Category Archives: Movies with Nudity

Who can Kill a Child? (1976)

Posted on October 26, 2023 | Leave a comment

who3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Children kill the adults.

Tom (Lewis Fiander) and Evelyn (Prunella Ransome), who is pregnant, travel to an island off the coast of Spain in order to find some peace and quiet while on vacation. Once they arrive they find the place conspicuously devoid of any adults with many of the shops and bars looking like they’ve been abandoned. The only people around are children who behave strangely and will not talk to Tom, or Evelyn even when spoken to directly. They then come upon an adult survivor named Padre (Antonio Iranzo) who describes to them how the night before the children suddenly went crazy and began killing all the adults on the island without any provocation. Can Tom and Evelyn escape, or will they become yet another victim?

While there’s been other movies detailing children, or even groups of kids, who murder the adults around them this one is considered the granddaddy of all of them and, though not ever verified, the possible inspiration to Stephen King’s Children of the Corn. The film’s creepiness comes not so much with scares, as there’s very little of that, but more through its quiet atmosphere and isolation that grows increasingly more ominous as it goes. Violence-wise it’s scarce with only the minimum of gore though the sequence done over the opening credits, which has grisly real-life footage of victims of the Holocaust as well as both the Korean and Vietnam Wars is not for the squeamish and may be too explicit and grim for some to sit through.

The script was written in only a matter of 4 short days and it shows with character motivations that aren’t particularly well thought out. For instance I didn’t understand why Tom wouldn’t tell Evelyn about what he saw, in regards to the child beating up and eventually killing an old man, and wanted to somehow play down and even lie about what was going on. This is a pregnant woman who has a right to know about the dangers lurking about. Shielding her from the horrifying realities isn’t going to help her be alert and put up her defenses and if anything just make her more vulnerable to be taken advantage of by the kids. What kind of husband lies to his wife about such urgent matters? Does he think because she’s female she won’t be ‘strong enough’ to handle the truth? If so it makes him sexist and not particularly likable because of it.

Tom also is too slow to respond to things. Even after witnessing first hand the children’s atrocities he doesn’t immediately try to arm himself, get off the island, or board him and his wife off in some sort of safe room with a fortified door. Instead they remain pretty much out in the open in an abandoned hotel with both the entrances and exits wide open for anyone to come into. At one point he even gives his wife a sedative and tells her to take a nap inside one of the hotel rooms while leaving the door open as he goes downstairs to speak to the male survivor, but how does he know a kid won’t sneak into the room while he’s gone?

It’s strange too how the children kill a Dutch woman and even strip off her clothes, but when Tom walks in they all scurry away. If they’ve already killed a vast number of adults why would they fear Tom when he comes in and instead not just attack him too? For that matter why does Tom feel so emboldened to walk in on these kids to begin with? He’s seen what terrible things they can do, so why does he risk exposing himself to them? These clearly aren’t normal kids, so he should remain at a safe distance and view what they’re doing from a hiding spot.

While there’s creepy moments and imagery it all mainly comes during the third act and some more scares and action earlier could’ve helped. The special effects aren’t too great either with the shot of the bloodied old man, whose supposedly just been killed, clearly still breathing as his chest heaves up and down, though Tom carries him away like he’s now nothing more than a corpse. Having Padre describe the violent attacks of the children onto the adults from the previous night was disappointing as this should’ve been played out visually, even if through flashback, as it would be much scarier to see this instead of just being told about it.

Spoiler Alert!

The ending has its fair share of suspenseful moments, but again more logic loopholes. When Tom and Prunella are trapped in a room behind a wooden door a small child crawls through the window space and tries to shoot at them, but Tom manages to hit the kid with a bullet first with a rifle he’s found. The other kids then quit trying to break the door down the couple are in once they hear the shot and all go filing away. Tom says this is because none of the other adults responded with aggression and violence towards them like he did. Once they realized, by hearing the gunshot, that Tom meant business they all backed off knowing that he might kill them as well. However, the kids could not see through the door, the tiny window on it was too high up for them to look through, so for all they knew the gunshot was the sound of the small kid shooting the couple with his gun and therefore they should’ve continued the attack and not immediately stopped.

The children are also able to somehow brainwash their peers into doing their evil bidding by simply looking into their eyes, which somehow puts them under a spell. They even use this power to get the fetus inside Evelyn’s womb to attack her, but where do they get this power from? What kind of entity is behind all of this? Nothing gets answered, which leaves too many questions open and thus not as effective as it could’ve been.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 26, 1976

Runtime: 1 Hour 53 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Narciso Ibanez Serrador

Studio: Penta Films

Available: DVD (Region 0), Blu-ray (Region B/2)

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Posted in 70's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Movies with a Hotel setting, Movies with Nudity, Mystery, Obscure Movies

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Sleepaway Camp III: Teenage Wasteland (1989)

Posted on October 23, 2023 | Leave a comment

sleepaway3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Angela commits more murders.

