling, which makes Dracula's Last Rites really drag for much of the time, and the atrocious editing, many shots continuing for far longer than they need to.

There are a couple of moments that are lot of fun -- a vampire is impaled on a picket fence, another is pinned to a door, and a creepy old vampire lady (Mimi Weddell) wanders around in a Alzheimers-style state of confusion -- but most of the film is talkative and very tedious. Definitely one for vampire/Dracula completists only.

3.5/10, rounded up to 4 for IMDb.

House of the Lute (1979)

Young Yam.

[5/10 · 27 May 2024]

Beautiful Mrs. Lui (Becky Lok) is married to a wealthy wheelchair-bound man (Hoi-San Kwan) many years her senior, so when 19-year-old Ah Shek (Simon Yam) is appointed as house-boy, it's not long before she is hopping into bed with the new employee. Eventually, Mr. Lui discovers the affair, and tensions rise, leading Ah Shek to murder the old man and bury him in the garden. Soon after, Ah Shek and Mrs. Lui experience frightening visions: is their imagination getting the better of them? Is Mr. Lui tormenting them from beyond the grave? Or is house-keeper Amah (Lap Ban Chan) behind the seemingly supernatural occurrences? Beats me, the film being rather confusing in the final act.

What I can say with conviction is that Yam puts in another unhinged performance (although Ah Shek does appear to be quite normal to begin with), Becky Lok is very attractive and takes off all of her clothes, there are some amusing moments featuring a pair of false teeth, and the film features an incredibly intelligent parrot that is able to say words and phrases that it hasn't been taught. With its well-worn plot and mediocre direction, House of the Lute isn't anything special, but there's enough sexiness and silliness, and just a little spookiness, to make it worth a watch.

Demon Pond (1979)

Note to self: never watch Cocteau's Orphee.

[3/10 · 26 May 2024]

Teacher Gaukuen Yamazaki (Tsutomu Yamazaki) travels to a remote village that is suffering from a long drought; there, he is reacquainted with old friend Akira Hagiwara (Gô Katô), who has settled down with local 'beauty' Yuri (Bando Tamasaburo). Yamazaki is intrigued by the legend of the Demon Pond, which is supposedly inhabited by a Dragon Princess; it is said that unless a bell is rung three times a day, the princess will flood the village...

I actively seek out weird Japanese movies and Demon Pond is certainly very strange: early on, there's a scene where a woman tries to wash dirt out of Yamazaki's eye using her breast milk! Later, we get a cavalcade of bizarre Yokai-style creatures that includes a crab man (with huge pincers for arms), a catfish man (who has long barbels hanging from his top lip), and a variety of other human/animal hybrids.

Even more unusual, Yuri and the Dragon Princess are played by the same actor, Kabuki female impersonator Bando Tamasaburo; this might not be so strange to a Japanese audience, but it certainly seemed odd to me. Unfortunately, as quirky and offbeat as all of this is, I found the film to be quite a boring experience: at two hours plus, it outstayed its welcome, with long periods of dull, conversation-heavy drama that severely tested my patience.

Visually, the film is occasionally remarkable, with great cinematography and a very impressive special effects laden final act, in which the village is devastated by a tidal wave, but the film as a whole is a bit of a snooze-fest.

Wolfman (1979)

Old-school werewolf trash.

[2/10 · 25 May 2024]

1979: just two years away from An American Werewolf in London giving the werewolf genre the kick up the hairy behind it needed. Regional horror flick Wolfman, however, is firmly rooted in the past, with a plot and special make-up effects clearly inspired by Universal classic The Wolf Man, with more than a touch of Paul Naschy's Waldemar Daninsky films about it. Written and directed by Worth Keeter, there's not a shred of originality in the whole film, which also suffers from a predictable script, wooden acting, and lifeless direction.

As punishment for blaspheming Satan, the men of the Glasgow family are cursed to become lycanthropes, devil worshipper Rev. Leonard (Ed Grady) ensuring that the affliction is passed to the latest generation, hirsute chubster Colin Glasgow (played by the film's producer Earl Owensby).

At one hour and forty-two minutes, this woeful film is a real challenge for werewolf fans, with zero atmosphere, excitement or suspense. No-one in Wolfman puts in a credible performance, but Owensby is easily the worst offender: he's atrocious and his tragic hero is totally lacking in charisma.

There is absolutely nothing scary about the film, unless you count Owensby taking off his shirt to show us his hairy moobs!

Shônen no hanzai (1997 Video)

A tasteless film for those who like them grim and nihilistic.

