Author Archives: Jedadiah Leland

Feeling the Burn: Death Spa (1989, directed by Michael Fischa)

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Michael (William Bumiller) owns the hottest health club in Los Angeles but that may not stay true if he can’t do something about all the guests dying.  Members get baked alive in the sauna.  Another is killed when a malfunctioning workout machine pulls back his arms and causes a rib to burst out of one side of his body.  Shower tiles fly off the wall and panic a bunch of naked women.  A woman loses her arm in a blender and a man is somehow killed by a frozen fish.  Strangely, all of the deaths don’t seem to hurt business as people still keep coming to the gym.  Surely, there are other, safer health clubs in Los Angeles.

Michael suspects that his brother-in-law, David (Merritt Butrick), might be to blame for all of the trouble.  David is good with computers and since this movie is from 1989, that means that he can do anything.  (David is described as being a “hacker,” which may be the first time that overused term was used in a film.)  Michael feels that David has never forgiven him for the suicide of his sister.  Two useless cops show up to investigate the murders while the spa gets ready for Mardi Gras night.

This incredibly cheesy horror movie used to be a mainstay on HBO, where young viewers like me appreciated all of the gore and slightly older viewers appreciated all of the nudity.  Viewed today, Death Spa is a real nostalgia trip.  From the leg warmers to the bulky computers to the choreographed workout routines, this is a movie that could only have been made in the 80s.  The plot is beyond stupid but some of the gore effects were well-executed and that scene where the frozen fish comes to life continues to amaze.  Sadly, this was Merritt Butrick’s last film.  The actor, who was best known for playing Captain’s Kirk’s son in The Wrath of Khan and The Search for Spock, died the same year that Death Spa was released.

Griffith Gets Serious: Winter Kill (1974, directed by Jud Taylor)

Posted on by Jedadiah Leland

Eagle Lake, a mountain resort town in California, has a problem.  It’s almost tourist season and there is a sniper stalking through the night, using his rifle to pick off citizens and painting messages like “The First” and “The Second” in the snow.  It’s up to police chief Sam McNeill (Andy Griffith) to figure out the killer’s motives and capture him before the vacation season begins!  To catch the killer, McNeill is going to have to investigate his friends and neighbors, all of whom have secrets that they don’t want to have revealed.

1974 was a busy year for Andy Griffith.  Best-known for playing the folksy and reassuring Sheriff Taylor for over ten years on The Andy Griffith Show, Griffith tried to change his image by appearing in three unexpectedly dark made-to-TV movies.  In Pray For The Wildcats and Savages, Griffith played the villain.  In Winter Kill, he’s back in a more familiar role.  He is once again playing a lawman, though this one carries a gun and doesn’t have time to sit on his porch and play the guitar while Aunt Bea makes dinner.  Instead, he’s getting pressure from all sides to capture a psycho sniper who, at the start of the movie, shoots an old woman after throwing pebbles at her bedroom window.  Eventually, the sniper even ends up kidnapping Chief McNeill’s girlfriend!  This never happened in Mayberry!

Winter Kill is a pretty good mystery.  It’s not strictly a horror film but the sight of the masked sniper, making his way through the night and coldy gunning down unsuspecting victims is scary enough that it might as well be.  Andy Griffith was surprisingly tough and gritty as Chief McNeill.  He might be a good guy in this movie but you still know better than to mess with him.  The rest of the cast is made up of television regulars but keep an eye out for a youngish Nick Notle playing a cocky ski instructor.

Winter Kill was actually meant to be a backdoor pilot for a show where Chief McNeill would battle crime on a weekly basis.  Though that didn’t happen, the concept was later retooled and became a short-lived series called Adams of Eagle Lake.

