Horror on the Lens: Raiders of the Living Dead (dir by Samuel M. Sherman and Brett Piper)

Posted on October 1, 2019 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Hi there and welcome to October! This is our favorite time of the year here at the Shattered Lens because October is horror month. For the past three years, we have celebrated every October by reviewing and showing some of our favorite horror movies, shows, books, and music. That’s a tradition that I’m looking forward to helping to continue this year.

Let’s start things off with the 1986 epic, Raiders of the Living Dead!

I reviewed this film last year but to recap, it’s the story of a creepy boy, a laser gun, a reporter, and a bunch of zombies. There’s a mad scientist involved, too. There always is. The movie opens with a truck being hijacked and then the action shifts to a power plant and, honestly, I have no idea what any of it means. Technically, Raiders of the Living Dead is not exactly a good film but it is a film unlike any other that you’ve seen. If nothing else, it’s a film that you watch and you can’t help but admire the fact that it somehow got made and went on to find a small but kind of appreciative cult audience. It’s just a very strange film and a good one to start October with, no?

Plus, it has got the greatest zombie-centric theme song ever! The opening credits alone are worth the price of admission (which, incidentally, is free because those of us at the Shattered Lens love you!)

So, here is Raiders of the Living Dead.

Enjoy!

The TSL’s Horror Grindhouse: Raiders of the Living Dead (dir by Samuel M. Sherman and Brett Piper)

Posted on October 7, 2018 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Wow, were to even begin?

The 1986 film Raiders Of The Living Dead is not an easy movie to describe. It’s a film that somehow manages mix terrorists, zombies, journalists, movie theaters, a sociopathic kid who somehow invents a death ray, and the Three Stooges. If that makes it sound like something you want to see …. well, good. You should see this movie, just so you can say that you’ve had the experience.

On the plus side, Raiders of the Living Dead opens with one of the most brilliant songs that I’ve ever heard. Seriously, take a listen and then ask yourself why Olivia Cooke was covering Bob Dylan in Life Itself instead of this song:

So, I know what you’re asking. “What’s this movie about?”

I’m not really sure. Here’s what I can tell you.

The movie opens with a truck apparently being hijacked. At least, I think it was a hijacking. A guy jumped in a truck and drove off with it and then some police cars started following him down a country road so I’m going to assume that some sort of law was broken. Anyway, the truck gets away because a dump truck pulls in front of the police cars. The dump truck driver isn’t an accomplice or anything. He’s just having engine trouble. I guess the cops just decided they had wasted enough time chasing the other truck so they decided to just sit around and watch the dump truck driver work on his engine.

Suddenly, we’re in a nuclear power plant! Oh my God, a terrorist is trying to blow the place up! That will lead to an environmental catastrophe and …. oh never mind. Two SWAT guys just showed up and shot the terrorist with a taser and then the terrorist stumbled into a circuit box and got electrocuted so I guess that’s a god thing.

Now, I’m not sure how either of these scenes are connected to the rest of the film. In fact, we soon abandon the nuclear power plant so that we can send time with Jonathan (Scott Schwartz, the same kind who got his tongue stuck to the flag pole in A Christmas Story) and his grandfather, Dr. Corstairs (Robert Allen). Dr Corstairs is having trouble with whatever the 80s equivalent of a DVD player is and he gives it Jonathan to see if he can fix it. Somehow, Jonathan turns it into a death ray and accidentally atomizes his pet hamster. Jonathan never seems to be too upset over killing his pet, which leads me to suspect that Jonathan is a sociopath.

Meanwhile, there’s a reporter named Morgan (Robert Deveau), who drags his girlfriend with him to an old farmhouse in the middle of the night. He says that he’s investigating something for a story but I think he just has a thing for farmhouses. Anyway, they get attacked by zombies. Morgan escapes. His girlfriend doesn’t. Morgan never seems to be too upset about it, proving that Morgan is as much of a sociopath as Jonathan.

Anyway, Morgan goes into hiding, which in this case means getting a room in a nearby boarding house and looking for clues at the library. He also gets a new girlfriend named Shelley (Donna Asali). They go to a Three Stooges film festival together. They watch a Three Stooges short which means that viewers of Raiders of the Living Dead also have to watch it. This actually happens more than once.

