X-Men: Apocalypse

X-MEN: APOCALYPSE
(2016)
Dir - Bryan Singer
Overall: MEH

For the first time in my almost thirty-five years on this earth and nearly all of them spent as a comic book fan, I am starting to feel the droll of superhero sagas.  Well, cinematic superhero sagas to be specific.  A few short months ago brought us the apocalypticly terrible Batman V Superman and now our last epic of the summer X-Men: Apocalypse is storming up havoc.  I'll stop with the X-Men puns now.  Sorry, my apologies.

Anyway, in between these two blockbusters we got Captain America: Civil War.  In it, so much punching and fighting followed by lots more punching and fighting went down.  Yet the film never catapulted off the rails.  It was a bit more rocky of a ride than we have come to expect from the steadfast and always good Disney/Marvel Studios universe though.  Seriously, lots of characters punching and yelling and then punching some more.  Yet if the "worst" of the co-existing MCU films is either The Incredible Hulk or Iron Man 3 thus far, then this series is doing just fine.

Edward Norton actually turning into Lou Ferrigno clearly would've been preferable.

 

The 20th Century Fox, X-Men film franchise on the other hand now has two duds in its six-film running, not counting the Wolverines.  More on him later.  Unarguably to anyone I know, the first real masterpiece in this series was the prequel X-Men: First Class.  The three that proceeded it had various problems even though they more-or-less paved the way for the entire success that superhero movies in general now seem destined to attain, (Fantastic Fours notwithstanding)  The third, X-Men: The Last Stand in particular pulled off a nifty trick of blowing an interesting enough premise on some of the most distracting deviations from the comic book source material yet done, looking incredibly stupid in the process.  First Class then came around with a far more competent director and let its outstanding new actors really dig into their roles, making James McAvoy's Charles Xavier and especially Michael Fassbender's Erik Lehnsherr two of the very best comic-to-film transitions of all time.

In this guy right here's opinion, X-Men: Days of Future Past not only delivered, but bettered on that sweet First Class promise.  This was in spite of or because of, (depending on who you are asking), the returning of Bryan Singer to the directorial chair.  I was certainly nervous going in.  Singer's first two X-Men films were obviously better than Brett Ratner's Last Stand, but Superman Returns was pretty much a piece of shit and I really did not want him bringing anything we have seen before to my instantly beloved, First Class cast.  Things were finally looking up, so don't fuck with this shit Mr. Singer, I implore ye!

Pictured: Mr. Singer fucking with shit.

Then low and behold, Singer done good.  Real good.  So good in fact that I still may consider Future Past to be the best movie thus far with Marvel superheroes in it.  Yes, The Avengers included.  The way that these prequels were now going back in time and putting mutants into the real world's history, re-writing it, and then in one excellent and logical swoop, erasing pretty much everything that went wrong with the first three movie installments was much bravo.  Then that post-credit scene happened and I saw a dude with blue-grey skin, building pyramids with his outstretched hands, and four guys on horses behind him.  Cue everyone who grew up on these comics all at once going "About goddamn time".  Meaning of course that En Sabah Nur was at long last going show up in a fucking X-men movie.

My faith was restored.  I was in.  McAvoy and Fassbender were sticking around.  Hugh Jackman was not nor seemingly ever will go anywhere.  Once again this movie was going to take place in the past, this time the 80s. the same decade that the Giant-Size X-Men was released and this superhero team got really amazing for the first time in comic book form.  On top of all this, now Apocalypse was here.  Looking good people.

Yet in the few short years between Days of Future Past and X-Men: Apocalypse, the cracks started to widen and they started to widen everywhere where comic book characters were walking and talking in movies with CGI in them.  These movies, (regardless of studio or franchise), were now more blatantly than ever trying to one-up each other.  Each new installment made more money than the last and broke more records.  More characters kept showing up with either new actors replacing them or just more fucking characters period.  More buildings are falling down.  More things are happening in slow motion.  More speeches are being made.  More yelling.  The CGI is more everywhere.  The more everything is more everywhere.  More, more, and goddamn more of everything now more intense than ever before!

"Scream for me Long Beach!!!"

