I can’t believe that Horrorthon is half over! I’m having A LOT of fun this year with it. “Finley” has been on my “To Review” list for a long time, but I was apprehensive because it was 25 minutes long, which made me wonder if it really was a short film? Is a failed feature? I think it could’ve been a feature length film…. maybe. The premise doesn’t fully lend itself to a feature length horror comedy. However, there could’ve been a pretty funny montage of Finley training….. I will explain.
Three friends Jennifer, Alexandra, and Chris rent or buy a house together in the exurbs. Chris and Jennifer are a typical post-college couple sort of grown up and Alexandra is the sensible brunette. They venture up to the attic and find a coffin with the eponymous Finley chained and gagged. At night, Finley begins stalking them, but he’s terrible at his job. Is Finley a psychopathic possessed doll? Yes. Does he have an affection for Chris’ tuxedo cat? Yes. Can Finley kill…he tries, but he sucks at it….repeatedly. He tries to electrocute Jennifer by throwing a toaster into her bath, but he forgets to plug it in. Finley tries and tries to kill, but only succeeds in annoying them to the point that they spray him with a water bottle like he’s a destructive house cat.
We enter a mini-third act with two would-be rapist home invader/cat killers breaking into their home and tying up Jennifer, Alexandra, and Chris. When the home invaders try to hurt the cat, Finley snaps and goes full – successful – psycho! Of course, Finley’s new found murder skill has mixed results for Jennifer, Alexandra, and Chris.
I highly recommend this short. However, this is bittersweet because as good as the short was, the cast, writer, and director did not take off in a huge way. It really bothers me when there are really talented people who don’t get the traction they deserved. I hope that they reunite and something big happens for all of them.
If pressed, I could certainly make the argument that it could be considered to be at least partially a horror film. It’s work of German Expressionism, a cinematic movement that was definitely an influence on the emerging horror genre. It features a mad scientist named Rotwang (Rudolph Klein-Rogge), who designs a robot that he hopes he can transform into his lost love, a woman who instead chose to be with the wealthy and powerful Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel). The robot instead adopts the form of the saintly Maria (Brigitte Helm) and becomes a temptress who inspires a violent revolution in Fredersen’s city. At one point, when Fredersen’s son, Freder (Gustav Frohlich), falls ill, he has a hallucination of the machines under the city transforming into a demon the devours the workers. Later, statues of the Seven Deadly Sins come to life. The film ends with the message that “The Mediator Between the Head and the Hands Must Be the Heart,” which is exactly the type of empty slogan that repressive regimes have used to defend their own horrific abuses of power. It’s right up there with John Lennon’s Imagine as far as horrifying ideological statements are concerned. (The world will live as one as long as everyone imagines the exact same thing. Don’t ask what will happen to those who imagine something different than an empty world shaped by ideology.)
That said, Metropolis is, at best, a horror-adjacent film. As much as I want to hammer it into a straight horror film for the sake of October, Metropolis is better describe as being one of the first great science fiction films. Director Fritz Lang creates two visually stunning worlds, one on top of the other. Above ground, the city of Metropolis is all about towering skyscrapers, airplanes (at a time when they were still a novelty), high speed rail, and even the occasional zeppelin. It’s a sleek and beautiful city, where the inhabitants all seem to be rich and everyone is too busy enjoying the gardens and the clubs to truly pay much attention to what is happening beneath them. Underground is where one finds the machines that keep the city moving and also the anonymous workers who often risk their lives to keep those machines from breaking down. Underground, the city is dirty and dark and the workers go about their activities with the realization that things are never going to get better for them. Above ground, Metropolis is paradise but below it, the city is a hellscape.
Joh Fredersen is the man who created and controls Metropolis. His office is in the new Tower of Babel, a symbol of how there’s no communication between Fredersen and those who work underneath the city. He’s not an evil man, as much he’s just one who chooses to remain unaware about the conditions underground. When his son meets and falls in love with the peaceful activist Maria, Fredersen does not listen to either one of them but instead plots on how to discredit her. Fredersen’s old friend Rotwang has a robot but, what Frederson does not know, is that Rotwang has never forgiven Fredersen for marrying the woman that Rotwang loved. Rotwang creates his robot not to discredit Maria but to instead inspire the workers to destroy the machines and kill Fredersen’s son.
