Monthly Archives: May 2016

Vamp (1986)

vamp 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stripper is a vampire.

A.J. (Robert Rusler) and Keith (Chris Makepeace) are two fraternity pledges hoping to avoid a hazing by promising that they can bring in a stripper to the next frat party. They then drive into the city to check out the clubs and find a pole dancer willing to take them up on their offer. One place, which is run by the sleazy Vic (Sandy Baron), has an exotic dancer named Katrina (Grace Jones) that immediately catches their eye. A.J. is invited backstage to meet her only to ultimately be attacked once he finds out that she is really a vampire. Keith is then forced to try to escape from the place on his own with the help of a friendly waitress Allison (Dedee Pfeiffer), but finds that the entire neighborhood is infested with vampires and more popping up wherever he turns.

It’s never a good omen when the film’s first day of shooting coincided with the space shuttle challenger disaster, but on the whole writer/director Richard Wenk does his best to breathe new life into a tired genre. The humor at the beginning is amusing although it goes a bit overboard and the whole fraternity angle could’ve and should’ve been avoided as it comes off as too contrived and the story would’ve worked just fine without it.

Jones, who never speaks a word of dialogue, gives a provocative performance. I enjoyed her white-faced sultry dance and her make-up effects are frightening during the times when she morphs into a vampire.

Rusler makes for a brash and believable college dude and the film only works when he and Makepeace are together, but on his own Makepeace is quite boring. I thought he was fantastic in My Bodyguard, but here he shows no charisma and probably one of the main reasons this film has never attained much of a cult following despite being ripe for it. Gedde Watanabe and Pfeiffer are equally useless and their character’s presence wasn’t needed at all although Baron camps things up nicely as the scheming club owner.

There are a few interesting moments here and there including a rather surreal one inside an elevator, but overall it’s not too exciting. I think the biggest issue is the fact that it’s too easy to kill these vampires off. Whether it’s a wooden stake, daylight, fire, or even a cross these guys seem to have the odds stacked against them and no matter how many of them surround this novice college guy hero he somehow finds a way to off them with relative ease until it seems almost like swatting flies from a wall. At the end when he walks away from it virtually unscathed and giving the impression that it had been ‘no big deal’ resonated with me as a viewer as I felt the same way about this movie.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: July 18, 1986

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated R

Director: Richard Wenk

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker (1971)

marriage of a young stockbroker

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Husband is a voyeur.

William (Richard Benjamin) seems to be living the dream having both a stable job and a beautiful wife named Lisa (Joanna Shimkus), but underneath he’s bored and as a source of escape begins to get involved in voyeuristic activities. He spends hours at an adult theater and uses any opportunity he can to spy on scantily clad women through his binoculars. Eventually Lisa, in a fit of frustration over William’s behavior, walks out on him and moves in with her sister Nan (Elizabeth Ashley) and her husband Chester (Adam West). Nan is very controlling and makes every attempt to keep Lisa away from William even as William tries to reconcile. Although her marriage seems fine on the outside it is actually as troubled as William and Lisa’s, which comes to a head when both couples get involved in a group therapy session.

The film is based on the novel of the same name written by Charles Webb, who was also the author of The Graduate, which became a hit film that was produced by Lawrence Turman who directed this one. Clearly Turman was hoping for the same success and this one begins well. The opening bit showing William bored with his job is funny as is his trip to an adult theater and the many thoughts that go through his head as he watches a nudie flick. The cinematography by Lazlo Kovacs captures the California coastline in a lush style and the overall narrative takes a refreshingly open-minded approach towards sexual fetishes as well as the institution of marriage while also questioning society’s conventional understanding of both.

Benjamin is good playing almost the exact same type of character living the same type of detached existence as the one he did in The Steagle. In fact this film could easily be considered an extension to that one and both movies were released less than a month apart. This one though fares a bit better as Benjamin gives a more well-rounded performance. In fact this may be his best work second only to the one that he did in Diary of a Mad Housewife.

The beautiful Shimkus does equally well and I enjoyed the scenes with the two of them together. Ashley makes a strong impression as the meddling sister and has a few funny moments. West, who campaigned hard for the role in an attempt to shake his Batman image, seems a bit too transparent and there needed to be more of a backstory involving both his character and his marriage to Nan.

