What was the last movie you saw?

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Voodoo Woman (1957)

Monster movie/crime film that is a lot more entertaining than it should be. Starts with some "natives" somewhere in the jungle performing some kind of ritual, with the presence of our movie's Mad Scientist (velvet-voiced Tom Conway.) His pretty blonde wife is his prisoner. (You have to wonder how these two ever got together.) Conway's insane scheme is to transform a "native" woman into an immortal creature (a guy in a goofy monster suit) under his telepathic control. This works, more or less, but he can't make her kill.

Meanwhile, in our film noir sequences, we meet three disreputable characters, set on journeying to someplace in the jungle after gold. There's an older guy, a younger guy, and our film's most important character, B-movie favorite Marla English as a tough-as-nails femme fatale, as likely to point a gun at a man as wrap her arms around him. She pretty quickly kills the older guy, having the younger guy (her temporary boyfriend) take his place as they hire our film's designated hero (Mike Conners, still calling himself Touch Conners) to guide them. Well, these three wind up at Conway's place, English kills the young guy because he killed the "native" woman and the "natives" want justice. Conway knows he's got a killer on his hands, so he transforms English into the monster. Let's just say that this turns out to be a Very Bad Idea.

English totally dominates the film, giving an intense performance as a truly hardboiled dame. The absurd plot moves along quickly. Recommended for tolerant monster buffs.

 

[KGeo777]

The Devil Rides Out is a hard read--the writing style is so ponderous. I struggled to get through it with all the digressions. Richard Matheson said he always liked to avoid adding anything of his own imagination to an adaptation, so in the case of Wheatley's book he cut it down a fair bit but I think he removed all the dead weight and he said Wheatley was very pleased with it.

The first time I watched the Wicker Man was very disturbing-the ending. But the next time I watched it, it didn't seem like a horror movie to me. More of an experimental drama. Howie seems like a totally unrealistic character--unsympathetic, and his decision to stay in the wicker as it is burning seems awfully bizarre. It feels like a remake of one or two other tv-films (Robin RedBreast which I haven't seen) and Black Noon. The latter has characters in animal masks too.

 

[AstroZon]

L.A. Confidential (1997) D: Curtis Hanson, S: Guy Pearce, Russel Crowe, Kim Basinger, Kevin Spacey, Danny DeVito, etc.

It's been a couple of years since I popped this one into the DVD player. The first thing I noticed is that it doesn't seem like it's a 23 year old film! It's a period piece done right - the clothing, the attitudes, the atmosphere, and especially the dialogue. Nothing dumbed-down or retroactively politically corrected. I also like that it doesn't play into 50s stereotypes like so many movies do. Excellent movie.

 

[Randy M.]

Madhouse (1974) dir. Jim Clark; starring Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Robert Quarry

When we meet them, Price is the star of a series of movies featuring him as Dr. Death; Cushing is his friend and the writer of the scripts; and Quarry is a producer of porn. (For anyone not familiar with Quarry, at the time a couple of movies -- Count Yorga, Vampire and its sequel specifically -- had put him in a second tier of horror actors behind Cushing, Price and Lee.) Someone dressed as Dr. Death murders Price's fiance. Suspicion falls on Price, ruining his career, but since he found the body that's not the worst that happens to him and he spends time in a sanitarium. Years later Quarry, now a TV exec, wants to bring back the character in a TV show. Again the murderer strikes and the question becomes, will they find the killer first or will Price be driven mad first?

It's an Amicus production and so decently done, but like a lot of '60s and '70s horror movies seems a bit tame compared to a contemporary like Niht of the Living Dead or Black Christmas. Still, if you enjoy watching Price and Cushing, it's worth watching. A pity they weren't teamed up more often.

Randy M.

