The Last House on the Left (1972)

Posted on October 3, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Road leads to nowhere.

Mari (Sandra Peabody) decides to go out to a rock concert with her friend Phyllis (Lucy Grantham) to celebrate her 17th birthday. On the way they decide to pick-up some dope and find a young man named Junior (Marc Sheffler) standing outside on the porch of a New York townhome. Phyllis asks him if he has any marijuana to sell and he invites them inside where they meet Sadie (Jeramie Rain), Weasel (Fred Lincoln), and Junior’s father Krug (David Hess). Unbeknownst to the girls these four have all escaped from prison and are dangerous killers. The ‘family’ soon overpowers the girls and takes them hostage into their car where they drive them to a remote forest in Connecticut. It is there that Krug forces them to play humiliating and sadistic games before eventually raping Mari and then killing them both. The four then change outfits and seek refuge in a nearby home, which to their surprise resides Mari’s parents (Richard Towers, Eleanor Shaw). Initially the parents invite the four in believing their story that their car broke down and simply looking for a place to sleep. However, during the night the parents become aware that these people have murdered their daughter, and they plan a violent revenge.

This film is considered by many to be a landmark as no film before this had ever been so violent or graphic, and it set a whole new bar for horror films that followed. At the time though most critics deemed it exploitive and gave it bad reviews with the exception for Roger Ebert who lauded it for its intensity and realism. Today it remains controversial with some deeming it a classic while others like horror novelist Stephan King calling it a ‘crapfest’. This also includes several cast members, like Rain, Lincoln, and Peabody, who have regretted their involvement and openly labeled it ‘the worse movie ever made’ The film though does have some good points, but is greatly affected by being directed by a young Wes Craven, who at the time was a novice behind the camera having only worked as a film editor on a soft core porn flick before this, and thus he approaches things in an extremely heavy-handed manner where the film’s tone shifts wildly from being brutal one minute and comical the next.

I remember watching this for the first time when I was 18 and being highly disturbed by the scenes shot inside the forest to the extent that I was affected by it for several days afterwards as it made me feel like I witnessed an actual murder, which no other horror movie had ever done before or since. A lot of the reason for this is that it gets highly drawn out. Most scare flicks have the killings occur in quick fashion where one stab of the knife is enough for the victim to go down easily, or the gore is presented in such an over-the-top way that it becomes cartoonish and thus entertaining. Here though it’s played up in a more realistic fashion where the victim’s make an effort to fight back and even try to escape but are eventually overpowered. When they’re stabbed, they don’t immediately die but instead suffer in pain for quite a while. The cutaways showing Mari’s dog barking loudly on a leash as she is killed hits home that these are like real people with real lives and families that care for them and not just the generic character types that make up the usual horror film and for this reason alone the film deserves credit for going deeper into the dark ugliness of violence and how it truly is ending someone’s life.

On the negative end the ‘comic relief’ scenes involving the bumbling sheriff (Marshal Anker) and his deputy (Martin Kove) was ill-advised and takes away from the grittiness. The soundtrack, composed by Hess, runs hot and cold. The opening song done over the credits, ‘The Road Leads to Nowhere’ has a haunting quality and is effective, but the up-tempo bluegrass music hurts the building tension and should’ve been excised. The news report that the girls listen to while driving in the car where it describes Krug and company having escaped from jail and him killing a couple of nuns and how Sadie is ‘animal-like’ comes-off more as unintentionally funny and I don’t feel was needed. The situation could’ve just been a drug deal gone wrong, which happens all the time, and having to incorporate a backstory to the villains doesn’t enhance the story, or plot.

The third act, which features the bad guys getting invited into the parent’s house is quite awkward as well. For one thing just because their car has broken down shouldn’t mean that they must spend the night. Why not just give them access to their phone so they can call for a tow truck? Allowing them to sleep in Mari’s bedroom didn’t make sense either. At this point they still didn’t know their daughter had been killed and for all they knew could be showing up at any second and she wouldn’t be too happy about finding these grubby strangers in her bed.

Why didn’t the parents call the police when they realized that they had murderers in their home as that would be the normal response of most people? Granted the cops were buffoons so maybe that made them believe they would have to take matters into their own hands in order to get things ‘done right’, but there should’ve at least been a conversation regarding this before deciding to immediately go ahead with the blood bath.

I also didn’t get why Krug and his ‘family’ needed to pretend to be civilized anyways. They certainly made no attempt to hide their evil instincts from the girls, so why not be the same way with parents? They could’ve easily broken into the home with their guns drawn and tied up the couple and then while ransacking the place they’d come upon pictures of Mari and realized that it was the home of her parents. Krug could’ve even taunted them about this. Then the enraged parents could’ve figured out a way to free themselves and set the process in motion for the revenge.

Spoiler Alert!

Having the mother feel the need to perform fellatio on Weasel as way to get back at him was pretty ridiculous too. How many middle-aged, surbanite mothers out there would be willing to put a stranger’s dick in their mouth that’s been lord knows where, she doesn’t even make him wash it first, when stabbing him with a sharp kitchen knife would’ve been so much more convenient?

End of Spoiler Alert!

With all this said the film still has enough working for it and broke enough ground that it deserves its place in movie history. Sure, it’s lost a lot of its edge, and jaded horror fans of today may even wonder what the fuss is about but for its time it was definitely shocking and paramount in helping to usher in the modern horror elements we know today.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 30, 1972

Runtime: 1 Hour 24 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Wes Craven

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Pluto TV, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Horror, Movies with Nudity, Rape/Revenge, Remakes, Slasher/Gore

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The Nickel Ride (1974)

Posted on September 27, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: No one to trust.