Unfortunately all of these good things get crushed by a script that doesn’t know what direction it wishes to take. The scene with Tiffany Bolling is just one issue as she plays this really beautiful woman who for some indiscriminate reason decides to invite William, who is a complete stranger to her, into her house for sex after spotting him walking down the sidewalk. Why such a gorgeous woman would invite a schmuck like Benjamin into her place on a sexual whim makes very little sense and seems too much like a male sexual fantasy that demanded much more of an explanation to be believable. I realize this scene was part of the story arc to show William’s dissatisfaction with having sex with women who were strangers and thus propel him to try and win Lisa back, but the same point could’ve been made in a more realistic way had he done it with a hooker that he met on the street instead.

The ending is the biggest letdown as it employs too much of a feel-good, happy curve that comes out of nowhere. The two main characters suddenly turn into frolicking, youthful lovebirds that do not in any way resemble the same people that we’ve been following for the first 90 minutes. It comes off like a cop-out that is jarring to the overall tone while undermining all of the other issues that the film had previously brought up.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: August 19, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 35Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lawrence Turman

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: http://www.modcinema.com

Rats: Night of Terror (1984)

rats 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Rats rule the world!

Years after a nuclear holocaust has turned the earth’s surface into a scorched wasteland, a group of bikers known as scavengers descend into an abandoned building for shelter. Little do they know that the place is infested with large rats that, in their desperate need for food, have become particularly keen to human flesh and attack the group and devour each member one-by-one.

The film was written and directed by Bruno Mattei who was known as the Italian version of Ed Wood. The low-grade production values and uninspired dialogue quickly become apparent, which sucks the viewer into a listless and joyous experience from the get-go. The biggest issue are the rats and although I was happy to see that real ones where used this to a degree is what kills the tension because they are never seen attacking anyone. All they do is go about their normal rat behavior, which is scavenging for food while the rest of the cast, wearing tacky outfits like they are leftover members of an ‘80s punk band, make total fools of themselves trying to act frightened.

In some ways though this is the one thing that I liked, which was watching these rats scurrying around as it looks like hundreds of them were thrown onto the set forcing them to climb over each other and even climb up things, which to a strange degree is fascinating to watch. The movie would’ve been far better had it dumped its whole cheesy premise, as well as the human characters, and just turned itself into a nature documentary focusing on how rats behave and forage for food. Some are actually kind of cute and I was upset to see that a few were set on fire as no animal of any kind should’ve lost their life for this stupid thing.

In the end though the plot goes nowhere and the majority of the action takes place in what looks to be a dingy, grimy basement of a warehouse, which visually makes things quite static. The acting is atrocious and the twist that comes at the very end is quite predictable and something most viewers will see coming long before it finally does.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: August 3, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Bruno Mattei

Studio: Artist Entertainment Group

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

Coup de tete (1979)

coup de tete

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Soccer player gets revenge.

Francois (Patrick Dewaere) plays soccer (football) for the local amateur team in the French town where he lives. One day, while the rich owner of the team (Jean Bouise) watches, Francois has a physical altercation with the team’s star player Berthier (Patrick Floersheim), which immediately gets the owner and the rest of his teammates to turn on him. Not only does Francois get kicked off the squad, but he loses his factory job too. Francois then gets accused of rape in a crime that was actually committed by Berthier, but the police manipulate the evidence so Francois goes to jail instead. It’s only later when the team bus gets into an accident that Francois is released from prison so he can help them win, which he does, but he also has a very creative plan that he enacts on those who wronged him.

After directing the highly successful Black and White in Color, which won the Academy Award for best foreign film for 1976, director Jean-Jacques Annaud decided to take another stab at social satire. For the most part the film works well and is filled with a lot of intriguing elements. The best part is the way it pokes fun at the fans, who are just regular people that become so obsessed with their team winning that they lose sight of everything else that is important while clinging to the misguided notion that if their team achieves victory then that will somehow make up for all of life’s other transgressions.

Dewaere excels in his usual outsider role and watching him climb up some precarious apartment building walls and at one point even pull his way up a scaffold in his effort to visit his lady friends is entertaining in itself. Dorothee Jemma is attractive as the woman who initially accuses him of rape then retracts it and the side-story dealing with the quirky romance that ensues between them is enjoyable and better than the main one.

However, like with Annaud’s first film, I didn’t find this to be quite as entertaining as all the other critics seemed to. There are certainly some amusing moments and the script by Francis Veber is highly unpredictable, but in the end it doesn’t pack the intended punch. I think the main reason for this is the fact that the townspeople who screw Francois over are just too one-dimensional. They behave like unbridled jerks without ever realizing how hypocritical they really are, which makes their ultimate comeuppance not as satisfying because I could never believe that they were real people and instead just poorly crafted caricatures.

