Fiction: The Evil Possum and the Eurypterids, Part 4!

 Since I'm still deciding how to balance this story with my usual blogging, I decided to try to get ahead with an extra post. This ended up being the chapter with all the exposition I had cut before, and it's actually the one I've revised least. Here's links for the first and previous installments, and why not one for the "first" Evil Possum adventure?

As the new day dawned, Percy was back in the briefing room. He allowed his own partner to stand next to him. On closer examination, the rodent was 1.2 meters tall and probably about 50 kg. His fingers were partly webbed, but still dexterous. He met the gaze of the blue-haired woman; she gave a subtle, perhaps grudging smile. The other rookie who had so far drawn his attention was clearly trying to stay as far from her as possible. He noted one more who looked out of place. It was a rodent, evidently the same species as his new partner but evidently female, with a glossy and distinctly red pelt. “Well, I hope you all had a good night,” Percy said. “Now, any of you have any new questions?”

The blue-haired woman raised her hand. “My name’s O’Keefe, I transferred from Social Services,” she said. “Do you think hate crimes against non-humanoids are a problem?”

“Now you sound like a reporter,” Percy said. “The first thing I’ll say, the Arcostate Administration doesn’t recognize `humanoid’ as a category. `Non-humanoid’ is even less meaningful.”

The nervous rookie spoke up. “Hold on, of course `humanoid’ is a real thing. We know humans built this city...”

Percy gave him a coldly mechanical stare. “Actually, we don’t know that,” he said. “Our founders rebuilt the city, from the core infrastructure and records they found. Records from which all direct information on the original inhabitants had been erased.”

“But you were here,” the rookie said. “Isn’t that right? And you sure look human.”

“It’s not that simple,” Percy said. “But you should be asking the Historians, not me. Now, does anyone have a question about the job?”

An oviraptorosaur raised a hand. “Do we get a gun?”

* * *

 

The marsupial lay on the cushions for well over an hour, motionless except for a sporadic twitching of its ear. “Should we call someone?” Wes asked finally.

“Who?” Daisy said.

Even as she spoke, the creature’s eye opened. He shot upright, drawing the miniature broomhandle pistol from his vest in the same motion, and cried out, “Anja! The panzerfaust!”  After a moment, he took his finger off the trigger and began surveying the surroundings, without seeming to take any particular notice of the apartment’s occupants.

“They are here,” the marsupial spoke, still taking no notice of the humans. “They think they are strong, they think they are smart, and they do as they please because they think that makes them better. Better than ME!”  His gaze darted about. “But I am stronger than they know, and wiser than they can imagine. I have fought them and I have won, every time!  But the rest refuse to learn, and there are more, always more!”

He blinked and twitched his ears, the evident equivalent of shaking his head. “My apologies for any disturbance,” he said. “I appear to have absorbed a small quantity of neurotoxin.  The effects should pass momentarily.”

“Daisy, look at this,” Wes said. The news feed projected onto the window showed a report of a dangerous exotic organism, complete with a heavily blurred image of one of them attacking a large dog. This was quickly followed by lengthy pronouncements about the necessity of the Quarantine department and the foolhardiness and irresponsibility of those who broke it. The marsupial watched for a moment and gave a single “HA!”

“The Department sent me to destroy the first of them seven months ago,” the marsupial said. “It was openly displayed at a high end restaurant in Aster Plaza, frequented by a number of Municipal administrators. It does not appear anyone paid any monetary bribes… The staff were feeding the specimen live prey to amuse their customers. It grew to exceptional size, even for its kind. Finally, they put in a smaller but similar creature, the survivors said they thought it was a juvenile, or another species, but it was in fact a male… The specimen ate it anyway, but not before conceiving young. Afterward, it grew even larger and became far more aggressive. Apparently, they tried to destroy it when they saw it depositing eggs… with a polymer pipe and a sporting bat.” He gave another laugh.

“I found the specimen and destroyed it a few weeks after the escape. By then, the eggs had hatched, but most of the young were still with the female, and perished with it. However, I suspected some had split off and formed a nest. I hunted for weeks at a time, but did not find conclusive evidence of their survival until 48 hours ago, shortly before one was seen by a member of the public. I determined twelve of the surviving young had gone through the first molt and dispersed, except for one that was consumed at the primary nest.”

He attached the pistol’s solid holster as a stock. “So far, I have destroyed three more, and discovered a fourth, a male killed and consumed while attempting to mate. Fortunately, I was able to surprise the female while it was still feeding. A third specimen approached before I was able to confirm if I had penetrated the central ganglion. The female revived, and I lost my primary weapons in the melee. When I engaged the female a second time, I withdrew to a potentially friendly residence… Incidentally, have you seen any large arthropods?”

“Yeah,” Daisy said, “we found something in the kitchen when we moved in a week ago.  I hit it with a meat tenderizer.”

“Excellent! Percy said you are commendably level-headed. Then there are only six!”

“Excuse me,” Wes said, “who… and what… are you?”

“Ah!  I always forget, hominids are always concerned for etiquette,” the marsupial said. “I come from the continuum where the dominant forms of sentient life, developed from rodents and other vermin. From the evidence at hand, it was where the builders of this city came from, though we know no more of who they were or why they departed than you… At any rate, you may call me No-Hands, as many do in my place of origin, though as you see I have one hand. From El Diablo Sin Mano Derecho, or possibly for the time I destroyed a platoon of possums with my hand chained behind my back. I am the holotype of the species Archididelphis invicta, roughly, `unconquered king of the possums’. Your city-state acknowledges my existence, but not my capabilities or the manner of my coming. Suffice to say I came here without their sanction, and after a time reached an agreement to aid them in time of need.”

“Mr., ah, Hands,” Daisy said, “I think you dropped a bullet.” She held up a tiny cartridge a centimeter long.

The marsupial answered with a curt laugh. “Keep it! It will be novel for conversation, and it just might be useful to me if I come by again. Now I must go!” Receding footsteps rang from the vent, including an odd clomping.

“That didn’t happen, right?” Westley said.

Daisy dropped the cartridge in a drawer under the couch. “What didn’t happen?”

* * *

 

As the rookies again dispersed, Percy looked to the female rodent. “Can I help you?” he said.

“Oh, no, I’m not even in Security,” she said. “I’m probably not even in the right place…”

“Well, I’m sure you’re not in the wrong place,” Percy said. “Come with me, and we’ll talk.

Percy went upstairs with the rodents following behind. The rookie carried an armload of forms. “I’m Lindsey DeVaca,” the newcomer said. She held up her own sheaf of papers. “I work in the Data Analysis department of the Power And Utilities Administration. A while ago, I was assigned to a Service Optimization project. The assignment was to study power usage patterns so we could find ways to encourage people to reduce power usage. Six weeks into the project, I noticed something odd, odd enough that I contacted Data Analytics for an independent review.”

They stepped inside Percy’s office. It was small and visibly neglected, but also devoid of almost any decoration, except for a painting that showed an intricate geometric pattern. Lindsey laid the papers on the desk, and then looked at the painting. “Why, that’s by E.P. Bosche,” she said. “You must know quite a bit about art; there still aren’t many people who've heard of him.”

