Twisted Nerve (1968)

Wow. What's there to say about Twisted Nerve? It's difficult for me to review a movie without making fun of it. It's a beautiful, criminally underrated gem of an unreleased film. At times it reminded me of Micheal Powell's Peeping Tom, other times it reminded me of Freddie Francis' Girly. But more than either it has a distinct Hitchockian flair yet still maintains it's own flavor and originality. In fact, Hitchcock himself liked the movie so much that he cast Barry Foster and Billie Whitelaw in Frenzy.

Twisted Nerve follows a sweet faced young man who has some disturbing hang ups. The movie begins with him playing catch with his "mongol" (a horrible and out dated term for those with Down Syndrome, but it's repeatedly used in the film) older brother in a "special" home. Upon leaving the facility Martin learns that his brother has shown progression but probably doesn't have much longer, although he's surprisingly lived longer than most. I believe this was foreshadowing of Martin's own grim future.

At a department store he steals a toy duck while gazing at a devastatingly beautiful Hayley Mill, as he's walking out of the store behind her, they're both stopped by security and brought back to an office to be questioned. The managers assume they're a couple, she denies and when he's asked he declines into a babyish voice and appears to be mentally retarded. At first I thought this was a ruse to get himself out of trouble, but as the film progressed I had my doubts. So begins Martin and Susan's (Mills) friendship.

Things aren't going well for Martin at home. His coddling Mother doesn't understand why her 22 year old son acts so strange. His assertive Stepfather is ready for him to get his head out of his ass and figure out what he's going to do with his life. He kicks him out and this sends our mentally afflicted unstable leading man into a downward spiral of ultimate weirdness.

Martin cooks up a plan to charm his way into Susan's home. When he's "playing" mentally retarded, he goes by "Georgie". He pretends to be stranded by his father in need of a place to stay for a week. Susan's Mother is apprehensive, but like everyone, gives in to his innocent face and child-like charm. Once he's found himself firmly planted under the roof of the girl he's fixated on (though I'm not sure I understand why he has a stash of fag mags if he's into Hayley Mills) he completely, murderously unravels.

"What a load of crap."

The pacing, cinematography, acting, EVERYTHING about this movie is pristine. Director Roy Boulting (who also made There's a Girl in My Soup) flawlessly created a suspenseful psycho-thriller on par with some of the best I've ever seen. It's a shame that the extent most people are familiar with this film is the Bernard Hermann theme making a cameo in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. I normally don't mind his "homages" but this one is a bit personal. That theme IS Twisted Nerve. I'm really not sure why this doesn't have an official US release. It deserve the Criterion treatment.

I'm not used to seeing Hayley Mills in the late 60's. I'm used to her during her early Disney days, and then the 80's with "Good M Miss Bliss" ha! Though after this I'll definitely be keeping my eyes peeled. I'm a sucker for a pretty face and she was absolutely stunning in this. Great style too! I was the most impressed with Hywel Bennet's performance as Martin Durnley. He captured the character magnificently. He reminded me of a younger brother version of Alain Delon mixed with a very young Austin Pendleton. His ability to stagnate between an absent minded half wit and a sociopath ranks up with the likes of Norman Bates. He's also quite beautiful and upon meeting, most would be inclined to trust him.

This is one of the best movies I've seen all year and I could easily say that it's worth the effort to track down a copy by any means necessary.

Happy Birthday Eiji Tsuburaya

Today would have been Eiji Tsuburaya's 109th birthday. I'm currently reading August Ragone's wonderful book Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters. I just started it a few days ago and I'm only about half way through it, but it's a very fun and educational read on the man who's ingenuity in the field of cinematography and special effects was the most important element of the Kaiju Eiga genre, and in large part sci-fi and fantasy as a whole.









Eiji Tsburaya, I salute you!