[4/10 · 24 May 2024]

Juvenile Crimes is one of several films based on the infamous abduction, rape, torture and murder of 17-year-old Junko Furuta by a group of teenage delinquents, a brutal crime that came to be known as the 'concrete-encased high school girl murder case' because of the callous manner in which the boys disposed of Junko's body (they dumped her in a barrel and covered her with concrete).

Directed by Gunji Kawasaki, the film depicts the events in a purely exploitative manner, with unflinching scenes of violence and prolonged scenes of graphic sexual assault that would be hardcore if it wasn't for the pixellation. Presented with zero tact or consideration for friends and family of the victim, Juvenile Crimes is an unpleasant and sleazy film that offers no judgement, no insight and no commentary, it's sole purpose being to allow viewers to revel in the sexual abuse and sadism on display.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga (2024)

The Mad Max series shifts down a few gears.

[6/10 · 24 May 2024]

I've been a fan of the Mad Max franchise for forty years now and was so keen to see Furiosa that I took the afternoon off work to make sure I could catch the first showing. I should have saved the holiday for something better. It's not that I HATED the film, but it's a long way from the adrenaline-fuelled, non-stop, crazy action that was Fury Road. That film was essentially two, long, jaw-dropping chase scenes, and impressed with its wild practical stunt-work and blistering pace; Furiosa tries to be more epic in scope, and it suffers for it, the story being uneven and disjointed. The film takes an age to get going, delivers its major action scene too early, and there are places where it feels like key scenes have been removed entirely (Dementus and his gang taking Bullet Farm, the battle between Dementus's bikers and the war boys). Furthermore, Chris Hemsworth's villain Dementus is too comical, Anya Taylor-Joy is too weeny to be a badass, and, it pains me to say it, but those who said that the movie suffers for the use of CGI and green screen were spot on: the sub-par digital trickery is so blatantly obvious.

As always, the production design is excellent, and the cinematography is breath-taking at times, with some stunning shots of the desert landscape, but I get the feeling that director George Miller's best days are now behind him (his previous film, Three Thousand Years of Longing, was very disappointing). Of course, I am more than happy to be proved wrong: fingers crossed for Mad Max: The Wasteland... less CGI next time please.

6/10. Furiosa ranks alongside Beyond Thunderdome as my joint least favourite Mad Max movie.

A Whisper in the Dark (1976)

It was all going so well...

[7/10 · 22 May 2024]

I wish that the last few minutes of this film didn't exist: rarely has an ending to a film ruined things so much.

For the most part, A Whisper in the Dark is a haunting ghost story: Alessandro Poggi plays 11-year-old Martino, who has an imaginary brother called Luca; unknown to Martino, he once had a sibling of the same name, who was born prematurely and died shortly after. Is 'imaginary' Luca actually the ghost of the dead child, and is he responsible for the bad things that happen to people who upset Martino?

Employing a slow burn approach, director Marcello Aliprandi carefully builds the suspense and eerie atmosphere, with inexplicable occurrences adding to the evidence that Luca is real and not just a figment of Martino's imagination. Eventually, Martino's mother Camilla (Nathalie Delon) starts to believe her son and, realising that the supernatural presence could be due to her inability to accept the loss of her baby, decides to help Luca find peace.

And that's where the film should have ended.

Instead, there's a ridiculous final scene in which Martino and his family are having breakfast, the boy still convinced that Luca is there, the rest of the family playing along. It makes no sense and spoils an otherwise very good movie.

6.5/10, rounded down to 6 for the ending (although Pino Donaggio's excellent score nearly had me rounding it up).

Sting (2024)

Oh, I'm an alien, I'm an eight-legged alien, I'm a space spider in New York.

[4/10 · 21 May 2024]

If you're after a scary spider flick guaranteed to have you feeling uncomfortable while watching, check out the French film Infested, which employs hundreds of real spiders. Sting, on the other hand, is a predictably dumb, clichéd B-movie creature feature with an unconvincing CGI spider. It's not even close.

Alyla Browne plays obnoxious 12-year-old brat Charlotte (see what they did there?), who adopts a spider as her pet, unaware that the creature is from outer space. Sting, as Charlotte names the alien arachnid, rapidly grows to enormous size and feeds upon the occupants of the apartment building.

Written and directed by Kiah Roache-Turner (Wyrmwood, Nekrotronic), this film is about as formulaic as it gets, with predictable plot developments and stock characters (resourceful young protagonist, her loving mother and protective stepfather, a grouchy old lady destined to be spider lunch, and comedy-relief bug exterminator). The trite script conveniently spares the family unit from being devoured, sees the building equipped with air ducts large enough for adults to fit inside, and throws in a major contrivance in the form of mothballs, which conveniently repel Sting and dissolve her webs.

