THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #20: I, MONSTER (1973) ** ½

(Streamed via Free Movie Channel Retro)

Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing star in this loose adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde from Amicus.  Lee stars as “Dr. Marlowe” who believes in the duality of man and sets out to create a potion that can separate the evil side from the good.  Eventually, he tries the formula on himself and becomes the evil “Mr. Blake”.  

I’m not sure why they changed the names of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde to Dr. Marlowe and Mr. Blake.  It’s not like this was Dragnet where they have to change the names to protect the innocent.  Weird. 

An interesting deviation to the source material is the fact that Hyde… err… Blake uses his formula on his psychiatric patients first.  It’s kind of funny seeing a prim and proper patient turn into a horny harlot.  We also get a genuinely unnerving scene where Blake on a whim sticks his cat with the potion, which turns out to be a bad idea, resulting in what is probably the screen’s fastest aborted lab experiment ever.  Lee gets into a nifty knife fight in the street with a young punk too.  

Lee’s make-up is rather subtle as his appearance gets a little more ragged and disheveled as the movie progresses.  He’s mostly aided by a set of false teeth that crooks his mouth into a permanent malicious grin.  He also widens his eyeballs a lot, much like he did when he played Dracula.  The results are moderately effective.  Lee naturally gets a decent lap dissolve transformation scene at the very end.  

The film is at its best in the first half, which finds Lee experimenting on himself and others.  It’s noticeably less involving once the focus shifts to Peter Cushing investigating the various crimes committed by Lee.  Director Stephen (Sword of the Valiant) Weeks doesn’t bring a lot of urgency to the proceedings, which also hurts it in the late going.  The finale is weak and lacks the punch of the set-up.  Because it ends on a whimper instead of a bang, I hesitate to give I, Monster a full-fledged recommendation, but there’s enough bright spots here to make it worth a look for fans of Lee and Cushing.

MEMPHIS CATHOUSE BLUES (1982) **

Memphis Cathouse Blues is basically the porno version of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas.  (Minus the singing, of course.)  It’s a rather star-studded affair too, featuring many of the adult industry’s biggest names of the ‘70s and ‘80s.  While the highlights are few and far between, it makes for an OK vintage smut fest.  

A preacher (Paul Ross) wants to shut down a house of ill repute that has a long history of showing  customers their brand of southern hospitality.  (AKA:  They fuck them.)  Annette Haven is the madam of the house who takes in a young border (Danielle) who was assaulted by a mysterious man on the road.  Eventually, she agrees to taking a job as a lady of the evening in the establishment.  Things end predictably enough as all the plot threads (all two of them) are wrapped up in a convenient fashion.  That is to say, everybody gets a happy ending.    

The plot doesn’t matter a whole lot if the sex scenes are strong.  As it stands, it’s a pretty uneven affair.  Things kick off with a flashback to the Civil War with Haven’s grandmother (Rhonda Jo Petty) servicing a Confederate soldier who bangs her with a candle.  Then we have a scene where Haven gets it on with the sheriff, played by Mike Horner (who even sports a Burt Reynolds-style mustache).  There’s also a mini-orgy sequence involving the talents of Kay Parker and Dorothy LeMay.  About halfway through, the movie forgets about the plot as the middle section is almost exclusively devoted to the prostitutes having flashbacks to various rendezvous with their most cherished customers.  Unfortunately, Parker’s scene is undone by some indifferent lighting that pretty much bathes the important details (READ:  Genitals) in darkness.

The standout sequence is when Haven shows Danielle the ropes of being a prostitute as she teaches her to pleasure Horner’s rod.  While most of the other scenes in the film are rather standard issue, this one boasts a solid set-up, a nice rapport between the performers, and a fun, playful vibe.  If there was another sequence or two of this caliber, Memphis Cathouse Blues could’ve been red hot. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #19: BLOOD STALKERS (1976) * ½

(Streamed via Free Flix Tonight)

Mike (Jerry Albert) and his friends go to stay at his family’s cabin deep in the Florida Everglades.  They are warned by an old coot at the gas station to stay away from the place as it’s full of “Blood Stalkers”.  Needless to say, they press on, and before long, they are terrorized by a band of grubby, demented hillbillies.    

This low budget regional horror flick is long on talk and short on horror.  To add insult to injury, the murders of the major characters happen offscreen.  At least the comeuppance of the bad guys is shown in full gory detail.  This brief highpoint unfortunately comes at the very end, and it’s not exactly worth the wait, but it does at least save it from being a total washout.

The beginning is chockfull of enough scenes of people driving to remind you of Manos, the Hands of Fate.  Once the action switches over to the cabin, things don’t get much better.  If you take a shot every time the hero talks about his past/family/himself or every time the camera cuts away to the woods where someone could be/might be/is spying on the main characters, you will be fucking obliterated by the halfway point.

Then there are the nighttime sequences that are so dark that it’s often hard to tell what the hell is going on (which sometimes, is probably for the best).  I know they had to shoot day for night on these low budget horror movies, but this is more like day for total blackout.  It doesn’t help that many of the scenes just feel like excessive padding.  One sequence where Albert runs and runs and runs towards the cabin in super slow motion while a chorus of gospel singers drowns out the soundtrack feels less like the director trying to be artsy-fartsy and more like he’s trying to stretch out the running time.   

Although Albert is not much of a leading man, the supporting cast is decent enough.  If Albert’s friend Daniel looks familiar, it’s because he’s played by Ken Miller, the guy who sang “Eeny, Meeny, Miney Mo” in I Was a Teenage Werewolf.  His girlfriend is played by none other than Celea Ann Cole, AKA:  Cisse Cameron, AKA:  The chick from Space Mutiny, AKA:  Mrs. Reb Brown, AKA:  Cameron Mitchell’s daughter.  Blood Stalkers is not good at all, but I’m sort of glad they got a paycheck out of all this.  

AKA:  Blood Night.  AKA:  The Night Daniel Died. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #18: MONSTER ISLAND (2004) ***

(Streamed via FilmRise)

Here’s a surprising horror comedy that was made for MTV in the mid ‘00s.  I wasn’t watching the channel at that time since they had long stopped playing music videos by then.  Because of that, I’m a little late to the party.  

A class clown (Daniel Letterle) wins his school a class trip to party on an island in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle (sponsored by MTV, of course).  As a bonus, he also gets to meet Carmen Electra (playing herself) and wins backstage passes to her concert.  Meanwhile, he tries to win back his socially conscious ex (Mary Elizabeth Winstead, two years away from starring in Final Destination 3) while trying to rescue Electra from the giant insects that inhabit the island.  

