Instead of just reviewing a movie this time around, I thought I'd point out an excellent DVD for cinema fans.

The disk is a triple feature under the title Horror Classics, volume 1. Released by Navarre video, it falls under their Reel Values label. I got my copy at Suncoast Video for around ten bucks.

So what's so special about this DVD with the mundane name?

On it are three silent classics: Nosferatu, Phantom of the Opera, and Metropolis. My review for each of these movies is simple: See them, and be prepared to be wowed!

I talked a little bit about Nosferatu here:

My only complaint is that the Americanized version I have changed the names of the characters, making the story more familiar yet taking away from the original intent (for instance: Graf Orlok was changed to Count Dracula and Profesor Bulwer became Dr. Van Helsing).

There's more to the story. According to some accounts, when Bram Stoker's Dracula was first put on sale for movie rights, among the first buyers was F. W. Murnau, who was one of the most famous German directors at the time. Soon after beginning production of the film, they got the word that they had been scammed and that the widow of Bram Stoker refused to allow them to use the name and specific storyline of Dracula. To get around the problem, Murnau changed the name Dracula to Count Orlok, Harker became Hutter and Van Helsing became Professor Bulwer. Instead of London, the story is set in Bremen.

When Nosferatu premiered, the widow Stoker brought legal action against the studio and Murnau. In 1925 a German court ordered all prints of the film to be destroyed. Fortunately, several prints of the film survived.

Another interesting fact from the movie is that very little of it was shot on a movie set, almost the entire thing was shot on locations in Eastern Europe. The castle? Real. City street in Bremen? Real. The authenticity shines through.

Next on the DVD is Phantom of the Opera, the classic starring Lon Chaney (Rocket Jones bio here). As so often happens, the recent Broadway play and movie productions change the original plotline to suit "modern" audiences, and in my opinion the changes greatly lessen the impact of the original.

Not that any version of Phantom has been completely true to the novel by Gaston Leroux. Even this first version required the creation of a new ending when audiences hated the final scenes as first filmed.

The first time you see the Phantom's real face is among this list of the 100 Scariest Movie Moments, although the entire scene of the masqued ball is chilling.

Finally, there is Metropolis. Filled with amazing performances and incredible special effects (in 1927!), the cast was enormous and the expense of creating this masterpiece almost bankrupted the studio.

According to the director himself (Fritz Lang, who also did the classic Frau im Mond), the film as originally conceived wasn't seen for decades because several important filmed sequences were lost.

The lead actress, Brigitte Helm, was an early movie star. When she had to turn down one role it was given to newcomer Marlene Dietrich. Ms. Helm made her final film in 1935, after which she retired to Switzerland. She was so disgusted by Adolph Hitler and his takeover of the German film industry that she refused to talk about her career or the subject ever again.

This film influenced many SciFi films to come, including such diverse efforts as Star Wars, Blade Runner and Dr. Strangelove.

I'll repeat myself. These are must-see films, and this DVD is a wonderful value.

Posted by: Ted at 08:43 PM | category: Cult Flicks
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Interesting discussion about monsters and more, both giant and miniature, to be found here, courtesy of J-Walk Blog.

Note the U. of Chicago address, some people just can't enjoy a movie... sheesh.

Posted by: Ted at 04:51 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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Being sick (yeah, now me too dammit), I had some time last night to put a small dent in my to-watch stack of "Ted movies" (as my wife calls them). If you're not a regular visitor, you might not realize that I love "B" movies, the low-budget efforts that I lovingly refer to as crap movies. There's a whole category here on Rocket Jones dedicated to them, full of reviews and trivia and related nonsense, and an updated list of my movie reviews. Now grab some popcorn and let's get on with this episode.

Back at the dawn of the nuclear age, a wave of giant creature movies hit the screens. My personal favorites from that time include Them! (giant ants) and Tarantula (giant spider - shudder - and an early bit part for Clint Eastwood), but I also had the pleasure of watching the following two.

