Category Archives: Thrillers/Suspense

Black Widow (1987)

Posted on April 1, 2015 | 2 comments

black widow

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: She kills her husbands.

A federal agent named Alexandra (Debra Winger) tracks an elusive woman named Catherine (Theresa Russell) who marries rich men and then kills them off to inherit their fortune. Catherine is constantly changing her identity making it tough for her to track and Alexandra’s superiors do not share her same passion for the case nor believe there’s even a case at all. Finally while in Hawaii Alexandra manages to make contact with the woman and the two become fast friends only to have Alexandra become the next target when Catherine starts to suspect that she’s been double-crossed.

The film’s biggest asset is Conrad L. Hall’s cinematography, which is uniformly gorgeous and breathtaking. I loved the outdoor shots of Hawaii most notably the open terrain and the volcano as well as the scuba diving underwater sequence. The shots of the Seattle skyline and woodsy cabin are equally good making this on a visual level a top notch production. Winger is great in the lead even if her character lets down her guard a few too many times. I also enjoyed James Hong a perennial character actor who gets his most memorable role as a sleazy private investigator. It’s also fun to go back to what life was like before the internet, cellphones and debit cards and where ‘disappearing’ was so much easier.

Ronald Bass’s script though is shallow and formulaic. Just as it should be getting exciting it instead becomes boring and the slick twist at the end cannot overcome all of its loopholes. I found it surprising that Alexandra would be the only person in the world that would be on to this woman. Wouldn’t the relatives of the deceased start to suspect her as well? One segment has Catherine agreeing to give some relatives a large sum of money as a ‘gift’ to get them off her back, but what about the relatives of the first two husbands? The police work is also extremely sloppy. One of the husbands was allergic to penicillin, which is what Catherine uses to kill him, but they never think to test for it or investigate to see if Catherine had recently acquired a prescription for it, which she had. I also couldn’t figure out why Catherine would want to robotically go right back out and marry another rich man just after killing another. Why not ‘enjoy the fruits of her labor’ as it was and live it up with the money she already acquired from the last one before going through all the stress and planning of nabbing the next?

In fact the most frustrating thing about the film is the Catherine character as we never learn what motivates her or anything about her background. Alexandra is asked at one point what she thinks motivates this woman and she responds that it’s ‘not important’, but actually it is because it helps create a three-dimensional character instead of this evil prototype that gets increasingly more boring as the film progresses.

There is also a twist in the film where Catherine has one of her husband’s sign over his fortune to charity in his will, which helps him believe that she is not after him for his money, but then after he is killed it is learned that his legal residence was actually Florida, which has something called a ‘Mark Main’ statute that invalidates any bequest to charity that is made in a will six months before his death and thus allows the inheritance to go back to the surviving spouse, which Catherine takes full advantage of, but are we the viewer really expected to believe that Catherine knew about this loophole all along? Who researches that kind of stuff or even thinks to research it? Okay, so maybe she had some area of legal expertise in her background, but then why is she also such an expert at poisons and forgery and all the other stuff that she does and gets away with in order to stay ahead of the police? Haven’t these filmmakers ever watched an episode of ‘Columbo’ where even the smartest of killers will eventually screw up because it is simply humanely impossible to be ontop of everything like the character here is? By making the villain so over-the-top cunning and conniving while also cool under pressure hurts the tension instead of heightening it because it throws the believability factor out the window and ultimately makes this otherwise slick thriller empty and forgettable.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: February 6, 1987

Runtime: 1Hour 42Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bob Rafelson

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

2 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Movies with Nudity, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Crimes of Passion (1984)

Posted on March 23, 2015 | 5 comments

crimes of passion

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 1 out of 10

4-Word Review: Moonlighting as a hooker.

