Dead Ringer (1964)

Posted on October 13, 2013 | 2 comments

dead ringer

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 5 out of 10

4-Word Review: She kills her twin.

Edith (Bette Davis) attends the funeral of her twin sister’s husband a man she secretly loved and who became very rich. Edith struggles as a bar owner and is jealous of her sister Margaret’s affluent lifestyle. When she finds out that Margaret tricked her way into marrying this man it sends Edith over-the-edge in rage. She kills Margaret and then assumes her identity only to come into some unexpected complications and realize things would have been better had she just remained herself.

Davis shines in the dual role. She had already played this type of role before in 1946 in A Stolen Life. I was surprised that although she was only 56 at the time this was filmed her face looked very old and haggard almost like she was 70. Watching her eyes get all wide and roll around every time she becomes suspicious or nervous is a treat in itself.

Paul Henreid an actor turned director who is probably best known for playing the role of Victor Laszlo in Casablanca doesn’t quite give the story the zing that it needs. He employs a lot of long takes especially during the first hour that slows things down too much and doesn’t build any tension. There is a lot of extended dialogue and scenes that could have been cut out completely that would have made the movie faster paced and more exciting.

The story itself has a few too many plot holes. One is the fact that Edith meets Margaret for the first time in several decades at the funeral and then suddenly the next day decides to kill her and assume her identity, which seemed too quick. I would have expected a lot more complications than there are and the fact that she can seem to remember all the servants’ names without a hitch didn’t quite jive. There is also a scene where the detective character played by Karl Malden enters someone’s apartment and riffles through his personal belongings without any type of search warrant or probable cause, which is not realistic. They do find some incriminating evidence, but I think it would have been thrown out based on that technicality, which in turn would have completely altered the film’s ending.

The supporting cast adds some spark. Malden is good as the dogged detective a type of part he refined even more in the 1970’s TV-series ‘The Streets of San Francisco’. Peter Lawford who is always terrific is fun as Margaret’s conniving lover Tony. You can also spot in bit parts the familiar faces of Jean Hagen, Henry Beckman, Bryan O’Byrne, Bert Remsen, and Estelle Winwood. Henreid even casts his own daughter Monika in the part of Margaret’s maid Janet.

There are some fun twists that come near the end, but it takes too long to get there. The film would have been more successful had it had a more compact running time and direction that was flashy and creative.

My Rating: 5 out of 10

Released: February 19, 1964

Runtime: 1Hour 55Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Paul Henreid

Studio: Warner Brothers

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 60's Movies, Black & White, Court Drama, Police Drama, Thrillers/Suspense

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Audrey Rose (1977)

Posted on October 11, 2013 | Leave a comment

audrey rose 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Dead daughter gets reincarnated.

On October 3rd, 1965 at precisely 8:20AM a young Audrey Rose dies in a fiery car crash. At 8:22AM on that same day Ivy (Susan Swift) is born to Janice and Bill Templeton (Marsha Mason, John Beck). Several years later after talking to a couple of psychics Audrey’s father Elliot (Anthony Hopkins) becomes convinced that his dead daughter has been reincarnated in the body of Audrey. When he approaches Ivy’s parents about it they scoff and then when he tries to take her they have him arrested. He then goes on trial where he tries to get 12 jurors to believe that reincarnation is a reality.

Based on the Frank De Felitta novel, and who also wrote the screenplay, this odd hybrid of a horror film never really takes-off.  Director Robert Wise does a terrific job of capturing the Manhattan skyline and a late 70’s New York City ambience as well as the gorgeous classic paintings that line the ceiling of Janice’s and Bill’s apartment, but he has a story that is light on action. The restrained and genteel narrative creates a film that seems more like a conventional drama than a horror film despite a storyline that is brimming with supernatural elements.

Every effort is made to keep the proceedings as realistic as possible only to have the entire second hour delving into a court room drama with a defense strategy that is so outlandish it becomes almost ludicrous. Having Elliot become convinced of the reincarnation through talking to psychics is another weak point. The few so-called psychics that I have been to have proven to be inaccurate and unreliable and most people that I know have had the same experience. In the past few years several famous psychics have been outed in the media as being frauds and charlatans. Having the film treat these people like they are a reliable source puts the entire premise on poor footing from the very beginning.

