Category Archives: Thrillers/Suspense

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)

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

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Rabid Dogs (1974)

Posted on August 9, 2014 | 1 comment

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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

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

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Body Heat (1981)

Posted on August 4, 2014 | 6 comments

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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.”

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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

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Rollover (1981)

Posted on July 14, 2014 | 2 comments

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: What’s in account 21214?

Hubbell Smith (Kris Kristofferson) is the newly appointed president of Borough National a bank that is in desperate need of money. He meets Lee Winters (Jane Fonda) the recent widow of the former chairman of Winterchem Enterprises who is looking to obtain a loan in order to purchase a Spanish processing plant. Hubbell broker’s the $500 million deal with some Arab investors and uses the finder’s fee portion to keep his bank solvent, but suspicions are raised when the money goes into a secret account named 21214 that no one knows anything about and can’t access. When Hubbell does some investigating he finds troubling answers that could lead to economic world collapse.

Director Alan J. Pakula approaches this thing like it is another Klute using not only the same star as that one, but similar type of music. Some of the camera work is dazzling and artsy, but I wondered if this was done to help enhance the script, or simply camouflage all of its holes. The story itself is too talky with a heavy reliance of financial business dealings that could become confusing for the average viewer. The two main characters are rather generic and their passionate making-out is tedious instead of sexy. The action is minimal, which includes a scene where Fonda gets trapped in a limo that is driven by a bad guy that had the potential for being exciting, but unfortunately gets underplayed.

Kristofferson with his Texas drawl is an awfully odd casting choice for a hot shot Wall Street businessman. He grows on you as the movie progresses particularly with the way he remains cool and detached even as his business dealings go horribly awry, but I still felt there were a hundred other actors that would have been better suited for the role.

Fonda is excellent and in many ways badly outplays her costar. Her character though doesn’t make a lot of sense as she is supposedly this famous and highly respected actress, much like Fonda herself and yet wants to be chairwoman of this chemical company instead of just selling her share of the stock after the death of husband and go back to acting, which to me would seem a lot more fun.

In an effort to keep the plot moving the film takes a few liberties with the plausibility. One of the major ones is when Hubbell wants to find out about the secret account and does so by breaking into the office of his superior where he finds in his desk drawer a notebook that lists the computer passcode, which seemed too convenient. In reality I would think a programmer would have to be hired in order to hack the system, which would have taken longer to play out, but also if done right heighten the tension as well as the believability.

Spoiler Warning!!

The film’s biggest transgression is the ending itself, which has the Arabs pulling the money out of the secret fund, which causes mass worldwide economic turmoil and chaos. Not only does this seem to create a whole new movie, but it also minimizes the two main characters and everything that we watched them do for the past two hours. A much better ending would have had the characters come up with some way to avert the collapse instead of the gloomy pessimistic way that it does take, which seems overblown and hard to believe.

End of Spoiler Warning!

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: December 11, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 56Minutes

Rated R

Director: Alan J. Pakula

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: VHS, DVD, YouTube, Amazon Instant Video

2 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Moody/Stylish, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Mystery, Thrillers/Suspense

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Night of the Juggler (1980)

Posted on May 19, 2014 | 3 comments

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: A father’s relentless search.

Sean Boyd (James Brolin) is a divorced man and retired cop now working as a truck driver and raising his twelve-year-old daughter Kathy (played by Abby Bluestone who now works as a talent agent) in the not-so-nice section of New York City. Gus Soltic (Cliff Gorman) lives in a rundown building slated for destruction and kidnaps Kathy mistakenly thinking she is the daughter of a rich man who can pay him a high ransom. Instead he now must contend with Sean who will stop at nothing to get her back and stalks Gus with a relentless determination to find her.

The film is based on the William P. McGivern novel who was a noted mystery writer who brought an extra degree of realism to his stories. Director Robert Butler nicely keys in on this by not having a loud, pounding music score and instead relying on the natural ambience to create the tension. The film has an incredible amount of action that almost seems non-stop. The car chase that goes through park pathways and even crowded city sidewalks is amazing. The climatic foot chase in the catacombs of the underground city tunnels is atmospheric as is the foot chase through abandoned properties where Sean not only pursues Gus, but must also fight off a Hispanic street gang that are right on his heels. The scene where Dan Hedaya seemingly destroys every display window in the city with his automatic rifle aimed at Sean’s head is both effective and amusing.

Despite its strong gritty nature the film does manage to have a few amusing scenes including Sean stealing a street preacher’s car with the preacher still in it as he pursues Gus.  I also liked the scene where Lieutenant Tonelli (Richard S. Catellano) is enjoying a dish of yogurt until the vendor tells him how it gets made. Unfortunately there are a few moments that end up being funny in an unintentional way including Sean’s intense confrontation with strippers (played by famous 70’s/80’s porn stars Serena and Sharon Mitchell) while inside an adult peep show.

