No Good Very Bad Movies Special: The one that was the worst movie on MST3K

 

Title: The Eye Creatures aka Attack of the Eye Creatures aka Attack of the the Eye Creatures

What Year?: 1965 (copyright)/ 1967 (US release)

Classification: Parody/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Dear God WHY??!! (1/3)

 

In the course of my reviews, one thing I have regularly said from the beginning is that I do encounter movies I consider too bad to review. On that point, I have cited no less an authority than Frank Conniff, the self-described odd-job man of Mystery Science Theater 3000, who has recounted rejecting movies as unsuitable for the show’s purposes at a rate of 20 to 1. More recently, I have finally gone through the MST3K library to see what movies might be worth my time (see The Brain That Wouldn’t Die; also Space Mutiny). With this review, I’m condensing my research into one egregious offender that truly made me feel that even that crew had lowered their standards by acknowledging it. I present The Eye Creatures, a movie that on top of other flaws thought it could be funny.

Our story begins, after a tense exchange between surprisingly competent government men, with alleged teenagers making out at a lovers’ lane and several pervy elders wasting government time and resources spying on them. One particular pair of idiots are on their way to elope, only to run into a UFO that the authorities are well aware of but haven’t bothered to respond to. It turns out that the aliens are already on the loose, specifically tall, pale humanoids covered in lumps that are apparently supposed to be eyes with permanently open mouths. When one of the creatures gets run over by the idiots, the lawmen are somehow unable to find the body, though they do find a deceased drifter whose death is pinned on the kids. It’s up to the pair to break out of jail and stop the aliens, but the hardest part will be finding someone who actually cares!

The Eye Creatures was a science fiction/ comedy film directed by Larry Buchanan, as one of several films produced by AIP (see Futureworld, Meteor, etc.) for syndicated television. It was widely regarded as a remake of AIP’s 1957 film Invasion of the Saucermen, itself a parody of alien invasion films. The film was made in 1965 but not released until 1967. Its budget was variously estimated at $40,000 or under $25,000, either of which would be far lower than the $60,000 budget of Plan 9 From Outer Space in 1956. In some versions, the title was changed to Attack of the Eye Creatures, resulting in an error where “the” was shown twice. The film starred B-movie veteran John Ashley, then age 30, as the lead Stan, with Cynthia Hull, then about 18, as the love interest Susan. The music was credited to Les Baxter, a pioneer of the “exotica” genre, and film composer Ronald Stein. Ashley would describe the film as among “the all-time worst films ever made”, though he spoke well of Buchanan. The film was featured on season 4 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, in an episode apparently withdrawn from authorized distribution. The original film is available on multiple platforms.

For my experiences, my frame of reference is Mystery Science Theater, yet another pop culture phenomenon I was aware of but never into. At the time I started doing reviews for this blog, I had watched a few episodes, and found them just not my style. As I delved further into the show more recently, that feeling cemented, especially in terms of my standards and preferences for movies to review. Of the movies featured and in many cases made notorious by the show, the vast majority are the kind I would go easy on or simply ignore. The outliers that I found most worthy of attention were the relatively late films, especially from the 1960s. These definitely included the very worst ever featured on the show, like Manos Hand of Fate, The Creeping Terror and The Wild World Of Batwoman. But the present movie stood out to me very early as a very uniquely inept and offensive, and as usual, I’m going to spend a lot of time analyzing why.

Moving forward, one more background detail of note is the career of Larry Buchanan, nominated by 1000 Misspent Hours as “the worst professional director who ever lived”. It’s the “professional” part that indeed gets to a number of the core problems. The worst movies of the 1950s, per my usual refrain, were made by people who simply had no idea how to make a movie. This feels from the start like a different kind of animal entirely. The actors, for the most part, are people who can act. The shots are what you would expect from people who knew something about a camera beyond what it cost to get one. Above all, the writing and direction are clearly from by people who should know how to either do this right or let us in on the joke if they are trying to be “bad” on purpose. This is precisely where the movie pushes into the intolerable. The lead actor is simply too old, while his lady love is actively irritating. (And dear Logos, that hair…) The soundtrack, otherwise the one redeeming virtue, is comically exaggerated compared to what's on screen. Worst of all, both the plot and the alleged "jokes" repeatedly hinges on the authority figures being stupid, lazy and perverted. The most baffling offense against intelligence and taste then or now is a comment about movies presenting matrons off as youthful maidens, disregarding the fact that the pair on screen here are an actual teenager paired with a man old enough to be her teacher who looks old enough to play her father. (One more dishonorable mention goes to a “girl” who appears to be wearing a wedding ring...)

And that still leaves the elements that are actually inept. The obvious offenders are the aliens, which are incredibly bad even apart the prominently noted appearances of zippers, seams and shoes. The irritating part here is that the obviously bad suits distract from some promisingly creepy concepts, particularly the mobile severed hand (see… The Hand?). The real question here is whether there is a point where this should be considered part of the actual or attempted comedy. My answer is that these just don’t look like anything but guys in wonky suits, which is a peculiar flaw even among the most awful creature effects ever made. The gremlin in “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet” also had shoes showing, but he still looked like a gremlin. The alien in Dark Star was an actual beach ball complete with seams, but it still looked like an animal/ vegetable hybrid thingy.  The final insult here is that there are no more signs of distinguishable eyes than there were on the Alien rig. Meanwhile, the real star is the mindboggling “nighttime” lighting, all the more incongruous given the aliens’ posited weaknesses. What’s easily missed is that there are just enough shots that get things right to prove that the crew knew how to do it right. Once again, however, this just make the failures inexcusable, culminating in a finale where the “night” doesn’t look any darker than 6:30 on a winter morning.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the opening pre-credits sequence. It all begins with a guy carrying a briefcase chained to his wrist, who will remain by far the most actually professional presence in the entire movie. Even Crow and Tom Servo don’t deny the genuine tension as he passes through security in the standard top-secret facility. The unnamed G-man remains competent and assured as he opens the case, revealing a film inside. In a further “meta” moment, he sets up a projector, raising a certain vague hope that whatever he is taking so seriously is the same thing we’re going to see. Then, just in case you were feeling optimistic, you see the gimmicky lettering of the title, which if you have the MST3K cut will say, “Attack Of The The Eye Creatures”!

