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The War in Space (1977)

Dec 081977

In the future of 1988, Aliens from Venus attack the Earth. Heroic Miyoshi returns from America with a request from the UN for Prof Takigawa: finish the construction of the submarain-like spaceship Gohten. Takigawa had stopped construction either because all the good crew had left the project, or out of spite because Miyoshi blew off his daughter, Jun. She’s seems to be fine with it, now engaged to Miyoshi’s friend, Muroi. With the Earth in danger, Takigawa completes the craft and heads to Venus, with a crew including Miyoshi, Muroi, Jun, an Asian sidekick, and an American sidekick.

This is the film people are talking about when they say something is so bad it’s good. Shot in Toho-scope, the plot is ridiculous, the acting is hilarious, and the effects have an early Flash Gordon charm about them. And The War in Space wouldn’t be as much fun without the atrocious dubbing. I knew what I was in for in the first scene, when our hero is clearly talking, but we hear nothing but music. The voices never contain the emotion one would expect for the situations, but then neither do the facial expressions. I’d be surprised if the English voice actors had any idea what they were saying before they said it. Others who have heard it in Japanese have said the original voices are “better,” but sometimes better isn’t what you’re looking for, particularly when you are so far from “good.”

It is hard to believe this film came out the same year as Star Wars (except when a poor-man’s Wookie threatens the hot babe who the alien’s have forced into a cute leather outfit), and it’s best to forget that, and imagine this being an early ‘50s flick. Somehow all its many flaws are enjoyable if taken as the last hurrah for the old space serials. We have a space battle where a submarine is shooting at what seems to be a Roman galleon and neither are effected by gravity. That’s not the kind of thing I get to see in sci-fi any more.

Toho was never a first rate FX house, and that was even more the case after they’d (for a time) shut down their Godzilla franchise. Japanese companies didn’t have the budgets to compete with Hollywood. For The War in Space, footage from previous films was used whenever they thought they could get away with it, and the Gohten model is just the Atragon sub model, slightly redressed. And yes, you can see strings, and when you can’t, it’s pretty clear where they are. How much that bothers you depends on your state of mind. For a film made in only a few months, I think it looks pretty good.

There are worse things than behind-the-times effects, questionable acting, and general silliness. There is boredom, and that’s not a failing in The War in Space. Everything is lightning quick. There’s no time wasted on dwelling on anything. Zip, bang, and we’re on to the next scene. And you know how annoying it is for characters to throw tantrums, whine, or otherwise act unpleasantly when all you want to see is them blowing stuff up? No problem here. Nothing phases these folks. Best friend dies? It happens. Family massacred? Yeah, that was a bummer, but that was a scene ago. Aliens in the house trying to kill me? Unfortunate, but not worth getting up off of the couch for. Sure, their calm demeanors are’t realistic, but then this is a film with a green guy wearing a silver centurion outfit threatening to destroy the galaxy, so realism isn’t a goal. Besides, is all the whining in other films realistic (I’m looking at you Luke)? You won’t get to know these characters, but they also won’t get on your nerves.

The War in Space is a cotton candy confection of absurdity. It’s bad, but it’s bad in all the right ways. Yes, you’ll be laughing at it, instead of with it, but you’ll be laughing.

Reviews, Science Fiction, Space Opera Tagged with: Two Reels

Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope (1977)

Nov 231977

It all started here. It was all new. I’d never seen anything like this before and it was breathtaking. The first scene, with the rebel ship flying overhead followed by the star destroyer, is amazing and has never been equaled. Star Wars took old stories and myths and icons, tossed them into a sandy blender, and came up with something new. It isn’t perfect. The acting is…rough, and the dialog is rougher. Luke is an annoying git and the emotional states of the characters don’t hold up under inspection. But all is forgiven here. The later films don’t get a pass on their weaknesses, but being first counts. No one had seen a lightsaber before and they’ve never been as good. The Death Star was incredible (Death Stars 2 & 3 were not). Darth Vader was a forceful and scary villain; simply due to familiarity, he could never manage this again. Star Wars is exciting and beautiful and opens up alien worlds and a galaxy far, far away. It could only be done once, and once is enough.

