Creature from the Black Lagoon: Jack Arnold

I feel a special affinity for Jack Arnold's Creature from the Black Lagoon. Most of the footage for the monster was shot on location at Wakulla Springs, Florida, a spot that I used to visit yearly during summer vacation trips to my grandmother's house. I swam in the same spots that the creature was filmed! So I've always wanted to see this film...and I'm a little surprised that it's taken me this long to see it. Creature from the Black Lagoon is one of the last films to establish a permanent member of the Universal Monsters club, including Dracula, the Wolfman, Frankenstein's Monster, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, and Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. So how does it stand up? Decently. A group of scientists travel to Florida, ahem, I mean the Amazon River, and discover the Creature, an evolutionary remnant from prehistoric times. Of course, the monster greets these visitors by killing them off one by one. There are some interesting moments and set pieces that are par for the course for Universal Horror. But the film certainly shows its age, particularly in its laughable depiction of South Americans and their female scientist. But overall, it's an enjoyable movie. Now to wait for the inevitable Hollywood remake.......ugh.

7/10

Cobra: George P. Cosmatos

I hate having to review films like George P. Cosmatos' Cobra. Not because I don't enjoy them...oh no...quite the contrary. I love cheesy 80s action films like Cobra. The problem is that they simply don't hold up when you examine them from a critical standpoint. Action god Sylvester Stallone plays Marion Cobretti, a tough cop who don't play by the rules and ain't afraid of getting his hands dirty. He needs to protect a young woman who was a witness to a hate crime. Little known to either of them, the hate crime was one of a wave of random killings perpetrated by a Neo Fascist group. Apparently, they mean to bring down a New World Order upon the city of Los Angeles through random acts of violence and killing. But who cares? This movie is about one thing: Sylvester Stallone being awesome. He racks up a body count that would make Arnold Schwarzenegger jealous all while wearing a bitchin' pair of shades and a leather jacket. I loved this film. Is it an exemplary piece of film-making? Well, quite frankly, if you're even asking that question, then you've totally missed the point.

5/10 (Critical Score)
8/10 (So bad/cheesy that it's Good Score)

Tenebrae: Dario Argento

I just realized something. Dario Argento's Tenebrae bares several similarities with Carol Reed's The Third Man. Both are about American authors who travel to Europe and become caught up in terrible conspiracies. In The Third Man the author became embroiled in a noir mystery. In Tenebrae the author gets stuck in a murder mystery. Besides a noticeable lack of Orson Welles and the zither, Tenebrae has one other major difference with The Third Man: The former's ending makes no sense whatsoever. And therein lies Tenebrae's biggest problem: the plot is confused and muddled. Now, some would argue that this is merely par for the course with an Argento film. But even for the crazed mind of Dario Argento, this plot makes no sense. Basically, the American author becomes part of a police investigation when a serial killer starts to murder people and claiming that his latest book was the inspiration. Also, this doesn't quite look or feel like an Argento film. Gone are the dazzling, Technicolor-drenched set-pieces and costumes. The murders seem mechanical and matter-of-fact instead of creative and gruesome. And then there's the final twist...it's a stupid one. My opinion? Skip this film and re-watch Suspiria.

5/10

The Woman in Black: Herbert Wise

Not all ghost stories have happy endings. Not all tales of wandering spirits end with the restless dead finally finding peace or experiencing righteous judgement for their deeds. Sometimes the dead win. Herbert Wise's television production of Susan Hill's novel The Woman in Black is such a story. Like many great ghost stories, it involves death, a young ingenue, and a haunted mansion. Arthur Kidd, a young solicitor, is sent from London to a small town on the East coast of England to settle the accounts of a recently deceased client. Upon arrival, he becomes caught up in a tragic legend of a mysterious woman in black who always appears before the death of a local child. This ghastly specter is somehow involved with Kidd's dead client...but how? The Woman in Black is a slow, methodical horror film that takes its time establishing an atmosphere and then smashing it during the last act. It may seem to drag on at first, but the pay-off is worth it. This film doesn't try to scare its audience throughout the entirety of its length. It's smart and confident in itself enough to know that when the horror does finally come, it'll stay with you for the rest of your life.

7/10

Saw: James Wan

I'd like to think that I am now far enough removed from Saw's debut and all of the hype surrounding it that I can give it a fair and balanced review. This story of a terminally ill patient who captures people and forces them to fight for their lives against death traps is an incredibly unique idea. It's a brilliant commentary on free will and the choices that people are willing to make to preserve their lives. But even more importantly, Saw is a well made film. The use of shaky cams and dulled, washed out sets create a truly disturbing atmosphere. The villain, who goes by the name Jigsaw, constructs these traps as brilliantly perverted Skinner Boxes that push their inhabitants to the brink. Many of the weapons an traps have entered the public consciousness, like the infamous reverse-bear trap. If I counted correctly, there were only six traps in this movie and eight victims. The gore and violence served a point. Director James Wan was trying to actually say something with this film. Sadly, the inevitable sequels would focus more on the death traps than on the psychology behind them. The editing occasionally became too fanatic for its own good, however. And I would have adored to see this film focus exclusively on the two people in Jigsaw's last trap and take place entirely within the confines of the room that they were locked in. But the film is what it is. Would its message get diluted and forgotten as Hollywood cranked out more sequels? Of course. But that was inevitable. On its own, Saw is a brilliant and disturbing film.

8/10

Mad Monster Party: Jules Bass

Do you remember those claymation movies that are shown over and over again at Christmas time? You know, the ones about Rudolph, Frosty, and the Little Drummer Boy? Did you know that the people that made those films once made a horror movie? Well...not a horror film exactly...but it does stare all of the big name monsters! Mad Monster Party follows a party thrown by Baron von Frankenstein upon the announcement of his retirement. As the head of the monsters, he must choose a successor. So he chooses his nephew Felix Flankin, a clumsy pharmacist, to take his place. Wacky hijinks ensue once he shows up to Frankenstein's island and he runs into Dracula, the Mummy, the Invisible Man, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Werewolf, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, and the Hunchback of Notre Dame. This movie has not aged well. The claymation is jerky and spotty, the voice cast sounds largely bored, and the plot is full of random song and dance numbers that serve purely as filler. But it has the certain irresistible charm that makes the Christmas movies so endearing. This film is probably the best way to introduce young children to the famous Hollywood monsters. Anyone else will find it a bit tedious.

6/10

Queen of Blood: Curtis Harrington

Directer Curtis Harrington once said of Alien (1979): "Ridley's film is like a greatly enhanced, expensive and elaborate version of [my film] Queen of Blood." Maybe. After all, they both feature a space craft picking up an extraterrestrial creature which proceeds to pick them off one by one. But whereas in Alien the creature impregnated and/or killed its victims, the monster in Queen of Blood, a green-skinned woman, drinks their blood. I wish that this film had come out a decade earlier. If it had, the possibilities for drawing symbolism and allusions to Communism and the Red Scare would have been endless. But I doubt that such things were in the mind of Harrington when he made Queen of Blood. It falls flat as a piece of horror science fiction. The crew's reactions to finding that she has killed one of their number range from frustrated to mildly irritated. There is no sense of urgency or terror surrounding this film. I would call the special effects and costumes impressive if they weren't from a film from 1966. Forbidden Planet, a film that came out a decade prior, put Queen of Blood's visuals and effects to shame. It's a decent piece of sci-fi kitsch, I guess. But it fails as anything else.