What is happening each and every time here is that these movies keep doing staggering business.  This is obvious enough since nerds like me and you, plus normal people alike keep going to see said movies and we are going to KEEP going to see them, (Fantastic Four notwithstanding).  So the people who are making these films are going keep making them and furthermore, they are going to keep making them exactly like this.  More stuff needs to keep happening.  More destruction.  More turmoil.  More drama.  More apocalypse.

What this means of course is that by the time I got up after seeing this movie having previously seen everything that has been coming steadily before it, there is a feeling of something being very wrong here.  Hopeless as it may look, everything that stems from a great place and keeps retreading the same water eventually bottoms out.  Will that happen to superhero movies?  Probably in my lifetime.  Yet a single movie, (*cough* Batman & Robin), is not going to implode the entire genre. What is probably going to happen though is what always happens thankfully.  Something else will come along that wakes everybody the fuck up and shows us once again what can truly be done remarkably with comic book movie adaptations.

Yyyyyup

At this writing though, everything that everyone is borrowing, (or thinks they are borrowing), from The Dark Knight or even The Avengers is the wrong stuff to take.  Taking your comic book characters seriously does not mean you have to kill them or the people they love realistically.  It does not mean you have to use depressing camera filters when depressing shit is going down.  It also does not mean that you have to invite more people to the pool because everyone is so damn attractive and the CGI coming out of their bodies and exploding all around them looks so cool.  At the end of the day, this is all dressing folks.  What we need is what we as filmgoers always need and always get the most excited about.  We need really good actors acting really good and really good directors directing really good and really good writers writing really good movies.  Such things can still be accomplished with people in silly costumes with silly names who originally came from a medium designed primarily to sell to teenage boys because artwork with musclebound good and bad guys looks cool.

By most stretches, X-Men: Apocalypse is not a shit movie and it is not a not-entertaining movie.  There are some funny and fun moments in here, (Quicksilver once again steeling the show, Logan doing all the cool shit that he does in the comics, etc).  There are some outstanding performances in here, (seriously, Fassbender is unbelievably good).  There is some stuff that looks pretty damn nifty, (Psylocke's ridiculous costume).  Still, are these things enough?  Some people who were burnt out on the comic book movie long ago may say it is not.  Some people do not like comic book movies to begin with, but for the sake of this argument, fuck those people.  A lot of others can laugh at these film's flaws, but still leave satisfied and say that indeed yes, all the superheroy superhero things are enough.  Comic movies do not need to be high art.  They look cool and cool stuff happens in them; ergo, they are fun.

Because the world needs more superheroes that are Rush fans as much as they need more puns on their t-shirts.

There is a part of me that really wants to hold onto this simple belief.  There is a part of me that does not want to sink further and further into a realm where I over-analyze everything I watch and can only get excited about the type of entertainment that re-invents the wheel.   I want to go to the movies and enjoy myself.  I used to be able to do this much easier.  Fuck, I even defended Last Stand when it came out.   Yet I am seeing all these movies as they are released and the more buildings that fall down and the more speeches I hear and the more dramatic and deafening the soundtrack is and the more yelling and the more green screen, computer generated sorcery I keep having my senses pummeled with and it is simply getting very difficult to tell myself that I am having fun.  I am getting pummeled with cool shit, but a pummeling is a pummeling, regardless of how spectacular it looks and sounds.

That is part of it, but the other question to pose is; why shouldn't we want our superhero movies to be, well, better?   We do not have to hate everything we see, tear its every plot element to smithereens, and act insulted when someone we know thought it was just fine.  At the same time though, do we really need to just shut up, eat our popcorn, and be happy that Apocalypse is finally in a movie?

I am kind of leaning towards no.  No, it is not OK for our comic book movies to keep doing this, not endlessly and exclusively at least.  Just like a really good friend of ours who is maybe hitting that crack pipe a few too many times or chews with their mouth open, (I am guilty of one of those), maybe it is our friendly duty to sometimes calmly and non-judgmentally take them to the side and say "You know, you should probably stop that".  Superhero movies, (just like grunge bands doing what Nirvana did because it was cool and made money), probably need to stop for a second and re-evaluate what they can do.  There is a lot of amazing stories to tell with these characters.  There is a lot of amazing things we can still see.  We as viewers then can maybe step up a little more and I dunno, even DEMAND that these movies get better.  Not bigger, not louder, not more CGI-ier; BETTER.  The Dark Knight did it.  We all saw it.  Is it greedy of us to maybe want another game-changer such as that?  I say it is not.  Just like a song that really moves us or a piece of art that we cannot stare at enough, there is a lot MORE good songs out there and a lot MORE good pieces of art we can stare at.  Why can't superhero movies have a lot more good?