I was fully prepared for this to suck, mostly because of its association with MTV.  Much to my surprise, it had a few tricks up its sleeve.  I mean I never thought I would see stop-motion monsters in a straight to MTV horror flick.  As a bonus, Adam freaking West is the mad scientist named “Dr. Harryhausen” responsible for their creation!  

I expected Monster Island to be bad, but it’s harmless cheesy fun.  One great so-bad-it’s-good scene is when Electra takes the stage and sings.  Naturally, the song is awful (she whispers breathlessly the entire song), but the staging is particularly hilarious.  It’s obvious she’s lip synching the whole time and about halfway through the number, the editor gives up the entire charade and the song plays out while she doesn’t move her lips.  Brilliant.  

The giant insect monster didn’t like her singing either, which is why it swoops down mid-performance and kidnaps her.  I didn’t know I needed a movie in which Carmen Electra gets kidnapped by a stop-motion bug, but here we are.

The stop-motion effects are a lot of fun.  The giant praying mantis fight is particularly well done, as is the scene where the victor dukes it out with a bulldozer.  The cheesy (on purpose) models of the island and mountain (which is revealed to be a giant anthill) are cool too.  We also get a pretty good Gillman knockoff in there as well.  

Sure, some of the acting is bad and the characters are annoying, but it’s breezily paced and highly enjoyable, making Monster Island a destination getaway for fans of cheesy monster movies.   

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #17: THE NORLISS TAPES (1973) ****

(Streamed via Film Rabbits)

Dan (Dark Shadows) Curtis produced and directed this TV pilot that is sort of similar to The Night Stalker.  It didn’t get picked up as a series, which is unfortunate.  It has a clever enough hook, a great cast of guest stars, and some genuinely creepy moments.  

The Invaders’ Roy Thinnes stars as a writer named Norliss who disappears while working on a book debunking the supernatural.  The only thing he left behind was a series of cassette tapes documenting his experiences.  His worried publisher plays his first tape, which finds him coming to the aid of a widow (Angie Dickinson) who shoots a midnight intruder.  The problem is, the intruder was her husband… who happens to be already dead.  

Curtis uses the detective story trope to string together a bunch of cool supernatural ingredients.  These elements include a cursed Egyptian ring, fortune tellers, motorists drained of their blood, and zombies.  Since the tapes are material for Thinnes’ book, the narration is a lot more descriptive than your average TV film, which helps to perfectly set the mood.  

The opening really draws you in and once the tape is popped into the player, the momentum rarely lets up.  Curtis also stages a first-rate zombie attack when Thinnes and Dickinson are menaced by her undead hubby in the rain.  What makes this guy a memorable zombie is the fact he continues his sculpting hobby into the afterlife.  Since he’s a maniacal ghoul, he likes to put his victims’ blood into his clay and makes red demon sculptures out of them.  Really sick stuff.  I love it.  Curtis keeps the fun coming right along all the way through to the fiery finale, which contains a fine blend of genuine shocks and ‘70s Made for TV cheese.  That is to say, it was very much my shit.  

The film is anchored by a cool and confident performance by Thinnes.  It’s a shame the series never got picked up because I would’ve loved to see him battling monsters on a weekly basis.  Dickinson is excellent as the scared widow who is capable of blowing away zombie husbands at point blank range.  We also have Claude Akins as (what else?) a sheriff, Soap’s Robert Mandan as Thinnes’ lawyer, and Vonetta (Blacula) McGee as a medium who dabbles in the occult, all of whom lend fine support.

DUNE PART ONE (2021) * ½

Despite the fact that it simultaneously premiered in theaters and at home on HBO Max, Dune Part One director Denis (Arrival) Villeneuve was adamant that people see his film in a movie theater, the way he intended.  I wound up watching it the way I usually watch movies:  On my couch late at night while nodding off to sleep.  In fact, I had to eventually watch it over the span of a couple nights because this dreary bore kept putting my ass to sleep.  

David Lynch’s Dune was bad, but this is something else.  At least Lynch’s version was so spectacularly bad that it was an unforgettable mess.  Villeneuve’s Dune is like watching someone throw sand on monochromatic paint and then spending hours watching it dry.  Neither the action nor the drama is compelling.  Lynch’s picture was an assault on the senses.  This one would make for perfect ASMR background noise.

The best moments come early on and are staged almost exactly like the original.  Both highlights revolve around the training of Paul Atreides (Timothee Chalamet).  Once the action switches its focus to the desert planet Dune, the pace gets stuck in the quicksand (slowsand?).  The big issue is the ending, or lack thereof as it’s just half a movie.  (Villeneuve puts the subtitle “Part One” front and center in the opening credits as a way to let himself off the hook.)  Like Halloween Kills, it doesn’t mean a whole lot as it’s only leading to another movie.  It's all set-up and no payoff.  I don’t know about you, but it’s a little irksome to spend nearly three hours on something that forgets to have a climax.  Like the original, it ends with a knife fight, but it’s poorly staged and it’s hard to care what happens because we already KNOW what’s going to happen.  I mean if Paul DIES, there won’t be a Dune Part Two.  

The performances are a mixed bag.  Chamalet looks like a wax sculpture of Tim Burton that went Pinocchio on us.  Everyone was hard on Hayden Christensen in the Star Wars prequels, but he is positively Shakespearian compared to Chamalet.  The villain is even worse.  Having Stellan Skarsgard play The Baron as Col. Kurtz was… a choice.  He’s pretty awful and isn’t given a whole lot to do.  Heck, even the usually engaging and energetic Oscar Isaac looks bored here.  It’s not all bad though.  I’m curious to see whatever movie Jason Momoa and Josh Brolin thought they were acting in as they seem like the only ones who are half awake.  Rebecca Ferguson isn’t bad as Paul’s mother, although she and Chalamet have no chemistry together.  (Then again, it’s hard to have chemistry with a wax figure.)

The droning soundtrack and bland visuals put me to sleep three nights in a row.  Even during the occasional fight scenes and battle sequences, the music is curiously apathetic and doesn’t do anything to heighten the action on screen.  I can’t imagine paying money to see this in the theater.  I would’ve been asleep by the first hour.    

AKA:  Dune.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #16: MIND OVER MURDER (1979) ***

(Streamed via The Film Detective)

Deborah Raffin stars as a dancer who begins having strange premonitions.  When she has her visions, the world stands completely still around her while she receives flashes of the future.  A creepy bald dude is often in the center of her premonitions, and she teams up with an investigator (David Ackroyd) to put together the pieces of her mental puzzle before it’s too late.

