Wake In Fright (1971) AKA Outback

This lost classic feels very much a companion piece with Nic Roeg's Walkabout (1971), the flip-side of the coin of the outback experience. Both films explore the same environment and general concerns of surviving in such an inhospitable environment. But where Walkabout use the children's innocence as a way of fending off the horrors, the characters in director Ted Kotcheff's film do not have that luxury. The world-weary inhabitants only have drinking as a way of escape, and the baron landscape creates a pervasive feeling of dread.

John-Paul Sartre said hell is other people, and Wake in Fright (1971) might make a good illustration of that. Gary Bond (Zulu) play John Grant, a school teacher in the Australian Outback. He hates his job, but can't leave due to a government scheme which holds their money in a bond to make sure they see out their contract, where-ever they're placed.

It's Christmas, and he has planned his escape back to Sydney and civilization for the holidays. All he has to do is spend one night in the biggest town in the area, Bundanyabba to catch a plane out in the morning. As the taxi driver says, its a friendly place, but this seems at odds with the desperate feeling in the air.

(Spoiler from here on down)

It soon turns out that the taxi driver was right. The People of Bundanyabba are friendly, and this is where the film throws a real curve-ball. Throughout the film you expect the locals to turn on John at any moment. He is an outsider, a school teacher, and has an aloofness which betrays his feelings of superiority. But when he accepts the hospitality of the local policeman Jock (Chips Rafferty), it leads to a downfall that could be considered his own making.

After copious amounts of beer, a sloshed John discovers the locals main past-time. A simple betting game called Two-Up. Intrigued by how popular a two coin guessing game could be, he tentatively places a bet and immediately wins. A few more wins, and he's on top of the world. Rushing back to his hotel room, he start to dream of leaving his job. Maybe one more win will do it...

Donald Pleasence is on top form as Doc Tydon, an alcoholic vagrant John bumps into. As John's plight plummets, the more hospitality he receives, the more drink he's plied with. One boozy night becomes many, and John's humanity comes to breaking point after a night-time kangaroo hunt which is the most controversial part of the film. This might be a good time to warn any animal lovers that the hunting scenes are quite hard to stomach. There aren't any "no animals were hurt" credits on this movie.

When John wakes up the next day with his clothes stained with blood and a hazy memory of a sexual encounter with Doc, his disgust eventually motivates him to escape. But its easier said then done.

Wake in Fright has a way of lingering in the memory. A fully restored version of the film came out in 2009, and is fully recommended.

Ninja 3: The Domination (1984)

This chunk of 80's cheese has recently been given a Blu-Ray release, so I thought it was time to catch up on this Golan Globus masterpiece.

Ninja 3: The Domination doesn't disappoint. Starting with its famous Ninja versus golf-course scene, we learn that for a ninja (Sho Kosugi), stealth isn't that important when you can kill indiscriminately with throwing stars, and are impervious to bullets. After outrunning a police car, taking out a helicopter, two motorbikes, and countless cops, he is eventually cornered, and shot more times that Peter Weller in Robocop. Although this does slow him down a bit, he still manages to escapes.

Lucinda Dickey (Breakin', and everyone's favourite sequel title, Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo) stars as Christie, a telecoms repairer by day, Gym instructor by night. When she spots our injured ninja rolling about in the wilderness, she naturally goes to help, only to be attacked by him. She escapes, but instead of calling the police, or getting on with her Glen Campbell day-job, she goes back one more time. After mumbling Japanese and brandishes his sword at her, she start seeing the Ninja's memories.  Its about this time our ninja friend finally croaks, and now Christie seems to occasionally become possessed, and is able to command his ninja skills.
Every night when she is alone in her ultra eighties pad, the room fills with smoke and the lights short out. Arcade machines come to life, and the samurai sword which she kept as a souvenir floats about. In these weird Exorcist/Poltergeist moments, Christie feels the need to go on a cop killing spree for vengeance.

