HINDSIGHT IS 2020: GRETEL AND HANSEL (2020) *

I guess you can tell by the title, Gretel and Hansel, that this is going to be one of those deals where they try to flip the script and elevate the female character’s role in an already well-established story.  That probably isn’t the worst idea in the world given that they cast It’s Sophia Lillis as Gretel.  They also made her significantly older than the brat playing Hansel, so she basically has to do all the heavy lifting.  In fact, I’m not even sure why they bothered putting Hansel’s name in the title to be honest.

Unfortunately, this is one of those movies that tried to ride the coattails of The VVitch.  Like that flick, it’s got a nice sense of time and setting, but it’s mostly a big bore.  Sure, the opening scene, which looks a little inspired by The Holy Mountain is cool, but it’s all downhill from there. 

That sequence also serves as an origin story for the witch, played by Alice Krige.  That is about as perfect casting as you can get.  Unfortunately, just like The VVitch, everyone talks in hushed tones and whispers, so it’s hard to hear what they’re all going on about half the time, so it makes it hard for her to build up a sense of menace. 

Also, there’s no candy house.  What the fuck?  That’s like making a Sleeping Beauty movie and beauty don’t go to sleep.  They don’t even fuck around with breadcrumbs either.  There is a scene where they get high AF on mushrooms though.  The witch even turns Gretel against Hansel at one point because… fuck the patriarchy?  I guess.  You know, you can only change so much stuff about Hansel and Gretel (or Gretel and Hansel) until at some point it stops being Hansel and Gretel.

Another dumb thing:  Gretel somehow has Jedi powers too.  I guess that’s the Force Awakens influence.  Or something.

The movie was directed by Osgood Perkins.  (More like OsBAD Perkins, am I right?)  He is none other than the son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins.  As for as directorial efforts from the Perkins bloodline go, this ain’t no Psycho 3 that’s for damned sure. 

HINDSIGHT IS 2020: SKIN: A HISTORY OF NUDITY IN THE MOVIES (2020) ****

I probably saw more documentaries in 2020 than I have in a long time.  That was mostly because cinematic pickings were kind of slim, thanks to the pandemic.  However, this year’s crop of docs just sort of spoke to me.  Dangerous theme parks?  Drugs?  The Bee Gees?  The Go-Go’s?  Sure, why not?  I’ll check out a movie about those subjects. 

Now, here comes a documentary that REALLY speaks to me.  Skin:  A History of Nudity in the Movies is exactly what you think it is.  It’s a lot of stars, historians, and film critics taking you on a nude romp down mammary (err… memory) lane and celebrating Hollywood’s infatuation with nudity.  We learn that nudity in movies practically began with the movies themselves.  They started off in small indie productions before slowly creeping into big budget studio films.  The Hays Code put a stop to all that in 1934, so Hollywood had to come up with clever ways to sneak risqué stuff past the censors.  Things lighten up a little bit thanks to the nudist camp pictures and nudie-cuties of the ‘60s.  Eventually once major stars like Jayne Mansfield and Mamie Van Doren star in movies topless, it paves the way for nudity in film as we know it today. 

There is a good variety of talking heads throughout.  We hear from everyone who made the movies (like Joe Dante) to the people who starred in them (like Sybil Danning) to the people who watched them (like David Del Valle).  We also hear from the authority on nudity himself, Mr. Skin.  If you think Mr. Skin is cool, wait till you see the guy they have on here named Professor Kuntz!  Although… I don’t think it’s a pseudonym like “Mr. Skin”.  I think it’s his real name.

Anyway, a lot of this will be an old hat if you know your film history, but it’s still fun to see it trotted out again.  What makes it so engaging is that it is scholarly to a point, but not so much so that it can’t embrace the wild side of cinema that you and I enjoy so well.  I mean any movie that shows clips from The Monster of Camp Sunshine, Kiss Me Quick, and Orgy of the Dead in rapid succession is just catering to my tastes. 

Editor Steven L. Austin deserves some kind of award for his ingenious cutting.  How can you not love a documentary that follows up the harrowing nude scenes of The Last Tango in Paris with scenes from the Women in Prison classic, The Big Doll House?  I think my favorite moment was when they go from the schlocky werewolf orgy in The Howling 2 to the tender lesbian lovemaking in Personal Best within a span of a single edit.  That is some Oscar-worthy editing right there.

Austin is also smart enough to include moments from some of the most iconic scenes in screen history.  And by that, I mean Betsy Russell’s topless horseback riding scene in Private School, Traci Lords’ nude scene in Not of This Earth, and Julianne Moore’s bush in Short Cuts.  If that alone isn’t enough to sell you on this movie, you probably don’t have a pulse.

