(1973)
Dir - John Landis
Overall: MEH
John Landis' ultra-cheap, $60,000 budgeted Schlock is unsurprisingly an ultra-cheap, well, schlocky filmmaking debut. Besides being the first movie a then twenty-three year old Landis ever made, it is also noteworthy as one of the very first that legendary monster maker Rick Baker ever worked on. Both of these historical tidbits aside, the movie itself is a rough watch. Working within the confines of pure Loony Tunes logic, it rarely achieves the hysterics it sets out for. People are either running away screaming from the title character, (Landis in an ape costume), staring blindly at him in disbelief, or nonchalantly carrying on as if there is absolutely nothing abnormal about his presence in the first place. Like many first time, inexperienced directors with a barely adequate budget at their disposal for a feature length product, the pacing is arduous. The experience then is waiting for something actually funny to happen and sadly, nothing ever really does. Coming from a filmmaker who would later achieve iconic results in horror and comedy, (not to mention parody, specifically which this movie qualifies as), this primarily chalks up to "Well, gotta start somewhere". For completists only.
(1976)
Dir - Larry Cohen
Overall: GOOD
The follow-up to It's Alive, God Told Me To, (Demon), is probably the most compelling if not altogether best horror movie in Larry Cohen's odd, often frustrating filmography. The bizarre story which fuses theology, alien abduction, and police procedurals together is only matched in its weirdness by the cinematic presentation. The director's eccentric leanings, (or those of his cast), were usually too annoying to bare, but the results are successfully nerve-wracking here. Feeling both hugely ambitious and underwritten all at once, the film moves so fast with an unrelentingly dramatic soundtrack that it never has a second to create any kind of at least conventionally eerie mood. This would seem the work of a total amateur then if not for the fact that its disorienting nature seems to intentionally mirror the chaotic story where confusion seems to be bursting from the seams everywhere you look in Manhattan. Giving Cohen the benefit of the doubt then, we are left to take the unorthodox approach at face value and it is sort of commendable how uniquely disturbing the film becomes at various intervals.
(1978)
Dir - William Girdler
Overall: GOOD
Directing nine movies in a mere six year period, Kentucky-born William Girdler died in a helicopter accident while scouting locations for his next film before The Manitou, (which would therefor end up being his last), was released. This was an adaptation of Graham Masterson's novel of the same name and is one of several occult-themed devil baby-adjacent horror movies from the 1970s. The origin of such malevolent forces and the means to combat them does end up being a bit interesting, but it also grows comically ridiculous in the process. This is not necessarily a bad thing though as the random, Native American-tinged supernatural occurrences completely fail to be creepy, yet are also so quirky and random that they provide the film with a hokey, frivolous charm. Tony Curtis as a sleazy, faux-mystic with a fake mustache and wizard robe who occasionally stumbles his lines is a pure highlight, though as the main protagonist who quickly becomes seriously concerned with the plot, he does not get to camp it up too much beyond the first act. The movie has camp elsewhere in spades though, particularly once the cosmic, medicine mad showdown gets underway and the weirdness gloves come flying off. Whether its absurdness is accidental or intended, it is anything but boring.
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