Space 1979 Finale! The one that killed adult animation

 

Title: Rock & Rule

What Year?: 1983

Classification: Runnerup/ Irreproducible Oddity

Rating: For Crying Out Loud!!! (2/5)

As I write this, I’ve been pondering the fact that my count of reviews for this feature has reached 99 reviews (with the Space 1999 reviews included). I finally made the decision that it’s time to finish things up at an even 100. In further considering what to do for a finale, I decided that what was in order is one more animation review. That brought me down to a short list that might have been a lineup if things had gone a bit differently. Of those, there was one that had long interested more than any other, enough that things didn’t feel complete without it. It’s not just an odd movie, but a strange saga of willful sabotage, disastrous mismarketing and enduring fandom, and I myself needed another go to decide whether this had anything to do with actually being good. With that, I present Rock & Rule, a movie that very possibly set back the animation industry by a decade.

Our story begins with storms, lightning, and a text crawl introducing the cities of Nuke York and Ohmtown, part of a post-apocalyptic future where mutated rodent creatures have built a civilization that looks 60% cyberpunk, 30% steampunk and 10% Disney “slash” fan fiction. In short order, we meet the principals: Mok, a past-prime star who has melded technology with dark magic; Angel, a newcomer in a struggling band; and Omar, her boyfriend who thinks he should be the star of their act. Despite his fame, Mok broods over old age, declining record sales and the dark powers of a nihilistic universe, until he turns to a scheme to unleash a new apocalypse by summoning a demon through the power of music, magic and computer graphics. But to complete his plan, he needs Angel’s voice, and so he hatches a further scheme to kidnap her and fracture the already troubled band. With the help of a couple doubting henchmen, Omar and the band escape Mok’s control. Can they put their differences aside and free Angel before Hell is unleashed? Can I come up with a question that makes it sound like the outcome is in doubt?

Rock & Rule was the first feature length film from the Canadian animation studio Nelvana, loosely based on the televised 1978 short “The Devil And Daniel Mouse”. The movie was produced over 5 years for an estimated $8 million, with backing from United Artists. The voice cast was led by Don Francks as Mok and Susan Roman as Angel, with Lou Reed and Debbie Harry providing the vocals for the characters in musical sequences. The finished film was distributed by the newly formed MGM/UA group (see The Plague Dogs), under new management which clearly viewed the project and adult animation in general with skepticism or outright hostility. The studio forced an alternate cut in which Greg Salata was replaced by Paul Le Mat (see Strange invaders) as the voice of Omar, among other cuts and changes that shortened the film from 81 to 78 minutes. Ultimately, MGM effectively withdrew the film from release, allowing only a limited theatrical run of the 78-minute version. The film was subsequently available mainly through bootleg recordings, many of which incorrectly claimed that Ralph Bakshi (oh dear Logos, Bakshi) was involved. The film went on to become a cult/ underground hit. It has most recently received an authorized digital release on Amazon, at one point including free streaming with Prime.

For my history of the film, I first heard of it from online animation reviews. It interested me immediately, so I looked up the 78-minute cut while it was available free. What kept me intrigued was the case-and-point mishandling of “adult” animation, and also the counterintuitive strangeness of ‘80s cartoons. The psychedelic toons of the 1960s and ‘70s were every bit as “weird” as people think, but 1980s animation was as outright random as the field ever was or ever will be. This was a time that brought us a planet-eater with the voice of Orson Welles, zombies on a B-17, a dog being deliberately drowned in the opening credits, a stop-motion White Rabbit made from a real rabbit and a Disney film where cute talking appliances get fed into a garbage masher. (Wait a minute… Did Toy Story 3 rip off The Brave Little Toaster???) What put the brakes on this strange mass speciation was the combination of censorship, mismanagement and too many unquestionably creative films that couldn’t connect with audiences. In these terms, Rock & Rule is truly the one to rule them all, and a symptom if not a cause of the developments that held back the industry for another decade. Which, alas, is still not saying if it’s any good.

At this point, I have long wavered over whether I am the person to talk about this one. I actively blacked out 1980s rock in the actual ‘80s. Even now, I still have only found a handful of artists I really like, though one of them is Ms. Harry aka Blondie. The already retro psychedelic vibe, the insider references and stone-age CGI resonate with me even less. Where I rally is that there are plenty of films with all these things that I like or at any rate can tolerate. With that frame of reference, I can absolutely say that this movie is not as good. The deeper problem is that this movie consistently feels stuck between too much and not enough. It’s not as “in your face” as Heavy Metal, not as surreal as Allegro Non Troppo, not as subtly subversive as Phantom Tollbooth, not even as “how did this get made?” bonkers as Transformers. And yes, I absolutely am standing up for the Transformers movie. As far as the rating goes, this movie still isn’t “bad” in and of itself, but for the level of talent it was trying to compete with and especially the money invested in it, the bar is much higher than normal. After going pretty hard on Plague Dogs in particular, I have no qualms whatsoever giving this movie a lower rating.

Moving on to the details, my single biggest issue is with the characters. To start with, far too many of the characters, including Omar, are awkward or flat-out ugly, a problem that also cropped up with the studio’s Star Wars cartoons (the less said about that, the better). This isn’t an automatic strike, but it’s far too often a warning sign of undeveloped or uninteresting characters, which is the pervasive problem here. That brings us straight to the biggest issue of all: The central conflict is between Mok and Angel, who are already by far the most interesting and well-animated characters, yet the story never quite concedes the point. By comparison, Omar, whatever the voice, just feels like a supporting actor who won’t take a hint, which is admittedly about right for his character. Even compared to the “minor” characters, particularly the reluctant goon Zip, he isn’t as interesting and doesn’t do much more for the story outside the final act. All of these issues compound already serious story problems, enough that I find substantial sections nearly intolerable, especially in the middle act when the movie tries the hardest to be “adult”. In this respect, it anticipates all too well the much more recent crop of “adult” cartoons that conflate being crude with actual maturity. We were already hitting that dead end in the 1920s; pursuing novelty and shock value at the expense of story and characters usually fails even at that.

Now it’s time for the “one scene”. Of all the material in the film, the one sequence that satisfied me as living up to the movie’s aspirations and reputation is a musical number around the transition to the middle act. While Omar and the bandmates are held hostage by Mok, the goons leave them to watch what seem to be the superstar’s greatest hits, until they seem dazed or hypnotized (which gives a more sinister angle on Mok’s success). As we walk in, a holographic light show is playing on a theater-sized screen, accompanied by an actual chorus, “The Glory Of Me!” (In the course of the review, I confirmed there is a full version out there.) The constantly morphing images are easily the most effective of their kind, offering an intriguing bridge between 1970s psychedelic and 1980s vector-graphics chic. It’s all still only a companion to the outlandish lyrics, so laughably narcissistic that one would expect the vocals by Reed to be hamming it up.  In fact, the arrangement and performance are easily among the most impressive in the movie, with a cleverness that hints at irony on Mok’s own part, and perhaps an undercurrent of despair common to the true narcissist. It’s a great moment, yet it sets off in my mind one more train of thought how the movie could and should have been better. If Mok is set up to represent self-centeredness, then his defeat should have been brought about not just by Angel and Omar but the whole band united. It’s a missed opportunity typical not just of the movie but 1980s animation, astonishingly imaginative yet unaccountably impersonal.

