For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
The former Vince Furnier is Vince Raven, a rock star who visits his childhood home to shoot a music video. His trip coincides with the arrival of dangerous packs of dogs anticipating their lycanthropic master. Cooper’s voice is dubbed by another actor is this very accurately titled Spanish-Italian fiasco.
“Don’t you recognize me, Drake? You doubled for me on McQ in seventy-four.”
“Duke? Is that you? But you died 2 years ago. I know ‘cause I got thrown out of your memorial service for hitting on Tatum O’Neal. I mean, how was I supposed to know she was only 15?”
“It’s me, Drake.”
“Then does that mean what I think it means?”
“That depends on what you think it means.”
“Am I in Heaven?”
“Turn around and you tell me, pardner. What do you see?”
I just realized I haven't taken the time to properly introduce my new banner, whose long awaited appearance finally marked the true end of The House of Glib. It's the creation of my friend and co-worker, Nicolas Lambert, who everyone thinks is all exotic because he's from France, but who I really know is just a big nosed geek under that suave sophisticated exterior.
Before he began I gave him a disk filled with 505 different posters to choose from and I thought it would be fun to reveal the 5 posters he sampled from to create his masterpiece.
The only one I recognized immediately when he first showed the banner to me was:
A 1986 Italian movie (aka Vendetta dal futuro), this apocalyptic cyborg classic stars an actor I really only know as the dumb love interest in Elvira, Mistress of the Dark and his brief appearances in all of the Farrelly Brothers movies. I haven't seen it.
The next one I have seen. In fact, I coincidentally watched it for the first time just a few days before Nicolas revealed his finished work to me:
Made in 1976, Hollywood Boulevard is a hilarious satire of low budget filmmaking that was thrown together by Joe Dante and Allan Arkush after producer Jon Davison bet their boss Roger Corman that they could make a movie for less than $50,000 using stock footage from other New World films. They won the bet and miraculously managed to make a genuinely entertaining film at the same time.
The thrilling automobile imagery comes from one of the many movies I actually do have buried in my private collection, but shamefully haven't gotten around to watching yet. (At this point the pile is probably close to 500 movies deep. Maybe more):
Everything I've heard about 1975's Race With the Devil tells me its a classic. I really do have to get around to watching it sometime soon.
To mess with me, Nicolas threw in some background imagery from the Spanish language poster of one of my all-time favourite bad movies, knowing I wouldn't be able to guess where it was from in a million-billion years:
I have an original vintage copy of the English language one-sheet of 1978's Starcrash and it looks nothing like this one, which features two heroic characters who bear no resemblence to the characters they're supposed to represent. The woman is at least as hot as the actual Stella Starr, Caroline Munro, but the dude doesn't look like any of the men in the movie. At all.
And finally, to bring some classic Man-in-suit B-Movie Bullsh*t flair to the whole thing, Nicolas grabbed the title from the most famous Japanese movie of all time:
So that's how that happened. I hope you like it half as much as I do and if you don't, what the eff is effing wrong with you?
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
Frogs
(1972)
You can’t really blame Frogs’ producers for their blatant deception. I mean, there are frogs in Frogs, but they alone aren’t the only animals who turn against the various unlikable characters who inhabit the story. In reality, the film should have more accurately been called Traditionally Harmless Animals Who Have Suddenly Decided To Attack People Because Of Pollution, which I will concede would have been a lot harder to market.
The people in question are a bunch of rich assholes who live under the thumb of patriarch Ray Milland and who have gathered together on his private island to celebrate his latest birthday. You know Ray is a bad guy because: a) he’s rich and b) is in a wheelchair, so its only natural that he has no problem keeping the bugs away from his estate with a very eco-unfriendly pesticide. It’s only a matter of time before the local animal population (which admittedly includes a lot of frogs) calls “Bullshit!” on this and starts attacking everyone, including the studly tree-hugging photographer played by Sam Elliot, whose lack of a mustache is eerily discomfiting.