This Made for TV movie has a pretty good cast.  In addition to Death Wish 3’s Deborah Raffin we have ‘70s staple Andrew Prine as the bald psycho, X-Men’s Bruce Davison as her uncaring boyfriend, and Freddy Krueger himself, Robert Englund as Akroyd’s partner.  Raffin does a solid job in the lead, and her invested performance keeps you watching, even when the plot begins to chase its tail.

Director Ivan Nagy (who would later gain notoriety as a one-time boyfriend of Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, and eventually wound up directing porn by the end of his career) creates a modicum of atmosphere during Raffin’s prolonged slow-motion visions.  The problem is these sequences get a little repetitive as the film is entering the homestretch.  There’s probably about two too many of these long scenes, but I guess he had to do what he had to do in order to fill a two-hour time slot.

The good news is just when you think you’ve had it up to here with the psychic shit, the movie switches gears from an ESP drama to a full-blown woman in peril movie.  The last act gets a real shot in the arm thanks to Prine’s intense performance as the sketchy, sweaty psycho.  His crazed theatrics help push Mind Over Murder over the top to become a first-rate TV thriller.  

Naturally, Prine gets the best line of the movie when he asks Raffin, “What do you want to do first?  Make love or DIE!”

AKA:  Premonitions.  AKA:  Psychomania.  AKA:  Deadly Vision.

EROTIC PASSION (1981) ***

Young Della (Monika Nickel, from Mandinga) lives with her uncle in a fancy villa.  She catches her sexy aunt Marsha (Femi Benussi) banging a doctor, so she decides to seduce him as well.  Frustrated that her aunt is controlling her inheritance, Della takes off to visit a friend.  When she isn’t home, Della takes to seducing a criminal named Haris (Dimitris Tsaftaridis) who’s staying at the house.  Before long, his partner in crime (trans exploitation star Ajita Wilson) shows up and they form an uneasy alliance to help Della bump off her aunt and take off with her money.  Naturally, double and triple-crosses ensue.

Erotic Passion is a solid skin flick through and through.  The crime-centric sequences towards the end are perfunctory, but fortunately, don’t get in the way of the nearly non-stop softcore sex sequences.  The bouncy, upbeat Euro Pop music is good for a chuckle too.  

The trio of ladies in the cast get naked a lot and all look great doing it.  Nickel is particularly hot as the young and frisky Della.  She gets a terrific striptease on the beach that culminates with her getting pawed by a dirty old man, who then bones her in the sand.  Benussi is sexy too as the hot to trot aunt.  Whenever Nickel isn’t off banging someone, Benussi is, so there’s always some action going on.  Wilson doesn’t have a lot to do, unfortunately, until the second half, but the three-way between her and Nickel and Tsaftaridis, while short, features some near-hardcore action.  The finale, where Nickel rides Tsaftaridis for all his worth on a rocky shore, ends things on a fine note.

Director Ilias (Emanuelle, Queen of Sados) Mylonakis gives the softcore scenes a touch of class, but just a touch, as they are at their best when the performers are getting down and dirty.  He also keeps the plot (what little of it there is) moving at a decent clip too.  One or two talky stretches aside, Erotic Passion is action-packed in more ways than one.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #15: THE HORROR HALL OF FAME (1974) **

(Streamed via YouTube)

Vincent Price hosts this silly shot on video look back at the Golden Age of Horror.  He sits down and reminisces about horror films and stars with the likes of Frank Gorshin (who does a good Karloff impression), John Carradine (who discusses silent horror films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, The Golem, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and The Phantom of the Opera), and John Astin (who helps plug Famous Monsters of Filmland).  Later, he goes down into “the dungeon” where a make-up man transforms Candy Clark into a witch.  A vampire expert also shows up to talk about Dracula Has Risen from the Grave.  It all ends with a tribute to Price complete with clips of House of Wax, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Raven, and his (then) latest film, Madhouse.

The Horror Hall of Fame was co-written by Famous Monsters’ Forrest J. Ackerman who I’m sure supplied as much information about the movies as he did the bad puns.  That’s kind of the problem, as there’s more time devoted to unfunny shtick (the comic relief hunchback sidekick is rather unbearable) than an actual informative exploration of the subject. The constant use of phony canned laughter and applause gets irritating after a while too. 

Since it was made in ’74, they spend more time talking about the then-current horror films like The Exorcist and Blacula and briefly talk about the “new popular stars” like Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.  While there are brief segments on Boris Karloff (Die!  Die!  My Darling), Peter Lorre (Mad Love), and Bela Lugosi (Mark of the Vampire), there really aren’t as many clips as you’d think.  I did like seeing part of the Schlock trailer though.  

The best part is when Price talks about how big-name movie stars often get their start in monster movies and shows scenes of Michael Landon in I Was a Teenage Werewolf and Steve McQueen in The Blob before introducing clips from Beast from 20,000 Fathoms and Them.  While this sequence is little more than a greatest hits compilation, at least it’s better than all the comic relief shit.  It’s also cool seeing Price showing off props from Ackerman’s memorabilia collection and hocking Godzilla model kits, but ultimately, connoisseurs of the subject will find little of substance here.  Kids might get a kick out of it though.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #14: NIGHT OF THE WITCHES (1970) ** ½

(Streamed via Drive-In Classics)

A conman dressed as a preacher (Keith Larsen, who also co-wrote and directed) on the run from the authorities goes to a small island inhabited entirely by witches.  Their leader is the sultry Cassandra (Kathryn Loder from The Big Doll House), who has a pretty sweet deal going on as she lives in a castle full of hot women who perform rituals that require them to execute intricately choreographed dance moves while wielding samurai swords.  The preacher sets his sights on fleecing the women for all their worth, but he soon learns they have other plans for him.

Night of the Witches starts off with a great, surprising, and funny scene where the phony baloney preacher threatens a woman’s soul with damnation for fornicating on the beach.  He then conveniently gets rid of her boyfriend before worming his way into her pants.  Every time he rants and raves about Jesus, a hilarious sound effect of a choir chanting, “AMEN!” is dubbed into the action.  (Remember the “Randolph Scott” chorus from Blazing Saddles?  It’s kind of like that.)  That’s your first tip-off this won’t be your average run-of-the-mill horror flick.  

The movie works in fits and starts, but it’s pretty amusing and memorable, even if the seventy-four-minute running time sometimes feels much longer.  Some of the subplots bog things down a bit, like when Cassandra and her minions off a Sydney Greenstreet impersonator in a witchy ceremony.  The humor is a little uneven too.  While Larsen’s antics are funny, the supporting comic relief characters and fast-motion scenes are lame and ill-fitting.  

