Horror On The Lens: The Cloning of Clifford Swimmer (dir by Lela Swift)

Posted on October 28, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s horror on the lens is 1974’s The Cloning of Clifford Swimmer.

This short but entertaining sci-fi film may be a bit obscure but it’s a personal favorite of mine. Check out my review here and then be sure to enjoy the show!

October Positivity: The Mark (dir by James Chankin)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2012 film, The Mark, opens with a covert attack by a group of mercenaries on a laboratory. The head scientist, wanting to make sure that his work is not destroyed, injects guard Chad Turner (Craig Sheffer) with a biometric chip. As Cooper (Eric Roberts), the head of security with Avanti Corporation, explains it, Chad is now the most important person in the world. He has been injected with the future, a chip that will replace the need for personal identification or currency. It’s a chip that Cooper claims will bring the world together under one big government.

Hmmm …. a Pureflix film about a biometric chip that will lead to one world government? Can we all guess where this is leading?

With the world economy collapsing and threats of war dominating the headlines, Cooper decides to personally escort Chad to the G20 economic summit in Berlin. Seeing as how everyone wants to get their hands on the chip, Cooper decides that the best plan is to fly to Berlin on a commercial flight. Cooper describes it as hiding in plain sight. I would describe it as being remarkably stupid.

Needless to say, the flight is an eventful one. Cooper enjoys talking to the other passengers. And Chad flirts with a woman who is convinced that the G20 summit is actually a conspiracy of some sort. The co-pilot asks a flight attendant to marry him and she says, “Yes.” Yay! One of the passengers mentions that he’s a minister and offers to marry them right there but the co-pilot explains that they’re not really into all of that religious stuff. Unfortunately, a mercenary named Mr. Pike (Gary Daniels) hijacks the plane and demands the chip, which is currently being absorbed into Chad’s bloodstream.

The film starts out as a Die Hard clone, with Chad sneaking around the plane and taking out the terrorists one-by-one. Cooper rallies the other passengers to fight back. But then there’s a bright flash of light and half of the passengers and one of the pilots vanishes. The clearly shaken minister says:

That’s right, it’s one of those films!

Can Chad and flight attendant Dao (Sonia Couling) figure out how to open up the locked cockpit so that the remaining agnostic pilot can land the plane? And will Chad be able to escape from the plane, despite the fact that Cooper is still intent on taking him to the summit?

Like a lot of PureFlix films, The Mark attempts to deliver its message in the guise of a genre film. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a bore as an action film, with a slow-moving plot and fight scenes that feel as if they’ve been lifted from countless other films. Craig Sheffer is a bland hero and the terrorists are generic. Not surprisingly, it’s Eric Roberts who steals the film, playing Cooper as being someone who can be a valuable ally but who is also a bit too arrogant for his own good. If I was ever on a hijacked plane, I would definitely want Eric Roberts on my side.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Maniac Cop (1988, directed by William Lustig)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

In New York City, murders are being committed by a hulking man dressed in a policeman’s uniform. The NYPD brass (led by William Smith and Richard Roundtree) want to cover up the fact that the murders are being committed by an apparent maniac cop but Lt. Frank McRae (Tom Atkins) leaks the news to the press. With the citizens taking up arms against cops, the brass is eager to frame adulterous cop Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell) for not only murdering his wife but also committing all of the murders. Lt. McRae believes that Jack is innocent.

Why is the brass so eager to frame Jack? Maybe it’s because they know that the Maniac Cop is actually Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar), a formerly good cop who was sent to Sing Sing on trumped up brutality charges. Cordell was killed in prison but he has now come back to life and is seeking revenge on the police force that he feels betrayed him.

Written by Larry Cohen and directed by William Lustig, Maniac Cop is the first of three Maniac Cop films. While the other two Maniac Cop movies largely work and hold up well, the first Maniac Cop is undoubtedly the worst of the trilogy, with most of the kills occurring offscreen and the action moving very slowly. The film is full of genre vets and Tom Atkins gives another one of this good tough guy performances. Bruce Campbell disappointingly plays his role straight and Robert Z’Dar, as intimidating as he is, is actually underused in this film.

As with most films written by Cohen, Maniac Cop has an interesting political subtext. It focuses on cop brutality and corruption with Cordell becoming a symbol of most people’s mixed feelings about the police. But the Maniac Cop trilogy wouldn’t really come to life until the second film. The first spends a lot of time setting Cordell up as a relentless avenger but there’s not much of pay-off.

