Tag Archives: Film

Brad’s thoughts on the rural nightmare, MACON COUNTY LINE (1974)! 

Posted on by Bradley Crain

Max Baer, Jr. co-wrote, co-produced and co-starred in this southern fried thriller about a couple of good ‘ole boys (brothers Alan & Jesse Vint) who break down in the wrong county. The sheriff (Baer), who’s somewhat suspicious of the boys, goes after them with a fierce vengeance when his wife is murdered.

I’m a big fan of this classic drive-in film. Baer is excellent as the small town sheriff who eventually goes mad with rage, which he directs squarely onto a couple of brothers who happen to be passing through. The film takes its time with the story and the characters, and when everything goes to hell near the end, you can somewhat understand why the sheriff goes nuts. It’s a nightmare scenario built around the suspicion of outsiders and then jumping to the wrong conclusions when a tragedy occurs. It definitely seems like something that could happen, and that’s one of the things that makes it so good. The marketers of the film definitely agreed. In a move that was very hot at the time (THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK, WALKING TALL, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, etc.), the ads for the film implied that the film was based on true events. While that may not be true, the plan worked as the film was made for roughly $250,000 and would go on to earn over $30 million worldwide. Interestingly, I’ve read that Baer wrote the film’s story on the backs of his BEVERLY HILLBILLIES scripts during breaks in filming on the television classic. Eager to break free from his Jethro typecasting, he took matters into his own hands and made it happen!

I’m also a big fan of the Vint Brothers, Alan and Jesse. Both are good here as the drifting brothers looking for a little fun before reporting in for some military service the next week. Their fun turns into a horrific struggle for survival when they find themselves the target of the sheriff’s misplaced wrath. As part of the “This Week in Charles Bronson Podcast,” I was blessed to be part of an interview with Robert F. Lyons, who’s close friends in real life with the boys. He told us a fun story about them all making these motorized airplanes that they would then fly around and try to knock each other out of the sky. Robert would laugh and giggle while he talked about it. Alan had an important role a year after this was made in the Charles Bronson action hit BREAKOUT. In the film, he stands up to Bronson at a critical moment and lives to tell about it, which is not something every actor can say!

And what can I say about Jesse. Over the last few years, he’s actually become a fun acquaintance in real life. If you enjoy these 70’s “redneck” movies, I recommend one called BLACK OAK CONSPIRACY (1977) that Jesse co-wrote and stars in, with his buddy Lyons playing an over the top villain. Jesse’s a great guy, and he’s very proud of MACON COUNTY LINE. He told me one day that Tarantino has said it was one of “the best stories in cinema!” In the first season of his Video Archives podcast, I personally heard Tarantino brag on Jesse’s performance in THE FORBIDDEN WORLD. I love it when good things happen to good people.

October True Crime: She Made Them Do It (dir by Grant Harvey)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

At the start of 2012’s She Made Them Do It, Sarah Jo Pender (Jenna Dewan) is a student at Purdue University who has a good-for-nothing boyfriend named Rick (Greyston Holt) and two roommates who think nothing using her tuition money to buy drugs.  At first, Sarah seems to be frustrated with the losers around her but, after smoking some weed and doing some coke, she’s soon dancing and making out with another woman while Rick plays a video game.  (Who among us hasn’t?)

Sarah leaves to get some cigarettes and, when she comes back, she discovers that her roommates have been executed by a shotgun.  A shaken Rick explains that an argument over money led to him retrieving the shotgun (one that Sarah bought for him because Rick’s criminal record made it illegal for him to buy a gun) and killing everyone else in the house.  At least, that’s what Sarah claims Rick told her.  When the police eventually arrest Rick and Sarah, Rick claims that Sarah was the mastermind behind the killings.  The prosecution describes Sarah as being a “female Charles Manson” and she’s sentenced to 110 years in prison.