Alternate Title: Hothead (American reissue)

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: February 14, 1979

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Jean-Jacques Annaud

Studio: Gaumont International

Available: VHS (Dubbed), DVD (Region 2), Blu-ray (Multi-region) (Subtitled)

The Busy Body (1967)

busy body

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Find the dead body.

George Norton (Sid Caesar) is a nebbish mama’s boy who, for whatever reason, gets taken in by Charley (Robert Ryan) a Chicago mob boss. Charley even gives George a seat on his board of governors. When a fellow crime boss (Bill Dana) gets killed in a freak accident it is George who selects a blue suit for the corpse to wear at the funeral. Unfortunately that blue suit was lined with a million dollars and Charley demands that George dig up the body and retrieve the money, but when he does he finds that the body is gone and thus begins a long, winding, ‘madcap’ search for the missing body and money.

Noted horror director/producer William Castle decided late in his career to give comedy a stab and this is the result. The beginning is mildly amusing, but the humor gets terribly strained and a 100 minute runtime is just too long for such trite material. Everything gets suppressed into silliness with an overplayed music score that has too much of a playful quality to it making the whole thing thoroughly ingrained on the kiddie level from start-to-finish.

Dom DeLuise has an amusing bit as a mortician that would really rather be a hairdresser and Kay Medford is quite funny as George’s doting mother, but the rest of the supporting cast is wasted, which includes Richard Pryor, in his film debut, playing in a role that does not take advantage of his comic skill. Caesar is just not leading man material and his vaudeville-like shtick is quite passé and predictable. His co-star Ryan is far funnier and without having to try half as hard.

The plot goes off on wild tangents until it becomes impossible to follow and quite pointless. The whole production is horribly dated and will not appeal to kids or adults. In fact the film’s intended audience has long ago passed away making this thing a silly relic of its time and nothing more.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: March 12, 1967

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Not Rated

Director: William Castle

Studio: Paramount

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

Once Bitten (1985)

once bitten

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: She needs virgin blood.

A sexy vampire Countess (Lauren Hutton) who lives in a sprawling Beverly Hills mansion along with her male servant (Cleavon Little) needs a regular dose of blood to keep up her youthful looks. The problem is that the blood must come from a virgin and since this is the ‘80s, where every teenager is fooling around, it becomes harder for her to come upon someone who still hasn’t had any sex. Fortunately for her she meets Mark (Jim Carrey) who has yet to lose his virginity and this is mainly because of the reluctance of his current girlfriend Robin (Karen Kopins). The Countess immediately takes Mark back to her place and gets it on with him and is able to get her much needed blood supply, but in the process she also turns Mark into a vampire and his friends and family begin to notice the changes.

The idea of mixing the vampire genre with an ‘80’s teen sex comedy was a bad one and should’ve been nixed at the concept stage and like with its main character never allowed to see the light of day. For one thing it’s much too tame and sterile. No scares or raunchiness and although there are a few mildly amusing bits there isn’t enough of them in a poorly paced film that quickly becomes quite boring. It also relies too heavily on broad stereotypes and caricatures with no footing in reality at all and a script littered with what today’s audiences will consider homophobic dialogue.

The vampire angle is poorly thought out. A person’s blood type doesn’t change once they’ve had sex making the ‘virgin blood’ idea quite stupid. Besides if she really wants to make sure to get someone who hasn’t had sex then why not just bite the necks of children? Granted it would be a very un-p.c. plot, but it also would allow for a creepier angle and besides it would then turn the kids into little vampires, which would bring in an extra edge to the story. The film also fails to explain what happens with the Carrey character as we see him slowly turning into a vampire a little bit each day, but not with what ultimately transpires once he fully does.

On the acting side I thought the two leads did quite well. Hutton is gorgeous and the idea of pairing a much older woman with a younger man is actually quite sexy. Carrey is also good. In some of his movies he overacts and becomes like a modern-day Jerry Lewis, but here he is more restrained and even genuinely engaging. My only complaint is that he is clearly past his teen years and at one point even states that he is going to college, but the scenes of him at school make it seem much more like he is still in high school.

If you are into vampire movies I’d say you could skip this one as it adds nothing new to the theme and for the most part treats the vampire idea in a very transparent way. As a teen sex comedy it also fails with a script that meanders too much including having an extended scene showing Carrey’s two nerdy high school buddies (Thomas Ballatore, Skip Lackey) trying to hit on two women at a laundromat that has nothing at all to do with the main plot and should’ve been cut. However, if your fans of Hutton or Carrey then it might be worth a look as they both give surprisingly solid performances despite the weak material.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: November 15, 1985

Runtime: 1Hour 34Minutes

Rated PG-13

Director: Howard Storm

Studio: The Samuel Goldwyn Company

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

The Steagle (1971)

steagle 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Living out his fantasies.

