Showing posts with label Roger Corman. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Roger Corman. Show all posts
Sunday, December 14, 2014
Sunday, August 28, 2011
Galaxy of Terror (1981)
The blending of Science-Fiction and Horror is one of my favorite genres in film. Often times the results are horrendous, but the films have a charm about them. The way the cast interacts with the special effects, the way the director uses his crew to get the most atmosphere out of a shot. There are times when the films work fantastically; 'The Thing' (1982), 'Event Horizon'(1997), 'The Blob' (1988), and of course 'Alien' (1979) have proven to be very well executed genre films.The movies mentioned above though have a thread in common; budgets. They can pull off fantastic effects which will dazzle the audience. Low budget features, like those from Roger Corman, try a little bit harder to get your video dollars. 'Galaxy of Terror' was a film I've only heard bits and pieces of over the years. I knew it had a decent cast, and the infamous worm scene was well discussed, but other than that the film was foreign to me.
The film opens with on a blue planet, with blue lettering for the credits. You can't read who's in it without glasses, so you know that it's not the most important. Some random person is killed by an unseen force aboard what is apparently a spaceship. It all happens so randomly and quickly it's hard to gauge what's going on. We're then thrust into what is apparently a Galactic conference of some sort with a witch, and some guy whose head looks like a lava lamp. Lava Lamp Head is apparently known as the Planet Master and rules over the fates of those in the Galaxy. Apparently he requests a team sent to the blue planet, Morganthus.
A team including Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund), Mr. Hand (Ray Walston), Captain Spalding (Sid Haig), and other body-bags enter the spaceship blasting off to the planet Morganthus. Their mission is the look for any survivors of a previous excursion, but there seems to be some devious characters aboard the vessel. The Commander is a little old for a field mission, and there's a cook. Apparently, machines normally make the food on spaceships, so a human doing it is tipping some of the crew towards interference from a government figure.
The crew is pulled down to the planet by an unknown force. Once the team lands a party is sent out to look for the missing crew members. On the crashed ship the crew finds that the missing parties are horribly butchered. Apparently when bodies of dead people are found in this future they're destroyed with a blaster because every body except one explodes when shot. A crew member lags behind after samples are collected, and soon has his head ripped back by some sort of cricket looking thing. From here the crew investigates the barren planet, but it appears that Morganthus is hiding more below it's surface.
The basic premise of 'Galaxy of Terror' is that your fears become real, and can kill you. Apparently the planet is some sort of testing ground for a new Planet Master. I really doubt I spoiled this film for you with that, but I felt that you should know exactly what's going on because even at the end of the film it's still kind of unclear. The film was beyond entertaining, and was filled with memorable moments. There's a scene where a man's severed arm throws a blade to kill him; a scene where a mammoth worm rapes and kills a woman, and not one but TWO Robert Englunds for your dollar.
The acting is what you tend to get from a late '70s, early '80s Roger Corman fare. It's cheesy, but there are actors who really like their material. Sid Haig ('House of 1,000 Corpses') asked to have almost all of his lines removed, and played the role mute except for one line. Robert Englund is just as awesome as ever, but his character's fate is never resolved; he just sort of stops being discussed about 15-minutes from the end. Then there is the always fantastic Ray Walston who most will recognize as the strict Mr. Hand from 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High'.
The look of the film is like most 'Alien' clones, but to be honest that works for me. It's all about how you film the corridor scenes to build the atmosphere. You need to feel trapped along with the characters to really showcase the fear, and thankfully the scenes here are filled with dread. Then there is the fact that a young James Cameron worked on 'Galaxy of Terror' as Production Designer and Second Unit Director. It seems that the suits were so impressed with his knack for low-cost solutions that it helped his career to what we know today.