Cooper (Jason Miller) is a member of a Southern California crime family and harbors a large set of keys to local warehouses that are used to store stolen goods. Things though haven’t been good recently as he’s starting to feel that his crime ‘friends’ are turning on him. It all starts when Paulie (Lou Frizzel) whom he is close to, is unable to fix a fight, and then turns up dead. Feeling the pressure after a few close calls he takes himself and his girlfriend Sarah (Linda Haynes) out of the city and to a country cabin hoping the distance will protect them, but there’s soon signs that they’re being watched and the cabin even gets broken into while they’re away. Will Cooper be able to stave off those that want him killed, or become their next victim?

This film is best known as being the first screenplay written by Eric Roth, he wrote The Strangers in 7A in 1972, but that was a teleplay, and who later went on to win the Academy Award for writing Forrest Gump. While the script does start out with some good conversational dialogue where it shows criminals more as people than caricatures the element that really makes this film interesting is the cinematography by Jordan Cronenweth especially with the way it captures Los Angeles. So many other films focus on the glitzy side of the city, but here we’re treated only to its working-class neighborhoods filled with grimy old buildings and factories until it almost seems like it was shot in some rust belt city in the Midwest. The yellowish tint gives it a faded look and helps to symbolize, at least for me, Cooper’s fading out of favor with the syndicate.

The film also has stellar performances with Bo Hopkins being a stand-out. He plays this Joe Buck type of character. A self-styled cowboy who seems more performative than anything and who Cooper initially discards as a non-threat only to have him slyly start to tease that line. Haynes, looking at her most beautiful, is also excellent as a country girl with a hick accent, who quietly catches onto things quicker than Cooper expects, and who has a physical altercation with him, which is quite startling. The movie also features Victor French, who later found fame on the TV-Shows of ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and ‘Carter Country’, but here he doesn’t have a mustache and I didn’t recognize him until almost the very end.

Casting Miller in the lead is the most interesting aspect. Initially I thought he was given the part due to his breakout role as Father Karris in The Exorcist, but this movie was shot in the fall of 1973 well before the release of the other one, which didn’t come out until December of that year, so why the producers would take a chance on someone who was relatively unknown at the time I don’t know. His presence though works for the most part. The supporting cast do a better job at acting, but the stiffness that he displays helps accentuate his character being out-of-the-loop and essentially lost in his own movie. My only criticism with him comes when Hopkins enters his office and Miller displays a fearful look. Most people would be scared at that point as they’d have no idea if Hopkins, a rogue, quick trigger, is going to kill them, but when you’ve been in the criminal underworld environment, you’d know not to display such a vulnerable emotion to your would-be advisory.

The movies downfall, and the most likely reason why it did poorly at the box office, is that it’s way too talky. People are expecting action with these types of movies and for the first hour there’s very little. Things improve slightly during the second part when the couple moves to the cabin, but even here there’s some head-scratching moments like Cooper deciding to store his handgun in a drawer of a table that’s right next to the front door. If a bad guy breaks in, which would most likely be through the front door, he’d have no way to get to his gun as the intruder would be blocking his access to the drawer. Why even store the gun at all? Since he had no idea when they might be attacked why not keep the gun on him at all times?

Spoiler Alert!

The most annoying thing is when Hopkins steals away Miller’s rifle and then shoots Haynes dead. Cooper is then forced to try and run through the forest surrounding the cabin in an attempt at evading Hopkins. However, this all turn out to be a dream, which is a cop-out. Then about 8-minutes later, Hopkins again comes after Miller and shoots him with a rifle and this is not a dream, but why even have the dream aspect at all if the showdown between Hopkins and Miler is going to be inevitable anyways?

I did like the way Miller strangles Hopkins as it’s more delayed than in other movies where you’re made to believe you can successfully strangle a person in only a few seconds, but in reality, it takes much longer. Miller even makes grunting noises while he’s doing it in order to emphasize the amount of strength and pressure that would be required, which is great. However, when Hopkins does finally die, his neck does not display any abrasions or red marks even though it should’ve.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: May 17, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 39 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Mulligan

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD (2 Disc)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Gangster Movies

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When Time Ran Out (1980)

Posted on September 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: A big volcanic eruption.

Hank (Paul Newman) works on an oil rig that’s on a small tropical island who becomes concerned that the giant volcano there is ready to erupt. Shelby (William Holden) owns and runs a resort hotel that’s also on the island and is reticent to accept the warnings that Hank gives him as he’s afraid the news might panic his guests and cause undue harm to his business. He’s further backed up by Bob (James Franciscus) who has inherited the island from his father and wants to turn the location into a tourist local. He tries to assure the guests that even if the volcano erupts the hotel will be sturdy enough to withstand it, but Hank openly disagrees and tells those that are willing to listen that they should come with him who will take them to a safer location.

While disaster flicks were quite plentiful during the 70’s and often times ridiculed, I found most of them to be marginally entertaining and sometimes even well done, but this one is quite clearly the absolute worst. The idea for the film was ‘inspired’ by the 1969 novel ‘The Day the World Ended’ by Gordon Thomas, which was the true account of when Mount Pelee erupted in 1902 and killed 30,000 people. Had it stuck to being a historical recreation it might’ve worked, but producer Irwin Allen decided to modernize the setting and characters until nothing from the original story is left making it just another generic formula piece too reminiscent of other better films that had done it before and which offers no substance, or anything new.

