The ABCs of B-Movie Monster Bullsh*t - A is for Atomic

A few months back I entertained the entire Internet with my in-depth look at The ABCs of B-Movie Bullsh*t, and—because I don’t have time to write anything else—I’ve decided to recreate that magic by going back to that well and draining it of every last remaining drop by exploring—wait for it….

The ABCs of B-Movie Monster Bullsh*t!

I think it’s pretty self-explanatory and will let me get through the next month without tossing and turning in bed because I haven’t had time to update the website in weeks. So here goes.

A

is for

Atomic

Once humankind learned how to harness the almighty power of the atom, the world of B-Movie Monster Bullsh*t was never the same. Dracula may want to suck your blood, the wolfman may hunt you at night, and The Mummy might walk really slowly towards you, but none of them were as frightening as what scientists could bring about messing with forces they themselves barely understood.

Faster than you can say, “Allegory!” filmmakers across the globe came up with imaginative ways to discuss the potential dangers of atomic power. Sure, in most cases extreme doses of radiation would likely lead to slow, lingering, extremely painful deaths, but in B-Movies those powerful rays were much more likely to cause mutation. And by mutation we mean, “Shit got bigger!” To that end the world was given The Amazing Colossal Man, War of the Colossal Beast, Them!, Beginning of the End, The Monster That Challenged the World, The Horror of Party Beach, Attack of the Crab Monsters, just to name a small handful.

And then there were the monsters who weren’t created by atomic power, but whose subsequent wrath came about as a direct result of humanity’s introduction to the nuclear age. Everyone remembers Godzilla, but there was also The Giant Behemoth, Gamera and Mothra who wreaked all sorts of crazy havoc.

The message couldn’t have been clearer. Science is bad. The next time you see a nerd with a calculator and slide rule—kick his scrawny ass.

A

is for

Atomic

and

Atomic

is

All Sorts of

Armageddon-y

Rejected By Rod(?): Part Sixteen - A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

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(?)

A Nightmare On Elm Street 2: Freddy's Revenge

(1985)

Jesse (Mark Patton) has been having terrible dreams since his family moved into their new house on Elm St.  Each night he is confronted by Freddy Krueger, the steel-clawed maniac who haunts the dreams of Elm Street’s children, but this time Freddy isn’t looking for a victim, he’s looking for a partner—someone who can set him loose into the real world.  Will Jesse succumb to the dream maniac’s desire to be a real boy or will he be saved by the love of a girl (Kim Myers) who looks a lot like a young Meryl Streep?

If you ever hear a genre fan refer to Freddy’s Revenge as the “gay” Nightmare, don’t immediately dismiss them as one of those tiresome assholes who ignorantly use the term as a synonym for lame.  Truthfully, the movie is pretty lame, but it’s also really, really gay.  That is to say the homosexual subtext of the film (intended or not) is about as subtle as a Tennessee Williams play. 

And that’s not a criticism, since that subtext really is the only thing that significantly sets the film apart from other 80s horror movies.  Directed without much tension or suspense by Jack Sholder (The Hidden), this first sequel to Wes Craven’s landmark original manages to completely forget that as a character Freddy only works as the master of his own dream domain (*cough*).  When you bring him out into everyday reality, as this film does (albeit rather incoherently) it just makes him seem like another run of the mill slasher with a fedora fetish.

B-TV Part Four-B - Another Pink Repost

(By "I will probably repost soon" I actually meant "I'm going to repost immediately. I apologize for the uneven font, but I made the executive decision not to spend four hours correcting Blog-City's dubious code.)

Okay folks, the time has come for me to compose the second of the six posts I bound myself to write when I decided to accept the (totally self-imposed) HOUSE OF GLIB CHALLENGE.  

That’s right….

 It’s Pink Lady time!

 Can you FEEL the pinkness!

 
Today’s episode is interesting, because on the one hand it manages to be even more awful and difficult to watch than its predecessor, while also containing three moments that legitimately made me laugh out loud with appreciative glee rather than mocking derision.  In one case this was a result of an obvious ad-lib, while the remaining two came about as a result of the sheer talent of two poor, beleaguered professionals whose need to make a living denied them the chance to be elsewhere the days this episode was put to videotape.  

This second episode also serves to highlight what I’m afraid might become a recurring problem in the four following episodes—an issue that brings to bear the tricky subject of race and my own peculiar fascination with the tortured lives of those poor folks stuck in the background.

With that prefaced, let us get to it!

Episode Two

 

“It Continues….”

Guest Stars:

Once again the show starts with a short monologue from co-host Jeff Altman and once again the laughter we hear him receive has absolutely nothing in common with the size of the in-studio audience or the actual hilarity of his material.  This time, however, the disparity is that much more disturbing, since we are actually allowed to see the audience in many shots.  Throughout the show one cannot help but feel punk’d by the sound of spontaneous applause occurring over an image of an audience who are clearly not clapping or in anyway amused.

 

During his brief monologue, Altman’s only notable joke comes from a reference he makes to Pink Lady’s Friday timeslot competition The Dukes of Hazzard (upon which he once appeared as Boss Hogg’s even more unscrupulous nephew).  The reason it’s worthy of mentioning is because his joke comes at the expense of Hazzard’s lack of refinement and notorious use of T&A, but only serves to remind the viewer that as terrible as The Dukes of Hazzard was (and even under the thick veil of nostalgia, it sucked pretty damn hard) it never reached this level of artistic atrocity.  

 

 

Fortunately his comedicizing comes to a quick end, as he stops to introduce his titular co-hosts, Mie (who throughout my previous entry I kept mistakenly referring to as Mei) and Kei, who—just as they did in the previous episode—appear in traditional kimonos, which they then remove in order to perform an agonizingly soulless rendition of The Wiz’s “Ease On Down the Road”—a song that was pretty darn awful when Diana Ross sang it, but is ten times more excruciating when performed by two young Japanese girls who have no clue what they are saying.  And as was the case with the previous episode, the haphazard nature of the production becomes most evident when one watches the backup dancers, who are clearly under-rehearsed and struggle to stay in time with both the music and each other.

 

 

The number ends and its now time for what is—for me—the most painful part of any variety show—the scripted banter segment.  But with Pink Lady, of course, these sequences take on an added dimension of horror, since the only thing worse than a performer being forced to deliver a stale joke given to them by a writer so lazy one presumes it has been ten years since they were physically able to leave their house, is when that performer is a clueless Japanese girl who has no idea what she is actually saying.  Watching poor Kei have to ask Jeff how he got off the wedding cake (in reference to his tuxedo) it’s all one can do not to vow to find any man who was even near a typewriter in that studio and give them a wedgie they would never forget, especially since it’s in service of another mildly racist primer on Japanese culture—in this case, a look at various ceremonial robes, which culminates in Jeff being attacked by a supposed samurai in kabuki style makeup.  While he’s being chased around, the girls reintroduce that week’s list of guest stars and we are treated to the admittedly adorable spectacle of Kei saying the name “Teddy Pendergrass.”

 

 

Back from the first commercial break, Altman introduces Larry Hagman, who—one has to remember—was actually a huge star at that time.  Huge enough, in fact, to make one wonder what the hell someone had on him in order to get him to appear on this show.  Again, the scripted banter makes this sequence very difficult to sit through, but Hagman did manage to make me laugh once by quickly ad-libbing, “East Texas,” in response to the audience’s reaction to his use of the word ‘arigato.’  With those two words one glimpses the vast divide between fresh and canned entertainment—by being himself for just one second Hagman entertains more than he does during the entire rest of the show.

 

 

It’s now sketch time, which means Mie and Kei (whose names are considerately sewn onto their outfits) have to dance in front of big fake portable stereo, just like they did the week before.  This time, however, they only introduce two sketches.  The first marks the return of Altman’s preacher character and is only notable because Mie and Kei now have their names sewn onto completely different outfits.  

 

One gets the strange sensation that someone felt

it was difficult to tell them apart.

 
The second sketch is far more memorable since it marks the first appearance of a recurring cast member who will be instantly familiar to most folks of my generation.

 

 

Hey Vern (and Everyone Else), It’s Ernest!

