Feb 21
Two legendary schlock directors made a film so bad it took another two people to bash it. Gaming legend Sandy Petersen continues his series of Herschell Gordon Lewis reviews, but this time Ken joins in.
Sadly, it did a lot more damage to us than we did to it. It’s 68 minutes of pure heck as we hit the dance floor at the Monster A Go-Go.
Another viewer at about the 30 minute mark.
There is more than a passing resemblance between Ator and Conan the Barbarian. Both of their villages are wiped out by the evil warriors, both are trained by sword masters who display Eastern influences, and both sleep with crazy witch women. Oh, and both lose blonde warrior babes who die after spitting up blood. However, since Ator is rated PG, the scene with the crazy witch woman seducing the barbarian is a lot less interesting.
Feb 18
I feel I should mention that my expectations for Tenement were pretty high. I had heard several interesting things about it during the years, such as the fact that the level of violence in the movie had resulted in the movie being slapped with an X rating from the MPAA. The reviews I read of the movie seemed to support that this was some kind of ultraviolent classic (for example, one reviewer, quoted on the back of the DVD box, stated “My hand went flailing for the remote just to verify what I was witnessing by replaying the scene almost instantly.”) After watching the movie, I wondered if I had seen the same movie as those reviewers.
Feb 18
Conqueror of the World (1983) is an obvious hanger-on to Quest For Fire (1981), minus the actual quest for fire. Also missing is the linguistic creativity and the cultural inventiveness. The viewer also searches in vain for any sort of plot structure, pacing, musical acumen, cinematographical skill, or… In fact, this movie falls below minimum standards of competence in every area. Aside from that, it’s just like Quest For Fire.
Plus, this week’s choices for Reader Revenge Month: Dressed to Kill (1980), Godzilla vs. the Sea Monster (1966), or The War of the Worlds (1953).
…and this is what I have to show for my attendance:
The Crippled Masters (1979), in which the Masters really are Crippled…
Gymkata (1985), in which an international gymnastics champion proves only slightly more convincing as a martial artist than a guy with no arms…
Heartbeeps (1981), in which Andy Kaufman is no funnier as a robot than he was as a carbon-based lifeform…
The Room (2003), or, How Vain Was My Vanity Project…
Troll 2 (1990), in which Claudio Fragasso shows the world that Troll wasn’t really so bad after all…
and…
War of the Robots (1978), in which (much as I hate to disagree with Keith) Yanti Somer’s adorable crewcut simply is not enough…
Every now and then, something will parade across my screen that is too much for even me to excuse. It’s painful when it happens. As I’ve said many times, I’m hear to celebrate movies I enjoy, not rip apart movies I hate. And it’s doubly painful when I discover that a movie I was certain I was going to like ends up being almost totally unwatchable. Alas, such was the case with Amazons vs. Supermen, a movie that, on paper, seems to have been written specifically to delight me. Three super warriors, including one goofball in a bondage mask and chain mail miniskirt, a big strong guy in studded leather, and a kungfu guy, team up to battle scantily clad Amazons. Oh, and Hong Kong’s Shaw Bros. Studio is co-producing, which means the kungfu guy is martial arts movie superstar Yueh Hwa. There will also be flame-throwing wooden tanks (which seems like a terrible combination of vehicle fabrication material and mode of attack). And one more thing: Alfonso Brescia is directing. Now those things are prime ingredients in making any cake I will gleefully gobble down. And yet, by the end of the thing, which seemed to take forever to get to, all I could do was shake my head in dazed confusion as I tried to figure out how it could have all gone so terribly wrong. Of course, many people will throw up their arms and exclaim, “Alfonso Brescia was the director? What about that signaled any chance of success?” To which I can but meekly respond, “Well, I kinda like Alfonso Brescia movies.”
Still more SCIENCE IN THE REEL WORLD:
DR EHRLICH’S MAGIC BULLET (1940): – a fitting tribute to the brilliance of Paul Ehrlich, and a fascinating example of studio manoeuvring under the Production Code.
POWDER TOWN (1942): – in which the worst fears of Eros the alien are justified…
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In other news, I have recovered, re-formatted and added screenshots to my review of Destination Moon (1950), and re-formatted The Flying Saucer (1950).
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Feb 11
HEARTS & ARMOUR
I think my problem with Hearts and Armour stems from the fact that it is one of the few films of its kind that I didn’t see when it was originally released. Others like Conan, The Sword and the Sorcerer, The Beastmaster and a whole slew of others, I saw either at the cinema or later, immediately when they were released on video. I saw these films during my formative years and at a time of where these films were relevant to my peers. In that regard I probably overlook and forgive many of the flaws in those films because I know them so well or I simply have a retrospective positive association with each film. But not so Hearts and Armour. I have no inbuilt love for the film.
Back when I reviewed The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970), I compared that film positively to examples of the giallo genre (that’s the Italian crime/slasher genre of the late ’60s and ’70s, in case you didn’t know) in which not only was the plot nonsensical, as was par for the course for these movies, but the direction didn’t rise above the screenplay. And here we have Watch Me When I Kill (1977) as a convenient example of the latter! Thank you, boxed set from VCI Entertainment, for covering the range of the giallo!
Also: This week’s choices for Reader Revenge Month are The Divine Enforcer (1992), Django (1966), and The Tenement (2003).
SORCERESS
Sword and sorcery movies are perhaps the purest distillation of a ten-year-old boy’s mind that a ten-year-old boy could ever hope for. Yes, yes, I know. Ten year old boys were too young to watch such filth. We were also too young to read Heavy Metal magazine, know who Sylvia Kristel was, and have opinions about the best Playmates. Sword and sorcery movies were great because not only could you stay up late and watch the R-rated ones, but even the PG ones were full of everything we wanted: monsters, gore, and big-boobed chicks wearing tiny fur bikinis, if they were wearing anything at all. And if that represents the purest distillation of a ten-year-old boy’s mind, then the movie Sorceress represents a sort of cask strength version of that particular spirit. Because Sorceress asks the question, “Sure, what if you had all that, but also the heroes are hot, naked twins?”
