Tag Archives: Daily Grindhouse

6 Trailer For October 8th, a Special Roger Corman edition!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers!

Since today’s edition from 4 Shots From 4 Films was dedicated to Roger Corman, I figured why not do the same with this post.  The trailers below may be a varied bunch but they have at least one thing in common!  They’re all trailers for Corman films!

Enjoy!

  1. Bucket of Blood (1959)

In Bucket of Blood, Dick Miller plays, for the first time, a character named Walter Paisley.  Walter is an artist who discovers that the dead make the best models!

2. Little Shop of Horrors (1960)

Dick Miller returned to play a supporting role in Little Shop of Horrors, where his co-stars included a young Jack Nicholson.

3. The Terror (1963)

Both Jack Nicholson and Dick Miller returned for The Terror and they were joined by Boris Karloff.

4. The Raven (1963)

At around the same time, Karloff and Nicholson were co-starring with Vincent Price and Peter Lorre in The Raven.

5. The Masque of the Red Death (1964)

Price would return for The Masque of the Red Death.

6. The Tomb of Ligeia (1964)

To my knowledge, this film was the final time Corman directed Vincent Price, though he produced a few more films that featured him.

What do you think about all the trailers, random director with a tommy gun?

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The House on Skull Mountain (dir by Ron Honthaner)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I say anything else about 1974’s The House on Skull Mountain, I just want to say how much I love the film’s poster.  Seriously, that poster is everything that you could hope for from an exploitation film print ad.  Everything about it, from the lightning to the giant skull to the mansion to the unfortunate person plunging to her doom is pure perfection.  I especially like the question at the bottom of the poster: “Which of these five will come down alive?”

And, to be honest, it’s actually a fairly honest poster.  The majority of the film really does take place in a house on a mountain that has features that look like a skull.  Of course, the skull in the movie is not quite as prominent as the one in the poster.  The house actually does look a lot like the one on the poster.  There’s also a lot of lightning in the movie.  It’s the same basic lightning stock footage that has appeared in almost every film ever produced by Roger Corman.  In The House on Skull Mountain, it’s used as a transitional device.  “Is that scene over?” you might find yourself wondering.  Well, don’t worry.  The lightning stock footage will let you know.

One reason that I’m focusing on the poster is because the film itself is kind of anemic.  In the movie, the house on top of Skull Mountains belongs to Pauline Christophe, a direct descendant of the first king of Haiti.  Upon her death, Pauline’s four great granchildren are invited to hear the reading of her will.  None of the four have ever met Pauline or each other.  Phillippe (Mike Evans) is an alcoholic who says stuff like, “Baby, what’s the scene?”  Harriet (Xernona Clayton) is fragile and nervous and it certainly doesn’t help her nerves when she briefly sees a hooded skeleton sitting a few rows in front of her on her flight to Atlanta.  Lorena (Janee Michelle) drives too fast but is otherwise responsible and mature.  And then there’s Dr. Andrew Cunningham (Victor French), who shows up late and turns out to be white.

“You’re the wrong color!” Phillippe snaps at him.

Andrew shrugs and says that he’ll explain it all later.  He does eventually tell a story about being abandoned on the front steps of an orphanage but the dialogue is so awkwardly-written and delivered that I’m not sure if he is being serious or if he is poking fun at Phillippe’s shock.

Because Andrew showed up late, the four of them have to stay in the house for a week until Pauline’s lawyer returns to read the will.  Keeping them company is the butler, Thomas (Jean Durand), and Loutte (Ella Woods) the maid.

And that’s not all!  It also appears that there is a robed skeleton wandering around the house as well!  Add to that, the relatives start having visions.  One falls down an elevator shaft.  Another has a heart attack after someone stabs doll with a pin.  Could all of this have something to do with the fact that Pauline and her servants were all dedicated practitioners of voodoo?

Sad to say but the House on Skull Mountain is pretty dull.  The film does provide a brief history lesson concerning how Haiti was the only nation to be formed as a result of a slave rebellion and how the real-life Henri Christophe went from being a slave to a king but the film doesn’t really do much with the information.  It’s tempting to look for some sort of subtext in the film’s plot but it’s really just not there.  Much like Andrew being the only white member of a historically important black family, the history of Haiti and the actual origins of Haitian voodoo are elements that are brought up and then quickly abandoned.   There is one good and lengthy voodoo ceremony but otherwise, the whole film is almost all filler.  When it’s not showing us the same lighting stock footage, it’s showing us Andrew and Lorena wandering around Atlanta.