Captain Kirk vs. Sheriff Taylor: Pray For The Wildcats (1974, directed by Robert Michael Lewis)

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The year is 1974 and there’s nothing more dangerous than being a hippie in Baja California.  That’s because psychotic business Sam Farragutt (played by Andy Griffith!) is on the loose.  Sam likes to describe himself as being a hippie himself.  “A hippie with money,” Sam puts it as he waves a hundred dollar bill in the face of a hippie without money,

Actually, there is one thing more dangerous than being a hippie in Baja California and that’s being an ad executive.  Once again, Sam Farragutt is to blame.  He’s willing to give his business to three ad execs but first they have to agree to go down to Baja and ride around with him on their motorcycles.  The three ad execs are Terry Maxon (former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner!), Paul McIllvain (former Brady Bunch star Robert Reed!), and suicidal burn-out Warren Summerfield (William Shatner!).  Warren is having an affair with Paul’s wife (Angie Dickinson!) but he’s still planning on committing suicide in Mexico.

However, going to Mexico gives Warren a new lease on life.  After Warren discovers that Farragutt is responsible for the death of two hippies, he becomes determined to make sure that justice is served.  Soon, Andy Griffith (!) is chasing William Shatner (!) across the Mexican desert.  Someone’s going to die.  Is it going to be Sheriff Taylor or Captain Kirk?

Pray For The Wildcats was a made-for-TV movie that aired the same year as Savages.  Both movies were a part of Andy Griffith’s attempt to change his image after playing the folksy Sheriff Taylor on The Andy Griffith Show.  Griffith is a good villain but the main appeal of Pray for the Wildcats is the chance to see William Shatner doing his thing.  Shatner has a juicy role here, playing a man who is at first suicidal and then righteously indignant.  He overemotes with the self-serious intensity that was Shatner’s trademark in the years before he finally developed a sense of humor about himself.  The movie itself gets bogged down with unnecessary flashbacks and dated dialogue but the spectacle of Griffith vs. Shatner makes it all worth it.

Escape From Mayberry: Savages (1974, directed by Lee H. Katzin)

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Ben (Sam Bottoms) is a gullible college student working at a gas station in the Mojave desert.  Horton Madec (Andy Griffith) is a wealthy attorney from Los Angeles who walks with a limp and who fancies himself a big game hunter.  Madec hires Ben to serve as his guide through the desert.  Madec says that he’s hunting a ram but instead, he ends up shooting and killing an old prospector.  Even after Madec offers to pay him off, Ben wants to go to the police.  Madec gives it some thought and decides to hunt Ben himself.

After forcing Ben to strip down to his shorts, Madec sets him loose in the desert.  As Ben tries to make his way back to civilization, Madec follows close behind and uses his rifle not to kill Ben but instead to keep him from drinking water or taking shelter from the sun.

Savages deserves to better known than it is.  The film does a good job of making you feel as if you’re trapped out in the desert with Ben, trying your damndest to survive while some maniac follows close behind, taunting you and refusing to allow you to get any relief.  Horton Madec is pure evil, a maniac who brags about how he can do anything he wants because he has money and he knows people.  That he’s played by Andy Griffith makes him even more dangerous because you know there’s no way anyone would believe that Andy Griffith took you out to the desert tried to kill you.

After playing the folksy and friendly Andy Taylor for nine seasons on The Andy Griffith Show, Griffith tried to leave Mayberry behind by taking on villainous roles in made-for-TV movies like this one and Pray For The Wildcats.  Though he actually started off his film career by playing a villain in A Face In The Crowd, it was still probably a shock for audiences in 1974 to turn on Savages and see Andy Griffith cruelly drinking a martini while another man nearly died of dehydration in front of him.  Griffith goes full psycho in the role of Horton Madec and is totally convincing.  (Of course, audiences preferred the folksy side of Griffith which is why, even after ten years straight of playing bad guys, Griffith still ended up starring in Matlock.)

Even though it’s Griffith’s show, Sam Bottom does okay in the role of Ben.  He has the right look for the character and that’s really all that the part requires.  For the majority of the movie, it’s just Griffith and Bottoms but eventually, James Best shows up as Sheriff Bert Williams.  Five years later, Best would achieve a certain immortality when he was cast as Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard.

Savages has never gotten an official DVD release but it can be viewed on YouTube, along with Griffith’s other villainous turn from 1974, Pray for the Wildcats.

