LET’S GET PHYSICAL: WAVE OF TERROR (1988) ** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Wave of Terror is a two-part anthology horror flick from W.A.V.E. Productions.  The first story is “Road Kill” (***).  Clancey McCauley catches her boyfriend talking to another woman.  Later, in a fit of jealous rage, she runs him down with her car.  After the funeral, she begins to see his spirit pointing accusingly at her.  It’s only a matter of time before his spirit makes her pay for her misdeeds. 

This one is pretty simple in both premise and execution.  It has a cool E.C. Comics vibe to it (the graveyard finale is very well done given the means at the production's disposal) and benefits from the stripped-down approach.  It also shows that W.A.V.E. Productions founder Gary Whitson is probably a better director than many give him credit for as he delivers a solid story on a limited budget.  McCauley gives a good performance too as the jilted lover turned murderer and is particularly effective once the Carnival of Souls-inspired shocks come into play. 

The second story, Hadley’s Hellhole! (**) is less impressive.  It’s about a reporter (McCauley once again) and an archeologist (Whitson) who take a tour of a supposedly haunted mineshaft.  Almost immediately, they lose their guide.  As they go deeper into the mine, they encounter ghosts and demons lurking within the tunnels. 

This one is honestly a big comedown from the first tale.  Whereas Road Kill had a simple, clearcut story with a beginning, middle, and end, this one just sort of throws a bunch of stuff at the wall to see what sticks.  Frankly, nothing ever really does.  The technical limitations are more obvious this time around.  Not only are the sets kind of crummy, but there are also a bunch of flubbed lines (mostly courtesy of Whitson himself).  The monster is basically just a guy in a dime store Halloween mask, but the severed head in a birthday present gag is OK.  I did admire the way Whitson was able to work a wet T-shirt scene (a W.A.V.E. staple) into such a claustrophobic setting.  It’s just that overall, this story is just sort of ho-hum. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: MAIL ORDER MURDER: THE STORY OF W.A.V.E. PRODUCTIONS (2020) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on March 3rd, 2023)

Mail Order Murder:  The Story of W.A.V.E. Productions is a fun and breezy documentary about the New Jersey-based video company that specializes in low (or sometimes, no) budget shot-on-video horror movies.  After making a splash in the early days of the SOV boom, director and owner Gary Whitson supplemented their catalogue by offering custom made horror movies where fans could write in and see their various horror fetishes played out before their very eyes.  Even though paying customers had input (sometimes more, sometimes less) on the productions, Whitson’s no-budget ingenuity ensured that every film he produced had a distinct touch that only a W.A.V.E. movie could offer.

Directors William Hellfire (who himself is a bit of a maverick in the SOV horror market) and Ross Snyder begin the film with a brief overview of the SOV horror phenomenon of the ‘80s and ‘90s (which itself would make for a fascinating documentary), before focusing on the eccentric, one-of-a-kind W.A.V.E. Productions.  The clips are sometimes jaw-dropping in just how bad (but admittedly entertaining) they are.  Most look about as close to a snuff movie as you could get without actually killing anybody.  

Whitson is interviewed and seems like an “Aw, shucks” kind of guy.  He certainly doesn’t seem like the type that would make movies about strangling, bondage, torture, asphyxiation, death by quicksand, and murder.  Frequent W.A.V.E. actresses, who have quite a following in their own right, such as Tina Krause, Deana Demko, and Pamela Sutch are also interviewed.  They all seem quite pleased with their small place in the footnote of cinema history.  We also hear from fans and fellow filmmakers, who seem perplexed, but in awe of the W.A.V.E. aesthetic (or lack thereof). 

Mail Order Murder serves as a good primer for fans.  It’s a fine history lesson on the birth and growth of the company and it’s totally worthwhile just for the interviews with all the W.A.V.E. starlets.  I just wish it delved a little deeper into what makes Gary tick instead of just propping him up as an unsung hero of underground DIY cinema.  I mean, he totally is.  It’s just that for a documentary on movies so dirty, I was hoping for more dirt (or quicksand).

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE WAR OF THE WORLDS (1953) *** ½

FORMAT:  4K UHD

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on September 15th, 2011)

Aliens come down to Earth hidden in meteors. When they make their first appearance, some bozos run out and wave a white flag because “everyone knows the white flag means peace!” Well, apparently the aliens didn’t get the memo because they vaporize those idiots with their Martian Death Ray. Later, a preacherman gets up in the aliens' business trying to spread the word of God to them. You can probably guess what happens to this guy. Anyway, the aliens overrun the town and Dr. Clayton Forrester (Gene Barry) and some hot hysterical ‘50s babe try to survive the onslaught. Just about when you think the aliens have kicked our asses, they catch a cold and die. Wimps.

The War of the Worlds is pretty fucking cool on all accounts. First and foremost, the special effects are badass. The spaceships look like they came straight out of a Galaga game, and the aliens themselves are great. They sorta look like the bastard offspring of E.T. and a Simon game. The carnage these guys create is impressive too. They blow shit up, turn humans into ash, and set guys on fire. And the sound FX used for the Martian Death Ray is one of the coolest ever captured on film. Another thing I dug about the movie is that it actually shows civilization starting to crumble. There’s rioting and looting in the street, which is something you didn’t see much of in ‘50s Sci-Fi flicks.

