Stacy Kane, an ambitious woman working in a tawdry burlesque show at a carnival, schemes her way to New York City and gets a chance to sing in an exclusive night club. The one problem she has with her change of luck is that she chafes at the game she has to play, including becoming the mistress of the club owner. Manipulation follows manipulation to get out on top of the situation.
Satan in High Heels resides between sexploitation, film noir, and B-movie melodrama. I am a big fan of these kind of 1960s films and can forgive the flaws. These are not fast-paced films. There is a lot that I like about Satan in High Heels, though. One aspect is the night club environment, which is wonderfully evoked. There is an elegance to the club and the experience of being there. You even get a chance to see a little of the floor show. The performances are quite charming, too. Stacy is a compelling character, but my favorite performance is the queer-coded club manager. Grayson Hall, best known from the TV show Dark Shadows, plays her as witty, catty, and always aware of what is going on around her.
Blogger is giving me crap, so breaking these reviews down individually to see if I can sneak them through.
HARD WOMEN, aka PERRAK (35mm, 1970, BROOKLYN'S NITEHAWK CINEMA)
Shame that "Hard Women" screened one day too late for me to include in Eurosploitation Day! The never-released-on-home-video English dubbed version of this German police drama set in Hamburg's seedy tr@nsgender underworld (think Friedkin's "Cruising" 10 years prior and w/o the gay panic subtext) turned out to be 'just fine.' Horst Tappert (TV's Inspector Derrick) makes an appealing vice squad detective trying to find who killed a tr@nsvest!te pr0st!tute, which (surprise!) uncovers a deeper conspiracy. The 35mm print looked faded but that just adds to the exploitation charm. 'It's fine.' 3 STOLEN EARRINGS (out of five).
I've seen the trailer/heard the radio spot enough times that seeing the title instantly conjures up the "Hard Women" as spoken by Independent International's regular trailer voice-over guy.
zillagord, unless you track down a 35mm print you can't see "Hard Women" in English. Only "Perrak" in German (and a different cut than the version shown in the States) is somewhat available if you dig deep enough. 🧐🫤
In Joseph Kominski we trust... to reign-in the worst tendencies in Ehren Kruger's screenplay for "F1: The Movie," a $200 million self-aggrandizing advertisement for the motorized sport masquerading as a would-be summer blockbuster. It's also a reminder that old-fashioned star vehicles and predictable/formulaic filmmaking keep getting made for a reason: when made well they work like a charm and travel well abroad. I'm no fan of F1 and could anticipate everything the fictitious APX racing team went through during their hellish rebuilding half-year/season. As he did with "Top Gun: Maverick," though, Kominski (who co-wrote the film with Kruger) relies on the appeal of an ageless superstar (Brad Pitt) to sell the in-between-action filler melodrama. Special effects are excellent (too many 180-degree whip pans to/from the driver's cockpit), Hans Zimmer delivers another great score and a decent cast (Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon stand out among the painfully generic stereotypes) make this a great way to kill 3 hours in an air-conditioned IMAX screen. It's no "Maverick," but it sure ain't "Driven." :-P 3.25 UNSEEN PLAYING CARDS IN SONNY HAYES' POCKET (out of five).
Made in 2021 but not released theatrically until now due to one of its young stars testing positive for illegal substance use in early '23 (apparently still a big-enough deal in South Korea to derail a promising career), "High Five" is a reminder that non-IP superhero movies can still be a fun ride when done right. Six strangers receive transplant organs from a superpowered individual who (per the opening credits) lived through thousands of years, with each gaining an ability related to the organ they received. A little Taekwondo-loving girl (Jae-in Lee) with a new heart becomes super strong, a suicidal middle-aged yogurt saleswoman (Mi-ran Ra) becomes a conduit to others' powers and gets a youthful makeover from her new kidney, etc. But the recipient of the pancreas that grants youth by sucking energy from other life forms (including plants) turns out to be a selfish cult leader who wants all six organs to make himself an omnipotent god. I didn't like all the characters in "HF," but it was sure fun watching them trying to control their new powers and learning to get along before bad guy Shin Goo comes looking for them. The action-packed finale in the basement of a religious temple could teach Marvel's "Thunderbolts*" a thing or two about how to end an action pic with a bang. Love that in Korea a kid's movie can get away with characters saying "motherf#&!er" if it's clearly meant as a joke! :-D 3.75 OUT-OF-NOWHERE RICK ASTLEY CAMEOS (out of five).
