THE EYE 3 (2005) - the third Eye is the weakest

THE EYE 10
THE EYE INFINITY
THE EYE 3
(2005, Hong Kong/Thailand, Gin Gwai 10)

How many second sequels can you name that are better than the first?

I love The Eye (2002) and was surprised at how good The Eye 2 (2004) was. Now I'm surprised at how bad The Eye 3 is - an unfunny comedy-horror from the Pang Brothers (who directed the first two films) is sneaking around under several titles, usually as The Eye 10 and The Eye Infinity, and is finally being released on DVD in the USA, under the more accurate title The Eye 3.


So beware – the cover art may look like a horror film, but it’s really trying hard to get laughs, with the directors aiming to spoofing their own films. They only get it half right – some of the scares work, but the humour doesn’t. For instance, the opening scene of a Buddhist exorcism. Inside a circle of monks, a young girl begins to levitate and act like a Linda Blair possessed. Her tongue begins to loll out of her mouth… But they take it a step too far and have the tongue slap the monks around, Three Stooges style! The scene was working fine until the gags crept in. Guess they haven’t seen Repossessed.

Another problem with the film is its completely disjointed nature, with a far less focussed plot than the first two films. Four friends on holiday in Thailand are telling ghost stories, and their Thai friend convinces them there are actually 10 ways to see real ghosts. The first two ways having been explored in the first two films - “yeah, we heard about them”.


As they work their way through the next 8 ways, there’s an uneven cross between Thai horror and broad Chinese comedy. The film works in places, like one scene when they are sitting in a deserted street at night trying to lure ghosts out with food.

But rather than a series of spoofs, this looks more like leftover, under-developed ideas. There’s also a constant assumption that seeing ghosts means danger. Surely, the ghosts are around all the time – they are only in trouble if the ghosts have a motive to do the characters harm.

By far, the worst scene is when a possessed human gets mistaken for a body-popper by two B-boys, who then try and engage in a challenge dance. No, no, no.


The cinematography is colourful, moody and predictably green for ghostly scenes. But unlike The Eye 2 where the editing was calm, the cutting style here is fast and random. The special effects start off well with some ghastly make-up effects, but then there’s an over-reliance on an easy electronic ripple effect over many of the ghosts – obscuring their features.

The whole mess certainly explains why there haven’t been any more Eye sequels since…


The Eye 3 is getting released in the US at the end of June, with that misleadingly scary cover… It’s already out in the UK and around Europe.

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'Comic book' movie season in London in July

Here’s advance warning that there’s going to be a two-month season of films based on comic books coming to London’s BFI Southbank (previously the National Film Theatre).

It starts in July and will be a rare chance to see these on the big screen. I’d recommend the following selection…

SUPERMAN – THE MOVIE (1978)

Christopher Reeve's first Super-film featured Marlon Brando as his Jor-El and Gene Hackman as Lex Luthor. The Director’s Cut of the seventies blockbuster will be shown, that includes a recently added eight minutes of footage.

BATMAN – MASK OF THE PHANTASM (1992)

The first animated Bat-movie puts the Joel Schumacher films to shame, with a downbeat plot, adult drama, suitably dark production design and Shirley Walker’s moving soundtrack. The mysterious Phantasm embarks on a killing spree, forcing Bruce Wayne to face demons from his past.

MODESTY BLAISE (1966)

Very mad, very mod, very sixties mish-mash which certainly looks great, but I wish Joseph Losey had taken comics slightly more seriously. Full review and more pix here.

FLASH GORDON (1980)

Max Von Sydow as Emperor Ming, what are you waiting for? This colourful remake of the thirties cliffhanger serials sticks its tongue in its cheek and attempts to outcamp Barbarella. From the director of Get Carter! Take your own deadly bore-worms...

AKIRA (1988)

The adult cyber-punk epic that kick-started anime to international fame. I can only hope that Leonardo Di Caprio's remake does it justice. This is the original, set in Neo-Tokyo, where the government have supressed all knowledge of a secret project that threatens to destroy the entire city. One boy and his bike tries to save both his best friend, and the city.

THE ROCKETEER (1991)

A completely under-rated, two-fisted, action fantasy. A good pick-me-up for anyone missing the oldschool Indiana Jones movies. Our hero dons a rocket-pack to thwart Nazi hi-jinks in 1930's Hollywood. Stars Bill Campbell, Jennifer Connelly and Timothy Dalton.

DANGER: DIABOLIK (1968)

Mario Bava directs the late John Phillip Law in this delirious comic strip movie. It’s good to be bad (maniacal cackling…), Diabolik robs from the rich, and keeps it! Will the police ever catch him?



More from this season will be screened in August, concentrating on graphic novels, including GHOST WORLD, SIN CITY and A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE. For details, and to book tickets, see the BFI website.

Akira, Batman, Rocketeer, Superman, Flash Gordon posters from the IMP Awards.

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I'M A CYBORG (2006) - a lighter shade of OLDBOY

I'M A CYBORG, BUT THAT'S OK

(2006, South Korea, Saibogujiman kwenchana)

After the huge international stir caused by his legendary 'Vengeance trilogy', Sympathy for Mr Vengeance, Oldboy, Lady Vengeance - director Chan-Wook Park has confounded expectations with this eccentric comedy set in a psychiatric hospital.