Reviews, Science Fiction, Space Opera Tagged with: Five Reels

The People That Time Forgot (1977)

Oct 081977

Major Ben McBride (Patrick Wayne), outspoken newswoman Lady Charlotte Cunningham (Sarah Douglas), drunken comic relief mechanic Hogan (Shane Rimmer), and excentric scientist Dr. Edwin Norfolk (Thorley Walters) hitch a ride with the British navy to rescue Bowen Tyler (Doug McClure), who was stuck on a dinosaur-filled lost continent at the end of The Land that Time Forgot. They immediately run into a cave girl (Dana Gillespie) who knows the scoop on Tyler, so they rush to meet a vicious tribe of Japanese samurai (I’m not making this up), ready to beat the bad guys while avoiding being thrown into the volcano.

Well, Dana Gillespie looks hot in her cleavage-baring cave girl outfit. And I’ve always found Sarah Douglas (Superman II, Conan the Destroyer, Gryphon) appealing. That’s not a trivial statement. That’s about all this sequel has to offer. It’s more entertaining than its predecessor, but rising above the level of a bad Doug McClure movie isn’t much of a recommendation.

The star this time around is Patrick Wayne, The Duke’s son. He has all of his father’s acting talent with none of the charisma. A plain wooden slab is more expressive, and would be every bit as believable as an action hero. He has to shoot at some very fake dinosaurs, run through an inordinate amount of pyrotechnics, fight some guys dressed in Japanese theater masks, and say mean things to the bratty newspaper woman (yes children, we call that sexual tension).

OK, I’m being too harsh. I’m the wrong audience. This is fine entertainment for ten-year-old boys. It isn’t boring, and if your experience level is low enough, you might not recognize every character from twenty other films or be able to predict each moment. Ajor the cave girl has the right amount of family friendly sex-appeal for pre-pubescent boys, and the gore-free violence shouldn’t upset any mothers checking on what their children are watching. And I’m betting that at ten, I might have found it cool that the evil tribesmen have wall hangings of Frank Frazetta paintings next to their sacrificial alter.

Hmmmmm. Then there is all that senseless bickering, and every tribesman on the continent learning English from Tyler, and wasting all the bullets shooting in the air, and… Yeah, ten might be a bit too old. I’ve got it. This should be a nice way for a reasonably young father to spend a Saturday afternoon with his five-year-old. Doing the bonding thing. Five should be young enough to miss the plot holes, and daddy can ogle Ajor.

McClure starred in the similar productions: The Land That Time Forgot (1975), At the Earth’s Core (1976), and Warlords of Atlantis (1978).

Patrick Wayne was Sinbad in Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger (1977).

Thorley Walters has appeared in The Hammer Horror features: The Phantom of the Opera (1962), Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1966), Frankenstein Created Woman (1967), Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed (1969), and Vampire Circus (1972). He also acted in the Post-War British Comedies: Blue Murder at St. Trinian’s (1957), Happy Is the Bride (1958), Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (1959), Don’t Panic Chaps! (1959), A French Mistress (1960), The Pure Hell of St. Trinian’s (1960), Two Way Stretch (1960), Invasion Quartet (1961), Heavens Above! (1963).

Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: One & 1/2 Reels

The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)

Oct 081977

Andrew Braddock (Michael York) is shipwrecked on an island controlled by scientist Dr. Moreau (Burt Lancaster) and his mercenary, Montgomery (Nigel Davenport). Braddock is horrified to discover that Moreau is experimenting on animals, attempting to turn them into humans. His beastmen are controlled by religious devotion to Moreau, and the threat of the House of Pain. Braddock hopes to escape with the only other human, the mysterious Maria (Barbara Carrera).

