LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE DEVILS (1971) ***

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on March 11th, 2021)

I’ve heard so much about Ken Russell’s notorious film The Devils over the years that I guess I was bound to be somewhat disappointed by the time I actually saw it.  That’s not to say it’s a bad movie.  Far from it.  It looks great, has some terrific acting, and memorable set pieces.  It’s just far from the shocking spectacle I always pictured it to be. 

Maybe that’s because the version on Shudder is the American cut.  Apparently, the UK version is racier, but I guess us Yanks are too prudish to enjoy it.  (Which is weird given all that “Video Nasty” shit the Brits go on and on about.)  Even in its censored version, it’s still a solid flick.

Oliver Reed (who was also in Russell’s Tommy) stars as a priest with lust in his heart who knocks up a young virgin.  Vanessa Redgrave is the hunchback nun who has the hots for him, but naturally, he doesn’t give her the time of day.  Scorned, she plots her revenge by accusing him of witchcraft.  Soon, the townsfolk the priest has enraged along the way also team up to have him tortured and executed as a heretic. 

I’m sure The Devils was shocking as all get-out when it first came out.  I think the best thing I can say about it is that it went on to inspire the “Nunsploitation” craze of the ‘70s as well as the skeevy likes of such exploitation favorites as Mark of the Devil.  Any exploitation movie scholar should see it as this was the first of its kind (although The Conqueror Worm had similar witch hunting sequences, just without the religious overtones).  However, the films it would later inspire are a lot more depraved and nastier if you ask me.

Reed is great as the boastful priest.  His character is interesting because in a way, he kind of welcomes what’s coming to him if only so he can show his faith in God.  He’s a fornicator and a cheat, but he’s not exactly evil as he bravely defends his village and his congregation from outsiders seeking to tear down the city walls.  Redgrave is a hoot as the gnarled nun with a horny streak.  Too bad I didn’t get to see the uncut version where she apparently gets it on with a human bone.

Because it is a Ken Russell film, it looks beautiful, has some impressive (sometimes exhausting) camerawork, and is gleefully over the top.  However, it’s not particularly scary or shocking.  I guess that all depends on your upbringing.  If you were a choirboy, I’m sure it will all seem quite blasphemous.  To someone like me who is well-versed in exploitation movies and gross-out horror, it was just another day at the office. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: UNINVITED (1988) *** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on December 5th, 2018)

Uninvited is the best mutant-cat-escapes-from-a-genetics-research-lab-and-stows-aboard-a-yacht-carrying-young-spring-breakers-and-old-character-actors-and-picks-them-off-one-by-one movie I’ve ever seen.  It’s longwinded, preposterous, uneven, and downright bizarre, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.  Believe me when I tell you there is some truly special shit in this flick.  

Remember in Alien when the alien opened its mouth and another mouth jumped out?  Well, when the cat in Uninvited opens its mouth ANOTHER CAT jumps out and mauls the humans.  Incredible.  

This was made by Greydon Clark, who is admittedly all over the map in terms of quality.  Once in a blue moon you get a Black Shampoo from Greydon.  Most times though, it’s something like Angels Revenge.  Thankfully, Uninvited in closer to the Black Shampoo end of the spectrum.  

Probably my favorite moment comes when a kindhearted gas station attendant takes pity on the cat and gives it a saucer of milk.  Minutes later, he is killed by a gunman during a robbery.  What does the cat do?  It stows away in the getaway vehicle and GETS REVENGE!  Holy Shit, is this movie awesome or what?

I haven’t even told you about the scene where it turns guys wearing Jiffy Pop colored hazmat suits into hamburger.  Or the part where Clu Gulager (who’s sporting a pair of hilarious fake teeth and some serious Coke bottle glasses) pisses it off and it tears him a new one.  Or the elongated aerobicizing scene.  (“I think you’re better than Jane Fonda!”)  Or the scene where Sheri Shattuck eats food tainted with radioactive cat blood and her throat erupts in bloody sores quicker than you can say Meow Mix.  