Mason can play a distraught and beleaguered character about as well as anyone and her teary-eyed presence helps give the film a few extra points. Beck is also good as her husband and their contrasting personalities and approaches to the situation add an interesting subtext.

Not to necessarily sound cruel but Swift as the young girl has a big pair of buggy eyes that to me became more of a distraction as it went along. Also, with her long brown hair she starts to resemble the Linda Blair character from The Exorcist, which was a far more intense, scary, and exciting film than this one. The producers would have done well to have cast a blonde or redhead in the role simply to avoid the comparison.

The scares are almost non-existent and the only slightly spooky moment is the scene where Swift looks into a mirror and chants the Audrey Rose name repeatedly, which is the only time where her buggy eyes come into good use. The several scenes showing her running around the place and banging onto the widows while screaming become old pretty fast. The direction is slick and the production values good. It is compelling enough to be entertaining, but the ending is very unsatisfying and as a thriller it is transparent and unmemorable.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: April 6, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 53Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Robert Wise

Studio: United Artists

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 70's Movies, Court Drama, Drama, Horror, Movies Based on Novels, Movies that take place in the Big Apple

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Don’t Go in the Woods (1981)

Posted on October 10, 2013 | 2 comments

don't go in the woods

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 0 out of 10

4-Word Review: Don’t watch this movie.

Excruciatingly bad on all levels this film could very well rank as the worst horror movie/slasher film of all time and given how many bad ones there are that is really saying something. The story, or what little there is of it, features four college-aged hikers, two men and two women, spending an idyllic weekend in the woods of a state park. Little do they know that a madman is on the loose and killing people at a frantic pace. When he catches up with them they run, scream, and then get sliced up.

The acting itself is the real horror. Usually even a real low budget film will at least have a few B-names in the cast whether they were famous at one time and now slumming, or an up-and-coming star, but this has neither. Most of the cast never appeared in another film and watching them perform here will tell you why. Of course having them straddled with stale, stilted dialogue that has no conversational quality doesn’t help and the proceedings would have been better off had director James Bryan allowed them to ad-lib.

The gory special effects are unimaginative and pathetic. It is edited in such a way that it is very hard to follow what exactly is happening to the victims and the majority of it basically entails gobs of red blood splattering everywhere and little else.

The killer is laughable and dressed in a Neanderthal getup that makes him look like a cross between a caveman and what a Minnesota Vikings fan wears to a football game. His cartoonish laugh is annoying and the isolated, decrepit cabin that he resides in seems too reminiscent to Jason’s hangout in Friday the 13th Part 2. There is also never any explanation, even at the very end, as to who the hell this guy is, how he got there, or where he is from.

This film also has one of the ugliest female casts of any horror film I have seen. Usually films of this genre cast a couple of Playboy Playmates or Penthouse Pets in the mix as eye candy to help liven things up during the slow parts, but this one instead has the two female leads with such short haircuts that they almost look like boys. There is also no nudity, which in this instance is probably a good thing.

Outside of a cheesy song played over the closing credits the film lacks any type of music score. In some ways like in I Spit on Your Grave this can help accentuate the cinema-vertite grittiness, but here it makes an already cheap production seem even cheaper. Some music could have helped cover-up the constant sound of birds cooing in the background, which eventually got annoying. The dialogue was also dubbed in during post production, which gives it even more of an amateurish quality.

The director of this one has absolutely no talent or ability. Your average fifth-grader could pump out something better than this.

My Rating: 0 out of 10

Released: September 1, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 22Minutes

Rated R

Director: James Bryan

Studio: Seymour Borde and Associates

Available: DVD, YouTube

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Posted in 80's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with a rural setting, Outdoors, Slasher/Gore

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Funny Games (1997)

Posted on October 9, 2013 | 5 comments

funny games 3

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 8 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killers like playing games.

