TRAILERS #6: HORROR/SCI-FI EXPLOITATION (1992) ***

Trailers #6:  Horror/Sci-Fi Exploitation is another solid Something Weird trailer compilation.  While it contains many titles from previous collections, most of the repeats appear here in a slightly different form, either as part of a double feature or as a re-release trailer.  Highlights include the preview for the Captain Video serial (which advertises a color sequence), Mickey Rooney as a mad dog killer (“I now pronounce you DEAD!”) in The Last Mile, and it was cool seeing Robot Monster turn up under its alternate title, Monster from Mars.  I think my favorite trailer was Common Law Wife, in which no scenes from the movie are shown.  Instead, we get a guy walking around a cheap motel room who tells us what we'll see in the film.  He also says, “You don’t have to say, ‘I do’ to be married!”  There’s also a great preview for The Killer Shrews hosted by a “doctor” who tells us, “Report to the authorities any sighting of a giant shrew!”  

There are also plenty of fun double and triple feature ads.  We get a double bill of A Bucket of Blood and (Attack of) the Giant Leeches, the double feature of The Vampire’s Coffin and Robot vs. the Aztec Mummy features a cool, multicolored Hypno-Wheel, and the triple feature ad for The Vampire, The Return of Dracula, and The Monster That Challenged the World has an awesome tagline:  “Most Nightmares Last Six Seconds.  Can You Stand One That Lasts Six Hours?”

This had the potential of being one of the best Something Weird trailer compilations.  Too bad it makes the mistake of playing the same trailers twice, which is a shame.  It’s one thing to show the same trailer from compilation to compilation, but I have to take off points for showing repeat trailers within the same volume.  In fact, it probably would’ve gotten *** ½ had it not been for all the repeats.  

That said, I did enjoy the run of “Attack” movies (Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Attack of the Puppet People, and Attack of the Crab Monsters) that occurred midway through.  There are also plenty of ads for Toho films (King Kong vs. Godzilla, Godzilla’s Revenge, and Mothra vs. Godzilla), juvenile delinquent flicks (Teen-Age Crime Wave and Curfew Breakers), and Ray Dennis Steckler (The Incredibly Strange Creatures who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies and The Thrill Killers). 

In addition to all the trailers, the first few minutes of the unaired pilot of The Munsters are dropped in there for no real reason.  It’s random as hell, but it is neat seeing Joan Marshall as Herman’s wife “Phoebe” as she is much sexier than Yvonne De Carlo’s Lily Munster.  Oh, what could’ve been!  

The complete line-up is as follows, Bride of the Gorilla, Voodoo Woman, Gun Girls, Girls in the Night, The Oklahoma Woman, Cat-Women of the Moon, She Demons, Curse of a Teenage Nazi, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Alligator People, a double feature of War of the Colossal Beast and Attack of the Puppet People, The Hideous Sun Demon, Night of the Blood Beast, and double feature of The Vampire's Coffin and The Robot vs. The Aztec Mummy, a double feature of The Screaming Skull and Terror From the Year 5000, Macabre, Captain Video: Master of the Stratosphere, Monster from Mars (AKA:  Robot Monster), The Electronic Monster, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers, Invaders from Mars, The Blob, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, Monster on the Campus, A Bucket of Blood, Twist All Night, Little Shop of Horrors, Common Law Wife, House on Haunted Hill, The Killer Shrews, Revenge of the Creature, Black Sunday, The Tingler, The Unearthly, I Was a Teenage Werewolf, a double feature of The Screaming Skull and Terror From the Year 5000, Five, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Attack of the Puppet People, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Attack of the Giant Leeches, Them!, The Killer Shrews, Tarantula, The Black Scorpion, Daughter of Horror, The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Munsters Unaired Pilot "My Fair Munster", King Kong vs. Godzilla, Godzilla's Revenge) Mothra vs. Godzilla, Terror of Mechagodzilla, The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies, The Thrill Killers, The Man from Planet X, The Last Mile, Teen-Age Crime Wave, Curfew Breakers The Mole People, Daughter of Horror, The Monster That Challenged the World, Terror in the Haunted House, Day the World Ended, a triple feature of The Vampire, The Return of Dracula, and The Monster That Challenged the World, Frankenstein, Godzilla: King of the Monsters, Abbott and Costello Go to Mars, The Beast of Yucca Flats, The Screaming Skull, War of the Colossal Beast, The Black Scorpion, The Mysterians, and The H-Man.