It’s PG-13, so the make-out scenes between the teens don’t feature any nudity.  That’s okay though because the scene of cat-us interruptus is classic.  It also contains one of the greatest white-teens-with-no-rhythm-trying-to-dance scenes of the ‘80s.

Sure, the third act is a mess, especially during the cat-less portions.  I won’t even bring up the fact that even though it was released in 1988, it looks like it was filmed in ’81.  Just do me a favor.  Before you sit down to watch Uninvited, ask yourself one question:  Am I the kind of person who wants to see George Kennedy’s Achilles torn out by a demon Muppet cat?  If the answer is a resounding “FUCK YEAH!”, then you’re sure to have a great time.

AKA:  Killer Cat.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: DEVIL STORY (1986) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on September 22nd, 2023)

The first ten minutes or so of Devil Story is enough to qualify it as some kind of demented work of genius.  A misshapen guy who looks like a melted marshmallow in a Nazi uniform, runs around the countryside indiscriminately stabbing people.  The funniest bit occurs when a stranded motorist asks the clearly unhinged individual for directions and gets stabbed for his troubles.  

Meanwhile, another stranded motorist almost gets struck by lightning and imagines a cat attacking her.  Then, she and her boyfriend go to a castle to spend the night with a couple of old coots who tell longwinded flashbacks about the town’s history involving pirate ships running aground.  

It was right about this time I began to get nervous.  It was here I thought the movie was going to start to run out of gas.  Luckily, Devil Story still some nutty WTF lunacy left in the tank.

You see, a horse gets loose and runs into a field where a toy pirate ship pushes through a little sand dune.  The audience was probably supposed to think it was the presumably regular-sized pirate ship the old couple was talking about as it began breaking through a mountain.  The fact is it looks like a four-year-old filmmaker’s backyard homemade version of Fitzcarraldo.

That is to say, it’s awesome!

Then there’s the scene where the wayward horse encounters our bald antagonist and gets into a fist fight (hoof fight?) with him.  When the horse kicks the baddie in the stomach, it causes him to puke blood for two straight minutes.  As Martin Scorsese would say:  “Cinema!”

Devil Story is one of those movies where the kitchen sink approach yields uneven, but sometimes hilarious results.  Like, I couldn’t tell if the bad guy was supposed to be wearing a Halloween mask or he was supposed to look like that, and the make-up was just piss-poor.  (It turned out to be a case of the latter.)  Or like just when you think things can’t get any weirder, a mummy shows up.  Because of that, Devil Story is sort of review-proof.  Sure, it’s bad, but depending on your mileage, this could be a minor camp classic. 

I mean, I originally was going to give it ** ½.  However, the day after I watched it, some people at work asked me if I had seen anything good lately.  So, I told them about Devil Story.  Folks, the LOOKS my co-workers gave me when I was just describing the plot makes it worth ***.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BARBARELLA (1968) *** ½

FORMAT:  4K UHD (REWATCH)

ORIGNAL REVIEW:

(As posted on August 17th, 2007)

Has there ever been a woman hotter than Jane Fonda in this movie? I don’t think so. Dressed in an array of sexy, skimpy futuristic outfits that happen to find their way off her body ever few scenes or so, Fonda as Barbarella typified two words: Sex Goddess for many an adolescent boy. (God knows I’m one.) The film itself may be gaudy, sloppy, and episodic, but I maintain that any movie that starts off with a zero-gravity striptease is a good movie.

Barbarella is kinda like an interstellar female version of James Bond who’s sent on a mission to retrieve a scientist named Durand Durand (yes, that’s where the band got its name from) who has created a weapon called the “positronic ray”. Barbarella races all over the galaxy looking for him and encounters killer dolls, has sex, gets lost in a maze, has sex with the angel Pygar (Diabolik’s John Phillip Law), gets attacked by birds, has more sex, and in the best scene of the movie, gets trapped in the “Orgasmatron” machine.