In closing, I come back to the challenge I set for myself, can this or indeed any other film truly be considered the “worst” of MST3K. In my opinion, with the further handicapping I would apply in my own reviews, I suppose I would call it a tie between this and Wild World of Batwoman, which were tellingly featured before and after major changes in the show itself. (Yes, they did much worse than Manos Hand of Fate.) However, this is where one will find fundamentally different kinds of “bad” in play. Batwoman (the one where Servo literally screams “END!!!”) still had enough outright weirdness and actually amusing moments that I can credit it with trying to be “so bad it’s good” on purpose. The present film is marginally more polished and quite a bit more conventional, but the net effect is like hearing a twisted dirty joke from a smarmy old gentleman with a smirk on his face. For the decisive personal hate factor, this is the one that “wins” by a landslide. While I am sure I will be dealing with MST3K again, for now, this review will be enough. Onward and upward, when possible.

No Good Very Bad Movies 17: The one with a head transplant

 

Title: The Brain That Wouldn’t Die aka The Head That Wouldn’t Die

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Anachronistic Outlier

What Year?: 1959 (filming)/ 1960 (copyright)/ 1962 (theatrical release)

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

With this review, I’m back for more actually and allegedly “worst” movies, after a very deep dive into some very notorious material. What I found myself running into frequently were a specialized category within what I call the Anachronistic Outlier: Movies that look and feel like they “should” be from the 1950s that really came out later. There are many reasons for this. Some actually were made in the ‘50s but had delays in production and release that held them back. Others were continuing ‘50s trends, particularly the “monster movie” and the early sword and sorcery wave. Then there were those that are just so rough and outright primitive that they just scream 1950s B-movie even if they date well into the ‘60s. The one that stood out had already intrigued me, enough that I also considered bringing back a retired feature to cover it. Here is The Brain That Wouldn’t Die, a ‘50s movie that came out in the 1960s and feels just a little like 1970s.

Our story begins with a handsome maverick doctor saving a patient while arguing bioethics with his father. In short order, we also meet his fiancée Jan. Then tragedy strikes as the doctor wipes out his car on the way up to a cabin that looks more like a community college annex. He walks away, but all that remains of Jan is her head. With experimental transplant and life-support technology, he restores Jan to life, despite her repeated protests. The doctor leaves Jan in the care of his disreputable assistant while he sets out on an even more ambitious experiment: Find a new body for Jan- even if it means killing a living woman to do it!

The Brain That Wouldn’t Die was an independent film by B-movie producer Rex Carlton and director Joseph Green, who shared credit for the story and script. The movie was reportedly shot in 1959, with a copyright date of 1960. The film starred character actor Jason Evers as Dr. Cortner and Virginia Leith as Jan, with Anthony LaPenna as minion Kurt and Adele LaMont in her only known theatrical appearance as the model Doris. The film did not receive a theatrical release until 1962, when it was released by AIP (see Futureworld, Meteor, etc.) as a double-bill. The AIP release included two versions of the title. The film was widely ridiculed for low quality and its bizarre premise, though it was also noted for unusual gore effects and exploitation themes. An “uncensored” cut would likely have been rated R. The movie was subsequently featured in The Golden Turkey Awards and Mystery Science Theater 3000. It is in the public domain, reportedly due to copyright errors. Carlton produced a total of 10 films, several of which were released after his death in 1968. Green only directed one other film, The Perils of PK in 1986. Leith died in late 2019, at the age of 94.

For my experiences, this is a movie I knew by its notoriety long before I saw it. I finally watched it in a 2-pack with a far more obscure (and honestly worse) film. With my usual warped frame of reference, my immediate reaction was pleasant surprise. Of course, it’s not “great”, but it’s far above the actual bottom of the B-movie barrel, and it’s aged better than plenty of big-budget dramas and “message” films of its time (see Robot Monster and When Worlds Collide respectively). At the least, it’s a prescient take on modern medical ethics. In a wider view, it’s a sleazy but honest “slice of life” that covers sex workers, violence against women, gender and class double-standards, and even a possible LGBT character. This is where the movie feels both behind the curve and oddly prophetic. What’s genuinely impressive is that even pure “cringe” moments make a real point, particularly as the respectable, clean-cut doctor charms those who should be wary. The egregious example is the absolutely painful fight between two burlesque girls, lent a pathetic sort of pathos by the fact that their guy has long since moved on.