“Actually, it’s by me,” Percy said. He picked up one of the sheets, and then another. Each consisted entirely of charts and graphs. “And believe me, I know… I suppose these measure power usage?”

“Yes, for a subdivision over an eight hour period,” Lindsey said. She pointed to two smaller graphs on one of the pages. “These show power usage in the same area on the days before and after. As you can see, consumption rose almost 500%. Then if you look at the detail here, you’ll see it was all over a very short time, no more than 20 minutes, and maybe as little as five.”

“It must be a power surge, maybe a corroded insulator or a rat chewing on a cable,” Percy said. He glanced at Nick, who shrugged. “But I suppose if it was that simple, you wouldn’t have come to us.”

“That’s what my own supervisor said,” Lindsey said. “Here’s the problem…” She held up two other sheets. “We have identical power surges in completely different districts, two weeks before and a month before that. It’s possible that the phenomenon is increasing in frequency, or it may be there are others we haven’t found. In fact, the distribution across multiple districts is the only reason it wasn’t noticed before my own study.”

“…Which means someone is trying to avoid attention,” Percy said. His visor dimmed and flared, but he shook his head. “I’m sorry, but there’s not much we can do. Apart from anything else, our precincts have jurisdictional boundaries. Then, siphoning power isn’t uncommon, and usually it’s a misdemeanor at worst. I can send out a notice to watch for unusual activity, and sooner or later somebody might get hit with a fine, and that will be it.”

“I see,” Lindsey said. She was already gathering her papers, and Nick helped. “Thank you, anyway, I’m sorry to waste your time.”

“It’s no trouble,” Percy said. “It’s always good to meet with a member of another department. Why, I might just give you a call some time.”

“It was nice to meet you,” Nick said. Lindsey twitched her whiskers in the clear equivalent of a smile, and then walked out.  As her footsteps faded, the rookie turned to Percy. “You’re wrong, you know. You’re a Special Inspector. The whole point of your position is to coordinate investigations between precincts. And you know that.”

“Not my speed, not yet,” he said. He turned to the rodent. “So what’s your story? I’ve seen your species before, but not often, and I’ve never heard of one trying to get in the force.”

“Well, um, my grandfather was a policeman, before we… came,” Nick said. “My father always hoped one of us would take up the job.”

“I see,” Percy said. He leaned back while records scrolled by. “Obviously, you did well enough to get through the academy. So where do you expect to go from here?”

Nick shrugged again. “I want to help people, I guess,” he said. Percy already recognized that this was unusual eloquence. “Then maybe I could go up the ranks, move my folks to a better place…”

“Get a girlfriend?” Percy interjected.

Nick nodded absentmindedly. “Yeah, that would be nice… Say, do you have a girlfriend?”

“Naw, I wasn’t built that way,” Percy said, clearly irritated. He rose to his feet. “I suppose we might as well hit the streets. I’ve got a feeling you just might be good at this.”

Fiction: The Evil Possum and the Eurypterids, part 3!

 To round out the week, here's more of the Evil Possum. Also, here's links for the first and second part. This is as good a time to mention, this is very much a tribute to the movie The Black Scorpion and effects master Willis O'Brien, which is reflected in the tags I've added. Incidentally, I did have more on a character featured here, but decided it would have made things even more random. More to come!

By the time they were ready to sleep, Daisy and Wes were on a mat that unfolded from a storage alcove by the window. It was designed for physical therapy, and what they had done was close enough that they covered themselves with a sheet rather than using the energy to return to their bed. They had been drifting for the better part of an hour when Daisy stirred. “Did you just hear something?” she said. She looked toward the main air vent.

Wes’s eyes snapped open. “I think it’s chemical-energy small arms fire,” he said. “Very small. Probably 4 mm or less. I thought I heard a 9mm earlier.”

“Huh… Is it dangerous?”

“Probably not to anything over 10 kg.”

“Too bad.”

“I, uh, saw something in the ducts earlier. It… he… talked to me, actually.

Daisy raised her head. “Did it have one eye, talk with a weird accent?”

“Yeah… Do you know something about it?”

“Percy told me about him, once. Don’t worry about it.” She closed her eyes and went back to sleep.

* * *

 

The marsupial landed on the roof of the elevator with a thud, hard enough to dent one of the lightweight panels. His one boot smoked from the sole. A moment later, his slug gun landed beside him, sheered in half at the hinge. He slapped another magazine in a miniature Sten gun, perfectly reproduced but strangely proportioned, particularly the distinctly oversized feed. He saw an unused slug roll out of the gun, and snatched it up as he pondered his options. He was in the middle shaft of a three-elevator bank. On his right, another shaft dropped into darkness, with no sign of a car above or below. On the left, a three-decked elevator had stopped six stories above. Two stories below that, there was a clacking of pincers and mouthparts, the female that had forced him to retreat without his main weapon. Then, from somewhere in the darkness, there was a clicking of smaller feet. Beneath him, the middle elevator resumed moving, up.

At a touch, the side of the boot split, revealing a chamber big enough for the recovered slug. He slid it in, and the breach shut with a sound like a clinking coin. The elevator had ascended two stories when it stopped again. The car on the left continued its descent, until it stopped  just above the airshaft where his foe waited. He quickly calculated his options: Face the female creature; hang from the bottom of the next elevator; jump or climb on top of it; or try to squeeze into the space between them until they passed each other. There was a ding from the cabin and a slight jolt as a passenger blocked the closing doors long enough for one more to board.

The elevator had descended 20 stories before the marsupial hauled himself onto the roof. He flopped down, and the Sten gun clattered beside him. His mane ruffled in tiny waves as he rested in a sitting position, his single eye shut. Meanwhile, slowly, silently, the silhouette of a pincer emerged from the opposite side of the elevator. He reached over his shoulder, as if feeling for injuries. Then, just as the mouthparts and walking legs emerged into the view of anyone watching, he unsheathed a stockless double barrel, pivoted, and fired.

* * *

 

At the police station, Percy continued to play videos for the rookies who remained. By then, he was down to legal but sensitive Therapeutics videos. Beside him, Hector made a whistling sound equivalent to snoring, his long tongue flicking in and out.  The tongue snared a piece of popcorn, which the echidna deftly crunched with his vestigial teeth. “The first step in effective lovemaking is to test your partner’s desires and sensitivities,” the narrator said. “Be as slow and patient as they need you to be, but don’t feel guilty if you experience a lapse in self control. Failure is as important to learning as success…” The screen showed a visibly woman scrambling to straddle her partner. Earlier, it would have brought cheers, but now, it only brought a little bemused murmuring.

A pink, snouted creature started to reach for Percy’s liquor bottle. “I wouldn’t recommend that,” he said. “It’s not so much drink as fuel.” The rookie withdrew. Percy began tapping his own visor. “Damn, I know I’ve heard that voice somewhere… Eh, I’ll think of it some time.” He belched, and the resulting jet of flame briefly lit up the room.

