Cyber Monday: Project Shadowchaser Trilogy

Frank Zagarino dies hard!

Cinemasochism: Black Mangue (2008)

Braindead zombies from Brazil!

The Gweilo Dojo: Furious (1984)

Simon Rhee's bizarre kung fu epic!

Adrenaline Shot: Fire, Ice and Dynamite (1990)

Willy Bogner and Roger Moore stuntfest!

Sci-Fried Theater: Dead Mountaineer's Hotel (1979)

Surreal Russian neo-noir detective epic!

Sunday, May 23, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft Week: The Best of the Rest


Well, we are officially closing down our two week “A Week of Howard Phillips Lovecraft” theme. We hope you’ve enjoyed the reviews of the good, the bad and the unnamable. To end things I’ll be doing some quick reviews of flicks that aren’t Lovecraft adaptations but definitely carry that Lovecraft tone.

CAST A DEADLY SPELL (1991) - I remembered being entranced by this HBO Films production back in the day and found it to be even better upon review nearly 20 years later. Set in an alternate 1940s Los Angeles where magic is real, Detective H. Phillip Lovecraft (the amazing Fred Ward) is hired by a rich dude (David Warner) to track down his stolen copy of the Necronomicon. Along the way Lovecraft must deal with magic, a lolita, thugs (including Clancy Brown), demons, and old flames (pre-fame Julianne Moore).

This has really aged well, thanks mostly to the gritty detective portrayal by Ward. He is able to spit some of writer Joseph (thirtysomething, STEEL & LACE) Dougherty's sharp film noir-inspired dialog with such natural spin that you would think he was a relic from the era. Director Martin (CASINO ROYALE) Campbell keeps everything moving quickly and isn't afraid to embrace the horror elements, which include lots of Lovecraftian creatures. This might be one of the most under appreciated horror films of the 90s and could have made a great series. I don’t think they really knew what they had on their hands (the lame artwork being a great illustration: “The comedy detective thriller with very special effects” – oh boy!). HBO delivered the sequel WITCH HUNT (1994) a few years later but it isn’t nearly as good due to a campier tone and hammy Dennis Hopper replacing Ward in the Lovecraft role.

THE DEVONSVILLE TERROR (1983) - Not to be confused with THE DUNWICH HORROR, this is the DEVONSVILLE TERROR. DEVONSVILLE…DUNWICH…HORROR…TERROR. Oh, I see what you did there Lommell! 300 years after townies killed three witches, the citizens of Devonsville feels that crusading urge again when three new women (an environmentalist, a deejay, a schoolteacher) move into the community. Teacher Jenny (Suzanna Love) finds only local stud Matthew (Robert Walker Jr.) to be a willing dating prospect, which is bad because his ancestors were the ones who organized the witch killings. Meanwhile, Dr. Warley (Donald Pleasence) investigates the town's history to cure himself of the curse of having worms crawl out of his skin (really).

This was another childhood viewing that holds up as well as one would expect a 80s Ulli Lommel flick could. The Lovecraft influence can be felt with the small New England-esque setting, witches and worms, and odd town folks. This flick is just plain weird at points though and full of bizarre scenes like when Paul Willson shows up at Jenny's house and gives this long rant about love before playing his violin. Lead Love was married to Lommel at the time (and apparently writing the checks) with both players fresh off the success of THE BOOGEYMAN (1980). She is probably the main appeal here. The end is pretty amusing as Jenny is revealed to be a revenge-seeking witch with superpowers and she causes heads to roll, explode and melt. Then she splits town, with her relationship with Matthew left with no resolution and a guy trying to ape Pleasence's voice doing a voice over. Pretty sure Pleasence did one day of filming as all of his scenes are shot in the same room and he is wearing the same outfit.

FOREVER EVIL (1987) - This Texas-produced flick is how I like my women – twentysomething years old and dumb as hell. Three couples head to a cabin for the weekend to bid the place farewell before Marc (Red Mitchell) sells it. What they don't know is that a pulsing stellar Quasar is happening when they get there and it unleashes some monsters that kill everyone except Marc. Still with me? Marc then teams up with Reggie (Tracey Huffman), a female survivor of a similar incident, and Leo (Charles Trotter), a cop who has seen this before, to figure out what is going on. Together, the trio finds out that an immortal being on Earth has been planning these attacks for over a century in an effort to bring back evil god Yog Kothag (someone has been reading Lovecraft) to end humanity as we know it.

This movie falls into the same category for me as late 80s flicks like THE VIDEO DEAD, DEMON WIND, THE DEAD PIT and DEMONWARP (all recommended). It might be a bit budget starved, but you can appreciate the amount of effort and imagination that went into making it. The first time I saw this back in 1990 or so, I was surprised how they pulled a PSYCHO on me and offed everyone about 20 minutes in and took it from there. Mitchell, looking like a cross between Jack Black and Jason Alexander, is an interesting choice for a lead and he is alright I guess. If you are looking for a few laughs, see the scene where Reggie declares her love to him. While the flick is overlong at 107 minutes, it has enough weirdness (demon babies, random zombies, a cute looking demon dog) for me to recommend seeing it at least once.

IN THE MOUTH OF MADNESS (1994) – Insurance investigator John Trent (Sam Neill) is hired by a publishing firm to locate Sutter Cane (Jürgen Prochnow), the world’s best selling horror novelist who has disappeared on the eve of his latest release. Accompanied by Cane’s publicist Linda Styles (Julie Carmen), Trent travels to the town of Hobb’s End, New Hampshire and quickly finds out that Cane may have been dealing with the darker arts more in fact rather than in fiction.