Bobby (John Laughlin) is suffering from marital problems at home while also having trouble keeping up with his kid’s expenses, so he looks for a part-time job and gets hired by Lou Bateman (Norman Burton) an owner of a fashion clothing studio to work as a private investigator by following around one of his designer’s named Joanna (Kathleen Turner) who he is convinced is selling his patents to a competitor. What Bobby finds instead is that Joanna is actually working as a hooker in the seedy red light district and using the name of China Blue, which gets Bobby more infatuated with her. Soon they are locked into a passionate affair, but unaware that China/Joanna is also being stalked by a crazy street preacher named Peter Shayne (Anthony Perkins) who is suffering from demons of his own while also harboring strange ideas on how to ‘save her’.

The film, which is directed by Ken Russell who can sometimes be brilliant and other times horribly self-indulgent, is annoying from the beginning. The recreation of a therapy group is wooden and artificial and the sex scenes are over-the-top with characters that are one-dimensional and poorly fleshed out. The gaudy color schemes and flashing lights used to recreate the seedy hotel look quickly become repetitive and irritating. It’s hard to tell whether Russell is trying to be serious or campy, but it’s a mad mixture that ends up being a pointless mess. Rick Wakeman’s obnoxious electronic music score and the cliché ridden Psycho-like finale simply add insult to injury.

The script by Barry Sandler is shallow and filled with plot devices that make no sense. Rarely do prostitutes ever fall in love with one of their clients and many create a defense to keep that part of their lives separate from their personal one and vice-versa, so the fact that Joanna and Bobby get into a relationship so quickly and seamlessly while failing to explain why she would find Bobby so ‘special’ out of all the other men she had already had indiscriminate sex with makes this dumb movie even more absurd. It’s also hard to believe that Joanna would be such a great employee as she is described to be by her boss when she is going out every night having sex with strange men at all hours. I would think at some point she’d become exhausted and her productivity at her day job would be effected. I also thought it was a bit goofy why someone would hire Bobby as a private investigator to begin with when he had no experience in that area.

Annie Potts gives the film’s all-around best performance particularly during a strong scene involving her character in bed with Bobby and her roundabout way of admitting that he no longer satisfies her. Laughlin is okay, but bland and the segment where he dresses up as a giant penis having an erection is downright embarrassing. Perkins is fun as the flamboyantly weird reverend and I got a kick out of his singing as well as his bag full of sex toys, but in the end it’s just a bad rendition of Norman Bates that typecasts him while discrediting his earlier more serious efforts.

The scene where China visits an old man who has only a few months to live is the movie’s one and only interesting moment. Had there been more of a history shown to Joanna’s character and why this seemingly intelligent woman did what she did I might’ve have been able to get into it more instead of being completely bored with it. The sexual imagery was considered quite ‘shocking’ and explicit for 1984 standards, but now comes off as benign and hooky especially since one can find far more graphic stuff simply by casually surfing any one of the thousands of porn sites on the internet today.

My Rating: 1 out of 10

Released: October 19, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 47Minutes

Rated R

Director: Ken Russell

Studio: New World Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD

5 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Erotica, Moody/Stylish, Movies with Nudity, Sex, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Class of 1999 (1990)

Posted on December 18, 2014 | Leave a comment

class of 1999 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The teachers are robots.

The year is 1999 and American high schools are running rampant with drugs and gang warfare. In an attempt to try to regain some control administrators have hired on a company run by Dr. Bob Forrest (Stacy Keach) who has created teachers who look human, but are actually robots capable of exerting extreme punishment on those students who get out-of-line. A Seattle high school is chosen as a venue to test these robots out with Miles Langford (Malcolm McDowell) being the only human instructor made aware of these other teacher’s identities. At first things go well and civil behavior from the unruly teens is attained, but then the teachers get out-of-control where even their creators are unable to rein them in, so it is up to some rebel teen students lead by Cody (Cody Culp) to fight them off and stop them.

This is a sort-of sequel to writer/director Mark L. Lester’s earlier Class of 1984 and in many ways on a low budget scale it’s alright. I watched this film with my Cinema Terrible group here in Austin where we get together each month to watch two really bad movies. Usually everyone spends the time making fun at what they are watching, but this film surprisingly kept them quiet and captivated, which no one had initially expected. Lester has directed 33 of these types of films since 1971 and he knows how to deliver. His product certainly isn’t on an Academy Award winning level, but for those looking for some cheap non-think entertainment with a fast pace and decent effects then this ain’t too bad.

