Semiquincentennial Movie Project #41: The White Buffalo

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #41: South Dakota -

 

 

 

The state of South Dakota was established on November 2, 1889

Details about South Dakota:

State bird: ring-necked pheasant

State flower: American pasqueflower

State tree: Black Hills spruce

Additional historical trivia:

As previously stated in last week's entry, both North and South Dakota were admitted on the same day. President Benjamin Harrison didn't want people to know which one was admitted first, but for convenience sake South Dakota is listed as being the second one, because it comes second alphabetically. 

The South Dakota state flag originally had "The Sunshine State" (below) on it, but when Florida hijacked the nickname in the 60's, the state made a new flag, with "The Mount Rushmore State" (above) embroidered on it.

 

The badlands area of the state is often referred to as the "playground of the dinosaurs", due to the large number of dinosaur fossils found there.

Rapid City features a statue of each of the U.S. Presidents in various locations on it's city streets. (I don't know how many of them have actually visited Rapid City...)

 

The state has 4X more cows than people... (not sure if there are just more Hindus, or what...)

Famous people born in South Dakota: Tom Brokaw, Al Neuharth (founder of USA Today), Shawn Colvin, Mamie Van Doren, Cheryl Ladd, Norm van Brocklin, Adam Vinatieri, U.S. Presidential candidate George McGovern and U.S. Vice-President Hubert Humphrey 

 

 

The White Buffalo (1977):

This film is rather an enigma in itself.

It was promoted as a "creature feature", I think, if you watch the trailer:

 

 

And yet.... And yet, the creature, somewhat like the terror that was later known as Jaws rarely is seen on screen. The film itself is more of a character study of the legendary Wild Bill Hickok (Charles Bronson) and the equally legendary Native American war chief Crazy Horse,(Will Samson),{who, by my research, never actually met in real life}. The creature itself really only appears briefly in full view of the camera. (And it doesn't look all that scary when it does.)

 

Not that it's all that disappointing as a film for the lack of an enhanced showing of the "monster" in question. Nor is it lacking in many of the tropes of a standard western, if one were to take it only on those terms. You do get your standard shoot-em-ups and bar fights one would come to expect in a western. The fights, to be honest, seem to be wedged in as an afterthought, but they make for some entertainment in their own right.

 

The basic problem, which may have been part of the problem for this movie to be as familiar as the aforementioned Jaws, is that the character study part lacks from a focus.

Hickok, who has come west ostensibly to take part in the Gold Rush that was then occurring in the Black Hills region, is NOT really there to become a prospector. What he is really there for is to hunt down an elusive nightmare he has been having, that of the titular white buffalo. The white buffalo haunts his dreams, causing him to wake up firing his guns into the nearest wall (or bed, where fortunately, no one is sleeping).

 

The white buffalo haunting the dreams of the protagonist in this film is often associated with the obsession that Ahab has for Moby Dick, the white whale of the famous novel of that name. At various times Hickok says the beast was "eatin' out my soul". Hickok claims that he isn't afraid of anything, except fear, and this monster of his dreams was causing that fear to overtake him.

 

Some of his acquaintances speculate that it may be just his imagination. It is hinted at several times that he battled syphyllis and that the disease may have rattled his brain. It's a sure bet that no one believes there is actually a white buffalo out there in the wilderness.

That is no one except the Lakota tribe that had a first hand witness to the destruction of their encampment by the creature. The buffalo rampaged through the village, taking out several tribesmen, including the daughter of the war chief Crazy Horse. His father tells him that it is unmanly to be such a crybaby about it and tells him that his daughter won't rest in peace in the afterlife unless he mans up and kills the white beast, taking the hide to enclose around his dead daughter. To that effect his father takes away his honored name and says that until he completes this quest he will henceforth go through life with the name "Worm".

Both Hickok and Crazy Horse, then, have the same goal, although it takes a bit of time before they end up pairing up. This is primarily due to the fact that Hickok has a bad name amongst the Indians as an Indian killer. So even when they do finally meet up there is some distrust between the two.

 

But, as will usually happen in movies like these, both eventually gravitate towards a communal truce to hunt down the buffalo. And, in the end, both manage to get some kind of closure to the demons that haunt them.

