Television Review: TRILOGY OF TERROR (1975, Dan Curtis)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 72 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Karen Black, Karen Black, Karen Black, Karen Black, Robert Burton (LASSIE, Karen Black's then-husband), Gregory Harrison (TRAPPER JOHN, M.D.; RAZORBACK), Jim Storm (DARK SHADOWS, ONE LIFE TO LIVE), George Gaynes (PUNKY BREWSTER, TOOTSIE). Based on stories by Richard Matheson. Special effects by Erik von Buelow (THE FOOD OF THE GODS, EMPIRE OF THE ANTS).
Tag-line: None.
Best one-liner: "This can't be happening! This can't be happening!"

Every once in a while, you have one of those rough days at work. You're a high-powered television executive, and the office is gettin' ya down. Some guys from downstairs are goin' out for happy hour, and you resolve to join them for just one. One turns into two, you're havin' a fine time of it, two turns into three, then four, and the next thing you know, you wake up at your desk realizing you've greenlit a horror picture where Karen Black plays four roles.

It takes brass balls to make a picture like (the Richard Matheson-penned and Dan Curtis-directed) TRILOGY OF TERROR. Seriously- you're in an 'ABC movie-of-the-week' scenario and the temptation must be to make the simplest, dumbest, most kiddie-friendly fare imaginable. The last thing you need is a thousand calls to the network bustin' your balls about some inappropriate content or the like. So we get a horror triptych which tackles such issues as: inappropriate student-teacher relationships, roofies and date rape, sexual blackmail, gang rape, incest, the failings of the mental health system, and much, much more. I remarked to my girlfriend as we watched this- Holy God, I'd hate to have been a parent in 1975, hosting a Saturday night creature-feature slumber party for the neighborhood kiddies, and having to field these awkward questions during commercial breaks, questions like 'what's a roofie' and 'why was he photographing her in that hotel room' and 'what does it mean when he says he has a bunch of friends he'd like her to meet?'

She surmised that playing dumb and hoping they'd forget about it would be in order, and I had to agree. But the purpose of my bringing this up is not some priggish rant: I applaud TRILOGY OF TERROR for refusing to censor itself, and, like so many imaginative films of the 70's and 80's, rejecting the idea that horror films for children and adults are necessarily mutually exclusive.

The first segment, "Julie," which could have easily been entitled "Hot for Teacher" if they weren't going with the whole character name thing, is about a fuddy-duddy female professor and the amorous Big Man on Campus who only wants to take her out on the town and drug her and photograph her in compromising positions and blackmail her and enter into a sexually extortive relationship.


As the collegiate lothario in question, Black's then-husband Robert Burton delivers a legendarily sleazy performance combining the creepy leer of Gary Busey with the pompousness of an 80's teen movie villain.



Black retorts by exuding pathos in a nuanced performance as the sad sack teacher, overwhelmed by the fiendishness of it all. Now, as is often the case with horror omnibuses, the ending of a promising segment will be 'Ye Olde Switch-a-roo,' a twist ending so ludicrous that it may force you to mock the piece as a whole. While "Julie" certainly is done no favors by its looney finale, it's a silly enough turnaround that I am wholeheartedly able to support it.

The next segment, "Millicent and Therese" sees Karen Black really entering tour-de-force mode. As both halves of a pair of twisted sisters who each think the other is evil and insane, Black prompts me to quote Loverboy in assessing her performance: "the kid is hot tonight."

Millicent is an old maid in the vein of Katherine Hepburn who dresses like an extra from THE CRUCIBLE and wears glasses capable of sizzlin' ants right off the sidewalk.


She accuses her sister Therese of practicing demonology, pornography, incest, Satanism, voodoo, and of being a chippy.

Black plays Therese as an over-the-top blonde wig wearing floozy, and this was definitely the point in the film when I realized that I was going to love every minute of it.

She sweet-talks her psychiatrist ("You know you're a very handsome man, Doctor..."), breaks little girls' dollies, and slinks around the house like a wacko, ill-advised caricature of female sexuality.

