Film Review: CRIMES OF PASSION (1984, Ken Russell)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 112 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Kathleen Turner (ROMANCING THE STONE, SERIAL MOM), Anthony Perkins (PSYCHO, THE TRIAL), John Laughlin (THE ROCK, FOOTLOOSE), Bruce Davison (APT PUPIL, X-MEN), Annie Potts (GHOSTBUSTERS, CORVETTE SUMMER), Stephen Lee (THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, WARGAMES). Soundtrack by Rick Wakeman of Yes.
Tag-line: "Her name is China Blue. She is watched. She is worshipped. And, she must remain a mystery."
Best one-liner: "If you think you're gonna' get back in my panties, forget it. There's one asshole in there already."

CRIMES OF PASSION is ridiculous fucking and it's fucking ridiculous. It's not often that I'm afforded the opportunity to generate such elegant prose, but, hey- we're talkin' Ken Russell.

Kathleen Turner plays 'China Blue,' high-powered fashion designer by day and fifty-buck pavement princess by night. Anthony Perkins plays a street preacher who's dippin' his big toe in the red light district, and subsequently lightin' his fire with a little hellfire and brimstone, if you will.

John Laughlin is a disaffected suburbanite who's about to be inducted into a ramshackle world of peep shows, grubby 'hos, and immodest clothes.

It's cheap n' gritty sleazefest with Argento lighting, dildo-shaped weapons, weapon-shaped dildos, and an evocative Rick Wakeman soundtrack that's a reimagining of Dvorak's New World Symphony- which may or may not be an in-joke on 'New World Pictures,' who produced the film.

I can try to explain this movie using cultural touchstones like PSYCHO and DRESSED TO KILL and SWEET CHARITY and NIGHT OF THE HUNTER, but you know what, I'm simply gonna come up short. Suffice it to say that I learned a lot from CRIMES OF PASSION. I definitely learned more about the anatomy of perversion than in, say, my sixth grade health class. Allow me to share a few kernels of wisdom with you:

#1. "There are three things you gotta know to be a fifty buck hooker: how to act, how to fuck, and how to count to fifty."

Kathleen Turner counts to fifty.

#2. J&B can be informally used as mouthwash, if the occasion permits.

And check out that awesome fucking wallpaper.

#3. Ken Russell is insane, and unapologetic about his insanity. I really respect that.




#4. But on a related note, who would have guessed that we'd have to wait until the fifty-four minute-mark for a have a nun-themed sex scene?

That shows uncommon restraint. I take back the insanity comment.

#5. Kathleen Turner starred in the #8 box office performer of 1984, ROMANCING THE STONE. It takes brass balls to- in the same year- star in a movie where she has brutal handcuff sex with a police officer and then sodomizes him with his own nightstick.

As a side note, CRIMES OF PASSION could have easily been titled ROMANCING THE STONE. Of course, the stone in question would probably have been a weapon-shaped dildo, but still, that's still quite something to consider.

#6. "I never forget a face, especially when I've sat on it." This thing is a veritable font of streetwalkin' one-liners.

#7. A bizarre man-phallus reenactment is a common occurance at family cookouts.


#8. There is an uncanny connection between Anthony Perkins and Jeffrey Combs that I never realized until I saw Perkins, in nerd glasses, acting like a lunatic.



#9. Anthony Perkins can and will flagellate you with a "Beat 'em and eat 'em licorice whip." Does this sort of thing actually exist, or is it a figment of Ken Russell's fevered imagination? Debate in the comments section below.


In the end, silliness aside, it's a fine film. Atmospheric and strange, it's Russell's meditation on society's obsessions with artificiality and debasement. From casual, thrill-seeking perambulators of the red-light district to yowling 'performance artists' at group therapy to those who prefer plastic flowers to real ones (because they don't die), Ken Russell takes aim at your synthetic lifestyle and fires a nutty salvo of eye-candy, genius performances, social commentary, and random freaky nonsense. It doesn't always hit home, but it's bold enough for me to recommend. Four stars.

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: VAMPIRES (1998, John Carpenter)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 108 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: James Woods, Daniel Baldwin (HOMICIDE: LIFE ON THE STREET, BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY), Sheryl Lee (TWIN PEAKS, BACKBEAT, WINTER'S BONE), Tim Guinee (BLADE, IRON MAN), Maximilian Schell (JUDGMENT AT NUREMBERG, ST. IVES, CROSS OF IRON), Thomas Ian Griffith (THE KARATE KID PART III, XXX), Mark Boone Jr. (DIE HARD 2, BATMAN BEGINS). Cinematography by Gary Kibbe. Written by Don Jakoby (BLUE THUNDER, DEATH WISH 3, ARACHNOPHOBIA) and based on the novel by John Steakley. Cameo by Frank Darabont as 'car theft victim.'
Tag-line: "Prepare for the Dawn."
Best one-liner: "The sunlight turns 'em into crispy critters."