 

 

Accompanying Hickok is an old friend, Charlie Zane (Jack Warden), who, if anything, is even more rabidly racist against Native Americans than Hickok. Witness his willingness, at various points, to make the world exist with one less "redskin".  

 

Be that as it may, I think that Zane is probably the most pronounced character in the movie. Sometimes it's hard to garner any sympathy for Hickok. He has some integrity at various points, like when he throws a character off the stagecoach he is riding because that guy is just a little too rude to the female riding with them. But his demeanor towards her is quick to change when he realizes she is just as offensive as his male companion.

The fleshing out of the character study seems to be a little slapdash as well. One reviewer I read blames the director, J. Lee Thompson. Personally I didn't agree totally with the reviewer's criticism, mainly because I am a big fan of some of his other films, including Ice Cold in Alex, Cape Fear, two of the original Planet of the Apes films (Conquest of and Battle for  one for which he was nominated for an Oscar, The Guns of Navarone. Admittedly, The White Buffalo pales by comparison to those movies, but I think he did the best he could with the material he had at hand.

The White Buffalo did not fare well with either the public or the critics. It holds only a 17% rating on Rotten Tomatoes. One reviewer, for The Washington Post, is quoted as saying it was "destined for almost instant obscurity in domestic release, a consummation that can't come a minute too soon for director J. Lee Thompson, star Charles Bronson and everyone else in an exposed position on this fiasco."  It was budgeted at $6 million, and I would hazard a guess that most of that went to the cast (besides Bronson and Samson, names like John Carradine, Slim Pickens, Kim Novak, Clint Walker and Stuart Whitman make brief appearances. Ed Lauter, an actor whose face will be familiar, if not his name, also appears briefly playing his typical nasty guy who someone deemed to give a position of authority. as Capt. Tom Custer.)

It's a sure bet the money wasn't spent to make the buffalo all that believable. The brief scenes we get of it look pretty ridiculous to me. It's a sure bet that anyone who saw it wasn't anywhere near as fightened by it as they were by the shark in Jaws. Possibly no one actually DID see it. I couldn't find any information on how it fared at the ticket counter. 

Be that as it may, it's not entirely the washout that it's reputation would lead you to believe. It's entertaining on several levels, especially if you are a big fan of Charles Bronson. And as a western, it fits the bill pretty well. Just don't be fooled by that "creature feature" come on that the trailer above implies. It's just not that scary...

That wraps up this session with the project. Drive safely, folks.

Quiggy

 

  

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #37: The Beast of Yucca Flats

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #37: Nevada -

The state of Nevada was established on October 31, 1864 

Details about Nevada:

State bird: mountain bluebird

State flower: sagebrush

State tree: bristle cone pine

Additional historical trivia:

Considering that Nevada has legal gambling, lotteries are illegal unless run by a church.

The Lunar Crater in Nevada was a location where astronauts trained for the moon mission (Or possibly where the moon mission was faked... Who knows...?)

Rayolite is the home of a house made almost entirely from glass bottles.

The Extraterrestrial Highway, so named because of the numerous sightings of UFO's is in NV.

 

Supposedly the Las Vegas Strip is so brightly lit it can be seen from space. (Since I've never been to space I can't verify that is true.)

Famous people born in Nevada: Bryce Harper, Kyle and Kurt Busch, Andre Agassi, Dawn Wells (Mary Jane on Gilligan's Island), Jenna Jameson, Nevada Barr and former First Lady Pat Nixon.  

 

 

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961):

 

There are a few things you need to know going in to this week's feature film.

First: The Beast of Yucca Flats often makes many lists of "The Worst Film of All Time". And, admittedly, there are some aspects of it that put it in that category. For one thing; apparently the film was either made without a sound guy on the set, or possibly the audio was lost somewhere along the line. Sometimes it feels like you are watching a silent movie, as characters are speaking to each other on screen, but we don't hear what they are saying. Occasionally we do get some dialogue, but since the camera is almost never on the person who is speaking, it's obvious the dialogue was added in post-production.

