TUBI CONTINUED… THE SEVENTH GRAVE (1965) **

Three Americans arrive at a Scottish castle to lay claim to an inheritance.  Since the will can’t be read for a few days, they decide to pass the time by holding a seance.  Naturally, they wind up invoking the supernatural, which results in their relative’s corpse disappearing from his tomb.  The will also disappears, and before long, people predictably start turning up dead.

Intermittently atmospheric and at other times dreary, The Seventh Grave is only fitfully entertaining.  While the film is overlong to a fault (the subplot about a treasure hunt for the lost booty of Sir Francis Drake feels like nothing more than filler), it nevertheless has the occasional nifty moment to keep you watching.  The seance scene, for example, where everyone sits around in a circle with hands outstretched pinkie to pinkie looks pretty cool and contains some neat camera angles.  If only the rest of the flick had that same level of cinematic pizzazz, we might’ve had a decent little chiller on our hands.

Too bad the bulk of the film is an old hat.  I mean, they’ve been making these Old Dark House reading-of-the-will murder mysteries since the advent of cinema, and The Seventh Grave doesn’t exactly find anything new to bring to the (seance) table.  All the cliches from those old creaky movies (bodies turn up unexpectedly, romance blooms between two houseguests, an inspector doggedly combs the grounds for clues, etc.) are trotted out once again, and honestly, they really haven’t been given much of an update.  Even someone like me who is predisposed to enjoy movies where women in flimsy negligées walk down darkened corridors while carrying gothic candlesticks found myself getting restless here and there.  I guess it might not have been so bad if the film knew when to quit, but the long-winded plot wrap-up seems especially gratuitous.

SPIDER-MAN: ACROSS THE SPIDER-VERSE (2023) ***

In this fun, engaging, and entertaining sequel to Spider-Man:  Into the Spider-Verse, Miles Morales (the voice of Shameik Moore) finds himself pining away for his pal Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld).  She eventually shows up as part of a Spider-Man Multiverse Police Unit that makes sure that everything in the multiverse goes to plan.  Miles sees this as an opportunity to make up for lost time, but when his new foe, the seemingly innocuous Spot (Jason Schwartzman) learns he has multiverse-hopping powers, it threatens to unravel the entire Spider-Verse.  It’s then up to Miles, Gwen, and a bunch of other Spider-Men to save the day.

Across the Spider-Verse is a little chaotic in the early going, but when it finds its bearings, it starts to soar. Schwartzman makes for a great baddie who no longer wants to be a low-level Villain of the Week and is eager to branch out into becoming a major player.  The character of Miles is a bit more fleshed out here than he was in the first film.  I liked the fact that he decides to potentially destroy the multiverse just to save a loved one.  I mean saving someone while simultaneously making things worse for himself is kind of a core Spider-Man trope.  It also works to ground Miles and helps push him into his own unique path.

While the film is superior to the original Spider-Verse, it’s not without some detriments.  There’s maybe a little too much Spider-Gwen for my tastes in the early going and her banter with Miles isn’t as fresh as what we saw in the first film.  Also, the new ragtag crew of alternate universe Spider-Men isn’t nearly as memorable as the ones found in the original.  I did enjoy Andy Samberg as Ben Reilly though.  His hilarious brooding monologues get some of the biggest laughs of the entire flick. 

Sure, it’s a little overstuffed, but once Miles’ arc takes precedence, things really get into gear.  The action is fun too.  The battle with Spot is entertaining and the sequence where Miles must escape the clutches of thousands of Spider-Men is one of the best action bits in recent memory.  We also get plenty of funny cameos and alternate universe versions of Spider-Man in there too.  And even though it’s just a set-up for the trilogy-capper, Beyond the Spider-Verse, it still feels like a cohesive whole as the cliffhanger ending is well done.

TUBI CONTINUED… THE MONSTER OF THE OPERA (1964) **

It’s always kinda depressing when a movie shoots its wad in the first five minutes.  The excellent opening sequence of The Monster of the Opera features a sexy woman in a flimsy negligée being stalked by a pitchfork-wielding vampire, and it contains some gorgeous cinematography and exquisite nightmarish camerawork full of Dutch angles and loop-de-loop camera moves.  Too bad the flick never comes close to recapturing that marvelous bit of gothic filmmaking.