 

 

 

Actually, it’s the late Jim Varney, an actor I always felt never got the credit he deserved largely because of his association with his most famous role.  During his brief appearance here he scores the show’s second genuine chuckle by announcing that Wednesday night at the Bland Ole’ Opry (yeah, I know….) will feature “Readings from Nietzsche.” The sketch then segues into a bland (hmmm….) poke at then-president Jimmy Carter and his kin.  Just like the last episode’s sole attempt at political satire, which was undermined by its strange unwillingness to take its premise to its logical conclusion, this sketch is undone by making the unusual size of Carter’s teeth the focal point of its comedy, even though no attempt has been made to exaggerate the size of Altman’s own choppers.  This sketch also marks the first appearance of the foxy 70s redhead I became infatuated with last episode, but who is never really allowed to be similarly foxy this go around.
 

 

Following some more painful banter (this time about how quickly Mie and Kei are learning English, which like the applause it generates bears no relation to any observable reality), we are now treated to a sketch featuring Sid Caesar that is a) culturally offensive, b) a total rip-off of Belushi’s samurai SNL sketches and c) easily the best thing in the entire show (and quite possible the entire series).  The success of the sketch comes entirely from the hands of Caesar, an old pro who could do crap like this in his sleep.  Unlike Altman, whose pseudo-Japanese invariably sounds contrived and insulting, Caesar has a special genius for faking languages in a way that makes them sound completely credible—to the point that one actually starts to believe that poor Mie and Kei can really understand what he is saying to them.  In truth, the sketch still isn’t very good, but the fact that it made me laugh once (when Caesar asks the girls—in what I suspect was another ad-lib—“You think you Bobby Soxers?”) is more than enough to make it the highlight of the episode.

The sketch then ends and we now come to the part of the episode I have truly been dreading:

 

 

Osmand!

I don’t know about you, but Mormons happen to be the nicest, most polite people who CHILL ME TO MY VERY SOUL (followed closely by Scientologists, natch) and—needless to say—the sight of an early 80s Donny Osmand fills me with more terror than any horror movie I’ve discussed on this blog, but for the sake of this challenge I faced my fear and kept watching.

 

 

Since medley’s are the apparent lifeblood of this show, Donny and the girls start off by singing a bland ditty I’d never heard before.  Donny is then given the spotlight, which he uses to perform an even blander ditty I’ve also never heard before,  Then the three of them reunite to perform an especially soulless rendition of Sister Sledge’s “We Are Family” that a) makes you completely forget that Donny was once able to fool people into thinking he was Michael Jackson when he sang “One Bad Apple” a decade earlier and b) makes you feel especially sorry for the quartet of African-American backup singers who are forced to pretend that they are enjoying their inclusion in this musical desecration.  

 

  

A digression:

I remember once when I was kid watching a New Kids On the Block video that was filmed at a live concert (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) and being taken aback by a moment when a black bassist joined the “Kids” on stage and got funky with them.  The reason this struck me was because I had to wonder what kind of musician could not only get on a stage day after day and perform such patently manufactured music, but also manage to pretend like he enjoyed doing it.  Perhaps, I considered, he wasn’t pretending.  Maybe he did love playing bass for the New Kids and funking out with them on stage, but if that was the case, then how was it possible that he ever became talented enough to be put in that position in the first place?  It seemed to me that any potential musician who could take any joy out of playing “Hanging Tough” would automatically be disqualified from doing so, since the only possible explanation for their elation would be irreversible tone deafness.  

The only theory I could come up with to explain this situation was that in some cases it is possible for a performer to be so entranced by the mere act of performing that they are able to transcend the fact that what they are doing is terrible and enjoy the experience regardless of its merit.  And since it has become my habit to subject myself to projects as misbegotten as Pink Lady I have frequently tried to determine which of the myriad background players are simply pretending not to be in agony and which are actually caught in the grasp of the above condition (which I assume the German’s have named at some point).

Digression ends.

With this song selection, one does see a disconcerting pattern forming.  In the first episode Mie and Kei were compelled to perform “Boogie Wonderland” and “Knock On Wood”, while in this one they are saddled with “Ease On Down the Road” and “We Are Family”, all of which are songs one does not traditionally associate with Japanese performers—for good reason.  Famed more for their dancing than their singing, Mie and Kei have what can be charitably described as slight voices, so this determined focus on bombastic soul hits is clearly another in the growing multitude of bad choices that defined this series.  This is made most evident by the appearance of the show’s last guest performer.

 

 

But before we get to that, Altman and Hagman return in an Art Nuvo sketch that isn’t worth the effort it would take to describe it.  This is followed by an equally unworthy sketch based on Russian ballet star Alexander Godunov’s then-recent defection, in which Sid Caesar abuses all of the good will he earned in the previous sketch.

 

We now cut to Teddy Pendergrass, who is referred to as the show’s “musical guest” even though he eventually does less singing than Osmand.  His performance is notable because he’s joined by the same backing singers we saw earlier, only this time their enthusiasm seems a lot more genuine than it did before and also because it ends with a laughably raunchy number in which he explains to a presumed lover that he “…just want[s them] to do [him]” and which climaxes with about a dozen women rushing the stage.  All of these women are black, which one queasily senses was a choice deliberately made not to offend the kinds of folks to whom the thought of a white woman showing open admiration for a black man was a capital offense.

 

 

For the last ten minutes of the show, everyone is thrown together in a musical/comedy montage similar to the tribute to Hollywood that aired the week before.  This time the theme is New York, where Mie and Kei (again wearing clothing with their names stitched on it) are the tourists and their guest stars are the assholes they meet during their travels.  Donny sings “42 Street”, Teddy sings “On Broadway” and Sid and Larry embarrass themselves in a sketch whose entire premise is “Guys Sure Do Like Them Strippers”.

With that the show comes to a merciful end and we are yet again treated to the sight of Mie and Kei in skimpy bikinis dragging Jeff into a hot tub, which this time is not filled with a naked sumo wrestler, but all of our co-stars save Mr. Osmand (who—one suspects—wussed out for specious religious reasons).

 

I'll let you enjoy this last moment for yourself:

 

 

So that brings us to the end of this second of the six HOUSE OF GLIB CHALLENGES.  I hope it was a lot less painful for you than it was for me.  Please join us sometime in the unspecified future when we'll reach the halfway point of the challenge and come face to face with this:

 

 

Oddly enough, I'm kinda lookin' forward to it....

(But you shouldn't because it's never going to be written!)

B-TV Part Four - Pink Repost

(This was one of my favourite pieces I ever wrote for the old House of Glib and I thought I'd repost it rather than write whatever lame bullshit I'd come up with in the 3 hours before I have to go to work. At the end there's the promise of future updates in the series. There's one more I did write that I probably will repost soon, but don't wait for anymore after that. Ain't gonna happen.)

The thing about being in last place is that it allows you to take risks you would never even consider if you were winning the race.  After all, what do you have to lose?  If your risk succeeds, then you've made yourself a winner, and if it fails, you're no worse off than you were in the first place.

 

In 1980 Fred Silverman had been the president of the last place National Broadcasting Company (NBC) for two years--a position he had earned thanks to his reputation as a man who could work miracles for any network he worked for.  During his tenure at the Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS), he had moved the network away from its core of rural comedies (Mayberry R.F.D, Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies and Hee-Haw) and transformed it into the home of much more sophisticated comedies such as  All in the Family, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, The Bob Newhart Show and M*A*S*H.  At the American Broadcasting Company (ABC) he inherited an ailing Happy Days and not only turned it into a top-rated hit, but built on its success with the popular spin-offs Laverne and Shirley and Mork and Mindy.  He also gave the greenlight to such future hits as Barney Miller, Fantasy Island. Three's Company and Charlie's Angels, taking the network from last to first place.

 

Now it was his turn to revive NBC, but unfortunately the magic he once seemed to have possessed appeared to have finally run out.  Instead of putting out hits, he gave the world Supertrain, B.J. and the Bear and Hello Larry.  Apart from such nominal successes such as Diff'rent Strokes and its spin-off The Facts of Life, the Peacock network's schedule was such a black hole that it had taken to airing Saturday Night Live reruns on Friday nights in place of original programming.  If this wasn't the time to start taking some risks, then what was?