Since this was the late ‘60s/early ‘70s after all, there’s a lot of astrology-inspired horse hockey involved as the witches refer to the men by their zodiac signs.  Loder, who has a sexy Barbara Steele quality about her, makes all the stuff with the witches work.  Whenever she and Larsen are on screen, it’s fun.  Too bad there’s a boring third-wheel romantic lead who kind of mucks thing up about halfway through.

Overall, Night of the Witches is just weird enough to be memorable.  It’s not necessarily weird enough to be good, however.  It didn’t exactly cast a spell over me, but I enjoyed myself most of the time.

THE CLASS REUNION (1972) * ½

Marsha Jordan, Rene Bond, Sandy Carey, and a bunch of others gather at a hotel for their class reunion.  (“The Class of ‘69”.)  One guy invites everyone back to his room to watch old footage of them partying it up and having sex in their old college days.  (It’s just footage from College Girls and is only meant to pad out the running time.  Plus, it’s tinted red for some reason.)  The classmates get so turned on watching the movie that they decide to have an impromptu orgy right then and there.  Afterwards, the friends pair off for more fun.

Directed by A.C. Stephen, and co-written by Ed Wood, The Class Reunion is seriously lacking the hallmarks you’d expect from the duo.  Sure, we do get the obligatory scene that goes from day to night and back again (courtesy of some random footage of a hippie peace protest), and a couple of boom mike shadows, but that’s about it.  The most memorable thing about it is how progressive it is as it contains a love scene between two gay characters (both of whom are portrayed as over the top stereotypes).  I guess it earns points for inclusiveness, but the fact remains, it’s still not very good.  (I can only imagine the audience reactions this scene caused among the raincoat crowd back in ’72.)

I’m a fan of Stephen and Wood’s adult features, but even this one was kind of a test of my patience.  For starters, the sex scenes are filmed in a sloppy manner.  The camera is usually placed too far away from the action and/or zooms around listlessly.  Many scenes also suffer from awkward framing and indifferent editing.  The biggest miscalculation was having the lovely Bond sit and watch from the sidelines instead of participating during the big orgy scene.  At least she gets a decent scene where she seduces her married girlfriend, which is about as tantalizing as the film gets, which is to say… not very.

The film has a disjointed feel as stuff just sort of happens at random.  Maybe it was just me, but it felt like the orgy scene belonged at the end of the movie and not the beginning.  I know I shouldn’t be thinking so hard about this as Stephen and Wood were only using the (very) thin premise as an excuse to show some skin.  That wouldn’t matter if the sex scenes were any good, or if the filmmaking was up to their usual WTF standards.  In the end, The Class Reunion isn’t a worthy reunion between Stephen and Wood.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #13: ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (2008) **

(Streamed via Fawesome)

Since so many movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s have lapsed into the public domain, virtually anybody can remake them without paying for the rights.  Because of that, I’m surprised many fledgling low budget horror directors don’t take advantage of the opportunity to remake a film with a recognizable title and release it.  You’re almost guaranteed that some sucker (like me) will stumble upon it and watch it.  

The great thing about remaking an old (I say “old” and not “classic”) horror movie like Attack of the Giant Leeches is that you can update it to fit the modern times.  And by “update”, I mean you can put things in your film that just wouldn’t fly during the time of the original’s release.  For example, this version of Attack of the Giant Leeches contains a slow-motion water gun fight between sexy girls wearing cutoff shorts and bikini tops AND a part where a guy gets bitten on the dick by a giant leech… all BEFORE the title card appears on screen.  If you can’t already tell, writer/director Brett (Raiders of the Lost Shark) Kelly knows how to get things started off on the right foot.  

From there, the film follows the basic outline of the original.  A sleazy restaurant owner (Jody Hauke) is constantly bickering with his much-younger, hot-to-trot wife (Shawna McSheffrey).  Meanwhile, giant leeches are in the swamp killing off wildlife before setting their sights on humans.  A young game warden (Mark Courneyea) is baffled by the sudden appearance of corpses drained of all their blood, and because he didn’t see the first part of the movie (or the 1959 original), he doesn’t know that the leeches are the ones responsible.  

Speaking of leeches, the rubbery leeches are OK, I guess.  They look more like tentacles than the creatures from the first movie, which for me was a bit of a miscalculation.  I for one kind of miss the monsters from the original that looked like stuntmen wearing trash bags.  At least Kelly resisted the temptation to make the creatures CGI.

I have to give it to Kelly.  The stuff that hews closest to the original movie is pretty dull and talky.  (Just like the original.)  However, whenever he’s doing his own thing (the aforementioned bikini girls getting into water gun fights), it’s not too shabby.   I imagine if he added some gratuitous sex and gore into the mix, it would’ve been even better as this version is just about as chaste and bloodless as the original.  Ultimately, Attack of the Giant Leeches isn’t all that great, but at least it doesn’t completely suck. 

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #12: DOLLMAN VS. THE DEMONIC TOYS (1993) **

(Streamed via Dark Matter TV)

Before we got Freddy vs. Jason, there was… uh… Dollman vs. the Demonic Toys!  

The Demonic Toys are resurrected by the blood of a bum and it’s up to detective Judith Gray (Tracy Scoggins) to stop them.  Meanwhile, the pint-sized cop Brick Bardo AKA:  Dollman (Tim Thomerson) is busy romancing Nurse Ginger (Melissa Behr), a woman who was shrunk down to his size by aliens (as previously seen in Bad Channels).  After some initial grumbling, Judith finally convinces Dollman to help her bust the demonic toys once and for all and send them back to Hell.

As with the original Dollman, Thomerson’s gruff performance is the best thing about the movie.  He gets some good hardboiled narration, and his world-weariness is amusing, even if it doesn’t translate into actual laughs.  Scoggins is good too as the sexy cop who speaks with a sultry, raspy voice.  Full Moon staple Phil Fondacaro is also around as a security guard who is forced to do the Toys’ bidding.

While the Dollman stuff is mostly adequate, the scenes that revolve around the Demonic Toys are downright painful at times.  It doesn’t help that the foulmouthed “Baby Oopsie-Daisy” (voiced by Frank Welker, Fred from Scooby-Doo) is annoying as Hell and the prolonged sequence where he tries to rape Ginger is unpleasant.