John Carpenter is an admitted fan of H.P. Lovecraft’s writing and his own work from THE FOG to THE THING to PRINCE OF DARKNESS has always imbued a Lovecraftian tone. Well, if the man isn’t going to ever do a full-on Lovecraft adaptation, then this is as close as we will get from him. This has so many Lovecraft nods and themes in it. The title itself references Lovecraft’s “At the Mountains of Madness” story. You also have asylum sequences, tentacle menace and great old demon Gods summoned up by Cane (which Carpenter only shows in glimpses, another Lovecraftian ploy). Pretty much the entire thing lives and breathes a Lovecraft ethos but isn’t based on any of his works. It is also notable as it is the last great film of Carpenter’s career. At least he went out with a bang as, tragically, he was killed in a bus accident alongside Jackie Chan and Metallica shortly after this was released. That is the truth and I’m sticking to it. ;-)

UZUMAKI (2000) aka SPIRAL – Saving the weirdest for last! This focuses on Kirie (Eriko Hatsune) and potential boyfriend Shuichi (Fhi Fan), who live in a small Japanese town. Things get weird right away as Kirie spots Shuichi’s dad oddly videotaping a snail on a wall. Seems Mr. Saito has become obsessed with uzumaki (spirals) and begins seeing them everywhere. This obsession results in him filling his house with anything with a spiral on it before he commits the world’s first spiral suicide in a washing machine (!?!). After his death, the rest of the town starts to go uzumaki crazy.

Based on a manga by Junji Ito, this Japanese oddity (have I told you it’s weird enough?) came from single named director Higuchinsky and definitely has Lovecraftian overtones. The two stories it really reminds me of are “The Shadow over Innsmouth” and “The Colour Out of Space.” The seaside town threatened by a typhoon is very evocative of Arkham, Massachusetts. There are also never fully fleshed out references to giant sea snakes being responsible for this chaos. And how can you not see Lovecraft in people who slowly turn into snails? The deliberately odd and obsessive tone has caused many critics to liken in to Lovecraft’s work. And, naturally, it has caused many teens expecting another THE RING to virtually riot online and declare the movie trash. Don’t listen to them as this is a real treat with its deliberate strangeness, leisurely pace and clever editing.

Saturday, May 22, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft Week: THE STATEMENT OF RANDOLPH CARTER

H.P. Lovecraft Week: The COLOUR of Lovecraft, Part 3

There are some people that subscribe to the philosophy that the world is back and white. That there are only two kinds of people in the world. You are either a conservative or a liberal. A sinner or a saint. An exacting Lovecraft purist that thinks any adaption that slightly deviates from the letter of Lovecraft’s words is nigh un to heresy and the Non-purists (read: heretics) who only want the barest essence of Lovecraft’s story to be brought into play as a skeletal framework for some insane, unrated gore effects. There are two kinds of people; those that try to compartmentalize the world into two little categories and those that call bullshit on that. RE-ANIMATOR (1985) is a masterpiece. So is THE RESURRECTED (1992). I love them both. Are you trying to tell me that I have to choose peanut butter or chocolate? The hell you say!

I think no film has done a better job investigating that grey area, if you will, than Ivan Zuccon’s THE COLOUR FROM THE DARK (2008). After VJ co-conspirator Mr. Wilson stumbled across Zuccon’s early works, I’ve been hooked on his movies and was highly anticipating the release of this one. Not only does it not disappoint, but if it had been shot on film, I think it would have been a real sleeper hit. And there lies the cruxt of the problem.

Zuccon cut his teeth making very low budget, shot on video movies that were essentially typical back-yard horror films. I still have yet to track down an import copy of his first effort THE DARKNESS BEYOND (2000), but his second THE UNKNOWN BEYOND (2001) had some good elements but was really too amateurish on all levels for me to recommend. THE SHUNNED HOUSE (2003) is where Zuccon starts to shine. An anthology of loose adaptations that infuriated the purists and brought the wrath of American horror-obsessed fans who mistakenly lumped him with Uwe Boll and Ulli Lommel. Low-budget and shot on video, but featuring some really striking visuals and imagery that showed true talent. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that Lovecraft never wrote about a woman playing the violin, except the violin is actually her torn open arm and the strings are her tendons. That may not be part of Lovecraft’s story, but it is a powerful image and Italian filmmakers great and small have always gone off on their own artistic tangents. Greeks break plates, Italians wax artistic. That’s what we like about them. If Lucio Fulci had simply made ZOMBI 2 (1979) a straight-up rip-off of DAWN OF THE DEAD (1979) as the producers had wanted, I seriously doubt we would still be talking about it today. Nor would it be used in a Windows 7 commercial. No, really. I couldn’t make that up.



Zuccon made two other films following THE SHUNNED HOUSE and before COLOR FROM THE DARK, but COLOR FROM THE DARK is his return to Lovecraft and his most accomplished outing yet. Here Zuccon, due to budgetary reasons, or simply to streamline the story, dispenses with the meteor entirely. This is a wise move in my opinion as the concept of evil being brought to earth from scary outer-space has been done so much that it is now hokey. It was pretty much lampooned in CREEPSHOW (1982) and these days it's not even remotely as scary as it must have seemed in the ’20s when space exploration was the realm of total fantasy. Instead Zuccon focuses on what was in fact the ultimate source of the evil in Lovecraft’s story, the well. And, yes, he has added his own elements and subplots. Seriously, get over it. If the additions were bad, I’d be the first to put the boots to him, but here most of it is cracked out of the park. The only areas that are lacking can be chalked up to budget.

Set in Italy during WWII, a rural farm is struggling to survive during the German occupation. The head of the household, Pietro (Zuccon regular Michael Segal), is a hard working man of the land who bores his wife Lucia (Debbie Rochon) to sleep at night with his mad bedroom skillz. He provides for them and his sister-in-law, a 20 year old emotionally retarded mute girl named Alice (Marysia Kay) who’s closest friend is a creepy rag-doll named Rosina. Rosina not only talks to Alice in a weird language that only Alice can understand, but sometimes functions as her eyes allowing her to see things that she’s afraid of (this little character contrivance is played out much better than I made it sound). One night the well begins emitting strange colored light and a noxious mist, the water tastes fine, so Piedro continues to use it for his crops and at the dinner table. The next day the crops have grown large and ripe, but taste bitter and this is when things start sliding straight down to hell. Almost literally in this case.