Working in a huge electronics factory, Young-goon (Su-jeong Lim) is happily talking to the overhead lights. Electrical things are her friends, because she thinks she is a cyborg. Voices talk back to her through a radio. They tell her to stick power leads into her veins to repower herself. She does. It looks like a suicide attempt, so off to hospital she goes.

She gets introduced to a circle of inmates, each with wildly different delusions, caused by pivotal events in their pasts. Il-sun (played by pop idol Rain) thinks he’s a giant rabbit who can steal anything. As Young-Goon’s mental and physical state deteriorates, can he use his skills to help her?


The narrative of the film gets completely lost for a while as the various other patients are introduced. There’s some black comedy as these characters bounce off each other, as long as you’ve memorised all their neuroses and backstories. But it's hard work when you realise that they have little bearing on the central relationship. The crux is whether Young-goon really is a cyborg or not, and we’re teased by the director that what we see is all in her mind - are there really power-up lights in her toes?

I was mindful that surreal movies about madness often indicate that we're in the mind of one of the patients - a movie premise used as far back as The Cabinet of Dr Caligari (1920).

But the story failed to grab me until an hour in, when some spectacular scenes reminded me of classic Oldboy, rather than the early dawdling comedy, like the prison scenes in Lady Vengeance. Cyborg starts off whimsically amusing, but the long wait for the plot may turn the fans off. Similarly confusing is the ending, a distinct difference from the tight narratives of the Vengeance films.


The production design delivers a colourful and stylish asylum, with vibrant green padded cells, modern art in the gardens and very 'now' wallpaper in the canteen. I thought it was supposed to be either a hugely expensive hospital, or another inmate’s delusional take on the usual drab décor of these institutions.

This is closer to a fantasy world, especially the Willy Wonka factory where she worked. So I shouldn’t have been too troubled about the simplistic, surreal version of mental illness - where the medical research for the script seems to start and end with the completely outdated One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest (1975).


Actress Su-jeong Lim, one of the sisters in the haunting A Tale of Two Sisters, is again quite excellent in a unique and unprecedented role. Rain helps her to carry the film, and he may be hoping to go west with future films, already appearing in the new Speed Racer.

I think the gentle pace and humour of I’m A Cyborg will appeal to a new audience who enjoy 'World Cinema' and haven’t seen the director’s earlier ultra-violent black comedies. But for his fans, this must come as a big disappointment.


I watched the Hong Kong region 3 release. But this will be on DVD and Blu-Ray in the UK (from Tartan) by the end of May, under the simple title I’m A Cyborg. Non-English DVD releases are already out in France and Germany.

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SORCERER (1977) - William Friedkin's WAGES OF FEAR

SORCERER
(1977, USA)

I wanted to watch a film to remember Roy Scheider, who passed away in February. Almost all of his seventies films still stand up well today. Marathon Man, All That Jazz, The French Connection to name a few… But I’d recently rewatched Jaws, so I plumped for Sorcerer.

While watching Sorcerer for the first time in many years, I recalled first seeing it in a London cinema in 1978, when it was called Wages of Fear. It was on a double-bill with Phase IV – another surreal film that would also fox any marketing department looking for an easy sell. At the time, I made a note that I’d been “confused” by the film - granted that I was only a teenager at the time. But seeing the region 1 DVD was something of a revelation – because the US version is half an hour longer. The story finally makes sense. I now think it's easily one of Friedkin's best films, and Scheider’s best roles.

After the success of The French Connection and The Exorcist, Friedkin was trusted with a big budget to remake the classic French thriller, Le Salaire de la Peur – The Wages of Fear. A brave idea likely to anger cineastes all over the world. His vision of the new version involved extensive location work in several countries, including deep into the South American rain forest. Paramount Studios had to team up with Universal to finance it. A director deep in the jungle with a spiralling budget? Very Francis Ford Coppola, very Apocalypse Now.

On its initial US release, under the mystical title Sorcerer, it made only a small fraction of its budget back, opening in the galactic wake of the first Star Wars. Audiences were more interested in seeing Star Wars over again, than seeing anything else – especially when the first 20 minutes was subtitled, and over two hours was downbeat.

The long globe-trotting prologue introduces four men from widely different backgrounds getting into so much deep trouble that each has has to run and hide deep in the South American jungle. A hitman, a terrorist in Jerusalem, a corrupt businessman in Paris, and a getaway driver in New Jersey in trouble with the mob.

I didn't remember any of this entire opening at all, only to learn it was lopped off from the European version I’d seen in 1978. That version starts in an unnamed South American village, with the four runaways hiding out in a hellish backwater so deep in the jungle, they can no longer afford to escape. Without their backstories, it was harder to work out who the central characters were and why they were stuck there. The only local employer is an oil company, but when an accident ignites the rig, no one can work, and the village descends into chaos, their only source of income cut off. The four exiles gradually team up for a mission that's very likely to be suicide.