But seriously, that movie poster is to die for.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Killer Party (dir by William Fruet)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1986 film Killer Party is one of those late 80s slasher films that somehow has developed a cult following.  Up until recently, there was a fairly active fansite devoted to the history of Killer Party and Killer Party still regularly shows up on TCM Underground.

So, apparently, Killer Party has fans.

I’m just not sure why.

Some of it, I suppose, could have to do with the first ten minutes of the film, which are genuinely clever.  It starts out with a young woman being menaced at a drive-in theater and, just when you’ve gotten invested in her story and have started to wonder whether or not she’ll survive the entire movie, it is suddenly revealed that we’ve actually been watching a movie-within-a-movie.  And that movie-within-a-movie then turns out to be part of an incredibly silly music video, featuring a band that is so 80s that you find yourself expecting them to stop performing so they can do a line of coke and play the stock market.  At one point, the band even performs while standing on the drive-in’s concession stand.

It’s all marvelously silly and kind of clever.  The problem is that the rest of the film never lives up to those ten minutes.  In fact, you spend the rest of the movie wishing you were still watching that movie about the girl trapped at the drive-in.

I also suppose that some of the film’s cult reputation has to do with the fact that Paul Bartel has a small supporting role.  Bartel plays the same basic role that he played in almost every horror film in which he appeared.  He’s a pompous professor who says a few dismissive lines and is then promptly killed off.  Maybe it’s the Bartel factor that has led to this film developing a cult following.

Who knows?

Killer Party is essentially four movies in one.  The first movie is that part that I’ve already talked about.  The opening is clever but it only lasts for ten minutes.

After the opening, the film turns into a rather standard college comedy.  Three girls want to join the wildest sorority on campus but it won’t be easy!  Everyone on this campus is obsessed with playing pranks.  And by pranks, I mean stuff like locking a bunch of people outside while they’re naked in a hot tub and then dumping a bunch of bees on them.  Of course, that prank gets filmed and the footage is later shown at a meeting of stuffy old people.  That’ll teach those uptight members of the World War II generation!  You may have made the world safe for democracy but that was like a really, really long time ago!  So there!  It’s time for a new generation, one that will make the world safe for pranks!

During this part of the film, there are only a few hints that we’re watching a horror movie.  For instance, the sorority wants to have a party in an abandoned frat house.  Their housemother goes by the frat house and kneels in front of a grave.  She speaks to someone named Alan and tells him that it’s time to move on.  Then she promptly gets killed and no one ever seems to notice.

The comedy part of the movie segues into a remarkably bloodless slasher movie.  The cast assembles at the forbidden house.  They have a party.  Someone in a diving mask shows up and kills off the majority of the cast in 20 minutes.  Almost everyone dies off-screen so there’s really not even any suspense as far as that goes.

Then, during the last few minutes of the film, the slasher film suddenly turns into a demonic possession film and that seems like that should be brilliant turn of events but it just doesn’t work in Killer Party.  Usually, I love movies that are kind of messy but Killer Party is a rather bland and listless affair.  If you’re going to combine a campus comedy with a slasher film and a demonic possession film, you owe it to your audience to really go totally over the top and embrace the ludicrousness of it all.  Instead, Killer Party rolls out at a languid and rather dull pace.

I would not accept an invitation to Killer Party.

 

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: A Name For Evil (dir by Bernard Girard)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, this is an odd one.

First released in 1973 but reportedly filmed several years before, A Name For Evil tells the story of John Blake (Robert Culp) and his wife, Joanna (Samantha Eggar).  John is a successful architect who lives in the big city.  He used to be a passionate rebel but now he’s just a boring corporate man.  Even his wife is bored with him.  John knows that he has to make some changes.  Since this movie was made in 1973, those changes start with throwing a TV out of a window.

(Trust me.  If you watch enough films from the early 70s, you will see so many TVs get tossed through so many windows that it will no longer surprise you.  Apparently, being a rebel in 1973 meant destroying a TV.  According to Wikipedia, the top five TV shows in 1973 were, in order, All In The Family, Sanford and Son, Hawaii 5-0, Maude, and the NBC Sunday Night Mystery Movie.  I choose to believe that the NBC Saturday Night Mystery Movie is what drove everyone over the edge.  Anyway…)

Anyway, John decides to quit his high-paying job and instead move up to New England and live in his grandfather’s mansion.  (His grandfather, by the way, was known as The Major.)  Joanna is reluctant to accompany him and she’s even more upset when it turns out that 1) the house is a total wreck and 2) the last tenant died under mysterious circumstances.

