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International Horror Film Review: Manhattan Baby (dir by Lucio Fulci)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Manhattan, baby!”

That’s what a friend of mine yelled a few years ago.  Jack was a choreographer who had just received a call from someone in New York City, offering him the chance to come work on an off-Broadway show.  He accepted, of course and then he hugged everyone who had been standing nearby, listening to the call.

“Manhattan, baby!” he shouted.

Now, the show itself didn’t really work out but Jack did get a trip to Manhattan out of it and really, I think that’s what everyone was excited about.  No matter how many bad things you may hear about New York City, it’s hard not to get excited when you hear the word Manhattan.  For many, Manhattan represents culture, sophistication, and wealth.  For others, Manhattan represents crime, inequity, and alienation.  Across the world, Manhattan stands for everything that is both good and bad about America.  Just the word Manhattan carries a power to it.  You would never get excited if someone announced that they had gotten a job in Minnesota, for instance.  If Jack had shouted, “Minnesota, baby!,” we all would have been concerned about him.  Minnesota?  Who gives a fuck?  But Manhattan …. Manhattan has power, baby!

Manhattan also lent its name to one of Lucio Fulci’s post-Zombi films and the title just happened to duplicate Jack’s proclomation, Manhattan Baby.  Released in 1982, Manhattan Baby is often cited as being the last of Fulci’s “major” productions.  While his career was reinvigorated by the success of the films he made with producer Fabrizio De Angelis (including Zombi 2 and the Beyond trilogy), Fulci and De Angelis had a falling out over Manhattan Baby.  Fulci claimed that De Angelis essentially forced him to make the movie, despite the fact that Fulci himself did not have much interest in the script.  Initially, the film was to be a special effects spectacluar with a large budget but, after the controversy surrounding Fulci’s The New York Ripper, the budget was drastically scaled back and the special effects were done on the cheap.  Fulci later said that he felt the movie was terrible and that it set back his career.

As for what the film is actually about, Manhattan Baby deals with …. well, the plot is not easy to describe.  Fulci’s films were always better known for their surreal imagery than their tight plots and, even by his standards, Manhattan Baby is all over the place.  The film opens in Egypt, where archeologist George Hacker (Christopher Connelly) is struck blind when he enters a previously unexplored tomb. Meanwhile, his daughter, Susie (Brigitta Boccoli), is given an amulet by another blind woman.

Back in Manhattan, George waits for his sight to return and Susie and her little brother, Tommy (Giovanni Frezza, who played Bob In The House By The Cemetery) start to act weird.  It turns out that their bedroom is now some sort of demensional gateway, from which snakes sometimes emerge.  At the same time, the gateway occasionally sucks people through and they end up stranded in the Egyptian desert.  Why?  Who knows?  Is Susie possessed or does the gateway operate independently from her?  Why does she occasionally glow a weird blue color?  Why do she and her brother suddenly seem to hate their nannny (played by Cinzia De Ponti, who was also in The New York Ripper)?  It all has something to do with the amulet but the exact details of how it all works seems to change from scene-to-scene.  Eventually, it turns out that the owner of the local antique shop knows about the amulet and its evil designs.  Unfortunately, all of his stuffed birds come to life and peck his eyes out.  Meanwhile, Susie’s parents and her doctors wonder why her latest x-ray seems to indicate that Susie has a cobra living inside of her and….

Like I said, it doesn’t really make any sense and, despite the power of the name, the meaning behind Manhattan Baby as a title is never really explained.  In fact, more time is probably spent in Egypt than in Manhattan.  It’s easy to assume that the film was called Manhattan Baby because it was felt that the title would appeal to American audiences but, when then the film was released in the U.S., it was actually retitled Eye of the Evil Dead in an attempt to disguise it as being a sequel to Sam Raimi’s classic shocker.  (This was actually a common practice as far as the Italian film industry was concerned.  Many films were retitled to disguise them as being a sequel.  Fulci’s Zombi 2, for instance, recieved that title because, in Europe, Dawn of the Dead was released under the title Zombi.)