In closing, I have a final word not about the movie but the whole feature. As I write, it’s a little over a year since I started Space 1979. It’s been a wild ride, sometimes rough, but always fun. I still don’t feel like I’ve done nearly all the material that I planned on or wanted, which just goes to show how prolific the genres and eras I’ve covered really are. I’m certainly not done with movie reviews, and I’m sure there will be more reviews in the theme and spirit of the feature (not to mention the ratings scale). All in all, I’m happy to have done this, and happy to be done. Crash and burn!

The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 10!

 Since the last one was a cliffhanger, I'm back with the second installment of Sidekick Carl in a week, and an action scene! Yes, I am still using characters I came up with back in the day, and yes, all prehistoric creatures described are real. Again, here's links for the first and previous chapters.

His name was John Carter. As far as anyone knew, it was by coincidence that he shared the name with a famed adventurer of fiction, but he was still proud of it. He was a senior auxiliary investigator for what most referred to as the Agency, known in full as the United Nations Coordinating Agency For the Assessment of Para-terrestrial Entities and Phenomena. The organization had been founded a little almost 60 years earlier, when dim lore told that the leaders of the war-torn world had discovered or been contacted by beings from distant planets, far futures and unknown dimensions. Now, they monitored the discoveries and technologies that the same beings had brought to the Earth. At the moment, he watched the feeds from satellites and unmanned aircraft searching the American southwest for two people in a 20-year-old RV, along with Lauren, his wife of 15 years.

“You’re right,” he said. “It has to be them.”

“It wasn’t that hard,” Lauren’s voice said in his ear. “The vehicle’s 4.4 meters tall and almost 10 meters long.”

“Yes, but we had to search half a million square kilometers,” he said. “And they’re… damn. 996 kilometers from the convention center, and we already knew they didn’t get there on any of the main roads. I’d say it was impossible, if I didn’t know the specs on the RV. Do we have any agents in the area?”

“No,” his wife answered. She was herself on the other side of the continent, on what had originally been an assignment to audit the data center for the continent’s biggest space shuttle port. “The nearest local police units are 80 km away. Our closest response teams are still in the Sierra Nevadas.”

“I’ll have to go myself, then,” Carter said. He looked over his shoulder, at a compact set of blue armor hanging on the wall.

“John,” Lauren said. He paused as he rose. “You need to hurry. There’s three infrared signatures in the vehicle. One of them isn’t human.”

 

***

Dana awoke more abruptly than Carl did. She opened her eyes to find him perched on the edge of the bed, peering into the darkness. She pushed back the sheet that covered her. Underneath, she was dressed in shorts and a tank top that didn’t quite meet at her midriff, originally made as an extra large basketball uniform. She silently rose to a crouch, following his gaze. In the process, she confirmed that his outer suit still lay on the floor at the mouth of the corridor, just past a cut-off corner of the converted dinette. Only then did she hear the second crash as the rear door broke open. Somehow, she found a moment to wonder why it was locked; but of course, Carl must have locked it when they came inside.

“Get to the cab and start driving,” Carl said in a low voice. When she opened her mouth to question him, he added, “There could still be more of them outside.”

“I’m not leaving you,” she said. There was an audible scraping sound, undoubtedly from some kind of claws on the vinyl flooring. There was a second crash as the bathroom door broke open. After a moment of silence, the scraping came again, now close enough that she could hear the padding of heavy feet. The sound stopped, right where the corridor made its sharp diagonal jog.

“How much do you weigh?” Carl said. He answered before she did, “About 350 pounds…”

“339,” she corrected instinctively. He nodded. From the corridor came only silence.

“It could be bigger, but not by much. If it had weapons, we would already know.”

In what seemed the blink of an eye, he was not only on his feet but reaching at the kitchen counter. An already reinforced drawer splintered as he yanked it open. He came up with her largest knife, a cleaver she sometimes used on large melons. Then he lunged forward, straight for the mouth of the corridor.

A moment later, Carl came toppling back, under a hulking, almost boxy form. A flash of moonlight showed the shape of a cat or something like it, with a bronze pelt dappled with large rosettes. There was also a gleam of reddened ivory from a pair of canines that had closed on and driven through his upraised forearm. He managed to swing the blade once. A powerful forelimb, longer and more robust than what could be seen of the creature’s hindquarters, sent it literally flying, with enough force to fracture a window on the far side of the RV. The lower jaw seemed to unhinge as it struck for his skull.

That was when Dana swung down, her legs already extended in a double kick. With uninterrupted space, she might have knocked it back out of the RV. Instead, she slammed it into the diagonal face of a kitchen cabinet, now on its hind legs with her feet against its massive rib cage. Only then did either of them see the tufted stub of its tail. For a moment, it seemed she had it pinned, but then the door caved in enough for it to drop back. She lost her grip then, and cried out as she dropped. For a split second, she had a vision of breaking her pelvis or her back, then lying with Carl pinned or crushed beneath her. Instead, she bounced on the edge of the bed and somehow came out upright. She had one unforgettable glimpse of the silhouette of the cat and its luminous eyes. There was an unmistakable sense of calculation as it returned her gaze. Already, it had lurched free of the wreckage of the cabinet, still balanced on its hind legs. There was time for just one more blow-

Almost a minute passed before Carl turned on the lights. The sudden light revealed Dana poised on one leg. The other leg extended at full length and an upward angle. Beyond was the cat, still upright against the wall of the corridor. Her second strike had pinned it in truth, with her heel almost directly beneath the hinge of its jaw. It tried to swipe at her with its front paws, but only added to a handful of scratches on her calf. She flinched, but did not yield. It was clear from the marks that it was already weakening. “I  must have gotten its windpipe,” she said. “I think I can hold it. Can you tell what it is?”

He cautiously approached. “It’s a homothere… a dirk cat,” he said. “Constructor told me about them; once, he went out with a cryptozoological expedition that was studying them. They’re related to the sabertooths, smaller teeth, even stronger bite… and as you can see, they have the most powerful front paws of any cat that ever lived.”

“Okay,” Dana said. “Where did it come from, and why is it in my RV?”