Instead we get a narrator (who was actually the director, Coleman Francis, in real life) telling us what is going on.  This movies stars no one you have ever heard of, (or possibly will ever hear of again...) That is, with the exception of Tor Johnson. People of a certain bent will recognize the face, if not the name. From 1934 to 1961 Johnson cropped up in uncredited roles in various low budget schlock films, most notably as Bela Lugosi's henchman in several of Ed Wood's movies. He was unmistakable, whenever he appeared on screen, since he was a big hulking former Swedish wrestler. He almost always had no lines (possibly because no one could have figured out what he was saying, due to his Swedish background?). Wikipedia notes that one source claims a latex mask created in the 60's was one of the best-selling Halloween masks of the time period.

 

The movie also struggles in terms of being actually called a "movie". It barely clocks in at just over 50 minutes in length. Even with commercials it would barely fit in a hour and a half time slot on the local TV midnight movie slot. 

The director, Coleman Francis, could be classed along with Ed Wood, Ray Dennis Steckler and Herschell Gordon Lewis as one of the worst movie directors of all time. To be sure, it takes a stout heart indeed (or a masochist, possibly...) to watch a Francis film. IMDb notes that every single movie that Francis made was the subject of an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. (MST3K, in case you didn't know, specialized in ridiculing some of the cheesiest Hollywood output, some of which have been the focus of The Midnite Drive-In)

The movie opens with a girl (Lanell Cado or maybe Mary Torres... she is identified in places by different names) just getting out of the shower and being strangled by an unseen person. And what this has to do with the story is anybody's guess. Her strangling never comes up throughout the rest of the movie. Apparently it was just added because the director liked the way she looked topless... 

 

And this is as close as you'll get to the topless scene for my blog

When we finally get to the movie proper, the narrator introduces us to Joseph Jaworsky (Johnson), a Russian scientist who has defected to the U.S. with proof that the Russians have secretly landed on the moon (this movie was made and is set in 1961, BTW, 8 years from the official landing made by the U.S., and since this is during the Cold War era, a Russian group getting there first would be troublesome for the Americans...)

Comrade Jaworsky, Soviet scientist extraordinaire 

 

BTW, why is the scientist landing at a remote spot in the desert with this potentially high security information instead of the Washington National Airport in D.C. (or whatever would pass for a high security port of call in the capitol area in 1961)?  

The Kremlin, via the KGB, being intensely interested that their secret not get out, has sent a couple of KGB agents (John Morrison and Anthony Cardoza) to kill Jaworsky and retrieve the incriminating evidence. And, boy, they must have sent the bottom of the barrel in agents because they fire off several shots and hit absolutely nobody, including Jaworsky. Since he is a pretty big target you would THINK it would be no problem... (BTW A note on the low budget aspect: Everyone appears to be using the same gun in this scene... Note the white butt on the grip...)

 

John Morrison

 

Producer Anthony Cardoza pulling double duty

 

This is followed by one of the slowest car chases in cinema history. I couldn't help but think back to the live video of the police chasing O. J. Simpson in the white Bronco, where it seemed like no one was really interested in apprehending their quarry. 

 

Low speed car chase! Don't want a ticket...

 

And, to top it off, the two cars end up stopped on the side of the road for a good old-fashioned gun battle, and Jaworsky takes to the hills. On foot. Walking. Or maybe better said, strolling...

 

Jaworsky working up a sweat on a hike through the scrubs

 

Unfortunately for Jaworsky, even though he is able to avoid the potshots of the Keystone Kops KGB, a test bomb of a nuclear weapon goes off in his vicinity (and don't even ask how he was able to get anywhere near the test site in the first place...)  But, since Jaworsky is ten feet wide, the bomb doesn't actually kill him. Instead it transforms him into our title monster. (Thank God, or this movie would have been even shorter than it is... Did I mention it's only about 50 minutes long?) 

 

The beast change in progress

 

Cut to a scene on a deserted portion of the highway where a man and his wife stop. While the man checks out a problem with the car, the wife calmly smokes a cigarette and waits. The man is strangled, and the killer manages to get in the back seat of the car and strangle the woman, too (without her noticing he even got back there...) Then the beast gathers up her body and goes stumbling off into the desert.