The direction is polished, but by playing much of the film tongue-in-cheek, Roache-Turner ensures that scares and tension are virtually non-existent. The film is also very light on the gore. As a mindless piece of popcorn entertainment, it's passable, I suppose, but I would have liked less of the familial drama, and for the film to have been more daring rather than treading such a familiar and safe path.

Thirst (1979)

Vampires down under.

[6/10 · 20 May 2024]

This unconventional Australian vampire movie stars Chantal Contouri as successful businesswoman Kate Davis, who is abducted by a secret society of vampires and taken to a 'farm', where human livestock is drained of blood, which is then processed to remove contaminants before being packaged for consumption worldwide. Kate is informed that she is a descendent of OG vampire Elisabeth Bathory and must accept her birthright as an aristocratic blood-drinker, the plan being for her to marry a vampire from another noble family, thereby uniting two superior bloodlines. Naturally, Kate struggles to accept this (not surprising, since she already has a boyfriend, Derek, played by Rod Mullinar), so the vampires attempt to condition her to come around to their way of thinking. Kind vampire Dr. Fraser (David Hemmings) disagrees with the brainwashing process and attempts to help Kate escape.

Like Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975) and Martin (1977), Thirst, Australia's first vampire film, does away with the gothic conventions associated with the genre: these vampires are not affected by sunlight (which is a good job, given where they live), do not possess real fangs, and have no aversion to garlic, holy water and crosses. While it's not an entirely successful effort to contemporise vampire cinema - the pace is rather slow, and the structure of the film, with its numerous dreamlike sequences, can lead to confusion - the good outweighs the bad: the blood-draining scenes are suitably bizarre and grotesque, the cast is solid, Brian May's score is great, and there are a few memorable moments, including Kate's 'blood shower', a vampire drowning in a vat of blood, and Henry Silva's character falling from a helicopter onto high-voltage power lines.

The Strangers: Chapter 1 (2024)

The Lurkers: Chapter 1.

[3/10 · 19 May 2024]

I had heard some terrible things about this movie, so I had to go see for myself. While I still think that Tarot is the worst horror film of the year so far, The Strangers Chapter 1 is definitely not good.

Madelaine Petsch and Froy Gutierrez play young couple Maya and Ryan, whose car breaks down in Podunk, Oregon, forcing them to spend the night in an Airbnb in the middle of the woods. While they are there, they are attacked by The Strangers, three mask-wearing psychos with murder on their minds. And that's the entire plot. The rest of film comprises of Maya and Jeff hiding and running and screaming and running and hiding. And screaming. And hiding. All the while, the killers are lurking. There's lots of lurking.

Neither Maya nor Jeff display any resourcefulness, nor much in the way of intelligence, Jeff in particular failing to make good decisions throughout: he leaves Maya on her own while he goes into town to get his asthma inhaler (does he only carry the one with him on long journeys?), and when he has the opportunity to take one of the attackers out of the equation, he doesn't, leading to the capture of both him and his girlfriend. It's hard to feel sorry for such an idiot.

Director Renny Harlin manages one or two effective jump scares and even a bit of atmosphere, but the bulk of the film is predictable by-the-numbers horror, without any imagination or style (or gore) , making the hour and a half feel a lot longer than it is. And this is only the first chapter. I foresee diminishing returns.

The Wrong Box (1966)

Great cast; weak execution.

[4/10 · 18 May 2024]

Twenty men enter their sons into a tontine lottery, each placing £1000 into the scheme, the total sum going to whichever child lives the longest. Years later, and only two are still alive: brothers Masterman and Joseph Finsbury (John Mills and Ralph Richardson). Joseph's nephews Morris and John (Peter Cook and Dudley Moore) have their eyes on the prize and will do whatever it takes to ensure that their uncle is last to die.

The Wrong Box is one of those knockabout all-star comedies so popular in the '60s: it plays like It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (but thankfully a lot shorter) crossed with an Ealing black comedy; sadly, it's less funny than the former and lacks the charm of the Ealing classics.

The film's main failing is that it simply isn't very funny. Peter Sellers gets a few decent laughs as an unscrupulous backstreet physician, Richardson is entertaining when spouting random facts, and Wilfrid Lawson is amusing as elderly butler Peacock, but the majority of the usually reliable cast (which includes Michael Caine and Nanette Newman as lovestruck 'cousins' Michael and Julia, Tony Hancock as a police detective, Thorley Walters as Lawyer Patience, John Le Mesurier as Doctor Slattery, and Irene Handl as Mrs. Hackett) are given very little to work with.

