(1973)
Dir - Ivan Reitman
Overall: MEH
Ivan Reitman's second feature Cannibal Girls sounds quite promising on paper. SCTV members Eugene Levy and Andrea Martin are on board and both Reitman and producer/co-writer Daniel Goldberg have enough noteworthy films on their resume to assume that this early one would be worth one's time. Sadly though, this is not the case. Cannibal Girls rides that difficult line of parody, but many things get in the way of making the tone shifts work. It plays out more like a Herschell Gordon Lewis movie that is trying to be funny yet is not. Much of the dialog appears to be improvised and the camera lingers on nearly every scene much longer than it should, dragging the pace down considerably. Worse yet, hardly anything anyone says is all that funny and the plot is terribly structured. The premise is top notch, but it actually would have worked far better as a straight horror film where the long, silent shots and the concept of a bizarre, friendly Canadian town being up to no good would make for a thoroughly creepy, would-be end result. Instead, these aspects just jive poorly with the humor that falls flat and the editing that makes the film confusing.. It is a noble effort, but all of the talent involved would go on to much better works later on.
(1974)
Dir - Pete Weir
Overall: MEH
The first feature film to be written and directed by Pete Weir, (not counting the fifty-two minute Homesdale from 1971), was The Cars That Ate Paris; a curiously titled, positively odd work to be sure. Set in the fictional, rural town of Paris somewhere in Australia, (adding to the confusion since one would assume Paris, France), the movie plays out like a subtle black comedy with noticeably visual similarities with the Mad Max franchise, (and even also stars Bruce Spence who has made a career out of being a goofy looking character actor). Yet instead of being post-apocalyptic, it is another kind of small town horror where an unwholesome doings are transpiring and this little hotbed of sinister activity seems to exist by rules that are all its own. It does not quite work as well as it should since the motivations of various characters remains too obscure. Though this was probably done on purpose, it is rather difficult to grasp who is in league with who and the only unmistakable theme is a vague, "elders vs the youth" one that does not really get explored beyond surface level. Main protagonist Arthur Waldo, (Terry Camilleri), is just kind of lost in all the goings on, being sheepishly uncomfortable throughout. While at least his final fate is humorous, that of the rest of Paris seems rather randomly open-ended.
(1979)
Dir - Werner Herzog
Overall: GREAT
Out of the innumerable Dracula films out there and the several dozen that adapt Bram Stoker's original novel, few are as utterly superb as Werner Herzog's Nosferatu the Vampire. To be specific, this is a deliberate homage to the F.W. Murnau silent film Nosferatu, one which Herzog has gone on record as saying is the single greatest German film ever made. He is probably not wrong. For his take on it, Herzog once again works with Klaus Kinski and the electronic band Popol Vuh and the results are nearly as spellbinding as their initial collaboration Aguirre, the Wrath of God. Utilizing footage shot in Mexico, Czechoslovakia, and the Netherlands and filming two versions simultaneously, (one with the actors speaking in German, the other in English), Herzog spends comparatively little of his time on dialog here, instead letting his camera capture the beautiful, the grotesque, and the bizarre all in equal, lush measures. This creates an atmosphere that is extraordinarily haunting from beginning to end. Kinski's Count Dracula is more pathetic than usually depicted and all of the barren, soft gloomy shots of rat-laden city streets and the Carpathian mountains further emphasize his loneliness, one that literally spreads like the plague by the film's end. It may be the most visually striking Dracula film ever made and another paramount example of what Herzog and Kinski with their powers combined were wonderfully able to accomplish.
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