CAST A DEADLY SPELL (1991) ***

Cast a Deadly Spell is set in Los Angeles in the ‘40s where magic is commonplace.  Everyone uses it, except for a private detective named Lovecraft (Fred Ward).  He’s old school.  He’s also broke, so when Lovecraft is hired by Hacksaw (David Warner) to find the Necronomicon, an unholy book which just might bring about the end of the world, he jumps at the chance to recover it. 

Directed by Martin Campbell (who would go on to helm Goldeneye a few years later), Cast a Deadly Spell is a cheeky and fun melding of Lovecraftian horror with a Raymond Chandleresque hard-boiled detective story.  There are all the clichés you love to see in the private eye genre here, including femme fatales, duplicitous rich clients, seedy gangsters, and virginal sexpots.  Only this time, we have zombie henchmen, slimy monsters, and voodoo priestesses in the mix.  

Campbell does a fine job blending the genres together and allows the more fanciful stuff to happen with verisimilitude.  Scenes like a unicorn lumbering out into traffic and gremlins turning up in machinery are played out as everyday occurrences, and Ward’s reactions are often priceless.  I also liked that the rampant use of magic is mostly a metaphor for post-WWII prosperity and a symbol of modern advancement, with Ward being stubbornly stuck in his ways against it.  Again, Campbell doesn’t hit you over the head with it, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

Ward is ideally cast as Lovecraft.  He’s almost as good here as he was in the previous year’s Miami Blues, which is enough to make you wish he had played detectives more often.  Ward excels at delivering the rapid-fire, hard-nosed banter and looks perfectly world-weary and lived-in as the badass fast-thinking Lovecraft.  Moore is a bit miscast as the gangster’s moll, but she is very good, nevertheless.  Clancy Brown is particularly fun to watch as a tough guy nightclub owner and Warner gets a few memorable scenes as Ward’s mysterious employer.

I enjoyed this immensely, although I must admit, it never quite kicks into fourth gear.  The ending is predictable too but getting there is a consistently engrossing and enjoyable ride.  If you can abide a few cheesy moments and one or two missteps in tone (like the gargoyle attack), you’ll have yourself a solidly entertaining amalgam of ideas held together by Ward’s knockout performance.  

BRUCE LEE: THE LEGEND (1984) **

Bruce Lee:  The Legend was produced by Golden Harvest as a tribute to Bruce Lee.  Because they are a respectable company, this isn’t your typical Mondo movie/Bruceploitation/cash-in.  It’s much more of a straight documentary.  There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but I personally love the crazier, exploitation-style features in the Bruceploitation genre.

The film begins by documenting Lee’s early life in San Francisco before moving to China to become a child star.  The footage from these early movies are revealing and shows his natural talent at a young age.  I also liked seeing his Hollywood screen test as a young man, as his laid-back and effortless charisma is fully on display.  From there, we see his Jeet Kune Do fighting style gaining popularity, as he goes on to teach the likes of Steve McQueen and James Coburn.  Frustrated by the lack of roles in Hollywood, Bruce returns to Hong Kong to jump-start his career and winds up becomes a legend in the process.

Many of the historical clips have been used before in other Bruceploitation movies, but they are much more extensive here.  In addition, we are shown long clips from Fists of Fury, The Chinese Connection, Way of the Dragon, Enter the Dragon, and Game of Death too.  Footage from other non-Lee films are also used to depict the historic aspects of Kung Fu, although it feels more like padding than anything.  They were probably only used because they were taken from a Golden Harvest production.  Speaking of which, Golden Harvest’s owner, Raymond Chow is also interviewed, but these scenes often feel a bit too self-congratulatory.   

If you’re a fan of Lee or have seen a few Bruceploitation flicks, Bruce Lee:  The Legend will feel very familiar.  All of this has been done before, but in a much more entertaining fashion.  Is it informative?  Yes, but it’s also a bit too respectable and staid for my tastes.  Although well-meaning and thorough, it’s, to put it bluntly, a tad on the dull side.

The film only gets exploitative in the last twenty minutes during the segment that covers his death.  There is a lot of footage from Lee’s funeral and his open casket is shown a few times.  The coolest bit though is seeing Coburn and McQueen acting as his pallbearers.  Lee’s tabloid-fodder alleged relationship with Betty Ting Pei is also dredged up.  While this sequence touches on the glut of Bruce Lee imitators that arrived in the wake of his death, it’s not nearly as comprehensive as I’d hoped.  It’s sad to say, but I honestly wish the trashy final segment was longer, if only because that’s the only part that’s moderately entertaining. 

THE POWER (1984) **

A student makes fun of a professor’s Aztec knickknack and gets a psychic nose bleed for his trouble.  Later, after the students leave, the classroom fills with multi-colored smoke and an invisible force levitates the professor ten feet in the air and impales him on a flagpole.  Later, a colleague of the professor kills a couple of people to get his hands on a similar Aztec knickknack and pays the price.

