Dir - Milton Moses Ginsberg
Overall: WOOF
Yet another independently made horror comedy done by a filmmaker that is too inexperienced to meld his chosen genres, The Werewolf of Washington, (Werewolf at Midnight), is a poorly executed dud. As the title would suggest, this is a lycanthropy movie with a political slant, though such a thing is played for laughs at least on paper. In execution, writer/director Milton Moses Ginsberg stages one klutzy scene after the next, letting the camera linger as actors humiliate themselves with no laughs to be found. One may be intrigued by the idea of Dean Stockwell playing the title wolf man, but they will be disappointed by endless moments of politicians and journalists making inconsequential banter with each other. Some people may find it mildly amusing when Stockwell mugs it up in the transformation scenes or crawls around on the floor while sniffing people in full on beast mode, including one baffling moment where he does this with a midget scientist who treats such an encounter nonchalantly, (a scientist that serves no other purpose in the story, mind you). Otherwise though, this is consistently head-scratching in its stumbling attempts at humor, to the point where one can barely consider it a spoof and can more easily just forget about it entirely.
Overall: WOOF
Yet another independently made horror comedy done by a filmmaker that is too inexperienced to meld his chosen genres, The Werewolf of Washington, (Werewolf at Midnight), is a poorly executed dud. As the title would suggest, this is a lycanthropy movie with a political slant, though such a thing is played for laughs at least on paper. In execution, writer/director Milton Moses Ginsberg stages one klutzy scene after the next, letting the camera linger as actors humiliate themselves with no laughs to be found. One may be intrigued by the idea of Dean Stockwell playing the title wolf man, but they will be disappointed by endless moments of politicians and journalists making inconsequential banter with each other. Some people may find it mildly amusing when Stockwell mugs it up in the transformation scenes or crawls around on the floor while sniffing people in full on beast mode, including one baffling moment where he does this with a midget scientist who treats such an encounter nonchalantly, (a scientist that serves no other purpose in the story, mind you). Otherwise though, this is consistently head-scratching in its stumbling attempts at humor, to the point where one can barely consider it a spoof and can more easily just forget about it entirely.
(1975)
Dir - Paul Bartel
Overall: GOOD
In typical Roger Corman fashion, the producer opted to make his own low-budget variant of United Artists' Rollerball, and the resulting Death Race 2000, (which was released the same year), has endured as the more seminal cult film of the two. Loosely adapting Ib Melchior's 1956 short story "The Racer", Corman and character actor/director Paul Bartel clashed on the extent of how comedic the tone should be, with Robert Thorn's initial script allegedly getting re-written by Corman regular Charles B. Griffith to be more deliberately campy. Such tactics are necessary for a film whose ridiculous premise involves murderous race car drivers scoring points on the age, innocence, and gender of the pedestrians that they brutally run over in an annual cross-country trek to appease a totalitarian government and the hungry masses. Hot off of Kung Fu, David Carradine makes for a stoic anti-hero and a pre-Rocky Sylvester Stallone proves that he could have had a career playing villainous thugs. The rest of the cast is peppered with familiar faces, plus the racing scenes and souped-up hot rods have a dated pizzazz to them that matches the tongue-in-cheek social commentary and melodrama.
(1976)
Dir - Sam O'Steen
Overall: MEH
Done as an ABC Friday Night Movie, Look What's Happened to Rosemary's Baby is a mess of a sequel to an influential and beloved horror work. Part incompetent and part unintentionally hilarious, (yet oddly sincere), it delivers on the promise of the title by showing the aftermath of Roman Polanski's seminal Rosemary's Baby, which is a moronic idea that can and does wield disappointing results. This also serves as a D-rent version of Richard Donner's The Omen, which was released a few months prior and similarly follows the exploits of the Antichrist and all of the evil doers behind the scenes who are inching him towards his dark destiny. Broken up into three chapters, the first one shows Not-Damien fleeing with his mother who is ultimately captured by a buss with no driver, (which is at least a creepy concept on paper), the second features grown-up Not-Damien being a local rock singer who we never hear sing, (yet we do see him in mime make-up while awkwardly dancing), and the third has Not-Damien waking up in an institution and escaping with a doctor/love interest that unsurprisingly is in on the whole Satanic cult thing. The plot is a desperate hodgepodge of stupid and hackneyed ideas, but the presentation is endlessly clumsy, culminating in a "Huh?" finale that is just as lackluster and misguided as everything else going on here.
No comments:
Post a Comment