When Maria (Kashina Kessler), who has the words ‘milk’ and ‘shake’ tattooed to her breasts, goes off to camp, she is impeded by a truck driven by Angela (Pamela Springsteen) that runs her over and allows Angela to take on her identity. Angela then returns to the same campsite where she committed her atrocities from the last film, but which is now run by husband and wife Herman (Michael J. Pollard) and Lilly (Sandra Dorsey), who have turned it into a place to help reform teens with a criminal record and renamed Camp New Horizons. It doesn’t take long though for Angela to revert to her old ways and soon both campers and counselors begin disappearing with a frightening regularity.

While Part II was filming producer Jerry Silva was so impressed with what he was seeing that he immediately authorized another sequel with a script for this one being written while that one was still being shot and then only one weekend for pre-production. This also pushed the filming date back into October where not only were the leaves already changing, but in one segment you can see the breaths of the actors when they speak, which certainly does not give the viewer a summery feel.

The second installment had an okay balance between the black comedy and horror, but this one goes overboard into silly season. The initial killing is especially problematic as it has the victim chased down by a big truck in broad daylight. Yes, she eventually gets run over when she runs into a back alley, but the semi starts barreling down on her when she’s walking on an busy road with other cars, so other people would’ve witnessed what was happening and reported it making the odds of Angela getting away with it quite slim. Also, where does a woman, who was 13 when she got locked up into a mental hospital and been there most of the time until her recent release, find the time and money to learn how to drive a big rig and how was she able to steal one?

While Springsteen’s performance was slightly tolerable in the second installment I felt it got plain annoying here. She isn’t scary and even though this is meant as a dark comedy the villain should still have some frightening presence and she has none making for no suspense at all. She also has her hair dyed blonde, in order to resemble Maria, which has her looking even less like Felissa Rose who played the character in the first one and further way from the original concept making this seem like its own little movie with name-only connections to the other two.

The murders though are an improvement and the only thing that saves it. Part II put no creativity or imagination into the killings, but here we get a couple of memorable ones including Angela roasting marshmallows on a fire that’s burning two of her victims. Killing one of the campers via tying them up to a flagpole and then allowing them to drop many feet to the hard cement below was my favorite though the death by lawnmower, which apparently made some of the women members on the MPAA board, who were hired to give the movie its rating, physically sick, deserves honorable mention. Even here though there’s problems like when Angela stands over the body of a man and swings an ax on him, but then returns to the campsite wearing the same clothes she had, which would’ve been highly doubtful as they would’ve most assuredly been covered with blood splatter.

The only element I found interesting was the appearance of Michael J. Pollard who was at one time starring in Hollywood classics like Bonnie and Clyde and was even given a couple of leading man roles in  studio produced films, but here relegated to low budget direct-to-video fare. He isn’t even in it all that much as his character is one of the first to be killed though he does at least get to make-out with a hot young chick (Stacie Lambert), which may have made it worth it.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: August 4, 1989

Runtime: 1 Hour 20 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael A. Simpson

Studio: Double Helix Films

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Cult, Horror, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Sequels, Slasher/Gore

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Sleepaway Camp II: Unhappy Campers (1988)

Posted on October 21, 2023 | Leave a comment

sleepaway2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Angela returns to camp.

Angela (Pamela Springsteen), the teen killer in the first film, has now been ‘reformed’ after going through years of shock therapy and sexual reassignment surgery. She gets a job as a counselor at a camp named Rolling Hills, which is 60 miles away from Camp Arawak, the site where she had previously killed all those people. The campers and other counselors have no idea about her past and have a hard time getting along with her and she’s quite strict with no tolerance for anyone who breaks the rules. If someone does draw her ire she quickly dispenses with them by reverting to her old habits and after they’re offed she goes and tells the camp leader, Uncle John (Walter Gotell), that she ‘sent them home’, but when she starts doing this to too many kids everyone’s suspicions begin to rise.

While on the technical end the production is decent the storyline is ridiculous even when taken into context of a black comedy, which is what the filmmakers were hoping for, it doesn’t work. The idea that Angela would be let out of a mental hospital in such a short period of time, just 5 years, after killing so many people is absolutely absurd and would create a national, media uproar. Since the murders were all deliberate and plotted out she most likely would be considered sane and stood trial and sent to a regular prison anyways. Why would any campsite hire her? Don’t these people do background checks? A way to have resolved this would’ve been to shown her at the beginning escaping from the mental hospital, and possibly killing a few orderlies along the way, which would’ve helped the story make more sense and also been an excuse to show blood and guts, which is what audiences for these types of films pretty just want anyways.