Speaking of things we can't stare at enough.

v SPOILERS v

Superhero movies CAN have a lot more good and I am optimistic enough to believe that they will.  Sadly though, Apocalypse has finally shown up in an X-Men movie too late.  Because really, there is most likely no other way to tell this story than the way they did here.  The dude's name is Apocaplyse.  What we see has to be apocalyptic, earth shattering, destructive, etc.  Everyone on earth needs to be on the absolute brink of peril, because it is Apocalypse so of course they do.

Or...do they?  Take a glance at the actual character's comic book biography.  Granted there is plenty of silliness in there that would be ill-advised at best to translate to the big screen, but I dunno, I can see something else.  En Sabah Nur is centuries old, was worshiped as a god, and was the first mutant.  Granted his immortality was mostly achieved by Celestial technology and almost everyone who goes to see these movies would say "who?", but think for a second.  We do not have to get an entire rushed, Celestial origin for this to work on camera.  Alien technology can be alluded too, just like how old he is can be alluded to.  Same goes for how he keeps going into a self-imposed hibernation, only to re-awaken oodles of years later, advance himself, and see what he can get into in that era.  Destruction always follows in his wake, but he does not want to kill EVERYONE and just walk around by himself.  He wants to re-emerge and adapt, pop back up and fuck shit up.  He wants to increase his powers, increase his knowledge, extend his longevity and until he meets the X-Men, he pretty much is just biding his time.

Because who CAN'T choke Jennifer Lawrence in their sleep, really?

You know what is actually kind of stupid though?  That Moria MacTaggert just so happens to lift up a rug that shines sunlight onto Apocalypse's tomb just a couple of steps down from the ground.  You know, not WAY the fuck down underneath impossible to uncover rubble from an entire pyramid.  About eight people are praying to him and for the first time since Ancient Egypt, hey sunlight woke him up and now he is back in the game.  Also he touches a TV, learns everything that has ever happened since he went to sleep, and now he can speak all the languages.

So, when we watch this shit we are supposed to just eat our popcorn and calmly chuckle to ourselves going "Ah, aren't superhero movies so silly?".  Is this the best we can do though?  Really?  The thing that has been so exciting and anticipated about Apocalypse showing up is that he is astronomically powerful and intimidating.  He is the first mutant.  He has almost literally ALL the mutant powers.  Not only is he immortal but he is un-killable and he is almost older than recorded history.  Fuck, a guy like that could be scary as shit if we did not even see him.  He could lurk in the shadows or even telepathically run shit from his tomb, having his horseman do his bidding.  Then the X-Men, Magneto, and Mystique can all come out of hiding and re-unite everyone else foe or friend to track him down and stop him.  Even get non-mutants involved, bridge that gap between homo-sapiens and homo-superiors.  Which is a whole ongoing theme of the X-Men in the first place.  Keeping the big bad off screen most of the time, we could then spend the whole movie going "Holy shit, what is this motherfucker gonna look like when we finally see him?"

Oh...

When we do finally see him, maybe take more of a cue from the comics than just "He's a blue guy with armor" and cast, say a seven foot tall, enormous looking Nigerian actor?  You know, instead of that really handsome guy who was in The Force Awakens.  Yes I know Oscar Isaac is actually a really good actor, but you know who else might be a really good actor?  Lots of goddamn people.  Not to get all "Hollywood is racist", but since well they kind of are, there is no reason on earth not to assume that there are boatloads of African or Mid-Eastern actors that not only would be incredibly good, but would actually LOOK incredibly good as En Sabah Nur.  You know, instead of taking an attractive and good "white-ish" looking actor and putting a bunch of shit on him to make him look bigger and older.  How about a really big, older guy who is also a really good actor?  Then put even more shit on him and make him look even more fucking evil and scary and shit look, its Apocalypse from the comics!