There are plenty of WTF moments in this, and its impossible to write about this movie without mentioning the sleazy gender politics. Jordan Bennett plays Officer Billy, a man who doesn't take no for an answer and even more creepily, uses his police powers to harass Christie into dating him. In fact, I have a alternative reading of this movie that Christie is a feminist vigilante, who uses the ninja skills to take out the sleaze-bags who make up the police department. There's a jaw-dropping scene where one of the girls in Christie's gym class is attacked and harassed by a bunch of scum-bags. Christie is the only one who steps in to help her, even though there are plenty of people around, including Officer Billy. When the gang pick on her instead, Christie's newly found ninja skills kick in and she wipes the floor with them. But at no point does Officer Billy help out. In fact its at this point he arrests her! No wonder Christie's alter-ego is pissed.

Ninja Facts:

Don't worry if you haven't watched the first two movies, they apparently have nothing in common with this film, apart from them starring Sho Kosugi who also choreographed the fight scenes.

V8 juice is not sexy, even on Lucinda Dickey.

"Only a ninja, can destroy a ninja"

The Uninvited (1988): The Terrible films of Greydon Clark Part 1

A mutant cat. A gangster's yacht. George Kennedy. Sit back and enjoy The Uninvited!

The Visitor (1979) AKA Stridulum

As soon as I saw the bat-shit trailer, I had to see this film. It looked like Dune mixed with Exorcist II The Heretic. That would certainly qualify it mad enough to check out.

With such a great cast & terrible reviews, I was expecting an incoherent mess, but its actually pretty cool. Its much better than other Italian horror knock-offs which were being made at the time.

It basically boils down to two-parts The Omen, one-part The Exorcist, a healthy dose of Rosemary's Baby, and a splash of Hitchcock's The Birds for good measure. The real difference is that instead of demonic possession, its an evil space-traveler who has impregnated a group of humans and blessed their children with supernatural powers. If this all seems a little too much like L Ron Hubbard for your taste, don't worry. All this is explained at the start to some bald-headed children in a greenhouse, by a Jesus-like Franco Nero!

After this disjointed opening, the film settles down to tell the story of Katy, a young girl who has powers of telekinesis. Paige Conner plays Katy as playful rather than sinister, which makes the film more fun when she starts going off the rails.

Katy wants her mother to settle down with Raymond Armstead (Lance Henriksen) a rich businessman who has just brought the Atlanta Basketball team! He wants to get married and have children too, but Barbara Collins (Joanne Nail) doesn't feel comfortable settling down, probably due to all the pestering!

It seem that Henriksen is being funded by a shadowy organization who are pushing him to create a heir. To top this off, a mysterious visitor played by John Huston keeps popping up, who seems just as keen to stop this happening.

The film continues very much in the vein of The Omen (1976), with an elaborate death for anyone who gets too nosy in their affairs. Damien's devil dogs are substituted in this by a hawk, and Billie Whitelaw's nanny character is replaced by house-maid Shelly Winters.

John Huston is not the only director acting in this. Sam Peckingpah plays Dr Sam, who is apparently Barbara's Ex-husband. You wouldn't know that from watching the film however, as due to his drug problem, he kept flubbing his lines. His brief appearance is mainly shots of the back of his head, with his voice dubbed by an actor.

There is no getting away from the fact that this movie is preposterous, but apart from Peckingpah, the cast are pretty game. Especially Glenn Ford, who plays a police detective who gets an expletive-filled ear bashing from the young Katy.

There is some good work behind the camera too. The Cinematography is classy, with angular lines which accentuate the late seventies décor and architecture. The director Giulio Paradisi was assistant director on Fellini's 8 1/2.

Questions I asked myself whilst watching:

Is that Kareem Abdul-Jabbar? Yes it is!

Should you have left Katy with that strange elderly babysitter you've just met?

Why are they trying to kill her now? never-mind.

Is that supposed to be a Swiss-Army Bird? whaah?

Where is my old Pong game console?

Who is the funky score by? Franco Micalizzi

So where did that gun come from anyway?

Star Trek Into Darkness: Reboots, Sequels and Prequels.

I was going to give a quick review of Star Trek Into Darkness after seeing an advanced preview. But chances are you will have already seen the film before reading this, so I thought Instead I'd talk about a new development in Hollywood which STID seems to uniquely represent. The sequel prequel reboot!