While Pamela Springsteen, who’s the younger sister of Bruce Springsteen, may be a quality actress in her other films she does not play the role here in a convincing way. What made Angela so memorable in the first was her penetrating stare, which we don’t see any of. Angela’s inner angst came from her gender issue and not that she was some old-fashioned prude, like in this one, that kills people who don’t live up to her high moral standard. It’s like a completely different person who’s connection to the other one is in name only. Apparently Felissa Rose, who played the role in the original, auditioned for the part, but because she couldn’t convey the one-liners in a humorous way that they wanted they decided to go with Pamela. Personally I feel they shouldn’t have even bothered to make it if Felissa couldn’t have recreated the role, which I felt she had earned the right to.

The killings are not as creative either and in fact look downright pathetic. I’ll give some credit to the death in the outhouse where a victim is shoved into the hole were people relieve themselves and then she struggles several times to come up, with more and more waste appearing on her as she does, but otherwise it’s tacky fare especially the end where they come into an abandoned home featuring all the dead victims that looks too obvious as being mannequins with red paint.  I also didn’t care for the nightmare segment, apparently done to help pad the runtime, that rehashes the killing scenes we’ve already seen and is highly redundant.

Fans of the film say it’s the humor that sells it. Yes, some of it is kind of funny like when the male counselor (Brian Patrick Clarke) smells underneath his arm pits after Angela walks away thinking that the reason she was so cold to him wasn’t because she’s a psycho, but more because of his possibly bad body odor. My favorite though is when Ally (Valerie Hartman) has sex with a man and then only after it’s over does she bother to ask him if he has ‘AIDS’. Yet outside of this it’s a letdown. As sequels go it’s not the worst of its kind, but I would’ve preferred more of a straight horror approach that tried to stay faithful to the first one, both in tone and with the cast.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: February 28, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 20 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael A. Simpson

Studio: Double Helix Films

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Black Comedy, Horror, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Sequels, Slasher/Gore

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Sleepaway Camp (1983)

Posted on October 19, 2023 | Leave a comment

sleepaway

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Somebody’s killing the campers.

In 1975 two children are out on a lake with their father when the boat they’re in capsizes. As they are swimming in the water another boat that is being recklessly driven rams into them killing both the father and one of the children. Fast forward to 1982 one of the surviving children, Angela (Felissa Rose), is now living with her eccentric Aunt Martha (Desiree Gold) and Martha’s son Ricky (Jonathan Tiersten). Because Angela is very shy Martha has decided to send her off with Ricky to summer camp so that she can learn to socialize better. Once there Angela’s quiet nature causes her to be bullied by the other kids, which soon leads to all sorts of violent deaths amongst both the campers and counselors. The camp owner, Mel (Mike Kellin), wants to keep the deaths out of the press and insists they’re all just been accidents, but while he does this he becomes convinced that it’s Ricky who’s behind it and resolves to teach the kid a very brutal and violent lesson.

Initially this was a low budget film made near the end of the golden age of slasher flicks that was not intended to do all that well as most studios had considered this type of horror film to have gone out of style. The critics at the time savaged it, but since then it has gained a strong cult following and considered even ground breaking for its gay subtext and gender identity roles. Writer/director Robert Hiltzik shot it at a camp in upstate New York that he used to attend when he was growing up. The camp atmosphere is very authentic and I was impressed with how many kids they were able to bring on to make it seem like a genuine camp day with tons of kids running around everywhere and all of them age appropriate to the role versus having older kids over the age of 18 trying to look younger than they are, which is what you get in most other teen flicks. The only caveat is that it was filmed in September/October of ’82 and seeing some of the trees in the background changing colors does not help give off much of a summer time feel.

The film is noted amongst slasher aficionados for its grisly deaths. When I first saw this movie back in the 90’s I hadn’t seen as many slasher movie so I wasn’t aware of how the killings here are much different  than what you usually see. In most other films of this nature the victim dies usually by a quick slash of a knife, or strangulation, which isn’t either creative or memorable, but here you get all sorts of novel deaths. Two of the best is when an overweight man (Owen Hughes) has his entire body doused with scalding water and the throbbing blisters on his skin look realistic. He also doesn’t die, which is unusual because usually the victim passes away without that much of a struggle. The death by bee hive in which the victim has his face covered by hundreds of stinging bees is equally vivid and well played-out.

The acting is impressive too as not only do you get to see Christopher Collet in his film debut, and witness his bare behind in a brief bit, but also Felissa Rose, whose quiet stare is quite penetrating and becomes the film’s most lasting impression. She apparently got the part because during the audition they were asked not to convey any lines, but to simply stare off in space while pretending to eat some candy. Prolific character actor Mike Kellin, this was his last film and he was already dying of lung cancer when he did this, is fun particularly his incredibly unfashionable choice of clothes that bring out the worst styles of the 70’s and are reminiscent of a what a middle aged suburban dad of that era might wear when attending a neighborhood backyard BBQ.