THE NORTHMAN (2022) *** ½

When he was a boy, Amleth (Alexander Skarsgard) saw his Viking king father (Ethan Hawke) murdered before his eyes by his asshole uncle (Claes Bang).  He took off to the hills while his uncle stole his father’s kingdom and married his mother (Nicole Kidman).  Years go by, and the now buff Amleth returns to fulfill a Viking prophecy and get revenge on his father’s killer.

The Northman is a gripping tale of Viking vengeance gussied up by director Robert (The VVitch) Eggars’ dreamy, arthouse visual style.  The best moments of the movie come when Eggars leans heavy into Viking voodoo, mysticism, and black magic.  There’s a cool scene involving a shaman and a severed head, a sweet battle where Skarsgard is forced to fight a living skeleton to claim the sword he is prophesized to vanquish his enemies with (this sequence convinced me that if they ever do King Conan, Eggars is the man to direct), and Bjork pops up as a freaky “Seeress”.  The fiery finale between Skarsgard and Bang is impressive too.

Sometimes, Eggars’ approach is a bit too ponderous and slow for its own good (especially in the second act).  However, whenever he finds his groove and melds his artsy inclinations with sword and sorcery shenanigans, the film really cooks.  There’s a particularly good twist that sets up the third act that deftly plays with the conventions of your typical revenge thriller and Eggars does a nice job muddling the waters so that Skarsgard’s quest for revenge might not be as cut-and-dry as he thought.  

The cast is strong all around.  Skarsgard makes for a solid, brooding hero and Anya Taylor-Joy is exquisite as a slave girl-turned-love interest.  Ethan Hawke also has some good moments in the prologue as Skarsgard’s doomed dad and Claes Bang has a quiet intensity as the villainous uncle.  It’s Nicole Kidman who steals the movie though (and chews the scenery) as Skarsgard’s mother.  

DORIS DECEMBER: A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER (THE “LOST” VERSION) (1983) * ½

A cloaked figure (he’s kind of like a half-assed Crypt Keeper) appears in a snow covered cemetery to tell us the story of Mary Kent (Diane Cummins).  He says if a person is struck by lightning in a certain part of their brain, it can give them “Satanic powers”.  That’s exactly what happens to poor Mary.  

After surviving the lightning strike to the cranium, Mary begins hearing voices that urge her to kill those who have wronged her.  When she finds her boyfriend Frankie (Frankie Sabat) is cheating on her with her best friend Sandy (Sandy Sabat), the pair are later found with their heads chopped off.  Then, her brother Billy (Bill Szarka) steals money and blames it on Mary.  It doesn’t take long for him to get bludgeoned to death and buried alive in a shallow grave.  Another heartless friend is axed in the bathtub.  Mary eventually finds herself pregnant, and when her parents want her to give it up for adoption, they are later found hacked up.  

So far, so not bad.  About halfway through the movie, Mary dies while giving birth.  We then flash-forward to her daughter Vicki (Dee Cummins) celebrating her sixteenth birthday.  Her mother’s voice soon begins haunting her, and eventually convinces “Crazy Vicki” to kill those who have wronged her as well.  

Apparently, the story goes that the original version of A Night to Dismember was burned by a disgruntled employee at the film lab.  This forced writer/director Doris Wishman to hastily assemble a new version on the fly using nothing but outtakes and deleted scenes.  Others claim that the star of the version that was eventually released (porn star Samantha Fox) paid Doris to put her in the movie and she used the money to film new scenes with her.  That would explain why so much of the original footage was scrapped and why Fox is nowhere to be found in this version.  Lucky(ish) for Doris fans, the original “Lost” version was found and uploaded to YouTube, which is where I finally caught up with it.

I watched the released version a few years ago and it was godawful.  It is by far Doris’s worst effort.  However, it’s been a while since I saw it, so I can’t say how much the two versions really differ.  One thing is for certain, it’s a Doris Wishman movie through and through.  There’s weird narration and voiceovers, out of synch sound, sunset footage recycled from Satan was a Lady, awkward phone conversations, the familiar apartment setting, scenes of women looking at themselves in the mirror, a death in a bathtub accompanied by an overly bombastic score, a solarized sex scene, a negative image dream scene, and of course… FEET!

While The “Lost” Version is better than the one that was eventually released, it is by no means good.  The first half is coherent, but it doesn’t exactly work.  At least the body count is healthy, although Doris really goes overboard with the shots of shadows of assorted weapons silhouetted against a white wall.  The murders are all appropriately grungy looking, and there is one truly priceless line of dialogue to be found.  (After Mary flips out, her mother asks, “When did you menstruate last?”) 