A family is tormented by two young men (Arno Frisch, Frank Geiring) who break into their home and proceed to play ‘funny games’ on them. These games are cruel and humiliating in nature. They are ‘played’ simply to prove that they can. As the film progresses and reveals some very unusual narrative devices it becomes obvious that the real ‘funny games’ are those played on the viewer by writer/director Michael Haneke.

Clearly this is long overdue as it is a revisionist look at the very violent psycho/thriller genre. Last House on the Left and Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer have both handled the violence and dehumanization theme quite well before, which thus minimizes some of this film’s shock value. Yet Haneke shows an astute awareness of his craft and its manipulative nature. He cuts into all the accepted formalities and conventions of the genre and film making in general that you have to give it high marks. There is one scene, where the camera literally stays locked on the carnage for several minutes that the repugnance of violence really does hit home as intended.

funny games 2

The whole thing is supposed to shake the viewer into reevaluating their own viewpoints. It’s an almost ongoing assault questioning their views on justice, tolerance to violence, prayer and other cosmic forces and even their own fragility. It also tries to force them to analyze why they view these types of films and find them entertaining.

Like the heavy metal music played over the opening credits this thing is raw, abrasive and filled with anger and rebellion. Haneke is clearly upset. Upset at irresponsible directors who make violent films and an overly tolerant public that watches them.

This is an ugly film with an unrelenting nature and flashes of contempt. The average movie goer will probably not like it. However, it you are a connoisseur of cutting edge cinema then you may find the whole thing refreshingly provocative.

funny games 1

Frisch and Geiring as the two killers look and act so much against type that they become two of the most chilling and memorable villains in screen history. Also, Susanne Lothar and Ulrich Muhe who play the husband and wife victims are actually married in real life.

An American version, which was directed by Haneke as well and stars the beautiful Naomi Watts and follows this one almost scene-for-scene was released in 2007.

funny games 4

My Rating: 8 out of 10

Released: May 14, 1997

Runtime: 1Hour 48Minutes

Not Rated

Director: Michael Haneke

Studio: Attitude Films

Available: DVD, Blu-ray, Amazon Instant Video

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Posted in 90's Movies, Cult, Foreign Films, Horror, Moody/Stylish, Movies with a rural setting, Psychological

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Squirm (1976)

Posted on October 8, 2013 | Leave a comment

squirm

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review:  Worms invade a town.

A thunderstorm knocks down some power lines, which creates a surge amongst the worms in the earth and prompts them to come out of the dirt and go on the attack. Thousands upon thousands of them descend onto a small southern town filling up stores and homes and viciously biting those that get in their way.

A bizarre but interesting idea for a horror movie that manages to succeed mainly because it keeps it relatively believable. The worms stay regular size and the rationale behind it has some logical backing. It does take a while to get going and the real scares don’t occur until the very end. The subplot involving the tracking down of some skeletal remains doesn’t add anything, but the film is well crafted enough to build a weird atmosphere. The climax which features a home filled from floor to ceiling with millions of squirming worms is a unique sight.

R. A. Dow, who plays Roger the bad guy, is equally memorable. He looks menacing to begin with, but when he falls into a pile of the worms and gets all sorts of them eating into his face and he starts to look genuinely frightening. He then goes through the rest of the picture as this creepy worm-like man that is enhanced by the excellent make-up effects by the renowned Rick Baker.

Don Scardino makes for an interesting good guy/lead. He is not brawny, good looking, or even cool, but instead brainy and at certain points quite timid. At times he gets a bit too wussy, but he is at least a refreshing change to the blow-dried stud muffin. He resembles the film’s writer/director Jeff Lieberman and may have been cast simply for that reason.

Patricia Pearcy is capable as the love interest. She is a bit too country and certainly no beauty, but manages to be distinctive nonetheless. Fran Higgins as her younger sister Alma possesses one of the homelier looking faces you will ever see. Having her paint her nails and wear high heels so she can look ‘sexy’ seems almost cruelly comical.

The opening storm segment is weak with the falling power lines looking too much like they are miniature replicas. Lieberman’s recreation of the small town southern people is clichéd and stilted. The music is effective except for a part where a child sings a creepy little tune that doesn’t quite work or fit.

