Dan_Harkless Reviews

The Psychotronic Man (1979)

Trigger warning: real dead bodies (?)

[2/10 · 20 January 2019]

This movie is so bad in every way, it's not even worth going into. Although I'm a bad movie aficionado, I'd never make it through this one without RiffTrax's comedic commentary. With their riffs, it's worth watching once, but I won't be returning to this one.

The main reason I wanted to review the film was to let people know that there's a scene in a med school where a roomful of students dissect what appear to be real human corpses! (Flayed and contorted into disturbing poses, no less, apparently to make dissection access easier and/or to dehumanize them.)

There's no way this no-budget '70s turkey had the makeup / props budget for those to not have been real. I'm surprised none of the other reviews mentioned this, and I was surprised the RiffTrax guys didn't give their audience a trigger warning beforehand, and instead merely said stuff like "Wow!" during the scene. Since I don't watch snuff films, this is the most disturbing thing I've ever seen in a movie.

Blood Demon Rising (2017)

Fun, ultra-indie horror that's more creative than the similarly themed "Dark Ride", though with amazingly terrible CGI and sound

[6/10 · 31 January 2017]

This film's cinematography and lighting are very good, and the shots are well-designed, for the most part (two glaring exceptions are an important scene with a "line-crossing" error, where two characters talking to each other from across the room are both looking off to the left, and another scene where a character is supposedly crawling up another character's leg from the floor, yet clearly the crawled-upon character is high up on a box). The set design, costumes (except for the awful matching "Spaceship Terror Film Crew 2010" sweatshirts on the two college guys, which I'm hoping was at the insistence of the director of both films, Harry Tchinski), and makeup are also all well done. Wendy Tchinski, the other half of HarWen Entertainment, did the set design and costumes, and was one of the non-SFX makeup artists.

Some of the actors were good. Gabrielle Urban probably turns in the scariest performance as Evil Little Girl. Norman Newkirk as James is a little reminiscent of Jack Palance, though more overtly evil, with more moustache-twirling, but if his performance is a little cartoonish, it's also consistent, creepy, and fun to watch. Finally, Stephen Lestat as the Grimises Demon (BTW, what a horrible name choice -- I can see why this got retitled -- I immediately thought of Grimace from the McDonald's commercials) was an unusual choice, but I think it was smart to go with a more schlubby guy rather than the usual handsome devil/demon. Also I liked the characterization, how he's quite polite and amiable, if you're cooperating with his will, and not the embodiment of all evil. The idea of a vampire demon was also a relatively unique choice. Simone Leorin is unremarkable but fine as Father Samuel, and I suppose his natural Italian accent helps sell him as a Catholic priest with the power to fight evil, though it occasionally gets in the way of his dialogue ("But what is its porpoise?"). The rest of the actors are about par for a low-budget indie film produced in a city like Tacoma, Washington that's not known for its film industry, and are generally mediocre to bad.

Harry Tchinski's writing is definitely not great, but the overall concept was good, and treated the subject of a "haunted attraction" concealing real-life horror with a lot more imagination than "Dark Ride" (2006). The thought of discovering you're complicit when you discover the horrific sights you've been enjoying are actually real people suffering is one that resonates for me, as a huge fan of haunted attractions. Also, as much as you hear about virgins being sacrificed, you very rarely hear anything about what consequences there are if your victim isn't actually a virgin, or how difficult it'd be to find adult virgins to sacrifice in today's day and age.

Probably the worst aspect of the movie was the sound design and foley, which the director credits himself for, the sound recording, and the sound mixing. The foley is laughably bad, and sometimes sounds like prerecorded sound effects being triggered (even the same footstep sound over and over) rather than actual foley. There's a huge noise floor under most of the dialogue and effects, which jarringly gets turned up before each of those sounds comes in and then gets turned back down after each one. Not sure if they recorded the sound on analog equipment, or just at way-too-low levels, or what. Sounds randomly sound weirdly tinny, are panned wrong, are out-of-sync with picture, etc. The dialogue is mostly easy to make out, though.

The only part of the sound that isn't bad is Eric Bridenmaker's music, which is very enjoyable, appropriate, and much better than the average film score. (Very synthy, but I like that.)

Vying for "worst" with the sound are the CGI effects, which again, the director decided to do himself, rather than finding some talented friend, as he was smart enough to do in cases like the cinematography and music. As with much of the foley, most of these effects are so bad that *anything* they could have put in instead (or even *nothing*) would have been better. The worst shot was a fully CG one of a restaurant and surroundings. It took me a long time to try to figure out what the shot was even supposed to represent (a model in the haunted attraction...??), and it was a real facepalm moment when I realized it was replacing what should have been a straightforward outdoor location shot. The best effect was done with puppeteering -- wish they had done more of the effects practically, as all the practical stuff in the movie (e.g. the special effects makeup) looked great. It's interesting that as of this writing (I'm about to submit an update), IMDb shows the film as still in post-production since June 2012 -- dunno if that's just an oversight on somebody's part, or if they had originally intended to have a proper effects company do the CG (and maybe have people who know how to do sound do that?) but ran out of money, and only finally finished off the film as a DIY last year.

If you're a fan of haunted attractions and enjoy low-budget indie horror and can forgive it its faults while enjoying the good stuff (which, depending on your tastes, may also include the female nudity liberally sprinkled throughout, and also one semi-shocking scene towards the end that I've never seen done in a horror movie before), this is an entertaining film which you'll probably enjoy, as I did. I would definitely be open to checking out more from Harry Tchinski in the future (though I'll feel dirty checking out his only other film to date, "Spaceship Terror", due to the glaring product placement in this film), but I hope he tries to stick to the directing and (visual) editing and delegates to people who are more talented at other aspects of production in the future.

