No Good Very Bad Movies 16: The one with Harry Potter

 

Title: Troll

What Year?: 1986

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Mashup

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

As I write this, it’s closing on half a year since I started this feature, and I’m really much further along than I thought I would be. A major reason for this is that quite a few movies featured up here would otherwise have ended up elsewhere, especially under Featured Creature and my animation reviews. Often, these decisions have been spur of the moment judgment calls. With the present review, I am coming to something different, a movie that’s been on my radar a long time which I went through a lot of further debate about. What settled its place here was its quite unusual history and status, as a movie at once notorious and relatively overlooked, all because of developments completely beyond the control of those who made it. I present Troll, the movie that Troll 2 was supposed to be a sequel to, which somehow ended up overshadowed by it, and as a bonus, it does indeed have a kid named Harry Potter.

Our story begins with a family called the Potters moving into an apartment building otherwise populated entirely by annoying sitcom side characters. As they are unpacking, another new arrival appears, a strange humanoid creature who promptly takes the place of their daughter Wendy. The big brother, named Harry Jr, is immediately suspicious at his sister’s increasingly rambunctious and precocious behavior, but no one else notices anything amiss. Meanwhile, the supernatural being quickly picks off the apartment denizens, apparently transforming them into woodland fay folk of his own sylvan dimension. It all gets a convenient backstory when Junior meets up with a spunky matron who reveals herself to be an enchantress and the villain’s old flame. She reveals that the entity is a great warlock transformed into a troll, in punishment for his dastardly scheme to wipe out the human race and replace them with fairies. Now, the troll needs only to transform the last of the tenants to bring the fairy world to Earth. It’s up to the kid to save his sister and the world, or the building is truly going green!

Troll was a 1986 horror/ urban fantasy film from Empire Pictures and producers Charles and Albert Band. The movie became the directorial debut of special effects creator John Carl Buechler, following a credit for one segment of Empire’s Dungeonmaster the previous year. The film starred veteran character/ B-movie actor Michael Moriarty as Harry Potter and Noah Hathaway of The Neverending Story as Junior, with June Lockhart as the witch Eunice and Philip Fondacaro in a duel role as the troll and professor Michael Mallory. The supporting cast included Sonny Bono and Julia Louis Dreyfuss as apartment dwellers and Anne Lockhart as a stand-in for her real-life mother as the de-aged Eunice in the finale. Effects for the film were created mainly with practical/ animatronic puppets and some stop-motion and optical effects; it notably did not feature the Band crew’s chronic offender David Allen. The movie received mixed to negative reviews on release, with many criticizing its mix of horror and fantasy elements, but still grossed $5.5 million against a budget of up to $1.1M. The film received further notoriety due to the release of an unrelated film as Troll 2 in 1990, without the knowledge or consent of the makers of either film. The film is available for streaming from Amazon.

For my experiences, I’m sure I first heard of this one in connection with Troll 2. What quickly struck me was how rarely reviewers that film ever discussed this one at any length. Considering the infamy of the non-sequel, one might expect a collateral notoriety, if not backhanded praise just to emphasize how bad the other was. Instead, it slipped so far into the shadow of Troll 2 that it was for a long stretch difficult to obtain except as an add-on with that film. The only other film I had encountered with this kind of negative space was “Trek 1”, with the obvious difference that the sequel which overshadowed it was actually good. I finally got motivated to investigate when I acquired Dungeonmaster, along with the mess that was Creepers. After I reviewed that film, I finally requested the 2-pack from Netflix, and it was genuinely up in the air which one I was going to review. I never regretted my choice, but I knew I had unfinished business. Ultimately, I returned to it several times before I was ready for this review, because it is weird.

The first and obvious point to make about this movie is that it has nothing like the issues of Troll 2 or Creepers. At the same time, it’s not hard to see why it never rose to the status of a “cult classic”. For fans of the Band crew in particular, it’s difficult to take as anything but a disappointment. This shows especially in the effects, which is all the more baffling as I’m entirely satisfied that several of the creature puppets were flat-out recycled from Dungeonmaster, which certainly did better in this among other areas. The obvious explanation is the familiar problem of letting an effects guy run the show, which in this case can be said to get better if you look at other films the director did. What remains even more puzzling is that it does on a certain level bear out its unmemorable reputation, which shouldn’t be the case by any object standard. This is easily among the most surreal entries in an era of strange experiments, as evidenced especially by the transformation effects (not to mention the musical numbers…). The best explanation I can suggest is that it’s just polished and “mainstream” enough to create a misleading sense of familiarity. That, in turn, brings in the prominent debate whether it either ripped off or was ripped off by certain other properties, a question I find no more interesting than its similarities to other Band crew efforts.

