WHITE OF THE EYE (1988) ** ½

Donald (Demon Seed) Cammell’s White of the Eye is a moody, experimental, and intriguing little serial killer thriller.  It also happens to be uneven, muddled, and frustrating as Hell.  One thing is for sure, only someone with a knack for anything-goes dreamlike madness like Cammell could’ve concocted it.

David Keith is a stereo installer in Tucson who has an odd gift for knowing exactly where to place speakers just by closing his eyes.  Even though he’s married to the luscious Cathy Moriarty, he still happens to mess around with his lonely, sexy clients.  When one of them winds up murdered by a serial killer, it makes Keith the prime suspect.

The big problem with White of the Eyes is its languid pacing.  Clocking in at almost two hours, it really drags in the middle and some of Cammell’s cinematic indulgences (like the extreme eyeball close-ups) can be grating at times.  Now that I’ve gotten that off my chest, there are some sterling stalking sequences here, along with a handful of truly bizarre images that help to separate the film from dozens of similarly-themed thrillers.

The story itself is one-note and predictable.  Had it been lacking Cammell’s stylish flair, White of the Eye would have been instantly forgettable (save for some of Keith’s intense theatrics).  Cammell gives the murder set pieces a stylized kick.  The scene where the killer puts a woman in a pile driver like a wrestler is just so bonkers that it works.  Other sequences feel like they came out of an Italian giallo.

So, in the end, it’s a toss-up.  Come for the stylish murders, random weirdness, and Keith’s overacting.  If you can get past the boring flashbacks, Indian mumbo jumbo, and general lackadaisical pace, you just might like it.

WAKE IN FRIGHT (1971) *** ½

Gary Bond stars as an Australian teacher who goes on vacation to see his girlfriend during the Boxing Day holiday break.  He spends the night in a small town where the male citizens outnumber the women about a hundred to one.  That night, he loses all his money drinking and gambling and winds up stranded.  Bond soon learns that’s about all there is to do in the town and the male populace are only too eager to enable his dysfunctional macho behavior.

Directed by Ted Kotcheff, Wake in Fright isn’t so much of a horror film, but rather a filmed nightmare you can’t escape from.  The horror elements come from the psychological trappings of allowing your male id to run rampant without limits or repercussions.  Even though it was made over fifty years ago, it feels like the perfect commentary on today’s “toxic masculinity” atmosphere.

The scene where Bond is taken by some pals to go kangaroo hunting are sure to disturb most viewers.  Even then, there’s a comical detachment to the characters that makes their action even more disturbing.  I mean at one point; the men fight the roos hand-to-hand like Sylvester used to do in the old Looney Tunes cartoons.

Bond makes for an ideal leading man.  He has the charm of Chris Hemsworth mixed with the bland manliness of Richard Chamberlain.  He’s especially good during his scenes with the drunk doctor (Donald Pleasence, who is excellent) who encourages to let go and give in to his temptations.

In the ensuing years, Kotcheff proved he can work in just about any genre.  He’s done everything from comedy (Weekend at Bernie’s and Switching Channels) to late-night cable erotica (Red Shoe Diaries 3 and 5), but he’s probably best known for the immortal First Blood.  It’s a shame he didn’t do more weird and trippy films like this.  Then again, it’s a one-of-a-kind, hard to classify minor classic.  That kind of feat is hard to replicate.

AKA:  Backwater.  AKA:  Holiday in Hell.  AKA:  Outback.  AKA:  At the Edge of the World.

MILAN CALIBRE 9 (1972) **

Gastone Moschin gets out of jail and is almost immediately accused of stealing $300,000 from the Mob.  Naturally, he’s innocent, but if he wants to keep breathing he has to go to work for them to pay it off.   The police want to use him as a snitch too, and if the Mob begins to suspect he’s in cahoots with the cops, he’ll REALLY be trouble.  To come out on top, Moschin must figure out a way to double-cross both the Mob AND the police.

Fernando Di Leo’s Milan Calibre 9 was the first chapter in his Milieu Trilogy.  Unlike the second installment, Man Hunt, it’s far too slow moving to leave much of an impression.  The constant plotting by not only the hero, but the villains as well, causes the pacing to hit a wall many times throughout.  We occasionally get a taste of Di Leo’s trademark violence, but there’s ultimately too much talk and not enough action. 

Moschin is much too stone-faced to make a good leading man.  He looks like the love child of Bruce Willis and Nicholas Worth.  Or maybe Jason Statham after a bee sting.  Either way, he’s so dull that the audience has a hard time rooting for him.

The supporting cast fares much better.  Whenever Barbara Bouchet is on screen, she gives the movie a much-needed shot in the arm.  She has a terrific go-go dancing scene that is easily the most memorable thing about the film.  I also enjoyed the interactions between Luigi Pistilli and Frank Wolff as the cops who are hounding Moschin.  While their sociopolitical discussions drag the plot down a bit, they are nevertheless fun to watch.  

It’s Wolff who gets the best line when he tells Moschin to "Go play with a dangling dingleberry!"

AKA:  Caliber 9.

ANGST (1983) ****

Erwin Leder stars as a mentally ill man who goes to a random house and shoots the occupant when she answers the door.  He goes to jail for ten years and when he is released, he immediately sets out to satiate his bloodlust.  After missing his chance to kill a taxi driver, he takes off into the woods where he finds a remote country house.  It’s here where he begins to terrorize a family.