5/10

Dagon: Stuart Gordon

The world deserves a first-rate cinematic adaptation of H. P. Lovecraft's work. Stuart Gordon's Dagon is an admittedly valiant attempt at bringing his work to life onscreen...but it falls flat. The film is based on The Shadow Over Innsmouth, a story wherein a man travels to a small Massachusetts town and discovers that its inhabitants have become half-human, half-fish monsters that worship the Assyro-Babylonian god Dagon. Only in this film, the New England setting is swapped for coastal Spain. The switch to Spain was made because Gordon wasn't able to get financing for the film in America. But I think that the absence of a New England setting hurts the film, making it distinctly less Lovecraftian. It's obvious that Gordon put a lot of love into this film. But the terrible CGI, weak makeup, and occasionally terrible effects ruin the atmosphere that is so essential for a Lovecraftian story. I know that Gordon could do better. Back in 1985 he made Re-Animator, a film with revolutionary zombie special effects, for almost a fifth of Dagon's budget. And really, there were only two scenes that warranted any advanced special effects. The first was a scene where a mermaid who controls the town glides across the floor. Did that have to be animated with a computer? Did Gordon forget about prosthetics? The second was when Dagon shows up to eat somebody. The effect is so laughable that it belongs on the SyFy channel. What I want to know is...was showing Dagon really that essential? Wouldn't it have been better to go the Jacques Tourneur route? There are some genuinely terrifying moments, especially an extended sequence where the main character tries to keep a horde of fish...uh...zombies...out of his hotel room. But the rest of the film seems rushed and sloppy. It's a nice try, Mr. Gordon. You just showed too much.

6/10

The Cycle Savages: Bill Brame

While watching Bill Brame's The Cycle Savages, I could practically hear conservatives and frustrated parents shaking their fists and yelling, "Damn you crazy kids!" This film revels in the crimes and free-wheeling lifestyle of a gang of bikers led by Bruce Dern. There is very little plot here...there's basically an artist who's drawing pictures of the bikers. They don't like that...for some reason...so they decide to mess him up good by destroying his hands. Not before they have a sex and drug fueled party, of course. Bruce Dern apparently needs to have a good shindig before he can properly conceive of how to pay this artist back for the audacity of drawing them. One of the centerpieces of this party is the raping and drugging of an innocent young woman. So...I feel confused by this film...is it advocating or condemning this lifestyle? I guess I shouldn't complain. For what it is, The Cycle Savages is a competently made film; there isn't a boom mike or camera shadow to be seen. Bruce Dern is incredible and psychotic, as usual. The soundtrack is full of fun, yet indistinguishable, rock tracks. It's a free-wheelin', crime committin', hand crushin' good time.

6/10

Burn, Witch, Burn!: Sidney Hayers

Several horror films have explored the subject of the disbeliever coming into contact with that which they refute. Sidney Hayer's Burn, Witch, Burn! is one of the best of this particular sub-genre. Norman Taylor is a professor of psychology at a prestigious university who teaches skepticism and realism to his students. He discovers one day to his horror that his wife, Tansy, has been using black magic to help him advance his career. He confronts her and burns all of her magical talismans. He accidentally also burns a picture of himself, dooming him to become a plaything of the forces of evil. Suddenly, a female student accuses him of rape, a male student threatens to shoot him, and his chances of being promoted seem destroyed. To save himself, and his wife, he finds that he must use the same black magic that he rallied against earlier in the film. Many of these films take the route of creating doubt as to whether or not the magic is real and everything that occurs is a coincidence. Burn, Witch, Burn! has no such ambition. The very first scene has an invisible narrator casting a spell of protection over the audience against a black screen. By establishing the existence of black magic, Burn, Witch, Burn! becomes a piece of high camp instead of a taut psychological thriller. But I prefer it that way. There are enough movies that try to establish doubt. It's refreshing to see a film that believes so powerfully in that which other films disdain.

8/10

The Tiger of Eschnapur: Fritz Lang

The Tiger of Eschnapur is spectacularly silly. It combines every single over-the-top stereotype concerning Orientalism and Eastern exoticism and plays them straight. It is pure visual masturbation. It follows Harold Berger, a European architect, who travels to mysterious India to build a palace for a local Maharahaja. Upon arriving in this faraway and mysterious land, he saves a dancer from a tiger. They instantly fall in love. And, of course, it turns out that she is promised to the Maharahaja. So the gallant white man woos the exotic woman and defeats the treacherous Indians who would bend her to the Maharahaja's will. This film was made by Fritz Lang after his long sojourn in America. This film was made in the context of the recovering post-war German film industry. As such, the film is strikingly apolitical and absent of Lang's trademark cynicism. This film is a popcorn flick, plain and simple. It does what it does well...but don't try to look for anything else below the surface.

7/10

Clash by Night: Fritz Lang

Truth be told, I'm not entirely sure if Fritz Lang's Clash by Night is a film noir or a straight drama.  It has your standard black and white photography, a fiery femme fatale, and crazed emotions.  But really, Clash by Night feels more like an over-wrought melodrama.  It stars Barbara Stanwyck as Mae Doyle, an independent young woman who returns to her home in Monterey, California after a decade-long affair with a married politician on the East Coast.  Once back in Monterey, she becomes embroiled in a devastating love triangle with Jerry, a well-intentioned yet unsophisticated fisherman, and Earl, a bitter young man with a low opinion on women.  She marries Jerry for a sense of security, yet finds herself increasingly drawn to Earl.  Eventually, she has Jerry's child.  But even her maternal duties can't stop her feelings for the dangerous and nasty Earl.  It all comes down to an emotional climax where Jerry confronts Mae and Earl after discovering their affair.  I won't spoil the ending, but it's uncharacteristically positive for a later work by Fritz Lang.  And here's where the film feels less like a film noir and more like a melodrama: everything falls nicely in place at the end and nobody really suffers anything except for Earl.  There is no cynicism, no bite, no poison in this film.  Oh, Mae is a firebrand who drinks whiskey at 9:00 AM at the start of the film.  But by the end she is pacified into a traditional 1950s woman's subservient role.  Clash by Night is a decent film with some herculean performances...but it feels like an orphan.  It's too dark for a melodrama, yet simultaneously too light for a film noir.