We cut to a teenager who has another Aztec knickknack.  (Or is it the same one? I can’t tell, everything in this movie is choppy as fuck.)  He goes to a graveyard with some friends to mess around with a Ouija board.  Folks, there are some things that just aren’t done.  Anyone who brings a Ouija board to a graveyard is just asking for trouble.  Anyone who brings a Ouija board AND a cursed Aztec knickknack to a graveyard has a fucking death wish.  Before long, the Aztec knickknack causes everything in the kid’s room to fly around in a whirlwind.  This understandably freaks him out, so he buries it in the backyard.  

Frightened, the teens contact a tabloid reporter.  Oh good.  Just what this movie needed:  MORE CHARACTERS.  She doesn’t want the story, but her editor pressures her into doing it.  Meanwhile, a LOT of weird shit goes down with the Aztec knickknack, causing even more people to die is bizarre ways.

There might be a great movie lurking somewhere in The Power, but it just has too many characters, inconsequential subplots, and half-baked ideas to really work.  It also doesn’t help that it’s all cobbled together in a nearly schizophrenic manner.  It comes from the team of Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter (who had previously helmed The Dorm that Dripped Blood), who were obviously going for the same dreamlike, anything goes vibe that Lucio Fulci and Dario Argento are known for.  While they don’t pull it off, there are some admittedly bonkers highlights here.

The Power features a handful of atmospheric, oddball set pieces that get your attention.  A caretaker’s death is prolonged and gruesome, and there’s a well-done nightmare scene that could’ve come out of an Elm Street sequel.  These interesting moments almost (but not quite) compensate for the erratic plotting.

None of this successfully gels as the frustrating structure keeps it all from coming together.  That and the fact that there’s no real central characters, but rather a several peripheral ones.  There’s also the general feeling that the movie is making things up as it goes along.  Still, the finale where the possessed guy’s face turns to the consistency of Silly Putty, melts, contorts, and oozes is pretty damned cool.

AKA:  Evil Power.  AKA:  Evil Passage.

TAKE IT OUT IN TRADE (1970) **

Take it Out in Trade was one of Ed Wood’s final features and was considered lost for nearly half a century.  Now that the world can finally see it, it’s easy to tell why it was almost lost.  Wood is one of my favorite directors, and I’m of the opinion that anything he made should be preserved in some way, shape, or form.  Unfortunately, this is one of his lesser works.

A private eye named Mac McGregor (Michael Donovan O’Donnell) is hired by a rich couple to find their daughter (Donna Stanley).  He takes the money and uses it to go around the world to watch women undress and have sex.  Once he starts running out of money, Mac decides he should at least try to find the girl.  Mac tracks her down to a whorehouse where she works as a prostitute, but getting her home back to her folks won’t be so easy.

The early scenes work the best.  The detective plot is a sturdy enough basis to build a decent skin flick on.  Basically, the first part of the movie feels like a nudie cutie from the ‘50s as O’Donnell hides in the bushes while spying on women.  Once he finds Stanley, the flick takes a nosedive fast.

It’s here where it seems like Wood just gave up on the film.  The first part features lots of cross-cutting during dialogue scenes and random cutaway shots of nudity.  (Think of some of Russ Meyer’s work, but done with less panache.)  By the halfway point, the frenetic editing gives way to a lot of stagnant shots of people’s asses while they roll around on a bed.  

I wasn’t expecting the sex scenes to be sexy mind you.  I was at least hoping that Take it Out in Trade would have some of that old Ed Wood magic.  However, other than one or two weird snippets of dialogue, and the inexplicable overuse of airplanes taking off for no good reason, there’s very little of Wood’s cinematic genius (or lack thereof) on display.

The most memorable scene of course comes when O’Donnell roughs up a transvestite suspect, naturally played by Wood (who was billed only as “Alecia”).  This scene works because Wood is clearly having fun putting his fetishes out there for all the world to see.  If only the rest of the film wasn’t so damned unremarkable, Take it Out in Trade could’ve been a lost classic.  As it stands, I could take it or leave it.

ENEMY (2014) ****

Jake Gyllenhaal stars as a dour professor who lives a dreary existence.  One day, someone recommends a movie to him.  He rents it and is disturbed to learn that one of the actors in it looks exactly like him.  Jake does some research and finds out the actor lives nearby.  He begins digging into his double’s life and begins stalking him.  Things take a turn for the worst for Jake once his double learns of his existence.

Director Denis Villeneuve (who directed Prisoners, which also starred Gyllenhaal) works at a slow, methodical pace.  Could this have played out as a short film or as part of a horror anthology?  Absolutely.  (It sort of reminded me of that ‘80s Twilight Zone episode starring Bruce Willis.)  However, you never know where the film is going next, which keeps you riveted for every frame of its ninety-minute running time.  That coupled with Villeneuve’s bleak worldview is enough to qualify it as a modern classic.

