May 29, 2012

Spectre

By Wednesday's Child

Spectre is an especially rare American TV movie/pilot (for a show that wasn’t picked up) in that it could have fit in with any Euro-horror of the seventies; especially, I’d imagine, when it was shown theatrically in Europe with extra nudity added. Alas, I saw the American version, so no boobs and butts for me. But even puritanized, Spectre inspires all the fascination of any movie where smartasses (played here by Robert Culp and Gig Young) try to find a demon and uncover, yes, a demon possessing one of the people they’re investigating. The surprise is, it isn’t who they think it is, or even what. There’s also a cult of worshippers and a pretty intricately designed and ancient worship hall located beneath an English stately home.

If you think this pilot would get grounded on American TV of ’77, home of Three’s Company and Charlie’s Angels, you’ve just earned your cynic wings. Even Gene Roddenberry as producer couldn’t get Spectre made into a show, and the pilot is rare. I happened to catch a version that was taped off of TV in ’96, hosted by Robert Englund and a mummy he keeps cuddling with (for reasons you understand late in the film).

But the fact is I did see it, and loved it. Because of these TV Tuesdays, I’ve discovered the ultra cool Culp and am now actively seeking his work. He’s in wonderful form here as a psychologist and genius named William Sebastian who travels the world with his more skeptical business partner Ham Hamilton (Young). In the case they’re investigating in this story, they must help an English lady (Ann Bell) find out what the hell is going on with her two strange, secretive brothers (John Hurt and James Villiers) when their aristocratic home abruptly turns to a swingers’ paradise and she begins to fear for her life. But are any of the siblings what they appear to be? For that matter, is Sebastian? He certainly knows a bit of magic, and may even have been a demon-worshipper at one time. And speaking of magic, what kind of spell did his housekeeper, played by Roddenberry’s wife Majel Barrett, work on Ham?

Culp and Young battle a succubus, trick a demon, fend off seductive and possibly murderous prostitutes, and even succumb to a bit of black magic, although temporarily. The only thing this movie has in common with most of its TV brethren is its happy-ish ending. And in liking that, I’m USA all the way.

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in 70s horror, cults, demons, television, TV Tuesday

May 28, 2012

Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies

By Wednesday's Child

Today, we wrap up Japanese Horror Month with a guest post from Misty of Cinema Schminema. Here is her take on Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies.

I LOVE Japanese cinema.  It is so happy making that I cannot get enough.  And when I find things like Stacy: Attack of the Schoolgirl Zombies, which is a zombie comedy/horror love story, I love it even more.

Stacy starts with a scene of a teenage babysitter lying dead on the side of the road being poked at by the group of boys she’s been sitting for.  Along comes the boy’s mother who seems wholly unconcerned that her kids are hanging out on the edge of a highway with no babysitter in sight.  But wait!  What should happen next?  The babysitter comes back to life and eats the children!  YES!  And that leads us to the “Worst Mom Screaming in Horror” action ever.  Trust me.  She looks like her dog just ate her favorite shoes more than a zombie just ate her tiny children.  Then we cut to a girl standing in the street holding a wind chime and giggling like mad (oh, Japan.  No one makes me fear women’s laughter more than you.)

So why’s our girl so damn happy?  Because she’s experiencing Near Death Happiness.  See what happens is, first, girls between the ages of 15 and 17 get uber happy.  Then they die.  Then they reanimate and come back to life.  Oh and there’s Butterfly Twinkle Powder. (I don’t get that one either….)  This is a worldwide phenomenon and as such, the world population has been cut almost in half.  What’s the solution?  A mad scientist searching for answers (*note to self: get a cane so you can go around smashing things like said scientist*) and “Romero Repeat Kill Troops”.  Yes, you read that right.  Not only do you have to kill the zombie girls (who are nicknamed “Stacys” by the way), but you have to repeat kill them by cutting them up into 165 pieces.  Why?  Because that is the magical number, that’s why.  The only people allowed to kill/repeat kill Stacys are their immediate family or the Romero Repeat Kill Troops which is why you can run right out and get your “Bruce Campbell’s Right Hand 2!” chainsaw complete in fun colours from the spring line being sold by a girl in a bunny suit!  YAY!

But what happens if your teenager dies and the Romero Repeat Kill Troops are busy and you just don’t feel like going through the hassle of a repeat kill yourself?  Well, we’ve got the “Drew Illegal Repeat Kill” gang on standby just in case.  The “Drew” gang consists of three teenage girls who are illegally repeat killing to earn money to pay a hot celeb guy to repeat kill them when they die.  And they love Drew Barrymore.  Seriously folks, this is pure cinematic genius here!!