The characters are of a stock variety and unable to propel the story. Newman is especially weak, he’s one of my favorite actors, but here it’s quite obvious that his heart wasn’t in it and he’s just phoning it in the whole way. Bisset is also wasted and the secret love affair that they have, she’s supposed to be marrying Holden who proposes to her, isn’t interesting because there’s never any big clash between the two men, so what’s the point of introducing a dramatic element if it comes with no payoff?

The rest of the cast suffer similarly boring dilemmas including Red Buttons who plays a fugitive being tailed by a cop played by Ernest Borgnine. The two are immediately at odds, but then when Borgnine gets injured during the volcanic event Buttons decides to come to his aid. While this is initially touching it ends up getting overplayed as Buttons continues to help him more and more until you forget that they were ever adversaries and the original irony gets completely lost.

Veronica Hamel is wasted here too playing the wife of Franciscus who is apparently unaware that she’s been played throughout her marriage, as he’s been secretly carrying on with another woman. I just can’t believe that she would be that fooled that much. Most women have a sense when something in their relationship is off, and I think she would’ve internally known he was cheating even if she couldn’t prove it. The scene where she’s finally forced to face the harsh reality doesn’t have much energy as all she does is walk away. Having her angrily attack the cheater, or the other women, or maybe even pushed them into the lava when it hits the place, would’ve given it some interesting payoff, instead of it just ending on a flat note like everything else.

Having so many people refuse to go with Newman to seek safety I didn’t buy into. There was nothing special about the hotel, which resembled more like a business building, that would convince me that it was ‘specially built, for volcanoes and would be a safe place to stay. Most people when they’re in a dangerous situation want to be doing something and not just sitting in one place waiting to die and feebly hoping for the best. Granted there still might be some that would choose to stay behind, but I felt it would’ve been a much smaller number and with that in mind we should’ve seen them pay for their bad decision by observing the shocked looks on their faces when the hotel crumbles versus an explosion that gets matted onto the film negative and looks completely fake.

I could almost handle the cardboard characters and storyline if the special effects were at least halfway decent, but they end up being the biggest letdown. Apparently, the budget got slashed significantly halfway through the production forcing them to put up with subpar effects that is just so bad it’s laughable. What’s the point of even doing a disaster flick if the whole source of what we’re supposed to fear, which is the volcano, resembles nothing more than an animated painting? Even the flowing hot lava looks cheesy like it was all done in front of a green screen making the whole crossing the bridge segment, which was intended to be the film’s tension packed highlight, come off as boring and unconvincing.

The only positive thing I can say about it is that Franciscus plays an excellent antagonist. He spent most of his career as generic good guys, so having him go against type for once, was a refreshing change of pace, but unfortunately the rest of the film is so bad that his efforts were largely forgotten and didn’t help propel his career in any type of interesting way.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: March 28, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hours 49 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: James Goldstone

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Disaster Flicks, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hotel setting

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Phantom of the Paradise (1974)

Posted on September 18, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Record producer exploits songwriter.

Winslow Leach (William Finley) is a talented, but unknown songwriter whose written a cantata based on the Faust legend. Famous record producer Swan (Paul Williams) overhears Winslow singing it and decides he’d like to use if for the grand opening of his new concert hall. Swan speaks with Winslow about the piece leading Winslow to believe he’s finally found his ‘big break’ but then doesn’t hear back from him for another month. Winslow then goes to Swan’s office but is kicked out when Swan refuses to see him. He then makes several other attempts to meet with him before Swan has him arrested on trumped up drug charges and sent to prison. It is there that Winslow realizes that Swan had his cantata stolen and now plans on using it to stage his own production while not giving Winslow any credit for having written it. This so enrages Winslow that he manages to escape from prison and storms the production headquarters only to accidentally fall into a record press machine that severely disfigures him. Now, while wearing a mask, Winslow continues to terrorize the place as ‘The Phantom’, which causes Swan to decide to make a deal with him. He asks Winslow to rewrite the cantata with beautiful new singer Phoenix (Jessica Harper) in mind to sing it. Since Winslow is secretly in love with her and also admires her immense talents, he agrees, but then Swan forces him to sign a contract in blood that has some very unusual clauses.

This was writer/director Brian De Palma’s attempt to mix horror with the irreverent quicky comedy of some of his earlier films from the late 60’s. The result is a mishmash of ideas with some of it mostly working. I really liked the visual style that has to be seen on the big screen, which I was fortunate enough to do at the Alamo Drafthouse recently, to fully appreciate it. I loved the over-the-top set pieces like Swan sitting in the center of his desk that’s made to look like a giant record. The outrageous costumes, garish music, quick edits, and his trademark split screens all help to make it highly entertaining on a visual scale.

Where it starts to have problems is with the humor. Like with De Palma’s earlier experimental films it has an engaging, offbeat quality that I liked and even found funny, but it gets a bit overboard and it ruins the tension. A good example of this is when Winslow goes to Swan’s office and gets kicked out, but in a very silly way that comes complete with cartoonish sound effects. This would’ve worked better had there been more of an attempt to make it a legitimate horror with only a little dark humor sneaked in versus an all-out camp feast that unfortunately hurts the story’s darker moments.