 

Enter the duo of two Canadian-born Greek brothers who had a contractual commitment to deliver a new variety show to Silverman's network.  Sid and Marty Krofft had made their fortune as the creators of a series of imaginative Saturday morning TV shows that took full advantage of their background in puppetry.  After beginning their producing careers with the cult classic H.R. Pufnstuf in 1969, they spent the first part of the decade entertaining children before finally deciding to move on to prime time fare with the Osmand siblings' 1976 variety show, Donny and Marie.  Unfortunately they followed this success with one of TV's most infamous debacles, 1977s The Brady Bunch Hour--a legendary flop in which the fictional Brady family moved away from their suburban home to Hollywood, so they could host their own truly terrible variety show.  Not quite as infamous, but equally lamentable was their attempt to turn a group of Scottish one hit wonders into TV stars with 1978s The Bay City Rollers Show--a series derailed by a) the group's utter lack of comedic (and musical) talent, b) accents so thick they made their poorly delivered punchlines completely unintelligible and c) its being filmed after the highly-acrimonious group had essentially split up and were no longer speaking to each other.   Despite these failures, the Krofft's were determined to hold onto their new variety show niche and in 1980 they delivered to NBC not one, but two such efforts.

 

(Now, those of you who have some clue where I'm going with this already know I'm not about to start talking about Barbara Mandrell and the Mandrell Sisters....)

 

In the beginning, the Krofft's considered Hee-Haw's Roy Clark as a potential host and then very briefly considered The Village People, before being told that NBC had made a deal with a Japanese company involving the cross-promotion of their various entertainment projects.  As part of that deal, NBC was obligated to air six hours of content featuring a property owned by the Japanese company.  Among these potential properties was a megasuccessful female singing duo who had sold over 100,000,000 albums in Japan since 1976 and who had just made their first attempt to break into the North American market with the minor hit single  "Kiss in the Dark" (which peaked at #37 on the Billboard Top 40).

 

Silverman and his fellow executives were too beaten to care how they met their Japanese obligation and their foreign counterparts desperately wanted to counteract the duo's waning popularity at home by making them superstars in North America, so the Krofft's were told that they could meet their final commitment to the beleaguered network by producing six episodes of a variety show starring the duo and the two brothers--happy to have the difficult decision taken out of their hands--agreed.

 

And thus Pink Lady was born.

 

 

To direct the series' "comedy" segments, the Kroffts hired frequent Mel Brooks collaborator Rudy De Luca, who would later go on to write and direct Transylvania 6-5000, a 1985 horror movie satire only remembered today because it featured a young Geena Davis in an ultra-fetching vampiress costume three years before she won the Oscar for The Accidental Tourist.  To handle the writing of the show, they turned to Mark Evanier, who had worked on the lamentable Bay City Rollers show and who would go on to earn comic book immortality thanks to his collaborative efforts with Sergio Aragones on Groo the Wanderer.

 

Knowing that they would need a western face to absorb the potential culture shock of a network show hosted by two Japanese woman, they hired a 29 year-old comedian who had a development contract with NBC at that time--Jeff Altman.  In later interviews, Altman would (only half-jokingly) suggest that he got the job because his last name started with an "A" and was therefore at the top of the list of comedians who had similar deals with the network.

 

Unfortunately for the behind the scenes talent, the extremely tight schedule of their foreign stars did not allow them to meet or rehearse with the duo until the day before the pilot episode was scheduled to be shot.  It was only then that they learned the two details that ensured the entire project had been doomed from conception.  Despite the constant assurances to the contrary, Mitsuyo Nemoto (aka Mie) and Keiko Masuda (aka Kei) were not fluent in English.  Though they could engage in extremely limited conversation, they definitely did not speak the language well enough to host a North American TV show.  To make matters worse, it was clear that neither one of them wanted to have anything to do with the show and were doing it out of contractual obligation rather than professional desire.

 

The end result was an infamous trainwreck that is rightfully considered one of the worst TV shows of all time; one that remains as perhaps the best example of a "What Were They Thinking?" failure that era ever produced.

 

Six episodes were filmed in total, all of which are available on DVD (the show's lamentable reputation having grown large enough over the years for it to become a desirable collectible for all lovers of show business kitsch) and all of which I now have in my possession.  For reasons I still don't quite yet understand myself, I have decided to review each one of these six episodes--a task that will no doubt require a Herculian amount of will and endurance.  Enough so that I have chosen to name the endeavor the very first:

 

House of Glib Challange!

 

Today I shall begin with the pilot episode mentioned above.  Having just watched it and listened to this Realaudio interview with Mark Evanier, in which he implies that it rose to a level of success the others could not meet, I truly understand what a painful and agonizing task I have set for myself.  I sincerely hope that the end results justify whatever pain I will surely experience.

 

Episode One
"It Begins...."

Guest Stars:

Sherman Hemsley

Bert Parks

and

Blondie

 

 

The credits begin with shots of a stadium full of people, all of them presumably there to worship our lovely young hosts.  Mie and Kei are shown waving to their hoards of adoring fans as they drive to their stage in the backs of separate convertibles (because sharing one would be so gauche!)--pink chyrons informing us who these presumably famous women actually are.  This is followed by a credit shot for Altman and then, oddly, another one for our titular hosts--a move that essentially gives them both first and third billing.  My guess is that they did this to remind the less capable viewers who weren't paying attention five seconds earlier that the two Japanese girls actually are supposed to be the stars of the show.  The credits continue, giving us a chilling look at the next 46 minutes of our lives.

 

 

Altman comes out alone--the ovation he receives baring no possible relation to the amount of people sitting in the theater.  Despite there being at most 100 people hijacked tourists annoyed that they couldn't get in to see a good show surrounding the stage (and I'm being generous with that figure) the sound we hear is equivalent to the applause and cheers of a packed auditorium.  The same aural disconnect is evident as Altman begins his monologue and is met by laughter that is far too powerful for both that amount of people and the actual quality of the jokes.  As a stand-up, Altman has always been more of a character comedian--relying on impressions and funny voices for his laughs--so he seems visibly uncomfortable as he tells a series of sub-sub-Carson one liners and only seems happy after pulling off an out-of-place pratfall.  Following his slapschtick, he goes on to introduce his co-hosts, explaining to the audience that despite their relative anonymity in North America, they are HUGE in Japan.  He proves it by showing the exact same stadium footage we were treated to in the credits three and a half minutes earlier.  The subtext might as well be text--THESE GIRLS ARE SUPERFAMOUS, so it doesn't really matter if you have no fucking clue who they are.  Altman informs us that Mie and Kei are going to begin the show by performing "...what I've been told is a traditional Japanese number," and the two of them come out in ornate kimonos, which--following a brief Japanese-language intro--they tear off to reveal glittery pink gowns as they begin singing their version of Earth, Wind and Fire's disco classic "Boogie Wonderland".

 

Now is as good time as any to discuss Pink Lady's musical abilities--they're not terrible, but one cannot help but assume that they're much, much better when performing in their own language.  Though their version lacks the funky beauty of the original, it is fun in a goofy karaoke kind of way.  Unfortunately the same could not be said for the dancing that accompanies it.

 

In his interview, Evanier tells us that the only time the ultra-professional duo ever got mad during the whole ordeal was when they felt they weren't given enough time to perfect their dance moves.  Having much more pride in their dancing ability than their singing, they worried that the scant rehearsal time they were given was making them look bad and they had a point.  Not only do their movements seem under-rehearsed, but so do those of their back-up chorus, whose out-of-sync mistakes the camera completely fails not to highlight at every opportunity.

 

 

Their first number having come to its inevitable conclusion, it's finally time to see how Pink Lady fare in the non-lip-syncing portion of the show.  It's at this point that you actually start feeling some empathy and affection for our embattled heroines as you imagine how you would do if you were asked to attempt to get laughs via a phonetically memorized script written in a language you don't understand that's filled with specific cultural references and attitudes that bear no relation to your life experience.  By that standard, Mie and Kei actually do an admirable job, although it certainly helps that they are both far more adorable than you or I will ever be (no offense, but it's totally true).  From the very beginning it becomes clear that the writers are following the mold of past variety hits such as The Sonny and Cher Show and Donny and Marie, by attempting to give each host their own distinctive personality.  Mie is the polite, hospitable one, Altman is the stooge who's constantly trying to make himself seem more successful than he actually is and Kei is the sarcastic bee-yotch who isn't afraid to put her male co-host in his proper place.

Naturally, this instantly makes Kei our favourite.