John, however, grows somewhat obsessed with the house.  This is despite the fact that John doesn’t seem to really like the house or the inhabitants of the nearby town that much.  For instance, there’s a scene — which might be a dream — in which John crashes the funeral of a local boy who died in Vietnam and he starts to laugh uncontrollably when the minister praises the boy for sacrificing himself for his country.  I think we’re supposed to like John during this scene but John laughs so long and so hard and he just keeps going and going that, by the end of it, I think even the most dedicated peace activist would look at him and say, “What an asshole.”

At the house, John keeps seeing strange shadows and hearing weird noises.  Occasionally, he sees someone who looks like the long-dead Major riding a white horse.  He hears voices coming from the walls and he accuses Joanna of being behind it.  Joanna tells him that he’s being paranoid.  Of course, Joanna herself is slowly coming to appreciate the house, especially after a ghost kisses her hand…

Suffering from ennui, John does what anyone in 1973 would do.  He tracks down the local hippies and he takes part in a down-with-the-establishment orgy.  Are the hippies real or are they figments of his imagination?  Is the house real or is it a figment of John’s imagination?  Is John real or is he just a figment of his imagination?  A Name For Evil does not seem to really know but you can be sure that we’ll get another shot of that TV falling out of that window before the movie ends.

On the one hand, A Name For Evil is a standard haunted house/spiritual possession type of film.  But, on the other hand, it’s obvious that A Name For Evil was trying to make some sort of grand statement about life in America in 1973.  How else do you explain the hippies, the funeral scene, and that TV flying out the window?  Robert Culp spends the entire movie so pissed off that there’s no way he wasn’t meant to be some sort of generational spokesman.  It makes for a very strange, only-in-the-70s hybrid type of film.

Now, I should mention that I actually did a little research before writing this review.  I discovered that A Name for Evil was originally produced by MGM but it spent years on the shelf until Penthouse (the magazine) bought the film and re-cut it for theatrical release.  Apparently, the first version was clear about being an attempt at social satire with a little horror and nudity thrown in.  The version that was actually released was edited to emphasize the horror and the nudity.  That probably explains why the film feels like such a strange mishmash of genres and attitudes.

If you ever get the chance, I’d recommend watching A Name For Evil.  It’s not that good but it’s just too strange not to watch.

 

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: The Autopsy of Jane Doe (dir by André Øvredal)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

I have to admit that I’ve watched so many horror films that I’m sometimes tempted to get a little bit jaded about them.

Don’t get me wrong.  I love the genre.  I love watching horror movies.  I love analyzing horror movies.  I love writing about horror movies.  It’s just that, after you’ve watched a few hundred of them, it becomes easier to pick up on all the little tricks.  For instance, I now know not to worry whenever anyone hears a strange sound in the kitchen because it’s inevitably just going to be a cat in a cabinet.  Instead, it’s only after the cat has run by and caused everyone to jump that you have to start worrying about something terrible to happen.  I also know that there’s a good chance that the first chase scene is going to turn out to be an elaborate nightmare.  As such, I sometimes I get cynical about whether or not I can really be frightened anymore.

But then I watch something like The Autopsy of Jane Doe.

I watched The Autopsy of Jane Doe back in Decemeber.  It was two in the morning.  I was alone in the house.  It was raining outside.  I was having trouble sleeping so, of course, I decided why not sit in the dark in my underwear and watch a horror movie?  At the time, it didn’t occur to me that I was essentially putting myself in a classic horror movie situation.  It was only later, when I was lying in bed with all the lights on and freaking out about every little noise that I heard that I realized my mistake.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe takes place in a morgue in a small town.  The body of a woman has been brought in.  It is believed that she died in a house fire but there are no signs of trauma on her body.  Her finger prints are not on record.  No one knows who she is.  Over the course of the night, coroner Tommy Tilden (Brian Cox) and his son, Austin (Emile Hirsch), examine the body.  With each incision, the mystery of Jane Doe’s identity deepens.  The inside of her body is as damaged as the outside is perfect.

As the night continues, strange things start to happen inside the morgue.  It’s small things at first.  Strange sounds are heard.  Austin thinks that he sees something out of the corner of his eye.  A storm starts to rage outside.  Austin says that they should stop the autopsy but Tommy says that they have to finish what they’ve started…

And things only escalate from there.

The Autopsy of Jane Doe sneaks up on you.  It starts out as a collection of small scares and subtle hints that all is not right.  At first, you’re kind of like, “Yeah, it’s weird noises and shadows in the corner.  It’s a horror movie.  Of course, that’s going on…”  And then suddenly, about halfway through the film, you realize that you’re totally tense.  All of those small scares have added up, leaving you wondering when the big scares are going to start.  And when those big scares do arrive, they deliver.  By confining the movie to one location, director André Øvredal creates a palpable atmosphere of claustrophobia and impending doom.  It helps that Brian Cox is one of those older, paternal actors who you always expect to be in control of things so seeing him in a situation where he has no control carries an unexpectedly strong emotional impact.

