Last Few Movies LXVII: to Hell and Back

I watched movies again. Whatever it means to rank disparate films in order of how much one enjoyed it, I did it.

The Cannon Group is always a weirder production company than my dumb brain realizes. Anyways, Menahem Golan’s The Apple (1980) is one of the more out there musicals. Bold choice to retell the timeless story of wide-eyed innocents being corrupted by the allure of the entertainment industry and map it onto Christian Evangelical tribulation eschatology complete with a literal Deus Ex Machina and also have it totally suck ass. I will say, however, it was nice to finally see character actor Vladek Sheybal get a big role (he plays Mr. Boogalow aka the Devil). He’s pretty bad, but he’s having fun. I liked that. They even gave him some song numbers. He can’t sing either, but he’s having fun.

Who doesn’t want to get lost in Richard E. Grant’s beautiful baby blues? Warlock (1989) is about wizards that travel to modern day to stop each other. It’s a mostly forgettable affair, and I have to put the blame on how small the adventure feels and the villain (a blonde ponytailed, barefoot man in a black romper who can fly). I need to watch Whitnail & I again to cleanse the palate.

Watched schlockmeister Ted V. Mikels’ The Astro-Zombies (1968) out of a sick duty. We stumbled upon his 2004 sequel, Mark of the Astro-Zombies, by happenstance a couple years ago. It is also an extremely bad movie. Cheap, ugly, stupid, nonsensical, BUT we were overcome with fascination at the volume of old people in it. Turns out a lot of them had ties to Mikels from way back in the day. It is also the movie that introduced us to Tura Satana. She is marvelous trash and loving it. Best takeaway, by far. So we found the original Astro-Zombies and…not nearly enough Tura in it. She’s cool and mean, but most of the film is boring talking heads and an ancient John Carradine using a screwdriver and talking to a greasy Igor knockoff. Is it worth it? Not really, unless you’re a Tura or Mikels completist. Watch Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! instead.

I remembered disliking Legend (1985) when it was shown to me years ago. Fastforward to a couple weeks ago and I’m thinking how did I not like a weird Ridley Scott fantasy movie with a Tangerine Dream score, Rob Bottin makeup effects, and a horny Tim Curry in the best Devil suit ever constructed trying to seduce Mia Sara? And Tom Cruise is in it?

Gave it another shot. I think the problem is it is boring and rather unengaging. When you compare it to something like NeverEnding Story, it’s almost depressingly subdued and shapeless. It’s also clinically claustrophobic. Show me a sky. And not enough Tim Curry, who is absolutely the reason to watch it at all. He’s chewing scenery, loving being evil.

Nico Mastorakis’ Nightmare at Noon (1988) starts off pretty solid and engaging, but it makes a few cowardly choices along the way and loses steam once George Kennedy is out of the picture and the characters leave the town. If you wanted a bad version of Bucarau that will test your tolerance for Bo Hopkins and Wings Hauser, then give it a whirl.

Is Demon Seed (1977), a hoakie sci-fi thriller about a robotic house that wants to shag Julie Christie, truly a better film than Legend or Nightmare at Noon? Who’s to say, but Demon Seed doesn’t have Wings Hauser or the perpetually wincing face of Bo Hopkins in it. Demon Seed is an impressively stupid movie about an evil AI that’s trying to Rosemary’s Baby up a human to live forever. When the evil computer is challenging people (albeit with embarrassingly simplistic reasoning skills) and using uniquely computer-y ways to disturb and kill people, it’s kind of cool. It doesn’t do that very much. Best things here were the folding metal shape monster (RIP Beef from Phantom of the Paradise) and the robot baby.

Listen, I love the body horror, wet puppets, and jittery stop-motion ghoulies. I even dig the flashback structure. Where this movie really rubs me the wrong way is the goofy comedy acting, which just didn’t work for me. Check out Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990), but know it’s more comedy than horror.

Kate Bush is great and way better than this short film: The Line, the Cross and the Curve (1993). It features several of her songs, and a few of the numbers are filmed very entertainingly, but it’s not as good as a surreal Kate Bush musical should be. We watched this after seeing The Red Shoes (appearing later on this list), as it was a huge inspiration and one of her favorite movies.

What’s this? An Italian Southern Gothic supernatural horror flick about a Louisiana house built on a portal to Hell directed by Lucio Fulci?? It’s The Beyond (1981), everybody. I couldn’t tell you much about the plot or the characters. Like a lot of films in this style, it’s more of an atmospheric pastiche of weird, brutal violence and some striking imagery. It held our interest and I liked the final shot quite a bit.

