Hercules Takes Manhattan!

Hercules in New York is one of the legendarily awful movies ever! If ever a movie defined the notion that a movie could be so bad it's good, it's this one. The incompetence is not such that you lose the plot thread (such as there is) or cannot hear the "dialogue", or some other technical blunder. It's a movie that seems to have enough professionals involved that it functions as a movie in the traditional way, but it's lead by an actor so grossly horrible that it's stunning to watch other, competent actors try and hold their scenes with him.

Arnold Schwarzenegger has become a cultural icon in American life, with an eventually successful film career, a successful sports career,  a successful political career, and a titillating hobby of carousing which might make Errol Flynn blush. He's an old man now, to some degree broken in the box office and in the popular imagination, but this movie finds him in the flower of his youth, smooth skinned, muscled, and stranded on screen with a perpetual dim-witted glower on his gap-toothed mug.

(Movie poster is bogus and features Godzilla.)

The movie offers up Arnold, called "Arnold Strong" in this film and dubbed in versions I've seen before. He plays a youthful and headstrong Hercules who defies his father Zeus and comes to Earth to discover what he can about life in the "Big Apple". He stumbles along and hooks up with Pretzie (played by comedic actor Arnold Stang, the visual inspiration for Joe Staton's Mike Mauser) who guides him a bit into a career as a professional wrestler. They run afoul of some gangsters but not before meeting a professor and his comely daughter. Other gods appear such as Mercury and Pluto and Nemesis, but mostly it's Arnold as the especially dopey Hercules who dominates the screen.

The movie has the great virtue of having been actually filmed in New York, capturing the NYC of 1969 in its often grimy glory. This is definitely a low-rent affair, and the props and settings are the real world of New York, which has a distinct lived-in appearance. The climatic chase scene is a hopelessly edited rumble through some iconic and some quite grubby parts of the city.

(Book appears in movie-probably was research.)

One of my favorite moments is when Hercules and his friends are beset by hoodlums, the gods arrange for help and Atlas shows up, but with is Samson, the Biblical strongman who finds his way into all sorts of Greco-Roman pantheons. The guy who portrays Pluto does a bang up job, as do several of the "pros" in this story, but it's a hapless mess of a movie they are in.

One thing that comes through in this for me is the sheer unlikeable nature of Arnold, who plays a pig-headed egotist and seems all to suited to the role. But it's unfair to blame him for this disaster. It's a movie meant to feast on his powerful frame, and it does so repeatedly.

Hercules in New York is a truly terrible movie, but is such a lame exercise that it's still interesting to watch, if only in a clinical fashion. I offer up as evidence the legendary bear scene. Take a look.

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The Space Vampires!

Lifeforce is one of those movies which sits between genres. It's clearly science fiction with shuttles full of astronauts exploring the depths of space and Haley's Comet where they discover an enormous alien craft full of dessicated bodies and three humanoids who would strike most anyone's fancy. And the movie then is also clearly horror as the three humanoids turn out to space vampires, the very source of the Earth legends about bloodsuckers, who have returned to ravage the planet and extract not blood exactly but "lifeforce"-- hence the title.

The title is largely the problem with this movie I suspect, at least as regards its meager box office. Lifeforce could be about anything and sadly sounds like it could be about nothing much as well. I didn't see this one in the theater at the time and I don't know exactly why, because it was released when I was devouring most any movie in the genre. I missed it and I bet the vague title has a lot to do with it. It's based on a Colin Wilson novel title The Space Vampires, that's a much better title.

As well as this poster which seems like the title not to be about anything in particular. It's going for a Space Odyssey vibe I guess, but it ends up being a collection of images which don't compute. A hairy eyeball sees the Earth -- so what! It's horrible! I'd rather have seen the gloriously exotic poster at the top of this post with naked girls strapped to indistinct space pods flying away from some Lovecraftian thorne-themed spacecraft. That's an attention getter.

The movie itself though is a compelling bit of cinema directed by Tobe Hooper and offers up a slathering of classic sci-fi smeared onto a horror yarn with great all-around effect Lots of folks get totally distracted (as do almost all the characters) by the insanely nubile naked body of Mathilda May who plays the key "Space Girl" and head vampire. But if you can take your eyes off the delicious Miss May, you'll find a robust Hammeresque fear-fest with rampaging zombies, grotesque bat-creatures, and a solid cast of Brits more than capable of standing toe-to-toe with the utter destruction of the planet.

