Remember
a couple reviews ago when I was asking what could be worse than a haunted lamp
and I derisively said something about a clock? Well, here we are… The story
kicks off with dad coming home from a business trip with a mantle clock he
picked up on the east coast aka. Amityville. He seems very proud of it and
immediately unpacks it setting it up in the living room. When no one is looking
a little drill pops out of the bottom of the clock and I guess it possesses the
house.
Suddenly
everyone starts to hallucinate, rooms shift back and forth in time, a
neighborhood dog goes bonkers, and evil runs amok! The woman who is in “the
know” and could possibly stop things from happening gets “storked” and the
ex-girlfriend who was watching his kids ends up doing battle with him and the
house to save them. I mean she totally fails but no worries since Amityville
1992 decides to use the old “hey it never happened” trope to reset back to
the beginning and lets her prevent it from every happening. You know because
time travel and stuff.
How
do these movies continually fail? The story is a little better than the
previous installment and does have a narrative that you can follow. Things are
spaced out evenly and while not a thrill ride it isn’t boring either. I thought
that the time travel element was an interesting twist to the story and allowed
them to do some world building. But instead of focusing on that we also get a
love triangle between the dad, his ex-girlfriend, and her new guy. I did find
it amusing that the new boyfriend was played by Jonathan Penner who is best
know for being a contestant on survivor. They also write the characters to be
very unlikeable. There is no one to root for except maybe the clock. And I
can’t stress enough how much I hate the “it never happened trope” which wipes
away everything we just watched. I can only think of one movie where it worked,
and this isn’t Wishmaster!
Here
you have another good cast with Megan Ward, Nita Talbot, Shawn Weatherly, and
genre favorite Stephen Macht. Other than Macht, who gets to chew some scenery,
they are all wasted with little or nothing of interest to do. Like I’ve already
mentioned above the script does them no favors. No matter how professional and
talented your cast is they need something on the page to work with. We do get a
brief but appreciated Dick Miller sighting though, so that is cool.
The
kills are tame, and I have to say that I don’t think that whoever wrote this
script has a good understanding how guitar amps work. And while I’ve been
fairly negative in my review, I will give the movie credit for the title. It
really is about time… heh I made a funny. My final thought before declaring you
should not watch Amityville It’s About Time is this. People need to stop going
to yard sales at the murder house! That is all. Now onto Amityville: A New
Generation.
It
has been far too long since I’ve gotten my Roger Corman on, so I figured that
checking out Not of this Earth was a good place to jump back in. Not only does
Corman direct it, but his regulars Jonathan Haze and Dick Miller show up as
well! I’m predicting a good time is about to be had.
The
movie kicks off with a teenage couple sitting in a car making a little bit with
the smooching. She calls it a night and heads off to her front door while he
drives away. But before the girl can make it home, she is stopped by a weird
dude who eye zaps her and then steals her blood with his briefcase. We later
find out when he goes to the hospital for a transfusion that his name is Mr.
Johnson, and he can put people under his command with his soulless monster
eyes. Sometimes he kills them, and other times just controls them.
What
is up with Johnson? Well, it turns out that he is an alien come to Earth to see
if our primitive blood will work as a source to save his dying race. They had a
nuclear war and now they need our blood! It is up to his hired nurse, he needs
nightly transfusions to live you see, and her cop boyfriend to save the day.
They do but sadly his assistant, Jonathan Haze’s character and a traveling
vacuum salesman, Dick Miller, end up dead! Seriously Miller is awesome as the
super hip huckster.
Dick Miller rulex!
Roger
Corman had a formula early in his career. He made quick, cheap, and
entertaining movies that got the job done. Clocking in a barely over an hour
Not of this Earth is a prime example of how it worked. There is a simple concept
that could be shot on generic sets without a ton of special effects work.
Basically, the only alien bit is his eyes and most of the movie Mr. Johnson is
wearing dark glasses. This is simple and genius. The story is very tight with
no wasted scenes and again the runtime is on the short side, which means it
never gets boring. This is admittedly a story that probably wouldn’t hold up if
it stuck around much longer than it does.
Another
thing that Corman did was get great actors. Here he cast the lovely Beverly
Garland as the nurse and veteran actor Paul Birch as Mr. Johnson the alien.
They take what are admittedly absurd situations and play the hell out of them.
To pad things out he lets regulars Jonathan Haze (Little Shop of Horrors) chew
some scenery up being hip daddio as right-hand man Jeremy. Dick Miller gets a
much smaller part but is very memorable in his role as well. These scenes are
clearly there to pad things about a bit, but they are so good at it that the
movie doesn’t suffer. Roger Corman was a genius at identifying talent and
letting them be creative.
Not
sure what else I can say. This isn’t a classic by any stretch. It isn’t even
one of Corman’s best movies. But it’s fun and not a bad way to kill an hour. I
guess that the only thing that was a bit of a bummer is that Not of this Earth
is lacking the iconic monster that a lot of his movies featured. Still, I dig
it and can recommend this one.