Brad Bird is responsible for some of my favorite animated films. Iron Giant, Ratatouille, and The Incredibles. I had a few worries about Pixar’s superhero sequel, The Incredibles 2 (2018) going in. Hence why it’s taken so long to see it. Ultimately, it’s not bad. It sags a bit in the middle, but the story is good enough, there are some fresh ideas, and the animation is amazing to look at. Watching Mrs. Incredible hit the same exact story beats as Mr. Incredible did before this time around isn’t the most exciting. And Mr. Incredible being a tired, grouchy dad maybe isn’t as funny as it could be, but on the whole it’s nice to the see the family back together. That first movie is really hard to top, and this isn’t Toy Story 2.

Sometimes I respect a novel, ambitious mess more than a streamlined success. Underground animator Ralph Bakshi has a lot of those types of movies in his canon, and Wizards (1977) is weird even for him. It’s a fantasy set in the future, and it’s about the rise of fascism. An evil wizard utilizes old footage of Adolf Hitler (and there is a LOT of Nazi and WWII footage in what was allegedly Bakshi’s attempt at a family movie) to inspire his army of cybernetic goons to oppress the fairyfolk and dwarves of Montagar.

In addition to the Nazi stuff, it’s also a pretty violent and horny movie. The Frazetta-inspired, scantily clad queen of the fairies is perpetually nipping out. The good wizard’s mushroom tower house is unmistakably phallic. And it’s got war and guns and cartoon blood.

The movie is all over the place. The tone veers wildly from screwball sex comedy to serious warning about fascism and how easily it can take hold and be used to destroy peace. The quality of the animation shifts throughout the movie. Bakshi’s reliance on rotoscoping is not to everyone’s tastes. The still images and backgrounds are wonderful! And it does have that Bakshi grim satire. The ending, depending on your mood might strike you as stupid or anticlimactic. I actually weirdly think it’s hilarious and maybe even important or something. Like I said, it’s a mess, but I have to respect it.

Wes Anderson is a fascinating specimen. Each of his films becomes a litmus test for fans’ personal Rubicons of what they are willing to accept, as well as a confirmation for his detractors for why his style is so devoid of appeal. Maybe more than any other director. All this to say, I did not like Asteroid City (2023). But I know a lot of people who loved it. Classic Anderson play, right there.

Set in a Cold War desert town, Asteroid City is pretty to look at (maybe even visually genius), but somehow even more scattered, plotless, and emotionally inert than usual. Confoundingly of all to me is how little a movie about a television show about a play so very little resembles either. It’s squarely the language of cinema, making the constant reminders that it’s a behind the scenes look at a theater production all the more bewildering. Is it about the military industrial complex in 1950s America? Not really. Is it about how science is deemed the playground of weird children? Maybe? Is it about dealing with death and loss? Not exactly. Is it about the stories we tell to convince ourselves of a greater narrative purpose and meaning in an otherwise incomprehensible universe? Could be. There’s a lot in there, and, taken separately, not all uninteresting. As a whole, I just felt like I wanted a more engaging onslaught of wacky characters. Maybe it’s even more meta than I’m giving it credit for. Who knows.

I liked the alien, and there are a couple of good chuckles, but I kinda miss having a plot and some characters I care about.

Ching Siu-tung and Tsui Hark started a wild fantasy/action/romance/comedy/horror franchise with A Chinese Ghost Story (1987). While I may not have been prepared for how slapstick-y the shenanigans and general hijinks were to be, I was enchanted by the fast-paced fantasy action and dazzling special effects. When a clumsy tax collector (Leslie Cheung) falls in love with ghost (Wang Tsu Hsien), it threatens an arranged spirit wedding and, armed with the aid of a knowledgeable Taoist warrior (Wu Ma) they all must go into the afterlife to do battle with old evil. It’s a fun flick, whose influences on the fantasy kung-fu genre are apparent.

Don’t judge me. David Winters had a dream. He was a choreographer (Viva Las Vegas), director (Thrashin’), producer (Raw Justice), and actor (Westside Story) and, very late in life, choreographed, directed, produced, and acted in his swansong Dancin’: It’s On (2015). I can’t tell you if we enjoyed the movie the way Winters meant it to be enjoyed, but it brought us a lot of laughs and delight. It’s the kinda bad we simply love to see. Wouldn’t change a goddamn thing. Nothing but love for this man.