The negative aspects of 'Galaxy of Terror' involve the fact that you're never really sure what the fuck is going on, and then the ending just sort of happens. It really takes the awesome down a huge amount as you're left scratching your head bloody and raw. There are a lot of 'Alien' clones on the market, but I found 'Galaxy of Terror' to be pretty well executed for a low-budget feature. The actors seem to enjoy their roles, and the set design and effects bring the film above your typical cheap cult films.
'Galaxy of Terror' is currently available on DVD and Blu-Ray from the Shout! Factory.
Rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 Trash Bags
Thursday, August 25, 2011
Evan Chimes In: The Intruder
Hello again, people of the internet. The next movie I'm going to be watching is 'The Intruder' starring William Shatner. I know absolutely nothing about this one. I've never heard of it and didn't want to be told much about it before watching it. From reading the back of the case, it seems that good old Capt. Kirk (caveat; I've never seen Star Trek or any of the movies. I can't recall seeing anything else that Shatner has been in, so this may very well be my very first Shatner experience. Let's hope I don't get Shat upon.) is a white supremacist that comes to a southern town on the eve of integration, and chaos ensues. Let's have at it...
Adam Cramer (Shatner), arrives in some small southern town the night before the integration of black children into the white schools. Shatner immediately begins campaigning against the integration and holds a rally the night after the first day of black children going to the white school. This first rally is a Ku Klux Klan-esque style rally. After the first rally a black family traveling in a car on their way home is stopped by a mob of white people. Tom McDaniel (Frank Maxwell) steps in and stops the violence before it starts.
Later that night there is a full on Klan rally with hoods and a cross burning. The Klan guys throw dynamite into the black church and the preacher stumbles out and dies in one of the black children's arms. While this is happening Shatner is banging the wife of the guy in the room next door.
The next day Tom McDaniel walks the black children to school. When he returns to his car, there is a group of white people from the town that want an explanation why he is a N-lover. Tom, in so many words, tells the people to fuck off. They beat the shit out of him and put him in the hospital.
Shatner goes back to his room and finds Sam Griffin (Leo Gordon) waiting for him. Sam is the guy in the room next door whose wife Shatner banged. Sam tells Shatner that his wife has skipped out on him. Sam eventually lets Shatner know that he knows the truth by pulling a gun on him. blah blah blah, long story short he doesn't shoot him.
Shatner puts the moves on Tom's daughter, Ella McDaniel (Beverly Lunsford), and hatches a plot to say Joey Greene (Charles Barnes), the kid that held the black preacher when he died, tried to rape her. The next day at school, Ella asks Joey to help her with some boxes in a storage room, when he is taking the boxes off a shelf she starts screaming.
The mob gathers outside the school once they hear of the "rape" and demand that Joey come out to them. Joey walks outside and is eventually grabbed and tied to a swing outside the school. Shit is about to get real when Sam Griffin shows up with Ella McDaniel and gets her to confess that she made the rape story up, and that Shatner told her to do it.
In the end Shatner ends up disgraced.
I don't know how to feel about this one. The message was clear: White people are terrible. I enjoyed the movie, but this seems to be the seed that Hollywood planted which eventually flourished into the "shit on white people" movies of the more recent past. 'Crash' comes to mind. I fucking hated that movie. I don't know much about movies and movie history, but I contend that 'Crash' is the single worst movie to ever win an Oscar for Best Picture. If there was any possibility that if 'The Intruder' was never made, then I would not have had to sit through 112 minutes of pure, unadulterated, six-miles-over-the-top, shit that was 'Crash' then I'm fine with that trade-off.
Shatner's acting was superb. His character, Adam Cramer, is easily one of the most diabolical, sinister, manipulative antagonists I've ever come across. The movie is worth seeing, even if just for Shatner's portrayal of his character.
The real thing I took away from this movie is that when it comes to making white people look bad, Spike Lee ain't got shit on Roger Corman.
'The Intruder' is available on DVD from New Horizons Pictures.