The film starts with Rosina being thrust into our faces as Alice navigates the staircase from her bedroom to the kitchen. We don’t know why it terrifies her, but it’s a really neat little link back to the original story and makes for a brilliant opening sequence. Alice covers her face with one hand and uses the other hand to hold Rosina by her red yarn hair, navigate the treacherous stairs and go outside to peer into the well. While Rosina is peering into the well, she slips and falls in. Alice, distraught, follows her. Suddenly Alice wakes up in bed, soaked in well water. These weird, visually arresting dream sequences are sprinkled throughout the film and while they seem to not really be Lovecraftian on the surface, one of Lovecraft’s favorite recurring elements was horrific dreams. Here they provide a necessary cut away from the main plot. Adapted from a six page story, that plot can get a little dry when stretched to over an hour and a half if you refuse to add any additional subplots.

Zuccon rolls out his story at a leisurely pace, he’s in no hurry, but at the same time he is focused, he never meanders or gets sidetracked. He is meticulous in the details and uses them to build atmosphere and suspense. The near neighbor, Ammi, here is represented by Giovanni (a surprisingly Irish Gerry Shanahan), who lives with his granddaughter Anna (Eleanor James). In addition to their daily life of toil, they are harboring a Jewish woman who is being hunted by the Nazis. She eventually is caught and provides the basis for a weird and creepy subplot in which Alice visits her quickly putrefying corpse over the course of several days with her doll Rosina. Zuccon takes the liberty of adding a few new characters to the mix. If you were totally cynical you could say he did it just to raise the body count, but I found the addition of a wandering priest who becomes completely unglued by the “sick” Lucia to be a cool little subplot that adds depth to the story.

This brings us to the point that most Lovecraft purists will absolutely hate. The fact of the matter is that the evil represented here is not so much Lovecraft’s Elder Gods, evil so old it isn’t even evil, per se, but it just is, but a more Christian view of evil. Represented by electric mist and dancing lights that look like reflected water, which is reasonably Lovecraftian, the evil behaves in a deliberately and wholly anti-Christian fashion. The family is more "possessed" than "diseased" as in the story. For example, Lucia in a fit of madness spits on the crucifix in the dining room and a black rot spreads out around it, eventually causing it to melt and decay. Personally I have no problem with the subtle alteration as it adds a richness to a story without really having to explain much as, presumably, we all are familiar to some extent with Christianity. Hell, several centuries ago damn near every continent on the planet learned about Christianity whether they wanted to or not, so this is a pretty simple but effective device that crosses all boundaries. I don’t think THE EXORCIST (1973) would have been anywhere near as successful or as resonant if Regan’s extreme case of ADD was caused by solar radiation or some bad LSD… come to think of it that last one would have been pretty cool. Regardless, even though it veers out of Lovecraft’s waters, it still is effective and once again, in my opinion, if it makes a good movie and you don’t destroy the themes or intent of original story, I’m for it.

To be fair, some of the acting could have been a little more impressive. Michael Segal has not only buffed out his biceps, but has beefed up his acting chops as well. Even so, he is effective, but not exactly a master of his craft. Elenor James (another actress that is cast more for looks than anything else) isn't very impressive either, but at least is not annoying or irritating. The biggest surprise here is that ex-softcore star and frequent supplier of gratuitous nude scenes, Debbie Rochon, actually does a shockingly good job as the wife who has flashes of possessed insanity. You could argue acts like a completely normal woman when flipping between her normal meek self and her “possessed” alter ego. Did I just go there? Sorry about that. Anyway, Rochon may not be up for an Oscar any time soon, but here she shows a range and skill that was previously unknown. She also has grown a bit long in the tooth and unlike most actresses (particularly ones who have made their money off of their looks) does not try to hide it here, which gives authenticity and maturity to her character. In many ways the maturity of a filmmaker can be quantified by their use of restraint, here that means the glamor make-up is saved for another day. Also notable on the acting front is Marysia Kay, who is totally believable in her role as Alice, and it is through her acting and Zuccon’s directing that Rosina actually becomes more than a prop but a full character. It's also neat touch that Rosina, as the week progresses, becomes more and more faded with her red yarn “hair” turning gray as if even a rag-doll is being consumed by the evil from the well. The only glaring errors on the acting front would be Gerry Shanahan as Giovanni. I have no problem that there is an Irishman and his English granddaughter living on a farm in rural Italy, but at least have the decency to cover this by giving them Anglo names. Honestly if that's all I can bitch about, Zuccon should be happy.

Sadly Zuccon still can’t seem to raise enough money to shoot on film and I firmly believe that if this had been shot on film, it may have garnered more praise. Even so, Zuccon makes the most of his medium, pushing it to limits heretofore unseen. His camera prowls smoothly around the periphery of dialogue scenes, he uses big master shots, lots of atmospheric cut-aways and more camera set-ups than multiple SOV efforts, showing real confidence and skill as a filmmaker. His sets and costumes are detailed and well thought out. With the help of some mostly unobtrusive CG processes, he gets the best use of shadows that he can, adding layers of texture to the screen in a way that is screaming out for a bigger budget. To be fair, some of the CG misses the mark. A dream sequence in which Lucia slices her cheek open with a straight razor and an eye opens up inside is a great idea, but the CG work is just not up to snuff and ruins the effect. If you can’t pull off the effect that you want, I feel that you should save that idea for another day and come up with something that you can do effectively. Fortunately these missteps are few and far between.

Another thing that adds to the experience on the whole is the music. The score is also bigger and better than any shot-on-video movie has any right to be. Providing a simple, restrained, but totally effective, haunting score using strings and horns, Spanish composer Marco Werba, like Zuccon, shows more talent than anyone else doing low-budget SOV movies and should also be destined for greater things. He has also composed scores for some of Timo Rose’s painfully amateurish SOV outings that, Werba’s score aside, are the embodiment of everything that is bad about SOV movies. Timo Rose is like Uwe Boll without the high concept or budget. Zuccon just doesn’t have the budget. His directorial skills have come to a point where he needs to find some backers to grow as a filmmaker.