Yikes!  That’s a long time!  Luckily, the prison is a pretty nice place.  Sure, some of the inmates are a little rough and everyone is initially jealous of Sarah’s combination of brains and beauty.  But the prison also hosts courtyard dance parties and eventually, Sarah proves herself as a jailhouse lawyer.  Much like Hester Prynne, Sarah show herself to be able and hard-working.  That said, prison is still prison and soon, Sarah is plotting her escape.  Luckily, there’s a smitten prison guard (Nels Lennarson) who is willing to help her out.

The title She Made Them Do It has, of course, a double meaning.  During her trial, the prosecution claims that Sarah Jo Pender made Rick murder her roommates.  Rick even produces a letter that he claims Sarah wrote to him in which she confessed to being responsible.  Even though the letter is itself dismissed as being a forgery, the courts still rule that there is more than enough evidence to argue that Sarah was involved with the murders.  However, the title also refers to the fact that everyone in prison seems to be determined to help Sarah.  Nearly everyone who she meets after she escapes tries to provide Sarah with some sort of aid.  In the end, everyone claims that she made them do it.  A few regret helping her but the majority do not.

Because the controversy over Sarah Jo Pender’s conviction is still ongoing, the film tries to play it both ways as far as the question of her guilt is concerned.  We see her version of the murder.  We see Rick’s version of the murder.  In prison, we see her helping the other prisoners.  Outside of prison, we watch as she clearly manipulates everyone that she meets.  There’s nothing wrong with a little ambiguity but this film takes it so far that Sarah often seems to be a totally different character from scene to scene.  Jenna Dewan tries her best and the film’s early scenes definitely capture the sordid atmosphere of trailer park drama but the film’s refusal to take a definite stand on Sarah’s guilt or innocence ultimately makes the story feel shallow.  It’s one thing for the prisoners and the guards to feel as if they don’t know what’s going on in Sarah Jo Pender’s head.  It’s another thing for the audience to feel that way.

As for the real Sarah Jo Pender, she is still in prison and she still claims to be innocent.  She had a lot of supporters.  I wouldn’t consider myself to be one of them.  I doubt she ‘s a female Charles Manson but I also have a hard time buying her claim that every piece of evidence against her was just a coincidence or a case of bad luck.  Unfortunately, some activists are so eager to turn every conviction into a miscarriage of justice that they ignore anything that doesn’t support their preferred narrative.  (Call it the Mumia Abu-Jamal effect.)  Sarah Jo Pender’s earliest possible relate date is 2054, when she will be 75 years old.

“Warning, Hostile Life Detected on a Planet” Review by Case Wright

Posted on by casewright

He didn’t make a title card; so, I don’t have to either! Take that, Ethan! This is your run of the mill interstellar space craft crashes on an unknown alien planet and they wander around and get eaten.

Have none of these people ever gone hiking? There is dangerous stuff right here on planet Earth that should make you wary!

If you are ever on a space craft that crashes and you see bizarre abandoned stuff everywhere, don’t investigate like you’re in an 80s horror movie.

Horror Film Review: Castle of Creeping Flesh (dir by Adrian Hoven)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In 1968’s Castle of the Creeping Flesh, a group of wastrel aristocrats stumble upon a castle inhabited by Graf Saxon (Howard Vernon). It is explained to Baron Brack (Michel Lemoine) and his drunken friends that Saxon’s daughter died just an hour earlier. Everyone is sorry to hear that, but they still want to spend the night at the castle for… reasons, I guess.

Actually, their reasons aren’t that obscure. Night is falling. It’s stormy. There’s a bear on the loose. The Baron and his friends have their reasons for not wanting to travel at night, but that doesn’t change the fact that our film’s “heroes” are demanding that a grieving father not only put them up for the night but also serve them dinner. Saxon would be totally justified in kicking them all out and allowing the bear to have its way with them, but one of the Baron’s friends (Claudia Butenuth) looks just like Saxon’s dead daughter.

