Tag Archives: Film

A Grindhouse Horror Review: Zombie Holocaust (dir. by Marino Girolami)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Traditionally, I like to start my film reviews with a trailer but, with this trailer, I do feel the need to include a quick warning.  The film being advertised, 1980’s Zombie Holocaust, was released at the height of the Italian exploitation boom and  combined two notably gory genres of horror — the cannibal film and the zombie film.  The trailer below is pretty explicit (even by the standards of the free speech zone known as the Shattered Lens) and is definitely not safe for work.

Like many of the classic Italian grindhouse films, Zombie Holocaust opens in New York City.  A hospital attendant is caught devouring a cadaver in a morgue.  After he attempts to escape by throwing himself out of a window, it’s discovered that 1) he’s a native of the Asian Molucca islands and 2) he’s only one of several natives to have both recently immigrated to New York City and gotten a job at a morgue.  Dead bodies across NYC are being eaten and anthropologist Lori (played by Aelxandra Delli Colli, who is best known for being the only sympathetic character in Lucio Fulci’s New York Ripper) is determined to discover why.

In order to investigate, Lori and Dr. Peter Chandler (played by Ian McCullough, who was also in Fulci’s classic Zombi 2) lead an expedition to the island.  Almost as soon as the expedition arrives, they find themselves being pursued by not only cannibals but zombies as well!  Even worse, it turns out that there’s a mad scientist on the island.  Dr. Obrero (Donald O’Brien, an Irish actor who appeared in a few hundred Italian films of every possible genre) is convinced that he can unlock the secrets of life by experimenting on dead bodies and doing brain transplants.

(To be honest, I’ve seen this film a few times and I’m still not quite sure what exactly Dr. Obrero was trying to accomplish but I guess it doesn’t matter.  He’s a mad scientist with his own private laboratory so I guess he can pretty much do whatever he wants.)

I love Italian zombie films but, for the most part, I try to avoid the cannibal films.  I saw both Cannibal Ferox and Cannibal Apocalypse because they both featured Giovanni Lombardo Radice and I saw Cannibal Holocaust because, seriously, that’s one of those films that any student of cinematic horror has to see at least one time.  But otherwise, I tend to avoid the cannibal films because, to me, they’re just not that much fun to watch.  (And the fact that most of them contain scenes of actual animal cruelty doesn’t help…)

However, Zombie Holocaust is one of the rare cannibal films that I can watch and enjoy because it’s just so ludicrous and over-the-top.  It also helps that the film’s gore is so obviously fake that it becomes almost a postmodern statement on Italian cannibal films.  And, finally, this film has got zombies in it and who doesn’t love zombies?

Of the countless zombie films that came out of Italy during the early 80s, Zombie Holocaust is one of the odder entries in the genre.  While most Italian exploitation films were shameless when it came to imitating other movies, Zombie Holocaust attempts to outdo them all by cramming the conventions of three different genres into one mess of a movie.  As such, the movie starts out as a standard cannibal film just to suddenly become an almost shot-by-shot remake of Zombi 2 before then finally wrapping things up by having Donald O’Brien pop up, acting like Peter Cushing in a Hammer Frankenstein film.  There’s nothing graceful or subtle about this film’s everything-and-the-kitchen-sink approach to its story and, while the end result isn’t exactly pretty, it’s still watchable in much the same way that a televised police chase is watchable.

Director Marino Girolami was a veteran filmmakers who was ending a long career with his work on Zombie Holocaust and you have to admire the fact that, as opposed to many other filmmakers who have found themselves in a similar situation, he made an honest and unapologetic exploitation film, a shameless rip-off of about a thousand other films.  Instead of being embarrassed by the film’s silliness, he instead embraced it and his cast did the same.

Playing the lead role, Scottish actor Ian McCullough plays his character with an attitude that, at times, almost comes across as a parody of stiff upper lip English imperialism.  You may have to be a fan of grindhouse cinema to truly appreciate it but, whenever I’ve sat through this film, I always found myself smiling every time that McCullough discovered that another member of his expedition has been killed and responded with a frustrated, “And none of this would have happened if you had simply done as I had told you to do.”  By the end of the film, I was expecting McCullough to approach the last remaining native and tell him, “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga Din.”