The close-ups of the worms are awesome, but I didn’t care for the sound effects used that sounds like squealing pigs. The noise effects created to resemble their squirming comes-off too much like sloshing water.

Overall the film manages to be effective. It’s certainly no classic, but successfully original.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: July 30, 1976

Runtime: 1Hour 30Minutes

Rated R

Director: Jeff Lieberman

Studio: American International Pictures

Available: VHS, DVD

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies that take place in the South, Offbeat

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A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)

Posted on October 7, 2013 | 7 comments

nightmare on elm street

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: Freddy’s in their dreams.

Teenager Nancy (Heather Langenkamp) starts having nightmares about a strange man (Robert Englund) with burned skin, a green and red sweater and wearing a glove with sharp finger-like blades. She finds out that her friends are having the same type of dream and that this man is a former child murderer named Fred Krueger who is reaching out from his grave to attack them.

This movie has been parodied and imitated so much over the years that one forgets what an original idea this was. Writer/director Wes Craven uses stark, shadowy lighting and a distinctive music score to build a great horror atmosphere. The name Freddy Krueger, which he named after a childhood bully of his, is inspired. The scene where he appears in a dark alley as a midget with extremely long arms is a creepy image and possibly the scariest moment in the film. The pace is good and the scenarios imaginative making this well above average when compared to a typical 80’s slasher film and a definite classic.

The special effects are also quite creative and although not completely successful still a lot of fun to watch.  I loved the whole bathtub scene as well as the segment where Glen (Johnny Depp) gets sucked inside his bed, which creates a big hole in his mattress where a giant flow of blood comes gushing out of it and covers the entire ceiling and walls of his room. It may not make complete sense, but cool to look at nonetheless. The part where Tina (Amanda Wyss) gets pushed up the wall and ceiling of her room by an invisible force while being slashed is quite scary to watch despite the fact that when a close-up is shown of her skin getting cut it looks more like it is made a of clay and her bloodied body on the floor appears like it where drenched with a bucket of red paint.

heather 2

Langenkamp is fantastic in the lead and I would nominate her as the all-time best heroine of a slasher film. Her face is beautiful, but also quite expressive and she seems to show genuine emotion and far exceeds the typical cardboard scream queen. Her presence and not that of the villainous Freddy, whose screen time here is more limited than you think, is what carries the film. There is also a fun in-joke when she looks in a mirror and states “God, I look like I am 20”, which is funny since despite playing a teen character she really was 20 at the time of the shooting.  (I realize on the DVD commentary she states that she was 18 or 19, but the truth is she was born July 17, 1964 and this was filmed between June and July of 1984, so she was either 20 or very, very close.)

It’s great seeing Johnny Depp in his film debut. He still looks boyish at 50, but here looks like he is barely 10 years old. It is amusing seeing him play a sort-of doofus and he also gets a good line when after hearing Tina and her boyfriend having sex in the other room states “Reality sucks”.

amanda wyss

I also enjoyed Wyss for her amazing piercing blue eyes, but having her willingly go to bed with Rod (Jsu Garcia) an obnoxious, crass, Fonzi wannabe makes her character seem kind of stupid.

John Saxon is competent as Nancy’s father who also works as the town’s police chief, but I couldn’t say the same for Ronee Blakley as the mother. She was unforgettable with her brilliant performance in Nashville, but seemed to be miscast in every film that she did afterwards and it should probably be no surprise that she hasn’t been in any film since 1990. I also didn’t care for her sprayed-on tan look either.