6/10

The Howling: Joe Dante

Okay, okay...I'll give credit where credit it due.  The Howling has some amazing special effects.  In fact, I'd dare say that this film has one of the greatest werewolf transformation scenes in the history of the cinema.  But that's about all I can say in favor of this movie.  The rest is a pretty generic werewolf movie.  A news reporter is stalked by a werewolf who corners her in a pornographic theater.  When he reveals himself, she is so shocked that she gains temporary amnesia.  So, she and her husband are sent to "The Colony," a kind of retreat for people with psychological issues.  And, of course, it's really a werewolf colony.  I hesitate to call them werewolves, though.  After all, for some reason these werewolves can change shape any time regardless of the state of the moon.  In my opinion, that doesn't make you a werewolf.  But then again, I am a horror movie purist.  Fans of B-movies and monster flicks will find The Howling an enjoyable treat...it's sweet, short, and satisfying...if you're into that kind of thing.

5/10

Devil's Doorway: Anthony Mann

Anthony Mann always could direct a good Western.  At the start of the 50s, Mann directed a series of Westerns that redefined the genre by adding a sense of moral ambiguity to them.  These films helped introduce the idea of the Western antihero.  In Devil's Doorway, Mann displays another kind of hero: the Indian.  Devil's Doorway follows Lance Poole, a full-blooded Shoshone Indian who served in the Civil War, even earning the Congressional Medal of Honor.  When he returned home to Wyoming, he finds that a new homestead act has effectively stolen his land out from under his feet.  When a posse of locals try to take his land by force, Poole organizes an armed resistance against them with the help of escaped refugees from a nearby Indian reservation.  For a film from 1950, Mann's portrayal of Indians was extremely advanced.  However...he seems to know this a little too well.  Mann takes every opportunity to drive the inherent melodrama surrounding the situation home.  One of the last lines of the film is even along the lines of, "How terrible it would be if we would ever forget this."  If Mann had made the film a little less self-conscious of its progressive politics and depictions of Indians, then it would have been more effective.

7/10

The Devils: Ken Russell

I guess it was inevitable that I would see Ken Russell's The Devils.  After all, it's one of the most controversial films of all time.  With that kind of label, it's almost required viewing for cinephiles like myself.  Still, I had no interest in seeing this film.  After all, it was a "historical re-enactment" of the possessions of Loudun, France in the 17th century.  Historical accounts tell of a group of Ursuline nuns who claimed to be possessed by demons between 1632-1634.  As a result, several priests, including Urbain Grandier, were executed for witchcraft and heresy.  The Devils claims to tell the true story of the possessions, yet it takes great liberties with the historical figures and events.  In my opinion, Ken Russell did everything in his power to make the characters as flamboyant and over-the-top as possible so they would match the energy of the scenes where the Ursuline nuns were "possessed."  So this begs the questions...is The Devils a good film?  Well...I hesitate to answer.  On the one hand, it is a remarkably well made film with terrifying performances and an energy that wouldn't be duplicated until the heyday of Oliver Stone.  But, on the other, it's clear that Ken Russell took every liberty imaginable to create a film that was as difficult and uncomfortable to watch as possible.  Maybe in their crazed state the Ursuline nuns really did fellate statues of Jesus and masturbate with holy candles.  But when the film is so liberal with its depictions of other characters and historical events, the scenes of horror and blasphemy seem forced, disingenuous, and unnecessary.  So I throw my hands up and give The Devils 7/10...an average score.  Make of that what you will.

7/10

Frightmare: Pete Walker

The more and more I continue my odyssey into the depths of pulp and exploitation cinema, the more and more I discover film-makers who are supposedly held in high regard as masters of smut and gore.  One of these is British director Pete Walker.  One of his most famous films was Frightmare, an exploration of mental illness and cannibalism.  It features an old British couple who were committed to an insane asylum for many years due to the wife's psychotic need to kill and eat people.  After being declared sane, they were released back into society.  Unsurprisingly, the wife almost immediately relapses and starts to continue her cannibalistic ways.  She also has to contend with her daughter and step-daughter.  The former is a fifteen year old rebel who supports her mother's psychosis, mainly due to her hatred for authority.  The latter acted as a surrogate parent for the biological daughter, earning her scorn.  This film is...okay.  The effects are crude and the acting is occasionally wonky.  I can see why this film was so critically reviled, though.  The idea of the polite veneer of British society masking such despicable actions would be inflammatory.  Does it stand up?  Just barely.  It works more as a museum piece of British exploitation.

5/10

Tombs of the Blind Dead: Amando de Ossorio

Here's a interesting cult classic: Amando de Ossorio's Tombs of the Blind Dead.  It features a group of truly unfortunate people who discover an abandoned medieval town in the European countryside.  This town is the home of a number of undead Knights Templar who were executed centuries ago for practicing witchcraft and taking part in murderous Satanic rites.  Don't call them zombies, though.  Ossorio explained that they were essentially mummies.  The kicker is that these "mummies" are completely blind.  See...when they were executed, their dead bodies were hung from trees where birds then devoured their eyeballs.  So, these mummies hunt by sound.  If you're completely silent, they won't be able to find you.  Too bad almost all of the characters in Tombs of the Blind Dead are incredibly stupid and noisy.  Even by horror movie standards, these characters are morons.  Still, the film does have a fairly unique concept for an original horror villain.  And credit should be given for many of the film's extended sequences that are told completely through the visuals.  I just wish the film had a bit more plot and a little less fluff. 

6/10

The Exorcist III: William Peter Blatty

Reprinted from Forgotten Classics of Yesteryear.

Dammit!  It isn’t supposed to work this way!  Everyone knows the rules to making Hollywood sequels, particularly for horror films!  The first one is supposed to be an instant classic that breaks the rules and challenges preconceived notions about horror (i.e. Jaws, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street).  Then a half-baked sequel comes out that receives lukewarm to negative reviews from critics and audiences (i.e. Damien: Omen II, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, The Hills Have Eyes 2).  And then, in a last ditch effort to squeeze as much money from the public as possible, an abysmal third film comes out that mocks the franchise, offends the fans, and becomes a massive flop (i.e. Child’s Play 3, Amityville 3, Friday the 13th 3).  The Exorcist franchise was following the rules perfectly at the start.  The Exorcist (1971) was one of the few horror films in history to be critically acclaimed, ludicrously profitable, and nominated for several Academy Awards.  It was followed six years later by Exorcist II: The Heretic, a film that did a decent amount at the box office, yet was universally regarded as one of the worst horror sequels of all time.  And then, thirteen years later, it was followed by yet another sequel, The Exorcist III.  So, by all rational accounts, The Exorcist III should have been a horrendously horrible film, right?  Wrong!  Not only is The Exorcist III a fantastic horror film and sequel in its own right, at times it is even better than the original! 

I know that last sentence is quite an inflammatory one.  But I kid you not.  The Exorcist III is hands down one of the best horror films that I have ever seen.  Directed by William Peter Blatty, the writer of the novel that The Exorcist was based on and its Academy Award winning screenplay adaption, The Exorcist III both honors and respects the legacy laid down by the first film while looking ahead towards new horizons.  Blatty wisely decided to ignore the events of Exorcist II: The Heretic when making this film.  So, in a sense, The Exorcist III can be viewed as an official sequel to the original.