Spoiler Alert!

On the negative end I didn’t find Angela, who we learn at the very end is really a boy, to be able to realistically pull-off the murders that she does. I don’t believe she (he) would’ve had the strength to pull out the chair from underneath a heavy-set man, nor dunk the head of a bigger boy under the water, or be able to force a knife through a metal wall of a shower stall. The argument that she’s really a boy doesn’t work as her (his) body type is quite small no matter the sex and the arms are scrawny. The film does well in coming up with novel deaths, but they should’ve worked harder at thinking up killings that a small fame teen could accomplish and still be in the realm of reality, which I don’t feel these are.

With that said it’s still a cool ending. I enjoyed the weird facial expression that Angela gives off once she’s caught and the camera freezes on it while morphing into a green backdrop. The final song that gets played is creepy too, so all in all the film succeeds though it will require some suspension of belief in order to be fully enjoyable.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: November 18, 1983

Runtime: 1 Hour 24 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Hiltzik

Studio: United Film Distributors

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Freeve, Pluto, Tubi, Amazon Video, 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cult, Horror, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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Hellraiser (1987)

Posted on October 16, 2023 | Leave a comment

hellraiser

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Former lover needs blood.

Frank Cotton (Sean Chapman) purchases a puzzle box and brings it home to solve it. When he does he finds that it brings out demons known as Cenobites who enjoy inflicting pain on others for their own pleasure. After tearing Frank apart they reset the box and return to their own dimension. Larry (Andrew Robinson), Frank’s brother, moves into the house along with his wife Julia (Clare Higgins), who at one time, unbeknownst to Larry, had a brief affair with Frank. While moving in some boxes Larry cuts his finger and bleeds onto the attic floor where Frank was killed. Pieces of Frank still exist under the floor boards and the blood allows him to regain life though his body still needs more blood to regain its full form. He convinces Julia to bring in strangers from the bar home, so that she can kill them and allow Frank to drink their blood and regain more strength. Julia agrees to do this, but then Kristy (Ashley Laurence) becomes aware of what Julia is doing and is determined to put a stop to it by confronting Frank and taking away his puzzle box.

This was the first movie directed by Clive Barker and is based on his 1986 novel ‘The Hellbound Heart’. After being dissatisfied with how Rawhead Rex, based on another novel Barker had written, he became determined to direct the next feature in order to give it, in his words, some ‘directorial oomph’, which he had felt was missing in the previous film. Special effects wise the film hits all marks and is a precursor to what’s called Horror Porn today with a lot focus put on the effects that are both realistic and cruel. Watching Frank’s body slowly take form by growing out of the floorboards is quite impressive, but my only complaint are the close-ups of the skin particularly when a hook slices it open, which to me resembled more silly putty.

While the effects are great the characters aren’t. All of them come-off as dark and mean and there’s really no one to cheer for, or side with. Supposedly it’s Kristy the viewer is intended to get behind, but she came-off looking older than college aged and more like she was in her late 20’s. She’s also worldy-wise and seems able to handle herself, as is seen when she comes into contact with a couple of lecherous movers, quite effortlessly, so there’s no real character arch. Having her start-off as shy and sheltered and then grow stronger and confident as she learns to take on the cenobites would’ve been much more interesting and would’ve allowed for tension as you would initially question whether she had to guts to confront the evil like she eventually does.

The Julia character is weak too. I didn’t understand what drew her to Frank. Maybe in the novel this gets better explained, but in the movie it’s nebulous. Her brief fling with Frank, in the few backstory scenes that get shown, makes it seem like it was rather cold and distant and Frank doesn’t necessarily treat her all that well, so why would she bother helping to bring him back to life? Maybe she had a sadomaschistic bent, but if that was the case why would she marry Larry who treats her differently almost like he’s the passive and she’s more in control. If the woman prefers the man to be in control then that’s what she looks for in her next relationship not the opposite.

Spoiler Alert!

The twist near the end where Frank kills Larry and then begins to wear his skin gets botched too. It’s intended to be a surprise reveal for the viewer who, like with Kristy, initially think it’s the real Larry though it’s pretty obvious something isn’t right as blood is seeping out on the edges of his face, which Kristy should notice, but apparently because she’s so upset she doesn’t. It would’ve been better though to have the killing played-out and shown the final shocked expression on Larry’s face when he realizes he’s been betrayed by not only his brother, but wife too, which would’ve been priceless.

