The Glory Stompers: Anthony M. Lanza

The Glory Stompers was one of a multitude of biker gang films that were produced during the 60s. It pays small attention to the actual plot and instead spends most of its time focusing on the antics and culture of the bikers. It all begins when one biker gang led by none other than Dennis Hopper attacks the leader of a rival gang. They rough him up a little too much and believe that they actually killed him. So they steal his girlfriend, the only witness, and take her on a long road trip towards Mexico where they intend to sell her. As you can probably guess, the biker that they attacked survived the assault. Upon realizing that they had taken his "old lady" he sets off after them. Like I said, there really isn't much to this film. A large portion of it focuses on them partying or getting into trouble with the law. If you squeezed all the actual plot in this film together, you'd only end up with 20-30 minutes of footage. But as a biker movie, it's okay. It's highly kinetic filming and editing keep the audience's attention. Dennis Hopper really phones in his performance, however. But this is a film about a lifestyle, not a particular individual. And, hey, the soundtrack is pretty awesome, too.

6/10

The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert: Stephan Elliott

One of the key reasons why Stephan Elliott's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert works is that it is life-affirming on a basic, primordial level so that even people who don't participate in the lifestyle promoted by the central characters can appreciate it. The film follows two drag queens and a transsexual woman who travel in a beat-up tour bus christened "Priscilla" as they travel to a remote casino in the Australian Outback in order to perform a drag act. Along the way, they meet a colorful assortment of characters, from a group of guitar playing Aborigines to a town of violent homophobic racists. The incredible thing about this film is that we identify with the three characters. These are three human beings who overcome great trials and odds to reach a goal. The fact that they're drag queens doesn't really matter. True, it celebrates the transsexual lifestyle in all its multicolored, flamboyant beauty. But at the end of the day, these are just three ordinary people who want something more out of life. There's an amazing scene where the three characters decided to climb Kings Canyon in complete drag regalia. Their climb and conquering of the canyon is a moment of triumph...not just for them, but for every human being who has ever faced adversity in their lives.

9/10

The Angry Red Planet: Ib Melchior

The Angry Red Planet was made in a more innocent time. It was a time when rockets to other planets could land standing up like they were ready for launch. It was a time when we honestly believed that mars was full of life and terrifying creatures. And most importantly, it was a time when writers and film-makers weren't afraid to tell far fetched, crazy tales of sci-fi horror and terror. The Angry Red Planet is a thoroughly preposterous tale about a group of scientists who travel to Mars for the first time and discover that the Red Planet is full of the aforementioned terrifying creatures that lurk in such films. Director Ib Melchior used the CineMagic technique to make all of the exterior shots on Mars look bright red. This effect, while hokey and campy, allowed for them to insert animated footage of magnificent monsters without making it obvious that they weren't live action creatures. The film drags on like many sci-fi movies of the era with too much time spent in the cockpit of the space ship and in the control rooms of Earth. But it's still a fascinating little piece of 50s sci-fi.

6/10

The Return of the Living Dead: Dan O'Bannon

Imagine, if you will, a world where the film Night of the Living Dead was based on a true story. Only in this world, the zombie apocalypse was stopped and contained. Then imagine if these zombies and the chemicals that revived them were accidentally transported to the wrong address. And then, finally, imagine if a pair of knuckleheads unleashed the chemicals again, effectively restarting the zombie apocalypse. That is the world where The Return of the Living Dead occurs. In this wildly entertaining and over-the-top film, zombies are real, they hunger for brains (not just living flesh), and they are conscious and semi-intelligent. After a duo of workers unleash the chemicals that reanimate dead tissue, an army of the undead starts to take over Louisville, Kentucky. This film lovingly spoofs and expands upon the zombies that originated in George A. Romero's work. It is complete with over-the-top gore, zombie strippers, and a kicking punk rock soundtrack. It finally answers the question concerning why zombies hunger for human flesh (and brains): it temporarily relieves the pain of being dead. Apparently, being dead hurts. A lot. My recommendation? Watch this movie with a group of friends. It's well worth it.

