I didn’t set out to review so many Jean Rollin movies this time around, but then every single film of his that I had in my Netflix Instant queue acquired an expiration date simultaneously.
Death Becomes Her (1992), in which Robert Zemeckis (of all people) directs Meryl Streep and Goldie Hawn (of all people) as a pair of nigh-indestructible zombie women…
The Demoniacs (1974), in which a couple of Belgian girls have sex with a devil in order to gain sufficient power to avenge themselves upon the pirates who raped them…
Dressed to Kill (1980), in which Brian De Palma kicks Psycho up a notch…
The G-String Horror (2012), in which a film crew shooting a documentary about a haunted strip club get more than they bargained for…
Gargoyles (1972), in which a tribe of homicidal pterodactyl-people is in some ways less troublesome than a redneck police captain…
Gor (1987), in Harry Allan Towers teams up with Golan and Globus to turn a mad philosopher’s neo-Nietzschean erotic John Carter fanfic into a run-of-the-mill 80’s barbarian movie…
Latitude Zero (1969), in which rival Captain Nemo wannabes battle for control of some schmuck scientist and his cute but largely useless daughter…
Lips of Blood (1975), in which you can’t really blame the protagonist for preferring his hot vampire girlfriend to his out-of-control mom…
The Nude Vampire (1970), in which the title character is neither nude nor a vampire…
The Rape of the Vampire (1968), which has very little to do with vampires being raped…
The Shiver of the Vampires (1971), in which the vampires don’t shiver, either– what the hell, Jean Rollin?!
and…
The Vampire Beast Craves Blood (1967), which isn’t nearly as much stupid fun as a movie about a blood-drinking were-moth ought to be.
#1 by blake on June 18, 2013 - 3:05 pm
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You referred to Ishiro Honda, Tomoyuki Tanaka, Eiji Tsuburaya, and Shinichi Sekizawa as something of an important quartet in Japanese sci-fi filmmaking. I suppose you could add Akira Ifukube and make it a quintet. How was Ifukube’s score here?
#2 by El Santo on June 18, 2013 - 11:01 pm
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A little tired and derivative, honestly, like he’d done just a few too many of these things by 1969.
#3 by Blake on June 19, 2013 - 1:18 am
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As much as I love his music, Ifukube cannibalized himself a lot in his later works, especially his first two Heisei Godzilla films, without building much on previous themes. Terror of Mechagodzilla sounded familiar, but Ifukube was able to weave something nice and somber out of a classic theme.
#4 by Jen S on June 19, 2013 - 4:14 am
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Ohhh, Gor. I’ve seen the MST takedown of Outlaw of Gor many times (many, many times) but didn’t know much about the source material until I started reading B movie sites. Said material did not endear me to its creator, to say the least, but I can’t deny the fascination with such a whackadoo personality.
#5 by RogerBW on June 19, 2013 - 3:08 pm
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A well-respected British writer on (and of) science fiction was once asked by his neighbour to dispose the books that her son had left behind when he moved out. He agreed; and that is why for a year or more the complete Gor series was adorning a bookcase in his hall. He didn’t want to let them further into the house, and nobody wanted to take them away…
Interesting point about keeping the same cast members for both the original victims and the people possessed by their ghosts. I don’t know much about the technicalities of filmmaking, but I assume it would be quite a bit cheaper. But how fascinating it would be to get pairs of actors who looked similar but distinctive, and to use makeup to transform one gradually into the other.
#6 by Read MacGuirtose on July 6, 2013 - 9:00 pm
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It wouldn’t necessarily be much cheaper, if at all. Actors, if they’re paid at all (and for low-budget productions they often aren’t, if the producers can get away with it), are often paid by the day. Assuming that the shots of the original victims and the shots of the possessed actors were shot on different days (and, even if they actually weren’t, it wouldn’t have been hard to schedule things so they were), it wouldn’t have cost any more to pay, for instance, two actors for three days each than one actor for six days.