 

[KGeo777]

Madhouse is a lot more interesting than it first seems because it is Price's swan song as a horror star--you even hear him singing at the end of it--but the story is about all sorts of real life horrors creeping into the horror star's life--such as time in a sanitarium, and the actress who gets horribly scarred. Also, most interesting of all, he is being stalked by a crude anonymous version of his Dr Death persona, which has a slasher-movie aspect to it--although I guess it is more accurately a krimi-giallo kind of situation. But the killer does foreshadow that the theatrical horror star was to be replaced by the stunt man in a mask. This came out before Texas Chainsaw Massacre too.

 

[Randy M.]

KGeo, I hadn't thought of it that way, but I can see your points. And yes, krimi-giallo-ish.

Oddly, since Price, Lee and Cushing, the only name I can think of that comes close to being a horror star is Jamie Lee Curtis. She certainly branched out and did very well doing so, but at this time I can't think of anyone whose name as associated with acting in horror movies and who is likely to draw box office. (Elizabeth Moss may be a challenger, but I don't see her sticking with horror consistently, either.)

Randy M.

 

[KGeo777]

Robert Englund would be another. Maybe Jeffrey Combs or Bruce Campbell as well.

It's funny how the "Scream Queen" wasn't considered a term before the 80s.

If you just take the UK, you have many actresses who either starred in horror films, or are best known for them.
Barbara Steele, Judy Geeson, Veronica Carlson, Martine Beswick, Stephanie Beacham, Caroline Munro, Barbara Shelley, Anna Palk, Jill Haworth, Adrienne Corri, Ingrid Pitt, Madeline Smith, Suzy Kendall, Susan George, one could add probably another couple dozen.

 

[Randy M.]

I almost mentioned Englund, but I don't think his rep is as good as Price, et al. Bad movies eventually undo you. And I don't think Combs or Campbell are in the Karloff, Price, Lee, Cushing league, either, though known primarily for horror movies. I think maybe a lot of directors and producers wanted to get away from star power, make the characters' fates more uncertain by not having names.

Among women, not long ago I watched movies with Madeline Smith and Valerie Leon -- they were part of the Hammer stable of actors and actresses along with Pitt and Beswick, etc. There were several American women in horror, too, from Mala Powers and Alison Hayes to Adrienne Barbeau and Linnea Quigley. Unfortunately, they rarely were able to escape horror once tagged with it. Curtis was an exception. and I think she's an exception in being in the big leagues along with Karloff, et at.

 

[Rodders]

Superbob - A rather sweet UK comedy about a postman who gets superpowers. He is trying to find love on his day off.

I Feel Pretty - Amy Schumer was likeable enough, but I expected more from her. This is not a funny film and I didn't finish it.

 

[KGeo777]

The Frightened City 1961 - Sean Connery is a small-time crook who gets involved with bigger ones and has to compromise his principles to the breaking point. Herbert Lom is the big boss who gets to utter a line as Connery enters from a balcony to do him injury that is worthy of a Bond villain.

There's a scene where people are in a party and Yvonne Romain observes this woman with a bizarre unkempt hairstyle and says "what is that?" and Connery explains she is a member of royalty with a big family tree and Romain says "looks like she just climbed out of it." This made me think of X-men First Class and the strange hairstyles for the early 1960s London scene which looked anachronistic to me. Maybe or they all happened to climb out of the same tree.

 

[Victoria Silverwolf]

Hawk the Slayer (1980)

Cheap, lousy little sword-and-sorcery film that is nevertheless quite fun to watch. Starts off with a bang with Jack Palance, as our ultra-evil villain, wearing a Darth Vader style helmet that covers most of his face. He demands a powerful magic thing, apparently not knowing exactly what it is, from his father, who is about the same age as Palance. He doesn't get it, so he kills the slightly older man. Our hero, Hawk the Slayer, comes in quick enough to have his dying father give him the magic thing, which turns out to be a telepathically controlled sword.

Some time passes, I guess, because right after Palance slaughters a village (unseen) and kidnaps an abbess for ransom, we find out that Hawk already has a reputation for being a swashbuckling good guy. We meet him rescuing a blind woman from being executed as a witch. She really does have magical powers, and uses them to assemble all our Dungeons and Dragons adventurers. Besides Hawk himself, we have:

A older guy who lost one hand when Palance wiped out his village, but who still wields a crossbow that shoots out multiple bolts rapidly, like a machine gun, with deadly accuracy.