One can understand Fulci’s frustration with Manhattan Baby but, at the same time, is it really as bad as he often said it was?  Yes, the plot is incoherent but that’s to be expected with a Fulci film.  Yes, the special effects are cheap but again, that’s kind of part of the charm when it comes to Italian exploitation films.  While Manhattan Baby never duplicates the ominous atmosphere of Zombi 2 or achieves the same sort of surreal grandeur as The Byond trilgoy, there are still enough memorable, if confusing, moments to make it watchable.  The sequece where a shot of a man standing in a doorway cuts to a shot of him lying dead in the desert works surprisingly well.  The scene where the shop owner is attacked by reanimated birds is both ludiscrous and scary, in the grand Fulci tradition.  With their emphasis on foolhardy explorers ignoring curses, the Egyptian scenes feel almost as if they could have been lifted from one of the Hammer mummy films.   Manhattan Baby may not be Fulci’s best but it’s hardly his worst.

In fact, with its obsession with blindness, Manhttan Baby is actually one of Fulci’s more personal films.  Fulci was diabetic and reportedly lived in fear that he would someday lose his eyesight.  Many critics, including me, have suggested that he dealt with this fear by having people lose their eyesight in his movies, often in the most violent ways possible.  Manhattan Baby is full of people losing the ability to see.  George Hacker is rendered blind in Egypt.  The mysterious Egyptain woman hands out amulets to people who she cannot see.  The store owner loses his eyes.  One of George’s colleagues falls on a bed of spikers and, of course, one spike goes straight through an eye.  Manhattan Baby is all about blindness and only be getting rid of the amulet can George hope to once again truly see the world and the people that he loves.  If only illness could be tossed away as easily as an amulet.

Despite Fulci’s disdain for the final result, Manhattan Baby is hardly the disaster that it’s often made out to be.  Those who aren’t familiar with Fulci’s unique aesthetic will undoubtedly confused by the film but, for those of us who know the man’s work, Manhattan Baby may be a minor Fulci film but it’s still an occasionally intriguing one.

Horror Film Review: When A Stranger Calls (dir by Fred Walton)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

“Have you checked the children?” the stranger on the phone asks the terrified babysitter, who is unaware that the children are already dead and that the call is …. COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE!

That’s the premise behind both an oft-repeated urban legend and the opening of the 1979 film, When A Stranger Calls.  I’ve often seen the original When A Stranger Calls described as being one of the scariest films ever made.  That’s not quite true, of course.  The first 20 minutes or so are effective.  The final scene has a few intense moments.  The majority of what lies in-between feels like filler, albeit well-acted filler.

When A Stranger Calls opens with Carol Kane as Jill, a teenage babysitter who is terrified one night by a caller who keeps asking her if she’s checked on the children.  This sequence — really, a mini-movie all of its own — is so well-executed and suspenseful that many people assume that the entire film is just Jill dealing with the mystery caller.  Actually, that’s just the first few minutes and, once the location of the killer has been revealed, Kane disappears from the film for an extended period.  That’s a shame since Kane’s empathetic performance is perhaps the best thing that When A Stranger Calls has going for it.  She’s so convincing as the emotionally shattered babysitter that it doesn’t matter that, at the start of the film, she’s obviously not a teenager.

Instead, the middle part of the film focuses on John Clifford (Charles Durning).  Clifford is a former policeman-turned-private investigator.  He is obsessed with Duncan (Tony Beckley), the man who called Jill at the start of the film.  Duncan has just escaped from a mental institution and Clifford has been hired to track him down.  Clifford is convinced that Duncan will try to find Jill.  Duncan, meanwhile, wanders through the sleaziest sections of downtown Los Angeles, briefly living with a pathetic alcoholic named Tracy (Colleen Dewhurst).  Clifford, of course, is right about Duncan wanting to find Jill.  And Clifford is so determined to kill Duncan that he might even be willing to use Jill as bait….

After the brilliantly horrific opening sequence, it’s impossible not to be disappointed with the drawn-out middle section of When A Stranger Calls.  Durning, Dewhurst, and especially Beckley all give good performances and downtown Los Angeles is so repellent that you’ll want to take a shower afterwards but, narratively, there’s really not much happening.  Clifford finds Duncan. Duncan runs away.  Duncan acts like a jerk and gets in a fight.  Tracy drinks.  The old school cop Clifford scowls at the sleaziness of the world while Duncan continues to lose what little sanity he has left.  Give the film some credit for not portraying Duncan as being some sort of charming, loquacious master criminal.  He’s a total loser, as all serial killers are despite the later popularity of fictional characters like Hannibal Lecter.  Duncan hates both himself and the world with equal fury.  But, that said, the narrative stalls during the middle part of the film.  There’s only so many time you can watch two men chase each other down a trash-strewn street before it gets dull.