While The Island of Dr. Moreau is often taken as another “do not meddle in the affairs of God” story, that interpretation misses the point. H.G. Wells (the author of the novel for those of you who haven’t read it) was an atheist, and not one to care about any god’s affairs. He jokingly called the book a little blasphemy of his youth. He didn’t make Moreau a man who has sinned by trying to act like God; Moreau is God. Wells was criticizing the church and the notion of our divine creation by making an island Eden, with God creating man on it. And, much like in our real world, religion has imposed an inappropriate set of rules on the populous.

Of the three official movie versions, and the two or more unofficial ones, the 1977 The Island of Dr. Moreau comes closest to Wells’ intensions. Moreau isn’t an evil sadist, nor a bizarre blimp. He’s the absolute master, above judgment by others. His concern is only in creating man in his image. Montgomery tells Braddock when he wakes that the island is Eden. Moreau dies and ascends to heaven, but religion informs the beastmen that he is still watching them (you’ll have to watch the film to make sense of that sentence). There’s even an Eve.

While thematically the film works, it commits the worst sin of cinema. It’s dull. Slow and plodding, it spends more time on showing the local flora than on the plot. A half hour could be trimmed without harming the story, which is sad in a 99 minute film.

The actors don’t help the pacing. Both York and Lancaster put a great deal of effort into precise diction (Th-e-y EEE-nun-Ci-ate eeeach wor-d ex-act-ly). I would have preferred believable characterizations, but that wasn’t their choice. York also strives for new levels of overacting, and that’s when he’s fully human; he isn’t any more extreme when his animal side is released since he didn’t leave himself any room for wilder acting. The poor man isn’t helped by a crudely written character. I should identify with him as he discovers the horrors of the island, but he’s rude, suspicious (before he has a reason to be), and loud.

The creature makeup isn’t bad for ’77, but that doesn’t mean it holds up for close-ups and under bright light. Too often, the fierce beastmen look like the old hermit who moaned, “It’s” at the start of each Monty Python episode.

To avoid the charge of bestiality (a claim that kept the earlier The Island of Lost Souls banned in England for 30 years), the subject of Maria’s creation is avoided, leaving open the possibility that she’s a human girl that Moreau brought with him. Of course that plays havoc with the theme and makes her presence on the island inexplicable.

Theme is important for any film, but on its own, it doesn’t make a watchable film.

Other versions include The Island of Lost Souls (1932), Terror is a Man (1959), The Twilight People (1973), and The Island of Dr Moreau (1996).

Mad Scientists, Mad Scientists, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The Sentinel (1977)

Oct 061977

Alison Parker (Cristina Raines), a model with a suicidal past, moves into an apartment building secretly owned by the Catholic Church. She begins having visions and fainting spells, and her strange new neighbors, including a reclusive, blind priest (John Carradine), a cheerful old man who loves his cat (Burgess Meredith), and two overly-forward lesbians (Sylvia Miles and Beverly D’Angelo), aren’t helping.

Belonging to the Rosemary’s Baby school of filmmaking, The Sentinel is a slight religious horror tale, told slowly. It too follows a somewhat timid woman, surrounded by Satanic forces she hardly notices at first. It also tries that same blend of horror and eccentric characters. Also like Rosemary’s Baby, the climatic secret is no secret at all. I knew what was intended for Alison just a few moments into the film, just as I did with Rosemary (maybe they need to find less relevant titles for these films).

Director Michael Winner uses the same skill he demonstrated in the Death Wish series, with bland lighting and flat images. He does little better with his cast, who overact, except for Raines, who is beautiful, but little able to show believable grief or pain.

The surprise is that such a pedestrian effort should sport such an impressive cast. It’s a combination of old Hollywood on their way down, and the stars of the future. The supporting players include Burgess Meredith, Eva Gardner, José Ferrer, Sylvia Miles, Eli Wallach, John Carradine, Martin Balsam, Christopher Walkin, Chris Sarandon, Beverly D’Angelo, Tom Berenger, and Jeff Goldblum. They aren’t at their best, but it’s fun waiting for the next famous actor to appear.

