Brain Dead (1990)
Directed by Adam Simon
Written by Charles Beaumont and Adam Simon
Starring Bill Pullman, Bill Paxton, Bud Cort, Nicholas Pryor, Patricia Charbonneau, and George Kennedy
The title is the only thing about the movie that’s simple.
In 1990, theater-goers were astonished by the multi-layered, complex thriller Jacob’s Ladder. The big-budget film, starring Tim Robbins as a Vietnam War veteran whose life was collapsing in a Kafkaesque spiral of paranoia and hallucinations, quickly built a small but loyal following and influenced video games (Silent Hill), TV (American Horror Story: Asylum), and other films (The Sixth Sense, arguably included). Ten months earlier, Brain Dead had come out and quickly sunken to the murky depths of cult cinema.
The Attic (1980)
Directed by George Edwards and Gary Graver
Written by Tony Crechales and George Edwards
Starring Carrie Snodgress, Ray Milland, Ruth Cox, Rosemary Murphy
THE ATTIC: the terrifying story of a librarian who loves monkeys.
The 1973 film The Killing Way presented the gruesome murders of women that follow the release of a man convicted of rape. I’ve never seen it, but that’s okay. It’s irrelevant for this review except for its connection to The Attic. You see, the main characters of The Attic — Louise Elmore and her father Wendell — were side characters in The Killing Way, played by Luana Anders and Peter Brocco. Writers Tony Crechales and George Edwards decided to reuse them here, making it not quite a sequel but at the least a shared universe. Fortunately, this loose connection means that you can enjoy The Attic without having seen The Killing Way.
The Spider Labyrinth (1988)
Directed by Gianfranco Giagni
Written by Riccardo Aragno, Tonino Cervi, Cesare Frugoni, and Gianfranco Manfredi
Starring Roland Wybenga, Paolo Rinaldi, Margareta von Krauss, and Claudia Muzi
Spiders sold separately.
There are certain things I just know I have to watch. Giant spider movies, naturally. Italian horror is another favorite. I can’t say no to noir, especially the sort where investigation leads to doom. Anything with Ray Milland in it. So when I learned that The Spider Labyrinth was an Italian horror-noir about a spider cult, I nearly fainted with joy. Good thing Milland wasn’t in it!
Strait-Jacket (1964)
Making the title off-kilter is typical of the cheesy but effective approach of the film.
Written by Robert Bloch
Directed by William Castle
Starring Joan Crawford, Diane Baker, Leif Erickson, John Anthony Hayes, and George Kennedy
William Castle was a man who liked his gimmicks. He’d have theaters rigged with swooping skeletons or buzzers placed under seats. There were glowing coins and votes for how the film should end. But his greatest gimmick may have been casting Joan Crawford as an axe murderer who’s spent 20 years in an asylum. It’s not a glamorous role, but it’s a juicy one; and it’s far better than the usual parts for older actresses at the time (or even now, sadly). With a script by Robert Bloch (author of the novel Psycho was based on), Crawford may have even been optimistic about its reception. Sadly, it would not live up to the incredible What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, which she’d made only a few years previously.
Zaat (1971)
Dr. Kurt Leopold: mad scientist, lover of fish
Directed by Don Barton and Arnold Stevens
Written by Don Barton, Arnold Stevens, Ron Kivett, and Lee O. Larew
Starring Marshall Grauer, Wade Popwell, and Gerald Cruse
When I sat down to watch Zaat, I wondered why I’d done this to myself. Entering October I’d only written a dozen of the reviews I’d need for Hubrisween, and even though these are generally shorter than my normal reviews that left 14 to write in under a month. Then, to top it off I’d be ending with a movie that had been painful even with the wise cracks from MST3K over the top of it!
Maybe it’s the fatigue talking, or perhaps a side-effect of having watched Up From the Depths the day before, but I didn’t find the experience unbearable. I’m not saying it’s a good movie, but it has enough genuine effort and quirky charm in it to be a nearly pleasant distraction. The restoration for the new bluray release makes the colors vivid, which greatly improves the experience of watching it. With the dingy veneer removed, it’s somewhat less cheap and depressing.