Fortunately, Jill does eventually show up again and, after an hour of relentless sleaziness, you’re happy to see Carol Kane, again.  Jill is now married and has children of her own.  And soon, she’s again getting a phone call asking if she’s checked on the children….

And, again, the closing sequence is scary, even if it’s not quite as intense as the opening.  (The opening was scary because we didn’t know what the killer looked like.  By the time Duncan finds Jill a second time, we now know that Duncan is a sickly-looking alcoholic who can’t handle himself in a fair fight.)  The film does have one great jump scare left in its arsenal of tricks.  And yet, it’s impossible to watch When A Stranger Calls without wishing that the whole thing had just focused on Jill instead of getting sidetracked with Clifford searching Los Angeles.

When A Stranger Calls will always have a place in horror history.  “Have you checked the children?” will always produce chills.  It’s just unfortunate that the film spends a good deal of its running time ignoring what makes it scary in the first place.

Horror on the Lens: Baffled! (dir by Philip Leacock)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Leonard Nimoy is a race car driver who can see into the future and who uses his powers to solve crimes!

Seriously, if that’s not enough to get you to watch the 1973 made-for-TV movie Baffled!, then I don’t know what is.  In the film, Nimoy takes a break from racing so that he and a parapsychologist (played by Susan Hampshire) can solve the mystery of the visions that Nimoy is having of a woman in a mansion.  This movie was meant to serve as a pilot and I guess if the series had been picked up, Nimoy would have had weekly visions.  Of course, the movie didn’t lead to a series but Baffled is still fun in a 70s television sort of way.  Thanks to use of what I like to call “slow mo of doom,” a few of Nimoy’s visions are creepy and the whole thing ends with the promise of future adventures that were sadly never to be.

Enjoy Baffled!  Can you solve the mystery before Leonard?

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Pumpkinhead (dir by Stan Winston)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Originally released in 1988, Pumpkinhead has always struck me as being one of those films that more people remember hearing someone else talk about it than have actually sat down and watched.  

I think that’s because it has such a great title.  Pumpkinhead!  That’s not a title that you’re going to forget and it conjures up all sorts of scary images.  If you hear someone mention that title, it stays in your head.  It’s an easy title to remember and it’s also an easy title to turn into a macabre joke.  If, on Halloween night, you and your friends hear a sound in the house, you can always say, “It must be Pumpkinhead!”  Everyone will laugh, regardless of whether they’ve seen the film or not.  It’s kind of like how everyone knows what the Great Pumpkin is, even if they’ve never actually watched the old cartoon.

As for the actual film, it’s a mix of monster horror and hick revenge flick.  It’s one of those movies where a bunch of dumb city kids do something stupid while driving through the country and, as a result, they end up having to deal with a curse and a monster. 

Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) is a widower who owns a grocery store that is pretty much sitting out in the middle of nowhere.  Seriously, you look at his little store sitting off the side of a country road and you wonder how he makes enough money to feed his family.  Of course, the store’s location isn’t the only problem.  The other problem is that Ed seems to instinctively mistrust the few people who do stop off at the place.  Even if I lived near there, I probably wouldn’t want to shop at that store because I know Ed would glare at me and make me feel like I was doing something wrong.

However, a group of dumbass dirt bikers do stop off at the store.  And then they decide to drive their dirt bikers around the store while another member of the group takes pictures.  Unfortunately, the dirt bikers run over Ed’s son, little Billy.  The dirt bikers flee the scene, heading to their cabin.  Ed meanwhile goes to the local witch and asks her to summon …. PUMPKINHEAD!

After a lengthy ceremony, Pumpkinhead shows up.  Because Pumpkinhead was directed special effects maestro Stan Winston, he’s a very impressive creature.  He looks something like this:

You may notice that Pumpkinhead doesn’t actually have a pumpkin for a head but no matter!  It’s still a good name and when your monster looks like that, he can call himself whatever he wants.

Anyway, Pumpkinhead tracks down and starts to kill the people responsible for the death of Billy.  Unfortunately, it turns out that Ed experiences each murder along with Pumpkinhead and he quickly has a change of heart.  The witch tells him it’s too late.  Pumpkinhead will not stop until everyone’s dead and if Ed tries to interfere, Ed will die as well.