Despite being an enjoyable film there are a few logical inconsistencies that I feel should be addressed. One is that I would argue it is virtually impossible for someone to know that they are in a dream when they are dreaming even though the characters here do. It should also have been better explained how the Freddy character is able to come out of the dream and into real-life, which gets confusing.  The part where Nancy states that she hasn’t slept in seven nights, but doesn’t show any physical or psychological signs of it are too much of a stretch.  Also, I had to chuckle at the part where Nancy comes home to find that her mother has had bars placed on all the windows of the home for added security, but then doesn’t bother to lock the front door as Nancy is able to walk inside without having to use a key.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: November 16, 1984

Runtime: 1Hour 31Minutes

Rated R

Director: Wes Craven

Studio: New Line Cinema

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

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Cult, Horror, Low Budget, Slasher/Gore

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Eye of the Cat (1969)

Posted on October 6, 2013 | 1 comment

eye of the cat 2

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: He’s afraid of cats

Wylie (Michael Sarrazin) returns to the home of his rich Aunt Danny (Eleanor Parker) who he hasn’t seen in ages at the urging of his girlfriend Kassia (Gayle Hunnicutt). Kassia has become aware that the aunt is suffering from severe emphysema and must sleep in an oxygen tent at night. She wants Wylie to get back into his aunt’s will and then when he does they will sneak into her bedroom and turn off her oxygen. The problem is that Danny also owns a lot of cats and Wylie suffers from ailurophobia, which is the irrational fear of them and this further complicates the matter.

David Lowell Rich directed mainly TV-movies in his career, but scores for the most part in this rare theatrical attempt. I enjoyed the split screen montage done over the opening credits as well as the bird’s eye view of the Golden Gate Bridge. The viewer gets a zesty feel of the San Francisco locale and the scene where Aunt Danny’s wheelchair teeters off of a very steep incline is well shot and edited. My only beef is with the inside of Aunt Danny’s mansion, which is basically just sets constructed on a sound stage that is a very clichéd, unimaginative view of a ‘rich person’s house’ that gives the production a kind of cheap and tacky look.

Saarazin again nails it. Usually he plays sensitive leading men, but here does a change of pace as the very amoral and apathetic cad and it works.

Parker is quite good in a latter career role. She was only 46 at the time making her one of the more attractive and sexy wheelchair bound Aunts you will ever see. The fact that she is going to leave her entire fortune to her cats seems whacky, but then after seeing Wylie for the first time in years she decides to immediately change her will and make him the beneficiary seems even crazier. The character could easily be written off as being ridiculously campy, but somehow Parker, who has always has a knack for playing vulnerable people, makes her seem entertaining and even intriguing instead. I enjoyed her strange misplace morality and the fact that she is attracted to the much younger Wylie and even makes a pass at him, which creates for some interesting sexual undertones.

Hunnicutt doesn’t have a lot of lines, but her facial expressions are right on-target for that of a cold and conniving woman. The scene where she has a physical fight with one of Wylie’s former girlfriends (Jennifer Leak) while inside the woman’s bathroom at a bar is fun especially as it is captured from a bird’s-eye vantage point having Wylie try to get into the middle of it to break it up only to get beaten up by the two makes it even more entertaining.

Of course the real stars are the cats. There are literally hundreds of them and the best scene is where they fight over a dish of raw meat. I loved hearing their very guttural growls and watching them hiss and claw at each other. The close-ups of their eyes and mouths are well captured and they appear well trained as they scratch at Hunnicutt and chase her all around during the final sequence.

The film has a few twists although I saw them coming long before they happened. The film isn’t bad for its type, but it fails to distinguish itself and becomes nothing more than a passable time-filler.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: June 18, 1969

Runtime: 1Hour 37Minutes (TV-Print runs 1Hour 30Minutes and has different scenes edited in.)

Rated M

Director: David Lowell Rich

Studio: Universal

Available: www.modcinema.com (Both the theatrical and TV-Print.)

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Posted in 60's Movies, Obscure Movies, Thrillers/Suspense

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The Strange Vengeance of Rosalie (1972)

Posted on October 4, 2013 | Leave a comment

the strange vengeance of rosalie

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 7 out of 10

4-Word Review: She can’t be trusted.

This is an okay obscurity about an Indian girl named Rosalie (Bonnie Bedelia) whose grandfather has just died and in an attempt to stave off loneliness tricks Virgil (Ken Howard) a traveling businessman into coming back to her isolated ramshackle place. Once there she breaks his leg in order to trap him and hopes that in the time it takes to heal he will learn to love her.