8/10

Drugstore Cowboy: Gus Van Sant

Gus Van Sant's Drugstore Cowboy is equal parts a road movie and a drug film. It's characters are a roving "family" of drug addicts who migrate around the Pacific Northwest looking for pharmacies and hospitals to rob. It's a hard life. Sometimes they score big, stealing a rare drug that they can sell for extra money. Sometimes they steal nothing more powerful than extra-strength Tylenol. It's leader, Bob Hughes, is a highly methodological and superstitious man. When one of their members overdoses, he is so scared that he decides to go straight. He enters a methadone program, gets a factory job, and even throws away "gifts" that his old "family" send him in brown paper bags. But when you spend your life pumping chemicals into your veins, sooner or later it'll catch up with you. Drugstore Cowboy is remarkable in its realistic portrayal of drug addiction and in its refusal to judge its characters. It depicts the consequences of the lifestyle, but doesn't condemn it. This is not a film about drugs. It is about the people who form lives around them. The tragedy is that when someone finally tries to walk away, they can't help but either go in a large circle until they're right back where they started or careen off the side of a cliff.

8/10

Twitch of the Death Nerve: Mario Bava

I'm actually a little disappointed that Mario Bava's Twitch of the Death Nerve is a horror film. You could have taken the exact same script and turned it into a legendary black comedy along the lines of Kind Hearts and Coronets. The film follows a group of people who struggle for ownership of a lavish bayside mansion after its owner dies (read: is murdered). With the owner out of the way, forgotten relatives and businessmen come out of the woodwork to try and get their hands on the valuable estate. How do they decide who gets the property? Why, through murder, of course! Each person conspires to murder the others in this gory giallo. It's a race against time to see who is the last man, or woman, standing. Oh, and there is an obligatory group of rowdy college students who stumble across the property and are dispatched in the most gruesome manner imaginable. What purpose do they serve to the plot? Absolutely nothing. Like I said, I'm disappointed that this is a horror film. By taking itself seriously, it dooms itself to tired mediocrity. This film needs a remake. I'd suggest the Coen Brothers.

5/10

Berlin, Schoenhauser Corner: Gerhard Klein

Gerhard Klein's Berlin, Schoenhauser Corner is an East German film released in 1957 during the Kruschev Thaw which resulted in decreased censorship and repression for a brief period of time. One year after its release, there would be a massive clampdown in the Soviet Union and its satellite states with the intention of purging Western influences from society, entertainment, and culture. Therefore, Berlin, Schoenhauser Corner is a remarkable film that manages to depict life in the GDR in the 50s with some honesty. The film focuses on one of the most prevalent problems facing the newly formed GDR: the identity crisis facing the post-war youth. The film follows four teenagers as they drift about searching for a purpose in life. They spend their time going to movies, loitering, and committing petty acts of vandalism. The four are constantly in trouble with the police. Finally, in an effort to make some extra money, one of them, a young man named Karl-Heinz, steals an ID and smuggles himself into West Germany. While there, he participates in a robbery where he accidentally kills a man. When he returns to the GDR, the lives of his friends are thrown into turmoil when he threatens them with a gun after they try and interrogate him. Berlin, Schoenhauser Corner is one of the most important films in German history. It is a fascinating look into a culture struggling for a purpose and meaning.

7/10

Mad Detective: Johnnie To, Wai Ka-Fai

When the credits rolled for Jonnie To and Wai Ka-Fai's Mad Detective, I scratched my head, unsure of what had just happened. Oh, I understood the general gist of it. A brilliant schizophrenic cop named Chan Kwai-Bun who has the power to see people's inner personalities is brought in on a case of a missing in action cop. Of course, Bun had been previously fired for cutting off his ear as a present for his retiring boss. Bun is followed by a spectre of his divorced wife who acts as his guide and psuedo-conscience. But his real divorced wife also joins in the case along with the seven split personalities of the missing cop who torment him and the inner child of his partner and holy crap all of this is confusing. This film feels like if Park Chan-wook lost his mind and tried to make a Darren Aronofsky-esque crime thriller. But really, the film that kept coming to mind while watching this film was The Big Sleep, a classic film noir that also made absolutely no sense. Folks...I simply didn't understand the plot to Mad Detective. After I finished it, I read its wikipedia entry several times and I still couldn't figure out what had happened. This begs the question: is it my fault for not understanding it or is it the film-makers? I'll give the directors the benefit of the doubt.