The only problem I had with the flick really is the slow talky patches in between the Martian attack scenes. In that respect, the film is kinda paced like a porno movie. Talk, good stuff, talk, good stuff, etc. The ending’s kinda lame, but then again, the ending of book was lame too; so what you gonna do? Say what you will about the movie, it’s a fuck of a lot better than that Spielberg remake.

QUICK THOUGHTS:

This is one of the better ‘50s Sci-Fi movies.  If it wasn’t for the overly religious ending, it would have been ever better.  Still, Gene Barry is the definitive ‘50s Sci-Fi movie scientist.  He’s levelheaded in the face of danger.  He’s smart without being too much of an egghead about things.  He’s got high level security clearance, but he still feels like an Everyman.  Barry is terrific and helps carry the movie whenever the aliens aren’t on screen. 

4K UHD NOTES:

At first, I thought the transfer was just sort of fair-to-average in the early scenes.  Once the Martians show up, the transfer (like the movie itself) really takes off.  The red and green lights emanating from the Martian ships looks awesome in 4K, as does the death ray effects.  The alien effects have never looked better too, which makes this a highly recommended upgrade for fans of the film. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE HUMAN TORNADO (1976) *** ½

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

ORIGINAL REVIEW:

(As posted on November 5th, 2011)

This sequel to Dolemite opens with the title character (once again played by the one and only Rudy Ray Moore) banging the wife of a white sheriff. When the racist sheriff and his deputy bust the door down, she screams, “He made me do it!” To which Dolemite yells, “Bitch are you for real?” The sheriff then orders the deputy to kill his wife and Dolemite. After blasting her with a shotgun, the deputy sets his sights on Dolemite, but he is able to escape by jumping down a hill. Then Moore’s voice comes on the soundtrack and he assures the audience he actually did the jump himself (“Y’all don’t believe I jumped… well watch this good shit!”) and the words “Instant Replay” flashes on the screen and the jump is rewound and replayed.

This scene typifies what I love about Rudy Ray Moore’s movies. They’re full of unpredictable cinematic zaniness. Not many Blaxploitation films of the ‘70s feature this kind of fourth wall breaking. Not only that, but it also goes to show that Rudy Ray Moore was doing his own stunts long before Jackie Chan made it chic.

Even the title clues you in on just how far outside the box Moore was thinking. He could’ve very well just called the movie Dolemite Returns or Dolemite 2. But no, he went The Dark Knight route instead.

The title by the way is literal. You see, there’s a scene in this movie where Dolemite seduces the bad guy’s wife and fucks her so hard that the house falls down around him. If you can’t already tell, this movie is something special.

The Human Tornado is more cartoonish and straight-up crazy than Dolemite was, but it’s not quite as mind-blowingly awesome as the original. I think the movie’s main flaw is that it’s heavily padded with way too many musical performances and scenes of Dolemite doing his nightclub act. All of this shit slows the beginning of the movie down and it takes a while to regain its footing.

Despite that, The Human Tornado offers a generous helping of awesomeness. It’s got a bunch of fast-motion Kung Fu fights, a terrific theme song, and plenty of WTF imagery. (There’s a bizarre fantasy sequence where a white woman imagines three black bodybuilders coming out of a toy box.) And of course, it has Moore kicking ass and saying funny rhymes. My favorite: “He caught me with his wife now he wants to take my life! He thinks he’s bad! He’s got no class! I’ll rock this shotgun up his muthafuckin’ ass!”

Before They Were Famous Alert: Look for a pre-Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson as part of Dolemite’s entourage. 

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: SUPER MARIO BROS. (1993) **

FORMAT:  DVD

Super Mario Bros. is one of the most perplexing video game adaptations ever made.  It would be easy to categorize it as one of the worst if only the genre wasn’t littered with so many lousy movies.  (Many of which were directed by Uwe Boll.)  In fact, the biggest problem is that it strays so far away from the source material that it never really feels like a Super Mario Bros. movie.  Taken on its own merits, it’s still a sloppy, weird, and occasionally amusing Sci-Fi flick.  It’s just that it is bound to disappoint anyone expecting a halfway faithful adaptation of the beloved Nintendo video game. 

Mario (Bob Hoskins) and Luigi (John Leguizamo) are two plumbers who try to save a princess (Samantha Mathis) who is kidnapped and taken to a subterranean parallel universe lorded over by King Koopa (Dennis Hopper).  He’s trying to merge the two worlds into one kingdom with him ruling over everyone.  Oh, and he wants to turn everybody in our world into monkeys too.  It’s then up to the two plumbing brothers to stop him. 

The casting is pretty good.  Hoskins is spot-on as Mario and Leguizamo has an infectious playfulness about him as Luigi.  Hopper looks like he’s having fun chewing scenery as the baddie and while Richard Edson and Fisher Stevens don’t elicit laughs per se, they have chemistry together as his bumbling goons.  Lance Henriksen also has a random blink-and-you-miss-it cameo at the end.  The oddest bit of casting is Mojo Nixon as Toad.  No matter how bad it gets, I can’t completely hate any movie that has Mojo Nixon in it. 