Again, the finale involves the Ye Olde Switch-a-roo, and a glaring plot hole which I will not specifically address should sink the whole thing, but instead you're left in a complete state of bemusement, because said finale also involves a voodoo doll embellished quite wonderfully with fingernails and rhinestones.

In the final- and most notorious- segment, "Amelia," Black plays a newly independent young lady with mommy issues who comes into possession of a Zuni fetish doll that wastes no time in awakening, stalking her about the apartment, stabbing her ankles, biting her legs, and all that jazz.

With gnashing teeth and sunken eyes, the doll itself is extremely freaky and may have inspired everything from BLACK DEVIL DOLL FROM HELL to CHILD'S PLAY. This segment seems to have scarred an entire generation of youngsters, but in hindsight, it's wildly entertaining and often hilarious. A lot of the credit belongs to voice actor extraordinaire, Walker Edmiston (THE FLINTSTONES, H.R. PUFNSTUF) whose constant, high-pitched "HUMMANA HUMMANA NUM NUM NUM NUM YAH YAH YAH YAH YAAHHHHHHHHs" fuse with the stilted movements of the tiny puppet to create one of the most surreal and enjoyable setpieces ever to grace our televisions.



Because the production schedule required such a quick turnaround, the special effect often leaves a little bit to be desired (i.e., the Bela Lugosi BRIDE OF THE MONSTER school of special effects, whereupon the performer holds the rubbery monster to their own neck and flails), but this only works in the film's favor. Regardless, Black holds it all together with élan: she is the only human character in the segment, and her connection to her character's many trials is palpable. Ultimately my favorite segment of the three, "Amelia" even pulls of a Switcharoo ending that's bold, a little scary, and actually feels like an appropriate payoff!

Four stars.

-Sean Gill

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FORTHCOMING: Junta Juleil's Omnibus Horror Series

From TRILOGY OF TERROR to TWO EVIL EYES, I can't get enough of omnibus horror films. Why? Who knows for sure. But if it's got a couple of spooky stories and a feature-length running time, I guess I'm on board. Unless it's CREEPSHOW III. But that's another story for another day, I suppose...

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Film Review: GO GO TALES (2007, Abel Ferrara)

Stars: 5 of 5.
Running Time: 96 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Willem Dafoe (BODY OF EVIDENCE), Matthew Modine (VISION QUEST, FULL METAL JACKET), Bob Hoskins (THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY, THE COTTON CLUB), Sylvia Miles (MIDNIGHT COWBOY, THE SENTINEL), Asia Argento (TRAUMA, MOTHER OF TEARS), Burt Young (ROCKY, ONCE UPON A TIME IN AMERICA), Stefania Rocca (THE CARD PLAYER, THE TALENTED MR. RIPLEY), Anita Pallenberg (BARBARELLA, DILLINGER IS DEAD), Shanyn Leigh (PUBLIC ENEMIES, MARY), Roy Dotrice (AMADEUS, SUBURBAN COMMANDO), Joseph Cortese (AMERICAN HISTORY X, WINDOWS), Pras (of The Fugees). Soundtrack in association with Grace Jones.
Tag-line: "Un film di Abel Ferrara."
Best one-liner: "You can't put the dog in my gourmet kitchen!"

Described by its director as his first "international screwball comedy" and a mash-up of THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE and CHEERS, GO GO TALES is indeed an absurdly funny film, (it seems that Abel and Werner Herzog, at odds though they may be over the BAD LIEUTENANT 'remake,' are becoming the 21st Century's top purveyors of comedy and Willem Dafoe) but one which also strikes the seasoned Ferrara fan as an intimate self-portrait, full of melancholy and a yearning for simpler, scuzzier times. We're witnessing a world in transition; one with a smaller and smaller place in it for the scatterbrained, non-tech-savvy sleazemeister (here embodied by Dafoe's "Ray Ruby"). Ferrara himself, like many a gritty 70's NYC director, began rather modestly with pornographic films (NINE LIVES OF A WET PUSSY), simple exploitation (THE DRILLER KILLER, MS. 45), and even chronicled the Times Square strip club culture (FEAR CITY) in its pre-Giuliani heyday. But recently, despite cult followings and international successes, it seems he can't even get arrested in America. In a way, thank God that the Europeans have swooped in as his sometime patrons, but fuck the American 'indie' studio system for not allowing significant distribution or funding for a legendary filmmaker who, unlike so many of his contemporaries, has continued to generate that creative, envelope-pushing spark after nearly forty years in the business.