Hanah's Gift (2008)

A character-POV movie years before "Hardcore Henry", in pseudo-real-time; underrated, unique, and entertaining ultra-low-budget indie horror/sci-fi

[8/10 · 31 January 2017]

Interesting -- looking at the user ratings as they stand now, this seems to be one of those love-it-or-hate-it movies with big spikes at 1 and 10 stars. Personally, I thought it was really great for what it was. What it was was quality ultra-low-budget indie horror/sci-fi. If it were me, I'd even add "/comedy" to that.

"Hanah's Gift" (note when searching that unusually, there's only one "n" in "Hannah" here) takes the overused horror film device of the "found footage POV camera" and instead makes it the POV of the title character's eyeballs, or other characters' eyeballs, when autistic Hanah uses her psychic powers to have an out-of-body experience where she temporarily does a ride-along in someone else's brain (accompanied by simple but very satisfying visual effects). This was years before the more high-profile "Hardcore Henry" did the first-person POV thing. The makers of "Hanah's Gift" did a very nice job of disguising the multiple takes they filmed this in as one seamless real-time 90-minute take, especially since they couldn't use the usual "dissolve across a camera whip-pan" trick, since we're seeing out of the eyes of a relatively catatonic little girl walking around rather than a camera that's being swung all over the place by an adult being chased by a monster/ghost/killer.

The dialogue was obviously semi-improvised (which is great for the realism of the first-person POV style), and not all the actors in this small independent production were equally up to the task. There are definitely one or two actors that may make you groan; my least favorite performance was unfortunately from the main antagonist, whose line deliveries sound like just that to me (though it is possible to buy it as just a really weird, possibly drug-addled affect), and who doesn't really sell her deranged mental state until the second half of the film, but the majority of the players are great. I kind of fell in love with (twentysomething) Victoria Mayers-Gray, who plays a hypercheerful teen with ADHD. She won the Rising Star Award at ShockerFest 2008 for this role, and she definitely deserved it. I found her portrayal of the unsinkable Toby to be as hilarious as it was adorable, and she's almost solely responsible for the "/comedy" I'd add to the genre list. I also really enjoyed Melanie Wise's naturalistic portrayal of a cynical suspended firefighter who fate wedges back into the role of badass heroine. (The main fight scene, choreographed by a stunt coordinator working under a pseudonym due to this probably being a non-union production, was particularly satisfying.) The score is by writer/director Zac Baldwin (who no, is not the fifth Baldwin brother they kept locked up in the basement), and I would be remiss if I didn't mention that one long talking scene is scored pretty badly -- a schmaltzy and meandering synthesized string solo that sounds like it's from "Ken Burns' Civil War" as directed by Roger Corman. I enjoyed the end-credits music, though, and other than those two instances, it didn't really register, so though I think Baldwin is a much better writer and director than a composer, that could've been worse.

The last thing I wanted to mention is that the mostly audio-only backstory rendition at the beginning of the film is one of the most effective film openings I've seen (even though the backstory didn't really end up being important to the plot in any way).

So, if you're a fan of non-studio productions and can forgive them their faults (the only glaring example of the low budget for me was the ski goggles they tried to pass off as next-generation night vision goggles), definitely check out this underrated little gem of a B-movie. I'm just sorry it's not available on DVD, and only (AFAIK) via Amazon Prime Video, as I'd love to own a future-proof copy of it. (Update: See Melanie Wise's reply to the copy of my review on Amazon -- she apparently has the only DVDs of the film in existence, and is willing to sell them.)

Red Zone Cuba (1966)

Coleman Francis' bleak and haunting vision transcends his lack of skill here

[9/10 · 10 March 2014]

So I had this long, scholarly review painstakingly written up where I drew various links between the work of Ed Wood and of Coleman Francis, and tried to analyze what makes "Red Zone Cuba" / "Night Train to Mundo Fine" so oddly compelling to me and so (re)watchable despite (and sometimes because of) all its obvious flaws, but stupid Firefox crashed, and the way the IMDb site is set up, the session restore didn't come back with my text in this box, and unfortunately I don't have the energy to reconstruct / rewrite all that right now, but I did want to say at least a few words about this film.

With the average B- or Z-grade film tackled by MST3K, RiffTrax, or Cinematic Titanic, the movie itself is painful to endure, so despite enjoying almost every moment of the humorous commentary, on some level I'm usually wishing for the horrible flick to hurry up and be over (indeed, "End!!" is a pretty common riff). However, there's something about "Red Zone Cuba" that has compelled me to watch it over and over, and not just because of how hilarious MST3K's commentary on it is (one of their very best episodes). I should note here that I have not yet seen the uncut version of "...Mundo Fine"; it's possible I'll feel less positive towards the film when I eventually see more of Griffin's senseless savagery towards the Weismeyers. But due to factors like Francis hiring a talented cinematographer, his skill at choosing good library music to score the film, the very likable presence of Harold Saunders (and the mental connection that his delivery triggers to the classic '30s and '40s cinema that Francis was obviously a fan of), and the general interesting oddness of "Red Zone Cuba" and the people in it, it ends up being a much more entertaining and rewatchable film than the average turkey, thus my debatably high rating.

