LET’S GET PHYSICAL: CONNORS’ WAR (2006) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

The original Michael Myers, Nick Castle, who also directed The Last Starfighter, was at the helm for this DTV action flick starring rapper Treach from Naughty by Nature.  Treach plays a special agent named Connors who was blinded while rescuing the First Lady from terrorists.  His old boss Brooks (Blu Mankuma) promises to get his sight back using an experimental procedure that gives him acute (but temporary) night vision.  Naturally, he wants him to use his new gift to steal a top-secret nerve gas for him.  Predictably, Connors is double-crossed, and he sets out to stop Brooks from unleashing the gas and taking out the President. 

Treach isn’t bad in the lead.  He has a decent amount of charisma and equips himself well enough in the action scenes.  I also enjoyed the performance by Nia Peebles as the sexy nurse who goes on the run with him.  It’s fun seeing how quickly she equips herself to popping caps in bad guys and intimidating concierges. 

Connors’ War is a thoroughly watchable DTV action flick.  I know that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement, but it’s perfect for a rainy day when there’s nothing better to do.  Despite the night vision eyesight gimmick, it’s fairly routine stuff.  While it’s moderately entertaining, it often feels more like a TV pilot with occasional F-bombs than anything else.  That’s more of an observation than a criticism, as it doesn’t really detract from the fun. 

Castle’s direction is workmanlike for the most part.  I will say the scenes where the doctors inject the serum into Treach’s eyeballs are rather effective and are likely to make you squirm in your seat.  Too bad Castle couldn’t bring that level of suspense to the mundane “man on the run” scenes.  He goes a little overboard with Treach’s night vision POV shots too.  (It just looks like someone accidentally put their contacts in inside out.)  Otherwise, it’s a surprisingly solid way to kill an hour and a half. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: RETURN TO THE BLUE LAGOON (1991) **

FORMAT:  DVD

I distinctly remember the first time I developed the hots for Milla Jovovich.  I was in middle school, and one day, I flipped on HBO, and they had a First Look at the making of Return to the Blue Lagoon.  From the first moment I saw Milla, it was love at first sight.  Ever since then, I have been Team Milla.  Never mind the fact that it took me thirty-three years to finally get around to watching the actual movie. 

Directed by William A. Graham, who’s mostly known for TV movies like Guyana Tragedy and Get Christie Love and boasting a screenplay by Leslie Stevens, the creator of The Outer Limits (!), this belated sequel picks up immediately after the events of the first film with Brooke Shields and Christopher Atkins’ boat being found by another ship.  Oh, they’re dead.  Whoops!  Their baby is still alive though, and the widow (Lisa Pelikan) on board quickly adopts it.  But wouldn’t you know it?  Cholera is spreading through the boat, and the widow, the baby, and her child skedaddle.  As fate would have it, they wind up right back where the first movie took place, the two-story bamboo hut rancher still intact. 

So, this time, instead of having a crusty sailor to teach the younglings how to survive, it’s a prim and proper schoolteacher who gives them spelling lessons and has awkward conversations about the birds and bees.  Naturally, she kicks off, and the two kids grow up to be horny teens, played by Jovovich and Sleepwalkers’ Brian Krause.  Before long, Milla gets her first period, he gets his first boner, and they do it. 

So far, so good.  Brooke Shields’ loincloth casts a long shadow, but Milla fills it admirably.  (And has a couple of brief nude scenes.)  Krause is pretty good too, all things considered.  Unfortunately, the lovey-dovey stuff is rushed through for a gratuitous subplot about a crew coming aboard the island and ruining the couple’s bliss.

The longwinded set-up also means Milla doesn’t show up till about the forty-five minute mark.  Because of that, there’s only a small window of time when she’s able to do some blue lagooning (if you know what I mean).  Oh well, at least the cinematography is excellent. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE BLUE LAGOON (1980) *

FORMAT:  DVD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on January 22nd, 2011)

Two brats wind up shipwrecked on a desert island with some old codger who teaches them how to fish and stuff.  After he dies, the kids grow up to be Christopher Atkins and Brooke Shields.  One day, puberty kicks in and Chris wonders why he’s getting “weird hairs down there”.  After choking the chicken a couple of times, he finally figures out where to stick that sumbitch.

 

Okay, let’s just get this out in the open:  The only reason anyone would ever watch this movie is to see Brooke Shields’ boobs.  Since the role of Brooke’s breasts were played by stunt tits and we only get to see fleeting glimpses of them, it’s pretty much all for naught.  It also doesn’t help that the first hour or so of the movie leading up to her disrobing plays like the shittiest Hallmark Hall of Fame Movie you ever saw.  I nodded off like a motherfucker during this part of the movie, but sadly, the parts where Brooke gets naked are just as boring.