First up is a cheesy little stinker called The Giant Gila Monster. See, there's this young man named Chase Winstead who lives in rural Texas. He's clean cut, polite and respectful, and works hard at the local auto repair shop. Two odd things about him though, somehow parts from wrecked vehicles he's towed tend to end up on his hotrod, and it seems that the townspeople trust him and his judgement to a ludicrous degree. I mean, the sherrif doesn't make a move without checking with Chase first, and overlooks the obvious theft of tires and such. Mental note: work on my "aw shucks" look, I've obviously underestimated its power.

Chase is the leader of the local hot rod club (if you're a classic car enthusiest, that's enough reason to watch this one right there), and they help the sherrif search the area when mysterious vehicle wrecks start happening and people start disappearing.

"Buying a car is just like getting married or goin' to New York City. Everybody ought to do it once, but nobody ought to do it twice." - Town drunk in The Giant Gila Monster

I'm not going to go into the plot much more than that, other than to say that Chase kills the giant Gila Monster in the end and saves his crippled little sister in the process (he steals car parts because he's saving his money for leg braces for sis). He also arranges to have the hottest DJ in the area show up to spin records at their club barn dance, and finds time to sing three songs during the movie. Other than the songs, this is a good kid.

And what, pray tell, could be wrong with the songs? Chase is played by Don Sullivan, who tried, and failed miserably, to become another Frankie Avalon. He wrote and performed the songs in this movie, and they are painfully bad. Painfully. Bad. Painfully. Bad. A little known fact is that in Texas it's legal to kill someone for playing the ukelele, and it's known at the Don Sullivan law. Painfully. Bad.

Ok, enough ragging on poor Don, who turned in a pretty good performance otherwise. On to the monster, the Giant Gila Monster. The monster is incredibly realistic, mainly because every time it appears it's a real lizard in closeup or on a miniature diorama. To save money (very low-budget) you never see the Gila Monster and actual people in the same shot, it always cuts from one to the other. Something I didn't know before watching this is that Gila Monsters are slow and ponderous critters. There's not much excitement when he's on screen, although it's fun watching him wreck an HO scale a train as it goes over a trestle bridge. You can almost imagine someone picking the lizard up and turning it around for another pass over the pile of toy trains hear the screams of the people trapped inside the wrecked passenger cars. Sheer comedy terror.

Merciless, I know. But I still recommend this movie. The plot is not awful, the acting is only fair to terrible, and Don sings three times, but it's still fun. And when you're watching a movie with the title The Giant Gila Monster, if you're expecting more than fun then you're expectations are set way too high.

Trivia: This movie, and it's sister flick Attack of the Killer Shrews, were produced by Ken Curtis. Ken Curtis started his career as a vocalist for Big Band leader Tommy Dorsey before going into pictures. He appeared in many movies including the small but important role of Dolan in Mr. Roberts, but he's undoubtably best known for his long-running television role as Festus in Gunsmoke.

Everyone loves giant beastie movies. The Japanese are famous for it, and most everyone else who makes movies rattled off a few. Even Denmark.

Yep. Denmark.

The movie is called Reptillicus, and I'll say right up front that this movie is rotten. Awful. Eye-gougingly, where's-my-electric-drill-I-need-to-put-it-through-my-temple, gargling ground glass bad. Making your kids watch this is grounds for a visit from the naughty-parents police.

I also recommend it (big surprise there, eh?), with reservations.

Like most movies, this one has it's good points and it's bad points.

Good: When the monster is first discovered, the explanation actually makes a kind of sense.

Bad: They hire a cartoon as night watchman at the lab where they're studying the remains of the monster. This guy is the prototype "Rose Nylund St. Olaf" story character.

Good: The monster regenerates itself. That's how they wind up with a whole monster even though they only started with a little piece. It also causes them to be creative when killing it, because blowing it up (as per usual practice) would just cause lots of explodey bits growing into many new monsters.

