(1973)
Overall: MEH
Kick-starting a four-deep run of exploitation horror movies from director S.F. Brownrigg, The Forgotten, (Don't Look in the Basement, Death Ward #13), is Tod Browning's Freaks-adjacent, except set in a manor house asylum. Featuring a slew of inmates with specific and melodramatic afflictions that are only brought together in screenplays, it has Rosie Holotik arriving as the new nurse just as the facility's doctor was murdered by one of the patients. This particular sanatorium is run in an unorthodox manner, where none of the doors are locked and everyone is treated "like family", even when they engage in violent and disruptive behavior. Why no law enforcement officials ever show up as well as why the movie's two "normal" characters seem to take every questionable thing that happens in stride is left unexplained, but Brownrigg utilizes his razor-thin budget and lack of professional actors to create a quirky sense of unease for ninety-minutes. Its sympathetic handling of schlocked-up mental illness and the people who try and treat it also gives things a serious tone, but it is still an awkward and low-rent descent into wackiness.
(1974)
Overall: GOOD
The second zero-budget drive-in exploitation film Don't Open the Door!, (Don't Hang Up), from director S.F. Brownrigg has some unnerving and strange qualities to it. Shot at the House of the Seasons in Jefferson, Texas and primarily with a cast of locals, the performances are better than would be expected. Susan Brackan in the lead starts off as a sassy and strong-willed protagonist, ye her cock-sure attitude grows forced after awhile. Robert Farrar's music is effective when it is used for sinister purposes, though it is just as often distracting and inappropriate in other instances. Brownrigg indulges in some ambitious camerawork at times, using eerie shadows and focusing on details like creepy mannequins, dolls, sweaty close-ups, and voyeuristic eyes peering through peep holes. Speaking of perverts, Larry O'Dwyer makes for a skin-crawling and slow-breathing-on-the-phone creep. There are elements to the script and presentation that are derivative of more influential horror outings, while other components are quirky and unique, but the overall balance of imperfections and odd, disturbing qualities means that there are enough interesting ideas here to take proper notice of.
(1974)
Overall: WOOF
Some regional redneck exploitation from filmmaker S.F. Brownrigg, Scum of the Earth, (Poor White Trash Part II), is an icky movie by design and one whose unwholesomeness is enhanced by the claustrophobic presentation and insufficient budget. Shot in Texas as all of Brownrigg's films were, it pits a miserable backwoods hillbilly family against some mysterious murderer, with innocent Norma Moore thrown into the mix after her husband is killed and she has nowhere else to turn. The events of the movie are wretched enough to make any viewer shut the whole thing off within the first act, (rape, manipulation, abuse, kidnapping, skinned varmints for dinner, moonshine chugging, etc), but Brownrigg also makes the baffling choice of playing soft folk music over harrowing scenes. This includes the opening title sequence where Moore runs terrified through the woods while some guy soulfully sings "Death is a family affair". The killer reveal is of the "sure, whatever" variety, but this is hardly concerned with being an engaging mystery and solely exists to make people uncomfortable and wish that they wasted eighty-four minutes of their time watching anything else.
(1977)
Overall: WOOF
While filmmaker S.F. Brownrigg can usually enhance his particular brand of regional exploitation with quirky atmosphere, Keep My Grave Open collapses under its moronic story and monstrously slow pacing. If anyone going into the proceedings is expecting something akin to Edgar Allan Poe's "The Premature Burial" or any supernatural tomfoolery, they will be disappointed by a tale of a disturbed woman who lives in a mansion and fantasizes that her brother is there with here. Oh, and she lusts after said brother so, eeeewww. Camilla Carr turns in a fittingly unhinged performance, exhibiting the usual bipolar qualities found in cinema's mentally ill while doing unwholesome things like dolling herself up and making love to the camera as if it was her not-actually-there-sibling. Again, eeewwww. Brownrigg utilizes terrible, flowery music at regular intervals and pads the running time with insufferable shots of people driving and walking around that if eliminated could have made this a much more agreeable watch. Future character actors Chelcie Ross and Stephen Tobolowsky pop in for a few scenes between them and the last act finally kicks up the weird, but this is still lame, lame stuff.
No comments:
Post a Comment