Jack & Angelica

…but mostly Angelica, here. (Click above images to enlarge.)

Halloweenies

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Two years before they produced Jaws (1975), Richard Zanuck and David Brown dabbled with the mad scientist genre in Sssssss (“Don’t say it: hiss it!”), a 1973 reboot of 50s schlock. They hired Bernard L. Kowalski to direct, an odd choice considering his l’age d’or transpired some fifteen years earlier with such Tin Age Psychotronica as the man-impregnated-by-hideous-space-aliens in Night of the Blood Beast (1958) and the self-explanatory Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)… and whose regard for simple, old school linear narrative may cause today’s squirrelly Ritalin Generation to fidget. An unusually restrained Strother Martin handles black mambas, pythons and king cobras (for real!), mutating their venom to create an über race of snake men out of a rapidly dwindling supply of unsuspecting lab assistants. The distressed damsel is played by Heather Menzies, whose plum role as ‘Louisa’ in The Sound of Music surely must’ve had her dreaming of better days than this, only now bespectacled and somewhat naked in a blurry skinny dip scene. I hadn’t seen Sssssss since it came out; I thought it was entertaining back then, and find now that it makes for a fairly amusing evening. It’s on a two-disc set, “4 Movie Marathon: Cult Horror Collection”, which yours truly fished out of a five-dollar bin at the local convenience store.
    Also in the set is The Funhouse (1981), the kind of movie custom cut for that decade’s spurt-‘n’-gurgle crowd and gooey Fangoria promo pieces. It was directed by Tobe Hooper who, just seven years earlier, reshaped modern horror with the remarkable Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974). Did any other filmmaker who came to attention during that period fall so swiftly or so permanently? There’s no denying The Funhouse has two or three creative moments, but the sense of urgency and craftsmanship permeating Texas Chainsaw is all but gone. Its wafer-thin scenario is hungry for horrific crescendos, but momentum is in short supply and suspense is miles out of reach. (Kudos to Sylvia Miles, however, for her brief bit as a back alley fortune teller.) The film’s ‘monster’ is a multi-clefted head pinched together from inbred flesh, bulging eyes and nightmare dentistry — the ugly, low income, mentally retarded neighbor as the monster of the id. As in Texas Chainsaw, the sole survivor of Funhouse’s mass slaughter is driven mad and tossed back to normalcy, but the effect is no longer poignant nor harrowing. It’s merely there to tell us that the movie’s over… and that no one really cares.

A name once synonymous with lowbrow horror and exploitation, Jerry Gross had his moment as the poor man’s Roger Corman, producing and distributing barebones product for the drive-in and grindhouse trade throughout the 1970s and early 80s. I first became aware of him sometime in the mid-70s at an abstract-dementia double bill of I Drink Your Blood (1970) with I Eat Your Skin (1964/71). The combination was toxic, a balls-to-the-walls gore fest in blood-splattered color paired with a black and white relic that had been sitting on the shelf for seven years, a crazy, ill-conceived zombie reconfiguration of Dr. No initially filmed under the way-cooler title, Voodoo Blood Bath.
    But I Drink Your Blood is an entirely different kettle of fish. You could read sociopolitical subtext in its portrayal of the 60s counterculture as corrupted by the violence it abhorred, the influence of the Manson Family killings or as a prediction of Altamont; or regard it as a steppingstone figuring somewhere in the bumpy trail blazed by Herschell Gordon Lewis and George Romero.
    Written and directed by the comparatively unknown David Durston, I Drink Your Blood is, for the first twenty minutes, utterly grotesque in both content and execution. There’s little sense of reality in its setting (a dying rural town held together by a folksy little bakery specializing in “meat pies”) or the awkward cue card readings emoted by a cast of bewildered thespians and amateurs. Before tumbling thoroughly into Ed Wood territory, however, Durston bulldozes through the remaining hour with fierce conviction and a sense of humor that’s cynical and surreal. He follows a band of devil-worshipping acidheads infected with rabies, watching them run amok with swords and knives, foaming at the mouth while passing the disease onto townsfolk and a construction crew (hardhats vs. longhairs in the age of Joe), the scenario swirling into an apocalyptic frenzy that’s totally outrageous and ridiculously funny. When the dust settles and the dismembered body parts are no longer used as billy clubs, you may think you’ve imagined the whole thing.

Been so long . . .

During his momentary stint as a movie star, Johnny Rotten played a psycho haunting a white socks and black shoes detective played by Harvey Keitel in… well, I know it as Corrupt, the title used for the New York premiere in 1983. Since then it’s had more alternate titles than I can count. (It’s presently known as Corrupt Lieutenant on a wretched, pan/scan DVD.) I recall the ads trumpeting it in both the Village Voice and Soho Weekly News, and, for a week or two, it was ‘the’ thing to see, at least for the downtown crowd. I can’t say that I ever thought much of the picture, but Corrupt did have two or three entrancing scenes of Keitel sitting in his living room, listening to a jaunty tune (co-written by Ennio Morricone) over and over: “Tchaikovsky´s Destruction”. The vocal was credited to ‘Steve’ — just ‘Steve’ — who turned out to be Steve Linford, later the director of Spamhaus. Even though I never heard it again, for decades I could never get the song out of my head. Just recently this decent copy turned up on YouTube, presumably to haunt me into the new millennium… so play it at your own risk!

Downtime

Sophia Loren between takes on Marriage Italian Style; click to enlarge.

‘Ball’ of confusion

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A film about the insecurities percolating within the minds of its married characters, Last Night (2010) offers occasional moments of wisdom and insight concerning an innate human need to bond with more than just one partner, and the invented morality that tricks millions of people into lives of repression and desperation. Its upscale couples enjoy the freedom that money can buy in their spacious Manhattan digs, a chilly deviation on the bourgeois staple of kids and the white picket fence, with genuine happiness in short supply. We sense it as Keira Knightley’s Joanna loses herself momentarily in the heady company of Alex (Guillaume Canet), Truman (a refreshing Griffin Dunne) and Sandra (Stephanie Romanov) — artistic souls all — while her confused, corporate-minded spouse Michael (Sam Worthington) is off on a business trip with his coworker, the sexually available Laura (Eva Mendes). If we commit ourselves physically to just one person, are we depriving some instinctive motivator that led us to them in the first place — part of what made them fall in love with us? If we pursue sex outside of the marriage, should we be condemned for fulfilling a need to feel attractive and desirable in the eyes of another? Presently I’m uncertain if writer-director Massy Tadjedin subscribes to conventional mores. Above, Alex and Joanna test the shaky walls she’s erected out of the fear and ignorance instilled by a puritanical society. You can see the film on Netflix instant streaming.

Kelsey

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My 2nd favorite music video

Best viewed full screen with the volume cranked through headphones.

Stiletto pumps in the Black Lagoon

Maria Montez saunters through Universal’s all-purpose jungle backlot, filming Robert Siodmak’s semi-deranged Cobra Woman (1944), via Pour 15 minutes d’amour; click to enlarge.

Positively 8th Street

1978 Village Voice ad via It’s All the Streets You Crossed Not So Long Ago; click to enlarge.