It’s nice to find a bit of horror in my horror movies. Too bad The Sentinel is completely devoid of it. Three scenes try to unsettle the viewer, but none succeed. The silliest is the attempt at shock where D’Angelo’s lesbian masturbates in front of Alison. In theory that could do the trick, but the clothed squirming is neither sexy nor perverse, just childish. Winner tries for scares with the zombie of Alison’s father, but the make-up effects fail and it ends up comical. The last, and most famous has the hordes of Hell wandering the halls. About half the “devils” are people with actual deformities. This raised the ire of those who think the deformed shouldn’t have the right to get jobs. The problem wasn’t a moral one with hiring the disabled, but simply that there isn’t anything frightening about them. Winner was attempting to bring back the feeling of Tod Browning’s 1932 Freaks, but forgot that the freaks were sympathetic characters, and the horror came from the humans.

Playing off of the success of many better films, The Sentinel has a mildly interesting premise and little else.

Christian Mythos, Reviews

Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977)

Oct 051977

Father Lamont (Richard Burton), investigating the death of Father Merrin (Max von Sydow), questions Regan (Linda Blair) who is under the care of Dr. Tuskin (Louise Fletcher). Using Tuskin’s telepathic, hypnosis machine, Lamont has visions of a demon and healer in Africa and is convinced that there is a connection to Regan who is still in danger.

Yes, this is a film where the psychologist has a telepathic, hypnosis machine. Just plug yourself in to it and you can see other people’s dreams. You also see any demons that might have possessed them and those demons can grab your heart, so I suppose that’s why the machines haven’t caught on.

The plot of Exorcist II flops around with mind reading, healing children, grumpy cardinals, an invisible locust demon, and incoherent psychiatry before it finally decides on a story. It seems that there are good grasshoppers who can avoid becoming evil locusts…ummm, I mean good people who can hold off the coming demons (or something like that; it’s not that clear), and Regan is one of them. Demons really want to get rid of these good people before they breed and make the whole human race good (or something like that; it’s not clear either). I suppose there’s something of an interesting idea there, but it’s lost in all the African villages, locusts, and religious tirades. If you have been looking for a film where Richard Burton starts every conversation with “the evil demons within…!!!” and runs into James Earl Jones in a grasshopper suit, grab this film; it’s safe to say there won’t be another.

John Boorman is a talented director, which can be seen even in Exorcist II, with beautiful shots (such as when Regan steps to the ledge of the building). But he had no vision of where the story should go and no control on his actors. Exorcist II: The Heretic is often called the worst sequel in film history. That’s an overstatement, but it gives you the right expectations.

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Christian Mythos, Demons, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Damnation Alley (1977)

Oct 051977

After a nuclear war, the survivors at a missile base, Major Denton (George Peppard), Tanner (Jan-Michael Vincent), Keegan (Paul Winfield), and Airman Perry (Kip Niven), set off in an armored RV to reach the paradise known as Albany. Along the way, they encounter tornadoes, floods, killer cockroaches, gun-toting rednecks, and pick up a woman (Dominique Sanda) and a teenager (Jackie Earle Haley).

Acclaimed science fiction writer Roger Zelazny produced some of the most insightful and thought-provoking novels of the ’60s and ’70s. Damnation Alley was not one of them. It was a fun read for a simple adventure story. I suppose it could have been made into a passable, popcorn movie. This isn’t that movie.

Poor George Peppard. While making this, did he ever sneak away and find an abandoned spot, take a few quick shots of Jack Daniels, and dwell on the past, when he was in The Blue Max and Breakfast at Tiffany’s? In the trade, those are known as “good movies,” where Damnation Alley is known as a “soul sucking, career-destroying joke.” It is useful for actors to have these official designations. I’m guessing money must have been getting pretty tight over at the Peppard household for him to sign on to one of the soul suckers. It does explain his mono-expression throughout the film, with his jaw muscles tense and his eyes wide. He looks angry. That isn’t Major Denton looking angry, but Peppard, angry over what he had been forced to do to make a buck. Is it any wonder that he ended up on The A-Team? It was the only thing even lower. Still, it feels strange watching a production where the man who created Paul ‘Fred’ Varjak appears to be the talentless one compared to Jan-Michael “Airwolf” Vincent.