Overall Rating: 7 / 10
Friday, August 5, 2011
Evan Chimes In: Death Race 2000
Hello, Interweb! I'm Evan, and I love movies. However, I lack the ability to remember a damn thing about 99.9% of all the movies I have ever seen. I haven't seen many old movies at all. I scare easily and don't really enjoy many flicks in the horror genre. I'm assuming that if you are reading this blog then you are a fan of the sorts of movies that Chris reviews here. I haven't seen anything that has been reviewed. Truth is, I'm too scared. Seeing as how I am ignorant when it comes to these sorts of movies, my function here will, hopefully, be to give all the cinephiles a glimpse into what a newcomer to these genres is thinking. Enough about me. The first movie I will be watching is 'Death Race 2000'. Starring David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone. I actually think I may have borrowed this movie from Chris about a year ago. I'm fairly confident that I watched it, but I can't remember anything about it. Nothing. I'm told it is about a future (presumably the year 2000, so actually more than a decade in the past) where the national sport is a gumball rally style nationwide race where points are awarded for killing pedestrians. That's all I really need to hear. I'm reminded of the kick-ass old computer game Carmageddon. I'm going to go ahead and assume that this movie had some sort of influence on the people ultimately responsible for such a great computer game that consumed quite a bit of my childhood. I owe it to myself, and them, to watch the movie. I have been assured that it is not scary, so I'm game.
'Death Race 2000' is, indeed, about a gumball style trans-continental race in which drivers earn points by "scoring" a pedestrian. The type of pedestrian determines how many points are earned. Children, teenagers, old people, etc... are all worth different amounts of points. The American people seem to be enthralled by the race and show up in droves to the starts of each leg of the race.
The racers taking part in the race are Nero the Hero (played by Martin Kove), a Roman gladiator style combatant with his navigator Cleopatra (Leslie McRay) by his side. Then there is Matilda the Hun (Roberta Collins) a Nazi bomber style combatant with her navigator Herman 'the German' Boch (Fred Grandy). The last of the non-star racers is Calamity Jane (Mary Woronov) a wild-west style combatant and her navigator Pete. Then we get to the all-stars and favorites for this year's race: 'Machine Gun' Joe Viterbo and Frankenstein. Machine Gun Joe is played by Sylvester Stallone and is supposed to resemble a 1930's style gangster. Joe's navigator is Myra (Louisa Moritz). Lastly, there is Frankenstein (David Carradine). Frankenstein is presented as an all-time great in the race having won many times in the past. The name apparently comes from the fact that he has been rebuilt as a semi-bionic racer. We'll get to Frankenstein's navigator in a second.
We learn about Thomasina Paine(Harriet Medin) who leads a rebel group that wants to put an end to the race. Their plot is called 'Operation Anti-Race', which is quite possibly the laziest name for a guerrilla operation. Their plan is to kidnap Frankenstein and spare his life in exchange for the permanent abolition of the race. Frankenstein's navigator is Annie Smith (Simone Griffeth) who is actually Thomasina Paine's great grand-daughter, and begins the race working as a spy. Frankenstein easily sniffs her out, bangs her, and makes her fall in love with him.
All in all the movie was pretty damn entertaining. It's not really my "cup of tea" so to speak, but I could find the humor in places. There were some things that kind of irked me, like the fact that apparently broken legs are instantly fatal. My favorite part was easily when Frankenstein takes off his glove, showing a grenade seemingly grafted to his palm, to which Annie says "Is that a hand grenade?". I love puns.
Everyone but Machine Gun Joe is killed off, in various ways, by the rebels. Machine Gun Joe is finished off by Frankenstein's hand grenade. Frankenstein marries Annie and become Mr. and Mrs. President Frankenstein. The first order of business for President Frankenstein is to abolish the race that made him famous. Way to bite the hand that feeds you.
'Death Race 2000' is currently available on both DVD and Blu-Ray from Shout! Factory.
Overall Rating: 6.5/10
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