Bad: The monster itself is badly done (see Don Sullivan above). His primary weapon is a green acid spitball thing that is badly animated. Even for a badly done monster movie it looks amatuerish. Also, look for the guy getting eaten, it's obviously (badly) drawn in. Pitiful (and lots of 'badly').

Good: You get to see lots of pretty scenery around Copenhagen.

Bad: You get to see lots of pretty scenery around Copenhagen. In order to pad out the movie, it looks like they took stock tourist footage of the city and stuck it in here and there. At one point the lead characters go out for a night on the town and it plays like a travelogue.

Good: Pretty Scandanavian sisters. Woo-hoo!

Bad: The American General character. Another cartoon, although a super-heroic one. This guy was the inspiration for the slogan "I am an Army of One".

My favorite line from Reptillicus:

"Shoot it point blank, from very close range."

As opposed to point blank, from long range, I suppose. I think the biggest problem with this one is that it doesn't translate well into English and some of the dialog and motivations seem 'off' to me. Unlike The Giant Gila Monster, it isn't a strength here when the film tries to take itself seriously.

So there ya go, the horror of ukelele-strummin' hot-roddin' song-singing teenagers giant reptiles and extra cheese for your popcorn or chilidog. Enjoy!

Posted by: Ted at 06:35 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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Ho Tep: 1. Relative or descendant of the 17 Egyptian Dynasties, 3100-1550 B.C. 2. Family surname of an Egyptian pharaoh (king).

Bubba: 1. Male from the Southern U.S. 2. Good ole boy. 3. Cracker, red neck, trailer park resident.

We had a mini Bruce Campbell movie marathon last weekend, culminating in our first viewing of Bubba Ho-Tep. Basic storyline:

Elvis (played by Bruce Campbell) is still alive and living in a nursing home in Texas. He had switched places with an Elvis impersonator years before when he got tired of all the hype and burdens of his celebrity. Also living in the nursing home is John F. Kennedy, who's being kept hidden there by the government. His disguise is so complete that they made him black (played by Ossie Davis). These two elderly gentlemen must team up to defeat an ancient Egyptian mummy who's killing the residents of their nursing home.

Keep that in mind, because they play this movie absolutely straight within the parameters of that backdrop.

In other words, this is not the movie that you expect to see. Given the plot, you ready yourself for horror served up with a thick frosting of comedic farce. Instead, what you get is a surprisingly introspective and complex look at life. At the start, Elvis is just existing, and doesn't really start to live until JFK piques his curiosity about the mysterious deaths happening in the home. Yes, there is a mummy and he's killing elderly residents and that's central to the plot, but it also manages to be peripheral to the real story of two old guys taking control of their lives again and standing up for what they know is right.

This is a low-budget indie film, but thankfully most of the money was spent on casting and not special effects. Campbell's Elvis is subtle and brilliant, and Ossie Davis's JFK is eminently dignified, yet occasionally there are lapses that make you wonder if he's not just a mentally unstable old man. Besides Campbell and Davis, Ella Joyce (who co-starred in television's Rock) plays the nurse who takes care of Elvis. Her character is at once professional and compassionate, and she manages to portray the weary detachment of one who's spent too long taking care of and watching the elderly die without completely burying her affection for those under her care. One of the administrators is played by Reggie Bannister, who you might remember as the guitar-strumming tuning-fork-wielding ice-cream dude from Phantasm.

The movie is based on the novella by Joe Lansdale and according to what I've heard remained faithful to the original work.

A funny moment was when Elvis and JFK were talking about the mummy and how he was a "soul sucker". This made me think of another Elvis-themed movie (but I couldn't remember the title). In that flick, a teenage rocker kidnaps Elvis for his mom's birthday because she's a huge fan. In that movie the little sister sleeps with the lights on because she's afraid of "the slimy soul sucker". When I mentioned it to my wife, she immediately knew the movie and title (Heartbreak Hotel).

Back to Bubba. The plot makes sense in the context of the background story, with plenty of wry little twists and snicker-inducing moments. The special effects aren't awful, and at times they're pretty darn good. The ending was a little hokey, but it matched the tone of the rest of the movie.

