Hi everyone, hope you're all gearing up for Halloween!!
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My viewings :
‘Women Behind Bars’ (1975, Des diamants pour l'enfer – Jesús Franco)
Gangster’s moll Shirley Fields (Lina Romay) is imprisoned on a murder charge. Shirley is the only probable lead regarding a successful diamond heist linked to her old boss Perry (Raymond Hardy) and this makes her a target.
Prolific genre filmmaker Jess Franco made low budget movies all over Europe and for ‘Women Behind Bars’ he opted to shoot in France. It’s a tricky caper that morphs into a sturdy prison thriller. The screenplay by Marius Lesoeur is strong on plot, dialogue and characterisation so Franco accentuates these elements and holds back on stylistics. Lina Romay is terrific as hard-boiled dame Shirley Fields, Martine Stedil is typically hard to get a handle on as undercover operative Martine and Franco broods magnificently as cynical thief Bill. ‘Women Behind Bars’ is one of Franco’s grittiest, grimiest criminal portraits.
‘Like Rabid Dogs’ (1976, Come cani arrabbiati – Mario Imperoli)
Police official Commissioner Paolo Muzi (Piero Santi) and undercover specialist Officer Germana (Paola Senatore) determine to take down sick criminals Tony (Cesare Barro), Rico (Luis La Torre) and Silvia (Annarita Grapputo) when the trio go on a killcrazy rampage.
Following the commercial success of his hazy melodramas ‘The Girl’ (1974) and ‘Blue Jeans’ (1975) which helped launch Gloria Guida to superstardom, director Mario Imperoli was handed a substantially larger budget to film the police drama ‘Like Rabid Dogs’ which he’d scripted with filmmaker Piero Regnoli. It tells a dark story that draws from some of the shocking events that occurred during Italy’s ‘Years of Lead’ when acts of political terrorism were common. The central cast is terrific and includes Imperoli regular Paolo Carlini and dancer Gloria Piedimonte in pivotal roles. Imperoli launches one gritty set-piece after another, including some aggressive car chases that are expertly lensed by cameraman Romano Albani. As far as I’m aware, this brutal thriller isn’t connected by anything other than name to Mario Bava’s crime picture ‘Rabid Dogs’ (1974).
‘Ghostkeeper’ (1981, La garde du fantôme - James Makichuk)
Ski bikers Jenny (Riva Spier), Marty (Murray Ord) and Chrissy (Sheri McFadden) take shelter at an abandoned hotel lodge during a snowstorm in the Canadian Rockies.
‘Ghostkeeper’ is about the legend of the wendigo. It’s very slow and I found it to be painfully predictable but the scenery around Lake Louise in Alberta, Canada is stunning. Several scenes are heavily indebted to Stanley Kubrick’s supernatural shocker ‘The Shining’ (1980). I think the main problem with ‘Ghostkeeper’ is it limits its story permutations so much there’s only one possible outcome.
‘Superstition’ (1982 - James W. Roberson)
A curse dating back to 1692 is believed to still be claiming the lives of unsuspecting victims at a haunted house down on Mill Road. The county threatens to demolish the building, which is registered as church property, if it’s not renovated and exorcised.
The historical horror ‘Supernatural’ is an entertaining film about the sinister past of a haunted house. The spooky mansion stands as a striking entity with sad eyes for windows and withered vines crawling up the walls. Director James Roberson cut his teeth as a cameraman and the visuals in ‘Superstition’ are its strong point. The story is kept simple but it’s put over by fine performances from James Houghton as newly appointed clergyman Reverend David Thompson, Albert Salmi as investigating officer Inspector Sturgess, Casey King as police back-up Detective Jack Hollister, Larry Pennell as broken alcoholic George Leahy, Lynn Carlin as powerful matriarch Melinda Leahy, Heidi Bohay as troubled tenant Ann Leahy, Maylo McCaslin as discontented habitué Sheryl Leahy, Billy Jacoby as teenage explorer Justin Leahy, Kim Marie as ghostly child Mary, Jacquelyn Hyde as frazzled caretaker Elvira Sharack and Stacy Keach Sr. as high-ranking church official Reverend Henry Maier. The music score accredited to a composer named David Gibney uses a recurring melody from ‘Dies Irae’ which is heard over the opening of ‘The Shining’ (1980) and elsewhere there are signature moves redolent of John Carpenter’s theme music for ‘Halloween’ (1978) and Harry Manfredini’s theme for ‘Friday The 13th’ (1980), causing Gubney’s backdrop to resemble a “best of” horror hits medley of the time.