My first thoughts on the film is that J. J. Abrams has managed to pull off the feat of making a good movie whilst adhering to the Star Trek universe. If you enjoyed his original reboot, then you will  certainly enjoy this twice-fold. Benedict Cumberpatch steals the show, and like it's predecessor, Abrams cherry picks elements from the original series and films for his alternative universe take. The 3D is relatively non-obtrusive, apart from the fast cutting fighting scenes, and the trademark lens flares are not as ubiquitous as his other films (lens flare just don't make sense in 3D). Its certainly an enjoyable ride.

But when you remake, or reboot a series, you can use or abuse all the emotions and invested interest that the previous version have built up. If I had one criticism of STID, its that you have to take Spock and Kirks friendship on trust. As Limoy's Spock admits to Kirk in the 2009 film, in their alternative time-line, they naturally become good friend. In J. J. Abrams' Star Trek, they must become friends to overcome a greater good. This continues in Into Darkness and culminates in a scene which replays a moment in StarTrek folklore but can't hit the same emotional heights as the original.

STID reminded me of two other things which I'd watched recently. The first was the Total Recall Remake. I feel this film would have received better review if it had completely disowned the Verhoeven 1990 classic. Its action sequences were well done, but continuous reference to the original only reminded us that, even though it was more faithful to the book, the Schwarzenegger version was superior. Colin Farrell doesn't give us much characterization as Quaid. If you take a scene which is arguably more convincing in the new film, where Quaid is being convinced that somethings gone wrong and that hes still at Rekall, it never allows Farrells character to really slow down and ponder whether its true. The film could of looked at  the idea that Quaid really is the bad guy, but that is left unexplored.

The second thing watched recently was the TV series Hannibal. Like Star Trek, it too played with familiar characters in an updated context. And like Star Trek, it used the audiences knowledge of the series to create an alternative take. Both do this cleverly and reward fans of the original. But I can foresee Hollywood using prequel/reboots as the new alternative to sequels. I expect these won't be so well thought out, and if not done well, they will end up tarnishing the originals that we love. A recent example is Prometheus (2012). I know some people liked it, but for me it kinda ruins the original movies. Before seeing it, I was certainly more curious about this than I would have been for just another sequel. I expect Hollywood to exploit this in the future...

Day of Resurrection (1980) AKA Fukkatsu no hi

What if a deadly air-borne virus killed off the population of earth? What if that wasn't the worst part?

Day of Resurrection was the most expensive Japanese film made at the time,  and was the manga publisher Kadokawa Shoten's attempt to break into the international film market. I expect that Hollywood wasn't too keen on a foreign studios muscling in on their patch, and the film failed to get a US general release. A shortened version (108mins) renamed Virus was shown in the States, but it seem to have now been forgotten, and the film has ended up in public domain.

Its got a great cast including Glenn Ford, Sonny Chiba, Robert Vaughn, George Kennedy, Oliva Hussey, Bo Svenson, & Henry Silva. It shares many similarities to the Late 70's disaster epics like Earthquake and Airport. Some of the actors probably stepped off the set of one disaster to this one. It even has its own love theme! (Why did they always have love themes in disaster films?)

The 1st part of the film reminded me of the Novel World War Z, without the zombies. Lots of short vignettes around the globe of how the virus is effecting humanity. Emotional scenes in a Japan hospital, A sweating POTUS in the White House, and confused scientists at an Arctic base. News reports of humanity breaking down. Riots and protests.

The 2nd part concentrates on the survivors who have congregated at the arctic base. Surprisingly, the film deals with the elephant in the room. Namely, of the group of 800 people, only eight are women. Yes, this movies go there. Obviously a movie about humanity being wiped out is grim, but its the bland council-meeting discussions of how to repopulate that are move unpleasant than any amount of scattered skeletons.

The last part (Spoilers) takes a sharp turn when the geologist of the group thinks that recent drilling may cause another disaster. Due to a convoluted chain of events, a earthquake in Washington DC will set off the Nuclear missiles aimed at Russia. Which similarly will set off the missiles aimed at the USA including the Alaskian base that the last of humanity is holed up in.

You have to like a film which is not content with wiping out humanity with a man-made virus, but wants to finish the job with a thermo-nuclear war!