Scenes of Saxon looking depressed are mixed with scenes of the Baron’s friends all trying to seduce each other. Meanwhile, a group of surgeons in the castle’s basement are performing open-heart surgery. Every few moments the film cuts to documentary footage of an actual operation, and it’s pretty icky to watch. The heart is an amazing organ, but it’s not really something you want to spend a lot of time staring at. Saxon is trying either to save his daughter or to bring her back to life; the film is never really clear which.

Watching this German film, I was reminded of the work of Jess Franco, and I was not shocked to discover that Franco himself was credited with the incoherent story. The credited director is Adrian Hoven, but it would not shock me if Franco had a hand in the direction as well. Everything about the film—from the meandering storyline to the perpetually horny characters to the scenes of aristocratic decadence—brought Franco to mind. Like many of his films, Castle of the Creeping Flesh is atmospheric and totally incoherent.

Also leading me to suspect Franco contributed more than an outline is the casting of his favorite leading man, Howard Vernon, as Saxon. Vernon plays essentially the same character he did in the Dr. Orloff films. Unlike his co-stars, he is at least consistently entertaining. Outside of Udo Kier, no actor captured wasted European decadence the way Howard Vernon did. If any actor was born to play an early Bond villain, it was Vernon. (When I read Fleming’s originals I pictured him every time Blofeld appeared.) Here he gives a better performance than the material deserved. That was usually how it went with Howard Vernon.

Castle of the Creeping Flesh is a slow, incoherent film, but it has occasional moments strange enough to be entertaining. One woman sensually licks a chicken bone as part of her seduction ritual. Another character runs into that bear mentioned earlier. And of course no one seems to notice there is open-heart surgery happening a few doors down. It’s weird the way any film with Jess Franco’s fingerprints usually is.

That said, Howard Vernon is the main reason to watch. He did his best.

Horror Film Review: They Live (dir by John Carpenter)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

When it comes to John Carpenter’s 1988 masterpiece, They Live, everyone remembers the moment that a drifter named Nada (Roddy Piper) first puts on the dark glasses.

They remember him putting them on and suddenly seeing that the city of Los Angeles is stark black-and-white. They remember the mix of humans and skeletal-looking aliens that surrounded Nada and they remember how the aliens were the ones who went out of their way to be rude. What they especially remember are the billboards and the magazine covers reduced to simple orders like “OBEY,” “CONFORM/STAY ASLEEP,” “CONSUME,” “DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY,” and “NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT.”

What is often forgotten is that it takes a while for the film to get to that point. Carpenter starts the film with a rather lengthy first act, in which Nada arrives in Los Angeles, tries to find work, tries to stay fed, and ends up camping out at a shanty town. Nada is one of America’s forgotten people, a drifter with no real home, no past, and it would appear no future. Nada hears a blind street preacher (Raymond St. Jacques) talking about how the rich and the powerful have been recruited to control humanity and he agrees, even before he puts on the glasses. It’s not until the shanty town has been destroyed in a police raid and Nada has put on the glasses that he sees just who exactly has been doing the recruiting.

After he puts on the glasses and sees the way the world really looks (it’s even suggested that what we perceive as color is something artificial that the aliens are using to distract us), Nada hardly ever takes them off. Some of that is for self-preservation. Wearing the glasses allows him to see who is an alien and who is not. But even more importantly, it’s a sign that having now seen the truth, Nada cannot return to the lie. Instead, Nada tries to win his freedom and expose the aliens. It’s not easy. It takes a lengthy and deservedly famous fight in an alley for him to convince his friend Frank (Keith David) to wear the glasses as well. Once Frank does put them on, he automatically understands what is happening. Wearing the glasses doesn’t leave one confused. Instead, wearing them makes everything suddenly make sense.