 

Waiting for her neck massage

OK, we're only 15 minutes into this movie, and nothing at all is clear. If it weren't for the narrator telling us what is going on we would be as oblivious to the action as those two unfortunate strangling victims. But it is revealed by the narrator that the strangler is the former Jaworsky, now a mutant nuclear monster. (Gee, thanks helping out, Mr. Francis...)

 

The beast himself

 

Next we get one lone police officer, Joe, who has been informed by a passing motorist that there is a dead guy lying on the road by a car a few miles back. He comes upon the body, notes the fact that there must also have been a woman because she left her purse, sees the tracks going off into the desert, and for a brief moment I think this John Wayne wannabe is going to go  chase after the strangler all by himself. But apparently he either comes to his senses, or more probably gets cold feet, and goes to a buddy to get help.

The officer gets his partner, Jim, who is asleep with his wife at his house. We get a brief scene of the wife in a negligee, whose apparent presence is just to have her cleavage on screen. Still fully dressed, unlike the girl in the opening scene, but her appearance seems to have no purpose except to titillate the viewer.

The pair go off hiking into the scrubs near the abandoned car, and find the cave where the beast stashed the girl. When they find her, amazingly she is still breathing. But not for long. (BTW: don't ask how these two knew that cave was where she'd be, it'll just warp your already befuddled mind...)

 

Relaxing after her massage

 

The film gets even more batty as it goes along. The next scene shows a family of four pulling into a gas station where the attendant is lying on a cot just relaxing, apparently oblivious to the fact that he has a customer. And we get one of the greatest lines I ever heard from one of these cheesy films: "Nothing bothers some people. Not even flying saucers..."  (Wait a minute... flying saucers...? Are there aliens in this movie? No. Well, not the outer space kind anyway...) 

Here we have what becomes one of the strangest sequences of events ever filmed. A married couple (Douglas Mellor and Barbara Francis) and their kids have a flat tire. While the man, Hank, changes the tire, the boys, Randy and Art (Ronald and Alan Francis) run off to explore. So Hank has to go off hiking in the scrub to find his two bratty kids who can't be bothered to stick by while Dad does the heavy work.

Dad changes the tire

 

Meanwhile, our two intrepid police officers, (whom I could probably call Abbott and Costello, but that would insult the comic legends), are still trying to track down the killer all alone without any sort of backup. They decide the best thing is for one of them to take a plane up so they can see the country better. "Jim," says Joe, "shoot first, ask questions later." (These are seasoned police officers? Maybe they are from L.A....) The problem is that the cops don't have any idea what their quarry looks like.

So while Hank is searching for his boys, Jim is up in the plane looking for the strangler. (Yeah. You see it coming a mile away, don't you...?) But, fortunately for Hank, Jim must've gone to the same marksmanship training course those earlier KGB agents did, because he couldn't hit an elephant with a bazooka... 

 

 

Eventually these people do end up finding the real beast at one point and take care of business, however.

Stay tuned for the final 30 seconds, though. You'll get to see a scene that was unscripted, when a walk on extra accidentally blundered into the camera scene and, instead of scrapping the shot, the director just left it in. (Probably because it would have cost a dollar or two more to reshoot it? But, hey, it's worth watching just for that...)

  

You wanted to see the extra? You didn't think I'd make it THAT easy, did you?

For a movie, The Beast of Yucca Flats looks like it was written by a couple of junior high kids after they had raided dad's liquor cabinet. Wikipedia claims the movie cost about $35,000 to make, but my opinion is that it cost only about $350... 

You think I'm being snarky? Before you judge let me point out a few things. First the wife and the kids in that car? They were the director's wife and his own kids. The first man strangled, Jim Oliphant, was one of the producers of the film. The part of Jim was played by another producer, Charles Stafford, using the screen name of "Bing " Stafford. Charles' little brother, Graham, played a brief scene as a newsboy. The director Francis himself played a couple of roles, as did Anthony Cardoza, one of the other producers of the film. Larry Aten, who played Joe, was also the makeup artist for the film, and Linda Bielma was his wife. The rest of the cast was played by other friends and neighbors of Francis. Hmmm. Maybe it only cost $35 to make it...

