Paula Dupree, the Ape Woman of CAPTIVE WILD WOMAN , returned in a sequel titled JUNGLE WOMAN a year later. While the former film has a kind of goofy charm to it, the sequel is a wretched concoction that’s not worth the time it’ll take me to write this – but I’m gonna do it anyway, so bear with me!
JUNGLE WOMAN is the very definition of a ‘quickie’, and I don’t mean that in a good way. A good chunk of the film is made up of stock footage from the original, including the stock footage that film used from Clyde Beatty’s THE BIG CAGE. Even so, it took three screenwriters to come up with this nonsense! The movie starts out okay, with a female fiend attacking a man, who gives her an injection, shown in shadow. But it quickly bogs down as we’re at a coroner’s inquest, with…
As we all know, October is the month when we usually ignore everything but the horror genre here at the Shattered Lens. However, I’m going to briefly interrupt our horrorthon to say a few words about The 15:17 to Paris.
Directed by Clint Eastwood, The 15:17 to Paris is a film about the 2015 Thalys train attack. This was when a terrorist named Ayoub El Khazzani opened fire on a train that was heading from Amsterdam to Paris. He wounded three passengers and probably would have killed countless more (there were over 500 people on the train) if he had not been subdued by three American friends, one British passenger, and a French train driver. The 15:17 to Paris focuses on the three Americans, Spencer Stone, Anthony Sadler, and Alex Skarlatos.
When the film was released on February 9th, it got middling reviews and was considered to be a box office disappointment. Myself, I saw it the first week of March, just a few days before Jeff and I left for a two-week stay in the UK. I meant to review it when we returned to America but I just never got around to it. However, about a week ago the film made its cable debut and seeing as how Clint Eastwood has a second film coming out this year that might be the Oscar contender that his first film probably won’t be, I figured now is as good a time as any to defend The 15:17 To Paris.
Now, don’t get me wrong. The 15:17 to Paris is not a great film by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, the film’s first line of dialogue — in which Anthony Sadler, in voice over, says that he knows we’re probably wondering why “a brother like me” is hanging out with two white guys — made me cringe so hard that I was worried I might sink into my seat and never be able to escape. Sadler, Spencer Stone, and Alex Skarlatos all play themselves in the movie and none of them comes across as being a natural actor. They may be heroes but they aren’t movie stars.
And yet, the fact that none of them are stars is also the film’s greatest strength. Throughout the film, Eastwood emphasizes how totally and completely average Sadler, Skarlatos, and Stone are. None of them really get the type of “hero shots” that one normally expects to see in a film like this. Instead, Eastwood continually reminds us that they’re just three friends who happened to be on the train when the shooting started. They put their own lives at risk to take the shooter down and they also provided first aid to a man who had been shot. Whether they have movie star charisma or not, they still saved countless lives. The film’s point is that you don’t have to be Chris Pratt or Chris Evans to be a hero. You can just be Chris from across the street. You just have to be someone willing to do the right thing at the right time. It’s a sincere and heartfelt message and it’s one that comes across specifically because Eastwood cast three nonprofessionals.
The film starts with a lengthy sequence that depicts the childhoods of the three lifelong friends. It’s kind of a strange sequence, largely because almost all of the supporting roles are filled by talented actors who are best known for their comedic work on television. Thomas Lennon plays a high school principal while Tony Hale shows up as a coach. Even Jaleel White (!) has a role as a teacher who gives the boys advice on self-defense. When the childhood scenes work, it’s largely due to the performances of Jenna Fischer and Judy Greer, who plays the mothers of Alex and Spencer. But whenever Fischer and Greer aren’t around, the childhood scenes are a bit too slow and awkward.
However, once Sadler, Skarlatos, and Stone are on that train, the film definitely picks up. Whatever awkwardness that the three nonprofessionals may have exhibited earlier in the movie disappears as they spring to action and they recreate their responses to the attack on the train. It’s here that Eastwood’s no-nonsense approach to storytelling definitely pays off, as he recreates the train attack without any of the showy tricks that you might expect from other directors. Instead, Eastwood allows things to play-out naturally. Like the passengers on that train, all we can do is watched as the three men rush the gunman.
The 15:17 to Paris may not be one of Eastwood’s best films but it’s hardly the disaster that it was made out to be. Instead, it’s a sincere and unapologetically old-fashioned celebration of heroism and doing the right thing.
Count Dracula has been scaring people for centuries. Many different artists who have taken their turn portraying the world’s most famous vampire. Below is a small selection of portraits of Dracula through the ages:
Halloween is the perfect time for a good ghost story and, with that in mind, here is today’s movie.
Released in 1960 and directed by Bert I. Gordon, Tormented tells the sad story of Tom Stewart (Richard Carlson). Now, Tom might look like a pretty regular guy but we know that he’s a little bit crazy because he’s a jazz pianist and you know how dangerous those beatnik-types are. Tom is happily engaged to Meg but one day, his ex-girlfriend Vi shows up. Vi is obsessed with Tom and swear that she’s going to end his engagement.
So, naturally enough, Tom throws her off of a lighthouse.
Problem solved, right?