Moving on, we get to the core story, which is where the comparatively high standard of competence really matters. All the significant cast are capable actors given reasonably well-developed characters to work with, while the obvious problems have as much to do with self-dated (if not already outdated) styles and mores as with any fault in the performances. What gets legitimately unsettling is that the actual leads interact very little with each other, to a degree that only makes sense if the relationship was shaky to begin with. That Bill cares more about the challenge of saving Jan than he ever did about her is Armchair Psychology 101, but Jan is dysfunctional in her own way. She justly declares her hatred for Bill, yet there’s no introspection about their relationship or how her feelings and trust must have misplaced. If it comes to that, we never get a formulaic “remember our good times together” speech, which really means Jan can’t be nearly as oblivious as she seems to Bill’s nature. In the midst of it all, the most functional and interesting character is Kurt, revealed as both an assistant and guinea pig. At a minimum, he’s the only one who admits his failures and his ambitions. In the process, he reveals almost everything we learn about what the Hell is going on, at one point monologuing even after Jan interrupts him. There’s surely an intended indignity in his demise, staggering about with his “good” arm torn off.

Then there are the “creatures”, Jan and the mostly unseen monster in the doctor’s comically inadequate closet. This is where I seriously debated whether I should have included this one in the Revenant Review. The head is done well enough, without any distracting trickery. Outside of a few establishing shots, Jan is seen almost entirely in closeups, accentuating Leith’s performance rather than the effects rig. The changes in angles give a further sense of the gadgetry around her, which all looks reasonably functional. Then there is the monster, represented by Israel-born giant Eddie Carmel when it appears. Kurt describes it as the sum of the doctor’s “miscalculations”, originally “a mass of grafted tissues, lifeless… broken limbs and amputated arms”, which I maintain absolutely qualifies as a zombie. Naturally, what we do finally see doesn’t live up to the description. Still, it’s fascinating for sheer improbability, especially the asymmetrical face. There’s a nice extra touch of contempt in the startlingly graphic death of the doctor, which feels like a parody of the cannibalistic zombie yet comes a full decade before Night of the Living Dead.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the meeting of the doctor and the model. He initially walks in on her posing for a group of male photographers, which I am sure must have been shot twice by the original crew. She quickly sends away the group, brutally crushing a guy who tries to his on her. When Dr. Cortner doesn’t leave, she is wary but respectful. They discuss their mutual past, referring at several points to an “accident” that clearly wasn’t accidental. What follows is at face value more routine melodrama, culminating in an underwhelming reveal of a scar that hasn’t been visible in repeated closeups. The part that’s intriguing in a tawdry way is her repeated statements that she doesn’t “date” men, followed by a quite casual mention of a “girlfriend”. It may not quite as suggestive as it sounds through modern filters, but I’m satisfied that this is meant to imply that the character is or at least might be lesbian/ bisexual. And what’s vaguely impressive is that this is all done without any appeals to neon-sign stereotypes that were certainly in exploitation vocabulary (compare with Prey, if anything). It’s just a normal conversation between a man and an otherwise “normal” woman that would really stay the same however you read it, and that’s as thoughtful a take as we got for a very long time.

In closing, all I have to add is that this movie is here first and foremost as an example of what people think of as a “so bad it’s good” movie from a peak era of such things. Nobody ever said it was great, but between its flaws and its actual merits, it’s more than enough to be entertaining. On a deeper level, it’s the kind of art that expresses the anxieties and presumptions of its time better than more capable and well-meant works. Look deeper still, and you will find disconcerting insights that remain relevant far ahead, even if it is for reasons the creators could never have intended or expected. Call it good, call it bad, you will remember it. For me, that’s good enough for a passing grade.

Super Movies! The one with Grand Moff Tarkin and Joan Collins

 

Title: Tales From The Crypt

What Year?: 1972

Classification: Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

The last time I came to this feature, I was announcing that I was ready to bring it to an end, at least as part of the regular lineup. Because I’m really not very good at this, I’m back with another entry. It all came to this because several other possibilities I considered for my other features fell through, and in the middle of it all, a reviewer I follow posted a review of one I had been considering on and off for a very long time. With that, I present Tales From The Crypt, 1970s edition.

Our story begins after an opening score that seems to have been recorded in the 1930s with a group of visitors in a Medieval catacomb. Five of the group wander down a side passage into a chamber where a creepy man in an old-school monk’s robe. The old guy becomes the narrator of a series of tales of their misdeeds, beginning with a woman who murders her husband on Christmas Eve, only to discover that a lunatic in a Santa suit has paid a visit. The tales get more explicitly supernatural as we move on to a philanderer who finds himself transformed after an accident with his mistress and a wealthy man’s scheme to remove a dotty garbageman from his gentrifying neighborhood. We then meet a proud financier whose wife learns the price of getting what you wish for. Then we’re back to the Earthly plane with a faceoff between the chiseling administrator of a home for the blind and his defiant but patient wards. But at the end of it all, they still must learn just where they are!

Tales From The Crypt was a 1972 horror film by Amicus (see The People That Time Forgot) and AIP based on stories from the comic of the same name and from two other EC titles, Vault of Horror and Haunt of Fear. The film was directed by Freddie Francis from a script by Amicus cofounder Milton Subotsky. The top-billed star was Peter Cushing (see The Horror Express and Shock Waves) as the dustman Grimsdyke, a role he reportedly chose over the businessman Jason in the segment “Wish You Were Here”, ultimately played by Richard Greene. Other cast included Joan Collins (see Empire of the Ants) as the murderess in “All Through the House”, Patrick Magee as the leader of the blind men, and the late Sir Ralph Richardson (see… Time Bandits?) as the Cryptkeeper. The theme from the film was Bach’s “Toccata And Fugue”,  previously used for horror/ genre films such as the 1931 version of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde. The film was an immediate if modest success, earning a box office of over $3 million against a budget of 170,000 pounds. It was followed by a sequel, The Vault of Horror, released as a Shout 2-pack Blu Ray with the original in 2014. Several segments of the film were later remade for the Tales From The Crypt TV series. The film is currently available for streaming on the Tubi platform.