So yeah, Stacys and repeat kill troops and a couple of guys in love…..a really excellent puppet show……a lady shrimp with huge knockers puppet…..too much porno music in the background….and a heck of a lot of gore (in that really really cheesy fake gore way!) make this a delectable slice of J-horror heaven.  And there’s even a deep message to it all:  1) EVERYBODY is terrified of teenage girls and 2) EVERYBODY wants to be loved, even zombies.

Enjoy!

5 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in 00s Horror, guest review, J-horror month, Japanese horror, Zombies

May 25, 2012

House of Frankenstein

By Wednesday's Child

When I watch any movie from the 40s, I get so excited about all the movies I have yet to see from that era. I have so much catching up to do that I will never run out of entertainment! Also, I am easily amused. The trouble is, sometimes I don’t know what is a good movie and what is bad, because I don’t know enough about films of the time period to be a good judge of their quality. My husband and I had a few laughs while watching this, but they weren’t of the “dur hur, this old movie is old” variety. More like, “the cast kicks ass, but I think we might be watching a B movie.” Things like obvious matte paintings, clumsy expository dialogue, weird internal logic, and the total lack of denouement tickled us. Still, House of Frankenstein is kilometers above last week’s feature.

Dr. Gustav Niemann (Boris Karloff) is serving a life sentence in some crappily-constructed jail for being a mad scientist of the Frankenstein sort. He’s busy doing chalk drawings for the edification of his neighbor Daniel (J. Carrol Naish) the hunchback when, right as he promises to rebuild Humpy when they get out of jail, lightning strikes and knocks down the walls. Neato!

So the two criminals escape and go on a tri-city tour of revenge to get back at the guys who put Karloff in jail, along the way using John Carradine as Dracula in a ten-minute cameo to kill one guy.  They stop by Frankenstein’s house in the village of Frankenstein to get some notes on how to reanimate and set the Wolf Man (Lon Chaney Jr.) and one very ripe and weakened Monster (Glenn Strange) free from their prison in the Fortress of Solitude. Oh, and they also pick up a gypsy girl called Ilonka (Elena Verdugo) for perpetual sad sack Igor/Daniel and Chaney to have a love triangle with. Karloff kidnaps up two more guys who have wronged him in the town where his own lab is located so he can play musical brains with them, the Monster, and Chaney, but Chaney’s nocturnal activities as the Wolf Man indirectly get everyone killed. Talk about hairy palms!

I had a lot of fun with House of Frankenstein. I think of it as sort of a horror version of Cannonball Run 2, in that they get the group of Universal monsters back together for a road trip. We get a stop motion werewolf transformation, a vampire skeleton turning into a vampire complete with a good look at the circulatory system during the process, horse chases, folk dancing, villagers with torches, a good old lab cleaning montage, the mellifluous voice of Karloff, and the always likable yet emo Chaney Wolf Man. My only real disappointment was that when Ilonka was killed, Daniel’s brain didn’t go into her body for some gender-bending fun. Although, to someone who cares about the quality of their horror movies, this is probably a lesser entry into the Universal monster canon, at least it makes me want to watch the more popular movies of the sub-genre that I’ve been putting off.

2 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , | posted in 40s Horror, Frankenstein Friday, Vampires, werewolf

May 24, 2012

Blood Rage

By Wednesday's Child

Check out my tutorial on the 1987 slasher Blood Rage over on this website’s best friend and lovah, Wide Weird World of Cult! I only sought this movie out because it stars the lovely Julie Gordon of Super Fuzz, but it turned out to be a very underrated, bloody, entertaining entry into the slasher genre. Bonus points for being filmed in my almost-hometown of Jacksonville. It’s regional horror week over there at the Wide Weird World, so you might find some other little-known weirdness that’s worth a watch.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in 80s horror, elsewhere, regional horror, slasher, Thrifty Thursday

May 23, 2012

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming…

By Wednesday's Child

…for a dang power outage! I was going about my usual business of Waiting Until the Last Minute, watching the movie I planned to write about for TV Tuesday, when the lights went out in Georgia. Now that they are on, I’m tired from all the rage I felt at seeing the power come back on every hour or so only to hear an explosion from the direction of town and see them go out again. I know, I know, spoiled princess problems. I should have something up tomorrow night (or next Tuesday) about tonight’s movie, 1977′s  pilot for the not-picked-up Gene Roddenberry show Spectre, starring Robert Culp and Gig Young as Mulder and Scully. Until then please enjoy this scene from the film:

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , | posted in 70s horror, TV Tuesday

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