The Exorcist III is set fifteen years after the original film.  It follows Lieutenant William F. Kinderman (George C. Scott), a grizzled old policeman who should have retired years ago.  Recently, there have been a series of gruesome murders in Georgetown.  A 12-year-old boy was found with his head cut off by the river after being tortured.  A local priest was discovered decapitated in a confessional.  Kinderman’s best friend, another priest named Father Dyer, was found dead in a hospital bed, having been paralyzed and drained of all of his blood with a catheter while still alive.  What’s worse is that on the wall next to his body, the words “It’s a Wonderfull Life” were written in his blood.  It’s a Wonderful Life was their favorite film.  A few days before his murder, Kinderman had gone with Dyer to see it in the theaters.  But what’s worse is that all of the murders have something in common: they all fit the description of a notorious serial killer known as “The Gemini Killer.”  And The Gemini Killer was captured and put to death in the electric chair fifteen years ago.

The original film worked because it operated on two different levels.  The Exorcist was not just a horror film, but an investigative mystery as well.  In a sense, it was a kind of priest procedural.  Father Damien Karras spent a good portion of the film trying to figure out whether it was an authentic possession.  He talked with a psychiatrist, had recordings of the possessed girl’s rantings examined by a linguist, and even faked out the demon by spraying it with regular water while claiming it was Holy Water.  The film provided ample room for doubt as to whether or not the possession was real.  In an introduction given by director William Friedkin on an anniversary re-release of The Exorcist, he mentioned how people seem to take away whatever they bring to the film.  If they believe that there is a God and that good will prevail, they see The Exorcist as a tale of triumph.  If they don’t believe in a God and have a pessimistic world view, then they see The Exorcist as a confirmation of their convictions.  This is especially curious considering how The Exorcist confirms the existence of the supernatural in the final scenes.  The fact that people can watch the little girl’s head spin around 360 degrees and levitate in the air and still believe that it was a hoax speaks to the film’s ability to create doubt.

The Exorcist III operates similarly.  For the first hour or so, everything is up in the air.  It could be a deranged copycat serial killer or a case of the spirit of The Gemini Killer possessing people so he could carry out his murderous deeds.  By following Kinderman, an actual cop, the film focuses even more on the investigative aspect of the storyline.  There is more suspicion of foul play, more distrust of the supernatural.  Of course, in the last act the supernatural is revealed to be the ultimate culprit. That isn’t a spoiler, by the way.  There are supernatural forces at work in this film...but not in the way you’d expect.

Also, The Exorcist III remembers one of the most forgotten rules of the horror industry: we won’t be scared about characters in danger if we don’t care about them in the first place.  One of the reasons why horror films are so bad these days is that too often they make their characters completely unlikeable.  Yes, yes...we know that most of them will die hideous, gruesome deaths...but after establishing them as horrible people, we start to cheer for the killer.  In a true horror film, the hero shouldn’t be the killer, but the people who stand up to them.  Films like Poltergeist, Jaws, The Shining, Halloween, and The Exorcist remember this.  They spend a large chunk of the film making us genuinely care about the people on the screen. Therefore, when a masked killer comes for them, we don’t want them to die...hence the horror.  The Exorcist excelled at this.  We came to identify with and emotionally connect with the possessed girl, her mother, and the priests involved in her exorcism.  In The Exorcist III, the film takes its time, letting us get to know the characters.  We find faults in Kinderman, but we sympathize with them.  We watch him go to the movies and dinner with Father Dyer.  We see them shoot the breeze and reminisce about old times.  When Kinderman learns of Father Dyer’s death, it is one of the film’s most powerful scenes.  The Exorcist III succeeds because we have an emotional investment in the characters.

But what would a great horror film be like without authentic scares?  Thankfully, The Exorcist III has plenty.  Another one of the great problems with modern horror is that they are too reliant on jump scares; people jumping out of shadows and loud noises that explode out of nowhere.  Both The Exorcist and The Exorcist III create horror through atmosphere.  Blatty used noted cinematographer Gerry Fisher to create claustrophobic shots and lighting.  The film’s two greatest scenes both involve Kinderman interrogating a man in an insane ward who claims to be possessed by The Gemini Killer.  I personally consider them to be two magnum opuses of the horror genre.  Watch Fisher’s use of camera angles and shadows.  But more importantly, listen.  Listen carefully to how...you know what...never-mind.  I’m not going to tell you what to listen for.  You’ll notice it.  I guarantee you.

The Exorcist III is a true triumph of the horror genre.  It deserves to be as respected as the original.  It makes me weep that to know that he has only directed two films.  The Exorcist III proves that he has a genuine talent and distinct cinematic voice.  It frustrates me that I can’t tell you more about this film...but that’s just the way things have to be considering that it’s a horror film.  If I say too much, it’ll ruin the suspense.  All I can do is beg you all to go out and see this film.  You won’t be disappointed...or left unscathed...

9/10

Re-Animator: Stuart Gordon

Re-animator is the kind of film that I hold near and dear to my heart.  It was made for pocket change by a talented group of passionate film-makers with something to prove.  It is full of truly remarkable gore and special effects, yet is entirely character driven.  It doesn't rely on the gore...oh no...it has a story to tell.  It's about two scientists who discover a serum which can revive dead brain tissue, thereby restoring life to dead bodies.  However, once revived, they come back as murderous zombies.  The film features a surprisingly well-crafted screenplay which makes us truly care for the characters involved.  Yes, the film turns into a gore-happy hack n' slasher at the end, but it doesn't matter...the film has earned it.  There's a lot of love in Re-animator.  Originally based on a story by H.P. Lovecraft, Re-animator is both a tribute to and an expansion of the zombie film.  It is further proof that the horror genre is the best place for wannabe directors with small budgets and big dreams to cut their teeth.  I highly recommend this film...both as a marvelous piece of entertainment and as an example of what is possible when true film-makers do what they do best: create.

9/10

Ringu: Hideo Nakata

Ever since seeing Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Kairo, I've had a sort of understanding with J-horror films: I stay away from them, they stay away from me.  To this day, I STILL don't think that I've fully recovered from the scrotum-clenchingly terrifying Kairo, a film which I still consider to this day to be the scariest ever made.  But, I finally decided to see another one, Hideo Nakata's Ringu, mostly because I'm an idiot.  I had already seen Hideo Nakata's Dark Water, a pretty tame film all things considered.  Oh, the climax was so scary that I couldn't sleep for a week.  But I figured that I might as well try out his most famous film.  After a bevy of sequels and a remake franchise here in the States, the story of Ringu is pretty well known.  There's a scary tape.  If you watch this scary tape you'll get a scary phone call where a scary voice tells you that you'll die in seven days.  And in seven days, a scary little girl will climb out of a television and kill you.  Notice a pattern?  I feel that I was too familiar with the story for it to really be effective.  One of the reasons why Dark Water and Kairo were so effective was that I went into them completely cold.  But I already knew the story to Ringu and how it would end.  A great horror film scares you even when you know what's going to happen.  Take Stephen Speilberg's Jaws.  I did a report on that movie in elementary school, so I knew when and who the shark would attack.  And yet, the first time I saw that movie, I was legitimately terrified.  Ringu was a landmark film in J-horror and if I had seen it when it had premiered, I'm sure that I would have been psychologically scarred.  But I can admire its superb craftsmanship.  I wish I had seen it before it was remade, because if I had, this probably would have been one of my favorite horror films of all time.