Recommended.

On to the DVD itself. I got the collectors edition for Christmas, and the extra features are wonderful. There's a "music video" that basically highlights the guy who did all the music, and he did a helluva job too. Remember the low-budget that these guys worked with? There isn't a single actual Elvis song in the movie, but you don't even realize it until after it's over, and it isn't because the sound track is full of soundalike crap. There are two commentary tracks, the first with the producer and Bruce Campbell talking about the making of the film (very nice), and the second with "the King" providing his insights as the story unfolds (lame). There are a few other extras included too.

Posted by: Ted at 04:35 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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Blaxploitation.com: A Soulful Tribute.

Posted by: Ted at 05:15 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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It's probably just me. I have an obvious fondness for B-movies, so maybe it's easier for me to overlook the glaring flaws present in most of these cheesy goodies. And it annoys the hell out of me when some critic-wannabe overanalyzes a B-movie to the point of taking all the fun out of it.

You may remember the small debate Victor and I had over the movie Starship Troopers. He even went so far as to rename it Earth vs. Soup so as not to influence his critque by comparing it to the book (one of my all-time favorites).

Victor shredded the movie in his review (parts 1 and 2 - worth reading). I'm ok with that because Starship Troopers was not a B-movie. A major studio made the movie, using a top-flight director and talent with name recognition. They spent oodles of money on special effects. This movie was meant to be a blockbuster. Only problem is, they screwed up the story so bad that not only did they alienate Heinlein purists, but the end result wasn't even a very good flick. Each and every point Victor brought up was correct. I still liked the movie though.

So that's kind of the way I watch my movies, and it most certainly colors my perception when I review them. If you follow my recommendations, most of the time you won't see a great movie, sometimes it's not even a good movie. I try to be up front about that though. The key to enjoying these is to just *enjoy* them, and don't expect brilliance. But you'll also be surprised at how often you underestimate them too.

Ok, rant over. What kind of fired that up was watching a couple of old Bela Lugosi flicks, writing the reviews below, and then checking out what others have to say on the net (mostly IMDB). I usually do that, putting my own thoughts down before reading the other reviews. So anyways, on to the fun...

But when the doc opens his mouth to speak, what comes out is Dracula, "I vant you to take two of these und call me in ze morning."

Bela Lugosi is cast as the doctor in The Devil Bat, a little gem released in 1940. The plot is fun and has some inspired ideas, but don't think it's going to make a lot of sense.

By this stage of Legosi's career, he was pretty much stuck in B-movies, although it would be quite some time before he was reduced to appearances in Ed Wood films. In addition, the quality of the film bore no relation to the performance he gave. He was always 'on', no matter how lousy the script or supporting performances. Bela Lugosi's acting ranged from brilliant to over-the-top ham, and he appeared in few really 'good' movies, in large part because he never toned down his accent (he didn't try very hard either).

Back to the movie. Bela, er, Doc Carruthers isn't just a beloved doctor, he's an expert chemist who created a formula which made his bosses rich. He missed out on the big bucks because he sold the rights for cash. Being bitter, he develops another formula, this one designed to enrage giant bats to the point of attacking whoever is wearing it.

What giant bats, you say? Why, the giant bats that Doc is creating in his lab. He tricks selected victims into trying the new 'after shave' and then tsk-tsks over the body when found with their throat ripped out.

Lugosi is wonderful to watch, and you can even get past the ridiculous farce of the heavily-accented "Doc" (although I did chuckle through the first third of the movie every time he spoke). The newspaper photographer, One-Shot, is a hoot, in a 1940's kind of way.

Here's a lovely bit of surreal dialog between the Chief of Police and the newspaper reporter:

reporter: So what are you holding back?

chief: Oh no, I'm not trusting a reporter with details!

reporter: Chief, I promise to help solve this case.

chief: Ok then, we've got this one clue that we've kept secret...

This one is big fun.