The film starts in a missile complex before a nuclear war, for no reason I can fathom. Major Denton points out that he doesn’t like Tanner, though this isn’t explained now, or later. Then enemy nukes are reported and Denton and Tanner turn their keys and launch a retaliatory strike, after which, they go upstairs and hang out in the situation room. I guess this is one of those laid back military bases where people can go where they like. Once there, they join everyone else in showing no concern, no emotion whatsoever, about blowing up the world. Then it jumps ahead two years to the new post-apocalyptic world. Why did we have to sit through that fifteen minute opening? I’d like to say it would have been better to start the film in the future wasteland, but that would mean getting to the obviously superimposed, giant blue scorpions sooner, and no one wants that. However, for a laugh, there’s nothing like Jan-Michael Vincent on a motorcycle, kicking at scorpions who obviously aren’t there.

What follows is some pretty unexciting action, as Denton and Tanner drive their special RV through a windstorm (ooooooh!), over some rocks (oooooh), on some sand (ummmmm), and down a road (OK, enough with the driving already!). Of course they have to find a girl, because this is a Hollywood movie. She’s living in a Vegas casino that still has electricity. Every other building has been leveled, but this one has power. Yup, that makes sense. They also stop to get attacked by normal-looking, and completely non-threatening bugs, which gives rise to Denton’s now infamous line, “This entire city is infested with killer cockroaches. I repeat: killer cockroaches!”

Director Jack Smight manages to saturate the film with that cheap made-for-TV look, which he was well acquainted with. But I shouldn’t label him an ineffectual TV director; he was also responsible for the feeble big screen The Illustrated Man, based on Ray Bradbury’s superb book. So, he had experience mutilating the work of science fiction writers. He put that experience to good work here.

But I am being too hard on such an informative film. I learned important scientific principles. I learned that should we set off a nuclear holocaust, radiation won’t be a problem afterwards. The only thing to fear is that the Earth might tip over on its axis. Yup, the Earth might flop on its side. I’m not sure why it would do this, particularly as the blast would leave the continents pretty much in one piece. But anyway, this will cause the sky to change from red to green each day and have little white balls fly around. Yes, white balls in the sky. But what is really interesting is that the Earth might just tip back up again someday, returning everything to normal. What would cause this? Nothing. It just might do it. And afterwards, the world will once again be green and beautiful. Oh, and all this tipping won’t upset the tectonic plates. All will be well, especially in Albany, always known as a garden.

They just don’t make movies like this any more.

Post-Apocalyptic, Reviews Tagged with: Toxic

The Omen (1976)

Oct 061976

Ambassador Robert Thorn (Gregory Peck) secretly adopts a baby to replace his wife’s (Lee Remick) stillborn child. Five years later, people begin to die around the child and Thorn teams with photographer Keith Jennings (David Warner) to discover who the child really is.

It’s been copied in so many ways over the years that it feels jam-packed with clichés, but in 1976, before the Antichrist showed up on most sitcoms, The Omen changed horror. Its references to evil and the devil are straight out of the Bible. The Book of Revelations prophecies the coming of the Antichrist, and The Omen produced him. It took its subject very seriously, something I usually argue against, but with the weight of the Bible for the story (more or less), and Gregory Peck for respectability, a solemn approach had far more power.

Director Richard Donner and writer David Seltzer cleverly shift the action from the universal to the personal. Yes, it’s about the coming apocalypse, but it is seen through one man and what this means to him, his wife, and what he’s hoped to be his family. The only misstep is the babbling priest who could explain everything early on, but instead speaks in vague prophecies and riddles. Why are priests always doing that in horror films?

Due to its somber tone, The Omen may not be a film you’ll want to watch over and over, but horror fans and Christians should see it at least once.