Written by former Tarantino associate Craig Hamman (who would later go on to make Boogie Boy), Dollman vs. the Demonic Toys isn’t good, exactly, but it’s only an hour long, so at least it’s short.  Thank God for small miracles.  (No pun intended.)  Heck, it’s even shorter if you don’t count the long opening title sequence and all the flashbacks to Demonic Toys, Dollman, and Bad Channels.  In fact, there’s only a half-hour or so of new footage altogether.  Although it’s cheap and crass, I can at least say this for director Charles Band:  He was doing multi-franchise crossovers long before Marvel made it popular.  

AKA:  Dollman vs. Demonic Toys.

INDECENT DESIRES (1968) ***

A slack-jawed loser named Zeb (Michael Alaimo) finds a Kewpie doll in a trash can and brings it home.  He cleans it up, makes a little shrine for it, and he soon learns it possesses a voodoo doll-like quality.  Whenever he fondles the doll, the sexy Ann (Sharon Kent) feels it.  Zeb fantasizes about making love to her, and when he realizes he can’t have her, he takes to inflicting pain on the doll.

Indecent Desires is a nutty black and white skin flick full of whiplash-inducing editing, overwrought music cues, random shots of people’s feet, poorly dubbed dialogue, and awkward telephone conversations.  That could mean only one thing:  It’s a Doris Wishman movie!

As far as Doris Wishman films go, it’s pretty good.  It offers a nice balance of your typical softcore action with enough touches of S & M (albeit in semi-supernatural form) to appease the raincoat crowds of the roughie market.  The plot is silly to be sure, but it’s a solid hook for this sort of thing.  It’s also just novel enough to make it a mini-classic.  It certainly helps that Wishman’s pacing is brisk as she swiftly gets you from one scene of Kent undressing to the next.  

Kent (who was also in Wishman’s Too Much Too Often!) is a real presence, always looking sexy in her skimpy outfits and while undressing down to nothing.  Dramatically, she does a fine job of conveying her character’s bewilderment at having phantom orgasms.  Jackie Richards, who plays Ann’s sultry brunette gal pal Babs, is great too.  She looks hot while doing nude ballet exercises and has a memorable scene where she gets so worked up looking at herself nude in the mirror that she has to make out with her reflection.  Richards also participates in a brief foot fetish scene, which allows Wishman to combine her two passions, shots of feet and softcore sex into one sequence!

In short, Indecent Desires is highly desirable for Doris Wishman fans!

AKA:  Indecent Desire.

SLEAZY RIDER (1972) ***

An asshole sheriff (writer/director Roger Gentry) pulls over a biker gang and hassles them.  When one of the biker mamas gives him lip, he gives her a thorough cavity search to teach her some manners.  He runs them out of town, and they stop in the woods for some grubby biker sex.  Once they figure out where the sheriff’s house is, the gang pay him a visit and set out to get a little payback by making his wife and daughter participate in a nasty biker orgy.  

Sleazy Rider is only an hour long, and it’s just as grubby, grimy, and sleazy as the title implies.  The centerpiece scene is the biker initiation of a teenage girl who is made to strip (“Lemme see your cunt!”) and grovel before one of the biker mamas sits on her face and says, “Stick out your tongue, honey!  Here it comes!”  Naturally, this gets the gang all worked up and things quickly escalate into an all-out biker orgy.  The second orgy at the sheriff’s house is lengthier and features more participants isn’t as much fun due to the rapey aspects, but it’s perfectly scummy for the sort of exploitation flick.  We also get a graphic masturbation scene where the sheriff’s daughter pleasures herself on the toilet.  It's also fun seeing Grizzly Adams himself Dan Haggerty (who was actually in Easy Rider as an extra) as one of the bikers (named “Hag”).  Unfortunately, we never get to see how grizzly his adams is as he doesn’t stick around for the first biker orgy and only watches the second.  

I knew this was going to live up to its name when I saw Gentry’s name in the credits.  He’s the madman who also directed The Invitation AKA:  Invitation to Ruin.  This one is a little bit better than that trash classic, mostly because of the biker movie motif and cliches.  

The biggest drawback is the non-ending.  It feels like it’s building up to a big action climax before cutting to a title card stating that the gang were eventually arrested.  Despite the absence of a proper finale, Sleazy Rider is still one of the best biker roughies of the ‘70s.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #11: HALLOWEEN KILLS (2021) *

(Streamed via Peacock)

I was not a fan of the 2018 Halloween reboot.  That said, I am always up for some more Michael Myers stalk n’ slash.  I was not opposed to this immediate sequel.  (This is by my count the third second Halloween movie.)  I mean, there was nowhere left to go but up.  Right?  Right?  Shit.

Say what you will about Halloween ’18 (and I have said plenty, but the short of it is, it sucked), but at least it had a committed performance by Jamie Lee Curtis as Laurie Strode.  This one finds her in the hospital healing from her wounds from Michael’s rampage on Halloween night.  (This is by my count the third time Laurie has been admitted to the hospital after being attacked by Michael on Halloween night.)  In the first Halloween 2, she was sidelined in the hospital for two thirds of the movie.  Here, she spends even more time in the hospital bed.  She must have the same agent who got Eric Stoltz his role in Anaconda as she sleeps through half the movie.  Even when she’s awake, she doesn’t do anything meaningful.  Heck, she and Mikey Boy don’t even share any scenes together!  What a fucking rip-off.  In fact, she had more to do in Halloween:  Resurrection, if you can believe it.

Where is Busta Rhymes when you need him?

David Gordon Green is a good director.  It’s just hard to see what he sees in the Halloween franchise.  Aside from the opening firefighter smackdown, there is not much to recommend here.  The kills are brutal, but feel more like they came out of a Rob Zombie Halloween, and you know, I have to say Rob did it better.  

You know you’re in trouble from the opening scene that takes place in 1978 where a young cop has a run-in with Myers.  I’m not opposed to flashbacks showing new characters reacting to the events of the first movie.  What I am opposed to is them continuing to have flashbacks throughout the entire running time that offer no insight to the matter at hand.  

From there, we flashforward to the present for a long ass open mic night scene that features a bunch of ventriloquist shit before Tommy Doyle (Anthony Michael Hall) hops onstage to commemorate the victims and survivors of the original massacre.  You can say a lot about Haddonfield in the years after Myers’ initial rampage, but it has a thriving open mic night community.  Tommy then receives word that Myers is still on the loose and whips together a mob to take him down themselves.  (Shades of the posse in part 4.)  

At its heart, Halloween is about good vs. evil.  The best moments in the series spring out of Laurie fending off Michael’s attacks, vanquishing evil until the next time October 31st rolls around.  This one denies us that confrontation.  Laurie and Michael never share a scene together, which is pretty bogus if you ask me.