6/10

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: Joseph Sargent

The true inspired genius behind Joseph Sargent's The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is that it is just as much about the city of New York as it is about the central heist. The story reads like an average hold-up: a group of four disguised gunman commandeer a New York subway car and demand one million dollars in cash in one hour. Every minute after that hour, they will kill one passenger. But forget about the heist. The city and its people are the true stars. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three exists in the same New York as Martin Scorsese's early work: a rough, tough town that is overworked, fatigued, cranky, and crime-ridden. The subway hostages scream and yell in different languages, black cops sarcastically joke that in the subway tunnels nobody can see them, all of the subway workers and officers are overweight and balding, and even at high noon it looks and feels dreary, bleak, and grey. The process of watching the authorities collect and transport the money to the subway car is fascinating and troubling, as I'm almost positive that it happens in real time, give or take a minute or two. The Taking of Pelham One Two Three is the kind of movie that I love: a product of its environment and time period. This film is a time capsule to the chaotic 70s when New York was a battlefield and the subways were the trenches.

8/10

The Street Fighter: Shigehiro Ozawa

The biggest mistake that you can make while watching Shigehiro Ozawa's The Street Fighter is to assume that the protagonist, Takuma Tsurugi (played by the legendary Sonny Chiba), is a good guy. He is not. The film opens with him breaking a death row convict out of prison. He does so after being hired by the man's brother and sister. When they ask for more time to pay for his services, he kills the brother and sells the sister into sexual slavery. Takuma Tsurugi is not a nice guy. But then again, this isn't a nice film. The Street Fighter is a brutally violent, nihilistic martial arts film. Takuma Tsurugi is hunted by the yakuza after refusing to kidnap the daughter of a recently deceased oil tycoon for ransom. For some unexplained reason this sociopathic criminal decides to protect the daughter. Unfortunately, the yakuza retaliates by sending the escaped death row inmate from the beginning of the film after Takuma Tsurugi after showing him what he did to his sister. Really, all of the troubles that befall Takuma Tsurugi in The Street Fighter are his own fault, so it's hard to cheer for him. I have no interest in watching people fight each other if there isn't some kind of dramatic weight behind it. The Street Fighter just devises ways for Sonny Chiba to brutally beat up random fighters. Is the story compelling? No. Therefore, the action, while well choreographed, is not interesting. And when you're a martial arts movie with uninteresting fighting, then you profane your own existence.

5/10

Ivan the Terrible: Part Two: Sergei Eisenstein

Although initially completed in 1946, Sergei Eisenstein's Ivan the Terrible: Part Two wouldn't be released until 1958, ten full years after his death. The reason was that the film was considered inappropriate by state authorities and film censors upon its initial completion. But thankfully due to modern releases of the film, it is possible to view both episodes of Sergei Eisenstein's last cinematic production in the same sitting. Indeed, I watched both films in a single three hour marathon. Upon completing them, I have come to the conclusion that Part Two, while still a transcendent piece of film-making, is inherently inferior to its predecessor. Part Two follows Ivan IV's return to power after his initial abdication at the end of Part One. The film takes place almost exclusively inside palaces, throne rooms, and hallways, thereby transforming it from a historical epic (like the first film which included battle scenes against the khanate of Kazan), into a period drama. I can summarize Part Two in a sentence: Ivan IV consolidates his power against the boyars and thwarts another one of their assassination attempts. The same carefully calculated cinematography, framing, and choreography from Part One is present here. However, it grows tiring and difficult to watch after the first 30 minutes when it becomes obvious that Eisenstein is simply repeating the techniques used in Part One. Eisenstein was nothing if not a pioneer and constant innovator of the cinematic paradigm. If one watches his films chronologically, his techniques and methods can be traced as they expand and develop. But in Part Two Eisenstein is merely treading water. While a magnificent film in its own right, one wonders if Part Two is the coda that a career like Eisenstein's deserved.