If this is not a traditional film review, that’s because They Live is one of those films that everyone seems to already know. Even those who have not watched the entire film know what happens when Nada puts on the glasses. For a film that was not a box office hit and which was initially dismissed by many critics, They Live has become very much a part of our shared culture. Today, everyone knows the messages that are being sent through media. Unlike Nada, most people don’t try to rebel. They don’t announce that they’re all out of gum. We’ve become used to it all.

They Live is often described as being an anti-capitalist film, though John Carpenter has said that it’s not. Carpenter has also been quick to say that it’s not meant to be a Marxist film either, regardless of what the film professors may say. Indeed, the messages of “NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT” and “CONFORM” are about as Marxist as you can get. (Wearing the glasses can be compared to taking the red pill in The Matrix, except of course leaving The Matrix means becoming a part of Zion, a community whose slogan might as well be “DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.”) They Live is a film that celebrates rebellion against the establishment, regardless of how that establishment might disguise itself. In They Live, the right and the left are different sides of the same manipulative coin. The aliens and their human allies thrive regardless of who might technically be in charge. It’s not really a surprise that my more Libertarian-minded friends tend to view They Live as being a sacred text.

It should be noted that there’s a savage humor running through They Live. It’s present in the first time that Nada puts on the glasses. It’s there in his one-liners. But it’s also present at unexpected moments. I love that this movie gives George “Buck” Flower an actual character to play and, when he shows up during the third act in a suit, I can’t help but smile. The aliens, when they are gathered together, still speak in the language of sales and stockholder meetings. They’re in business and business is good.

They Live is one of those films that feels even more relevant today than when it was first released. Anyone who lived through the COVID era will be able to relate to the media telling them to obey authority and to conform with everyone else. It’s easy to imagine that, if one put on the glasses today, they would see a lot of aliens. The sad truth is that there are no aliens to blame things on. The actions of the past few years were done without any help. Carpenter ended They Live with humanity waking up. Escape from L.A. ended with Kurt Russell shutting down the country. One can only imagine how things would end today.

Horror on the Lens: Destroy All Planets (dir by Noriaki Yuasa)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Aliens are trying to conquer Earth.  It’s a pretty good thing that we’ve got a giant, fire-breathing turtle to protect us!

In Japan, this film was released as Gamera vs Viras.  In 1969, when it aired on American television, the Japanese actors were dubbed and the title was changed to Destroy All Planets, presumably to try to capitalize on the success of Destroy All Monsters.  As any true kaiju fan can tell you, Gamera and Godzilla exist in different cinematic universes but that’s not something that the average American was worried about, especially in 1969!  Myself, I love both Gamera and Godzilla.  That said, my favorite remains Jet Jaguar.  Whatever happened to that robot?

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is today’s Horror on the Lens!  Enjoy Destroy All Planets!

 

 

Horror Song of the Day: The Winner by Lance Owg, Gabriel Rohels, and David Cole

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today’s song of the day comes from the 1981 slasher classic, Graduation Day!

Just try not to sing along!

Everybody wants to be the winner….

Horror Scene That I Love: Charlton Heston And Woodstock In The Omega Man

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today would have been the 103rd birthday of actor Charlton Heston.

This scene that I love comes from one of the few horror films in which Heston appeared.  An adaptation of Richard Matheson’s I Am Legend, 1971’s The Omega Man featured Charlton Heston as Robert Neville.  By night, Neville protects his house against the mutant horde.  By day, he tracks those sleeping mutants down and watches Woodstock over and over again.

“They don’t make them like that anymore,” Neville says.

This scene gets a lot of attention because of the contrast between the conservative Heston and the hippies in the film.  To me, the reason that it works is because Woodstock is a documentary.  Neville isn’t watching an actor pretending to be a character in a film.  He’s watching an actual human being who went to the Woodstock music festival and who is presumably either now a mutant or dead.  Imagine being the hippie interviewed by this scene and seeing yourself in The Omega Man and knowing you didn’t survive the apocalypse.  For that matter, we also have to assume that all of the Woodstock performers have been turned into mutants as well.  Write a song about that, Country Joe.