However, the film is truly stolen by Donald O’Brien, who plays the mad scientist with an almost alarming sense of authenticity.  For the most part, nothing that O’Brien says during the film makes the least bit of sense but he delivers the lines with such conviction that it really doesn’t matter.  In one of the film’s most famous scenes, O’Brien delivers the line, “Patient’s screams annoying me…performed removal of vocal chords.”  It takes a special type of actor to make a line like that work and O’Brien was that actor.

Indeed, watching a film like this, it’s hard not to admire the fact that both the filmmakers and the cast managed to stay sane regardless of how ludicrous the film eventually became.  That’s perhaps the best way to describe Zombie Holocaust.  It’s ludicrous but it’s still a lot of fun.

(Speaking of ludicrous and fun, when Zombie Holocaust was released here in the States, it was renamed Dr. Butcher, M.D. and it was apparently advertised by a sound truck known as the Butchermobile.  To me, that sounds like a lot of fun and it again reminds me that I was born a few decades too late.)

Trailer: Hitchcock

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

It seems appropriate that, during the time of year that is devoted to horror, Fox Searchlight should release a trailer for an upcoming film that claims to tell the “true” story about the making of Psycho, one of the scariest and most influential horror movies ever made.

I have to admit that I’ve had my doubts about Hitchock ever since the project was first announced and, watching this trailer, I still have my doubts.  While Helen Mirren looks to be as strong as always and Scarlett Johansson is an inspired choice to play Janet Leigh, I still have my doubts about Anthony Hopkins playing the role of Alfred Hitchcock.

From the evidence presented in this trailer, Hopkins’s interpretation of Hitchcock appears to be …. interesting, if nothing else.

Fox Searchlight, however, seems to have a lot of faith in Hitchcock as they’ve moved up the premiere date so that the film can premiere in November, at the start of Oscar season.


Horror Film Review: House At The End of the Street (dir. by Mark Tonderai)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there!  I’m back!  For the past two weeks, I’ve been “on the road,” traveling from my home in Texas to Baltimore, Maryland and then back to Texas again.  It was a great two weeks and a much-needed vacation and now, I am back at my office here at the Shattered Lens Bunker, and I am refreshed and I am ready to get caught up on what really matters: reviewing movies.

This is October, perhaps the third greatest month of the year.  Traditionally, October is horror month here at the Shattered Lens and, for my first post-vacation film review, I want to take a look at an underappreciated horror film that came out right before I left for Maryland.  It was released to theaters on September 21st, was the number one film in the country for a week, and got next to no love from either mainstream critics or my fellow film bloggers.  It’s still playing at a theater near you and, believe it or not, it’s not that bad.  The name of the film?  The House At The End of the Street.

(Or, as my BFF Evelyn and I called it, “The House at the End of the Cleavage” because seriously…)

In The House At The End of Street, recently divorced Sarah (Elisabeth Shue) and her daughter Elissa (Jennifer Lawrence) move to a small country home.  Sarah has managed to buy a house that she really shouldn’t be able to afford and the new neighbors quickly explain to them that this is because, many years ago, a crazy girl named Carrie-Ann was living at the house at the end of the street and she murdered her parents before then disappearing into the woods.  Apparently, this has caused all of the property values in town to plummet and I really have to wonder why.  I’m not a real estate expert (for instance, I have no idea what a mortgage is and I have no desire to learn) but, personally, I would love to live next to a murder house.  Seriously, imagine the interesting conversations that could be started by saying, “So, my neighbor buried a salesman in his basement…”

But anyway, it turns out that Elissa has a perfect view of the house at the end of the street from her bedroom window and she quickly discovers that the house is not deserted.  It turns out that Carrie-Anne’s brother Ryan (Max Thieriot) is living in the house and, despite being shunned by the entire community, he seems to be a nice, sensitive guy.  Despite her mother’s misgiving, Elissa befriends Ryan and defends him against everyone who claims that he’s crazy.