VAMPIRES underwent a lot of excellent re-evaluation during Radiator Heaven's Carpenter Blogathon this October, so I was feeling the compulsion to revisit it. My opinion was that it wasn't terribly bad nor was it terribly good, but that it was still a solid, Hawks-infused, second-tier Carpenter. This still stands, but I believe I must attach a caveat: VAMPIRES is the sort of movie you should probably watch alone. I think you know what I mean. As soon as the prying eyes of some second party, non-Carpenter apologist stray across the screen you begin to feel some pangs of embarrassment because an action scene is being presented with rampant dissolves, or some lesser Baldwin is smacking around Laura Palmer, or James Woods is delivering a speech about boners. Suffice it to say, that even to a girlfriend who's on board with THE THING and THEY LIVE, VAMPIRES is a pretty tough sell. VAMPIRES has got a lot of 'slowed-frame-rate slow motion,' which, for lack of better terminology, is The Slow Motion That Looks Like Shit. There are moments where so much exposition ("I know your parents were bitten by vampires, but...") is being jammed down our throats, it feels almost like we're being mugged. There's Maxmilian Schell in a Cardinal's outfit that might have been plucked from a community theater's Kostume Kloset.

I don't know if you can tell from this photo, but that cross may have been purchased from a craft store.

You see, the budget was cut by 66% right before filming began, and we can't blame Carpy for that. But there's a lot of good stuff, too. First off, there's no glaringly hideous low-budge CGI to muck up the proceedings- in fact, some of Greg Nicotero's makeup effects are damned impressive. But secondly, the movie is cool. James Woods is cool. Don't believe me? Check out these pictures taken of him walking away from an explosion without even flinching.


Check out those mini-aviators, the cigar, and the scowl. He lights matches off of skulls for chrissakes.

Even when his nuts are on fire, he's got something snappy to say.

And he sells it. In order for a movie like this to succeed, it's gotta be carried by someone, and James Woods is ready, willing, and able to carry out the task. In those 'iffy' moments, you have to look to someone for leadership. We look to Woods, and he looks committed enough... so the movie stays afloat.

His sidekick, Montoya, is played by the lesser Baldwin named Daniel. He drinks Red Dog, wears denim, and has got a fancy necklace that he bought from the mall.

We meet them in a scene that's very NEAR DARK-meets-Howard Hawks: getting to know the characters, in media res, in relation to their work. Though most of our expendable blue-collar heroes don't survive the first twenty minutes, Carpenter (and DP Kibbe) introduce the crew as hardened, workaday men, sleazy but professional, who exist someplace in that ambiguous zone betwixt 'pistolero' and 'SWAT Team.' Everyone has a job to do, and their determination and speciality devices lend a quality of verisimilitude to the proceedings.

(Though, later, during the aforementioned 'team massacre' near the twenty-minute mark, one team member comically shows uncommon ineptitude by attempting to stake a vampire right in the heart. Er, I mean, right in a spot three feet above his head.)


Our master vampire is played by Thomas Ian Griffith, who is kind of a cross between Richard E. Grant and Tommy Wiseau, but without the flamboyancy or absurdity of either.

He's not bad, but you generally hope for a flashier villain in a picture such as this. There is a great moment though, when a portrait of the Master, supposedly painted in 1340, is revealed.

Any resemblance to a Sears portrait, circa 1998, with a layer of 'oil painting' Photoshop rendering, is purely coincidental.

Then we got Sheryl Lee as the 'hooker-turned-vampire' who has a psychic link with the Master. She imbues the role with a genuine intensity that it doesn't quite deserve. (With shades of her Laura Palmer-as-possessed-by-BOB from TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME!) As written, the role- and large swaths of the script as a whole (not written by Carpenter)- are kiiiiind of misogynistic, which is especially surprising considering that it's a Carpy film.

A lesser Baldwin stikes a lady


Random bondage

Lee and Carpenter work together to give it some added depth, however, and additionally, she can probably lay claim to being the freakiest element of the film.

The soundtrack is classic Carpy: bass-heavy, twangy, and usually building momentum, like his work on THEY LIVE and PRINCE OF DARKNESS. Kibbe's cinematography is up to par, and one scene in particular, whereupon the Master Vampire and his minions rise out of the prairie dust, is especially effective.

Anyway, the movie chugs along, Woods picks up another sidekick in the form of a nerdy priest played by Tim Guinee, there's some enjoyable action setpieces, some kind of hamfisted but not out-of-place commentary on the Catholic church, and the line "How do ya like your 'stake,' bitch?" Between all the screaming and yelling and grappling with blood-coated women and utterances of "fucking bitch" and all that, you get the idea that it's almost a 'day in the life' of James Woods the actor, and it's really too bad that Sean Young couldn't make an appearance in this film, too. To make a long story short, we conclude with a classically existential Carpenter denouement that smacks, most admirably, of the master Hawks himself.


Then, after the most genuine moment of the film (and one which it deserves to have) Carpenter boldly ends the movie with Woods and his new priest-buddy talking about boners.




Now, somehow I find that I can get behind this wholeheartedly: it takes balls to end your movie with a bunch of wisecracks about boners. But it's the kinda thing that makes you wince when somebody pops their head in, and just sees that part, or when you're trying to show it to somebody who doesn't take kindly to all this rough talk about boners. So, alone, I give VAMPIRES four stars. When forced to defend it to somebody who has, uh, higher standards, I have to admit it's probably about two and a half. So let's split the difference. I still love ya, Carpy.