The locations look like a trip into the unknown. The section of village where they get stranded was designed and fabricated as an extensive, shabby, outdoor set, unfairly portraying the (unnamed) Dominican Republic as a hopeless hellhole of a country where people lie in the streets, barely alive.


The story then clicks into gear as they are asked to drive 200 miles across roughly-hewn roads through the jungle, in lorries carrying extremely unstable dynamite, needed to extinguish the fire at the rig. To airlift this explosive is impossible and the political situation in the country means that outside help is out of the question. For a chance at big money, and an escape from their respective hells, they agree.

Without the use of miniature effects, the action is shot on location, even the gigantic explosion that ignites the oil rig. It all looks totally real. The huge lorries cross collapsing bridges, rocky canyons, and get stuck in the jungle. The iconic scene (on the album cover and poster campaign), shows the trucks swaying on a rope bridge in a tropical storm. Admittedly, the collapsing bridge is carefully constructed with steel cables, but looks like wood and rope. This didn’t prevent the production losing several trucks in the river! There's more background on the making of the film, here on Urban Cinefile.

The mission couldn't be more suspenseful. Any sudden jolt can set off the unstable dynamite. Every bump in the road puts the audience on edge. The cinematography captures the thick humid atmosphere, and the drivers’ stressful descent into a waking nightmare. The surreal landscapes they encounter are complemented by the bizarre synthesiser soundtrack by Tangerine Dream.


Roy Scheider conveys every mile of his ordeal, ending up looking like a walking ghost of his former self. Of course, I won’t spoil the ending, but the original climax only makes sense if the prologue is intact. I certainly don’t remember that ending, indicating that once the opening scenes had been removed, the European release ending was changed as well, making it far less impressive as an experience. Seeing the long version on DVD has altered my opinion of the film drastically, to one of bountiful praise!

The original French film was directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot (Les Diaboliques, Le Corbeau). but I only caught it on TV in the eighties, after seeing Friedkin's Wages of Fear in the cinema. I missed the jungle and the blood being in colour. The only scene that caught my imagination was one missing from Friedkin’s film, when the lorries have to drive fast to 'aquaplane' over a bumpy road.


In any case Sorcerer flopped, removed from US cinemas to make room for an extended run of smash hit Star Wars. Years later, even when the DVD was released, it was panned and scanned (from 1.85) to 1.33. When movies are hits, they get special editions. When they flop, they get dumped on the market. At least the DVD has the longer version, and I don’t think the cut-down version will appear again, as Friedkin is reported to have been far from happy about it.

Photoplay magazine (UK) May, 1978

The 1953 French original, The Wages of Fear, will be one of the first to be released by Criterion on Blu-Ray.



UPDATE, October 2013

After a brief legal battle to discover which film studio currently held the rights to Sorcerer, William Friedkin oversaw a brand new transfer of his original cut fo the film, restored for cinema screenings (in 35mm) and for an upcoming special edition blu-ray release in 2014. It's been a long wait - but this is an adventure finally worth praising.

JOHN PHILLIP LAW - Pygar joins the angels

On a grey, overcast morning in London, I read the sad news that John Phillip Law has passed away.

As I understand, the actor never stopped working, smiling and looking younger than his years, up until the end. He always brightened up the Hollywood movies he featured in, but it’s three of his ‘Italian’ starring roles that have kept playing, as cult favourites.

In both Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik (both released in 1968) he nailed the characterisations and appearances of two comic book characters so accurately, that he still personifies them. As Pygar the blind, winged ‘angel’ of Barbarella, he sensitively portrayed a blind and innocent prisoner of the Great Tyrant. His physical performance was magnified by appearing half-naked throughout the film. I was very aware that while there was plenty of male nudity in sixties cinema, not many actors were as attractive. I was so impressed with Pygar, that recently he’s even been my avatar in many movie forums. A choice that currently feels disrespectful.

Barbarella is one of my top three films ever, and I'm surprised it's not more widely popular than a cult status.

I was hoping that the planned Robert Rodriguez remake of Barbarella (currently cancelled) would have thrown Law back into the limelight. As it stands, I don’t even know if he’s been interviewed or recorded for any sort of Special Edition of Barbarella, which is long overdue on DVD. Paramount only have Jane Fonda, Anita Pallenberg and Milo O’Shea left around to interview from the main cast.

In his next film, as Diabolik, he swapped from Angel to Devil, as the greedy super-villain anti-hero, in a world where there was no super-spy or master detective who could touch him. His physical resemblance to the comic book villain is quite uncanny. Danger: Diabolik was a rare movie adaption of a comic strip where the fans are well-served by the result.

There are hardly any spaghetti westerns that I’ve enjoyed that didn’t have Clint Eastwood in them, but Death Rides A Horse is an exception. It’s a shame that Law didn’t garner the same opportunites as Eastwood when he returned to the US.

These films have proved entertaining for forty years so far, and will continue to preserve his memory for many years to come.

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THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME (2006) an anime hit?

THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME
(2006, Japan, Toki wo kakeru shôjo)

This animated feature film from Japan is heading for a limited cinema release in the USA in June. It’s one of the few anime movies that isn’t directed by Hiyao Miyazaki to get the chance, though having seen it, I’m uncertain why it has been picked out.