Of course, what Elissa doesn’t know is that there’s another girl in Ryan’s life and she’s locked up in his basement…

When I look over the negative reviews of House at the End of the Street (especially the ones written by male film bloggers), I frequently come across the phrase “lifetime movie.”  Their argument seems to be that House At The End of the Street, with its emphasis on a single mom raising her daughter, was essentially just a PG-13 rated Lifetime movie.

Well, they’re right.

But so what?

Seriously, Lifetime movies are a lot of fun to watch when you’re in the right mood for them and that’s a perfect way to describe House At The End Of The Street.  It’s a lot of fun, the type of silly horror film that’s fun to watch with a group of friends.  Max Thieriot plays the type of cute but damaged (and potentially dangerous) outsider that every girl has had a crush on and, for the boys in the audience, there’s plenty of cleavage and visible bra straps.

Finally, I think the main reason that House At The End of the Street stayed with me is because both Elisabeth Shue and Jennifer Lawrence really invested themselves in their roles.  They were totally believable as mother and daughter and their loving but occasionally contentious relationship felt totally true-to-life (or, at the very least, it was true to my life).  Lawrence and Shue both give performances that bring some unexpected depth to this underrated film.

A Horror Quickie With Lisa Marie: Slaughter High (dir by George Dugdale, Mark Ezra, and Peter Litten)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I left on my vacation, I watched several free horror movies on Fearnet.  The majority of those films were worth exactly what I paid for them but, occasionally, I came across a film that was worth a quarter or two more.  One of those fifty cent films was Slaughter High.

Though it was obviously made a few years earlier, Slaughter High was released in 1986 and was a part of the whole mid-80s slasher cycle.  Like many of the films in this cycle, Slaughter High opens with a high school prank gone wrong.  Poor Marty (Simon Scuddamore) is the victim of an incredibly cruel April Fool’s Day prank that ends with him totally naked and being dunked in a toilet by a group of 8 students who are surprisingly sadistic.  Of course, part of that sadism could have something to do with the fact that they all appear to be in their 30s, yet they’re still students in high school.  A coach (who appears to be the only teacher in the entire school) happens to come across the students tormenting Marty and he punishes them by ordering them to go to the gym and start doing push ups.

“This is all Marty’s fault!” one of the 8 sadists exclaims.

So, naturally, they play yet another prank on poor Marty.  This prank involves Marty smoking a poisoned joint and then accidentally spilling a jug of acid on his face.  As his tormenters watch, a seriously disfigured Marty is taken out of the school on a stretcher.

Exactly ten years later, the 8 sadists (who have now all graduated) get an invitation to attend a reunion at the old high school.  When they arrive, they discover that 1) they’re the only ones who have been invited and 2) the high school has been abandoned and is on the verge of collapsing.  Now, you might think that this might lead at least one of them to remember that it’s been exactly 10 years since they totally destroyed Marty’s face and life but you would be wrong.  Instead, the group decides to break into the old school and spend the night.

You can probably guess how well that works out.  Even as our guests discover that random pictures of Marty have been posted throughout the school, none of them suspects that something bad might be about to happen.  In fact, it’s not until one of them drinks a beer that’s been spiked with acid that it occurs to any of them that they might not be alone…

Slaughter High is something of a surprise, a low-budget horror film that works exactly because it doesn’t make any sense.  Nobody in this film acts like a logical (or halfway intelligent) human being and that — along with a genuinely creepy setting, a camera that never stops prowling through the dark corridors of that dilapidated school, and some surprisingly brutal death scenes — all comes together to create a narrative that feels more and more dream-like as the story continues.  Narrative logic is ignored in favor of nightmarish imagery and the end result is a slasher film that seems to be directly descended from Lucio Fulci’s Beyond trilogy.