The Video 98 Collection Part 4: Nukie (1988)

Considering the cult followings of bad horror, action and sci-fi movies, I always wondered why there wasn't as much attention on bad kid's movies. Sure, certain classics get acknowledged like Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, but what about the thousands of other kids movies, ALL decades that break the boundaries of crappiness. I always felt that kids movies offered a certain naive charm and raw imagination that that you won't find from other genres of "bad movies". The 80's seem to be a time where terrible children's movies were being made left and right to compete with all of the amazing family films coming out. There was a huge market for that stuff, cheap knock-offs of Dark Crystal and the Never Ending Story were a'plenty. I particularly love (just about) anything put out by Moon Beam, Full Moon's line of "family films". They're great because you get the people who make the Puppet Master puppets and Robot Jox creating cute dragons and tiny dinosaurs. For the record, Nukie is NOT a Moon Beam film. I'm almost off subject here. This is more along the lines of E.T. in Africa. Nukie is a wretched, forgotten piece of crap that I'm happy to have finally seen it.

Two space brothers find themselves in the earth's stratosphere and get split up (somehow) one winding up in Florida and the other in Africa. In the states "Miko" has been captured and is having experiments done on him by the government. In Africa, poor little retarded Nukie is wandering around aimlessly talking to giraffes. The first half of this movie is primarily watching Miko be tortured and having to listen to these two scream eachother's name on a loop for 15 minute intervals. It's like they forgot to write dialogue for those scenes so they just improvised in post production.

 

There are a bunch of pointless characters that really aren't even worth mentioning.There was ZERO character development and I wouldn't even know how to go about describing their parts, because none of them really mattered at all. There was an unnecessary Nun played by Glynis Johns who was token washed up celebrity. She was never even in the same shot as Nukie.

                                                                                                   

Nukie always seems to have really nasty sinus issues.

There's also a sensitive computer named E.D.D.I. who helps Miko find his way back to Nukie.

I couldn't have said it better myself, E.D.D.I.

Well, this is turning out to be a bad review for a bad movie. Now I can cross it off of my list. Seriously. It was actually on my list!...

See?

I'm not sure why I used this as an example of kids movies that should have followings. It's an atrocity! Probably because for some reason I had really been wanting to see it! It's about as good as Badi, the Turkish ET. I think I'm going to take a little break from my Video 98 marathon for a day or two. I need something really good to wash the "nukie" out of my mouth.

The Video 98 Collection Part 3: Robot Holocaust (1986)

When buying VHS there are many things to consider. First and foremost, is it out of print? If the answer is "yes", the price is right and you're in the market of trading, it probably is a wise investment. That is, if you have absolutely no standards, like me. But there are other selling points that make the deal ever so much sweeter. After being completely distracted by the EPIC cover. I overlooked the company that puts it out. So I was thrilled to see this beautiful sight upon starting the video...

If you're unfamiliar with this logo, you have no idea what you're missing out on! I always know that when I see the Wizard logo I'm in for some great fun! Even if the movie ends up sucking, those covers are irreplaceable. Nothing compares!

Robot Holocaust is a post apocalyptic movie of the "warrior" genre with lots of hand puppets and bad robot masks. The plot is obviously a Star Wars rip-off. I kept thinking that the music sounded familiar. I looked it up and it turns out the score was stolen from various Richard Band compositions, primarily from Laser Blast. Not to discredit the genius of the Bands, but it's pretty low when you're movie sucks so bad you're stealing music from Full Moon productions.

Set in the future, the air supply is now being controlled by an ominous robot called "the Dark One". Certain people are immune to the toxic fumes but most are under the thumb of the ruler. A scientist invents a potion/serum/something that they're never quite clear about that makes the air breathable. To assure that he maintains control, the Dark One kidnaps the scientist to force him to confess his secret. The scientist has a daughter who rounds up a group of bad actors warriors to save him.

The Dark One is never really seen, but we do have a woman with a thick European accent staggering through the role of nemesis. Valaria ended up being my favorite character. We're introduced to her through a mystical sequences of fog and interpretive dance. It was at this moment that I realize that the extent of the props and special effects were courtesy of Spencers Gifts ™.