In fact, Halloween Kills is like Rocky 2… if Rocky had spent the whole movie in the hospital while someone else fought Apollo Creed and the guy in the bed next to him had flashbacks to fighting Apollo Creed.

The way Green tries to hammer home the Trump parallels is laughable.  Tommy’s “Evil Dies Tonight” mantra, which is repeated back by his seething followers is clearly a riff on “Make America Great Again”, and the way he leads the mob into storming the hospital is not unlike the seditionists who stormed the Capitol on 1/6.  I’m sure the fact he is portrayed as an angry, bald, white dude was purposeful too.  

Half the movie is this shit, and the other half of the movie is Myers crushing skulls and stabbing people.  At one-hundred-and-five minutes, it’s way overlong too, and the constant cutting back and forth between the plotlines results in little if any forward momentum.  The flashbacks to the original night of terror as seen through the sheriff’s eyes (Will Patton, who has even less to do than Curtis) is also completely useless and could’ve been excised entirely.  When the two plots finally converge, the finale is rushed and unsatisfying.  I know they made this and Halloween Ends as a two-picture deal, if any movie ever suffered from “middle chapter syndrome”, it’s this one.  Maybe that’s because they forgot to put an actual movie in there.  

This is the second time I have been tricked by Green and company.  Maybe Halloween Ends will be the treat.  More than likely, it’ll be another razor blade hiding inside a cinematic apple.

NO TIME TO DIE (2021) ***

Daniel Craig’s fifth and final turn as Ian Fleming’s 007 is a nice change of pace from the mostly dour, joyless past couple of entries in the James Bond saga.  I think he knew this was going to be his swan song, so he decided to finally loosen up a bit and give the fans what they want to see.  Namely, a fully loaded Aston Martin, cool gadgets, hot babes, villains with facial deformities, and henchmen with quirky gimmicks.  Oh, and HUMOR!  Can you imagine Craig’s Bond actually tossing off one-liners and double entendre like Roger Moore?  Can you imagine Craig’s Bond actually looking like he’s having FUN?  What a novel concept!

In fact, the first two hours of No Time to Die had me convinced that Craig had belatedly found his footing and created a James Bond that fans of previous incarnations of the character could embrace and love.  As it turns out, he was basically setting us up for the final forty-five minutes or so, which finds him back on his sourpuss streak (although it’s still not without its fun moments).  I’m sure the ending will be long discussed and dissected by Bond fans, and for me, it worked, even though it was kind of a lot to process.  Further viewings will probably only enhance my enjoyment of the film.  (As is the case with most Bonds, although to be perfectly honest, I haven’t even revisited Spectre since I saw it opening night, so who knows?)  All I can say is that I firmly believe Craig accomplished everything he set out to do with the character, and he exits the franchise with a resounding mic drop.

No Time to Die is the longest Bond film on record, which is a lot of the problem.  It almost feels like two Bonds for the price of one.  There’s the funny, breezy (but also deadly serious at times) set-up that establishes the players, both new and old.  (Like all of Craig’s Bonds, your enjoyment may hinge on your knowledge of his previous installments.)  We learn Bond has been off the grid for five years and is brought back into the game by his old pal Felix Leiter (Jeffrey Wright, excellent as usual) to recover a deadly virus.  There is a terrific sequence in Cuba where Bond teams up with a sultry rookie agent (Ana de Armas) and a rather nifty attempt on Bond’s life that goes south.  We also learn that all roads lead to Blofeld (Christoph Waltz, slightly better here than in his underwhelming last turn as the character), and that Bond’s former flame Madeliene (Lea Seydoux) may be holding back A Very Big Secret.  The final third, while making concessions to the Bond movies of old (there’s an island lair containing a missile silo), is very much in line with the typical Craig era interpretation of the character, but it’s not without its charms, and is surprisingly, dare I say, moving to boot.  Like many Bonds, it suffers from a lot of needless bloating (at least Quantum of Solace was a three-chords, in-and-out affair), but seeing as this is Craig’s final go-round, maybe, perhaps I can give him a mulligan.  I’d say he’s earned it.  

Anyway, here’s the real review for Bond fans:  

The Pre-Opening Title Sequence:  There’s a lot to unpack here.  It’s a little jumbled as it has to set-up Madeliene’s big secret, remind us of Bond’s former flame, and show us that Bond retiring maybe wasn’t a good idea.  What is a good idea is letting him drive a gadgets-filled Aston Martin and kill lots of bad guys.  As far as these things go, it probably ranks somewhere on the lower end of the spectrum since it ends on an emotional note, and not an action one.  That said, it starts the film off in fine fashion.  ***

The Opening Title Sequence:  Like many of the post-Dalton Bond movies, there’s way too much CGI and not enough naked women photographed in silhouette for my tastes.  However, it’s one of the better Craig-era title sequences.  I particularly thought the guns lined up in spirals to make a very deadly looking DNA pattern was a nice touch.  ***

The Song:  When I first heard “No Time to Die” by Billie Ellish, I quickly dismissed it as the worst Bond song of all time.  Now seeing it in the proper context alongside the visuals of the title sequence, I like it slightly more, but not much.  Like “Writing’s on the Wall”, it’s a boring, forgettable tune and not something you’d expect (or want) from a Bond song.  **

Bond:  This is by far my favorite Craig performance in a Bond movie.  He finally nails the tone of the earlier Bonds while still making it his own.  Whether hammering drinks in the midst of a shootout or coolly hopping off speeding motorcycles, he shows what kind of a Bond he could’ve been all these years if he wasn’t busy being so glum in his last four movies.  He also hits all the dramatic notes you’d expect him to, which goes without saying.  ****

The Gadgets:  The Aston Martin scene is top notch.  Bond also gets a watch armed with an EMP.  He and the new 007 (Lashawna Lynch) also get to take a ride in a glider that looks and functions a lot like the one in Escape from New York.  Not to be outdone, the bad guys have magnetic suits that help them briefly defy gravity in order to make a nifty getaway.  *** ½ 

Bond Girls:  Seydoux matures nicely into the role of Madeleine Swann.  She was a little aloof in the previous outing, but now seems much more like a match for Craig’s Bond.  This is the most chaste Bond has been since The Living Daylights as he’s strictly a one-woman man, but de Armas and Lynch are both capable and badass in their action sequences and hold their own alongside Craig.  *** ½ 