October True Crime: The Case of the Hillside Stranglers (dir by Steve Gethers)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

1989’s The Case of the Hillside Stranglers is based on the killing spree of Angelo Buono and Kenneth Bianchi, two cousins who terrorized Los Angeles in the late 70s. Buono owned his own garage and aspired to be a tough and macho pimp. Bianchi was an aspiring police officer who supported himself as a security guard. Over the course of just five months, they murdered ten women. They probably would never have been caught if not for the fact that Buono eventually tired of Bianchi and kicked him out of his house. Bianchi moved up to Washington where he committed two murders on his own. When he was arrested, he attempted to convince the cops that he was suffering from dissociative identity disorder and that the murders were committed by his other personalities.

The Case of the Hillside Stranglers starts with the murder spree already in progress. Buono is played by Dennis Farina while Bianchi is played by a very young Billy Zane. Both of them are well-cast, with Farina especially making an impression as a misogynistic bully who thinks that he is untouchable. (In real life, Farina spent 18 years as a Chicago cop and, watching his performance in this film, it’s hard not to get the feeling that he had to deal with more than one guy like Angelo Buono over the course of his time on the force.) For all of their cockiness, the film emphasizes that neither Angelo nor Kenneth were particularly clever. The fact that they got away with their crimes for as long as they did was largely due to a combination of luck and witnesses who did not want to get involved. Early on in the film, one woman who is harassed and nearly abducted by Buono and Bianchi refuses to call the police afterwards because she doesn’t want to relive what happened.

That said, the majority of the film actually focuses on Bob Grogan (Richard Crenna), the tough veteran detective who heads up the Hillside Strangler taskforce and who becomes so obsessed with tacking down the elusive killers that he soon finds himself neglecting both his family and his own health. Whenever we see Grogan trying to enjoy any quality time with his children, we know that his beeper is going to go off and he’s going to have to search for a telephone so that he can call into headquarters. (Remember, this film was set in the 70s.) His children are a bit miffed about it, which I can understand though I really do have to say that his son, in this film, really does come across as being a brat. (“Just ignore it, Dad,” he says, as if there aren’t two serial killers murdering innocent people in the city.) The recently divorced Grogan pursues a tentative romance with a woman (played by Karen Austin) who, at one point, decides to investigate Angelo on her own. Crenna, not surprisingly, is sympathetic as Grogan. The film works best as an examination of what it does to one’s soul to spend all day investigating the worst crimes that can be committed. Grogan gets justice but, the film suggests, he does so at the sacrifice of his own peace of mind.

It’s a well-made and well-acted film, one that will probably appeal more to fans of the police procedural genre as opposed to those looking for a grisly serial killer film. In real life, Bianchi is serving a life sentence and Angelo Buono died in prison. And the real Bob Grogan? He appeared in this movie, slapping the handcuffs on Billy Zane.

The Eric Roberts Horror Collection: Black Wake (dir by Jeremiah Kipp)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In this film from 2018 (which is largely made up of “found footage”), authorities are confused by a series of mysterious, beachside deaths. The dead seem to have little to no connection with each other, besides having died near the Atlantic Ocean. Some think that the murders are the result of a cult. However, Dr. Luiza Moreira (Nana Gouvea) is convinced that the death are being caused by some sort of parasite that is transferred from host to host. Her boss (Eric Roberts) doesn’t buy it and he thinks that Dr. Moreira is becoming unhinged in her obsession with her theory. But soon, the streets are full of zombiefied killers, all of whom seem to be determined to reach the ocean.

As for Dr. Moreira, her boss may actually have a point about her behavior. Much of the film is made up footage of Dr. Moreira speaking straight to the camera, explaining her theory and also discussing how everyone that she works with is either too foolish or too in denial to understand that its right. Soon, she almost seems to be taking a bit of joy in just how out-of-control the situation has become. Meanwhile, she finds herself suffering from terrible headaches and occasional hallucinations. Two government agents follow her and watch her every move, ominously talking about how she doesn’t realize what is really happening. When she tries to go to her family to warn them about what is happening, she discovers that the situation is even more extreme than she originally thought.

