Prophecy (1979) 1/2 (out of 4)
Directed by: John Frankenheimer
Starring: Robert Foxworth, Talia Shire, Armand Assante, Richard Dysart, Victoria Racimo, George Clutesi

C.H.U.D. (1984) (out of 4)
Directed by: Douglas Cheek
Starring: John Heard, Daniel Stern, Christopher Curry, Kim Greist, J.C. Quinn, George Martin

Ah, eco-terror films. Born in the paranoid 1950s, giving us the nature-run-amok theme involving giant insects and killer rabbits and such, they are fun items, I admit, but I think they possess a certain limitation - after all the warnings about the dangers of polluting the environment and mother nature’s revenge on the human race, they still usually end up as simple B-movie monster fare. Naturally, the best of the environmental-horror flicks try to work around these limitations through quirky characters, decent suspense, or witty dialogue. They don’t always succeed, but hey, if you find yourself worrying about the environment afterward I suppose some good came out of it, right?

The two movies I want to review today cover the same basic ground - monsters created by mankind’s negligence and greed run amok. The difference between them is in attitude and location. Prophecy, released in 1979, sets its monster in the pristine wilderness of Maine and wants to believe that everyone has the best intentions but are simply ignorant of their situation. C.H.U.D., from 1984, hits the streets of New York City and calls out the authorities for willful deceit and corruption. But both deal with contamination and genetic mutation, and if they could actually talk you would probably hear them shouting stuff like “You idiots! Don’t you see what you’re doing to the planet!”. Both feature pregnant main characters (”Think about the world you want to bring your children up in!”). Of course, both have weaknesses that pretty much derail them, although C.H.U.D. manages to hold up better after all these years.

Scuse

Prophecy shows the corruption of the natural world by man’s interference. When we begin, mill workers in the forests of Maine are slaughtered by an unknown entity. The next morning we are treated to a camera pan of their mangled bodies, set to classical music. Only later to we discover our heroine Maggie (Talia Shire) playing the cello in an orchestra. She’s worried because she’s pregnant but her husband Dr. Bob Verne (Robert Foxworth) doesn’t want any children and she doesn’t know how to break the news. “The world is such a mess it’s unfair to bring a child into it,” she says at one point. And so begins the movie’s liberal-tinged onslaught.

When we first see Dr. Verne he is saving a baby in the inner city from rat bites. He is picked by government man Vic (Graham Jarvis) to travel to Maine to mediate a dispute between lumberjacks from the Pitney Mills Paper Company and the Indian tribes in the area. The mill people have timber rights to 100,000 acres of forestland that the local O.P.s are blockading. The US government hopes to break the standstill by using Dr. Verne to write a report for the EPA. Vic hopes that because Dr. Verne is good with people, he can get the lumber company and the Indians to play nice. Of course, nowhere during the course of the film do we actually witness Dr. Verne using his supposed skills with people to get anything done. When the lumber mill operator Isley (Richard Dysart) threatens tribe leader John Hawks (Armand Assante) with a chainsaw, the doc just sits back and never gets out of the car. His tour of the lumber plant ends with a big argument with Isley - wow, so he’s good with people, huh?

Don't worry - this is a PG Chainsaw

After being attacked by a crazed raccoon, witnessing extra-large fish (including a giant tadpole), and hearing stories about deformed Indian babies, Dr. Verne thinks it’s time to check out the mill. Isley assures them that everything is proper, but later Verne discovers mercury in the area. After Maggie gets some of it on her hands she doesn’t seem too bothered by it. In fact, for a pregnant lady, she seems strangely dispassionate. A normal person would have immediately informed her husband about the pregnancy and then left the area for safety, long before anybody is attacked by a mutant bear.

Oh yes, did I mention that the monster is a mutant bear? A rather silly looking one - cheesy effects, rubbery suit, etc. - but the bear is at least ferocious, as it slashes, eats, cuts off heads, and so on. When one poor family is killed, the boy, trapped in a tight yellow sleeping bag, is whacked away into a rock. As his body hits, his sleeping bag seems to explode white feathers all over the place. How bizarre. Personally, I think the monster looks like Manbearpig, from South Park. I wonder if Prophecy is where they got their inspiration from.