It’s hard to talk about Slaughter High without talking about the film’s ending and it’s impossible to talk about that ending without spoiling the entire film.  So, I’ll just say that Slaughter High has two endings.  One concludes the action at the school and then, a few minutes later, there’s a twist ending that concludes the film as a whole.  Just on the basis of a few online reviews that I’ve read, the “twist ending” is something that people either love or they hate.  Myself, I felt that the film’s first ending would have been a perfect place to end things but, at the same time, the twist didn’t bother me.  If nothing else, it nicely complimented the entire film’s lack of narrative logic.

A sad sidenote: Simon Scuddamore, who plays Marty here, never made another film because he apparently killed himself a few weeks after filming his role.  On another odd casting note, Caroline Munro plays one of Marty’s high school tormentors despite being in her mid-30s at the time.

A Horror Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Amityville Curse (dir. by Tom Berry)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Before I left for my vacation, I watched several of the free horror movies that are available on Fearnet and, to a large extent, I got what I paid for.  That said, seeing as how it is October and how this Horror Month here at the Shattered Lens, I committed myself to reviewing each film that I watched via Fearnet, regardless of how thoroughly awful any particular film might turn out to be.

And that brings us to The Amityville Curse, a Canadian film from 1990 that was made to capitalize on the whole Amityville Horror scam.

In the Amityville Curse, a group of 6 friends spend the night in a haunted house and things work out as you might expect.  You’d be justified in assuming that the haunted house is the same house from the Amityville Horror but you’d be wrong.  Instead, they’re staying in a different house that just happens to also be in Amityville and which just happens to be haunted as well.  (One lesson to be learned from this mess of a movie: when it comes to haunted house stories, it’s often best to keep things simple.) 

Apparently, decades earlier, a priest was murdered in the house while taking confession and the local community has scorned the house ever since.  However, at the start of the film, a fat, balding guy and his boring wife buy the house and their friends come down to help with the remodel.  Unfortunately, one of those friends is played by Kim Coates and, as everyone knows, the minute Kim Coates shows up in a horror movie, he’s going to end up getting possessed and killing a lot people.

Which is pretty much what happens here.

I have to admit that I feel sorry for Kim Coates whenever I see him in a movie like this.  Kim Coates (who is currently a member of the cast of Sons of Anarchy) is a talented character actor and, when given the chance, he has proven that he can play likable and sympathetic characters.  But, he’s got these slightly off-center eyes and a nervous, jumpy manner about him.  As a result, whenever he shows up in a movie, he always seems to be killing people.  Whenever I see a talented actor like Kim Coates in a movie like The Amityville Curse, I clench my little hand into a fist and I shake it at the unkind Gods of typecasting.

As for The Amityville Curse, well, what can I really say about it?  This is a truly terrible movie, one of the worst that I’ve ever seen.  It’s a horror movie without a single scare.  It’s the type of movie that I would warn everyone to stay away from except that I doubt this already obscure film will ever again see the light of day.

Except maybe on Fearnet.

A Horror Quickie With Lisa Marie: 976-Evil II (dir. by Jim Wynorski)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Before I left on my vacation, I made it a point to watch several horror films that were available for free on Fearnet.  In the case of many of the films, I suspect that I may have paid too much.  Regardless, since it is October and horror month here at the Shattered Lens, I am going to share my thoughts on some of these Fearnet films.)

Before I review 976-Evil II, I need to make a quick confession  The one time that I attempted to watch the first 976-Evil, I ended up falling asleep immediately after the opening credits.   I don’t know much about the film beyond the fact that it was directed by Robert Englund and, even by the standards of the majority of the films that are available on Fearnet, it looked to be cheap and unimpressive.

That said, as I watched Part 2, it quickly became apparent that it’s not really necessary to have seen the first film to follow the plot of the second.

A small town in California has a problem.  Mr. Grubeck (an enjoyably over-the-top performance from Rene Assa) is the dean of the local college (which, to be honest, looks a lot like a high school).  Grubeck is a courtly, middle-aged man who lives in a nice house and just happens to be a demented serial killer.  He’s been dialing a mysterious phone number and, with each call, he gains more and more supernatural powers. 