Despite having some of the best 3D effects of any recent animated CG movie Pixar's "Elio" is a major disappointment. All movies (especially from the Disney brand) try to manipulate emotions to get us to like/feel for a character's loss/wishes, but here it rings hollow. Ellio's obsession with being abducted by aliens to escape a miserable life with his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) make him an unlikable protagonist. It doesn't help that the human designs are uglier and more off-putting than the average Pixar human. This project went through years of retooling and major changes to its story (Brad Garrett's Lord Grigon baddie was initially a completely different character) and it shows in the final product. The concept of the Communiverse and some alien designs (that deck of cards!) are cool, but the callbacks to better sci-fi flicks ("Last Starfighter," "Contact," etc.) constantly undermine its own.
I can't remember a time before when I wanted to stop watching and walk away from a Pixar movie during a first-time theatrical screening. I would have, but it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside. :-( 2.5 LAVA-PROOF SPACE BUG BESTIES (out of five).
Had to get in another Jim Kelly flick this month. In this case its a three way team up of Kelly, Fred Williamson, and Jim Brown!
The three estranged friends come together to share life lessons spending the entire run time in a coffee shop talking, hugging, and learni.....HA!...i kid! I kid!....they actually come together to fight a modern day Nazi inspired cult with plans of ethnic genocide. Kung fu! Guns! Cars that randomly explode throughout! A Chicago river boat tour!
Rare egg collector Donald Pleasance hires top climber Powers Boothe to steal some Bald Eagle eggs. Man of the forest and protector of animals Rutger Hauer must stop him, while Kathleen Turner romances both of them. Last Junesploitation watching The Hitcher I realized Rutger Hauer is, as Patrick would say, one of my guys. I've been trying to catch up on his filmography since. If you like the cast this one is worth watching, although not a lot happens. It's more about the characters sizing each other up until an unsatisfying climax. Weird movie.
The things this has going for it are the John Carl Buechler makeup effects and Richard Lynch and Hilary Shepard as the villains. Shepard in particular is doing... something. It gives off Saturday morning cartoon villain vibes. Unfortunately in keeping with the series, our hero is the least interesting thing in this.
There should be a super cut of all the "Scanner" faces in this because it would be hilarious.
In June 1994, George Romero came to Florida’s Valencia College to film a movie he’d wanted to make for some time—or at least part of it.
Working with students at the school, he shot a few minutes of Jacaranda Joe, a movie that was called The Footage in the 1970s. Pre-found footage mania, Romero wondered if a documentary could scare audiences. This would be at some point between The Crazies and Martin, so 1973-1978, during the time that Romero was working on O.J. Simpson: Juice On the Loose and three episodes of the TV series The Winners on Pittsburgh sports heroes Willie Stargell, Bruno Sammartino and Franco Harris.
Keep that sports hero part in your head for a bit.
In all three scripts that were written — major credit due to the University of Pittsburgh Horror Studies website for so many references — a show called Outdoorsman USA brings on major stars and athletes on authentic hunting and fishing trips that are captured raw and shared with the TV audience. There were two different versions — the “Franco Version” has the beneficiary of Franco’s Italian Army and the man who made the Immaculate Reception playing star quarterback Johnny Wilson, who is trying to leave the NFL behind while the other version has Johnny Shaw, “a star NFL quarterback who is just beginning a career as a country and western recording artist,” who has to be Terry Bradshaw — of who the hero would be, but the action is similar. Somehow, someone kidnaps a baby sasquatch, and the family starts to chase the humans, kind of like Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, but many years before.