There is a strange Alejandro Jodorowsky vibe to the ending that gives a slight amount of optimism which I think is completely missing from the shortened Virus version.

The film really boils down to a message of the folly of nuclear war. A message, that the Japanese would obviously have strong feeling about. 1980 was a dangerous time in the cold war. USA/Russian relationships were frosty. Mutually Assured Distruction was still the only real nuclear deterrent.

Sidenotes:

Henry Silva has played plenty of great villains, but here he is responsible for wiping out humanity twice! Good work!

Of Cooks and Kung Fu (1979) Tao Tie Gong

A mysterious stranger with a Raiden style hat, is killing off the chefs in the area, and it's not because of the cooking.

Master Glutton (Chai Kai) was once the Emperor's cook, The King of Chefs. But after a bizarre scallop incident, he was chucked out in disgrace. Over 20 years, he's developed a series of kung fu styles based on Chinese dishes. That's the odd premise, and also what he's teaching his wayward grandson Tan Tan (Chan Siu Lung AKA Jackie Chen). Yes, its basically Drunken Master, with an even more obscure fighting style. The two plot lines of chefs and killers carry on till they inevitable meet.

As part of my remit to review obscure films, I could make the whole blog on Hong Kong movies from the 70's. Having said that, if you've seen a few kung-fu movies, you can pretty much guess how this one will pan out.

So why am i writing about it? Well 3 reasons.

1. Its not actually that bad. There is plenty of action, the training sections tie into the plot as you see our young hero learn from his previous mistakes. Jackie Chen has great acrobatic ability.

2. This film has spadefuls of  gratuitous camera zooms. It may be a cliché of Hong Kong movies, but for me, this is a real plus.

3. The version I've seen has a weird effect which I'm going to call Wobble-Cam. Sometimes the action seems to bob up and down like a boat. Sometimes it feels like the camera is trying to avoid being punched. At first I thought it was some in-camera effect, but it looks like someone has blown up the print and has manually moved the film around, in a similar way they used to do pan-and-scan, only more violently. Its a really weird effect, that's hard to explain, but I quite liked.  On YouTube there is a clip of the film from a German release which doesn't have it, so I think this effect was added when it was released in America in the mid 80's. If any one can shed some light on this, please drop us a comment!

To be honest the film could of done with a few more locations. 90% of the fights seem to occur on the same dirt path.

Things to look out for:

Like Magnificent Bodyguards, There's another blast of a John Williams score on the soundtrack. This time Jaws!

If your daughter's life is being threatened by a hoodlum to make you reveal a secret, this film has a ingenious way out of it.

"As it's well known, Chinese cooking is the best in the world!"

This movie also goes under the name Duel of the Dragon, and is presently on YouTube and DVD rental at LoveFilm UK.

Shoot (1976)

A hunting trip goes very wrong in this intriguing Canadian movie starring Cliff Robertson and Ernest Borgnine.

A group of middle-aged buddies go on a deer hunt in the woods. With nothing to shoot but the breeze, the  party are about to call it a day, when they come across another set of hunters. After some major eye-balling, the other group takes a pot-shot at them, and a spontaneous shoot-out breaks out. When Zeke, played by perennial bad guy Henry Silva, kills one of their party, the groups scarper.

With its similarities to Deliverance, the movie becomes an exploration of the consequence of this violence. Should they report it to the police? will the others? What importance would they place on who started it? Lou (Borgnine) is the group's conscience, and as they decide their next steps, its clear that he is a lone voice.

Rex (Robertson) plays the most troubled member of the party. A man who seems to have a better relationship to his gun collection, than to his family. As he investigates who the other shooting party were, he begins to believe that what happened was only an opening skirmish in a full-on war.

The film has plenty of earthy dialogue. When one of the group is being treated by a veterinarian friend, Borgnine quips "You know that needle was previously in a horse's ass?". There's a nice down-to-earth quality to the movie, and the direction by Harvey Hart is solid and unshowy (he directed several 70's Columbo TV movies).