The movie is definitely successful at transporting you to another world (indeed, the tone of the film almost makes it feel like it's taking place in an alternate universe), and despite all the bleakness, bitterness, and cynicism on display, the film manages to not be depressing like Francis' first real film ("The Beast of Yucca Flats" is not really a film, in that "Monster A-Go-Go" sense), "The Skydivers". By comparison, "Night Train to Mundo Fine" is an entertaining romp! ;^>

UPDATE: I recently made some comments responding to a blogger's review of the MST3K version of "Red Zone Cuba", and they included some of my thoughts from my original review that my browser crash threw in the bitbucket, so I thought I'd include a couple of excerpts:

I thought Harold Saunders was great as Cook. He comes across as such an amiable, stand-up guy for a career criminal. It's telling that Cook was nowhere to be seen while Griffin and Landis were murdering Cliff Weismeyer and raping his daughter. Anthony Cardoza is maybe even more hyper-wooden than usual here, but to me it works for this character -- a man whose life circumstances have left him cynical, dysfunctional, and dysphoric. I think Saunders and Francis provide plenty of character such that it's fine for Cardoza to pretty much just be the straight man. One of the few actors whose performances I didn't like was Tom Hanson as Chastain. To me, Francis managed to coax an ahead-of-its-time naturalism from the majority of the performers, but with Hanson, you can always see him acting, and he delivers his lines in a very stagey way.

I think ambitious cinephile Coleman Francis managed to pull a minor classic of a B-movie out of his ass, riddled with laughable flaws though it might be, and achieved something which can be seen as a legitimate piece of outsider art in a way that the more famous bad movie directors like Ed Wood, Roger Corman, and the like never got close to (except for "Glen or Glenda").

The Corpse Vanishes (1942)

Apparently inspired Ed Wood's "Bride of the Monster"

[3/10 · 5 December 2013]

This is a fairly painful movie to endure even in MST3K'd form, and even if you enjoy Lugosi's work. There are some pretty, plucky girls in it, but that's about the only positive. The only thing I found interesting about it is that this 1942 film seems to have made an impression on a young Ed Wood, who in 1955's "Bride of the Monster" recreated Bela's lab set from "The Corpse Vanishes" very closely, and even lifted the scene where Bela catches his big but infant-brained minion tenderly stroking something belonging to the reclined lady strapped to the slab (her hair in this case rather than a fur garment) and whips him in punishment. Honestly, "Bride of the Monster" is a much more entertaining flick, so more power to Ed. I enjoy Bela Lugosi's work, but most of what he has to work with here is pretty boring -- so much more fun to watch him chewing his way through a slab of Ed Wood's absurdly goofy yet always drama-suffused dialogue. :-)

Deep Sea (2006)

"What's that?!?" "It's called a proboscis."

[7/10 · 7 December 2007]

Like others, I had very high hopes when I heard that Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet would be narrating this IMAX film, and that Danny Elfman would be doing the score. However, I was quite disappointed in those elements that attracted my attention to the movie.

The style of Winslet and Depp's narration might be fine for kids, I suppose, but I found it very irritating. Perhaps I'm brainwashed by decades of authoritative-sounding old men with big voices narrating nature documentaries, but I don't think that's all it is. The narration style here is just silly. And not in a good way (although the way Winslet and Depp voiced the exchange I used as the title of my review did provoke plenty of unintentional(?) laughter, and my girlfriend and I still quote the lines occasionally).

Danny Elfman's score, while not outright bad like the narration, did strike me as overwrought and corny (again, I suppose it's fine if viewed as intended only for young children).

And as another reviewer has also noted, the foley was really over the top in this documentary. The fake squealing vocalizations of the sea creatures was particularly irksome and inappropriate.

The film is still worth watching for the amazing underwater footage, but shots intended to be seen in IMAX 3D don't have the same overwhelming impact on the TV screen.

Pan's Labyrinth (2006)

Way more brutal than I could have expected

[7/10 · 1 January 2007]

Very well done, but the brutality in the film exceeds all but the most violent action and horror movies (and it's not that I can't stomach such stuff, but I definitely wasn't expecting it here, was not in the mood for it this night, and would not have taken my parents had I known). Do not make any assumptions about what you're going to see based on your experience of past fantasy films.

It's also extremely bleak. If you'd like to watch a similar story that's less like being repeatedly struck in the face by a hammer, I'd suggest watching "MirrorMask" on DVD instead.

Great creature effects, though (barring the fake-looking CGI fairies). The Pale Man is the best-ever screen incarnation of the sort of fairytale monster that's said to eat little children.

Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978 TV Movie)

Ah, the 70s, when horror movies actually were creepy

[7/10 · 20 January 2006]

I ran across this several years ago while channel surfing on a Sunday afternoon. Though it was obviously a cheesy TV movie from the 70s, the direction and score were well done enough that it grabbed my attention, and indeed I was hooked and had to watch it through to the end. I recently got the opportunity to buy a foreign DVD of this film (oops, didn't notice a domestic one had finally come out a couple months prior), and was very pleased to be able to watch it again (and in its entirety).

I don't wholly understand the phenomenon, but somehow the 70s seem to have a lock on horror movies that are actually scary. The decades prior to the 70s produced some beautifully shot films and the bulk of our enduring horror icons, but are they actually scary? No, not very. Likewise in the years since the 70s we've gotten horror movies that are cooler, more exciting, have much better production values and sophisticated special effects, are more fun, funnier, have effective "jump" moments, and some very creative uses of gore, but again... they aren't really scary! There's just something about the atmosphere of the 70s horror films. The grainy film quality. The spookily dark scenes unilluminated by vast high-tech lighting rigs. The "edge of dreamland" muted quality of the dialogue and the weird and stridently EQ'd scores. The odd sense of unease and ugliness permeating everything. Everything that works to undermine most movies of the 70s, in the case of horror, works in its favor.

Specifically, in this film, the quiet, intense shots of the devil dog staring people down is fairly unnerving. So much more effective than if they had gone the more obvious route of having the dog be growling, slavering, and overtly hostile ("Cujo"?). The filmmakers wisely save that for when the dog appears in its full-on supernatural form. The effects when that occurs, while unsophisticated by today's standards, literally gave me chills. The bizarre, vaguely-defined, "I'm not quite sure what I'm looking at" look intuitively strikes me as more like how a real supernatural vision would be, rather than the hyper-real, crystal clear optical printer / digital compositor confections of latter-day horror films.