Frogs manages to avoid being as ridiculous as that same year’s Night of the Lepus, but that’s not a good thing. While watching giant bunny rabbits stalking Janet Leigh is just stupid enough to hold your attention, the same can’t be said for people being hunted by normal sized fauna. Despite the goofy promise inherent in its concept and infamous poster, Frogs is just plain dull.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
The best Canadian horror film ever filmed in Wisconsin, The Pit pits adolescent Sammy Snyders against a world that (justifiably) considers him a perverted creep. He gets his revenge thanks to the titular location, which is filled with carnivorous beasts. Genuinely unsettling, the film also features a classic “twist” ending.
Jane Chase, a young American woman going to school in England, convinces anthropology professor Dr. Steven Phillip to take her on as his assistant. When she arrives at his country estate, she finds that it is inhabited by three primates. They include an aging female chimp named Voodoo, a young male chimp named Imp, and an old performing orangutan named Link, who dresses in a butler’s outfit, enjoys lighting his own cigars, and is clearly taken in by the new beautiful blonde in his midst. Unbeknownst to Jane, Dr. Phillip is planning on having Link put down, but the intelligent primate figures this out and decides to take some pre-emptive action. He kills the professor and contrives to keep Jane to himself by disconnecting the phone and pushing their only car off a cliff. Unable to get to town by foot because of the local packs of feral dogs, Jane is forced to confront Link as his behaviour grows more and more uncivilized.
Every fan of “bad” movies will eventually have the experience I had when I sat down to watch Link just a few hours ago. I’ve had it more times than I can count, so I should be used to it, but it still surprises me every single time. What I’m talking about is the shock that comes from finding out that the supposedly terrible film you are watching is actually nowhere near as awful as its supposed to be. In this case, Link is pretty damn good if you ignore one obvious, but not fatal flaw.
Ever since I read Leonard Maltin’s “Bomb” rating in his book of capsule reviews years ago I assumed the worst about Link—an assumption that wasn’t dissuaded by the subsequent reviews I read from genre critics who should have been much more open to the material than the notoriously horror-adverse Maltin.
How then to explain the disconnect between the terrible film they reviewed and the enjoyable film I’ve just seen? I think it comes down to one significant factor—Elisabeth Shue.
I say this because Shue is one of those actresses whose appeal does not seem to cross over generational divides. To Baby Boomers no Oscar nomination will ever eclipse the fact that she shall always be the young frivolous blond cipher who starred in Adventures in Babysitting, while to folks my age (Generation X represent!) no Oscar nomination will ever eclipse the fact that she shall always be the hot, gorgeous awesome blond who made us feel funny in our pants when she starred in Adventures in Babysitting.
Link pre-dates her most famous starring role, but my inherent affection for her allowed me to sympathize with her character to a far larger degree than L.A. Morse, for example, who suggested in a short review from his classic Video Trash & Treasures that her performance is easily outshined by that of her orangutan co-star. (In the same review Morse also accuses the film of mistakenly referring to Link as being a chimp, but if any such reference in the film actually occurs, I missed it).
Morse also accuses the film of merely replicating the standard hot-girl-threatened-by-a-maniac premise rather than transcending it, which is another explanation why I enjoyed the film far more than its past critics. I’m perfectly happy watching the ritual of horror clichés followed with religious fervor, so long as the results are entertaining.
Another major factor for my appreciation of Link is one I touched upon in my review of Sssssss from a few weeks ago. Horror movies about animals are only ever as creepy as our own personal distaste for the animals they feature allow. In my case, I am genuinely unnerved by primates. Whenever I see one in a scene with a human actor I feel genuine tension, not because of what is happening onscreen, but because I know that if that “adorable” animal suddenly wanted to, it could seriously injure it’s co-stars in a matter of seconds. This terrifying reality is perfectly expressed in an anecdote the professor shares with Jane during dinner:
Part of Link‘s overall theme is how easy it is to forget how truly unpredictable and fiercely dangerous primates are, simply because of how much they remind us of ourselves. But once you know the truth—like the fact that their adorable “smiles” are actually fear grimaces whose bared teeth are meant to frighten you away rather than indicate you should go in for a hug—its hard to see the cuteness. (I especially love the film’s ending, in which Jane and her injured boyfriend drive away from the burned out husk of an estate and drive by baby chimp, Imp, along the way. Jane’s boyfriend understandably doesn’t want the animal anywhere near him after what he’s just been though, but Jane insists that, “He’s just a baby,” and therefore completely safe. Her delusion is made evident as the camera films the car driving away and reveals a field filled with freshly slaughtered sheep.)