  The crazy thing with this movie is that I am a certified SOV hater. Video magnifies every flaw, has no visual texture, makes make-up look like make-up and makes a lack of make-up look awful. It simply lacks subtlety and makes it so easy for talentless jackasses to release something that isn’t worth a rental fee. Zuccon is actually aware of these issues and works really hard at overcoming those huge drawbacks. It kills me that people watch HOUSE OF THE DEAD 2 (2005) and call it “fun”, “entertaining” and “not as bad as the first one” and then watch this and say it’s shit and has nothing to do with Lovecraft! In the end, if you are one of the black and white people, this isn’t like RE-ANIMATOR (1985) and it’s not THE RESURRECTED (1992, probably the most authentic Lovecraft adaptation to date), it’s in the gray area in between and if you are like me, that “colour” will suit you just fine.


(I can't seem to find a trailer that really does justice to the movie's pacing and feel, the two that I found try to make it look like a fast-paced slasher film, so this teaser will have to do)

For those who are looking for some more meat, the Italian website Splatter Container (maybe that lost something in the translation) has a short interview up with Michael Segal (scroll down for the English language version).

Coming in the next few months, the Germans will have their turn at an adaptation with the black and white short film DIE FARBE (2010). Some information on the making of it is available on their website. While it's disappointing that this is just a short film (again), this teaser simply oozes atmosphere and is much anticipated around here.

[Edit] We have since reviewed the film here.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft Week: THE PICTURE IN THE HOUSE

H.P. Lovecraft Week: Cthul-who?

Two weeks into our one week journey into the world of H.P. Lovecraft cinema adaptations and something seems off. The bad flicks seem to be outnumbering the good 2-to-1. Well, all that suffering is immediately wiped out thanks to…

THE CALL OF CTHULHU (2005) – Ever find yourself cornered by some random stranger on the street who is demanding to know what the best Lovecraft film adaptation is? Well, fear no more because now you have an answer in this brilliant 47-minute short.

First published in Weird Tales in 1928, Lovecraft’s “The Call of Cthulhu” was an anthology piece that featured three stories about encounters with the most well known (and unpronounceable) of the Great Old Ones. The film tackles each one as a man (Matt Foyer) tells of the investigation of the Cthulhu Cult by his deceased uncle, Prof. George Gammell Angell (Ralph Lucas). “The Horror in Clay” centers on a young man who comes to Prof. Angell with horrifying dreams. As Angell tracks his subject’s breakdown, the boy delivers a sculpture of his nightmare tormentor that reminds Angell of something he saw in the past. “The Tale of Inspector Legrasse” recalls an event 20 years previous when Angell was at an archeological symposium. A New Orleans detective shows up to get an appraisal of an odd religious idol he encountered during a raid of a strange backwoods religious cult. “The Madness from the Sea” has the narrator continuing his Uncle’s work and encountering the odd story of a lone survivor of a boat crew that disappeared. The man’s investigation sends him all over the world until he arrives at the home of the lone survivor, who has since passed away. But the journal provided by his widow offers the man a frightening look into the sailor's encounter with Cthulhu.



This 47-minute black-and-white silent short was made by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Now with a name like that, you damn well better deliver and they do as this is one of the most literal Lovecraft adaptations of one of his stories. This is a true labor of love, both for Lovecraft and filmmaking. The stories are perfectly adapted and whatever changes are made (the fate of the narrator, for example) fit in perfectly with the tone of Lovecraft’s story.

The film’s success in adaptation is mirrored by the creativity on display. Made for less than it would take to get Peter Jackson to roll out of bed in the morning ($50,000), the filmmakers get the most out of their meager budget. They opt to shoot the story as if it were a silent short from the year it was published. While I am the first to rag on filmmakers saying their style mimics something else (“This is totally a throwback to the 70s grindhouse style” being the repeat offender), this succeeds because they work hard to make it look legit from the acting style (all done by amateurs) to the inter-titles (which the DVD offers in 24 different languages!). In fact, several times I found myself actually thinking I was watching a movie from the 1920s.

Director Andrew Leman uses a variety of techniques to convey the bizarre other world of Cthulhu. I mentioned Peter Jackson earlier and, after watching the “Making of” segment on the DVD, I couldn’t help but be reminded of his BAD TASTE days when he was creative enough to make machine guns out of cardboard and popsicle sticks. The ingenuity on display here is amazing, really sticking it to any filmmaker who cries, “We can’t do it for your budget!” While there is the occasional wonky green screen bit, I’d say they pull off their objectives 99% of the time. The dream sequences are really well done with some expressionistic Caligari-style design. The final segment features the most effects and your jaw will drop when you find out the expansive island was built in someone’s backyard and that glitter covered sheets were used to create waves.


If I had any gripe about the film, it would be that they decided to make it a short. I understand why they did, but this could have easily been a full length feature. Regardless, the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society has remedied this as their sophomore production is a feature length adaptation of “The Whisperer in Darkness.” They unveiled the trailer this past April and our appetite here at Video Junkie has been whetted (or is that wetted?). Check it out:


Wednesday, May 19, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft Week: BINDING SILENCE

H.P. Lovecraft Week: The COLOUR of Lovecraft, Part 2

In 1987 the stars aligned, planets converged and a movie crew came together that I still am having issues wrapping my head around. Imagine Ovidio G. Assonitis and Lucio Fulci as producer with the David Keith (yes, the David Keith of TAKE THIS JOB AND SHOVE IT and WHITE OF THE EYE fame) as director and Fulci shooting second unit with Claude Akins and Wil Wheaton as leads. Now imagine that this actually happened. This very underrated adaptation of “Colour” has one of the most unusual collections of cast and crew that I can think of off the top of my head and it completely blows my mind to think of them working together. I'd love to know how the whole thing came about, but what we do know is that according to a Fangoria interview, Keith stipulated that he would take the gig, but only if they were to shoot it in his home state! Hence the transplant from Massachusetts to Tennessee.