Although the production design looks expensive, it also manages to be ugly and inconsistent.  The “Dinohattan” stuff is decent as it looks like a low rent Demolition Man sort of thing.  Some of the action is OK (like when Mario’s car winds up on top of another car during a chase scene) and the effects (especially Yoshi) are pretty good too.  It’s just… you know… it never feels like a Super Mario Bros movie.  Honestly, it probably played better when it was originally released.  Now that we have the animated Super Mario Bros. Movie, a near-perfect translation of the game, this just kind of feels pointless now.  That said, it’s better than its reputation may have led you to believe, but it never really works either. 

NOSFERATU (2024) **

Folks, there’s a reason why the publicity department isn’t showing you what Nosferatu looks like in the new Nosferatu.  Remember the iconic look sported by both Max Schrek and Klaus Kinski?  Gone.  I don’t mean to tell tales out of school, but once we finally got a look at Nosferatu, I about fell out of my chair laughing.  Spoilers ahead. 

This new Nosferatu sports a fucking Rollie Fingers mustache.  Seriously.  Burt Reynolds has nothing on my boy Count Orlak.  Once I saw him, I just couldn’t take the rest of the movie seriously.  I tried.  Honestly, I tried.  It’s just I didn’t know if he was going to suck someone’s blood or offer them a hoppy IPA with nutmeg undertones. 

We’re talking Hipsteratu. 

I mean, this isn’t the first vampire with a mustache in cinema history.  Lon Chaney Jr. had a dapper one as Son of Dracula.  Gary Oldman’s flavor saver wasn’t bad either in Bram Stoker’s Dracula.  Bill Skarsgard in Nosferatu is one Yosemite Sam looking motherfucker. 

It’s disappointing because the movie looks like a million bucks (although it cost much more).  Some of the drab color schemes work, especially when it’s been completely drained out, so it looks like the black and white original.  I dug the sequence where our bland hero (Nicholas Hoult) goes to Orlak’s castle as the lack of transition shots added to the dreamlike quality of the scene.  Once I finally saw the Count, I was wide awake. 

Guys, I don’t know.  Maybe after It, The Crow, and this we should put a moratorium on remakes and reboots where Bill Skarsgard plays pasty-faced dudes. 

I will say this for Skarsgard, I wasn’t expecting him to hang dong in this.  We’re talking Schlongferatu.

And, you know, for a movie in which almost nothing happens, it’s awfully exhausting.  Lily-Rose Depp blusters and sobs and screeches, but we never feel any sexual tension between her husband OR the bloodsucking Count, which is the big problem.  I mean, Bela Lugosi I can see a gal getting worked up about.  Gary Oldman, sure.  Heck, even the original Nosferatu is a hottie compared to the new guy, who looks like a freeze-dried Frank Zappa. 

Sigh, I still can’t believe they made a movie where Nosferatu sports a Fu Manchu.

Even Willem Dafoe is disappointing as the vampire hunter.  He has a moment or two where it looks like he’s having fun, but he’s never really let off the chain to chew the scenery.  He does get the best line of the movie when he says, “It would make Sir Isaac Newton crawl back into his mother’s womb!”

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: BAD TIMING (1980) **

FORMAT:  DVD

Nicolas Roeg directed this odd and bewildering melodrama.  Art Garfunkel stars as an uptight professor who is banging the free-spirited Theresa Russell.  When she overdoses, he takes her to the hospital where he is questioned by cop Harvey Keitel.  Through flashbacks we learn she was married (to Denholm Elliott) and that she and Garfunkel had some serious ups and downs in their relationship. 

Roeg’s artsy-fartsy style works for movies like Performance and Don’t Look Now, but it’s a little cumbersome for a film that’s essentially a relationship drama.  Cutting back and forth between the present and the past seemingly at random is one thing when you’re filming a police interrogation scene.  It’s another thing entirely to intercut scenes of a couple having sex with graphic footage of a tracheotomy. 

The sad thing is Russell (who later went on to marry Roeg) is excellent.  It’s just that the flimsy script leaves her at sea.  You know in movies about the making of a movie, how the dialogue often sounds melodramatic and contrived in the film-within-a-film scene?  That’s how most of the dialogue in Bad Timing sounds.  Like something out of a movie within a movie. 

While Russell is fantastic (and has a couple of nude scenes), Garfunkel is anything but.  The movie might’ve survived had Russell been paired alongside a talent that was her match every step of the way, but the casting of Garfunkel is befuddling at best and a bit painful at worst.  I mean, there were so many other qualified actors you could’ve brought in who could’ve done a better job than Garfunkel.  Heck, there’s a bunch of better musicians who could’ve given a better performance.  For Christ’s sake, Paul Simon would’ve been a better choice than Art Garfunkel.  And the less said about his nude scenes, the better.  Keitel gets by from being Harvey Keitel, but his Sherlock Holmes schtick late in the game becomes tiresome. 

AKA:  Bad Timing:  A Sensual Obsession.