(Like so many other Marxist films, Metropolis ultimately doesn’t have much respect for the workers that it tries to uplift. They’re almost all portrayed as being easily led and incapable of thinking for themselves. At best, they’re noble savages. At worst, they’re drones.)
Even seen today, Metropolis remains a technical marvel. The underground scenes, with their emphasis on huge machines that seem to dwarf the men who work on them, are still visually powerful while the above ground scenes still make Metropolis itself look like the type of city where many of us would want to live. The scenes in which the robot is transformed into Maria is a silent spectacle of lights, science and madness. Beyond that, the acting holds up surprisingly well for a silent film. Alfred Abel plays Fredersen not as being a tyrant but instead as just a man who has been rich for so long that he’s no longer aware of how anyone else is living. Rudolf Klein-Rogge turns Rotwang into one of the great mad scientists. And Brigitte Helm leads the worker’s rebellion with a nearly feral intensity. Her dance scene is a classic, with every move meant to seduce the citizens of Metropolis into destroying their own city.
Metropolis remains a visual feast and, over the course of nearly 100 years, it’s inspired countless other science fiction and horror films. Every film that features a dystopian future city owes a debt to Metropolis. It may only be horror adjacent but it’s still worth seeing this October season.
First released in 1922, the original and silent Nosferatu remains a masterpiece.
The story …. well, we all know that story. Even if you’ve never seen any of three film versions of Nosferatu, you still know the story because it’s basically just Dracula with the names and the locations change. Dracula is now Count Orlok (Max Schreck), a mysterious nobleman with bat-like features and a fascination with blood. Jonathan Harker, the estate agent who traveled from England to Transylvania to visit with Dracula, is now Thomas Hutter (Gustav van Wangenheim), a real estate agent who travels from Germany to Transylvania to see Count Orlok. The mad, bug-eating Renfield is now the mad, bug-eating Knock (Alexander Granach). Mina Harker is now Ellen (Greta Schroder). Prof. Van Helsing is now Professor Bulwer (John Gottowt). Dracula came to England aboard the Demeter. Count Orlok comes to Germany about the Empusa.
There are a few differences, of course. Director F.W. Murnau may have used Dracula as his starting point but he brought his own ideas and sensibility to the project as well. In Nosferatu, Orlok received his vampiric powers from the demon Belial and he not only drinks blood but he also brings with him the threat of plague. The Empusa brings not just Orlok but also thousands of rats who spread disease in the German town of Wisburg. The town, which is so vibrant during the early parts of the film, soon becomes a dark and ominous place where the people blame Knock for every curse the Orlok has brought to them. If Dracula could be destroyed by a stake to the heart and stopped by a cross, Orlok can be stopped by a pure woman sacrificing herself and allowing him to drink her blood as the sun rises. Orlok, for all of his feral cleverness, cannot resist the twin temptation of blood and innocence. It leads to an ending that’s quite a bit different from the ending of Bram Stoker’s novel. In Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake of the film, the insinuation was that the town itself was not worth the sacrifice. F.W. Murnau is far less cynical.
Typically, it takes some effort to adjust to watching a silent movie. Everything from the frequently melodramatic title cards to the overly expressive acting can tend to make silent cinema seem more than a little campy. Nosferatu, however, requires less adjustment than most because it’s a film that it still being imitated to this day. The images of Orlok standing on the bridge of the ship or slowly entering Hutter’s room or leaning down over Ellen’s neck are so haunting and dream-like that it doesn’t matter that they are found in a silent film. Fear is the universal language and Murnau’s visuals still carry a lot of power.
Made at a time when the world was still recovering from the carnage of the First World War, Nosferatu perfectly captures the feeling of innocence and optimism being replaced by despair and paranoia. It’s been argued that Nosferatu reflected the fears and anxieties of post-war German society, with the vampire representing the fear of Germany being taken over by outside forces. There’s probably something to that. Tragically, those fears also led to the rise of Hitler so I’ll just say that the majority of the cast of Nosferatu fled Germany when Hitler came to power. John Gottowt, the film’s version of Van Helsing, was murdered by the SS. Director F.W. Murnau died in a car accident before Hitler came to power but, as a gay man, he would not have been welcome in Hitler’s Germany.