(SAG contracts for all but the lowest-budget films do include strictures that complicate the day rate business, mandating days off, pay for days in between non-consecutive shoot days, and so on. But it’s probably safe to assume that this particular film wasn’t done under such a contract.)
Mind you, even though it wouldn’t necessarily have meant any more pay for the actors, there still would have potentially been more paperwork in using more actors, as well as more time spent casting them, etc. But the difference really wouldn’t have been that great. (On the other hand, if they weren’t paying their actors — and again, for a very low-budget non-union production, that wouldn’t be terribly unusual — they might have had a more difficult time finding enough actors who were willing to be in the movie for no pay, especially if they were looking for pairs of actors who looked similar.)
#7 by Read MacGuirtose on July 6, 2013 - 9:10 pm
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Ah, another interesting point from the movie’s IMDb page testifying to its extremely low budget: “Original music by Kevin MacLeod”. Now, you might think that having original music would be indicative of a higher budget — after all, the filmmakers have to have spent money on the music, don’t they? — but you would think that only if you didn’t know who Kevin MacLeod was. If you look at Kevin MacLeod’s IMDb page, you’ll see that he is credited as a composer in over 1100 films. Sounds impressive, but the reason for that is that he has a website where he makes his music available for free for any production to use without fees or royalties, no questions asked and no requirements except that he be credited, making him the go-to guy for moviemakers who want original music but don’t want to pay anything. (The fact that those filmmakers may be using exactly the same “original” music as other filmmakers who are using Kevin MacLeod’s music is apparently not much of a deterrent.)
This is not a knock against Kevin MacLeod (never met him, and for all I know he’s a great guy), and I’m not saying his music isn’t good. All I’m saying is that a credit for music by Kevin MacLeod is generally a sign that the producers didn’t want to spend money. (Not always; for a fee he will actually write new pieces specifically for particular productions. But I’m guessing that’s not what happened with The G-String Horror.) So if they didn’t want to spend money on music, that seems to make it all the more likely they weren’t spending money on actors, either…
#8 by Read MacGuirtose on July 6, 2013 - 9:13 pm
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(To be completely fair, the fact that the credits do say “Original music by Kevin MacLeod” might mean that they actually did pay him to write new pieces, rather than just using his freely available royalty-free music. On the other hand, it could also mean that the producers don’t know what “original music” means.)
#9 by blake on June 19, 2013 - 5:17 pm
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I wonder if Lyz would contend with The Vampire Beast Craves Blood as Cushing’s worst using The Uncanny and Arabian Adventure as counterarguments.
#10 by The Rev. on June 21, 2013 - 2:21 pm
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I wasn’t able to catch [b]Gargoyles[/b] in its original release, but in high school I caught it on TBS. Despite having heavily immersed myself in horror movies by that point (making up for lost time), I remember how impressed I was with it in most respects, particularly how bloody it was.
#11 by supersonic man on June 21, 2013 - 3:14 pm
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If you’re looking at Rollin’s vampire movies, do NOT skip Vierges Et Vampires / Requiem For A Vampire. That’s the one that starts with a car chase in clown makeup.
#12 by El Santo on June 21, 2013 - 3:45 pm
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That one got back-burnered because Netflix had it on disc as well as Instant (meaning that my chance to see it without buying my own copy wasn’t going to vanish into the ether in a week), but I’ll get to it eventually.
#13 by supersonic man on July 5, 2013 - 7:01 pm
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The Market Street Cinema is haunted, eh…
There really are a lot more “haunted” buildings around than I realized. For the last year and a half I’ve been working in a supposedly haunted office building. Specifically, the second floor of the west wing — one level above my desk — is haunted in the evenings after most workers have left.
The reason for the haunting is clear enough: a brutal almost-double murder that took place in 1891, at a farmhouse that stood at the site of the present office building. The farmhouse was moved about half a mile away before construction began… and that building is also supposedly haunted, by the same ghost. This spook commutes.