For my experiences, I knew of Tales From The Crypt vaguely thanks to the TV show, but never got much further into it than the present film, which I looked up sometime in the 2000s. When I first encountered it, I freely accepted it as a “classic”. In the years since, I have never felt that its reputation diminished. What I did see was major fluctuations in the availability of the film, to the point that I was for a time seriously concerned that this would be yet another movie in Copyright Hell. I suspect that this, in turn, allowed a more subtle shift among audiences and critics, especially new and old fans of the TV series and the original comics. I myself have come to the point of debating between this film, Vault of Horror and Creepshow as the best vintage EC-based film. The original film is no longer the centerpiece of the franchise, if it ever was, yet it hasn’t fallen into obscurity or disrepute either. And that offers a pretty good point for a relatively neutral reviewer like me to come in for another look.

Turning to the film, what stands out in my usual sensitivities is that this is an egregious example of a film that feels both ahead of its time and willfully “retro”, the epitome of what I call the Anachronistic Outlier. The music, the shooting style and even the casting all deliberately harken back to the 1950s period of the comics and in some cases to their earlier sources. In the process, the movie unintentionally highlights the morality-play format that tamped down horror in the pulp era. Yet, there is still a nihilistic “edge” that anticipates or exceeds movies far ahead of its own time, undoubtedly in no small part because “mainstream” American genre films had fallen so far behind as to be actively regressing. This isn’t slasher-movie pseudo-moralizing about premarital sex and found-object homicide, but a Serlingesque panorama of terrible people who knowingly bring trouble on others as well as themselves. It’s aided greatly by the distinguished cast. Cushing and Richardson are the easy standouts, with Magee pulling up from behind. My picks for the most impressive performances, however, are Collins, who spends much of her time looking anxious or bored as she considers the logistics of body disposal, and Greene, pushed to supporting cast in his own story yet perhaps even better than Cushing might have been as a rogue who unquestionably suffers far more than he deserves.

On the “con” side, most of the obvious problems come simply from the anthology format, previously considered with Two Evil Eyes and Allegro Non Troppo. The ones that certainly rate weakest and strongest are the opening and the finale, which most seem to agree on, so I won’t say more than I have. Of the rest, however, I find even the segments that usually get the praise don’t quite meet their potential. “Wish You Were Here”, for instance, relies on altogether contrived references to “The Monkey’s Paw” for its exposition. By comparison, “Poetic Justice” is at least ahead of its time with a vision of “stranger danger” and homeowners’ association intrigues, though to me Cushing just kind of breaks even. For me, the absolute standout is “Reflections of Death”. Sure, it’s predictable even for the 1950s, but the execution far exceeds an already satisfactory premise, with the key scenes shot from the revenant’s perspective. There’s still a decent twist with the reappearance of Susan (played by Angela Grant), as eerily poised as Magee and the blind men in the final segment. Then the problem throughout is that it just looks and feels cheap if not rushed. To me, this shows especially in the opening and closing music. It’s one thing to rely on an arguably overused piece; it’s another to use a hopelessly tinny recording that sounds like 20 generations of transfer static. I can’t believe they even saved real money; it’s more like they gave the job to someone who never bothered to listen to more than one recording.

That leaves us with the “one scene”. I’ve already gone through multiple shots and segments that would be worthy of the honor. The one thing I haven’t covered in depth is Richardson, familiar to me from his late turn as Ulrich in Dragonslayer. He gives a superbly ghoulish performance, necessarily fragmented across the film. I debated whether it would be possible to isolate just one piece in the usual fashion. Once I had the idea, however, I quickly noted one particular point, bridging the first segment with “Reflections”. After narrating the fate of Collins’ character, we find her counterpart among the visitors vaguely protesting, even as she rubs her throat uncomfortably. The Cryptkeeper then turns to the next sinner, played by TV/ character actor Ian Hendry (d. 1984). It’s here that the monk first questions whether any of our antiheros really remember how they ended up in the catacombs. When called out, the man reflexively answers, “I’m on my way home to my wife and children.” The monk challenges him, almost bemused: “And then?... And then?” It’s a matter of a minute or less, even with the framing factored in, but these few words are a high point if not the finest moment of a cracking performance from a fine actor.

In closing, what I come to isn’t so much the rating, but how the film compares with others I have mentioned, which has ultimately been as big a consideration as any in my final rating. Of all the official, informal and arguable EC films, there never was any doubt that Creepshow is the “best” by any objective appraisal. However, I could have rated this one as highly with my usual handicapping in effect. What really put Creepshow ahead are its budget and improved technology, plus the participation of Stephen King, which obviously can’t be held against any other film. But on consideration, there is one movie I would definitely rank ahead, and it’s this movie’s own sequel, Vault of Horror. Of course, I can’t give my reasons in full without another review I’m not yet prepared to do. It will suffice to say that, where the second film has segments that don’t hold up on their own or by comparison, it also has several that are at least as good as anything in Tales or even Creepshow. (I will name-drop the segments featuring Terry Thomas and Tom Baker.) The further fact that Vault was released only a year later is to me the surest proof that the present film could have been better. It may remain the original and the “classic”, but its real accomplishment was laying the way for better things. In the proverbial light of day, that’s credit enough, and with that, I can count this done.