Trivia: Dave O'Brien, who played the reporter, appeared in almost 200 B-movies, mostly westerns. His cinematic talents also included directing (43 movies), writing (31 movies), stunt work and songwriting! For all that, he's best remembered as one of the dope-smoking teen fiends in the classic cult-propaganda flick Reefer Madness.

The second Bela Lugosi flick is The Invisible Ghost. I'm going to put the synopsis from the box here:

In the effort to ease the pain of losing his wife, Kessler (Lugosi) submits to hypnosis therapy. But the hypnosis causes Kessler to have lapses of memory followed by a rash of murders - all which seem to be fulfilling the vendetta of his late wife.

There's more, but this is enough. The description above was written by someone who never saw the movie or badly confused it with something else. There's nothing in the flick about hypnosis, and as to the vendetta, well, the movie never mentions any vendetta (and his wife isn't very 'late' either, if you know what I mean). Even the title bears little relation to the actual movie.

Even so, this is another fun movie. Bela Lugosi again steals the show in every scene except when the butler Evans in onscreen. Evans was played by black actor Clarence Muse, and his character defied the stereotypes of the day, being intelligent and dignified, often moreso than the rest of the cast. He's a delight, especially when he makes wry comments during the goings on.

So yes, I recommend this movie too. After all, how often have you seen a movie where one of the lead actors gets executed in the electric chair before the film is half over? No clemency for him!

Trivia: Clarence Muse held a law degree from Pennsylvania's Dickerson University, and was one of the first inductees into the Black Filmmaker's Hall of Fame. In his long career, his film credits included roles in White Zombie, Huckleberry Finn, Showboat, Porgy and Bess, Car Wash and The Black Stallion.

Posted by: Ted at 08:07 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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According to this site, it's possible that in the John Wayne movie Rio Grande, you can see a UFO in the background over the Duke's shoulder.

Uh-huh.

Another find from J-Walk, but I wanted to put it in the Cult Flicks category so it got it's own post with another Pulitzer-quality title.

Posted by: Ted at 09:01 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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I was recently watching Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama , and as they do occasionally there was a 'biography' feature on the DVD. Skimming the titles of the other movies done by the director and stars (yes, stars, show a little respect), I noticed that one of the ladies also had a role in the movie Body Double, a 'real' movie that I saw not too long ago.

Heading over to the Internet Movie Database, I discovered some interesting things about Ms. Brinke Stevens, who played the character Taffy in Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama.

After graduating with a double-major (biology and psychology) at San Diego State, she went on to earn a master's degree in marine biology from the Scripps Institute of Oceanography.

She also worked as an environmental consultant for a Southern California nuclear power plant, and all this was before becoming a model, actress, and, ultimately, scream queen.

"I go from a demure co-ed to a whip-cracking dominatrix from hell. There are savage, scale-eyed zombies, virgin sacrifices and demonic posessions, and when I turn into a gorgeous, va-voom woman I say the line I've always wanted to say, 'Behold the new queen of hell!' And I say it with relish." - Brinke Stevens, about the movie Teenage Exorcist

She remains (refreshingly) unenhanced, although she is underendowed by Hollywood standards. (Rocket Jones official policy: Boob jobs bad.) This doesn't stop her from stripping down when her art requires it (yes, I said that with a straight face).

Her role in Body Double was as "Adult film actress #3". Many of her movie credits are direct to video schlock exploitation flicks, but she's tried to go mainstream more than once. She's had roles in The Three Amigo's, This Is Spinal Tap!, Psycho III and The Naked Gun: From the Files of Police Squad, all uncredited.

Altogether she's appeared in over 90 movies, including two to be released in 2005. She also wrote and starred in Teenage Exorcist and Dr. Horror's Erotic House of Idiots, and produced a well-received series of video's where she interviews producers and directors of low-budget horror and exploitation films.

I like that. Find your talent and wallow in it, and if you can make a living at it, so much the better. And if you can't, you can always fall back on that education thing.

Posted by: Ted at 11:26 AM | category: Cult Flicks
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