Handbanana! No!

The idea here is that if pregnant females consume fish with methylmercury in it, the poison jumps the placental barrier. This probably explains the mutant cubs that our heroes discover, and try to get to safety to use as evidence. Having consumed fish herself, Maggie understandably worries about what kind of baby she’ll have (as evidenced by Prophecy’s poster, of a mutant monster in a womb). Of course, here is where the movie drops the ball - after all is said and done there is no followup on Maggie’s baby. No discussions on what she’ll do (besides her intentions on keeping it), how the baby turns out, any of it. I suppose we’re just going to have to be happy with Larry Cohen’s It’s Alive. By the way, it seems to me that Cohen (God Told Me To, The Stuff) would have been a better candidate to direct this movie than John Frankenheimer (The Manchurian Candidate, Black Sunday). Frankenheimer brings A-list sensibilities to a B-picture and I think the result is mixed. There are a few scenes that work - one nicely shot sequence in underground tunnels is suspenseful, and there’s no denying the beauty of the scenery. But other sequences seem too serious in tone for a movie about a giant manbearpig. (Prophecy overdoes it on the environmentalism message). The characters, though likable, behave nonsensically. Talia Shire’s milquetoast mom hauls a mutant bear cub all over the place while being chased by mommy bear without once considering that perhaps she shouldn’t be doing that. Only when the cub starts chewing on her neck does she think to dispose of it. I guess she’s really attached to the idea of having a mutant baby. The biggest problem with Prophecy though, is that most of the monster sequences are unrealistic and seem cut to shreds by the producers to garner a PG rating (even though this movie is very violent for a PG - in today’s world it would most likely be PG-13 - but hey, it’s the 70s). I also wonder if there is uncut footage regarding the aftermath of Maggie’s pregnancy lying around somewhere.

ManBearPig exists!

C.H.U.D.’s best gimmick involves the title itself, which refers to the “monsters in the sewers”. They’re called Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers. Now tell me that’s not brilliant! John Heard is George Cooper, a photographer who does pieces on the homeless who live under the streets of NYC. Kim Greist plays his pregnant model girlfriend. Daniel Stern is AJ, the soup kitchen guy who’s friends with Captain Bosch, played by Christopher Curry. Bosch’s wife disappeared while out walking the dog one night - well, actually an unseen monster pulled her down into the sewers. A couple more missing persons cases turn up, including assorted homeless (called undergrounders) and a little girl’s grandpa, who’s grabbed by a CHUD right out of a phone booth.

Scuse

A meeting with shady city leaders exposes government bureaucrat Wilson (George Martin) as the bad guy, responsible for a major coverup involving the dumping of toxic waste under the city. Greist’s character is attacked in her apartment by a CHUD while the rest of the cast gets trapped underground while Wilson decides to flood the sewers with gas to kill off the CHUDs. The CHUDs, of course, are the undergrounders after they undergo ugly transformations due to radiation exposure.

Thank you, lord, for this bountiful harvest of toxic sludge!

C.H.U.D.’s major weakness is that it plods along for too many stretches without really showing us the monsters. When the CHUDs do make their appearance, it’s fleeting, and we never get a serious look at them for too long. Perhaps the creators of the film thought the makeup effects weren’t up to par, although personally I liked what I saw. As a B-movie picture, C.H.U.D. is just too damn talky for its own good, but I must say that I liked the characters more than usual, so I suppose that I can’t complain about this point. Heard, Stern, Greist, and Curry all give good performances for this sort of thing, and hell, even John Goodman makes an appearance (briefly - in a diner scene where police officers are attacked by CHUDs. This diner scene, by the way, originally was tacked on to the end of the theatrical release, but this DVD release restores it to the middle of the film, where it was originally intended to be).

