Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
Frogs
(1972)
You can’t really blame Frogs’ producers for their blatant deception. I mean, there are frogs in Frogs, but they alone aren’t the only animals who turn against the various unlikable characters who inhabit the story. In reality, the film should have more accurately been called Traditionally Harmless Animals Who Have Suddenly Decided To Attack People Because Of Pollution, which I will concede would have been a lot harder to market.
The people in question are a bunch of rich assholes who live under the thumb of patriarch Ray Milland and who have gathered together on his private island to celebrate his latest birthday. You know Ray is a bad guy because: a) he’s rich and b) is in a wheelchair, so its only natural that he has no problem keeping the bugs away from his estate with a very eco-unfriendly pesticide. It’s only a matter of time before the local animal population (which admittedly includes a lot of frogs) calls “Bullshit!” on this and starts attacking everyone, including the studly tree-hugging photographer played by Sam Elliot, whose lack of a mustache is eerily discomfiting.
Frogs manages to avoid being as ridiculous as that same year’s Night of the Lepus, but that’s not a good thing. While watching giant bunny rabbits stalking Janet Leigh is just stupid enough to hold your attention, the same can’t be said for people being hunted by normal sized fauna. Despite the goofy promise inherent in its concept and infamous poster, Frogs is just plain dull.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
The best Canadian horror film ever filmed in Wisconsin, The Pit pits adolescent Sammy Snyders against a world that (justifiably) considers him a perverted creep. He gets his revenge thanks to the titular location, which is filled with carnivorous beasts. Genuinely unsettling, the film also features a classic “twist” ending.
Jane Chase, a young American woman going to school in England, convinces anthropology professor Dr. Steven Phillip to take her on as his assistant. When she arrives at his country estate, she finds that it is inhabited by three primates. They include an aging female chimp named Voodoo, a young male chimp named Imp, and an old performing orangutan named Link, who dresses in a butler’s outfit, enjoys lighting his own cigars, and is clearly taken in by the new beautiful blonde in his midst. Unbeknownst to Jane, Dr. Phillip is planning on having Link put down, but the intelligent primate figures this out and decides to take some pre-emptive action. He kills the professor and contrives to keep Jane to himself by disconnecting the phone and pushing their only car off a cliff. Unable to get to town by foot because of the local packs of feral dogs, Jane is forced to confront Link as his behaviour grows more and more uncivilized.
Every fan of “bad” movies will eventually have the experience I had when I sat down to watch Link just a few hours ago. I’ve had it more times than I can count, so I should be used to it, but it still surprises me every single time. What I’m talking about is the shock that comes from finding out that the supposedly terrible film you are watching is actually nowhere near as awful as its supposed to be. In this case, Link is pretty damn good if you ignore one obvious, but not fatal flaw.
Ever since I read Leonard Maltin’s “Bomb” rating in his book of capsule reviews years ago I assumed the worst about Link—an assumption that wasn’t dissuaded by the subsequent reviews I read from genre critics who should have been much more open to the material than the notoriously horror-adverse Maltin.
How then to explain the disconnect between the terrible film they reviewed and the enjoyable film I’ve just seen? I think it comes down to one significant factor—Elisabeth Shue.
I say this because Shue is one of those actresses whose appeal does not seem to cross over generational divides. To Baby Boomers no Oscar nomination will ever eclipse the fact that she shall always be the young frivolous blond cipher who starred in Adventures in Babysitting, while to folks my age (Generation X represent!) no Oscar nomination will ever eclipse the fact that she shall always be the hot, gorgeous awesome blond who made us feel funny in our pants when she starred in Adventures in Babysitting.
Link pre-dates her most famous starring role, but my inherent affection for her allowed me to sympathize with her character to a far larger degree than L.A. Morse, for example, who suggested in a short review from his classic Video Trash & Treasures that her performance is easily outshined by that of her orangutan co-star. (In the same review Morse also accuses the film of mistakenly referring to Link as being a chimp, but if any such reference in the film actually occurs, I missed it).
