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...