Meanwhile, what I find most noteworthy about the film is its nearly on-the-nose treatment of urban fantasy. In these terms, it is definitely forward-thinking (compare with The Gate a year later), but it also shows many of the potential drawbacks of the genre. The ultramundane apartment dwellers furnish a few good moments, like an early interaction between Bono’s character and a lady friend (“…Unfortunately…”), but there are many more that feel as trite and dated as a sitcom. The premise is further stretched by the lack of genuinely likeable characters, with Moriarty’s father figure being perhaps the most nuanced (and the source of easily the best lines). These issues further divert from the simple fact that the fantasy elements of the story remain quite routine. After all the strangeness of the effects, it comes down to a story of a kid who can conveniently beat the competent adults with information and artifacts that are literally handed to him. (That brings up an idea I’ve kicked around for a satire where all the fantasy-land denizens really just humor the human child adventurers to keep them out of any actual danger.) It’s a good enough story, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen before and since. For that matter, it’s the type of fantasy that would usually be aimed at younger audiences than the  movie’s PG13 rating indicates.

That leaves the “one scene”, and there’s one that has stood out to me from early on. In the middle act, a friendship begins between the troll in its child guise and the midget professor Mallory. In their longest one-on-one interaction, the child persona starts with pleasantries and an accepted offer of juice. She innocently muses, “You seem at peace with the world around you,” then asks about the professor’s health. When he responds with more pleasantries, she says, “You’re fibbing.” He quickly admits that he is terminally ill, doing his best to explain in a child’s terms. There’s signs of empathy and deeper thoughtfulness as the troll responds, seemingly vexed by the questions of mortality. He then shares a further memory of learning of his dwarfism, finally remarking, “I kept on waiting.” It’s a genuinely poignant scene, not quite in character for the film yet not entirely wasted, and a further setup for one of the most effective creature shots soon after.

In closing, I come as I often have to why I am covering this movie here. It definitely didn’t fit in with Space 1979, even less so than Troll 2 did. I gave it more though for Featured Creature or its spinoff (see The Dark Crystal), but very quickly decided it simply wasn’t up to the quality of the movies I was covering there (yes, including Mimic 2 and Starship Troopers 3). That left this feature, and I freely admit I still had mixed feelings about it. For the rating in particular, it got what it has virtually by default, except not in the sense I have used it for maligned or controversial films like Saturn 3 and Frozen. Again, it’s not nearly as bad as Troll 2, let alone Creepers, but then, nobody ever said it was. The one thing it didn’t deserve reputation-wise was to be overlooked, especially in comparison with the “sequels”. Even then, the final verdict is that there are clear and understandable reasons it was forgotten, which would probably have been even more complete without the infamy of the subsequent film. I stand up for it as a film worth watching despite its flaws. And with that, I have one more loose end out of the way.

No Good Very Bad Movies 9: The one that nobody saw

 

Title: Death Bed aka Death Bed The Bed That Eats

What Year?: 1977 (copyright)/ 2003 (DVD release)

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Guinnocent!!! (Unrated/ NR)

 

As I write, I’m finishing up a Halloween lineup, and I decided it was time for one more entry in my “worst” series. In planning this out, my biggest concern has been how many I could do without destroying my morale and possibly my sanity. So far, I’ve surprised myself by doing a good chunk of what I had planned in a single run earlier in the month. I decided that if I was going to do another installment this month, it would be something very, very weird. That immediately brought me to one particular movie I not only had in mind at the start but considered in creating the ratings. Without further ceremony, I present Death Bed, a film so odd it doesn’t feel like a movie.

Our story begins with a couple frolicking in an old castle, where they discover a bed that looks old and sketchy enough to have evolved its own species of parasites. When the pair try out the bed, they don’t just get an embarrassing infection, but are eaten by the bed itself, which seemingly dissolves them with foaming juices then sucks them down. It’s all narrated by the ghost of a previous victim, trapped inside the painting. We learn that the bed is a malign entity that has been devouring people for decades if not centuries, created and inhabited by a demon that once tried to seduce a mortal woman. When a new group of waifs arrive, the bed promptly begins snarfing the lot of them, until only one wayward girl and her brother remain. In its moment of triumph, the powers of the bed weaken enough for the talkative ghost to make contact with the living. He finally reveals how the monstrous furniture can be destroyed- but carrying out the plan will cost the survivor her life!

Death Bed was produced, written and directed by George Barry in his only feature film credit. The film was reportedly shot as early as 1972, mainly at the Gar Wood mansion near Detroit. The film assembled a cast who had or went on to other roles, including William Russ of Boy Meets World and the late Demene Hall. The film’s narration was provided by Patrick Spencer-Thomas, otherwise known mainly as a sound technician, with most or all additional dialogue being dubbed. Per Barry’s accounts, the film was never released theatrically or as an authorized home video. However, the film received a series of “bootleg” releases on VHS without his knowledge, creating a limited cult following. Beginning in 2003, the film received authorized release on disc and later digital streaming. A similarly titled film Deathbed was released by Charles Band in 2002, credited as based on Barry’s film.

For my experiences, this is one I remember hearing about a few years back, but I suspect I would have run across it much earlier. I even had a few misbegotten ideas of my own along similar lines (which I long since found independently invented in Brian Lumley’s tale “No Way Home”). What has stood out to me is that the concept of the film seems to attract as much notoriety as the movie itself. On still further consideration, it’s an egregiously “Seventies” movie. As such, there are films that are at least superficially comparable, like Zardoz, Shanks and especially House (the Japanese one!). It’s all the more impressive that, even in their company, this film stands out as uniquely mindboggling, probably outdoing all but House for pure strangeness.