MOONSTALKER (1989) ** ½

An old coot goes camping and makes the acquaintance of a vacationing family.  Mom doesn’t like him, but dad assures her, “He’s just a harmless old guy!”  (If you play a drinking game where you take a shot every time the father says a variation on this line, you’ll be drunk off your ass before the second act.)  As it turns out, mom’s instincts were right.  The old fart just busted his deranged son, Bernie out of the booby hatch and before long, he goes to town on the family with an axe.  Only the daughter survives, and he chases her to a nearby camp where some counselors are taking a training course.  It isn’t long before our axe-happy killer starts piling up counselor bodies like cordwood. 

Moonstalker gives us a little bit of a Psycho situation where our heroes are killed off early on before we are introduced to another set of characters.  It’s also interesting in that our killer, though quite mad, still has enough wits about him to steal the clothing and identity of one of his victims.  Although he’s not quite as menacing while wearing oversized sunglasses and a cowboy hat (he kind of looks like Joe Don Baker) as he was when he was in his Slipknot mask and straitjacket, his appearance is at least different enough from the usual slasher fare to be memorable. 

In fact, the movie is a little bit better than average the whole way down the line.  I’m a fan of this sort of thing, so I appreciated some of the novel touches.  It’s probably not novel enough to win over any non-slasher fanatics, but it’s also not too far off the beaten path that fans wanting more of the same will be disappointed.  

For example, there’s the scene where the character of Marcie (Ingrid Vold, who has a Linnea Quigley-type quality to her) prepares for a lovemaking session with her boyfriend.  In most of these movies, the girl would simply disrobe and hop in a sleeping bag.  This is not the case with Moonstalker.  Marcie’s boyfriend is a military fetishist, so that means she dresses up in a camouflage bikini, cracks a whip, and cranks Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyries” as a form of foreplay.  You just don’t get that in your average Friday the 13^th sequel.

The third act is a little plodding though.  Despite the draggy pace, it does have a few cool bits like the campfire sing-along with a bunch of dead bodies.  We also get a nice little twist at the end.  It’s not enough to put it over the top or anything, but I kind of wish the set-up for a sequel happened.  I wouldn’t have minded another go-round with Bernie.

AKA:  Camper Stamper.

GREMLOIDS (1984) *

Most movies wear their inspirations on their sleeve.  This one wears them on its pajamas.  And by that, I mean the opening scene features two kids having a close encounter with aliens while wearing Star Wars and E.T. P.J.’s. 

The evil Lord Buckethead (Robert Bloodworth) accidentally winds up on Earth.  Refusing to own up to his mistake, he plows forward, and along with his band of pint-sized aliens in black robes they scour a small hick town looking for stolen transmissions.  When he realizes AAMCO transmissions aren’t the plans he’s looking for, he kidnaps a grease monkey named Karen (Paula Poundstone) thinking she’s a princess.  It’s then up to a wimpy exterminator named Max (Alan Marx) to rescue her and save the planet.

Gremloids resembles what Star Wars might’ve looked like if George Lucas opted for the “let’s have it take place on Earth” approach of the Masters of the Universe movie.  As bad as the film is, the Star Wars-inspired opening crawl is very well done.  Lord Buckethead, who looks like a cross between Darth Vader and the Black Knight from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, could’ve been a fun villain, but his repetitive shtick wears out its welcome quickly. 

You know you’re in trouble when you’re watching a Star Wars spoof that came so late in the cycle that its title was changed to cash in on Gremlins.

The film ultimately tries way too hard to be like Star Wars that it fails to do anything original.  It tries even harder to make the unfunny gags work.  The jokes are repeated ad nauseum, the action sequences are lame (like the chase scene involving grocery carts in a supermarket), and the special effects aren’t so special.  The filmmakers had the right idea by casting then-up and coming comedians like Paula Poundstone and Chris Elliott in sizable roles, but they were just too early in their career to really pull the weak material off.

Ultimately, Gremloids feels like a Mad magazine Star Wars spoof stretched out to ninety minutes.  In case you’re wondering, ninety minutes is way too long for this sort of thing.  Heck, it would’ve been a painful nine-minute short.  I mean the opening crawl gag is OK and the first appearance of Lord Buckethead is good for a chuckle, but the movie grinds to a halt shortly thereafter and becomes a tiresome chore to get through. 

AKA:  Hyperspace. 

THE HUMANOID (1979) ** ½

Was Message from Space too sophisticated for your tastes?  Did you find Starcrash to be needlessly intellectual?  Did the philosophical underpinnings of The Ice Pirates grind your gears?  Well then, try The Humanoid!   It’s one of the cheapest, weirdest, WTF Star Wars rip-offs ever! 

Richard Kiel stars as a space pirate named Golob who has a cute pet robot dog.  His Moonraker co-star, Corrine Clery plays Barbara, a woman marked for death by the evil Lord Graal (Ivan Rassimov).  Luckily for her, she’s the caretaker of a psychic kid named Tom Tom (Marco Yeh) who uses his powers to get her out of one jam after the other.  Kiel’s The Spy Who Loved Me co-star Barbara Bach is Lady Agatha, a diabolical space queen who is in league with Lord Graal and in her spare time, puts naked virgins into a futuristic iron maiden and drains their blood to keep herself looking eternally young.  Graal’s chief scientist (Arthur Kennedy) uses an experimental formula that turns Golob into a mindless “humanoid” (it basically just shaves his beard off) with the intention of creating an entire race of humanoids that Graal can use as his own personal army.  Tom Tom uses his powers to turn Golob friendly again and they join forces with a space renegade (Leonard Mann) to rescue Barbara from the clutches of Graal.