Link worked as well as it did for me because its whole premise is built upon upending the likes of Every Which Way But Loose and Going Ape! or any other film based on presenting apes as just another pet. It helps that it was directed by Richard Franklin, the late Australian Hitchcock acolyte who previously collaborated with screenwriter Everett De Roche on the Ozploitation classics Patrick and Road Games. Watching the film today, much of the fun comes from Franklin’s inventive camera moves and clever shots, which do make you think about what his mentor might have done with similarly loopy material. (It's probably not a coincidence that my favourite scene in the film is the one where Link creeps Jane out by taking off his suit and staring at her while she attempts to have a bath--its overtly sexual overtones are so perverse its clear Hitchcock would have loved it.)
That said, there is a major aspect of Link that does keep it from being better than it is, and that’s Jerry Goldsmith’s terrible score. While it makes sense to play on the comic cuteness of the apes early on in the picture, Goldsmith refuses to drop the comic motif once the cuteness is revealed to be a façade. Rather than give us the kind of classic horror score these scenes deserve, he instead gives us something better suited for the likes of Tim Burton’s Beetlejuice or a comic mystery like Jonathan Lynn’s Clue. Were I not more invested in the film, I could easily see myself being taken out of it for this reason.
I suspect I might be overselling the film, since mine is so clearly the minority view, but Link is nowhere near the disaster its reputation suggests it is. Replace the orangutan with a human assailant and I believe it would still make for an entertaining 100 minutes. The fact that it’s got an ape in a butler suit instead just makes it that much better.
Not everything I've written for FLICK ATTACK has made it to the show. Mr. Lott insists that these rapidly aging reviews will be posted eventually, but until then I'm just going to assume that they have been:
Rejected By Rod(?)
Repossessed
(1990)
How much should a group of men be blamed if their works of genius are inexpertly imitated by morons and result in creating far more pain than the amount of pleasure originally wrought? As great as The Naked Gun, Kentucky Fried Movie and Top Secret remain today were they worth the terrible scattershot “parody” films they inspired? Does one Airplane justify the existence of one Disaster Movie?
It’s a tough question and it’s not made any easier by Repossessed, a early 90s rip-off of the Zucker-Abrams-Zucker formula that proves if you try hard enough it is possible to attempt a joke in every single shot of your movie and still fail to earn a single laugh.
It’s really rather simple. All you have to do is fail to understand what a joke actually is.
What it isn’t is the repetition, replication or mere invocation of a pop cultural artifact. Having a character repeat someone else’s famous catchphrase is not a joke, unless they do it in a way that comments on the significance of the phrase and its place in the zeitgeist. Without that commentary you’re no different than that asshole at work who expects you to laugh every time he repeats something from an old Mike Myers or Jim Carrey movie. And you don’t want to be that asshole, because we all hate that asshole.
Seriously, asshole, we all want you to suffer and die.
That said, I can’t knock Repossessed too much, because it stars Linda Blair and I love Linda Blair, except when she’s in the original The Exorcist, which I hate and which Repossessed is a parody of and which therefore requires me to admire it, if only just a little. I’m complicated like that.
For some the capsule review comes easy, but for me it’s an exercise in pure frustration. As a means of self-discipline I have decided to confront that which tortures me through this continuing feature—B-Movie Bullsh*t in 50 Words or Less.
Carrey’s star debut, Once Bitten posits a world where he’s Los Angeles’ last virgin, which poses a problem for vampire Hutton, who needs his untainted blood to retain her beauty. Bizarrely Carrey plays the straight man, making the ungodly hot 42 year-old supermodel the only reason to check this out.
Tuesday, December 20, 2011 at 6:00AM 