The best element of the film is John P. Ryan, Pam Grier and Patrick Kilpatrick as the three teacher robots. Ryan especially owns the screen during all of his scenes and the part where he takes some difficult students one-by-one over his knee and gives them a nice long, hard spanking is without question the best moment of the whole movie. Grier though is good too and during the climatic sequence she runs around essentially topless with her chest ripped open and her computer parts exposed, which I found to be well done. McDowell is the only one of the familiar names who is wasted and apparently only worked 2 days on the production.

The film’s biggest issue is that it has no sense of humor despite its over-the-top campy premise. The teen cast show minimal acting ability and their characters come off like walking, talking clichés. In a lot of ways this film would have been better had the evil teacher robots been portrayed as ‘the good guys’ and instead of being annihilated at the end by the students they were the ones who eradicated all of the mouthy, crude and disrespectful teens, which some would consider to be much more of a ‘happy ending’.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: May 11, 1990

Runtime: 1Hour 33Minutes

Rated R

Director: Mark L. Lester

Studio: Vestron Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

Leave a comment

Posted in 90's Movies, Action/Adventure, Adolescence/High School, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Sci-Fi, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , , ,

Scream for Help (1984)

Posted on December 3, 2014 | Leave a comment

scream for help 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Her Stepfather plots murder.

Christie (Rachael Kelly) is a teen convinced that her new stepfather (Paul Fox) is out to kill her mother (Marie Masters). The problem is that no one believes her. Eventually she is able to take a picture of him having sex with another woman, which is enough to get her mother to throw him out of their house, but then he returns with two of his cohorts and traps Christie and her mother in the basement were they plan to kill them and make it look like a robbery.

This film, which was written by Tom Holland, might have been better received had it not been put into the hands of sub-par director Michael Winner. Winner who is probably best known for his close association to Charles Bronson of which he directed 7 films with him and then later when his film career waned became a famous restaurant critic, shows no feeling for the material and directs with such a sloppy style that it almost seemed like he was intentionally trying to make a bad movie. The sweeping orchestral score would have been better suited for a romance or epic adventure and is completely out of place here. The dialogue is corny and the overall acting by the supporting cast is wooden. The pace is awkward and at times becomes unintentionally funny.

However, the second half improves greatly particularly when the two find themselves trapped in the cellar and must use their ingenuity to get out. The twists are clever and unpredictable and the atmosphere becomes genuinely taut and exciting. The musical score also improves becoming much more intense and darker. I actually started to get really into it and afterwards felt like I had watched two different movies with the second part being good enough to overshadow its otherwise many flaws.

Brooks as the bad guy has a male model face, but his performance is as generic as the film’s title and it would have been better had a veteran character actor been cast in the part instead. The mother character with the way she refuses to believe the obvious until it is much too late seems unreasonably and annoyingly stupid. I did though like Kelly in the lead. Not only is she cute, but her acting is good enough to compel the viewer to keep watching when they otherwise might have turned it off and I was surprised to see that this was her only film as she showed enough promise to have had a solid career.

Filmed on-location in New Rochelle, New York this is the type of low budget flick that proves how a good script can sometimes overcome other production inadequacies. Had it been better directed this could have been a snappy thriller and it’s a shame that Hitchcock disciple Richard Franklin who was the original choice as director hadn’t helmed it although a film school dropout or even your local garbage man could have done a better job than Winner or certainly no worse.

scream for help 1

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 16, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated R

Director: Michael Winner

Studio: Lorimar

Available: VHS, DVD (Region 2)

Leave a comment

Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

The Collector (1965)

Posted on October 23, 2014 | 3 comments

the collector 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Collecting women like butterflies.