I am just spitballing here but really, ever since the first trailer leaked and I saw what Oscar Issac looked like moving around in his suite and then heard his voice, I felt the sting that something was awry.  Why does he sound like a normal white guy with a voice modulator?  Why isn't he a huge fucking thing?  Why is he the same height as Magneto when Magneto is not even in his costume?  This isn't just the inner ravings of a comic book nerd who does not like how they change stuff in the movies.  A big, tall, mostly hidden, frightening, god-like, anticipated, "first mutant" played by an actor who looked like a beast of a "man" that is thousands of years old and if he even needed to speak, had a voice like James Earl Jones fucking Pete Steele with Ivan Drago's tongue and speaking a language of pure terror and Ancient Egyptian-ese could have been balls-quakingly awesome.

Basically this with a cold.

So besides the villain giving off a vibe that falls a bit flat, everyone else in this movie just kind of gets mushed in there.  As mentioned, First Class and Days of Future past continued the Xavier/Magneto arc over two real-life time periods and each character got so much more room to become something great.  Here, given their comparatively far less screen time, Fassbender and McAvoy excel at what they have but there is also over a dozen other mutants cramming to get their origins or further their arcs in there as well.  It is an uphill battle that is impossible to make as compelling as it was  in the last two movies.

This brings everything once again to the "make everything more and bigger" conundrum.  We not only keep hammering what was really good about Professor X and Magneto's opposite view points into the ground, but because of this we cannot per example have an X Men movie that maybe just spends its entire running time focusing on Jean Grey and Cyclops.  Both of whom are two of the most important and/or powerful mutants in the history of the X-Men, not to mention the most iconic mutant couple in the comics.  We all know how much Hollywood loves them some romance after all.  Nightcrawler is also a really well written character in the books.  So is Hank McCoy.  So is Storm.  Also, why didn't Quicksilver tell Magneto he was his son when he had the more-than-appropriate chance to do so?  Off topic, but seriously, da fuck was that all about?

The point is, there is a lot of really interesting X-Men with arcs that are tailor made for the movies.  The problem is, there is a lot of fucking X-Men.  You know what else there's kind of a lot of now though?  Superhero movies.  Particularly, X-Men movies.  We are six in now folks.  Apocalypse very sadly is late to the party.  We have seen everything go explosion to the point of numbness by now, but these movies do make money.  So now let us scale everything way the fuck back and take a look at all the really good characters and really good actors that we can do some really good stuff with.  There is a lot of really good directors out there who would knock a superhero movie out of the fucking park if given the chance.  Crazy idea, but how about we give everyone of those directors their own pick of their own mutant and have them go to town?  You know, like everyone gets their own stand-alone movie and if it does well, shit, maybe even their own franchise?  They can all still live and mingle with all the other X-Men and interact with each others arcs too.  Now that I think about it, that does in fact sound kind of familiar.

Oh...

60's Boris Karloff Part (Nineteen Sixty) Three

BLACK SABBATH
(1963)
Dir - Mario Bava
Overall: MEH 

Anthology horror almost always produces uneven results and two of the three tales in Mario Bava's Black Sabbath, (I tre volti della paura), indeed suffer greatly.  Not surprisingly, it is the two that were tweaked with by American International Pictures afterwards for the U.S. version.  "Telephone" is by far the weakest and also got the short end of the stick with the most editing against Bava's original.  Michèle Mercier's Rosy may be the most textbook "dumb broad" in all of horror cinema as a menacing guy keeps calling her, giving her play-by-play details as to clearly announce that he is watching her every move, and she just continues to get ready for bed, makes a drink, and of course answers the phone each and every time.  In other words never once calling the police or running to her neighbor screaming "There's a guy watching me who's gonna kill me!".  The most beloved segment here is Boris Karloff's sole-vampire portrayal in "The Wurdalak" but this one is botched up by laughable melodrama and further, typically stupid behavior from people in horror movies.  "The Drop of Water" on the other hand is Bava in peak form.  Short, almost comically creepy, and to the point, it is masterfully paced and uses a minimal soundtrack to wrack up the tension.