There was one other notable name in the film, however... Conrad Brooks. He got his start appearing in many of Ed Woods' films, but graduated to a slightly higher class of films later in life, like Curse of the Queerwolf, Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000, and The Demon Monster from Outer Space. He was in 108 films of varying quality. 

Most of the negative criticism for the film is heaped upon the lack of synchronized dialogue and Francis' pretty ridiculous narration. He sounds like Jack Webb if Webb had just got up, hung over from a long night of binge drinking and just wanted to get the narration over with so he could go back to bed.   

I never would have thought I would ever see a movie that comes even as close to being as bad as Teenage Zombies (still MY vote for the worst movie ever), but this one comes pretty damn close. And ye, and YET, it's still worth a shot, if only for the unintended humor of the situation. There are so many ridiculous plot points going on in this movie. Stuff that defies logic. That whole scenario of the one cop taking pot shots at Hank, without any motivation other than the fact that the guy is out running in the desert and the cop is looking for some guy out in the desert... that's just humorous. And the fact that the man keeps running, instead of, I don't know, plopping on the ground with his hands raised yelling "I surrender!..."

This was Tor Johnson's final film, BTW. He retired from acting just after this, and if you watch it, it might be apparent that he was physically out of shape by now. He survived for another 10 years, however, not passing away until 1971 from heart failure. Even despite the fact that he was playing a monster in the film, you can't help but feel a little pity for him, because it's obvious that Johnson was struggling from the exertion he had to put out to perform the role.

Well, folks, until next time, drive safely. And make sure the car is in good shape so you don't have to stop on some deserted stretch of desert road...

Quiggy

 

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #31: The Giant Spider Invasion

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

Week #31: Wisconsin -

 

 

The state of Wisconsin was established on May 29, 1848.

Details about Wisconsin:

State bird: robin    

State flower: wood violet

State tree: sugar maple

Additional historical trivia:

Two Rivers is the birthplace of the ice cream sundae. Note: this claim is contested, but the city does date the invention of the sundae at it's earliest date here.

The iconic cheese head you see at Green Bay Packers games actually debuted at a Milwaukee Brewers game.  

You can thank John J. Blaine, a senator from Wisconsin, for introducing the bill that finally repealed Prohibition, making it legal to sell alcohol again.

Quite possibly an intentional marketing ploy if you ask me, but for a brief time in 2009 an exit sign in Wisconsin had every word on it spelled wrong except "exit".  (Might not have even been exit #185, for all I know...)

 

On the "beware your neighbor" side, both Ed Gein and Jeffrey Dahmer, two infamous serial killers were from Wisconsin. 

 The iconic TV shows Happy Days and Laverne and Shirley were set in Milwaukee. (Additionally, That 70's Show was set in a fictional town in Wisconsin.) 

Famous people born in Wisconsin: Orson Welles, Gene Wilder, Laura Ingalls Wilder (of Little House on the Prairie fame), Liberace, astronaut Deke Slayton, Oscar "Happy" Felsch (one of the infamous "Black Sox" who threw the 1919 World Series) and Bob Uecker.  

 

The Giant Spider Invasion (1975): 

What's scarier than a little spider?

A bigger spider.

And what's scarier than a bigger spider? 

A spider that's grown to gigantic proportions, of course.

But you know what's not scary?

A Volkswagen Beetle decked out with legs to look like a giant spider....

I honestly don't know if this movie was meant to be taken seriously as a horror movie or not. After all, in the opening scene, we witness a cheesy shot of what is supposed to look look like a UFO (but actually more resembles a blue PEZ pellet) flashing across space. 

 

we zoom in on a small town where the sheriff, Sheriff Jones (Alan Hale, Jr.) is working at his desk, when in walks Dave (Kevin Brodie). The Skipper (I mean "the sheriff") greets him with a "Hi, little buddy!" and Gilligan (I mean "Dave") and he talk about a revival going on later.

It's nice to finally be off that island

 

Dave has a date with Terry (Diane Lee Hart). The Sheriff warns him that fooling around with Terry might not be a good idea because her brother-in-law Dan (Robert Easton), is not one to get on the wrong side of. But Dan is a good guy... he actually went to a revival. Ummm... no he didn't. But that's what he told his wife, Ev (Leslie Parrish).

Not tonight, honey. I have a bug...