The film itself was a hit when it was first released in Germany. Unfortunately, calling the vampire Orlok instead of Dracula did not dissuade Bram Stoker’s widow from suing for copyright infringement. Mrs. Stoker won her case and all copies of Nosferatu were ordered destroyed. Fortunately, a few prints survived and Nosferatu continues to be regarded as one of the greatest horror films ever made.
2004’s Godzilla: Final Wars once again reboots the Godzilla franchise.
Godzilla: Final Wars opens with a narrator explaining that a series of environmental disasters have led to giant monsters attacking various cities over the course of the 20th Century. Perhaps the most fearsome of those monsters was a giant dinosaur named Godzilla that breathed radioactive fire. The same environmental disasters that created the monsters also gave rise to a group of mutant humans who had psychic powers. The mutants were recruited into Earth Defense Force to battle the monsters. Godzilla was finally imprisoned in the ice of Antarctica as the result of an attack led by a heroic American Douglas Gordon (Don Frye).
It may seem like Earth is in good hands but, after Gordon is suspended for damaging EDF property during a battle with a monster, the mummified remains of Gigan are found. This somehow leads to an appearance of those two annoying little girls who always follow Mothra around. A battle of good vs evil is coming, they explain. Everyone will have to choose a side. Okay, I choose the side of good. Hey, that was easy!
Soon, aliens arrive. Led by the fanatical Controller (Kazuki Kitamura), they cause all of the other monsters to attack every major city on Earth. Cue scenes of the Statue of Liberty in ruins, the Eiffel Tower getting destroyed, and the Sydney Opera House getting crushed. Almost every monster from every previous films shows up, even the American version of Godzilla! While the members of the EDF attempt to fight the aliens, the monsters appear to be unstoppable. Maybe Godzilla needs to be freed from Antarctica. Too bad the paper pushers at the EDF suspended Major Gordon….
Oh, how I love Godzilla: Final Wars. It’s over two-hours of nonstop action, nonstop monsters, and Kazuki Kitamura giving one of the most insanely over-the-top performances that I’ve ever seen. It’s a big, colorful celebration of the entire Godzilla franchise and it features cameos from every monster that matters. (It also features that lame son of Godzilla but nothing’s perfect.) Ghidorah makes an appearance towards the end. It’s not a Godzilla film without a final battle with Ghidorah.
Godzilla: Final Wars is terrifically entertaining. Surprisingly, it was also the last Godzilla film for ten years. When Godzilla returned, it would again be in an American film. In fact, it would be 12 years before there was another Japanese Godzilla film.
“Welcome to the Woodchuck Music Festival, three days of peace, love, and death.”
Your emcee is a bearded John Belushi and, in between warning the audience about spiked drugs and encouraging the people climbing the sound tower to jump off from the high spot possible, he introduces several musical acts. Christopher Guest appears as Bob Dylan, repeatedly walking to and then retreating from the stage until Belushi produces enough money to convince him to perform a song called Positively Wall Street. Introduced as the ultimate “bummer” by Belushi, Joan Baez (Rhonda Coullet) comes out on stage with a baby and rambles about her imprisoned husband David (whose hunger strike was so successful that he and the inmates of Cell Block 11 have all starved to death) before singing a protest song with a title that I can’t repeat. Joe Cocker (Belushi) sings while shaking on stage. James Taylor (Christopher Guest) attempts to perform but his band (including Belushi and Chevy Chase) are too zoned out on heroin to play their instruments. The owner of Yasser’s Farm (played by Christopher Guest) comes out to praise everyone in the audience who has already died. Finally, a heavy metal group called Megadeath (no, not that Megadeth!) come out on stage and turn up their amplifiers so loud that the entire audience dies at the end of their song.