What’s even more perplexing though is why is Frank speaking in Larry’s voice? He may have his skin, but not the voice box. Even if he had tried to disguise it, in an effort to trick Kristy, I don’t think it would’ve come-off so convincingly. Then, once the gig is up and Kristy realizes it’s Frank, he still continues speak with Larry’s voice by why bother at that point since he no longer needed to fool her?

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: September 11, 1987

Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Clive Barker

Studio: New World Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, British Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Slugs (1988)

Posted on October 15, 2023 | Leave a comment

slugs

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Town overrun by mollusca.

Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) is a health inspector of a small town who’s finding its residents being killed and skinned by some sort of mysterious entity and the only clue are trails of slime that it leaves behind. Later, Mike and his friend Don (Philip MacHale), who works for the sanitation department, along with high school science teacher John Foley (Santiago Alvarez) determine that the culprit are slugs whose unusual aggressiveness may be tied to leakage from an abandoned chemical waste dump.

Based on the 1980 novel of the same name by Shaun Hutson the script follows the book version closely. Director Juan Piquer Simon is best known for the gory cult hit Pieces, but this movie fares a bit better on the technical end. I liked that it was shot on-location in the US, Lyons, New York, where the fall setting helps accentuate a spooky Halloween feel as Simon’s other horror film was done in Spain, but pretended to be Boston though it was easy to see the difference. The tone is a bit more playful, particularly the bouncy score, and seems to be trying for a light tongue-and-cheek approach though it could’ve used more humor and worked better had it went full into a comedy-horror versus trying to play it completely straight, which doesn’t work.

A lot of the problem is buying into these slugs being that dangerous. They’re small, slow, and squishy and can be easily smooshed with any type of hard object. Having people getting overrun and attacked by them just doesn’t seem believable. The film tries to compensate for this by showing the victims after they’ve been devoured, but a person would have to be awfully slow and inept not to be able to get away as all they’d have to do is just step on the things to eradicate them, which makes the whole concept of them being this threatening aggressor rather lame. I did though like the segment where a couple is busy making love and thus don’t notice the slugs coming into their room and ultimately have their nude bodies covered by them when they fall onto the floor, which has a provocavtive quality and I might give some credit to the final scene where Don gets attacked by them while underwater, but the rest of the slug killings come-off as exaggerated and more unintentionally comical than scary.

The fact that the town’s mayor (Manuel de Blas) refuses to listen to Mike and won’t cut-off the town’s water supply in an attempt to keep the slug infestation (they travel through the pipes) under control is too reminiscent of Jaws. In Jaws seeing an elected official refusing to heed the warnings was interesting as it showed how greedy politicians can be just as much a threat to the people as a monstrous shark and maybe even more so, but here the confrontation comes-off as derivative and the actor playing the mayor isn’t as talented as Murray Hamilton who was able to make his character, as slimy as he was, fun and engaging.

The two actors who play the leads are especially bland and it’s no surprise that neither of them had much of a career in front of the camera. Both look like they’d be better suited on a soap opera, and MacHale was a cast member on both ‘Somerset’ and ‘One Life to Live’ as they have chiseled good looks, but a benign presence. In some ways it was refreshing not having teens cast in the lead as so many other horror movies do that, but there still needed to be adult characters that were interesting and multi-dimensional and these guys certainly are not. The lead guy needed some sort of fatal flaw, or some inner weakness he had to overcome that would make him unique, but instead it’s just John Suburbia going through the motions, which for me wasn’t captivating at all. A viewer needs to actually care about these people to get into it and since that doesn’t happen I found the whole thing to get pretty boring the more it went on though the movie poster is cool.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: February 5, 1988

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Juan Piquer Simon

Studio: New World Pictures

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Ghost Story (1981)

Posted on October 13, 2023 | 1 comment

ghost1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Four men carry secret.

Four elderly men, Ricky (Fred Astaire), John (Melvyn Douglas), Edward (Douglas Fairbanks Jr.), and Sears (John Houseman), who all live in the same small Vermont town and are lifelong friends who call themselves the Chowder Society, get together each week to tell each other ghosts stories. Then Edward’s son Don (Craig Wasson) dies after falling out his apartment window. The men begin having reoccurring nightmares focusing on Eva Galli (Alice Krige) a woman they once knew 50 years earlier. Has she come back from the dead to haunt them and their family members? And just exactly what happened to her as she seemed to have left town without a trace? Only the four men seem to know the answer to this and all of them guard this secret quite closely, but once David (Craig Wasson) comes to town, who is Edward’s other son, he becomes determined to break their silence.

The film is based on Peter Straub’s epic novel, which was released in 1978 and was 483 pages long. Many fans of the book complained that the movie overly simplified the plot, but there is just no way you can condense a long book into a two hour screenplay and for what it’s worth I think both director John Irvin and screenwriter Lawrence D. Cohen did the best they could and if anything this might’ve worked better as a TV-miniseries where many of the story’s dramatic angles could’ve been played out more. My main complaint is that in the novel Eve Galli character was portrayed as being a manitou who could change shape being a small child at one point and a wasp at another and the film would’ve been scarier had it taken that approach.