“The only ones that survived longer than the sabertooths were in South America,” Carl said. He stepped close enough to examine the creature. It started to turn its head; Dana shifted her foot in warning, and it tilted its head back in submission. “Most of the scientists thought even those died out hundreds of years ago. When he came back from the expedition, Constructor said they were probably right. Then, a couple years before he died, another team caught just one. Last I heard, it was in a zoo on the west coast. Constructor was asking for permission to examine it, before…”

He had already paused a moment when Dana spoke up. “I told you I could hold it,” she said. “I still can, but I’m not sure how long. And I can’t tell how much air it’s really getting. If it’s playing possum, it might still be strong enough to attack if I let it go. But if I do this long enough to be sure, it might die. So… should I?”

Carl did not answer, but only peered closer. Finally, he said, “Ivan.” Immediately, he turned to Dana. “Let him go.”

She lowered her leg with a groan of relief. The creature shuddered and slumped unwholesomely as it dropped to the floor. When they looked down, they beheld a very fat man with hair turned almost entirely white. Dana stifled a cry when he moved, but finally relaxed when he failed to do more than raise his head.

The intruder grinned at Carl. “Well,” he said, “isn’t it nice… to meet an old friend?” Then he sank back to the deck.

Revenge of the Revenant Review 27: The one with mannequins instead of zombies

 

Title: Tourist Trap

What Year?: 1979

Classification: Unnatural Experiment

Rating: What The Hell??? (2/4)

 

In the course of this feature, one thing that’s been a surprise to me is that I haven’t had to take many liberties with what to count as a zombie. Even with the major “exceptions”, An American Werewolf In London, Two Evil Eyes and The Grapes of Death, the movies clearly featured either a form of the undead or something close to what has been envisioned as zombies and the zombie apocalypse. With this review, I am finally going with something that really breaks the mold, for better or worse. It’s a movie I have never seen discussed in connection with the zombie genre, yet it’s one I have had tucked in among my surprisingly compact collection of zombie movies for as long as I’ve had it, if only because it never “fit” anywhere else. And that is as good an introduction as any to Tourist Trap, a movie where people become mannequins, and mannequins come to life.

Our story begins with a group of youths travelling down forgotten backroads when one of their vehicles gets a flat tire. The others pick up their companion in a VW Thing (always the most awesome thing in any movie) and try to catch up with a young man on foot, unaware that he has already been killed by mysterious assailants. They discover a service station (I… think…) with a roadside museum of vaguely lifelike mannequins, close by the house of the odd but charming proprietor. The man talks about his late wife and his unseen brother, whom he says made the mannequins. Things take a turn for the worse when a masked figure appears who identifies himself as the brother, apparently able to control the dolls as well as various weapons and inanimate objects. One by one, the travelers are killed or captured by the attacker, who continues a cat-and-mouse game with the mannequins. But they soon learn that a fate worse than death lies ahead- to become new mannequins for the museum!

Tourist Trap was an early film by Charles Band (see Bride of Re-Animator), directed and cowritten by David Schmoeller, also later responsible for the Puppet Master series. The movie starred Chuck Connors as Mr. Slausen; a fictional cast member Shailar Coby was created to hide that he also plays the villainous “brother” Davey. Other cast included Jocelyn Jones of The Enforcer as the protagonist Molly and Tanya Roberts of Sheena and That ‘70s Show (!) as Becky. The film was made on a budget of $350,000, of which $50,000 reportedly went to Connors’ salary. The movie was originally released with a PG rating, allowing for airings on television. At least 2 cuts are known, of 85 and 90 minutes, but reportedly differ little in the level of violence and gore. The movie received further attention from a favorable mention in Stephen King’s Danse Macabre and a 2018 review from “Angry Video Game Nerd” James Rolfe. It has been released on DVD and Blu Ray under Band’s Full Moon Banner. As of mid-2021, it is available for free streaming from Tubi.

For my experiences, I first heard of this one from the AVGN/ Cinemassacre review, which impressed me enough to buy it on DVD. I watched it promptly, and didn’t get much further than noting its similarities to the Band crew’s later (and better) Dolls. After that, I set it aside for a time when I might take a closer look, and there it sat up to the time of the present review. Because my life is irony, the viewing for this ended up happening entirely by chance. I had planned to review another movie while waiting on tech support, all the way up to paying for a rental of the other title, when I discovered I couldn’t play it because of the same tech troubles. I then looked around and saw this one in a literal pile, and I rationalized that I could play this one just to settle once and for all if it really belonged here. What followed was one of my more disastrous and fragmented viewings, during which among other things a family member walked in and quit after maybe 15 minutes. Under normal circumstances, I would have bailed and set it aside, but the one thing that was very clear is that this is not a movie you can just come back to. So I’m forging ahead, and it remains to be seen just how far I’ll get.

The central reality of this film is that very little is shown (making the “’70s PG” somewhat comprehensible), and even less is explained. The upside of this is that there’s no distracting or laughable pseudoscience or occultism to account for the goings-on.  The abilities of the villain, which I will get to momentarily, are portrayed in a reasonably consistent way without him or anyone else venturing a suggestion of their source, and this is certainly an improvement on many more polished movies. The downside is that this applies equally to the plot and characters. What gets most confusing if not irritating is that the “twists” regarding the villain’s identity and motivations are easy enough to figure out that I’m not bothering about spoiler warnings. The protagonist and victims, on the other hand, are so haphazardly developed that I was repeatedly confused simply by how many of them there are and who was still free, captured or already dead and possibly transformed. At one point, the question of whether a gun is loaded comes up without being addressed in any way. This all comes across as an unintentional demonstration why clear camerawork and linear storytelling almost always work best for SF/ fantasy/ horror; it’s hard to impress viewers with your concepts if nobody can figure out what’s going on.

That brings us to the villain and the mannequins. Whether the dolls are undead or otherwise “zombified” humans hinges on several potentially ambiguous points I won’t try to explain or argue. What I find far more intriguing is that the villain closely approximates the zombie masters of Afro-Caribbean religion and myth, something we really haven’t seen outside of Chopper Chicks In Zombietown and perhaps Shanks. Most of the time, his control over the mannequins, whatever they really are, remains complete enough that one can take it as an extension of telekinetic powers that are also manifested. At times, however, the mannequins show enough autonomy, at least in the master’s mind that they are spoken to and instructed rather than directly controlled (almost in line with the legend of the Golem). Things get most interesting in the finale, when who is still human or doll becomes a story point. It’s mind-bending enough to plant a theory in my mind (particularly given a reported Twilight Zone influence) that the villain’s prey have been mannequins all along. Alas, this gets buried by confusing relationships among the characters and one more predictable revelation about the villain we didn’t need to know.