Okay, I’ll be the first to admit that the flick goes on for far too long and gets progressively sillier as it goes along, but Fonda is the end all be all of cinematic hotness and for me that’s enough. She looks great either naked or dressed in her sexy get ups and insanely teased hair and gets some truly awesome dialogue like, “De-crucify the angel or I’ll melt your face.” Director Roger Vadim was also Fonda’s then husband and he knows how to photograph her better than anyone as she’s never looked lovelier. Produced by the omnipotent Dino de Laurentiis.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

This is one of those movies that has its share of problems (wildly uneven, overlong, inconsistent tone, etc.) but all that goes out the window because you have such a strong connection to it.  I saw this at a formative age and believe me when I tell you, I was Gaga for Fonda.  I had Barbarella posters on my walls for years and I still think no one has looked hotter on film than she did in this movie.  I still can’t quite give it Four Stars after all these years as it still drags considerably in the second half, but I never miss an opportunity to watch it if only to drool over Jane. 

4K UHD NOTES:

The zero-G striptease has always been one of my favorite scenes of any movie, and it certainly didn’t disappoint in 4K.   Likewise, Fonda looks amazing, and her array of wonderful costumes really shine in high def.  The 4K transfer on the other hand is a little unforgiving when it comes to some of the chintzier special effects (like John Philip Law’s flying scenes), making them look cornier than ever.  At least the more psychedelic sequences pop, thanks to Arrow’s strong transfer. 

STREAM (2024) * ½

Roy (Charles Edwin Powell) and his family check into a hotel in the middle of nowhere.  Little do they know the place is being used as the site of a sadistic game where four masked killers roam the hallways butchering the guests.  Meanwhile, the front desk clerk (Jeffrey Combs) livestreams the whole thing using hidden cameras as people place bets online on who will live or die.  It’s then up to Roy to protect his family from the killers at all costs. 

Stream is basically 31, but at a hotel.  Even though the film has an overly familiar premise, it could’ve worked if the filmmakers injected it with a sense of style or at least, a little suspense.  Sadly, the flick is sorely lacking in both departments. 

It’s also painfully overlong as it clocks it at over two hours.  Often times, it feels like an assembly cut as some scenes run on way longer than they really should.  The set-up is particularly laborious, and the frustrating post-credits scene leaves us with more questions about the so-called game than it answers.  (At least it features some cool cameos though.)

The cast is stacked with just about every horror star who’s been to a horror convention in the past five years.  (Everyone from Danielle Harris to Bill Moseley to Felissa Rose show up.)  In fact, since the film is set at a hotel it’s almost as if the hotel was having a horror con and director Michael Leavy went table to table making celebrities an offer to be in the movie.  The only star who makes much of an impression is Combs.  His scenery chewing holds the flick together, but it doesn’t exactly bring it to life.  David Howard Thornton basically does his Art the Clown shtick again, just with a different mask.  Newcomer Isla Cervelli does make an impression with her great hot tub scene though. 

The gore is decent too.  We get an arcade joystick to the eye, a nose is cut off, and strangulation via barb wire.  The best moment is when two of the killers play Tic Tac Toe on a victim’s chest.  Ultimately, Stream needed more scenes of this caliber to make it worth a look. 

VOYAGE INTO SPACE (1970) ***

If you are unfamiliar with Johnny Sokko and His Flying Robot, it was one of the better giant robot TV shows to come out of Japan.  After the show ran its course, AIP pasted together a couple of episodes, dubbed it into English, and packaged it as a TV movie called Voyage into Space… Despite the fact that nobody voyages into space. 

Johnny is a little boy who along with a secret agent “U3” stumbles upon a giant robot (named… uh… “Giant Robot”) in a hidden lair.  Johnny takes command of the robot and orders it to go into battle with the "Gargoyle Gang", a bunch of space Nazis who work for Emperor Guillotine.  Johnny and Robo are then made members of “Unicorn”, a top-secret agency who thwart alien attacks.  Along the way, “Giant Robot” does battle with a tentacled sea monster, a giant bowling ball, a killer plant, a big dog monster with silver dreadlocks, and a huge eyeball before taking on Emperor Guillotine, Mano y Roboto. 