Sandro (Marco Mariani) is a flamboyant theater director who intends to put on his latest production in a theater where several actresses went missing years before.  He says to hell with all that and plows full steam ahead with his new play.  Unfortunately, the place happens to be the haunt of a vampire (Giuseppe Addobbati) who likes sinking his teeth into prima donnas.  Naturally, he has his sights set on Giulia (Barbara Hawards), the show’s leading lady, who also happens to be the reincarnation of his lost love.

Other than a cool scene where some dancers suddenly appear wearing skeleton costumes and a neat dungeon set featuring scantily clad women chained to the wall, The Monster of the Opera is mostly a bore.  The pacing in the middle section gets bogged down as the many scenes of the cast and crew of the play cleaning up the theater and rehearsing don’t have much pizzazz to them.  It also doesn’t help that it takes an hour or so for the vampire to start putting the bite on people.  

Another debit is that the weird and arbitrary additions to the vampire lore are more perplexing than anything.  Take for instance the fact that a vampire can only bite you when you stand perfectly still. The troupe’s solution?  Dance, dance, dance!  What the hell?  Oh, and despite the title, the performance they’re putting on isn’t really an opera.  It’s more like a Vegas show meets a classical ballet version of Cyrano or something.  While I admire The Monster of the Opera’s desire to be different than the rest, I can’t guarantee you’ll stay awake by the time the curtain falls.

AKA:  The Vampire of the Opera.

IT’S ABOUT THE SECOND COMING (1980) ***

Started by Ron Ormond, and then finished by his son, Tim, It’s About the Second Coming was one of the many religious pictures he and his family made later in life.  It’s not quite in the same league as the incredible If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do? (then again, what could be?), but there are plenty of solid laughs and a few touches of the patented jaw-dropping lunacy you’ve come to expect from the Ormond clan.

Because Ron handed the directorial reins to Tim halfway through production, the film has a choppy feel.  It’s essentially about The Book of Revelations.  Our main story focuses on a guy who doesn’t have time for the Lord because he’s too busy going out to Ruby Tuesdays and disco dancing.  Once The Rapture occurs, he finds himself Kirk Cameroned and left behind.  He then is hunted down by the evil “global police”.

The Tribulation scenes are pretty great.  They feel like a mix of Escape from New York, Star Wars (a Han Solo toy blaster is a prop), Freejack, and Left Behind.  The parts where the “global police” ride around in jeeps and blast citizens with laser cannons in skid row alleyways are especially memorable.

It’s still really uneven though.  You’ve got to sit through a lot of sermonizing and biblical recreations (like the story of Abraham) before you get to the good (cheesy) stuff.  In one great bit, the Antichrist causes a preacher to have a heart attack mid-sermon.  It almost plays like a religious version of Scanners or something.  We also get a lot of weird/silly/cool imagery including corpses jumping up from their grave, glowing knights riding out of the sky, and a badass guillotine contraption.  Even with the herky-jerky narrative, the fifty-five-minute running time flies by, and there’s enough WTF moments here to make it another winner from the Ormonds’ religious period.

AKA:  The Second Coming.

EDGE OF TOMORROW (1961) **

Whatever you do, don’t confuse this with the Tom Cruise movie of the same name.  This one is a pseudo-documentary/cinema verité/mondo movie/WTF flick about aliens directed by the legendary Ron (The Monster and the Stripper) Ormond.  It tells the purported “true” tale of Reinhold O. Schmidt (who stars as himself) and his close encounters with UFOs.  One day, Schmidt’s driving around Nebraska when he finds a spaceship in a field.  He’s invited in by the aliens and makes lots of small talk with the friendly visitors before going on his merry way.  Schmidt is then interviewed by a reporter to verify his tale.

Edge of Tomorrow is based on two books, but there’s barely enough story here to fill its fifty-minute running time.  At least it gets off to a promising start.  The scenes of Schmidt riding around endlessly have a real Manos vibe to them, and the Coleman Francis-esque narration contains some real howlers like, “We’re living in a new age with different things”.  Sadly, once the movie cuts back to the interview segments, it gets bogged down awfully fast and quickly becomes rather tedious.

The big reason for this is that Schmidt just isn’t an actor.  He flubs several lines, and his whiny voice gets irritating almost immediately.  Whenever the film flashes back to his alien encounter, it flirts with showing a pulse, thanks to the cheesy UFO sets and awkward alien interactions.  However, every time we switch back to Schmidt’s longwinded interview, the life gets sucked right out of the picture.