Brolin physically looks perfect for the role especially with his black beard and mustache that gives him a Charles Manson-like quality, but overall he is a bit sterile. Gorman is effective as the psycho and even has a few moments of unexpected tenderness. Castellano comes off best as the tubby, but stoic detective.

The film has its share of flaws including having Gus grab the girl in broad daylight in the middle of a park with dozens of other people around, but no one except for her father does anything to try and stop him. I realize that the city was still under the stigma at the time of the Kitty Genovese case in which a woman was raped and murdered and many witnesses either saw or heard it and did nothing to help, but this scene  is still a bit unrealistic. Also, Gus kidnaps the wrong girl because both girls were wearing blue overalls, but the chances of two pre-teen girls living in a cosmopolitan city wearing overalls especially when one of them is from a rich and snooty area seems slim-to-none.

Overall despite all the action the film still comes off as jarring and jumbled and strangely uninvolving. The incessant focus of showing New York as bleak and apocalyptic becomes one-dimensional. The story itself is run-of-the-mill and forgettable.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: June 6, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 41Minutes

Rated R

Director: Robert Butler

Studio: Columbia Pictures

Available: VHS

3 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Fast Cars/Car Chase, Kidnapping Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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Flareup (1969)

Posted on April 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

flareup

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 3 out of 10

4-Word Review: Stalker terrorizes go-go dancer.

Michele (Raquel Welch) is a Las Vegas go-go dancer that attracts the unwanted attention of Alan (Luke Askew) who blames her for the breakup of his marriage. After killing his wife he then sets his sights on Michele who moves to Los Angeles in an attempt to lose him, but he figures out what club she is dancing at and continues his reign of terror. When Michele finds a new boyfriend named Joe (James Stacy) the psycho decides to add him to his already growing hit list.

Raquel is the whole movie. Her acting ability is definitely limited and at times even annoying, but in the looks department she gets an A+. In fact I’d say she is at her best looking here out of all the movies she has done. The scene where she gets on stage to gyrate her body during a provocative dance number is pretty much the highlight of the whole film. Although some of the other girls dance topless she does not and she very angrily rejects another female dancer who offers her some ‘woman love’, so there is no lesbian scene either, which could be a disappointment to some oversexed male viewers, but her presence offers enough eye candy to propel the movie on nonetheless.

Askew who wears a tacky bowl haircut looks a bit too clichéd, but he is a good enough actor to keep it tolerable. Stacy is decent as the love interest, but the romantic scenes bog down the pace. This was the last movie he did before he got into a motorcycle accident and lost his left leg and arm, which spiraled both his career and personal life downward and eventually led to a child molestation charge in 1995 that sent him to prison.

James Neilson’s direction is okay. The best part is the on-location shooting, which makes you feel like you are right back on the streets of Las Vegas from forty years ago and its fun seeing the different shops and billboards that were out during that era. The foot chase between Welch and Askew that occurs late at night in a zoo with wild animal noises heard in the background has potential, but should’ve gotten more extended.

The script though is one-note and gets stretched much too thin. The action starts out right away, but the pacing is poor and there is really never any tension. Everything gets done in a formulaic way with nothing that is unique or memorable.

Although I will give some credit to the finale that features a burning man the special effects are overall pretty shoddy. The psycho shoots at and kills people, but we never see any bullet holes or blood on the dead bodies. One scene has a security guard (Gordon Jump in an early role) shooting at Askew’s car and putting two bullet holes in its rear window, but then when the camera cuts away to a long view of the car the bullet holes have somehow miraculously disappeared.

My Rating: 3 out of 10

Released: November 10, 1969

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated M

Director: James Neilson

Studio: MGM

Available: VHS, DVD (Warner Archive)

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Posted in 60's Movies, Movies with Nudity, Romance, Thrillers/Suspense

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Tattoo (1981)

Posted on April 7, 2014 | 3 comments

tattoo

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: He tattoos her body.

Karl Kinsky (Bruce Dern) is a tattoo artist hired to put tattoos on some models for a fashion shoot. There he becomes obsessed with one of the models named Maddy (Maude Adams). The two begin dating, but when he starts to show signs of being too possessive she breaks it off, which angers him. He then drugs and kidnaps her and takes her to an abandoned house where he becomes determined to put his ‘mark’ on her by spending weeks creating a tattoo that will eventually covers her entire body.