Possibly because its visual look is quite similar to a Miyazaki. But this has been animated at Madhouse Studios, rather than Ghibli, and directed by Mamoru Hosoda. The almost photo-realistic look achieved with the colouring and ‘lighting’ of modern city scenes, shows a careful and beautiful artistic approach to traditional 2-D animation that’s been abandoned by the big western animation studios. It still uses 3-D animation as a way of portraying certain moves and special scenes, like the time-travel space she falls through, but essentially you won’t see flat animation this good outside of Japan.

Makato is a typical high school student who has a particularly bad day. Just before she has a serious accident, she jumps back in time to live through her unlucky day again, but making everything right. But in doing so she causes trouble for many others around her, especially her friends. As she attempts more time jumps to unravel the mess, the trickier her life gets. What she really wants is for everything to get back to normal, so she can play baseball with her best friends…

It’s a drama and a comedy, but I was expecting something a little more sci-fi, but this is more like Somewhere in Time or Sliding Doors, but without the snogging – mainstream Japanese romances usually avoid any physical contact whatsoever!


I was hoping to see something new done with the time-travel angle, but the timespace limbo she falls though was rather sparse and functional. The only impressive visual effects were some beautiful frozen-time tableaus. It’s well-directed and a story well told, but I was underwhelmed by the familiar time-travel paradoxes and the frustrating Dawson’s Creek neuroses of the main characters.

Where the recent, hugely popular Miyazaki films have usually been set in fantasy lands, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is in present day in a high school (like so many anime series). I wondered exactly why the story was chosen for animation rather than live-action, as the many dialogue scenes begged for real actors, and could easily have been filmed in actual locations.

I wasn’t surprised to find that the characters, created by Yasutaka Tsutsui (who also wrote Paprika), had appeared in two live-action movies before – both called The Little Girl Who Conquered Time, filmed in 1983 and 1997. Perhaps these will get a re-release to follow on from the anime’s success.


The theatrical release in the US means that a DVD release will eventually happen, but you’ll have to wait a little longer. I watched the Hong Kong region 3 DVD from Kadokowa Video, which has anamorphic widescreen and good English subtitles. It’s also already out in France and Germany.

DVD Beaver has also looked at this disc and published some nice non-spoiler framegrabs.

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GUNHED (1989) - Japanese robot wars

GUNHED
(1989, Japan, Ganheddo)

Uh-oh – it’s an Alan Smithee film…

Great miniatures, great visuals, great sets and a video game scenario that was well ahead of its time – why is Gunhed so frustrating to watch?

I was excited by a 1992 pop video for a track called Mindphaser by Frontline Assembly (or FLA), a Canadian heavy electro band. The visuals seemed to work perfectly with the music. The band members are seen in a futuristic cockpit driving a huge robot-tank, capable of changing configuration as it rolls along. The modelwork looked intricate, but there was live action and futuristic military costumes – surely this wasn’t all built for a pop promo?

The promo director had been given the Japanese film Ganheddo to cut down for the video clip. I looked out for the original film and it arrived in the UK on VHS soon after, as Gunhed. But the music wasn’t as good in the film, and the English dub of the film was terrible. I even sold my VHS thinking I never wanted to see it again. Now on DVD, I wanted to give it a second chance, in widescreen and in the original languages.


It begins well, with a quick recap of a future war between humans and machines, then a huge dropship approaches a vast fogbound island/city, entirely defended by robots who have successfully taken over the valuable refining complex. The action kicks in straight away, as a wireframe computer animation shows the extent of the island complex, reminding me of a similar story device in the far more recent Resident Evil movie.

The ship is full of bandits prepared to fight their way in, to retrieve valuable computer chips. But once inside, mechanical booby traps hack down the raiders one by one. As the survivors struggle to avoid robot sentries both big and small, their best hope is to reconstruct their own robot in a vast graveyard of machine parts a legendary, heavily-armed Gunhed tank of their own. Some of the scenes of the actors with this tank are realised with a full-sized prop, but it’s only glimpsed in the film, and used extensively in publicity.


The film looks good for its age – though the animated electrical effects date it. The modelwork would still look good in a modern Japanese sci-fi, and is often spectacular. The complex Gunhed miniature, with lots of missile launchers and robot arms hanging off it, sometimes wobbles a bit too much as it trundles along.

But it’s the humans that really let the film down. There’s initially some fun to be had with Brooklyn the bandit (Masahiro Takashima) and a female Texas Ranger (Brenda Bakke) developing a love/hate relationship. The script then makes the mistake of splitting them up for the rest of the story. Brooklyn is then left to talk to the humourless Gunhed computer, which isn’t nearly enough of a character, considering he has so much to say.

As Gunhed rolls into action, it displays some really neat tricks, with a barrage of grappling hooks, riding up walls and spouting a variety of missiles. But during it’s debut action scene, the complete lack of music makes it a far less exciting spectacle than it should have been. Again, the same scenes in the pop promo were far more effective because of better music. The camera is so tightly framed, it's hard to see what's going on. Gunhed gets out of some really tight corners unexplained, and the robot wrestling goes on for far too long.