Jacaranda Joe was written by Romero knowing that he would be filming for just ten days with young filmmakers. Valencia had a great class, obviously, as Robert Wise did the same class the year before. In this version, there is a skunk ape in the woods that is found by the crew of Remington, a TV talk show very much like the Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael-type shows — Sally Jessy is even mentioned — of the day.
This played on April 10, 2022, thanks to the University of Pittsburgh. Because all things online are captured, it’s in the Internet Archive. There’s not much more than a few scenes, but as you can imagine, it’s exciting to see a new George Romero film. It was also the first movie that the director made entirely outside of Pittsburgh, but not the last.
Neighbors (1981): John Belushi as the straight man, Dan Aykroyd as the zanny neighbor, what the heck is this? I'm kidding of course, this is exactly why I like this movie. I think they could've gone bigger and weirder, but what we got is fun enough, the kind of comedies Aykroyd and the gang specialized back then.
My fourth 90s Parker Posey of the month. Four women forge an ephemeral connection while stuck in temp jobs in a big, faceless company. Toni Collette and Parker Posey are both on fire in very different roles, and the movie does a great job painting the office environment as an oppressive, almost dystopian hellscape that crushes your spirit and messes with your mind. As an exploration of malaise in a modern working place, I liked it more than 1999’s Office Space.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (1976, dir. Jonas Middleton)
A-d-u-l-t cinema meets 1970s surreal arthouse horror. Catherine is an heiress living a life of luxury with a husband and a daughter. She seems to have everything, but feelings about her late father (Jamie Gillis) keep coming to the surface to torment her. Whenever she goes up to her childhood bedroom and stares into the antique mirror there, Catherine sees a demonic vision of her father beckoning to her from the other side of the mirror. Through The Looking Glass is atmospheric psychological horror mixed with random sex scenes necessary to meet certain viewer expectations. Those, though, are kept at a minimum and integrated into the story as much as possible. The story does go into some dark emotional territory, and the nightmare sequences get more surreal as the film goes along.
Through the Looking Glass has a reputation of being among the most accomplished films made in the a-d-u-l-t realm, and it lived up to that. It is far more polished in style and execution than one would expect, which make everything look great in Vinegar Syndrome's lovely restoration. The locations, particularly the mansion and its grounds, are used very effectively. Another strength is that the actress who portrays Catherine convincingly conveys the growing confusion of the character.
Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021, dir. Randall Emmett)
A pair of FBI agents investigating sex trafficking and a Florida state cop running leads on a suspected serial killer cross paths and find out they're after the same man.
An aggressively generic thriller that I'm sure I'll forget by tomorrow. Bruce Willis is on the Blu-ray cover, but Megan Fox and Emile Hirsch are the leads while Willis sleepwalks through the four short scenes he's in. Which of course is understandable given what we now know about his condition and deeply depressing.
But on the plus side, at least now I can finally listen to the episode Patrick and Rob did on this movie four years ago, so it was all worth it. Yay!
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955, dir. Charles Lamont)
Bud and Lou (they have character names but call themselves Bud and Lou all the same) hit up an archaeologist for a part-time job, but find themselves caught between an undead mummy, a criminal gang, the police, and a mummy-worshipping cult.
The first hour is a little tired, uninspired and padded with musical performances, but once we get into the mummy's tomb, the final act goes hard and packs a whole movie's worth of antics into 20 minutes.
Bonus short: Boo (1932, dir. Albert DeMond)
A wisecracking narrator jokes over scenes from Nosferatu (1922), The Cat Creeps (1930) and Frankenstein (1931) cut together to form a single nightmare.
The cross-cutting between movies is occasionally clever and I'm guessing novel at the time. The narrator is more a cultural artifact to be studied on what comedy was like almost a century ago (with jokes like "The monster doesn't know which way to go, he's like a woman automobile driver") rather than funny.
964 Pinocchio (1991, dir. Shozin Fukui)
A defective cyborg sex slave, Pinocchio 964, is discarded by his owner and wanders the streets aimlessly until a young vagrant woman takes him under her wing. And then... weird things happen that I can't even begin to try to put into words.