An Off-Broadway production that premiered in 1973 and ran for over 300 performance, National Lampoon’s Lemmings has achieved legendary status amongst comedy nerds. It’s rare that you read any history of Saturday Night Live, Second City, or This Is Spinal Tap without coming across a reference to Lemmings. Along with satirizing Woodstock and the 60s counterculture in a way that probably few would have the guts to do today, the production features Belushi, Chase, and Guest before any of them became (however briefly) stars. Fortunately, HBO — which started broadcasting a year before the premiere of Lemmings — filmed one of the stage shows.
Viewed today, Lemmings still carries a strong satiric bite. Though Lemmings was clearly a 70s production, much of its humor still feels relevant today. The vapid political posturing, the greed disguised as altruism, the audience blindly following their idols, there was little in Lemmings that one can’t see today just by spending a few minutes on social media. Beyond the humor, though, Lemmings is a chance to see Belushi, Chase, and Guest as youngish men who had their entire lives ahead of them. Chase is surprisingly likable, playing up his goofy physical comedy. Guest disappears into each role that he plays, with his impersonation of Dylan being the clear highlight. That said, Belushi is the clear star of the show, delivering the most absurd of lines with an engaging sincerity. As I watched Lemmings, it was hard not to wonder what type of roles John Belushi would be playing today. Would he still be doing comedy? Would he have faded away? Or, like Bill Murray (or, for that matter, Jim Belushi), would he now be appearing in a mix of comedic and serious roles?
We’ll never know. But we’ll always have his performance as Joe Cocker.
In 2019’s PlaytheFlute, Brett Varvel plays Brandon Cobb.
Brandon has just been hired as youth minister at a suburban church. Brandon is young and ambitious and his hope is to build the church’s youth ministry into one of the largest in the city. Instead, he discovers that the church’s teenagers are, for the most part, a bunch of spoiled brats who refuse to read and learn their assigned Bible verses. Apparently, they’ve managed to chase off every youth minister they ‘ve had. Will Brandon be able to get through to them?
My question, though, is why Brandon is the one who has to get through to them. Where are the parents in this mess? Loretta Swit does turn up as one concerned parent but her daughter, who speaks with a stammer, doesn’t even want to go the youth group because of some boys who keep making fun of the way she talks. (I stuttered up until I was about 12 so I could relate.) But where are the other parents? A church youth group is not like high school. You’re not legally required to attend. Your parents aren’t going to be charged if you get caught skipping. The kids are obviously in the youth group because their parents took them to church and told them to attend. So, shouldn’t the parents be the ones who get yelled at when their out-of-control brats chase off a youth minister?
Brandon struggles. No one laughs at his Dad jokes. His attempts to open up about his past are met with stony silence. This youth group is hardcore! Finally, Brandon challenges the worst member of the youth group gang to a race. Brandon loses the race to the younger man but everyone is impressed by his determination. He was willing to humiliate himself just to get them to listen to him. And so, they start to listen.
The film is narrated by one of Brandon’s former students, who explains that Brandon has recently died. At first, I thought maybe Brandon had a heart attack after challenging a much younger man to a footrace. Instead, Brandon died of cancer. Brandon may be gone but his students will always remember him and cherish the memory. That’s kind of sweet.
This is another Rich Christiano film. Christiano, along with his brother Dave, was one of the pioneers of modern faith-based filmmaking. He’s been directing and producing films since the early 90s and the format has always remained the same. A Christiano film is usually rather talky, has a few moments of boomer humor, and typically ends on a sentimental note. That’s certainly the case with Play theFlute, a very slow movie that seems to have its heart in the right place.
Christiano did manage to get a few familiar faces for the film. (At least, they’re familiar if you watch a lot of old television shows like I do.) I already mentioned Loretta Swit as one of the mothers. Clint Howard shows up as the manager of a restaurant who is upset to learn that his employees have been screwing with the time clock. And Fred Grandy — GOPHER! — shows up as a minister. One thing I recently learned is that Fred Grandy actually served in the U.S. House of Representatives after he appeared on TheLoveBoat. We need more former sitcom stars in politics. I’m looking at you, Matt LeBlanc!