Moving forward, when I did get around to watching this movie, my strongest reaction, as recounted above, was that this is something that should not be counted as a “movie” at all. What it should be considered is, of course, a problem I have considered frequently. The vibe I get is that of a very old-school book of fairy tales brought to life. Almost all the story is told through narration; most of the shots are closeups and tableaus with a bare minimum of movement; and when the characters are supposed to be “speaking”, we usually see the actors’ lips clearly not moving. On analysis, this approach isn’t quite as unusual as it sounds, but the closest counterparts are very far afield, in animation and even silent films. That, in turn, reveals the extent of the problem of giving it a rating. By almost any objective standard, this is easily one of the most incompetent films on record, yet calling it a bad movie feels like calling Big Rigs a bad video game. It’s hard to judge a work when it’s unclear if the creators understood the “rules” of the medium and genre it’s supposed to represent, harder still when they repeatedly and willfully break them.

As often happens, these ground-rules arguments nearly overshadow the film itself, and I must say, this was always in the movie’s favor. The depictions of the bed provide a kind of dark humor, complete with chewing sounds and meal-themed title cards. There’s a certain amount of biological logic in the feeding process, though it would really make more sense if we didn’t see as much blood or gore. What I find most intriguing are the lesser meals that get eaten, like an a bucket of chicken, an apple and a fly whose demise is heard rather than seen. But then, as often happens, the weaknesses crop up around the edges. To begin with, I’m not satisfied with the timeline, which puts the origin of the demon-bed barely before the 20^th century (through a series of hilariously inept tombstones) while everything else screams Medieval/ Renaissance era. Further problems arise from wonky lighting (also an issue in Shanks), which usually makes the mansion and its surroundings as ominous as a duck pond on a sunny summer day. There’s also not much done to make the characters interesting, even on this film’s strange terms. Finally, there are way too many moments that are nonsensical without achieving the surreal quality of the film’s better moments, such as the brother staring at his skeletonized but intact hands after attempting to destroy the bed.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the one closest to a conventional sequence. As we go into the final act, Ms. Hall’s character, the only person of color in the cast, goes to bed while the others are looking for a vanished companion. As she sleeps, her friend appears to her in a dream, a jarring and poignant moment since we already know her fate. She suddenly awakes, to find herself already enveloped in the bed’s foam. Somehow, she pulls free, covered in blood. She has to crawl for the door, and it’s believable and grueling to watch. This goes on, and on, and the live-action-illustration style makes it feel even longer. She actually makes it to the door, which is when one of the sheets snares her and drags her back in like an indoor Sarlacc. It’s truly the moment that establishes the demon bed as a credible threat, and gets us invested in the fate of it’s prey, so of course we see nothing more about it.

In closing, I feel the need to explain not the rating, which I have explained already, but the classification. Between Space 1979 and the Revenant Review, I introduced the Irreproducible Oddity and the Unnatural/ Improbable Experiment as categories. At the time, I had a definite rationale for the distinction, but I will admit that over time, how I use one or the other has gotten a little random. For this one in particular, my decision was a matter of context. There is no question that this movie is unlike any made before, in its own time or since, yet that in itself is well within the “weird for the sake of weird” spirit of the 1970s. The truly ironic part is that for all its unconventionality, it's still not confusing and annoying on the level of far too many '70s films. The best thing I can say about it is that it forces the viewer to think about where out expectations of what constitutes a “movie” came from and how many other turnings there were along the way. That is praise enough from me, and reason enough to give it a look. With that, I’m done for today.

Image credit Movies And Mania.

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.

Movie Mania: Double soundtracks

 

I've been trying to stay with posts every weekday through the current month, but today, I was facing a bottleneck where I honestly didn't know what to do. I decided it was time to do another soundtrack post, and I happened to have not one but two albums, one of which just arrived in the last few days. I'll start with the one I've had for a little while, the Robot Jox soundtrack.

To fill in a few details not covered in my review, the Robot Jox score was composed by Frederic Talgorn, also credited for Delta Force 2 and Heavy Metal 2000. (You can't win them all...) He is also listed as conductor for the soundtrack, presented here as a 1993 issue. It's a zippy, martial, slightly tongue-in-cheek score, very much in keeping with the spirit of the movie. It goes by quickly at just under 40 minutes. Oddly, it still has a total of 15 tracks, which has so far kept me from ripping it to digital files for no otherwise compelling reason. I bought it about the time I reviewed the movie for a little under $20, which was certainly a better deal than I got for the Krull soundtrack. I just now realized it's currently available from itunes for $10. I still regret nothing. The CD comes with a little book that must have carried over from the original release, forlornly promoting the movie. Here's a pic of the awesomeness.

The new arrival is of course the soundtrack of Zombie (aka Zombi 2). The score, by Fabio Fabrizzi, is one thing I actually like about the movie, enough that I watched it again recently in part from thinking of the music. It's a groovy, elemental, synthesizer-heavy score that screams '70s while doing it well. If you've seen Fulci's zombies move (see also The Beyond), the beat fits their almost wobbly motion perfectly. It also genuinely feels Caribbean, giving the movie itself a lot more credibility than it would otherwise deserve. Here's pics of the back, CD and insert.