It’s a clever-enough idea, a filmed version of one of those old legends that you occasionally hear about in the country.  It’s a good thing that the monster is really, really scary because his victims are pretty much forgettable.  Some of them feel bad about killing Ed’s son and some of them don’t but it’s hard to keep straight which is which.  They’re just too bland.  As a result, their deaths don’t really generate any sort of emotion, good or bad.  They’re just there to be victims.  The only person your really care about is Ed but that’s mostly because he’s played by Lance Henriksen and Henriksen is one of those actors who can bring almost any character to life, regardless of how thinly-drawn that character may be.  Henriksen has a built-in authenticity.  Since he’s clearly not a product of the Hollywood publicity machine but is instead someone who obviously lived an interesting life before he ever auditioned for his first film, you believe in Henriksen’s performance even when the script betrays him.  You believe that he owns that store, even though the store seems to be in the worst location ever.  When he mourns Billy, you believe it.  When he tries to stop Pumpkinhead, you believe that as well.  What little humanity that there is to be found in the film is almost totally the result of Henriksen’s performance.

So, give it up for Lance Henriksen and give it up for the scariness of Pumpkinhead and also give it up for director Stan Winston, who came up with enough horrific visuals that it almost made up for his apparent lack of interest in the film’s human characters.  Give it up to for a little-known character actress named Florence Schauffer, who is properly creepy as the local witch.  Pumpkinhead is a good film to watch with your friends on Halloween, even if the title monster doesn’t really have a pumpkin for a head.

Horror on the Lens: Trilogy of Terror (dir by Dan Curtis)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

For today’s horror on the Lens we have a made-for-TV movie that, like yesterday’s The Norliss Tapes, was produced and directed by Dan Curtis.

Trilogy of Terror, which aired in 1975, is an anthology film, featuring three segments that were each based on a short story from Richard Matheson.  What makes this particular film special is that each segment features Karen Black playing a radically different character from the previous segment.  The film really is a showcase for this underrated actress, though Black herself later said that the film ruined her career because it typecast her as a horror actress.

The third segment is the one that gets all the attention.  That’s the one with the killer doll.  I like all of the segments, though.  The first one is often considered to be the weakest but anyone who has ever been through a similar situation will appreciate it as tale of revenge.  The second segment has a playful vibe that I liked.  And yes, the third segment is genuinely frightening.

From 1975, here is Trilogy of Terror:

The TSL’s Grindhouse: Eat Locals (dir by Jason Flemyng)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Every fifty years, the top vampires in the UK gather in one location.  They discuss their upcoming plans.  They settle old scores.  They make peace or declare war.  Actually, I’m perhaps giving them a bit too much credit.  Judging from the 2017 film, Eat Locals, they spend most of their time being bitchy and plotting against each other.  Vampires are apparently not the easiest creatures to get along with.

Their latest meeting is taking place at a farmhouse out in the country.  In theory, the farmhouse should be isolated enough for the vampires to meet in peace but it doesn’t turn out that way.  First, Vanessa (Eva Myles) shows up with a human hitchhiker named Sebastian (Billy Cook).  Sebastian may think he’s going to get laid but it turns out that the vampires are more interested in eating a local.  Then, a bunch of British soldiers show up.  It turns out that they’re from the special vampire squad and they’re determined to take out all the top vampires all at once.  Their leader is also apparently interested in collecting vampire blood, which he can then sell to a cosmetics company.  Want to defy aging?  Vampire blood’s the answer!

I watched Eat Locals last Halloween.  My friends and I had previously watched (at my insistence) Vampire Circus and we decided to follow it up with another British vampire film, this one a more recent one.  (Vampire Circus was released in 1972.  Eat Locals, on the other hand, was released 45 years later, in 2017.)  As an unapologetic horror snob, I was a bit skeptical about Eat Locals and, when the film started, I may have groaned a little because it became obvious that this was going to be one of those films where people spent a lot of time sitting around in an unlit room.  But still, I gave it a chance.