* * *

A sound like a very angry woodpecker rang through the ducts. There were additional pops, bangs and a minor explosion as a volley of 3 mm automatic fire tore through a circuit board.  In the midst of the smoke and sparks, the marsupial advanced after the retreating quarry. He glimpsed the creature, and confirmed that he had severed one of its surprisingly stubby pincers, probably the main reason it had not already turned at bay. He tracked with his Sten gun and drew a spray of ichor from its tail. The marsupial leaped back as ominous smoke and steam erupted from the already damaged circuit board. He still was sent flying by a blue-white bolt that arced murderously upward into a steel-capped fang. A spray of chemical foam added to the haze, but a quick glance told him all he needed to know. “Eight,” he said. He looked down at what was left of his fortunately empty submachine gun and snarled.

* * *

 

Percy was almost ready to call an end to the night, when the door opened. He turned to see the blue-haired female rookie scowling as she looked in. “Special Inspector Percy,” the blue-haired woman said, “what the Hell are you doing?”

“Okay, this isn’t what it looks like,” Percy said as he got to his feet. He glanced at the screen, which currently showed the adventures or Eveready Harton. He amended, “Okay, this is exactly what it looks like.”

* * *

 

The female retreated at the marsupial’s approach, and that was remarkable enough. Its kind hunted by smell as much as sight or sound, and it could already equate the scent of the hunter as literal death: The sulphurous powder of weapons that thundered as they pummeled; the residual tang of fire, sparks and strange chemicals; and the pheromones and spilled ichor of its kind wounded and killed. It still might not know fear, but it had learned a measure of respect. So, it sought out a better place and angle for ambush, still unable to envision a chance that it might not prevail. In that, as it happened, its thoughts and those of the marsupial were the same.

The marsupial made his way back to the male eurypterid that the female had slain and partly consumed.  The carcass was still there, looking no more or less intact than it had when he left it. His mane bristled. He holstered the 3 mm broomhandle automatic and drew his 4 mm revolver, just as the female came out of the darkness, almost directly behind him.

He emptied all but one chamber of the revolver in the time it took the creature to cross the shaft, but it was only slowed by its slain and partially consumed mate underfoot. It swung with its tail, but struck the metal ceiling. He ducked under a slashing claw and fired his last shot into the underside of the cracked carapace. The tail spine struck blindly from the side, tearing through his jacket. He dropped onto his back from the blow, then thrust his booted right leg upward. A blast erupted from his prosthesis, while the recoil sent him sliding down the airshaft.

 * * *

At four in the morning, Wes woke up screaming. He cried out that a vampire-demon had tried to steal his soul. She told him she would take his soul into herself and guard it.  He told her she was the demon, and she answered that if she was a demon, his soul was hers to keep. After that, he held her and cried. When he told her he loved her, she told him to go back to sleep.

It was about 4:30 when they heard a series of whipcracks, followed by a screech from the ducts like tiny metal claws, then a metallic clang. Something dropped down. Daisy scooped it up; it was a tiny bullet and casing. A moment later, there was a rustle and a rush of clattering, clicking feet, accompanied by a more ominous chatter of chitinous pincers and mouthparts. A rapid volley of whipcracks rang out, accompanied by flashes.  Finally, when it seemed the combatants were so close they might burst into the room, there was a sound like the clink of a coin, and a blast loud enough that Daisy screeched and covered her ears. There was a final thud and clatter. A milky fluid dribbled from the vent. A muffled, nasal voice called out, "Seven!"

“What the…” Wes approached the vent, while Daisy huddled under a sheet. Suddenly, a heavy blow knocked the cover loose, and they beheld the marsupial, wobbling on his feet.

“I say… Diellza Mladic?” the marsupial said, gazing at Daisy. “I hear you are a friend of Percy’s….” With that, he pitched forward and landed in the couch cushions.

“Oh my god,” Daisy said. “He pronounced my real name right.”

No Good Very Bad Movies 5: The one that cut Harvey Keitel's voice

 

Title: Saturn 3

What Year?: 1979 (preproduction and filming)/ 1980 (theatrical release)

Classification: Runnerup

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/3)

 

When I decided to do this feature, one major factor was that I had piled up quite a few movies I deemed unsuitable elsewhere, or simply set aside in favor of other material. With the present review, I’m going right to the discard pile, with one of the most notorious movies I had so far viewed without going to a full review. As we will see, it’s a very odd movie that is still weighed down by its own troubles and further unfounded conjectures. Even as I write this, I’m still debating just how to rate it. Here is Saturn 3, an egregious 1980s sci fi offering that was definitely not an Alien knockoff.

Our story begins with a gruesome murder in space, which will never be mentioned again. We then follow someone who might be the killer to a distant space station called Saturn 3, where a dapper old guy Adam is living in bliss with a space girl named Alex. The newcomer, named Benson, introduces the pair to a robot named Hector, in fact a cyborg with a sort of cloned brain with a further uplink to Benson through a hard-wired implant. Things get off to a rocky start as Adam dislikes the machine, and get worse as Benson hits on Alex with such lines as, “Your body is beautiful, I’d like to use it.” As tensions ramp up, even the robot becomes erratic, possibly corrupted by Benson’s deteriorating mind. Just when it looks like the bot is dismantled, the machine repairs itself and returns, fused with Benson’s personality- and willing to assimilate the rest of the crew as well!

Saturn 3 was a 1980 film from the British company ITC. The production was conceived as a story from distinguished production designer John Barry, who was chosen to direct the film. The film starred Kirk Douglas and Farrah Fawcett, with Harvey Keitel (see Two Evil Eyes) as Benson. The score was composed by Elmer Bernstein (see… Robot Monster???). A difficult production history saw the replacement of Barry with Stanley Donen and the redubbing of Keitel’s lines by Roy Dotrice after the actor withdrew from the film in post-production. The film saw very negative reviews, notably from Roger Ebert and the Medveds’ Son of the Golden Turkey Awards, and a weak box office of $9 million against a $10M budget. It was released very successfully on VHS. Additional television rights to the film were purchased by NBC, which ultimately aired a significantly different cut of the film. The movie has remained available on disc and digitally, and has been offered for free streaming on certain platforms.

For my experiences, this is one of a stable of movies that I mostly know about from frequent sightings at 1990s video stores (see also Creature and Defcon 4). Anything further I knew or thought I knew about it came from hostile accounts. I got interested enough to look into it after seeing a relatively favorable video review that presented it as an Alien knockoff. What very quickly stood out is that the movie itself belies its reputation, not always in good ways. Among other things, the whole idea that it was copying any other film was not only wrong but getting things the wrong way around. Knockoffs usually have the relative virtues of a tried formula and close-to-mainstream narrative and filming styles (see Deep Space just for example). Most of the difficulties this one faced, on the other hand, rise from trying to do what nobody had tried to do before and relatively few ever tried to do again, a consideration that at certain points brought me close to setting up a whole feature around this and a few other select movies. It is also surprisingly restrained, particularly with gore and nudity, to the point that it would be pretty easy to “see” even less than there is on casual viewing. The overall effect is a unique, vaguely classy movie that continuously struggles to stand on its own merits.