I can get you a toe by 3 o'clock, with nail polish.

The ending to C.H.U.D. is a bit weak, as everything culminates in a face off with bad guy Wilson - it basically comes down to a gunfight. For a monster movie, I think it’s unacceptable not to have a face off with the monsters themselves. (At least Prophecy knew enough to do this). But C.H.U.D. is still a better film than Prophecy because it has more going for it - the city setting seems to work better for this kind of picture, the characters are more fleshed out, CHUDs look cooler than Manbearpig, and, well, radioactive toxic waste is more interesting than boring old mercury poisoning.

Nom, nom, nom!

If you pay attention, part of each film deals with man’s mistreatment of man - in each case there’s a forgotten people (Prophecy’s Native Americans, C.H.U.D.’s homeless) who are given vindication if not true justice. We disregard them (and nature) at our own peril. That’s the message, I think, and I’m sure it’s fairly accurate since both movies tend to shove the idea into our faces. Perhaps they have to, considering that otherwise we’d all be commenting on how fake their rubbery monster suits look. (But we do that anyway). In any case, these pro-environment movies are what I consider the last gasp of the cinema of environmental horror, and they certainly look it. I only recommend watching either of these on rainy days or very late nights. Booze helps.

My neck is killing me... can you give me a rub?

-Bill G

The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies (1964)
Directed by: Ray Dennis Steckler
Starring: Ray Dennis Steckler, Carolyn Brandt, Brett O’Hara, Atlas King, Sharon Walsh, Erina Enyo, Don Russell, Joan Howard

(out of 4)

Nicolas Cage’s Lesser Known Brother

You gotta hand it to Ray Dennis Steckler. Here’s a guy who at the age of 24 scraped together $38,000 and made a low budget, no frills horror musical pretty much the way he wanted it, made himself the main lead, slapped a long funny title on it, and turned it into a minor cult phenomenon. I mean, sure, the movie is horrible - amateurishly shot (except for a few bits), with a muddy soundtrack, unattractive people, and shamelessly padded with interminable musical performances, but it’s also refreshingly earnest in the way that Ed Wood’s Plan 9 from Outer Space was earnest, and nowhere near as cringe-inducing. In fact, there are a few effective sequences, one involving the bizarre hypnotism of the lead character and another showing a surreal nightmare featuring dancing demons in face paint. The fact that it makes good use of Long Beach’s Pike Amusement Park helps - the combination of burlesque dancers, scary puppets, fortune tellers, and roller coasters constantly in motion lends the movie a kind of gritty authenticity that only Z-budget indie films can deliver.

Wait… aren’t we supposed to be attracted to exotic dancers?

Yes, the movie is called The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies!!?, a nice gimmick if you ask me. It was originally based off the long title from Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, and I personally dig the two exclamation points closed out with a question mark, as if it was a question that a theoretical distributor or producer of the movie might have asked in disbelief over the phone. Stecker, going by the pseudonym Cash Flagg, stars as Jerry, a local miscreant who doesn’t believe in holding down a job, and doesn’t really treat women right, but still manages to attract girlfriend Angela (Sharon Walsh) despite her mother’s objections. At the midway, they visit a spooky fortune teller with a rather ugly mole and greasy appearance named Madam Estrella (Brett O’Hara), who gives them a rather ambiguous but ominous prognostication. Oh yeah, Madam Estrella happens to be a psycho who likes to pour acid on peoples faces and throw them into secret cages for reasons that the film never bothers to answer. Just go with it.

DJ Ortega and MC Estrella’s New Album Drops Soon, Beyatch!

Meanwhile, mannish-looking dancer Marge Neilson (Carolyn Brandt, later to become Steckler’s wife), after her own unfortunate session with Madam Estrella, has accidentally stumbled upon her cage of acid-scarred monsters. Estrella, along with her man-servant/pet monster Ortega (Don Russell going by the name Jack Brady), hypnotizes Jerry into doing her bidding, which of course involves offing Marge and anybody else who happens to be a threat to her caged zombie operation. Being a “mere shadow” as Estrella declares, Jerry doesn’t really seem to offer up much resistance, besides the occasional acid trip flashback/nightmare, which is admittedly cool to watch.