And, ultimately, Eat Locals turned out to be better than I was expecting.  The film has its flaws but it was hard not to admire its determination to stay true to its concept, even at the risk of alienating its audience.  Eat Locals pretty much takes place in one location.  This means that, for all of the build-up, the first big battle between the soldiers and the vampires largely takes place off-screen.  That’s the sort of narrative decision that will undoubtedly turn off a lot of viewers but I actually liked the staginess of it all.  At a time when other directors would have cut away and wasted a lot of money on an action scene that wouldn’t have added much to the film’s narrative, director Jason Flemyng (who is better known as an actor) sticks with the vampires.

Unfortunately, the vampires aren’t always as interesting as the film seems to think that they are.  They’re all very arch and very British but most of them don’t have much personality beyond that.  A few of them, however, are memorable as a result of the efforts of the talented cast.  Charlie Cox, Freeman Agyeman, Vincent Regan all make a favorable impression with their fanged roles.  As for the soldiers, they’re all very British as well.  If you’ve ever watched any film about the UK Special Forces, you will immediately recognize every type of character and situation that Eat Locals satirizes.

Eat Locals is an uneven film and the narrative momentum lags during its final few minutes.  In many ways, it feels like a really clever short film that’s been expanded upon.  That said, there’s enough vampiric satire and uniquely British humor to make the film an entertaining watch.

Book Review: What Holly Heard by R.L. Stine

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Has there been yet another murder at Shadyside High!?

That’s the latest gossip!

R.L. Stine’s 1996 YA thriller, What Holly Heard, is all about gossip.  Actually, one the things that made the book an interesting read for me was discovering how people gossiped in 1996, in the age before social media.  Today, we get our gossip by overanalyzing what people post on Instagram or what they tweeted back when they were 12.  Back in 1996, though, you actually had to stalk people through the high school, hide behind a corner to listen to conversations, and essentially act like a private detective.  That actually sounds like fun!

Anyway, Holly Silva’s knows all the gossip at Shadyside High!  When this book opens, she’s all excited because she’s learned that her classmate, Mei, might be fighting with her boyfriend, Noah.  Holly has a major crush on Noah and is hoping that Mei and Noah break up so that she can go out with him.  Her best friends, Ruth and Miriam, remind Holly that she has a super nice boyfriend named Gary but Holly doesn’t care.  It’s all about the gossip!

Then, suddenly, Holly is found dead in the school gym!  Who is the murderer!?  Could it Mei?  Could it be Noah?  Could it even be Gary?  How about Jed, the strangely moody jock?  Can Miriam solve the mystery before someone else dies!?

As I read this book last night, I found myself wondering if maybe I had read it before.  It all seemed strangely familiar.  While it is possible that I had actually read What Holly Heard before, it’s just as possible that I was reacting the fact that the same basic characters appear in all of R.L. Stine’s books.  There’s always a bad boy.  There’s always a couple that’s on the verge of breaking up.  There’s almost always a jock who might have a secret.  And there’s always at least one murder victim who went too far with the gossip!  But, actually, the familiarity is a part of the appeal of these books.  They’re like YA Lifetime movies.  You don’t read them to be shocked as much as you read them to judge the characters when they’re shocked over the exact same thing happening to them that happened to the people in all of the previous Fear Street book.  No one at Shadyside High ever learns a lesson from any of this!

That said, I liked What Holly Heard.  It’s fast-paced, it’s silly, and it features a totally out-of-nowhere drug subplot that I imagine was included in the name of 90s relevancy.  Plus, it features someone getting hit over the head with a hamster cage.  That made me smile.  If you’re looking to indulge in a little childhood nostalgia by reading (or re-reading) a little R.L. Stine, this is a good one to go with.

Book Review: “They’re Here….” Invasion of the Body Snatchers: A Tribute, edited by Kevin McCarthy and Ed Gorman

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

On Saturday night, I watched Piranha, which featured the great character actor Kevin McCarthy in a supporting role. This led to me remembering McCarthy’s iconic performance in the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers (as well as his cameo in the 70s version). And that led to me remembering a book that I found at Half-Price Books a few years ago.

First published in 1999, They’re Here is a tribute to Invasion of the Body Snatchers, featuring essays about the films and interviews with some of the people involved. For instance, Stephen King and Dean Koontz both write about how seeing the original film influenced their later approach to horror. Jon L. Breen, James Combs, and Fred Blosser write about Jack Finney, the author of the book that served as the basis for the film. Other essays take a look at the remakes that were directed by Philip L. Kaufman and Abel Ferrara. Ferrara is himself interviewed and is as outspoken as ever. Also interviewed is Dana Wynter, who co-starred in the original.