The backstory here is that I went looking through several versions of the soundtrack, most of them selling for very high prices even as these things go. I found this one for a ludicrous low bid, and held off a challenge without hitting $10. As you may be able to make out, it's more like a medley than a soundtrack, with what amounts to 4 tracks and 3 alternate versions of the main title. Per Discogs, this was a release in 1996, making the advertised "remix" original to the album. I tried listening during work, when I basically need music just so I hear a sound besides myself talking. An odd thing is that the soundtrack includes dialogue and sound effects from the movie, something I've previously only seen with Flash Gordon. Even by work-music standards, this was subpar, to the point that I finally shut it off during the remix. There is by all means good music here, but I would rather try to mix it in with other things (maybe material from the movie theme anthologies) than listen to it in this format.

With that, I'm wrapping this up, while this still qualifies as s quick post. That's all for now, more to come!

Space 1979: The one that put Charles Band out of business

 

Title: Robot Jox

What Year?: 1987 (live action filming)/ 1989 (copyright)/ 1990 (US release)

Classification: Runnerup/ Mashup

Rating: Pretty Good! (5/5)

 

At this writing, I’m up to 75 reviews for this feature (or about 101 for my blog), yet another milestone I had considered for ending the whole thing, and I’ve long since planned on something special for this one. And for all the obsessing I usually put into choosing these things, there’s one I’ve had in mind all along. It’s one of the latest of the movies I’ve considered for the feature, yet at the same time one of purest embodiments of what it’s been about all along. Here is Robot Jox, the last film released by one of the most famous/ notorious studios of the 1970s-80s era.

Our story begins with an exposition title crawl, introducing us to a world where war has been replaced by single combat, except as a grim scene that follows reveals, these are not individual warriors but giant machines. We then meet Achilles, champion of an alliance simply called the Market, and his crew, including a veteran fighter named Tex and a scientist referred to as Doc. They prepare for the next match, a fight for Alaska with the rival Confederation’s own hot-headed fighter Alexander. When the match ends inconclusively despite the deaths of a bleacher full of spectators, the crew suspects a spy in their own midst. Meanwhile, a genetically-engineered newcomer named Athena is gunning to take Achilles’ place. But the real bombshell comes when Achilles announces that he is quitting after completing 10 fights, enraging both his fans and Alexander. Will Athena take the field, or will Achilles return for the final fight? Will the traitor be revealed? Will anyone fight by the rules? Do these questions ever need an answer??? Not really, but there will be some twists in the details, which is what movies like this are all about.

Robot Jox was the last major release from Charles Band’s Empire Pictures, the most over-represented crew of chronic offenders on this feature or blog short of Roger Corman and the country of Italy. In fact, the movie was largely completed in 1987, while the officially acknowledged “final” Empire film The Catacombs was filmed the following year. The film was directed by Stuart Gordon from a script by Joe Haldeman, best known for the award-winning ‘70s science fiction novel The Forever War; there were many reported creative differences between the two, with Haldeman favoring a more serious tone. The film starred  Gary Graham as Achilles and Paul Koslo of The Omega Man as Alexander, with Anne-Marie Johnson as Athena. Extensive stop-motion and other effects for the robot battles were provided by David Allen, based on designs from Alien production designer Ron Cobb (see Doctor Mordrid and Dark Star respectively). The movie’s unprecedented $10 million budget contributed to financial problems that ultimately resulted in Empire’s bankruptcy. Because of these and other problems, the movie only received a limited theatrical release in 1990 with a gross of $1.27M, a year after a novelization was released. It became a cult hit on home video, with a Blu Ray release in 2015.

For my experiences, I can just remember being aware of this movie when it came out, including a sighting of the novel. Given my usual pop culture tunnel vision, I never questioned that it had been an outright hit. By the late ‘90s, I picked it up as a video rental, after recognizing Haldeman’s name on the damn thing. At some point, I picked up a VHS tape, and finally bought the Blu Ray when I tried to phase out my tapes a few years pack. Along the way, I have learned a lot more about its history, and the one thing I find truly interesting is that it is and was the kind of movie people tend to assume to be a ripoff/ knockoff when there were really few if any movies like it. It was obviously and admittedly based on animation/ anime like Voltron and Transformers (the movie version of which couldn’t have helped matters), but the conversion to a live-action feature was an honest tribute made well before the West’s on-again-off-again bandwagon started. It can be said to build on The Terminator and other robot and/ or post-apocalyptic movies, but that’s a big tent to build a criticism off of. What I really find it closest to is Total Recall, though I can’t exactly say why. To me, the two “feel” like spiritual kindred, even if they differ in most ways one could list off, and that’s enough for me to put this in the “runnerup” category.

As for the movie itself, almost anything I can say is positive. The acting is decent, the dialogue is good, the music is pitch perfect and the effects are among the best of the very best. What’s important is that the movie fleshes out its characters and their assumed world, warts and all. (In that, at least, it can certainly be compared to Total Recall.) It is worth particular note that we never see much of this posited future beyond the duels, yet we still get quite intricate detail out of establishing shots and incidental dialogue. The fans are poor and “gritty”, but still happy to be there. The jocks are as larger-than-life as they are clearly expected to be, with plenty of human failings in the mix. The bots and the facilities that support them are sleek and clean, with an already old-school feel, which I freely admit is pretty close to my own exotroopers. One extra detail I will mention is that the cockpits the jocks are in are quite functional, an issue I was just recently ranting about in one of my toy blogs. They’re no bigger than they need to be to hold a pilot, with a glass framework that actually gives an excellent field of view, and they’re positioned around the center of mass for a good compromise between protection and visibility. It’s exactly the kind of detail far later examples get wrong, I’m sure a part of Cobb’s contribution to the project.