"High Five!"

As the warriors travel, they meets a group of femme-nazis who capture men, cut out their tongues, rape them for mating purposes then kill them. The leader challenges one of the fellas to a battle, she loses then decides to come along and be the token asshole. They also decide to bring a tongueless "mute" who was next to be executed along with them. I might also mention that they have their own robot. A cheap C3PO imitation who is supposed to deliver some kind of comic relief, but really just kind of distracts from the real humor: the movie itself. They face many challenges along the way, including a tunnel full bucked tooth worm hand puppets...

Doesn't look like that's his first time with a face full of phallus

The only gore in the movie. However, these are not the only Freudian symbols in the movie! At first glance I totally misinterpreted what this was supposed to be...

I'm still not really sure.

C-crappy-O isn't sure either.

Dorque Torque, knows the secret being the weinerific wonderland that is "Robot Holocaust", but he's not telling. He wanted me to find out myself through research after the movie.

Why the hell were these guys even in this movie?

What more is there to say really?! It Robot Holocaust for Christ's sake! The only other thing this director, Tim Kinkaid,  is "famous" for is Mutant Hunt and Breeders... Oh yeah and A SHIT LOAD OF GAY PORN! There are many reasons why I love this movie. It reminds me of some craptastic straight to video mistakes that I've loved for years, like Shredder Orpheus and Roller Blade. It's sure to become a favorite of this very particular brand of "sucky". Something about the Mall-bought costumes, the boiler room sets and the actual effort that was put into this movie to make it entertaining is honorable really. Besides just making fun of it, it's really not too bad! It follows the formula well enough and relies on hand made effects and sheer ingenuity to carry out this trashsterpiece. If that isn't reason enough to see this movie, then perhaps this is...

So with that being said I'll leave you with one final image. The one that we-the-viewers are left with at the end of the movie.

Hope that doesn't spoil it for you too much.

Goodnight!

The Video 98 Collection Part 2: Uncle Sam (1997)

File this one under "Shoulda seen A LONG time ago!" When this came out I remember thinking it looked terrible, and really...I was right. Somewhere between being my 12 year old self and becoming my 18 year old self  I realized that I could really be missing out on something here. What I couldn't know at that tender young age is what the transition from "straight to video" to "straight to DVD" was really going to mean. Although I appreciate a rot got Asylum Mockbuster every now and again, straight to DVD just doesn't quite have the same finesse (or lack of?) as straight to video did. Not only that, between those five years I discovered a few things.

A. William Lustig is AWESOME and to be trusted.

B. I LOVE a slasher movie with a gimmick!

I miss gimmicks like this! I miss straight to video gimmicks like Jack Frost (no, not the Michael Keaton one, the carrot-penis-raping snowman one), the Night of the Dribbler, I even miss Witchcraft and it's obscene amount of pointless sequels. Only upon reflection can I truly see what the 90's (and late 80's) had to offer me.

I've been wanting to watch this on the 4th of July for the past few years. I never thought to look and see if it had a DVD release. I took for grant it that like so many other crapsterpieces, it would still be collecting dust in video stores across the Country. I didn't get to see it in time for the 4th this year, but since I'm only a few days late and I'm still feeling the annoyance of the three day weekend that has totally messed up my shipment schedule, I don't think it's too late to celebrate the right way.

A sadistic soldier comes back from the dead and goes on a killing spree. It's never quite clear how he comes back, I think his nephew's blind patriotism has something to do with it though. Much in the style of Lustig's other horror classics, there's lots of senseless violence in rapid session. Boy does this movie have a cast! Timothy Bottoms, Bo Hopkins, Isaac Hayes, PJ Soles and Robert Forster (who's death is by firecracker!). Written by Larry Cohen. This movie couldn't disappoint if it tried! And it does try, make no mistake about that. It still manages to maintain steady enjoyment. I think I expected a little more from the title character himself, but it's still a decent slasher movie start to finish. It's hard not to have high expectations when you've waited a long time to see something. Even when it's something like this! It's no Maniac (but what is really?) or Maniac Copy for that matter but it's a worthy addition to Lustig's filmography and my home video collection!