Despite their best efforts, the trio's success is severely hampered by the quality of their material, which seems as though it would have appeared dated even when it first aired, much less 27 years later.  One of the more cringe-worthy elements of the show are the constant Japanese references, which err on the wrong side of insulting stereotype.  At the end of their banter, the girls introduce Altman to their "bodyguardo", a fat guy posing as a sumo wrestler wearing a much-more network-friendly version of the traditional mawashi.  

 

Click to Enlarge

 

After returning from what was presumably a much-welcome commercial break, Mie and Kei start singing a song in front of a set designed to look like a large portable stereo (with a blue-screened image of a real stereo used in the long shots).  It's hard to tell, but it appears the song has something to do with the kind of things you are likely to hear on the radio and is merely a ruse to connect together a series of random and universally unfunny blackout sketches, all of which seem to be designed to showcase Altman's character skills.  The first sketch has him portraying a radio evangelist, but any potential satire of such folks is dutifully avoided so as not to alienate the Southern folk who might not see the humour in such mockery.  The second features Leonard Moon, the punch-drunk boxer who regularly appeared in Altman's stand up work.  Beyond that it's only noteworthy for featuring a foxy 70s redhead in a slinky dress (for absolutely no discernible reason besides the fact that such creatures are admittedly fascinating to behold) and this itself is only noteworthy because when you search the credits to find out who the redhead is, you discover that none of the featured sketch performers are identified by name, which you suspect they were mad about when the show was made, but a lot less so when it actually aired. 

 

But it is the final sketch that disappoints the most, simply because it is the only one that actually had any potential.  In it Altman dances on stage doing his passable Nixon impression (which admittedly he's doing at a time when everyone--including the five year old version of me who was alive when the show was made--could do a passable Nixon impression) as the announcer--also Altman--tells us that the disgraced former president is traveling around the country as the lead singer of The Richard Nixon Soul Review.  Not a brilliant or particularly insightful concept to be sure, but still one that could be funny if done right.  Unfortunately the sketch ends just when it should begin, stopping short of actually showing us Tricky Dick giving us his Motown best.  That the show squanders the lone idea that actually might have been successful pretty much sums up the entire state of the whole enterprise.

 

Click to Enlarge

 

Now it's time for one of the promised guest stars to finally appear.  In this case it's the star of the TV classic The Jeffersons:

 

Sherman Hemsley! 

 

Yeah....

 

Actually I have to admit that I've developed a certain fascination with the actor ever since I saw him in one the more recent iterations of The Surreal Life.  Seldom as viewers have we ever gotten to see such a dramatic dichotomy between a performer and his most famous role.  An actor made famous playing a loud, obnoxious blowhard (a character who was in fact designed to be a--much more successful--black Archie Bunker), Hemsley proved himself to be an extremely shy, lonely man who was so softspoken that the few times he did say something, his nearly inaudible words had to be subtitled so we could appreciate them.  This has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand, but I suspect I'm never going to mention him on this blog ever again, so I might as well document my observation while the opportunity presents itself.

 

Hemsley appears in aid of a one-joke sketch that imagines what a USO show would be like if women were drafted into the military.  According to the show's writers it would be exactly like a regular USO show except the comedians would be dames and the sex kittens would be dudes.  Not quite what I would call a dazzling expression of the depths of the human imagination.  The sketch is only significant because a) it's far longer than it has any right to be, b) it features the foxy 70s redhead mentioned above in the role of the female Bob Hope substitute and c) in it (at precisely 18 minutes and 56 seconds into its running time) we are subjected to the show's first sushi joke, which is delivered extremely awkwardly by Kei (it being obvious that both she and her partner are far better at banter than sketch-work).

 

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Back from another sadly nonexistent ad break (this being the rare TV DVD where the lack of commercial interruptions is a bad thing) Altman introduces the girls to their second "special" guest:

  

Bert Parks!

  

Who?

 

Actually, I'm enough of a show business trivia geek to know who Parks is, but--luckily for those folks my age and younger who've never heard of the dude--Altman explains who he is to the girls (he's the guy who hosted the Miss America pageant for 25 years--from 1954-1979).  To the girls' amazement, the elderly gentleman's obvious stunt double tumbles onto the stage with a series of flips before a not-very-cleverly-hidden edit allows Parks to reveal himself to the audience (whose reception is still far-greater than the sum of their numbers).  The necessary banter is exchanged and we cut to another sketch featuring Altman as a fast-talking "Crazy Eddie"-type shilling cultural knock-offs (who also introduces a very short and utterly inexplicable sketch featuring Altman doing a bad Marlon Perkins impression) while the foxy 70s redhead does her best busty showcase model acting in the background. 

 

Having seen the above screencap of the foxy 70s redhead I keep referring to, I suspect several of you are thinking "Dude, she's not that foxy--move on already!"  To which I can only respond by saying:

 

Too late!

 

I am already smitten

 

and

 

I cannot be unsmit!

 

 

 

It finally being time for us to see something that doesn't suck, the show cuts to a video of Blondie performing the fourth track "Shayla" from their 1979 album Eat to the Beat (and anyone who tells you that the only reason I know this is because I just spent the last ten minutes browsing through their catalog on iTunes is a dirty rotten stinking liar who should mind their own beeswax thank you very much!).  Based on a quick peak at the rest of the episodes, it appears as though any musical act that actually had the slightest bit of "heat" in 1980 made their appearances via pre-taped videos that spared them the indignity of interacting with the hosts.  In the case of Cheap Trick, their "appearance" in the third episode is actually just the music video they filmed for "Dream Police" (from the album of the same name).  My guess is that when Ms. Harry and her cohorts filmed the clip, they had no idea where or how it was going to be used.

 

Sucks to be them!

 

Click to Enlarge

 

Back to the actual show, Altman and the girls briefly assault us with a sketch called "The Adventure of the Pink Falcon", which one assumes is a reference to The Pink Panther series, but really only seems to exist to prove that a) Mie looks better in a vinyl jumpsuit than Kei does and b) Altman cannot do a proper Bogart impression to save his or anyone else's life. 

 

Fortunately the sketch is short and cuts to a longer piece in which Altman does a bad Carson impression and interviews the girls--thus allowing them to be identified via chyron for the third time this episode.  Somebody really wants to make sure that we know who these girls are!  Before the sketch ends with a joke whose sole premise is that a comedian performing in Japanese is hee-larious, we are exposed to what amounts to be the most entertaining 13 seconds of the entire show (and probably the entire series):

 

 

 

Click to Enlarge

 

The last desperate volley of sketches comes in the form of a tribute-of-sorts to Hollywood.  Despite his present-day obscurity, one does have to admit that Parks is an old pro and has far more talent than a show like this deserves--his introductory song and dance actually bordering on the right side of charming rather than the more likely cheesy and dated.  Hemsley makes his final appearance in a sketch that takes aim at overtly-political Oscar speeches (take THAT Vanessa Redgrave!) and sign-language captioning for the deaf (take THAT...uh...deaf people....), but that I'm only mentioning because it has foxy 70s redhead in it.  I'd describe the rest of the sketches but this post is already four times longer than I thought it would be, so I'll merely say that they suck harder than yo mama (take THAT yo mama!) and move on to the song and dance medley that ends the show.

  

A song and dance medley ends the show.

 

Following some banter involving Neil Diamond (in which he is not used as a punchline) the girls perform snippets of Carol King's "You've Got A Friend", Fleetwood Mac's "Don't Stop" and Eddie Floyd's "Knock on Wood".  But don't take my word for it, see it for yourself:

 

 

 

Click to Enlarge

 

And--FINALLY!--we reach the end of the show, which Mie and Kei inform Altman means it's time to go into the hot tub!  Our American co-host protests, but the girls change out of their dresses into string bikinis and drag him--tuxedo and all--into the hot tub, where he still protests, but with far less enthusiasm and conviction.  Now would seem like a perfect time to reintroduce a forgotten character from the beginning of the show!

 

Oh, that "bodyguardo"!

 

He's so fat and naked!

 

And with that the credits role and I feel a shiver roll down my spine knowing that I have to do this five more times and next time I'll have to face this:

 

 

Pray for me!

Rejected By Rod(!): Part Fifteen - Pandemonium

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:

Exciting news! This latest Rejected By Rod post features the series' first actual honest-to-goodness rejection! This past weekend I got this message from Rod through the electronic mail:

"The Rapture" will be running this week on FA. However, I did run across one of your reviews from the pool I actually do hafta reject, and that's "Pandemonium." Not because it's badly written (it ain't, of course), but because it's more about referring to a previous review you wrote rather than the movie. I tried to work around it, but couldn't figure out how without it being maybe 1/4 of its length. Sorry!