If you doubt the power of horror, The Autopsy of Jane Doe will make you a believer.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: A Cat In The Brain (dir by Lucio Fulci)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

 

Oh, A Cat In the Brain.

What a frustrating film!

Listen, as someone who loves Italian horror and who feels that Lucio Fulci made some of the best (if most misunderstood) horror films of all time, I certainly wish A Cat In The Brain was a great film.  Every time I watch it, I find myself hoping that it will turn out to be better than I know it’s going to be.  Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t necessarily think that A Cat In the Brain was a terrible film.  Especially when compared to some of the other films that Fulci directed towards the end of his career, A Cat In The Brain is competently made and it certainly proves that Fulci had a better sense of humor than many critics give him credit for.  It’s not really a bad film.  It’s just a disappointing one.

To understand why, you have to understand just who Lucio Fulci was and why horror fans hold him in such high regard.  Fulci was an Italian director, one who was responsible for some of the most visually impressive horror films of all time.  Even though Fulci did not start his career working in the horror genre, it’s those films that for which he is best remembered.  Many of his films, like Zombi 2, City of the Living Dead, The House By The Cemetery, and The Beyond, are rightfully remembered as classics.  By design, these movies often felt like filmed nightmares and they remain influential to this very day.  Literally every zombie film that has been released over the past few decades owes a debt to Fulci and The Beyond trilogy is perhaps as close as any director has ever gotten to truly capturing the feel of H.P. Lovecraft on film.

Unfortunately, many critics refuses to look past the violent content of Fulci’s films.  In some countries, his movies were banned outright.  In America, Fulci’s masterpiece, The Beyond, was released in a butchered, compromised form.  Following the release of his controversial and disturbing slasher film, The New York Ripper, Fulci’s career went into decline and, suffering from ill-health and often in desperate need of money, he found himself directing low-budget films that were unworthy of his considerable talents.  It’s one of the sadder stories in the history of Italian horror.

A Cat In The Brain was one of Fulci’s final films and it stars none other than … Lucio Fulci!  Fulci plays a horror director named Lucio Fulci.  Fulci is concerned that all of his recent work in the horror genre is starting to mentally damage him.  For instance, after editing a scene about cannibalism, Fulci goes to a nearby restaurant and orders a steak.  However, whenever he starts to eat his steak, Fulci flashes back to the movie that he’s just directed.  When he goes home, the sound of the handyman using a chainsaw causes Fulci to think about a scene that he filmed, one that involved a killer chopping up a body.  When a frustrated Fulci kicks a bucket of red paint, he visualizes blood.  Meeting a German reporter causes Fulci to fantasize about a Nazi orgy.  Is Fulci losing it?  Could it be that violent movies really do cause violent urges?

Worried about his mental health, Fulci goes to see a psychiatrist, Professor Egon Schwarz (David L. Thompson).  Schwarz puts Fulci order hypnosis and tells Fulci that, over the next few weeks, he will think that he has “done terrible things.”  It turns out that Professor Schwarz is an aspiring serial killer.  Schwarz wants to go on a killing spree and have Lucio Fulci take responsibility for it…

To be honest, the plot description probably makes A Cat In The Brain sound like it’s a lot more subversive than it actually is.  It has all the ingredients to be a great satire but, unfortunately, Fulci’s heart never seems to really be in the movie.  Oddly, considering that the movie is literally about his life, Fulci directs A Cat In The Brain in a rather detached and clinical fashion.  There’s none of the visual poetry that distinguished Fulci’s best work.

Even worse, probably over half of this film is made up of clips that were lifted from other Fulci films.  Unfortunately, the scenes don’t come from Fulci’s good films.  Don’t go into A Cat In The Brain expecting to see anything from Zombi 2 or Don’t Torture A Duckling.  Instead, all of the clips come from stuff like Touch of Death and The Ghosts of Sodom, films that largely represent Lucio Fulci’s declining years.

However, there is one good thing about A Cat In the Brain (beyond the title, which I think is adorable): the film ends with Fulci happy and literally sailing into the sunset.  Considering both Fulci’s lasting influence as a filmmaker and the sad details of his final years, it’s hard not to feel that A Cat In The Brain gave Fulci the final scene that this talented director deserved.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Night of the Bloody Apes (dir by Rene Cardona)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Okay, so this is a very weird movie.