This ended up being one of the few I bought at Video 98 yesterday that did have a release and not only that it was on Netflix the whole time! I thought I'd checked before but I must have made a false assumption. If that's not crazy enough I also came to this shocking realization...

Uncle Sam on BLUE RAY?!?! I guess I underestimated the cult following of this 1997 William Lustig classic movie.

The Video 98 Collection Part 1: The Lost Idol (1990)

Isn't is sad when a curiosity you've had about a movie for years is snuffed out anti-climatically by disappointment? I actually bought this movie for an Ex years ago. It was kind of a gag gift. I don't exactly remember the circumstances around it's discovery but I was spending a lot of time on Amazon searching for cheap used videos with awesome covers. I made some interesting discoveries during this period. I never got around to seeing it before we broke up and have often wondered what sort of bedlam Mr. Erik Estrada had in store for me. I swear to God, I hadn't thought about this movie in years until last night! After I watched Virgins from Hell, suddenly I remembered this and yearned to see it post-haste. I even thought about ordering another used copy on Amazon. Little did I know that the next freaking day I'd be watching it!

Thanks to Video 98, my itch was scratched... although I think it might scab up a little. Some satisfaction occurred. What we have here is a half baked Vietnam/Golden idol heist movie with an uninteresting storyline and not-funny bad acting with so-so violence. There's really not much to say about the Lost Idol and that deeply saddens me. Between the inside joke revolving around how ridiculous it looks, thinking about it last night and actually FINDING it today, the actual watching of the movie was the least exciting part. Perhaps if I'd been in a crowd and imbibements were involved? I'm also a bit disenchanted because this is a Thai produced movie and with that in mind I expected MUCH more madness! This is a movie that SHOULD be sensational garbage but what it really does is stagnate between "mediocre" and "boring".

C'est la vie, ya can't win 'em all!

Video 98, I love you...

Like many movie fanatics I often find myself obsessively even sometimes unconsciously shopping for movies. I'm always behind at least a hundred movies and I don't really ever see myself catching up. It's all grist in the mill! Even when I'm broke or I slow down for a bit, it's a time consuming hobby and inevitably I'll be watching one of my movies and a something about it will stand out enough for me to do some research. As soon as the wheels are in motion I've discovered ten new movies that I must stop everything for. Because of this debilitating obsession I've always had a hard time saving money. I never really care much about that though. Money comes and goes but trivial movie knowledge is something you have to work at.

Like a record collector who's come across an estate sale or gets lucky at a thrift because someone's old relative has died and not knowing what else they do with it, they donate a priceless sixty year old record collection. Sometimes fate smiles upon you. Lately since Movie Gallery is going out of business I've been stocking up on all kinds of cheap stuff. Having tapped out the one by my house I decided to venture to the far regions of the County to visit one that I've only been in once, years ago when they were liquidating their VHS. I found a few things, nothing too notable (until I review them perhaps) but I couldn't get this other video store out of my head that's basically in the same parking lot. Video 98, one of the last Mom and Pop video stores in the area. I was thinking about all of the fun times I had renting movies there. Things like Gor, Electric Dreams, Flesh Gordon Meets the Cosmic Cheerleaders, the Ripper (with Tom Savini), the Creeps, Prehysteria and lots of other schlocky goodness that brought me and my friends much enjoyment over the years. I rented Blood Feast in a big porno box from there the first time I saw it! I also saw Naked Lunch and Body Bags there. As I'm wading through dumb modern DVD releases I couldn't help but be overwhelmed with nostalgia. I started to think about how long it's been since I've made really good video scores! I still frequent thrifts, and I find things every now and again, but it's rare that I have so much good stuff to choose from that it's overwhelming. In fact the only time this ever happens is when an old Mom and Pop shop starts to liquidate their VHS. Although this is a terribly sad event, it's also kind of exciting. A lot of people don't care for VHS anymore so now it's time for we collectors to preserve these relics, and of course enjoy them to the fullest! I decided I had to swing into Video 98, not with the intent to rent, it's way too far to make that trip twice in one week, but to see how they were holding up. A part of me feared that when I turned that corner to the back lot that I'd be looking at an empty building, but alas! They were open and thriving!