THE RAVEN
(1963)
Dir - Roger Corman
Overall: GREAT 

The previous year's anthology Tales of Terror had featured "The Black Cat" which went in a comedic direction and both Roger Corman and writer Richard Matheson fancied doing an entire film with a more funny tone.  Taking the title of Poe's most famous work The Raven, they rightly figured you could go anywhere with that for roughly ninety-minutes and a story of dueling sorcerers was born.  As good and funny as the script is and as wonderful as the final showdown between Price's Erasmus Craven and Boris Karloff's more diabolical Scarabus likewise is, the sets are truly exceptional.  They were later used in The Terror which was shot immediately afterwards to cash-in on production being wrapped-up early and everything from Craven's father's old layerd-in-dust work-shop to Scarabus's sprawling, main interior, (with an indoor, gargoyle-guarded fire pit no less), are just fascinating to look at.  When everything looks so goddamn good, you have Price and Karloff delivering nothing but class, Peter Lorre adlibbing hilarious silliness, Corman's effortlessly tight direction, and Matheson's splendid script, you simply cannot lose.

THE TERROR
(1963)
Dir - Roger Corman/Francis Ford Coppola/Jack Hill/Monte Hellman/Jack Nicholson
Overall: MEH

One of the strangest productions ever which involves a multitude of known talent, The Terror is quite the fascinating dull movie.  Roger Corman is as known for his haphazard and rushed production jobs as he is for anything else and this is more or less the benchmark example.  The far superior by ask-anyone's-standards The Raven was wrapped up early so instead of tearing down the impressive castle interior sets that were built for it, (as well as the same year's The Haunted Palace, likewise with Vincent Price and likewise a light-years-better film), Corman decided to shoot some scenes with Boris Karloff, Richard Miller, and a young Jack Nicholson of all people.  By the way, this was all done with no script.  Various other future filmmakers shot some scenes, (including Francis Ford Coppola), and really quickly and really cheaply, a sort-of-competent full-length movie was made.  If the results would have been a jumbled, ridiculous mess then it probably would endure as a laugh, but unfortunately it is just lousy.  There are some silly twists and one or two not-bad horror moments including face melting and eyeball pecking scenes, but the pacing bogs the mystery down considerably, said mystery reeking of being hammered out in about an hour or so on a typewriter.  Considering that that is probably exactly what happens, one can hardly be surprised.

60's Boris Karloff Part Two

THE COMEDY OF TERRORS
(1964)
Dir - Jacques Tourneur
Overall: GREAT

As a follow-up to the horror/comedy hybrid The Raven, The Comedy of Terrors dives full into the sillies and despite the movie-going public of the day never making it a hit, it probably deserved to be one.  Saying Vincent Price is great is of a cliche in and of itself, but it really is almost amazing how scene stealing the world's all time greatest horror movie actor truly was.  Price can simply stumble around in a mock-drunken stupor and without a word of dialog can make you feel exactly what you are supposed to.  In this case being hysterics.  Though this is not as gut-bustery as say some of Abbot and Costello's monster romps, (it is actually more childish and silly), there are laugh out loud moments in spades.  Few are better than Basil Rathbone's absurd Mr. Black refusing to die while Price and Peter Lorre are sitting on his casket and hopelessly convincing him that he has indeed passed on.  That and Price's tone-deaf wife Amaryllis, (Joyce Jameson), banshee-ing away and literally killing plants with her vocal "gifts".  Surprisingly perhaps it is Boris Karloff's ancient, clueless, and deaf Amos Hinchley who is the funniest part.  Karloff hardly if at all ever got to play something so over-the-top for laughs and he just kills it in his unfortunate few moments of screen time.  Likewise, the script by always competent Richard Matheson is impressive as a send-up to the type of serious work that he usually delivered and excelled at.