Of course, all of this builds up to the final battle. It’s all wildly over-the-top, complete with a Freudian giant chainsaw. At the same time, it becomes a thought experiment for the premise of gladiatorial combat as a substitute for warfare, and perhaps the whole concept of “rules” of war. There’s also an intriguingly nuanced “slippery slope” in effect. It’s Alexander who obviously goes over the line, starting well before the end; when he really snaps, the surprise is that the referees don’t get hit with the full force of his guns rather than a symbolic stomp. But Achilles and for that matter Athena are clearly on their way down the same curve. As the battle becomes a brawl, there’s a sense of history starting over, inviting the question whether the duels of our myth-shrouded past went out of favor for the same reason. The devolution becomes literal as the combatants reduce each other to hand-to-hand amidst the wreckage of the machines, culminating in the movie’s genuinely poignant final lines.

In all this, you might expect I would be struggling for the “one scene”, and I’ll admit you wouldn’t be wrong. Nevertheless, there was indeed one segment that caught my attention during viewing for this review. As often happens, it’s one of the scenes furthest from the action, as Achilles visits his brother after quitting the games. He’s met at the door by a woman with a child in her arms and another clearly on the way. During casual greetings, she remarks, “We do our part,” and then adds, “With six kids, we get three bedrooms.” As they gather at the table, the phone rings. When the lady answers, we hear a threat against Achilles, to which she responds, “Up yours too.” As she brings dinner to the table, the brother says, “We’ve had a few calls like that.” Then his wife lifts the lid to reveal the meal, enthusiastically endorsed as “real meat!” The scene closes with a brief, pitiful shot before the camera cuts away. It’s our longest and most intriguing glimpse of their day-to-day world, with an unsettling preview of the incoming age of the internet.

In conclusion, all I can say is that this is a movie that’s almost above criticism simply because it is never anything more or less than what it clearly set out to be. Detractors can pick out its flaws from orbit, and usually they’ll be right. But at the end of the day, the objections are like criticizing Reanimator for being too gory, Terrorvision for being too silly or The Day Time Ended for being too much like a bad acid trip. The Band crew’s specialty was following through with an idea, not asking if it was a good one, and this was their masterpiece. It’s all the more fitting that it saw the light of day right when the ‘80s gave way to the ‘90s. Band and his associates would forge on, but their true heyday was done, and the world was poorer for it.

Space 1979: The one that's 77 minutes long and has 7 directors

 

Title: The Dungeonmaster aka Ragewar

What Year?: 1984 (copyright and UK release)/ 1985 (US theatrical release)

Classification: Mashup/ Parody/ Improbable Experiment

Rating: Downright Decent! (4/5)

 

At this writing, I’m still in the “repeat offenders” lineup, with a bit more material under consideration than I originally planned, and even by the standards of this feature, what I have left is bad enough to sap my morale. I decided the best option was to throw one more in the mix that’s actually good, so I turned to a movie I had long been considering from a crew that has already turned up repeatedly. So here is The Dungeonmaster, from none other than Charles Band and Empire.

Our story begins with a scene of a woman we never see again being kidnapped by goblin-like creatures, followed for no obvious reason by some very 1980s aerobics/ dance sequences. We then meet Paul, a hotshot computer programmer who apparently dreamed the opening melodrama, and his artistic live-in girlfriend Gwen, plus a computer he calls “Excalibrate”. It turns out Paul is ready to get married, but Gwen isn’t so sure. While she is thinking it over, she is taken captive by Mestema, an evil sorcerer in search of a new challenge. The warlock then presents Paul with a chance to free her by completing seven trials spread through time and space. The adventure drags the hero and his lady from landscapes of myth and fantasy to the dangers of a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Fortunately, Excalibrate is along for the ride as a protective gauntlet whose powers adapt and expand for each new world. However, Gwen adjusts a little too well when they arrive in a very familiar cityscape, accepting a new identity that puts her in the path of a killer. It’s up to Paul to save her, but first, she must remember who they are!

The Dungeonmaster was a production of Empire Pictures International and senior producer Charles Band, originally titled Ragewar: The Challenges of Excalibrate. The film starred Jeffrey Byron as Paul, Richard Moll as Mestema, and Leslie Wing as Gwen. Byron was also credited as cowriter of the script, the only writing credit in a long career in TV and movies. The film was divided into several semi-independent segments with a total of seven directors, including Ted Nicolaou, who went on to direct Terrorvision, stop-motion animator David Allen, and Band himself. A version of the movie was released with a PG-13 rating from the MPAA, very soon after the rating was introduced; this may have been a 73-minute cut of the movie sometimes listed. More recent home video releases feature a 77-minute cut that would almost certainly be rated R in a modern theatrical release. A famous and frequently repeated clip from Mythbusters appears to have been a direct (if possibly unconscious) quote from the movie by Adam Savage.

