INVASION OF THE GIRL SNATCHERS (1973) ***

The IMDB plot synopsis of Invasion of the Girl Snatchers is enough to get you curious.  It calls it a “1970s spoof of American New Wave films featuring a criminal couple on the run encountering a UFO cult.”  That doesn’t even scratch the surface of the weirdness to come.  (Although I honestly saw little, if any evidence of a New Wave influence.)  The fact that it manages to combine elements of Easy Rider and Mission:  Impossible in the opening scenes is enough to make you sit up and take notice.

Kaspar (Ele Grisby), a junior agent of a secret government agency and his superior, Trowel (Hugh Smith) are on the trail of some girl nappers.  As it turns out, they’re working for Aph (Charles Rubin), the leader of a cult of alien beings.  Aph wants to put alien consciousnesses from his home planet into the brainwashed girls and make them do his bidding.  Once Trowel gets turned into an alien zombie, it’s up to Kaspar to save the day. 

They say they don’t make them like they used to, but I’m not sure if anyone made them like Lee Jones did.  Since this is his only directing credit, we may never know for certain.  All I know is that Invasion of the Girl Snatchers is one of the weirder low-budget ‘70s movies I’ve seen in some time.  That friends, is praise of the highest order.  If you think you’ve seen it all, folks… trust me.  You haven’t.  

The movie really belongs to Carla Rueckert, who co-wrote the script and stars as one of the brainwashed girls, Ruthie.  She spends much of the movie walking around topless while wearing dark sunglasses and rubbing people who suffer from cramps.  Naturally, when Kaspar gets a boner, she mistakes it for a cramp and helps him rub one out.  I also loved the part where she is bound and gagged and uses her boob to knock the phone off the cradle to dial for help.

It’s almost a guarantee that Rubin’s character will get on your nerves.  Most of the time, he just stands around wearing a robe and reciting incantation after irritating incantation.  If you can make it through these long, dull scenes, you’ll be treated to some memorably weird stuff that runs the gamut of just plain odd to downright awesome.  I mean how many movies have you seen that feature a bra equipped with a homing beacon AND a girl possessed by an alien who drinks nitroglycerin like it was cheap whiskey?

Smith gets the best line of the movie when he says, “Great gobs of baby owl shit!”

AKA:  The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow.  

GROUPIE GIRL (1970) ** ½

A young girl named Sally (Esme Johns) takes off to swinging London on a quest for sexual misadventure.  She stows away in a passing van and inadvertently winds up becoming a groupie.  She’s passed around from rock group to rock group, one of which becomes involved with a hit and run accident.  Sally understandably freaks out, and the band tries to keep her quiet to save their squeaky-clean image. 

Groupie Girl contains a handful of memorable moments to keep fans of English sexploitation happy.  There’s a clothes-ripping catfight, nude dancing, and an all-out orgy.  The best scene though is the bizarre prelude to the orgy where the participants crawl around the floor on all fours imitating animals.  If you assume that most English people are prudes, here is a scene that suggests otherwise.

It’s also loaded with out-of-date slang, groovy music, and funky late ‘60s fashions.  So much so that it works better as a time capsule than as a sexploitation picture.  I mean any movie that features an opening credits sequence in when the titles are painted on the side of a van can’t be all bad.

It all starts innocently enough, but Groupie Girl becomes darker as it goes along.  The third act is particularly bleak, and it ends on a downbeat, depressing note that much of the fun of the earlier scenes gets cancelled out.  To make matters worse, it seems as if the filmmakers are chastising Sally for her sexually liberated lifestyle.  Ultimately, there’s enough nudity and camp value here to make it worth a look.  It’s just a shame that the abrupt and callous ending leaves such a bad taste in your mouth.

AKA:  I am a Groupie.

THE DEBT COLLECTOR (2018) **

Scott Adkins is a karate teacher in danger of losing his school to the bank.  To make ends meet, he gets a job as a loan shark for a local kingpin (Vladimir Kulich).  He’s paired up with a perpetually hungover leg-breaker (Louis Mandylor) and they go around town collecting money.  Along the way, they get into various scuffles, and bond over breaking bones.  Things take a turn when a rival gangster (Tony Todd) hires them to find the person responsible for ripping him off.

The Debt Collector is the third Adkins collaboration with director Jesse V. Johnson in the past two years.  It’s not as successful as their previous collaborations, Savage Dog or Accident Man, but it’s an OK attempt to broaden Adkins’ range a bit.  Johnson deserves some credit.  Each of these films have all been different in terms of style and tone.  Although this is by far my least favorite of the three, it’s nice to know he’s capable of creating a variety of nuances within the genre.