I thought the first Guardians of the Galaxy was a breath of fresh air when it came out in 2014. It stood out as being a quirkier Marvel movie at the time. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 had some more cool ideas and themes (namely about fatherhood), but the freshness and quirk may have been less novel by then. I never expected to see Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 (2023), but I found myself watching it one night and it might be the most soulful and satisfying. James Gunn knows how to make a fun big budget movie that’s appropriately weird (for a mainstream audience) and doesn’t look like garbage. It’s that raccoon’s movie, but the connective tissue around that works well. It’s fun and funny, but it’s got enough emotional heft when it needs it. Fans of Marvel and The Plague Dogs should enjoy this equally.

Indonesia’s take on James Cameron’s 1984 sci-fi action horror is a fascinating example of meming. It grafts (albeit awkwardly) the beats of the Termintor story onto an old Indonesian myth. Instead of a murder-robot from the future sent to kill Sarah Connor, Lady Terminator (1989) has the mythical Queen of the South Sea (a capricious and horny ocean goddess who has a vagina eel that kills men by eating their penises mid-coitus) possessing the body of an American anthropologist to complete her mission of cursing a rising rockstar and great great granddaughter of a guy who turned her eel into a dagger by grabbing it that one time. Barbara Anne Constable may not exactly be Arnold Schwarzenegger, but she looks great kicking in doors and spraying bullets. There’s a bit too much shooting (it gets tiresome), but the frantic car chases, jungle/gutter aesthetic, and weird Indonesian folk magic make this a unique cross-cultural adventure.

Shirley Jackson’s gothic horror is no stranger to adaptation. The Haunting (1963), directed by Robert Wise, tells the story of a group of people investigating the paranormal in an old mansion. The heart of the movie – for me anyway – isn’t so much the promise of poltergeists but the character of Eleanor Lance, one of the people invited to experience the house. Eleanor (played by Julie Harris) may be a bit of an unreliable narrator as her internal monologues constantly call her emotional state into question. She is wracked with guilt at finally feeling free following the death of her invalid mother whom she had spent her entire adult life taking care of. The trip to Hill House is a much needed reframing of purpose for her (so much so that she steals a car to get there).

If that’s not enough to lure you in to this classic haunted house atmosphere, the house itself and the wonderful cinematography (by Davis Boulton) should be enough to captivate. It’s kind of tragic what the 1999 version with Liam Neeson and Lili Taylor did to it.

I mean it when I say that cinema is time travel.

Special effects guy and stop-motion wizard, David W. Allen (The Howling, Willow, Caveman, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, Batteries Not Included, Dolls, Freaked, The Stuff, Robot Jox, Bride of Re-Animator, Puppet Master, and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids) spent years trying to make The Primevals (2023). Conceived in the 1960s as a throwback to classic adventure movies of the 1930s (like The Lost World, King Kong, and maybe even She), Allen’s film about the search for the Himalayan yeti kept getting stalled and snagged and money was hard. They finally filmed most of the live-action stuff in 1994 in Romania and the Italian Dolomites. Allen died in 1999 at the age of 54, never having completed his most ambitious project.

Full Moon producer Charles Band, along with an Indiegogo campaign that raised $40,000, and several animators who had known Allen (Chris Endicott, Kent Burton, and a team) managed to finish the film and release it now. In 2023. And we got to see it at its debut at Fantasia Film Festival in Montreal.

So how was it? As a movie, that is?

I went into this knowing it was a pulpy low-budget adventure flick that was going to have bad writing and cheesy acting, but that it would be an effects-driven labor of love. It was all of that, and we had a blast watching. The live-action stuff is poorly directed, badly acted, stupidly written, and the story is a needlessly convoluted mess that makes little sense, but there is so much life and personality and the dynamic fun in the stop-motion monsters and action scenes. It really does capture the magic of the work of Willis O’Brien or Ray Harryhausen. And that’s why you sit through the boring people stuff. It made me feel like a kid again watching old adventure flicks waiting for the dumb people to shut up so the movie could get to the monsters, dinosaurs, aliens, and spaceships.

The Primevals feels like it’s from another time (because it is), but it was fun and inspiring and made me wish to see more stop-motion adventure films like this on the BIG SCREEN. I’ve never seen the original King Kong in a theater. Or any of the Sinbads or other Harryhausen movies in a theater. And now I know it would be a thrill that a TV screen simply cannot deliver. The Primevals reminds me of the importance of specialty cinemas that show classic films that were always intended to be seen big. It reminds me how much love and passion are sometimes behind even flawed, messy projects. I’ve always been enchanted by the tactile feel and energy stop-motion animation has, and I’m not alone. It’s a different sort of magic than CGI for me, because it’s closer to childhood. It’s more readily understood. It’s literally bringing toys to life. It’s a magic trick where knowing exactly how it was all achieved only lends to its wow factor.