Why does Rod hate meta-reviews? I don't know! Go to Flick Attack and ask him! It doesn't matter to me, since all it means is switching the usual (?) to a (!)!

Rejected By Rod(!)

Pandemonium

(1982)

As many perks as there are to being a big fat know-it-all, there is also at least one major drawback. Sometimes—albeit rarely—evidence is produced that at some point you said or wrote something that was actually *gulp* wrong. I say this because back in January of 2011 I wrote the following in my review of a terrible film called National Lampoon’s Class Reunion: “…there is nothing worse than a bad slasher movie parody and…no such thing as a good slasher movie parody.”

It’s a statement I made with some confidence, thinking at the time of such terrible films as Student Bodies, Slaughter High and Pandemonium, all of which I had seen before reviewing Class Reunion. Thing is, though, it had been a looooong time since I last saw Pandemonium and I was judging it on the basis of the retarded opinion of a pretentious 16 year-old asshole.

For that reason I decided to take another look at it 19 years later, as a much older, wiser and more relaxed 35 year-old asshole. Turns out I really liked it. Quite a lot, actually. Which means the statement I quoted up above simply isn’t true—there is at least one good slasher movie parody (two if you count Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon, which you probably should).

So, mea culpa.

The last film of Alice Sweet Alice helmer Alfred Sole (he went on to become a production designer), Pandemonium possesses the same anarchic sweetness as Rock and Roll High School, which isn’t a coincidence since both films share Richard Whitley in their screenwriting credits.

Set at a summer cheerleader camp (six years before Cheerleader Camp) held on a college campus where every cheerleader has been murdered for the past 20 years, the film largely eschews character and plot for a series of sometimes sophisticated, sometimes scatological, but mostly funny jokes.

The cast includes a blond Judge Reinhold, a Sissy Spacek-imitating Carol Kane, Jimmy Olson from Superman, Tom Smothers as a Mountie(!), Tab Hunter (once again mocking his 60s All-American image), pretty much everyone who appeared in the original stage version of The Pee Wee Herman Show (even Phil Hartman), and a genuinely adorable actress named Teri Landrum, whose appeal is much bigger than her six meager credits on IMDb would suggest.

So, yeah, I was wrong that one time. Don’t get used to it.

50 Words or Less - Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama

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 demon imp unleashes terrible magic on some nerds and sorority girls. Definitely the best film made by DeCoteau during his early period, Sorority Babes isn't much more than an excuse to see some hot scream queens in various stages of undress, but is that really such a BAD thing?

Beyond Vanity Fear

So I was able to watch The Arena this weekend, but didn't get a chance to write about it. In the meantime I thought I'd throw up three non-movie related links to posts I've recently written for xoJane, a really cool lifestyle website from Jane Pratt, the former publisher of Sassy and Jane magazine. They were all really fun to write and--best of all--I gots paid bitches!

1. I Worked Graveyard at a Sex Store

In which I describe a very interesting three month period of my life.

2. I'm a Short Guy

In which I describe the life of the not-tall.

3. I'm Always the Token Dude

In which I describe how I am frequently the only dude around.

Vanity Fear Bullsh*t Synopsis Theater - Part One "Chickfight"

As a kid I loved to go to video stores and look at all the posters and video covers and try to guess what the movies were about based solely on the images they portrayed. I fully believe that these flights of fancy are primarily responsible for the development of the imagination I have used in a semi-successful professional capacity throughout the past 10 years or so.

To honour this tradition, I’ve decided to occasionally take a look at a classic poster for a film I’ve never seen and spend a paragraph or two imagining what it could be about. The twist is that after I’ve written this “Bullsh*t Synopsis” I’ll then watch the movie and discuss what it’s actually about the next week in my “B-Movie Bullsh*t Review”.  The fun will be had in determining which plot is better—the one that actually got filmed or the one I pulled straight out of my butt in 15 minutes.

Yes, it is a very lame idea, but I’m running out of Rejected By Rod(?) reviews and I gotta come up with some filler ideas PRONTO.

Anyhoo, we begin this epic new adventure with a totally fake look at a 1974 Roger Corman produced Pam Grier classic.

Vanity Fear Bullshit Synopsis Theater

Part One

The Arena

(1974)

Bullsh*t Synopsis

Wanda and June are two happy-go-lucky gals who meet at a local Roman slave auction. Wanda hails from the Nordic region of Europe, while June enjoyed a long boat trip from Africa to get where she is today. That afternoon they’re both purchased by a wealthy lesbian named Patricia, who enjoys mocking her wounded General husband by dressing in the military uniform he no longer has any use for.

At first there’s some tension between the two of them, mostly because Wanda is a horrible racist who’s jealous of June’s abundant femininity (specifically her enormous breasts), but as time goes on they become very close friends. So much so that Patricia becomes so envious of their mutual affection she decides to convince her husband to suggest to the emperor that women be allowed to fight as gladiators.

The idea gives the emperor a total boner and Patricia volunteers Wanda and June as the first two combatants. The emperor gets one look at them and eagerly agrees. Wanda and June attempt to refuse to fight each other, but some erotically charged torture takes care of this and the two of them enter The Arena and battle to the death. Both women prove so strong and courageous that when June has Wanda at the edge of her trident, the emperor denies her the kill with an upturned thumb, sparing Wanda’s life. The crowd cheers his decision, but Patricia is so enraged she berates the emperor. His guards arrest her for her impertinence, much to her husband's delight. The next time we see her it is in The Arena, where she is fighting a losing battle against her two former slaves, who both know the emperor has no intention of giving them the thumb’s up this time.

Rejected By Rod(?): Part Fourteen - Head of the Family

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(?)

Head of the Family

(1996)

There are two kinds of low-budget movie fans: Those who are ambivalent about Charles Band’s Full Moon films and those who HATE them. Count me among the former, if only because in the same way a broken clock is able to tell the right time two minutes each day, Band—for all his many faults—did manage to deliver Head of the Family, a strange little film that somehow transcends the usual Full Moon limitations (see also Dark Angel, which Band didn’t direct).

The titular family in question is the Stackpools, a group of mutant misfits whose deficiencies are each offset by a significant attribute. Wheeler (James Jones) has heightened senses, Otis (Russ Meyer vet Bob Schott) is a mass of muscle, Ernestina (adult actress Alexandra Quinn, whose porn star body seems especially ridiculous in a non-porn context) is pure sexuality and Myron (J.W. Pera) is the brain of the group, so much so that his tiny body is unable to support the weight of his giant head. Up to no good, their evil schemes are uncovered by the no-account owner of the local diner (Blake Adams), who makes the mistake of trying to blackmail them.

Short, dark and often surreally funny (at one point Myron has a group of lobotomized prisoners perform an amateur production of Shaw’s Saint Joan), Head of the Family also benefits from being sleazy in all the right sorts of ways, especially thanks to a stand out performance by frequent (-ly naked) Full Moon actress Jacqueline Lovell as Adam’s white trash mistress.

50 Words or Less - The Dentist

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.

Corbin Bernsen has a lot of fun as the titular tooth doctor, who descends into madness after learning of his wife's infidelity. Director Yuzna shows a knack for exploiting our worst fears about oral surgery, but errs slightly by making his final girl heroine too young for comfort.

B-MOVIE BULLSH*T - Part Eighteen & Nineteen "Dark(ish) Shadows"

B-Movie Bullsh*t

Parts Eighteen & Nineteen

House of Dark Shadows (1970)

Night of Dark Shadows (1971)

Synopsis

Vampire Barnabas Collins has spent the past 200 years locked away in a coffin. It’s only when local caretaker Willie Loomis opens the casket in search of some fabled lost jewels that he is finally free to see what has happened to Collinwood, his family estate, in the centuries that marked his absence. With the exception of the main house, the estate has gone to seed, which is strange since his ancestors appear to be quite wealthy—enough so to afford a houseful of servants, including a pretty young governess named Maggie. Barnabas is shocked to discover that Maggie is a dead ringer for his beloved Josette, who committed suicide rather than join him as a member of the living dead. With the help of the Collins' live-in doctor, Julia Hoffman, Barnabas is able to hold back the effects of his vampirism through injections, but his treatment ends before he’s fully cured when Hoffman becomes jealous of his affection for Maggie. Returning to his full-on vampire ways, Barnabas spreads his affliction amongst the Collins clan, but is finally stopped from marrying Maggie and turning her into a vampire through the combined intervention of Willie and her fiancé, Jeff Clark.