Lone American Steve Railsback charges through this movie getting ever more intense, but I find the likes of Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, and future "Jean Luc Picard" himself Patrick Stewart much more compelling with half the screaming. The story is pretty simple one actually. Astronauts find those alien vampires in the tail of Haley's Comet and under their hypnotic influence bring them to Earth where they ransack London and call out to their brethren to come and share in the feast. Along the way the police try to track the aliens with little effectiveness.

There are lots of back end explanations and without some convenient psychic flashes the story would grind to a halt pretty quickly, but when it's all said and done, I find Lifeforce to be a moody and involving horror show. The gorgeous Mathilda is just cream on an already tasty cake.

But Space Vampires would have been a much much better title.

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Bring Out The Dead!

There's little doubt that the zombie concept has been...ahem...beaten to death in recent years. For every successful interpretation of the horror theme like the TV series The Walking Dead and the comedy Zombieland, there are a dozen crappy knockoff zombie movies which add nothing new to the concept first popularized by George Romero's Night of the Living Dead so many decades ago.

So I don't know exactly what it was that made me stop and watch The Dead. Maybe it was the starkly beautiful landscapes or the quiet palpable atmosphere, but whatever I did just that. The 2010 movie is smartly set in Africa, giving it a fresh feel already in contrast to the dozens of zombie flicks in and around burned out American and European cities. The territory, grandly beautiful in many instances stands in contrast to the horror which seeps  through it. And that's key.

The startling images of a half dozen zombie-fied people slowly ambling across the veldt, painfully but relentlessly slowly are the core horror concepts in this flick. These are the unblinking and always moving slow zombies popularized by Romero so long ago, not the furtive and lightning-fast zombies of more recent years. The return to the classic mode gives this story an atmosphere of true terror it would lack otherwise. The zombies in this movie are still recognizably people, recently dead for the most part and not the long-dead corpses of most zombie flicks which end up being mostly studies in disgusting special effects goo.

The whole of the continent of Africa and perhaps beyond has been stricken with the shambling dead who seek the flesh of the living and press forward changing the balance between life and death with grim inevitability. No reason is supplied for this "zombie apocalypse", as the characters here are not qualified to know such mundane things, but one character does suggest perhaps Nature itself h seeks to retrieve the balance humanity has long ago tipped in its favor on the face of the planet.

In the face of this weird crisis two men (played by actors Rob Freeman and Prince David Osei) come together through chance, and work together to cross vast pitiless territory seeking relief from the plague as well as weakness, hunger and thirst. One seeks to escape to his homeland in America, the other seeks his son lost in the destruction of his village. A white man and a black man work together in the face of a scourge which makes no distinctions of that kind. It's pretty compelling stuff.

But unfortunately it's rather too slow. The movie is overlong by at least fifteen or twenty minutes. The directors, a pair of brothers named Howard and Jon Ford seemed too in love with the beautiful footage they've shot and can't let enough of it  go to make their movie just get along with its simple tale. Scenes are repeated for no reason especially,  save that they shot them. The protagonists learn the same lessons a few times over and while there is little dialogue (smart that decision) some of it is nonetheless repetitious. I get that the makers wanted to give the movie the same ambling gait that they give to the zombies, but in the end they wear me out with too many darkened trips through the veldt and yet another close call while the two men fix the their reluctant truck yet again.

But those criticisms aside, The Dead is a surprsingly worthwhile addition to a genre which has mostly played itself out for the present.

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Whatever Happened To Spider Baby!

I don't know that I'd ever read or heard of this oddball horror flick titled Spider Baby (or perhaps Whatever Happened to Spider Baby or The Liver Eaters or Spider Baby - The Maddest Story Ever Told or Cannibal Orgy...you get the picture) until I stumbled across its description on TCM. I saw it was dated 1968 and featured Lon Chaney Jr., and I knew I had to at least take a glimpse so I set it up to record and went on my merry way. I forgot about it, but my DVR did not and when it showed up on the recorded list I gave it a tumble.