Christian Mythos, Reviews

Robin and Marian (1976)

Oct 041976

After the pointless death of King Richard (Richard Harris), that culminated many pointless years of crusades, an old and tired Robin Hood (Sean Connery) and Little John return to England to find Marian (Audrey Hepburn) a nun, Friar Tuck (Ronnie Barker) and Will Scarlett (Denholm Elliott) thieves in Sherwood forest, the Sheriff (Robert Shaw) still in control of Nottingham, and things no better for the peasants.

Watching the classic Adventures of Robin Hood, or any of the numerous lesser tellings of the legend, is a little like watching many of the old westerns in that there is always a little prick in the back of my mind that something is wrong. In the case of the westerns, it is that the Indians were not cruel savages that were stopped from their evil deeds by noble soldiers, but were the victims of genocide by racists. For Robin, it is that King Richard was not a great king that cared about the people, but a violent thug that spent almost no time in England and used it only as a source of capital. He led barbaric crusades that are best described as a collection of atrocities. And that in the end, it didn’t matter that Robin beat Prince John, because John got the throne anyway (and was a better king than Richard, which is not a ringing endorsement).

The brilliant, tragic, and sometimes funny Robin and Marian does address that reality. But it isn’t a true-life rewrite of the legend. In general terms, it follows the old stories (as a majority of the films do), but it deals with the latter half of them that the others have ignored. The legend of Robin Hood does not stop when he faces down the Sheriff of Nottingham as a young man; it continues till his death. But Robin and Marian is also not just a completion of the myth. It is a story of loss and mortality, and of men never being able to live up to legends. And more than anything else, it is about age.

The moving and witty script by James Goldman, author of The Lion in Winter, needed the best actors in the business, and it got them. Sean Connery, with depth he had not previously been called upon to display, is the perfect tired and aging Robin. He is joined by Nicol Williamson, an actor whose roles rarely match his talent, as a loyal and simplistic Little John. The two are blessed with the best voices in cinema. It is a joy just to hear them speak. The third anchor is Audrey Hepburn, who returned to acting after a nine year absence. She is as lovely as ever, but conveys both wisdom and pain in her face.

In case it wasn’t clear, this is a love story. It is not a Swashbuckler except that it tells a story of characters who normally fit the genre. But here they aren’t the super-human charming rogues that are required for the genre; here they are human, a little too human. They are strong, brave, and very foolish. Exactly the people who could have inspired a legend, without ever being the larger-than-life entities that a legend requires. They are also too proud, a little stupid, and very uncertain. Half the time the characters don’t know why they did the things that they did and have no clue what they should be doing now.

As this is a story of people, not icons, the villains are almost as interesting as the heroes. The Sheriff is not a fountain of pure evil. He’s a sympathetic character who is much like Robin, and has no more future than he does. The Sheriff knows Robin better than Robin does, and is more literate than his colleagues, but he is no great mastermind in control of his emotions either. Like his old foe, he can be goaded into action by inconsequential jabs.

While time has been good to Robin and Marian, particularly because it has slowly reached its target audience (the studio’s initial ad campaign pushed it as a lighthearted romp of flashing swords, which led to a good deal of disappointment), and it is normally rated as one of the great romantic dramas, it still has its detractors. Most of those are simply unhappy that it isn’t an old-style Swashbuckler, with a surprising number not knowing that the legend of Robin does not end happily. Those with more knowledge tend to complain about the humor, thinking that it should be all melodrama. But that misses the point. Neither aging, nor the realization that you can never be what you have dreamed, is fully tragic or comedic, but a mix of the two. When you comprehend that the greatest portion of your life is past, that death is far closer than birth, and that you will never again do the things you once did, it isn’t a time for unending grief (if you think so, your latter years are going to be very sad). Sometimes, it is a time to laugh.

Stranger, I’ve heard people complain about the ending, claiming that no one would act the way Robin and Marian do in the final frames. Such statements miss the impact of love, at least on many of us. If these critics don’t see themselves in the film, let me assure them that it perfectly reflects how many of us would behave. That is one of the strengths of it.

The score is the film’s only weakness. Composer John Barry was chosen against director Richard Lester’s will, and had only a few weeks to complete his work. The result, when not too saccharine, sounds like it would fit a ’70s TV cop drama.