Image credit Movies And Mania.

Featured Creature: The one where Godzilla turns environmentalist

 

Title: Godzilla Vs The Smog Monster aka Godzilla vs Hedorah

What Year?: 1971 (Japanese release)/ 1972 (US theatrical release)

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Mashup

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

 

As I write this, I’m reaching 10 reviews for this feature, and almost up to 180 for this blog. I decided it was time for something a bit different, and to that end, I looked at a few different movies. That brought me to a whole genre I have somehow missed, the Godzilla/ kaiju movies. That still left me with a few choices, including some good ones within the 1980s-‘90s timeframe I have mostly adhered to so far. But the one that had been at the top of the pile since long before I started this feature was from further back, at the transitional period of the very early 1970s. Here is Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster, and this is one time you want the English dub, just for the hysterical opening musical number.

Our story begins, after a cheery montage of scenes of pollution, with a child playing with his Godzilla toy. This isn’t “meta”, however, as both the boy and the adult authority figures refer to the big guy in the factual present tense. Meanwhile, scientists discover strange tadpole-like creatures that appear to be generated spontaneously from polluted water. Inevitably, these congregate into one kaiju-sized mess referred to as Hedorah. This entity proves to be able to change its shape, mostly alternating between a vaguely humanoid form and a sort of flying saucer of muck. The people of Tokyo are terrorized more graphically than usual as the creature smashes ships and sprays the city with a gas that reduces people to skeletons. Even Godzilla is unable to score a decisive victory over the slime monster. It’s a fatherly scientist, injured in an earlier attack, who makes a breakthrough, demonstrating that the creature can be dried with an energy weapon. The military sets up the superweapon for a last stand, in defense of an encampment of hippies who definitely deserve to be eaten. It just might be the army who saves the day, but only if Godzilla can keep Hedorah from smashing their machine first!

Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster was a 1971 film from Toho, the 11^th to feature the title character Godzilla. The film was directed and co-written by the late Yoshimitsu Banno, as what he maintained to be a return to the serious environmental themes of the original film Godzilla King of the Monsters. The film featured veteran Haruo Nakajima (d. 2017) in his second-to-last outing as Godzilla and Kenpachiro Satsuma as Hedorah, with Akira Yamanouchi as Dr. Toru Yano. It was released in Japan in 1971 and in the US by AIP (see Futureworld, Meteor, etc.) under its given title in 1972. The AIP version included a new theme song “Save The Earth!”, consisting of English lyrics set to the music of the Japanese theme “Give Back The Sun!”. While the film was evidently profitable, it drew negative reactions from critics, fans, and Toho management, leading to Banno’s dismissal from the studio. Michael and Harry Medved included the film in their 1978 book The 50 Worst Films of All Time. Banno and Satsuma would return for the 1980s incarnation of Godzilla. Godzilla Vs. The Smog Monster remains reasonably available on DVD and Blu Ray, featuring a Toho dub with the original theme song in Japanese only.

For my experiences, I have already written plenty about my conflicted experiences with Godzilla in my toy blogs (see especially the patchisaurs and generic Godzilla). It will suffice to say that I loved Godzilla as an idea through my childhood, but on the few occasions I was able to watch the movies, I was either confused or underwhelmed. It was only in my adulthood that I really got a look at a representative sample of Godzilla/ Toho/ kaiju movies, which quickly convinced me that the best of the genre were the ones that didn’t have the big guy. (At one point, I traded in a copy of Godzilla Vs. Biollante, a tragedy I may recount at another time.) As for the present film, I certainly knew of its notoriety, but I didn’t watch it or look for it until I happened to find it on the used shelves. It immediately struck me not as better or worse than other kaiju movies, but as wildly weird even by genre standards. It’s certainly not the worst Godzilla movie (I have other candidates in mind for that), but it could very well be the strangest.

Going on to the movie, what’s noteworthy is that how much of the strangeness has little if anything to do with the monsters. The obvious and egregious example are the animated sequences, in hindsight a preview of the traumatizing weirdness of House. On the same vein, there’s the montage of TV-screen images literally bombarding the viewer, until the transformation to a cartoon comes as a relief. Then there are the musical numbers, somehow more bizarre in the US cut, and the overlapping the “party” sequences, which are so laughably tame nobody bothers to tell the kid to leave, yet still as freaked out as the real deal. To me, the most incongruous moment is the previously noted presence of a Godzilla toy. I’m sure nobody really thought this through further than convincing kids to buy more toys. Still, having Godzilla merchandise in the monster’s own assumed universe is a level of fourth-wall irony that western media didn’t get to until far more recently. There’s an extra odd yet poignant note in the familiarity with which the kid treats the toy, pushing it down the slide no differently than a flesh-and-blood friend. It’s just enough to wonder about the reality of what follows, without the pretentiousness that such subtexts often bring.

Meanwhile, what’s front and center is Hedorah, and it is truly nightmarish as well as nauseating. Things get off to a good start with the tadpole stage, with an extra cringey moment when the doctor handles one with his bare hands instead of a remote-control robot claw. Once they assemble, the resulting creature is easily among the most formidable on record. What’s especially unsettling is that the monster doesn’t seem to pay much attention to humans except as a source of the pollutants it feeds on (see also The Green Slime), raising the indignity as it decimates the population with what amount to excretory byproducts. Only Godzilla appears to register as a threat, ultimately distracting the creature from the humans’ belated response. The most surreal part is that the two opponents are legitimately well-matched. While Godzilla is hard-pressed to do more than temporarily disable the sludge creature, it takes visible effort for it to do any harm to him. What makes or breaks the whole setup is our default hero’s clear disgust at his adversary’s oozy attacks. The overall feel is like Rocky fighting a hobo with an unidentified skin disease; Big G can hold his own when he puts in the effort, but what he really wants is to deal with the amalgamation at arm’s length. It all builds to the film’s most effective moments, as Godzilla first tries to fling the whole mess away, then ends by wading into its desiccated mass to stamp out any remnants of life.