 

The Blue Lagoon doesn’t even work as camp.  The romance aspect of the movie is awful, but not in a laughable way.  The acting is terrible too as Atkins and Shields both act like goddamned mannequins.  The only slightly amusing part in all of this comes when Atkins builds their overly elaborate and highly implausible shelter.  It looks like Bob Vila came over for an episode of This Old Grass Hut.  I mean how many grass huts do you know of have patios made of bamboo?

THE SUBSTANCE (2024) ****

Ladies and gentlemen, there is a new sheriff in town.  Her name is Coralie Fargeat.  You might remember she made that solid revenge flick a few years ago, aptly titled Revenge.  I dug that movie sure enough, but nothing could’ve prepared me for her latest film, The Substance.  It is a modern classic that is destined to be critiqued, analyzed, and examined for years to come.  It is quite simply the ultimate horror film of the 21st century. 

The story is an old hat.  Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) is an aging celebrity fitness personality desperate to be young again.  She hears about a new wonder drug called “The Substance” and tries it.  Very quickly she learns about the side effects.

That set-up will no doubt seem familiar to anyone who’s seen The Wasp Woman or The Leech Woman.  Fargeat also borrows from a rather surprising array of sources, both highbrow and low.  What makes it work so gloriously well is that she wears her inspirations on her sleeve with pride.  There are moments here that look like Kubrick on ecstasy.  Others resemble Lynch on steroids.  The most accurate comparison I can make though is this:  Imagine if David Cronenberg directed the Barbie movie and that will give you an idea of what we have here. 

I don’t want to spoil the best parts of the movie, so I’ll keep the review as brief and vague as I can.  However, I will say that Fargeat crams a lot of messaging into the movie and says it all in bold and italics.  The reason it works is because she starts the film at 10 and continues to crank it up as the story progresses.  I mean, having a lecherous Hollywood type named “Harvey” is probably one of the most subtle aspects of the film. 

Sometimes, you need to beat the message into the audience.  When you see Elisabeth continuing to use The Substance, even though she knows it will destroy her, you can drop in miracle diets, weight loss cures, plastic surgery, etc. as the metaphor, and it works.  Look at the people who can’t stop having plastic surgeries but are so far gone they can’t seem to stop.  Look at the people jabbing themselves to stay thin.  Her deadly desire for The Substance doesn’t seem farfetched. 

The opening sequence is one of the best scenes you’ll see in this millennium, and perfectly sets the tone.  Once the movie goes into full-on body horror mode, it doesn’t look back.  The finale contains one of the most amazingly sustained scenes of concentrated cinematic insanity I’ve ever seen.  During this scene, I thought of Society, Basket Case, Carrie, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, The Elephant Man, and Leviathan.  During this scene, you may find yourself disgusted.  You may laugh.  You may recoil in horror.  All are acceptable responses. 

The performances are stellar. Moore is a revelation.  She has never been better.  She brings so much pain to the role.  It’s a brave performance.  One of the all-time greats.  Margaret Qualley naturally is her match as Sue, the entitled, sexy, younger version of Elisabeth.  She radiates sexuality but keeps her unfathomable rage bubbling just under the surface.  (Oh, and speaking as a connoisseur of celebrity workout videos, I would totally buy the full season's worth of her “Pump it Up” exercise program.)  Then there’s Dennis Quaid as Harvey.  He’s a force of nature.  He almost resembles a Looney Tunes version of Vince McMahon. 

This is the kind of movie I love.  It’s equal parts arthouse and grindhouse.  Even though it’s drawing inspiration from several sources, it still feels totally fresh.  It also contains the best use of a chicken leg since Killer Joe.  It’s already won awards at the Cannes Film Festival and yet, something tells me it could win a Fangoria Chainsaw Award just as easily. It’s that kind of picture.  The best one of the year.  Possibly, ever.

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981) ***

FORMAT:  4K UHD (REWATCH)

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on July 17th, 2007)

This is one of Lucio Fulci’s most atmospheric films. It doesn’t have his trademark balls-out gory set pieces and moves at a deliberate pace, but stay with it, because it has an electrifying final reel.

A family moves into the titular house that was once owned by the wonderfully named Dr. Freudstein. Little do they know that Freudstein is a maggot faced zombie who is dwelling in their basement and needs to kill people to stay alive. The ghost of Freudstein’s daughter befriends the little towheaded Bob (A Blade in the Dark’s Giovanni Frezza) and tries to warn him that her daddy is a nutjob. Bob tries to tell his parents about Freudstein, but since Bob is whiny and badly dubbed, nobody listens.