Today I
thought I’d take a look at what I think is one of the best low budget movies of
the eighties. Yes, I’m talking about Jim Wynorski’s Chopping Mall. The story is
straightforward and easy to follow. A mall has just installed some fancy new
robots to defend the mall and all of the valuable items contained within. There
is a malfunction and the robots go homicidal not acknowledging those with
proper IDs and killing rather than disabling. Some “teenagers” are trapped in
the mall when their party at a furniture store goes long and they are locked in
with the robots who decide they need to die.
This is
basically a slasher movie with three robots doing the killing instead of a
backwoods hillbilly or undead angry mutant. I feel confident saying this
because it follows that formula. You get a bunch of attractive kids that show
some skin as they do naughty things and then proceed to pick them off one at a
time. Heck the last girl is even the virginal one who does nothing that,
according to the formula, would mean she has to die. Again, if you switched out
the robots with a jilted boyfriend or victim of a prank gone wrong you would
have a slasher flick.
Now as far
as the execution of the movie goes it is perfect. Things kick off quickly and
gets to the good stuff right away. We get just enough character development to
identify the roles each will play and begin to get attached enough to root for
them. Hell, they keep the nicest characters around the longest so that we will
be more invested in their eventual demise. This seems like a simple thing to do
but trust me so many of these flicks fail to do so. Wynorski serves not only as
the director but also the co-writer of the script so I give him a lot of credit
for understanding what makes a movie like this work and then bringing it to the
screen.
The cast
is excellent. Being a big Roger Corman fan Wynorski works in some cameos from
regulars like Dick Miller, Paul Bartel, and Mary Woronov. Miller is playing a
character named after the one from his starring role in A Bucket of Blood while
Bartel and Woronov are reprising their roles from Eating Raoul. I love both of
those movies and these actors, so my inner movie nerd was very happy with this.
The main cast is filled with some familiar faces with the lovely Kelli Maroney
and Barbara Crampton headlining. Hell, we even get a Gerrit Graham sighting in
a small role as a technician. All of these actors get to shine and none of them
feel like they are there for a paycheck. This goes back to the excellent
writing which again I want to give Wynorski and his co-writer Steve Mitchell
credit for.
God Bless Jim Wynorski!
Since this
is basically a slasher flick, we need to talk about kills. Here the movie shows
its low budget. There are throat slashes and some laser blasting, but for the
most part it is tame. That said there is one spectacular special effect that everyone
who has ever seen the movie remembers. We get one of the best exploding heads
that I’ve seen on screen. Honestly in my opinion it rivals even that of
Scanners. So that is a highlight. Other kills include a gasoline induced torching,
getting tossed off an escalator, and an electrocution while mopping.
Excellent exploding head.
While the
kills are a bit tame the design of the robots aka. killbots are outstanding.
They apparently made five of them with everything they do on screen short of
lasers being handled with practical effects work. Not once do they look awkward
or flimsy, which is amazing. They get a lot of screen time and are seen rolling
all over the place so that is more than a little important. This makes the
movie feel like it had a much larger budget then it really did. This might be
the most impressive part of an already well made and fun flick.
Clearly, I
dig Chopping Mall. It has everything that I want from an ‘80s horror flick. At
least one memorable kill, a fun story, great cast, and is generally a good
time. If you haven’t watched this movie yet, please correct that. I highly
recommend this one.
There was a brief craze of car based drive-in movies that cropped up in the seventies. These flicks ranged from the serious like Vanishing Point all the way to the absurd like Death Race 2000. Cannonball falls more towards the latter which shouldn’t be a surprise since it is made by the same director, Paul Bartel, and was made the following year. With that in mind lets dive right into some more automotive carnage.
Our main character in Cannonball is Coy Buckman, played by David Carradine. We meet him as he is having a nightmare where he is driving a car only to be shot thru the forehead. He wakes up and then sneaks out to the garage to find his best friend Zippo working the car from his dreams. There is a big race, the Cannonball, coming up and they are getting the car ready. The winner gets a cool 100k and becomes an immediate legend. This brings together a motley crew including a German professional race car driver, a van full of lovely ladies, a surfer couple, and an old enemy from Coy’s past. Once they hit the road hijinks ensue.
I think that Cannonball is trying to be a funny movie, but the tone is so off that it doesn’t work, at least for me. There is some light comedy that is immediate followed by someone getting blown up or smashed under a car! I’m not talking slapstick stuff where we see them walk away with there hair all frazzled… these characters die! While that works well in the odd dystopian setting of Bartel’s previous effort, Death Race 2000, here it fails. That is probably because it is set in the real world and I just couldn’t get past the fact that with this many bodies dropping the characters would be able to just walk away at the end.
A more important question is how are we even supposed to like these characters? The best example of this is Bennie, played by the always awesome Dick Miller. The character is introduced with his henchmen planting something on the German’s car. We later find out that he is Coy’s brother and has a ton of money bet on him to win. So of course, he is going to have all these complicated schemes that will lead to fun shenanigans, right? Nope he just straight up kills people while the movie plays it up as if he is comic relief. I found that rather jarring. It would have been much better if they had just made him a villain and given the movie a darker tone. Instead we get other bits of comedy like the singing cowboy broadcasting from a Dodge Charger, the van of lovely ladies “dealing” with some cops, and the continually more banged up Lincoln Continental gag. I really don’t know what to think about this one.