We went in and nothing had changed. Same set up, same little old Vietnamese lady behind the counter, all is well in the Universe! Right off the bat I asked "do you sell videos now or are you still just renting?" and my ears filled with the sound of 1,000 angels singing ... "yes, all of our videos are for sale for $5". I know what you're thinking, $5 is kinda steep, but a lot of these movies have never been in print on DVD. This place is literally an untapped goldmine. It's more than I'd like to spend, but it's a reasonable price for certain things I can't otherwise get unless I either buy it used on Amazon (in which case I'd spend the same or more + shipping) or from a bootleg website, and I try to avoid that IF I can. Plus it's nice just to be able to grab something from the shelf, from THE SOURCE in which I originally saw it as a CHILD and own it outright. I'm sure you have (or had) a place like this growing up.

I don't have the advantage that most people do of having the internet on my phone. Had I been able to look titles up, I could have ensured the purchase of hard-to-find stuff only. I had to guess based on my knowledge of this-n-that. I fared pretty well though, of the nine movies I bought only three ended up having DVD releases and they were still films I consider to be worth $5. To mark this occasion I decided to review these nine movies in honor of Video 98. Soon I'll be moving away from here and although I'm sure there are plenty of Mom n' Pops in California, they won't be MY Mom n' Pops. I've reaped from the benefits of this small town for 24 years and now it's almost all tapped out and it's time for me to press on.

I contemplated not listing these until I review them but that doesn't really make any sense. I'll write them in parts and link them back here as I make time intermittently between other movies. I might even continue later on when I've caught up and I feel like I need another video store fix.

Here's a list of the nine movies...

the Lost Idol (1990)
Headless Eyes (1971)
Robot Holocaust (1986)
Lola (1970)
the Mines of Kilimanjaro (1986)
Nukie (1988)
Uncle Sam (1997)
Tales of Ordinary Madness (1981)
Arizona Heat (1988)

Stay tuned because I've already watched the first and I'm ready to write this review!

Virgins From Hell (1987)

I've never been disappointed by a Mondo Macabro release. I especially love their Indonesian movies. In fact, the reason I bought this was for the second disc of extensive special features on the subject of Indonesian exploitation, including 70 minutes of trailers and a documentary. It took me a while to actually get around to making time for the feature presentation. Feeling the itch for some of this one of a kind trash cinema I finally watched Virgins from Hell last night and boy did it the spot!

The movie starts out out with an all girl biker gang in wacky colorful hot pants robbing a casino. Then they take us back to their hide-out where the leader tells the story of seeing her parents killed and her home taking over by drug lords. The casino raid was just the first step in avenging her parents death. They plan to take over the land and fuck some shit up for the bad guys. Their plan is foiled when they run into it head first not taking into consideration that their gang is totally lame and every one of them is taken hostage by Mr. Tiger, a bad dude with a penchant for whipping girls and animal portraits.

One by one they're being raped, beaten, maimed, scarred and burned. I really don't get what the heck they thought they were doing just running around in their tattered power ranger costumes with absolutely NO contingency plan. It's no wonder several of the girls turn on the leader, she kind of sucked! She got a lot of women killed in her little revenge mission. Sometimes Women In Prison movies have a kind of empowering message of womanly vengeance... and sometimes they need a big strong man to come and save them. This is one of those movies. Not that I mind! Someone needed to step up. They were taking it like little girls! So in comes our handsome Med-Student hero fully clad with overalls and no shirt underneath. Who has a sudden outburst of ass-kickery and invariably saves the day.