A meteor crashes near a southern farmhouse in which god-fearing farmer Nathan Hayes (Akins) rules the roost with the iron will of the lord. The lord's word is loosely translated via Nathan's open hand connecting with the mouths of his stepson (Wheaton) or anyone who even thinks of stepping out of line. The local chairman of the city council warns that no-one should speak of the meteor as it might attract the wrong kind of government attention, when in fact, he is worried that the EPA won’t put in a new reservoir and he won’t be able to profit off of buying up the local farmland for a pennies on the dollar. Almost overnight the meteor melts into “colourful” sludge and the crops grow huge and hearty. The lord gets the credit, but we soon find out everything that grows is rotten on the inside. As the family continues to drink the tained well water and eat the tainted food, the family starts to go insane and violent. All except the stepson and stepdaughter who have been sneaking in untainted food and water.

I have to admit, I like so many others, was definitely on the hatewagon that this film generated. I didn’t (and still don’t) like Wil Wheaton and at the time Claude Akins was just that “Sherriff Lobo” guy. The movie wasn’t ultra-gory like RE-ANIMATOR (1985) and FROM BEYOND (1986), didn’t have the brilliant casts that those two had and was pretty low-rent comparatively speaking, which accounts for the mixed reviews at back in the day. Current audiences seem hate this movie because of Wil Wheaton. Not because they hate Wheaton, but because they love him on “Star Trek: The Next Regurgitation.” They watch this movie because of fan devotion and discover it is (gasp) not like “Star Trek”! Then promptly run to their favorite blog/review site/discussion board and dis away.

This movie represents an epiphany of sorts for us at VJHQ. Mr. Wilson re-visited it a while back and found it to be entertaining; I watch it now and I have to say... I really enjoyed it. Particularly if viewed in context of other Italian-made genre films of that same year: the third Ator film, IRON WARRIOR, Lucio Fulci's AENIGMA, Umberto Lenzi's WARTIME, Joe D'Amato's KILLING BIRDS, Ruggero Deodato's CAMPING DEL TERROR, Sergio Martino's THE OPPONENT, Fabrizio De Angelis' KARATE WARRIOR, etc. I'm not saying these are all terrible films (except for AENIGMA, I'm saying that is a really terrible film), but hardly representative of their creator's best work and out of all those, I'd say THE CURSE comes out on top. Plus any film with a score by the great veteran genre composer Franco Micalizzi can't be all bad! Micalizzi, maybe best known for his classic score for VIOLENT NAPLES (1976), here provides a Ry Cooder-esque slide guitar combined with electronica for what I consider to be a score that may be even better than this movie deserves.

When you take a short story and expand it into a feature length film it is the opposite of adapting a 300 page book. A full book has to have lots of narrative and subplots dropped and some streamlining is required which can mean some restructuring of plot elements and characters. When adapting a short story, generally speaking, it’s going to either be padded out with lots of nothing which is not a good thing, or it’s going to have to have a clever writer figure out how to add characters, subplots and dialogue, bulking the film out to make a well paced feature. Here David Chaskin, fresh off of the not terribly well received A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 (1985), does exactly that. Chaskin, who would go on to write the excellent cult classic I, MADMAN (1989), retains a large amount of the Lovecraft story and builds a pretty solid foundation on which to build the necessary additions. Like all adaptations, the first half of the story revealing Lovecraft’s fascination with modern scientific techniques is gone, but are actually referenced in a scene near the end of the film. Many other little points from the story are woven into the plot here including the colour from the well, the crazed horse, the shrinking meteor, the reservoir, and a few others. He didn’t have to do that. It could have just ran with the seemingly "Jordy Verrill" inspired approach with a southern farm beset by formless evil, but he actually made the effort to work many of the stories points into the script and that counts for a whole hell of a lot in my book.

Shot with lots of fog and smoke, the filmmakers take every opportunity to inject atmosphere and make the film look bigger than it really is. There aren’t a whole lot of locations and admittedly the special effects are pretty “budget conscious” (you can plainly see the metal swing-arm attached to the meteor when it plows into the earth), no opportunity to get some visual excitement on the screen is missed. The subplot about the family dogs may seem superfluous, but adds another bit of menace and action when they start going crazy and end up mauling the doctor’s hot, but manipulative, wife. Interestingly, instead of outright gore, they decided to use a similar goo-factor approach as in the CREEPSHOW vignette. A cabbage is sliced open to reveal a puss-like multi-hued goo running out, as do the eyes and mouths of the afflicted chickens (who attack the young stepdaughter, played by Wil’s real life sister, Amy Wheaton) and the crazed family members.  That said, Fulci’s fingerprints are all over a scene that takes place in the basement. The scene, echoing a similar one in THE HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY (1981), features the crazed, mutated mother ripping out someone’s throat (no spoilers) with her clawed hands. It seems like this scene was tampered with by the MPAA as it looks like it was trimmed of some gore. After the victim falls to the floor she rips open his shirt and we get a quick glimpse of her ripping open his chest as it quickly cuts away. Whether this is censorship or maybe an effect that didn’t work, I can’t say for certain.

The cast is another factor that elevates the film. Sure the cast can’t compete with the larger than life presences of Jeffrey Combs and David Gale, but they really don’t have to. If taken by their own merits, the adult leads are actually quite good. Claude Akins, oddly sporting some product in his closely cropped hair, is nothing short of excellent as a strict, cruel farmer who makes up for his lack of education with a strong hand and a bible. Complimenting him is Kathleen Jordon Gregory (who died of cancer after making the film) as his wife, Francis, who damn near carries the movie with her subtle performance. She succumbs to madness without going way over the top, but is just loopy enough to be both creepy and rather amusing. The scene where she is darning a sock that is in her hand and begins to sew through her flesh while alternately laughing and screaming actually made me squirm a bit on my sofa, and lemme tell ya, that’s saying something. Coming from a background in Shakespearian theater, her performance as a mistreated woman makes a sharp contrast to Wheaton’s wooden acting and worse, the big bully step-brother Cyrus, Malcolm Danare, who’s “retarded fat guy” performance is more appropriate for a bad college comedy than an HP Lovecraft adaptation.