That leaves the “one scene”, and while there’s a lot to choose from, there’s one sequence that’s strikingly random even for this movie. After the first round or so between Godzilla and the slime monster, the youth of Tokyo gather in a nightclub you know is hip because the kid actually isn’t present as far as I can tell. Someone projects Jackson Pollack splatters on the walls while a woman in a skintight suit sings the theme song. Many of the patrons wear fish masks as they dance along, for reasons that might well make sense if you know any Japanese. In the middle of it all, one of our protagonists sits and broods. He becomes anxious, or else realizes how weird this really is. Meanwhile, a stream of ooze flows stealthily down the stairs. When someone finally notices, the sludge comes down faster, without overtaking any of the partygoers. Our gallant hero puts himself between the singer and the slime. Just when there’s real tension, the slime retreats as quickly as it came. Then we see the one actual victim, a sodden kitten still mewing pitifully. Where did it come from? Why is it even alive? Like almost everything else, it makes no sense, and works nevertheless.

 In conclusion, the one thing still lingering in my mind is the Medved brothers’ book. Now, it is itself an easy target of ridicule, particularly in light of Michael Medved’s subsequent politics. What I have repeatedly pointed out (see my own Plan 9 review) is that even in the 1990s, it was quite difficult to access older movies, and harder still to get a good sampling of movies from another country. With regards to this movie in particular, what I distinctly recall is that the Medveds presented it as no more or less than an “egregious” example of its genre, and that’s still a quite reasonable assessment. With the resources of the age of the internet, it’s easy to see that there are both better and far worse movies from Godzilla, Toho, and Japanese cinema in general. What this movie offers in spades are the things that made the series and genre memorable, for better or worse, and on the whole, it’s fun even if you’re just looking for things to laugh at. That’s enough to keep a space on my shelves, and a passing grade. With that, I’m done.

Space 1979 Wells-A-Thon Finale: The one with a happy ending

 

Title: The Island of Dr. Moreau

What Year?: 1977

Classification: Weird Sequel/ Irreproducible Oddity

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

 

It’s time to wrap up this mini-series, and the final entry will be the one you knew was coming all along. I opened this lineup with an infamous H.G. Wells adaptation that came out when I was in high school. Now, I’m closing it with an adaptation of the same source material that I personal saw years before that one came out. As such, it is quite possibly my first encounter with H.G. Wells, and at the time, I was very impressed by it. As we will see momentarily, times change, and even a fairly short time can make a big difference. Here is The Island of Dr. Moreau, 1970s version, from the people who thought Futureworld was a good idea.

Our story begins with a man adrift at sea with a single companion. Things are looking up as they reach shore on an unfamiliar island, but one of them is attacking by a mysterious person or creature in the forest. The remaining survivor, named Braddock, finds himself in a compound that is the closest thing to civilization around, under the care of a physician named Montgomery and a more reclusive scientist named Dr. Moreau. In what will now sound familiar, he meets the other inhabitants of the island, including a lady friend, and soon realizes they are not ordinary people. In fact, they are animals transformed into intelligent humanoids by some haphazardly explained process, definitely with varying degrees of success. The newcomer meets their leader, a sort of wolfman who tries to teach the rest the way of humanity as Sayer of the Law. But some of the humanoids are already backsliding, and tensions rise when Braddock mercy-kills a crippled runaway. By retaliation or established plan, Moreau begins a new and sinister experiment, to turn a human subject into a literal beast. But when Moreau’s schemes start to go awry, can anyone escape the island, human or not?

The Island of Dr. Moreau was a 1977 film from AIP, also responsible for 1976’s The Food of the Gods and Empire Of The Ants the same year, with a reported budget of $6 million. The movie was widely regarded as a remake of the 1932 film Island of Lost Souls. As such, it notably retained a subplot where the Sayer of the Law witnesses Moreau murdering Montgomery. An additional story arc with a cat-woman character first featured in the 1932 adaptation makes her a specifically romantic interest, unlike the 1996 version, but left out a love triangle with the protagonist’s fiancée from the earlier film. The feature had a high-profile cast for a studio known for B-movies, led by screen legend Burt Lancaster as Moreau, with Michael York of Logan’s Run as Braddock and Nigel Davenport as Montgomery. Barbara Carrera appeared as the cat-woman Maria, while TV/ character actor Richard Basehart played the Sayer of the Law. Various scripts reportedly featured several darker alternate endings, including a scene where Maria reverts to a cat that remained in a Marvel comic based on the film. The movie has remained generally available for streaming and on disc, though it has dropped in and out of free streaming.