Before I tell you too much about it, I do need to provide a few caveats.  In 1969, Mexican director Rene Cardona released a film called La Horripilante bestia humana.  When that film was released in the United States in 1972, it was retitled Night of the Bloody Apes.  The film was also badly dubbed into English.  The version that I watched was Night of the Bloody Apes, the dubbed version.  This editing in this version was notably ragged.  I don’t know if that was the result of the American distributors cutting scenes or if the Mexican version was just as bad.  American distributors were notorious for roughly editing foreign-language films but then again, director Rene Cardona was notorious for not exactly being the world’s most competent filmmaker.

I guess what I’m saying is that, for all I know, La Horripilante bestia humana could have been the greatest monster movie ever made before it was transformed into Night of the Bloody Apes.  However, I kind of doubt it.

Night of the Bloody Apes opens, like so many of Rene Cardona’s films, with a wrestling match.  Lucy Osorio (Norma Lazareno) is a famous wrestler who, during a match, seriously injures her opponent.  This leads to Lucy having a crisis of conscience.  Her boyfriend, Lt. Martinez (Armando Silvestre) tells her not to worry about it.  Her opponent will be fine and everyone understands that injuries are just a part of wrestling.  But Lucy isn’t so sure.  Is the fame worth it if it means hurting other people?

WELL, IS IT!?

Don’t worry too much about Lucy, though.  Immediately after providing Lucy with a huge subplot, the film pretty much abandons her.  Once Lt. Martienz encourages her not to give up, Lucy only appears occasionally throughout film, usually while naked in her dressing room.  Whatever inner conflicts she was dealing with, she apparently resolved them while no one was looking.  (This is one reason why I suspect that the film was re-edited by its American distributor.)

The film moves on to another plot.  Dr. Krallman (José Elías Moreno) is desperately trying to save his son’s life.  His angelic and kind of annoying son, who never says an unkind word about anything, is dying of leukemia.  Dr. Krallman thinks that he can save him by removing his defective heart and replacing it with the strong, healthy heart of gorilla.

Sure, why not?

Working in secret with the help of his deformed assistant, Dr. Krallman performs the operation.  (Cardona splices in footage of actual open heart surgery.)  His son survives but at what cost?  As a result of having a gorilla’s heart, Dr. Krallman’s son transforms into a body builder wearing a caveman mask.  His son is no longer a sweet, angelic, and dying.  Now, he’s a monosyllabic brute who runs around the city at night, attacking and killing women.  Lt. Martinez is assigned to the case but that doesn’t mean much because Lt. Matinez is kind of an idiot.

So, yes, Night of the Bloody Apes is one strange movie.  Actually, it’s more of a random collection of scenes than a movie.  It’s a mix of totally gratuitous nudity, over-the-top gore, random wrestling footage, actual open heart surgery footage, and scenes of the man-ape running through the city.  The film never seems to be quite sure whether the monster is actually an ape or some sort of hybrid.  Sometimes, he runs like an ape.  Sometimes, he staggers like Lon Chaney, Jr. playing the Wolfman after having had a drink or two.  It’s a very odd film.

And it’s the oddness of it all that makes the film watchable.  Some things are so weird that you just have to watch them once and that’s a fairly accurate description of Night of the Bloody Apes.  You probably won’t watch it a second time though.  It may be weird enough to sit through once but it’s never as compulsively rewatchable as an Ed Wood film or something like The Horror of Party Beach.  Once is enough.

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Far From Home (dir by Meiert Avis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

There are several lessons that can be learned from watching horror films.  One that is often overlooked is the importance of staying out of trailer parks.  Seriously, I have lost track of how many horror films have taken place within the confines of a trailer park.  Once you see someone surrounded by RVs and mobile homes, you know that they’re probably doomed.

Take 1989’s Far From Home, for instance.

Far From Home is set in perhaps the sleaziest trailer park in America.  This place sits in the middle of the Nevada desert and is run by chain-smoking Agnes Reed (Susan Tyrrell), who has a voice like a bullfrog, a daughter (Stephanie Walski) who is obsessed with watching TV and eating fishsticks, and a delinquent teenage son named Jimmy (Andras Jones).

The only law is provided by Sheriff Bill Childers (Dick Miller), who has a squad car but apparently no deputies.  Childers is gruff but not that bad of a guy once you get to know him.  However, he’s also played by Dick Miller and we all know better than to depend on Dick Miller to maintain the peace.