Freddie (Terence Stamp) is a withdrawn loner who collects butterflies for a hobby. One day he manages to win a lot of money in a football pool and uses it buy an old, isolated house in the English countryside. The place has a very large cellar, which gives him the idea that it can be used as a prison. It is then that he decides to kidnap beautiful art student Miranda (Samantha Eggar). He keeps her in the cellar, but fixes it up making it seem almost like an apartment. He treats her with the upmost respect and even knocks before entering her room. He buys her art supplies so she can continue her work and makes an agreement with her that he will let her go after 4-weeks, but hopes in between then that she will fall in love with him.

The film puts an interesting spin on the old ‘psycho kidnapping a beautiful woman’ theme and for the most part succeeds. The viewer ends up feeling almost as sorry for Freddie as they do his victim as it becomes clear that through his social awkwardness he is in even more of a prison than she. The way the two try to communicate and connect, which only ends up driving the them further apart is fascinating and their contrasting views about the book ‘Catcher in the Rye’ as well as the paintings of Picasso are equally revealing.

Stamp gives one of his greatest performances in his already illustrious career playing a character who weaves from being menacing to vulnerable and childlike. Eggar makes for an appealing victim and apparently turned Stamp down years earlier when he had asked for her date while the two were students in acting school.

the collector 4

William Wyler’s direction is perfect as he wisely decides to pull back without adding any unnecessary Hitchcock touches and thus allowing the interactions between the two characters to propel the film. His superimposed, colorful shots of butterflies seen over the closing credits are a nice added touch. My only minor grievance is the Maurice Jarre score, which seemed too melodic without enough of the dark foreboding undertones that music for a thriller should have.

If you’re looking for the conventional thriller you may be disappointed as the emphasis is more on the psychological than the suspenseful. There are a few good tense moments including Miranda’s final attempt to escape during a nighttime rain storm, but for the most part the compelling element comes from the way these two multi-layered people deal with each other and ultimately reveal things about themselves that they didn’t know existed. The story also makes an excellent point of how everyone to a certain degree is trapped in a prison and the challenging if not impossible effort it can sometimes be to bond with others especially when reaching across different social-economic lines. The only thing that does get ruined is the ending, which no longer has the novelty or shock value that it once did.

the collector 3

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: June 17, 1965

Runtime: 1Hour 59Minutes

Not Rated

Director: William Wyler

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

3 Comments

Posted in 60's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Kidnapping Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Psychological, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , ,

See No Evil (1971)

Posted on October 2, 2014 | Leave a comment

see no evil

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Psycho stalks blind girl.

Sarah (Mia Farrow) is a young woman who becomes permanently blinded during a horse riding accident. After months of rehabilitation she returns to her family home in the English countryside. Dealing with her new handicap is awkward at first, but things go genuinely smoothly. Unfortunately a psychotic man harboring a petty grudge lurks in the shadows. One day while Sarah is away he murders her entire family and when she returns he goes after her, but the viewer is as in the dark as she is to his identity as all that is shown are the nifty looking cowboy boots that he walks in.

Veteran director Richard Fleischer takes Brian Clemens compact script and turns it into a visual masterpiece. The camera angles and shot compositions are not only perfect, but highly creative. One of the highlights is when Sarah comes home and doesn’t realize at first that her family is dead and only slowly becomes aware of it along with the viewer. The countryside, which was shot near Berkshire, England, is majestically captured particularly during the horse riding sequences. The pace is fast and intense and never lets up with twists that prove to be quite interesting.

Farrow has a limited range as an actress, but her delicate features and the character’s self-reliant nature make her easily likable and the viewer immediately becomes empathetic to her plight. The rest of the characters are well-rounded and believable with noted character actress Lila Kaye in a small, but memorable role as a gypsy mother.

The fact that the identity of the killer is kept a secret until the very end is an added bonus, but you actually do see his face in an earlier scene, but are not made aware that it is him, which I thought was pretty cool. The only misgivings that I had in this area is the fact that the killer supposedly murders these people in a fit of revenge for accidently splashing water on his precious boots when they drove past him in a car, but then later after he kills them he goes to bed and allows the droplets of blood from his victims to dry on his boots while he sleeps even though I felt with his obsessive preoccupation with them that he would have wiped that off right away. Also, for a man who brazenly murders a family in broad daylight for such a petty reason he seems to get a little too nervous about it afterwards even though if he is that crazy I would think that he would have remained cocky about it and felt that he would be able to murder anyone else who got in his way. He also puts up no fight in the end when he finally gets cornered making him look wimpy and making the climax a bit of a letdown.