Black Wake is a low-budget slice of Cthulhu-style horror, one that works because it embraces its low budget and basically tosses in every weird twist and situation that it can come up with. It’s an enjoyably weird movie and, if nothing else, it captures the extent to which some people will go to pretend that there’s nothing strange happening around them. My favorites were the dumbass frat guys who just had to pick up a hitchhiker, despite the fact that she was obviously homicidal and disturbed. One of the frat guys points out that it might not be a good idea to pick up a stranger while there’s a wave of mass murders occurring at the beach, one of his friends rationalizes the decision by saying, “She’s a chick.” Drunk frat boys so desperate to get laid that they’ll risk being murdered? That’s probably the most realistic moment in the entire film.

Eric Roberts appears in three scenes, playing an unsympathetic bureaucrat. (Is there any other type?) He’s not the only actor making a cameo here. Chuck Zito plays a sheriff. Vincent Pastore plays a doctor who memorably says, “Fuck this!” when confronted with the walking dead. And Tom Sizemore has two effective scenes as an unstable homicide detective.

Previous Eric Roberts Films That We Have Reviewed:

Horror Film Review: Old (dir by M. Night Shyamalan)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

An odd film, Old.

Seriously, 2019’s Old is so odd that I feel the need to point out repeatedly just how strange it is. As I watched the film, I respected it’s dedication to being odd but, at the same time, I was a bit surprised that it was directed by M. Night Shyamalan. For all of the fame that he’s gained for his twist endings and his suspenseful films, Shyamalan has always aspired to being a member of the Hollywood mainstream. As such, his films are usually twisty without being transgressive. He’s usually careful about alienating the audience.

But then, he makes something like Old, which features a group of people going to the beach and aging a year every 30 minutes. This group includes middle-aged people (and wow, are they ever in trouble) but it also includes young children who quickly become teenager and then quickly become adults and, by the end of the film, are middle-aged and walking around in ill-fitting swim suits. Along the way, there’s a 10-minute pregnancy, a baby that only lives for a few seconds because it’s aging too quickly, and a blood infection that kills within seconds. Eyesight and hearing fades. Bones snap. Bodies quickly decay. Aging sucks.

It’s not a happy film at all. Yes, the movie does end with a minor victory but it still leaves the remaining characters in a sort of mental and emotional limbo, the type that you know they’re never going to escape. The majority of the characters die and often, they die graphically and painfully. Under normal circumstances, they would have died over the course of several years and, at the very least, people would have time to grieve in between. On the cursed beach of Old, people die one after the other and there’s no time to grieve. Two character do manage to make some sort of peace with themselves before they age to death but the majority of the characters go out railing against that dark night. One of the most disturbing things about the film is that the characters have no control over what is happening to them. Even when they try to leave the beach, they pass out and reawaken on the sand, a few years older. I guess it’s like life. There is no escape and there’s no way to prevent getting older. Some will age well and live a full life. Others will randomly get sick and die and, in the end, there’s no way to control which will be which.

Seriously, that’s depressing! I’m not used to M. Night Shyamalan being that depressing! But then I discovered that this movie was based on a French-language graphic novel and it all made sense.

The people on the beach are played by a talented group of actors, with several different performers playing the rapidly aging children over the course of the film. Rufus Sewell gives a good performance as a surgeon who cracks under the pressure. I was happy to see one of my favorite actors, Ken Leung, on the beach but I wasn’t particularly happy with what happened to his character.

It’s a strange film. Say what you will about Shyamalan and his career has definitely been uneven, he can still deliver when he has the right material.

Horror Film Review: The Raven (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Shall I ever see the rare and radiant Lenore again?” — Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Prince)

“How they Hell should I know?” — Dr. Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre)

This exchange comes from Roger Corman’s 1963 film, The Raven, and it pretty much epitomizes the film. Very loosely based on the poem by Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven was one of the many Poe adaptations that Corman did with Vincent Price. As opposed to the other films in Corman’s Poe cycle, The Raven was a flat-out comedy, one that parodied the other films in the cycle. Reportedly, Peter Lorre improvised his response to Vincent Price’s question about Lenore. In fact, Lorre improvised a good deal of his performance and his jokes sometimes even took Corman by surprise. As a result and despite the fact that Richard Matheson did write a script for the film, The Raven is one of those films that feels like it was made up while the camera was rolling.

The Raven is a film about three sorcerers who are always fighting and arguing with each other. Dr. Erasmus Craven (Vincent Price) spends his time mourning the late Lenore. The evil Dr. Scarabus (a frail-looking Boris Karloff) has his own castle where he lives with the ghost of the late Lenore (Hazel Court). Dr. Adolphus Bedlo (Peter Lorre) is a sarcastic ne’er-do-well who saw Lenore in Scarabus’s castle and was transformed into a talking raven as a result.