A barrage of unsettling imagery rather than a movie, this was shot on the streets of Tokyo, in train stations and supermarkets, and in what look like abandoned industrial buildings, I'm assuming gonzo-style, without any kind of permits of permission. The camerawork, the editing, the sound design, it's all very frenetic and keeps you off balance, the nightmare logic of the story (such as it is) is unhinged, and the acting is deranged across the board (there's a scene very reminiscent of Isabelle Adjani's famous breakdown in Possession, and the female lead does not hold back). I have no words to describe what a strange, unsettling, compelling experience this fever dream of a movie was.
Bonus short: Hardware Wars (1978, dir. Ernie Fosselius)
A charming little Star Wars parody that manages to distill the original movie's story into 13 minutes. The comedy isn't exactly sophisticated or groundbreaking (the characters are called Fluke Starbucker and Ham Salad, and the spaceship miniatures are replaces with household appliances), but there's just enough fun stuff here to keep you engaged for a quarter of an hour. Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster was my favorite part.
I think we deserve the story about how Mulva 2 became so prominent in the Junesploitation calendar this year.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI think it's just Doug being Dracu-Doug. :-P
DeleteIm not sure but it could have to do with one of these Mulva 2 trivia tidbits:
Delete* First movie in history to be nominated in every category for the 2005 Academy Awards and won none of them
* Came out 2 years before Kill Bill...QT was so impressed that he 'borrowed' some of the concepts/scenes within
* Was entirely created by a very early version of A.I. running on an Apple Macintosh!
SATAN IN HIGH HEELS (1962)
ReplyDeleteStacy Kane, an ambitious woman working in a tawdry burlesque show at a carnival, schemes her way to New York City and gets a chance to sing in an exclusive night club. The one problem she has with her change of luck is that she chafes at the game she has to play, including becoming the mistress of the club owner. Manipulation follows manipulation to get out on top of the situation.
Satan in High Heels resides between sexploitation, film noir, and B-movie melodrama. I am a big fan of these kind of 1960s films and can forgive the flaws. These are not fast-paced films. There is a lot that I like about Satan in High Heels, though. One aspect is the night club environment, which is wonderfully evoked. There is an elegance to the club and the experience of being there. You even get a chance to see a little of the floor show. The performances are quite charming, too. Stacy is a compelling character, but my favorite performance is the queer-coded club manager. Grayson Hall, best known from the TV show Dark Shadows, plays her as witty, catty, and always aware of what is going on around her.
I appreciate your love for these seedy sexploitation flicks! Off to a great start for Free Space! day!
DeleteBlogger is giving me crap, so breaking these reviews down individually to see if I can sneak them through.
ReplyDeleteHARD WOMEN, aka PERRAK (35mm, 1970, BROOKLYN'S NITEHAWK CINEMA)
Shame that "Hard Women" screened one day too late for me to include in Eurosploitation Day! The never-released-on-home-video English dubbed version of this German police drama set in Hamburg's seedy tr@nsgender underworld (think Friedkin's "Cruising" 10 years prior and w/o the gay panic subtext) turned out to be 'just fine.' Horst Tappert (TV's Inspector Derrick) makes an appealing vice squad detective trying to find who killed a tr@nsvest!te pr0st!tute, which (surprise!) uncovers a deeper conspiracy. The 35mm print looked faded but that just adds to the exploitation charm. 'It's fine.' 3 STOLEN EARRINGS (out of five).
Sounds fine to me! I'll have to check it out!
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteI've seen the trailer/heard the radio spot enough times that seeing the title instantly conjures up the "Hard Women" as spoken by Independent International's regular trailer voice-over guy.
Deletezillagord, unless you track down a 35mm print you can't see "Hard Women" in English. Only "Perrak" in German (and a different cut than the version shown in the States) is somewhat available if you dig deep enough. 🧐🫤
DeleteJM-- thanks for the insight!
DeleteAOP-- I just listened to that radio spot and the last line, "Hard women... they're really something else!" conjures up a whole new meaning now!