8/10

Inferno: Dario Argento

I don't think that it's a secret anymore that I dearly love Dario Argento.  The man doesn't just make slasher films...he makes transcendent slasher films.  They defy convention and expectations with an almost palpable contempt.  Inferno was is a thematic sequel to his greatest film Suspiria.  It deals with a brother and sister who investigate a strange book which claims that there are powerful spirits trapped inside three buildings in Rome, Freiburg, and New York City.  Why should they care?  Well...it turns out that the sister has been living in one of the buildings and discovers a corpse in a sunken ballroom beneath the floorboards.  One by one, the people around them start getting picked off in increasingly gruesome manners.  The film is a wonder and glory to behold.  But it has two major problems.  The film never explains who or what kills off all of the victims.  And second, the film is very fragmentary.  It seems to follow a bizarre stream-of-consciousness as it drifts from one location and character to another.  There are several prominent scenes which are inconsequential to the plot.  One of the most unnerving examples is a scene where a man drowns a sack full of cats in a river.  Why is he drowning the cats?  Who is he?  The film never really explains.  Of course, he is then attacked by sewer rats and stabbed to death by a nearby hot dog vendor.  See what I mean?  Inferno doesn't behave like most horror films.  But then again, that's what we have come to expect from Dario Argento.  I wouldn't want it any other way.

7/10

Pet Sematary: Mary Lambert

I went into Mary Lambert's Pet Sematary very cautiously, fully aware that screen adaptations of Stephen King's works are either classics or complete stinkers.  It didn't help that the director's most recent project was Mega Python vs. Gatoroid.  But I was pleasantly surprised.  Pet Sematary is a well structured and effective horror film.  It follows the Creed family who move to (where else in a Stephen King story) Maine.  They have the misfortune of living in a house right next to a road where massive trucks periodically speed by.  There is a local pet cemetery especially devoted to the pets that are killed by these trucks.  What the Creed family discovers is that there is an Indian burial ground behind the cemetery wherein anything that is buried there comes back to life.  However, it comes back as a mindless, evil zombie-like creature.   This doesn't stop the father from resurrecting his son when he is run over by one of the trucks.  Pet Sematary has some genuinely terrifying scenes, particularly involving the little boy when he comes back to life.  I didn't know that it was possible for a movie to make me scared of babies.  Well...that's not true...Trainspotting did a good job at that...but that baby was a hallucination.  This baby is very real and will put the fear of God into your heart.  Overall, I would highly recommend Pet Sematary, even ranking it with the best Stephen King movies, including Carrie, The Shining, and Misery.

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Funny how a few years and reading the book by Stephen King will change your opinion of a novel. The novel may be King's most objectively fantastic, mostly because it's not really a horror novel--it's really more of a novel about grief and how it can devastate us. If I directed an adaptation of the novel, I would literally remove everything supernatural from the story except for the sematary itself. But the Lambert movie has it all: Victor Pascow, the strange creatures off the side of the path to the sematary, the possible demons inhabiting the newly revived. Also, the film changes all the dread and tragedy of King's novel into jump-scare pulp. It's more grotesque than disturbing. Also...I hate how they removed Norma as a character: without Louis saving her life, Jud has no reason to repay him by taking him to the actual sematary. Here, Jud takes him there just...because.

5/10

Basket Case: Frank Henenlotter

Frank Henenlotter's Basket Case contains one of the few scenes in all of cinema that has truly made me feel sick to my stomach.  It is the scene where Duane Bradley, a young boy, is held down by a group of surgeons who forcibly remove a monstrous conjoined twin attached to his side.  It's remarkable how effective this scene is, especially considering how little of the operation we actually see.  All of the horror caused by this scene comes from the nauseating sound effects, the crunching and squelching of surgeons pulling apart the bone, tissue, and sinew connecting the two twins.  If the entire film had been this effective and masterful, I would have considered it a classic.  But the rest of the film is just another revenge flick as Duane hunts down the three surgeons who operated on him and sets his deformed brother (whom he keeps in a large wicker basket) on them so he can murder them.  The central problem of the film is that we never feel any sympathy for the two brothers.  The deformed twin, appropriately named Belial, is such a spoiled brat and terrible person that we can't support him.  Belial telepathically tortures Duane, destroys all of his property in a rampage, and rapes his girlfriend.  But I guess that's what you get for naming your conjoined twin after one of the 4 crown princes of Hell.  If they had made Belial a sympathetic character like Duane, then maybe we could have cheered him on despite his grotesqueness.  But quite frankly, by the end of the film, we feel that they both deserve their ultimate fate.

6/10

The Soft Skin: François Truffaut

One of my biggest problems with the French New Wave is that their respective films are too long.  Oh, not in terms of how many minutes, mind you.  What I mean is that I feel that many times, their films outstretch their subject matter.  Stories that should only take maybe 30-40 minutes are stretched out into full length films.  The Soft Skin is a fine example.  This film only has about half an hour of plot, yet it is nearly two hours long.  The film follows a successful writer and family man who falls in love with an airline stewardess and starts an affair.  He falls madly in love, but she doesn't take it as seriously as he does.  His wife finds out and promptly murders him in a cafe with a shotgun.  Like I said, this story should not have taken two hours to tell.  Yet Truffaut indulges in long, drawn out scenes of pointless conversation and dialogue.  It leaves me wondering why.  Someone recently told me that they didn't like the French New Wave because they believed that their respective directors didn't actually like making films.  I heartily disagree.  I think that Truffaut loved making films.  The problem is that he didn't know when to stop making a film.  As a result, we have to sit in silence through such misfires as The Soft Skin.