The film doesn't quite live up to the opening scenes, as Rex is pretty unlikeable, and we don't get to know the other characters that well. This gives a too narrow perspective on the events that follow. It would have been better if Rex's paranoia hadn't been so obviously valid, and the ending would seem to undermine the point the films seem to raising. I think this maybe due to simplifying the source material, a novel by Douglas Fairbairn.

Still, its worth a look as an examination of machismo and gun control.

(Presently on YouTube)

Magnificent Bodyguards - Fei du juan yun shan (1978)

Dipping into the world of Martial Arts can be a confusing adventure. Films tend to go under more names than a career criminal (not including original Cantonese or Mandarin titles). Prints can have laughable dubbing, or hard to read subtitles. The print-quality tends to vary between passable and atrocious, and the stories often assume a passing knowledge of Chinese myths and history which makes them hard to follow.

However, if the movie is as mad as a box of frogs, and the action puts Hollywood to shame, none of this really matters in my opinion. Jackie Chan movies make a pretty good gate-way into martial arts. Even if you don't like it, you've always got the insane outtakes at the end as consolation.

Magnificent Bodyguards is an early film in his career which he not only stars, but co-choreographs. Its got plenty of action, and a relatively straightforward plot (until the end). Jackie plays Lord Ting Chung, whose hired by Lady Nan (Ping Wang) to protect her and her sick brother as they cross the Stormy Mountains, a wild bandit-filled zone. With four bad-ass deputies running the territory, and evil Lord Chu controlling them, Jackie needs the help of his two brothers for the journey. Chang (Leung Siu-Lung) is a deaf Leather maker, and Tsung (James Tin Jun) is a fighter with a protection racket known as the Skinning Swordsman. (one skins humans, the other doesn't!)

Did I say the plot was simple?  The film is littered with hard-nuts and deadly assassins, that make the crossing more complex. After a while, the odds begin to look bad.

This was the first Hong Kong movie to be shot in 3D, and consequently there are plenty of shots of poles, knives and sharp sticks coming straight at the camera. In most films thats pretty annoying, but it makes sense in this. However, similar to Amityville 3D and others of the era, the picture can get a little blurry.

This flick doesn't have as good a reputation as Drunken Master and Snake in the Eagles Shadow, which he also made in 1978, but I think its a gem. Its got great footwork and plenty of different weapons. There's no stupid sub-plots, or characters only there for light relief. It doesn't have Jackie's trademark use of environment in the fight scenes, but all in all, it would make a great 3D Bluray release (fingers crossed!)

Stray notes:

There's something fishy about that Sedan...

If you've ever wondered what would of happened in Raiders of the Lost Ark if Indiana Jones wasn't afraid of snakes, I think this film covers it.

In the version I watched, one scene builds up the tension with a good blast of the Star Wars music!

There is an inverse law in Hong Kong movies that the more disabled or elderly you seem, the better the fighter.

Did they run out of film at the end?

The Appointment (1981)

 Edward Woodward stars in this slow-burning British horror movie, which feels closer in spirit to the 70′s anthology movies than the 80′s VHS era it was released to.

It might not be to some people taste, as the slight story is stretched butter-thin over 90 minutes. Indeed, contemporary reviewers dismissed it as boring, and the film had only a limited cinema release. This is a shame as it does contain some memorable moments, and sustains an unsettling vibe for most of the film.

After a powerful opening scare involving a girl in the woods, we flash forward to meet Woodward, a family man who breaks the news to his precocious daughter that he will be missing her school violin recital due to a work appointment. From this point on, bad omens, nightmares, and premonitions suggest he’d be better pulling a sickie, than driving to his ill fated appointment…

This is director Lindsay C. Vickers only full feature, which is unfortunate, as he shows a lot of panache in the set-scenes. The movie's feverish dream atmosphere builds to an enjoyable over-the-top ending.

The film is currently on YouTube split into 7 parts.

Death Wish 3 (1985)

Charles Bronson's acting reaches new heights of somnambulism in this demented flick by the late, great Michael Winner.

In the first two revenge flicks, Winner had killed off everyone remotely close to our anti-hero Paul Kersey. So in Death Wish 3, he takes the franchise to its next logical step. Bronson is now a guardian-angel drifter, who returns to New York to meet an old friend whose being terrorized by a local street gang. 