 

When he comes back home, Ev doesn't believe his story.  But Ev has been doing exactly the same thing that Dan has been doing... fooling around with someone else. While they are discussing their fictional evenings the UFO from the opening sequence crashes in their back forty. But Dan says whatever it was will wait until morning.

Dan and Ev are not the typical happily married couple. Some of the best lines come from one or the other during this film.

Ev: "Sometimes the only way I know you're alive is when I hear you flush the toilet!" 

Dan: "You're so dumb, you wouldn't know rabbit turds from Rice Krispies."

 

These Rice Krispies taste funny, Ev...

Meanwhile a physicist at the nearby observatory notices some peculiar increases in gamma radiation in the area. Dr. Langer (Barbara Hale) calls in help to investigate this mysterious phenomenon. NASA sends out Dr. Vance (Steve Brodie, who, BTW, is the father of the actor playing Dave, in case you were wondering...). 

Just a typical family get together

 

Out at the farm Ev and Dan check out where the crash occurred. They don't find a UFO, but they find a couple of mutilated cows, which the unscrupulous Dan plans to chop up and sell to the owner of the local diner. They also find a bunch of meteorites. When Dan opens one up he finds... diamonds! (And a tarantula, but he doesn't see that). And quicker than you can say Spider Robinson Dan gets $$$ in his eyes.  

Later, when searching for more meteorites, Dan finds a dead body. He secretly buries the body, but he tells Ev they can't tell the sheriff because he'll find  out about the meteorites and diamonds. Of course, he'll also find out that one of their cash crops is a kind of grass that the sheriff would find not entirely orthodox...

The movie trudges along as just a normal spider movie (well, as normal as a "spiders from space" can hope to achieve. But the problem is we have a movie called The GIANT Spider Invasion. So, unless there are thousands of meteorites, that invasion is going to be pretty tame, don't ya think?

But (finally)  40 minutes into the movie we get some larger spiders. And the jump scares for this portion are worthy of pushing this movie from the "laugh riot" side of film into horror/monster film, as Ev is attacked in her farm house by a couple of big bear sized spiders. 

Meanwhile our intrepid doctors are scoping out the area and theorize that a miniature black hole crashed into Earth outside Dan's farm. (And every real scientist watching this movie is about to have a brain hemorrhage.) The whole theory is that that is where this invasion of spiders is coming from; essentially this miniature black hole opened a rift in the space-time continuum, I guess. What it looks more like to me is that the scriptwriters just did a scan of a few scientific articles and took words that sounded "science-y" and molded a story around it.

(Now, I will interject here that some scientists theorize that the Great Tunguska Fireball was the result of a miniature black hole falling to Earth, but to date no one has seen gigantic spiders in the region).

It takes 50 minutes before we see the really large spider come out of the ground. At first, the spider looks halfway decent. But as hinted in the introduction, eventually the film has to give us some long shots of the spider, and despite some fairly decent music to enhance the scare tactics of this "spider from Mars" (or wherever it's supposed to be from), it basically looks like what it is; a car with spider legs attached to it.

Well, a "beetle" and a spider are both insects, anyway...

 

Of course, when it becomes known that there is a giant predator on the loose, every redneck in town with a gun or a slingshot starts thinking, "hell, that's nothing we can take it", despite the Sheriff trying to convince them to let the authorities take care of it. And then, from out of nowhere, there's a....

CARNIVAL!

You heard that right, folks! Smorgasbord for the giant spider made to order, I guess....

Panic at the carousel

 

Ultimately the scientists decide that the solution is to set up some kind of device that will (hopefully) seal off the black hole so that nothing else can come through, and in the process kill any of the creatures that already have come through.

This movie is absolutely bonkers. The highlight for me is the preacher (Tain Bodkin). Remember the revival that Dan was supposed to be going to? Well, that preacher keeps popping up now and then spouting end of the world predictions. The final line from the film is the preacher expostulating:

"When pharaoh refused the children of Israel their right to exist, the heavens opened up and deluged the land with flies, frogs, lice and locusts! It happened before and it will happen again!" 