The story and the action get more confusing as it progresses and towards the end the editing is almost shoddy, as if everyone had given up and wanted to go home.

The director of the US version has declined to keep his name on it, hence the generic replacement Alan Smithee name. It looked avoidable too - the film seems to have been sabotaged in the editing stage. It could have been salvaged, with some clarification from the onboard computer about what the hell is going on, tighter editing and more and better music.

Gunhed stands as a huge effects showreel for a missed opportunity. almost a glimpse of what an 'Aliens vs T2' scenario might have looked like. There is a substantial budget on show, especially with the huge cyber-sets and inventive design work. Good matte paintings add to the feeling of scale. If only as much effort had been lavished on the post-production.


A DVD has finally appeared in the US, from ADV, with an English-only option (with poor dubbing filling in what little Japanese dialogue there was) as well as an original language option with subtitles. The picture is non-anamorphic widescreen, and a couple of analogue video faults indicate that it's not been digitally remastered yet. It’s a rare chance to see it, if those posters still tantalise you.

A murky copy of the Frontline Assembly video is also on YouTube at the moment, pity it’s not on the DVD.

Gunhed is not without it's admirers, especially this guy on SFF World.

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KRAKATOA - EAST OF JAVA (1969) - or is it west?

KRAKATOA - EAST OF JAVA
(1969, USA)

Nice visual effects, shame about the songs

After reading Eugene Lourie's book 'My Work In Films' (1985, Harvest/HBJ) and how his methods for recreating volcanic special effects for Crack In The World (1965) were later reused in Krakatoa - East of Java, I thought it was about time to see it in widescreen. It's also just been released on DVD in the UK.

Lourie worked as a production designer for Jean Renoir in France, then fled the Nazi invasion to live in the USA, where he also designed special effects and started to direct (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, Behemoth the Sea Monster, and of course Gorgo). He later returned to Europe, often favouring Spain for both studio and location filming – just as he did for Krakatoa – East of Java.

According to Lourie it was shot in 70mm, but the credits call it Cinerama (a process of filming with three cameras line up next to each other), which indicates that the film was destined for gigantic screens. Specifically for Cinerama theatres, (you could think of it as an IMAX for the fifties), extra long point-of-view shots are included to add to a rollercoaster feeling. On a huge screen, when the camera spins around, or tilts like a boat in the rough seas, the audience are going to get more than a movie but an experience, possibly of nausea.


While the bulk of the action is a grim adventure, the Cinerama label demands something more of a family film, resulting in an unlikely triple volley of songs at the start! These are in addition to the three-way splitscreen musical montage of spoilers behind the opening titles, again trying to look like true three-camera Cinerama.

There’s then a bizarre schoolsong, coaxed along by two sweaty nuns, trying to distract a class of frightened children from a volcanic eruption. This mystifying scene doesn't gain significance for nearly two hours of screen time! After a dollop of dockside exposition, there's a rather modern ‘west coast’ pop ballad as the steamship 'Batavia Queen' sets sail. After more introductions to the key characters onboard, there's a third song, staged like a screen musical, as over-the-hill chorus girl Charley dances and ickily vamps her ageing boyfriend. Considering the duration, these songs feel like inappropriate padding, and a disastrous way to start a catastrophe.

Thankfully it settles down to a more even keel, with grittier dramatic conflict and the eerie signs that a huge eruption is imminent. Little do the crew realise, it'll be the hugest Earthly explosion in recorded history! But this is no documentary, more like a Jules Vernean adventure.


The Captain is more interested in a fortune in pearls and has recruited a diverse A-Team of experts. To scout for the wreck, there are two balloonists and a guy with a diving bell. To retrieve the booty, there’s a deep sea diver aided by Japanese pearl divers, with very impressive lungs.

The script pushes hard some unusually liberal sixties amoralising, considering it’s supposed to be 1883, with some strident messages about relationships outside of marriage, judgemental attitudes about murderers, forgiveness... All this and an opium drug dream montage too.

There's so much going on onboard, no wonder everyone isn’t bothered about the pumice mortars flying overhead, and the endless volcanic explosions. As they get closer to their goal, the story contrives to take the audience down inside the crater just as it’s warming up, right past the lava flows as it starts to erupt (in a marvellously hellish scene reminiscent of the climax of The Black Hole), and hangs around to experience both the final explosion and subsequent tsunami.


The visual effects range from silly to spectacular. The balloon looks like a small model, as does the master shot of Krakatoa (stupidly, this shot is on the cover of the Anchor Bay DVD). As the action moves closer in, the huge tenth-scale model of the steamship set against the exploding lava is a hugely complex setpiece, that makes for a convincing and exciting scene, the deck getting pummelled by flaming debris. Basically the special effects get more impressive as the film progresses.