With that said, all the pros are from the setting, the effects and especially the robot. The ships are well-done, as would be expected from Barry’s involvement, and the sets for the station are generally good. Then there’s the bot, and it is like nothing you have seen or ever will. It’s one of the most utilitarian designs on record, notably replacing a discrete head with a moving sensor that looks like a miniature pair of binoculars. It also has an unpleasantly organic feel, particularly thanks to a profusion of exposed wires and tubes that looked vaguely like exposed muscle tissue. Finally, it has a very unique concept that gets more unsettling as the story evolves. Its organic components are the standard “brain in a jar”, except the gray matter has been grown to fill a long, odd tube. The creepiness is matched by an implant that lets Benson connect with it, shown graphically inserted into a socket on the back of his neck. Most intriguing is the implied interplay between the pair, which resembles nothing so much as Alfred Bester’s classic story “Fondly Fahrenheit”. The highlight (and strong contender for the “one scene”) is an all too brief dialogue between the pair, with surely one of the greatest lines ever given to a robot: “I am not malfunctioning, you are malfunctioning.”

The most immediate problems, meanwhile, come from the story and characters. Douglas coasts along on charm; Fawcett musters some final-act vulnerability; and Keitel remains as inscrutable as the robot. This is where it would be easy to go with the lore of interference and clashing personalities, but my foremost suspicion lies with the fact that so much responsibility was given at the outset to a production designer. The evident and inferable issues are all in line with my own file of movies handed to effects guys (Silent Running remains the egregious example); the effects and production values are predictably excellent, but greatly at the expense of plot, character development, and even worldbuilding. I find it especially telling that we never see enough of the future Earth to get a frame of reference for how the characters got to be the way they are. This shows especially with Benson (if he is the real “Benson”!), the one character who would presumably have experienced the culture and mores of the home world firsthand. As it is, one can envision a society warped enough where his nearly transactional approach to social interactions and sexuality makes some measure of sense. Or, one can equally well grant that he was as dysfunctional back home as he is out here. With the right touch, not knowing could be as intriguing as any answer, but I don’t find it here.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with one that stood out right from the first viewing. Partway through, Alex has a lab accident that leaves some vaguely described piece of debris in her eye. Benson insists for no obvious reason that she allow Hector to remove it, and literally wrestles her into position. She continues to struggle in obvious and justified terror as the bot approaches. Amazingly, it turns out the machine is equipped for this work, extending a set of tweezer-like probes from its claw appendages. It’s surreal, terrifying and comical all at once, ultimately a glimpse of a movie that could have been.

In conclusion, I come to the rating. This movie has been a test of the scale I devised for this feature. Make no mistake, this is not a “good” movie. Still, it is at a minimum a competent and above all creative movie, and if I had reviewed it earlier, I could easily have talked myself into giving it 3 out of 5. In the topsy-turvy frame of reference for this new feature, after watching Dead Space, Ingagi, Robot Monster and the Gobots movie, this is a masterpiece I can praise to the skies. And with that, I’m done.

Fiction: The Evil Possum and the Eurypterids, Part 2!

 Here's another installment of the Evil Possum adventure, including the real setup for this. Here's a link for the first installment, and the post that introduced Percy and the assumed world. If you read this blog, you can probably guess that I am referencing a real film, long since lost in our time line. I can't explain why people are looking for it.

It had taken 3 hours of searching before the marsupial found an object more important than any two of his quarry. He stepped forward cautiously. It was the size of a large beetle, though closer in shape to a scorpion. It bobbed strangely in a steady air current. A light shone on it, revealing a transparent and empty shell. A three-fingered metal claw picked up a loose piece, turned it back and forth, and then crushed it. The light swung back and forth, revealing more objects. A careful count put them at twelve. He amended, “Eleven.” Then the light fell on a very solid claw, evidently severed by a single powerful stroke. “Ten.”

* * *

Percy arrived back at the precinct headquarters a little before 9:00 PM.   He smiled and waved at the matronly woman manning the desk. “Hey, Luiza, what’s new?”

“Well,” she said, “we have a dead Woolie…”

“Uh-huh…”

“…And it looks like another Woolie didn’t do it.”

“Huh. Send it to Jason with a priority autopsy order. Anything else?”

“Then there was someone from Power and Utilities asking for you.”

“Okay, then you can tell her where to find me.”

“I already did.”

“You’re breaking my heart, Luiza. Anything else?”

Luiza checked her screen. “Oh, and a lady in the Deck tower lofts told the Citizens Network that she has a vid of a giant lobster that ate her dog.”

“What, a terrier, Chihuahua…?”

“Afghan hound.”

“Huh. Well, I’m sure Quarantine is on that one. Now take my calls, I’ll be showing a training film.”

“I bet you are.”

When he entered the breakroom, Hector and a dozen rookies were already there. “All right,” he said, “who’s ready for some Moral Contraband?” There was a ragged cheer. He sat down next to Hector on the chronically fatigued couch. And then, to the group’s surprise and growing dismay, he started Him.

* * *

 

If any human emotion can be attributed it, if any word can be applied to what passes for its mind, it is “imperiousness”. It lies hidden in darkness but for the gleam of its armored body. There is a fan of pincers and mouthparts, like an unfolded Swiss army knife. There is a shovel-like, slightly flattened head, and just beyond that, a bulbous, humpbacked thorax. Then there are the spidery legs, the short, stout paddles folded easily at its sides, the abdomen that tapers by several gradations into a tail, and in the deeper darkness, a long spine that is its stinger. It seeks shelter, if only because it is not ready to hunt, but it does not hide. To hide implies fear, and fear implies a threat, and if there is one thing it knows, it is that there is none, save perhaps another of its kind.

 

In its ancestral memory, it sees the world of its sires, the world on which it was meant to be born. It is a world of towering tree-ferns, which gave it a sense of home the first time it surveyed the city far below, of dark, stagnant pools, of dense leaf litter, of narrow beaches where swarms of jawless fish sometimes beach themselves. A world where it is to its prey what an orca is to a water rat. The world it surveys now is different, in many ways more hostile, with creatures possibly as large as itself. Even now, it watches them pass from behind the slits of an air vent. They are large, even somewhat larger than itself, but they are as oblivious and mechanical as the easiest prey, and they leave abundant food unattended or left carelessly to rot. It cannot wish for a world other than this one, because to a creature such as this, there can only be the Here and the Now, and these are more than adequate. There is only one wish, more anticipation than desire. It is a female, so soon, it must find food, and one of the lesser creatures that are the males of its kind.

In all likelihood at the same time…

* * *

The apartment Daisy returned to was often called a “mistress apartment”, one of eight slivers of living space on the east buttress. Officially, all citizens of the Arcostate were entitled and indeed required to take residence in a permanent living space, and anyone had a chance at any unit they chose. Unofficially, it commanded at least as much as a unit twice as large on the lower levels, though still not as much as one of the even more slender units that faced outward from the central face of the buttress. A frosted glass door opened at her touch, and she  stepped inside.