However, the majority of the book is taken up with a terrifically entertaining and informative interview with Kevin McCarthy himself. McCarthy not only talks about filming the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers but also his entire career, his friendship with Montgomery Clift, and his status as pop cultural icon. Sometimes it can be disillusioning to read or listen to an interview in which an icon turns out to be kind of boring (call it the Steven Soderbergh syndrome) but, fortunately, McCarthy comes across as being just as eccentric, intelligent, interesting, and downright lovable as you would hope he would be. Kevin McCarthy, who passed away in 2010 at the age of 96, was one of the great character actors and this interview shows that he was …. wait for it …. quite the character! (Sorry.) The interview is a great tribute not only to McCarthy’s most famous film but also the man himself.

Seriously, if you’re a Body Snatchers fan but just appreciate great character acting, order a copy of this book!

International Horror Review: The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus (dir by Jess Franco)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the small Austrian town of Hoffen, there’s been a murder.

Actually, there’s been more than one murder.  Several women have been killed, stabbed to death by what appears to be an ancient dagger.  The people of Hoffen are convinced that it’s the result of ancient curse, one that states that every male descendant of the original Baron Von Klaus is destined to become a sadistic murderer.  However, there are only two living male descendants.  Max Von Klaus (Howard Vernon, at his decadent best) has an alibi.  Ludwig (Hugo Blanco) wasn’t even in town.  So, if neither Max nor Ludwig committed the murders, then it had to be someone else in town, right?

Or could it be, as the townspeople suspect …. THE ORIGINAL BARON VON KLAUS HAS COME BACK TO LIFE!

Wait …. what?  How stupid are these people?  I mean, I know that small villages are supposed to be a breeding ground of superstition but it seems kind of obvious that it’s probably just some random human serial killer.  Then again, if you believe in a centuries old curse, I guess it’s not that difficult to accept the idea of the dead coming back to life.  I mean, it seems pretty stupid to me but what do I know?

While a police detective and a reporter investigate the crimes, Ludwig is shocked to discover that there’s a torture dungeon in the basement of the Von Klaus castle.  Ludwig is encouraged to be the first member of the Von Klaus family to find the courage the destroy the dungeon and abandon the castle.  Instead, Ludwig finds himself drawn to the dungeon.  Will he be able to resist its musty charms or is he destined to become yet another sadistic Baron von Klaus?

Hmmmm …. a violent and loosely-plotted movie that’s set in a small Austrian village, one that opens with a close-up of two hands playing the piano and which features Howard Vernon as a decadent aristocrat.  Even if you hadn’t already read the title of the review, the plot description alone should be all you would need to hear to know that The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus was a Jess Franco film.

Before he died in 2013, Spanish director Jess Franco was famous for being one of the most prolific directors around.  He’s officially credited with directing 203 films but most sources agree that he was responsible for a lot more.  Franco remains something of a controversial figure.  Many of his films were bad.  Quite a few of them were surprisingly good and atmospheric.  Christopher Lee did several films with him and consistently defended Franco as being an intelligent artist who was often forced to work under less-than-perfect conditions.  Franco was also a member of Orson Welles’s European entourage, with Franco even doing some second unit work on the sublime Chimes at Midnight.  Speaking for myself, I’ve seen plenty of boring Jess Franco films.  But I’ve also seen some surprisingly good ones.  Female Vampire, Faceless, The Awful Dr. Orloff, Nightmares Come At Night, A Virgin Among the Living Dead, all of them are atmospheric, dream-like exercises in cinematic style.

The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus is middle-of-the road Franco.  Despite plot similarities and the presence of Howard Vernon, it’s not as memorable as The Awful Dr. Orloff (which came out the same year) but it’s also clearly put together with more care than some of Franco’s later films.  The plot really doesn’t hang together but that’s to be expected from a Franco film.  For that matter, way too much time is spent with the police inspector and the journalist.  But, visually, the black-and-white cinematography is gorgeous and, as he often did for Franco, Howard Vernon does a great job of epitomizing the decaying aristocracy of Europe.  The film is deliberately paced but Franco does do a good job of creating an feeling of impending doom.  Each scene seems to be leading towards the discovery of a terrible secret, with Hoffen coming to life as a town fueled by superstition and repressed desires.  The scene in which the Von Klaus torture chamber is used is shockingly violent (the film’s title is not kidding about the sadism) but it also highlights the film’s theme about the impossibility of escaping the sins of the past.  Considering that this film was made while Europe was still struggling to rebuild after World War II and when General Franco was still in control of Jess Franco’s native Spain, that was probably intentional on the director’s part.  The Von Klaus curse stands in for the fear that fascism, dictatorship, and war was always destined to rise again.

