LET’S GET PHYSICAL: GHOSTS OF HANLEY HOUSE (1968) **

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 24th, 2020)

Ghosts of Hanley House is the kind of obscure horror flick I enjoy stumbling upon.  It’s a regional feature with no name stars and even less of a budget.  It’s also notable for being written and directed by a woman, Louise Sherrill.  It’s a shame she didn’t direct anything else.  Although the film as a whole isn’t always successful, Sherrill shows some ingenuity when it comes to creating atmosphere with obviously very few resources at her disposal.

A guy and his friend make a friendly wager in their neighborhood bar:  If he can stay one night in the haunted Hanley House, he’ll hand over the keys to his Ferrari.  He eagerly agrees, calls up some pals, and together they have a party in the abominable abode.  Naturally, one of his friends happens to be a psychic, and during a séance, the ghosts show themselves to be very real.

Sherrill delivers a strong pre-title sequence that sets the mood nicely.  As the camera tours through Hanley House, doors slam, thunder crashes, and women scream.  The sound effects coupled with the ominous music almost make it feel like something out of an old radio show.  The stark black and white cinematography is also well done.  The shots of people standing in front of a black background are eerily effective, and some scenes are reminiscent of Night of the Living Dead.

You also have to give Sherrill credit as a screenwriter.  In most of these movies, you wonder why the people just don’t automatically leave the house at the first sign of danger.  Here, the hero has a very good reason for staying:  A Ferrari!

Ghosts of Hanley House starts off in fine fashion.  Sherrill doles out low key but effective chills throughout the first act.   I also enjoyed the great acid rock soundtrack during the early scenes.  I especially liked it when it was blaring over the dialogue to disguise the fact they didn’t have synchronized sound for the outdoor scenes. 

Unfortunately, the movie quickly takes a nosedive in quality and it never quite recovers.  The film pretty much slams on the brakes in the second half when the group decides to leave the house and wind up getting lost in the woods.  From there, the picture slowly peters out until it reaches its thoroughly unsatisfactory conclusion.  (The axe murder flashback is the only highlight of the otherwise dreary finale.)  Still, it’s worth a look for the promising early scenes that play almost like a no budget remake of The Haunting. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: VIOLATED (1953) ** ½

 FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

A call girl is found murdered in her apartment stabbed with a pair of scissors.  To add insult to injury, all her hair was cut off too.  While the police search for the madman, we meet a pretty, young, and naive model who gets lured into posing for a seedy photographer.  The photographer has the hots for a surly burlesque dancer who sometimes models for him.  Meanwhile, a recently released sex offender begins following her around.  Could he be the depraved killer?

Violated is an early example of a sex maniac movie.  Its chief asset is the great New York location work which gives you a nice glimpse of the city that’s not usually found in low budget potboilers of the era.  Sure, it might seem pretty tame by today’s standards, but it was likely shocking to moviegoers back in the early ‘50s.  In fact, even though the film is uneven for the most part, it does feel a little ahead of its time.  The finale that gratuitously over explains the killer’s motive is sort of a forerunner to Psycho too. 

Most of the time in these kinds of things, the police investigation sequences bring the pace to a crashing halt.  That’s not the case with Violated as some of the detective scenes work rather well, especially when they bring in the usual suspects of perverts and creeps and work them over.  Sadly, the exploitation bits feel rushed and/or glossed over.  The burlesque numbers, bubble baths, and catfights also seem to end before they can really begin.  I know this is 1953 we’re talking about, but I’m sure they could’ve tried to be a little more down n’ dirty.  Fortunately, the film does have a nice sense of atmosphere. which somewhat makes up for the lack of skin.  The proto-surf rock guitar score is also pretty good. 

Screenwriter William Mishkin later went on to produce many Andy Milligan movies. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE NAKED WITCH (1961) *

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

A young college student (Robert Short) in Texas runs out of gas on his way to a singing festival in a small town where everyone speaks German and dresses like they did a hundred years ago.  He’s preparing a thesis on witches and quickly learns the locals are very superstitious, especially on the subject of witches.  The only one eager to help him is a young blond named Kriska (Jo Maryman).  When he stupidly digs up the witch’s grave, he accidentally revives her, and the nude witch (Libby Hall) sets out to get revenge on the descendants of the man who accused her. 

The Naked Witch starts with an unnecessarily long (and mostly inaccurate) history of witches accompanied by long lingering shots of paintings.  The only thing that makes it memorable is the fact that it’s narrated by Laugh-In’s Gary Owens.  This is followed by a long stretch of boring narration from our hero.  Once he arrives at the village, it becomes obvious the production didn’t use synch sound for many scenes (or it was considered unusable) as the dialogue is often poorly dubbed.  Other times, the narration is dropped over conversations to let the audience know what is being said by the characters, which gets annoying fast.  It’s almost enough to make Manos, the Hands of Fate look quasi-professional. 

