Tag Archives: movie

October Positivity: The Moment After 2: The Awakening

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

2006’s The Moment After 2 picks up where The Moment After ended.

In the days after the Rapture, the Global Alliance has taken over the world.  The government seeks to control everything.  Paper money is becoming a thing of the past and instead, everyone is expected to pay via a chip that’s been implanted in their hand.  Not having a chip means going to prison and probably being executed for being a subversive.  The Global forces, led by the sadistic Commander Fredericks (Monte Rex Perlin), are hunting down dissidents.  People are being reeducated.  It’s the type of world that, in reality, a lot of people want, even if they hide it behind a bunch of class struggle rhetoric.

Former FBI agent Adam Riley (David A.R. White) is on Death Row but he gets a chance for freedom when the prison transport is attacked by a rebel group.  When the other prisoners ask Adam to come with them, Adam takes one look at all the bodies of the people killed during the attack and refuses.  He’s not a follower of Global but he doesn’t want any part of the rebel militia’s demand of “an eye for an eye.”  Instead, Adam wanders through the desert until he finds a community of Christians.  He’s reunited with the Rev. Jacob Krause (Brad Heller), from the first film.  He also meets Carissa (Andrea Logan White), a woman with whom he is in love.  However, she’s married to Richard (Mark Atteberry) and we all know what the Bible says about adultery.  Of course, the world is now a dangerous place and, with Fredericks executing every Christian he finds, maybe Adam will still get his chance.  Adultery may be a sin but moving in on a new widow is not.

Meanwhile, Adam’s former partner and friend, Charles Baker (Kevin Downes), is recruited to track Adam down.  If Charles captures Adam, maybe Charles’s wife Rebecca (Deanne Morre) will be releases from prison.  Or maybe not.  You really can’t trust the Global Alliance.

One thing that I appreciated about this film is that Adam, despite plenty of opportunities to give into temptation, stayed true to the commandment that “Thou Shalt Not Kill.”  A lot of faith-based, apocalypse films tend to use the end times setting as an excuse to turn its characters into quip-ready action heroes, gunning down the forces of the world government and blowing up buildings without a second thought.  This film, though, is smart enough to say, “Hold on, the whole anti-killing thing still applies, regardless of how bad things get.”

As for the rest of the film, it’s well-made and the cast is decent.  That may sound like faint praise but, after you’ve watched enough low-budget faith-based productions, you come to appreciate the ones that at least feature a steady camera, a clean soundtrack, and actors who can at least show a modicum of emotion.  As tempting as it may be to laugh at the heavy-handedness of the Global Alliance, those of us who remember the COVID lockdowns will never forget some of the suggestions that were made for dealing with people who were judged to be noncompliant because they didn’t want to observe curfew or close their businesses.  Much like the first film, The Moment After 2 is a decent thriller, one that works nicely for our paranoid times.

On-Stage On The Lens: Hamlet From The Lunt-Fontaine Theater (dir by Bill Colleran and John Gielgud)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

That Richard Burton is today best-remembered for his tumultuous marriages to Elizabeth Taylor and for his performances in several less-than-worthy films is unfortunate as Burton was also one of the most highly regarded staged actors of his generation.  In fact, late in his life, Burton often expressed regret that he had ever left the stage for films to begin with.

In 1964, Burton played Hamlet on Broadway, in a production that was directed by John Gielgud.  (Gielgud also provided the voice of the Ghost.)  This is a video-recording of both that production and Burton’s acclaimed performance.  Burton brings an intense and almost divine madness to the role.  Watching, one can see why Burton would have preferred to have been remembered for this instead of for playing Mark Antony.

 

October True Crime: Hostage (dir by Frank Shields)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

First released in 1983, Hostage is an Australian film about Christine (Kerry Mack) and Walter Maresch (Ralph Schicha).

