Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION The Anywhere Machine Kappa Kid's Dungeon of Schlock

"Vampires" is crap so we can agree there.

I love his reimagining (it's more of a readaptation of Who Goes There? than a remake of the Hawks film) of "The Thing". The practical effects are arguably the greatest ever used in a horror movie and I don't think many movies have reached that level of cinematic ingenuity and creativity.

Yeah, I'm with you on "The Thing"'s FX. I really miss the solid, tactile FX of the pre-CGI era.

I was reading an old '80s film mag, containing an interview with Carpenter. Big Trouble had recently not been a big hit, and he was thinking of packing it in. It didn't read as an egotistical strop. Just that he'd worked really hard at a few movies that hadn't paid off. Perhaps he could see it being harder to get the finance in the future, and was just burned out a bit.

I'm sure I've seen Vampires. Once. No memories of it other than "Don't watch it again."

Having said that, I found Ghosts of Mars to be a decent, contained B movie. That was after Vampires.

There are quite a few of his movies I've liked. Dark Star is a favourite. Then there's The Thing and Prince of Darkness, through Big Trouble to They Live.

I wasn't that impressed with Escape from LA. It was one I was looking forward to, and the campy tone, cheesy effects and similar riffs to the original didn't work for me. There were some nice shots at society, but they weren't really enough for me.

I've seen a lot of new stuff lately, but have been too lazy to post about it. Since I have cabin fever from being trapped at home right now, I guess I can bring myself to write something up.

How do you make a follow up to Hitchcock classic like Psycho without people decrying the burning of a sacred cow? Richard Franklin definitely had the deck stacked against when he made Psycho II , but I personally think the movie is phenomenal! Anthony Perkins returns as Norman Bates, who is being freed after 20 years in prison. He returns to the Bates Motel only to find it under the management of the sleazy Mr. Toomey (Dennis Franz). Soon "Mother" starts calling and the whole Psycho cycle begins anew! Perkins is phenomenal in the role again, playing the character as both familiar yet oddly much more sympathetic. We get the sense that he would probably have been a normal functioning citizen after his release if not abused by the people in town after his return. The plot is full of terrifying twists and turns which I won't spoil here, but needless to say, it will leave your head spinning! Check this one out!



Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Also, on Fanfie and thoth's suggestions, I checked out Dario Argento's most celebrated film, Suspiria. Holy crap, this movie is gorgeous to look at! Argento's use of bright colors, especially red, and technicolor processing makes everything pop out, look some kind of demented funhouse, which is fitting since the film is about a ballet academy run by witches. The soundtrack by Goblin is also phenomenal, giving it almost an Exorcist or Halloween vibe, especially in the opening sequence with the rainy drive through the streets. I'm definitely going to check out more of Argento's stuff now!

Rating: 4/5 stars

Yay! Glad you enjoyed Suspiria, KK.

I haven't seen Psycho II in something like 25 years, but I remember thinking very highly of it. I actually think the original is one of Hitchcock's most overrated films because of what I perceive to be reactionary attitudes towards women and (more insidiously) LGBT people. That's what made Psycho II so refreshing, it fleshed out Norman and the environment that shaped him, so it complements and enhances the original.

Much like Fickles, I've not seen the sequel for ages, but also remember it being pretty good...

All of the Psycho sequels were pretty good. Psycho II and its twist were the best. III was a bit more standard slasher fare, though I recall it had a dark comedic flare. IV was made-for-TV and served as a prequel--I thought it was rather well-done. All were buoyed by the continued involvement of Tony Perkins.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the current Bates Motel series airing on A&E and which just started its fourth season. The series focuses on Norman and his mother Norma re-imagined in a modern setting and would itself be a prequel to the events of the first film. We see Norman's descent into mental illness in the setting of a town that itself is full of secrets. The actor who plays Norman is a worthy successor to Perkins. And the Norma actress is as versatile as any I've seen and has a gift for providing the show's comic relief at points even as she shows all the layers of the over-protective mom character. I definitely recommend it for binge-watching, wherever it may be available.

I've seen Bates Motel a few times while perusing Netflix. I'll give it a shot when I get the chance.