Weird!

The movie was apparently actually shot in 1964, in glorious black and white, but didn't get released until 1968 because of finances. It's pretty clear not much money went into this production. Featuring novice and second-tier actors, that side of the film is sometimes awkward but mostly competent. The set design and the directing are other matters entirely, strictly low rent and downright shabby in places.

Washburn, Haig, Banner and Chaney

The movie is set in a classic "haunted house" inhabited by a gaggle of crazed children overseen by the caretaker Lon Chaney Jr. I got a distinctly Addams Family feel from the array of crazies, with characters who reminded me of various of those classic folks here and there at various times. I got the sense that the director wanted to make an Addams Family movie which was just a tad more blood-thirsty than the classic TV series would allow.

Mantan Moreland, a famous face from several vintage horror flicks opens the story as a delivery man who meets a grisly end. His scenes clearly seemed to have been shot apart from the rest of the cast as he doesn't interact with them, save by dint of stand ins and editing. Chaney shows up and disposes of Mantan and he's hardly mentioned after. He deserved better and the movie would've been well served to have actually added him to the mix more thoroughly.

The crazy-mixed-up-kids in this story are killers all, with a tendency toward cannibalism. Apparently the members of this family get nuttier as they age, so these kids still are "manageable" so to speak while older members of the clan are hidden away in the bowels of the house and apparently are merely fed and left to fend for their wild selves. The dark-haired girl (Jill Banner) likes to play with knives and the blonde (Beverly Washburn) seems more innocent but seems content to murder also. The boy (Sid Haig) who seems to be a cross between Uncle Fester and Pugsley is on the verge of getting out of hand and joining his relatives in the basement.

Schanzer and Ohmart

Some distant relatives with designs on the property appear, and that triggers the core plot. The crazies try to kill the nastier newcomers (Carol Ohmart, Quinn Redeker, and Karl Schanzer who plays a lawyer with a distinct Gomez Addams affect) while Chaney tries to hold the mess together. He fails, as does this movie ultimately. I get that some folks find it a cheesy cult flick, but I found it too dull and slowly paced to really enjoy. Chaney does put some effort into his part, but I find him too mawkish most of the time.

All in all Spider Baby is just too poorly done and while it doesn't mind laughing at itself, I find it not terribly funny. I though like the opening titles of the movie which are great cartoons. You can get a sense of that here at this website dedicated to the movie which is actually more entertaining than the movie itself.

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Demons Of Sherwood!

I'm not quite sure what prompted me to pick up this 2009 edition of Demons of Sherwood. I was just in the mood for some decent fantasy and this looked like a likely choice. Bo Hampton is an exceedingly reliable artist, capable and skilled and able to blend real draftsmanship with solid storytelling. So I dropped a few dollars and brought this IDW publication home and promptly forgot all about it.

Then the other day I was again looking for something of a certain length to pass the time and found this volume. It seemed well past time to read it. I did, and I'm happy to report it's a solid story with enough twists to keep it interesting. It feels like a movie, which makes it fit in well with the other Robin Hood adventures I've sampled over the years.

But this is not the picture of sturdy manhood we find in most Robin Hood adventures, no Errol Flynn types here, save perhaps in the sense that Flynn was a renowned drunkard. This Robin has fallen on hard times in the many years which have passed since the heady days of the Merry Men. "Maid" Marian has disappeared from his life and he's taken to drink and the skills which marked him as someone of significance and import have drained away. His hand shakes and his arrows fall far from the mark.

Into this dissolute life comes danger in the form of local villagers who seek and burn witches. One such supposed witch has found sanctuary in the local nunnery but has been taken along with the woman and child to sought to protect her. That woman is Marian and Robin is contacted to seek her out and save her life, if he can. And it's no certain thing that he can save the day. His old allies Will Scarlet and Little John show up, but it's clear they have lost regard for their former captain if not affection for him.

To make things worse, the Sherwood Forest has become the home to supernatural beings of various kinds such as gargoyles and werewolves and those who prowl its depths are in constant danger of not only their lives but their souls as well.

This is not a story you can discuss long without spoiling it, so I'll stop, but I have recommend it to anyone looking for a decent fantasy adventure to pass some idle minutes. The Bo Hampton artwork is rock solid and the story is compelling.