Overall though I found this thriller to be highly entertaining and its effect has not diminished through repeat viewings. They don’t seem to be able to make them like this anymore, which is unfortunate.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Alternate Title: Blind Terror

Released: September 2, 1971

Runtime: 1Hour 29Minutes

Rated GP

Director: Richard Fleischer

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, British Movies, Foreign Films, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , , , ,

Dogs (1976)

Posted on August 30, 2014 | 2 comments

dogs

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: The Dogs go crazy.

In a small California town the dogs begin to act strangely as these lovable pets are now turning on their owners and going on the attack while acquiring a pack mentality that puts fear into everyone. Harlan (David McCallum) is a professor at a nearby college who along with Michael (George Wyner) who is an expert in animal behavior search for answers while also fighting for their own lives from the onslaught of the attacks.

The film has some potential as actor-turned-director Burt Brinkerhoff adds shades of playfulness to the proceedings. I liked the segment where children bring their pet dogs to a formal showing only to be chased away by the suddenly evil mutts. The mob scenes are somewhat impressive as Brinkerhoff holds a handheld camera right in the middle of the group, which helps accentuate the chaos and fear. The extras who can usually be pretty poor actors in most movies actually seem scared here and give off genuine screams of terror. The scene where the college students become trapped in a library with the vicious dogs staring at them through a glass wall is kind of creepy as is the sound of their howling.

The special effects aren’t quite as successful. The shots of all the human carnage looks very much like people lying perfectly still with spots of food coloring thrown on their clothes.  The shot of a mutilated steer’s head is equally fake looking and it stays on it for too long although the dog attacks themselves are okay. My favorite is when a sweet old lady, which is played by Elizabeth Kerr who later went on to co-star in the ‘Mork and Mindy’ TV-series gets ambushed and eaten by a group of dogs, which includes her own cute little pooch and then dragged away.

McCallum, who is best known for starring in the 60’s spy show ‘The Man from U.N.C.L.E’ as well as ‘NCIS’, is weak in the lead role and whose presence almost seems transparent. He’s made to look like he is a part of the counter-culture with a beard and long hair, but instead comes off looking like some homeless guy that was dragged in off the streets. Sandra McCabe as his female counterpart is pretty pathetic and seems good for having a perpetually frightened look etched on her face, but not much else. Linda Gray who makes her official film debut and is cast in a smaller role should have been given the lead over McCabe as she shows much more flair.

The film’s biggest transgression though it that it never bothers to explain the reason for the dog’s strange behavior there is a brief conversation about some ‘secret experiments’ going on, but nothing that ever gets detailed or exposed. The lack of any true resolution or explanation is not only frustrating, but also makes watching this a rather pointless experience. The film also runs only 82 minutes despite the DVD cover stating that it is 91.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: June 29, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 22Minutes

Rated R

Director: Burt Brinkerhoff

Studio: American Cinema Releasing

Available: DVD

2 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, College Life, Low Budget, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , ,

The Pack (1977)

Posted on August 23, 2014 | Leave a comment

the pack 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dogs on the prowl.

Jerry (Joe Don Baker) moves to idyllic Seal Island with his new wife Millie (Hope Alexander-Willis) and their two sons. They meet vacationers Jim and Marge (Richard O’Brien, Bibi Besch) and their grown son Tommy (Paul Wilson) as well as island locals Hardiman (Richard B. Shull) and Cobb (R. G. Armstrong). As the days progress Jerry becomes aware of wild dogs roaming the island that are led by a particularly vicious mongrel. These dogs become more aggressive as they have already attacked other humans and have now acquired a taste for them. The eclectic bunch becomes trapped in a home surrounded by 15 hungry dogs while forced to use their cunning and wits to outsmart the animals and make it to freedom.