The second half (which seems to be heavily inspired by Carrie) is a real chore though.  There’s a lot of pointless slow-motion scenes and extraneous narration to help cover some of the big gaps in time (and logic).  While it’s noticeably weaker than the first half, this stretch of the film does have some decent gore.  It’s a long time coming, but the heart-ripping, head-crushing, finger-hacking finale is pretty good.  I probably wouldn’t have been so hard on it if it wasn’t for all the damned slow motion.  If Doris played all these scenes at their regular speed, the movie probably would’ve been sixty minutes instead of eighty.

Here’s the review of the version that eventually wound up being released:  

A NIGHT TO DISMEMBER  (1989)  ½ * 

(Originally posted October 31st, 2019)

Doris Wishman is my kind of filmmaker.  She goes out there and makes the movie her way.  You can look at one frame of a Doris Wishman film and know it was made by Doris Wishman.  If it’s got lots of close-ups of feet, no synch sound, and looks like a series of people’s last known photographs, you can bet your ass it’s a Wishman flick.

When Wishman is cooking, she often hits it out of the park.  Anyone who’s ever sat through Let Me Die a Woman, Deadly Weapons, or Nude on the Moon will attest to that.  However, her misses are about as bad as they come.  (The Amazing Transplant, anyone?)  That’s why it pains me to say A Night to Dismember just might be her worst flick.  

It’s not really her fault.  You see, according to legend, some disgruntled lab employee burned the film print.  Wishman then had to scramble, cutting the movie together using odd ends, discarded footage, and whatever scraps she could find.  She added some newly shot footage, and then cobbled it all together and released it on an unsuspecting public.  

Trying to follow the story will give you mental whiplash.  It revolves around the bizarre murders of a troubled family.  Things kick off with a gruesome ax murder in the tub, but then the murderess slips and falls on her ax.  Most of the time, the editing is so rapid fire that simple scenes are hard to figure out.  Shots are repeated, slow motion is used for like, two seconds, shots alternate from night to day, and there are long negative scenes; all of which are usually accompanied by overbearing, out of place library music.

A narrator constantly runs his mouth to try to make sense of the plot.  (It’s really nothing more than your standard let’s-drive-a-relative-crazy plot, but the way it’s told is just confusing as fuck.)  This movie has more narration than The Creeping Terror and Monster a Go-Go combined.  Occasionally, we do hear a snippet of dialogue or two, but it’s clearly just Wishman’s voice dropping in a few lines here and there.  

I like Wishman.  That’s why it hurts to say this flick is a disaster of epic proportions.  Still, it’s a miracle it exists in any way, shape, or form considering the circumstances.  That alone is a testament to Wishman’s tenacity.  

Recently, a print of the original version was miraculously found.  I don’t know if my nerves could stand to watch that one so soon after subjecting myself to this.  Judging solely from the evidence here, I’d say they burned the wrong movie.

DORIS DECEMBER RANKINGS:

1. Deadly Weapons 

2. Let Me Die a Woman

3. Love Toy

4. Bad Girls Go to Hell

5. Double Agent 73

6. The Immoral Three

7. Indecent Desires

8. Come with Me My Love

9. My Brother’s Wife

10. The Hot Month of August

11. The Sex Perils of Paulette

12. Another Day, Another Man

13. A Taste of Flesh

14. Nude on the Moon

15. Diary of a Nudist

16. Too Much Too Often

17. Gentlemen Prefer Nature Girls

18. Hideout in the Sun

19. Satan was a Lady

20. Blaze Starr Goes Nudist

21. The Amazing Transplant

22. A Night to Dismember (The “Lost” Version)

23. The Prince and the Nature Girl

24. Passion Fever

25. Keyholes are for Peeping or Is There Life After Marriage?

26. A Night to Dismember

Well, that brings Doris December to a close.  If you still can’t get enough retrospectives of cult directors, be sure to keep your eyes peeled as I will be ringing in the New Year with another set of reviews spotlighting a B movie auteur.  Join me for Janua-RAY when we will be celebrating all things Ray Dennis Steckler!

DORIS DECEMBER: SATAN WAS A LADY (1975) **

Satan was a Lady was Doris Wishman’s first foray into hardcore pornography.  Up until then, she had made many “roughie” movies, but none of them crossed the line into full-on penetration.  I tried to be as forgiving as I could seeing as Doris was just getting her feet (no pun intended) wet in the genre.  Even with that in mind, it’s kind of tough to sit through in some places.

Terry (Annie Sprinkle) catches her little sister Claudia (Bree Anthony) engaging in pre-marital sex with her fiancé Victor (Tony Richards).  She then goes running into the arms of Bobby (Bobby Astyr) for a little bondage action.  Later, it’s revealed Terry is also romancing Victor behind her sister’s back.  