DIE, MONSTER, DIE!
(1965)
Dir - Daniel Haller
Overall: MEH

Damn, American International Pictures sure as ass loved to burn down their sets at the end of all of their movies didn't they?  Speaking of those sets, art director Daniel Haller designed most all of them for the Roger Corman/Edgar Allan Poe/Vincent Price vehicles and Die, Monster, Die! was his directorial debut.  He would make The Dunwich Horror five years later which as Monster, Die! was also based on the works of H.P. Lovecraft.  Unfortunately, Haller does not have quite the visual flare of Corman nor his pacing on a bad day and even at under an hour and a half, this movie plods along too much.  The set up is identical to far superior outings like House of Usher or The Pit and Pendulum; a guy comes from out of town to a creepy, foggy mansion that is falling apart and boasts no vegetation, then a crazy old guy lives there harboring a deep, evil family secret greets him.  Karloff filling in for Vincent Price's usual role is not surprisingly the best thing here as even wheelchair bound as he often was in his last decade making films, he still steals scenes and delivers his lines with his unmistakably commanding voice.  The film ultimately substitutes the supernatural for sci-fi type details in the end, though Karloff's Nahum Witley's glowing super zombie is enough of a horror-esque treat in the showdown.

MAD MONSTER PARTY?

(1967)

Dir - Jules Bass

Overall: GOOD 

Along with other lighthearted horror fare from the era such as The Munsters, Scooby-Doo Where Are You!, The Addams Family, and Groovie Goolies, Rankin Bass Productions' Mad Monster Party? is fun kids stuff that uses the classic Universal Monsters as an object of parody/homage.  The script was co-written by Mad Magazine creator Harvey Kurt and legendary EC Comics/Mad artist Jack Davis did much of the design work.  Besides the story and look of the film, the performances also play heavily in selling the enjoyment.  Boris Karloff plays Dr. Frankenstein which is as obvious of a casting choice as there has ever been, Phyllis Diller is ridiculous as the Monster's Mate whose rendition of "You're Different" may be one of the most absurdly "sung" musical numbers in cinema, and voice actor Allen Swift does a number of noticeable celebrity parodies, handling most every other character.  Right along with the other Rankin/Bass stop-motion classic Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer during Christmas time, Monster Party? is more or less the Halloween equivalent and nearly as essential.

60's Boris Karloff Part One

THE SORCERERS
(1967)
Dir - Michael Reeves
Overall: GOOD

Made near the end of his career and a year before one of the best films of that career, Targets, The Sorcerers is a somewhat forgotten Boris Karloff vehicle.  More of a sci-fi tinged thriller set in modern times, on paper the premise almost sounds Ed Wood-worthy ridiculous.  Still, as one of the few efforts from doomed director Michael Reeves, he somehow manages to make such a script work.   Karloff of course does splendid work and classes up the whole thing.  Seeing him in this kind of a setting with some tame but comparatively violent scenes compared to the old Universal’s the legend is known for is rather a hoot.  Taking place in late 1960’s swinging London, there is a rock club that gets a good amount of screen time and includes some unintentionally funny and dated moments  The minor qualms with the film are mostly to do with the fact that the budget looks not to even be there and again, the concept is a bit daft.  Still, it is an unusual enough movie with a satisfying enough ending to warrant inclusion as one of Karloff’s must-sees.  Just probably mid-way down the list is all.

TARGETS
(1968)
Dir - Peter Bogdanovich
Overall: GREAT

Film critic-turned director Peter Bogdanovich's kinda debut Targets, (not counting the same year's, public domain Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women for which he understandably used an alias), is one of those wonderful pieces of celluloid that barely should exist.  Mr. Boris Karloff owed Roger Corman two more days of work since, (in typical Corman fashion), they had wrapped up early on a previous project, so after meeting Bogdanovich at a party and having liked one of his old articles, he told him to do what he wanted and only to use Karloff as much as possible.  Bogdanovich and Samuel Fuller, (generously uncredited), then rapidly got the script off the grown and for virtually no money they made a near-masterpiece.  Almost five decades later and with this countries gun laws as haphazardly handled as ever, the film still packs a hell of a wallop.  Bogdanovich really does pull off something special, basically making two separate movies with completely different tones and then forcing them to co-exist in the same universe.  The theme of real life violence and "horror" dwarfing anything those wonderful, Gothic Corman projects could offer up is impossible to miss and perhaps best of all, Karloff near ended his career on an enormously respectful and much beloved note.