Speaking of Danare, who previously annoyed me in CHRISTINE (1983) and went on to annoy me in POPCORN (1991), he is easily the low point of this film. Not only does he rape the scenery like a high school attention-whore, but for some belial-only-knows reason, someone felt that he should only have one costume for the entire film: a mid-drift football jersey and low-rise jeans. This means we get to be subjected to more fat, hairy, ass-crack than a fistful of Jack Black movies. There is a scene that is far more disturbing than it should have been where Francis is starting to lose it and is suturing some barbed wire wounds in Cyrus’ ass. Cyrus yelps “what are you doing back there!?” to which Francis replies “connect... the... dots…” Slowly Nathan and Zach realize that is not the right answer and rush to look, cut to a shot of Cyrus bent over with thread zig-zagging from wound to wound. That was a very effective scene of horror until we got a big master shot of Cyrus' sasquach-like man-ass. And while we’re on the subject of too much skin, who was the chicken hawk who thought it would be a good idea to have Wheaton frequently shirtless and running around in his tidy-whiteys?

So, greatest movie ever? No. The best Lovecraft adaptation ever? No. But damned entertaining with some effective moments and, for the most part, a pretty cleverly adapted story.


More Italian "Colour"... NEXT!

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft Week: Legocraft!

H.P. Lovecraft Week: The Horrors of Dunwich, Part 2

So we saw what a modestly budgeted SyFy-licious take on "The Dunwich Horror" would look like. Now let's take a look at how some true independent filmmakers would tackle the subject.

BEYOND THE DUNWICH HORROR (2007) – I’m too lazy to write this plot out so here is they synopsis from the IMDb:

Kenny Crawford (Michael Reed) arrives in Dunwich after hearing that his brother Andrew (Jason McCormick) has been admitted to a psychiatric ward, and is suspected in a string of disappearances in the town. With the help of local reporter Marsha Calloway (Ruth Sullivan) and the eccentric Upton Armitage (Jeff Dylan Graham) he probes the last few weeks of his brother's life. As they do so, they uncover evidence of a plot in the works revolving around Andrew, his girlfriend Nikki Hartwell (Sarah Nicklin) and her twisted friend Otto Bellinger (Carlos Brum).

Lensed in Lovecraft territory (Providence, Rhode Island), this indie shot-on-video horror flick has a lot of things going for it. Unfortunately, the negatives swallow up the positives like a huge tsunami wave. For the first hour, you wouldn’t even think this has anything to do with Lovecraft outside of a few references here and there. I mean, when did Lovecraft write about goth clubs where people eat worms or frightening threesomes where a guy is raped? Then, roughly an hour and six minutes in, Upton Armitage gives the muther of all exposition speeches that reveals this is a sequel to “The Dunwich Horror” and that every major character is a relative of the Whateley or Armitage clan. Plus, we are introduced to the fabled Necronomicon as a major plot device. I liked that but, dude, could you have introduced the main plot a bit sooner? The scattershot plotting is a major problem here. But let’s look at the bright side first.


THE POSITIVES:

The filmmakers really tried. Even before seeing the film my interest was piqued by some amazing poster art, a well done trailer and some snazzy old school lobby cards. In my review of GRAVEYARD OF THE DEAD, I crucified filmmaker Vick Campbell for not even attempting to circumvent (or even acknowledge) budgetary problems. The same cannot be said for BEYOND’s writer-director Richard Griffin who clearly put his tiny budget ($75,000) to good use. The film opens with an aerial shot, so you know he isn’t going to be one of those whiney “We are low budget so we can’t do ‘big movie’ stuff” filmmakers. The film features some nice location photography, great sound work, moody lighting and some effective scare scenes. Also, the acting by most of the leads is decent, which is a rarity in low budget productions. Reed, Graham and Sullivan are all good in there roles and have some snappy exchanges. They even managed to snag Lynn Lowery (I DRINK YOUR BLOOD; THE CRAZIES) for a cameo. I also totally dug the downbeat ending, even if it is straight out of THE WICKER MAN (1973). By far the best thing about the film is the Fabio Frizzi-esque score by Tony Milano (check the trailer for a highlight).

THE NEGATIVES:

Um, everything else? For all the positive work that Griffin does, there is always something there to undermine it. For every good line of dialog, there are two equally bad ones. For every good performance, there is one that will make you yog your kothag and go, “Oh, almighty Old Ones, you can’t be serious!” I hate to single folks out but rail-thin McCormick and rail-thinner Brum – who looks like an anemic Buster Poindexter – are particularly bad. And then there are THE sex scenes. Ouch! I get including stuff like this to add an exploitation element but this might contain the most unattractive threesome in the history of cinema (not to mention both guys look like they weigh 90-lbs. soaking wet). You know you are doing something wrong when I pine for the eroticism of the dreadful WITCHCRAFT series! This leads me to the biggest problem with the film: the bloated running time. BEYOND is one hefty sumbitch, clocking in at 1 hour and 44 minutes.  There is absolutely no reason this should run that long. I don’t mind long films at all; I just mind films that are pointlessly padded or not subject to some judicial editing. I was having a pity party for myself for having endured this until Tom informed me that MYSTERY OF THE NECRONOMICON ran a whopping 2 hours and 7 minutes.


In the end, BEYOND THE DUNWICH HORROR is a film that is halfway there. They get an A for effort on what is ultimate a C film. A solid 5 out of 10. Hell, these guys did better than Ulli "No sugar added" Lommel and he has been making flicks for 30 years! Shot-on-video horror can be done effectively. For example, Ivan Zuccon’s COLOUR FROM THE DARK (2008) cost just a tad more than this and blew it away. I’ll let Mr. Simmons elaborate more on that later. With this one, just check out the trailer below and call it a day. I always like to end on a positive note so let me say that BEYOND does have a place in Lovecraft cinema history as it is probably the only Lovecraft film to feature the following line of dialog:

“Look, just come down to the club this week. My band Suicide Pudding is performing.”