 Believe it or not, this film actually made a profit. Not entirely unreasonable since it was made for only about $300,000 (and most of that was probably spent on the spiders...) It made, by different accounts, either $3 million or $15 million at the box office. It doesn't have enough reviews to receive a rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but another website, the Popcornmeter, rates it at 14%. One review quoted on wikipedia calls it "self-subconsciously ludicrous". 

For entertainment value, it's a hoot (if you look at it as a comedy). But since I think it was actually supposed to be a serious horror movie I'd have to say, except for a serious sufferer of arachnophobia, it's not all that scary. The music does try it's best to enhance the scary parts, but even then it's sometimes lacking. However, give it a try. 

Until next time folks, drive safely.

Quiggy

 

 

Sometimes Time Creeps Up On You

 

Getting old is not for the squeamish. Or the weak. Or the timid.

What the hell, getting old is not for anybody, really...

I was reading a book on Stephen King films and came across a chapter in it on "needless sequels" to King films (Stephen King Films FAQ by Scott Von Doviak). It should be noted that that disparaging designation "needless sequels" is the author's phrase, not mine. The chapter is titled "Sometimes Dead is Better: A Return to Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary Two and Other Needless Sequels" (Chapter 29 if you have a copy of the book). 

I can't say I disagree with ALL of the selections the author points out in this section. (BTW, he devotes a whole 'nother chapter to the seemingly endless sequels to Children of the Corn, {what are we up to now... Children of the Corn XX...?} so at least he has SOME semblance of decorum...). Personally I never really liked the first Firestarter, so when the Sci-Fi Channel inflicted a sequel with a grown up Charlie on the public I was not one of those who looked forward to it. And several other sequels that have been made to follow (and "sucker in" fans of) better movies have not impressed me, probably more often than not.

Still, in my younger and more impressionable days, there was a sequel that I highly anticipated that did get me. I was a huge fan of the original Creepshow. So when a sequel was announced I was one of the first people in line to buy a ticket on opening day of Creepshow 2. 

While I was reading Von Doviak's book it occurred to me that I hadn't seen Creepshow 2 since it first hit the theaters back in 1987. (That's nearly 40 years! See what I mean about getting old? I feel older just noting that...and I felt just fine before I realized it was 40 years...) 

I have quite a number of King movies in my collection, but this was one I have never run across when I have browsed the stacks of my local used DVD store. I remembered fondly two of the three stories in the film ("Old Chief Wood'nhead" and "The Raft"), but, to be honest, I really didn't remember anything about whatever the third story in the film was until I re-watched it just now. (That one is called "The Hitch-hiker"). 

Von Doviak's main disparaging comment, that the film "creatively...looks like leftovers", seems to be a little harsh to me. The whole concept of the Creepshow series of films (as well as the TV series that followed them) was all about an homage to the old EC comics from the 50's, such as The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, and many of the comic book stories come off as leftovers if you read the originals. There are a few reprints in book form out there if you are interested in seeking them out.

The stories included in this sequel are just about equal to the ones in the first film, especially the one called "The Raft", which I would take over "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" from the first film any day...

The three stories in this one come off kind of like a poor man's version of a Twilight Zone episode, complete with a hinted at morality lesson at the end. At least for two of them. (You have to work at getting a morality lesson out of "The Raft", since the only really "bad" thing the teenagers do is smoke a joint... and for that they have to die? If that's the case about 20% or 30% of the population would be slated for morality lessons...)

40 years later I still like Creepshow 2, although the subpar acting on some of the characters does come off a bit ridiculous. None of the kids on the raft are really great, even though I still think it is the better of the three stories.

 

Creepshow 2 (1987): 

It's interesting to note than when the original sequel was conceived, and slated to be done by a major studio, there were actually going to be 5 stories used for this anthology. When New World Pictures took over, the new studio jettisoned two of the stories. Whether either of them would have improved the film is hard to say. I like the idea of an evil bowling league getting revenge, which is one of the ones left out. The other story, called "The Cat from Hell", actually was filmed for an episode of Tales from the Darkside, so we do have that to fall back on.

 

The first segment, "Old Wood'nhead", is probably the least suspenseful and the horror part of the story takes a pretty long time to come to fruition. Before we get to the meat of the horror we are treated to a long introduction to a pair of kindly old souls, Ray (George Kennedy) and Martha (Dorothy Lamour), who run a general store that has seen better days. George does his best to keep the store going because, despite the dwindling economy, the members of the community need him.