Synopsis

Quentin and Tracy Collins are a young married couple who are leaving the big city to take over Collinwood, his family’s ancestral home. There they find the manor’s only two current inhabitants, housekeeper Carlotta Drake, and stable hand, Gerald Stiles. Within minutes of arriving, Quentin is taken by a painting of Angelique Collins, an ancestor through marriage who was hung for being a witch. That first night he has a dream in which he sees himself as Charles Collins, a direct ancestor who enjoyed an adulterous affair with Angelique—his brother’s wife—before she was executed. Within days Quentin finds himself blanking out and acting like Charles—including walking with his distinct limp—while vivid memories from a past life hit him at every turn. He confronts Carlotta about what is happening and learns that Angelique vowed to live on so long as her memory was kept alive by someone who loved her. It turns out Carlotta is the reincarnation of the little girl who did just that. Carlotta warns Quentin that Tracy has to leave or risks suffering from Angelique’s wrath. Quentin refuses to heed her warning and almost drowns Tracy himself while possessed by Charles. Carlotta sends Gerald to try to get rid of Tracy and her friends, the Jenkins, but he’s killed in the process. Convinced that Carlotta must be killed for them to be safe, they chase after her, only to have her fatally jump off Colinwood before they can get to her. The nightmare appears to be over, but it turns out Carlotta wasn’t the only person keeping Angelique’s memory alive. When the Collins return to retrieve Quentin’ paintings, he becomes Charles and strangles Tracy while Angelique’s ghost watches and the Jenkins are killed (off-screen) in a car crash.

The enduring popularity of the late 60s gothic TV soap opera, Dark Shadows, is one of those things I have to take on faith, since I have never seen so much as a single episode of the show, despite that fact that there are over 1200 of them in existence. According to Wikipedia, the show was syndicated to TV stations across North America throughout my childhood, but never to a single channel that ever appeared on my screen. I had never even heard of the show until I first read about it in Stephen King’s classic non-fiction look at the horror genre, Danse Macabre.

As obnoxious as it sounds, a part of me couldn’t believe that something could actually be as beloved as Dark Shadows was supposed to be, if I had never had a single opportunity to experience it. I wish I could say that this attitude of mine has changed, but that wouldn’t be the truth. If anything, having just sat through the two cinematic spin-offs the original show inspired during its run, the cult popularity of the show seems like an even bigger urban legend than it did before.

“There really are people out there who are obsessed with this?” I found myself wondering throughout the two films. But then it occurred to me that this was probably an unfair question. The better one would be, “There really were people out there who were obsessed with this?”

That I can believe. It’s easy to imagine how a production like this might have caused a cult sensation when it originally aired, over 40 years ago. Where I stumble is at the idea that this fervor still exists today, because—unlike Star Trek—all of the attempts to recreate the magic since then have met with failure—most notably a weekly prime-time TV remake made in the early 90s that died after just 12 episodes.

Many will point out the upcoming feature version directed by Tim Burton and starring Johnny Depp is proof of the show’s lasting power, but I actually think it proves the opposite. Most folks who will go to see Burton’s Dark Shadows will likely do so without any previous knowledge of the original. They will be drawn instead by the continued collaboration of one of cinema’s most successful actor-director teams. Despite interviews both will give about how much they loved the show when they were kids, the more likely truth is that the project went ahead because it was a property seemingly tailor-made to suit their mutual talents. It was either this or The Munsters (which just happens to be receiving its own “re-imagining” in an upcoming hour long dramatic pilot called Mockingbird Lane).

From what I’ve read, the two feature films the first incarnation spawned aren’t that well respected among Dark Shadows cultists—enjoying the same disreputable status as the odd numbered Star Trek films. Even though I have never seen the series I can understand why this would be true—especially in the case of the first film, House of Dark Shadows, which does just about everything wrong a film adaptation of a popular TV series can.

Rather than create an original story using the series’ characters that would have benefited from bigger production values (apparently the show was notoriously low budget and regularly featured atrocious special effects and sets) and more opportunities for sex and violence (the film takes some bloody advantage of the latter, but does nothing with the former), House of Dark Shadows re-visits the main storyline of its breakout character, vampire Barnabas Collins (as played by Canadian Jonathan Frid).

(Perhaps the biggest leap of faith newcomers to the Dark Shadows legend have to make is to accept the idea that Frid became a genuine sex symbol as the result of playing Barnabas, even though he makes Bela Lugosi look like George Clooney in comparison. Lacking the danger of Christopher Lee or the tragic nobility of William Marshall, Frid—at his best—most resembles Harry Dean Stanton’s less popular older brother, not a panty-wetting heartthrob in the Robert Pattison vein.)

My guess is that Frid’s popularity had less to do with his natural charisma (which is definitely not apparent in this, the first of only two movies he starred in—the second being Oliver Stone’s feature debut, Seizure) than the novelty of the character he played. When Dark Shadows originally aired it was designed as a moody, gothic soap opera without any supernatural elements. It was only six months into the series’ run that everyone figured out how fucking boring it was and decided to inject some monsters into the mix. The debut of an actual vampire in a “serious” daytime drama was a truly revolutionary concept and Frid rode a brief wave of success as a result.

Unfortunately vampires were old hat in the movie game and Barnabas Collins didn’t seem at all extraordinary compared to the other bloodsuckers who had filled the screen since Murnau’s Nosferatu. And this is a serious problem for House of Dark Shadows, because his is the only character who makes the slightest bit of an impression.

It’s a dilemma everyone who tackles such an adaptation must deal with—how much time should be spent developing characters at least some part of your audience is already familiar with? Spend too much and you alienate the fans of the TV show, who’ll just want you to get on with the story. Spend too little and you alienate newcomers who will spend most of the film focusing on who everyone is and how they're connected, rather than what’s going on.

House of Dark Shadows went the “too little” route and the film suffers dearly for it--a problem that is further exacerbated by the decision to compress a story that took months to unfold on television into 90 minutes of screen time. As a result, the film feels overstuffed, even though not much actually seems to be going on. The nature of soap opera is to extend drama as far as it can go—with a whole week’s worth of episodes often spent on a single afternnon in the world of the show. Because of this, the focus is set on microscopic, which means a story as slight as this one strangely feels far too big for one feature film.

This compression also explains the odd turns the characters take throughout the film. The show had weeks and even months to set up these developments, while the movie forces characters to change their behaviour without any justification from scene to scene, simply because the series' previously established plot led them organically to those points.

The best example of this is the strange journey of Dr. Hoffman (Grayson Hall, who would also play the role of Carlotta in the sequel), who goes from identifying the strange cell found in Barnabas’ victims’ blood to offering to cure him of his vampirism to falling in love with him to betraying him to being murdered by him in what seems like ten minutes worth of screen time. The entire film could have focused entirely on their relationship, but is instead treated like a necessary side-plot.

Beyond this, the Hoffman scenes also feature one moment I found interesting for its possible evidence of self-plagiarism. In the scene where Barnabas discovers that she has betrayed him, he is shown to rapidly age off screen. When we next see him he appears as an old man who bears a distinct resemblance to Dustin Hoffman’s 121 year-old character in Little Big Man, which was also made in 1970 and featured the handicraft of makeup legend Dick Smith. Did Smith make a genuine effort to differentiate the two makeup effects (and subsequently failed), or did he just do what most of us would and got lazy and handed in secondhand work? Whatever the answer, I would be curious to know which film gave him the assignment first.

As disappointing as House of Dark Shadows was, it must have found an audience, since the sequel, Night of Dark Shadows, followed a year later. With Barnabas having been staked to death in the first film, the decision was made to focus on another villainous character from the show—Angelique Collins (as played by the gorgeous Lara Parker), the witch who turned him into a vampire when he rejected her for Josette, the true love of his life.

With a lower budget and smaller cast of characters, Night is a more satisfying and enjoyable film than House, but isn’t without its own major problems. While lacking the first film’s need to fit in all of the requisite story beats, Night instead suffers from the opposite problem—it takes too long to get to the places we know it’s going all along. Thanks to all of the constant dream sequences and flashbacks, the pacing of the first hour is extremely uneven and frequently irritating. When the final act is set in motion, the action picks up considerably, but the payoff doesn’t feel earned.