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Trog!

One of my guilty cinema pleasures is Trog.  I've referenced it a few times here and here, but never properly reviewed it. After just seeing again on TCM, I'm filled with This delightfully offbeat 1970 flick is the story of a lonely cave dweller (a "Troglogdyte") who after thousands of years trapped in suspended animation in a glacier comes back to life stranded in a cave only to be discovered by some hapless spelunkers one of whom he promptly kills. It is the heart-wrenching tale of a creature thrust into the modern world against his will and who seeks only some connection with another intelligent being so appease his aching loneliness.

Sounds like a pretty good movie, and it is a lot of fun, but most folks would not categorize Trog as a "good movie". If so then only in the so-bad-it's-good zone. What weighs down this movie almost from the beginning is a lack of funds, though I for one am impressed at the quality of what does get onto the screen. There was apparently little money for special effects, so the make-up on Joe Cornelius, the actor who portrays the forlorn caveman, is pretty wretched when seen from certain angles. But then I think it's pretty decent when seen from others.

The movie is also famous as the last leading part for Silver Screen legend Joan Crawford, who is a mighty trooper in this flick. I always admire actors who act, in whatever capacity and in whatever vehicle, and I try not to hold the quality of a movie against them when it's clear they had little control over anything other than their own part. Crawford here ruggedly pushes through the story, but due to limited funds was forced to use her own wardrobe for the part which creates some distracting color combos in some delicate scenes.

But let me say more about what goes on in this one. I divide Trog into three parts: the Discovery, the Domestication, and the Destruction. Follow me please as we work our way through this epic tale of love and war across the millennium.

The DISCOVERY: This is perhaps my favorite part of the movie. Freddie Francis, the director does a wonderful job as we follow three hale and hearty cave explorers as they find and plumb the depths of a new opening they chance upon. It takes stout hearts to squeeze their way down into the first chamber and even then they must strip and enter dark and freezing water to find the isolated chamber which holds a deadly secret. Two of the three brave the depths, crossing over into an "undiscovered country" which sadly results in one of them ending up dead and the other mad. They find Trog, a caveman who has apparently just awakened after eons of pleasant suspended animated slumber. Enter Dr. Brockton  (Joan Crawford), a local primate specialist who immediately wishes to see the creature for herself and convinces the lone healthy survivor of the original trio to show her the way. How she got into the cave is anyone's guess, but the movie conveniently skips that indignity. Brockton snaps a photo of Trog which unleashes an avalanche of publicity and raw fear. The townspeople converge on the dark maw into the Earth's underworld and set up police cordons and TV cameras to simultaneously limit and probe the mystery. Men are sent down but there is more death and the TV crews beat a hasty retreat as Trog emerges into the sun for the first time in ages only to fall victim himself to Brockton's tranquilizer gun.

The DOMESTICATION: Trog is then shunted into a cage and is chained to the floor as Brockton attempts to communicate and apparently train him in the ways of the modern world. This is some of the most hilarious stuff in the flick as the  tests they put poor Trog through seem downright weird and lack any sense of scientific rigor that I can detect. Brockton's daughter Ann is front and center in this training as is Malcolm, the handsome survivor of the original trio of spelunkers. Anne, a lovely blonde seems to be of particular interest to Trog, following a long cinematic tradition begun with the mighty Kong no less. Trog is confronted with a nest of modern toys and they even try to teach him his colors at one point. He doesn't seem to know blue, likes green, and but gets violent when he sees red. They teach him literally to fetch, but that brings him into conflict with a local dog which sadly he kills. All the time that this is going on a local townsman named Sam Murdock (Michael Gough at his scene-chewing best) is simultaneously fearful and hateful of Trog and wants him destroyed. Murdock seems a thoroughly awful man and aside from some assumed self-loathing it's a bit hard to determine what motivates him save perhaps for a fear of science and the modern world. Also on hand is a Dr.Selbourne who works for Brockton but out of jealousy turns against her at a hearing and gets canned. A bunch of learned folk descend on the Brockton Institute to observe Trog and promptly operate on him inserting all sorts of gear, some of which allows him to speak briefly. It's during this phase that the single stupidest thing in the movie occurs, the "scientists" show Trog skeletons of dinosaurs which they assume will trigger his memory. Even a reasonably intelligent schoolboy knows this is now proper prehistory, but nonetheless they proceed. This does oddly trigger a "memory" in Trog which we get to see, and it's really some stop-motion dinosaurs battling it out by way of another movie by Irwin Allen titled The Animal World.