We All Float Down Here: Graveyard Shift (1990, directed by Ralph S. Singleton)

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The old textile mill has a problem.  The people who work there keep dying, especially the ones who work the night shift.  The mill has another problem.  It’s become infested with rats.  Just stepping into the mill means you’re running the risk of having a rat fall through the ceiling and land on your head.  The evil mill foreman, Warwick (Stephen Macht), puts together a cleanup crew to work overnight and take care of the infestation.  Idealistic drifter John Hall (David Andrews) is hired to help and soon discovers that there’s something even bigger than a rat living underneath the mill.  Unfortunately, by the time that John makes his discovery, almost everyone else is dead and Warwick, having had an Apocalypse Now-style breakdown, is painting his face with muck and trying to kill whoever’s left.

This is a weak film adaptation of a throw-away Stephen King short story.  That the film itself is clearly not meant to taken seriously doesn’t make it any better.  The only thing that this film has to recommend it is Brad Dourif, who has an extended cameo as a crazy exterminator named Tucker Cleveland.  Cleveland knows everything about how rats have been weaponized over the years and he will be more than happy to explain every detail.  It’s too bad that Dourif does not have a bigger role because the movie is lot less entertaining when he’s not around.  If you do watch Graveyard Shift, stick around for the end credits so you can hear the theme song that is made up of samples of dialogue from the movie.

Faust Goes Metal: Shock ‘Em Dead (1991, directed by Mark Freed)

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Spastic Colon, an up-and-coming metal band, desperately needs a new guitarist, so much so that they allow a nerdy pizza boy named Martin (Stephen Quadros) to come in off the street and audition.  Martin, with his thick glasses and his total lack of talent, blows the audition and is told to leave and never return.  Not only does Martin lose his chance to be a rock star but he also loses his job when his boss (Aldo Ray) fires him for leaving work to audition.  While wandering around dejected, Martin runs into the local voodoo priestess (Tyger Sodipe), who offers to make him a rock star in exchange for his soul.

Martin agrees and after a ceremony involving a double neck guitar, Martin wakes up to discover that he is now an extremely talented guitarist who lives in a gigantic mansion with three outrageously hot groupies.  Martin now has big, heavy metal hair and no longer needs to wear his glasses.  Renaming himself Angel Martin, he not only becomes Spastic Colon’s new guitarist but he also pulls the band’s manager (Traci Lords) away from her boyfriend.  The only problem is that Martin cannot eat normal food and has to regularly feast on the souls of his groupies in order to stay alive.

Shock “Em Dead is the 1000th retelling of the old Faust legend, about the man who gets everything that he desires but loses his soul in the process.  A real product of its time, it’s impossible to watch Shock “Em Dead without thinking about how Martin sold his soul to become the type of musician that, in just a few months, would be made obsolete by Kurt Cobain and Nirvana.  I have fond memories of Shock “Em Dead because it always used to air on HBO back when I was growing up but, for the most part, this is a really crummy movie, with a bad script, bad acting, and bad special effects.  Shock “Em Dead does prove that Traci Lords had enough talent that, if not for her background as an underage porn star, she probably could have had a mainstream film career.  The film also provided small roles for Aldo Ray and Troy Donahue while the legendary Michael Angelo Batio served as Angel’s “guitar double.”

Weekly Trailer Round-Up: Aquaman, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, The Mule, Vice, On The Basis of Sex, Mortal Engines

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Last week the internet was abuzz after the release of an extended, five-minute trailer for Aquaman.  That trailer kicks off this week’s trailer round-up.  Aquaman will be released on December 21st.

Coming out the week before Aquaman, the animated Spider-Man: Into The Spider-Verse will provide a new look at everyone’s favorite webslinger and will help us all emotionally recover from the end of Avengers: Infinity War.  Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is in theaters on December 14th.

Clint Eastwood is a machine.  At an age when most people are retired, Eastwood is still cranking out movies and winning awards.  The Mule is based on the true story of the world’s oldest drug runner.  Eastwood directed and, for the first time since Trouble With The Curve, stars.  The Mule will be released on December 14th.