And so Dafoe's Ray Ruby finds himself living on the edge. Hand to mouth, hand to mouth, hand to mouth to lottery ticket.

His strip club, his brainchild, his life's work, his "Paradise Lounge" ...is in trouble. His brother (played with élan by a a moptopped, pompous Matthew Modine), a Staten Island hair salon mogul and the almighty supplier of finances, is threatening to pull the plug.

"The plug is pulled. Paradise is over!"

This delights to no end the vitriolic New Yawwk landlady (Sylvia Miles in one of her finest, meanest performances) who's been waiting in the wings, ready to sell the place out "to Bed, Bath, and Beyond, motherfuckers, on a ninety-nine year lease!"

"BED, BATH, AND BEYOND!!! BED, BATH, AND BEYOND!!!"

But Ray must shoulder some of the blame- after all, he's poured all of his profits into a dangerous lottery addiction ("I played the lottery- I mean, I REALLY PLAYED IT!"), has made some foolish investments ("Frisbees with my face on 'em, I don't know what I was thinking") and has lost money over his soft spot for struggling artists (seen in an incredible, tour de force sequence that can only be described as 'Talent Show Nite' at the strip club).

All is not lost, however, when Ray actually wins the lotto, but in the midst of his inveterate, notorious disorganization, he can't find the ticket!

It's Abel's plea to the heavens- actual, sort of quaint sleaziness has been hijacked by the corporate version of sleaziness! Is nothing sacred? You've taken everything else, are you gonna take TIMES SQUARE, too? Yes, they will. And they did. By the time Ray's business is being redirected and stolen by a doofus in a crustacean mascot costume, Ferrara's exasperation has become completely tangible. Go ahead, Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Just take it all away. I've got nothing to live for anymore.

Unfolding over the course of one night, and with an Altman-style, observational, roaming camera (which captures the life which teems upon and outside of its frame), Ferrara captures the best sort of comedy- the unforced kind, the kind that's true to life. Even at it's most outrageous, the laughs here don't feel planned or even like 'jokes,' they feel like the natural outpourings of characters whose lives (from afar, of course) happen to be hilarious. The musician Pras wanders about as the club's resident 'chef,' obsessed with the gourmet artistry of his (microwaved) free range hot dogs,


Pras witnesses the ignominious end of his organic, free range, gourmet hot dogs.

an ancient Burt Young receives awkward lap dances, a robust, gravel-voiced Bob Hoskins lauds the respectability of the joint, tanning beds catch fire, a Eurotrash stripper (Stefania Rocca) wrangles the greenlighting of her script during a private dance ("Sign da check! Sign da check!"), Matthew Modine plays a toy piano and performs a mind-blowing musical number,

and Willem Dafoe even croons a ballad with a debonair suavitude and creepy flourish seldom seen since the glory days of the Rat Pack.

All this, and I didn't even get to Asia Argento yet! I'm reasonably certain that her performance as the "scariest, sexiest girl in the world" is entirely improvised and her free-form poledancing/make-out session with a terrifying dog is easily the most startlingly outré incident to be captured on celluloid in years.

Yes, GO GO TALES is insane, and, yes, it rambles. It induces spit-takes, eye-pops, raised brows, and as Sylvia Miles' psychotic end credits song (about Bed, Bath, and Beyond) attests, it even draws a comparison with STREET TRASH. Most importantly, however, it's sincere. Five stars. Abel: may you always find new, disorderly, and innovative ways to make these maniacal movies of yours. Distributors: shame on you for not picking this film up during the four years it's been available. Willem Dafoe: take it easy, take it breezy... and take it sleazy.


-Sean Gill

EDIT: Apparently the release was also held up by a legal dispute concerning screenplay credit.