The year is 1962 and the Cuban missile crisis is in full-throttle. The threat of a possible nuclear war has everyone on edge and having to hear about it every night on the news just makes things worse. Harold (Richard Benjamin) decides to use this opportunity to ‘escape’ from his drab existence. Both his marriage to Rita (Cloris Leachman) and his job as a college professor have grown stale. If the end is near then Harold wants to live-it-up to the fullest, so he travels to Vegas, has sex with hot women while also living out other outrageous fantasies.

The film was directed by award-winning set designer Paul Sylbert and for the most part, at least at the beginning, is right on-target. The mood and design looks authentically like the early ‘60s and the story nicely taps into the secret fantasy life that most likely harbor in the back-of-the-minds of just about every middle-age person out there. The viewer effectively feels Harold’s frustration during the first half and then just as effectively feels the rush when he finally decides to break free and go wild.

The story is consistently amusing throughout with the most memorable bit coming when Harold decides to speak in gibberish while giving a lecture to his class. Benjamin is perfect for the part playing a character with a snarky, sarcastic personality that hides just beneath his otherwise formal veneer. Ivor Francis is great in support as a minister who Harold meets on his travels that, like with him, wants to escape from the shackles of his daily existence. Chill Wills is good too playing a loopy ex-actor who thinks he’s Humphrey Bogart and traps a group of men inside a bathroom and won’t let them out until after they hear his rendition of a scene from The Maltese Falcon.

The film’s biggest drawback though comes from the awkward transition between Harold fantasizing about these things and then finally deciding to go through with it. The film never bothers to show how he manages to get away from his wife and kids. Does he sneak out in the middle of the night unannounced, leave a note, or simply tell them that he needs to ‘get away for a while’? Nothing is ever shown even though I felt that this scene was quite crucial and needed to be put in. The ending is equally frustrating as we never find out what happens when Harold finally decides to go back, which makes the film as a whole come off as incomplete and one-dimensional.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Release: September 15, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated R

Director: Paul Sylbert

Studio: AVCO Embassy Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD (Mill Creek)

Hard Contract (1969)

hard contract

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Hit man becomes humanized.

John Cunningham (James Coburn) is a professional hit man hired by Ramsey Williams (Burgess Meredith) to do one last ‘big score’ by rubbing out Michael (Sterling Hayden) of which Ramsey suffers a large financial debt to. John has done many of these jobs before and travels to Europe with the expectation that this one will be as routine as the others, but then he has an encounter with call-girl Sheila (Lee Remick) who plagues him with self-doubt and forces him to question his purpose in life.

This film was written and directed by S. Lee Pogostin a long time TV writer who finally at the age of 55 got his big break to do an actual feature film. Unfortunately for him his script is excessively heavy with dialogue and little to no action. There is only one brief segment where we see John actually doing his job and offing someone and it comes in the form of watching him drop a large trunk with a dead body inside of it out of an airplane, which is kind of a cool visually, but that is about it and the rest of the film consists of nothing but talk and long winded, flowing conversations dealing with theories and philosophies that regular people, particularly those in the crime and prostitution business, just don’t have.

Coburn and Remick are both excellent, but the scenario that their characters are placed in is ludicrous. The idea that a high paid prostitute would suddenly fall for one of her clients is quite doubtful. Had the Coburn character been somehow kind or gentle towards her then maybe, but instead he is cold and distant and treats her more like an animal than a person, so why, especially after all of the other men she has already presumably slept with, would she get so worked up over this guy? It just makes no sense and the same thing goes for the Coburn character. He’s slept with hundreds of prostitutes before and even brags about it, so why would this one stand out?

The conversation that Coburn has with Hayden, amidst a large wheat field and while sitting on a tractor, is pretty good and the most engrossing moment in the film. The scene where he drives a car speedily down a winding road, which gets the other passengers quite nervous, isn’t bad either. The European locations are scenic and the supporting cast all give strong performances especially Karen Black as a talkative hooker arguing with Coburn over political candidates. However, the script tries too hard to make a statement and comes off more like a protracted concept than a story with a pretentious flair that just doesn’t work.

hard contract 2

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: April 30, 1969

Runtime: 1Hour 47Minutes

Rated R

Director: S. Lee Pogostin

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: None at this time.