The film has an interesting even novel idea of turning man’s best friend into a villain and is quite similar to Dogs, which came out at the same time and will be reviewed next week. Unfortunately the structure runs along the predictable mechanical formula of a conventional horror film using the same type of scares and shocks that are not all that imaginative.  Although shot on-location in Bodega Bay, California it looks more like a cheap studio back lot that lacks any type of visual flair. In a lot of ways it comes off like a TV-Movie and whenever there is any gore it will cut away and not show it giving it very tame, trite and dated feeling.

The characters are dull and generic and a few more interesting personalities or dramatic side-stories could have helped. The film also takes a very old fashioned viewpoint on women as they are portrayed as being helpless and incapable of handling things on their own and in desperate need of the big, burly man to come in, take control and save the day.

I thought it was amusing that Baker was cast in the lead as his face has always reminded me of a bulldog. I don’t consider him to be all that bad of an actor, but there are other male leads that could have worked better. The female cast members are completely wasted and seem put in only to sit around with a frightened looks while the men do all the action.

The dogs themselves aren’t too bad. The pack leader is made to look like he is demonic, which is a little overdone, but still effective.  A fight scene between two of the dogs is well done and intense. I also liked the climatic finish in which Baker goes face-to-face with the lead animal with only some box springs between them. However, the basic concept seems dubious and these were all pets apparently abandoned by their owners only a few weeks earlier and it seemed hard to believe that they would have turned this wild and aggressive so quickly. Most stray dogs that have been previously socialized by humans can usually be taken back into captivity relatively easily while feral dogs remain frightened of humans, but in either case rarely go on the organized attack like they do here especially when they don’t have rabies and are mostly non-aggressive breeds.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Alternate Title: The Long Dark Night

Released: November 20, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 35Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Clouse

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD (Warner Archive)

Leave a comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , ,

Rabid Dogs (1974)

Posted on August 9, 2014 | 1 comment

rabid dogs 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Terror filled car ride.

Four men decide to hijack a car that is delivering the payroll to the employees of a local Italian pharmaceutical plant. Both men inside the car are killed, but the four manage to get away with the money only to have the driver of the getaway vehicle shot in the back of the head by a security guard as well as having a bullet hole put into their fuel tank. The remaining three are then forced to find another car. There is the Doctor (Maurice Poli) who is the level-headed leader and mastermind. There is also Bisturi (Don Backy) a lanky child-like man prone to savagery without warning and Thirty-two (George Eastman) who can be equally savage especially with women. They kidnap a beautiful woman named Maria (Lea Lander) and then hijack another car driven by a father Riccardo (Riccardo Cucciolla) who is trying to take his sick son to the hospital. The six then go on a terrifying car ride through the Italian countryside while playing a game of cat-and-mouse with each other and eluding the authorities.

This film turned out to be Mario Bava’s swan song. His career had faded during the 70’s as his style of horror films were no longer considered chic and he made this film project a personal crusade to prove that he could keep up with the modern sensibilities by creating a film that was gritty, raw and violent. All things considered he succeeds valiantly. The film has a nasty edge right from the beginning and manages to stay at that tone throughout. The killers are truly mean and keep the viewer on edge with their unpredictable trigger-finger personalities. It achieves a level of ugliness reminiscent in a true crime that most Hollywood films never seem able to attain and its shoe-string budget and bare-bones approach becomes a major benefit.

For a film that takes place almost entirely inside a car the shot selections has an amazing amount of variety. Bava ended up having to do the cinematography himself because he couldn’t afford to keep the one he had hired on, which makes it all the more incrediable how brilliantly visual this is. The characters faces get up so close to the lens you literally feel like you can smell them and sense the sweat glistening off their bodies making you believe you are stuck in the car with them. The film is never boring or slow, the action well-choreographed with interesting  plot twists proving what an underrated genius Bava was and making me believe that despite the many difficulties getting produced this is his finest effort.

Backy who was and still is today a singer/songwriter with limited acting experience gives a great performance and is possibly the most memorable of the villains especially with his shocked expressions after he commits a particularly vile act proving that even he himself is shaken at his own savagery. Leander isn’t necessarily the best of actresses, but her perpetual look of shock and fear is quite entertaining. I was also impressed with the child actor who manages to stay asleep despite all the violence and chaos around him.

