Once the movie actually starts (the opening credits take long enough that we have to hear every bit of that horrible, horrible song sung by co-star Annette Funicello with the Beach Boys inexplicably backing her up) director Robert Stevenson (Jane Eyre, The Gnome-Mobile) slavishly hews to the same structure as its predecessor, The Misadventures of Merlin Jones. That means there’s not so much an actual movie going on, but rather two more installments of the Merlin Jones TV show which never existed. Of course, when you’re dealing with a gizmo that lets you learn in your sleep and a flying machine you pedal yourself, this is a good thing. Continue reading “The Monkey’s Uncle (1965)”
Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Ruggero Deodato, who made the surprisingly effective Jungle Holocaust, proves with Cannibal Holocaust that he is just as adept at making a morally repulsive cannibal film as fellow countryman Umberto Lenzi (Eaten Alive, Cannibal Ferox). Continue reading “Cannibal Holocaust (1980)”
Jungle Holocaust (1977)
From what I’ve been able to gather from these cannibal movies, the actual presence of primitive tribes practicing cannibalism in today’s world is pretty limited. So how is it then that if these vicious cannibals are invariably “the last of their kind” a “lost tribe” or “thought long extinct” that every stupid group of documentary filmmakers, reporters, fashion models, and businessmen manage to either crash land smack dab in the middle of their territory, or worse yet, mount an expedition that takes them straight into their stew pots? Continue reading “Jungle Holocaust (1977)”
The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)
This has to be my favorite movie about the Crimean War! While the film attempts a half-hearted explanation of the events that take us into the Crimean War through its periodic (and somewhat snarky) animation segments (it was 1968 so you’ve got to expect a little pretentious artiness and social commentary), I didn’t get much more out of it than identifying the countries through the cartoon animals that represented them: Russia was a bear, Britain a lion and Turkey was a turkey wearing a fez. France was of course a chicken. Continue reading “The Charge of the Light Brigade (1968)”
A Chinese Ghost Story (1997)
Generally speaking, a movie containing not one, but two scenes of urination would not receive a good review from this viewer. Some things are best left to the imagination. This film though somehow manages to make it work. Continue reading “A Chinese Ghost Story (1997)”
13 Ghosts (1960)
What is it about people, especially those with families and little kids, that once they figure out their brand new mansion that their rich uncle left them is actually haunted by malevolent ghosts, that they don’t move out as soon as the first meat cleaver goes whizzing past their heads? Is it because they couldn’t get a U-Haul rented on such short notice or what?
William Castle (The Tingler) works overtime explaining why a seemingly regular family would spend an hour inside a house with several ghosts, let alone three days, but in the end he relies on one of the gimmicks (Illusion-O) he was famous for to distract the audience from the grade school level chills the film barely generated. Continue reading “13 Ghosts (1960)”
Cold Harvest (1999)
In a world where a comet has struck the Earth, the sun has been blotted out plunging the survivors into perpetual darkness! And if that wasn’t bad enough, a plague has also wiped out most everyone plunging the survivors into a state of near-barbarism! And if even that wasn’t bad enough, this nightmare world of multiple apocalyptic disasters has suffered the most sphincter-puckering development of all: Gary Daniels as twins! Continue reading “Cold Harvest (1999)”