Now for the “one scene”, I’m going with one of the few scenes I felt willing to take a closer look at. At just past the hour mark (about the time the second viewer wandered in), the villain is tending to his newest addition, an early victim apparently transformed into a mannequin immediately after her demise. Now, the mannequin sits at a table, for once with no hint of life or the potential for it. Mr. Slausen (by now there is no question of his identity) sits down and speaks to the doll. When no answer is forthcoming, he puts on a mask. The doll seems to speak, albeit in his own voice. He then instructs the mannequin how to eat. As with many things, it’s not clear what exactly happens, though we can clearly see some of a spoonful of soup dribbling down. Then, in the middle of the movie, there’s a malfunction that simply should not be possible if the “doll” is human, whether living, dead or undead. The villain merely muses, “Oh, I have to fix that.” It’s barely a matter of a couple minutes, but even in a movie like this, it’s a surreal and baffling sequence with an impact far beyond its limited length.

In conclusion, I must speak to the movie’s reputation as a neglected “classic”. By my assessment, it is certainly better than the other early Band films I have reviewed, Laserblast and The Day Time Ended, though given the quality of the former film in particular, that’s hardly a complement. Compared to later Band crew entries, like Re-Animator, Dolls, Terrorvision, and even strange experiments like Dungeonmaster, it definitely falls into the category of “interesting” rather than good. What redeems it is its rough-hewn quality, even by low-budget ‘70s standards, that remains more memorable than plenty of “better” films. It’s awkward, uncomfortable, confusing and simply not very good, but you still wouldn’t want it any other way.

The Adventures of Sidekick Carl, Part 9!

 For this week, I'm trying to work ahead, and decided on a little Sidekick Carl to fill the gap. Here's the links for the first and previous chapters, and for my Hot Wheels monster cars post.

The object was just over 3 feet long. Its shape was still recognizable as a reptilian head, but the only clear details were the glowing blue-green eye and the grimacing translucent teeth. In places, its color could be made out, a deep reddish-purple unpleasantly akin to uncooked meat. The greater part was hopelessly obscured by corrosion and encrusting clams and barnacles. A light flickered from inside the immobile mouth as it spoke. “This is my humiliation,” it said. “Not that I was defeated, not even that I am forgotten, but that I should depend on the likes of you…”

The Toxo Warriors discretely glanced at each other, and the one who usually took the initiative shrugged. “You agreed to an equal partnership,” he said. “We obtained the raw materials, you agreed to provide your technical expertise. We could try to move forward without you, but you’re going nowhere without us.”

“Do not think I am without means, even now,” the head countered. “There was a time when I gave orders to hundreds of your kind, who knew nothing of me save to fear me. If you dissatisfy me, there are others who would do my bidding.”

“Yes,” the second Warrior chimed in, “but how many of them could handle Solvent G without ending up a puddle?”

“I do not deny, you are the best,” the head rumbled. “Do not believe that that makes you indispensable. Now, to be sure, we plan the next phase and move forward. And in the meantime, we shall see if that fool can accomplish his mission.”

“Yes, the mission,” the first Toxo Warrior said. “Kill Sidekick Carl, and all that.” Again, the partners glanced at each other. The head’s mouth just flickered silently, in unmistakable laughter.

 

***

Carl and Dana returned to the RV just after dark. She started laughing about something neither of them would remember, and he followed suit as they climbed the steps to the rear deck. They continued to laugh as Dana opened the rear door. Suddenly, she picked up Carl as if to carry him over the threshold. She set him down, laughing harder. That was when Carl put his arms around her waist. She gave a cry of surprise as he picked her up. With a little further effort, he raised her overhead, straining his balance more than his strength. She gave a gleeful whoop, then instinctively ducked her head as she came close to one of the struts for the awning-like shell overhead. Carl set her down, and she stepped inside, leaning forward as she went through the door. The corridor jogged sharply to the right as they passed the bathroom door. Carl glanced inside before following.

As he emerged from the corridor into the living area, he saw the now-familiar dinette and kitchen. What he didn’t see was Dana. He felt a momentary confusion that would not have greatly troubled him if he had not also felt a vague but unmistakable sense of impending danger. He peered ahead into the cab, and started to glance over his shoulder. Then he looked up into the van shell above, just as a looming figure came swinging down. He had just enough time and forethought to raise his arms before two powerful limbs wrapped around his torso. He was lifted, dropped and then pinned to the floor as a heavier body followed. There was a moment of darkness as a powerful hands twisted his helmet with just the right motion to undo the seal. He found himself looking up at Dana, who smiled down. “Will you marry me?” she said.

“Yes,” he said. As he spoke, it felt less like accepting a proposal than admitting the inevitable. Her deceptively large fingers had already found a tiny button at his throat. The suit split open all at once, from his collar down to his pelvis. She matter-of-factly began pushing back the suit,  shifting to peer at what was revealed.

Beneath the suit was a translucent skin that looked like wax paper, with opaque patches at the shoulders, elbows and, as she soon found, his knees. Between his legs was an off-white plastic component that could have been taken for a protective cup. She tapped it with one finger. Carl tensed as she stroked a protuberance in the center, vaguely like the phallus of a bull in profile. At the tip was a rubbery gasket. She touched the center almost tentatively. “What’s this?” she said.

“It’s… you could call it a release valve,” Carl said. “Most of the time, the nanites recycle my… wastes, fluids, what have you. With the changes they made to my digestive system, there isn’t much else. Once in a while… maybe a few times a year… there’s more than they can absorbed, so they… vent.”

Dana nodded, but promptly frowned. “So does it, um, come out?”

“No,” Carl said. “That’s not how it works. The doctors say it’s like a cloaca, what you’d see on a lizard or a bird. Or like an air lock on a spaceship, if it comes to that. The nanites figured out enough about human anatomy that it can change shape, enough to, ah, fit with a woman’s body. Or a man’s, probably.”

Dana just looked at him intently. “The thing is… the thing is,” Carl said, “when the pressure builds up, it, it…” He took a deep breath and finished. “It buzzes.” There was another moment of silence. The next, Dana was literally rolling on the floor laughing.

“I’m sorry… I’m sorry,” she gasped. “It’s just… Oh my God, those little machines really don’t get us, do they?” She sank down, laughing louder than before. Finally, she rose to a crouch. “I told you, I’m an old-fashioned girl. Well, mostly. I definitely can’t give it all to you, while we’re still just engaged. Mmm, at least not more than once.” 

She straddled him at the waist. “Still… it seems to me, there’s a lot we  can do. Enough to figure out what that buzzer can do.” She reached behind her back and undid the critical knot of her halter top. Then for a while, they did not talk, but continued to laugh.

It seemed to Carl that they were still in each other’s arms when he found himself in the midst of the white. He rose, leaving Dana and her bed behind in the midst of the brilliant field. “Are you God?” he called out.

 

“No,” a voice answered. “Just us.” As he peered into the distance, a silhouette emerged that became a shape, then a figure. Finally, a man stood before him, a little shorter but much more robust, sporting a battered helmet and a bushy mustache that was now entirely white.

“Constructor,” Carl said. Even as he spoke, he shook his head. “But it’s not really you.”

“Come here, and sit down,” Constructor said. The white field lifted, to become the rear deck of the RV. They both sat comfortably on a bench next to the protruding rear wall of the bathroom.