The acting though is quite engaging and does help save it even during its goofier moments. When I first saw this, years ago I felt Finley was miscast as the protagonist. With his thick glasses, bulging eyes, crooked teeth, and hair trigger temper, he actually comes off as scarier when he’s still looking ‘normal’ than after he gets disfigured, but in retrospect this helps create a more three-dimensional protagonist. A lot of people that are very talented in one area can also be quite dense in others, so the way Swan is able to con him so easily made sense. Also, if they spend a lot of time alone writing songs it would seem logical that they would be awkward socially, so his sometimes cringey behavior was a logical fit and thus the bespectled Finley, who would never be deemed a good-looking hunk like the conventional hero, was an astute casting choice.

Williams was another one that initially came off as wrong for the role. Originally De Palms wanted him to the play the part of Winslow especially since he is a real-life songwriter who wrote the entire soundtrack for this, but he wasn’t right physically for it, so asked if he could play the bad guy instead. Seeing such a short guy playing such an intimidating figure does come off as ironic, and Williams shows some surprising confidence in the role both with his terse delivery and facial expressions, but it would’ve been better had we not seen him right away. Instead, he could’ve been this voice we hear through the shadows and only had the big reveal occur during the second or third act, which then would’ve heightened the irony of his small stature even more.

Harper is fantastic in support. This gets labeled as being her official film debut and her angelic face, beautiful singing voice, and great dancing ability, solidify making her a joy to watch every time she’s on the screen. Gerrit Graham is hilarious as the bulky shock rocker Beef, who behind-the-scenes is quite effeminate, and the very rotund George Memmoli is great too as Swan’s no-nonsense henchman.

Spoiler Alert!

The way Swan makes a pact with the devil didn’t make sense and needed better elaboration. He apparently meets him while sitting in the bathtub contemplating suicide as he didn’t want to ever get old. The only question is why would the devil suddenly show up just because of that? There’re many people who contemplate killing themselves and some even do, but there’s no devil jumping in trying to make a deal with them, so why does he come into play here? A better idea would’ve had Swan, in an attempt to maintain his youthfulness, start dabbling in witchcraft and through this he would inadvertently summon the devil.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Release: October 31, 1974

Runtime: 1 Hour 32 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Brian De Palma

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Cult, Musical, Offbeat

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Raise the Titanic (1980)

Posted on September 14, 2026 | 3 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Vessel brought to surface.

Government operative Dirk Pitt (Richard Jordan) along with the CIA become aware of an abandoned mine in Siberia that had a rare mineral called byzanium, which could be used to shoot down nuclear missiles. It was supposedly packaged into boxes and loaded onto the Titanic. The US Government now wants to obtain those boxes before the Soviets do and come to the conclusion that the only way to do it would be by raising the sunken ship to the surface.

The film is based on the 1976 novel of the same name written by Clive Cussler and universally panned for its weak characterizations and dialogue, but the plot itself was intriguing enough for Hollywood to take a stab at it. The result though isn’t much better as there’s too many people in the cast many of which are talking head figures like Jason Robards. He’s an excellent actor, but here his only task is to relay orders from other top officials and then stand around and look worried as the plans come into play. David Selby is also quite weak, but this is more because he isn’t an effective leading man and his overall presence is transparent and unnecessary.

Jordan is the only one that does well and had he remained at the center of it, it would’ve worked better. However, there’s no one to become attached to emotionally and the banal dialogue doesn’t give any of them any real distinction. They all seem alike and when one of the submersibles with several men on it implodes it has no impact and you really don’t care.

The book, as flawed as it may have been, actually did things a little better, at least plot wise. It had a hurricane come in, which allowed the soviets to take over the ship and hold the rest of the crew hostage, which then culminated in a battle. The movie though doesn’t touch on any of this. Here only one Soviet spy boards the ship but then realizes he’s easily outnumbered and essentially gives up making it all seem rather pointless to have introduced that angle at all. Granted the hurricane wasn’t included for budgetary reasons, but it certainly would’ve helped bring in more tension of which there isn’t much.

The way the ship gets brought back up to the surface is a bit suspect. I have no expertise in the matter, but it seemed too easy to the extent that it feels almost like a non-event. The special effects are subpar. It’s obvious that it’s a toy model and therefore not half as impressive to look at as it comes to the surface as I’m sure the producers thought it would be. The only moment that I did like is when Jordan boards the ship for the first time. Unfortunately, he only enters one room and then it cuts away. Would’ve been fascinating seeing him walk all around the ship going into many different rooms, but this was again likely scrapped due to the same budget constraints.

Spoiler Alert!

The biggest letdown is with the ending, which is similar to the one in the book where they find the boxes inside the ship’s vault to be filled with nothing more than sand. Then it is deduced, using wildly circumstantial clues, that the rare mineral was buried in a gravesite at a cemetery in Southby, England. However, when this is determined the American agents decide to leave it there, but why was it so important to get their hands on the mineral before, but now suddenly it isn’t? What if the Soviets, or some terrorist group, figure out the locations of the mineral and dig it up? Wouldn’t that still create the same frightening scenario that the US was hoping to avoid when they took so much time, effort, and money to bring up the ship?