Christine is a young woman who escapes from her abusive father by going on the road with a traveling carnival.  She runs the dart-throwing booth.  It’s a simple life but she’s happy with it.  She has friends and she has freedom.  When Walter, an enigmatic German drifter, joins the carnival, there’s an immediate attraction between him and Christine.  Christine sleeps with him a few times but she makes it clear that she’s not looking for anything serious or permanent.  Walter announces that, if Christine doesn’t marry him, he’s going to shoot himself.  Christine rolls her eyes and leaves his trailer, just to hear a gunshot as she walks away.  At the hospital, Walter refuses to get treated until Christine promises to marry him.

Christine does marry Walter, both to keep him from dying and also because she’s pregnant.  Walter survives his gunshot wound and turns out to be the type of husband who alternates between being wildly romantic and being coldly abusive.  Walter wants to have lot of a children.  He’s upset when Christine gives birth to a girl.  “The next one will be a son!” he announces.  Walter also spends a lot of time complaining about how weak the Australians are compared to the Germans.  And, of course, there’s another huge issue with Walter.

HE’S A NAZI!

Walter is a neo-Nazi.  For whatever reason, it takes Christine forever to figure this out.  Walter drags to Christine to Germany and then gets mad when Christine doesn’t stand along with all of his friends while watching The Triumph of the Will.  Christine opens up Walter’s keepsake box and finds a picture of his father wearing a Nazi uniform and also an iron cross.  Walter’s friends are all blonde Aryan types who are constantly talking about how Germany has lost its way.  And yet Christine doesn’t really seem to get that Walter is a Nazi until Walter starts talking about blowing up buildings and robbing banks.

Eventually, back in Australia, Walter and Christine rob a string of banks and the tabloids are soon describing them as being a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde.  Walter is happy but Christine just wants to grab her daughter and escape from him.  That proves to be easier said than done.  Walter’s not just a Neo-Nazi.  He’s also totally insane….

Amazingly enough, this is based on a true story.  Christine wrote about her ordeal and her book was adapted into Hostage, a film that may look like a typical exploitation film but which is actually a rather engrossing drama about a naive girl who finds herself trapped with a monster.  The film is full of moments that stick with you, like when a policeman comes by Christine’s trailer and manages to totally miss her signals that she’s currently being held, at gunpoint, by Walter.  Kerry Mack and Ralph Schicha both give strong performances as Christine and Walter.  Schicha especially deserves a lot of credit for turning Walter into a believable villain as opposed to just a caricature.  One reason why Walter is so dangerous is because he’s such an idiot and Schicha does a great job of showing what happens when stupidity mixes with confidence.  In one of the film’s more over-the-top moments, Walter and his friend Wolfgang drag Christine to Turkey.  At first, Walter and Wolfgang are cocky but the trip becomes a violent and (literally) bloody disaster.

Hostage brings a real nightmare to life.  Sadly, even after she freed herself of Walter, Christine continued to live a difficult life.  She died of hypothermia in 2019.

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films: The 1960s Part Two

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

This October, I’m going to be doing something a little bit different with my contribution to 4 Shots From 4 Films.  I’m going to be taking a little chronological tour of the history of horror cinema, moving from decade to decade.

Today, we continue the 1960s!

4 Shots From 4 Horror Films

Blood and Black Lace (1964, dir by Mario Bava)

Blood and Black Lace (1964, dir by Mario Bava)

2,000 Maniacs (1964, dir by Herschell Gordon Lewis)

2,000 Maniacs (1964, dir by Herschell Gordon Lewis)

Repulsion (1965, dir by Roman Polanski)

Repulsion (1965, dir by Roman Polanski)

Kill, Baby, Kill (1966, dir by Mario Bava)

Kill, Baby, Kill (1966, dir by Mario Bava)

Horror On The Lens: It Conquered The World (dir by Roger Corman)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Man is a feeling creature, and because of it, the greatest in the universe….”

Hell yeah!  You tell ’em, Peter Graves!