Bob Brooks who was best known for directing award-winning commercials particularly in the U.K. shows a rather lifeless effort here in his one and only cinematic effort. I thought it would have been more interesting to have given the viewer a close-up and clinical understanding of how a tattoo is implemented and the basic overall procedure, but unfortunately the film breezes past this part and tries turning it into a conventional thriller, which lacks tension or intrigue.

Dern’s character resembles that of a psycho caricature and the way he unravels so quickly is uninteresting. The story and pace meander badly and Joyce Bunuel’s script is more like an outline than a character or plot driven story.

Adams is badly miscast. For one thing she is a weak actress that fails to add any extra dimension to either the character or role. She is also too old. Most stalkers tend to prey on younger women and equate their perceived virginal innocence with a better ability to dominate and control them not a jaded 35-year-old woman who has already openly slept with a lot of different men and whose incessant, vapid yammering would be a turn-off to any guy.

When we finally get to see the finished tattoo at the end it looks like the most garish thing imaginable and second only to the awful one that he has on his back. Watching their tattooed bodies gyrate together during sex seems almost comical.

The film achieved some notoriety during its initial release when Dern stated during interviews that the sex the two had was real even though Adams insisted that it was simulated. Personally I think it was faked and Dern merely said this as a way to generate more interest in the movie. Either way it doesn’t matter because it’s a lousy movie anyways.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: October 9, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 43Minutes

Rated R

Director: Bob Brooks

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: VHS

3 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Kidnapping Movies, Movies with Nudity, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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The First Deadly Sin (1980)

Posted on March 24, 2014 | 2 comments

the first deadly sin

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 4 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aging cop tracks killer.

Based on the best-selling novel by Lawrence Sanders the story centers around Edward Delaney (Frank Sinatra) a cop only weeks away from retiring who becomes obsessed with tracking down a serial killer who hits people on the back of their heads with a sharp edge hammer as they are walking down the street. The problem is he has only a few clues to go on and his wife Barbara (Faye Dunaway) is in the hospital suffering from a mysterious illness that causes him additional stress and strain.

The film takes a refreshingly different approach to police work than what you will usually find in most Hollywood cop pictures. Instead of emphasizing exciting car chases and thrilling shoot-outs it instead analyzes the meticulous and often times tedious work that goes into following up every little lead while working inside a rigid system and under superiors that aren’t always supportive.  For the most part this is done quite well and at times it is even enlightening, but the whole first half is spent with Delaney trying to figure out what type of weapon was used in the killing even though we the viewer know what it is since we are shown the actual murder at the very beginning thus making the first hour seem quite derivative.

Having the film cut back and forth between scenes of Delaney and the killer doesn’t work. The psycho is played by David Dukes probably best known for playing the man who tries to rape Edith Bunker in a classic episode of ‘All in the Family’. He is a good actor, but scenes showing him alone are clichéd and at times even unintentionally funny. Director Brian G. Hutton should’ve cut them out completely as having the viewer come to realize who it is along with Delaney would have deepened the mystery angle and made it overall more intriguing.

The scenes with the sick wife don’t work either. For one thing we never find out what the mysterious illness is, which is highly frustrating and annoying. It also doesn’t make the plot or character any more interesting. Dunaway is a superior actress and she makes the most of the role’s limitations, but I felt an actress who was more Sinatra’s age would have made it more realistic instead of casting a woman who was 27 years younger.

I have always enjoyed Sinatra in his detective roles, but the character here isn’t as caustic as in some of his older films. For the most part he is pretty benign and even kind of boring. Joe Spinnell though makes the most of his bit part as an overzealous doorman who believes in rigidly following the rules and taking great pride in his doorman duties, but quickly willing to bend them the minute he is given some bribe money.

The final showdown between Delaney and the killer is quite unusual and much more low-key than you might expect. I enjoyed the twist that comes with it, but it lacks a strong impact and the film would have been better served had it had just a little more action.

This movie is also famous as being Bruce Willis’s film debut. He can be seen at the 1Hour 34Minute mark coming into a bar as Delaney walks out. He has a cap over his head and covering his eyes, but you can clearly see just by looking at his mouth that it is him.

My Rating: 4 out of 10

Released: October 3, 1980

Runtime: 1Hour 52Minutes

Rated R

Director: Brian G. Hutton

Studio: Filmways Production

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video

2 Comments

Posted in 80's Movies, Cold Climate/Wintertime Movies, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

Posted on March 14, 2014 | 6 comments

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Aliens create human clones.