This is especially true of the ending, which feels as though it was tacked on sometime in the process to avoid a predictable happy ending. Unfortunately the end result is less chilling than it is lame, especially since it is predicated on its protagonist being a major idiot and going back to the house to pick up his worthless paintings.

Beyond Parker, Night’s major saving grace is a charming performance by a young pre-Charlie’s Angels Kate Jackson as Tracy. Whatever impact the wannabe-bleak ending does actually have is the result of the natural affection we’ve developed for her charming character.

Removed from the context of their origins, both films suffer from feeling like Americanized rip-offs of the established Hammer Studio formula, but without all of the cheesy good stuff (namely hot babes in revealing clothing) that make those films worthwhile. Viewed today its easy to see why the audience they were made for rejected them, even if the idea that such an audience actually existed still strikes me as a little hard to believe.

I Saw This IN THE THEATER! Part Four in a Continuing Series

Ringmaster

(1998)

Brief Explanation

I can honestly claim that I've never been a fan of the The Jerry Springer Show, not even in that annoying ironic hipster way us creative types are prone to during our early 20s. Yet there I sat, one of maybe five others during the first matinee of Ringmaster's opening day. Why? Part of it was my perverse fascination with starsploitation, of which this was a textbook example. Part of it was that I was intrigued by the premise of a BTS look at a Springer-esque production. But mostly it was just as a youthful fuck you to all of the folks out there who had been proclaiming (sight unseen) that its existence augered the fall of mankind (which obviously didn't happen).

Having not seen it again in the intervening 13 years (and couple of months), I have only the barest recollection of its characters and plot, but I remember that for all of its exploitative zeal there was a real attempt to give some humanity to the white trash characters whose journey to appearing on the show made up the bulk of the screen time . I especially recall being genuinely moved by Molly Hagen's performance as a women locked in sexual competition with her daughter, Jamie Presley (channeling her white trash essence years before My Name is Earl). That said, I have no idea how the film holds up. The trailer is excrutiatingly bad, but I'm not sure it actually reflects the movie I saw so long ago. I think I'm going to have to revisit this one someday and see how much it matches up with my faded memories of a Friday afternoon I enjoyed a long time ago.

Rejected By Rod(?) Part Thirteen - Primal Rage

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(?)

Primal Rage

(1988) 

Primal Rage is a rare example of a horror movie that manages to create some degree of tension due entirely to a pre-production fuck up. When the filmmakers decided not to cast the highly appealing Sarah Buxton as their female lead, but instead as her doomed roommate, they made it impossible for viewers not to agonize over the likelihood of her eventual fate—if only because she’s the only remotely sympathetic person in the entire picture. That her painful descent into madness and violent death is suggested to be an indirect punishment for a previous abortion only makes the film that much more infuriating.

An Italian production shot in the States, Rage is about what happens when university professor Bo Svenson (sporting the most pathetic ponytail in the entire history of mad science) experiments on a monkey, which then goes on to bite a muck-racking student journalist who contracts a contagious disease that turns all of its victims (all five of them) into zombie-like homicidal maniacs. 

Written by the auteur responsible for the infamous Cannibal Ferrox and directed by the son of FX artist Carlos Rambaldi (E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial), Primal Rage —with the exception of one decapitation near the end—is virtually gore-free and filled with cheap looking effects. Yet despite its being ineffective even as unintentional camp, horror completists might want to watch it as a double feature with Deborah Brock’s Slumber Party Massacre II make their way through star Patrick Lowe’s entire filmography in just one sitting.

50 Words or Less - Squirm

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 film to ever be mocked by MST3K (and, yes, that DOES count This Island Earth), Squirm transcends its goofy premise (worms become carnivorous thanks to typical eco-horror shenanigans) thanks to a script that treats its characters like real people. Not quite as classic as Lieberman's Just Before Dawn.

Repost - Gotta Strut!

(Another repost! Deal with it!)

I bet if I were to ask even the sharpest of movie freaks to compose a list of performers most closely associated with that glorious enterprise known as the Bad Seventies Musical it would take quite a long while for the name Sylvester Stallone to eventually come up, but the truth is that the Italian Stallion has not one, but two such memorable disasters hidden away amongst the many lunk-headed sequels, misguided comedies and action flops that dominate much of his filmography.  The second of these two, Rhinestone (in which he played a monosyllabic New York cab driver who Dolly Parton bets she can transform into a Country Music star) is the more obvious of the two, since he actually stars in it and is as horrifyingly bad as you would imagine, but the first is far more important since it is the film that marked the true turning point in his career.

Looking back with the gift of hindsight and the knowledge of all the truly terrible films to come (Rhinestone, Rocky IV, Cobra, Over the Top, Rocky V, Stop Or My Mom Will Shoot!, Judge Dread and Driven to name just the most purely wretched of a wretched bunch) it seems odd to read Roger Ebert describe the subject of today’s post as “…the first bad film [Stallone has] made,” but people forget that following his star-turning breakout in the Academy Award-winning megahit Rocky, there was a period where Stallone was actually considered a gifted actor and filmmaker (as incredible as it seems he not only had been nominated for Best Screenplay, but Best Actor as well).

After Rocky he co-wrote the screenplay (with the infamous Joe Eszterhas, who made his own contribution to the world of Bad Seventies Musicals with his screenplays for Flashdance and Showgirls) and starred in Norman Jewison’s union drama F*I*S*T, which wasn’t nearly as well received, but kept afloat his reputation as a serious actor and writer who had the potential to be one of the great talents of the decade. The same was true for the period wrestling drama Paradise Alley, which also marked his directorial debut.  Rocky II, which he also directed, proved to be a much bigger hit and though the general consensus was that it was inferior to the original, both critics and audiences seem to agree that it was still a well-made and entertaining film.  After that Rutger Hauer’s villain got most of the attention from Nighthawks and North America’s indifference to soccer kept Victory from being a hit, but the back-to-back smashes of Rocky III (which he wrote and directed) and First Blood (which he did not) truly made it seem like Stallone was a man with the Midas touch.  True, there were some rumblings that he had taken the Rocky franchise into a strangely cartoonish direction that seemed far removed from the sweet, realistic drama of the original, but even this could be deemed excusable when you considered that the first film was about a no-name boxer who dreamed of being the champ and the third was about a champ who had already gotten everything he had ever wanted.

 

 

It was a position Stallone could write about from personal experience, having gone from a bit-part actor struggling to pay his rent to a superstar who now had the professional freedom to do whatever he wanted.  And what he wanted to do in 1982 was make the transition towards becoming a pure filmmaker—one who could make the movies he wanted without having to star in them as well.

This was not as simple as it sounds.  Though by this time Clint Eastwood (an actor turned director whose reputation for minimalist performances and cheesy patriotic action movies was at one time almost identical to Stallone’s) had already directed nine films, he had only failed to star in one of them and it, Breezy, remains the most obscure film he has ever made.  Decades earlier, Gene Kelly made three films purely as a director, but the only one people remembered was Hello Dolly, an infamous financial fiasco.  And Jack Lemmon’s sole directorial effort, Kotch, told a tale not unlike the one found in Breezy—with just as memorable results.

At that time Robert Redford had been the only superstar actor to successfully make the transition to non-performing director with his debut Ordinary People.  But unlike Redford, who used his clout to get a downbeat and commercially questionable film made with the actors he wanted (rather than ones he thought would sell tickets), Stallone decided that for his first film completely behind the camera, he would instead craft a sequel to the huge 1977 hit film that had made John Travolta an overnight star and taught the world the glory of the discothèque.

I am, of course, talking about:

 

 

STARRING

 

John Travolta as Tony
A Struggling Dancer

 

 

Cynthia Rhodes as Jackie
Another Struggling Dancer

Finola Hughes as Laura
A Successful Dancer

 

 

Sylvester Stallone as Random Asshole On the Street
A Random Asshole On the Street

And

Frank Stallone as Carl
A Rhythm Guitarist


PLOT
(OR LACK THEREOF):

Back in Brooklyn in 1977, Tony Manero was the king of the disco, but six years later he’s just another out of work dancer in Manhattan, making ends meet teaching classes to untalented wannabes and waiting tables at the kind of club he used to rule.  Thanks to his only slightly more successful friend and occasional bedmate Jackie, he meets Laura, a wealthy British dancer whose moves and “intelligent” accent instantly catches his interest.  When he is cast in the chorus of her new show, Satan’s Alley, he manages to spend half a night in her bed, but quickly learns that she has no interest in a man who can’t do anything for her or her career.  Torn between the bitch who won’t have him and the saintly girl who will, Tony risks ruining his first big break, but when the director decides to take a chance and have him replace the show's male lead, he learns who he really is and is finally able to decide who he really loves.