Today’s Horror on the Lens is 1956’s It Conquered The World.  Graves plays a scientist who watches in horror as his small town and all of the people who he loves and works with are taken over by an alien.  Rival scientist Lee Van Cleef thinks that the alien is going to make the world a better place but Graves understands that a world without individual freedom isn’t one that’s worth living in.

This is one of Corman’s most entertaining films, featuring not only Graves and Van Cleef but also the great Beverly Garland.  Like many horror and science fiction films of the 50s, it’s subtext is one of anti-collectivism.  Depending on your politics, you could view the film as either a criticism of communism or McCarthyism.  Watching the film today, with its scenes of the police and the other towns people hunting anyone who fails to conform or follow orders, it’s hard not to see the excesses of the COVID era.

Of course, there’s also a very persuasive argument to be made that maybe we shouldn’t worry too much about subtext and we should just enjoy the film as a 50s B-movie that was directed with the Corman touch.

Regardless of how interpret the film, I defy anyone not to smile at the sight of ultra-serious Peter Graves riding his bicycle from one location to another.

Here, for your viewing pleasure, is It Conquered The World!

 

October Positivity: The Moment After (dir by Wes Llewellyn)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1999’s The Moment After opens with the world in a panic.  Millions of people have suddenly vanished into thin air, leaving only their clothes and their loved ones behind.  On a news program, three expects are brought in to discuss what might have happened.  A New Age-y woman argues that “Mother Earth” is eliminating overpopulation.  A wild-eyed man argues that people have been abducted by UFOs.  And finally, a man with a neatly trimmed beard argues that it’s the rapture.  The bearded man is dismissed as being a crank.

Two FBI agents — Adam Riley (David A.R. White) and Charles Baker (Kevin Downes) — are assigned to investigate the disappearances.  Charles is himself shaken because he knew a few people who disappeared.  As they drive around the city and talk to people, they hear the same story.  People who went to church regularly and were Christian vanished while their less faithful loved ones watched.  Adam comes to suspect that there might be something to the Rapture Theory.  Charles, bitter because his wife recently suffered a miscarriage, has no time for it.

As often happens in a crisis, the government grows heavy-handed and sinister.  The President announced that he’s going to follow the lead of Europe and “suggest” that everyone get a chip implanted in their hand.  Charles gets the chip without hesitation.  Adam keeps finding excuses to put it off, even though he’s mandated to get one as a federal employee.  With the country turning into an authoritarian dystopia, Charles and Adam are assigned to track down a renegade preacher (Brad Heller), who is telling his followers not to get chipped.

Stories about the end time have always been popular when it comes to faith-based films.  A lot of that is because the Book of Revelations is written in such a way that there’s a lot of different ways that one can interpret it.  As a result, it’s always interesting to see how “the mark of the Beast,” will be represented in these films.  Sometimes, it’s a tattoo.  Sometimes, it’s an invisible mark that only demons can see.  In this one, it’s a chip that works as a credit card.  And while it’s easy to scoff at this film’s conspiracy theories and the shots of people staring at their palms, some of us still remember how, during the COVID lockdowns, there were more than a few people in positions of influence who argued that the citizenry shouldn’t be allowed in stores or restaurants or anywhere else unless they could show proof they had gotten the vaccine and kept up with the boosters.  There were even some who said that the National Guard should go door-to-door and force the shot on people.  (For the record, I did get the vaccine but, when I started hearing about monthly boosters and all that other stuff, I decided that one shot was more than enough for me.)  There is definitely an authoritarian impulse out there, one that comes out whenever there’s a crisis.  One reason why films like this one continue to find an audience is because real-life governments often behave like the dictatorship portrayed in The Moment After.  Of course, in the movie, everyone can at least say they were influenced by the Devil.  In real life, it just comes down to pettiness and a need to tell other people what to do.