Anyway, it’s all somehow connected to a mad scientist who is creating zombies out in a deserted prison somewhere. I’m not really sure how it all connects and neither is the film. Jonathan’s death ray does kind of play a role in resolving the whole zombie subplot but to be honest, I was so curious about why no one was freaking out about a kid having a death ray that it was sometimes hard to focus on just what exactly was going on at the prison.

So, this is a very strange film. Apparently, it was shot over a lengthy period of time, with footage being shot until the production ran out of money and then filming resuming whenever some more money came in. That probably explains why Raiders of the Living Dead seems to actually be five or six films in one. As bad as the film is, I am going to give it a cautious recommendation just because it’s so damn weird that I think everyone should experience it at least once.

Plus, I love that theme song!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbGYCDACp5w

Cleaning Out The DVR #19: The Awful Truth (dir by Leo McCarey)

Posted on March 14, 2016 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(For those following at home, Lisa is attempting to clean out her DVR by watching and reviewing 38 films by this Friday. Will she make it? Keep following the site to find out!)

First released way back in 1937, The Awful Truth is one of the most delightful comedies that I’ve ever seen. In fact, if I could recommend one movie for you to make an effort to see, it would be The Awful Truth. This is definitely the best film to ever have the word “awful” in the title.

(Speaking of being the best, The Awful Truth is also the rare screwball comedy to receive a nomination for best picture. However, it lost to the far more serious The Life of Emile Zola.)

Jerry (Cary Grant) and Lucy Warner (Irene Dunne) are young, married, stylish, and rich. They seem to have it all but, as the result of Jerry’s lies and a misunderstanding concerning Lucy and her music teacher (Alexander D’Arcy), they end up getting a divorce. Fortunately, they still share a common bond. They both love their dog, Mr. Smith (played by Skippy, the same adorable and incredibly talented dog who played Asta in The Thin Man). Lucy wins custody of Mr. Smith and takes him with her when she moves in with her eccentric Aunt Patsy (Cecil Cunningham).

(It’s not a screwball comedy without an eccentric aunt.)

Jerry, however, has weekly visitation rights with Mr. Smith. It’s during once such visit that Jerry discovers that, with only two months to go before the final divorce decree, Lucy has become engaged to her next door neighbor, Dan (Ralph Bellamy). Dan is from Oklahoma and spends most of his time wistfully talking about tumbleweed, oil, and cattle. He also can’t wait to marry Lucy so that they can both move back to Oklahoma City. Dan is a nice guy but he’s no Cary Grant. (He’s also dominated by his judgmental mother.) Realizing that he still loves Lucy, Jerry wants to reconcile with her but complications and misunderstandings ensue.

(It’s not a screwball comedy without complications and misunderstandings.)

Eventually, in order to prove that he is over Lucy, Jerry starts to date a vacuous heiress, Barbara Vance (a hilariously shallow performance from Molly Lamont). Suddenly, Lucy finds herself in the same situation that Jerry was in with her and Dan. Now, it’s her turn to try to break up Barbara and Jerry…

Meanwhile, the day of the final divorce decree approaches…

There’s a lot of reasons to love The Awful Truth. There’s the snappy dialogue, the physical comedy (at one point, three different men are scurrying around Aunt Patsy’s apartment, two trying to hide from each other and one totally oblivious to everything going on around him), and Leo McCarey’s fast paced direction. There’s Mr. Smith, a dog so talented that even a confirmed cat person like me loved watching his performance. There’s the wonderful supporting turns of Ralph Bellamy and Molly Lamont.

But the main reason to see the film is because of the wonderful chemistry between Cary Grant and Irene Dunne. Grant is so smooth and effortless in his charm that it’s a lot of fun to watch him having to deal with the progressively strange world that he finds himself living in. The Awful Truth works best when Grant simply reacts to all the craziness around him. Grant could do more with one look than most actors could do with a Shakespearean monologue. Meanwhile, Irene Dunne … well, who wouldn’t want to get in a time machine, go back to 1937, and be Irene Dunne for a day? She’s lively, she’s beautiful, she’s witty, she’s classy, and she’s just neurotic enough to be relatable.

The Awful Truth is pure joy. If you haven’t seen it, you’re missing out. If you have seen it, watch it again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0-euBr_vRU