In raven form, Dr. Bedlo flies over to Craven’s castle and convinces Craven to transform him back into human form. After informing Craven that Scarabus has Lenore’s ghost in his castle, the heart-broken Craven decides to head over to Scarabus’s castle and get some answers. Accompanying the group is Craven’s daughter, Estelle (Olive Sturgess) and Bedlo’s son, Rexford (Jack Nicholson, looking somewhat lost in the role of a boring young man).

At the castle, Scarabus puts on an act of being a friendly and gracious host but the opposite soon turns out to be true. In fact, the entire castle is full of secrets and it quickly turns out that hardly anyone — with the exception of Estelle and Rexford — are who they actually claim to be. It leads to a battle in magic between Craven and Scarabus. I nearly described their battle as being “epic” but that’s probably not the right world. It’s epic by the standards of Roger Corman but actually, the big battle is just as jokey as the rest of the film.

The Raven is definitely not a film that’s meant to be taken seriously. One gets the feeling that Corman knew that the presence of Price, Karloff, and Lorre would make the film a success no matter what the film was like so he decided to have some fun with it. (Price and definitely Lorre appear to have been in on the joke while Karloff was perhaps a bit less so.) To be honest, the film’s only earnest moments come courtesy of Oliva Sturgess and Jack Nicholson but, because Nicholson is Nicholson, you watch those earnest moments waiting for Rexford to arch an eyebrow or flash that devilish grin. Unfortunately, he doesn’t. Jack is pretty boring here.

The Raven, if we’re going to be honest, is probably too jokey for its own good but it’s still hard to resist the charm of Price, Lorre, and Karloff. The film is a chance to see three horror icons acting opposite each other and, as a result, it’s a fun film for horror fans. Vincent Price breaks the fourth wall at the end of the film and it’s hard not to love it.

Horror On The Lens: Messiah of Evil (dir by Willard Huyck)

Posted on October 27, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

With only five days left until Halloween, I wanted to make sure that I continued an important tradition here at the Shattered Lens by sharing this film with our faithful and wonderful readers. Messiah of Evil was first released in 1973 and, since it’s in the public domain, it has since been included in a countless number of bargain box sets from Mill Creek.

I can still remember the first time that I saw Messiah of Evil. It was on a Monday night, many years ago. I had recently picked up a 10-movie DVD box set called Tales of Terror and I was using the movies inside to try to deal with a bout of insomnia. I had already watched The Hatchet Murders (a.k,a. Deep Red) and The House At The Edge of the Park and, at two in the morning, I was faced with a decision. Should I try to sleep or should I watch one more movie?

Naturally, I chose to watch one more movie and the movie I chose was Messiah of Evil. So, there I was at two in the morning, sitting at the edge of my bed in my underwear and watching an obscure horror movie while rain fell outside.

And, seriously — this movie totally FREAKED me out!

Messiah of Evil tells the story of Arletty (Marianna Hill), a neurotic woman who drives to an isolated California town in order to visit her father. Her father is an artist who specializes in painting eerie pictures of large groups of black-clad people. However, once she arrives at his home, Arletty discovers that her father has vanished and left behind a diary where he claims that a darkness has overtaken the town.

Meanwhile, a mysterious man named Thom (Michael Greer) is wandering about town with two groupies (played by Anita Ford and Joy Bang) and interviewing random townspeople. One crazed man (Elisha Cook, Jr.) explains that “the dark stranger” is returning. After meeting Arletty, they all end up moving into her father’s house.

But that’s not all. There’s also an odd albino man who shows up driving truck and who eats mice….

Messiah of Evil is literally one of the strangest films that I’ve ever seen. It’s shot in a dream-like fashion and the much of the film is left open to the viewer’s interpretation. There are two classic scenes — one that takes place in a super market and one that takes place in a movie theater and the movie’s worth watching for these two scenes alone.

Messiah of Evil is a film that will be appreciated by all lovers of surrealism and intelligent horror and I’m happy to share it with you today.

October Positivity: The Prodigal Planet (dir by Donald W. Thompson)

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The last film in the Thief In the Night series, 1983’s The Prodigal Planet picks up where Image of the Beast left off. Computer technician and post-Rapture Christian David Michaels (William Wellman, Jr.) is on the verge of being sent to the guillotine when he’s rescued by Connie (Terri Lynn Hall). Connie may be wearing the uniform of UNITE and she may have the mark of the beast but she insists to David that she is actually on his side. Not having much choice but to believe her, David joins Connie in a military grade RV. They drive away from Des Moines just as a nuclear explosion takes out the whole city.