Morse also accuses the film of merely replicating the standard hot-girl-threatened-by-a-maniac premise rather than transcending it, which is another explanation why I enjoyed the film far more than its past critics. I’m perfectly happy watching the ritual of horror clichés followed with religious fervor, so long as the results are entertaining.
Another major factor for my appreciation of Link is one I touched upon in my review of Sssssss from a few weeks ago. Horror movies about animals are only ever as creepy as our own personal distaste for the animals they feature allow. In my case, I am genuinely unnerved by primates. Whenever I see one in a scene with a human actor I feel genuine tension, not because of what is happening onscreen, but because I know that if that “adorable” animal suddenly wanted to, it could seriously injure it’s co-stars in a matter of seconds. This terrifying reality is perfectly expressed in an anecdote the professor shares with Jane during dinner:
Part of Link‘s overall theme is how easy it is to forget how truly unpredictable and fiercely dangerous primates are, simply because of how much they remind us of ourselves. But once you know the truth—like the fact that their adorable “smiles” are actually fear grimaces whose bared teeth are meant to frighten you away rather than indicate you should go in for a hug—its hard to see the cuteness. (I especially love the film’s ending, in which Jane and her injured boyfriend drive away from the burned out husk of an estate and drive by baby chimp, Imp, along the way. Jane’s boyfriend understandably doesn’t want the animal anywhere near him after what he’s just been though, but Jane insists that, “He’s just a baby,” and therefore completely safe. Her delusion is made evident as the camera films the car driving away and reveals a field filled with freshly slaughtered sheep.)
Link worked as well as it did for me because its whole premise is built upon upending the likes of Every Which Way But Loose and Going Ape! or any other film based on presenting apes as just another pet. It helps that it was directed by Richard Franklin, the late Australian Hitchcock acolyte who previously collaborated with screenwriter Everett De Roche on the Ozploitation classics Patrick and Road Games. Watching the film today, much of the fun comes from Franklin’s inventive camera moves and clever shots, which do make you think about what his mentor might have done with similarly loopy material. (It's probably not a coincidence that my favourite scene in the film is the one where Link creeps Jane out by taking off his suit and staring at her while she attempts to have a bath--its overtly sexual overtones are so perverse its clear Hitchcock would have loved it.)
That said, there is a major aspect of Link that does keep it from being better than it is, and that’s Jerry Goldsmith’s terrible score. While it makes sense to play on the comic cuteness of the apes early on in the picture, Goldsmith refuses to drop the comic motif once the cuteness is revealed to be a façade. Rather than give us the kind of classic horror score these scenes deserve, he instead gives us something better suited for the likes of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice or a comic mystery like Jonathan Lynn’s Clue. Were I not more invested in the film, I could easily see myself being taken out of it for this reason.
I suspect I might be overselling the film, since mine is so clearly the minority view, but Link is nowhere near the disaster its reputation suggests it is. Replace the orangutan with a human assailant and I believe it would still make for an entertaining 100 minutes. The fact that it’s got an ape in a butler suit instead just makes it that much better.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
Ruby
(1977)
According to my trusty Leonard Maltin iPhone app director Curtis Harrington was so disappointed with one version of his 1977 film, Ruby, he insisted on it being given the infamous Alan Smithee credit once used by filmmakers who felt their artistic vision had been so catastrophically usurped they could not allow to have their name attached to a project, lest it negatively affect their career and reputation.
But having just sat through the unmolested director’s cut for which he took full credit, I’m having difficulty imagining how much worse that other version could have been for Harrington to not want to be associated with it. I say this because the film I watched is so relentlessly mediocre, it’s hard to figure out how it could ever be edited into an outright Smithee-worthy disaster. As is, Ruby simply doesn’t take enough risks to ever be that bad.