The weak farce consists of ridiculous mix-ups, attempted murder, and Victorian moral values, and ends with a chase scene involving several hearses and a beer wagon, all of which has comedic potential, but the gags are mostly uninspired and fall flat.

Tutti defunti... tranne i morti (1977)

Poopy.

[2/10 · 17 May 2024]

Me and Italian comedy don't get along. Me and Pupi Avati don't get along either (I'm one of the few who found The House with Laughing Windows incredibly dull). So guess what... I really didn't like Tutti defunti... tranne i morti, a weak spoof of the giallo and old dark house genres which I found about as funny as being attacked by a razor-wielding psycho wearing a black fedora and cape.

Carlo Delle Piane plays bookseller Dante, who goes to the mansion of the Zanotti family to try and interest them in a book which mentions their ancestors; while he is there, a maniac in regulation giallo attire begins to bump off the eccentric family members (who have gathered for the funeral of the marquis, Ignazio) in an effort to fulfil the prophecy within the book and consequently reveal the whereabouts of a hidden treasure.

With the genre ripe for parody, this film could have been hilarious, but the broad comedy is too imbecilic to work, Avati and his cast resorting to bad slapstick that is more irritating than funny. The 'comedic' scenes include the death of a simpleton by electrocution (his anti-masturbation device plugged into a high voltage power supply), murder by hairdryer, a very stupid game of Russian roulette, the discovery of a midget in a fridge, and another dead midget in a parcel. But the worst moments come courtesy of Gianni Cavina as private detective Martini, whose dreadful Inspector Clouseau-style buffoonery is simply embarrassing.

2/10 for gorgeous Francesca Marciano as Ilaria, who for some reason finds Dante and his strange nose irresistible, and for Greta Vayan as sexy nurse Hilde, who has just as bad taste in men as Ilaria.

Nightwing (1979)

They'll be gone when the morning comes.

[5/10 · 17 May 2024]

A colony of plague-carrying vampire bats are causing havoc on a Native American reservation in New Mexico, first attacking farm animals and then people. It's up to deputy Youngman Duran (Nick Mancuso), his girlfriend Anne (Kathryn Harrold), and vampire bat exterminator Phillip Payne (David Warner) to try and locate the bats' roost and destroy the flying terrors.

When the vampires are attacking, Nightwing is a blast, E. T.'s special effects man Carlo Rambaldi providing bat props for the occasion (not always convincing but a lot of fun). The big problem with the film is that too much time is spent on clichéd Native American superstition and the unscrupulous industrialists who seek to desecrate the land for money; the mystical mumbo jumbo and trite ecological sub-plot cause the film to stagnate at times and add immensely to the runtime. Had much of the tribal folklore and religion been removed from the film, we would have had a much leaner and more entertaining creature feature.

As it is, Nightwing is a sporadically enjoyable movie, with the ever-reliable Warner providing the undeniable highlights: his character's diatribes about how vampire bats are evil and need to be eradicated are great.

Cave of the Sharks (1978)

Eh oh!

[3/10 · 16 May 2024]

Bermuda: Cave of the Sharks is just one of many Italian shark-themed movies to follow in the wake of Jaws, but I wouldn't class it as a rip-off of Spielberg's film; I certainly wouldn't call it a horror. In fact, I'm not sure how to label the film, as it spans several genres, including crime, thriller, adventure, and sci-fi/fantasy. It doesn't do any of them very well.

Andrés García plays diver Andres Montoya, who, together with his friend Enrique (Pino Colizzi), is hired by criminal Mr. Jackson (Arthur Kennedy) to salvage a box from a plane that has crashed somewhere in the Bermuda triangle. The men successfully locate the box, but they also find a mysterious cave guarded by sharks, which may hold the key to unlocking Andres's amnesia.

Directed with little energy by Tonino Ricci, shoddily edited and boasting some of the most laughable miniature effects shots I have ever seen (the airplane scene is terrible), the film is a failure on almost every level. The story is all over the place, the film never more baffling than when a group of young people on a boat - who we haven't been introduced to - jump into the sea and drown (one of them definitely deserves his watery fate for singing a truly terrible song to his friends).

Only in the final five minutes or so does the film provide anything else of note, as Andres's girlfriend Angelica (Janet Agren) dives to the cave, with the double-crossing Mr. Jackson sending his henchmen in hot pursuit. Andres rescues Angelica by shooting the other divers and feeding them to the sharks, resulting in shredded torsos and severed limbs; unfortunately for Andres, he isn't fast enough out of the water and has his leg torn off before disappearing under the waves.