A giant (taller than average guy) with a big hammer.

An elf (a slender guy with Spock ears) with pure white arrows who can shoot them just as fast as the crossbow guy.

A dwarf (shorter than average guy) with a whip, who also serves as our comedy relief.

Each of these heroes (except crossbow guy) gets his own mini-adventure as the witch teleports Hawk to their locations, generally helping his buddy overcome some enemies.

Instead of just fighting Palance directly, they decide to pay the ransom, although they know Palance will kill her anyway. Since the church is forbidden to pay ransom from its own coffers, Hawk and his buddies steal the loot from a gang of slavers.

Along the way we get flashbacks showing Palance trying to kill Hawk so he can take his beautiful bride, the bride saving Hawk and thrusting a torch in Palance's face (thus the helmet), and Palance shooting a crossbow into the bride's back. Definitely a grudge match between the two siblings.

A lot of back and forth stuff happens between Palance and the good guys, leading to our final battle, and an ending that implies a sequel that never existed.

Palance hams it up to an extreme degree, Hawk is a bland pretty boy, and most of the other roles are portrayed by fine character actors. The music is wildly inappropriate electronic stuff. The special effects are often hilariously awful; one bad guy gets sprayed with Silly String in the role of some kind of magic stuff zapped at him by the witch. The whole thing is delightfully silly.

 

[KGeo777]

Ha I like Palance's spiritual mentor that guy with the hood and glowing eyes who keeps zapping him in the face.

 

[dask]

Enjoyable haunted house thriller supposedly based on a true incident in England in the 1970s. I’m no expert but this sequel (I haven’t seen the first one yet but have it on hold at the library) seems extremely well put together especially the plotting.

 

[KGeo777]

Having seen few Marlon Brando films I can't judge THE NIGHT OF THE FOLLOWING DAY in comparison to others but this was in his pre-fat days. The film is a euro crime thriller about a kidnapping in France but thanks to Brando has a quirky arthouse aspect which worked for me. Being a Pamela Franklin and Richard Boone fan helps. Boone is great as a "psycho pimp." Franklin has much less to do and her character doesn't even get a name. There's a long improvised scene where Brando tells his partner he wants out of the kidnapping scheme as he fears what Boone will do to their captive and he starts screaming about getting his head chopped off since France has the death penalty. The movie ends with an ambiguous ending which purportedly was partly due to Brando's unruly set behavior. If you can appreciate a slow-paced movie like FAREWELL FRIEND or RIDER ON THE RAIN or AND SOON THE DARKNESS it is similar.
I watch a lot of these euro-films lately.

 

[Jeffbert]

Hawk the Slayer (1980)

Cheap, lousy little sword-and-sorcery film that is nevertheless quite fun to watch.
...
The music is wildly inappropriate electronic stuff. The special effects are often hilariously awful; one bad guy gets sprayed with Silly String in the role of some kind of magic stuff zapped at him by the witch. The whole thing is delightfully silly.

Sounds like I might enjoy this.



THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH (1952) As a kid, my parents took us to see the RB&BB circus, but, as I recall, it was not under a tent, but, inside a large building in DC. Sad, that it is now gone! CBD himself narrates, and the one thing that was not featured, was the lion tamer act.

Most were trapeze and clown acts. But, the story itself, is behind the scenes, & ends with, what I think is a nod to Les Miserables; as Buttons the Clown (James Stewart) who, strangely, is never seen without his clown make-up, is, because of his loyalty to Brad (C Heston) forced to give his identity away, in order to save Brad's life. He had been a physician, but had euthanized his ailing / suffering wife, and had been on the lam for years. So, I am reminded of Jean Valjean's heroic act of lifting a wagon off an injured man, and thus, giving away his identity (at least, in the film version I saw). But, anyway, there was a cop travelling with the circus, who had been searching for the doctor, and had been showing photos of the fugitive to the performers and the crew. He seemed almost sad, when arresting Buttons near the end.