Streets of Fire



Co-written and directed by Walter Hill, Streets of Fire was released in 1984 between his involvement in the two Alien(s) movies, and after he directed the hit 48 Hours. It has much more in common with The Warriors, a film he co-wrote the screenplay for and directed back in ’79.

I read that Hill had intended The Warriors to be more clearly set in a near future, with certain comic/pulp additions. However, pressure for a release pushed the movie out earlier, and those additions had to be shelved. He eventually got to do add them in his Ultimate Cut of the film (which I’ll get round to seeing shortly).

But it looks as though he did get to try out at least some of those concepts in Streets of Fire.

The film looks great. It has a rundown retro future look set firmly around the 1950s, with the cast also basing (but with kinks) their clothing in that period. The sets are impressive, in part, due to its over $14 million budget. You get a sense of the city the characters live in. It’s almost a character in its own right, much in the way it was in The Warriors. It’s like a slightly less rainy Bladerunner in places.

There’s nothing wrong with Hill’s directing either. It’s a well shot, professional job. But why was this a bit of a clunker?

Our story begins with a singer (Diane Lane) returning for a benefit gig. She’s kidnapped by a biker gang led by Raven (Willem Dafoe). In the audience is the sister (Deborah Van Valkenburgh) of someone the singer used to be close to. She contacts him with a simple message that he’s needed. Our hero (Michael Pare) returns to town to rescue the girl.

So that’s tidy enough. In addition, we get the singer’s manager and now boyfriend (Rick Moranis), an ex-soldier, mechanic sidekick (Amy Madigan) and a local bartender (Bill Paxton).

So, it’s not a terrible cast either. It was fun to see the casting links back to The Warriors with Van Valkenburgh and forward to Aliens with Bill Paxton.

But the whole thing is let down by the script. The dialogue is incredibly wooden. Every character is supposed to have an arsenal of wisecracks at their disposal. But they are all lines in isolation, resulting in absolutely no believable connections, and certainly no chemistry, forming between any of them.

Rick Moranis is probably the best example of this, forced to churn out mechanical put downs in his role as unsympathetic manager. Moranis is also caught between another of the film’s flaws. The film is a mix of action and romance with musical and interludes and a little comedy. It falls firmly between all those stools, and the dialogue doesn’t really change between any of the genres. Characters such as a super fan of the singer and a passing band are added to the cast. All just add weight to the film’s flailing around as it’s sinking.

Van Valkenburgh comes out best, but even she struggles with the terrible dialogue. It’s a shame she becomes more of a supporting cast member after her function of getting the hero involved is over.

Not that the plot doesn’t have its share of problems too. Despite being both boyfriend and manager, Moranis has to be convinced to pay our hero to mount a rescue. Worse still, Moranis knows exactly where the kidnappers have taken her. Don’t call the police or anything Rick. Later still, they pay an informer to tell them that the singer is still being held in the same place Moranis knew about.

It’s a bit of a shame. Moranis’ character used to live in the city. Both he and the singer have worked hard to get out. He’s conflicted, knowing that no matter how much money he gets he'll not escape his past. And he knows that he can only keep hold of the singer for so long. Lots of possibilities, all squandered. I had to look up to check it was the same Diane Lane playing the singer. It’s a very understated performance here, and not in any good way. Our hero certainly looks the part. He's clearly capable of beating up the bad guys. But his lines could have been delivered by any similarly sized piece of cardboard.

I can see there being a lot of ideas behind the film, and visually a lot of that works. But it fails badly in the writing, and I doubt it took long for word of mouth to sink it at the box office.

Streets of Fire was a huge disappointment to me, because I enjoyed The Warriors so much! I also love some of Walter Hill's other movies, especially the noir thriller Johnny Handsome and the action western The Long Riders.

I agree with Thoth that the script was badly in need of rewrites, but I also felt that Hill's direction was unusually under-confident; maybe he was overwhelmed by the project. Or maybe it was so close to his heart that he couldn't distance himself properly from it.

I have the soundtrack on audiocassette some is it is quel frommage, but in a good way, and some of it is just great!

Have you seen Hill's later version of The Warriors Fickles?