Darth Maul!

The plot to Strange Creatures… is razor-thin, with no complexities or twists to speak of. It boils down to a crazy carnie turning people into killer monsters, who later escape (rather easily) to get revenge, only to be shot dead by trigger happy cops. Enough for about 45 minutes, so Steckler fills out the rest of the running time with really bad musical numbers, which grind things to a halt rather quickly. I got the impression that this wouldn’t be a problem if the film was played at drive-ins (it seems like this was the intent from the start), where the musical sequences would simply serve as cues for periodic make-out sessions.

This was before shaving down there was fashionable.

Still, the film is interesting for the fact that it even exists in the first place, that it serves as a good example of guerrilla filmmaking, and that it is a giant middle finger from Steckler to Hollywood. It’s not a “good” movie by any stretch, but one still worth checking out, if you catch my drift. Speaking of drifting, the moral of the story is: don’t be a drifter. You’ll get caught in the tide created by evil gypsy fortune tellers with large moles. Hey, man, that’s just weird enough for me. Incidentally, Re/Search has good articles about the making of Strange Creatures… and interviews with Steckler, which can be found in Re/Search #10: Incredibly Strange Films.

Open Mic Night did not go well for this guy.

By the way, I have the VHS version from the defunct Camp Video (with the groovy box) but the DVD release sports commentary tracks by both Steckler and Joe Bob Briggs. There’s also the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, but if you ever meet Steckler in person try not to bring that up.

- Bill G

Camp Video

Gotta Feed The Monkey!

Based in Las Vegas, Nevada, the now-defunct Paragon Video Productions was in business from 1981 to 1985. They released many genre movies in the VHS video rental market, along with other distributors like Continental Video, Camp Video, Media Home Entertainment, etc. Their star trail logo was simple and amusing. Their movies usually had a string of trailers in front of them.

The following trailers appear at the beginning of the VHS edition of Alien Contamination (AKA Contamination, except this is the Rated R edition). The year is 1982.

The following movie trailers are seen:

Boardinghouse (1982) - Trailers are normally supposed to make you want to see a movie. Curiously, this one has the opposite effect!

For Your Love Only (1977) - This is actually an “episode” of the long running German TV series “Tatort”. This particular episode-turned-into-movie stars Nastassja Kinski and was directed by Wolfgang Petersen (”Das Boot”).

The Witching (1972) - AKA “Necromancy”, and yes, that’s Orson Welles. Another “gem” from Bert I. Gordon, and nobody cutting this trailer saw fit to give any credits to anybody.. wonder why…It should be noted that this 1983 re-edit of the film, apparently for the worse.

Molly & Lawless John (1972) - This one has Vera Miles (Psycho 1 and 2), Sam Elliott, and Clu Gulager.

Just Before Dawn (1981) - In-the-woods shocker starring George Kennedy.

One Armed Executioner (1983)- Revenge flick starring that one guy and that other guy too.

Funeral Home (1980) - Reminds us of the Don’t trailer from Grindhouse.

The Gates of Hell (1980) - Yes, this is the altered version of Fulci’s City of the Living Dead.

Hotwire (1980) - Apparently George Kennedy is in this one also. Looks like some kind of Southern-fried car thief flick.

Finishing out is the Paragon Video logo.

By the way, Critical Condition has a nice page dedicated to Paragon’s VHS Video Covers.

The Machine Girl (2008)

Directed by: Noboru Iguchi
Starring: Minase Yashiro, Asami, Nobuhiro Nishimura, Honoka, Kentaro Shimazu, Ryousuke Kawamura

(out of 4)

Wow, don’t I feel inadequate!