“This is me, as you remember me,” Constructor said, his gruff voice a little softer than usual. “That is more than you thought you knew. In your mind, in your dreams, I still live on, older, perhaps wiser. Wise enough, anyway, to tell what’s on your mind.”

Carl gazed through the door into the RV. “She says she wants to be my wife.  It’s so soon… but I don’t suppose that’s the problem. It’s just been so long, since I even thought this could happen. After Dr. Hydro rebuilt me, I never thought of myself as a man again, so I didn’t really try. I still keep thinking, if she really knew…”

Constructor chuckled, which left him unsettled and momentarily angry. “But there’s not much left she doesn’t know, is there?” he said. “It happens. It happened to me, once upon a time, though not quite as fast. What you forgot isn’t that you’re a man, it’s that you’re still like other men. No more, certainly not less.”

They continued to talk, about old adventures, old friends and old enemies. A couple times, a shadow began to form, but a chuckle from Constructor always dispelled it. “We should have done this more often,” Carl finally said. “Before… well. Before.”

“Yes,” Constructor said. “There’s never enough time, is there? More than you might think, though, if you make the time.”

“Listen,” Carl said, “there’s something else. Someone asked me, if the Toxo Warriors were still alive. I don’t see how it could be. I don’t see how it could matter if they were. But now that I think about it, I’m just not sure.”

“Now that was from a ways back, isn’t it?” Constructor said. “Even when you went off on your own, they were water under the bridge. I can tell it’s troubling you, for you to ask about it here and now. So why don’t you tell me, now, in your dreams… Do you believe it’s true?”

Carl pondered, only a moment. “It was just a dumb kid who asked,” he said. “But then there was a man from the Agency there. You’d remember him, the man who rescued that woman while we were fighting the Raven and Goliath, he’s married to her now. I watched him, just in case he thought there was something to it. He didn’t react, at all. Then after, I talked to Audrey, about this… and he was already gone. Maybe… probably… it’s not them. But it could be something.”

Constructor nodded, and smiled. “Remember that, when you wake up,” he said. “People will ask, later, if you can get through what’s next. Be brave. Trust her. Trust yourself. Trust me. Now wake up, while you can. You’re in danger. You must wake up. Now.”

 

As he spoke, the light flared bright, until all else had faded into white. He sat up beside Dana on the converted dinette, still without his helmet or outer suit, just as something smashed through the rear door.

Super Movies! The one by the guy who made Evil Dead

 

Title: Darkman

What Year?: 1990

Classification: Runnerup/ Improbable Experiment/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

In the course of this feature, I’ve already commented on the counterintuitive volume of superhero/ comic book parodies, and the surprising degree of creativity they often allowed compared to direct adaptations of comic books. To continue the feature, I’ve been putting extra thought into another, much rarer phenomenon: Movies with original characters that were clearly influenced by comic books but still played the material straight. That very quickly brought up at least a couple movies I have had in mind for a very long time. The first up will stand out further as one of the most successful and well-regarded I have covered, enough that I debated if it really fit in. Here is Dark Man, the movie that brought Sam Raimi from Evil Dead toward Spider Man.

Our story begins with a shootout between two rival gangs, won by a newcomer named Durant. We promptly meet a scientist named Peyton, his live-in girlfriend Julie, and her boss. It turns out that the scientist is working on a synthetic skin that would be perfect if not for a tendency to combust when exposed to light, while his lady love has discovered evidence that her boss has been bribing officials on behalf of Durant. That leads the gangster and his goons to Peyton’s lab, which they destroy after finding what they want with no particular effort. In the aftermath, he is left burned beyond recognition in a hospital, while Julie and various authorities presume him dead. Naturally, Peyton recovers and escapes, after a carefully explained surgery that leaves him insensitive to pain and prone to bursts of rage that give him a measure of adrenaline-fueled super strength. With the aid of his synthetic skin, he sets out to take down the mobsters from within by taking their identities, and makes an even more difficult attempt to reconnect with Julie. But when the boss sends Durant after Darkman and Julie, will the hero survive to save her?

Darkman was arguably the first “mainstream” film by Sam Raimi under Dino DeLaurentiis’s Renaissance Pictures, which previously produced Evil Dead 2. (Sequel, remake, chicken, egg…) Raimi reportedly created the character after failing to obtain rights for The Shadow. The movie starred Liam Neeson (see… Krull?) as Peyton and Frances McDormand as Julie, with the late Larry Drake as Durant. Other cast included Jenny Agutter of Logan’s Run and An American Werewolf In London as Peyton’s doctor, Ted Raimi as one of the gangsters, and Bruce Campbell in a cameo as Darkman. The movie had troubled postproduction and test viewings, leading to contemporary and later speculation that it was abandoned by its distributor, Universal. In fact, the film did receive enough backing for a merchandising campaign, including an NES game and an actual comic from Marvel. It ultimately at least broke even, earning over $33 million against a $14M budget. Raimi moved on to television, including Xena and Hercules, before returning to cinema with Spider Man in 2002. Neither Raimi nor Neeson were involved in two direct-to-video sequels.

For my experiences, my main recollection about this movie is hearing about the video game. I actually saw it when it turned up on TV, and wasn’t particularly impressed. I was most interested in it for what I found to be obvious ties to The Shadow, which I was fortunately exposed to long before it got its own incomprehensible movie. My opinion didn’t improve when I encountered it on VHS, at one point returning a tape I had bought. I finally gave it another shot when I found it on Blu Ray, which is when I finally started to feel like I at least understood the appeal. In further hindsight, there were definitely things I didn’t appreciate until the “modern” era of superhero movies. On the other hand, there were also flaws I noticed very early that have stood out more over time, which is why my feelings remain mixed.

Diving in, what I concluded from the beginning was that this is a movie that feels like it second-guessed its own premise. Darkman is still one of the few “superhero” characters who is supposed to be smarter than his adversaries, and there’s a good setup of his technology and analytical mind against the sadism and low cunning of Durant and the goons. It’s used well enough for more good moments as our hero leaves the gang confused enough to start turning on each other. The problem, both in plotting and tactics, is that he steps up to impersonating their leader by the middle act. That leads to a very fine action/ chase sequence, but once Durant has clear proof of an impostor, we’re back to a conventional scenario of a hero running from the bad guys. Which, again, is by all means well-done, but outside of a surreal (and rather contrived) showdown in the lab, there’s nothing here that isn’t standard daring-do, albeit ahead of many of the movies that now make the madcap antics feel vaguely routine.