Critic Leonard Maltin calls this film “farfetched” and going “way off base” yet nothing could be further from the truth. If you accept the initial premise then the rest of the film is carried out in a plausible and believable fashion.

Director Jack Starrett certainly has a vision here. The remote desert like local is captured well and gives it a distinct feel. The premise is static, but the story keeps moving and new elements are added in nicely. The second hour does begin to meander, but it is finished off by a surprise ending that comes out of nowhere and is completely unexpected. You have to watch it all the way through to really appreciate it yet it does help the film come together and even helps explain its title.

The similarities between this and Misery are quite evident and in some ways this film wins out. It is not as slick or polished, but it is also not as formulated either. This is not your standard thriller as you have no idea where it is going. It runs the gamut between drama, adventure, and even human interest. There is also the added sexuality element and a genuine relationship between the two, which Misery did not have.

The best thing is the Rosalie character. She is young and beautiful. Her intentions and motivations are constantly surprising. In some ways she is like the Barbara Eden character in ‘I Dream of Jeannie’. She is naive and trusting, but also headstrong, self- sufficient and cunning and Bedelia is perfect in the role.

Being made in the early 70’s and at the height of political awareness there is some thought to there being meaning to the fact that she is Indian and Howard the typical white businessman. She is constantly trying to win approval of this white man who otherwise seems oblivious to her conditions or needs. He is also too self-absorbed and too locked into his mindset of minorities being ‘inferior’ to realize how consistently she outsmarts him. Like with a lot of minorities there is a great deal of frustration with the attitudes of the establishment. Howard is just too stuck in to his preconceived notions to ever see her as an equal no matter how hard she tries.

Overall this is a decent film especially when compared to other low budget, independent films of that same era. The twist ending helps, but you have to stick with it.

My Rating: 7 out of 10

Released: June 16, 1972

Runtime: 1Hour 47Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Jack Starrett

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Available: Amazon Instant Video (Edited Version)

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

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Graduation Day (1981)

Posted on October 3, 2013 | Leave a comment

graduation day

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 2 out of 10

4-Word Review: Killer slashes track team.

When the high school’s top track star Laura (Ruth Ann Llorens) collapses mysteriously after winning a race strange things start happening to her teammates. One-by-one they get knocked-off by a killer who has a way with swords, but who could it be? Her brash, driven coach (Christopher George) who pushes his players past their breaking point or maybe it’s her strange sister Anne (Patch Mackenzie) who comes back home from the military. The clues and suspects keep piling up, but can the police find the culprit before the entire team gets killed?

Writer Anne Marisse and director Herb Freed teamed up four years earlier to make the very original one-of-a-kind horror film Haunts where they created an excellent atmosphere on a nickel-and-dime budget that is completely lacking here. The scares and suspense even on a cheap level is non-existent. What is even worse is that there is no central character just a mishmash of uninteresting people and scenes that does not help to create any empathy from the viewer nor story momentum.

Freed’s direction is lively to some extent as he does inject some humor and a couple moments were he uses quick flash editing, but his other camera work is off-putting. I particularly got annoyed with a tracking shot showing a person running alongside a moving camera that seemed to make them look like they were on a treadmill, or going unnaturally slow in order to not outrun the camera. This is done several times throughout the film with different characters and the result is very artificial looking. He also features a band named Felony that sings a long seven minute song called ‘Gangster Rock’ that almost turns this thing into a music video. A scene showing a woman being chased by the killer is intercut between the band playing and this takes the viewer out of the film completely and kills what little suspense there already is.

The killings themselves are unimpressive. The scene showing a victim getting beheaded looks too much like it is a mannequin and it is highly doubtful that any sword could make that type of precise and quick cut. Another death features a pole- vaulter  being impaled by a mat full of sharp spikes, which is pretty much ruined when we can clearly seeing that the victim is still breathing even as he lays there with the spikes having gone right through him.