At that start of the film, however, a drunk janitor (played by George “Buck” Flower, of course) sees Grubeck killing a student.  The janitor goes to the police and Grubeck is promptly arrested and placed in jail.  Unfortunately, the police allow Grubeck his one phone call and Grubeck, of course, dials 976-Evil.  As a result, Grubeck is given the power to wander about in astral form while his physical body rests.  Grubeck uses his powers to start killing anyone who can link him to the murders, as well as to stalk a student named Robin (Debbie James).

However, Robin has another stalker.  Spike (Patrick O’Bryan), who was apparently the protaganist of the first film, comes rolling into town on his motorcycle and soon, he and Robin are searching for a way to defeat Grubeck once and for all. 

(As a sidenote, I think that the minute a baby is named Spike, the rest of his or her life is pretty much predestined.)

976-Evil II is the type of film that almost always gets universally negative (and snide) reviews but, when taken on its own terms, it’s actually a fun little movie.  This is the type of film where all of the actors speak their lines in the most dramatic way possible and authority figures react to bad news by defiantly slamming their hand on top of their desk.  In short, this is a film that is not meant to be taken seriously and its obvious that director Jim Wynorski understood that.  This is a film that winks at the audience even as it grows more and more implausible.  While the film’s scares are more likely to make you smile than jump, there is one very effective sequence where Robin’s friend Paula (played by Leslie Ryan) finds herself literally sucked into the TV.  At first, since she was watching It’s a Wonderful Life, everything’s okay.  But then, somebody changes the channel to Night of the Living Dead.  It’s this type of outrageous sequence that distinguishes 976-Evil II from other similar (but forgettable) horror films.

976-Evil II was released in 1992 and, wow, is it obvious.  Everyone has big hair, wears too much spandex, and uses a landline phone.  Even the villainous Mr. Grubeck wears a vest with a floral design.  That said, the film was so dated as to be oddly charming.

That’s actually how I would sum up 976-Evil II as a whole.

Oddly charming.

A Horror Quickie With Lisa Marie: The Curse of the Zodiac (dir. by Ulli Lommel)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Before I left for vacation, I watched a handful of horror films that were available for free on Fearnet.  For the most part, I think I may have overpaid.  But, since I am dedicated to reviewing every film that I see, good or bad, I’ve decided to review these Fearnet films for Halloween here at the Shattered Lens!)

In the past, I have occasionally defended the German director Ulli Lommel against the oft-stated charge that he is the worst director of all time.

“Yes,” I’ll admit, “Lommel is kind of pretentious and a lot of his films can’t overcome the burdens of their low-budget origins.  And no, he can’t director actors.  But, his early films have a certain dream-like quality and The Boogeyman holds up fairly well for what it is.  Plus, consider these two words: Uwe Boll.”

Unfortunately, I’m not sure that even Uwe Boll could have directed a film as bad as Lommel’s 2007 straight-to-DVD film, The Curse of the Zodiac.

The Curse of the Zodiac is one of Lommel’s “true crime” films.  In these films, Lommel claims to tell the “true” stories of American serial killers like BTK, the Son of Sam, and Zodiac.  (In fact, Lommel has directed two unrelated films about the Zodiac killer.)  A while ago, I read an interview with Lommel in which he stated that his serial killer films are about revealing the hypocrisy of puritanical American society.  Maybe they are but they’re also pretty bad and The Curse of the Zodiac is one of the worst of them.

Taking place in the early 1970s (though you’d never guess it from the lack of period detail), The Curse of the Zodiac tells the story of the Zodiac Killer.  In real life, the Zodiac Killer is one of the most intriguing (and nightmare-inducing) serial killers in history.  In the film, he’s just a bald guy who wanders around San Francisco, kills a few random people, and spends almost the entire movie repeating the phrase, “Hey there, fat fuck.”  The fat fuck in question is a writer who is investigating the crime and who is kind of fat.  We never discover the writer’s name or who he is or why he’s investigating the Zodiac or why the Zodiac knows him or …. well, anything.  He’s just a character who shows up every few minutes.  Another character who shows up every few minutes is a psychic who has visions of the Zodiac committing his murders.  The Zodiac refers to her as “hippy chick.”  Neither the writer nor the psychic really do anything that a normal person would do when confronted with a serial killer but then again, Zodiac doesn’t really do anything that a normal serial killer would do when confronted by a writer and a psychic.