All of this, however, is just the binding for the romance between Peyton and Julie, and this is where things start to feel just weird and awkward. Peyton/ Darkman is set up as sympathetic, but gets less so starting very early on. There’s a further effort to represent his volatile emotions and unstable mind, complete with hallucinogenic visuals that feel more “comic book” than a lot of the comics.  At several points, however, he engages in uncomfortable brutality virtually in cold blood, starting with the very first kill against the gangsters. Julie is also problematic to sympathize with, clearly torn by Peyton’s death and return to life but too weak-willed not to get involved with her boss. The implied love triangle makes for an even more uncomfortable third wheel in the power-mad developer. Up to a point, he succeeds in representing the greater powers of the mundane world, but his monologues try the viewer’s patience more than a Bond villain, and his restatements of the movie’s already unsubtle themes don’t help matters. All the problems come together when Darkman has the arch villain at his mercy. Like many things, it’s done well enough, except that the whole implied moral element is completely belied by the preceding events. The bad guy certainly has nothing to lose by talking about the consequences of taking a life, but we’ve already seen our nominal “hero” do worse with less provocation.

That leaves us with the “one scene”, and I have had an outright favorite from the very beginning. After Darkman’s first major impersonation of a gangster named Pauly, Durant and the goons are left searching for a missing cash delivery. They finally find the real Pauly passed out in a hotel room. As they enter, Durant remarks, “We’ve been very concerned about you.” The gangsters quickly follow the clues laid out for them to find, while Pauly, played by veteran character actor Nicholas Worth (d. 2007), ineffectually protests. Meanwhile, Darkman sits on a bench, still disguised as Pauly. Inevitably, Pauly goes out the window, and in the uncensored cut we actually see him land. As a bystander screams, the camera follows her gaze to Darkman, still sitting virtually undisturbed. The doppelganger turns to look at her, and finally becomes concerned when the witness screams louder still. That’s when the mask starts to bubble, so he departs quickly. It’s a great scene framed and shot even better, but it’s always been the one that gives me the strongest sense of unfulfilled potential. The remainder of the movie is full of action and suspense, but the premise of turning the bad guys on each other is never used nearly as effectively, and much of the noir atmosphere and dark humor so far drains away with it.

In closing, the best thing I can say is that this is a movie that was practically predestined to be a “cult” movie. In hindsight, the foremost reason is that it was so far ahead of its own time, enough that there was simply no frame of reference to recognize how innovative and unique it was until later. Even more paradoxically, the most distinctive elements were really throwbacks to much earlier sources, from a time when “dark” was neither frowned upon nor automatically praised. For audiences at the time, it was an entertaining adventure. For an era when superheroes have grown as sleekly polished and commercialized as they ever were in the “dark ages” of censorship, it is a literally stunning accomplishment. It’s tempting to wonder, as with Mystery Men, if it would have been more successful and constructive made earlier or later. In my assessment, however, this is one time when a film simply couldn’t have been made in any other time or setting than it was. For that, above all, it remains worth watching.

Image credit Moby Games.

Space 1979 Random Pile 3: The one where babies are illegal

 

Title: Z.P.G. aka Z.P.G. Zero Population Growth

What Year?: 1972

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity

Rating: Dear God WHY??!! (1/5)

 

As I write this, I’m at the point where I’m very seriously considering wrapping up this feature for good. I have also been putting thought into the “random” lineup (really begun with Mighty Peking Man), which very quickly brought me to one I have had in mind on and off for a very long time. As I pretty much expected, it’s from the 1970s. More specifically, it’s part of a minor wave of movies spawned by the most notorious panic of the 1960s and early 1970s, the overpopulation scare. It’s a field with several infamous cult classics, but the one I find representative of the whole is the one that has remained relatively obscure. Here is Z.P.G., a movie where the government has banned having kids, and the filmmakers can’t quite bring themselves to say it’s a bad idea.

Our story begins with scenes of a city shrouded in pollution, where ordinary citizens must wear face masks to go outside without ill effects. We then get a series of narrations revealing that the world government has decided that the cause of it all is too many people, and the only solution is to prohibit anyone from having children for a period of 30 years. If you’re asking how they could possibly enforce this, we then see a representative family of offenders chased down and surrounded by a mob who apparently buy the state propaganda line, before being put to death with an airtight dome dropped on them from above. We then meet a completely uninteresting couple who consider adopting what we can safely assume to be a homicidal murder bot as an alternative to actual children. After justifiably refusing, the woman finally defies the state by literally not pushing a button, and the pair get by undetected. Things get riskier, however, as the mother-to-be approaches term and the state becomes suspicious. But the greatest danger may come from a neighboring couple who want the baby for their own!

Z.P.G., sometimes spelled out Zero Population Growth, was a Danish-American production directed by Michael Campus from a script by Frank De Felitta and Max Ehrlich. It was part of a wave of science fiction influenced to various degrees by The Population Bomb by Paul Ehrlich (evidently unrelated to the screenwriter), which predicted that overpopulation would cause global famine by the end of the 20^th century. The film starred English stage actor Oliver Reed and Geraldine Chaplin, a child of the silent actor, with Diane Cliento as the neurotic neighbor Edna. Robotic child substitutes shown in the film were provided by Derek Meddings, who previously created the marionettes for Gerry Anderson’s Thunderbirds among other productions. Max Ehrlich adapted the script into a novel, The Edict, ultimately published a year before the movie’s release. The actual organization Zero Population Growth (now known as Population Connection) took significant steps to either condemn the film or deny any association with it. The movie is currently available for  digital purchase on multiple platforms, but is not offered for rental.

For my personal experiences, the overpopulation craze has long been my major beef with 1970s sci fi in general. What made this movie stand out as soon as I first heard of it was the total lack of nuance. Forget the comical failure of laws against birth control, or the pointless atrocities of eugenics. Forget admittedly desirable limits on family size, like China eventually tried to implement. Forget using genetic tests to identify defects or potentially “superior” traits. Forget even artificial environments where space and resources might be limited, like Logan’s Run or Silent Running. This movie posits no babies, period, for a completely arbitrary period.  I knew this one was worth special attention, once I could find a way to view it without actually paying anything. When I started this lineup, I ran it down and viewed it even before another movie I reviewed, and it was even more irritating than I might have expected.

Moving on to the movie, the core irony is that from the very beginning, the Earth of this movie’s future is even more hopeless than the voices of authority admit, a common denominator with Silent Running. The atmosphere is nearly unbreathable, free-living animal life is apparently extinct, and food production is dependent on synthetics. Given this scenario, the surviving populace might well be seriously overcrowded, but that could be no more than a symptom of much bigger problems. What quickly gets stranger is that the movie ignores actual reproductive medicine. Nothing is said of pharmaceutical contraceptives or implants, of which the latter could easily head off situations like the movie portrays. Even more problematically, there is no recognition whatsoever of cloning, fertility treatments, artificial insemination or egg freezing, any combination of which could allow those with means and patience to wait out the “edict”. And, as in Logan’s Run, there’s a clear risk of a flat backfire. 30 years without new births might buy enough time to do something about other issues, but what are you going to do when billions of women on the brink of menopause all demand their undisputed right to have a baby now?