This makes the whole thing not only a waste of time for the viewer, but also the taxpayers who funded what amounts to being just a wild goose chase. It becomes an inadvertent satire on government waste and misguided operations and on that level, it succeeds, but as a story it should remain sunk and submerged.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: July 30, 1980

Runtime: 1 Hour 54 Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jerry Jameson

Studio: ITC Entertainment

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Fawesome, Plex, Roku, Tubi, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Action/Adventure, Drama on the High Seas, Movies Based on Novels

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M*A*S*H (1970)

Posted on September 7, 2026 | 2 comments

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rebellious surgeons break rules.

In 1951 during the Korean War Frank Pierce (Donald Sutherland), who goes by the nickname Hawkeye, arrives at the Mobile Army Surgical Hospital as their new surgeon. He gets placed in a tent with Frank Burns (Robert Duvall), but the two don’t get along due to Frank’s religious zealotry, so he gets transferred to another tent. Hawkeye then gets placed with another new surgeon nicknamed Trapper John (Elliot Gould) and the two, with their irreverent sense of humor and non-conforming ways, immediately become best friends. Not only do they break most of the rules, but they also routinely play pranks on others with their biggest ones being on Frank who falls for Margaret (Sally Kellerman) who is a head nurse.

The film, which is based on the 1968 novel ‘MASH: A Novel About Three Army Doctors” by Richard Hooker, which in turn was based on his experiences as an Army doctor during the Korean War, gets largely overshadowed by the TV-Series, which ran for 11 seasons and has become a huge cult hit. In retrospect I actually like the movie better. Robert Altman’s direction where conversations and actions overlap helps to give the setting a realistic kinetic feel where nothing seems staged. While I could’ve done without his patent whistling I still liked the portrayal of the Hawkeye character better here. In the series Alan Alda played him as a very talkative, loud, and opinionated person that dominated every scene he was in while here the character is more like just one of the guys that occasionally pushes-the-envelope, but only because he, like everyone else there, is a victim of the bleak circumstances that they’re in. This also has a much better balance between the humor and drama. The show had a tendency to get preachy but the movie manages to make the occasional serious point, but still overall remains consistently funny.

On the negative side it’s highly anachronistic with the characters behaving too much like it’s the late 60’s instead of the early 50’s almost like they’re a bunch of stoned, ‘free love’ hippies who found a time machine and decided to go back 20 years. While the sexual escapades are amusing it does tend to get one dimensional. Everyone is portrayed as being a sex maniac with no inhibition or restraint. Having some not engage, either because they just weren’t that into it, or wanting to remain faithful to their spouses/ romantic partners back home, would’ve given it a better balance and certainly been more realistic for the period.

Having Hawkeye immediately mock Frank when he wants to pray seemed off too. Granted there were atheists and non-religious people back then, but they tended to be in-the-closet as religion was still the dominant cultural force. If Hawkeye and crew got annoyed later on when Frank attempted to let’s say ‘convert’ them then it would be understandable, but upfront I’d think he’d not be so aggressive with his disdain and might even politely play along a bit, especially since he had just arrived there and wouldn’t know who else he’d be offending with his off-handed comments.

It’s all very disappointing the way Frank gets written out halfway through. I really liked the way Duvall played the role. On the TV-series the Frank character was a benign snobby dimwit that was constantly the butt of all the jokes and couldn’t do much about it, but here Duvall plays the part with an aggressive, even menacing edge that would’ve made him a great nemesis that should’ve allowed him to stay all the way through. Also, it’s a bit ridiculous that he gets put into a strait jacket after he has a confrontation with Hawkeye. Many people can and do get into fights and are not immediately deemed ‘insane’ because of it. If anything, he should’ve been handcuffed along with Hawkeye since it was Hawkeye who goaded him into it.

The Hot Lips character is another disappointment. Initially I thought she was great as her haughty ways helped give the proceedings some conflict, but then halfway through she does a complete Jekyll and Hyde. Initially she hates the place and just about everyone in it, even becomes a victim to a cruel prank, but then later during the big football game she’s seen on the side lines as a cheerleader aggressively rooting for them to win the game when logically you’d think she would be pulling for the other team.

Apparently, the movie’s logic is that since it gets revealed that she’s been having sex with Duke, played by Tom Skerrit, that this then ‘changed’ her. She’s now ‘liberated’ and no longer frigid/uptight, but it’s too drastic a switch that only further adds to the film’s overblown concept that sex can somehow ‘solve everything’.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: January 25, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 56 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Altman

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Black Comedy, Buddy Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a Hospital setting, Movies with Nudity

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Where Are the Children? (1985)

Posted on August 31, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Her kids go missing.

Nancy (Jill Clayburgh) is a married to Clay (Max Gail) and living in Cape Cod with their two children Michael (Harley Cross) and Missy (Elisabeth Harnois). Nancy has a dark past. Nine years earlier she had two other children, Peter and Lisa, who vanished and later found drowned. She was convicted of the crimes but then released on a legal technicality. She remarried, as her first husband (Frederic Forrest), despondent over the deaths, killed himself though his body was never found. Everything was going great until the nine-year anniversary of the deaths when her current two children go missing while playing in their backyard. Could this be just a coincidence, or is someone from the past crimes involved with this one?

The film is based on the Mary Higgins Clark debut novel of the same name, which in turn was inspired by the real-life case of Alice Crimmins, who was convicted in the deaths of her two children, but like in the movie, was later released. The concept has a lot of potential, but for me a lot of tension gets lost when right away we’re shown who the bad guy is and his interactions with the kids. Don’t get me wrong, Forrest is a fine actor and it’s fun seeing him play a nut case and the kids are really good too, but it would’ve been more intriguing had we seen things solely from Clayburgh’s perspective where we really didn’t know much more than she did and having the kids suddenly disappear could’ve been played up as a surreal nightmare.