After seven years of being ruled over by Brother Christopher and the UN, the world is on the verge of ending. (As the film’s narrators informs us, “Plane Earth is dying and the disease is sin.”) Nuclear war has broken out, destroying cities and killing the majority of the citizens. David is determined to get to Albuquerque, where he and a group of Christians plan to wait for the final judgment. Government agent Jerry (Thom Rachford), who is one of only two characters to have appeared in every Thief In The Night film, is close behind but both he and his men are starting to show the signs of radiation sickness.

(Russell Daughten also returns as the Rev. Matthew Turner, with his apocalypse chart that explains each step of the end of the world. Daughten’s role is small in this one, which is a shame as his grim Santa Claus screen presence was one of the best things about Image of the Beast.)

Along with the remnants of UNITE and a few survivors who have yet to take the mark, the world is also populated by “mutants,” humans whose faces are permanently scarred by the radiation. They dress like monks and stalk empty and deserted city streets. Their goal is to destroy anyone who they believe is responsible for the end of the world. David and Connie rescue a scientist named Linda (Lynda Beatie) and her teenage daughter, Jodi (Cathy Wellman), from a group of mutants. Linda is wracked with guilt because she previously put all her faith in science. Jodi is bitter over how the world has turned out and, initially, she’s upset when David allows a mutant named Jimmy (Robert Chestnut) to join them in their journey.

With The Prodigal Planet, it’s obvious that director Donald W. Thompson had hopes of setting up an epic conclusion for the Thief in the Night films. Not only does the film move the action out of Iowa and into other parts of the country but the film also runs for 127 minutes. (By comparison, A Thief In The Night barely last over an hour.) Unfortunately, most of that running time is taken up with David talking and trying to convert everyone that he meets. On the one hand, considering what’s going on in the film’s world, it makes sense that David would do that. On the other hand, it doesn’t exactly make for exciting viewing. A film that features nuclear explosions and mutants should never be this slow or boring. If the previous Thief In The Night films achieved a dream-like intensity, The Prodigal Planet dutifully plods along. For every scene that works (like an extended sequence in which Linda and Jodi explore a city that isn’t as deserted as it first appears), there are other dramatically inert scenes that encourage the viewer to just about anything other than pay attention to what is happening on the screen.

(It doesn’t help that William Wellman, Jr. — despite appearing to be the only professional actor in this film — displays a bit of a blah screen presence in the role of David. The scene where he tells Jodi that she’s spoiled because she’s pretty fails not because he’s necessarily wrong about Jodi as much as because Wellman can’t make David’s “tough love” approach compelling. He just comes across as being a jerk. The series was better off when the less polished but far more sincere Patty Dunning was the lead character. As for Wellman, he was far more interesting as the morally conflicted national guardsman in The Trial of Billy Jack than he is here.)

Donald W. Thompson hoped to make a fifth Thief In the Night film, one that would feature The War in Heaven and bring the story to its prophesized conclusion. Unfortunately (or not), he was never able to raise the money to do so. And, as such, the saga of UNITE, Brother Christopher, and David Michaels came to a close with The Prodigal Planet.

Big Freakin’ Snake (2023, directed by Dustin Ferguson)

Posted on October 26, 2023 by Jedadiah Leland

People are being killed in snake attacks across Los Angeles and the sheriff and a scientist are determined to discover why. The Sheriff says that there hasn’t been a snake attack in over 40 years. His father dealt with the last batch of attacks. Now, it’s time for the new sheriff to pick up his father’s legacy and discover why people are dying from snake attack.

Could it be because of the big freakin’ snake!?

Nah, son, that snake’s not that big.

There actually is a big snake at the start of the movie, which slithers its way through Los Angeles and wraps itself around a building but most of the movie is just scenes of people screaming at normal sized snakes that don’t appear to actually be aggressive. A lot of familiar B-horror folk show up to get bitten but the special effects budget only allowed for one actual snake attack to really be shown. If you’ve ever wanted to watch Brinke Stevens fight a rubber snake in a bathtub, this film is for you.

Big Freakin’ Snake is short, only 40 minutes long, and it is obviously not meant to be taken seriously so I can’t criticize it too much. But for a movie called Big Freakin’ Snake, it sure didn’t have many big snakes.