Leder is great as the cold-blooded psychopath and all, but the camerawork is the real star here.  Having the camera attached to his body feels a bit disorienting at first.  However, as time goes by, it helps to put the audience squarely in the killer’s shoes throughout most of the running time.  Because of that, there is often no turning away from the horror.  (This technique would later be used on several reality shows.)  Another impressive camera move is the long crane shot that looms over the prison walls as Leder is being released.

The film’s clever use of narration heightens the sensation that we are in the killer’s shoes.  We hear him telling us trivial biographical tidbits while he’s committing unspeakable acts.  Not because he’s trying to, you know, justify what he’s doing, but to tell you more about himself.  

The opening scenes are equally effective, even though they use a completely different style.  This part of the film almost feels like a true crime show.  We are shown several crime scene photos, pictures of the killer as a child, and court documents while a morose narrator tells of his various crimes.  (It was supposedly based on true events.)  

All of this adds up to an unflinching, harrowing moviegoing experience.  While the murders themselves aren’t particularly graphic, it’s that feeling of being under the killer’s skin that is so unnerving.  It would make a perfect double feature with Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer, although you’d probably be too depressed to sit through them both.

AKA:  Schizophrenia.  AKA:  Fear.

THE ASPHYX (1972) **

The Asphyx has moments where it threatens to work.  That is when it’s not getting bogged down with a lot of stuffy British costume drama bullshit.  Much of the running time is spent with two boors having dull spiritual conversations in a parlor, which really cuts into all the corny, but fun supernatural shenanigans.

Robert Stephens stars as a scientist who takes pictures of people when they die and every time, he sees the same smudge on the photos.  He concludes that it could only be the soul leaving the body.  He then sets out to catch the specter (which he dubs “the asphyx”) that claims the souls.  His rationale being if he can steal his asphyx, he can become immortal.

When the ghostly shit finally does happen, it’s a bit hokey, but relatively amusing.  The scene where Stephens and his partner try to capture the asphyx plays like a 19^th century version of Ghostbusters.  (They shine a light on it and try to force it into a glass lamp.)  The special effects for the asphyx are a little wonky.  It just looks like a puppet being reflected with a disco light.  These scenes do get a bit repetitive after a while though.  

It all begins to get dumb when the scientists stage these elaborate deaths for themselves that they must wriggle out of at the last second in order to summon the asphyx.  The bit with the extravagant gas chamber was particularly eye-rolling.  However, we do get at least one nifty scene involving a guillotine, but the movie needed more sequences of this caliber to truly crackle.  Too bad it all builds to a lame Twilight Zone type of ending that features some bad make-up and a frustrating final shot.

AKA:  Spirit of the Dead.  AKA:  The Horror of Death.  AKA:  Experiments.  

SLIME CITY (1988) ** ½

Was it the Himalayan yogurt?  Or was it the old wizard’s moonshine?  Maybe it was all the sex with his punk rock neighbor.  Whatever the reason, Alex (Craig Saban) begins getting slimy soon after moving into his new apartment building.  Naturally, the only way to stop his body from being coated in slime is to kill homeless guys and prostitutes. 

Hey, we've all been there, right?

Director Gregory (Killer Rack) Lamberson’s Slime City plays like an amateurish and cheap mash-up of The Incredible Melting Man and Street Trash, with a little bit of Rosemary’s Baby tossed in there for good measure.  The acting is uneven, and the pacing is erratic.  That’s acceptable though seeing as the gooey special effects are the main selling point.  

As far as would-be low budget cult items from the ‘80s go, Slime City is better than say, your typical Troma movie.  While the slimy transformation scenes and sloppy murder sequences are fun, the stuff in between the highlights can be rough-going at times.  Still, there enough show-stopping gore in the last ten minutes to make up for many of its shortcomings.  While it’s easy to spot a lot of seams in the gory gags, they remain rather impressive given the film’s miniscule budget and the fact that there are so many of them.  Those scenes aren’t enough to qualify it as a classic or anything, but overall, it’s a decent slice of ‘80s cheese.

AKA:  The Slime.

THIRST (1979) **

Kate (Chantal Contouri) is kidnapped by a team of vampire scientists who claim she's a descendant of Countess Elizabeth Bathory.  She doesn't believe them, and tries to escape, but the scientists hold her prisoner.  Since Kate refuses to drink blood, they put her through elaborate mental torture in order to shock her system in the hopes of making her remember her vampire past.

Thirst gains points for an inventive mythology, but the unorthodox approach yields minimal results.  There are some good ideas here, yet it’s all put together with little finesse.  While the film adds interesting wrinkles to the usually accepted vampire lore, director Rod (Nick Fury:  Agent of SHIELD) Hardy’s delivery is much too stiff for any of this to be fun, let alone scary.  

I did like the scenes on the “Blood Farm” where innocent people in white pajamas mill around and are used as walking blood banks.  These sequences felt like they came out of Parts:  The Clonus Horror.  There’s also a dairy that packages blood in milk cartons.  Another nice touch revolves around how vampires shower.  The red faucet doesn’t stand for hot water; it stands for blood.  There were certainly enough of these little flourishes here to warrant a good movie.  It’s just a shame that Hardy’s pacing is much too slow, and the stuff with the scientists is so predictable.