Enemy is a great mind fuck movie in the hallowed tradition of The Machinist and Fight Club.  It sucks you in and never lets you go.  Once you think you know where it’s going, Villeneuve dekes and takes off into a different direction.  I loved how he sprung his surprises.  Most directors will telegraph a big plot twist with a big music sting on the soundtrack.  Villeneuve drops them casually in there, as if to say, “… oh by the way everything you thought you knew is wrong”, which is much more trippy.  Not only that, but the way he slowly ratchets up the tension is a thing of beauty.  I think this might be the only time I jumped while watching a film at an automatic door opening unexpectedly.

Gyllenhaal is brilliant.  He gives two almost identical performances, but each one has enough nuance that you always know who is who (even though the characters around him aren’t so sure).  He’s just as good in this as he was in Nightcrawler and the twisty plot is loopy enough to stand shoulder to shoulder with Donnie Darko as far as trippy Gyllenhaal movies go.

In short, don’t miss Enemy.  This movie has it all.  That’s not even including all the stuff I can’t talk about because it would spoil the fun.  Just check it out.  You’ll be glad you did.

INSIDIOUS CHAPTER 3 (2015) **

I barely remember what happened in the past two Insidious movies.  I do recall the first one being loud as shit.  I guess my foggy recollections don’t matter since this is a prequel, but still.

If anything, Insidious Chapter 3 earns points for giving Lin Shaye a prominent role.  She returns as Elise the psychic who helps a young girl named Quinn (Stefanie Scott) contact her dead mother.  When she has a near death experience, a ghost from the other side follows her back to the “real” world and maliciously torments her.  It’s then up to Elise to go into the other side and set things right.

The writer of the first two Insidiouses, Leigh Whannell was promoted to director for this installment.  He basically just mimics James Wan’s style from the first two movies, which makes it feel like a natural continuation.  The cinematography is atmospheric, and it’s decently acted and everything, but it’s just never involving. 

Like the first movie, the soundtrack blasts and shrieks whenever something allegedly “scary” occurs.  However, the scares are so generic that its almost guaranteed that no one would jump if it wasn’t for the shrill piercing music.  I mean people stand around mumbling for ten minutes, so you have to constantly keep turning up the volume to hear them.  Then, a specter jumps up and the CLANG-SCREECH-BLAST is almost loud enough to wake the dead, or blow out your television speakers, whatever comes first.

The performers do a fine job.  I liked Dermot Mulroney as the dad who doesn’t listen, and Scott is solid as the haunted teenager.  It’s really Shaye’s show through and through.  Whatever goodwill I reserved for the film is mostly due to her performance.

I guess you could label much of this as competent mediocrity.  It’s watchable for the first hour or so, but things get annoying once a team of ghost hunters (one of whom is played by Whannell) show up with their green-tinted night vision cameras to do a sweep of the house.  I can’t say I’d be against seeing the sequel, The Last Key.  Just maybe this time fellas, keep the “scary” music down to a reasonable decibel? 

THE CAULDRON: BAPTISM OF BLOOD (2004) *

A cult of sexy witches holds an occult ritual where they dance around, sacrifice a man, and bathe in his blood.  Meanwhile, an aspiring singer named Stacy (Kellie Karl) wins first place on a reality show called “America’s Top Talent”.  The witches then set out to make Stacy their next sacrifice.

The Cauldron:  Baptism of Blood is kind of like an unofficial sequel to Ted V. Mikels’ Blood Orgy of the She-Devils.  It plays like a cheap Witchcraft sequel, what with all the cleavage and Satanic rituals and all.  (Although there is unfortunately no nudity, which might’ve been the only thing to make it worth a damn.)  Amazingly enough, it manages to be worse than either of those films. 

Like most of Mikels’ work, there’s way too many characters (a ventriloquist, a battered wife, a couple of cops, etc.) and the running time is exorbitant.  I mean witches in sexy outfits doing ritualistic dances is the kind of padding I don’t ordinarily mind in a movie, but there was no reason in hell The Cauldron:  Baptism of Blood had to be 102 minutes.  The America’s Top Talent show is practically shown its entirety (it looks like a public access TV show from the ‘90s) and stops the flick dead in its tracks.  I dug the gratuitous plugs for other Mikels films (in the form of posters, VHS tapes, and movies playing on television) though. 

The ending is pathetic.  The demon (or whatever it is) appears as a floating head with horns and shoots lasers at the witches who burst into cheap-looking CGI flames.  I guess it might’ve been okay if the film was only 75 minutes long.  As it is, The Cauldron:  Baptism of Blood is an often-excruciating endurance test.  At least the severed-head-in-a-fish-tank scene is priceless enough to save this from being utter garbage.