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Film Review: HOMER AND EDDIE (1989, Andrei Konchalovsky)

Stars: 2.2 of 5.
Running Time: 102 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: James Belushi, Whoopi Goldberg, John Waters (director of PINK FLAMINGOS and SERIAL MOM), Anne Ramsey (THE GOONIES, DEADLY FRIEND), Mickey Jones (TOTAL RECALL, EXTREME PREJUDICE), Karen Black (FIVE EASY PIECES, INVADERS FROM MARS), Vincent Schiavelli (ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEST, LORD OF ILLUSIONS), Tracey Walter (REPO MAN, MORTUARY ACADEMY), 'Tiny' Lister (EXTREME PREJUDICE, JACKIE BROWN), Pruitt Taylor Vince (NATURAL BORN KILLERS, WILD AT HEART), Wayne Grace (DANCES WITH WOLVES, MULHOLLAND DR.), Robert Glaudini (CUTTING CLASS; GRUNT! THE WRESTLING MOVIE).
Tag-line: "She's ruthless - He's witless - They're on the road together and falling apart at the seams!"
Best one-liner: "What the fuck is a brain stem?"

Sometimes when I can't tell if a film is supposed to be a comedy or a drama, and James Belushi happens to be in it, all I have to do is look at his credit: if it says 'Jim' (SNOW DOGS, CANADIAN BACON, ABRAXIS: GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE, JUMPIN' JACK FLASH) it's probably intended to be a comedy, and if it says 'James' (SALVADOR, WILD PALMS, THIEF), it probably means that he wants to be taken seriously. HOMER AND EDDIE is a film which pendulates wildly between the full on-whacky and the quasi-profound, but for the record, he's credited as 'James.'

A lot of 70's and 80's movies struggle to maintain a consistent tone (INTO THE NIGHT, THE END, FREEBIE AND THE BEAN, SOMETHING WILD, HOWARD THE DUCK, and STROKER ACE come to mind), establishing themselves as Zany with a capital Z, and then pulling the rug out with something that's Heavy with a capital H. It's not to say that this will derail an entire film, or that tonal shifts can't be done well (see the Coens, David Lynch, et al.), but it's possible that two disparate tones have never been quite so at odds with one another as is the case in HOMER AND EDDIE. For example, we follow up a disquieting scene with a terminally ill woman smashing her head into a bathroom mirror...

...with one that involves hootin' n' hollerin' whilst driving past a bus full of nubile cheerleaders while set to peppy 80' grooves. A serious theological discussion that ends with Whoopi screaming, in all seriousness, "THERE AIN'T NO FUCKING GOD!" is followed by a fix-em-up montage set to tender guitar and wailin', sultry saxophone.

Directed by the writer of IVAN'S CHILDHOOD and ANDREI RUBLEV (!) and Cannon Films director-in-residence (RUNAWAY TRAIN, MARIA'S LOVERS, SHY PEOPLE) Andrei Konchalovsky, HOMER AND EDDIE is the tale of a brain-damaged man-child (James Belushi) and a brain-tumored sociopath (Whoopi Goldberg) who join forces and go on a West Coast road trip in search of the meaning of life, the meaning of family, and a missing eighty-seven dollars.

In short, it's a coming of age drama, a zany buddy-trip flick, an on-the-lam crime thriller, a fish out of water story, a Depression-era throwback (that's kind of a 1980's OF MICE AND MEN), a sex farce, and a cult movie. It's like somebody thought that combining RAIN MAN, SOMETHING WILD, and PEE-WEE'S BIG ADVENTURE would in some way be a good idea.
[The only movies of the era I can think of which can properly pull off the Americana road trip scenario along with flashes of beauty and violence and comedy and pathos are Jim Jarmusch's MYSTERY TRAIN and David Lynch's WILD AT HEART.]

Our leads do a pretty good job of 'running it up the flagpole,' so to speak. Belushi tries his hardest to pull off 'lovable, mentally disabled man.' The fact that I didn't find it entirely offensive is a tremendous credit to Belushi's acting chops.