While the human characters in this film are not as satisfyingly rendered as their nemesis or the world they inhabit, the actors all do a decent job. The pairing of the brother and sister from the "Witch Mountain" movies as, yes, brother and sister, is a rather cheesy bit of stunt casting, but they do fine. Yvette Mimieux always manages to be entertaining if unspectacular. Richard Crenna earns more and more empathy from the audience as the film progresses. His self-doubt as he wonders whether his family's alienness is truly due to a supernatural plot or whether he's merely succumbing to paranoid schizophrenia is pretty well handled, though his thought that getting a routine physical may provide an explanation for what he's been experiencing is absurd in its naïveté.

The movie's The-End-Question-Mark type ending is one of the only ones I've seen that doesn't feel like a cheap gimmick, and actually made me think about the choices these characters would be faced with next and what they'd be likely to do and how they'd feel about it.

Detractors of this film may say it's merely a feature-length vehicle for some neato glowing retina shots, but hey, you could say the same thing about "Blade Runner". :-)

Damnation Alley (1977)

So sad this was the only film adaptation of Roger Zelazny's fantastic oeuvre

[3/10 · 13 January 2006]

A stogie-chewing George Peppard heads a team that welds together an armored vehicle out of spare parts, taking satisfaction when a plan comes together.... Jan-Michael Vincent mans an AWOL missile-firing government vehicle copiloted by a cranky white-haired guy....

Capsule descriptions of "Airwolf" and "The A-Team"? No, you'd be better off watching an episode of either of those shows, but unfortunately I'm describing "Damnation Alley", the wildly unfaithful movie adaptation of the novel by brilliant Sci-Fi author Roger Zelazny.

Now, I'm sure few Zelazny fans would disagree that "Alley" is one of the least of his works, but this film takes Zelazny's somewhat decayed fruit and manages to squeeze onto the floor whatever juice it had in it, leaving only the decay.

All that remains of the book is the basic setting, the cross-post-apocalyptic-country road trip plot device (though with the book's suspenseful motivation for the trip replaced by a vague "let's see what's over there"), the "Run the storm or dig in?" scene, and a main character named Tanner. Well, I *guess* you can call him the main character. Just as Tanner and Denton take equal turns driving the truck (no, I will not call it a "Landmaster" -- Zelazny never would have given it such a dorky appellation), not even needing to tussle over the usual single steering wheel, Vincent and Peppard seem to be given completely equitable screen time in which to shine, an opportunity they each squander in equal measure.

Notice I did not say *Hell* Tanner. No, this is not the novel's violent last-of-the-Hell's-Angels anti-hero, but instead a pretty mild military boy who's, well, kind of cocky I guess, and, uh, likes to ride a dirt bike... (cue faux expectant look). But at least Tanner is inspired by the book. The rest of the characters are, well, uninspired, and purely the invention of the screenwriters.

And as for the setting, it's close enough to be recognizable, but is not the world that Zelazny was exploring in the book. Different post-apocalypse stories have chosen to stake their respective posts at different points along the timeline, from "28 Days Later" to the far-flung dystopias of "Planet of the Apes" and "The Time Machine". In the novel, Zelazny looked at the world a generation after the holocaust, an interesting point to examine, where government has established control again in the remaining population centers, and the recognizably ordinary lives people can lead in these pockets of safety is in sharp contrast to the nightmare world that lays down the road apiece. Instead of keeping this setting, though, the authors of this film decided to go with a world maybe a year or two after the bombs, which presents a much less interesting vantage than any of the time-points noted above. But even life at this point along the eternal road could have been interesting to examine, had the movie taken the time to do so. Unfortunately it did not, so I must respectfully disagree with those commenters who said that this was one thing the movie did well. What we get instead is mostly some people riding around the country and encountering dangerous situations that could be successfully transplanted to any time period.

I likewise must disagree with those that said that the movie did a good job portraying the experience of the military officers who witnessed the end of the world at the beginning of the film. While I realize that military personnel are trained to remain calm and productive under pressure, these folks witnessing the huge barrage of nuclear warheads showering down upon America didn't appear to be under pressure at all! People were milling casually around or sitting and doing their usual paperwork while the world ended! Pretty much the only expression of angst or concern we get is when Jan-Michael puts his head in his hands at the end of the sequence, but his portrayal could serve equally well for some other movie's 50th-billing character Man With Headache.

Other random things I must criticize: George Peppard's accent isn't particularly badly done, I guess, but it sure is annoying.

When the one reasonably likable character makes an exit, the other characters seem not to care very much, and seem not to display any sign afterwards that they remember such a character had ever been around.

As others have also alluded to, one of the most anticlimactic endings ever.

But the film is not wholly devoid of charm. The sky effects are indeed pretty neat-looking, and I'm sorry I didn't get to see them on the big screen, though the near-complete failure to try to maintain registration between moving (or even stationary!) ground and sky elements is very jarring and fake-looking.

Speaking of the sky, the film also does a commendable job of recreating the bizarre, scary, and vengeful weather depicted in the book.

The score is certainly not among Jerry Goldsmith's best work, but it's better than the material it underscores, and it has some kewl analog synth squawks you don't get to hear in his other work.

The truck is also pretty cool, though the stretchy material connecting the two halves looks comically flimsy in the harsh environments the truck rides through. Not surprised to hear that's the one element that does not survive on the show vehicle today.