In Vice, Christian Bale is transformed into former Vice President Dick Cheney.  This film was directed by Adam McKay so it’s portrayal of Cheney and George W. Bush (played by Sam Rockwell) will probably not be a positive one.  Vice will be released on December 25th and will answer the question: “Does anyone other than Adam McKay care about Dick Cheney anymore?”

Vice will be getting some competition on Christmas from another politically charged biopic.  On the Basis of Sex stars Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Finally, if you’d rather escape the real world in December, Mortal Engines will be released on December 14th.

Music Video of the Day: Shame by Stabbing Westward (1996, directed by Paul Cunningham)

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“Who was the girl in Stabbing Westward’s video for Shame?”

For those of us who grew up in the 90s, that is question that we’ve been asking ourselves for 22 years.  Who played Julie, the leggy brunette who found herself threatened by her ex-boyfriend while the band ate popcorn and watched from the couch?

It only took me a minute of research to discover that Nick was played by an actor named Clint Curtis.  If he seems familiar, you may have seen him in movies like Deep Rising, The Mexican, or Splatter: Love, Honor, and Paintball.  But no one seems to know who played Julie, though a lot of people still wonder.  I’ve seen speculation that she was a model or maybe she was dating a member of the band.  On one message board, someone even thought that she may have been played by the actress, Alana Urbach.  (She’s wasn’t.)

Even if we don’t know who played Julie, Shame is a smart video from an underrated band.  It was directed by Paul Cunningham, who is probably best known for directing the video for Radiohead’s High & Dry.

Rock and Roll Creation: Zombie Nightmare (1986, directed by Jack Bravman)

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When muscle-bound teen baseball player Tony (Jon-Mikl Thor) does a good deed by stopping a grocery store robbery, he’s rewarded by getting run down by a bunch of stupid teenage joyriders.  Luckily, there’s a voodoo priestess in the neighborhood and, while she can’t revive Tony permanently, she can bring him back as a zombie so he can kill those who killed him.  Soon, Zombie Tony is killing all of the teens (including Tia Carrere) and Detective Tom Churchman (Adam West) is on the case.  Detective Churchman, however, has a previous connection to both the voodoo priestess and the murder of Tony’s father.

Zombie Nightmare is best known for later being shown on Mystery Science Theater 3000.  It was one of the best episodes of MST 3K but Zombie Nightmare is just as great even without commentary from Mike and the Bots.  This film features Jon-Mikl Thor, Adam West, Tia Carrere, zombies, and a heavy metal soundtrack that features Girlschool, Virgin Steel, Thor, and Motorhead!  What more do you need?  Jon-Mikl Thor is actually really convincing as the zombie and it’s always interesting to see Adam West play a role straight.  West even gets to be the bad guy here, and he does it without winking at the camera once.

Jon-Mikl Thor followed up Zombie Nightmare with the even better Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare.  He was also the subject of a recent and revealing documentary, I Am Thor, which should be required viewing for anyone who thinks they want to be a star.

Music Video of the Day: Bewitched by Candlemass (1988, directed by Jonas Akerlund)

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The lesson of this video is don’t try to bury Messiah Marcolin.

Marcolin was the lead singer of the Swedish doom metal band, Candlemass.  In this video, for their song Bewitched, Messiah Marcolin not only comes back to life and rises from his own coffin but he uses his powers of awesome singing to create an army of brainwashed zombies.  This would be scary, except for the fact that Messiah Marcolin spends most of the video looking like this:

And this.

He does somehow manage to entrance a cute girl about halfway through the video.

I guess that’s the power of Swedish doom metal.

This video, which has been called one of the most enjoyably bad metal video of all time, is significant for being the first video to have been directed by Jonas Akerlund.  From working with Candlemass, Akerlund has gone on to direct videos for everyone from U2 to Jane’s Addiction to Beyonce to The Rolling Stones to almost everyone else who has ever had a ht song.

As for Candlemass, they’ve disbanded and gotten back together a few times.  In January 2013, Candlemass was voted the greatest Swedish hard rock/metal band of all time by the writers of Sweden Rock Magazine.