Giant Robot is a cool dude.  He kind of looks like a mix of Ultraman, the Golem, and King Tut.  The battles are a lot of fun too, and the effects run the gamut from delightfully silly to straight-up horrible.  And by “straight-up horrible”, I mean I freaking loved it. 

A lot of this plays strictly as juvenile wish fulfillment.  If you start asking questions like “where’s Johnny's parents” or “shouldn’t Johnny be in school today” or “why is Johnny taking a cruise by himself” or “how can Johnny fly a jet pack with zero instructional training”, you won’t last ten minutes with this thing.  The “entire TV series condensed into ninety minutes” pacing is sometimes erratic too, but that also means you don’t have to wait long till the next giant robot battle. 

One thing that sets this film/show apart from the rest of the pack is the high level of violence.  There are lots of shootouts and henchmen often get mowed down by the heroes’ gunfire.  Heck, even Johnny gets shot at one point.  I can’t think of many other kid’s shows that have the balls to shoot their juvenile lead.  (Even if it was all a ruse to trick the villains.)  All in all, Voyage into Space is great fun. 

ALIEN: ROMULUS (2024) * ½

The Disney-produced Alien:  Romulus is reminiscent of the Disney-produced Star Wars movies.  It feels like it was made to milk an IP first and tell a story second.  And by “tell a story” I mean “rehash a lot of the past films and sprinkle in generous portions of fan service”.  The new Star Wars films worked, mostly because they were able to create memorable new characters.  This new Alien flick has no such luxury. 

The film takes place in between Alien and Aliens.  I only mention the timeline because the movie is keen to remind you about it too as these are the films that it is heavily referencing.  (There are also nods to Prometheus and most surprisingly, Alien:  Resurrection.)  However, it brings nothing new to the table but rehashed leftovers and unnecessary fan service.  (The callbacks and call forwards elicit more groans than anything.)

A team of young scavengers decide to steal from a derelict ship.  Naturally, the ship belongs to “The Company” and it just happens to be crawling with facehuggers.  Before long, they are latching onto the crew, who quickly give birth to Aliens. 

Not only is director and co-writer Fede Alvarez ripping off the first two Alien movies, he’s doing a riff on his own flick, Don’t Breathe.  Instead of thieves foolishly breaking into a house and getting more than they bargained for, it’s thieves foolishly breaking into a spaceship and getting more than they bargained for.  This isn’t bad in theory, especially since I consider Don’t Breathe to be a modern classic.  It’s just that the whole movie feels stale, and Alvarez is unsuccessful at finding ways to tweak the old cliches.  The gratuitous fan service further takes you out of the movie and the inclusion of a surprise character from a previous installment is baffling and shoddily handled. 

Oh, and if you thought the characters in Prometheus were dumb, wait till you see this.  Heck, the people in this movie come perilously close to making the characters in AVP:  Requiem look like Harvard grads.  I can typically forgive idiocy in horror movies, but it’s hard to turn a blind eye when they are insufferable idiots like the ones found here. 

The best part of the film winds up being the most frustrating.  Without spoiling things, I’ll just say that trying to connect things back to Prometheus was an ambitious touch.  It’s just that it occurs at the eleventh hour, and there’s no way to properly flesh out the ideas it sets in motion.  In turn, we wind up with a finale that not only feels rushed and tacked on, but one that feels woefully underwhelming too.  (It tries to mix the goo of Prometheus with the oddball oddities of Resurrection with inept results.)

I will say the practical Alien effects are quite good.  It’s just a shame we never get to see much of the carnage it creates.  The Alien has always been a fascinating creature, mostly because of its life cycle.  With a script like this, it’s clear Romulus should’ve stayed in the incubation phase.