So should you watch it? Well, it won’t be for everyone, and I’m honest when I say I don’t recommend something like The Black Scorpion for the dialogue, but for folks with some nostalgia for Hammer Films or Harryhausen creatures, it’s definitely worth it. Seeing the colossal yeti and the reptilian Martian men on the big screen was a real delight.

Honey Lee plays Yeo-Rae, a Korean pop culture sensation trapped in a controlling relationship with her psychotic husband (played hilariously by Lee Sun-kyun), but who happens to live across the street from her biggest fan, university hopeful Bumwoo (Gong Myung). Naturally, he agrees to help her murder her husband. This is Killing Romance (2023). This is a wild, breezy, live-action cartoon musical filled with flashy advertising energy and extremely zany performances. I had a smile on my face for most of the runtime, and the audience we saw it with was laughing and cheering throughout.

George A. Romero was always a progressive, underground renegade. Most famous for inventing the modern zombie flick (and I’d argue Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead have yet to be topped), Romero’s best work has deeper thematic and political yearnings animating it. Knightriders™ (1981), on its face, is about a troupe of Ren Faire motorcycle jousters and their internal dramas and schisms, but it’s really got a lot to say about staying true to your ideals and the romanticization of living on the fringes of society.

It is overly long, and occasionally a little unintentionally silly (Ed Harris bringing perhaps a comical level of gravitas to the Faire King, but his seriousness does add to the film), but there’s a true rebellious heartbeat pounding within it. And it’s great to see makeup artist Tom Savini get such a meaty role. I appreciate how much they sexualize him. Savini’s just a cool guy. True to Romero’s worldview, the bad guys are authority figures, and the good guys are a diverse crew of flawed but interesting personas. Knightriders may not be perfect, but I found myself thinking about it long after it was over.

Sometimes somebody just really loves pulpy, splattery 80s horror flicks. Sometimes that somebody doesn’t have a budget to make a good movie. So they have to settle for shoestring DIY greatness.

Shinichi Fukazawa (writer/director/producer/editor/star) pays tribute to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies. Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell ain’t even trying to hide its influences. Super low budget stuff, with its earnest love for the craft and awareness of its limitations (stuff like Carnival of Souls, Basket Case, and anything out of Wakaliwood), can sometimes tap into unhinged magic of the highest order.

Sometimes called The Japanese Evil Dead, Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell has a basic setup: three people wind up in a haunted house. Cartoonish gore and general silliness ensues. Shot in 1995 on 8mm film and not completed until 2009, viewers can expect to see a plethora of weird DIY special effects, goopy dollops of corn syrup, and lines ripped from the mouth of Bruce Campbell. My only real complaint is that we could have had a bit more bodybuilding.

Much like how The Lego Movie kinda snuck in and surprised us with its cleverness, stellar art direction, and ambitions to say more than “Look! Look! Remember this toy?!”, Greta Gerwig’s Barbie (2023) has a much firmer clasp on the pulse of the American cultural malaise than a movie about a doll probably has any right to.

Barbie is weird smart fun. Not just socially and politically aware, but more introspective and willing to examine how ideas evolve over time. Because, as the movie clearly states, Barbie is an idea. And there are a lot of ideas about what Barbie is and what she means and where she belongs in 2023. Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach’s incisive script goes way harder than most big budget Hollywood blockbusters. That’s super refreshing to see.

It also looks amazing. The ultra pink plastic universe and wacky, playtime rules that govern them are hilarious, creative, and tantalizing to behold. The whole cast truly understands the assignment and nails this hyper specific comedy tone extremely well (perhaps Ryan Gosling most of all). Its politics may be a bit cudgel-like, but this is a mainstream movie for a general audience, and no one gets mad when South Park is this on the nose with spelling out its satirical points.

It’s more than a fish-out-of-water story, or a story about the origins of Barbie, or a feminist attack on the patriarchy (although it is all of those things too); it’s an existential journey that uses the iconic doll (and all her baggage) to say something bigger about the human experience and the modern world we find ourselves in. I put Barbie in the same camp as Sorry to Bother You, Everything Everywhere All at Once, and Bo Burnham’s Inside; modern humanist cinema that can be inelegantly blunt, but is urgent, honest, and ultimately hopeful about it all. We could debate about who said what better, but I’m just happy folks are using studio money to be this weird.