I also didn’t like Wasson, who’s great for giving a deer-in-headlights-look, but not much else, playing both the brothers. I can’t remember if they were twins in the book, or not, but having them be twins here wasn’t integral to the plot and makes it a bit confusing. For instance when the brother falls out the window, where he is naked and full frontal nudity showing, which was bit daring at the time for males, the next shot shows Wasson, as the twin, waking out of deep sleep making it seem incorrectly that it had all just been a dream.

The film’s main selling point is seeing four legendary actors, who were all either in their 80’s, or nearing it, still able to carry a film, which they do quite well and if anything it would’ve been nice seeing them in more of it. Astaire’s presence is especially interesting, he apparently threaten to quit the movie several times during the shooting, as he had mostly done musicals and light fare before this one. The females are strong here too particularly Krige in her film debut, who gets shown nude from both the back and the front, who has a very creepy presence. Jacqueline Brookes as Melvyn Douglas’ wife has a few key moments, but Patricia Neal, as Astaire’s wife, gets barely any speaking parts at all and is entirely wasted.

The recreation of the 1930’s was my favorite part and quite well done with the characters behaving in believable ways and making it seem like they weren’t just caricatures of their era, but real people that could exist today. Finding actors to play the roles of the older men in their younger years and come off closely resembling them is amazing and much credit should go to the casting director Mike Fenton for hiring young men with just the right characteristics of their older counterparts. The only caveat is that it has the incident occurring 50 years earlier, just like in the book, but with all the actors clearly looking like they’re in their 80’s a more accurate time period would’ve been 60 years when these guys would’ve realistically been college aged.

Spoiler Alert!

The effects are good though much of the scares hinges off of sporadic close-ups of ghostly Eva’s decomposed face, which gets a bit redundant. The story leaves open a lot of questions like why does Eva’s ghost wait 50 years to haunt the men; why not begin terrorizing them 10  years later or even 20? Also, why does Eva go after the son’s of one of the culprits who wasn’t even born yet when the incident happened instead of going directly after the old guys who were responsible? Also, how does a ghost take humor form enough so that the Wasson character is able to make love to her, he complains that she’s ‘cold to the touch’, but a spirit should be trapped into being just that, or at best possessing someone else’s body, but here we have Eva literally recreated to modern day and am not sure in ghostly logic terms how that gets done though despite these issues it’s still a fun ride.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: December 15, 1981

Runtime: 1 Hour 51 Minutes

Rated R

Director: John Irvin

Studio: Universal

Available: DVD, Amazon Video, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Ghost Story, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity

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Tales that Witness Madness (1973)

Posted on October 11, 2023 | 1 comment

tales

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Four tales of terror.

Directed by legendary cinematographer Freddie Francis, the film revolves around four stories where the protagonist is perceived as having gone mad, but in actuality it’s evil from another dimension that gets them to see or do odd things and in reality they’re the sane ones. The connecting element is Donald Pleasance who acts as their psychiatrist who keeps them at his clinic in an effort to improve their mental state. In the first story we have a boy named Paul (Russell Lewis) who boasts about having a live tiger in his room even though his parents (Donald Houston, Georgia Brown) don’t believe him. The second story deals with Timothy (Peter McEnery) an antique collector who’s able to ride an old Penny Farthing bicycle that allows him to go back into time and inhabit another man’s body. The third tale deals with a man (Michael Jayston) who brings home a dead tree and mounts it in his living room much to the annoyance of his wife (Joan Collins). The final story is about a rich socialite (Kim Novak) who courts a younger man only for him to have show more interest in her beautiful daughter (Mary Tamm).

This Review Contains Spoilers!

The first story is pretty weak mainly because you presume going in that there’s probably, despite the long odds, some sort of tiger present because after all this is a horror movie dealing with the supernatural, so seeing the parents getting attacked at the end isn’t surprising, or even shocking and you’re pretty much just waiting for it to happen from the get-go. Director Francis makes the mistake of attempting to film the attack as it happens by editing in stock footage of a tiger and mannequin parts with red paint standing in for the parent’s bodies, but it all looks quite fake. Since the tiger figures in again at the very end of the movie a better idea would’ve been to keep it a mystery whether he existed, or it was just a homicidal child that had killed his mom and dad. When the parents walked into the son’s room the camera should’ve remained outside in the hall and the viewer hearing their screams, which would’ve been scarier than anemic special effects that we ultimately do see.