For my experiences, I have already recounted how I first encountered the movie on early ‘90s TV (see also Flash Gordon, Battle Beyond The Stars, etc). What stood out most was how dark it was, and I didn’t find it much less so after actually reading the book. Where the trail really picks up again was when I looked it up on free streaming somewhere around 2013. At that time, I was still impressed by it, though I recognized that the ending sidestepped the darkest parts of the book. Fast forward to when I started Space 1979, and this one popped up early and often. I held off on reviewing it mostly because of uncertain availability, but also because it didn’t exactly fit in with the knockoffs and runnerups I had set out to cover. It was technically a remake, but it’s still a solid film with a creative take on its sources plus a decent budget to boot. Once I had this feature in mind, I double-checked and found it available for free viewing, so I watched it, and quickly realized that this was a much weirder movie than I remembered.

Turning to the movie itself, the foremost thing to be said is that it is very much a product of the 1970s. As such, it is not only violent but sometimes surprisingly risqué, though nothing here is exceptional for “70s PG”. At its high points, the movie becomes flat-out surreal, egregiously a fight between a humanoid and a tiger, all the more disconcerting as they clearly had no way to do the scene without an actual animal. As a further upside, the effects are reasonably modern, provided by a crew that included Tom Burman, who went on to Howard the Duck among other films. This is an area where criticism tends to focus, and there are certainly problems, but I have never been satisfied that it is simply a matter of quality or budget. If anything, the underlying problem is that they try too hard and at times approach the material too literally. I see this especially in play with a pig/ boar creature, no worse technically than others but uncharacteristically awkward and grotesque. Incidentally, the roster specifically includes a hyena-man, whom I never picked out except by a very jarring laugh.

The most obvious flaws of the film, in my assessment, come from what is carried over from Island of Lost Souls. This is most blatant with the romantic arc between Braddock and Maria, which is certainly the chief reason the ending feels watered down compared to the plot. On consideration, the posited “happy” ending is more like solid “cringe”, especially since we don’t get very solid information on how Maria’s intelligence compares with humans. More fundamental problems rise from the central story point of Moreau breaking the Law by murdering his assistant, which simply doesn’t feel thought through. The obvious Biblical theme is really based on flawed scholarship that only cropped up in relatively recent times; “thou shalt not murder” was more a rule against vigilantism than anything else. (Yes, I really have a seminary degree.) In the context of the story, there’s no reason to doubt that Moreau could do anything short of carving up the Boar Man for spare ribs and lay down whatever interpretation of the “Law” would let him get away with it. It would make sense for him to lay down an absolute line at harming himself or other humans, which would work just fine for the purposes of the plot. Showing creatures of uncertain intelligence in turmoil because their literal god doesn’t follow a moral abstraction, however, is just muddled. It is worth further note that by comparison, the bestialisation of Braddock absolutely works, despite rather limited development.

With that, it’s time for the “one scene”, and this time, it’s a scene directly from the book. After Moreau’s demise, Braddock’s quite understandable decision is to run for it with Maria. To cover their tracks, he confronts the rebellious humanoids and declares that Moreau is not really dead, but watching them in spirit form. Meanwhile, Maria hoists the doctor’s carcass over their heads. The sight is enough to leave the humanoids genuinely intimidated, at least long enough for the pair to run for it. Then, in perhaps the most masterful shot of the movie, one of the beast-men literally pokes Moreau with a stick. Needless to say, the metaphysical conundrum of the book doesn’t last much longer, and the rebels are soon back in pursuit.

In conclusion, all that needs to be said is that this is undoubtedly the best Wells adaptation of the 1970s, even if it is almost by default, but also the one that does the most to date itself. What works, works as a ‘70s movie. Where the movie struggles, it is either from channeling its own time to a fault or trying and failing to update older material. In the end, what we have is a middle-of-the-road movie, and a fitting one to end the lineup with. It may not live up to the high mark of George Pal’s films, but it’s certainly far ahead of the likes of Empire of the Ants. In short, it’s a movie worth watching, and worth coming back to. For me, that’s tribute enough for a movie that helped introduce me to Wells.

Image credit Cyber Comics And Toys.

Space 1979: The one with a killer asteroid and Sean Connery

 

Title: Meteor

What Year?: 1979

Classification: Runnerup/ Mashup

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

 

After Repeat Offender week, I’ve been taking a little time to decide what I wanted to do with some leftover material. In a fairly typical bout of irony, I decided to take a break with a movie I had in mind at the very beginning, another one I saw long ago and never looked up again. Only then did I realize that I had the perfect storm of repeat offenders. This was a movie from the studio that made (or bough/ stole) The Incredible MeltingMan, Squirm, The People That Time Forgot and Futureworld, with the stars of Brainstorm and Zardoz. On top of that, it intersected with The Green Slime, which I previously introduced as the first appearance of a now-familiar sci fi theme that to my knowledge didn’t surface again until the present movie 11 years later. With that, I present Meteor.

Our story begins (after a very ‘70s futuristic credits sequences) in space, with a view of a comet and tumbling asteroids, accompanied by ominous narration that ends with a closeup of an asteroid referred to as Orpheus. We then go to a distinguished gentleman on a sailboat, whose voyage is interrupted by a government vessel announcing that his presence is needed. We learn that the gentleman is a former NASA scientist named Paul Bradley, who quit over a project called Hercules. A briefing from his former boss reveals that a comet has knocked the 5-mile-wide asteroid Orpheus (referred to very persistently as a “meteor”) into a course towards Earth, destroying a manned exploration vessel in the process. Dr. Bradley quickly comes up with a decent plan: Rather than try to blow up the asteroid, detonate a volley of nuclear weapons in its path to deflect it into a stable orbit. To do it, however, they need to launch the weapons from space, and a round of conspiratorial intrigues establishes that the USA and the Soviets have already parked nukes in orbit to blow up each other. At Bradley’s urging, the two nations join forces, which brings him in contact with a very pretty Russian scientist. Meanwhile, several smaller asteroids are incoming, generating plenty of disaster footage. Then, as the time to launch approaches, the team learns that a “big one” is headed for their position, forcing them to choose between escaping or completing the mission.