I also enjoyed the similarities to Last House on the Left including an exciting foot chase through a cornfield where you think the women is going to get away as well as a scene where the women is forced to urinate in front of the men while they laugh and mock her.

If you are a fan of 70’s exploitation than this lost gem deserves to be on top of any true fan’s list as it delivers-the-goods without ever watering things down for good taste. I also enjoyed the neat twist ending, which I saw coming, but it’s pretty cool anyways.

Years later Bava’s son Lamberto used existing footage from this film while adding new scenes with a different ending to create a movie called Kidnapped although I prefer this version better.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Alternate Title: Kidnapped

Released: February 25, 1998 (Never released during Bava’s lifetime.)

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Mario Bava

Studio: Spera Cinematografica

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

1 Comment

Posted in 70's Movies, Foreign Films, Heist Movies, Italian Films, Kidnapping Movies, Low Budget, Road Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , ,

Body Heat (1981)

Posted on August 4, 2014 | 6 comments

body heat 1

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lawyer kills lover’s husband.

Every Monday for the month of August I’ll review an 80’s film that has the word ‘heat’ in its title starting with this modern-day film noir classic. Ned Racine (William Hurt) is a shyster lawyer looking for some action and on one sultry hot Florida night finds it when he spots the beautiful Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner) at an outdoor concert. The two soon fall into having mad passionate sex, but there is one problem. Matty is married to Edmund (Richard Crenna) who is rich, but boring. She plants the seed in Ned’s head to kill him and thus allow the two to live happily ever after with the money they will get from his will. Ned jumps into the scheme with his eyes wide-open only to later realize after it is too late that Matty has other plans that don’t involve him and thus making him a schmuck of the first kind.

I still enjoyed Double Indemnity and The Postman Always Rings Twice better, but for a modern day film noir this one isn’t bad and rates superior to most of the others. Writer/ director Lawrence Kasdan creates characters that are amoral, but fascinating. The dialogue is snappy and the production stylish without ever getting too overdone or pretentious.  The first hour is a bit slow and it takes too long to get to the killing, but once the second half kicks in it becomes a wild ride of twists and turns that remains as entertaining as ever.

The movie also has numerous references to the heat even more so than most movies that takes place in a hot climate. Overall I enjoyed this as it makes the viewer feel sweaty and muggy even if the weather outside isn’t. The sweat glistening off their naked bodies is effective and not an irritating cliché like in most other movies. The only problem I had was that Matty lives in this giant, luxurious mansion and yet must rely on fans and open windows to cool off when in reality the place would have been wired with indoor air conditioning.

Turner, in her film debut, looks stunning and it is just unfortunate that due to illness and age she no longer looks anything like she did here. Her nude scenes are brief and from far away, but still hot.

Hurt is excellent as usual, but the character was a bit irritating. I realize that the guy is thinking with his penis and not his brain, but it still seemed hard to believe that he wouldn’t once just for a second step back and contemplate whether he was being set-up especially since her ‘tactics’ to convince him to do it weren’t in any way novel or sophisticated. The minute she brings up wanting to change the will like she does here so that she gets all the money instead of Edmund’s ex-wife should have been a red flag to even the dumbest and horniest of males that this woman is in love only with money and a good signal that he is being used and to dump her.

Ted Danson looking almost unrecognizable in horn-rimmed glasses is a stand-out in support and almost ends up stealing the film as Ned’s lawyer buddy. He also gets the movies best line. As everyone is sitting in a smoke filled room looking over the will and someone offers him a cigarette he states “No thanks. I don’t need any. I’ll just breathe in the air.”

body heat 2

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: August 28, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 53Minutes

Rated R

Director: Lawrence Kasdan

Studio: Warner Brothers

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

6 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Moody/Stylish, Movies that take place in the South, Movies with Nudity, Prison Flicks, Thrillers/Suspense

Tagged , , , , , ,