6/10

The Devil Rides Out: Terence Fisher

This may very well be my favorite Hammer Horror film that I have ever seen.  It combines all of the elements of a great horror film: an unbearable atmosphere, terrifying imagery, fantastic performances, and a story that revels in the unknown and what we can't see.  The film stars Hammer work-horse Christopher Lee in an unusual heroic role, playing the Duc de Richleau, a man who investigates the odd habits of his friend's son only to discover his participation in black magic.  They kidnap his son from a Satanic ritual that actually succeeds in summoning the Dark One.  Afterwards, they must keep him safe from demonic possession until morning when the ritual is over.  Thus begins one of the most compelling horror sequences that I have ever seen: black magic attacks upon Duc de Richleau and his friends.  They stand inside a magic circle which protects them, and the son, from magical possession.  The trouble is that the black magicians can do anything they want to get them to leave the circle.  They are bombarded with tricks, spells, and illusions that nearly drive them to madness.  In one of the film's best scenes, they summon an illusion of one of the participant's daughter and make them watch as she is attacked by a giant tarantula.  Everything about this film works.  Christopher Lee is at the top of his game.  The effects are spectacular and effective.  The story is compelling and captivating.  The suspense is real and terrible.  For those of you who have never seen a Hammer Horror film, this is where you should begin.

9/10

Murderers Among Us: Wolfgang Staudte

I almost hesitate to review Murderers Among Us, as it is impossible to view it critically outside of its historical context.  Wolfgang Staudt's film was one of the very first German films to be made after the end of World War Two.  Made under the watchful eye of Soviet censors, it deals with a soldier and a concentration camp survivor trying to survive in the ruins of Berlin.  The soldier obviously suffers from PTSD and drowns his psychosis in alcohol.  Then he discovers that his old army captain, a man who once ordered the execution of 36 men, 54 women, and 31 children in a Polish village on Christmas, has returned from the war and is a successful industrialist.  Unable to decide what to do, he tries to kill him.  Fortunately the young woman stops him at the last second and they decide to turn him over to the police.  As I said, it is impossible to consider this film outside of its historical context.  It was one of the first German films to address their nation's terrible past and the crimes committed in the name of the Third Reich.  But there are a few glaring idiosyncrasies that make this film more fit for historical, not critical, analysis.  For instance, the young woman supposedly survived three years in a concentration camp.  Yet she returns to Berlin beautiful, well-fed, and optimistic.  The Germans obviously knew about the concentration camps as there is a scene where a newspaper reports that 2 million had been gassed at Auschwitz.  Yet they depict her as if the concentration camp was a safer place to be than wartime Berlin.  Also, the obvious pandering to Soviet censors through the condemnation of industrialism and organized religion are noticeable.  Still, the film remains well shot and emotional, even if it feels occasionally out-of-place and contrived.

7/10

Phantasm: Don Coscarelli

Phantasm's plot sounds like a young boy's wet dream: alien zombies from another dimension invade earth, steal corpses, and turn the freshly deceased into undead dwarfs so they can be used as slave labor on their planet.  I am not making a word of that up.  The film has gone on to be viewed as a classic of 70s independent horror.  And man...does it FEEL like an independent horror film.  One of the obvious challenges of the independent film-maker is the acquisition of decent amateur actors.  Director Don Coscarelli failed spectacularly on this account.  Not a single character (except for the film's bogeyman referred to as "The Thin Man") gives a convincing performance.  Everyone in this film acts like they are on Quaaludes.  They accept the fact that not only are there dimension-skipping aliens, but that they are literally making an army of the undead, the same way they would if they walked into a room that smelled slightly bad.  Not to mention that the central characters (a pair of recently orphaned brothers) make no attempt to alert the authorities, or any other people except the local ice cream man, of the invasion!  Not to mention that the film seems to have been shot without the use of artificial lighting.  Folks, if you ever direct a film where the night-time scenes make day-for-night shots look good, you should quit the industry IMMEDIATELY.  Phantasm would go on to spawn three sequels.  This begs the question of why.  What else could the director possibly say about this story and its characters?  I'll probably never know, because I'm going to stay the hell away from them.

5/10

Design for Living: Ernst Lubitsch

Here's a film that I firmly believe wouldn't have been popular or memorable if not for the risque plot and central character dynamic.  Quite simply, it is about a trio of Americans who initiate a ménage-à-trois in France.  The two men, one an artist and the other a playwright, are smitten by Gilda, a young woman who works for an advertising executive.  She can't decide between the two of them, so she chooses to live with both.  She then gleefully bounces from one bed to the other, oblivious to how her affairs torture the two of them.  This was a film by the legendary Ernst Lubitsch.  But with the exception of a few scenes, it feels absent of the infamous "Lubitsch touch."  It feels dry, formulaic, and contrived.  Not to mention that by the end, we aren't cheering for the three of them, but for the two men to leave Gilda.

6/10

Deep Red: Dario Argento

I usually take offense when people dismiss Dario Argento's work as simple slasher fodder.  He worked within the slasher and horror genre, to be sure.  But he used the genre as a springboard to create stunning stories of suspense, mystery, and carnage.  Deep Red is one such film.  It involves an investigation over a series of axe murders that all seem to stem from the killing of a psychic medium.  Music teacher Marcus Daly becomes involved in the investigation.  Just like in many Argento films, by trying to help, he accidentally leads to the murder of several other people.  I've always felt that Argento deserved the kind of exploration and examination usually afforded to directors like Hitchcock.  His films always seem to have a certain series of tropes and plot devices.  His films are usually sinister and pessimistic in nature.  And yet, Argento's films are always thrilling to watch.  He had an eye for color and composition that stuns audiences to this day.  Even if his films are occasionally difficult to follow and understand (like Deep Red, for example), they are never boring or tedious.  And much like how Marcus Daly finds a disturbing secret sealed up behind a particular wall, Argento's films mask unbelievable discoveries for those willing enough to look for them.

7/10

Witchfinder General: Michael Reeves

One of the most famous characteristics of the legendary Vincent Price was his ability to combine horror with high camp in his performances.  However, upon occasion Price would drop the pretense of camp and deliver performances that were genuinely chilling and disturbing.  One of the most famous examples was Michael Reeves Witchfinder General.  A heavily fictionalized account of the life of Matthew Hopkins, one of 17th century Great Britain's most famous and deadly witch-hunters, Witchfinder General is not standard Vincent Price fare.  There is no laughter in his eyes, no coy smile shining through the screen towards the audience.  Price is a true monster.  The film follows Matthew Hopkins as he traverses the English countryside, randomly accusing and executing people for witchcraft.  He eventually draws the hatred and vengeance of a Roundhead soldier, a supporter of the Parliament during the English Civil War, after raping his bride-to-be.  The film technically follows the Roundhead and his wife, but Vincent Price steals the show.  It's a shame that Prince didn't do more serious dramatic work...Witchfinder General proves that there was sincere, yet terrifying, talent behind the king of pulp.

8/10

Once: John Carney

Some films take your breath away mere minutes after they begin.  A magical hush descends as you become entranced by what's occurring on the screen.  Once is one of these films.  Literally within a few minutes of the film beginning, I was astounded.  Shot in 17 days on only $160,000, Once is a miracle of low-budget filmmaking.  It follows two unnamed musicians, the Man and the Woman, who meet on the streets of Dublin, fall in and out of love, and make some of the sweetest music to ever grace the cinema.  The songs, including the Academy Award winning Falling Slowly, seem so real, so natural, that they leave you dumbfounded.  There are only a handful of films that I believe realistically portray actual love.  Fassbinder's Ali: Fear Eats the Soul and A Year of the Quiet Sun come to mind as examples.  Now another movie joins them...a film as simple as a melody and as magnificent as the sweetest harmony.