We never learn what is in the box or the secret of the cave (although we do get to see the silhouette of some strange being - possibly Dipsy from the Teletubbies).

Claws (1977)

We're going on a bear hunt...

[4/10 · 15 May 2024]

Like Grizzly (1976), Claws uses Spielberg's Jaws as its template, substituting the shark for a wild bear and the ocean for the wilds of Alaska. But where Grizzly was competently made, with a reasonable cast and some gory deaths, Claws feels more like a made-for-TV movie - a relatively tame effort with poor direction, choppy editing (including numerous cheesy flashbacks), and a forgettable cast, with a lot of the runtime spent on travelogue scenery and stock wildlife footage. It's a shame, because the plot is decent enough...

Five years after surviving an attack by a rogue grizzly bear, logger Jason Monroe (Jason Evers) learns that his son Bucky has become the latest victim of the savage animal and decides to settle the score once and for all, teaming up with three other locals to track down the beast. The scene is set for a tense 'man vs nature' showdown, but what we get isn't very thrilling, actual encounters with the bear being few and far between (and what there is is severely lacking in excitement).

The most interesting aspect of the film is that superstitious locals believe the bear to be an evil spirit able to take different forms (which might explain the animal's supernatural ability to snap a tree in half!), but at the end of the day, some gasoline and a flare gun put paid to that idea.

4/10.

The Day After Halloween (1979)

I love me a bit of Ozploitation. Unless it's by director Simon Wincer.

[3/10 · 13 May 2024]

Snapshot is a cautionary tale for young women looking to enter the fashion or movie industry, where predatory men (and women) take advantage of naive new models and actresses; it's also a thriller of sorts, hairdresser turned model Angela (Sigrid Thornton) finding herself menaced by a stalker.

Director Simon Wincer gave us the bizarre 1980 'horror' Harlequin, a baffling film made all the more strange and incomprehensible by Wincer's offbeat film-making style. Snapshot suffers from the same shortcomings: it's full of moments that make no sense, and the whole thing feels 'off', making it a very unsatisfying viewing experience.

Hugh Keays-Byrne's unusual performance as crazy photographer Linsey; Angela's balding, ice-cream-truck-driving ex-boyfriend Daryl (Vincent Gil), who was clearly punching above his weight; the pointless make-up-wearing, leather-clad rock and roll singer who curls his lip; the guppy fish comment; the pig's head in the bed: none of this works, and as for the ending... tell me I wasn't dreaming.

3/10 for getting Thornton topless as often as possible, but the film ain't good.

Dracula (1979)

Sexy Drac.

[7/10 · 12 May 2024]

Directed by John Badham (Saturday Night Fever, WarGames), this lavish version of Bram Stoker's Dracula presents the infamous vampire (played by Frank Langella) as a handsome and irresistibly seductive creature, who uses his brooding sexual magnetism to beguile his female victims, Mina Van Helsing (Jan Francis) and Lucy Seward (Kate Nelligan). Other Draculas had been presented as sexy, but not to quite the extent that Langella's count is in this film - he's quite the lady killer (literally!). Attempting to stop Dracula from taking his fiancé Lucy for his bride is Jonathan Harker (Trevor Eve), aided by Mina's father Professor Abraham Van Helsing (Laurence Olivier).

With excellent performances (including another great turn by horror legend Donald Pleasence as Lucy's father Dr. Seward), superb cinematography and a wonderfully rousing score by John Williams, Badham's Dracula is excellent entertainment, even though it does stray from the novel quite a bit, altering the relationships and names of some of the characters and transposing all of the action to Edwardian England (with Harker never setting foot in Transylvania). I was more annoyed by the tarantula in Carfax Abbey, a bit out of place, but not as daft as the armadillos in the 1931 Dracula.

Badham goes all out with the 'gothicness', delivering several amazingly atmospheric scenes that are amongst the most visually striking in vampire cinema: Langella climbing down the wall of Dr. Seward's asylum to reach Mina, a seduction scene with a blood-red laser backdrop, and the white horse in the misty cemetery stomping on Mina's grave. The production design is perhaps a little over the top (Carfax Abbey looks like a Halloween theme park attraction) but it is certainly memorable. As far as visceral horror goes, the throat gouging of the captain of the Demeter and Renfield's head being wrenched backwards should do the trick.

For some, the romanticism/sexiness of the production, and the alterations to the story, will be reason enough to dislike Badham's movie, but in my opinion this version is far more preferable to Coppola's 1992 movie, which does exactly the same thing, only in a less enjoyable fashion.