Pointlessly set in 1951 (a fact easily forgotten given how little effort is made to convincingly convey the period), Ruby is a supernatural gangster revenge thriller with a mute teenage girl thrown into the mix just so the producers could throw Exorcist and Omen references into the trailer. A post-Carrie Piper Laurie looks fabulous as the title character—a washed up singer/moll who runs a drive-in 16 years after the father of her daughter was gunned down by the other members of his gang—but overplays the part to the precipice of campy embarrassment.
Unfortunately, there isn’t enough of Laurie’s performance to turn the film into a so-bad-it’s-good classic a laMommie Dearest. Instead, Ruby is the least satisfying kind of bad film there is—a dull, unimaginative one.
Which is something even Alan Smithee would be ashamed of.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
Howard plays a nerdy student at a military school who’s bullied by 28 year-old That 70s Show dad, Stark. Using a home computer, Howard joins forces with the spirit of Bull from Night Court and gets his revenge. The moral of the story is: Never mess with a geek’s puppy.
Late at night a carnie named Kogen arrives at the home of famous herpetologist Dr. Carl Stoner to pick up a mysterious package that appears to contain some large, unseen animal. The next day Stoner visits Dr. Daniels, the chairman of the university’s zoological department. He’s come to request an extension on his research grant and to find someone to replace Tim, his student assistant who appears to have taken off without notice. Daniels can’t guarantee the grant, but he does recommend David Blake for the assistant position. David eagerly accepts and drives with Stoner to his isolated house and its basement laboratory. There he meets Kristina, Stoner’s attractive daughter, who’s surprised to learn of Tim’s unexplained disappearance. After showing David his impressive collection of snakes, including a black mamba and king cobra, Stoner gives him an injection he says is meant to protect him from venomous bites. Over the following weeks, David and Kristina start falling in love—a development her father strong disapproves of. David starts showing strange physical changes that the doctor insists are normal reactions to the injections, but the truth of what’s happening to him can be found at the freak show of a local carnival, where the half-man, half-snake is far more realistic than nature would ever allow. The depth of Stoner’s madness is proven when he sneaks into the room of a local football hero and slips the black mamba into the jock’s shower in order to get revenge for the death of his beloved pet python. On the final day of David’s transformation, Stoner sends Kristina away on a wild goose chase so he can attend to the creation of the first snake with a human mind. Doing this also requires that he feed Dr. Daniels to a large snake in his storm cellar. Unlike Tim, David’s metamorphosis proves successful and Stoner chooses to celebrate by gloating about his achievement to his king cobra, which ends with him being repeatedly bitten. Kristina finds her father dead in their backyard, and—having learned about what happened to Tim—realizes that the new king cobra in their lab is her boyfriend who—as the movie ends—is threatened by both an attacking mongoose and the gun of the local sheriff.
Sssssss was the first movie made by the famous producing team of Richard D. Zanuck and David Brown. The two of them first worked together as executives at 20th Century Fox, the studio founded by Zanuck’s legendary father, Darryl. As far as cult film fans are concerned their most important achievements during this period were Planet of the Apes, Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, and the infamous WWTTM (What Were They Thinking? Movie) disaster, Myra Breckenridge. As independent producers they wouldn’t hit the big time until two years after Sssssss, when they helped changed cinema forever with another scary animal movie—Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.
Watching Sssssss (which earns my personal nomination for worst movie title of all time) it’s hard to see just why they chose to set their shingle on this particular property, which suffers from the same conceptual flaw most animal related horror films cannot overcome. The logic behind these films is that by exploiting people’s natural phobias of frightening animals, you have to expend little effort in crafting an effective horror movie. Since many people are terrified by the mere sight of snakes, making a movie that features a lot of them is guaranteed to thrill. Right?
But this all falls apart when you realize that the kind of person who suffers from the sort of antipathy that makes it difficult for them to even look at a snake or spider or rat, is most probably not going to pay to do so in a movie theater. Tickets will instead be bought by folks who have no problem with such animals and who feel no tension when they appear safely on a movie screen (as opposed to directly in front of them).