If it’s the greatest example of the lush richness of Technicolor, then it’s got to be Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. I enjoyed The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and I really dug Black Narcissus. They’re gorgeously shot, narratively complex dramas that, above all, are just kinda low-key weird. The Red Shoes (1948) ups the ante in terms of both color and idiosyncrasy. Welcome to the competitive world of lavishly produced ballet shows. A girl (Moira Shearer) longs to be a star. A man (Marius Goring) longs to compose. And a strange and obsessive impresario (played with enigmatic oddness by Anton Walbrook) controls the fates of all who yearn for the stage. It’s a messy, melodramatic love triangle that is never not gorgeous to look at. There is an elaborate dance sequence that rivals Singin’ in the Rain for its scope and visual innovation.

Cool Hand Luke (1967) asks a very important question: what if a real cool guy went to prison? Or rather, what if Paul Newman went to prison? Or perhaps more broadly: what if the systems around us are so clanking, cruel, and unworthy of our respect that the only course of action was a sort of laconic, detached, Bugs Bunny-flavored nihilism?

I saw this legendary Paul Newman movie when I was a kid, and I never forgot that ending. It haunted me. It was maybe the first time I encountered a film that ended that way. Cool Hand Luke is a hot, sweaty drama about a good ol’ boy on a chain gang in post WWII Florida, and it’s tone reflects the burgeoning anti-establishment sentiment of many Vietnam War era films. Unlike the rage of R.P. McMurphy in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Luke’s resistance to authority is more passive, cool, and sarcastic. He’s masking his emotions and distracting himself because there is so little within his control. Every act of defiance is completely understandable and justified, even if we (and arguably him too) know that it’ll all go to pot.

Rugged treatise on American individualism aside, the film is well shot, tragic, funny, and features frequent B-movie actor George Kennedy in his Academy Award winning role as the gruff prisoner who becomes Luke’s greatest admirer.

Got to see the director’s cut of Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973) in a real theater. I had remembered liking it long ago, but it really is a masterpiece of bitter British 70s horror. Edward Woodward plays Sergeant Howie, a Scottish police investigator and devout Christian, questioning the secretive residents of Summerisle about the disappearance of a girl. He is misdirected and confronted with backwards beliefs that boil his blood at every turn. And Lord Summerisle (the ever regal Christopher Lee) thwarts his investigation at every turn…or does he? If you’re familiar with the movie, it’s not hard to see where Ari Aster’s Midsommar got some inspiration. It’s a legendary horror movie that is remembered for its finale, but I’ll always remember it for its weird musical numbers.

National Film Board of Canada Animated Shortstravanza!

Binged a bunch of NFB shorts on YouTube, and what a joy it was.

How Dinosaurs Learned to Fly (1995) is cute and fun and I like dinosaurs so there you go.

Mr. Frog Went A-Courting (1974) took a turn in the end, but loved the song and creepy animation.

Hot Stuff (1971) was some more cute and crusty animation.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. If you can get past the few casual racial slurs in this one, Propaganda Message (1974) is a great reminder that we are divided more by ideology than time.

Claude Cloutier’s Bad Seeds (2020) is expressively animated. And his work will appear again here.

Richard Condie also makes this list twice. The Cat Came Back (1988) is wacky and whimsical so much fun to look at.

Log Driver’s Waltz (1979) is as Canadian as you can get. It’s a jolly, jaunty jingle that celebrates the history of the logging industry and the workers who had to nimbly walk across logs floating in the river. And the women who loved them.

Montreal animators, Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, spent more than 5 years making this unique, melancholy, and surreal journey into existential realms unknown. Madame Tutli-Putli (2007) is marvelous stop-motion craft, made all the more fascinating by compositing human eye performances onto the puppets. Masterful.

I love Log Driver’s Waltz, but Blackfly (1991) is just the better song to me. And it’s funnier, grosser, and weirder. Growing up in upstate New York, I would catch these every so often on CBC and these two musical numbers were the most nostalgic to revisit.

Richard Condie’s The Big Snit (1985) is exactly the high we were looking for when we started watching these one rainy summer night. It’s funny and weird and oh so Canadian.

Claude Cloutier’s Sleeping Betty (2007) has my personal favorite. From the Aislin-styled linework to the Plympton-styled surreal humor, it’s everything I love to see in animation. Loved the visual gags.