Lourie’s special effects help carry the film, along with the solid cast. Maximilian Schell (who had command of a spaceship in The Black Hole) is convincing as the single-minded Captain, sparring with junkie diver Brian Keith (The Wind and the Lion, The Zoo Gang, Meteor) and a hold full of convicts, lead by J.D. Cannon (the angry Police Chief in McCloud). The father and son balloonists are played by Rossano Brazzi (The Italian Job, Omen III: The Final Conflict) and Sal Mineo (Rebel Without a Cause, Escape from the Planet of the Apes). Geoffrey Holder (Baron Samedi in Live and Let Die) appears imposingly, but doesn’t get a single line of dialogue. Also keep your eyes peeled if you want to see Eugene Lourie himself, in a brief appearance as a lighthouse keeper.

It’s a mad example of a catastrophe movie, the link between the old historical epics of the fifties and the disaster movies of the seventies. But even The Towering Inferno had a song in it…


The Anchor Bay disc had a sharp picture and a generous anamorphic widescreen presentation (with a full-frame option on the flipside). Since then, it's been re-released on DVD by MGM in the US, and last month by Fremantle in the UK.

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BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW (1971) - still shocking today

BLOOD ON SATAN'S CLAW
(1970, UK)

A classic British horror, also known as Satan's Skin for good reason...
Listening to the recent release of the CD soundtrack (that I bought off Movie Grooves) prompted me to revisit this unusual British frightener from Tigon Productions, a lesser known studio that also gave us The Haunted House of Horror, Doomwatch and Curse of the Crimson Altar. Seeing it on late-night ITV, years (decades) ago as a teenager, was unforgettable because of the shock moments and daring nudity.


Set in the 15th century English countryside, a farmer unearths a weird skull, unleashing an ancient evil on his village. Something scary in an attic sends a local girl mad and drives her fiance to self-mutilation. The evil spreads to the local youngsters as they begin to worship something nasty in the ruins of an old church, sacrificing anyone found to be cursed with Satan's skin...

In terms of atmosphere, this is the next best movie to Witchfinder General. The difference being that in this story, witchcraft works. There are more than a few similarities between the two films, like the extensive use of location filming in the English countryside, and the beautiful but menacing soundtracks. Patrick Wymark appears in both, getting top billing as the local judge in Satan's Skin, he had a cameo as Oliver Cromwell in Witchfinder.

It isn't as swashbuckling or murderous as Witchfinder, but is often just as shocking. There's also that scene that I get confused with The Wicker Man (1973), when a young woman strips naked to seduce her victim. Evil teenagers doing the devil's work, using murder and seduction, seemed very unlikely back in the seventies. Leading the cultists is the deliciously monstrous character of Angel Blake.


Linda Hayden imbues Angel with a devilish malevolence. Her career includes a remarkable list of horror roles, including Taste The Blood Of Dracula (1970) and Madhouse (1974). An excellent, recent interview is included on the DVD, as Linda talks about her sudden stardom, horror films and famous co-stars.

While the rest of the young cast are convincing, it's hard to forget some of their TV alter-egos. Michele Dotrice was soon to become a sitcom legend in Some Mothers Do Ave Em (opposite Michael Crawford), but had just appeared in the dark thriller And Soon The Darkness. Wendy Padbury had been a popular assistant to TV's Doctor Who in the sixties, making the fate of her character all the more gruelling. Rebecca Tovey had starred in both the Peter Cushing Dr Who films as his granddaughter, but isn't even given a screen credit. Robin Davies had been one of the many schoolboys of the rebellious if.... (1968) and starred opposite Geoffrey Bayldon (Asylum, Tales From The Crypt) in the children's TV fantasy Catweazle.



Among the adult cast is Anthony Ainley (The Land That Time Forgot) who gets a rare chance to play a goodie, as a priest - he was about to become the second actor to play The Master in TV's Doctor Who. The unlucky farmer is Barry Andrews, previously the star of Dracula Has Risen From The Grave (1968).

The script was originally envisaged as three short stories, but director Piers Haggard helped remould the structure into a continuous narrative. He succeeded, but the plot is still faintly episodic. His only other noteworthy credit was the last original adventure of Nigel Kneale's Professor Quatermass, starring John Mills in TV’s The Quatermass Conclusion (1979).

The nudity and sexual violence are still shocking today, the cast is convincing, and the only real downfall is the finale, which is an anticlimax. But the director agrees, he simply didn't have any budget left to fix it! But the low budget doen't show, except maybe for the barely-seen monster itself. Everything else about the film, atmosphere, locale, cast are almost perfect.



The Anchor Bay DVD was released in the UK but not the US. Even though the picture is clean and crisp, the widescreen DVD isn't anamorphic, yet the documentary is. There was a reversible cover with a choice of modern or original artwork. It was also available as part of the coffin-shaped Tigon boxset, and as another single DVD release in Australia.

VIRUS (1980) - whoops apocalypse

VIRUS
(1980, Japan)

Slow, grim, apocalyptic disaster that might eventually haunt…

I tried to upgrade my tatty old VHS copy of Virus by buying a recent DVD release, only to find that while it’s called 'The Director's Cut', it’s shorter than my VHS copy, and it isn’t widescreen, while the VHS was!