Going straight to my personal experiences, I had absolutely no knowledge of this movie until I watched it from Netflix streaming, one more thing that disappeared long ago. At the time, it made a favorable impression, and I immediately noticed the Mythbusters connection (which I will get to further on). As usual, I had to buy it on disc to watch it again, a few months before the present review, but fortunately, it proved to be available in a very inexpensive 4-pack. As far as I remember, I went in with no doubt it would be here sooner or later, but the very odd nature of the film put me off enough that I left it as one more for the “maybe” lineup. By the usual procedure, I gave it another go when I decided to review it. Even with a recent viewing under the belt, however, it still wasn’t what I was expecting, and not always in a good way.

The first and foremost thing I can say about this movie is that it has more than enough “good” to stay in the memory long after initial viewing. The effects, sets, and costumes are all up to the usual Band/ Empire standards, especially a stop-motion giant statue in Allen’s segment. The story is willfully disordered, but the pace and tone are just right to keep the movie going. What really shines is the dialogue between Byron and Moll. The villain is the kind of character that should be ludicrously cliched, but instead goes out the other side into archetype territory. The performance from Moll, previously sighted as the ice creature in Caveman, is priceless, delivering the usually boasting and threats with the occasional surprisingly personal revelations. It’s worth further note that the extra touches make it clear that the character was once human or at least mortal (despite certain references elsewhere in the script), while leaving his backstory appropriately mysterious. The hero is more than satisfactory as a foil, speaking out for virtue, enlightenment and the value of human fallibility. The high point of the repartee is surely when Paul gives a quite accurate account of the principles of ahimsa, very possibly the last thing people would expect me to have an interest in.

Unfortunately, the flaws of the movie are equally obvious, if not always easy to define. The episodic format inevitably leads to a few misses, conspicuously the Mad Max-inspired post-apocalyptic segment, and the length of certain segments contributes to the problem. This shows most in the segment set in a modern city (the one credited to Byron), which starts intriguingly but relies on increasingly contrived developments to move ahead. What weighs the film down far more is the disconnected nature of its scenes, an issue already seen with The Day TimeEnded from the same crew. The “random” approach can make for good fun for a while, but past the hour or even half-hour mark, it definitely begins to wear thin. What is perhaps worst of all is that Mestema rarely if ever directly involves himself in the challenges. This helps preserve the “quest” narrative device, but it also postpones the confrontation between the main characters, to the point that the otherwise satisfying dialogue between the pair starts to feel more and more like empty posturing from both sides. It doesn’t help that the final battle we do finally get is more like a pro wrestling match than a duel of the fates.

For the “one scene”, meanwhile, my choice is an early sequence where Mestema sends Paul to what looks like the Greco-Roman underworld, directed by John Buechler, who would go on to rival Allen as the lead effects guy for the Band crew. He is greeted by a horned creature, portrayed with an iffy-looking puppet that resembles a faun more than a demon. (How closely the posited battle of good and evil lines up with Judeo-Christian theology is repeatedly raised but never resolved.) The lord of the underworld promptly summons a squad of zombie-like minions, representing possibly the best effects of the film. Of course, Paul quickly bests the undead, so  the horned creature follows up with a far more sinister vision of the hero’s own undead body, representing his supposedly inevitable defeat. But Paul promptly dispels the apparition, through means that aren’t really explained, leaving the demon-faun apparently impressed. Then Mestema’s voice calls down, warning him that what he has seen is a “future reality”. Paul responds with the line immortalized by Mythbusters: “I reject your reality and substitute my own!”

Rating this movie has been an especially difficult decision. I finally decided the best frame of reference was the other Band films previously featured here. By that standard, it’s certainly an improvement over The Day Time Ended, and vastly so over Laserblast. Comparisons with Terrorvision and Dr. Mordrid are more difficult. This is certainly a more ambitious and sophisticated production than the later films, but we have already seen that the Band crew was usually better off with simplicity. I finally went with 4 out 5, because I genuinely like this one and also because I’ve been getting a little tired of my recent streak of movies that can’t do better or worse than 2 or 3. This is certainly well above the rest of that lot, even if it doesn’t feel as good as it “should” be. If you just want to have a bit of fun, you can do a lot worse. Trust me, I checked.

Space 1979: The one with 0% on Rotten Tomatoes

 

Title: Terrorvision

What Year?: 1986

Classification: Parody/ mashup

Rating: Downright Decent! (4/5)

 

As I write this, it’s just past Halloween, and I came very close to doing the present review as a holiday special. I didn’t quite get to it in time but still definitely wanted to get this one in. It’s another movie I considered very, very early (see the Critters review), though I debated for a very long time whether it was “right” for this feature.  On that vein, I even debated using this one as a final entry. I definitely won’t be getting to that point for a while yet, but I decided the time was right for this one.