CURSE OF THE CRIMSON ALTAR
(1968)
Dir - Vernon Sewell
Overall: MEH

Though not as evil or naked as it could be, the last Boris Karloff film to be released in the actor's lifetime Cure of the Crimson Altar is also hardly forgettable.  On paper, the cast is the stuff of late 60's/early 70's horror royalty with not only Karloff, but also Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele, and Michael Gough all present.  Lee is his typical charming, sophisticated self and Steele shows up right away as a blue skinned demon/witch boasting of course heavily reverberated vocal chords.  This moment at the beginning as well as a few more trippy dream scenes are without doubt the best things the movie has to offer as we see not only Steele's scene stealing villain, but people in S&M gear whipping nude women, a Satanic monk, a dude with antlers, torture devises, a book with names written in blood, and a court room jury full of guys in goat and skeleton masks.  If the entire near ninety-minute running time was just shot after shot of this with maybe a few cutaways to Karloff and Lee discussing it in scholartary fashion over a glass of brandy, then it would probably be more successful.  Unfortunately the actual plot here is lame and leading man Mark Eden is doofy at worst and inconsequential at best.  Karloff is literally wheelchair bound for the entire film yet he still comes off misleadingly menacing.  As his near-last screen performance, it of course warms the heart to see him still taking it all seriously enough.

70's American Horror Part Two

THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK
(1972)
Dir - Charles B. Pierce
Overall: WOOF

As the debut from Charles B. Pierce, The Legend of Boggy Creek was one of the first faux-documentary/Big Foot themed horror films of any kind and it reeks of everything zero experience movie making does.  Atrocious pacing, atrocious performances from an entire cast of non-actors, atrocious music, (including songs written and sung by Pierce himself), and atrocious tone issues.  Minutes that seem like centuries paddle on with soft, harmonica-fueled folk music or Disney-esque, public domain scores with our non-threatening narrator talking over shot after shot of creeks, streams, woods, forest critters and the like.  Then there are horrid reenactments which contain acting that makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like The Godfather and it just goes on and on and on and on and fucking on.  At one point we listen to an entire song about Travis Crabtree as he strolls around, doin' campin' stuffs in the woods, followed by another eternity where we meet some other hillbilly who has lived in the woods alone for twenty odd years and tells his life story only for us to learn that in fact no, he has never seen the Fouke Monster the whole film is about.  Talk about exciting stuff.

DON'T BE AFRAID OF THE DARK
(1973)
Dir - John Newland
Overall: MEH

One of the several "Dont's" to come out of the 1970s, Don't Be Afraid of the Dark was a made-for-TV movie directed by John Newland, a veteran of the small screen both on and behind the camera.  It has endured well with a cult audience that includes Guilermo del Toro who co-wrote and produced the 2011 remake with Katie Holmes.  The film's basic premise is very chilling, but under the conditions here, it just does not come off that strong.  First off, Kim Darby, (from True Grit fame), is a piece of wood in the lead and easily one of the least convincing or exciting potential scream queens of all time.  Her and on-screen husband Jim Hutton, (who does a fairly better job), exude hardly any chemistry and basically come off as roommates, but then again maybe that was the point considering the film's couple-in-tension framework.  The whispering things to be afraid of in the dark who start their friendly chatter within the first few seconds of the film mostly look and sound silly, though they could have looked and sounded a lot more silly.  Finally, though it is only seventy-four minutes long, it is sluggish to the point of being Xanax in movie form.  

BURNT OFFERINGS
(1976)
Dir - Dan Curtis
Overall: GOOD

Dan Curtis of Dark Shadows and Trilogy of Terror fame wrote and directed this haunted house movie based off Robert Marasco's novel of the same name.  A cast of familiars including Karen Black, Oliver Reed, Bette Davis, (all a hundred and seventy-four years of her), and a cameo by Burgess Meredith for the most part do splendid work.  Reed in particular is excellent, his usual overreaching at times suitable for such a film.  Karen Black, (besides being easily the most unattractive leading lady in film history, pour gal), is a little B-movie-esque at times, but nothing too distracting.  This is the kind of slow moving, glaringly soft-lighted 70s offering that spends nearly all its time letting the cast go slightly and then majorly mad, only busting out the creepy from time to time and subtly at first.  The chauffeur that continually torments Oliver Reed's Benjamin Rolf, (played by usual western, "hey that ugly, creepy looking guy" character actor Anthony James), is especially menacing when he shows up.  The ending here plot-wise was as predictable as Bette Davis was old, but it still manages to deliver with a rather gruesome set piece.  As far as mildly spooky, supernatural-based, psychological horror is concerned, there is plenty here to recommend.