I’m not afraid of snakes. Would I object if a rattlesnake showed up in the middle of my bed? Of course, but if you told me I could approach a large python or an adorable chimpanzee, I’d pick the snake every single time. Once you’ve done the right reading, you know that most snakes would rather just ignore you, while a primate will straight out fuck you up. Just ask that woman Oprah interviewed who had her face bit off.
Because of this, for me the horror of Sssssss (I mean, really! Can you think of a worse title?) depends entirely on the element of the mad scientist and his victim and in that direction the film veers away from terror and instead into pathos. Much of this can be blamed on what is actually the film’s most successful element—Strother Martin’s performance as Dr. Stoner.
In playing the insane snake doctor, Martin chose to avoid all of the usual clichés. Instead of being a cackling, insane, egomaniac, he’s instead a quiet, humble, idealist who genuinely believes his crackpot experiment will change the world for the better. Not only do we like him, we sympathize with him. Even when he kills the football player, the script so clearly stacks the deck in his moral favour (the jock killed his pet snake in self defense while he was trying to break into Kristina’s room to rape her) that it’s almost impossible to fault him for it. It’s only at the very end where he becomes the outright villain most other films would have shown from the very beginning.
And as interesting as this is, it upsets the balance of David and Kristina’s story. Played by Dirk Benedict and Heather Menzies, they’re a very appealing couple, but the horror of his eventual transformation is affected by our inability to fault her father until the very end. Rather than a horrific act that defies nature, David’s fate instead seems sadly melodramatic—no different than if he had cancer or some other fatal disease. Instead of thinking “Holy shit, he’s totally turning into a snake!” we spend the movie worrying about how hard it’s going to be on Kristina, “She really seems to like him.”
So you can chalk Sssssss as another movie that fails for many of the reasons it succeeds. If we didn’t care about the characters, chances are the horror elements might have stuck out more. As it is the quality of the main performances do more to highlight the film’s problems than disguise them. This includes the odd decision to obscure nudity by literally painting vegetation onto the frame (which—according to the IMDb—appears only in the home video version for unexplained reasons), the ridiculous death of Dr. Daniels (who appears to have been completely devoured by the snake in a matter of hours, which even I know wouldn’t be possible), the hilarious final transformation scene, and the whole football player subplot, which seems to have been added just to give Dr. Stoner something evil to do before the climax.
I’d actually be okay with all of this if the film didn’t completely fuck up its ending. Clearly the film originally ended with snake-David being killed, but that's the kind of thing that never survives audience testing. So, instead the film ends with Kristina screaming while her snake-boyfriend’s fate is in limbo (for about three seconds at least). My problem is that I actually think the film would have been far creepier if it allowed David to live and we watched as Kristina was left to decide what to do with a boyfriend who is now a venomous king cobra. More than anything I like this because it would have allowed for a sequel in which the situation has driven her mad and she uses her deadly reptile lover to kill all of the folks who refused to recognize her father’s brilliance.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
Warlock: The Armageddon
(1993)
Watching this sequel to 1991’s Warlock, I started to wonder if maybe a young Michael Bay had seen it before he debuted with Bad Boys in 1995. The third film by second-generation director Anthony Hickox (whose father, Douglas, directed one of my all-time favs, Theatre of Blood), this second entry in the Warlock mythos not only shares a title with one of Bay’s films, but displays all of the same stylistic hallmarks that have made Bay both one of the most hated and successful filmmakers of his generation.
Filled with pointless close-ups shot at strange angles, hilariously dramatic pull-ins and a complete sacrifice of character in favor of constant momentum, Warlock: The Armageddon, like most of Bay’s films, plays less like an actual movie than an abridged version of one with all of the potentially boring bits cut out.
And that is so not a bad thing.