As for The Moment After, it’s a low-budget but fairly well-done thriller, one that keeps the preaching to a minimum and doesn’t feature a lot of the problematic elements that one tends to find in movies like this.  White and Downes both give effective performances.  It avoids the histrionics that tend to define a lot of other apocalyptic films.  This is not a film that’s going to convert anyone but it does a good enough job creating an atmosphere of paranoia and growing dread that it works as a thriller.

A Horror Blast From The Past: Suspense (dir by Lois Weber and Phillips Smalley)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Suspense is a ten-minute blast from the past that comes to us all the way from 1913.

In this film, the Woman (played by Lois Weber) and her baby are menaced by the Tramp (Sam Kaufman), a sinister figure who cuts her phone lines and breaks into her home.  While the Woman tries to protect herself, the Husband (Val Paul) rushes home to save his wife.

Suspense was one of the first thrillers and it introduced many elements that are still used to today, including the cut phone lines and the isolated location.  This was also one of the first films to use the split screen as a narrative technique.  There are many modern horror films that owe a debt to Suspense, whether the filmmakers realize it or not.

Suspense was written and directed by Lois Weber, who is widely acknowledged as being America’s first female filmmaker.

The TSL Horror Grindhouse: The Dunwich Horror (dir by Daniel Haller)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Look at me/I’m Sandra Dee….

First released in the groovy and psychedelic year of 1970, The Dunwich Horror stars Sandra Dee as Nancy, an somewhat innocent grad student at Massachusetts’s Miskatonic University.  When the mysterious Wilbur Wheatley (Dean Stockwell) comes to the university and asks to take a look at a very rare book called The Necronomicon, Nancy agrees.  She does so even though there’s only one edition of The Necronomicon in existence and it’s supposed to be protected at all costs.  Maybe it’s Wilbur’s hypnotic eyes that convince Nancy to allow him to see and manhandle the book.  Prof. Henry Armitage (Ed Begley) is not happy to see Wilbur reading the book and he warns Nancy that the Wheatleys are no good.

Nancy still agrees to give Wilbur a ride back to his hometown of Dunwich.  She finds herself enchanted by the mysterious Wilbur and she’s intrigued as to why so many people in the town seem to hate Wilbur and his father (Sam Jaffe).  Soon, she is staying at Wilbur’s mansion and has apparently forgotten about actually returning to Miskatonic.  She has fallen under Wilbur’s spell and it soon becomes clear that Wilbur has sinister plans of his own.  It’s time to start chanting about the Old Ones and the eldritch powers while naked cultists run along the beach and Nancy writhes on an altar.  We are in Lovecraft county!

Actually, it’s tempting to wonder just how exactly H.P. Lovecraft would have felt about this adaptation of his short story.  On the one hand, it captures the chilly New England atmosphere of Lovecraft’s work and it features references to such Lovecraft mainstays as Miskatonic University, the Necronomicon, and the Old Ones.  As was often the case with Lovecraft’s stories, the main characters are students and academics.  At the same time, this is very much a film of the late 60s/early 70s.  That means that there are random naked hippies, odd camera angles, and frequent use of the zoom lens.  The film makes frequent use of solarization and other psychedelic effects that were all the rage in 1970.  Lovecraft may have been an unconventional thinker but I’m still not sure he would have appreciated seeing his fearsome cult transformed into a bunch of body-painting hippies.

Really, the true pleasure of The Dunwich Horror is watching a very earnest Sandra Dee act opposite a very stoned Dean Stockwell.  Stockwell was a charter member of the Hollywood counterculture, a friend of Dennis Hopper’s who had gone from being a top Hollywood child actor to playing hippie gurus in numerous AIP films.  As for Sandra Dee, one gets the feeling that this film was an attempt to change her square image.  When Wilbur tells Nancy that her nightmares sound like they’re sexual in origin and then explores her feelings about sex, Nancy replies, “I like sex,” and it’s obviously meant to be a moment that will make the audience say, “Hey, she’s one of us!”  But Sandra Dee delivers the line so hesitantly that it actually has the opposite effect.  Stockwell rather smoothely slips into the role of the eccentric Wilbur.  Wilbur is meant to be an outsider and one gets the feeling that’s how Stockwell viewed himself in 1970.  Sandra Dee, meanwhile, seems to be trying really hard to convince the viewer that she’s not the same actress who played Gidget and starred in A Summer Place, even though she clearly is.  It creates an oddly fascinating chemistry between the two of them.  Evil Wilbur actually comes across as being more honest than virtuous Nancy.