Not quite. Vi may be dead but she’s not out of Tom’s life. Instead, her disembodied head tends to pop up at random moments and taunt Tom. Meanwhile, Tom is having to deal with Meg’s suspicious sister and a beatnik (Joe Turkel, who years later played Lloyd the Bartender in The Shining) who is determined to collect the $5 that he claims Vi owes him.
Between the beatniks and the raging ocean and the disembodied head popping up whenever it’s least convenient, Tormented is a lot of fun and the perfect film for some retro Halloween fun.
What happens when you put a bunch of bloodthirsty, music-loving goblins together? Well, a lot of disembowelment, but also alot of catchy tunes. Formed six millennia ago, and practicing only every other leap year on a full moon, the band has perfected their brand of crushing goblin music.
Nekrogoblikon is also a band that was formed in 2006 in Palo Alto, California and who have built a loyal cult following by performing songs about goblins. In 2012, the band uploaded a video to YouTube for their song, No One Survives. It was about a goblin trying to win the affection of one of his co-workers (played by Kayden Kross). No One Survives became a viral hit so their video for We Need A Gimmick features John Goblikon (played by David Rispoli) using what he’s learned to help Nekrogoblikon find the gimmick that will keep Earthlings from realizing that the members of the band are actually goblins from outer space. Along the way, the video parodies rap, EDM, and Justin Timberlake. And, of course, Kayden Kross returns.
Nekrogoblikon has shown a longevity that would probably surprise those who originally dismissed them as merely being a novelty act. On April 13th, they released their 5th album, Welcome to Bonkers.
This has not been an easy week and I’m afraid that I’m now behind on my horror reviews. This upcoming week should be a busy one!
Here’s what happened: it rained down here nearly every day last week. On Monday, a building belonging to AT&T was struck by lightning. The building caught fire. The roof collapsed. For the majority of people in Dallas, the internet was down for 11 hours. The next day, YouTube was down for about five hours. The day after that, I woke up with a fever and I spent the next two days trying to rest. It’s been a crazy week.
Anyway, here’s what I did manage to accomplish this week:
Tonight, on Kolchak, someone or something is eating the elderly and poor residents of Roosevelt Heights! Carl Kolchak investigates!
After battling Native American monsters, Cajun monsters, and European monsters, Kolchak finds himself battling a Hindu demon in this episode. Apparently, Chicago was quite a busy place in the 1970s.
This episode originally aired on December 20th, 1974, just in time for the Christmas season.
Yuppie lawyer Ted (adult film actor Randy Spears, credited here as Gregory Patrick) is shocked when he sees a painting of a man who looks just like him. He is told that the portrait was painted in 1964 and that the man in the painting is the late husband of the artist, Arlene (porn legend Georgina Spelvin, credited here at Ruth Raymond). Arlene goes on to reveal that Ted is actually her long-lost son and then she invites him and his wife, Evie (Linda Blair, credited here as Linda Blair), to come out to her mansion. What Ted doesn’t realize is that Arlene believes that he is actually her husband reincarnated and she is planning on doing away with Evie so that she can have her son all to herself and do what it is she wants to do with him. Yes, this film goes there.
Chuck Vincent was one of the leading directors of the Golden Age of Porn. Unlike most other adult film directors, his movies were popular with not only the public but also with critics. (His best-known film, Roommates, received a rave in the New York Times.) In the 80s, Vincent tried to make the move into mainstream film, mostly directing sex comedies and dopey thrillers. Most of his mainstream films featured adult performers in dramatic roles, which made them very popular on late night cable.
Bad Blood feels like a combination of Fatal Attraction and Misery. There’s even a scene where Arlene ties up her son in bed and then breaks his toes to keep him from leaving. (Bad Blood, though, came out a year before Rob Reiner’s film so the resemblance is probably a coincidence.) Spelvin, who was widely regarded as being the best actress to ever regularly appear in pornographic movies, gives a great, demented performance as Arlene and Linda Blair is also good as Evie. Chuck Vincent was a good director, even when he was doing schlocky straight-to-video stuff like this. Perhaps because of his background in adult films, Vincent never hesitated about taking his films to the places where other directors would be scared to tread. Sadly, Vincent died in 1991 and most of his movies have fallen into obscurity.
Director Robert Siodmak is remembered today for his dark excursions into the world of film noir: THE SUSPECT, THE KILLERS , CRY OF THE CITY, CRISS CROSS . His first entry in the genre is generally recognized as 1944’s PHANTOM LADY , but a case could be made for SON OF DRACULA, Siodmak’s only Universal Horror that combines elements of both genres into what could best be described as supernatural noir.
A train pulls into the station in a sleepy Louisiana town. Frank Stanley (Robert Paige) and Dr. Brewster (Frank Craven ) are there to meet Count Alucard, invited for a visit by Kay Caldwell (Louise Albritton), Frank’s fiancé, who has long been interested in the occult. Alucard isn’t aboard, but his trunks are, and Brewster notices Alucard spelled backwards reads as Dracula. The trunks are delivered to Kay’s family plantation, Dark Oaks. The scene shifts, and…
Through the Shattered Lens 