The footage of Leopold swigging Bromo is much less dingy.
The faults are glaring in this one. For starters, the movie begins with a bizarrely pompous speech on the virtues of quite a lot of fish. But the narration doesn’t stop with the fish footage. As we follow the ichthyophilic Dr. Leopold into his shabby beachfront lab, he continues to narrate his thoughts — most of which center on standard mad science rhetoric about showing them all. I may have blinked and missed it, but I don’t think that he ever speaks aloud. Maybe in a flashback to his eviction from mainstream science.
The acting is largely passible to competent, especially among the characters who we see the most of. There are a few truly awful actors, but fortunately they only have a line or two. What’s truly bizarre is that two of the main characters are members of the Inter-Nations Phenomena Investigation Team, or INPIT, an organization that apparently sends romantically involved pairs to do basic police work when bumpkin sheriffs are failing to match wits with mad scientists bent on human annihilation. They have action suits.
Much of Zaat is concerned with the sheriff, the INPIT agents, and a marine biologist running around trying to figure out why walking catfish are attacking people. We never see evidence of these attacks, but there is a shot of catfish crowding up next to a road. For all we know, they spend the rest of the movie waiting for traffic to let up so they can cross. It’s a little strange then that it takes our heroes over half the movie to notice the tall, bipedal fish that’s killing people. When they finally check out Leopold’s lab and see the murders laid out as part of his Spinning Wheel of Revenge plan they’ve gotta feel pretty dumb.
Rex and Sheriff Lou marvel at the Wheel O’ Revenge.
As stupid and often dull as this movie is, I kind of love it for its commitment to mad science. Years previously, Dr. Leopold saw the potential of mixing the compounds Za and At to cause radical mutation, but the people in charge of the government research station wouldn’t allow him to pursue his dream of turning people into fish. So he quits and waits for his chance, buying the facility when the government finally abandons it, and continuing his work with stolen tanks of leftover ZaAt. He works revenge into his scheme to raise an army of fish, writes it all down on a giant circle, and keeps his time-table down to the month! This, despite mechanical failure botching his initial attempt to create a mate and receiving injuries once INPIT figures out what he’s up to.
Leopold’s the very model of a successful mad scientist! I think there are two major things working in his favor. The first is that he turns himself into an unstoppable monster before making his presence known. Heck, the sheriff knew about Leopold’s purchase of the research facility but never mentioned it because he hadn’t seen the doctor in years. The other factor in his success, I believe, is that he works alone, with no assistant to rebel or accidentally break things. So whatever else, the film shows how a classic scientific villain can achieve lofty, world-destroying goals.
That’s all I have to say about Zaat.
Hubrisween departs, like the majestic man-fish returning to the sea from which it wasn’t born.
Yongary (1967)
Directed by Ki-duk Kim
Written by Ki-duk Kim and Yun-sung Seo
Starring Yeong-il Oh, Jeong-im Nam, and Sun-jae Lee
Reportedly, Yongary was nearly a lost film. The original copies destroyed, the only remaining version is the American TV cut — edited, dubbed, and cropped. While there are films we can all wish had survived instead, I’m grateful that we have anything left of this Korean monster flick. Otherwise I’d never have believed my friend Tim that there was a giant monster movie where the monster is defeated by making it itch until it bleeds out from the ass.
I generally try to avoid spoilers, but if you’re anything like me you’ll want to see it now, because there’s knowing this ending and then there’s witnessing it. Seriously, I nearly cried. The little guy suffered so damn much, and just the night before they did him in he was happy and dancing.
I mean, sure, Yongary devastated Seoul and was well on his way to consuming all of the oil in South Korea, but is that any reason to make him die by itching? Missiles would be both understandable and acceptable. Freezing is another humane option. Perhaps digging a very large hole.
What makes it truly horrifying is that the film’s requisite annoying youth (here named Icho) begs them to stop torturing Yongary. This is met with the Grim Adult Face and something lame about having to kill him in the most hideous way they could concoct. Then they go home and presumably put chili powder in the fish tank.