The film is at its best during the first half, which plays like a gangster version of Training Day.  It’s not quite as interesting once a semblance of a plot begins to take hold.  It’s here where things become a tad predictable.  I liked it better when Adkins and Mandylor were just cruising around and breaking bones.  I could’ve also done without all the heavy-handed footage of a slaughterhouse that is peppered throughout the action.

Adkins gives a solid performance and Mandylor is quite good as the former B movie actor-turned-loan shark.  I just wish the banter between the two was funnier.  The other attempts at humor are equally hit-and-miss throughout the film.

Since this is an Adkins/Johnson joint, that means there are plenty of fight scenes to go around.  They aren’t bad for what they are, but they lack the gory highs of Savage Dog or the humor of Accident Man.  Even if The Debt Collector is a tad off the mark, there’s enough compelling evidence here to suggest I’m more than likely to sit through the duo’s next collaboration.

AKA:  Pay Day.

BLACK WATER (2018) * ½

Jean-Claude Van Damme wakes up in a submarine being used as an off-shore black site for CIA detainees.  He has no memory how he got there, but luckily Dolph Lundgren is in the cell next to him to jog his memory.  Turns out he’s a former agent who lost a valuable thumb drive.  Crooked agents board the sub looking to silence Van Damme permanently.  JCVD naturally gets the upper hand and sets out to escape.

Those hoping for a legitimate Van Damme-Lundgren team-up will be sorely disappointed.  Even though their faces are side by side on the DVD, Dolph’s interactions with Van Damme are precious and few.  Dolph’s appearances are frustratingly fleeting, and his bemused, aloof, and entertaining performance gives us glimpses of what could’ve been.  Van Damme gives a solid performance all things considered; it’s just that it pales in comparison next to his recent work in the Kickboxer remake (and its sequel).  Video Vacuum favorite Patrick Kilpatrick (who was also in Van Damme’s Death Warrant) also turns up as the CIA agent, but like Lundgren, he’s sorely underutilized.

Black Water gets off to a promising start.  The idea of a sub being used as a government black site is certainly intriguing enough.  Too bad the plot is belabored, the pacing is sluggish, and the running time is needlessly inflated.  

The claustrophobic sub setting doesn’t help matters either.  Much of the suspense relies on having the machine gun-toting villains miss Van Damme from nearly point-blank range, which takes some of the fun out of it.  The scenes that take place outside of the sub work much better.  (I liked it when Van Damme lands on a car and shoots a guy in the head.)  I just wish Van Damme had been given more of an opportunity to use some of his Kung Fu skills rather than leaning so heavily on the close-quarters shootouts.  Whenever Van Damme is stuck aboard the sub, Black Water sinks.

AKA:  Steel Thunder.

DEMOLITION UNIVERSITY (1999) **

Kevin S. (Night of the Demons) Tenney’s uninspired sequel to Jim Wynorski’s surprisingly fun Demolition High is another Die Hard variation with Corey Haim in the lead.  This time out, he tags along with Ami Dolenz on a class field trip.  When terrorists take the students hostage, it’s up to Corey to stop them.  

Despite the title, this doesn’t even take place at college.  Instead, it’s at a boring power plant where the terrorists try to poison the local drinking water.  Haim was entertaining in the last movie, so it’s befuddling that he gets less screen time this time around.  Disappointingly, he doesn’t do any of the MacGyver Jr. type of booby traps like he did in the original.  Instead, he mostly relies on dumb luck to take out the bad guys, which diminishes the fun.  Haim and Dolenz are pretty good together though, which makes you wish they had better material to work with.

Like the original, Demolition University suffers from a weak villain (Todd Allen).  The good news is that Robert Forster is excellent as the Army colonel who is stuck outside the plant negotiating with the terrorists over a walkie-talkie.  These scenes are usually the weakest in any Die Hard rip-off, but Forster’s cagey performance makes them rather engaging.  It’s definitely a lot more fun than the tired cat-and-mouse scenes with Haim dodging terrorists. We also have Laraine Newman as the professor who gets kidnapped.  She isn’t given anything particularly memorable to do, but it’s nice to know she got a paycheck out of all this.

Allen gets the best line though when he says, “Look what we have here… A Mexican standoff.  Or, as they say in Mexico, ‘A standoff!’”