For those of you concerned about the plot, the film features a returning Julian Sands as the titular villain, an antichrist who rises in anticipation of a long-awaited lunar eclipse and who must find a collection of ancient stones in order to help his father, Satan, escape from Hell and take over the living world. Stopping him are Chris Young (TV’s Max Headroom) and Paula Marshall (who you know from a dozen cancelled shows—and my dreams), the youngest descendents of a tribe of California druids, whose deaths and subsequent resurrections make them the only warriors powerful enough to halt Sands in his tracks.
More goofy than scary, the film features a lot of dated effects, but is made highly watchable thanks to the game cast and Hickox’s stubborn refusal to give you enough time to dwell on the film’s many absurdities and enormous plot holes.
Consider it a film for those of you who wish a certain “director” would stop wasting his “talents” on racist toy robot movies and get back to the gloriously stupid basics.
New kid David learns a lot during his first day at Central High. It turns out the small school is run with an iron first by a quartet of rich male students, including his old friend Mark, who just happens to be dating Teresa, the very pretty girl David immediately takes a liking to. Mark tries to get David into the exclusive clique, but David refuses to associate himself with such overt bullies. His impatience reaches its boiling point when he catches them (without Mark) trying to rape two female students. He beats the snot out of them, and—in retaliation—they drop a car on his leg. Once a dedicated runner, David is now left with a permanent limp. He gets his revenge by arranging fatal accidents for his three assailants. At first, the students at Central High enjoy their newfound freedom from the clique’s tyranny, but as that freedom turns to chaos, the various factions try to convince David to help them takeover the school and run it in their image. Realizing he’s merely created more bullies, David begins to systematically murder the new crop of wannabe rulers. With no other way to end this eternal cycle, he decides to blow up the school during the annual Alumni Dance, but when Teresa arrives at the gymnasium and tells him she’s not going to leave, even if it means dying with everyone else, he grabs the bomb and runs outside. It detonates while in his hands, ending the violence once and for all.
Massacre at Central High is a fascinating film. Viewed from every possible angle, it’s an exploitation movie down to its very core. It’s a revenge thriller with creatively planned murders; it has a mega-buttload of impressive explosions; and it features more than its share of gratuitous nudity. Even its title was chosen specifically to capitalize on the popularity of Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Yet for all of its exploitative elements, there’s no getting around the fact that writer/director Renee Daalder (Dutch and male) was trying to do something more ambitious than create another drive-in movie.
One of the reasons I prefer writing about low budget genre film is because I take a lot of pleasure out of mining gold out of areas where others insist it cannot exist. To look beyond the surface and imagine what the filmmakers might have been thinking when they agreed to work on another cheap blood and tits movie. I am not so delusional to not accept that most did so only with “Hey! Great! A paycheck!” in their minds, but—based on my own personal experience as a writer—I also know how hard it is to completely bury one’s own personal pretensions in even the most cynical of creative enterprises. I love the “Bullsh*t” artists come up with to justify their artistic degradation, and I considered it my duty to support their delusions with the kind of self-indulgent analysis typically only reserved for more respected, mainstream material.
In the case of Massacre at Central High, though, I don’t have to expend any effort at all to figure out what Daalder was trying to say in his blood and tits drive-in movie. In fact, it would take far more effort to deny the film's pretensions and dismiss it as just another horror movie. In the case of this film, the question isn’t whether or not subtext exists, but whether or not that subtext allows the film to transcend what might otherwise be some pretty fatal flaws.
Based on plot description alone, the film is a revenge thriller with horror movie elements, but when you actually see it, it becomes clear that its genre elements only exist to appease the producers who financed it. In actual fact, Massacre at Central High is an allegorical film—with blood, explosions, and plenty of tits and ass. Made by a filmmaker who grew up in post-war Europe, it’s a film about fascism whose theme is so explicit the characters actually comment on it (but not in an overt, self-referential post-modern way).
And the thing about allegories is that, as an audience, we allow them more creative leeway than we do more traditional stories. Once we realize that the message of the film is its defining purpose, we become less pre-deposed to judge it as a whole work of art and instead focus on how well it communicates its point.