M:  M (Ralph Fiennes) proves to be more of an asshole than usual.  That’s a good thing though, because it sort of advances the plot and opens up the possibility that James might not be playing on the right side this time out.  Fiennes is great once again and gets to say, what I believe is the only F-bomb in 007 history.  *** ½ 

Villain(s):  Waltz does a good job as Blofeld, although I’m not sure I fully embrace his Hannibal Lecter take on the character.  Rami Malek underplays the main villain Safin, perhaps a hair too much.  However, I dig his harlequin mask get-up.  ***

Villain’s Plot:  This might hit close to home for some folks, but it’s all about (SPOILER) weaponizing a virus.  It’s a novel twist on the typical save-the-world scenario.  If it didn’t come out during a pandemic, it probably would’ve seemed downright inventive.  ***

Villain’s Lair:  It’s your typical island fortress filled with a bunch of scientists in containment suits and armed guards out the wazoo.  It’s another day at the office, but a welcome one.  ***

Villain’s Henchman:  A dude with a glass eye that contains a camera.  He’s not exactly Odd Job or anything.  At least Bond gets to toss lots of eye-related puns and quips his way, which is always a good thing.  ***

Martinis:  Bond drinks one.  ***

Movies Ripped Off:  Dr. No:  Lots of dudes in plastic radiation suits running around when the villain’s lair is getting blown up.  [REDACTED]:  There’s a doozy of a previous Bond movie that is being reworked here, but if I told you, it might spoil the whole ball of wax.  (They even play that film’s song over the end credits!)  For Your Eyes Only:  Bond visits a former lover’s grave as well as dispatches a helpless bad guy via shoving a disabled car.  [REDACTED]:  Again, if I told you, I’d spoil it.  All I’ll say is that Bond goes out for revenge.  Again.  Die Another Day:  Bond has to contend with a younger agent that just may be his match that also happens to be a strong and capable African American woman.  

Bottom Line:  No Time to Die is my third favorite Craig-era Bond.  A solid entry that contains a thrilling first two hours, as well as a divisive ending that may or may not take some Bond fans out of the movie entirely.  I personally thought they stuck the landing nicely, making it a fitting curtain call for Craig’s interpretation of the character.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #10: CAROUSHELL (2016) ***

(Streamed via Crackle)

We’ve all been at a point at our job when we just want to break free, walk out, and never look back.  The main character of Caroushell, Duke has the same problem.  The fact that he’s a killer carousel horse is beside the point.  

An internet influencer’s world is shattered when her stripper mother informs her she must babysit her bratty little brother.  She takes the kid to the local amusement park, and he happens to sit on Duke.  After he tells the wooden horse to “eat a dick”, Duke decides he’s finally had enough and leaves the carousel once and for all.  He then goes around the park killing those who’ve wronged him, eventually setting his sights on the little brat and his sexy sister.  

If you can’t tell, Caroushell is a dumb movie, but it’s my kind of dumb.  It’s also almost always a little bit better than you expect.  For example, I kind of expected Duke to stab people in the throat with its horn.  I kind of expected him to say amusement park-related wisecracks after he killed someone like, “You must be this tall… to DIE!”  I didn’t, however, foresee him using a machete and making an homage to Friday the 13th Part 6:  Jason Lives.  

Yes, it’s dumb, but it also contains a handful of hearty and genuine laughs.  While not all of it works, you have to tip your hat to the filmmakers for stretching out such a thin premise in an entertaining way.  Heck, the movie even knows when it’s running out of ideas and comments on it as well.  You’ve got to respect that.

Another plus is that it’s only sixty-six minutes long, which is probably the ideal length for a movie about a wisecracking sentient serial killer carousel horse.  In fact, it’s still probably a tad overlong as it starts to run out of steam before it reaches its climax.  That said, where else are you going to see a drunk partygoer seducing a carousel horse?  Although it’s not quite up there with the killer snowman rape scene from Jack Frost, this sequence is still a winner in my book.  

VENOM: LET THERE BE CARNAGE (2021) ***

Venom was a much-better-than-expected superhero slobber-knocker thanks to its zany energy and a Nicolas Cage-level bonkers performance by Tom Hardy.  The sequel, Let There Be Carnage offers up more of the same, and why not?  It’s big, loud, dumb fun, and frankly, the world could use a little of that right now.  

The first act is its funniest.  We find reporter Eddie Brock (Hardy) and his alien symbiote Venom in a less than harmonious place.  They bicker like an old married couple, both feeling that one doesn’t fully appreciate the other.  Eventually, they break up and Venom goes on to have a wild night of partying, going to a rave, getting drunk, being covered head to toe in glow-in-the-dark light stick necklaces, and hopping on stage to profess his love for everyone in the room.  Sadly, he still misses Eddie.  

Before the split, Brock gets a scoop to interview serial killer Cletus Kasady (Woody Harrelson), who bites him on the hand and inadvertently drinks some of Venom’s blood.  Just as he’s about to be executed, the symbiote Carnage takes control over Kasady and he more than lives up to his name, causing carnage and mayhem wherever he goes.  It’s then up to Venom and Eddie to make amends and reunite before Carnage brings the city to its knees.  

While the first act keeps the swimming-in-the-lobster-tank vibe of the original, it becomes more formulaic as it goes on.  That isn’t really a bad thing though.  No one can fault the movie for dillydallying as it moves like a freight train.  Sometimes, it even feels as it’s rushing itself towards the climax.  Sure, you might wish that the pace stopped for a breather now and again, but at ninety-seven minutes, it’s much shorter than your average comic book flick nowadays.  I for one appreciate these things when they aren’t bloated, overstuffed, and overlong. 

Once again, Hardy brings his own quirky charm to the role.  His domestic scenes with Venom are quite winning and he does a good job at struggling to maintain normalcy while talking to your average person on the street.  Harrelson is a perfect match for him.  He’s clearly having a blast, even if his role is little more than a slight variation on his character from Natural Born Killers.  (He even has a demented lover/partner in crime he has to break out of jail.)  As Hardy’s love interest, Michelle Williams comes perilously close to having absolutely nothing to do, but she does it quite well.

By the time the film devolves into your typical superhero fisticuffs, it manages to still carry a spark of personality, even if the finale is a little overly familiar.  As a fan of Venom and Carnage in the comics, it scratched this fanboy’s itch.  The same goes for the post-credits tag.

I’m sure you could nitpick this movie all day.  Although it has its share of flaws, it remains zippy, mindless, and entertaining.  It kind of reminded me a bit of the old pre-MCU superhero flicks of the ‘90s and ‘00s.  It’s messy, cheesy, and takes liberties with the source material, but it's a damned good time, nevertheless.