But I have to say that if you insist on watching a movie where the main characters venture out from one of the remaining safe pockets of humanity in a dangerous post-apocalyptic world in their heavily armored, missile-firing truck, and occasionally drive dirt bikes out of the back of it, you would do much better to watch George Romero's "Land of the Dead" instead. (If the Landmaster or other elements of "Damnation Alley" provided any inspiration to "Land of the Dead", it's by far the best thing this bastard child of Zelazny has given to the world.)

Baby Boy (2001)

An all-black movie that's very accessible to non-blacks

[30 November 2002]

As a white American, I have to admit that there's quite a bit of African American entertainment I don't relate to. Much of it seems to be made by blacks for blacks, without any thought given to being accessible to people of other cultures.

A recent example that springs to mind is "Barbershop". I utterly failed to relate to any of the scenes shown in the previews and interview-accompanying clips for the film. In particular, the stuff presented as being ostensibly funny seemed completely humorless to me.

Coming from this background, I came across "Baby Boy" during a Cinemax free preview weekend, and it instantly hooked me. Unlike some black films, this movie was clearly not made to glorify the black experience above all others, nor to speak only to black people. It's just a realistic (as far as I can tell) depiction of a certain time and place, that being the black neighborhoods of L.A., circa 2001. Many of the themes were universal, and the material that's specific to this particular subculture was presented in an even-handed and easy-to-relate-to manner.

While my usual instinct on hearing about the doings of "gangstas" is disgust and disbelief that anyone would choose to live like that, this film did a great job of portraying how much the environment you grow up in has an effect on the way you live. I definitely felt empathy for these characters that I'd just think of as "scumbags", were I to just see a news story about their crimes.

I think Singleton probably does a real service to the black community here, letting people outside the culture understand what life can be like in that environment. I think this does a lot more for racial understanding than, say, the average gangsta rap album does, though they touch on the same areas.

Speaking of which, a more mundane reason why I probably enjoyed this film more than many black movies is that the soundtrack wasn't wall-to-wall rap. I really don't enjoy most rap, so there's the danger of my missing out on otherwise good cinematic material if I'm too turned off by the music. "Baby Boy", on the other hand, featured an effective (if somewhat generic) orchestral score by David Arnold, along with some tasteful R&B. The rap was restricted to some brief and not in-your-face appearances on characters' stereos. I think this helped the realism of the film, and the sort of docudrama-type presentation of the material.

Like a couple of other commenters, I was bothered at how unwilling to call 911 the characters in the film were, when it was clearly the time to do so. But rather than make me lose my suspension of disbelief, this just made me sad to think that there are probably a lot of people in these communities who agree with the rap lyric that "911 is a joke", and don't feel they can get any help from "the man".

Cheats (2002)

"I envision a cheating wing!"

[30 November 2002]

Just caught this film on Cinemax during a free preview weekend, and I liked it so much I came to IMDb to get a link to the DVD. I was pretty stunned to learn that not only is there no DVD, but according to the info here, the film never even got a theatrical release.

This is difficult to understand, because "Cheats" is one of the funniest high school movies I've ever seen, and is definitely one of the most realistic, in terms of its depiction of high school kids. Even stuff like "American Pie", which by comparison to the average high school movie seems laudably legit in its presentation of high schoolers, seems phony and staged compared to this film.

Perhaps Martin Starr (who, like the other actors, turns in a great performance here) carries a curse that would also explain the first-season cancellation of another very entertaining and realistic high school dramedy, TV series "Freaks and Geeks".

I suppose I'm not the _most_ impartial judge, since like the main characters in this film, I also attended a private high school and despite being very bright, couldn't stand studying or doing homework. I may have even (ulp) practiced my "wicked small" writing skills on one or two occasions. But despite my bias, I have to think just about anyone would enjoy this film (except perhaps hardcore disciplinarians who would object to the fact that the cheaters get away with much of their crime).

So catch "Cheats", if you get the chance. It's the funniest take on cheating (I especially enjoyed the cheaters' jargon, like "mis-sequenced", and "the sick cheat") since MST3K's send-up of Centron's 1952 "mental hygiene" short "Cheating" (from whence the quote in my Summary derives).

Shrunken Heads (1994)

Preposterous fun

[22 September 2002]

Okay, if you've seen Richard Elfman's brilliant slab of cult film cheese "Forbidden Zone", don't be expecting the same level of quality from this film. The fact that Richard didn't write this one is probably the main reason for that, but the direction, too, is merely workmanlike, for the most part. Don't be expecting the wild stylistic flourishes seen in "Zone"'s tribute to 1930s cinema.

This (1994) film does sort of seem to be a tribute to low-budget 1980s cinema, but this may have just been because the film had been in development since then. Or maybe this was due to the hand of schlock horror producer Charles Band, who probably wishes that the 80s had never ended. (But schlockmeister though he may be, he does deserve some credit for keeping Richard Elfman off the streets.)

As a more-imaginative-than-average B horror flick, this movie does have some things going for it. First off, the premise is indeed enjoyable for its sheer ridiculousness. I think the film would have done well to get into this good stuff much quicker than it did. Pretending to be a non-supernatural "kids in a tough neighborhood" film for the first half hour was pretty pointless, although anyone coming across the movie on TV and not knowing what it was about would be in for an amusing shock at the end of the first act when the "how will our heroes get out of this one?" moment arrives and they _don't_ (or at least, not exactly).

Other things to recommend the film include the wonderfully twisted idea of living dead zombies who are doomed to clean up litter in back alleyways, the hot little piece of jailbait ass portrayed by Rebecca Herbst, the Danny Elfman theme, the inspired use of a mostly instrumental remix of Oingo Boingo's "No One Lives Forever", and, as someone else mentioned, one of the most circumstantially hilarious instances of the ubiquitous ripping off of Elfman's "Edward Scissorhands" theme.