DeleteF1: THE MOVIE (2025, IMAX)
ReplyDeleteIn Joseph Kominski we trust... to reign-in the worst tendencies in Ehren Kruger's screenplay for "F1: The Movie," a $200 million self-aggrandizing advertisement for the motorized sport masquerading as a would-be summer blockbuster. It's also a reminder that old-fashioned star vehicles and predictable/formulaic filmmaking keep getting made for a reason: when made well they work like a charm and travel well abroad. I'm no fan of F1 and could anticipate everything the fictitious APX racing team went through during their hellish rebuilding half-year/season. As he did with "Top Gun: Maverick," though, Kominski (who co-wrote the film with Kruger) relies on the appeal of an ageless superstar (Brad Pitt) to sell the in-between-action filler melodrama. Special effects are excellent (too many 180-degree whip pans to/from the driver's cockpit), Hans Zimmer delivers another great score and a decent cast (Javier Bardem and Kerry Condon stand out among the painfully generic stereotypes) make this a great way to kill 3 hours in an air-conditioned IMAX screen. It's no "Maverick," but it sure ain't "Driven." :-P 3.25 UNSEEN PLAYING CARDS IN SONNY HAYES' POCKET (out of five).
HI-FIVE (SOUTH KOREA, '25, THEATER)
ReplyDeleteMade in 2021 but not released theatrically until now due to one of its young stars testing positive for illegal substance use in early '23 (apparently still a big-enough deal in South Korea to derail a promising career), "High Five" is a reminder that non-IP superhero movies can still be a fun ride when done right. Six strangers receive transplant organs from a superpowered individual who (per the opening credits) lived through thousands of years, with each gaining an ability related to the organ they received. A little Taekwondo-loving girl (Jae-in Lee) with a new heart becomes super strong, a suicidal middle-aged yogurt saleswoman (Mi-ran Ra) becomes a conduit to others' powers and gets a youthful makeover from her new kidney, etc. But the recipient of the pancreas that grants youth by sucking energy from other life forms (including plants) turns out to be a selfish cult leader who wants all six organs to make himself an omnipotent god. I didn't like all the characters in "HF," but it was sure fun watching them trying to control their new powers and learning to get along before bad guy Shin Goo comes looking for them. The action-packed finale in the basement of a religious temple could teach Marvel's "Thunderbolts*" a thing or two about how to end an action pic with a bang. Love that in Korea a kid's movie can get away with characters saying "motherf#&!er" if it's clearly meant as a joke! :-D 3.75 OUT-OF-NOWHERE RICK ASTLEY CAMEOS (out of five).
Disney/Pixar's ELIO 3D ('25, THEATER)
ReplyDeleteDespite having some of the best 3D effects of any recent animated CG movie Pixar's "Elio" is a major disappointment. All movies (especially from the Disney brand) try to manipulate emotions to get us to like/feel for a character's loss/wishes, but here it rings hollow. Ellio's obsession with being abducted by aliens to escape a miserable life with his aunt Olga (Zoe Saldaña) make him an unlikable protagonist. It doesn't help that the human designs are uglier and more off-putting than the average Pixar human. This project went through years of retooling and major changes to its story (Brad Garrett's Lord Grigon baddie was initially a completely different character) and it shows in the final product. The concept of the Communiverse and some alien designs (that deck of cards!) are cool, but the callbacks to better sci-fi flicks ("Last Starfighter," "Contact," etc.) constantly undermine its own.
I can't remember a time before when I wanted to stop watching and walk away from a Pixar movie during a first-time theatrical screening. I would have, but it was 100 degrees Fahrenheit outside. :-( 2.5 LAVA-PROOF SPACE BUG BESTIES (out of five).
Three the Hard Way (1974)
ReplyDeleteHad to get in another Jim Kelly flick this month. In this case its a three way team up of Kelly, Fred Williamson, and Jim Brown!
The three estranged friends come together to share life lessons spending the entire run time in a coffee shop talking, hugging, and learni.....HA!...i kid! I kid!....they actually come together to fight a modern day Nazi inspired cult with plans of ethnic genocide. Kung fu! Guns! Cars that randomly explode throughout! A Chicago river boat tour!