 

The entryway went directly past the  bathroom that filled half the area of the apartment. Beyond that were a kitchen, an L-shaped dinette meant to serve as their bed, and a  window that filled almost the entire end of the apartment. Wes lay on the dinette. A compact screen was playing a Physical Therapeutics video. It was an introductory segment, playing in a loop. A female narrator spoke: “…Across time and space, every race and civilization has faced the same struggles and strove toward the same achievements. Industry. Commerce. Morality. Monotheism. Monogamy. And with it, the physical and mutually pleasurable act of romantic love…” She promptly ducked into the washroom and emerged in a black nightgown that revealed little but stunningly accentuated what was out of sight.

She curled up beside Wes on the short leg of the dinette. She gazed, stared, down at him, with her chin resting on his shoulder. As she watched, he shifted without seeming to grow more awake. She looked more intently, and an almost troubled look came to his face. Only then did he stir. The next moment, he half-rose with a stifled cry. In another moment, he sank back, breathing heavily and staring back at her. “Jeezus,” he said, “that’s weird…”

“It wouldn’t work if you didn’t want me,” she said. He settled down, and soon she stretched out beside him.  The screen showed digitally animated figures not much more detailed than mannequins but amazingly lifelike in their motions.  It was evident that there were several different couples, including a woman in the early but quite visible stages of pregnancy. “I thought you hated these,” she said.

“I like the voice,” he said. His arm slipped around her waist, and she tapped the screen to skip forward. Then his lips pressed to hers. They had only done that three times before, twice under the supervision of their state-provided therapist, and always on her initiation. She accepted and more than returned the kiss, but then drew back to the other leg.

“I’m sorry,” Westley said, almost instinctively. He scooted up to her, and she allowed him to cradle her knees. For a moment, he tilted his head in the direction of an air vent. There had been a sound, something like the crack of a distant whip.

“It’s okay,” she said. “That was… different than I thought it would be.” He nodded. “Anyway, the therapist says we’re better off doing more with less. Look, I’ll just take care of you…”

He instinctively said, “Please don’t.”

She relented and stretched out again her stomach. After a few minutes, she pronounced, “I’m gonna shower, come watch me. That’s always fun, right?” He nodded, and she rose eagerly. He paused as he stood up to look inside the air vent, and found a single eye peering back at him, as big and bright as a dime.

“Do not be alarmed, I am an agent of your government,” a nasal but commanding voice said. “My mission is sensitive but unclassified, so you may help. My targets are arthropods of the subphylum Eurypteroidea, species Neocarcinosoma fecundarum, commonly known as sea scorpions. They are amphibious, extremely large, 1 to 3 meters in total length, including a long tail and large pincers… Have you sighted such a creature?”

“Are you coming?” Daisy called.

“You bet,” Wes said, backing away.

“Oh, and I expect you to stare at my legs and my chest!” He scrambled to join her.

* * *

The marsupial found the next of the creatures at an intersection of the airducts, feeding on something. At first, there was little to be seen but a long segmented tail, 30 cm long and ending in a poisoned spine. As he shifted, the legs, body and carapace came into view, and finally the long pincers and venomous chelicerae.  He also glimpsed what it was feeding on, and it was no surprise that it was a smaller creature of the same species. “Nine,” he said as he took aim.  He fired one barrel of his slug gun, rocked with the recoil, and fired again. “Eight…”

He cautiously approached the creature as it twitched. His lips curled as he examined its prey. “Female and possibly mature male…” He froze at the sound of skittering claws. He cracked open the gun as he advanced, hopping over the twitching tail spine. He loaded one stout 9mm slug from a half-empty bandoleer, then selected a shot shell for the other barrel. Then he paused, the shell still in his claw.

He looked over his shoulder just in time to see the female’s pincers start to move. “Nine!”

No Good Very bad movies 4: The one that's worse than Plan 9

 

Title: Robot Monster

What Year?: 1953

Classification: Ripoff

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

 

If there’s one thing I’ve set out to prove with this feature, it’s that I do have a sense of what makes a really bad movie. Most of the time, I’m the one  defending infamous films from the mob, and I will admit there have been times when I have done this to be rhetorical or simply contrary (see Troll 2). The flipside is that when I have really come down hard on a film, I have really, really meant it. This time around, I offer a test case, a notorious film I have known about from my youth but only watched in full during the time I have been doing movie reviews. While I won’t pretend the outcome was ever in much doubt, I hope to show a little more of the thought process that goes into my reviews, including what I choose to review at all. Here is Robot Monster, the movie that literally put a diving helmet on a gorilla.

Our story begins with two children playing in a desert landscape where they shouldn’t be even if they were properly attended. There’s a boy obsessed with playing “space man”, a girl who wants to play house, and their big sister Alice, who in a more typical movie would be playing their mother. Along the way, they meet an archeologist and his handsome assistant, and a strange creature named Ro-Man who looks like an ape except for a helmet with a pair of TV aerials attached. The last character is the vanguard of an alien invasion, who handily destroys the vast majority of the human population with god-like powers that apparently include summoning stop-motion dinosaurs. Fortunately, it turns out the archeologist has the combined science-magic powers of Scotty, Tony Stark and Rick Sanchez, nullifying Ro-Man’s death rays with a serum. The mop-up becomes a stalemate as Ro-Man tries to draw out the survivors. But he’s an ape at heart, and he wants Alice for himself!

Robot Monster was the first film directed by low budget/ independent filmmaker Phil Tucker, from a script by the apparently accomplished (and real) Wyott Ordung. The film was reportedly shot for $16,000 over a period of 2 weeks. Among other cost-cutting measures, a robot called for in the script was portrayed by George Barrows in a gorilla suit with an improvised helmet added. Other effects were borrowed/ plagiarized from the movies One Million BC (see When Dinosaurs Ruled The Earth) and The Lost Continent. Despite its low budget, the film mustered a reasonably high-profile cast, led by Claudia Barrett of White Heat as Alice and George Nader as Roy, with blacklisted actress Selena Royle as a matron identified only as “Mother”. Music for the film was provided by Elmer Bernstein (see… Heavy Metal?). On release, the film earned an estimated $1 million dollars, despite (if not because of) very poor reviews. The film was subsequently featured in The Golden Turkey Awards and Mystery Science Theater 3000, with the former listing it alongside Plan 9 From Outer Space as “worst movie ever made”. In later life, Nader became an author and LGBT activist. Barrett died in April 2021 at age 91.