I became something of a latter-day Whoopi fan only after seeing her performance in FATAL BEAUTY, and she's pretty amusing here, rampaging about and robbing people and uttering rejoinders such as "You're like Frankenstein and shit!" She anchors the erratic and ridiculous character with enough humanity that I was never actively pissed at her, and again, that is something of an achievement. You know a film is not hitting it's mark when I have to compliment it in terms 'what was not actively aggravating me.'

When you'd fear that all hope is lost- in a twist that really blew my mind– there's a goddamned parade of iconic cult actors in bit parts. Just look at this rogue's gallery:

Michael Ironside's best bud and ex-Bob-Dylan-drummer Mickey Jones as a redneck manhandled by Whoopi in a diner:


Legendary melancholy-faced character actor Vincent Schiavelli as a priest who refuses to grant Whoopi absolution for murder:


Former wrestler and action film standby Tommy 'Tiny' Lister as a heat-packin' clubgoer begrudingly won over by Belushi's cutesyness:


Crabby acting icon Anne Ramsey as a grizzled convenience store owner keeping an eagle eye out for shoplifters:


70's giant Karen Black as the insane madam of a low-rent, Southwestern, tin-shed whorehouse:


Pruitt Taylor Vince as an unlucky liquor store owner:


Director John Waters as a thieving, flaming highwayman who declares "Move it, maggot!":


And cult actor extraordinaire Tracey Walter as a stuttering cop and boyhood friend of Belushi.


Whew! In closing, I still like Konchalovsky. RUNAWAY TRAIN remains an all-time favorite, and HOMER AND EDDIE is by no means a terrible film, it's merely a misguided one. Probably the most inspired bit of work done on the film is by sometime Golan-Globus and Full Moon Pictures casting director Robert MacDonald (BARFLY, MURPHY'S LAW, RUNAWAY TRAIN, AMERICAN NINJA, TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2, THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM, SUBSPECIES, CASTLE FREAK, TRANCERS II) who assembled enough eclectic performers and bizarro cameos to really keep things interesting, even if it was something along the lines of 'What notorious cult performer will pop up next?!'

For its status as a (misconceived) labor of love and a treasure trove of unexpected personalities: a little over two stars.

-Sean Gill

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Film Review: ONE CRAZY SUMMER (1986, Savage Steve Holland)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 93 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: John Cusack (BETTER OFF DEAD, SAY ANYTHING), Demi Moore (ABOUT LAST NIGHT, STRIPTEASE), Joel Murray (SHAKES THE CLOWN, HATCHET), William Hickey (TALES FROM THE DARKSIDE, PRIZZI'S HONOR), Bobcat Goldthwait (SHAKES THE CLOWN, POLICE ACADEMY 2), Curtis Armstrong (BETTER OFF DEAD, QUIGLEY, RISKY BUSINESS), Bruce Wagner (co-writer of A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 3 and SCENES FROM THE CLASS STRUGGLE IN BEVERLY HILLS), Taylor Negron (THE LAST BOY SCOUT, STUART LITTLE), John Matuszak (THE GOONIES, THE ICE PIRATES, CAVEMAN), Donald Li (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA, MEMOIRS OF AN INVISIBLE MAN).
Tag-line: "They're out of school, out on Nantucket, and out of their minds. With this crowd, anything can happen!"
Best one-liner: "Oh, thank you, I think I will have some cookies-aehah!" (said by Bobcat Goldthwait).

Though I am somewhat unnerved by the terrible, tooth-clenching grimace which pulls taut the hideous, ruddy skin of the summer sun's face as depicted on ONE CRAZY SUMMER's one-sheet, I shall suck it up and attempt to soberly discuss the film on this chilly January evening. (Why does the sun have to wear SUNglasses?) For better or for worse, ONE CRAZY SUMMER certainly bears the whacky stamp of its creator: the 'auteur' Savage Steve Holland, who was the brains behind such irreverent flickery as BETTER OFF DEAD and HOW I GOT INTO COLLEGE.

This is the story of aspiring cartoonist Hoops Mcann (John Cusack) and his eponymous one crazy (Nantucket) summer. That's pretty much all you need to know. You'll laugh, you'll cry... you'll wince. This is Savage Steve Holland's style. He throws everything at you (including the kitchen sink) in the hopes that something will stick. That something will strike your funny bone. A lot of it will miss, oh God, so much of it will miss- but, whether by chance, by sheer persistence, or by simply grinding me down into delirious oblivion, he earned himself a few bulls-eyes. And those bulls-eyes, clichéd as they may be, are what I shall discuss.