Both the UK and US DVD releases are listed as 1.33 – which means they are severely cropped down from the original widescreen, an injustice to the spectacular location cinematography, one of the few saving graces that Virus has to offer.

The running time of 100 minutes represents the international cut (which failed to get a cinema release in the UK or US, back in 1980), a whole hour shorter than the original version released in Japan.

One of the US DVD releases

The UK DVD starts with a long explanatory build up as the deadly MM88 virus is stolen and then accidentally exposed. The introductory scenes are full of badly disguised exposition, using unknown actors, giving the wrong impression of the film that is about to unfold. Only when the virus begins to kill large numbers of people around the world, does the story take off. Some horrifying scenes of riots breaking out around the world are taken from actual news footage, including a very nasty incident where a protester catches on fire.

As recognisable actors appear, they are lumbered with embarrassing dialogue and melodramatic conflicts. Unlike more recent apocalypse stories which ground the story among the public, this is very Japanese in structure – where huge disasters are only dealt with by the authorities. Politicians, military, scientists receive the latest news and use cold, hard logic.

Some of the Japanese scenes are the most involving – where a hospital is overrun with people needing treatment, and the police have to burn piles of bodies in the streets, unable to cope with the mounting death toll. But these scenes are just illustrations, aside from the main drive of the story in the Oval Office. Glenn Ford plays the US President, aided by Robert Vaughn, whose lumbered with some very awkward direction...

This DVD cover illustrates the missing prologue scene

As the board meetings continue among the last people on Earth – in Antarctica, where the virus can’t survive the low temperatures. The new World Council includes a young Edward James Olmos. Even a case of rape is coldly discussed in a meeting. The ratio of 855 men to 8 women is simply unfortunate. The women will have to have babies with new multiple partners. Well at least condemn the rapist, guys!

Many different countries are represented reasonably well, but casting Chuck Connors as a British submarine captain is bizarre. The actor normally plays cowboys. Two cheeky cockneys represent the British crew in yet another example of the Mary Poppins/Dick Van Dyke stereotype.

The overall story is realistic, doomladen and slowly paced. The vision of a world decimated by a biological warfare accident, and a climactic plot twist may haunt anyone who stays awake to the very end of the movie.

The worldwide locations are impressive, especially among the polar icebergs. Though there are unusual choices of establishing shots for various capital cities. Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) directs, favouring the Japanese scenes and actors. But without their back-stories, and without a fluent command of English, it’s hard to know why they are the only civilians at the centre of the action.

The prologue on my old Intervision VHS seems to be taken from the climax of the longer Japanese version, which is supposed to be a superior experience all round. As it stands, this is another example of the Japanese spending a huge budget aiming at international success, and floundering badly. The tedious Sayonara Jupiter also springs to mind - a huge budgeted, internationally cast, botched, sci-fi catastrophe...

Gotterdammerung has a host of screengrabs and plot spoilers if you want to investigate Virus further...

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GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA (2002) - monstrous entertainment

GODZILLA AGAINST MECHAGODZILLA

(2002, Japan)

I'll watch any movie with Godzilla in it. But for a Black Hole review, I have to consider if I can recommend it to you. Godzilla films can be very uneven - the monster action is always fun, but the plots can sometimes drag, or even be embarrassingly bad.

From the last wave (1999-2004), I rewatched Godzilla x Mechagodzilla, while thinking of an audience who may be new to the franchise.

Mechagodzilla first appeared in two films in the seventies, and resurfaced in the early 1990's. This time around it's a more agile giant robot cyborg monster, with more built-in missile launchers than ever, and a few titanium tricks up its sleeve...

After the stupendous Gamera trilogy of the late nineties, from rival studio Daiei, the annual Godzilla movie franchise had to modernise its approach. Godzilla Millennium relaunched the series (after the American Emmerich/Devlin remake of 1997), and these were all stand-alone stories, spinning off from the original premise.

A grittier Godzilla emerged. He's back to being a problem of mass destruction, rather than a children's hero. Once more he’s threatening Tokyo and the Japanese government have to find a way to stop him. They remember that the original Godzilla skeleton still lies at the bottom of Tokyo Bay (where he was defeated in the very first film in 1954). Using a Jurassic Park ruse, scientists propose to use the skeleton as a framework, combined with the Godzilla DNA in the bones, to create a duplicate monster. Enhanced with a robot exoskeleton and under military control, it should defeat the oncoming threat.

Chosen to operate Mechagodzilla's controls, is a young pilot, (Yumiko Shaku, the star of Princess Blade and Sky High), who isn't trusted by her team-mates after a disastrous incident while trying to kill Godzilla using maser cannons, several years earlier. Having a female action hero is a twist in Godzilla films. Add to this her tragic backstory and she has reason to look perpetually grumpy.

The producers still can't resist adding a cute little girl and her klutzy father for extra pathos and comedy relief, but these are far less painful than they sound.

The realism is greatly enhanced by the use of actual full-size tanks - toy tanks bouncing towards Godzilla are traditionally a funny, guilty pleasure in the series. But here the modelwork and explosions are bigger than ever, and they even use a little CGI, though the look of this has dated already, the suitmation less so.