Co-directed by schlockmeister extraordinaire Larry Buchanan, The Naked Witch is rough going for the most part.  It also takes a long time to get to the “naked witch” shit.  To make matters worse, there are scenes of the witch walking around naked, but for some stupid reason, all the naughty bits have been obscured!  What the hell.  Fortunately, whenever she’s skinny dipping, we finally get to see a little skin.  It just seemed odd to me that whenever she’s on dry land her body is blurred out.  I’m not sure what kind of witchcraft that is, but it sucks.  At least the close-ups of the witch’s face are marginally effective.  Sadly, that’s the only part of her that gets a good close-up. 

AKA:  Witches.

A SHEAR DELIGHT (1995) ****

The legendary Up All Night hostess Rhonda Shear stars in her own hour-long special.  It sort of plays like a tamer version of a Playboy Video Centerfold.  Rhonda is interviewed about her history in show business, competing in beauty pageants, and even her brief time in local politics.  Peppered throughout the interviews are cheesecake modeling scenes of Rhonda lounging around in (what else?) sheer lingerie.

Rhonda’s bubbly personality and winning charm comes across during the interview segments.  Naturally, her beauty is on full display in the softcore segments.  While she doesn’t exactly appear nude or anything, her outfits leave very little to the imagination.  The fun segments include Rhonda modeling a lacy white number, sporting a black catsuit, performing a dance with a white feather boa while wearing a short skirt, and donning a cowgirl outfit (while riding in a saddle, no less).  

The highlight is when she seductively eats a popsicle… and let me tell you… this scene is enough to keep you… UP All Night… if you know what I mean.  While the other segments are great and all, this one is pure cinema.  For foot fetish fans there’s a rather incredible scene where she smooshes a banana and jelly donuts with her toes.  The scene where the filling symbolically shoots out is something else.  Again.  Cinema.  At its finest.  Eat your heart out, Scorsese.

Rhonda naturally plugs Up All Night a lot (and her merchandise catalogue).  In fact, much of this sort of feels like you’re watching Up All night without the movie segments.  That is to say, it’s A-OK with me. 

The behind-the-scenes talent is pretty impressive too.  Scream Queen Monique Gabrielle also served as producer and Penthouse Pet and Andy Sidaris muse Julie K. Smith was the set designer.  Julie also starred in the immortal The Strap-On Adventure, which was also directed by this film’s director, Tony Angove.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE FEMALE EXECUTIONER (1986) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

The Female Executioner begins with Brigitte Lahaie naked in a hot tub, and if there’s a better way to start a movie, I’ll be damned if I can think of it. 

Lahaie stars as a tough cop who busts a lady kingpin for the kidnapping of a young girl.  Her crazy son retaliates by kidnapping Brigitte’s sister.  When the sly villainess double crosses Brigitte and kills her sister, Lahaie goes out for revenge. 

The Female Executioner is essentially a French version of an American style action movie with the novelty of a female porn star in the lead role.  Lahaie is essentially Dirty Harriet as she bends the rules to put the bad guys away.  Since it’s Lahaie in the lead, that means she also gets some gratuitous sex scenes.  I’d like to see Clint Eastwood try that.  (On second thought, I’d rather not.)

We all know Brigitte is more than capable in between the sheets, but she’s equally impressive when she hits the streets.  She handles herself quite nicely in her action scenes and is quite convincing when kicking ass.  She even has a cool gimmick of not using guns… that is until her sister is killed.  Then she has no problem blowing away scumbags.  I believe that’s what the highbrow critics call a “character arc”.

It’s not all great, however. The plot gets kinda fractured in the third act and it sometimes feels like the production might’ve run out of time or money (or both).  The music is pretty bad too as it sounds like something you’d hear on the local nightly news.  That in no way should stop you from seeing it, especially if you’re a fan of Brigitte as she is simply dynamite.  It’s almost enough to make you wish she found a second career as an action heroine. 

AKA:  Miss Magnum.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY (1968) ****

FORMAT:  4K UHD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on January 7th, 2010)

Dummmm Dummmm Dummmm DAH DUMMMMM!!!!!!!

 

(Sorry, I had to do that.)

