The B-Masters Cabal

Six black slaves rise from the grave, grab up some weapons, and begin killing white people, in another zombie romp from director Umberto Lenzi. Features include, “Waking the Dead for Dummies,” “Zombie Film Cliche List,” and another music video from Grady. Jessica gets all the best lines…

Watch or download the video on Vimeo.com

TOOFAN
All of this is a shame not just for the audience, who must suffer through Toofan‘s vast stretches of unengaging filler, but also for Amitabh Bachchan, who so desperately needed for the movie to be a hit. Because, as I’ve indicated, Toofan contains all the makings of a very entertaining film; it’s just that those involved in its creation were too busy throwing anything that they thought might stick at it to take stock of exactly what those makings were. And so a lot of fun, cheesy thrills–as well as a serviceably heroic performance by its star and some pretty well-staged scenes of violent action–ended up getting buried in a storm of half-baked contrivances and unnecessary shtick. As a result Toofan was a film that was pretty hard to love–and Amitabh was still left with a long climb ahead of him in his struggle back to the top.

EVENT HORIZON
I didn’t see Event Horizon when it was released. I’m not sure why. I mean, it’s a gory film about a spooky spaceship. I think, however, in 1997, I saw maybe three film the entire year, and that was when I went out on dates with a lovely Southern belle. Somehow we ended up at a screening of Mortal Kombat II: Annihilation. So shamed was I that I just packed up and left North Carolina for New York, hoping to lose myself in the throng and hide my shameful secret. But the Netflix Diaries experiments have, in a way, become a curious place for dragging my own horrible secrets into the light for all to see, and on the scale of shameful secrets, “took a date to see Mortal Kombat II: Annihilation” is much worse than “burning passion for Catalina Larranaga” or even “took a date to see Wicked City.” It’s probably not worse than, “invited a girl over, cooked her a crappy dinner, then made her watch Black Devil Doll from Hell,” but it’s pretty close.

Blood Oath (2006) is one of the new crop of indie slasher flicks, so you know you’re going to get a thigh-deep heap of “homages” to movies that were forgettable when they originally showed at the drive-in, and characters who are are periodically lobotomized so that they’ll behave as only characters in slasher flicks behave.  It’s hard to measure the success of a movie which aims so low.

The Moonstone
The Moonstone marks our first real foray into a universe in which we will be spending a lot of time as I work my way through this latest round of Netflix Diaries: the Poverty Row thriller. An understanding of what Poverty Row was — if not an actual appreciation for its product — is an important part of any cult film education (and given the way you kids are allowed to make up any damn thing and call it a college major these days, you can probably go PhD in Cult Film Studies or some such nonsense, when you should be spending your time in college learning about Hammurabi, thermodynamics, and beer funnels), because Poverty Row is where the b-movie was born.

Iron Claw The Pirate
In the course of doing my usual rigorous research in preparation for bringing you the most carefully considered review of Iron Claw the Pirate possible, I came upon some information that seemed to suggest that it was the second film in a series of Iron Claw movies. That made sense to me, because Iron Claw the Pirate is a film that seems to start in progress, without any introduction of the characters or ongoing conflicts. However, what makes sense does not always prove to be so–especially in the case of Turkish action cinema–and I later determined that I had misinterpreted that information. In fact, it was Iron Claw the Pirate that was the first film, followed immediately by its sequel, Demir Pence Casuslar Savasi. Still, the reality of the situation makes its own kind of sense, simply because that’s just the way that these movies are. Any amount of exposition or character development would most likely have been seen by the makers of Iron Claw the Pirate as a waste of valuable time that could otherwise have been devoted to fist fights, shootouts, and fleshy women doing exotic dances.

For some reason, it was just one really good movie after another this update cycle.  So naturally, I had to break the streak by watching something produced by David Friedman…

Bummer! (1973), which would be indistinguishable from a 1930’s vicesploitaion movie were it not for all the ugly clothes, ugly hair, and ugly music…

The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane (1976), in which Jodie Foster illuminates the gentler side of Rhoda Penmark…

Marooned (1969), in which the Apollo 13 crisis arrives two years early…

Sisters (1973), in which Margot Kidder sadly does not carry around a big wicker basket…

20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954), which blows my mind by causing me to rave about a Disney movie derived from Jules Verne…

and…

Weird Woman (1944), in which a much more deserving novel is adapted in such a way as to provoke no raving whatsoever.

Dark Heroine Muk Lan-Fa
The Jane Bond films, in most cases, were cheap, hastily-made affairs, and The Dark Heroine Muk Lan-fa is no exception. With its monochrome photography and Spartan sets, the film bears as much similarity to the Republic serials of the forties as it does to the spy films of its era, and while watching it, there are times when it’s easy to forget that you’re watching a film made in the mid sixties. This, happily, is remedied by the periodic appearance of odd pop art touches, like the comic book-inspired starburst wipes that take us from one scene to the next, and the cropping up here and there of unmistakably mod pieces of fashion and furniture. Another element that anchors The Dark Heroine Muk Lan-fa firmly in the 1960s is its soundtrack, which is almost entirely pilfered from John Barry’s James Bond film scores — mostly Goldfinger, as far as I can tell.

“On June 10, Sony will release a 2-DVD set called “Icons of Adventure: The Hammer Films Collection Vol. 1”. The set will include THE STRANGLERS OF BOMBAY, THE TERROR OF THE TONGS, PIRATES OF BLOOD RIVER and DEVIL SHIP PIRATES. According to Sony’s publicity site, all four titles will be presented in their original aspect ratios with anamorphic enhancement. All four titles will have audio commentaries (some of them with legendary Hammer screenwriter Jimmy Sangster), and other extras will include original theatrical trailers, the cartoon: “The Merry Mutineers” (1936), Chapter One of the Serial: “The Great Adventures of Captain Kidd” (1951) and the short subject: “Hot Paprika” (1935) starring Andy Clyde. The SRP is $24.96. Note that this is “Vol. 1” of a “Hammer Films Collection.” “

You may think that my review of The Glass Tomb (1955) is simply another in a string of examinations of the American/British noir coproductions of Robert Lippert and Hammer Films.  But no, I have ambitions in this review.  Lofty ones.  It is now my personal mission to add to the lexicon of B-movie enthusiasts the term “shepherd’s pie filmmaking.”