Our story  begins with a quick introduction to the Putteman family, consisting of a mother and father, their teenage daughter Suzy, a kid named Sherman and Grampa, who is obsessed with weapons and the military but never actually mentions being in a war. Through their introductions, Mr. Putterman ties to fix their satellite dish himself. Things go awry when the dish receives a signal from a briefly seen interstellar civilization that is discharged as a bizarre creature. The monster begins eating members of the household, included a visiting pair of swingers, while Sherman and Grampa continue watching 1950s monster movies hosted by a personality named Medusa. When Sherman tries to warn others, the creature deflects suspicion with a further ability to recreate the faces of its victims (or save them for later…) When all seems lost, the kids manage to calm the monster long enough to befriend it, with help from Suzy’s boyfriend OD, and begin sharing the wonders of Earth and TV.

Terrorvision was a production of Charles Band and his studio Empire, which has been turning up here a lot more often recently. The film was directed by Ted Nicolaou, also credited with Empire’s Dungeonmaster the previous year, and starred a range of low budget/ cult movie talent including Mary Woronov of Night of the Comet and Gerritt Graham of the rock musical Phantom of the Paradise as the parents. The film received a limited US release in early 1986, with an estimated gross of $320,000. Rotten Tomatoes gives the movie 0% based on 9 reviews. The music was provided by Richard Band and The Fibonaccis, with the latter writing and performing the movie’s theme song. Like The Day Time Ended, the soundtrack received a release on vinyl, but unlike the former film, it is not available in digital format and remains expensive in its original format. The movie was released on Blu Ray with The Video Dead in 2013, though the latter film was not an Empire release. A short-lived television series of the same name appeared in 1988, but was likewise unrelated.

This is another movie I first saw on Netflix in the early 2010’s. It stands out first and foremost as a movie that never pretended to be taken seriously. All the characters are cliches, albeit well-rendered ones, every twist in the story is predictable, and almost every joke is at the movie’s own expense. It also further demonstrates the usual inexplicably good Empire production values. It’s quite clear that the movie cost far more than it ever earned in theaters, though no tale tells of its budget, and it still looks way too good for an operation on Empire’s level to pay for. The monster and related effects are excellent, and undoubtedly took up much of whatever money they had. The cost of the sets would also have run up a very tidy sum, unless (as I think very likely) they filmed the whole thing in somebody’s upper-class home.

Meanwhile, the thing that keeps the movie going is the surreal interactions among the characters. In contrast to Band’s early venture Laserblast, this movie succeeds in presenting characters who are absolutely terrible but somehow interesting and even endearing. Sherman and Grampa are actually smart, and their wargames are wonderfully horrifying in hindsight. The parents and most of the other adults are simply idiots, not because they are dumb, but because they are too self-centered to notice anything amiss. Mrs. Putterman in particular is so brutally insensitive to Sherman that he would be better off calling CPS on her rather than telling anyone about the monster. Suzy falls in the middle; she is vapid but sensitive in her own way, enough to start paying attention by the time the authority figures have been picked off. Finally, there is Medusa, in a class by herself. Alternating between her on-screen persona and an impatient Bronx accent.

Naturally, the movie’s greatest strength is the monster. It’s a gooey, oozey, asymmetrical creature that does little more than hide and eat, yet still stays ahead of most of the human characters. Just as intriguing are the traces and remains left behind. Its attacks seem to liquefy its prey, very graphically shown with Grampa’s early demise, resulting in numerous pools and piles of slime, clothing and less certain stuff.  A nice extra touch comes with the consumption of OD, resulting in an assortment of metal of more substance than the character. Its further ability to recreate the heads of its victims is truly unsettling; when we finally hear from its creators, it is hinted that the beast retains the essence of its victims in some kind of gestalt. What is most impressive is that the creature manifests a perversely childlike personality, grunting and twirling its eyes in excitement whenever something attracts its interest. It’s revealed to be a renegade house pet, and it does indeed make sense as a puppy that soiled the rug.

For the “one scene”, this is the one thing that tempted me to write this one off. This is a movie that is meant to be appreciated in full; focusing on one segment merely diminishes both the part and the whole. still, there was one reasonably familiar scene that stood out to me on review. Close to halfway, the Puttermans and a visiting pair of swingers are shifting from room to room as various hijinks and revelations unfold, including the discovery that the other guy, Spiro, is bisexual. After making this disclosure, Spiro goes to a room with a hot tub where his partner has been waiting. When he enters, she is submerged at one of the pool, with only her head above the surface. She makes no move, but her expression seems inviting. Spiro climbs in, and is merely intrigued when he realizes there is something on the surface of the water. He approaches eagerly, reaching for the lady. Then a pair of jaws (which don’t match any part of the monster we see before and since) catch him by the throat. It is the creature’s most menacing strike, and the one time it feels like it could be in a “straight” monster movie, however briefly.

As usual, this brings us to the rating. I considered beforehand giving this one the highest rating, while after enduring its weaker moments, I came close to bringing it down a notch. The rating I give it now is about what I figured on all along. It’s not a top-notch movie, but it’s one that accomplishes what the filmmakers clearly set out to do. If it does not aspire to be more than it is, then at least it does not fall short of its ambitions either. Above all, it’s fun, especially with the theme song, possibly the catchiest after Flash Gordon.  Whoop whoop… Dammit, now I have to hear it again.

Image credit Discogs. Again, they have everything. While I'm at it, here's the feature Introduction.