The Sadistic Baron Von Klaus is not one of Franco’s better-known films but it is one that shows that Franco could make an effective film when he had the time, the money, and the motivation.

Horror Film Review: Piranha (1978, dir by Joe Dante)

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

At the height of the Vietnam War, the U.S. Government came up with a plan that could have changed the course of the war.

What if the government developed gigantic, super-fast, occasionally jumpy piranha?  And what if they set those killer fish loose in the rivers of Vietnam?  Would those fish swim through North Vietnam and take out the VC?  Sadly, the war ended before the government got a chance to test out Operation Razorteeth.  With the war over, the government was stuck with a bunch of killer fish.  Scientist Robert Hoak (Kevin McCarthy) ignored all orders to destroy his mutant fish because they were his life’s work.  (Awwwwwwwww!)  He kept an eye on them and did everything he could to prevent them from getting into the nearby river.

Unfortunately, Dr. Hoak’s best wasn’t good enough.  Because the piranha have gotten loose and now they’re making their way down to the river!  They start out eating skinny dipping teenagers, fisherman, and Keenan Wynn.  (They’re good enough not to eat Wynn’s adorable dog, which I appreciated.)  Further down the river, there’s a summer camp and a water park!  It’s definitely not safe to get back in the water but sadly, that’s what several people insist on doing throughout this film.  Even when the water is full of blood, people will jump in.  (It’s easy to be judgmental but it is a pretty river.  I don’t swim but I honestly wouldn’t mind living near a river that looked that nice.  Instead, I have to make due with a creek.)

Floating down the river on a raft and trying to warn everyone is the unlikely team of Maggie (Heather Menzies) and Paul (Bradford Dillman).  Maggie is a detective who has come to town to track down the two teenage skinny dippers who were eaten at the start of the film.  Paul is a drunk.  Well, technically, Paul is a wilderness guide and he does spend the entire movie wearing the type of plaid shirt that would only be worn by someone who goes camping every weekend but really, Paul’s main personality trait seems to be that he enjoys his booze.  Paul’s daughter is away at the summer camp.  Yes, that’s the same summer camp that’s about to be visited by a school of piranha.  AGCK!

Produced by Roger Corman and obviously designed to capitalize on the monster success of Jaws, Piranha was an early directorial credit for Joe Dante.  Dante would later go on to direct films like The Howling and Gremlins.  Piranha was also an early screenwriting credit for the novelist John Sayles, who would use his paycheck to launch his own directing career.  As a director, Sayles specializes in politically-themed ensemble pieces, which is something you might not guess while watching Piranha.  (Piranha does have an anti-military subplot but then again, it’s a film from the 70s so of course it does.)  Like the best of Corman’s film, Piranha works because it sticks to the basics and it delivers exactly what it promises.  Piranha promises killer fish biting away at anyone dumb enough to get in the water and that’s what it gives us.  As an added bonus, we also get some occasionally witty dialogue and Joe Dante’s energetic, self-aware direction.

As is typical with the films of both Corman and Dante, the cast is full of familiar faces.  Along with Kevin McCarthy as the mad scientist and Keenan Wynn as the eccentric fisherman, Dick Miller shows up as the waterpark owner.  Richard Deacon, who made a career of playing bosses and neighbors on various sitcoms in the 50s and 60s, plays the father of a missing teenager.  Director Paul Bartel plays the head of the summer camp, who may be a jerk but who still heroically jumps in the water to save several campers.  (Bartel’s moment of heroism is one of Piranha’s best scenes and, significantly, it’s played without irony.  You’ll want to cheer for the guy.)  Finally, the great Barbara Steele plays the government scientist who shows up to clean up Operation Razorteeth.

Piranha is simple but entertaining.   Dante’s direction is energetic and, despite the film’s self-referential tone, the killer fish are just savage enough to be scary.  It’s a film that tell us not to get back in the water but which understands that the temptation might just be too strong.