Meteor was a production of B-movie mill AIP and the equally notorious Hong Kong studio Shaw Brothers. The film was clearly intended to capitalize on disaster films from earlier in the decade (also a common denominator in The Black Hole), to the point that The Poseidon Adventure veteran Robert Neame was brought in to direct. Where both studios had previously specialized in low-budget films, the production received a budget estimated at about $16 million. Much of the money clearly went into a high-profile cast, including Sean Connery as Dr. Bradley, Natalie Wood as the not-quite romantic interest Tatiana, and the likes of Martin Landau, Henry Fonda and Karl Malden as various supporting officials. The movie was filmed mainly in 1978,  but a planned mid-1979 release was delayed until the end of the year for additional work on its special effects. The finished film reportedly included footage from the film Avalanche, produced by Roger Corman. On release, the film received negative reviews from critics and failed to appeal to audiences, resulting in an estimated box office of $8.4M.

For my personal experiences, this is yet another movie I first encountered on 1990s TV, probably early in the decade. Once again, I didn’t give it another try until I watched it for this review. With a recent viewing as a frame of reference, I must conclude this movie didn’t leave much of a mark even in my usually uncanny memory. What I mainly remembered was the plan to deflect the asteroid, which I only noticed being explained quite late in the movie. (Unfortunately, the filmmakers don’t seem to have recognized that nuclear weapons are still limited by a vacuum.) On further reflection, I have been wondering if I might have missed the first part of the movie, though outside of a few brief scenes in space, the first part of the movie is exactly the kind of clunky character development kid me would have tuned out. I do very vaguely remember some of the disaster sequences, which really feel like 2 or 3 disaster movies for the price of one, as well as some tension in the finale, which I genuinely thought was going to have some kind of double cross until I got through to the actual ending.

What I can say first and foremost is that this movie has some of the best production values I have encountered, especially for a film made before ca 1980. Of course, it’s obvious that the filmmakers paid more than enough to ensure it, but it’s still impressive. For the most part, this is further reflected in good dialogue and a solid, linear story, with the only downside being that much of it feels like it belongs in a documentary rather than big-budget “entertainment”. Even the effects are quite good for the time, and in many ways more realistic than many films of the following years. The flashes and streaks of light are actually just about what one would really see from explosions and impacts in space. For that matter, the only real scientific misfires are an impact in New York City that looks more like Godzilla plowed through it and a single overdone pyrotechnics sequence when the missiles start slagging the asteroid.

The problems that keep cropping up all lie in the finer details, and it is very much a cumulative “uncanny valley” effect. To begin with, the film could easily have kept down to 90 minutes, and certainly didn’t need to be over 100, making the actual 1 hour 47 minutes run time far more taxing than I can easily explain. A good part of that is the Cold War political intrigue, which amounts to some clever barbs dragged out into a good part of the movie. Another thing that stood out to me was the heavy use of “translated” Russian, which anyone in science and academia would recognize as unnecessary given how widespread the use of English really is. (Understanding a foreign speaker’s idea of English is another matter…) Then there are Connery and Wood, who both deliver very good performances but never quite feel like they belong in their roles. This is most obvious with Wood, who is no more convincing as Russian than Connery would be as a Minnesotan. But there are also plenty of problems with Connery, who was more at home on the sailboat than he ever is talking to the scientists, politicians and military brass. It may be just as well that the script never really says what his backstory is, or they might have tried to tell us that he really is supposed to be om Minnesota.

At this point, it’s really already time for the “one scene”, and it has to be a sequence when a lesser meteor lands off  Hong Kong. The impact triggers a tsunami, narrated by one of Bradley’s colleagues. The effects are by far the most effective of the movie, fully matched by shots of panicking crowds who really don’t seem that disorganized. The cameras take time from the bigger picture to follow a man and his wife as they meet at their apartment before fleeing the city. There’s a standard but well-realized heartwarming moment as the woman readies their child to travel, and the guy grabs their dog. The pair remain recognizable as they rejoin the crowd, just in time to discover that the tsunami has already surged ahead of them. There’s a last poignant cutaway to the scientific colleague, who matter-of-factly dismisses the possibility of leaving the city. It ends with the wave literally crashing through the windows of his observation room. It’s a scene that would probably be as cliched as it sounds from a western studio, then or now, but with the Shaw Brothers crew onboard, it has the same unaccountable authenticity as a Toho kaiju movie.

In full hindsight, the real problem with Meteor is simply that it’s a realistic science fiction movie which tried to play by its own rules. For as much well-deserved hate as Armageddon and The Green Slime receive, they did the dramatically “right” thing by putting the heroes in space. This movie shows just how poorly the alternative fares in the motion picture medium, no matter how what the much star power and effects are put behind it. Despite all the efforts to add drama, the whole story amounts to people on the ground pointing automated orbital equipment at a threat and pushing the button to fire, and that is as exciting on film as watching someone else play a video game without seeing the screen. The fact that this is indeed how space exploration and research was increasingly carried out just shows why Star Wars-style “science fantasy” was handily outperforming 2001-style realism in theaters. Add in this film’s already considerable flaws, and we’re left with one more reasonably competent film that never manages to get from good to great.

Image credit Prince Planet Movies, which has a fair review of the movie.