MUSICAL NUMBERS:

As a “behind the scenes” musical, Staying Alive eschews the traditional break-out-into-song-and-dance scenes in favour of the kind of musical montages popularized by the success of Flashdance, but best exemplified by the extraordinary “On Broadway” sequence in Bob’s Fosse’s All That Jazz.  That said, the following scenes certainly do qualify:

FAR FROM OVER
PERFORMED BY
FRANK STALLONE

FINDING OUT THE HARD WAY
PERFORMED BY
CYNTHIA RHODES

I’M NEVER GOING TO GIVE YOU UP
PERFORMED BY
FRANK STALLONE AND CYNTHIA RHODES

FAR FROM OVER (REDUX)
PERFORMED BY
FRANK STALLONE

(WE DANCE) SO CLOSE TO THE FIRE
PERFORMED BY
TOMMY FARAGHER

THE WINNING END
PERFORMED BY
JOE BEAN ESPOSITO

 

 

SNARKY DECONSTRUCTION:

 

Assuming you merely scrolled down past the above list in a hurried attempt to get to this post's chewy, snarky center, I think it would behoove you to quickly look at it one more time and see if you notice an odd pattern forming.  While you take care of that, I'll just insert a jpeg of a magazine cover from this period that does little to downplay the long-held rumours of Travolta's closeted homosexualty:

 

 

Ready now?  Okay, then I'm sure you noticed that of the six musical numbers noted above, half feature songs performed by the director's infamously less-successful younger sibling, Frank.  What you probably didn't note--because it's the kind of information no sane person should actually know off the top of their heads--is that the remaining three numbers feature songs that were written by Frank Stallone as well.  This is not insignificant, as it is the clearest example of the level of hubris Stallone possessed as he worked on the project.

 

Lemme explain.

 

 

As iconic as Tony Manero's white suit was, it was three brothers from Australia who were truly responsible for turning a movie about an asshole who likes to dance into something much, much more.  It has become popular now to praise Saturday Night Fever the film as a classic example of how the 70s cinematic pursuit of verisimilitude was able to transform a typical teen dance movie into a major work of art--to the point that it more resembled a work of cultural anthropology than any mere trifling entertainment.  On the other hand, the popular opinion of Saturday Night Fever the record album is that it is one of the archetypal examples of the wretched tastelessness that defined the end of the lamentable me-decade--a craven musical sell out from a group once best known for folky pop songs with memorable harmonies.  What this clearly ignores is that while the film was a popular success, the album was a zeitgeist-changing uber-phenomenon.  By the time they got around to filming Staying Alive (which itself was named after the album's biggest hit) the soundtrack recorded by the brothers Gibb still held the record for best selling LP of all time, having gone platinum 15 times over since its release.  It wouldn't be until a year after Staying Alive bombed that Michael Jackson's Thriller would finally best the Bee-Gee's achievement.

 

What some folks might not realize is that this was not an accident.  Saturday Night Fever was produced by an Australian gentleman named Robert Stigwood, who at that time was best known as the manager of a group of singing brothers known as--you guessed it--The Bee-Gees.  It should come as no surprise then that his principal interest in the project wasn't in presenting an anthropological study of the social rituals of Brooklyn douchebags, but rather in crafting the perfect comeback vehicle for his biggest meal ticket.  Rather than the album being a fortuitous offshoot of the film, the film was made specifically to justify the creation of the album. 

 

But that had been over five years ago--a lifetime in the world of music--and The Bee-Gees had become the Celine Dion's of their time, a group no one with even the tiniest iota of taste and/or self-awareness could admit to enjoying.  Because of this Stallone recognized that the group's music would have to be featured in the film, but it could not be allowed to dominate.  Thanks to Stigwood's role as the film's producer, the group received prominent billing in its opening credits, but--with the exception of the use of the title song at the very end--the truth is that their contributions amount to little more than anonymous background filler.  Rather than rely on the music of the group that allowed for the first film's creation and massive cultural success, Stallone chose to ignore it in favour of the questionable efforts of his baby brother, who he also cast in the not-so-crucial role of the guitar player in Jackie's band.

 

I could spend a good long while discussing the reasons why he would choose to do something so obviously foolish, but in the end the only one that matters is the simplest--because he could.

 

As reasons justifying disastrous decisions go, "Because he could," is probably responsible for destroying more careers than any other in Hollywood.  As any proper student of cinematic failure can tell you, there are two distinct kinds of Hollywood flop--the corporate folly and the vanity project--and in most cases the ultimate blame for their failures can both be attributed to "Because he could," the only variable being just who the "he" in the equation is.  With the exception of perhaps Eddie Murphy, no other iconic 80s superstar suffered more as a result of his ability to make his decisions without having to justify them to the people signing his massive paychecks.  Unlike Bruce Willis, who could survive and thrive after a "Because he could" flop on the level of Hudson Hawk (a film I am proud to say I actually saw in the theater when it was released), once Stallone started failing, it became impossible for him to stop.  Given the freedom to do whatever he wanted with a project that had nothing to do with Rocky Balboa or John Rambo, he proved that his less-than-stellar vision would lead to him attempting to turn his brother into The Next Big Thing, regardless of whether or not Frank had the talent to justify it.

 

For this reason Staying Alive is important as the turning point in Stallone's career.  Despite his only appearing onscreen for a couple of seconds, its failure laid the groundwork for all of his other failures to come.

 

That said, I have to admit that the music provided by Frank Stallone does amount to being the high point of the film, for as cheesy as it may sound, it's downright revolutionary compared to the film's script.

 

What Stallone and Norman Wexler, Staying Alive's two credited writers, didn't seem to realize is that if you choose to forgo plot in favour of a more intimate character drama, you are then required to create interesting three-dimensional characters who are compelling enough on their own to make you forget the utter lack of story.  Instead they crafted a screenplay inhabited by cyphers whose actions are entirely dependent on what the director wanted to have happen in each scene, rather than what they would actually do in that situation.

 

But more than that, the screenplay fails because the director is never able to convince us that its logical conclusion is at all valid..  According to the script, we are supposed to come to believe that while Laura is initially compelling, her ambition and self-devotion make her unworthy of Tony's affection, while Jackie's ability to forgive his trespasses and love him for who he is makes her the deserved choice.

 

 

This may have flew in 1983, but 25 years later, it reeks of old-fashioned sexism.  Laura's faults are no different than Tony's, but because she's a woman they are deemed unseemly, while Jackie's strange willingness to be continually treated like a doormat is portrayed as her most noble quality, rather than the tragic weakness it is.  It doesn't help Stallone's cause that Finola Hughes is so much more interesting and charismatic than her blond counterpart, Cynthia Rhodes (whose greatest contribution to pop culture remains her performance as the girl whose botched abortion compels Baby to dance with Johnny in Dirty Dancing).  Perhaps Stallone wanted to make a point about how settling for mediocrity is the fate of everyone, even gifted dancers, but if so he does not properly sell this conclusion and instead leaves the viewer hating Tony even more than they already did for settling for someone as challenging as a People magazine crossword puzzle.

 

 

THE KINDA-GAY PART:

 

What then is there about Stallone's first major folly to make it worthy of the attention of the second Project Kinda-Gay post?  Well, as strange at it may seem, for all of his vanity and undeserved egomania, Stallone was a filmmaker who wanted to stretch beyond the limits of his comfort zone and the proof of this lies in Staying Alive's existence.  And though its failure doomed him to direct only the sequels and "reboots" of his two most profitable franchise, there is something honourable in the attempt--even considering how poorly that attempt ending up being.

 

Anyone can do what they're good at and continue to succeed, but it takes a brave soul (albeit a brave foolish soul) to try something different and risk embarrassing themselves in the process.  Stallone in this instance was that brave foolish soul and for that he derserves to strut: