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

Superstition (1982)
Director: James W. Roberson
Starring: James Houghton, Albert Salmi, Lynn Carlin, Larry Pennell, Jacquelyn Hyde, Stacy Keach Sr.,

(out of 4)

Ah, the old Head-in-the-Microwave Gag!

WARNING: Some spoilers ahead.

Superstition is a Canadian flick (I think) from 1982, but I would swear it was directed by somebody like Umberto Lenzi or Lamberto Bava. It plays like an alternate universe version of Argento’s Suspiria, if it was directed by somebody like Lucio Fulci. In other words, it’s just plain bad, but gory enough and silly enough to keep one interested. There are no real characters in this movie, just meat for the grinder. Basically, Superstition is a succession of kills strung together to a funny prog soundtrack (by David Gibney, doing his best Goblin impersonation). It’s also partly produced by Kassar and Vajna - how the hell did they get involved in this?

Some of the kills are gory (spinning blade through the torso), some disturbing (spike through a girl’s forehead), some stupid (guy cut in half by a window pane - how the hell does that happen?), some funny (exploding head in microwave) and some downright boring (hanging, body thrown around room). But there certainly are a lot of them.

Works better than Advil

So who’s causing all this commotion? Well it turns out that many years ago, a witch was sentenced to drowning, and in order to keep her in the lake, a special cross was tossed in to make sure she keeps out of trouble. Folks, it didn’t work. The priest who sentenced her to a watery grave gives no good reason why she isn’t just burned. I guess his heart wasn’t in it? As soon as she hits the water the village burns down. Bad sign #1. Soon the poor priest finds himself crushed to death. Bad sign #2. That cross must obviously be defective.

It’s years later, and the witch is still at it - killing anybody who comes near the lake, and the old house in front of it. I think the creators of this movie wanted an Amityville vibe, but there isn’t much time to build up a mood in that regard, with all the slaughtering going on. What we do get is a clueless reverend named David Thompson, a cowardly dad, a few babes, a kid, a priest, a strange old lady and her retarded son, an incompetent detective (played by Albert Salmi, who in real life would later die with his wife in a murder/suicide), and a girl who may or may not be a ghost. The priest is killed early on by a spinning circular saw blade, which flies across the room at him. The fact that it is still spinning under some ghostly power as it burrows through his chest seems to be of no importance to those who witnessed it. Rev. David Thompson says he’s shaken up, but otherwise reacts as if he just witnessed a minor rear end collision. The rest of the running time is filled with people running back and forth in full panic mode, but for some reason failing to run in the one direction that might save them, namely out the front door.

This is not a dream. We are speaking to you from the year one, nine…

Spoiler: everybody dies in this film. Well, why shouldn’t they? They have created a monster (not shown, by the way, except for monster hands with claws) that has pretty much been established as invincible. You gotta wonder about movies like this where Satan can do whatever he wants. Crosses don’t work (well, one cross sort-of-works) ,priests are useless. Hey, God! We could use a little more help down here! After a while, one wonders if they should just drain the pond, bulldoze the place and put up condos or something. Maybe the witch will want to be superintendent.

-Bill G

Bad Day at Sunday School

Children of the Corn (1984)

Director: Fritz Kiersch

Starring: Peter Horton, Linda Hamilton, John Franklin, Courtney Gains, Robby Kiger, Anne Marie McEvoy

1/2   (out of 4)

Too much strawberry ice cream makes me sick.

Children of the Corn was originally a Stephen King short story. I haven’t read it. But if this movie is any indication of what the book is like, I’ll never be reading it. Before the opening credits even roll, we’re treated to voiceover narration by the movie’s main kid hero Jobe (Robby Kiger). “It was about 3 years ago. I was the only kid in church that day…”. Oh Jesus, here we go. Massive exposition voiced by a kid. The strong suit of horror movies (and I think, most Stephen King novels) is in the power of the image, but before we even see anything we have to listen to a boy dumb it down for us.

Not much of any interest happens after the beginning slaughter scene in a diner. We learn that a boy preacher named Isaac (John Franklin) has created a cult based around some demon in the corn fields of Gatlin, Nebraska. His right hand man is an older teen named Malachai (played by Courtney Gains, a good casting decision. Back in 1984 he looked like some Amish kid gone off the deep end). At Isaac’s command, all adults in town are brutally killed. Three years later, nobody outside of Gatlin seems to have given a shit, and the kids are still busy doing their cult thing when yuppie couple Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicky (Linda Hamilton) stumble into town.

Gatlin: City of Ethanol and High Fructose Corn Syrup!

Let’s get the religious symbolism out of the way: Malachi was originally the first of the Biblical minor prophets, meaning “God’s helper/God’s messenger”. It may be helpful to know that the Book of Malachi, the last book in the Hebrew Old Testament, was written in response to corruption of the Israelites, particularly the priests. Armed with this knowledge, we can successfully predict the outcome of the movie Malachi’s relationship with boy-priest Isaac. The Biblical Isaac, of course, is the son of Abraham. You might be tempted to believe that Children of the Corn is taking potshots at Judaism but this seems doubtful in light of Burt’s later comment that any religion not based on love and compassion is a false one. Then again, the Old Testament isn’t exactly a shining example of God’s love, as it involves a lot of blood, death, and sacrifice. It also doesn’t help matters that all the cult members are children. Is that how Stephen King sees religious folk?

Anyway, this is all academic. It’s more fun to talk about this movie than it is to watch it, because the thing is mediocre in just about every sense. There’s no particular imagery of any staying power to take away, except maybe flashes of the Nebraska cornfields, but even that is underutilized. There’s nothing particularly scary, threatening, or suspenseful either. The thing just sort of plods along, with our two heroes driving down lonely highways for what seems like an eternity. The movie occasionally will throw us a bone, like a murder of a gas station attendant, but even that sequence is rather dull and uninspired.

Just lie back and think of Kyle Reese

The characters of Burt and Vicky aren’t exactly the brightest bulbs either. They turn on the car radio and become annoyed at hearing some preacher’s voice, but don’t seem to know that if you turn that little knob thingy you might be able to listen to something else. Burt leaves Vicky alone with little girl psychic Sarah. Guess who ends up kidnapped and tied to a sacrificial cross? Watching Linda Hamilton tied up in the middle of a cornfield gave me a brief flashback to The Wicker Man, but it was only brief. Let’s not kid ourselves.

The ending deals with turning the cornfield into a “lake of fire” to kill the monster/demon thing, but it’s not executed with any particular flair (the word “uninspired” will creep into your head alot during this film). The movie’s budget is too limited to try to show the monster anyway - we just get to see something moving under the field and the occasional explosion or cheesy animation. Even the final “boo” ending is handled with no particular care - when the words “The End” pop up on the screen before our survivors even have the time to drive out of frame, it seems like the creators have been waiting the whole movie to do it. This is probably what happens when people get the bright idea to turn a short story into a 90 minute feature.

We want Menudo!

I have seen worse movies than Children of the Corn, but not many that just seem to be going through the motions. This one left me feeling apathetic. It’s more like a TV movie adaptation than a theatrical film. Quite frankly, how this flick generated 6, count em, 6 sequels is beyond me - I can only assume some cheesy cornfield deity was involved. Nebraska deserves better.

- Bill Gordon

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.

(more…)