For my experiences, I first heard of this one from the Medved brothers’ Golden Turkey Awards, which in hindsight really shouldn’t have been in the children’s/ YA section at the library. I genuinely loved the absurdity of Ro-Man, but never had an interest in watching the film. I finally got to it around the time I reviewed Plan 9. What stood out by comparison was the incomprehensible self-seriousness of the present film. With Ed Wood’s self-styled epic, you can at least believe that he knew it was “bad” and still forged ahead to make a decent point. Here, the production all but screams to be taken seriously, especially through the Bernstein score, without at any point justifying its pretensions. The ultimate outcome was that I simply couldn’t work with this one. Once I decided to come back for a rematch, I took the further step of two viewings, first of the MST3K presentation and then of the “straight” cut. At the end of it all, I still find myself wavering on how to rate this and what to say.

A common denominator with this kind of movie is that the things reviewers usually ridicule don’t matter to me either way. Front and center here is Ro-Man, who to me is at least conceptually sound. At a minimum, his movement is convincing, exactly where practical-effects creatures usually go wrong, and the infamous helmet would be acceptable in itself. On further consideration, I suspect this was a matter of being rushed more than cheap. If they had improvised something to go over the rest of the ape suit, or just put the helmet on a regular stuntman, it could have worked vastly better at little or no difference in cost (assuming the rig didn’t kill poor George Barrows). I find a lot more material to complain about in the characters and dialogue, especially the kids, who are insufferable enough that the most  built-up “tragic” moment is more like a welcome relief. I could also rant about the romance subplot, except that it has just enough spice to rise above run of the mill. The real meltdown to me is the utterly tedious exchanges between Ro-Man and the scientist, which devolve to the point of Ro-Man literally refusing an invitation to come kill them all when Alice diverts his attention.

The “other side” that is still easily underestimated is just how much talent was involved here, which is where I get less rather than more forgiving. The central exhibit is Bernstein’s score, which I could genuinely believe someone used blackmail to get. It’s obviously and vastly better than the movie deserves, but at a certain point, the mismatch becomes detrimental to all concerned. At the most intentionally or unintentionally preposterous moments of the movie, the music is at its most dramatic, which only adds to the overall absurdity. On this particular point, I can find a modicum of appreciation for the synthesizer scores of ‘70s sci fi, which at least fit their usual material (see Planet of Dinosaurs and Shape of Things to Come). The fundamental problem is that if the crew knew talent well enough to get Bernstein, they should also have been able to find somebody to put together a decent suit among other things. Indeed, I could take the high ground and say this could/ should have been good, except the story and dialogue are already so horrendous and pretentious that I doubt any amount of refinement could have saved it. A further association that comes to my mind are Conan the Destroyer and Deep Rising, two other movies that were outclassed by their own soundtracks, yet did in fact rise to the occasion, in no small part because they did not take themselves seriously. If they could pull through, so could this one, and it clearly didn’t.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and what I decided deserves attention is a setting more than a scene. I choose as an example a sequence just 6 minutes in, which starts with the boy discovering Ro-Man’s lair, complete with his communications equipment and the inexplicable bubble machine. He retreats as the villain lumbers into view, characteristically ponderous without any sense of clumsiness. He turns on the screen to communicate with the “Great Guidance”, another Ro-Man with a dark faceplate on the helmet. Ro-Man proceeds to recount his destruction of terrestrial civilization, at one point musing, “Their resistance patterns showed some intelligence.” What draws my attention is the viewscreen itself. I have long been fascinated with how often science fiction movies trying to represent “futuristic” settings use CRT monitors and other equipment that would be obsolete now and in some cases even at the time. Here, on the other hand, we have a prop that is as cheap and obviously cobbled together as anything else in the film, yet does in fact approximate the “flatscreen” technology in actual use almost 70 years later. The moral, sometimes the best way to portray “future” tech is not to show anything at all.

In closing, I come as usual to the rating, and this is where I am on new ground. When I considered this feature, I was tempted to set up a scale that somehow went lower than the ratings scales I had used before, particularly for the now-retired Space 1979 feature. What I quickly reminded myself of was that what I laid out there was and remained a summation of what I consider the worst of the worst. In practice, it has almost always boiled down to a simple question: “Do I actively hate this movie just for existing?” In those terms, I actually came very close to giving this one a pass, I’m sure in part because I don’t have the level of familiarity I did with quite a few of the ones I gave my lowest rating before. The deeper I looked into the movie and especially its history, however, the more I was satisfied that this truly deserved the lowest rating I could give. I’m still not going to join the mob and say this is the “worst” movie I’ve seen, let alone the worst ever made. (That ship sailed as soon as I watched Ingagi.) What it does represent is the kind of movie I find not even up to the “so bad it’s good” label. You can do worse, but for actual entertainment value, you can do better with worse. And now I am done.

Fiction: The Evil Possum and the Eurypterids, part 1!

 With this post, I'm starting another fiction serial, this time something I was working on before the "original" Evil Possum adventure. It all starts ight from my last fiction post, and it features a location I covered in the retro future architecture post (no longer quite a match for my auto shape sketch). Without further ado, here is the return of the Evil Possum...

 

We approach the city again, this time from the south. Again we see the comparatively sprawling development of the lower city. But nearer at hand is something almost too big to be taken in. Look closely, and you will make out a faceted crystalline shape sheathed in silver-grey glass, this time with twelve sides and a subsidiary buttress on every other face. By the standards of the city it is compact, only 16 meters on each side of the main spire and just over 100 meters wide on its east-west span. But its top rises 9/10ths of a mile high, a sixth again over any other building in the city, with a count of 330 stories plus a 90 meter spire already dubbed the Mace.

Now, look to the buttresses, which taper and fall away just a little short of halfway to the top. They are subdivided between compact luxury apartments and access to paired glass elevators. At the east and west ends, the elevator shapes extend fully beyond the building for a panoramic view of the city. Now watch as two women emerge from the capsule-like elevator. The bank is very narrow, only 4 meters wide, with a single panel between the doors. Under that is a small cover with a lock, just large enough for someone to peer inside. One of the women looks over her shoulder long enough to realize the cover is open. She pauses, just long enough to push it shut.

As the laughter faded, the cover swung open again, with enough force to rebound off the frame of the elevator door. From out of the dark shone a single eye, the size of a dime and brighter still. A little light came from the machinery inside, enough to reveal the silhouette of a bristling mane. A low, rumbling growl sounded, and then the only recorded specimen of the marsupial called Archididelphis invicta leaped out.

* * *

Daisy sat side by side with Wes as they worked. They talked to each other, occasionally helping on a minor point. It all further confirmed Daisy’s belief that Wes had been doing as much work as she and Janxi (now moved on to another assignment) could do together, and strengthened her further suspicion that he could do far more if he didn’t have to explain himself to anyone else. “Remember, we have to be at the party by 6,” she said.

“I don’t know,” he said. “I need to finish the special project for Power And Utilities.”

“I thought you were done.”

“I have the data compiled, but I haven’t finished the analysis, and that’s the most difficult part.”

“I keep telling you, that’s because you’re bad at explaining things.  Here, let me look.”

She casually reached over, which would have made Wes tense. She clasped his hand, and he relaxed enough to let her slide into his work station. “Huh,” she said. “That’s weird.”

“I know.”