The Humanoid is dumber than a donut, but it is pretty entertaining from start to finish.  That is mostly due to the incredible talent behind the camera.  Aldo (Short Night of Glass Dolls) Lado directed the heck out of this thing in collaboration with Enzo G. (The Last Shark) Castelleri, who filmed the opening sequence and served as assistant director.  The laughable (but fun) special effects were handled by director Antonio (Yor, Hunter from the Future) Margheriti (the spaceships alternately look like LEGOs, model kits, and smoke detectors), and the score was done by none other than the maestro himself, Ennio Morricone. 

The Humanoid rips off Star Wars way too much to properly catalogue.  (For example, Graal looks like a Darth Vader cosplayer who forgot his mask at home and wore a black jock strap over his face instead.)  What makes it interesting is when it does its own thing… and by that, I mean it rips off movies other than Star Wars.  (Ennio’s score is closer to the classical music found in 2001 than John Williams’ space opera themes.)  I mean how many films have you seen that feature Countess Bathory reimagined as a space queen? 

The casting alone will ensure that James Bond fans will want to check it out.  Let’s face it:  Starcrash just had one Bond alum.  This one has three!

Is The Humanoid a good movie?  No.  Absolutely not.  Is it fun?  Yeah, kinda.  Any fan of ‘70s Grade Z Star Wars rip-offs worth their salt needs to see it at least once.

THE DEATH TRAIN (1978) ***

An insurance investigator named Morrow (Hugh Keays-Byrne) travels to the small Australian hamlet of Clematis to get to the bottom of a mysterious death before his company will shill out a payoff and close the case.  He quickly realizes nearly everyone in town is a quirky old fart as he has bizarre encounter after bizarre encounter with the citizens of Clematis.  To make matters worse, everybody Morrow talks to seems convinced the death was caused by the local superstition, a ghost train.  Surely, a loco locomotive can’t be the reason behind all this… can it?

This set-up is similar to The Wicker Man with an outsider making his way around a small, strange community.  It’s also a bit like Twin Peaks and/or U-Turn as just about everyone in town is a weirdie.  Are they acting odd because they’re hiding something, or are they just naturally nutty? 

If you only know Hugh Keayes-Byrne from his villainous roles in the Mad Max movies, you might be taken aback by his comedic chops here.  He has a Chaplinesque quality to him as he bumbles and stumbles around town having strange interludes with the wacky locals.  While the film sometimes strains a bit to be off-the-wall and quirky, Keayes-Byrne takes to the Monty Python-style gags like a duck to water.  (I liked the bit where he rents an apartment that has an oversized bathroom.)

This was made for Australian TV, and it suffers from some pacing issues that are inherent in the medium.  Your mileage may vary when it comes to some of the townsfolk’s loopy behavior, but the atmosphere is genuinely bizarre and memorable.  The premise is solid, the mystery is engaging, and it’s lots of fun, which means you should definitely grab a ticket and climb aboard The Death Train!

RINGU 0 (2000) * ½

Ringu 0 is a prequel to The Ring that shows the origin of the ghostly girl Sadako.  If you’re hoping to find the typical Ring shit, you might be disappointed as there is very little of the usual Sadako shenanigans.   In fact, the origins were covered pretty well in the original movie, so what we are left with feels a lot like an entirely different story that was retrofitted to be a Ring prequel. 

The meek and shy Sadako (Yukie Nakama) attends a drama school as a form of therapy.  Shortly after her arrival, she becomes an understudy for the star actress in the school’s play.  When she dies from mysterious circumstances, Sadako becomes the new leading lady.  This immediately makes her classmates suspicious of her, especially since she already acts so weird and introverted.  When their director is killed, the cast members rise up to get rid of Sadako once and for all. 

The stuff at the drama school plays like Fame meets The Sixth Sense, with a bit of Carrie thrown in there.  That is to say, it doesn’t feel like a Ring movie.  At all. 

Although the origin story isn’t all that great, it’s certainly more watchable than the Ring sequels or the American versions.  That’s mostly because it does its own thing for much of the running time.  That said, it’s rather slight, unmemorable, and low on atmosphere and scary imagery.  Things get even worse once they start trying to connect the plot back to the first Ring.  The unnecessary additions of ludicrous subplots such as Sadako’s Christ-like powers and the appearance of an evil doppelganger just makes the whole thing feel like it’s grasping at straws.  It’s a shame too because the set-up had potential.  By the time the climax rolls around, Ringu 0 is already circling the drain.

AKA:  Ring 0:  Birthday.  AKA:  The Ring 0.