Anyway, where as I? Oh yeah. This movie was inoffensive but not particularly compelling. Who knew church youth groups were such a hotbed of rebellion?
Charles Bronson appeared in three episodes of the ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS T.V. series. His first two appearances came in the first season in early 1956 when Bronson was still in the early stages of his career. When “The Woman Who Wanted to Live” aired on February 6th, 1962, Bronson’s standing in the film and television community had risen dramatically. Since those first two appearances, he had headlined several low budget films (MACHINE GUN KELLY and SHOWDOWN AT BOOT HILL), starred in his own television series (MAN WITH A CAMERA), and even co-starred as one of the seven gunmen in the western classic, THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN! As opposed to those two early appearances, Bronson was a well known commodity to audiences in 1962, and he was on the precipice of breaking out in even bigger roles, as THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE DIRTY DOZEN were just over the horizon!
In “The Woman Who Wanted To Live,” we meet escaped convict Ray Bardon (Charles Bronson), a hardened criminal who was shot in the arm when busting out of prison. In serious pain and in need of some quick cash and a getaway vehicle, Bardon robs a remote gas station, even killing the attendant when he makes a move for his gun. Soon a beautiful young woman named Lisa (Lola Albright) drives up to the station. Bardon wants to steal her car and take off, but surprisingly Lisa, who sees his wounds, convinces him to let her drive him wherever he wants to go. As Bardon wonders why she’s willing to help him, Lisa assures him that she will do whatever he wants her to do as she just wants to stay alive. As they flee into the night, they have to deal with a flat tire and a gang of dangerous thugs, but Lisa continues to help Bardon and even passes up a couple of opportunities to take off to safety. Why is Lisa so invested in Bardon’s survival? If you’re guessing there’s more to the story, you would definitely be right!
After watching all three of Charles Bronson’s episodes of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS, I believe that “The Woman Who Wanted To Live” just may be the best of the bunch. It’s not as creepy as “And So Died Riabouchinska,” and it certainly doesn’t play up the black comedy like “There Was An Old Woman,” but it does pack quite the emotional punch. First, the story is very effective, as we watch the bond that seems to be developing between the escaped criminal and his captive. You can’t help but wonder if we may be watching two twisted souls who may actually need each other. Hitchcock was always good at throwing people into desperate situations together, and script definitely goes that route here. In the short 25 minutes contained in this episode, each character is given the opportunity to truly help the other, as she helps mend his wounds and he protects her from roadside thugs with bad intentions. Even as the two help each other, as the story plays on, a tightening grip seems to take hold on the audience as to why Lisa hasn’t escaped when she’s had her chances. The strength of the episode just may be the fact that when the big reveal happens, it’s as plain as the nose on your face even though I never considered it a single time, something I have in common with our criminal, Frank Bardon. Second, this episode features two excellent performances from the stars. Interestingly, Charles Bronson and Lola Albright would appear together in the Elvis movie, KID GALAHAD, later this same year. As usual, Bronson brings a real world intensity to the role of the wounded and desperate criminal. With his lived in features, Bronson is incapable of presenting himself in a way that doesn’t seem true and authentic, whether he’s playing a cop or a killer, and his presence here is a clear indicator of his impending stardom. In a tribute to Albright’s performance, the two stars have quite a nice chemistry together, and she steals the final scenes as her character transforms right in front of our eyes and we understand why she’s refused to run away.
With its strong script and the excellent lead performances from Bronson and Albright, I easily recommend “The Woman Who Wanted To Live” as a superior episode of ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS. This episode truly surprised me and has lingered with me since I first watched it a few days ago.
Returning home from his latest adventure, Hercules (Reg Park) and his sidekick, Theseus (George Ardisson), are shocked to find their home city has fallen victim to a plague that puts its victims in a trance-like state. The woman that Hercules loves, Deianira (Leonara Ruffo), is one of the victims and, since she was also the city’s queen, the sinister Lico (Christopher Lee) is ruling in her place.