The drama is divided into several sub-plots. First, are the crooks who run the games, whom Brad eventually expels from the circus. They had been cheating people with rigged games, such as shooting gallery, & such. After being tossed out, they plan to steal the payroll, by stopping the train out in the middle of nowhere, and using a distraction to cover the robbery. So, the circus uses two trains, & the 1st one is stopped on the same track, that the second one is using, the engineer unaware of the stopped train in his path. a horrible collision occurs, etc., & brad suffers a severed artery. Buttons, was in the act of fleeing, hoping to elude the cop, when the Brad's girlfriend (who did not know just how much she cared for him, until his life is at risk), begs Buttons to save him. There is a physician who travels with the circus, but, he too, is injured.

Much more to it, than I can write.



One Spy Too Many (1966) one of several Man From Uncle films. apparently little more than a two part episode with some added sexiness as the secretary, (Yvonne Craig likely better known as Batgirl), and has a relationship with Napoleon Solo, sunbathes in the office. A megalomaniac fancying himself as a modern-day Alexander the Great, attempts to conquer the Earth.



Another one with RV as the star, though in between this and the next TMFU spy film, which I have not watched yet. But both these have supporting actors who appeared in Star Trek, TOS.


The Venetian Affair (1967)

Not a TMFU story, but still, a spy story Bill Fenner (Robert Vaughn) is an ex CIA finds himself in a life or death situation, though he is a reporter. Very tense drama. So, he is sent to Venice, and meets Mike Ballard (Roger C. Carmel; Harry Mudd of TOS), who is a spy of one type or another. They work together. I watched this yesterday, but forgot too much. So, Karloff is this guy who wants to address a peace conference consisting of a dozen or so VIPs. But he had been brainwashed by the bad guy, who had already bombed the 1st group, & killed the all. I thought this was more than just an o.k. film, but wikipedia has few details on it. Rosenfeld (Ed Asner) is the current CIA guy in charge of that area, and though he works with Fenner, he occasionally is a jerk.



SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE (1982) The shower scene was my main reason for watching this, though I did not even know that there would be one. Some whack-o mass murderer had escaped from prison, and every time the radio news is about to detail the story, the high school girls turn to a music station. Bad move. Script writers make the characters do the stupidest things! Typical slasher trash.


The Seventh Victim (1943) Val Lewton as the producer. Creepy but apparently Muller thought it was noir, as it was featured on 10/31-11/01 at 12:00 midnight, & again, at 10:00 AM. The young woman, still a girl, attending a girls' school learns that her elder sister had been delinquent in paying her tuition for several months. She goes to find her, but her business, one of producing perfume, had been sold to her senior employee. Or had it? She finds several people who help her search, & finally finds her. Big sister had become involved with devil worshipers, & and violated the one cardinal rule of the group.

 

[Extollager]

Them! from 1954. I don't know how many times I've seen this since I was a kid, and I enjoy it every time.

 

[Droflet]

Another huge THEM fan. My mother thought I would have nightmares after seeing it. Nah. Loved it and slept like an angel.

 

[Extollager]

The desert locations and the city storm sewers are memorable, as is the weird ant sound.

 

[Randy M.]

The early scene in Them! of the little girl in the ambulance is still effectively creepy, and whenever I see the L.A. storm sewers in other movies, I wonder if giant ants will march out. Some of those movies would have been improved by that.

 

[KGeo777]

THE LAST HUNTER 1980 Italian "sequel" to The Deer Hunter with Apocalypse Now thrown in for good measure. Macaroni Vietnam war action movie with David Warbeck on a mission to blow up a radio communication station that is broadcasting "Tokyo Rose" propaganda to the troops. The twist surprise here is rather amusing with its Deer Hunter inspiration and director Antonio Margheriti makes great use of miniatures to boost the production look of the film. Just don't expect Oscar-winning dialogue or performances.