Gimme an ‘F’ (1984)

gimme an f

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Cheerleaders compete for prize.

Bucky Berkshire (John Karlen) is the proprietor of a local cheerleading camp. He hopes to build an even bigger one with the help of some Taiwanese investors. However, they will only put up the much needed capital if Bucky agrees to sign Tommy (Stephen Shellen), who works as the cheerleading coach at the camp, to a 5-year contract. Bucky and Tommy do not get along and Tommy, who is 25, thinks he has gotten too old for the position and needs to move on. Yet Bucky feels he has no choice but to cut him a deal. If Tommy can get a group of teen cheerleaders known as the Ducks to beat the perennial winners known as the Falcons at the annual cheerleading competition then he’ll pay Tommy a whopping $10,000, but if they lose then Tommy will be forced to continue to work for Bucky for another 5 years.

I remember this film being scheduled on Cinemax in the ‘80’s during its late night hours, which gave me the impression that it was a raunchy T&A feast, but in reality it really isn’t. In fact during its entire runtime there is less than 10 seconds of actual nudity, which isn’t enough to make it worth watching. Some may say that makes me sound like just another sexist, leering male, but when the material is this inane what else is there about it to sell? Certainly not its so-called comedy, which is virtually laughless and on a 5-year-old’s level if even that and the plot is equally trite as it clearly conforms to the age-old David-and-Goliath formula where the viewer knows from the get-go that loser will obviously end up winning the thing no matter how much the odds are stacked up against them and what’s the reason to watch something if you know exactly how it’s going to end from the very beginning?

One viewer, who admits this is not a very good movie, said its one ‘saving grace’ was the cheerleading routines done at the end during its climactic showdown, which he felt were well choreographed, but to me it was just more cartwheels, twirling and dance line routines that if you’ve seen once then you’ve seen it a million times. Even if it had been spectacular it still wouldn’t warrant sitting through the rest of it, which is quite trifling to say the least.

Venerable character actor Karlen, who was the only veteran member of the cast, lends some credibility with his presence, but it isn’t much. Star Shellen is completely transparent in the lead despite having a teen heartthrob of a face. His character is shown doing very little training anyways and seems to shift the majority of the burden off to his assistant Roscoe (Mark Keyloun).

Beth Miller is equally weak as the female lead and although she is very cute she has no ability to effectively do a comic pratfall of which she is required to do several. The only thing she does get right is the way her eyes well up with tears from her embarrassment after she does one.

Although her character isn’t any better written than any of the others I could still tell right away that Daphne Ashbrook, in her film debut, was a far stronger actress than any of the others and it is no surprise that her career continued to flourish while the rest of them disappeared into obscurity. Although for the record Jennifer Cooke, who plays the bitchy character of Pam, did find success later in her life helping to run the Celestial Seasonings Tea chain.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: November 16, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated R

Director: Paul Justman

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS

The Jogger (1988)

Capture 81

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Jogging can be deadly.

Jerry (Terry O’Quinn) is a high-strung businessman with a type A personality who has been told by his doctor to take up jogging to help relieve is stress and improve his health. Like with everything else he goes overboard with it. Jogging excessively until it becomes like a second job. One day while out on another one of his morning runs he comes upon another jogger (Tom Morga). Jerry decides to challenge the man to a race and he ends up winning it making him feel quite vindicated, but the other jogger does not take kindly to losing. He begins to chase Jerry around the park while attempting to stab and kill him. When Jerry is finally able to make it back to his house he realizes that the jogger has followed him and he continues with his assault. In fact wherever Jerry goes the jogger follows making him believe that he will not be able to get rid of him unless he fights back.

For a low budget short film this isn’t too bad. The editing and camerawork is crisp and professional. We get a good idea of Jerry’s character in a short amount of time and it’s great seeing O’Quinn in an early role. The action is exciting and there is enough tension to keep it interesting. There are even a few genuine unexpected jolts and a surprise ending.

The story initially seems original, but as it progresses you realize that it is just another retelling of the classic ‘The Twilight Zone’ episode entitled ‘The Hitch-Hiker’ in which the Inger Stevens character is constantly hounded by a mysterious hitch-hiker who turns up wherever she goes. The surreal elements that get thrown into this thing don’t help and I would’ve liked something that had stayed more realistic and been more subtle. Yet it’s still enjoyable enough for its short running time and some may find the scenario to be more creative than I did.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: 1988

Runtime: 25Minutes

Director: Robert Resnikoff

Available: None at this time.