Yongary n happier times, slurping up an oil fire.
When Yongary is wrecking things, it’s a pretty decent movie. The suit is nicely realized and avoids looking like a Godzilla rip-off by a comfortable few inches. Despite some effect flubs, such as a clearly visible gas pipe for Yongary’s flame breath, it’s some enjoyable model wrecking. There are some awful matte shots trying to combine crowds with shots of Yongary, but they’re mercifully few.
Plot-wise it’s a bit thin. There’s some business that doesn’t go anywhere with sub-orbital surveillance, and the movie can’t get enough of Icho’s flashlight of science. (It possibly ties in because the beam makes people itch, but that’s pretty thin.) Other than that, there’s not much to it, I’m afraid. Still, it’s got that ending, and that’s something priceless.
X the Unknown (1956)
Written by Jimmy Sangster
Directed by Joseph Losey and Leslie Norman
Starring Dean Jagger, Edward Chapman, and Leo McKern
By the end of the film, it’s an ex-X.
Two years before The Blob creeped and leaped and glid and slid across the screen, Hammer Films surfaced their own crawling mass of goop in X the Unknown. After the success of The Quatermass Xperiment, they wanted another Quatermass movie. Creator Nigel Kneale was not ready to allow the Alan Quatermass to be used for a story he hadn’t written, so the good doctor got renamed to Adam Royston and production went forward.
That wasn’t the only change required. Original director, Joseph Losey, had been banished from Hollywood as a result of McCarthy’s Red Witchhunt. Purportedly, star Dean Jagger refused to work with him. Whether that’s the truth or Losey simply backed out, Leslie Norman was brought in to replace him. Considering all of these changes, the movie turned out amazingly well.
Here’s the premise, which is about on par for the standards of mid-century science fiction: The first life forms on the Earth were beings of energy. They also fed on energy, so as the surface cooled they moved deeper inside the planet. Every 50 years, as the Earth experiences greater gravitational stresses (?), a few of these creatures manage to crack the surface and escape. They didn’t used to stay long, as there wasn’t anything for them to eat, but now all of the radioactive materials on the surface are allowing one to stay… and to grow!
Like most movie science, it’s not very convincing. The solution that Dr. Royston arrives at is even less so. All of that is just excuses for things to happen on the screen, and what happens on the screen is pretty cool. The energy creature is essentially a mass of radioactive mud. This allows it to go anywhere it needs to, and it means we’re treated to a lot of shots of it oozing across the ground and over walls and such. These range from “okay” to fantastic, with the average being toward the high end.
It looks better when it’s moving.
Other great effects include the melting flesh of its victims. That’s right, “melting flesh”. Used sparingly, perhaps to avoid censoring, the effect is not so much convincing as it is startling. Prior to melting, the skin would expand as though roasting. Another effect that’s not terrific, it’s nonetheless disturbing. Where later movies would halt the story to revel in the decay of the body, this one emphasizes the horror by showing the sheer grit of victims struggling to live long enough to help other people. You want them to succeed, and you feel their agony and determination. It’s a chilling and effective approach that surpasses the ability of effects alone to achieve.
Blink and you’ll miss it. The camera doesn’t linger.
The rest of the movie plays like a combination police/army/scientist procedural. What makes it stand out is that, while everyone is pursuing their own agendas and mandates, everyone works together effectively when it comes to preventing catastrophe. As much as I love the pessimism of films like The Crazies (1973), which imply that every attempt to solve a problem worsens it, there’s something uplifting and satisfying about seeing people set aside their differences to accomplish the impossible.
Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead (2014)
Directed by Kiah Roache-Turner
Written by Tristan Roache-Turner and Kiah Roache-Turner
Starring Jay Gallagher, Bianca Bradey, and Leon Burchill
When I was a teen, I saw Return of the Living Dead and Re-Animator so closely together that I honestly don’t recall which was the first zombie movie I’d ever seen. They were the first two, however, and they set me up for a lifetime of disappointment in zombie films. The genre is so regularly terrible that there are people who, with a straight face, claim to like Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, a film with 10 minutes of fun that comes after a full hour of sheer tedium. This is how low the bar is set.