There’s a gas station nearby.  A mellow Vietnam vet named Duckett (Richard Masur) owns it.  Duckett is always willing to be helpful but he rarely has any gas.  This is one of those small towns where the gas truck apparently only rolls in every two months or so.  Still, Duckett’s a nice guy and he’s full of stories about how the government used to do atomic bomb tests in the surrounding desert.

(The scenes where Duckett drives around the desert feel somewhat out of place but they’re still enjoyable, due to Masur’s eccentric performance.)

Living in the trailer park, there’s a lot of odd people.  Some of them are permanent residents while some of them are just temporarily stranded.  14 year-old Pinky (Anthony Rapp, who would go on to appear in Dazed and Confused and Rent) lives with his mother and is a permanent resident.  His mother is rarely seen, though occasionally she can be glimpsed through a window, propped up in front of the TV.  Pinky says that, when he was a kid, he and Jimmy were best friends.  But now, Jimmy and Pinky are enemies.

And then there’s Amy (Jennifer Tilly) and Louise (Karen Austin), who are just waiting for enough gas to come in to be able to get Amy’s car to start running again.  Louise is intelligent and responsible.  Amy is flighty and undependable.  As soon as one of them accidentally pulls the handle off the driver’s side door, you just know one of them is going to end up getting trapped in that car at a bad moment.

When Far From Home opens, two newcomers have moved into the trailer park.  Writer, divorced father, and self-described “former angry young man” Charlie Cox (Matt Frewer) has just spent a month with his 13 year-old daughter, Joleen (Drew Barrymore, who was 14 when she made Far From Home).  It hasn’t exactly been a great vacation and it doesn’t get any better when Charlie’s car runs out of gas.  Joleen is about to turn fourteen and she doesn’t want to spend her birthday in a crummy trailer park with her incredibly dorky dad.

However, both Jimmy and Pinky are happy that Joleen will be spending at least a day or two at the trailer park.  At first, Joleen crushes on Jimmy and then, after Jimmy reveals himself to be aggressive and unstable, she crushes on Pinky, who protects her from Jimmy.  One of the two boys is so obsessed with Joleen that he is willing to commit murder to keep her from leaving the trailer park.  But which one?

(It’s actually pretty obvious but you probably already guessed that.)

Far From Home is a film about which I have mixed feelings.  On the one hand, the movie’s totally predictable.  Characters do dumb things for no real reason beyond needing to move the plot forward.  Charlie’s parenting abilities change drastically from scene to scene.  A traumatized character goes from catatonic to recovered to catatonic again with no real explanation.

One of my main issues with the film is that there’s no real surprise about who the killer turns out to be.  Even worse, once the killer’s identity is revealed, the killer suddenly turns into one of those psychos who can come up with a dozen one-liners while trying to kill someone.  I mean, seriously, who does that?  Are movie psychos required to take a year’s worth of improv clubs and do an apprenticeship with the Upright Citizens Brigade before they’re allowed to pick up a knife?  If I was the type to commit murder (and I’m not but let’s just say that I was), I would be too busy trying to make sure everyone was dead to be witty.  I’d save the jokes until I was safely on a beach somewhere, drinking pink lemonade and keeping an eye out for Ben Gardner’s boat.  That’s just me, I guess.

And yet, there’s a part of me that really likes this stupid, stupid movie.  It’s a surprisingly well-directed film, full of artfully composed shots.  The trailer park really does take on a life of its own and the film also makes good use of a nearby abandoned apartment building.  It’s a great location and, occasionally, it lends the film a dash of surrealism.  (Of course, I guess you could legitimately ask who would build an apartment complex in the middle of the desert, especially one that’s still humming with radiation from the Atomic bomb tests, but let’s not.)  Richard Masur, Dick Miller, and Susan Tyrrell all give good performances.  For that matter, the same is true of Anthony Rapp and Andras Jones.  Neither Rapp nor Jones are to blame for the fact that they were let down by a weak script.

Though I doubt either one of them would describe Far From Home as being their proudest cinematic achievement, Matt Frewer and Drew Barrymore are totally believable as father and daughter.  In the end, that’s why I like this movie.  Whenever I’ve watched Far From Home, I’ve always been able to relate to Joleen.  When I was thirteen, I basically was Joleen.

Fortunately, though, I was never found myself stranded in a trailer park full of homicidal maniacs.

I guess I just got lucky that way.

6 Trailers For The First Of October!

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

As a part of this October’s horrorthon, I am pleased to announce the return of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation film trailers!  This used to be a regular (and fairly popular) feature here on the Shattered Lens.  Unfortunately, a few years ago, I discovered that I had shared almost every worthwhile trailer on YouTube and, as such, it became more of a “special occasion” type of feature.