ONE CRAZY SUMMER abides by many of the unwritten rules and regulations of 1980's cinema. I have no idea if it was from some anonymous cigar-smoke filled room that these filmic laws were handed down, but somebody, somewhere decreed that a certain quota of these had to be fulfilled, and ONE CRAZY SUMMER, like so many others, was ready and willing to comply.

#1. Villainous vanity plates. Sometimes heroes get vanity plates (Stallone's AWESOM50 in COBRA, for one), but villains just got to have 'em.


#2. The 80's rule of pools. If A., a swimming pool exists, then B., someone fully clothed must be pushed into it, arms flailing. If condition A. is not met and condition C., the presence of a cake, is, then again undertake result B.

KER-SPLOOSH

#3. If the criteria and conditions for a "makeover" or "shopping" montage do not exist, then a "fix-'em-up" montage must take their place, and the duration must be uncomfortably long.

Note Demi Moore's stylin' pants (foreground).

#4. If a role demands the an expertise that only Clint Howard can deliver, yet he's just a little too old to pull off the role, then Curtis Armstrong must be cast in his stead.


#5. If A., Bobcat Goldthwait is available, B. this is not a POLICE ACADEMY film, and C., ...uh, aw, fuck it, just let him do that voice-thing, that growl, you know what talking about. The high-pitched, wailing-growl thing. AeeeEEEEehaAAAAaa. Yeah, that.


#6. Something about Mark Metcalf and crazy-eye and a 'stache and lobsters and 80's rich kid villains having even more villainous fathers. I can't remember the rest of this law, but I know Metcalf's 'lobster-hating-lobster-restauranteur' somehow is the logical response to Charles Durning's 'frog-hating-frog-leg-restauranteur' in THE MUPPET MOVIE. And if that wasn't enough, they make him a land developer, too. I think he maybe wandered away from the set of a Golan-Globus flick? He easily could've done the Ed Lauter role in DEATH WISH 3 or the John P. Ryan role in RUNAWAY TRAIN or even the Christopher George role in ENTER THE NINJA, but I digress.



#7. If there's one Asian guy hanging around (this time it's Donald Li from BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA), and it doesn't look like he has too big a part, then he's going to be the payoff of some joke involving nerdiness, Ping-Pong, Godzilla, or some such nonsense.


To be fair, this gag (involving Bobcat Goldthwait in a Godzilla costume running wild all over the aforementioned real-estate developer's scale model at a banquet designed to impress Asian investors) is pretty inspired, and one which was recycled in a third-season episode of ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT.

#8. Somebody's gotta be in a band. It doesn't matter who. How about Demi Moore? Yeah, okay, Demi Moore will be in a band.



#9. And just every 80's movie must introduce me to a new hero. Or reintroduce to me to an old one. Here, we've got John Matuszak, ex-NFLer, two time Super Bowl winner, 9th place in the 1978 World's Strongest Man competition, the man behind the makeup as 'Sloth' in the GOONIES, 'Tonda' in CAVEMAN, 'Killjoy' in THE ICE PIRATES, and author of an autobiography entitled CRUISIN' WITH THE 'TOOZ!

I guess it took his role as 'Stain' in ONE CRAZY SUMMER to make me realize that all these great and disparate achievements belonged to a single man. So you can imagine the cruel blow dealt to my burgeoning fandom when I realized that he died of heart failure at the age of 38 (in 1989).

I submit the following images as a testament to his two-minute role as 'Stain,' which is certainly the highlight of ONE CRAZY SUMMER's parade of zaniness. 'Stain' is a purple-spiked-hair motorcycle punk whose entire character is based on the fact that he is a big, big man who loves him some money but hates getting dunked in water. They don't make 'em like this anymore. And when they do, they're always missing the charm and inspired casting choices typified here by Mr. Matuszak:






R.I.P., Tooz.

-Sean Gill

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