Monday, May 17, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft Week: Dan O'Bannon on H.P. Lovecraft



H.P. Lovecraft Week: The COLOUR of Lovecraft, Part 1

One of my favorite, if not the favorite, Lovecraft story is “The Colour Out of Space”. Highly influential and way ahead of its time, the story builds up slowly until it crushes you with the weight of the eldritch horror of the Blasted Heath. The narrator is a surveyor who is doing the leg-work for a new reservoir in Arkham. He tells of his attempt to visit the Grower’s farm and his encounters with spooked locals, the blasted heath and a reputedly deranged old man, Ammi Pierce, who was an eye witness to the horrors. The first half of the story tells of the discovery and thorough scientific examination of a meteorite that crashed to earth next to the Grower family farm house. Lovecraft revels in the hard details, of what was no doubt cutting edge science at the time, to illustrate just how other worldly this meteorite is. For those of us who didn’t pursue chemistry past our public educations, either you are going to have to read it with a pocket encyclopedia handy or just skim through it mumbling “yeah, yeah, words, words, where’s the eldritch horror?” If you do look up some of that stuff, it’s pretty impressive and must have spun a few science-minded noggins back in the day. Following the science lesson, Ammi (who turns out not to be so crazy after all) recounts the trials of the Grower family who’s sudden bounty crop could seemed like a windfall, but the bitter, foul flavor and aroma was a harbinger of their ungodly fate. When I first read this story as a teenager, there were several parts that genuinely made my skin crawl. The sequence near the end where Ammi is halfway down the stairs, frozen in terror, while listening to something that was once human do inhuman things and then start moving towards the stairs is, in my opinion, one of the most chilling moments in any piece of horror literature. You can read the full story here.

The first HP Lovecraft adaptation I ever saw, and coincidentally one of the earliest if not the first adaptations, was DIE, MONSTER, DIE! (1965). Obviously drawing *ahem* inspiration from Roger Corman’s seven Edgar Allen Poe adaptations made from 1960-1964, AIP’s  adaptation of Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space” sported Corman’s classic swirling colors and rear-projection opening credits and gothic mansion story-telling. Taking place in Arkham, England in modern day (well, modern for when this film was made) this version tells of the Witley estate, shunned by the country locals who are terrified of the family’s legacy of evil. An American, Stephen Reinhart (TV veteran Nick Adams), arrives in Arkham at the behest of the mother of his college sweetheart, Letitia Witley (Freda Jackson). Upon arrival he finds that the villagers refuse to not only drive him to the house, but even renting him a bicycle is out of the question. After humping down the road he finally comes to the Witley manor where he is all but thrown out on his ear by a wheelchair-bound Nahum Witley (Boris Karloff). Seems Nahum doesn’t want him there and refuses any explanation. Letitia, however, is delighted to see him but avoids any probing into the issue and the mother, hidden behind the curtains on her bed, has a strange tale to tell that vaguely outlines the horrors that have unfolded within the house. The grandfather was well known for being evil (this is reinforced by a close-up of his family portrait with his eyes highlighted) and it seems that it is being hinted that Nahum is continuing his “work”, though he adamantly refuses this. It’s never really implicitly stated what sort of evil it is that the grandfather was up to, but the implication is the use of the meteorite.

After a long patch of minor incidents and lots of drama we find that Nahum’s green house is filled with exceptionally healthy plants, one so healthy that it tries to get a piece of Letitia EVIL DEAD style (well, in a G-rated way)! The best part is the revelation that pieces of some sort of glowing rock are not only making the plants a little too frisky, but they have mutated animals into what Steve calls “a zoo in hell”. These rubbery tentacled horrors are actually the highpoint of the film. All of this “evil” is attributed to radiation from the space rock which Steve declares to be Uranium. He knows this because he went to college and apparently there he learned that uranium glows with funny colors. As we all know from watching GODZILLA (1954) and old Jerry Brown speeches, radiation is in fact evil and causes stuff to grow all crazy (though if I’m not mistaken, then Governor Brown seemed to have missed that last point during his crusade). Of course this radiation will also turn elderly, wheelchair-bound men who accidentally break the rock to turn into a super-strong, silver-skinned maniac that likes to run around and try to kill damn nosy kids with his bare hands. Ha! They didn’t teach you that in college, did they, mister smartass American guy?

As much as I like the brief appearance of some rubber monsters and Patrick Magee (who is completely wasted, so to speak, as the town doctor), this movie’s only saving grace is really Boris Karloff. There is nothing that man could do that wouldn’t be instantly transformed from a sloppy mess to, at the very least, an entertaining sloppy mess. Some of the changes made to Lovecraft’s story are reasonable (assuming that you find the fact that AIP wanted to turn Lovecraft into Poe reasonable); Merwyn is no longer the Nahum Gardener’s son as in the story, but now is Nahum Witley’s elderly manservant. Gone is the lengthy scientific evaluation of the stone in the beginning, instead a knee-jerk “radiation screws everything up, let’s run for it” explanation is thrown in at the end. Lots of clumsy red-herrings are attempted by trying to make out as if Nahum is involved in some evil Eldritch rituals that go back a generation, when it turns out he's actually trying to save the world. One character runs amok dressed like a reject from a Mario Bava giallo wielding a kitchen knife, but serves no purpose other than to drum up some excitement in the second act. Another, previously presumed dead, pops up out of nowhere dressed exactly the same, to attack Nahum and cause him to accidentally break the meteorite with a battle axe. Other than that, most of the horror elements from the very end of Lovecraft’s story are strangely omitted. Most I can see being removed due to budgetary concerns, but they could have managed the some of it, including the sequence on the staircase instead of the silver-lamé killer.