However, enough time has passed that there are now new trailers on YouTube!  Yay!

So, let’s get things started with 6 Trailers for The First of October!

(Why six?  Because Lisa doesn’t do odd numbers!)

  1. I Drink Your Blood (1971)

Let’s start things off with I Drink Your Blood (1971), a film about what happens when hippies get rabies.  None other than Ryan C, the Trashfilm Guru himself, has described I Drink Your Blood as being one of the greatest grindhouse films of all time.

2. Psychomania (1973)

What’s the best way to deal with blood-crazed hippies?  How about an English motorcycle gang?  This was also the final film of George Sanders.

3. Werewolves on Wheels (1971)

Speaking of motorcycle gangs, you can check out Gary’s review of Werewolves on Wheels by clicking here!

4. The Beast Must Die (1974)

Not all werewolves ride motorcycles!  Some of them terrorize remote locations and are hunted by Peter Cushing, as seen in The Beast Must Die.

5. Shock Waves (1977)

Peter Cushing went from filming The Beast Must Die to appearing in Shock Waves, perhaps the greatest Nazi zombie film ever made.  Check out my review here!

6. The Loch Ness Horror (1982)

However, zombie nazis aren’t the only thing that live in the water!  Just ask the people of Scotland!

What do you think, random hippie with cat?

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Giallo in Venice (dir by Mario Landi)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(I know this is a boring poster but it’s literally one of the few Giallo in Venice graphics that I can post without running the risk of getting the site in trouble.)

So, I finally saw the infamous (and, in many countries, banned) 1979 film, Giallo in Venice.

Back when I first decided to learn about the history of Italian horror, Giallo in Venice was a title that I frequently came across in the course of my research.  Everyone — and I do mean everyone — seemed to agree on three points: 1) it was one of the most graphic and mean-spirited Italian thrillers of all time, 2) it had never been released on DVD or Blu-ray in the United States and, as such, it was not the easiest film to see, and 3) the film was really, really bad.

Now, I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t have had any desire to see Giallo in Venice if not for the fact that I repeatedly read that it would be next to impossible for me to do so.  I hate being told what I can and cannot do.  Don’t get me wrong.  Everything that I read about Giallo in Venice was overwhelmingly negative.  Critics, some of whom I actually respected, were nearly unanimous in their dismissal of the film.  Unlike my hope that I’ll someday see fully restored versions of Greed and London After Midnight, seeing Giallo in Venice was never a number one priority for me.  Instead, it was just something that I kept in the back of my mind.  If I ever had a chance to watch Giallo in Venice, I told myself, I would just so I could say that I had seen it.

Last week,I got that chance.  I discovered that Giallo in Venice had not only been uploaded on YouTube but it was also the uncut version.   (I’m not going to include a link because of the film’s graphic content.  I don’t want to get either this site or the people who uploaded the video in trouble.  If you go to YouTube and search for “Giallo in Venice,” it should be one of the first videos to come up.) The only problem was that, along with being copied from a faded VHS tape, it was the Russian language version.  Basically, whenever any of the film’s characters spoke, you would first hear the line in the original Italian and then a rather angry man would shout the same the line in Russian.  Unfortunately, I know very little Italian and absolutely no Russian.

Needless to say, this led to a rather odd viewing experience.  If Giallo in Venice had been directed by a visual stylist like Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento, Mario Bava, or even Ruggero Deodato, it might not have been a problem.  Those four directors are all rightly renowned for their ability to create mood and atmosphere.  (And, for that matter, the best giallo films are often more concerned with visuals than dialogue.)  Unfortunately, Giallo in Venice was directed by Mario Landi, an veteran television director whose style can best be described as “turn on the camera at the start of the scene, turn it off at the end.”

(Landi also directed Patrick Still Lives, which is a smidgen more interesting than Giallo in Venice.)

As for the film’s plot — well, it’s hard for me to say for sure.  Not to overemphasize this point but, quite literally, I COULD NOT UNDERSTAND A WORD THAT ANYONE WAS SAYING.

The film opens in Venice, with a man being stabbed to death while a woman drowns in a canal.  Inspector De Paul (Jeff Blynn) is assigned to solve the murders.  He has poofy hair that wouldn’t be out of place in a stage production of Boogie Nights and, for some reason, Inspector De Paul is constantly eating hard-boiled eggs.  In just about every scene in which he appears, he is eating an egg.  Though it was hard to judge his overall performance (though the Russian seemed to enjoy repeating De Paul’s dialogue), Jeff Blynn really got into eating those eggs.  It got rather sickening to watch after a while.  As far as I could tell, De Paul’s investigation amounted to talking to one witness and then talking to the dead woman’s roommate.