-Sean Gill

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13 GHOSTS (1960, William Castle)

Stars: 3.5 of 5.
Running Time: 85 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Charles Herbert (THE FLY, HOUSEBOAT), Jo Morrow (OUR MAN IN HAVANA, THE THREE WORLDS OF GULLIVER), Martin Milner (SWEET SMELL OF SUCCESS, ADAM-12), Rosemary DeCamp (BLOOD ON THE SUN), Donald Woods (TRUE GRIT, THE STORY OF LOUIS PASTEUR), Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West in THE WIZARD OF OZ).
Tag-line: " 13 Times the Thrills! 13 Times the Chills! 13 Times the Fun!"
Best one-liner: "He doesn't mess up the kitchen often, but when he does, WOW!"

One of William Castle's most beloved films, 13 GHOSTS gave the world Illusion-O. Illusion-O so irrevocably altered the landscape of cinema, that no one has dared to work within its eerie confines since. Illusion-O, plainly speaking, is a form of film-making, that, when observed in concert with a ghost-viewing apparatus (like the one seen below), allows us to... well, view ghosts.

It's extraordinarily complex, but I'll attempt to explain. By peering through the red cellophane on the upper end of the mechanism, the ghosts will appear, quite vibrantly. Using the blue end of the device, however, allows us to remove ghosts.

This begs the question of 'who would choose to attend a film entitled 13 GHOSTS and then decide they'd prefer not to see any ghosts?', but this is a William Castle picture, so we oughtn't to split hairs. If you elect not to use the contraption at all, you'll see ghosts all right, but faintly. Don't worry, though, all of this is adequately explained at the picture's start by William Castle himself. "Do you believe in ghosts?," he asks.

"Personally, I do," he confesses. After explaining the minutiae of ghost-viewer usage, he urges us to explain the whole thing to any late-comers who missed his special introduction. This is perhaps the only time in film history that a director has urged an audience to interrupt his film after it's begun, and it's even for the convenience of the tardy! It's sort of like Hitchcock's "No one...BUT NO ONE will be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance of PSYCHO."

Except if it was more like "No one...BUT NO ONE will be admitted to the theatre after the start of each performance of PSYCHO, unless there are audience members ready and willing to provide a rundown of everything that's happened thus far, including the quoting of pertinent dialogue."

Anyway, I don't wish to entirely spoil the majesty that is 13 GHOSTS with a synopsis (that's probably the job of the person sitting next to you when you roll in late), so let's explore ten of my favorite things about 13 GHOSTS.

#1. Why is the family's last name Zorba? Why do some of them have 'Greek' names like Medea Zorba and Plato Zorba? Is this some kind of hi-larious gag devised to make us think, subconsciously, about ZORBA THE GREEK? Why do the other family names like Cyrus and Buck and Ben and Hilda not adhere to this principle?

#2. The paintings of the Ghosts from the opening sequence.

I'm hard-pressed to imagine anyone not falling in love with them.

#3. The way that characters refer to 'speaking about ghosts' as "spook talk." Which is exactly what Vincent Price called it in Castle's HOUSE ON HAUNTED HILL!

#4. The killer pinwheel of fire ghost.

Why?, you might ask. "WHY NOT?!", Bill Castle might reply. Seriously, though, what the hell is going on there?

#5. Emilio, the murderous Italian chef who occasionally meat-cleavers the hell out of the kitchen.

And I know they had to make sure it was visible in Illusion-O, but look how overboard they went with the mustache:

It's not even hair- I think it's an enormous piece of paper cut into the shape of a mustache. God bless Bill Castle.

#6. This creepy housekeeper. She just looks kinda familiar.

Something about her and that old broom.

Like she should be riding it or something. Hmmm....

#7. The fact that the dad is not overly concerned that his 8-year old kid has a "big secret" with a random lawyer fellow. The dad merrily announces, "Buck's got a secret...I bet you could cut his arm off and he wouldn't tell!"

Buck considers the lawyer's proposition.


The skeezy lawyer in question.

#8. The way that the family pendulates between extreme horror and utter boredom. At one moment, they're dodging floating meat cleavers and screaming.

In the next, they might be calmly reading a book on the divan, wondering why the other family members are making such a fuss about these 'ghosts.' My guess?- it was probably shot so quickly (and out of order), that the actors didn't know at which points in the script they'd already had 'ghostly encounters' and ought to be acting accordingly.

#9. Not only does William Castle have a skeleton receptionist, the doorknob to his office is...a cobweb-encrusted skull!


#10. The ending. Like LET'S KILL UNCLE, Castle opts to end on a faux-cheery note of unbridled optimism which reaches such heights of absurdity that it can only be labelled as subversive.

Then William Castle appears once more, and challenges us- should we still refuse to believe in ghosts– to take our ghost-viewers home, get up in the middle of the night, and look through the red end of the device...if we dare!
Amen.

-Sean Gill

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