Don’t Answer the Phone! (1980)
Directed by: Robert Hammer
Starring: James Westmoreland, Ben Frank, Flo Gerrish, Nicholas Worth

1/2   (out of 4)

Prime Evil (1988)
Directed by: Roberta Findlay
Starring: William Beckwith, Christine Moore, Mavis Harris, Max Jacobs, Tim Gail, George Krause

1/2 (out of 4)

This Bud’s for you!

I missed out on the Grindhouse experience. But I can imagine what it must have been like. (I appreciated the Weinstein’s Grindhouse, even though it’s just a simulation). The days of old movie theaters with midnight showings, smokers, and pee-smells are over. But the Grindhouse DoubleFeature series, put out by BCI/Eclipse, tries to give us a sample of what was once run on those dirty screens. So far they’ve released a few double feature DVDs, like Sonny Chiba movies, T&A flicks, exploitation action pics, etc.

One of their horror releases is a double header of Don’t Answer the Phone and Prime Evil.

Don’t Answer the Phone is everything you expect out of a 70s/80s grindhouse horror item. It is actually a pretty solid exploitation flick involving a crazy Vietnam vet who likes to strangle women. When he’s not doing that, he’s lifting weights like a madman, talking to his (presumably dead) dad (”Are you proud of me now? Do I measure up?”), creating bizarre shrines to Jesus, and making prank calls to female psychologist Dr. Gale’s (Flo Gerrish) talk radio show (sometimes he poses as a guy named “Ramone”). He’s a huge, ugly dude, and on top of that he moonlights as a sleazy photographer. Yes, this guy is everything you hate about humanity all rolled up into one convenient package.

Who would Jesus strangle?

The surprise is how effective actor Nicolas Worth is at pulling it off. He basically hams up the screen but he’s damn entertaining. Helping him out is director Hammer and writer Mike Castle, who don’t try to explain the killer’s condition too much or zero in on the real reason he does what he does. There’s a few hints at some kind of religious motive but we never really find out, which is probably for the best.

You can break out the exploitation checklist for a movie like this. Crazed strangler? Check. Topless female victims? Check. Sleazy drug addicts… incompetent asshole policemen… twisted psychology… disturbing violence… all there. The icing on the cake is the “comedy” scene involving an impromptu bust at a brothel, where the whores try to snort the evidence and the “freak” clients make a break for the exits, all set to a wacky theme. Well, I guess a scene like this is necessary.

Lady, maybe if you quit doing that, he wouldn’t need a bandage on his head.

There is some emotional weight to Dr. Gale’s therapy sessions with her female clients, just before their inevitable demise. It adds a layer of sympathy with the victims that you wouldn’t normally get in a standard stalk’n’slasher. But let’s not kid ourselves - the movie’s setup is titilation, and it’s knock-down is strangulation. Certainly not for all tastes.

The biggest mystery surrounding Don’t Answer the Phone is why it deserves to be lumped in with that series of movies that begins with the word “Don’t”, and what phones have to do with anything. Why would you think a movie like this is titled “Don’t Answer the Phone”? Perhaps the killer strangles you while you’re on the phone? Eh, not really. Maybe he calls you before he kills you? No, that doesn’t really happen either. Ok, so he strangles women with a phone cord? Nope. Not even close. If anyone out there can figure out what not answering telephones has to do with this movie, please phone us immediately.

Hey Satan, does this outfit make me look fat?

The second feature on the DVD is some flick from 1988 about Satanic monks called Prime Evil, and it’s a prime piece of crap. Grindhouse? Yeah, right - I wouldn’t show this stinker on the side of a wall in somebody’s backyard. Incompetent to the extreme, it’s shot in soap opera style, has some of the worst acting I’ve seen in some time, and is basically all around dumb. The bad casting decisions, while applicable to just about every major character, are especially egregious in regards to the main villains. William Beckwith is laughable as the so-called evil Father Seaton (get it?) and George Krause as the Satanic henchmen named Ben is about as “menacing” as Stephen Furst. I mean, it’s not like I’m comparing the guy to Arnold Schwarzenegger - I’m just comparing him to Nicolas Worth.

I can’t even be bothered to discuss the plot, which is complete nonsense involving virgin sacrifices for 13 years of immortality and whatnot. I just have the painful memory of the so-called priest coming on to our virginal heroine like a frat boy during Rush week. Hey, the idea of being lip-locked with a horny priest doesn’t seem to faze her, so why should we be concerned? And our undercover nun’s sad story about being abused by Satanists is amusing for all the wrong reasons.

Hi, I’m here from Dial-A-Thug for the henchman job.

Watching this movie, I got flashbacks to another similar crapfest called Embrace of the Vampire, which in many ways is the sister to this flick, except the pain of watching that one was offset a bit by a very hot and naked Alyssa Milano. There’s also a strange similarity in plot to, believe it or not, Manos: The Hands of Fate. I’m pretty sure this is the movie Hal Warren would make if he were alive today.