AKA:  Demolition U.

THE THIN MAN GOES HOME (1944) ** ½

The fifth Thin Man adventure finds Nick and Nora Charles (William Powell and Myrna Loy) returning to Nick’s hometown to visit his parents.  His crusty father (Harry Davenport) is still smarting that his son never went into the family business and takes every opportunity to mention it.  When a man is murdered on their doorstep, Nick takes it upon himself to solve the crime to show up his old man.

Having Nick and Nora take their antics out of the city prevents the series from becoming stale.  The way small town gossip expedites the case is amusing, as is the colorful town characters whose various skeletons in the closet help to complicate matters.  After too many movies of interchangeable thugs in fedoras, this was a nice change of pace. 

Richard (Jailhouse Rock) Thorpe takes over directing duties for W.S. Van Dyke and for the most part, he does a fine job.  He’s able to wring plenty of atmosphere from the night time scenes and moves the camera around a lot more than Van Dyke ever did.  This certainly gives the film a look that distinguishes it from the other entries in the series.

Powell and Loy’s banter is as sharp as its ever been, even if the film is at its best when Nick is off on his own cracking the case.  This time around, they drink cider instead of martinis (due to the wartime rationing of alcohol), so if you love their inebriated antics, you might feel a bit shortchanged with this installment.  They still have their dog Asta, who has one or two funny moments, but their son Nick Jr. is nowhere to be seen.

The Thin Man Goes Home isn’t perfect by any means, but it’s the best entry since the first one.  Although the plot spins its wheels occasionally, Powell and Loy’s performances help it over the rough patches.  The final wrap up of the plot goes on too long and the culprit is predictable.  Really, the same can be said for any of the Thin Man films.

THE HOUSE WITH A CLOCK IN ITS WALLS (2018) *** ½

Eli Roth is one of my favorite directors working today.  When it was announced he was making a kids’ movie with Jack Black, I immediately thought the worst.  I guess I imagined it was going to be like a Goosebumps redux or something.  As it turns out, I needn’t had worried.  The House with a Clock in its Walls is an Eli Roth picture through and through.  

Lewis (Owen Vaccaro) is a misfit kid who goes to live with his weird uncle Johnathan (Jack Black) after the death of his parents.  He eventually comes to realize that his uncle is a warlock and Lewis begs Johnathan to teach him the family trade.  Lewis meddles with a forbidden spell and accidentally awakens a dead warlock (Kyle MacLachlan) bent on destroying the world.  It’s then up to Lewis, Johnathan, and his witchy neighbor Florence (Cate Blanchett) to team up and stop him.

When Roth makes a kids’ movie, he doesn’t fuck around.  If you thought this was going to be watered down, you’d needn’t worry.  Even though people aren’t torn apart or gratuitously tortured, there are still tons of creepy moments here and plenty of Roth’s trademark black humor on display.  

The difference with this and Jack Black’s previous kids’ horror movie, Goosebumps is that Roth plays the horror with a straight face.  We get a creepy automaton attack, an atmospheric scene set in a graveyard, and the bit with the withered old demon in the forest is just as effective as anything in Roth’s R-rated arsenal.  Even the more outlandish moments have an icky vibe to them that most directors wouldn’t even think about applying to a “kids’ movie”.  (I’m thinking specifically about the Jack-Black-as-a-baby scene.)  His wicked sense of humor shines through too as there is a gym class scene that is flat-out hysterical.  

Is some of this a little too broad?  Yes, unfortunately.  I for one could’ve done without the shitting topiary griffin.  However, the film is so jam-packed with eye-popping visuals and effective moments that it’s easy to dismiss some of the clunkier passages.

The performances are uniformly excellent, which help further elevate the film from being your typical kids’ stuff.  Black is having a lot of fun in a tailor-made role that simultaneously allows him to run rampant while remaining an inspiring role model for a little kid.  Blanchett is her usual awesome self and gives her character a measured balance of cantankerous wit and tragic loss that few performers could’ve pulled off.  She’s just as good here as she was in any of her Oscar-nominated (and winning) roles.

The secret to Roth’s success is that he doesn’t pander to kids.  Sure, there is some silliness here, but his aim is to make you jump during the horrific moments.  My daughter, whose two favorite movies are Little Shop of Horrors and Beetlejuice ate it up.  The House with a Clock in its Walls is very much in the vein of those films.  They’re funny, fun, fast-moving, and contain just enough gruesome delights to please horror fans of every age.