The second story is limp as well as it features a picture of ‘Uncle Albert’ whose facial expressions and eyes are constantly moving and changing, which has been parodied in many other films making this one seem more campy than scarry. The third tale is dumb too as anyone who brings a dead tree into their living room and wants to keep it there is mentally ill and the wife would’ve been smart to have left him versus fight for his affections. The twist here is no surprise either as I saw it coming right from the start though Collins does give a good performance and the viewer gets treated to a shot of her breasts although I suspect it was done by a body double.

The fourth segment is the only one that merits any type of mention as it features the bad guys not only killing the daughter, but slicing her up and then serving her to the mother as a piece of ham during a Hawaiian-style luau. The audacious idea deserves some points and Novak’s performance is fun as is Tamm’s in her film debut, who you also get to see nude from the backside, but it fails to make up for the rest of it, which isn’t up to par with the other British Anthology horror films from that period.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: October 31, 1973

Runtime: 1 Hour 30 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Freddie Francis

Studio: Paramount

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

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Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Horror, Movies with Nudity

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Hollywood Vice Squad (1986)

Posted on September 17, 2023 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Trying to stop prostitution.

Based supposedly on actual police cases the film consists of three different scenarios that get interwoven throughout. The main one deals with a distraught mother (Trish Van Devere) who comes from the Midwest to Hollywood in search of her teen daughter (Robin Wright) who’s run away. Police Captain Jensen (Ronny Cox) informs her that her child may have slipped into prostitution, which she refuses to believe. The other two stories deals with a small town racketeer (Julius Harris) who runs a shady hustle out of his home and finds himself being harassed by both the cops and the mob. The third segment focuses on two bickering cops (Evan C. Kim, Joey Travolta) who try to stop various prostitution situations from occurring by implementing stings, which mostly prove to be inept.

The project is a misguided attempt to take Vice Squad, which was written by the same screenwriter that did this one, Kenneth Peters, and turn it into a comedy, or at least throw in humorous elements in between the action. While I was no fan of the first one, as I found the topic in general to be uninteresting, it at least gave off a gritty feel, but this thing can’t even do that. The humor is sporadic and while some of the car stunts are okay everything else is a bore and the film offers no new insight into what is otherwise a very tired and cliche subject.

Frank Gorshin was only one of two things that I liked. Gorshin of course is best known as an impressionist and for his Emmy Award winning performance as the Riddler on the ‘Batman’ TV-show from the 60’s, but he’s also done a lot of acting roles outside of that, which were quite compelling. This one required a lot of sliminess, which he’s more than able to provide with some of it ad-libbed that makes it all the better. He even during a couple of segments offers his trademark, spontaneous Riddler laugh, which is great. The only problem with his presence is that supposedly the police are unable to find him in order to bring him in for questioning in regards to the mother’s missing teen daughter, which didn’t make a whole lot of sense since he works and lives out of a giant, gaudy mansion that most anyone should’ve been able to easily spot.

I also really enjoyed Carrie Fisher who ended up satirizing her experiences filming this in her novel and screenplay Postcards from the Edge. She had just gotten out of drug rehab when she was offered the part, but studios were reluctant to give her work and director Penelope Spheeris really had to go to bat for her, but the effort was worth it. She plays the only character that’s likable and she should’ve been given the lead and had the whole thing revolve around her exclusively. With that said though the case that she’s on, trying to put a halt to a porn production that’s supposedly employing a minor, doesn’t totally work as the kid they’re trying to save has a boyish face, but a body that made it seemed he was most likely over 18 and I was fully expecting the cops, who raid the production without a search warrant, to learn this lesson the hard way, but we’re never shown any finality to it, so the viewer doesn’t know. Also the scene where she sneaks into the sleazy producer’s garage and gazes at adult magazine covers that he has stored in a box, which features no nudity and simply depicts models wearing generic leather bondage outfits and she grimaces like she’s looking at something ‘extreme’ seemed rather silly.

The storyline dealing with Van Devere’s quest for find her daughter are unintentionally laughable. What baffled me was the way she would walk through these really trashy areas filled with dangerous looking people and appear completely content and at ease. If she’s from a sheltered small town then seeing these seedy areas should make her quite shocked and frightened and these are the reactions we should be seeing on her face. Also, she’s a good-looking milf and I was surprised some of the creepy men didn’t attempt to accost her as she ambled by them. The casting of Robin Wright as her runaway daughter, in her film debut, is problematic too as she looks to be over 20 and for shock value you really need to cast someone who’s 16 or 17 and looking it in order to create that true loss of innocence image.

I’ve always been curious why people who get into the vice squad work feel it’s worth it. The characters in the film even admit that these hookers and pimps will be right back out on the streets the next day even if they manage to make a few arrests, so why keep on spending so much time and effort if it’s really not making a difference? Have one of the police agents ponder this would’ve given the story an extra dimension that it needed.