It’s also cartoonish when the bad guy, who’s been spying on them through a telescope, has to write in his notebook in big letters ‘TOMORROW’ with an exclamation mark in reference to his plan to go through with the kidnapping the next day, but people only write notes to themselves when they’re living busy lives and doing several different projects at once. With this guy it’s the only thing he’s been obsessing over, so therefore no note was needed as he was clearly not going to forget.

The supporting cast is quite dull particularly Gail as the second husband. It’s great that he takes his wife’s side and insists she has nothing to do with the missing kids, but after a while I would think, some doubt would have to creep in. He keeps insisting that he ‘knows’ she didn’t do it, but how could he? He wasn’t home when it happened and because it’s such a coincidence with the past crime any normal person would have to have some suspicion towards her. Having him start to suspect her, even if it’s just slightly, as the film progresses would’ve created an interesting subplot and made his character less one dimensional.

The main character has problems too. For one thing the odds of her having two kids in her second marriage, that are the exact same age as the two from her previous one, including the boy older than the girl, is too astronomically high to be believable. Even her having just one kid, compared to two from the first, would’ve been enough and not made the kids from the second one seem like just a generic carbon copy.

I also felt that if someone has lost her kids in such a traumatic way that she’d been more protective of these to the point that she might go a bit overboard by not letting them play outside or only letting them go out if she was always right there to watch them. Her taking a shower while the kids are outside makes her look irresponsible. When I was a kid one parent would watch the kids while the other one bathed. Bad things and accidents can happen to kids in a matter of seconds and with the water running, she’d have no way to hear it.

For a career move taking this role was a big mistake. Jill had been in several films during the late 70’s and early 80’s that had won high acclaim and she seemed set to become the big leading lady of the 80’s, but she then made the mistake of starring in Hanna K. a Costa-Garvas directed film that saw limited release, so for many filmgoers it seemed like she had disappeared from the film scene and was no longer in the limelight for a good four years. This film role was meant to be her ‘comeback’, but she really doesn’t have much to do for most of it other than sitting around inside the police station wearing a stupor like expression. She kind of comes on strong at the end when she decides she’ll go and save the kids on her own, but she’s just a thin woman with no weapon or any idea who the bad guy is, or how many of them, making it likely that she could easily be overpowered and thus should’ve let the police do it instead.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending, and the reveal of who the bad guy is, is a big letdown. Like I said earlier Forrest gives an interesting performance, but to have him be the first husband who somehow faked his own suicide, isn’t plausible. For one thing it should’ve been reported as a missing person case and not a suicide since his body was never found. At the very least his identity should’ve been kept a mystery till the end when Jilly confronts him in the home versus having sharp-eyed kid recognize him earlier from a news report.

His motivations for why he seeks ‘revenge’ on Jill is confusing. Supposedly he was a closet pedophile who played kinky games on Jill who he forced to dress like a child and when she refused to keep doing that, he started to do it on their kids and then killed them when they threatened to tell, but if anything, he should’ve been happy that Jill was accused of the crime while he was allowed to walk free without suspicion. Would’ve made more sense had the husband really killed himself and then someone who was close to him, like maybe a brother, decided to seek out revenge on Jill while under the mistaken impression that she really had murdered the first children and then unjustly let out.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: November 15, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bruce Malmuth

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD (Out-of-Print), Amazon Video, YouTube

 

 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Kidnapping Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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Rancho Deluxe (1975)

Posted on August 28, 2026 | 1 comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Modern day cattle rustlers.

Jack and Cecil (Jeff Bridges, Sam Waterston) are two drifters who don’t work an actual job and instead rustle cattle and use the meat that they take from that to help pay for the basic things that they need. John (Clifton James) is the ranch owner who’s tired of seeing his cattle routinely mutilated and determined to find those who are responsible. Curt and Burt (Harry Dean Stanton, Richard Bright) are his ranch hands who John puts in charge to find the culprits, but they end up being of no effect despite them knowing that Jack and Cecil are behind it. After his prize bull gets kidnapped and he’s forced to pay a large ransom to get him back, he hires Henry (Slim Pickens) a legendary detective in cattle rustling to finally solve the case, but Henry proves, at least initially, to be just as inept and oblivious about the crimes as everyone else, which further frustrates John.

This was the first screenplay written by the prolific and irreverent writher Thomas McGuane, his second script 92 in the Shade, was also shot in 1974 during the fall of that year while this one was done in the spring and early summer. McGuance directed the other one himself while Frank Perry helmed this one and having an established Hollywood director behind the chair makes all the difference here particularly the cinematography by William A. Fraker that captures the majestic, mountains landscape of the big sky country, which was done on location in Livingston, Montanna becoming the first of many movies that would be shot there.

Like with McGuane’s other works it’s his offbeat, wry humor that keeps it entertaining and helps it stand out. There’re some truly original comical moments that had never been done before or since making this film even after being around 50 years still come off as fresh and inventive. Some of the best moments are when Bridges and Stanton play a game of Pong while having a discussion, which was apparently something they both did of lot of during breaks in shooting, so Perry decided to work it into the story. The shot of the bull inside a hotel is funny too though there’s no explanation for how they were able to get him in there without being detected, which could’ve heightened the comedy had it been shown. There’s also the scene where Bridges and Waterston have a sex orgy with their girlfriends and then the next morning get caught while still naked in bed by the girl’s elderly relatives, which I consider the best moment in the movie.