They straight up killed that dude!
This was a New World Pictures production, so we get the Corman regulars showing up. In addition to those that I’ve already mentioned we also get actresses Mary Wornov and Belinda Balaski. Directors Joe Dante and Allan Arkush make small appearances. Roger Corman even shows up for a short scene as a district attorney trying to shut the race down. Though hands down the best and craziest cameos have director Paul Bartel, who also plays the mobster taking all the bets from Miller’s character, in a scene with a couple of henchmen. They are played by an uncredited Sylvester Stallone and Martin Scorsese! All these people have connections to Roger Corman and the low budget flicks he was cranking out as either a director or later a producer.
I like Paul Bartel’s movies. The aforementioned Death Race 2000 as well as Eating Raoul and the criminally ignored Private Parts are great movies. His stuff is always quirky as he has a unique style. I’m not sure if it just doesn’t fit this kind of movie or if he needed to go completely dark or light with this one. Cannonball doesn’t work for me and I can’t recommend it.
Time for
something very weird that doesn’t fit easily into a category. In my series of
movie reviews for genre flicks from the fifties I’ve covered giant bugs, atomic
horrors, witchdoctors, alien menaces, and even long dead Spanish conquistadors
coming back to terrorize the living. But the Undead is so far out there that it
stands alone even among the oddities. I guess the best way I can describe this
is as an odd drive-in version of a fairy tale with a very dark ending. This is
a strange movie.
We see a
lady walking in the fog. She stops and is offered a light by an unseen figure. Next,
we see her walking into a doctor’s office with a man, obviously the one that helped
her out with the cigarette. It is established quickly that he is a
scientist/doctor and she is his subject. He is there to prove to a third man
that he can regress her to past lives. Okay that sounds cool and before you
know it she is on the couch being put under.
The
session works better than they could have imagined. The woman, Diana, goes back
to a former life where she was a woman named Helene. Unfortunately, the point
at which she arrives is also the night before Helene is supposed to be executed
for being a witch. She helps her former self escape and that sets into motion a
series of events that could have dire consequences. See she isn’t just
remembering her former life, but somehow the hypnosis sent her consciousness
back in time and she changed history. Or at least it will be changed if her
ancestor doesn’t die by the morning as she should. The scientist who hypnotized
her follows her back in time by using brain waves and other science stuff. Not
so much to set things right, but to see what happens. Oh, and there is Devil
too! If you have witches, you need to have the Devil.
This is
one of those Roger Corman movies that was shot with no money, used his normal
cast of character actors, and was made quickly. Like many other Corman flicks
the writing is decent and there was some thought put into the story. I guess
reincarnation was a big deal at the time and never one to let free publicity
slide by this was rushed into production to take advantage. But is it any good?
The answer to that is both yes and no.
Got to have the Devil in the movie!
The story
is unique and different. You have someone who isn’t just reliving their past
life but is also able to change it. Thus, causing issues where history is
changed dooming the character who changed things to nonexistence. That is
unless the former self who was saved gives themself up to be executed. For a
cheap and quickly made movie for the drive-in market this is a complicated and
interesting story. Then again whenever writer Charles B. Griffith is involved
the plot and story are always top notch. The guy wrote some seriously cool
scripts in his day including this one as well as Bucket of Blood, Death Race
2000, and the legendary Little Shop of Horrors.
The cast
is solid and handles the dialogue well. When the movie goes back to “olden”
times the characters start speaking as if they were doing Shakespeare in the
park. This could have been awful, but they are so good at it that I was amused.
The gravedigger has some clever little quips and songs that play off of
recognizable tunes with the words changed to fit the story. It was also great
to see Corman regular Dick Miller in a small but memorable role of a leper who
sells his soul to be healthy. The real bonus is seeing a very young Billy Barty
as the Imp who while he has no dialogue it is a great part. This only goes to
prove my theory that Barty was good in everything!
The Dancers
There are
issues with The Undead. The pacing is very uneven after kicking off quickly it
loses its way a bit with the subplot of the evil witch running around trying to
steal Helene’s boyfriend. The only good parts about her scenes are the
inclusion of Billy Barty’s Imp character. The movie also flashes back to the
present for a couple scenes that are clearly used to pad the running time. At
only seventy-one minutes is seems like they didn’t have enough material for a
feature so used what they could to get to there. This includes an entirely
random and goofy dance sequence because when the Devil arrives he brings the
entertainment! It makes for a movie that can be a bit boring at times. I also
didn’t understand the weird logic that forced the Helene character to sacrifice
herself. If she lives her future selves don’t exist because as they say in the
movie, “She lives this life or many lives.” That isn’t explained at all. Since
her death is a big deal I would have liked a line or two explaining the logic
behind it.
This is at
best an oddity from the master of the low budget movie, Roger Corman. If you
like the weird stuff or are a fan of the man, then The Undead is worth checking
out. But I can’t recommend it to everyone. I’m not sure how well it would play
to a crowd expecting the typical monsters and/or aliens.