Other than Sprinkle’s bondage scene, the sex scenes are mostly cliché (there’s even a part where lovers bang on a bear skin rug in front of a fireplace for God’s sake) and unsexy, which is the main problem, seeing as this is a sex flick and all.  It doesn’t help that one of the scenes plays out in a long loop, unapologetically replaying the same footage again and again.  Even with the engaging presence of Sprinkle, they are mostly lackluster.  It’s telling that the best part of the movie is Sprinkle’s solo scene where she pleasures herself.  I have a feeling Doris did very little directing on this sequence.  She just put the camera down and let Sprinkle do all the work.  In fact, if it wasn’t for Annie’s sex appeal, Satan was a Lady would’ve been completely forgettable.

This isn’t one of Wishman’s best, but there are plenty of her trademarks on display:  Awkward phone conversations, odd dubbing and voiceovers (that’s Doris’s voice as the characters’ “thoughts”), the recycling of stock footage from her old nudie movies, pointless scenes of people walking in Central Park to help pad out the running time, a long negative image sex scene, and of course, feet (although, quite honestly, not as many as I was expecting).  It’s all pretty much plotless and dull until the completely random Diabolique-inspired twist ending occurs.  Since there had been so little plot leading up to the big reveal, it was hard to care about the outcome either way.   

DORIS DECEMBER: COME WITH ME MY LOVE (1976) ***

I bet you guys and gals thought Doris December was over.  Well, after watching twenty-two Doris Wishman movies in three days’ time, I just needed a little break.  Before the month is out, I plan on watching a couple of her forays into the world of hardcore smut.  First up is Come with Me My Love.  

In 1925, a jealous husband (Jeffrey Hurst) catches his wife (Ursula Austin) and her lover in the throes of passion.  Enraged, he guns them both down before turning the weapon on himself.  Fifty years later, a woman who resembles his dead wife (also Austin) rents the apartment where the murders took place.  Before long, the ghost of the husband is not only seducing her, but also killing anyone who makes love to her.  

This is actually a decent little horror porno, made all the more interesting by all the trademark Doris Wishman touches.  Wishman’s films always had a handmade feel to them, and this one is no different.  Her fingerprints are all over this one.  (She obviously dubbed the “voice” of the ghostly whispering.)  If you’re hoping to see Doris’ signature cinematic flourishes on display, Come with Me My Love doesn’t disappoint.  She gives us random shots of feet, inexplicable narration, shoddy voiceovers, predominantly one apartment location (when Austin goes to Annie Sprinkle’s apartment, she remarks it looks exactly like hers) gratuitous shots of clothing hitting the floor, long scenes of characters looking at themselves in the mirror, bathtub scenes with an overly bombastic score, and awkward phone conversations.  There’s also an instance where Doris reuses footage from one of her previous films, in this case the sparking ring scene from Double Agent 73 to simulate the sparks during the bathtub electrocution scene.  Her penchant for negative shots also crops up again during the (overused) shots of the “ghost” spying on Austin.

Surprisingly enough, Doris does a more than competent job on the sex scenes as they are above average as far as ‘70s smut movies go.  (The stereotypically ‘70s porn music is particularly good.)  Editing was never Wishman’s strong suit but Come with Me My Love is put together rather well.  There’s a real rhythm to the cutting during the sex scenes (especially the group ones) that help enhance the sensuality.  Many of these scenes even have a sense of humor about them (like when Vanessa del Rio says she’s giving her boyfriend “something to eat” and the camera cuts to him going down on her), which helps make them even more engaging.  

It also helps that the story is simple but effective.  Besides, there’s enough sex and violence here to satisfy fans of either the XXX or horror genre.  Even though some may look down on it because it’s a porno, Come with Me My Love remains one of Wishman’s best efforts.  

AKA:  Come with Me, My Ghost.  AKA:  Stay with Me My Love.  AKA:  With Me My Love.  AKA:  The Haunted Pussy.

BLACK ADAM (2022) **

Black Adam has been The Rock’s passion project for years.  It seems like ever since he became a movie star he’s been wanting to play Black Adam.  You would never know this from looking at him in the movie as he at all times seemed broody, gloomy, and bored.  Maybe it was a case of miscasting.  The Rock is a likeable, funny, gregarious guy.  Seeing him play such a predominantly petulant superhero isn’t very much fun at all.  Even when he does crack the errant joke, it lands with a thud, thanks to his stoneface delivery. 