Robin and Marian is one of the great films of the ’70s. It is complex, with multilayered characters and serious themes. It also has laughs and emotional extremes, and it may pull a tear from those of you so inclined to cry at the movies.

Other Robin Hood Swashbucklers I’ve reviewed: The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), The Bandit of Sherwood Forest (1946), Rogues of Sherwood Forest (1950), Sword of Sherwood Forest (1960), Robin Hood (1991), and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).

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Reviews, Swashbucklers Tagged with: Four Reels

Burnt Offerings (1976)

Feb 081976

Ben and Marian Rolf (Oliver Reed, Karen Black), along with their son and Aunt Elizabeth (Bette Davis), move into a worn mansion for the summer. The one hitch is that an old, and never seen woman will be staying in one of the rooms. Once in the house, the family members begin to have hallucinations and dangerous compulsions.

I’m not the fan of Bette Davis that so many are, but still I think that the woman who starred in All About Eve deserved something better in the last third of her career. It’s sad that her final film was the inexcusable Wicked Stepmother, but it is equally depressing that more than ten years earlier, long before her stroke, she was marooned in dreck like this.

Looking like a TV movie with the pace of a six part miniseries, Burnt Offering is one of those films where you know everything an hour before the characters, but in this case, it’s an hour and forty-five minutes before them. The house is evil (haunted or possessed or an evil alien, it’s never explained). Yup. Kind of obvious. Once a few mysterious things happen (sooo slowly), I was ready for the end, but Burnt Offering crawls its way along, supplying all the terror of an attacking killer snail.

The cast looks far more impressive than I would expect for a C-level horror film, at least when I’m reading their names, but their performances are another matter. Overacting is the norm (when Ben sees the chauffeur from his childhood, his reaction inspires laughs, not fear), except for Black, who switches between overacting and barely acting at all.

The vampiric nature of the house is interesting enough to have made this a fine fifteen minute segment of The Night Gallery.

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Ghost Stories, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

The Land That Time Forgot (1975)

Oct 081975

The surviving crew and passengers from a British ship, including the captain (Keith Barron), an American adventurer and submarine expert (Doug McClure), and a female biologist (Susan Penhaligon), take over the German sub that attacked them. Multiple events conspire to strand all of the occupants on a lost continent where dinosaurs and cavemen coexist. The Germans, led by Captain Von Schoenvorts (John McEnery, voice dubbed by Anton Diffring), and the Brits decide to work together, under the Yank, to find fuel and escape.

The ’70s was not a good decade for Giant Monster flicks. The great stop-motion animators were slowing down, the atomic monster fad was dead, the campy creatures were getting dull, and CGI was years off. No one was putting money into films about critters that could eat you and your sister simultaneously, and talent was even harder to find than cash. Into this environment came the low budget, horror, production house, Amicus, producer John Dark, director Kevin Connor, and American actor Doug McClure, with a string of movies based on the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs. I hope you weren’t expecting me to say how they bucked the trend. Nope, these are the guys who solidified it. Acting, effects, and plot—all fail to entertain or interest. The Land That Time Forgot was the first of their four collaborations, and while it is not a complete disaster, it is a ho-hum affair that is easy to forget.

Doug McClure plays Bowen Tyler, a tough, know-everything hero, that is followed by the nagging question: Why is he in this movie? You’ve got a German captain (the only multidimensional character) and a British captain, and they need to get their subordinates to work together or they’re all dead. Makes sense. Looks like a story with some potential for conflict. So what was the point of the American? In order to focus on the pointless Yank, the Brit is made into a weak-willed fool (although we’re supposed to like him and see his decisions as reasonable), who cedes command to the civilian at every opportunity. I don’t want to be picky, but aren’t military officers required to lead their forces? Of course since Tyler can do everything, including fight with guns better than soldiers and with primitive weapons better than cavemen, I guess I can see why everyone is ready to step aside when he walks into a room. I could have accepted it, in a Big Boys Book of Adventure Tales kind of way, if McClure had even a sickly echo of charisma about him, but he comes off as a drab shop steward, not Indiana Jones.