Executive produced by Roger Corman, The Dunwich Horror is an undeniably campy film but, if you’re a fan of the early 70s grindhouse and drive-in scene, it’s just silly enough to be entertaining.  Even when the film itself descends into nonsense, Stockwell’s bizarre charisma keeps things watchable and there are a few memorable supporting performances.  (Talia Shire has a small but memorable roll as a nurse.)  It’s a film that stays true to the spirit of Lovecraft, despite all of the hippies.

October Hacks: The Unnamable (dir by Jean-Paul Ouellette)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

1988’s The Unnamable takes place in the type of small, superstitious town that H.P. Lovecraft made famous in his stories.  (The Unnamable is loosely based on Lovecraft’s work.)

The students at Miskatonic University are fascinated by the stories that surround the old Winthrop place, a mansion where, 100 years ago, Joshua Winthrop’s wife supposedly gave birth to a hideous monster that proceeded to kill Joshua and all of his servants.  It is said that the mansion is still haunted, perhaps by the ghost of Joshua or maybe by the monster itself!  The students regularly dare each other to stay at the old Winthrop Place.  Joel (Mark Parra) accepts the dare and vanishes, worrying his friends Howard Damon (Charles Klausmeyer) and Randolph Carter (Mark Kinsey Stephenson).  While Howard is a skeptic about the supernatural, Carter is a dedicated student and he’s obsessed with what might be found within the Winthrop house.

Meanwhile, two frat boys (Eben Ham and Blane Wheatley) convince Wendy (Laura Albert) and Tanya (Alexandra Durrell) to come hang out with them for the night in the Winthrop House.  The frat boys claim that it’s an annual initiation that all new students go through.  For the most part, the frat boys just want to get laid.  One of them even drapes a sweater over his shoulders.  Since when has anyone wearing a sweater that way turned out to be a good guy?

Of course, it turns out that Winthrop House is haunted and soon, heads are rolling (literally) and blood is being spilled.  While the frat boys and the girls fight for their lives, Howard and Carter break into the mansion to see if they can find their missing friend Joel.  Of course, Carter is immediately distracted by the mansion’s collection of ancient texts and hidden tunnels.  Howard, on the other hand, just wants to save Wendy’s life and prove that he’s as good as any sweater-draping frat boy.

The Unnamable is fairly low-budget affair, one that mixes the slasher genre with Lovecraft’s chilly horror.  It works surprisingly well.  The house is a wonderfully atmospheric location.  The monster, when it finally makes its appearance, is frightening and very Lovecraftian.  In fact, the monster feels as if could have wandered over from Stuart Gordon’s Castle Freak.  (The Unnamable probably would never have been made if not for the success of Gordon’s Re-Animator.)  The gore is plentiful and, at times, disturbingly convincing.  The main thing that makes The Unnamable work as well as it does is that the cast is surprisingly game and they attack their stereotypical roles with a likable enthusiasm.  Nobody coasts on the fact that the film is just a “horror movie” or just as “slasher flick.”  The characters may not have much depth but the cast still does a good job of bringing them to life (and death).  I especially liked the performance of Mark Kinsey Stephenson as Randolph Carter.  Randolph Carter, of course, is a name that should be familiar to most Lovecraft readers and Stephenson is a delight as he ignore the chaos around him so that he can check out the mansion’s library.  While the film definitely takes some liberties with Lovecraft, Stephenson is still the ideal Carter.

The Unnamable was an enjoyably macabre surprise.