The roommate, incidentally, is played by Mariangela Giordano, who also appeared in Patrick Still Lives, Burial Ground, and Michele Soavi’s The Sect.  Any fan of Italian horror will not only recognize Giordano but will also immediately know that her Giallo in Venice character is destined meet an unlucky end.  Patrick Still Lives, Burial Ground, and Giallo in Venice were all produced by Giordano’s then-boyfriend and, in all three films, she played a character who was graphically and gruesomely killed onscreen.  In Patrick Still Lives, she was skewered by a fireplace poker.  In Burial Ground, she made the mistake of trying to breastfeed her zombiefied son.  And in Giallo in Venice, one of her legs is slowly sawed off.  Seriously, if my boyfriend insisted that I suffer a terrible death in every film that he produced, it would probably be an issue.  Just saying.

Anyway, while Inspector De Paul is investigating the murder, this young couple keeps popping up.  They’re young, rich, and fifty shades of fucked up.  Fabio (Gianni Dei) has apparently been rendered impotent by all the cocaine that he’s been snorting and the only way he can get off is by forcing Flavia (Leonara Favi) to play out all of his kinky fantasies.  I found myself wondering why the film kept switching back and forth, between the not-quite-loving couple and the murder investigation.  Was Fabio the murderer?  Then, suddenly, I realized that Fabio and Flavia were the same couple who were murdered at the start of the film.  The Fabio and Flavia scenes were flashbacks.  I’m assuming that my confusion was due to the Russian dialogue but it says something about Landi’s visual style that it was impossible to tell, just from watching, that the Flavia/Fabio scenes were meant to be flashbacks.

(As far as I can — and again, dialogue problems — the flashbacks weren’t triggered by anyone saying, “I remember one time…” or anything like that.  Add to that, most of the flashbacks only featured Fabio and Flavia so, logically, there’s no way anyone could have been telling Inspector De Paul what happened.  Instead, the flashbacks just felt like random scenes that were sprinkled in between the violence and the eating.)

Giallo in Venice is a mix of egg eating, sex, and sadism.  The graphic murders are probably what Giallo in Venice is best known for, though I have to admit that I found the constant egg eating to be almost as disgusting.  As for the film’s gore, it was just as graphic and extreme as I had previously read.  But, with the exception of what happens to poor Mariangela Giordano, the violence has no impact on the viewer.  Since Landi directs with no discernible style, there’s nothing behind the murders beyond the fact that, when you title a movie Giallo in Venice, you’re obligated to include a few deaths.  It’s violence for the sake of violence and therefore, rather boring.  Admittedly, I’m sure it was rather shocking in 1979 but, today, audiences are more used to that sort of thing.  After all, everyone’s seen that tutorial on how to be a zombie for Halloween.

While watching Giallo in Venice, it was hard not to compare it to Lucio Fulci’s The New York Ripper.  Both films are deeply unpleasant but, due to Fulci’s energetic and, at times, subversive direction, there’s at least always something going on underneath the blood-drenched surface of The New York Ripper.  You can debate whether or not he succeeded but it can’t be denied that Fulci was going for something more than just sadism when he made The New York Ripper.  (If you doubt me, read Stephen Thrower’s analysis in Beyond Terror: The Films of Lucio Fulci.)  Landi’s style, in Giallo in Venice, is so flat that there’s not only nothing going on underneath but the surface itself seems to be pretty barren too.

To give credit where credit is due, I did appreciate just how ugly Landi managed to make Venice look.  I’ve been to Venice and I absolutely love it.  I would never believe that a director could make Venice look like a dump but Mario Landi managed to do it.  I don’t know if that was intentional on his part but it actually worked for the film.  Since all of the characters actually lived in Venice, it made sense that they wouldn’t be standing around and admiring the city’s natural beauty.  Instead, they all live and operate in the parts of Venice that tourists don’t see.

Finally, Landi did manage to get one interesting shot, when the reflection of one of the victims is seen in the killer’s sunglasses.  Unfortunately, Landi was so impressed by that shot that he kept using it over and over again until, eventually, it became far less interesting.

One final note: Giallo in Venice had a very odd score.  It sounded like it was being played by a cocktail lounge jazz quartet.  The music, itself, was actually rather boring but it was so totally out-of-place that it became oddly charming.  I found myself craving a drink with a little umbrella in it.

Anyway, that’s Giallo in Venice.  It’s not good, it’s not memorable, but at least I can now say that I’ve seen it.