A Breed Apart (1984, dir. Philippe Mora)
ReplyDeleteRare egg collector Donald Pleasance hires top climber Powers Boothe to steal some Bald Eagle eggs. Man of the forest and protector of animals Rutger Hauer must stop him, while Kathleen Turner romances both of them. Last Junesploitation watching The Hitcher I realized Rutger Hauer is, as Patrick would say, one of my guys. I've been trying to catch up on his filmography since. If you like the cast this one is worth watching, although not a lot happens. It's more about the characters sizing each other up until an unsatisfying climax. Weird movie.
Mentioned on the Vice Squad podcast, can confirm Death Line (1972, dir. Gary Sherman) is the best thing ever.
ReplyDeleteDonald Pleasance's performance is next level awesomeness.
All of the darts not in the dartboard.
DeletePleasence and Christopher Lee, together in that one scene at the police station... legends! 😎🤓
DeleteScanner Cop (1994)
ReplyDeleteDir. Pierre David
The things this has going for it are the John Carl Buechler makeup effects and Richard Lynch and Hilary Shepard as the villains. Shepard in particular is doing... something. It gives off Saturday morning cartoon villain vibes. Unfortunately in keeping with the series, our hero is the least interesting thing in this.
There should be a super cut of all the "Scanner" faces in this because it would be hilarious.
Jacaranda Joe (1994)
ReplyDeleteIn June 1994, George Romero came to Florida’s Valencia College to film a movie he’d wanted to make for some time—or at least part of it.
Working with students at the school, he shot a few minutes of Jacaranda Joe, a movie that was called The Footage in the 1970s. Pre-found footage mania, Romero wondered if a documentary could scare audiences. This would be at some point between The Crazies and Martin, so 1973-1978, during the time that Romero was working on O.J. Simpson: Juice On the Loose and three episodes of the TV series The Winners on Pittsburgh sports heroes Willie Stargell, Bruno Sammartino and Franco Harris.
Keep that sports hero part in your head for a bit.
In all three scripts that were written — major credit due to the University of Pittsburgh Horror Studies website for so many references — a show called Outdoorsman USA brings on major stars and athletes on authentic hunting and fishing trips that are captured raw and shared with the TV audience. There were two different versions — the “Franco Version” has the beneficiary of Franco’s Italian Army and the man who made the Immaculate Reception playing star quarterback Johnny Wilson, who is trying to leave the NFL behind while the other version has Johnny Shaw, “a star NFL quarterback who is just beginning a career as a country and western recording artist,” who has to be Terry Bradshaw — of who the hero would be, but the action is similar. Somehow, someone kidnaps a baby sasquatch, and the family starts to chase the humans, kind of like Boggy Creek II: And the Legend Continues, but many years before.
Jacaranda Joe was written by Romero knowing that he would be filming for just ten days with young filmmakers. Valencia had a great class, obviously, as Robert Wise did the same class the year before. In this version, there is a skunk ape in the woods that is found by the crew of Remington, a TV talk show very much like the Geraldo and Sally Jessy Raphael-type shows — Sally Jessy is even mentioned — of the day.
This played on April 10, 2022, thanks to the University of Pittsburgh. Because all things online are captured, it’s in the Internet Archive. There’s not much more than a few scenes, but as you can imagine, it’s exciting to see a new George Romero film. It was also the first movie that the director made entirely outside of Pittsburgh, but not the last.
Neighbors (1981): John Belushi as the straight man, Dan Aykroyd as the zanny neighbor, what the heck is this? I'm kidding of course, this is exactly why I like this movie. I think they could've gone bigger and weirder, but what we got is fun enough, the kind of comedies Aykroyd and the gang specialized back then.
ReplyDeleteBlond Akroyd is somethin' special.
DeleteForgot to add that JB wrote a nice piece on the movie. Go read it
DeleteClockwatchers (1997)
ReplyDeleteMy fourth 90s Parker Posey of the month.
Four women forge an ephemeral connection while stuck in temp jobs in a big, faceless company. Toni Collette and Parker Posey are both on fire in very different roles, and the movie does a great job painting the office environment as an oppressive, almost dystopian hellscape that crushes your spirit and messes with your mind. As an exploration of malaise in a modern working place, I liked it more than 1999’s Office Space.
THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS (1976, dir. Jonas Middleton)
ReplyDeleteA-d-u-l-t cinema meets 1970s surreal arthouse horror. Catherine is an heiress living a life of luxury with a husband and a daughter. She seems to have everything, but feelings about her late father (Jamie Gillis) keep coming to the surface to torment her. Whenever she goes up to her childhood bedroom and stares into the antique mirror there, Catherine sees a demonic vision of her father beckoning to her from the other side of the mirror. Through The Looking Glass is atmospheric psychological horror mixed with random sex scenes necessary to meet certain viewer expectations. Those, though, are kept at a minimum and integrated into the story as much as possible. The story does go into some dark emotional territory, and the nightmare sequences get more surreal as the film goes along.
Through the Looking Glass has a reputation of being among the most accomplished films made in the a-d-u-l-t realm, and it lived up to that. It is far more polished in style and execution than one would expect, which make everything look great in Vinegar Syndrome's lovely restoration. The locations, particularly the mansion and its grounds, are used very effectively. Another strength is that the actress who portrays Catherine convincingly conveys the growing confusion of the character.
Midnight in the Switchgrass (2021, dir. Randall Emmett)
ReplyDeleteA pair of FBI agents investigating sex trafficking and a Florida state cop running leads on a suspected serial killer cross paths and find out they're after the same man.
An aggressively generic thriller that I'm sure I'll forget by tomorrow. Bruce Willis is on the Blu-ray cover, but Megan Fox and Emile Hirsch are the leads while Willis sleepwalks through the four short scenes he's in. Which of course is understandable given what we now know about his condition and deeply depressing.
But on the plus side, at least now I can finally listen to the episode Patrick and Rob did on this movie four years ago, so it was all worth it. Yay!
Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy (1955, dir. Charles Lamont)
Bud and Lou (they have character names but call themselves Bud and Lou all the same) hit up an archaeologist for a part-time job, but find themselves caught between an undead mummy, a criminal gang, the police, and a mummy-worshipping cult.
The first hour is a little tired, uninspired and padded with musical performances, but once we get into the mummy's tomb, the final act goes hard and packs a whole movie's worth of antics into 20 minutes.
Bonus short: Boo (1932, dir. Albert DeMond)
A wisecracking narrator jokes over scenes from Nosferatu (1922), The Cat Creeps (1930) and Frankenstein (1931) cut together to form a single nightmare.
The cross-cutting between movies is occasionally clever and I'm guessing novel at the time. The narrator is more a cultural artifact to be studied on what comedy was like almost a century ago (with jokes like "The monster doesn't know which way to go, he's like a woman automobile driver") rather than funny.
964 Pinocchio (1991, dir. Shozin Fukui)
A defective cyborg sex slave, Pinocchio 964, is discarded by his owner and wanders the streets aimlessly until a young vagrant woman takes him under her wing. And then... weird things happen that I can't even begin to try to put into words.
A barrage of unsettling imagery rather than a movie, this was shot on the streets of Tokyo, in train stations and supermarkets, and in what look like abandoned industrial buildings, I'm assuming gonzo-style, without any kind of permits of permission. The camerawork, the editing, the sound design, it's all very frenetic and keeps you off balance, the nightmare logic of the story (such as it is) is unhinged, and the acting is deranged across the board (there's a scene very reminiscent of Isabelle Adjani's famous breakdown in Possession, and the female lead does not hold back). I have no words to describe what a strange, unsettling, compelling experience this fever dream of a movie was.
Bonus short: Hardware Wars (1978, dir. Ernie Fosselius)
A charming little Star Wars parody that manages to distill the original movie's story into 13 minutes. The comedy isn't exactly sophisticated or groundbreaking (the characters are called Fluke Starbucker and Ham Salad, and the spaceship miniatures are replaces with household appliances), but there's just enough fun stuff here to keep you engaged for a quarter of an hour. Chewchilla the Wookiee Monster was my favorite part.