With the same bad luck as all his other acquaintances, Bronson's pal is beaten to death before he can say 'no dice', and is immediately framed for the murder. The chief of police, played by seasoned-pro Ed Lauter (Longest Yard), recognizes him as the vigilante from the first film, and lets him return on condition he takes out the street scum which is turning the neighbourhood to hell. 

the streets of this unnamed suburb looks more like a post-apocalyptic war zone than 80's NYC. This might be because it was actually shot in London!

The main slime-ball spends a lot of the movie eyeballing Bronson and vice-versa. So its a bit odd that Bronson doesn't target him first. Instead he seem to arbitrary take out car thieves and bag-snatchers, rather than the main perps who are murdering the neighbours one by one. They're quite easy to spot due to the ludicrous gang paint/hairstyle combo.

Some of the funniest bits occur in the tacked on romance with his young beautiful court appointed lawyer who,  for some reason, has a thing for mysterious monosyllabic elderly  murder suspects. She literally begs him for a date, which Bronson begrudgingly  accepts. The date has some hilarious bad dialogue and their relationship ends as badly as you'd expect.

As Bronson's rep grow within the community, the big bad leader calls up dial-a-gang, and a biker group ride into town to spice things up. The movie conclude with a neighbourhood free for all, as everyone grabs a gun and all hell breaks loose.

Bronson barely raises a sweat or his pulse in this movie, which is probably only sensible as he was 64 at the time. The only emotion he portrays is a sad stoicism, and it's not too surprising that this is his last collaboration with Winner. Even though the stupidness makes this film a lot easier to take than the first two, it still contain some ugly scenes.

Things to look out for:

Alex Winters (of Bill and Ted fame) plays a street punk

Marina Sirtis (Dana Troy from Star Trek Next Generation) plays a small role

Street Thug: " They killed the Giggler!"

Kathryn: " I hope you like chicken, it's the only thing I know how to make."

Kersey: " Chickens good. I like chicken"

 Fraker: "Truth is, I hate creeps too. But there's nothing I can do about them. I'm a cop."

This Movie is presently available on YouTube

The Red Salute (1935)

Barbara Stanwyck stars in this weird mix of 30's screwball comedy and anti-communist propaganda. It's caused a mini-riot when it was first shown in New York, when protests by left-wing students ended in arrests. It's interesting to compare with the red-scare movies of the 50's that Hollywood later churned out. In fact it was retitled and re-released in 1953 as Runaway Daughter.

Stanwyck plays Drue Van Allen, the military General's daughter whose causing all kinds of embarrassment due to her scandalous behavior. She's involved with the campus left-wing radicals, and plan on marrying Leonard Arner, the lead communist agitator. Her father is having none of it, and tricks (well, basically kidnaps) her into a trip south of the border to Mexico.

From here, the story becomes classic comedy Hi-jinx. Stanwyck tries to get to Washington with everyone chasing her, accompanied by an AWOL soldier (Robert Young) who wants to go the opposite direction. The script is full of one-liners, and the plot is light and pacy through this middle section.

There's a hint of Hitchcock's The 39 Steps, when Stanwyck and Robert Young pass themselves off as a couple at a hotel (It was made the same year). With her quick wit and pithy put-downs, Stanwyck character is strong, opinionated and intelligent. Of course in the film, this is considered a major problem. The movie can't allow her to have her own way, and everyone ultimately agrees with her father that she needs a good dose of "common sense" and to settle down with the right man (The soldier who Stanwyck nicknames Uncle Sam).

As all films are documents of their time, it's curious to see such support for American militarism before World War 2. It concludes with an impassioned speech by Young at the Student Rally. He wins half the crowd round with an appeal to their patriotism and causes a large free-for-all brawl amonst the audience. In the confusion Stankwyck and Young get together and Arner gets strong armed out of the country!

The film is presently on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AR5WJhkEOVo

Welcome to Dangerous Movies

In this weird futuristic age where nearly every film is available for instant viewing, I plan on diving into the murky depths of Video On Demand and YouTube for obscure gems and insane stories.

Some will be unappreciated classics. Most will be just enjoyably terrible. If you have any suggestions to check out, please post a comment!

Thanks,
Stu