 

2001:  A Space Odyssey is not my favorite Stanley Kubrick movie (that would be The Shining) but from a technical standpoint it’s his masterpiece.  Kubrick combines breathtaking visuals (the Star Gate sequence is still one of the coolest looking things ever put on film), with stunning special effects (incredibly they still hold up forty years after the film’s initial release), an awesome soundtrack (Dummmm Dummmm Dummmm DAH DUMMMMM!!!!!!!), and unnerving sound effects (Dave’s constant heavy breathing in the spacesuit is damned eerie) to create a truly unforgettable movie-going experience.  It’s definitely one of the best films of the 60’s; if not of all time.

 

I probably don’t need to give you a plot crunch of this one but I will anyway.  This giant black monolith (it looks like a big ass Nestle Crunch bar) shows up during the “Dawn of Man” (Dummmm Dummmm Dummmm DAH DUMMMMM!!!!!!!  Okay, that’s probably getting annoying.  I apologize.  I’ll stop that now, I promise.) and turns some scared, leaf eating apes into bone-wielding meat eaters.  Millenniums later, astronauts find another monolith on the moon that points them in the direction of Jupiter.  While on the mission to Jupiter, astronauts Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) and Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) have to contend with a homicidal computer named HAL (voiced by Douglas Rain) who flips his lid and tries to kill everybody.  Only Dave survives and he alone enters the monolith where he gets turned into an enormous Space Baby. 

 

This flick is completely devoid of human emotion, which is kinda odd but it completely works.  (Years later, Attack of the Clones would achieve a similar feat.)  Instead of engaging our emotions, Kubrick opts to challenge our grey matter by not clearly spelling everything out, like most space operas do.  It’s this kind of approach that makes the film ideal for multiple viewings.

 

Another thing that makes 2001:  A Space Odyssey so timeless is that it has a little something for everybody.  If you want a highfalutin thought-provoking science fiction movie, you got that.  If you want a pulpy Killer Computer Runs Amok Movie, you got that too.  If you just want to drop acid and trip balls, you can do that as well.  Mostly though, 2001 is pure unadulterated Stanley Kubrick firing on all cylinders.  Amazingly enough; Kubrick’s next film, A Clockwork Orange is even better.  

 

2001:  A Space Odyssey is on The Video Vacuum Top Ten Films of the Year for 1968 at the Number 2 spot; which puts it right in between The Kiss of Her Flesh and the Number One titleholder, Night of the Living Dead.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

Kubrick was a great filmmaker before 2001:  A Space Odyssey, with such films as Paths of Glory, Lolita, and Dr. Strangelove already under his belt.  It was 2001 though that elevated him to legendary status.  56 years later, and it hasn’t aged a day.  In fact, it looks even better now in 4K UHD, which brings me to…

4K UHD NOTES:

Holy hell.  I haven’t seen many films in the format, but it will be tough to top this one.  It’s almost like 2001 was solely designed as a systems test for your 4K TV and Blu-Ray player.  From the vast landscapes of the “Dawn of Man” prologue to the endless stretches of the cosmos, every frame looks simply incredible. 

The colors are terrific too.  From the blackness of space to the eye-popping trippy visuals during the climax, it’s all rather glorious.  Heck, even the mundane Heywood Floyd scenes really pop.  Every detail looks sharp as hell too.

In short, this is a must own.  It’s the next best thing to seeing it in the theater in 70mm.  

MIDORI (1993) **

I’ve been hearing a lot about this anime for a while now.  Even though I’m not really an anime guy, I figured I would check it out, mostly because it’s supposed to be pretty messed up.  And well… it kinda is… but that doesn’t mean it works.  Not by a long shot. 

Midori is a little girl whose mother dies.  Afterwards, she wanders the streets alone when she is abducted by a freakish lot of carnies who subject her to all sorts of torment, degradation, and abuse.  (These guys really know how to put the “freak” in “freak show”, if you know what I mean.)  When a dwarf magician joins the show, he shows Midori kindness, and eventually, they get married.  However, he soon proves to be just as vile as the other sideshow degenerates.

Like I said, I’m not really an anime guy or anything, but I have to say this flick features some of the worst animation I’ve ever seen.  It makes Ralph Bakshi’s shit look like Pixar in comparison.  Imagine if Tod Browning and Roger Watkins made a movie with sub-Speed Racer animation and that might come close to painting the picture.  There is some memorable weirdness and depravity here, like eyeball licking, dog smooshing, and exploding bodies.  I have to say there wasn’t as much craziness as I was expecting, given the film’s reputation. 

Most of the time, the so-called animation is just a collection of still drawings.  When something actually does move, it’s not for very long.  I guess they thought if the subject matter was lurid enough, they could get away with having shoddy animation.  That might’ve sounded good in principle, but I can only imagine how effective this all would’ve been if the animation wasn’t so piss poor.  Or if the ending didn’t completely shit the bed.  Maybe someday someone will make a live-action version of it.  Now THAT would be something.