The plot is no help. There isn’t one; at least not a single arcing one. Instead were given an half hour of U-boat military combat, followed by a mishmash of oil prospecting and random encounters with dinosaurs and hostile troglodytes. The back-and-forth battles for command of the submarine are laughable, which is unfortunate as the characters take them in earnest. Since the only consequence is the ship becoming lost at sea, I can’t see the need for the Germans to retake their boat only to have it taken back. I suppose it was cheaper to shoot the footage of men on a small set finding yet another pistol than anything from the “primitive world,” and this is a movie that knows cheap. The caveman melees are more fitting for the genre, but are no more interesting than the sub footage. Weak fight choreography is accented with an over reliance on close-ups (rarely effective in an action scene). Hint to talent-low cinematographers: If you are filming a character running through a jungle, with a villain in hot pursuit, a face-on shot showing only the top of his head to mid-chest does not instill a sense of excitement.

Not that anyone would care about the human vs. human warfare if the dinosaurs looked good. No luck. The effects are uneven, ranging from moderate to something your kid brother could do with his plastic toys in the garage. The monsters are a combination of sad, stiff, full models and sock puppets, but the real problems come when they interact with humans. The monsters change scale, sometimes shifting size by ten times. That’s the stuff of comedy, not action/adventure.

Of course the science is wacky, and the characters’ understanding of how to react to what they learn is even odder (if the water is filled with microbes, why not boil it?), but those are minor criticisms. When the characters, plot, and effects are this bad, a little bit of nonsense makes no difference.

The other Dark/Connor/McClure productions are At the Earth’s Core (1976), The People That Time Forgot (1977), and Warlords of Atlantis (1978).

Giant Monsters, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

Oct 081975

The surviving aliens from the 3rd Planet rebuild Mechagodzilla. With the aid of a bitter scientist and his android daughter, they gain control of the giant dinosaur, Titanosaurus, and send both creatures to destroy Tokyo. Godzilla, in his last appearance as a hero, stomps into town to defeat the bad guys.

A direct sequel to the previous year’s Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla, this is the final entry in the initial series of Godzilla films. Nine years would pass before the big lizard would appear again, and then it would be in a film that ignored all but the original Gojira/Godzilla, King of The Monsters. As the end of an era, they could have done worse. The franchise had dipped to spectacular lows with Godzilla’s Revenge, Godzilla vs. Gigan, and Godzilla vs. Megalon—all children’s films that assumed kids were mentally deficient chimps. Terror of Mechagodzilla isn’t meaningful or innovative, but it isn’t a bad way to spend some time on a rainy Saturday afternoon.

Of course, this is a rubber suit movie, and the suits are pretty sad. Titanosaurus is a man in a stretched-out chicken costume, with a broken neck (the man’s or the chicken’s, it is hard to tell) and a piece of wood nailed where its beak should be. Godzilla has looked worse, but he would have benefited from a lot more shadows. This is a suit where seeing less is much, much more. Mechagodzilla is the only critter that doesn’t look silly, but then robots are a lot easier to fake than living beings.

The story is typical spy and alien stuff—pretty old hat for Japanese monster films of the ’60s and ’70s. But the characters are more interesting than usual (perhaps not a strong recommendation). The scientist and his daughter add much needed drama, and the relationship between android girl and hero is almost touching. I might have been able to take it seriously if the aliens didn’t wear big jacks on their heads.

The giant monster melees (and that is what we are here for) are considerably better than what’s seen in most early Godzilla films. While there are plenty of silly wrestling and boxing moves, and even some gut-holding laughing by Titanosaurus, it is played as straight as Toho could manage at the time.

Terror of Mechagodzilla is a middling entry in the Godzilla series. If you’re a fan, you’ll want to catch it when convenient. If not, this isn’t going to convert you.

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Aliens, Foreign Language, Giant Monsters, Godzilla, Mad Scientists, Mad Scientists, Reviews Tagged with: One Reel

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