It seemed to be almost cruel that they would stop a goofy old man, amusingly played by Marvin Kaplan, from having sex with a streetwalker who was willing. Clearly this was the only way the old guy was going to find any action, so if he’s going to pay and the sex worker, who is of age of course, is willing to perform then why not consider it a basic capitalist business transaction and be done with it? Spending so much effort trying to stop things like this when so many worse things are going on in is what makes the whole thing come-off as petty and trivial.

If anything the storyline involving Fisher’s attempts at putting a halt to what appeared to be a child porn racket should’ve been the central plot. This is something most if not all viewers could get behind and it’s a shame that it gets watered down here and then lumped in with other stuff, which isn’t compelling at all.

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My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: February 28, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 41 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Penelope Spheeris

Studio: Cinema Group

Available: DVD, Tubi, Plex, Amazon Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Comedy/Drama, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Movies with Nudity

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Stewardess School (1986)

Posted on September 14, 2023 | Leave a comment

stewardess

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: They become flight attendants.

Philo (Brett Cullen) and George (Don Most) are training to become airline pilots, but an unexpected calamity during the flight stimulator test causes them to flunk out. Without a job, or money they decide to enter into a school that trains people to become flight attendants. They feel this way they’ll still be able to be up in the air and can also hit-on all the hot women. They’re class is full of misfits, but somehow they all manage to graduate despite the presence of Miss Grummet (Vicki Frederick) who runs the school and tries to make each of their lives a living hell. After graduation the students get a job with Stromboli airlines, but Miss Grummet is onboard and wants to make sure things do not go as planned while a mad bomber (Alan Rosenberg) wants to blow the aircraft up.

This was another in a long line of Police Academy imitators that did nothing but make that one, which wasn’t too great to begin with, seem like a masterpiece. The film, which per later interviews with star Sandahl Bergman where she attests the cast and crew including the director were snorting cocaine during the production, is nothing but a barrage of lame jokes and uninspired storyline making it pretty much dead on arrival from the first frame in. It doesn’t even have all that much nudity and what little it does comes from gals looking well over 30. The women cast in the leads keep their clothes on even though they’re far more attractive. Judy Landers, who plays a hooker who speaks in the most annoying Flossie-like accent, in order to conform to the caricature of a NY streetwalker, I found to be the most perplexing. She’s clearly sexy and yet is never seen naked even though she goes to a Dr.’s office for a medical exam, but just as she’s set to remove her bra the camera cuts away, which will frustrate certain viewers as the only point for watching this vapid thing is to see some good-looking flesh and if it can’t even succeed with that then it’s pointless to sit through.

I found the characters to be the most irritating as everything gets approached from a 13-year-old perspective with no inkling of nuance. Star Cullen is a prime example as he plays this pilot who can’t see without his glasses even though most people who use them can still make out things when they’re not on but they’re just real fuzzy and yet here this guy doesn’t know when he’s in a shower room full of naked women. The thick coke bottle type of glasses that he does wear was severely dated as by the 80’s the technology had improved that people with bad eyesight could wear lenses that weren’t so thick and obvious.

Wendi Jo Sperber, who is slightly overweight though the film acts like she’s ‘obese’, gets stuck with a part that’s genuinely insulting as it does nothing but make fun of her few extra pounds the whole way through. At one point it even has her spotting a cheese cake in a refrigerator and going ‘oink, oink’, which I found to be quite shallow as they’re can be many reasons for why someone as a bigger body type than others that has nothing to do with overeating.

I did enjoy Mary Cadorette who’s probably best known for playing in the short-lived ‘Three’s a Company’ spin-off ‘Three’s a Crowd’. She definitely gives a likable performance of a terminal klutz. While her clumsiness does get overplayed, with none of the pratfalls ever being funny, I felt the way she overcame her problem by going through hypnosis was a cop-out. A good story should have a character grow and succeed through their own initiative versus having it all go away with the literal snap-of-a-finger.

The worst part may be the ending where the film inadvertently turns into a airplane disaster flick, which has been done better in many other parodies. The mad bomber is too obvious and everyone should’ve been eyeing him suspiciously from the get-go instead of having him being ignored until it was too late. The film should’ve played against type with this part by having the nut turn-out to being what initially seemed like a sweet old lady, or someone else you wouldn’t expect, but of course that would’ve required creativity, which filmmakers here were clearly lacking. The film does stand out in one way as it holds the record for being the most played movie on the Comedy Central cable network, which says more about their subgrade level of programming than anything else.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: August 20, 1986

Runtime: 1 Hour 29 Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ken Blancato

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD-R, Amazon Video, Tubi

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Posted in 80's Movies, Campy Comedy, Crude Comedy, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies

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