Uh? TBH, I didn't even know there was a later version.

In the age of director cuts, Hill added in some comic book style inserts and other visuals. Reaction was mixed, but Hill said he wanted to add them at the time, so this version is the one you would have got had he been left alone at the time.

I'll report back with a review. I also read that a couple of the characters from Streets of Fire appear in a much later film. So I'll have a look for it.

Thanks, Thoth. I may seek out the Warriors recut.

New York Ripper (1982)



Combine a famous series of murders with the American market placement and you’ve got a great title for a movie.

Directed and co-written by Lucio Fulci, this is one I hadn’t seen before. I’m vaguely aware that it had a certain reputation, and that it was banned for a number of years.

It’s a combination of slasher flick and psychological thriller with giallo sensibilities. There’s some exploitative bits thrown in to make it a bit more for mature viewers, but we are talking early ‘80s here. There’s definitely an attempt to capture a sleazy NYC here.

I can see why it made people a bit uncomfortable. The emotional drives of the serial killer are more Hannibal Lecter than Halloween. It feels more like a rougher ‘70s film than the slicker, and duller, American slasher films of the ‘80s. The usual female slasher movie victims have a more unsettling element than usual, due to the quality and nature of the effects in the death scenes. There is “ripper” in the title after all, so certain deaths and misogyny are inherent in the title. Personally, I was just looking at the technical effects rather than being caught up in considering the gender of the victims.

The plot revolves around a series of murders committed by someone with a voice like a deranged Donald Duck. This is apparently a nod to an earlier film. Initially silly, its distinctive qualities make it creepy as the film progresses.

The film keeps the viewer guessing as to which of the cast is behind the killings. Is it the mathematician boyfriend of the only victim to survive? Is it the surviving victim herself, sometime prone to hallucinations? Perhaps it is the psychologist the police bring into the case to find the killer? Is it the doctor who keeps the tape recordings his wife makes in their open relationship? Or could it be one of the men the wife finds herself with, one who was near the survivor when she was attacked?

Either the film overplayed its hand early on, or I’m a lucky guesser when it came to the culprit. But it did make me think twice later on, just before the final reveal. The reasons behind it all had the farfetched plot jumps that we’ve seen in other Italian films. But I liked the various possible killers, even if it did slow the overall pace down a bit.

The film does add in a touch of titillation, that often really shows its age. But simultaneously, it goes deeper than most, in giving the viewer a, mostly incidental and non-exploitative, glimpse into the sexual lives of each of the cast. It’s there to provide some underpinnings to potential suspects, but also helps to make the characters more human.

Investigating the murders is our standard burned out police detective. It’s well played by Jack Hedley, as the script allows for solid interaction with his suspects and colleagues. The detective is also involved with one of the victims. As he attempts to save her, we see an out of breath middle aged person, trying to find a way into a building, rather than an action hero or a super cop. It’s a small, but good touch.

The cinematographer on this one was Luigi Kuveiller, who also did Deep Red and there are a few good camera effects used here.

In summary, elements of the film undoubtedly upset those who are outraged as a hobby, and who want some attention in their lives. But behind that is a competent film that brings certain Italian qualities to a movie firmly aimed at more of a US market.

If you're in the mood for some serious batshit "WTF drugs were they on" horror movies, check out The Howling III: The Marsupials. Contrary to that title, the film does not actually contain any were-kangaroos. In fact, this film has almost nothing to do with Joe Dante's original classic, though the same could arguably said for the second film in the franchise as well. The film follows a young female werewolf living in the Australian Outback who escapes her abusive clan and flees to the big city and joins the crew of a werewolf movie. At the same time, a biology professor and part-time werewolf researcher (just roll with it) is trying to track down the last of the were-thylacines (the werewolves have pouches in this movie) to study them before they are hunted to extinction. The movie has brilliant satire throughout, but it can never quite mesh these two plotlines quite well, resulting in a pretty bland third act where the characters are just roaming the Australian outback without really much to do. The effects are also not quite on par with Dante's either, frequently failing to use shadows and better angles to mask some of the limitations of their practical effects. It's a fun movie to poke fun at, but I do admire it's somewhat misguided ambition to take the werewolf genre to the next level. Unfortunately, it just misses a few key steps along the way.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars

Now I really want to see a were-wombat movie!