Because of this, Massacre at Central High gets away with the implausible in ways other less-ambitious genre films couldn’t. We not only accept the tiny student population, the complete absence of adults (until the very last dance sequence), and the unlikely murder scenarios, but actually understand how they work to strengthen the film’s message. What would otherwise be considered budget-related flaws, now seem like deliberate choices made for intelligent reasons.
When I wrote the above synopsis of the film, I actually made several attempts to not give away what it was really about, but—as an allegory—its theme is so directly interwoven into its plot that I couldn’t untangle it. David’s motivation for killing the other students once he’s killed the three who originally hurt him only makes sense in an allegorical context. When Mark confronts him late in the picture, he describes himself as a “psycho madman”, but the film doesn’t abandon him as its protagonist and makes no attempt to condemn him for his actions as he commits them. After he kills himself in order to spare the life of the girl he loves, the film ends with her telling her boyfriend that they’re both going to say he died getting rid of a bomb other (now dead) students hid in the school—making it clear that even in the world of the film only two people will ever know he wasn’t a hero.
So, then, if the film is an allegory, is it a good one? Does it get its point across? Is it intelligently argued? Or is it overtaken by the cheesy self-importance that often dooms such projects?
For the first three points, my personal feelings range from “I dunno,” to, “Probably not.” For an allegory about fascism, I’m not sure what ultimate point I’m supposed to take away from it. It’s clearly bad, but am I also supposed to conclude that it’s impossible to avoid? Each of the different student factions are obviously drawn to represent parts of modern society, including the wealthy, poor, educated, liberal, and middle-classes. All of them are deemed capable of creating their own forms of tyranny, suggesting that true freedom is impossible, which would mean more if the film didn’t also suggest that true freedom leads to anarchy without someone in charge. Thus David’s decision to blow up the whole school represents a clearly nihilistic worldview in which the only solution is the final solution. Of course, he fails to do this for the most romantic of reasons, but the hopelessness of his decision remains. Are we to then read the film as a treatise against armed revolution? If so, does that mean the film thinks David should have given in like everyone else and let the bullies rule Central High? That doesn’t seem likely, which explains my confusion. The point of an allegory is to have a point, which Massacre at Central High may have, but which is the only aspect of its production left at all ambiguous.
(Then again, if you avoid the sexist assumption that the protagonist of the film has to be a male, and view Teresa as its hero--or, at the very least, its moral center--then I suppose there is some hope in the film after all. While never an overt rebel like David, she also isn't afraid to confront abuse of power when she sees it. She's the one who first tries to stop the clique from raping her two friends, and she shows zero interest in the power struggle that follows after they are overthrown. In the end, to stop the madness she proves herself willing to be a martyr, yet understands the importance of David's cause enough to spare him his reputation after his death. I'm still not sure how this works overall, but I find it infinitely more palatable.)
That said, the film still works for me because the very elements that make it an exploitation movie allow it to avoid that trap of cheesy self-importance I mentioned above. The great thing about violence, tits, and explosions is that they go a long way from overcoming self-importance. These necessary elements humble the film, and make it seem much less pretentious than any “art” film about the same subject.
Still, Massacre at Central High is far from perfect. Its biggest flaw is the quality of the actors' performances, which range from passible (at best) to terrible (at worst). The worst offender is Andrew Stevens as Mark, which is ironic considering (apart from Robert Carradine) he would go on to have the most successful career out of anyone associated with the film (albeit mostly as a producer). Its also poorly served by a terrible music score and the strange costume decision to dress Teresa’s Kimberly Beck (who co-starred in Roller Boogie and possessed one of the most amazing bodies of the era) in outfits that look like they were directly stolen from the set of Little House On the Prairie.