I just wish the filmmakers could have gotten Julius Harris to fake a Haitian accent (even a shaky one would have done). This would have lent a smidge of credibility and would have made Sumatra's oddly flowery dialogue go over better.

Someone else said to run away if you see this flick on the Sci-Fi Channel, but I'd say if you have a taste for this sort of entertainment, _seek_it_out_ there, as this film is out-of-print on video and is hard to come by. Indeed, Sci-Fi Channel's "Elvira"-derived "William Shatner's Full Moon Fright Night" horror film festival series made a good platform for the film, though the cuts to clean up the R-rated gore were somewhat jarring.

Kolya (1996)

A beautiful film

[11 September 2002]

I've seen a number of U.S. movies filmed in Czechoslovakia, but this is the first Czech film I've seen. Seeing this makes me understand how Czechoslovakia could have a fairly booming film industry.

This movie came on on cable network IFC and it first grabbed my attention because I didn't recognize what language the characters were speaking. Within a couple of minutes, however, the movie itself had hooked me, though it's not the type of story I'd usually seek out. Indeed I was late to work and really wanted to get going, but I was unable to tear myself away.

Beyond the great writing, acting, and directing, this film has some truly amazing cinematography. There are occasions where the filmmakers seem to have commanded the universe around them to get these shots. In one scene, the lead character looks up through his car's windshield as he's driving, and in perfect synchronization the reflection of the airliner he was looking at passes across the windshield. Even more amazing was the shot from well up in the air, with the lead characters' car driving up the road, a train going up a track in parallel to them, and a hawk (or eagle?) hovering right in front of the camera and then diving off to the side -- and they got this shot right at "magic hour". In Hollywood CGI surely would have been used to coordinate this ballet of elements.

There were also many shots incorporating wonderfully poetic imagery. One of my favorites was the lead character staring into the reflective doors at the airport which close and reveal him to himself, standing there utterly alone.

One more comment -- another reviewer called the ending "predictable", but I'd have to disagree. I really didn't know where the movie would end up, and in fact it was portrayed so subtly that I had to rewind the final scene to be sure what had happened, and then go back and re-watch a prior scene that contained a seemingly throwaway line that bears on the ending.

Space Mutiny (1988)

A feel-good bad movie

[26 July 2002]

The previously-written comments do a great job of describing this movie, but the one comment most on the mark is the one from the guy who calls this "the most lovable [piece] of garbage you will ever see".

Let me put it in dog terms. Some bad movies are like an attack-dog that lunges immediately to bite you in the groin.

Other movies are like that annoying dog next door, that grates on your nerves by barking all day long.

This movie isn't like either of those. This movie is like a puppy. A cute... little... stupider than all get-out... puppy. Sure, the puppy is dumber than a box of hammers, and sure, he tinkles on the rug, but you can't help but love him and stare transfixed at his clumsy antics.

I therefore can't really condone this movie's current IMDb rating as the 19th worst of all time. It's too enjoyable and cheerfully ignorant of its own badness.

A couple of comments on the MST3K episode featuring this film. First, it bugged me that they never mentioned that all the space footage was ripped off from "Battlestar Galactica" (perhaps why almost every reviewer here has felt compelled to mention it... um, including me). Also, they didn't make reference to Kalgan when John Phillip Law appeared again (20 years younger) to play "Diabolik" in the final MST3K episode. One more nitpick is that someone on the knowledgeable MST writing crew should have recognized the South African accents, rather than blaming poor Canada for this mega-turkey.

On the positive side, Mike's obsessive-compulsive routines when he's having tea before Crow and Servo's dogfight is some of the most subtle and hilarious stuff that ever appeared on the show.

Waking Life (2001)

"Waking Life"... In Annoy-o-Vision!

[8 May 2002]

If you live in the U.S. you probably remember those annoying commercials for Earthlink where video of people talking about their online experiences was rotoscope-animated in an intentionally loose manner, with their features floating and sliding around independently of each other (with occasional liberties being taken like turning a guy's face into that of a rodent when he compares himself to a rat in a maze smelling cheese). Well, picture one of these commercials being FEATURE-LENGTH. You've got yourself "Waking Life".

Yes, "Waking Life" animation director Bob Sabiston was also responsible for the Earthlink commercials. While I think the technique has some artistic merit, I think it's best limited to short doses, like commercials or the music video for Zero 7's "Destiny" (directed by "Waking Life" producer Tommy Pallotta). An entire film of the disconcertingly shifty images is really a bit much. I suppose on the small screen it should be less seasickness-inducing than it was in theaters, though.

Dog Day Afternoon (1975)

Riveting film, and not dated at all

[12 February 2002]

I have trouble watching most films from the 70s because they date themselves so badly, and because I despise 70s aesthetics and fashions. Here's a film that doesn't seem dated at all -- in fact, it seems ahead of its time in many ways. As far as I knew, crime films of this tone, with "bad guys" who are likeable, funny, and basically the guys next door didn't come around until Quentin Tarantino.

Besides content, 70s films bug me due to their generally dismal production values and terrible prints -- the print I saw of this film on the USA Network, though, was crystal clear (though unmatted). The dialogue track has a few creaky places production-wise, but visually the film could have been made last year, in terms of camera technique, editing, lighting (by contrast, I can't even watch "The Sting" (1973), with it's HORRID flat TV lighting), and so on. I guess what helps is that the movie was based on a true story (funny to see the credit "based on a magazine article by" ;^>), and the director was going for a very cinema verite approach. In this spirit, there is no music in the movie past the opening credits (and that song becomes one that's playing on the principals' radio), and this helps the movie attain its riveting tone and avoid becoming dated due to the soundtrack.