Men in monster suits wrestling, is the mainstay of the special effects. Albeit fantastically designed and constructed suits, surrounded by intricate and extensive cityscape models. But as the action scenes wear on, there's no actual build in the excitement or the story. Mechagodzilla has very few tricks up its sleeve after its first fight, and ends up repeating itself. For once it's launched by VTOL aircraft, rather than by the unlikely rocket jets in the soles of its feet.

The movie is good, solid spectacle, above average for a G-movie, and the action kicks off early with a quick appearance of the big G right at the start. The plot is fairly old-fashioned, as are characters and the overall feel - you'd be forgiven for mistaking it for a film ten years earlier.

The Maser cannon weapons are a welcome blast from the past, and there are some surprising flashbacks to lesser-known monster attacks from classic Toho films. This is a good example to showcase the latest generation of G-films, while we wait for Godzilla to endure his eight-year hiatus, self-imposed by Toho Studios after Godzilla: Final Wars in 2004.

Columbia Tristar released a good DVD of Godzilla Against Mechagodzilla in the US, correctly aspected in 2.35 anamorphic, with English or Japanese language options.

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CHOSEN SURVIVORS (1974) - bats and bombs

CHOSEN SURVIVORS
(USA, 1974)

All I knew about this was that it was post-apocalyptic and had vampire bats in it! As it was on the DVD double-bill release with The Earth Dies Screaming, which I simply had to have, I finally got a chance to see it. Earth is a black/white sixties British space invasion, Chosen Survivors is seventies US sci-fi with a TV look and a TV cast. But its adult approach and grim plot elevates it to filmic status. Both films have been hard to see until now.

Chosen Survivors starts with a dozen drugged civilians being dragged from a military helicopter into a cave in the middle of the desert. Down deep inside is a huge, futuristic, self-contained bunker. As the drugs wear off, they get shown a presentation video informing them that the world has just been obliterated in a nuclear war, and they were all pre-selected as experts most likely to help humanity re-populate.

They try to grasp the fact that everyone else in the world is dead (apart from those in other bunkers) and settle down to life together for a few years, until the radiation levels are tolerable again. But if life wasn't tough enough, they discover a problem with their underground sanctuary - killer vampire bats...

It’s not as corny as it sounds. Intelligent plotting, sexual and psychological drama and an offbeat directorial approach make this quite a unique little movie. Director Sutton Roley was obviously trying to break out of TV with this one, though he was a master of top TV shows for decades.

Skewed camera angles are effectively used to show the disorientation of the survivors as they arrive, wide-angle lenses to accent their claustrophobia. There’s also an impressive, experimental, electronic soundtrack by Fred Karlin, just after he scored another downbeat sci-fi, Westworld.

While the cast aren't A-list, there are a few familiar faces – like, Alex Cord (Archangel in Airwolf), Jackie Cooper (Perry White in Superman – The Movie), Barbara Babcock (Hill Street Blues) and Richard Jaeckal (Grizzly and The Green Slime). And once again, Lincoln Kilpatrick gets a tricky climbing assignment, like he did as one of the night-people in The Omega Man.

I’m very glad to have seen this. Now where's the CD release?

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LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS (1977) legendarily bad

LEGEND OF DINOSAURS AND MONSTER BIRDS

(1977, Japan, Kyôryuu: Kaichô no densetsu)

More like... the legend of one dinosaur and one monster bird…

I'm really impressed with DVDs from Media Blasters - spectacular presentations of classic Japanese fantasy films. They’ve released many classic giant monster movies… but this isn't one of them. Instead, this is a perplexingly bad riff on Jaws, with a dinosaur instead of a shark.

Worse still, it seems to have been influenced by other Jaws rip-offs, like Tentacles (as a victim is lifted clean out of the water screaming her lungs out). Jaws also prompts the use of a little more blood and gore than is usual with Japanese monsters.

The premise is that a sort of Loch Ness monster has been found in one of the lakes round Mount Fuji, and it’s killing local people and holiday-makers. Unfortunately Toei Studios isn't known for its giant monster movies and the resulting special effects, despite the use of some full-size props, are totally laughable. The rhamphorynchus is even stiffer than the pterodactyl in The Land That Time Forgot (1975), the plesiosaurus is inexpressive and less frightening than the puppet 'Space Monster' in the children’s series Fireball XL5 (1962), which it closely resembles.

Add to this a completely inept explanation as to why it’s all happening, plus the worst use of music I can recall (using only a few tracks, none suitable for monster action, though the disco track sort of works) and you've got one of the worst ever Japanese monster movies.

By the end of the film, the producers seem to have given up on anything approaching convincing - the wire work, back projection and editing all get even worse. However, for fans of bad movies that are so consistently bad they become enjoyable, this could be for you.

Like Media Blasters' other Japanese movies, this has both the original Japanese and English language options. The few extras include trailers and posters that amusingly promised a worldwide release (in 40 countries) and boast it was Toei Studios' most expensive film to date. Yikes. I prefer it when they stuck to a low budget. Having seen it, I now know why this movie was so rare.

For a selection of other, better movies about giant monsters, see the 'Giant Monsters' links in the sidebar...

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