Something further I’m going long to add here is that movies like this are singularly bad at actually portraying starvation, poverty or even overcrowding. That in itself should be an editorial enough on the extent to which the overpopulation “crisis” was an uninformed projection of the wealthy onto the poor. By the standards of the actual “developing” world, just having no more than two people in one bedroom is a relative luxury (a point I’ve been annoyed enough to bring up when multigenerational households are discussed). Yet, nobody here thought it was odd for an attractive, healthy-looking couple to have an entire apartment to themselves. I bring this up at this length because there’s plenty more evidence that poverty and malnutrition harm fertility in every measurable way, to the point that knowledgeable authorities are worried about “premature” puberty in the western/ industrial world (something I covered when I wrote about leuprolide- once). The fact that there are still starving children elsewhere simply proves that this has far more to do with politics than it ever did with population.

The still deeper problem is that this level of overanalysis is only sustainable because the movie simply cannot make the viewer care about anyone onscreen. For all its problems, Logan’s Run at least made its characters and their society interesting, complete with an atmosphere of decadent grandeur and ephemeral beauty. Here, everyone from the stars to the extras are uniformly bland in personality and appearance, compounded by the plain and nearly asexual costumes that add an especially uncomfortable Puritanical subtext to the proceedings. By the time the deus ex machina ending rolls through, one could second-guess whether it is “really” happening or just a last hallucination of the dying, but you still will be hard-pressed to care. The one character who is at least a little interesting is Edna, alternately entranced by the baby and coldly threatening to anyone else who gets in the way. It’s easy to pity her as both a victim and creation of the alleged World Government’s policies. Then again, it’s way too easy to envision her as the kind of mother who wouldn’t let her own  kid go to the little boys’ room without fretting that a human trafficker climbed out of the toilet and pulled him in.

For the one “scene”, I’m going with literally the only sequence I didn’t find predictable (and inexplicably, it doesn’t include the uncanny-valley robot babies). It happens to have come right at the transition between two online videos I had to use for the viewing, which made the impression stronger. At a bit past the midpoint, the expectant father does a search for information on childbirth at a sort of library terminal that seems to approximate the internet. As he reads the entry that appears, which for some reason begins by quoting Augustine, his chair is literally pulled through the wall into a forbidding side chamber. A voice that could be broadcast, recorded or a form of AI firmly demands an explanation why he looked up the page. He manages to spin a story that he meant to search another term, at which point the interrogator presses him why he didn’t redo the search. He counters with moral indignation, questioning why the state would archive such “filth”. It’s enough to be released, but someone is clearly suspicious. It’s a chilling preview of the problems of online privacy and the combined threats of authoritarian governments and corporate Big Tech. In this movie, however, it’s like a fly in amber, trapped by self-dated production values and even more outdated political talking points.

In closing, I am going with a rant I started to go into earlier in this review. The final verdict on this movie is that it feels like something that should have been a joke. Indeed, it would have been a promising satire, especially if it had made the comparison between the plight of the protagonists and the obstacles that advocates of contraceptives and abortion had faced. Instead, we have a movie that approaches reproductive rights with the same shallowness and breathless hypocrisy that as a bad slasher movie would bring to sex.  Ultimately, it pretends to side with the underdog, but still won’t say that what they’re put through is not only wrong but probably irrational even on the story’s terms. My diagnosis is that this is because a certain segment of alarmists refused to fall out of love with the vile daydream that was eugenics. If there’s one thing worse than a bad movie that wastes a good premise, it’s a bad movie with worse politics. By that standard, this movie is truly the bottom of the barrel. While it’s too late to wish it didn’t exist, I’m happy enough to warn anyone else away from it.

Handheld Hotspot: Pinball and arcade mini haul

 

It's the middle of my "short" week, and it happens I have a backlog of retro gaming junk. A week ago, I put in an order for two items that definitely run the gamut from old to new, one of which I unpacked and tested while watching Starship Troopers 3. One's a reproduction of the earliest "handheld" based on an arcade game, the other is an example of a new trend I've been actively avoiding. First up, here's a reproduction handheld pinball game.

Our item this time is a Schylling pinball game, of a design I previously sighted in the wild. I doubt very much if the artwork dates earlier than the 2006 copyright date (it seems more like a tribute to the manufacturer's "vintage" tin toys), but everything else is spot-on for games first made in the 1950s. The back is metal, which I confirmed with a magnet, while the front, the "targets" and the channels for the balls are all 1 piece of clear plastic. The goal and only action is to launch the balls one at a time for the highest score, then turn the game upside down to roll the balls back in. There's a tiny plastic plug sort of thing to hold the balls up during reloading, which should also stop them from rolling around during storage or travel. It looks like you could tilt the thing for a better score, but the balls really move too fast and the thing's just too big to make much difference. Here's the outcome of a typical game.

What you'll notice if you look closely is that the highest score is 600 while the lowest is 10 and the next is 200. That makes it difficult to get a good score if more than 1 ball lands in any of the four 10-point spots. The spring mechanism is also unpredictable, which has left me wondering how it really compares to vintage specimens; if other toys are anything to judge by (see the Marx Japanese soldiers), they would have launched the ball with enough force to kill small animals.  For some reason, the feed tends to get stuck with the last ball half in and half out. There's an extra wonky factor in that red robot, which grimaces like a Terminator and has a peg seemingly protruding from its forehead. Finally, I have certain suspicions about the little guy on the right, who looks a lot like a certain droid. Here's a pic with the Truckstop Queen and the Gas Station Duchess (aka Connie) plus the Tomy Centipede knockoff. I said this thing is big...

"You can play with my plunger any time you want..."

Next in line is a Galaxian mini arcade machine, the smallest of at least 2 out there. I could probably have gotten a bigger one for just a little more, but the alternate design I ran across was one of the ones that try to combine a joystick and a D-pad, which just looks clumsy and unintuitive to me. The manufacturer seems to have tried to make up for their good sense by trying to make it a key chain, which just means an awkward and very load clasp bang on the back. Here's the unboxing pics.

For the background, Galaxian is a 1979 arcade game that was followed by its now better-known sequel Galaga. I had played both for NES (or emulators thereof) and personally prefer Galaxian. It's simpler, yet with a fair amount of strategy, particularly since it has the Space Invaders handicap where you can only have one shot on the screen at a time. It turns out the "mini" has the original arcade version, which I admit is quite a bit harder even with the tiny screen and controls factored in. It's particularly difficult to hit the "boss" Galaxians (I'm sure based on the ships from George Pal's 1953 War of the Worlds), which go back and forth along with the escorting ships and then disappear after one or two passes. Initially, my biggest problem was that the screen would flicker or reset randomly, a problem which disappeared entirely when I took a pair of pliers to the ludicrous key chain. Here's a pic of it turned on; note the marquee lights up along with the screen.