Matthew Bennell (Donald Sutherland) is a public health inspector who finds that people around him are beginning to behave strangely. It starts with his friend Elizabeth (Brooke Adams) who insists her boyfriend Geoffrey (Art Hindle) has somehow ‘changed’. Soon other people are saying the same thing and they slowly realize that human clones are being created from alien pods while the people sleep. These clones look exactly like the people they have replaced, but are devoid of any emotion. Matthew and Elizabeth along with married couple Jack and Nancy (Jeff Goldblum, Veronica Cartwright) try to escape, but find themselves increasingly outnumbered in this creepy remake of the 1956 classic.

Talented director Philip Kaufman who has never gotten enough credit does a masterful job of weaving an updated version of the tale with more contemporary sensibilities. The balance between sci-fi, thriller and drama really works. The story is perfectly paced and the characters and situations remain believable throughout. Transferring the setting from a small town to San Francisco was inspired. Kaufman captures the sights, sounds and everyday ambience of the city better than just anybody who has done a film there and I really loved the shot of an early morning fog settling in on the top of the Transamerica Pyramid.

The special effects are fantastic. The opening sequence showing the alien spores raining down on the city and hitting onto plant and tree leaves where they form into flowers is very authentic looking and nicely captured. The coolest part though is watching the clones of the humans form out of the pods particularly the sequence showing Bennell’s clone coming to life while he sleeps. Seeing a dog with a human head is wild and Bennell’s destruction of a pod factory is also quite exciting. Denny Zeitlin’s electronic music score is distinctive, but not overplayed and effectively used at key moments although I did feel that there should have been some music played over the closing credits instead of just dead silence.

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Sutherland is good, but his 70’s style afro isn’t. The part where he tries in vain to warn various city officials of the impending invasion, but can make no headway is a perfect portrait of government bureaucracy and almost a horror movie in itself. Adams is beautiful and the way she can somehow make her eyeballs quiver has to be seen to be believed. Goldblum is fun as a brash struggling writer who never seems to know when to stop talking and has a conspiracy theory about everything. Cartwright plays a panicked woman better than anybody and Leonard Nimoy is solid in a sort of Spock-like role where the character believes everything must have a logical conclusion.

There are also some neat cameo appearances as well. Robert Duvall can be spotted at the beginning swinging on a swing. Kevin McCarthy who starred in the original steps into where he left off in the first one as a man running into traffic and warning motorists of the invasion. Don Siegal who directed the first film plays a cab driver and famous cinematographer Michael Chapman can be seen briefly as a janitor. Director Kaufman casts himself in a bit part as a man banging on the glass of a phone booth while Sutherland is making a call.

This movie is smart and stylish and in a lot of ways I liked it better than the original. The only real drawback is the fact that it becomes increasingly clear that these people aren’t going to escape and the drawn out chase sequence becomes more depressing and defeating than exciting.

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My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: December 20, 1978

Runtime: 1Hour 55Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Philip Kaufman

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD

6 Comments

Posted in 70's Movies, Moody/Stylish, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with Nudity, Remakes, Sci-Fi, Thrillers/Suspense

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Fleshburn (1984)

Posted on March 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

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By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: Lost in the desert.

Calvin Duggai (Sonny Landham) is a Vietnam vet sent to a mental hospital when four psychiatrists insist he does not know the difference between right and wrong. Eventually he escapes from the place and proceeds to kidnap the four people who had him put away and takes them to the middle of the hot desert where he forces them to try and survive the harsh elements with nothing more than their wits to rely on.

Based on the Brian Garfield novel ‘Fear in a Handful of Dust’ the film moves at a brisk pace and manages to be relatively gripping. The pounding rock music-like score helps build the tension. The idea that the four people decide to remain where they are and not go searching through the desert for help seems slightly odd, but the characters at least come off as real people and some of the things that they do to survive is innovative and yet still believable. The viewer genuinely starts to care for these people and wants to see them survive, which helps keep the film captivating.

70’s adult film star-turned-actor Landham isn’t bad in the lead. His muscular physique is quite intimidating and he has a threatening presence. Steve Kanaly best known for his work on the ‘Dallas’ TV-series is solid as the one who takes over and tries to help the others beat the elements. His best moment comes when he spits out a sharp shell like object that he has hidden in his mouth and into his hand where he uses it to cut the rope that is binding him to a rock.

There is some interesting flashback sequences at the beginning particularly the one showing the Karen Carlson character having an affair with Kanaly much to the dismay of her husband who is also one of the victims and yet the film doesn’t follow-up with it even though it could’ve and should’ve. Despite the story’s vindictive theme it really comes off more like a basic survival saga that could easily have worked as a TV-movie. The film is competently produced and directed, but fails to be distinctive or memorable.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: May 24, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated R

Director: George Gage

Studio: Crown International Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 80's Movies, Drama, Kidnapping Movies, Low Budget, Movies Based on Novels, Movies with a rural setting, Outdoors, Thrillers/Suspense

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