(I choose to believe that Arlo Guthrie made it to safety.  Sha Na Na, though?  Doomed.)

Neville’s right.  They don’t make them like this anymore.

 

4 Shots From 4 Films: Special Anne Rice Edition

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

4 Or More Shots From 4 Or More Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today would have been the 86th birthday of author Anne Rice.  It’s time for….

4 Shots From 4 Anne Rice Adaptations

Interview With A Vampire (1994, dir by Neil Jordan, DP: Phillippe Rousselot)

Exit to Eden (1994, dir by Garry Marshall, DP: Theo van de Sande)

Queen of the Damned (2002, dir by Michael Rymer, DP: Ian Baker)

The Young Messiah (2016, dir by Cyrus Nowrasteh, DP: Joel Ransom)

 

October Positivity: In Gramps’ Shoes (dir by Chip Rossetti)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2013’s In Gramps’ Shoes opens with Ty (Donald James Parker) praying that his daughter, Amy (Francine Locke), will finally call him.  It’s been 20 years since they last spoke.  Amy felt that Ty — or “Gramps” as he’s eventually known — was too controlling when she was growing up.  He didn’t approve of her music.  He didn’t approve of the man she married.  When she left home, she went to Tennessee and promised herself that she would never look back.

However, Amy is now in some trouble.  Her husband has left her.  Her teenage son, Scott (Andrew Wilson Williams), is a slacker who smokes on the porch with his loser friends and who refuses to even consider getting a part-time job to help pay the bills.  Her daughter, Sally (Brittany Blades), is a bit more responsible but she’s been reading Harry Potter and that could lead to her becoming a witch.  Amy is also nearly broke.  She finally swallows her pride and calls Gramps to ask for help.

Soon, Gramps has moved down to Tennessee.  At first, Scott and his friends are dismissive of Gramps.  But then they watch as Gramps beats Scott in a two-mile race.  They watch as Gramps does pull-ups at a local park.  They all marvel at how athletic Gramps is.  Scott decides that he wants to run just like Gramps.  But first, Scott is going to have to work on his attitude and start going to church….

This film has a lot of problems, from the poor ADR to the bad acting to the script that allows certain scenes to drag on without end.  This film is nearly two hours long and you will definitely feel every one of those 115 minutes.  Even the running scenes are a bit disappointing because no one really looks like they’re in good enough condition to be a track star.  Everyone in the film talks about how good Gramps looks but Gramps actually spends the majority of the film looking like he might collapse at any moment.

The main problem with the film is Gramps is a kind of a jerk.  From the minute he shows up in Tennessee, he’s giving orders and we can tell why his daughter thought he was too controlling.  He moves in and immediately starts to tell Amy how to raise her son.  Because Gramps goes to church, he demands that his grandchildren come with him.  (Keep in mind, he doesn’t ask them to go to a church.  He tells them that they have to come to his church.)  He makes it clear that his grandchildren won’t be watching anything fantasy-related (like a Harry Potter movie) as long as he’s around.  Gramps isn’t just opinionated.  Instead, he comes across as being angry and rather aggressive.  And yet, everyone just loves to be around him.

In this film, Parker appears to be playing the same character that he played in Gramps Goes To College.  However, there’s a plot development that makes it impossible for this to be a prequel to Gamps Goes To College.  At the same time, Gramps first gets his nickname in this film which means that Gramps Goes To College also couldn’t be considered a sequel.  It’s not the film’s biggest problem but it is something that bothers a continuity nerd like me.

Despite all of those problems, this film does end with a priceless final line.  Is Scott going to go prom with his new girlfriend?  Actually, Scott might “lead a protest against Harry Potter …. because it’s what Gramps would have wanted.”  The film is almost worth watching just to hear that one line.

Almost.