The best part of this “movie” is that once in awhile a nice pair of breasts turns up. I believe I counted 5 different pairs of boobies. At least that’s something to keep you interested. There are also some shots of a nice red Satan puppet. Some makeup intern obviously spent a lot of time on that puppet. It’s a good puppet.

Aww. Satan Puppet is so cute when he’s sleeping.

The most interesting thing about Prime Evil is that it was directed by Roberta Findlay, who was involved with her husband Michael Findlay in a number of 70s sex-and-sleaze-fests. After her husband died in a helicopter accident, she got into hardcore porn and then started cranking out zero budget flotsam like this movie. Hey, a gal’s gotta make a living.

- Bill Gordon

The rest of the disc includes grainy trailers for Horror High, Werewolf vs the Vampire Women, Blood Mania, and Night of the Werewolf.

Resident Evil - Apocalypse (2004)

Director: Alexander Witt

Starring: Milla Jovovich, Sienna Guillory, Oded Fehr, Thomas Kretschmann, Sophie Vavasseur, Razaaq Adoti, Matthew G. Taylor

Written by: Paul W.S. Anderson

1/2 (out of 4)

Here’s my multipass, bitch!

Straight from the lower levels of Hollywood hell comes “director” and “writer” Paul W.S. Anderson - another member of the idiot club that includes Michael Bay, Brett Ratner, Stephen Sommers, and Ewe Boll. What better representation of the damaging effects of the MTV culture than his Resident Evil movies? Resident Evil: Apocalypse is the second film in the trilogy and it makes the first film look like a masterpiece. And believe me, the first film was no picnic. This time around, however, Anderson assigns himself screenwriting duties only and gives the director’s chair to second unit man Alexander Witt. It didn’t help.

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Jisatsu saakuru (Suicide Club) (2002)

Director: Shion Sono

Starring: Ryo Ishibashi, Saya Hagiwara

(out of 4)

Well, I ain’t gonna touch it

Certain Japanese movies of recent years, like Battle Royale and the movies of Takashi Miike or Kiyoshi Kurosawa, seem to have some themes of despair and desperation running through them. Jisatsu saakuru (AKA Suicide Club AKA Suicide Circle) is a good fit into this kind of group - a gory concoction of horror, black comedy, and social commentary.

It begins with an eye-opener - 54 Japanese schoolgirls lock hands and in unison, jump off a subway platform in front of an oncoming train (while smiling). The resulting splatter of crimson (Evil Dead style) is enough to make the most jaded horror fan sit up and take notice. A bowling bag is left at the scene - inside is a roll of patches of human skin, stitched together. Soon, unexplained suicides are happening all over Tokyo, more bags are being found, and the police seem helpless to do anything - given the nature of the deaths, opening a criminal investigation is apparently not an easy task.

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Session 9 (2001)

Director: Brad Anderson

Starring: David Caruso, Peter Mullan, Stephen Gevedon, Josh Lucas, Brendan Sexton III

1/2 (out of 4)

The Machinist (2004)

Director: Brad Anderson

Starring: Christian Bale, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Aitana Sánchez-Gijón, John Sharian, Michael Ironside

(out of 4)

Screw you.. I’m going to Miami

“Life is always scarier than fiction” says director Brad Anderson, and I think this sentiment is what underlies his films Session 9 and The Machinist. These are horror films with genuinely interesting tableau, and they build tension not with supernatural occurrences but by generating dysphoria from the seemingly mundane - understanding that beneath the veneer of the common man lies monsters more terrible than any lakeside slasher. Anderson realizes that what can be imagined is scarier than what is shown; his films offer up environments with tragic histories that trigger immense paranoia and sometimes even worse - bring to the surface elements of the psyche we never knew we had, and would rather keep buried.

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Lost Souls (2000) 1/2 (out of 4)

Directed by: Janusz Kaminski

Starring: Winona Ryder, Ben Chaplin, Sarah Wynter, Philip Baker Hall, John Hurt, Elias Koteas

Bless the Child (2000) (out of 4)

Directed by: Chuck Russell

Starring: Kim Basinger, Jimmy Smits, Holliston Coleman, Rufus Sewell, Angela Bettis, Christina Ricci

she can steal my clothes anytime!

The “Devil Movie” bandwagon probably started in 1997 with The Devil’s Advocate, but the closer we got to the year 2000 the faster Tinseltown executives starting jumping on it. After Stigmata, End of Days and The Ninth Gate came these two religious thrillers - Lost Souls and Bless the Child - each one with their own special take on the imminent end-of-world scenario where, apparently, angels and demons have great supernatural powers but not enough to stop a bullet. Both movies concern the return of a Biblical figure - in the case of Bless the Child it’s Christ and in the case of Lost Souls, the Antichrist - the believability of the scenario in each film is stretched beyond the breaking point, even if you consider yourself a Christian, so it becomes necessary to suspend your disbelief and accept the concepts these films use as a foundation. Once reaching that point, how does each film fare in terms of plot, characterization, acting, suspense, and so forth?

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