9/10

High Tension: Alexandre Aja

In Spike Jonze's Adaptation, one of the running jokes is that one of the most overused and abused plot twists in all of moviedom is the revelation that the hero and villain are one and the same person.  Director Alexandre Aja must have never seen that film.  If he had, then he might have not made it the central twist of his film High Tension.  Oh...I'm sorry...did I spoil the film for you?  Good.  I'm glad that I did.  Nobody should be forced to watch this abysmal film.  It's a poorly shot, horribly written, and terribly executed slasher film that makes no sense whatsoever.  It features two young women who drive to a house in the country to stay with their relatives.  Once they arrive, a serial killer shows up, murders the entire family, and takes the two women hostage.  Of course, it's later revealed that one of the young women is the killer because she is in love with the other one.  So...is Aja trying to equate lesbianism with homicidal psychopathy?  I dunno.  The bottom line of this movie is that the plot twist doesn't make sense.  Films that use the split personality plot twist successfully (like Fight Club) do so by dropping subtle hints that make the revelation make sense.  These films reward repeated viewings as the audience can then pick up the clues that two characters are one in the same.  High Tension does not.  The plot twist is so contrived that it breaks an already shoddy film.  So now that I've spoiled the film, you have no excuse to sit through this train wreck.  Go watch a good movie instead.

2/10

Bad Taste: Peter Jackson

Years before Peter Jackson stunned the world with the Lord of the Rings trilogy, he made a name for himself as an exploitation/gore director.  His most notorious and famous film from this period was Braindead, a film which is literally considered to be one of the goriest ever made.  But before he was slicing up waves of the undead with a lawnmower in Braindead, he directed Bad Taste.  The film more than lives up to its title.  Made for $255,000 and starring his friends and film crew as characters (Jackson himself played two different roles), it is a nauseating romp of aliens, blood, and brain matter.  Quite simply, aliens invade New Zealand in order to harvest humans for an intergalactic fast food chain.  The Astro Investigation and Defence Service (AIDS) sends a whopping four agents to investigate the disappearance of an entire town after these invaders arrive.  From there, the film descends into a smorgasbord of childish violence and carnage.  I remember as a young boy I used to make movies with my friends with an old VHS camcorder that my parents owned.  Bad Taste plays like one of these movies, only shot on better film stock and with grown men instead of children.  It's sophomoric, poorly acted, gross, vile, and disturbing.  And I loved it.

5/10 (Official Critical Rating)
8/10 (So-Bad-It's-Good Rating)

Once Upon a Time in China: Tsui Hark

While watching Tsui Hark's Once Upon a Time in China, I jokingly tweeted: "Wow...'Once Upon a Time in China' is a fantastic film! Great martial arts with just a touch of delightful racism and xenophobia. Good stuff."  Having finished the film, I feel a bit embarrassed by my little joke.  Not about my comment concerning the martial arts, mind you.  The martial arts and fight choreography is exactly what fans of Tsui Hark's work have come to expect.  It's the part about the racism and xenophobia that gives me pause.  The film is about Wong Fei-hung, a Chinese cultural hero who was both a doctor and a skilled martial artist who fought back against foreign invaders at the start of the 20th century.  The film's plot is simple: foreigners (of British and American origin) have begun to show up in Foshan, a city in southern China.  Wong Fei-hung, along with an eclectic group of followers, must stop a sinister plot by foreigners wherein they capture Chinese women and sell them as prostitutes in America.  Oh, sure, there are subplots concerning a pretty woman and gangs of Chinese criminals who work for the foreigners.  But at it's core, Once Upon a Time in China is a story of us vs. them, of China vs. outsiders.  At first, this may seem disconcerting.  But pay attention.  Yes, foreigners are depicted as bad guys.  But as a history major who extensively studied Chinese history, I can say that their crimes have historical basis.  I mean, we have no problem depicting Japanese, Vietnamese, and Germans as the villains in our various war films.  Why should we expect anything different from Chinese cinema?  But notice how the characters come to the conclusion that the West does have things to offer, that China can benefit from peaceful trade and cultural friendship with outsiders.  It is a remarkably fair film in this regard.  As a martial arts film, it's phenomenal.  As a piece of cultural anthropology, it's crucial to understanding China's evolving views towards foreigners and the outside world at the turn of the 21st century.

8/10

Dead of Night: Alberto Cavalcanti, Charles Crichton, Basil Dearden, and Robert Hamer.

One of the rites of passage for young boys is the legendary campfire story time.  Gathered at a fire in the middle of the woods, they would scare each other with the most terrifying stories that they could muster.  Dead of Night recalls such gatherings by presenting a portmanteau of chillings stories.  They are linked by a overarching story of a man who travels to a country house for a party.  Once there, he realizes that all of the guests have previously appeared in his nightmares.  Fascinated, the guests ask him to recall his ghastly night visions.  These stories range from the comical (a pair of golf loving best friends can't be separated, even by death, from their favorite game) to the horrific (a ventriloquist's dummy takes on an apparent life of its own).  Each of these stories shift drastically in tone and style, mostly due to the film's use of different directors for each segment.  Therefore, the overall film feels disjointed.  But it's a delightful piece of early horror and well worth the watch by scary movie aficionados.

7/10

Theatre of Blood: Douglas Hickox

Theatre of Blood is in many ways a remake of the earlier film The Abominable Dr. Phibes.  Both are about artists, one an organist, the other an actor, who suffer some great tragedy in their lives.  Both go about avenging themselves by murdering the people they see as their perpetrators in creative and unusual ways.  In The Abominable Dr. Phibes, the organist kills off a series of doctors and surgeons who failed to save the life of his wife after a terrible car accident using methods based off the Ten Plagues of Egypt.  In Theatre of Blood, an actor kills off a number of critics who trashed him in reviews and refused to give him an actor of the year award using techniques taken from various Shakespearean plays.  Oh...and of course, both films have Vincent Price playing the lead role.  Vincent Price was the absolute best at what he did: cruel, over-the-top, and slightly campy horror.  Watching him in Theatre of Blood is a delight.  The writers must be given credit for their incredible inventiveness in devising ways to kill of Price's victims.  The film is a fresh, exciting piece of macabre horror.