‘Electric Dreams’ (1984 – Steve Barron)
Stuffy architect Miles Harding (Lenny Von Dohlen) and his new computer Edgar (Bud Cort) challenge the affections of cellist Madeline Robistat (Virginia Madsen) who’s a tenant in their building.
Steve Barron is one of the music industry’s prolific video directors. ‘Electric Dreams’ is a big showcase music video designed to show off Barron’s skills and it does offer a diverse soundtrack. A soppy romantic triangle provides a suitable platform for a couple of arresting audio-visual sequences but the threadbare plot is dragged out to unbearable length and the dialogue is beyond corny. Now I know why I couldn’t remember anything about this film beyond the soundtrack.
'Together In Electric Dreams' - Giorgio Moroder & Phil Oakey
‘Save Me’ (1994 – Alan Roberts)
Wealthy stock market trader Jim Stevens’ (Harry Hamlin) life is a mess. His wife Gail (Olivia Hussey) wants a divorce, his colleague Robbins (Steve Railsback) wants him fired and his boss Barton (Joseph Campanella) is demanding better results. When Jim is caught loitering inside a lingerie store with a pair of lace panties in his hands that he has no intention of buying, mysterious stranger Ellie (Lysette Anthony) catches his roving eye.
Independent filmmaker Alan Roberts’ twisting neo-noir ‘Save Me’ is a dynamic crime drama in which all is not as it seems. Harry Hamlin delivers arguably his finest big screen performance as accounts division sleazebag Jim Stevens but he’s dominated at every turn by Lysette Anthony at her most seductive. A strong supporting cast includes Bill Nunn as investigating policeman Detective Vincent, Michael Ironside as shadow psychiatrist Oliver, Dee Booher as a captive model and Sigal Diamant as a snooping sales clerk who holds a secret key. The sultry music score is composed by Richard Marvin.
‘Hollywood A Gogo’ (2012 – Jared Masters)
A collage of spoken word accounts from go-go dancers set to dance music.
‘Hollywood A Gogo’ is a 60 minute tape of go-go dancers set to pumping techno music. There are basically two stage backdrops lit by a pair of adjacent floor lamps, a red one that brings to mind the tv show ‘Twin Peaks’, and a gothic chamber. The dancers perform many different styles and all look really happy which is nice.
‘Slasher House’ (2012 – MJ Dixon)
Red (Eleanor James) wakes up in a prison with amnesia and discovers she’s not alone. She must follow the clues if she’s to escape the asylum.
‘Slasher House’ is an interesting movie. Director MJ Dixon has worked in music videos (there’s some voiceover work here from metal gods Iron Maiden) and it shows. It’s all style and no substance, which leads me to believe it would have made a highly effective short subject film. It’s basically a cheap rewrite of ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ (1939) in a horror setting, with dollops of ‘Alice In Wonderland’ thrown on top. For once, I didn’t mind the use of heavy colour filteration as it’s consistent in ‘Slasher House’, with deep reds suffused within a dazzling lime green surface. There are flashback scenes to fill in the backstory that feel tacked on and unnecessary. So, a mixed bag, but Eleanor James is always worth the price of admission.
‘Finding Vivian Maier’ (2013, Documentary - John Maloof & Charlie Siskel)
An investigation into the life of intensely private street photographer Vivian Maier who worked as a governess.
It’s said that Vivian Maier would obsessively take photographs with her hand-held Rolleiflex camera while on day trips with the children in her charge. She was born in New York but spent long periods in Saint-Julien-en-Champsaur, France with her mother Maria Jaussaud Justin. During her long professional career as a nanny she never put down the camera, working extensively on two fronts in New York and Illinois. She also took pictures in France. Her work is now the subject of several major art exhibitions as well as legal rows regarding the rights to her discovered library.