ALL THE COLORS OF THE DARK (1972)

Directed by Sergio Martino

While I consider myself reasonably well-versed in the work of Argento, Fulci, and Bava, the more workmanlike Martino doesn't command the same degree of mystique as the first three, so his films are not as readily available on home video. Internet to the rescue -- YouTube has several of his movies (at least for the time being) and yesterday I watched one of Martino's most (in)famous works, "All the Colors of the Dark", starring his frequent leading lady Edwige Fenech (who was married to Martino's brother Luciano at the time).

The movie doesn't have the crazed intensity of the best work of Martino's rivals, but I think it is a solid piece of craftsmanship. AtCotD is frequently (and unfavorably) compared to Roman Polanski's "Rosemary's Baby", but I think a more accurate comparison would be "Repulsion." Either way, Martino succeeds in creating the requisite living-nightmare atmosphere, what with Fenech having to contend with a remote, absent husband (George Hilton), a creepy blue-eyed stalker (Ivan Rassimov), a sister who may have a sinister private agenda, and a strange new neighbor who inducts her into a devil-worshipping cult (cue the animal sacrifice -- IMO the most uncomfortable moment in the film -- followed by the drinking of blood, then the cult orgy, and then the human sacrifice. The question then becomes, did any of this really happening or is it all a paranoid delusion of Fenech's? And when the movie threatens to fall apart near the end with a too-tidy "Psycho"-esque resolution, Martino and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi pull a brilliant bait-and-switch that leaves the viewer as uncertain of Fenech's ultimate fate as she is.

I will definitely be watching more Sergio Martino movies (for as long as they're available) and posting about them in this thread.

Arguably the one of the best Hammer films never made by Hammer , Horror Express is actually my favorite pairing of Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. The film's plot is very reminiscent of The Thing and concerns a frozen creature getting loose on a train during transport and taking over the bodies of the passengers. There's a great sense of mystery and tension, aided by the haunting score and beautiful set design. You can never go wrong with Lee and Cushing together and we even get Telly Savalas joining in on the fun, wearing what I can only describe as something even Cruella De Vil would turn her nose at! The effects are actually pretty solid for their time, particularly the bleeding eyes.

Rating: 3.5/5



Also, this score is just too beautiful to not share!

Apologies for overlooking your great review, thoth. I just saw New York Ripper about a month ago and loved it. It's defintely one of Fulci's best (and sleaziest) flicks and actually maintains a pretty solid mystery for a while. The ending is actually surprisingly bittersweet for a giallo as I actually had some sympathy for the killer.

This is my first Mario Bava flick, though I had already seen several of his son's films before. Compared to Lamberto, Mario's work is a lot more moody and stylized, which fits into that transition period of horror in the 60's. There's a nice mix of the moody expressionism that marked the Universal monster flicks as well as the more visceral gore that the Italian horror scene came to be known for under the likes of Fulci and Argento. The story isn't anything special, but it's atmosphere makes it a very enjoyable watch.

Also, Barbara Steele is

Rating: 3/5

Well said, Kappa, and I agree with you for the most part, though if I were to give "Black Sunday" a rating, I'd be more generous and give it at the very least a 4/5.

We are definitely on the same page on Barbara Steele, though.

The plot gets a bit murky at times, especially in waffling between whether the antagonists are witches or vampires, so I found some parts to be a bit convoluted and plodding.

That's not to say that it hurt it enough to keep me from overall enjoying the film though, especially near the end.

I'm not sure how many fans of westerns we have around these parts (hey Cobie!), but I love me a good spaghetti western! When it stars Franco Nero and is directed by Lucio Fulci, that's just icing on the cake! Massacre Time/The Brute and the Beast is an underrated gem in Fulci's early career catalog. Franco Nero isn't quite playing Django again even if he does do some pretty awesome ass kicking near the end of the film. The real star of the film is actually George Hilton as Nero's booze guzzling brother who delivers all the best one-liners and gets the best stunts in the action sequences. Check this one guys!

Rating: 3.5/5