70's Hammer Horror Part Three - Vampires

COUNTESS DRACULA
(1971)
Dir - Peter Sasdy
Overall: GOOD

By 1971, Hungarian director Peter Sasdy had already made the sequel Taste the Blood of Dracula and twelve years later would "win" for the Razzie prized The Lonely Lady, but he does finer work than either one with Countess Dracula.  Hot off the SU(CK)cess, (clever, eh?), of Hammer's Karnstein family kick-off The Vampire Lovers, Ingrid Pitt gets to be the title character here and it is probably her finest work.  A duel role of sorts, Pitt not only looks the part of arguably the ultimate scream queen, but she bounces between jovial and cruel while still always remaining a villain first and sympathetic damsel way second.  There is very little nudity and even less lesbian undertones, but neither of these things are wholly necessary.  As is the case with many Hammer films, the ending is a bit abrupt and the real life historical details of Elizabeth Báthory are greatly toned down.  In actually the Hungarian Countess was tried and convicted of murdering over six-hundred women, not less than the half dozen shown here.  Also her miraculous revelation of how blood sacrifices work seems like it garnished a mere few seconds for screenwriter Jeremy Paul to come up with before moving on.  Though one has to often nitpick where Hammer horror is concerned since most all of these films are just as similar as they are wholly watchable, if not entirely excellent.

VAMPIRE CIRCUS
(1972)
Dir - Robert Young
Overall: GOOD

This one-off, early vampire excursion from the decade is a near flawless one for Hammer.  Really, it is only until the ending that things get a bit sloppy.  For instance, why do the vampiric twins recall in terror when they stumble upon a cross around the neck of one of their victims last minute, but have no problem at all entering a church shortly after and toying with said victim?  Also, if the entire scheme of the traveling, undead circus is to kill all the townsfolk's spawn to resurrect their fifteen-year dead leader, then why does he come alive when the stake is removed from his heart before the job is done?  Why not just immediately take the steak out of him and bam, the whole blood-sucking family is back on track to reap their vengeance together?  These are rather goofy missteps with the plot, (along with some of the usual, laughably bad decisions that frightened villagers always seem to make), but thankfully they come a ways into the last act.  Before that, Vampire Circus executes a stellar premise, has oodles of nudity, a vampire midget, Darth Vader, a Doctor Who companion, some simple effects pulled off rather well, and is easily one of the goriest of all Hammer movies.  In spite of how much tighter it all could have been, it is oodles of fun and as recommendable.

CAPTAIN KRONOS - VAMPIRE HUNTER
(1972)
Dir - Brian Clemens
Overall: GOOD

If there is any movie in the Hammer filmography that daftly never got a sequel, Captain Kronos - Vampire Hunter is probably that movie.  The early 70s was when the Gothic approach by the famed studio was nearing its final era of relevance as more brutal and modern horror films were soon to be on the rise, so maybe this one never begetting a franchised is not that surprising.  Yet with nearly two dozen Frankenstein, Dracula, or Mummy movies churned out in the decades prior, plus the "off to face another adventure" finale here, one would think Captain Kronos 2 - Electric Boogallo would have at least happened.  Regardless, there are a couple of pointless action scenes and some groan inducing dialog exchanges present here, but they are very small in number and actually kick up the entertainment value with a chuckle or three.  As with the better Hammer genre outings, this one endures well for writer/director Brian Clemens twists on common vampire lore, a compelling mystery that waits until nearly the last minute to reveal itself, clever cinematography, a swashbuckling/slightly silly and certainly dashing hero, and robo-babe Caroline Monroe who does little else more than look like Caroline Monroe.  Which is more than enough mind you.