What can you really say about a film like The Curse of the Zodiac, beyond that fact that, in the course of 82 minutes, nothing really happens beyond watching three anonymous characters wander around San Francisco.  Lommel doesn’t get one good performance out of his tiny cast, though he does find a lot of excuses to show off some nausea-inducing hand-held camera work.

The best thing that I can say about The Curse of the Zodiac is that it deserves to be seen just as evidence of how bad a bad film can truly be.

Film Review: The Dead Pool (directed by Buddy Van Horn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there!  Today, I will be concluding my look at the Dirty Harry series with the final film in the franchise, 1988’s The Dead Pool.

Harry’s back and he’s still carrying a gun.  He’s also older, wrinklier, grouchier, and suddenly famous because he’s just given testimony in a mob boss’s trial.  You would think that Harry would already be famous seeing as how he not only killed the Scorpio Killer but he also rescured the Mayor from all those communists.  But, I guess that’s what Harry gets for living in the same city that’s been sending Nancy Pelosi to Congress for the last 100 years.

Harry and his new partner (Evan C. Kim) are assigned to investigate the death of rock star Johnny Squares (Jim Carrey).  Harry immediately suspects that the murderer was pretentious film director Peter Swan (Liam Neeson).  This is largely because Swan makes the type of horror films that inspire Harry to snarl with disdain.  It also turns out that Swan has been playing a “dead pool” game and that the various celebrities on his list have been getting killed.  And guess what?  Harry’s name is also on that list…

The Dead Pool was the final Dirty Harry film and, in many ways, it also feels like the most generic.  Whereas Dirty Harry actually had quite a lot on its mind and the first three sequels at least pretended to be concerned about something more than just mayhem, The Dead Pool is often content to be a rather cartoonish action film.  With the exception of a rather witty car chase involving a remote-controlled toy car that’s been strapped with an explosive, the action scenes are predictable and Eastwood’s character could just as easily have been named Spinner Mason or Eli Goldworthy.  There’s simply no huge reason for this film to be a Dirty Harry film, beyond the fact that it wouldn’t show up on AMC every few weeks if it wasn’t.

And yet, it’s impossible for me not to like The Dead Pool.  Though the film might feel generic overall, there’s still the occasional moments that hint that the movie is actually a bit smarter than it might first appear to be.  Considering that the film largely takes place on a movie set and features a film critic among its victims, it’s tempting to see The Dead Pool as being almost a spoof on both the Dirty Harry films themselves and the controversy that’s been generated by their violent content.  It makes sense that Harry Callahan’s name would appear on Swan’s dead pool list because, after spending four films battling serial killers, fascists, communists, gangsters, white trash, and a countless amount of bank robbers, the only opponent left for Harry to face is his own reputation.

The Dead Pool has one of the more interesting casts of the Dirty Harry films.  After dominating the previous films in the series,Clint Eastwood steps to the side and instead, allows his supporting cast to run off with the movie.  It’s a little bit bizarre to see Jim Carrey playing  a rock star (and even more bizarre to see him lip-synching to Welcome to Jungle) but that odd touch seems strangely appropriate for a film that doesn’t seem to be too concerned with much more than being entertaining.  Evan C. Kim is one of Harry’s more likable partners and Liam Neeson, complete with pony tail and superior attitude, is a lot of fun to watch as he spoofs every single pretentious filmmaker that you’ve ever been unfortunate enough to have taken a film class with. 

For a lot of reasons, The Dead Pool was the last of the Dirty Harry films.  It was a box office disappointment and, even way back in 1988, Eastwood looked a just little bit old for an action hero.  Eastwood has said that he has no interest in playing the character again and that’s probably for the best because, after five films, you have to wonder just what exactly was left for Harry to deal with.  (That said, I’ve always thought of Gran Torino as being the unofficial sixth Dirty Harry film.)