8/10

Ivan the Terrible: Part One: Sergei Eisenstein

Sergei Eisenstein is quite literally one of the most important directors who ever lived. His films The Battleship Potemkin and October: Ten Days that Shook the World are two of the most important and influential in film history. After many years, Eisenstein wanted to conclude his distinguished career with a trilogy of films about Tsar Ivan IV, or Ivan the Terrible. The first Tsar of all Russia, Ivan greatly expanded Russia's borders and transformed it from a medieval state to a genuine European empire. By the end of World War Two, the parallels between Joseph Stalin and Ivan IV must have been too great for Eisenstein to resist. He only managed to make the first two films in his trilogy, however. Yet the two films mark a stunning conclusion to one of the cinema's greatest titans. Ivan the Terrible: Part One follows Ivan's initial coronation as the Tsar of all Russia. It then proceeds to document how he conquered the khanate of Kazan, survived an assassination attempt by the boyars (Russian aristocrats), and eventually abdicated his rule and left Moscow. I haven't seen such painstaking attention to detail inside a film since the hey-day of Stanley Kubrick. Indeed, I wonder if Kubrick's meticulousness was partially inspired by these films. Every single shot could double as a still life or painting. The actors don't seem to act as much as move from one shot and dramatic pose to the next. This method of acting and filming can try the patience of modern film-goers. Nevertheless, Ivan the Terrible: Part One is a hypnotic and mesmerizing look into the life of one of Russia's greatest rulers.

9/10

Eyeborgs: Richard Clabaugh

I can't in good conscience call Richard Clabaugh's Eyeborgs a good film. But I also can't call it a bad one. After watching it, I fully believe that Richard Clabaugh has always dreamed of making movies and saw this film as his big chance to break into the main stream. However, I feel that he bit off more than he could chew. Eyeborgs is an action/sci-fi/conspiracy/thriller about a future where Americans have traded in their basic freedoms for security. The government keeps its citizens under constant, 24 hour surveillance through the use of tiny robot cameras called Eyeborgs. The Eyeborgs all connect into O.D.I.N., a massive government mainframe that "protects the American people from crime and terrorism." Uh-huh. I think you know where this is going. The problem is, I'm not sure that Clabaugh knew. Of course the Eyeborgs and O.D.I.N. go rogue and start taking over the world. But the film never addresses why. There are hints and murmurs about terrorists taking over O.D.I.N., but it is never given much consideration. How did this technology become evil? Did it gain sentience? Is it being controlled by a resistance group? This is a basic question that never gets answered. Also, the film exclusively uses CGI for the robots and Eyeborgs. Considering that it tries to emulate The Terminator franchise at the end with a massive shoot-out between fleshy humans and steely robots, Clabaugh did the best with the technology that he had available to him. The film was made for an estimated $3.7 million, which in today's age still counts as low-budget. Clabaugh tried to make every cent of his budget count. I feel bad for Clabaugh...the man has big dreams. Hopefully this will be the first step towards a brighter future. After all...not every director gets it right the first time.

5/10

The Untold Story: Herman Yau

There's a scene in Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance where a group of parents watch video recordings of a madman killing their children. It's a horrific and disturbing scene, but it plays a vital part to the story. It fits the entire tone of the film: a moody revenge thriller. The film is strengthened by this scene. Herman Yau's The Untold Story also has a scene where young children are brutally murdered. Except in this film, it is offensive and despicable. Let me explain. The Untold Story is about a psychopath who runs a restaurant where he periodically kills his employees and uses their bodies to make barbeque pork dumplings. The problem with this story is that the first third of the film follows the cops investigating the murders. And these scenes are played as a black comedy. The cops fart around, insult each other, make sexist jokes towards their only female co-worker, etc, etc. And then the film suddenly changes its mind about what it wants to be. So we are then treated to scenes where he violently rapes a woman and kills her through vaginal mutilation. By the end of the film we learn that he gained the restaurant after killing the previous owner's family over a game of mah jong. And this is where the child killing comes in. We see five small children brutally decapitated, chopped up into pieces, and thrown into the garbage. And they show all of this in lurid detail. I have no problem with films being offensively violent...as long as there is a purpose behind it. But The Untold Story shows such despicable scenes because it honestly believes that such things are fun and entertaining. So that's why I'm giving this film a zero out of ten. From a technical standpoint, it's a well made film with an amazing central performance by Wong Chi Hang as the killer. But I protest to its belief that child killing is fun and entertaining. Herman Yau isn't trying to make a political or sociological statement, he isn't trying to make a piece of fine (or campy) art, he isn't trying to be overly dramatic. Herman Yau simply thinks that brutalizing young children makes for good entertainment. And that, my friends, is something that I can't support.

0/10

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