There is logic loopholes as well including having the killer store the Laura’s dead body inside his bedroom and pretend she is still alive, which is too reminiscent to Psycho to be effective or interesting. I also didn’t know how somebody could dig up a dead body from a cemetery and not have the victim’s family, or the cemetery workers not notice. The make-up used to try to make her appear decomposed instead made her look more like she was a member of the KISS rock group.

Michael Pataki hams it up nicely as the school’s beleaguered principal and becomes a scene stealer in the process. Christopher George is so irritable and belligerent with anyone who makes contact with him that he becomes fun as well. Linnea Quigley has a nice topless scene as the horny Delores and Virgil Frye who is the father of Soleil Moor Frye of Punky Brewster fame has a few goofy moments as the school’s incompetent security guard. The funniest though is Patrick Wright as a grungy, overweight truck driver who feels that he is entitled to take liberties with Ann who is returning home from the service simply because he is a ‘taxpayer’.

Sources list Vanna White as the character of Doris, but I didn’t spot her and I don’t feel like going all the back through this cardboard thing again just to see if I can.

My Rating: 2 out of 10

Released: May 1, 1981

Runtime: 1Hour 36Minutes

Rated R

Director: Herb Freed

Studio: IFI

Available: DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube 

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Posted in 80's Movies, Adolescence/High School, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with Nudity, Slasher/Gore

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Haunts (1977)

Posted on October 1, 2013 | Leave a comment

haunts

By Richard Winters

My Rating: 6 out of 10

4-Word Review: Haunted by childhood memories

This is an extremely odd horror film that manages to be effective nonetheless. The story deals with Ingrid (May Britt) a deeply spiritual woman living alone on an isolated farmstead and occasionally visited by her uncle Carl (Cameron Mitchell).  She is haunted by strange childhood memories and visions that are never quite clear. When a killer begins murdering women in the nearby small town Ingrid feels she knows who the culprit is and when he attacks her she notifies the police, but no one seems to believe her, which leads to weird and unexpected twists.

The film has all the usual trappings that one might expect from a low budget 70’s horror film and in some cases it is even worse. The film stock is faded and grainy and while in a certain way this helps build atmosphere it also looks like someone’s amateurish home movie. The lighting is flat and the backgrounds of the interior scenes are quite bland. The voices of the actors echo and sound like they were picked up by a weak inexpensive boom microphone. There are also certain nighttime sequences that are too dark and shadowy and it is hard to follow the action and yet despite all this I still found the film to be quite captivating even more so than most horror films.

Writer/director Herb Freed captures the small town life quite well. Filmed on location in Mendocino, California the rainy, gray climate, dry fall-like landscape, and old gothic style homes helps build a great atmosphere. Pino Donaggio’s musical score is filled with long violin strains and flute solos that usually would be better suited for a romance yet the melodic sound works surprising well with the material and even heightens the dark underscore of the story. The characters have interesting flaws and although the scares are quite sparse they are still effective.

Britt gives a superior performance and casting her in the lead was astute. Her bright blonde hair and Swedish accent helps give it distinction. The scenes that she is in are compelling while the ones without her are a dull and draggy. Mitchell isn’t quite as good. He was once considered an up-and-coming star until alcoholism banished him to low budget movie hell. He openly took just about any part for the money and I couldn’t help but feel that he was phoning in this one. Aldo Ray who plays the town sheriff isn’t much better, but I felt this was more from lack of talent than effort.

The killer could have been created to be more frightening and distinguished than just some schmuck with a ski mask. The movie is also a bit overlong and at times confusing. It requires close attention and maybe even a repeat viewing to totally get it. Conventional horror movie fans may be put off by the lack of gore and its slow, but deliberate pace where the emphasis is more on mood than chills. However, the restrained and prolonged ending has to be one of the most unique in horror film history. The twist is intriguing and the final image that is captured through a mirror is memorable.

My Rating: 6 out of 10

Released: July 12, 1977

Runtime: 1Hour 40Minutes

Rated PG

Director: Herb Freed

Studio: International Film Distributors

Available: VHS, DVD, Amazon Instant Video, YouTube

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Posted in 70's Movies, Horror, Low Budget, Movies with a rural setting, Psychological

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