Well, that concludes my look at the Dirty Harry film series and, not coincidentally, it also concludes the month of September as well!  Starting tomorrow, along with all the other usual great stuff that you expect from us at the Shattered Lens, we’re going to be starting horror month!

Enjoy!

Film Review: Sudden Impact (dir. by Clint Eastwood)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today, we continue our look at the Dirty Harry film series by considering the fourth installment in the franchise, 1983’s Sudden Impact.

“Go ahead.  Make my day…”

Yes, this is the film where Police Inspector “Dirty” Harry Callahan (played, as always, by Clint Eastwood) delivers that classic one liner.  In this case, he says it to a man holding a gun to a waitress’ head.  The implication, I guess, is that the gunman would make Harry’s day by killing the innocent woman that he’s holding hostage and therefore, giving Harry an excuse to shoot him in the head.  That line really does get to the heart of one of the main themes that runs through all of the Dirty Harry movies in general and Sudden Impact in specific.  Harry’s life would be a lot of easier if people would simply stop getting in the way and just let him shoot anyone that he wants to.

At the start of Sudden Impact ,we discover that Harry Callahan is still on the San Francisco police force and Captain McKay (Bradford Dillman) is still his antagonistic boss.  Eight years have passed since the end of the Enforcer and Harry is a bit grayer and definitely grumpier.  Whereas the previous three films in the franchise made a (minimal) effort to humanize him, the Harry of Sudden Impact is a snarling, forehead vein-throbbing killing machine.  After years of dealing with sleazy criminals and weak-willed liberals, Harry now appears to wake up each morning and ask himself, “How many people can I find an excuse to kill today?”

Not surprisingly, all those years of shooting people have apparently made Harry the most targeted man in San Francisco.  Within the first 20 minutes of the film, three separate and unconnected groups of criminals attempt to kill Harry.  His superiors demand that Harry take a vacation before the entire city of San Francisco is destroyed.  Harry snarls in response so his bosses do the next best thing and order him to go to the coastal town of San Paulo to help with an unsolved murder.

San Paulo has a problem.  Local lowlifes are turning up dead, shot once in the head and once in the genitals.  Along with the gruesome way that they die, all of them seem to be acquainted with a frightening woman named Rae (played by Audrey J. Neenan).  The chief of police (Pat Hingle) doesn’t seem to be trying too hard to solve the crimes and he openly resents Harry’s attempts to help.  (He’s even less happy about the fact that the mobsters who were trying to kill Harry in San Francisco have followed him out to  San Paulo.)  Harry, however, is determined to solve the crime even while dealing with the unwanted gift of a rather ugly bulldog (given to him by his latest partner, who is played by series regular Albert Poppwell) and romancing an artist (a rather unconvincing Sondra Locke) who has some very strong thoughts of her own on both the sorry state of the criminal justice system and what should be done to improve it.

Sudden Impact was the only one of the Dirty Harry films to officially be directed by Clint Eastwood.  Even if his name wasn’t listed in the opening credits, you would probably be able to guess that Eastwood directed this. From the film’s opening  nighttime scene, during which time the screen is almost totally black except for the occasional flash of a gun being aimed, the film features Eastwood’s signature noir-influenced visual style but it doesn’t contain any of the thematic ambiguity that typifies Eastwood’s better films.

Sudden Impact is an entertaining and well-made action film but it’s also my least favorite of the Dirty Harry series.  Whereas the first three installments at least tried to play around with figuring out what made Harry tick (and, occasionally, even allowing Harry’s methods to be questioned by sympathetic characters like Chico in Dirty Harry or Kate Moore in The Enforcer), Sudden Impact is content to just to let Harry kill some of the most cardboard villains in the franchise’s history.  The end results are crudely effective but ultimately rather forgettable, with none of the eccentric touches that occasionally distinguished the next film in the series, The Dead Pool.  There’s a reason why Sudden Impact is best remembered for a one-liner that’s uttered during the film’s first 10 minutes and which doesn’t really have anything to do with anything else that happens in the movie.

Speaking of The Dead Pool, that’s the film we will be looking at tomorrow as we conclude this series on the Dirty Harry franchise.