Other high points are of course the writing, Sidney Lumet's direction (I was not previously familiar with his work), and Al Pacino's always inspired acting. It's also neat to see the young Lance Henriksen (who looks surprisingly non-different from today's Lance Henriksen ;^>). The frank treatments of subjects like sex changes and the gay community (a term I would have assumed was coined more recently) are also interesting to see for a mainstream movie of this long ago.

Oh, if by any chance you're checking out this movie because you're a Carol Kane fan (my "Carol Kane" TiVo wishlist recorded the film for me), don't watch it solely for her -- she doesn't get to do much. There are plenty of other good reasons not to miss the film, though.

The First Seven Years (1998 TV Movie)

A well-done short film

[12 December 2001]

Not too much to say about this one. A good light self-contained 30-minute film. Carol Kane (the actress I tuned in for) doesn't get to do all that much, but fits nicely into the 1940s Jewish mom role.

One oddment is the treatment of the (unsubtitled) Yiddish dialogue in the film. On the Closed Caption track, the Yiddish is in one case simply described in English, in another case transcribed, and in two other cases actually translated! Never seen "hidden subtitles" in the CC track before.

Crimewave (1985)

Much better than I expected

[7/10 · 27 August 2001]

I hadn't heard anything good about this film, and its obscurity didn't lend much credence to the theory that it was any good, but it seemed impossible to me that coming from Joel & Ethan Coen, Sam Raimi, Rob Tapert, and Bruce Campbell, that it could be totally lacking in quality.

And indeed it isn't. I'm surprised this film isn't more popular in the cult world. There's plenty of trademark Coen Bros. dialogue, Sam Raimi crazy camera moves (indeed, in this sense this film is more entertaining than his recent sedate mainstream work), and Bruce Campbell charming cheesiness. I wish someone would release this out-of-print film on DVD so more genre fans would have the opportunity to check it out.

I guess one problem people might have with the film is that they're trying to watch it as a straight comedy. From this perspective, I guess the film is at best uneven. But the film's purpose is as much to pay tribute to vanished 30s and 40s movie conventions as it is to make you laugh. This is fun, because while the Coen Bros. keep returning to that time period in their movies, this is the only time they really play with the *film* style of that period -- their other views on the past are filmed through a modern lens (figuratively and literally). Likewise for Raimi, who hasn't had much other opportunity for this beyond some "Three Stooges" schtick in the "Evil Dead" series. The only other film I've seen that pulls off this kind of tribute is Richard Elfman's brilliantly quirky "Forbidden Zone" (which admittedly does it better). Both films, for instance, feature the classic wipe consisting of a black circle that closes in on the shot, ceasing contraction for a moment to frame an actor's face as they do a final take, and then contracting the rest of the way to a black screen.

I guess one thing that might have lifted this movie to greater heights would have been if Bruce Campbell had been allowed to play leading man Vic as was originally intended (but disallowed by the studio, per Bruce's excellent autobiography "If Chins Could Kill: Confessions of a B Movie Actor"). While Reed Birney competently plays the fumbling pipsqueak (and actually brings a more poindexterish quality to the role than Bruce physically would have been able to), he just doesn't have the charisma to really pull you in. Oh well -- Renaldo "The Heel" is a classic Campbell character, so there's some consolation there.

A parting note is that Arlon Ober, a primary composer of the brilliant score to the "Robotech" series, provides a wonderful score here as well, one of only 11 he's done, per IMDb. Almost worth seeking this out just for his great, fun score (the ending credits song is especially smile-inducing).

Within These Walls (2001 TV Movie)

A beautiful movie

[8/10 · 25 August 2001]

While Hallmark Entertainment is one of the companies that produced this film, it does not suffer from the "Hallmark" stigma of being cloying and artificial. From what I can tell (not having had any experience with the situations depicted in the film except dog ownership), it seems very realistic (even if it's not 100% true to the real-life story it's based on, per another commenter). Conflicts that are introduced don't go away as if a magic wand were waved, and characters that struggle have to keep on struggling. Because of this depiction of grey areas rather than black & white contrasts, and the fact that things don't come for free, the movie is much more touching than its manipulative tear-jerker TV movie cousins.

Heh. It's funny, within a few days time I saw "Girls In Prison" (1994) (TV) and then this film. It'd be tough to make two more different "women behind bars" films than these two, in terms of realism, dramatic quality, acting, and meaningfulness.

Anyway, if you're a fan of Laura Dern, a dog lover, a person interested in an apparently realistic yet not gratuitously gritty look at life in women's prison, or are a person who's skeptical that criminal rehabilitation programs can work, I can definitely recommend checking out this film.

Girls in Prison (1994 TV Movie)

Goofy

[23 August 2001]

An odd film. It can't decide whether it wants to be a tribute to 50s/60s "girls behind bars" exploitation pictures, a pseudo-political satire, or a crime drama. In better hands, it might have straddled those genres effectively, but as it is, it's more than a little scattershot.

In some sense, the film only seems to be sure of itself when it lapses into "lipstick lesbians in jail" exploitation. Personally, I could have done with more of that material, but then I watched the emasculated basic cable version on Lifetime. In retrospect, I'd recommend renting the video so you don't have to miss out on any of the "sexuality/nudity", and so you won't have to put up with the lame-o profanity overdubs. One particularly egregious dialogue change (judging from context and lip-reading) was "I shot his balls off" to "I blew his brains out", which renders the followup line "there was nothing to sew back on" utterly nonsensical.

Most of the laughs in the film are unintentional rather than written. The lack of acting from the character who stabs herself got a big laugh from me. The only *good* acting in the film to speak of comes from Anne Heche, who puts more work into her role than you'd expect. Lots of nice bits of business that I can tell were her idea rather than scripted or directed, since her scenes are the only ones with that kind of quality. Oh, I guess Miguel Sandoval (the "digger" in Jurassic Park) has a couple of nice moments as well.