 

But there are some bad elements in town. Led by Sam (Holt McCallany) three hoodlums attempt to rob the old couple and ultimately kill them. 

 

Finally, the horror part kicks in as  a wooden cigar store Indian that George is devoted to keeping looking fresh comes to life to exact revenge. (Yes, I said wooden cigar store Indian...) The Indian looks pretty unscary, to be honest, even when it does start to come to life. And I would gladly have exchanged this story for any of the other two that got scuttled. But fortunately the rest of the movie was really good.

 

The second story, "The Raft", involves two pairs of teenagers who are out to spend a day floating on a raft in the middle of a lake. The lake is deserted at this time of year because it is off season for the tourists that would have been around in the summer. (I think this is supposed to be in the fall, after the lake crowd has gone back to their mansions in the city, but it could be early spring... Either way, the teens make a point of noting that the lake is pretty cold.

 

They all get to the raft before they notice a peculiar looking oil slick on the lake. But it's NOT an oil slick... It moves of it's own accord, and it turns out to be some kind of carnivorous being (although it doesn't transform into a giant shark or anything like that, which would have probably detracted from it's scariness..) 

 

It gradually picks off each teenager, one by one, ultimately giving us a lesson in observing surroundings, because at the end of the segment we see a sign, hidden by some bushes, which clearly says "No Swimming"...

Note: To keep this blog on a family friendly level, 

I'm not going to post any pics of the slick taking out the teens. 

Most of it is pretty graphic...  

The third segment, "The Hitch-hiker", really hits that morality tale trope on the head. What we essentially have is a woman, played by Lois Chiles, who is cheating on her husband. (Let this be a lesson to you, whether you are male or female... don't get into any extramarital relationships, or... YOU'LL BE SORRY...!) 

 

As she is trying to get home before her husband gets home from work the woman accidentally hits and kills a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Instead of pulling over, of course, she panics and makes it a case of hit and run. Only the only part of that she seems to get right is the "hit" part, because the "run" part doesn't pan out. The hitchhiker keeps showing up, in more and more beat up condition, saying "Thanks for the ride lady!" (It is somewhat reminiscent of how Griffin Dunne's character keeps showing up to try to get David Naughton to kill himself in An American Werewolf in London.)

 

"The Hitch-hiker" is a pretty cool episode, a bit graphic on occasion, and it called to mind the classic Twilight Zone episode where the woman keeps seeing the same hitchhiker as she is trying to cross the country (although that one has no gory scenes at all...)

My opinion on the second watch of this film is that it was not nearly as good as I remembered, but hardly worth the level of putdown that Von Doviak gave it. A reading of several reviews that I researched for this entry fall in line with my own opinion: a) that it's not all that bad, and b)  most of them agreed that the better of the the three was the middle story.

There is, as was in the first movie, a connecting device involving a young comic book fan, in cartoon form,  who is being harassed by a gang of malcontents. The malcontents, of course, getting their just desserts at the end (or maybe that should be better phrased "becoming just desserts"...) 

 

Unlike the third movie in this cycle, Creepshow 3, this movie still had the King hand in it. All three stories were by the horror master. As I understand it, neither Stephen King or George Romero had anything to to do with #3, and it remains to be seen whether I'll even give it a watch. (Probably I will, but I have a lot on my plate right now... it was an unscheduled halt in other projects that even led me to cover this one... maybe in 2027).

Creepshow 2 made a fairly decent profit, not big, but at $4 million to make it managed to pull in $14 million at the box office. Echoing Von Doviak, it wasn't entirely well received by the critics. It currently only has a 36% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus can be summed up with one reviewer who said "[d]espite its strengths -- a livelier pace, some creatively gory set-pieces -- this is a much cheaper-looking effort than its predecessor..." OK, in all fairness Creepshow is WAY better than Creepshow 2, but it's still a fun watch.

Gotta fire up the old Plymouth and head home. Drive safely, folks. And, please, keep your eyes on the road, and stay away from those remote swimming holes.

Quiggy