Despite this, though, the film works. This was proven to me during the sequence where Teresa tells David she’s going to stay in the gym and die with everyone else. I found her decision genuinely moving and there’s no way that would have happened if I hadn’t invested myself into the story. The same is true of how I felt watching David try to run on his crippled leg in order to get the bomb out of the school on time. I was invested not because I didn't want to see the school blown up, but because I wanted to see him succeed in saving the girl he loves:
And I suppose I could end this here, but there is one great big, giant, white elephant in the room that should be addressed. Namely:
Is Heathers a remake of Massacre at Central High? No, but only because Heathers’creators have resolutely avoided giving any credit to the older film. In terms of actual plot, they are definitely close enough to justify a lawsuit. My understanding is that Massacre is something of an orphaned production (which is why it has never gotten the DVD treatment it deserves) lost in legal limbo, which may explain why no such action has been taken. Either that or maybe some money was exchanged, but never acknowledged.
Even so, Heathers is clearly superior in its execution and overall themes. It avoids being an allegory about fascism and instead serves as one of the best satires of high school life (and society in general) ever made.
Still, a little credit given where it was due would have been nice.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
With Nightmare Sisters, Z-Movie auteur David Decoteau proves what you can do if you film 10-minute masters without any coverage—make a terrible movie very cheaply. Despite this the movie succeeds thanks to the best special effects Decoteau could buy—scream queens Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens, and Michelle Bauer.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
A quadruple amputee (in some scenes, at least) Vietnam war vet is turned into the title character in one of the worst Blaxploitation movies ever made. Directed by Skatetown USA’s William Levey, Black Frankenstein is so cheap it uses "Oh Tannenbaum" as background music during an automobile make out scene.
Because absolutely no one asked for it, I've decided to post the occasional vlog review every now and then. I enjoy making them, even if it's clear no one enjoys watching them. Actually the main reason I threw this one together is because I wanted to test out the 1080p capabilities of my new iPhone 4S. As you can see I clearly need to work out the lighting issues. That said, this was by far the quickest vlog I've ever produced. It only took three and a half hours from the time I got the idea of doing it to having it available on YouTube. First person to comment, "Where did all of that time go?" will make me very, very sad.
At the moment of her greatest triumph, Louise Fletcher delivered a funny, well-prepared speech that ended with a moving tribute to her deaf parents, which she delivered in sign language. You can watch it here, and if you’re anything like me there’s a good chance it will cause a mighty lump to rise in your throat.
But not everyone was as moved by her speech as I was just now. As she headed backstage, Robert Altman—who she considered a friend and who helped resurrect her career a year earlier in Thieves Like Us—was spotted laughing as he cruelly mimicked her sign language gestures.
But Altman’s assholish behaviour wasn’t completely random—he was pissed off at her because he had based the role of a gospel singer with two deaf children who has an affair with a womanizing folk singer in Nashville on Fletcher and her experience as the daughter of deaf parents. Those of you who remember that film know that Lily Tomlin eventually received an Academy Award nomination for the part. The reason Fletcher didn’t play the role—and the reason why Altman felt compelled to act like such a prick that night she won her Oscar—was because she had been offered the role of Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, which was scheduled to shoot at the same time. She picked the right one and Altman never forgave her for it—they never worked together again.
I mention this because it’s a classic example of how very few victories aren’t at least a little bit bittersweet. Even one as close to a fairy tale as Fletcher’s—which saw her spend five years toiling in early 60s television obscurity, before giving up on acting completely for 10 years, and then winning the Oscar 2 years after she returned to the profession. It’s a great story, but not necessarily one with a happily ever after ending.
Following her win, Fletcher signed on to costar in the much-anticipated sequel to one of the most successful films of all time. For a 43 year-old actress who just a few years earlier had been completely out of the industry, this was an amazing development. But fate had something else in mind, because that film turned out to be The Exorcist II: The Heretic—a film so despised upon its release at least one poll at the time suggested it was the second worst film ever made, behind only Plan 9 From Outer Space. (It turns out everyone in the world except me is wrong about this. The Heretic is awesome; it’s the first movie that sucks).
