LET’S GET PHYSICAL: RAZORBACK (1984) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on October 20th, 2020)

Razorback was the feature directing debut for Russell Mulcahy, who made quite a name for himself directing several music videos, most notably Duran Duran’s “Hungry Like the Wolf”.  (The band’s “New Moon on Monday” is even heard in one scene.)  Right away, it established the trademark style that would run throughout his career in films like Highlander, Ricochet, and The Shadow.  It was written by the prolific Everett de Roche, who was also responsible for a slew of other Ozploitation flicks of the era including Long Weekend, Patrick, and Road Games.

The film follows in the Jaws mold as it’s about a giant killer animal (in this case, an enormous boar) running amok and eating people.  (The crusty old big game hunter has more than a little bit of Quint in him.)  There’s also a touch of Psycho in there too as the female lead gets offed early on.  It probably could’ve done without the gratuitous opening that crassly exploits the “A dingo ate my baby” case, except… you know… with a giant boar instead of a dingo.

Beth (Judy Morris) is an American reporter who goes to the Australian outback to do a story on kangaroo poachers.  She sticks her nose in where it doesn’t belong, and pretty soon a pair of skeevy poachers try to have their way with her.  They are interrupted by the killer razorback and while they escape, the disgusting boar gobbles up poor Judy.  Her husband Carl (Gregory Harrison) soon arrives on the scene to get revenge on the putrid piggy with the help of a grizzled hunter (Bill Kerr) and a sexy college student (Arkie Whiteley).

Mulcahy’s cinematic gymnastics, coupled with the excellent cinematography by Dean (The Road Warrior) Semler help disguise the fact that Razorback is just another interchangeable When Animals Attack flick.  You know the old saying, “You can’t put lipstick on a pig?”  Well, there you go.  For fans of the genre, it should fit the bill.  The final showdown is solid and Mulcahy delivers at least one quality jump scare. 

The problem is the erratic pacing.  All the stuff at the beginning with the poachers feels like filler.  Almost as if the filmmakers wanted to squeeze in a “message” before getting down to the nitty gritty.  Also, unlike, say Steven Spielberg, Mulcahy can’t really milk the suspense for all its worth when he’s keeping the killer animal hidden from the audience’s view.  Whenever the razorback is shown in all its glory, the movie manages to come to life.  However, when Harrison (who makes for a dull leading man) is busy trekking through the outback or wasting his time with the annoying poachers, this boar is a bore.   

AKA:  Razorback:  Destructor.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: JOHNNY GOT HIS GUN (1971) ****

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on April 30th, 2010)

Joe (Timothy Bottoms) is a soldier who goes over to France to fight in WWI.  One day, he gets blown up by a mortar and wakes up in a military hospital.  Slowly, he begins to realize that he’s lost his arms, legs, eyes, nose, mouth, and ears in the explosion.  He’s basically just a living torso lying on a bed.  The doctors and nurses think he’s a vegetable, and keep him alive; changing his feeding tubes and bedpans regularly.  Since Joe is deaf and missing his mouth; he can’t communicate with the nurses and doctors who are constantly poking and prodding him.  Joe slips in and out of consciousness and has flashbacks of his father (Jason Robards) telling him the importance of serving in the military.  He also starts having hallucinations where he meets Jesus (Donald Sutherland), who unfortunately isn’t very helpful.  One of his nurses (Diane Varsi) takes pity on poor Joe and tries to talk to him by writing letters on his chest with her fingers.  Eventually, Joe finds a way to communicate back to her; but will the army listen to what he has to say?

 

You may remember Johnny Got His Gun from seeing clips of it in the Metallica video, “One”.  I’ll admit; watching it in bits and pieces in the video was pretty creepy.  That’s nothing compared to the movie itself.  It’s one of the darkest, bleakest, most depressing movies I have ever seen in my entire life.  It also happens to be brutally efficient, haunting, and unforgettable.  I’ll tell you one thing, I watched it late last night and a bed was the last thing I wanted to get into after seeing this movie.

 

Johnny Got His Gun has been called an anti-war movie.  It isn’t really.  It’s more of an emotional horror movie.  It sure freaked me out.  Particularly chilling was the scene of Jesus driving a train full of dead soldiers, Joe’s girlfriend calling his name in a hallucination while fading away, and of course, the end where Johnny continually calls out “SOS… Help me…” to an empty room.  And just wait until the hungry rat jumps on what’s left of Johnny’s face.  In addition, this movie also happens to feature the least sexy handjob in the history of motion pictures.

 

Seeing Johnny wearing a mask and flopping around on a bed for two hours while his inner monologue screams for help isn’t exactly what I call “entertaining”, but it sure is compelling.  If you only know this movie from seeing it in the Metallica video; you really owe it to yourself to check this out.  It’s definitely powerful stuff.

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.