The unavoidable fact of this little thing is that it is a model or prop far more than a functioning game. Even as an action figure accessory, it's a little small and definitely oddly proportioned. Here it is with Sidekick Carl to show what I mean.

Then it occurred to me, it was about right for Husky, who's a bit shorter and a lot stouter. Jackpot! And man, he looks terrible.

With that, I'm wrapping this up. These have both been interesting acquisitions, though if it came to it, I'd rather keep the pinball game. The lesson is that nothing is quite the same as holding the real thing, but that's not always reason to keep it. That's all for now, more to come!

Space 1979 Random Pile 2: The one with knights on motorcycles

 

Title: Knightriders

What Year?: 1981

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Mashup

Rating: What The Hell??? (3/5)

 

With this review, I’m continuing the “random” theme, and the foremost difficulty has been trying not to make this a straight-up ‘70s lineup. Naturally, I had plenty of material from the 1980s, yet there weren’t that many that I found better to include here than elsewhere. Then, in the best “random” tradition, I had something land in my lap that is easily one of the strangest movies I have viewed, and I knew I had what I needed, to the point that I deferred another review to get to it while everything is fresh in my mind. With that, I present Knightriders, a film from the maker of Night of the Living Dead about Renaissance reenactors… and motorcycles.

Our story begins with a man and his consort awaking in the woods. They promptly dress in Medieval garb and ride off on a motorcycle. It turns out that these are Billy and Julie, the king and queen of a troupe of Renaissance-fair reenactors who have substituted motorcycles for horses. We follow them through one of their tourneys, where the king fairs poorly against Morgan, a self-styled Black Knight who clearly hopes to become leader of the band of misfits. They also run into real-life troubles with a small-town sheriff who locks up Billy when he refuses to pay a bribe. As their misadventures continue, the king continues to brood on the injustices of modern life, the allure of commercialism and his own tenuous hold on the loyalties of the troop. The internal and external conflicts come to a head when one of their jousts endangers the onlookers, all while Morgan prepares for a new challenge. Can the king and his knight settle their differences gracefully, or has the modern world already pushed him too far?

Knightriders was a drama by George Romero, following his highly successful horror/ zombie film Dawn of the Dead. The lead role was given to Ed Harris, who also appeared in Romero’s Creepshow, with Patricia Tallman as his lady and effects guy Tom Savini as Morgan. The supporting cast included many actors from Dawn of the Dead and/ or its 1985 sequel Day of the Dead, including Ken Foree, Joe Pilato and Christine Forrest, who married Romero around the time the movie was filmed in 1980. Stephen King made a cameo appearance as an onlooker. The movie was released in April of 1981, with a running time of 145 minutes. It received favorable reviews at the time and since, but failed to attract interest either among mainstream audiences or Romero’s horror fan base. The director’s next major foray outside the “zombie” genre was 1988’s Monkey Shines, a dramatic film  with horror and science fictional elements.

For my experiences, I took notice of this movie while considering other Romero films for possible review. It should go without saying that I deeply admire his work, but it has usually fallen outside the scope of what I do for my reviews. For this feature in particular, the only one I had seriously considered is The Crazies, but repeatedly passed on it because of its content. It’s been my further quiet concession that Romero did better when he started to move beyond zombie movies, with his very best film probably being Monkey Shines. (And yes, I still have fewer issues with that one than The Crazies!) Once I caught wind of this one, I decided I finally had something worth including. I ordered it with genuine optimism, and was quickly impressed by its sheer audacity. The trouble is, it’s so… damn… long.

For the movie’s better points, one really can’t get much further than the jousting sequences. Seeing the fully armed and armored knights go at each other on motorcycles is a surreal, almost hallucinogenic experience, like King Arthur crossed with Mad Max. As is typical for Romero, the most jarring part is that it’s all portrayed in a deceptively linear and traditional way. There’s no choppy editing, wonky camera angles or random “shock” images to imply that this is a lazy filmmaker’s idea of a descent into madness. What gets even stranger is that once the tourneys are over, many if not most of the players proceed with their “normal” lives and activities without any marked change in their characters, and that in itself starts to feel like a subtly horrifying kind of madness. One can argue whether reenactors then or now would really be like this, but it’s an honest premise used to good effect. There’s a further sense of a “chicken or egg” paradox; either they’ve been doing this long enough that their sense of reality is warped, or like a latter-day Don Quixote, it’s just the outworking of a deeper rebellion against mundane reality.

The problem already mentioned prominently is that this would have made a fine film an 100 minutes or less, but instead drags the viewer to that mark with the better part of an hour left. By that point, even the jousts are starting to wear thin. What really wears out the film’s welcome is that it becomes apparent that these characters aren’t that likeable. Like the actual knights and lords, their ideals are directly at odds with how they treat each other, though they are at least evidently tolerant of non-white and non-heterosexual members of the troupe. The most fun to be had is Savini, following up his turn as a raider in Dawn as a hammed-up stage villain who at least has real ideas about getting things done. Unfortunately, Harris suffers by comparison alone; he can talk a good game about the troupe as a way of life, but increasingly, he is really just sulking about more and more people questioning his status. The closest we get to redemption is the arc with the corrupt cop, which of all things could and should have gotten more screen time. The frustrating part is that there is no development to fill the time between the first encounter and Billy’s vengeance, which leaves it as just one more random sequence among many.

Now I’m ready for the “one scene”, and I’m going with a scene a little past the hour mark. Billy and a companion have gotten out of jail, with his companion still bandaged from a brutal beating, to rejoin the group around a nightly campfire. Several members give him a lengthy talk why the troupe need money, and he waxes more loftily than usual about the evils of commercialism. Then the friend begins his own tale, beginning with a remark about another beating for being a “n*gger lover”. As he tells his tale, a physician named Merlin, who is definitely not white but doesn’t look “black” either, starts accompanying him with a harmonica. It’s an inspired moment that gives our clearest glimpse of the group’s deeper ideals. However, it just brings us back to the problem of whether these people are really accomplishing anything. To be sure, their sheer non-conformity is an effective protest, but how many of them have ever showed up for a greater cause? It’s all the more sobering to consider what evils were emerging or escalating just at the time the movie was made. Would people like this really have turned out for the oppressed at home and abroad, or would they be too wrapped up in their play-acting to notice?

In closing, my final thought is why I have chosen to include this movie at all. To me, the most comparable film to this one is Duel, if only because both “feel” like they belong in genres they aren’t quite a part of. If Duel was almost science fiction, this is almost fantasy. What further unites the two films is a distinctly post-apocalyptic atmosphere in the absence of the apocalypse itself. Civilization as we know it may continue to function, but the possibility of its downfall remains, and this movie goes just enough further to ask if the world wouldn’t be better for it.  It may not be enough to forgive its flaws, but it at least balances against them. That’s enough for me to give this one a pass.