An archaeologist (Sarah Shahi) looking for the Crown of McGuffin unleashes the ancient superhero Black Adam from his centuries-long slumber to save her from some bad guys.  She and her annoying son (Bodhi Sabongui) then try to acclimate Adam to the 21st century, but they are interrupted by the Justice Society who want Adam to surrender to them.  When a bad dude dons the crown and becomes a devilish monster bent on bringing Hell on Earth, Adam reluctantly joins forces with the Justice Society to save the day.  

I guess the draw here is that Black Adam is an anti-hero, who unlike Superman, uses his superpower to kill bad guys.  We know he’s an anti-hero because there’s a scene where he watches Clint Eastwood in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on TV.  You know, just in case we needed it spelled out for us.  Other than the fact that he occasionally turns dudes into skeletons and shit, it's another day at the superhero office.  

The best moments belong to the Justice Society.  So much so that you kind of wish you were watching them starring in their own movie.  Aldis Hodge does a fine job as the leader, Hawkman.  Noah Centineo gets the only laughs in the movie as the bumbling Atom Smasher who is still getting used to his Giant-Man-style powers.  (Seeing Henry Winkler turn up in a cameo as the previous version of the character was cool too.)  Quintessa Swindell is also quite good as the superheroine Cyclone, but it’s Pierce Brosnan who steals the movie as Dr. Fate.  He's dashing, debonair, and badass playing a character that’s equal parts Doctor Strange and The Shadow, and even gets to dust off some of that old time James Bond charisma.  

Watching this with the knowledge that he won’t be coming back, this is (probably) the last time we get to see Henry Cavill as Superman.  Traditionally, Black Adam is the flipside of Shazam, but The Rock strongarmed Shazam out of the movie in favor of Superman.  It’s funny because he’s only on screen for about five seconds and says, “We should talk”.  About what, we’ll never know since the DC Universe is getting chucked into the toilet and rebooted.  If they keep making movies as forgettable as Black Adam, I’d say a reboot is needed the sooner the better.  

DC EXTENDED UNIVERSE RANKING:  

Batman v Superman:  Dawn of Justice: ****

Man of Steel:  ****

Aquaman:  *** ½

Wonder Woman:  *** ½

Justice League:  *** ½

Shazam!:  ***

Suicide Squad:  ***

The Suicide Squad:  ** ½ 

Black Adam:  **

WW84:  * ½ 

Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn):  * ½

THE MEAN ONE (2022) **

The Mean One has a great idea.  What if The Grinch not only stole Christmas, but slaughtered everyone who celebrated it?  We’ve had horror versions of children’s stories before (mostly fairy tales and shit), so why not The Grinch?  I guess they were able to get away with the blatant copyright infringement (the costume and make-up are extremely close to the Jim Carrey version) by making this a horror-comedy, so it may (or may not) fall under fair use because it’s a parody.  Like I said, the idea is great.  The execution leaves a little something to be desired.  

When she was a little girl, Cindy-You-Know-Who was visited by “The Mean One” (Art the Clown himself, David Howard Thornton) on Christmas Eve.  Her mother, thinking it was attacking her child, began to beat the crap out of the creature.  The Mean One killed her mother in self-defense, but the altercation caused its heart to become an empty hole.  From then on out at Christmas, he would brutally murder anyone who dared to show any sign of holiday cheer.  Twenty years later, the now-grown Cindy (Krystle Martin) returns to town to confront her childhood trauma.  After The Mean One kills her dad, Cindy sets out for revenge.  

I’m not going to lie.  There’s a couple of chuckles here.  The best moments are the ones that hew closest to the movie’s Grinchy inspiration and/or are in-jokes to the original.  (The town drunk is named “Dr. Zeus”.)  There were enough of these moments to fill a Grindhouse-style fake trailer, or perhaps even a twenty-minute short film.  It just doesn’t cut it as a feature length movie.  Sure, there are some funny bits, but the lulls in between them are long and frequent.  There’s a good scene where The Mean One massacres a bunch of guys dressed like Santa in a diner.  However, the flick needed one or two more scenes of this caliber (and a helluva lot less CGI blood) to really make it a winner.

It kind of reminded me of the first Leprechaun.  It had a cool premise, and some funny lines, but the franchise really didn’t find its footing until they started making sequels.  Maybe the makers of The Mean One will follow in the Leprechaun’s footprints.  I wouldn’t say no to a sequel.

The reason is Thornton’s performance.  He does another fine job buried under a bunch of make-up and an elaborate costume.  He gives The Grin… er… Mean One a mischievous menace and does a helluva lot better job than Jim Carrey.  

Martin is pretty good too.  Not many actresses working today can wield a baseball bat wrapped in Christmas lights that makes lightsaber sounds and make it look plausible, but she is definitely one of them.  She also gets the best line of the movie when she says, “Let’s roast this beast!”