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!

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.

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…)

Grindhouse (2007)

1/2   (out of 4)

Directors:

Robert Rodriguez (segment Planet Terror) (fake trailer segment Machete)
Quentin Tarantino (segment Death Proof)
Eli Roth (fake trailer segment Thanksgiving)
Edgar Wright (fake trailer segment Don’t)
Rob Zombie (fake trailer segment Werewolf Women of the S.S.)

Starring: Rose McGowan, Freddy Rodríguez, Josh Brolin, Marley Shelton, Jeff Fahey, Michael Biehn, Naveen Andrews, Tom Savini, Quentin Tarantino, Michael Parks, Kurt Russell, Rosario Dawson, Vanessa Ferlito, Jordan Ladd, Tracie Thoms, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Zoë Bell, Sydney Tamiia Poitier, Bruce Willis

Planet Terror

Death Proof 1/2

Grindhouse, the new movie from directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, is actually two movies in one - a throwback/homage to the double bill grind house pictures of the 70s and early 80s. In attempting to recreate the experience, the movies are padded with fake trailers for exploitation pictures and modified with grainy footage effects, disjointed editing in spots, and even missing scenes. The result is a pleasant 3 hour experience as a whole, even if the individual parts turn out to be a mixed bag.

Grindhouse starts out right away tickling the fanboy geek-spot with the familiar Grindhouse Release logo and accompanying music.
First up is a faux-trailer for the movie Machete, which is a hilarious offering about an illegal Mexican immigrant (Danny Trejo, natch) set up by the man, left for dead, who returns to exact revenge using a repertoire of various machetes, knives, and a motorcycle-mounted Gatling gun. With Machete, Grindhouse immedately throws us head-first into the world of political incorrect exploitation on the level of old blacksploitation pics, featuring excessive violence, abundant female nudity, and questionable morality.

It leads in to our first movie, Planet Terror, directed by Rodriquez, which is about a group of folks from a small Texas town forced to deal with a plague of crazed zombie maniacs, caused by secret biological warfare testing at a nearby army base. Our heros consist of stripper Cherry (Rose McGowan) who quits dancing to become a stand-up comedian, only to lose her leg in a zombie attack. Enter her mysterious boyfriend El Wray (Freddy Rodríguez), who hides a secret (lost in one of those missing reels). Together, with a group of other colorful characters (including Michael Biehn, Tom Savini, and Michael Parks - reprising his Kill Bill role as Earl McGraw), they band together to fight off both the infected zombies and the leader of an infected military unit, headed by Lt. Muldoon (Bruce Willis). It’s definitely influenced by Fulci’s Zombi 2 (aka Zombi) - one scene of a wood shard in the eye seems lifted straight from that movie - and it throws a lot of I-can’t-believe-they-showed-that moments into the mix. One of the characters is an English businessman fond of collecting the testicles of his enemies; another infected soldier (played by Tarantino) intends to rape a female victim with his private parts, um, dripping down in globs of goo. There’s an insane doctor (wonderfully played by Josh Brolin), various cringe-inducing moments involving expoding pustules, zombie-decapitation by helicopter blades (see Romero’s Dawn of the Dead), and perhaps the best part - Rose McGowan’s new leg-stump machine gun attachment (see Evil Dead 2 for a similar theme).

Her legs are smokin’

It’s all tongue-in-cheek, which makes it quite enjoyable. Only one scene of a child accidentally shooting himself doesn’t really fit in with the rest of the proceedings, and I could have done without Tarantino sticking his face into the camera again. His acting ability, while not as bad as other suggest, isn’t really the issue so much as it is a distraction of seeing a self-indulgent egomaniac take us out of the fantasy world that Rodriguez has built up for us. No matter - Planet Terror is still an enjoyable offering, despite the fact that I can’t really recall Zombi or Dawn of the Dead being this crazed. (I would call From Dusk Till Dawn a closer relative).
The trailers in the middle of the film happen to be the best part of Grindhouse, the most entertaining being a takeoff on all those Don’t pictures of the late 70s/early 80s. You know - Don’t Open the Window, Don’t Go in the Woods, Don’t Go in the House, Don’t Answer the Phone, Don’t Look in the Basement, etc. Directed by Edgar Wright, it’s aptly titled Don’t. The second best faux trailer would be Thanksgiving, which brings to mind all the exploitative holiday slashers (Mother’s Day, Silent Night Deadly Night, Halloween, My Bloody Valentine). Eli Roth directed it and it has an old grainy effect that reminded me of Pieces or maybe Maniac. It also has the funniest one liners (White Meat… Dark Meat… all will be carved!) It’s offensive and gory, and thus comes the closest to the feel of the retro-slashers that just didn’t give a damn about anything. The worst trailer is Rob Zombie’s Werewolf Women of the S.S., a spoof of the Ilsa movies. It’s amusing, I suppose, with welcome appearances from the great Udo Kier and a surprise guest playing Fu Manchu (I won’t tell), but it’s not as inspired as it thinks it is. Finally, out of nowhere, we’re treated to a commercial for a Tex-Mex restaurant (Right next to this theater!)

Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof is the weakest of the bunch, and the irony of it is that it’s probably the most thoughtful and deconstructive. Kurt Russell plays a stuntman car driver named simply Stuntman Mike, and he’s absolutely brilliant. It’s too bad that his character takes a backseat to two groups of rather uninteresting female protagonists. It starts out with prolonged scenes of dialogue between a group of Austin girls including local DJ Julia (Sydney Tamiia Poitier), Arlene (Vanessa Ferlito), and Shanna (Jordan Ladd). Most of it takes place in a bar and it’s set up to introduce both the girls and the Stuntman Mike character, who is mysterious, charming, and very very dangerous. There are two good scenes involving Mike’s car (1971 Chevy Nova, Death-Proofed because it’s used as a stunt car), the later scene being shown from four different angles (each from the point of view of a certain character). Then there’s a new setup involving a new group of girls including Lee (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Abernathy (Rosario Dawson), Kim (Tracie Thoms), and Zoë Bell (playing herself). These are characters with a stronger will (although just as banal) who end up in a road duel with Mike using a 1970 Dodge Challenger (apparently the same one from Vanishing Point).

chicks love the car

I don’t think I’m giving too much away by saying that I see Death Proof as a rape-revenge/female empowerment fantasy, with rapist (Mike) using his metaphorical tool (souped up muscle car), only to have the tables turned on him as he is emasculated by women stronger than he is. It is sly commentary on films like Vanishing Point (a superior film), Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (both mentioned a few times in the movie) , Duel (another superior film), Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, and if you want to get more abstract, perhaps I Spit on Your Grave. The underlying themes in Death Proof are smart, no doubt about it, which is why I was so disappointed with his female characters. Their scenes of dialogue are absolutely interminable and had me checking my watch a few times. Nothing about them was particularly interesting, and nothing they said was anything approaching the level of dialogue in Tarantino’s earlier movies like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. If I felt bad for Mike in the end, it wasn’t because he isn’t evil enough but because the girls aren’t likable enough. (Only Zoë Bell, playing a heroic stuntwoman - who in real life is a stuntwoman - makes it through as likable, sexy, and spunky, if perhaps way too bubbly given the situation at hand) while Tracie Thoms’ bad-ass black woman character (modeled off Pam Grier’s Coffy/Foxy Brown heroines) with her lines laced with motha-fucka comes off as trying-too-hard and, well, annoying. When you get right down to it, I shouldn’t be watching an extended chase scene with Bell in peril on the hood of a speeding Dodge Challenger and wondering just why in the hell the driver Kim doesn’t just pull off the side of the road. Is it really a good idea to leave Mary Elizabeth Winstead’s naive character Lee, dressed in a cheerleader outfit, alone with a total stranger making him think he’s going to get some? (That particular plot point is strangely abandoned). Not to mention that the much talked about lapdance scene (even shown in the Grindhouse trailers) is yanked just to deliver a Missing Reel joke, which works in Planet Terror but does not work here. The ending of Death Proof is enjoyable, I suppose, but I still couldn’t shake the feeling that the whole thing came off as a self-indulgent masturbatory QT session made only for his own amusement.

The strange thing is that while Planet Terror is pretty much Rodriguez copying the cheesy zombie movie aesthetic, he managed to create likable characters, despite the knowledge that they are simple archetypes, and I could easily see myself watching it again in the future. While Death Proof is a smarter deconstruction of the grind house films of an earlier era, the only character interesting in any sort of way is the villain, with the tense road scenes buried by an avalanche of banality. I can’t see myself going back to it, but I can see myself returning to its influences instead. I was afraid that the QT train was starting to run off the rails with the Kill Bill movies. Death Proof just confirmed my suspicions. (At least we know how Snake Plissken got the eye patch). Now, if somebody actually makes Machete all will be forgiven.

~ Bill Gordon