About 13 minutes in to Noboru Iguchi’s Kataude mashin gâru (from here on referred to as The Machine Girl), teenage yakuza/ninja in training Sho (Nobuhiro Nishimura) is made to drink his father’s (Kentaro Shimazu) blood, which flows from dad’s wrist to son’s mouth in copious amounts of crimson, to “strengthen their bond”. Of course, by this time, we’ve already seen our heroine Ami Hyuga (a cute and tough Minase Yashiro in her first acting role) take revenge on multiple teen yakuza bullies by blasting them to pieces with a machine gun attached to the stump where her arm used to be.

The Machine Girl is full of flying limbs, decapitated heads, chopped fingers, and spurting blood so plentiful that in some scenes it sprays the camera lens - just one of the few homages to Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead  movies (the giveaway is the arm-machine-gun attachment, which in 2008 generates comparisons to Rodriguez’ Planet Terror, but when I see souped-up ass-kicker Ami dispatch multiple assholes in gory fashion, it seems to me like she’s a certain reincarnation of Bruce Campbell’s Ash). And like Ash, who was a mild mannered S-Mart employee turned unwanted hero, so too, is Ami: originally non-violent, shunned by her community for crimes her parents didn’t commit, wrongfully called a murderer, and having her brother Yu (Ryôsuke Kawamura) killed by Sho’s gang, she is finally driven to ironically fulfill the role assigned to her.

Oh my God! They’ve killed Kenny! You Bastards!

Later on, when physically tortured by Sho’s family, which includes the completely insane dragon lady mom (Honoka - another AV actress hottie who would be at home in a Tarantino flick), Ami begins her physical transformation into monster/instrument of revenge. But by that time, her psyche has already started the journey. Speaking of Tarantino, comparisons between Ami and Uma Thurman’s bride from the Kill Bill movies is not off the mark. Even the beginning title sequence seems ripped from Tarantino, who of course gets his inspiration from 70s grindhouse cinema. So it’s the east stealing from the west stealing from the east, and around and around we go!

Let’s be honest here - this movie isn’t for the kids. While it’s true that the film is done up like a live action anime (the music sounds like it comes straight out of Dragonball Z; the camera likes to pan right to left over a character’s face, just like in anime), and much of the gore is delivered over the top with humorous intent (think Riki-Oh, or maybe early Peter Jackson splatter like Bad Taste and Dead-Alive), it’s still pretty harsh stuff. Ami spraying blood from a headless victim into the face of the victim’s dad may be funny for the sheer balls of it, but seriously, damn. What about the poor chef forced to eat sushi made from his own fingers or the mother and son who have the tops of their heads sliced off and exchanged? I think you get the idea.

Not bad, but needs more soy and wasabi

Then again, bubbling up through all the pools of blood is this concept of that blood’s capacity to bond a family together. Whether someone is good or evil, they always have parents who love them, right? The strong ties between Ami and her brother, Sho and his parents, Takeshi and his parents Suguru and Miki, take center stage. For example, the ninja squad sent to kill Ami and Miki (Japanese model Asami - also hot) are, of course, slaughtered in gory fashion. The grieving parents are then recruited into the “Super Mourner Gang” to get revenge. (They all wear pictures of their slain sons on their chest, while occasionally shouting out their kids names). Iguchi is interested in exploring themes of revenge begetting revenge, and of blood feuds, and of the bonds between parents and children. That is, when he’s not aiming geysers of blood at us.

The performances, especially from the female leads, are energetic which matches director Iguchi’s hyper kinetic visual style of filming. It’s Honoka’s evil babe Mamma Hattori that steals the show, however - her character is completely off the deep end - I mean, her weapon of choice is a drill bra. That’s right, a drill bra.

Comes from the Victoria’s Secret in Akihabara

The Machine Girl is surreal, gory, offensive, funny, outrageous, twisted, and absolutely, positively Japanese.

- Bill G

A movie with Jenna Jameson and Robert Englund? Where do I sign up?

And yes, before this masterpiece comes to DVD it will be playing in select cities later this month.