The dialogue has a wonderfully quirky quality working off non sequiturs and weird tangents like when out-of-the-blue Waterston asks Bridges if he believes in the tooth fairy, or when John’s wife, played by Elizabeth Ashley, asks him if he regrets selling their beauty parlor business while he busily frets about tracking down the rustlers. The best though is when Slim Pickens goes off on a rant involving a dream, he had as a slave in ancient Egypt while John tries giving him the latest updates on the case.

The characters and their goofy contradictions help compliment the absurdity. Bridges and Waterston are especially fun, some may even say this is a precursor to the character he played in The Big Lebowski, as a happy-go-lucky drifter with no direction in life, which they equate as being ‘free’. Even after they get put into the prison, they still have the same carefree mentality proving that state-of-mind is everything. James is also quite fun as the cantankerous rancher who’s always quite confident despite being wrong on everything. Stanton and Bright good too as dimwits who think they’re in on the game only to end up getting played badly. I also enjoyed Patti D’Arbanville who plays Bridges girlfriend Betty. She shows a very wild side with her sexual nature and drug use, but in reality, she’s most likely going to be spending the rest of her life in this small inconsequential town and working the same mundane job we see her doing at the beginning. Having her provocatively dance around while getting drunk and just before she partakes in the orgy is in a lot of ways her final act of rebellion before the clutches of the conventional life, whose claws I suspect she senses are already on her horizon, fully traps her in.

Unlike other movies the residents of this small town aren’t portrayed as being sheltered or cut-off but instead shown as being just as jaded as any urbanite if even more so. It also examines how the ways of the old world have been completely taken over by the attitudes and mores of the modern era where even the rural folk, at least the younger ones like the two sisters, compete to see whose ‘hipper’ and more with the times while wanting to avoid any association of the bygone era of their elders.

My only two complaints are the interior segments done inside John’s ranch home as the rooms came off as cramped and echoey. John was supposedly a rich man, so I wanted to see a house that exuded this with high cathedral ceilings and gaudy decor. Also, having Bridges and Waterston able to retrieve the $50,000 ransom money after kidnapping John’s bull, was too easy. I don’t feel John, or anybody else for that matter, would be willing to let go of their money quite so graciously especially to a couple of crooks. He should’ve either gotten the police involved to set a trap or done it himself by lying in wait at a careful distance with binoculars and waiting to see who comes to retrieve the briefcase full of money and then chasing them down when he spots them, which doesn’t occur, but logically should’ve.

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: March 14, 1975

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Frank Perry

Studio: United Artists

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, PlutoTV, Roku Channel, Tubi, YouTube

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Quirky, Buddy Movies, Movies with a rural setting, Movies with Nudity

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Pulse (1988)

Posted on August 24, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Electrical current terrorizes family.

David (Joey Lawrence) moves in with this father (Cliff De Young) and stepmother (Roxanne Hart) for what everyone hopes will be fun and relaxing summer. However, a strange electrical current of unknown origin has infiltrated the grid that controls the appliances of their home. It has already destroyed the home across the street and now seems intent to do the same to theirs. Will the family be able to fight it off and survive, or will they become victims as well?

At the outset before watching the film I was really surprised why this wasn’t better known as I had only become aware of it just recently. Some may argue that because it was given only a limited release that caused it to die off into obscurity, but there’s a lot of movies that weren’t well known when first shown but later acquired a cult following and with this type of premise, you’d think it would make for a good candidate. The special effects, particularly the ones shown inside the electrical circuitry, is impressive and well ahead of its time.

Unfortunately, it gets too invested into these shots. Watching the inner wiring of machines melt away up close is fascinating to see, but having it go back to it in what seems 5 or 8 more times, it starts to get boring and redundant. The other effects, the ones done outside of the machinery, is not nearly as effective. Seeing the family’s TV go ‘haywire’ by having small bleeps appear on the screen will not freak out anybody, and for today’s viewers will come off as nothing more than somebody’s screensaver. Having the washer/dryer backfire a bit in the kid’s face as he looks under it, isn’t real exciting either and for the first hour these are the only so-called ‘scares’ that you’ll see.

Joey Lawrence was not a good casting choice. His claim to fame at the time was his appearances on the TV-Show ‘Gimme a Break’ where his basic talents centered on his singing ability and being an adorable little kid, but in a dramatic setting his exaggerated facial expressions particularly when he’s frightened are over-the-top and a more subtle nuance would’ve been preferrable. I didn’t care for his kid brother Matthew, who plays a neighbor kid, either. I couldn’t understand why his befriending of that kid was even put in as it doesn’t amount to much with the plot. Had they both teamed up to battle the pulse then fine, but that’s not how it works here. I also didn’t get the need for why Joey was a product of a divorce as that angle doesn’t make any difference and he could’ve just been their kid and living there right from the beginning. On that note too his bed, which is styled like a race car, looked cheesy and something better suited for a 4-year-old then someone ready to turn 12.

De Young and Hart are far better actors, and I would’ve preferred it to have just been them fighting the evil force, or maybe also having an infant child to protect, and not having Lawrence in it at all. I realize that in order to attract a youthful audience the main character needed to be a kid, but ultimately it detracts from the tension, what little there is, versus making it stronger. I was also disappointed that Hart disappears halfway through as she was the one thing that kept it together and her absence is sorely missed.