So imagine how hard my jaw hit the floor when five minutes into Wyrmwood: Road of the Dead I realized that I was actually having a great time watching it! The feelings of surprise and delight continued throughout the film, despite the inevitable deaths of beloved side characters. It is a zombie movie after all; it’s a minor miracle if anybody lives.
The film takes its name from the Book of Revelation. There, it is the name of a star that falls to Earth, polluting a third of the potable water. In the movie — well, it’s a biblical quote that says the star will bring a disease that kills “a fuckload of people”. The pollutants introduced into the air by meteorites turn everyone into zombies. Everyone without a gas mask or A- blood, that is. This is a deadly blow to the human race, as populations range from only 0.2-8% with that blood type. As far as zombie infection causes go, it’s certainly novel. It’s also easy to mention, drop, and move past, which is critical for this kind of romp. Less talk, more fun please.
The beginning is a bit of a jumble. It starts with an action sequence, then goes to Benny’s flashback, before going back to Barry’s flashback. Except it isn’t all really Barry’s flashback, as there are scenes of his sister Brooke intermixed. These siblings are the focus of the movie, as the plot largely centers on them trying to reunite. One of the many joys in Wyrmwood is that the other characters aren’t just there to fill dead space. There’s a lot of personality on the sidelines, which keeps the journey lively and makes for some genuine sense of loss as they fall to zombies, researchers, and sheer idiocy.
Brooke triumphant, for the moment at least.
Did I say “researchers”? There’s only one that we see, but he’s a doozy. Think of Dr. Logan from Day of the Dead, only gleefully sadistic. His aim is to find out how to make everyone immune, which means sacrificing as many survivors as it takes. This requires people to procure test subjects, and this justifies the hunting squads that both clean out zombies and capture healthy people. After all, survivors are a rare commodity.
A lot of these plot beats are typical, or close to it. What separates Wyrmwood lies in the details. The zombies are stronger by night, which lets the film have both fast and slow zombies. This has to do with the gas that their bodies generate. By day they emit it, but at night it fuels them. There’s some business about zombie blood being the only liquid that burns now, which makes for zero sense but is fun. Then there’s — well, I won’t spoil it except to say that Brooke’s story arc is neat enough to offset the unpleasantness of her being in bondage for most of the film.
If it seems as though I have mixed feelings about this movie, it’s certainly the truth. There are plot threads that are left dangling, the speed with which the research team starts in is nearly preternatural (the whole movie takes place over the first two days of the infection), and the lack of official response (outside of possibly the 5 member research team) feels like an oversight. In the end, the combination of originality and joie de vie lifts it above problems like logic and narrative structure. It’s not going to replace my two genre favorites, but its severed heads and spilled guts place it above the ordinary, gruesome fare.
The Visitor (1979)
This title screen is too sedate and normal for this movie.
Directed by Giulio Paradisi
Written by Luciano Comici and Robert Mundi
Story by Giulio Paradisi and Ovidio G. Assonitis
Starring John Huston, Glenn Ford, Shelley Winters, Barbara Collins, Lance Henriksen, and Paige Conner
The Visitor is a movie that defies summarization. You can say that it is about a space angel coming to Earth to take a daughter of Satan to space Jesus for reform school, but that doesn’t get across a fraction of the crazy sauce that this movie has to offer. Lance Henriksen claimed that rewrites came in every day, to the point where nobody knew what the film was about anymore. I believe it, since it certainly plays out that way. Very few scenes seem to be connected outside of the reappearance of core actors. Then there’s the problem that nothing which happens during the majority of the film matters in any way to the conclusion. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
The film starts by telling us about the evils of Sateen, who will not be appearing in this film. We then see a basketball game. The owner of one team turns out to be Lance Henriksen. His money came from a secret organization that’s wants him to have a son with his girlfriend (Barbara Collins). She can bear children with the powers of Sateen, and her daughter already exhibits telekinetic abilities. The cult wants a breeding pair of Sateen spawn, which they somehow believe they’ll be able to control.