Space 1979: The one with a stop-motion Tyrannosaurus skeleton and a generic superhero

 

Title: Dr. Mordrid

What Year?: 1992

Category: Knockoff/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Downright Decent! (4/5)

 

I’m continuing my bid for a streak of 5 reviews in 1 week, and I felt like doing one more outside this feature’s usual range. This time, I’m making my second foray into the 1990s, which I last did for Highway To Hell. Anyone who remembers that movie or my review of it should be able to guess that this one is going to be… interesting. I introduce you to a movie with a character lifted from a certain comic book, a stop-motion dinosaur, and of course, Charles Band.

Our story begins with an atmospheric shot of what could be wither the den of a wizard or the rec room of a very eccentric collector. We learn momentarily that it is the dwelling of Dr. Mordrid, a sorcerer and respected authority of the black arts who is the champion of an unseen Monitor. His master warns him of a threat from an avatar of evil, introduced momentarily as a villainous mage called Kabal. Dr. Mordrid soon learns more about his rival’s doings while moonlighting as a police psychologist. He reveals to a lady cop acquaintance that the villain is gathering artifacts to open a portal to the netherworld. However, his own occult expertise make him a suspect in Kabal’s crimes in the eyes of the rest of the force. On top of that, the villain has sent a minion protected by a spell of invincibility to kill Dr. Mordrid. To save the world, our hero must escape his pursuers long enough to reach a museum where the final artifact is on display, if astral projection can beat traffic.

Dr. Mordrid was produced and co-directed by Charles Band under the banner of Full Moon Entertainment, the successor to his studio Empire International Pictures. Contemporary and later accounts agree that it was very suspiciously similar to Marvel Comics’ Dr. Strange comic, which had previously received a 1970s TV movie (perhaps for another time…). Certain reports emerged that Band had obtained the rights to the character from Marvel only to have the license expire before filming. Other accounts, including the filmmakers’ “official” story, indicate that Band “created” a character originally named Doctor Mortalis with sufficient differences to avoid being sued, which in the present author’s judgment is much more in form. The egregious Jeffery Combs, who had brought himself and the Band crew to infamy with Empire’s Re-Animator, was cast in the title role, with typecast tough Brian Thompson as Kabal and soap star Yvette Nipar as the lady cop Susan. Stop-motion effects for a showdown in the museum were provided by David Allen, previously sighted in Band's Laserblast and The Day Timr Ended as well as Planet of Dinosaurs.

My recollection of Dr. Mordrid goes all the way back to the 1990s, when I very clearly remember seeing a very brief glimpse of what must have been the museum fight on a video store’s TV screen. For a very long time, it remained one of my many isolated, surreal memories that a normal person might have written off as a dream or faulty recollection. In the age of the internet, I figured out what it was, and eventually watched the scene I remembered on a video that compiled effects from a number of Band/ Full Moon movies. I looked it up occasionally, but never had the heart to watch the whole movie. However, I did think of it when I thought of this feature, despite my carefully delineated time frame and other considerations. I finally found it to watch free online, and viewed it a while before I got to this review.

After my earlier reservations, this one was a very pleasant surprise. To begin with, the whole thing goes by in only a little over an hour, so there’s no sense of time invested or wasted. More importantly, almost everything on screen goes into the story or character development, avoiding the filler that inexplicably crops up in many films of this length (something I previously held up as a relative virtue of Plan 9 From Outer Space and the worst failing of Alien 2). The chief flaws to be found lie in a police procedural element, which certainly doesn’t work as well as in The Hidden, Night of the Creeps, or Deep Space. On the other hand, the dialogue is good, and the leads are fun every minute, with Thompson stomping scenery even more than Combs. I even liked the anticlimactic arc of Kabal’s minion, which feels like what might happen if the Terminator went back in time and gave Sarah Connor a prank call.

With all that said, the “one scene” was definitely going to be the magicians’ duel in the museum. The sorcerers face each other in what looks like the museum lobby, a huge high-ceilinged atrium with the skeletons of prehistoric beasts on either side and what Kabal actually wants on display at the edge for no apparent reason. The villain starts his ritual, and we get short glimpses of a portal to the Hell-dimension opening. Mordrid arrives in astral form to challenge him. Kabal responds by bringing a tyrannosaur to life, though he can do even less to harm Mordrid’s immaterial form than Mordrid can do to him. This is the part I remembered, except my memory was of the skeleton being enveloped in an aura of light, which really only happens for a moment. The animation is excellent, with a touch of graphic violence when a guard gets lunched. Mordrid counters by reanimating the skeleton of a mammoth. The clash of the two beasts really only lasts a few seconds, but if feels like what would really happen if they had met in life. It all ends with a priceless look from Kabal, who seems to have lost track of the proceedings, just in time to meet his fate.

While it took me a long time to get to this movie, I can still definitely say it influenced my love of sto-motion, science fiction and all things 1980s. The real wonder of vintage effects is that they can stay in the memory long after the movies they were in are forgotten. In further hindsight, it was a fitting epitaph for an era that would shortly end with the release of Jurassic Park. So let’s drink for Allen, Harryhausen, O’Brien and the rest. We shall not see your like again.

For links, the image credit goes to GZ Horreur, a French-language blog. I also recommend the Brandon's Cult Movies review video. While I'm at it, I still haven't given up linking to the feature Introduction.