While I don’t totally dislike this movie, it’s a pretty piss poor Lovecraft adaptation. Though it’s well shot, Jerry Sohl’s disjointed, blundering screenplay leaves a lot to be desired. The leads are left to hold up most of the movie and unfortunately Freda Jackson and Nick Adams are way too bland and uninteresting to be able to do that. They almost seem like they were lifted from a William Castle film, the only difference being that Castle surrounded his typically uninspired leads with all sorts of crazy stuff that was either effective or amusingly not. Every time I've watched the film I can't help but think how great it would have been if the creatures from the "zoo" had been able to break free and go on a rampage. Now that would have been a crappy adaptation, but a damn cool one! Sohl went on to do another equally sloppy Lovecraft adaptation of "The Dreams in the Witch House" for Tigon Studios, released as THE CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR (1968) with no credit to Lovecraft.

It seems that AIP was going to try their hand at making a more faithful adaptation in 1971 with a project titled THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE. Unfortunately details on this unproduced film are about so scarce that it’s entirely possible this could be nothing more than a rumor or an incorrect factoid in a book (anyone else remember the cavalcade of errors in John Stanley’s “Creature Features” books?) . Hard to say without seeing some real evidence.

In 1982 when Lovecraft was surging back into popularity, George Romero’s CREEPSHOW featured a 14 minute vignette based on “Colour” titled “The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill” based on the short story “Weeds” by Stephen King.  Written and played very broadly by Mr. King hisself, and brother when I say “broadly”, I mean that it’s about as subtle and nuanced as an episode of “Hee Haw”. Verrill is a farmer who is an apple tree short of a orchard, and we know this because he talks like Gomer Pyle and watches WWF (Bob Backlund vs. The Samoan, for those who care) on a little black and white TV.

After a small meteor crashes near his farmhouse, Verrill gets the idea to sell it to the local university as he’s sure they’ll pay top dollar for it. While trying to cool it off, the meteor cracks in two spilling out an oddly colored goo which, as everyone remembers, Verrill declares to be (say it with me) “meteor shit!” The meteor shit causes a strange fungus or moss-like plantlife to grow all over everything including Verrill. This adaptation seems like it is set in the south, but as the road-signs indicate at the end of the piece, it’s actually in King’s favorite stomping grounds of Maine. It’s got a few of the elements from Lovecraft’s story; strange colored lights, plant growth and the meteor being carried in a lead bucket. Other than that this bit is strictly played for laughs, though the end is nicely grim and keeps the “good luck turned deadly” theme of Lovecraft's story.

Sunday, May 16, 2010

H.P. Lovecraft Week: TO OBLIVION

H.P. Lovecraft Week: The Horrors of Dunwich, Part 1

Well, here we are a week into our “A Week of Howard Phillips Lovecraft” with no signs of stopping. See, we’re rebels and we refuse to conform to THE MAN’s idea of a week so hopefully you will enjoy the bonus days of more coverage of all things Lovecraftian in cinema. Also, a special thanks to the amazing UNFILMABLE blog for plugging us. Check them for the absolute best news on Lovecraft film projects big and small.

H.P. LOVECRAFT'S THE DUNWICH HORROR (2009) – Hmmm, a modern adaptation of one of Lovecraft’s most well known stories starring Dean Stockwell and Jeffrey Combs? How can you screw this up? Well, leave it to The Asylum alumni (escapee?) Leigh Scott to create a cheap film that not only does disservice to Lovecraft but also genre movies in general. Here we go!

Dr. Henry Armitage (Stockwell), Walter Rice (Griff Furst) and Professor Fay Morgan (Sarah Lieving) are searching for the original copy of the Necronomicon because it has the missing page 751, which outlays the way to open and close portals for the Old Gods. Also looking for this page is Wilbur Whateley (Jeffrey Combs), a ten-year-old boy from a cliché redneck family who has rapidly aged to look forty. Wilbur also has a habit of chloroforming hotties to feed to his twin with tentacles living in the family attic.

This is reminds me of the Corman Poe adaptations. No, not those classic adaptations from the 1960s, but the cheapo Concorde productions from the late 1980s. While it does retain the general plot of Lovecraft's story, nearly everything is left unfulfilled or poorly executed. Director Scott appears to be a Lovecraft fan, yet he contorts the story enough to make it frustrating. For example, Morgan is now made into a woman so we can get the relationship angle with Rice. And the Whateley family is now an inbred redneck family (screeching mom in wig, grandfather in wheelchair) that would give Rob Zombie a boner. Nothing regarding their dabbling in the black arts is referenced.

Of course, poor adaptation can’t be blamed for lame moments like Rice and Morgan visiting a floating fat man with S&M belly dancers in the Louisiana swamps, Necronomicon writer Abdul Alhazred being shown on a cave set measuring 3X3 with the fakest beard EVER or Rice donning a Harry Potter-esque cloak for the final battle. A frustrating translation to the screen is further marred by Scott’s insistence that he has some sense of style. He fills the movie with fade outs for no reason in the middle of scenes, annoying glitches and hyper-edits every ten seconds. If you didn’t know it was intended to look like this, you’d be kicking your TiVo and screaming, “Stop screwing up!”

And then there are the effects. Whooooo boy! The monster is laughable, looking like Martian queen from INVADERS FROM MARS (1953) crossed with Grace Jones (see pics). Even Scott might have sensed how bad this thing looks as he keeps the glimpses brief. The storm effects during the final black magic showdown at the Whateley farm are worthy of the Sci-Fi, er, SyFy Channel, which is where this disaster fittingly debuted last fall. What does it say about your film when you can see better effects work during a Bosley hair restoration ad during a commercial break?

Better special effect? This:


Or this:


In fact, the only interesting thing about it is that Dean Stockwell also starred as Wilbur in the 1970 adaptation of the story, a fact that Scott fails to exploit. Sadly, the scariest thing in the film is Stockwell's gullet that boasts a huge lump that dangles over his shirt collars. I’m not one to endorse plastic surgery but you might want to get that bad boy checked out. Jeffrey Combs actually gives a decent performance as the man-child, one deserving to be in a better film. Furst and Lieving get a majority of the screen time and they are serviceable. So my own lack of judgment at 2am gets me nothing in return. Shocker. I think the tagline on this release of the film (under the title WITCHES) just about sums it this experience up...