She took a closer look. She had long since figured out that this was where he always missed something. “So, here’s what I don’t get,” she said. “Why are you the one having to do this? You’re great, obviously, but shouldn’t there be automated protocols to pick up on this stuff?”

“Yeah, but… damn.” Daisy slid aside as he took back control. “They’re designed to flag anomalies when they occur more than once in the same area. Anything else is assumed to be isolated or entirely random.”

“And if it’s not random?”

“It’s on purpose.” Wes typed quickly. “There, how does that look?”

“It’s good,” Daisy said. As she spoke, she made a couple minor changes. “I think you’ll be fine sending this in as it is. Now… I’m signing out early. One of us should…”

“Sure,” Wes said. “I’ll catch up.” Daisy squeezed his hand, then hurried away.

* * *

The marsupial was heavily scarred and heavily armed. He was also 49 cm tall. He advanced in confident strides, with one booted leg trailing the other, wielding a double-barreled slug gun the size of a target pistol in his only hand. He wore an alligator leather coat and a snakeskin vest, with several patched-over holes that had been shot in the original owners. He also bore a revolver at his hip, a broomhandle pistol under his vest, a submachine gun slung across his back, and plenty more surprises in less obvious places. His slicked-back mane bristled as he bent to examine the object at his feet. It was a standard extermination drone, the size and shape of a large spider, dismembered and smashed almost beyond recognition, let alone repair. He used a three-fingered mechanical claw to pick up an exposed tank of pesticide, already empty. From the darkness, there was a clicking of feet and a chitter of mouthparts, hopelessly rebounded and distorted. His lips curled in something close to a smile as he raised the gun and fired.

 

* * *

The briefing room could have been one of a thousand rooms in a thousand departments on a thousand worlds. The array of recruits, admittedly, was more unusual. About half of the two dozen were human, or close enough to pass as one. About half of the remainder were humanoid or at least mammalian, including three nearly hairless suinomorphs and one huge, hairy, almost shapeless Woolie. The rest were more exotic organisms, such as a feathered sauravian and a creature in a tracked water tank that looked like (and in fact was) a 2 meter sea cucumber.  Percy surveyed them all from a podium at the front of the room. His visor focused briefly on one, an evidently human woman with blue-gray hair.

“Greetings, and congratulations for all your hard work at the academy,” he said. He glanced at the Woolie, whose most discernible feature was a pair of huge red eyes, and the boxy-headed sauravian, barely bigger than a turkey. “You have all earned a place in the most elite and most cosmopolitan police force ever assembled- the Security and Self-Defense Force of the Arcostate of Emerald City.”

He continued to survey the group. “Now, I could tell you how many new immigrants the city is taking in. I could talk about all the new development in the South Arc, where most of you are probably going to be assigned. I could talk about how we need new officers to handle the load. But all I really have to say is this. This isn’t the Wild West, and it isn’t a cops and robbers shoot ‘em up. You aren’t here to clean up the town, you’re here to help people. They won’t all look like you, and they won’t all be easy to like. They’re still people, and it’s your duty to help them. So, does anyone have any questions?”

A human rookie raised a hand. “Do we get a gun?” he asked.

Percy smiled. “Well, let’s just think this through… Why would a cop really need a gun?”

* * *

 

The marsupial fired both barrels of his weapon as he emerged from a slender door where a buttress met the main spire. Further down, there would have been fully functional balconies, but the buttress would have blocked any entry to the triangular space he emerged from. Here, there was only a walkway designed for occasional use by maintenance staff, and also to absorb some part of the winds that buffeted the tower. Access was correspondingly restricted, in no small part because the cables and halfhearted fiberglass barriers were quite inadequate to stop a determined attempt to climb over them. One of his slugs spiderwebbed a pane, while the other ricocheted into space. He tracked as he reloaded, just in time to see a segmented tail disappear out of sight.

 

Directly ahead was an elevator shaft, one of a pair that ran up either side of the buttress. He listened, but there was little to hear but the wind, and a steady thrum from the carefully tuned wires and struts that was more felt than heard. He stared upward as a double-decked capsule ascended. The glass shaft was enclosed, but not wholly sealed. His intact ear shifted before his gaze did, toward a shape that was just visible in the shadow of a support beam. He fired both barrels and then dived to the left. There was time for barely a glimpse of a meter of snapping pincers, skittering legs and lashing tail, already yawing to the right like a car without a driver. There was an audible crunch as the thing hit the already damaged glass. The next moment, the pane was tumbling down like a drifting leaf, warped and fractured but not broken, yet.

 

As he reentered the machine room he had emerged from, the marsupial pressed a call button with the butt of his main armament. “Confirmed one eurypteroid arthropod, at least 120 centimeters in length, presumed male based on size, now destroyed,” he said in a nasal but commanding voice. “The condition of its exoskeleton indicates a recent molt. I infer a colony of 10 to 15 specimens, between 2^nd molt and sexual maturity, most likely contained within the arcology. Full evacuation and fumigation is advised if I fail to report within 6 hours.”

 

He released the button. His lip curled, and he pressed it again. “Be further advised, send crews to the southwest sector. There will be witnesses… and cleanup.”

* * *

 

“Here’s the bottom line,” Percy said. He smiled tolerantly and held up a .44 magnum with a long barrel tied in a knot. “Your standard issue body armor will stop any projectile under 18,000 joules,” he said. “That’s assuming normal human size and capabilities, of course. If a more immediate threat arises, a special team will be sent to your position, along with additional weapons and gear for those at the scene.” He did not add that the rookie would certainly be pulled back as far as possible.

 

“But they could aim for the face,” the unhappy rookie said.

“And why would that be your problem?” Percy said. “If they can see your face, you can see theirs, can’t you? So what kind of cop are you if you can’t tell an honest citizen from a rrotkori itching to pull a gun?  That’s what real police work is, and if you can’t hack it, all the guns in the world won’t help you.”

 

The nervous rookie raised his hand again. “Do you have a gun?”

Percy smiled. “Why would I?” he said. “I’ve never needed one.”

 

With that, the group clearly decided it was time to disperse. “There’s an open house at the Aster Plaza precinct, feel free to drop in. Be sure to stop at Personnel for your partner assignments.” The recruits shuffled out, except for the rodent creature with gray-brown fur. Percy frowned at the recruit. He, in turn, looked even more flustered.

 

“Ah, Officer… O’Leary,” Percy said. He did not look at the roster on the podium,  but anyone able to see behind his visor would have seen him searching a database of names and photos. “I said, you need to go to the Personnel Office to find out who your partner is. Do you need help finding the way?”

“Ah, no, I was already there,” Nickolas O’Leary said. “You’re my partner.”

“Aww… I see,” Percy said. “Well… Can you come with me downtown?”

* * *

 

The reception was in an aquatic recreation area at the center of the 148^th to 150^th  floors. Daisy met their guests and other well-wishers on a balcony overlooking the pool. A number of the guests were already in the pool, including an echidna with two puggles. She beamed as Westley arrived. “Well, here’s our guest of honor,” she said, taking his hand. He looked uncomfortable, but happy enough to be with her. “This is Westlake Powell, officially my domestic partner.”