“[Vivian] Maier started taking photographs in 1949 and continued pretty much until she died, in 2009. Her first camera was a basic Kodak box Brownie. It is not known why she started taking pictures (it is known that her mother had a camera and that she and her mother boarded for a while in New York with a portrait photographer called Jeanne Bertrand, who was from the same village in France as Maier’s mother), but once she had her camera, she couldn’t stop. She would drop the children at the school bus in the morning and spend her days wandering around the less salubrious neighbourhoods of Chicago taking pictures of down-and-outs, drunks, labourers – anyone who caught her eye in the street. Often, it was her own reflection. Sometimes one of her young charges would be the subject of her pictures, playing on a beach, or scowling into her lens. Her close-ups of skirts blowing in the wind and details of clothing were sharp observations made decades before the fashion bloggers Scott Schuman and Tommy Ton even knew what a camera was.”
Tamsin Blanchard, The Telegraph
'Symmetry' - Little Boots & Phil Oakey
‘Altman’ (2014, Documentary – Ron Mann)
A comprehensive career profile of filmmaker Robert Altman.
The documentary ‘Altman’ adopts a basic timeline to outline the career path taken by director Robert Altman. His career is simply too wide-ranging to cover in 96 minutes but this Canadian production may interest film fans keen to check out more of Altman’s work. Various interviews with Altman are taken from different time periods and crudely strung together with random talking heads who literally pop up for one or two brief comments at best (some of these contributions are plucked from the archives). I don’t want to sound too harsh because Ron Mann’s respectful documentary provides a reasonable overview but a definitive study of Robert Altman’s industry contributions and innovative film techniques has yet to be made.
‘Did We Go Too Far’ (2016, Documentary – Adam Ahlbrandt & J.D. Brown)
A document in real time of the difficult processes behind the filming of ‘Hunters’ (2016), a microbudget horror movie that’s written from the killer’s point of view by director, editor and cinematographer Adam Ahlbrandt.
The thorough behind-the-scenes documentary ‘Did We Go Too Far?’ clocks in at 136 minutes and leaves no stone unturned. It’s pretty fascinating to be honest, if you like low budget horror. ‘Hunters’ has been declared a milestone in transgressive horror that creates its warped atmosphere through a chaotic combination of cleanly lit outdoor sequences, clashing colour designs, and grainy black and white feeds. The story uses an unnerving family tragedy from 1961 as a springboard for torture and carnage so it’s not for the faint-hearted. This documentary, which is co-produced by Victor Bonacore, is as raw as the film itself. Cast members Ellie Church, Haley Madison, Kacie Marie and Tina Krause are interviewed and there’s on-set footage of Linnea Quigley performing a dangerous stunt that went wrong.
‘Aliens Vs. Titanic’ (2017 – Jeff Leroy)
The majority of the guests and crew aboard intergalactic luxury space cruiser TITAN 1C are wiped out by a meteor storm. A small band of survivors fall prey to an alien life-form hatching inside the meteors.
‘Aliens Vs. Titanic’ is the best film production I’ve seen so far from ‘Girls And Corpses’, a production and distribution unit connected to the bestselling horror publication. It’s not without its flaws and some of the CGI special effects are unforgivably bad. However, I think the worst aspect is the deliberate use of annoying smother filters and loud visual effects used to blur and distort the action, a completely unnecessary distraction from some otherwise solid framing and storytelling. Where the film works is in presenting its engaging ideas, humorous dialogue exchanges and committed performances. Kelly Erin Decker displays nice comic timing as level-headed passenger Terri and Tasha Tacosa’s highly believable as diligent sub-leader Lana Vickers (a character named in deference to screen legends Lana Turner and Martha Vickers). A genre star in the making is cosplay model Jennifur Miller (aka. Jin ‘N’ Tonic) who takes on the difficult, transformative role of pink viper Diamond. Check it out, it’s fun although it could have been so much better without the overload of annoying visual gimmickry.
'XTC – This Is Pop' (2017, Documentary – Roger Penny & Charlie Thomas)
Charting the progress of English pop group XTC from adventurous touring band to domestic studio wizards.
‘XTC – This Is Pop’ is a welcome music documentary about the band XTC who rose from the council estates of Swindon, Wiltshire to become a staple of the English punk scene. They endured several line-up changes but their major shift in design and direction came about when a major tour of the USA had to be abandoned due to singer-guitarist Andy Partridge’s drug reliance and psychological issues. Drummers Clem Burke (Blondie) and Stewart Copeland (The Police) chime in alongside producer John Leckie.