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #9: DRACULA’S DAUGHTER (1972) ***

(Streamed via Corpse Collective)

Louisa (Britt Nichols) rushes to visit her dying mother, who informs her that she is a direct descendent of the vampire Count Karlstein (Jess Franco regular Howard Vernon).  Upon her mother’s death, Louisa inherits the family castle where she is almost immediately bitten by the Count.  Meanwhile, a police inspector (Alberto Dalbes) searches for a killer who has left his victims with gaping neck wounds.

Director Jess Franco gives us a rather suspenseful scene right out of the gate.  A peeping Tom watches in the shadows as a beautiful woman undresses and bathes.  Franco does a neat thing here to let the audience know that this isn’t meant to be titillating, but creepy by cutting away from the naked woman to an extreme close-up on the peeper’s bulging eyeball every twelve seconds or so.  Many directors will give you a point of view shot of the killer, but Franco gives us a point of view of the killer’s point of view.  

The film’s centerpiece is a long, romantic sequence where the vampiric Louisa seduces her sexy cousin Karine (Anne Libert) and they indulge in incestuous lesbian vampire sex.  There is a lot of chemistry between the two performers and the scene is a lot more tender and erotic than you might expect.  Their final tryst together isn’t quite as good though and is undone by the odd music choice that sounds like a temp track from a Tom and Jerry cartoon.  

Whenever the film concentrates on the romance between Nichols and Libert, it is quite involving.  It’s only in the second half, when the inspector character is introduced, that it begins to run out of steam.  Despite its drawbacks, Dracula’s Daughter remains a stronger than usual offering from Franco.

Speaking of Franco, he has a sizeable role as the off-brand Van Helsing character.  He arguably gives the best performance too, although I would say Nichols manages to surpass him, based on the strength of her love scenes.  Vernon isn’t given much to do as the vampire except rise slowly from his coffin a couple of times, so if you’re a fan of his, you might be disappointed.  Lina Romay (who isn’t listed in the credits on IMDb) also pops up briefly early on, but sadly, disappears pretty quickly.

AKA:  Daughter of Dracula.   

THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #8: THE ASTROLOGER (1975) **

(Streamed via ConTV)

The Astrologer is the directorial debut of James Glickenhaus, the man who gave us The Exterminator.  It is nowhere near the immortal classic that film was.  However, watching it makes you appreciate how much he grew as a filmmaker in the years between the two movies.

Alexi (Bob Byrd) is the head of the “Interzod” program that uses astrology and computers to locate and identify those with “zodiacal potential”.  The latest Interzod report suggests that a cult leader from India named Kajerste (producer Mark Buntzman, director of Exterminator 2) just might be the Antichrist.  Another startling development:   Alexi’s wife Kate (Monica Tidwell from Nocturna) just may happen to be the second coming of the Virgin Mary.  Who will prevail in the ongoing struggle between good and evil?  

The beginning is weird, confusing, and stupid.  It shows still images of the moon landing while a narrator goes on and on about astrology.  It kind of reminded me of those old commercials for Time Life books.  “Did this movie really suck?  READ THE BOOK!”  The old school computer font used for the title cards is pretty sweet though.  

Every time it seemingly raises an interesting idea (like Alexi already knowing Kate is the Virgin Mother, marrying her, and then not giving her any in order to keep her virginal), it inevitably gets bogged down with more chitchat.  Sure, there’s an occasional moment of bloodletting and T & A, but they aren’t nearly enough to salvage the talky sections.  Speaking of T & A, there is at least one great scene where Tidwell goes to have her fortune told, only to be informed by the gypsy woman she’ll have to strip in order to have her palm read.  This is my kind of fortune telling!

Former Playboy Playmate Tidwell has a winning presence and makes for a likeable heroine.   Everyone else in the cast acts like a stuffed shirt.  Whenever Tidwell is on screen, The Astrologer is at the very least, watchable.  Whenever it slides into long, dull, talky tangents filled with pseudointellectual nonsensical psychobabble, it’s a severe drag.   The constant cutting back and forth from Alexi in D.C. to Kajerste in India only bogs the pace down more.  The total non-ending is a major letdown as well.  I’m sure Glickenhaus did everything he could to make a good movie with the limited means at his disposal, but it just wasn’t written in the stars.

AKA:  Suicide Cult.

DEATH WEEKEND (1977) *** ½

Brenda Vaccaro stars as a fashion model spending the weekend with her dentist boyfriend (Death Wish V’s Chuck Shamata).  While on their way to his lakeside retreat, they are terrorized by a gang of hooligans in a hot rod.  Little do they know Vaccaro can really drive and she manages to run the creeps off the road.  Eventually, the goons find out where they are staying and set out to get revenge.  

Produced by Ivan Reitman and written and directed by William (Funeral Home) Fruet, this Canadian-lensed thriller is anchored by a fine performance by Vaccaro.  She’s allowed to be stronger and more capable than many of the women in jeopardy you usually see in these kinds of films.  She certainly shows more backbone than her boyfriend and puts up a heck of a lot more of a fight.  It’s Don Stroud who steals the movie as the psycho ringleader of the gang of crazies.  Stroud always excelled at playing unhinged characters, but this is one of his best performances.  

Death Weekend proves to be a little better than you’d expect at just about every turn.  Just when the film looks like it’s going to settle down into a lull, Fruet will introduce a nasty little touch to keep it interesting.  Take for instance the scene where Vacarro is getting settled in her room and the camera cuts back to show that maybe Shamata isn’t such a nice guy after all.  Another little touch I liked was when the camera shows a “No Trespassing” sign and then slowly pans down to show that someone is indeed trespassing.  Fruet’s handling of the opening chase sequence is even much better than you’d expect.

There’s also a bit of a class warfare element here.  The blue-collar thugs are having way too much fun dressing down the well-to-do dentist and his interior design choices.  They also relish taking advantage of the classy fashion model that is clearly out of their league.

While Death Weekend is technically a rape n’ revenge movie, they don’t spend as much time on the rape as you might think, and it’s not done in an overly gratuitous manner.  It was made in between Straw Dogs and I Spit on Your Grave and contains elements of both of those films.  While not on the same level, it remains a crackling and effective thriller in its own right.

The revenge sequences are pretty sweet too.  They involve stabbing, explosions, vehicular manslaughter, and my favorite, quicksand.  When I was a kid, I had a fear of quicksand, so every time, I see someone die via quicksand in a movie, it gets to me.  As a connoisseur of quicksand scenes in cinema, it delights me to say, Death Weekend has one of the best.

AKA:  The House by the Lake.