The only part of any of that which matters is that there’s a girl with major power.
Shelley Winters masquerades as a housekeeper to keeps tabs on the girl for another unnamed organization. She scolds and threatens and even slaps the girl, but it’s never relevant. Also not important is the detective that is trying to solve the “accidental” shooting of her mother. Nor are the people focusing their mental energies on a rooftop at the request of John Huston, space angel.
None of these people matter.
The only thing that matters — and you’ll want to skip over this if you want to save the anti-climax for your own viewing pleasure — is that John Huston sits down to play pong with the devil child. Yup. That’s it. That’s the final confrontation between good and evil. Pong. Okay, there are a few magic bolts and demon eyes, but basically after playing a video and deciding she can’t beat the angel, she surrenders and goes to Space Jesus Camp.
I love this movie. It’s awful, and it’s stupid, and things happen for no reason, and I love it for that. Every few minutes it’s a whole new set piece in which something horrible occurs. It’s a pre-1980s movie that’s made for the “MTV generation” of short attention spans and senseless visuals. You can pop this in at a party, knowing that nobody will miss anything by not paying attention but everyone will be rewarded for watching bits of it. Heck, make it a game to see if the group can reconstruct the plot from the different fragments they saw. It’s a goddamn treasure to have a movie like this that is better for being such totally entertaining crap.
Up From the Depths (1979)
They spent more on these titles than on the dubbing.
Directed by Charles B. Griffith
Written by Alfred M. Sweeney and Anne Dyer
Starring Sam Bottoms, Susanne Reed, Virgil Frye, and Charles Howerton
There’s nothing like box office success to spawn pale imitations, and Jaws is one of the most imitated films since Gaslight. Roger Corman probably produced about a third of them, but few are as terrible as Up From the Depths. A story has it that the script and soundtrack were lost, necessitating a reconstruction based on memory and lip-reading. I can certainly believe the actors storing their copies in the circular file after filming, but it seems far-fetched that none were available. Maybe revision pages. Anyway, the story would account for the terrible dialog and often lamentable dubbing.
Up From the Depths doesn’t even pretend to be anything other than a ripoff. The monster is basically a shark, just one that’s supposed to be in the deep sea. A lot of other deep water fish are turning up near the beach, but the movie is completely uninterested in giving a reason for that. Researcher Tom (Charles Howerton) was briefly curious until the unshark arrived. Now, even though the creature ate his assistant/girlfriend, all he wants to do is study the monstrous fish.
There is no festival to threaten with cancellation, but there is a bounty placed on the unshark by the manager of a hotel. In Jaws this led to people putting themselves in danger, mass confusion, and a lot of innocent sharks being slaughtered. Here, it’s just one of far too many excuses for “Hijinks and Hilarity”. A Japanese tourist puts on a towel that’s might be supposed to represent a sumo loincloth, grabs a sword, and marches off to the beach. A couple of people put on full diving gear in their room and walk backwards all the way to the beach because flippers. Hi-LARIOUS! Terrible comedy is my kryptonite, and this movie nearly finished me off.
They wisely keep the abyssal unshark in murky shots.
Credit where it’s due, the giant fish prop isn’t bad. We don’t see a lot of it, but the sight of multiple fins slicing through the water is effective and the brief glimpses of the unshark underwater are good enough to give an idea of what the cast is facing. Don’t expect any attack footage, though. It’s strictly lead up, bloody water, and aftermath. That’s probably for the best. There’s no telling how much damage the prop would have sustained in a full-contact scene.
I found it difficult to watch this movie. I’m not saying that it was offensive (other than the toxic attempts at humor), or that it made me tense. I kept becoming engrossed in anything else at hand — cats, Twitter, blowing my nose — because the film actively repelled my interest. Once I looked away during an interminable underwater scene, and when I looked back a character had died. I back up to see what I had missed only to find that all there had been was a quick shot of blood in the water. I shrugged and went back to rubbing my cat’s ears.
Web of the Big Damn Spider 