And I read a review that said there was no blood!

                                                                                                                                                           Meanwhile, the girls are eating cafeteria hot dogs...

So the leader has escaped, she and the Barry Prima clone team up and serve the drug syndicate a proper ass whooping. Lots of explosions, lots of fun.

Another fantastic Indonesian action movie! I don't really understand where being "virgins" plays into this movie though. Unless I missed it I didn't hear any of them ever claim to be a virgin, in fact the leader boasts about being a "common whore" to support herself and her sister after her parents murder. They don't really look like virgins, or act like virgins. Unless their defiance to being raped is some sort of tell tale sign of purity, I just don't know! SURELY, the title isn't misleading! I also noticed that on Netflix it's categorized under "Foreign Gay and Lesbian" which is somewhat misleading too. Ok, so there's a lesbian warden but I'd hardly call it a major plot device.

Indo-Exploitation has such a colorful flavor of it's own. No holds barred wild action freak outs. I've yet to be disappointed by one yet, especially those released by Rapi Films. This wasn't quite as mesmerizing as Lady Terminator or the Devil's Sword but it's a nice little WIP movie and great addition to anyone's Indonesian action collection! Especially with all the fantastic special features. Highly recommended!

Son of Dracula (1974)

I've been dying to see this for years so it was kind of a big deal to finally receive it yesterday. I'm a HUGE Harry Nilsson fan. Who isn't?! The man was nothing short of genius! He wrote fun, upbeat songs, slow powerful ballads and forever emblazoned himself in pop music history with songs like "Without You" and "Coconut". He even took his awesomeness a step further by scoring some films that would later become cult movies (Skidoo, Popeye and of course the Point which he wrote entirely). His body of work is impressive to say the least. I've always enjoyed the cameos he's made in film and on TV so I was anxious to see "The First Rock-and- Roll Dracula Movie" in which he plays the title character! The first thing I did this morning when I woke up was pop it in the DVD player with child like excitement.

Nilsson wasn't the only driving factor in my interest. It co-starred Ringo Starr who I really enjoy as an actor. After seeing him in my all time favorite Peter Sellers movie, the Magic Christian, I was forever sold on the comedic talents of Ringo. He's a great second banana! Also, it was directed by Academy Awarding winning cinematographer -turned- genre film director, Freddie Francis. Both milestone achievements in my eyes. I was certain I was in for an awesome ride!

As the "story" unfolded I found myself twiddling my thumbs waiting for my attention to be captivated. You know the feeling. You're really interested in being interested but somehow with certain movies it just never happens. The story was a muddled romantic horror comedy about the Son of Dracula, Nilsson as "Count Downe",  giving up his life as a vampire to be mortal with some lady who didn't do a good job drawing on her eyebrows. They flirt with the idea of a "plot" but sadly this movie was a just a big mis-fire. Nilsson has a few musical moments where he plays piano and sings some of his hits but other than that his character doesn't seem to have much going for him to be the leading man. To be honest, Ringo as Merlin the Magician pretty much carried the whole movie, and it was a small part! Between his bits and Nilsson's singing, the movie was watchable. In retrospect I really wonder where it went astray. With such great house names and the director of such films as Tales from the Crypt (1972), Trog, Day of the Triffids and his masterpiece, Girly. All entertaining horror movies. I can only suspect the problem was with the writing. The story lost me a few times and I'm pretty sure it wasn't too complicated. It just didn't work. Sadness! I really wanted this one to be a winner.

I suppose I'd still recommend it to die-hard Nilsson fans. Or Ringo, or Freddie Francis fans. Not a classic by any means, but it's still captures one of the greatest singer songwriters of the 20th century fumbling through a horror spoof and that I can respect! Of course it's in my trade list for those brave enough to make the leap. I'm glad I finally know what I was missing. Sometimes half the disappointment is just having your fantasy of a perfectly wonderful under appreciated gem being dashed by the reality of mediocrity. Better luck next time!