Hercules consults with the oracle, Medea (Gaia Germani). Medea says that the plague can only be lifted by the Stone of Forgetfulness, which can only be found in the land of the dead, Hades. Hercules and Theseus set out for Hades but before they can enter the realm of the dead, they have to perform a quest to defeat a rock monster and retrieve a magic apple from a giant tree. Nothing is simple in ancient Greece.
The best of all the Hercules films, Hercules in the Haunted World may not have had Steve Reeves in the lead role but it did have Mario Bava behind the camera. Bava shows what a clever director can achieve just through creative lighting, colorful mists, and detailed set design. The film has all of the mythological monsters and toga-clad action that you expect from a Hercules film but it also has atmosphere, bleeding plants made from the souls of the dead, zombies, and Christopher Lee. Lee may not be playing a vampire here but he still finds an excuse to drink blood in an attempt to achieve immortality.
Reg Park was a Brit who was inspired to become a bodybuilder after watching Steve Reeves in a competition. When Reeves left the role of Hercules, Park was cast in his place. Park only made a total of five peplum films and he was even worse at expressing emotion than Steve Reeves. Park did have the physique necessary to play Hercules and that was really all that was needed. Though Park tired of acting, he would still go on to mentor another bodybuilder who was inspired by Steve Reeves and would play Hercules in a film, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
1973’s The Norliss Tapes begins with a disappearance.
David Norliss (Roy Thinnes), a California-based journalist, has vanished. Before he disappeared, he had started work on a book that would have detailed his own adventures investigating the paranormal. Though Norliss vanishes, he leaves behind several audiotapes in which he discusses some of the frightening things that he has seen. Searching for clue about Norliss’s disappearance, his editor, Sanford T. Evans (Don Porter), sits down and listens to the tapes.
(Incidentally, Sanford T. Evans is a wonderful name for an editor. It’s a name that just says, “My father knew Hemingway and I went to the University of Pennsylvania as a legacy.’)
As Evans listens to each tape, we watch the story unfold from Norliss’s point of view. In this film, we watch as Norliss investigates an incident in which Ellen Sterns Cort (Angie Dickinson) claims that she was recently attacked by her dead husband, James Cort (Nicki Dimitri). James was an artist who, in his final days, became obsessed with the occult and fell under the influence of the Mademoiselle Jeckiel (Vonetta McGee), a mysterious woman who claimed to appreciate James’s art and who gave him a scarab ring that he insisted on being buried with.
Norliss interviews Ellen and investigates her story. He’s far more sympathetic to the idea of James having returned from the dead than the local sheriff (Claude Akins) is. Of course, the sheriff has problems of his own. Dead bodies keep turning up in his county, their skin gray and their bodies drained of blood. Hmmm …. I wonder if that could have anything to do with James Cort and his scarab ring….
The Norliss Tapes is a pretty simple film. Norliss shows up and then basically waits around until James Cort makes an appearance. The film only runs 72 minutes and it’s very much a pilot for a television series that never went into production, Apparently, each episode would have featured Stanford listening to a different tape and hearing about David Norliss and a weekly guest star dealing with some sort of supernatural occurrence. Director Dan Curtis was also responsible for the cult television series, Kolchak: The Night Stalker, and The Norliss Tapes feels very much like a dry run for that show. The main difference is that Roy Thinnes’s David Norliss is nowhere near as nervous as Darren McGavin’s Carl Kolchak.
That said, the exact details for what’s going on with James Cort are almost ludicrously complicated. It turns out that James Cort is not only trying to cheat death but he’s also helping an ancient Egyptian deity invade our world. It’s best to ignore the nonsense about the Egyptian Gods and instead just focus on how creepy the undead James Cort is. With his hulking frame, his gray skin, and his nearly glowing eyes, Cort is a truly frightening monster and he’s certainly the most impressive thing about this movie. What makes Cort such an effective villain is how angry he seems to be. Whenever he’s on screen, he’s either bursting through a door or chasing someone. He’s pure nightmare fuel.
TheNorlissTapes never became a series but it did do well in Europe, where it was released in theaters. The Norliss Tapes still has a cult following, not bad for a failed pilot. Who knows what other adventures David Norliss could have had?
Through the Shattered Lens 