All in all, about what you would expect from legendary (to MST3K fans, at least) schlock producer Samuel Z. Arkoff, who also directed the unrelated 1956 film with the same title. Worth viewing if you're an Anne Heche fan or have nothing better to do, but don't go out of your way.

I Married a Strange Person! (1997)

Likely Bill Plympton's best work

[9/10 · 17 August 2001]

I've been a fan of Bill Plympton since I first saw one of his shorts in a late-80s animation festival, and to me, "I Married a Strange Person!" is his best work. It's possible that I've missed something better -- I've seen many/most of his shorts, but only one other of his long-form works, "The Tune". This film, to me, is much funnier and more memorable than "The Tune", though not as deep, I suppose.

Fans of the "splatstick" horror/comedy genre should enjoy this film, as it uses over-the-top gore to similar comedic effect. Don't get the impression that this is a film in the vein of "Lupo The Butcher" or something, though, with ultra-violence being used for ultra-violence's sake. Plympton's imagination is FAR too vivid for that to be the case.

I'd have to say, in fact, that Plympton has the most unique and active imagination of any visual artist I'm familiar with, and this film is a great showcase for it, since the plot concerns a special brain lobe that causes imagination to become reality.

Apart from the comedic gore, there are hilarious looks at sex. What Plympton has done for quitting smoking and other topics in his shorts, he does here for sex. Everything from people to animals to inanimate objects are seen engaging in the act here, to comic effect. One of the most imaginative images is the upper receptacle in an electrical outlet banging the lower receptacle from behind (with the three-prong receptacles having become faces).

Another thing to mention is the film's great score. Funny, catchy, toe-tapping tunes that you'll feel like you've heard somewhere before.

To sum up, buy this film! If you're at all a fan of animation or semi-risque comedy, you're sure to love it.

The First Time (1982 TV Movie)

Not bad for an early 80s family drama TV movie

[12 August 2001]

As you might imagine for the type of movie this is, you're not going to get brilliance. With that in mind, though, the movie is a lot less cheesy than I might have expected.

It's actually fairly realistically written and portrayed. The only thing that strikes me as unrealistic is that the handsome Navy captain would be interested in Lucy, who I found physically and psychologically repulsive. Speaking of which, the mother/daughter conflict would have come across as less one-sided had they made Lucy more sympathetic and not such a frigid, controlling, bitchy spinster.

The only performance that really stands out is Harriet Nelson as the grandmother, Charlotte. Very appealing personality, and her love of sports cars and fast driving was an amusing character quirk.

Jennifer Jason Leigh, on the other hand, is pretty much going through the motions in this role, as in another early-career TV movie she did, "Death Ride to Osaka". But in both cases the material didn't give her the opportunity to do a *whole* lot more.

"Robotech" fans get the opportunity to see voice actor Greg Finley in a walk-on role as a waiter. His natural speaking voice is a lot different from those he did on "Robotech".

Another small role is that of a sailor who I would swear is one of the Estevez/Sheen family, but the credits only mention a Joseph Phelan, who I can only assume is that speaking sailor, not the fighting sailor.

Privates on Parade (1983)

Fans of John Cleese's comic work need not apply

[10 May 2001]

A bad film. It can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a goofy comedy about flamboyantly gay showtune performers or a tragic and realistic war movie. Any attempts on its part to be both at the same time are unsuccessful, in my opinion.

Big fans of John Cleese might be tempted to watch this movie thinking that Cleese is enjoyable to watch whatever he's in, but he really has nothing to work with in this material. He plays it very straight (in more ways than one) and the filmmakers don't even manage to squeak much humor out of this contrast with the other members of the performing troupe.

Skip this film.

Force of Evil (1948)

Bleak and tedious, but with a few snatches of cinematographic brilliance

[9 May 2001]

A depressingly bleak film that's tough to sit through. Doesn't seem to amount to much past a hackneyed "crime doesn't pay" message. I don't think the movie's "classic film noir" status is very warranted. The crime that everybody's suffering for is so petty and uninteresting (and the fact that they go on suffering nonetheless is not examined in any meaningful way).

Other weak points include the incredibly inappropriate cheery music swell that accompanies the final scene, and then the sudden, anticlimactic ending. Also poorly-done and confusing was the fact that thin, bald-pated, bespectacled Bauer has a co-worker that looks almost completely identical to him (to no apparent intentional effect).

The few strong points include some pretty jaw-dropping location cinematography (unfortunately occupying very little screen time -- mostly we're on grey, unremarkable indoor sets) and some positive vibrations from the Doris Lowry character as portrayed by Beatrice Pearson.

Suddenly (1954)

Has aged well; fairly good role for Paul Frees

[2 May 2001]

Contains spoilers

A good film. I tuned in to it just to see my favorite voice-actor, Paul Frees, in one of his relatively rare on-camera roles, but the film hooked me and I enjoyed it for its own merits. It's aged better than some of its contemporaries. The "corn" factor is kept to an acceptable minimum.

The movie is a good set piece for pro-gun-rights folks, though it would have been a more thought-provoking take on the issues of guns in the home had the policeman not had to finish the job started by Pidge's gun-hating mom. Better yet, if Pidge's shot had not missed its mark, the film would have been an even more thought-provoking look at the issue of kids and guns, but you can't expect too much of a Hollywood movie from the 50s.

I'm not sure what it means that Frank Sinatra withdrew this movie from circulation after the Lee Harvey Oswald incident -- I saw the movie on U.S. cable channel A&E in May, 2001. Perhaps the film went back into circulation after Sinatra's death?