The DESTRUCTION: After all this Murdock fears that Trog will be allowed to live, so he goes to institute, attacks a policeman, and frees Trog who promptly and quite properly kill him. On the loose now, Trog seem to find an alternately alarmed and tranquil village where he encounters a grocer and a butcher. He dispatches both, the butcher in an especially hideous manner. He encounters a car which he attacks and turns over and which then inexplicably blows up. He stumbles onto the playground (like I said, the alarm seems to not have spread to the whole town despite the many klaxons blaring from time to time) and kidnaps a lovely blonde girl who I think might actually be the daughter of the awful Murdock. He takes her back to his cave. The TV cameras and townspeople return to the cave, this time with the military to boot. They are plotting ways to get to Trog to kill him, but Brockton against orders descends and rescues the girl, appealing to Trog's gentler nature. Sadly when she returns topside, the army descends in mass and Trog is killed in a brutal wave of gunfire, which causes the caveman to fall impaling himself on a pointy stalagmite. Brockton walks away in utter sadness.

So as you can see there is quite a lot going on in this notorious movie. It's a film put together by and featuring professionals. The editing is crisp if obvious (track Crawford's pantsuits and you can almost figure out the shooting schedule) and the acting is broad, but done with proper conviction. There is not hint by those involved that they are in an embarrassing movie. There is only diligent attention to detail and craft, the mark of any worthy effort. For that I admire Trog; for all its weaknesses as a film, it does what it's supposed to do, entertain. It properly transports the viewer to another world and time, not unlike its hapless star Trog himself. The fact that the movie is unintentionally goofy is not what is primarily important. The movie and the participants take themselves seriously and that's sufficient even though we as audience far removed from that time can find all manner of fun with the production.

Find and watch Trog, enjoy it. Don't hate it for what it is not. Lets' not make the same mistake with this delightful flick that the hateful Murdock did with Trog, let's appreciate this wild and brazen creation for what it is.

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The Thing That Couldn't Die!

The word that comes to mind when I think of the 1958 Universal horror flick The Thing That Couldn't Die is "creepy". It's not especially lurid nor gross, none of the Universal pictures of this era were those things, with their slick studio patina, but it was unrelentingly creepy. It's a movie with scary ideas, if the folks in charge here don't necessarily do the most with them.

The story begins benignly enough on a quiet California ranch where the owner Flavia (Peggy Converse) and her ranch hands Mike (Charles Horvath) and Boyd (James Anderson) dig up a four hundred year old chest found by budding witch Jessica (Carolyn Kearney). Along for the expedition are ranch guests Gordon (William Reynolds), Linda (Andra Martin), and Hank (Jeff Stone). It turns out when the two ranch hands, the weak-minded Mike and naughty greedy Boyd, open the chest without permission, it contains the severed head of executed warlock Gideon Drew (Robin Hughes).
 

The disembodied head exerts control over Mike and causes him to slay Boyd beginning a tiny reign of terror as the head connives to uncovers its body hidden elsewhere on the ranch centuries before. Standing in the way is the naive morality of  Jessica who at one point sees Drew's execution in a vision. The movie winds to a reasonably crisp if a bit too quick finale. But along the way there are some very unsettling scenes.

The movie's best moments are when the severed head of Drew, often carried around by the zombie-like Mike is held aloft and its magnetic eyes lock onto its victim. The mouth then soundlessly mutters instructions which are understood by its new servant. It's creepy stuff, the kind of images which populate nightmares.

This movie hasn't been widely released, in fact appears to be available only on a questionable print from Warner's on-demand library. I'm not sure it's worth the price, but I do know that seeing it again on TCM was a real treat and transported me back to some rousing Saturday afternoons when it didn't take much to chill a ten year old's heart.

Creepy it was, creepy it remains.

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