The B-Masters Cabal

HO HO HO!

CALL OF CTHULHU
Cthulhu is almost as famous, if not more famous, than Lovecraft himself. I guess there’s something oddly personable about an anthropomorphic squid-jellyfish-bat monster from outer space. So it’s probably worth pointing out that the first appearance and development of Cthulhu marks a turning point, maybe even a breaking point, in Lovecraft’s fiction. There are certainly continuities that run across the entirety of his writing; even his earliest stories feature people whose minds are torn apart by unthinkable truths, although sometimes this truth is nothing more than that one’s great-grandfather was actually a gorilla. Much of his early work, though, owes a massive debt to Poe and Dunsany.

The murder mystery Who Killed Mary What’s ‘er Name was released by Cannon. Ah, you are thinking, it’s time for some Golan and Globus nonsense! Unfortunately, that’s not the case. This movie was released by Cannon before Golan and Globus took over the studio in 1979, when the company was best known for its dreary sex comedies. Although this movie is not a sex comedy, it is pretty dreary. Though its title asks you to care, you simply won’t long before the end.

Just a few short updates:

LASER MISSION
It’s obvious that while director BJ Davis is a director of limited skill, he knows exactly how to make a low-budget 80’s action movie. Every single thing you need in the movie is present, and if it’s not expertly realized, it’s usually at least delivered in a competently incompetent manner — a statement that will make perfect sense to anyone who watches a lot of these movies. A movie like Laser Mission can really only disappoint me by not delivering on the predictable formula to which it cleaves. That happens a lot with low-budget action movies, but not with Laser Mission. It may not deliver on the promised lasers of the title, but it delivers exactly what you’d want from a cheap, goofy 80s action movie.

KADIN DUSMANI
We come to the seedy Turkish thriller Kadin Dusmani via a circuitous but highly entertaining journey through a number of different types of film that built on a central theme — the simply murder mystery — and made it increasingly outlandish and bizarre. Picking a solid starting point is almost impossible — even if one could distill down to the “the first of its kind” in movies, there’s the fact that the early efforts were all based on various types of novels and pulp stories that underwent a similar evolution to the film that would eventually grow from them. So, for the sake of not falling into a bottomless pit, let’s pick a logical point at which to begin.

Plus, we added new pictures to GOLDEN BUDDHA and WORLD WITHOUT END

That’s right. Drink it in, people.

Well, once again, I got restless and redesigned Teleport City. A couple years ago, I split all the travel, book, and music stuff off into a separate site. At the time it seemed like a good idea. It wasn’t. So it’s back. And of course, all sorts of older articles are broken, but at least I didn’t have to rewrite every single link. Plus, Jenny Agutter now stares at yo invitingly from the top of the page.

We also reviewed CHRISTMAS EVIL.
1980’s Christmas Evil is, I believe, the first of the Killer Santa Claus movies, which is odd if true. Used properly, Santa can be almost as creepy as a clown or a ventriloquist dummy, yet is sadly underutilized in popular culture. Maybe Santa is still too powerful a symbol. Luckily, maverick writer/director Lewis Jackson decided to blaze a trail by creating one of the first psychotic movie Santa Clauses, opening the floodgates for killer leprechauns, Uncle Sams, and perhaps, one day, cupids.

MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (1932)

   Having little to do with Poe and less to do with good film-making, Bela Lugosi’s first post-Dracula horror outing sees him cast as Dr Mirakle, part-sideshow huckster, part-mad scientist, who intends to prove the theory of evolution by letting his pet gorilla get up close and personal with a virginal young woman. Unfortunately, most of this plot gets lost in the midst of a tremendous battle for our attention between one of filmdom’s sorriest ape-suits, and a pair of false eyebrows with a mind of their own.

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[Edited to add: I have now slightly revised, re-formatted and added screenshots to The Mask Of Fu Manchu and White Zombie.]

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…the goat stares back at you. (Nietzsche, you know.)

The Men Who Stare at Goats (2009)

Also a straggler meant for the last update, which I couldn’t quite finish in time for the deadline.

The Day the Earth Stood Still (2008), in which the Earth may not until the very end, but Keanu Reeves, as usual, stands still throughout the entire picture…

Death Curse of Tartu (1966), in which mummified Seminole medicine men don’t like go-go dancing superannuated teenagers any more than were-jellyfish do…

Friday the 13th (2009), in which one of the two best chances for the current remake madness to improve upon the past is resoundingly blown…

The Hills Have Eyes (2006), which never had a hope in hell in the first place…

and…

Prom Night (2008), which might not eclipse its so-called antecessor, but at least manages not to suck for the most part.
 
 
 

THE MUMMY’S HAND (1940)

Universal’s 1932 Boris Karloff vehicle gets a thorough makeover in this, the first of four 1940s B-movies to feature what is now the popular conception of the mummy. Trading dialogue for screen time, the newly-christened Kharis shuffles silently through the film like a one-handed Nemesis, while around him the human characters make speeches to the gods, dig for treasure, flirt, practice magic tricks and crack bad jokes. Endless, endless bad jokes…

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[Edited to add:  I have added screenshots to Frankenstein and Dracula, and re-formatted and added screenshots to Dracula’s Daughter.]

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I remember watching the first Species movie when it first came out, and I remember being somewhat let down by it. I reluctantly picked up Species II years after it was first released. I was expecting something bad, but I was really surprised by what I watched. This movie was INSANE. It reminded me of one of those exploitive category III Hong Kong movies like Robotrix, but with a much bigger budget. You can bet I was pumped up to see Species III after that. But while I thought its production values were acceptable for a straight-to-video movie, and that it had a number of gory and naked women moments, I thought it was somewhat talky, somewhat slow, and overlong (it ran close to two hours!) It didn’t get me pumped up to see the next entry, Species – The Awakening, when it was first released, and I only decided to see it recently when I was able to rent it for just a buck. Read and see if I wanted my money back afterwards.

I’ve got a stack of “for your consideration” screeners that have come in the last few weeks, so I’ll pull out a few of them that I actually want to watch and review.

The first is District 9 (2009), about alien refugees who arrive in Johannesburg and are relegated to second-class-sentient status in filthy shantytowns. (Psst: It’s an allegory.)