8/10

The Green Room: François Truffaut

The Green Room is one of François Truffaut's darkest and most tragic films.  It follows Julien Davenne, a journalist who served 11 years ago as an artillery operator in World War One.  A year after he returned from the Great War, his wife died.  Having lost so many friends and loved ones in such a small amount of time, he becomes obsessed with death.  He keeps all of his dead wife's mementos in a small green room in his house.  However, after the room accidentally catches fire, he moves them all into a renovated chapel.  He transforms the small room into a shrine for the dead.  Julien Davenne is a tragic figure who is so obsessed with death that he is unable to truly live.  He is so concerned with those who have died that he can't appreciate those around him, such as Cecilia Mandel, a like-minded auctioneer's assistant.  But much like Julien Davenne, the film itself seems devoid of life.  There is a certain coldness and sterility to the sets and acting that it seems as pale as a freshly deceased corpse.  The Green Room is a bleak film bereft of the charm that infects Truffaut's other works and makes them so endearing.

6/10

Messiah of Evil: Willard Huyck, Gloria Katz

Sometimes, a low budget look and feel can propel a horror film to great heights.  After all, would The Texas Chainsaw Massacre be the masterpiece that it is now if it had a larger budget and cleaner sets?  Of course not.  But the low-budget approach doesn't always help a film.  Sometimes, it can hurt it.  Take Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz's Messiah of Evil, for example.  It relies heavily on its low budget and cheap production values to create an atmosphere of dread.  However, it fails to do so.  It is the story of a young woman who goes to a strange town to investigate the disappearance of her father.  There, she discovers that the townsfolk are under the spell of an undead member of the Donner Party which turns them into zombie/vampire hybrids at night.  The film claims that it has a dream-like quality to it.  But I think that they're using that excuse to cover up its poor pacing, shoddy framing, and occasionally indistinguishable audio.  There are a couple of interesting scenes, particularly one where a woman is attacked and killed by a mob of zombie/vampires in a movie theater.  It is heavily reminiscent of the schoolyard attack scene from Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.  But it isn't enough to save this mess of a film.

3/10

The Driller Killer: Abel Ferrara

Abel Ferrara's The Driller Killer is a noisy, ugly, chaotic film that grates on the sensibilities like jagged sandpaper.  It is filmed on cheap, 16mm film stock and utilizes horrible actors and non-existent lighting.  And yet...there is something compelling about this film.  I have heard it described as a slasher version of Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver.  Both films feature protagonists who lash out at society after being systematically isolated from it.  In The Driller Killer, Reno Miller (played by Abel Ferrara), is a struggling artist on the brink of sanity.  His girlfriend cheats on him with a lesbian lover who has the audacity to live with them, a noisy no-wave band has moved in on the floor above him and won't shut up, and he has no money for rent.  He desperately struggles to finish his latest painting so he can pay the bills.  But the city proves too much for him.  So he strikes back by going on a killing spree, murdering random hobos in the street with a power drill.  As I said...it's not a well made film from a technical standpoint.  But The Driller Killer has a strange energy about it.  Ferrara knows how to twist a film around so that it feels like he is trying to say something profound and meaningful even when he is murdering innocent bystanders with a power tool.  Ferrara would go on to make more mainstream films, including the sensational Bad Lieutenant and The King of New York.  But this is where it all started.  This is where the legend began...not with a bang...but with the terrible drone of a drill bit.

6/10

Fallen Angel: Otto Preminger

One year after releasing Laura, a film that is universally considered to be one of the all-time greatest film noir in history, Otto Preminger directed Fallen Angel.  It attempts to recapture the harsh bite that made Laura such a vicious and effective film, yet falls short.  It follows Eric Stanton, a drifter down to his last dollar who falls in love with a small town waitress named Stella.  Stella is a cruel, yet seductive woman refuses Eric's advances on the grounds that he is too poor.  So Eric marries a local spinster named June who has a small fortune.  He intends to steal her money and quickly divorce her so he can have the money needed to woo Stella.  At least, that was the plan until Stella is murdered one night.  Now a prime suspect in a murder that he didn't commit, he has to clear his name and prove that he didn't marry June for the money.  Things would be so much easier if June wasn't totally head over heels for him...Every now and then we see the inklings of a great noir screenplay pop up only to wither away as the film progresses.  It could use more energy and a greater sense of urgency.  Instead, we have a mediocre follow-up to a 5-star classic.

6/10

Childhood Days: Masahiro Shinoda

To escape the bombs of World War Two, Tokyo native Shinji Kazama is sent to the countryside by his parents to live with his relatives.  Shinji is a smart, sensitive boy who has a large collection of books that he cherishes.  He soon meets Takeshi, his cousin.  While initially friendly and loving, he soon transforms into a nightmarish bully at school.  Armed with a close gang of followers, Takeshi rules the schoolyard with an iron fist.  But slowly, Takeshi loses his authority and becomes the victim of an even crueler young boy.  All the while, Shinji looks on, caught in the middle.  Childhood Days is the second to last film by legendary director Masahiro Shinoda.  It rightly depicts how elementary schoolyard politics are more important to young children than even the guns and dangers of war.  Buried somewhere in this film is a subtext on World War Two and the American Occupation.  I know it's in here...most, if not all, films set in this period are.  My guess is that Takeshi represents the Japanese Imperial Government while his usurper represents the American Occupation.  How curious, then, that Takeshi is so lovingly depicted after his fall.  Perhaps it is a commentary on Japan losing its own sovereignty to foreign powers.  Or maybe, it's something even more simple: just a tale of schoolkids and long lost childhood days.

8/10

Near Dark: Kathryn Bigelow

Honestly, I'm getting tired of vampire movies.  Hollywood has been bombarding the world with so many lately that it's easy to forget that they used to be the subjects of good movies.  One of these is Kathryn Bigelow's Near Dark.  The film makes the brave effort to combine two completely different genres: the Western and the vampire film.  And surprisingly, Bigelow does a decent job pulling it off.  It all starts when a young cowboy falls in love with a strange woman who turns him into a vampire.  He becomes part of her "family" of vampires.  But he just wants to go back to his family.  This isn't just a film that disguises teenage sexuality with a pair of vampire fangs. It explores honest questions about the nature and value of families.  It examines the HUGE moral conundrum of having to kill every night in order for vampires to survive.  Most films devote a scene or two to the issue.  But Bigelow focuses a long time on it...as well she should have.  Near Dark is a satisfying film.  It isn't quite a Western.  It isn't quite a horror film.  It finds a nice sweet spot somewhere in the middle.

7/10

I Spit on Your Grave: Meir Zarchi

I don't understand the appeal of this film.  It's basically nothing more than a 101 minute stag real of rape, torture, and murder.  I can stomach offensive material...when it's a means to an end.  I Spit on Your Grave exists for two reasons.  First, it exists to abuse and show off the naked body of its star Camille Keaton (and yes...she is related to THAT Keaton).  Second, it exists to depict the most graphic and sickening death scenes imaginable as she extracts her revenge on the men who raped and left her for dead.  Unlike some other exploitation films, I can't fault it for its production values.  It's decently shot and manages some good performances.  It just feels unnecessary.  Was this really a story that needed to be told?  Was there a market for this kind of film?  I guess...after all, it got a professional Hollywood remake.  Buster's rollin' over in his grave.

2/10