The funniest thing about the whole thing was that Schmidt was later proven to be a fraud!  Not only did he lie about his alien encounters, but he also was caught trying to swindle old ladies by selling them “crystals” from his alleged UFO buddies.  He even served jail time!  Now there’s one part of his story I’d love to see made into a movie.

Schmidt also appeared In Ormond’s Please Don’t Touch Me.

PSYCHO SISTERS (1994) ***

W.A.V.E. Productions were infamous for allowing fans to customize their horror films to suit their skeevy tastes.  Director Gary Whitson had no qualms whatsoever catering to the whims of fans and shoehorning in whatever fetish they wanted to see.  Psycho Sisters marks the first time they let a fan not only write, but also co-direct one of their movies.  Luckily, Peter Jacelone was aiming to make a “real” movie rather than just a glorified bondage video.  Well, about as close to a ”real” movie as a W.A.V.E. Production could get.  

After the brutal rape and murder of their sister, Janice (Tina Krause), Jane (Christine Taylor) and Jackie (Pamela Sutch) snap and are committed to an insane asylum.  Once they are released, they plot to get revenge on the men who killed their sister… and… well… all men in general.

Psycho Sisters begins with the warning:  “This motion picture contains graphic depictions of rape, murder, and ‘genito-dismemberment’”.  However, the rape scene is rather restrained, all things considered.  The “genito-dismemberment” scenes on the other hand, are pretty damned good as the ladies develop quite a collection of dismembered members throughout the course of the film.  

Psycho Sisters offers up some neat reversals on the typical W.A.V.E. formula.  Instead of women being bound, gagged, chloroformed, and kidnapped, this time, it’s men.  I guess one could argue the death scenes are repetitive, but that kind of goes along with the idea that they are serial killers.  It’s in their very nature to kill their victims the same way every time.  I will say the flick does run on a bit long, although it’s nothing that derails the proceedings or anything.  

I quite enjoyed the flashes of black humor Jacelone brought to the picture.  It is funny that Taylor and Sutch have no problem cutting up men but get all grossed out whenever their victims piss and shit themselves.  The little attention to detail in the sister’s victim disposal methods (like the donation of their clothes to the Salvation Army) also help make it stand out from the rest of the pack.  

The trio of lead actresses are all excellent, which further cements Psycho Sisters’ place as one of the best W.A.V.E. Productions.  Krause is especially good as the ill-fated sister.  Sutch is a vivacious presence as the psychotic and playful Jackie and has many good scenes with Taylor, who acts as the de facto mother figure.  If you’re a fan of any or all of these ladies, you’re sure to go psycho for these Sisters.

TUBI CONTINUED… MOTORBOAT (2023) *

A cult known as “The Brotherhood of Darkness” is murdered by a masked assassin who dumps the leader’s body in the middle of a lake.  Two years later, the leader’s spirit possesses a motorboat that putts around the lake chopping up tourists with its outboard motor.  It’s then up to the sheriff and a priest with a sketchy past to confront and kill the diabolical dinghy.  

Motorboat doesn’t even get out of the dock before there are problems.  The early scenes are edited in a nearly incomprehensible manner with lots of lens filters fogging up the action and making things difficult to see.  Seriously, a movie about a sentient homicidal motorboat should not start off this convoluted.  Also, everyone (including the hero) wears masks, so it’s obvious that much of the dialogue was looped in after the fact (and was probably all done by the same person).  To make matters worse, scenes are repeated again and again in the form of flashbacks and dreams.  In fact, without these repeated sequences (and the unnecessary news reports that break up the action every fifteen minutes or so), the flick would’ve easily been about forty-five minutes long.  

Motorboat (I’m sorry, but I have to interrupt here.  Let me get something off my chest:  Motorboat is a really lame title.  A movie about a killer motorboat is called… Motorboat?  I mean, COME ON!  MURDERboat was right there!) is essentially Jaws, but with a possessed motorboat.  I just wish director Mark Polonia leaned more into the concept.  Unfortunately, he lets the flick get bogged down with all the unnecessary backstory involving the cult.  While some of the CGI shots of the boat’s ghostly aura aren’t bad, the close-ups make it look downright pathetic.  (It’s just a toy boat painted black.)  I’ll admit, the idea of a killer boat is just dumb enough to work, but the boat attack scenes are so weak that it causes the film to sink.  

The bright side:  As bad as Motorboat is, it’s far from the worst Polonia movie I’ve seen.