Lacking the glamour that might extend the career of another aging actress, Fletcher never got the chance given to most Oscar winners to star in at least one major Hollywood film. Instead she went on to a career on TV and in B-Movies—some good, a lot bad. B-Movies gave her the chance to play the title role in Mama Dracula, but it turned out that probably wasn’t a good thing.
But things wouldn’t get overly dire until 1987, when she suffered the one-two punch of Grizzly II: The Concert and the subject of today’s post, which takes the prize for the lowest moment of her career mostly because Grizzly II was never finished or officially released. Like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, today’s subject was a literary adaptation, based on a 1979 book written by an author so popular that her heirs chose to hire a ghostwriter to continue writing books under her name after her death in 1986. It’s a gothic tale of familial secrets, cruelty, and incest, starring The Cute Girl with the Robot Brain and Steve Martin’s future ex-wife, and it’s really, really terrible.
I am, of course, talking about:
I’ve never read any entries in the “V.C. Andrews” canon, so I cannot honestly spend any time discussing her contribution to literature. Speaking dishonestly, I know she sucks because the only people I’ve ever seen read her books are…well…I can’t go there without seeming like a snobby asshole, can I?
Still, Flowers in the Attic is such a disaster as a movie it’s hard not to assume that its deepest flaws emanate directly from the source material. For those unfamiliar with either version, I’ll do you the favour of completely spoiling the experience so you need not suffer either.
Kristy Swanson plays Cathy, the eldest daughter of the four blond-haired Dollanganger children. She’s sad because her dad has died and left the family broke and homeless. Their only hope for survival is to move in with her wealthy grandparents, who so disapproved of her parents’ marriage they cut off all contact with them. Olivia (Fletcher) is still so pissed off by what Cathy’s mom (Victoria Tennent) did she insists that the Dollanganger children will not be allowed to roam freely in her home, but will instead spend all of their time silently locked away in their room.
It’s a terrible bargain, but Mrs. Dollanganger it seems has few options. When she does threaten to take the children away from the house, Olivia just laughs and tells her to go ahead. She then whips her to show her who’s boss. The kids' world expands a little when they find a door in their room that leads to the attic, where they entertain themselves with old clothes and toys. Without anyone else to pay attention to Cathy and her brother Chris become closer than siblings probably should be. Then they all start getting sick, and Cory, the youngest boy, dies.
Turns out the reason Olivia is so intent on hiding the kids is because her husband has no idea they exist. Their existence was kept from him because Cathy’s mom and dad were actually brother and sister.
To make matters even creepier, Cathy’s mom is trying to get into her parents’ good books by marrying a suitor who doesn’t share the exact same biological lineage, but he doesn’t know she has kids, which is why she’s been poisoning their food.
It all comes to a head when the three surviving Dollanganger kids escape, crash their mom’s wedding and confront her for her crimes against them. Cathy tries to force her mom to eat one of the poisoned cookies, which leads to a moment of such incompetent cinematic hilarity my words cannot do it justice:
Flowers in the Attic is so overwrought, laughable, and just plain wrong that it seems doomed from its very conception. Perhaps a more talented filmmaker than the man who gave us Blood Beach might have been able to do a better job, but that’s pure speculation. What we do have is a film that fails on every level, with one of the worst performances given by the sole Oscar winner in its cast. As Olivia, the sadistic grandmother, it’s hard not to see and hear Nurse Ratched in her every utterance and gesture. Only this time, she’s awful. It truly is a testament to the power the screenplay, director and editor have in shaping a performance. Is it possible that somewhere there is footage from Cuckoo’s Nest where she is just as horrible as she is here? Probably not, but it does prove that a lot more goes into an Oscar-winning performance than the work of the one actor.
Following Flowers in the Attic, Fletcher’s career has consisted of bit roles in movies and guest turns on TV. All in all, hers has been a decent career, but not one anyone seems interested in invigorating or giving a great final act.
Speaking of final acts, next week we take a look at a fine actress whose last years were spent making some pretty terrible movies.