Spoiler Alert!

The scares and action do get more pronounced during the third act, and some may describe this part as being moderately riveting, but having the dad and son work together to battle it doesn’t have much meaning. Had the two been at odds at the beginning and then gotten past their differences in order to battle a common enemy then it might’ve had impact, but there’s no character journey, or arc at all, so ultimately, it’s a generic outing.

It’s also frustrating that no explanation is ever given for what’s behind this force. At the beginning we see a bolt of lightning come out of the sky and strike a power cord, so it seems like it’s simply an act of nature, but as the story progresses it becomes obvious that this force, whatever it is, is ‘plotting’ and ‘thinking’, so what exactly is it? Having it travel to the neighbor’s house and start to harass them just deepens the mystery. Is this force just going to take down each house and family one at a time? And when it gets done with this cul-de-sac is it going to move on to another one and another subdivision and so on until it destroys every house in the country? Who’s going to stop it, or is that even possible? These are all questions that needed to be answered and instead it ends right when it starts to get interesting making it a cop-out that promises way more than it delivers.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 11, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 31 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Paul Golding

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Video, Roku, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Sci-Fi, Thrillers/Suspense

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Alex in Wonderland (1970)

Posted on August 21, 2026 | Leave a comment

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Director ponders next project.

Alex (D0nald Sutherland) is stuck in the classic struggle many young artists in Hollywood find. His first film that he directed was a big success both commercially and critically, so now he must carefully decide what to for his next project while trying to avoid the dreaded ‘sophomore jinx’. He aspires to do something that analyzes the political struggles of the time, but his agent and studio heads want him to avoid all that and just do something that will be a box office hit. While he longs director something that has impact and ‘makes a statement’ he still fears it not being a hit and thus crippling his career before its barely begun. He also must consider his wife (Ellen Burstyn) and family. He wants to move them into a bigger house in a better neighborhood, but to do so he must choose a project that is profitable. Can he manage to thread-the-needle by creating something that is both artistic and uncompromised, but still commercially appealing?

After the success of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice director Paul Mazursky found himself not knowing what movie that he should do next. Finding himself caught between doing something with mass appeal, but also artistic he finally decided on the ‘clever’ idea of making a movie about a director going through the same type of dilemma. On some level it does have it moments. I liked the segment showing a full-scale Vietnam-like war happening right in the streets of downtown Hollywood, which is surprisingly well mounted and both funny and vivid. The meeting that Alex has with a producer, played by Mazursky, is excellent too. Love how Mazursky uses flattery to try and ‘woo’ Alex into doing the type of project that he wants and tries to impress him with his expensive paintings hanging about to show him how he ‘must know what he’s doing in order to afford such stuff’ and how Alex dryly declines from getting committed to anything. Both men leave still on ‘friendly’ terms, but it’s clear that animosity runs underneath which for me is probably the most on target thing in the whole movie and something that should’ve been explored more instead of just dropped.

The rest of the film is not as engaging and meanders badly until it seems like there’s no pace to it at all. I loved how Mazursky casts his own daughter, Meg, as Sutherland’s kid, she looks just like her real-life dad, and how precocious she is, but her conversations with Sutherland seem endless and don’t help propel the story along and come off almost like someone’s home movie where the camera is turned on and whatever happens happens without any direction at all. The cameos appearances by Federic Fellini and Jeanne Moreau fall flat. In Fellini’s case he seems almost put-off and annoyed and spouts his lines like he just wants to get it over with. With Moreau Sutherland spots her while shopping like anyone can just bump into a legendary French actress while doing everyday activities and then the two break out into song, which is as tacky as it sounds. Not sure if this was meant to be a fantasy segment, or not, but it doesn’t work either way. Viewers of today will be turned-off by Alex’s friend Andre (Andre Philippe) who casually brags about sleeping with 16-year-old girls, which our protagonist almost seems to find amusing. Back in the wild 70’s this sort of thing might’ve been considered by the jaded set as ‘wink-wink’ but now is completely unacceptable.

Burstyn is as usual quite good but having the two argue about what house to buy, or what to purchase at the grocery store is quite generic and not compelling at all. On one hand I guess you could say it’s nice to see that Hollywood couples can have the same type of problems and squabbles as anyone else, but the movie needs something more to it. The attempts to mix the dramatic with the surreal doesn’t work and makes the film quite jarring. Had it been edited down and better structured then maybe, but it’s too wide open to the point that it gives the term cinema verité a bad name.

The most disappointing thing is that it doesn’t delve into the movie business enough. A viewer comes into a movie hoping to experience something that they can’t in real life, or at least appreciate some new viewpoint, but here it never gets going. It stays stalled the whole way with Alex unsure of what to do next. This should’ve ended after act one. In act two he could’ve gone through the process of casting and writing his next project and then in act three went ahead and began filming it. The quarrels and issues he has with his family could’ve been trimmed and intercut between the rest, so we still would’ve gotten a taste of his personal life, but not so much that it would get draggy while also giving us a good idea of how making a movie works from start to finish. Had it gone this route it might’ve been special, but because it doesn’t it ultimately becomes dull and pointless like a movie in desperate search of a script.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 17, 1970

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Paul Mazursky

Studio: MGM

Available: DVD-R (Warner Archive Collection), Amazon Video, YouTube

 

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Posted in 70's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Quirky, Surreal/Fantasy

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