There’s a knife through the mouth, a bat attack, a sword in the neck, a decapitation, and some throat ripping for the gorehounds; and some brief nudity for the pervs. Co-starring Catriona (The Gates of Hell) MacColl and Dagmar (Werewolf Woman) Lassander.

Memo to prospective homeowners: If the house you are looking at has the tombstone of its former tenant in the middle of the hallway, DON’T BUY THE FUCKING HOUSE!

QUICK THOUGHTS:

The House by the Cemetery remains a solid second tier Lucio Fulci flick.  Like The Gates of Hell, it suffers from some lulls in between the good stuff, but when Fulci cooks, he whips up a smorgasbord.  But the thing that makes the film so memorable is BOB!  Try to keep track of how many times someone says “Bob”.  Warning:  Don’t make a drinking game of it.  I can’t have your death from alcohol poisoning on my conscience. 

4K UHD NOTES:

It’s important to mention that Blue Underground’s edition is mastered in Dolby Vision.  My 4K player and TV can only support HDR+, and it still looked phenomenal to me.  The blacks (especially in the basement scenes) are spectacular, and the picture looks sharp throughout.  It looks particularly great whenever the camera is in motion, as it often feels like you’re in the thick of the action.  Oh, and you get BOB in 4K!   What more can you ask for?

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: TORTURED FEMALES (1965) *** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Tortured Females begins with a long title scene that goes on and on about the white slave racket and how more girls should heed the lesson of Little Red Riding Hood!  We then follow the story of Helen (Denine Dubois), a young woman who narrowly escaped the clutches of white slavery, who recounts her story to a sheriff.  Seems she went to visit her aunt in the country when she ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere.  She was then picked up by a creep who raped her and took her back to “the ranch house” where white slavers were about to turn over a shipment of girls to “Mr. Big”.  As you probably already guessed, they try to add poor Helen to the inventory. 

You know you’re in for something special from the moment you see the great hand drawn title card.  Like The Beast of Yucca Flats, it’s all narration and no synch sound.  What dialogue we do get is poorly dubbed.  I love bargain bin shit like this.

Not that you need things like “titles”, “sound”, or “a budget” when most of the movie consists of long scenes of women getting undressed, showering, and getting dressed again.  There’s also some skinny-dipping in a creek, nude girls chained to the wall, random stripteases, and women being whipped.  That’s not to mention the odd scene where Dubois (who is quite good, all things considered, as she has the uncanny ability to get naked at the drop of a hat) dances with an oversized stuffed animal.  (She even kisses it goodbye!)

The best part though is the hunchback who acts as the girls’ “keeper”.  Not only does he look like something out of a Frankenstein movie; his voice was dubbed by a monkey!  Folks, I’ve seen some weird shit in my time, and this is the kind of weird shit I like to see. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: MR. MARI’S GIRLS (1967) ** ½

FORMAT:  DVD

Mr. Mari is a suave bastard who sits in his swanky New York apartment and preys upon girls in trouble.  Have a gambling debt?  Mr. Mari will erase it.  Are you a junkie in need of a fix?  Mr. Mari has the horse you need.  Need some quick dough for a back-alley abortion?  Call on Mr. Mari!  Do you need a priest so you can marry your lesbian lover?  Mr. Mari’s your man!

This paste-up low budget sexploitation flick is comprised of a series of loosely related vignettes.  Even though the segments are wildly different, things often feel repetitive due to the structure.  It features lots of echo-y narration, dream scenes, and flashbacks inside of flashbacks.  None of this really ever comes together to make a cohesive whole (the segment about a girl trying to escape the clutches of some low rent hoods feels like it came out of an entirely different movie), but fortunately, since the running time is only an hour long, it zips by at a reasonable rate. 

There's a decent amount of skin here too, which I guess is all that really matters.  There’s sex, nude photo shoots, showers, junkie chicks stripping, gratuitous disrobing scenes, nude painting, and naked telephone conversations.  Best of all is the clothes-ripping battle royale cat fight amongst all the girls Mr. Mari has “helped” that serves as our climax.  Overall, there’s just about enough naughty bits to keep you interested, but not quite enough to make it a winner. 

There was no cast listing for this one, but I did recognize Doris Wishman regular Sam Stewart as a sketchy bookie.  Sadly, I’m not sure who the actress was that played the pregnant teen.  All I know is that she had one of the biggest butts I’ve ever seen in a ‘60s sexploitation movie.  So, if you’re a tush man, feel free to add an extra Half-Star to the rating.