 

They sat down at the table, and continued to meet the guests. Here and there, gifts were left, always small. “You know,” Daisy said to Wes, “down in the Old Neighborhoods, they still have weddings, then the reception.”

 

A while later, Wes said, “You look nervous. Anxious, anyway.”

Daisy frowned, then nodded. “I thought he’d come,” she said, then quickly amended, “I’m sure he’ll make it.”

 

In fact, she didn’t see him until he was beside her. “How you doing, kid?” Percy said. The next moment, Daisy’s arms were around his neck.

Revenant Review Extras 3: The one where everybody's dead

 

Title: Dead And Buried

What Year?: 1981

Classification: Prototype/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the course of this feature, it’s never to say when I’m going to “end” something. Still, I finally feel like I’ve come to the point where I can say “one more, once”, just to round out the numbers. That left me with one last slot, and I found I had no trouble thinking of entries to fill it without simply becoming overwhelmed. My final choice was one that had been at the edge of consideration all along, from the middle of the late 1970s-mid ‘80s period I had focused on, yet never quite made it into the lineup. I finally gave it a look, and decided it was indeed the one to cover. With that, I present Dead and Buried, a very odd zombie movie that somehow still fades into the background.

Our story begins with a photographer on a scenic beach who is approached by a beautiful woman, only to be brutally attacked by a mob. We then meet our hero, a small-town sheriff named Dan investigating the same attack as a fiery car crash, and his lovely, perky wife Janet. While the sheriff gets nowhere, we meet more of the locals, including an undertaker who views every death as an opportunity to make his customer look better than new. Meanwhile, several more bodies pile up as the townspeople murder visitors with no obvious provocation, and soon, a few new citizens move in. After witnessing the tail end of one of their attacks, the sheriff realizes that the attackers are most of the town, and their victims are being returned to life. Soon, the trail leads him to a deeper truth: Many or most of his friends and constituents are already undead- including his wife!

Dead And Buried is a 1981 horror film directed by Gary Sherman, from a script credited to Alien screenwriters Dan O’Bannon (see Lifeforce, Dark Star, etc.) and Ronald Shusett. O’Bannon later stated that he had only provided limited input on an existing script by Shusett, with little if any impact on the finished film. The film starred James Farentino and Melody Anderson as the sheriff and his wife, with Jack Anderson as the undertaker Dobbs and Robert Englund as one of the townspeople. Special effects were provided by Stan Winston. The finished film was distributed by AVECO Embassy (see The Manitou), with a box office estimated at $216,000. A novelization was written by Chelsea Quinn Yarboro. The movie received an evidently successful release on VHS, and has remained both well-reviewed and readily available. As of this writing, it is available for free streaming on Amazon Prime.

For my personal experiences, my main recollection of this film is simply tripping over it while I was looking for other movies that were of more interest at the time, especially the now-unquestioned classic Dead of Night. At some point, I grudgingly decided to watch it, and though I never disliked it, it has continued to stir up a sense of vague annoyance that it certainly doesn’t deserve. What has built up even more over time is a more acute than usual sense of déjà vu common to the “runnerup”, except this time the movies it most strongly calls to mind are unquestionably from later in the timeline: The power-mad reanimators of Dead Heat and Chopper Chicks In Zombietown; the grizzled hero and over-the-top violence of Evil Dead; the horridly decayed revenants of Heavy Metal and the Return of the Living Dead franchise; the murderous townsfolk of Hard Rock Zombies; even the general despair of Shatter Dead. At a certain point, the film itself becomes a conundrum. On one hand, it clearly anticipated or actually influenced a great many films in the following years (plausibly through O’Bannon, notwithstanding his efforts to distance himself from it). On the other, it never really stood out from the pack, even if it was ahead of most of them. In my analysis, I decided a review was in order just to give it a fair shake it never got, least of all from me.

Moving to the actual film, the foremost thing to say is that almost every aspect of the production is better than it needs to be. There’s very good acting and dialogue, without any gimmicky “big name” casting. The cinematography and camerawork are even better, providing tension and a certain level of emotional involvement. The one thing that might be counted a disappointment is the quite limited gore effects, but this only goes to show that the genre was doing just fine before such things became a staple. The big qualifier is that there are definitely major issues with the story. There’s never any real question that the vast majority of the townspeople are in on the various murders, and most of the attacks occur without the victim putting up enough of a fight to test their capabilities. Numerous further plot holes are created by the discovery that they are themselves undead, including several “clues” that could easily have been erased, without the sense of ambiguity that redeems lesser movies like The Child and Tourist Trap. (If I’m using those as good examples, you know we’re in trouble…) Ultimately, almost everything really interesting is crammed into the finale, which is superb yet somehow oddly predictable, though that at least can be put down to the movie’s own success.

More than usual, the most intriguing aspect of the film is the undead, and these are a very unusual lot. It is implied that they are created by a combination of science and black magic, but there is no effort to flash out the kind of pseudo-rationalization that is almost always unneeded.  We only see one of them actually created, a revived victim who simply gets up from the undertaker’s table and walks out. Whatever their origin, these revenants are evidently “normal” in their intelligence and abilities, though the question is gradually raised how much of this is reasoned action or rote memory and behavior. The main point for autonomy is the murders, which don’t serve any obvious purpose or give them any particular pleasure. When Dobbs is unmasked as their maker, he frankly recounts that they require regular attention to remain presentable. He holds up Janet as his finest creation, with the further remark, “She could go three weeks, a month!” The following confrontation with Janet herself is the clearest indication of the creatures’ mental life, at first cheerfully oblivious, then histrionic in her despair.

That leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going to go with one I didn’t remember. At about the 45-minute mark, the sheriff witnesses one of the attacks. As he moves to investigate, he accidentally hits one of the townspeople. He stops to examine the victim, then whirls around at a jump scare. What we see is easily the best and most gruesome effect in the film, a severed arm lodged in the grill of his vehicle. We get a closer view, which makes it fairly obvious that the prop is lashed in place with a convenient rag. Still the motion and detail are very convincing. That’s when the “victim” rises and stuns the sheriff. The true horror and hilarity comes when the revenant grabs the arm and runs off almost sheepishly into the fog. It’s one of many moments that aren’t really explained, or easily reconciled with what we do learn, yet it is one with a payoff that outweighs the problems.

In conclusion, after going through this review, I can see why this movie has retained a following, but I also remain quite satisfied with my decision not to cover it previously. It is above all a transitional film, bridging the gap between low-tech parables of the 1970s and the conceptual high strangeness of the 1980s. Considered on its own merits, it remains impressive yet frustrating. It is by all means a well-made film that deserved more recognition. Still, it could surely have been a good deal better, especially considering the talent that was brought to bear. To me, it remains indelibly lower tier, at least as good as many films without being any more memorable or entertaining than quite a few that are otherwise inferior. Reviewing it as an “extra” was truly the most fitting thing I could have done, and more fitting still as the one to wrap this up. With that, I am finally calling this done. “You never know…”