70's American Horror Part Seventeen

POINT OF TERROR
(1971)
Dir - Alex Nicol
Overall: WOOF

The last time that actor-turned-director Alex Nicol was behind the lens, Point of Terror is a vanity project for its star/producer/co-writer Peter Carpenter and an awful one at that.  Also, it is not a horror movie despite what both its title and slasher-advertising poster dictates.  Instead, it follows the lackluster exploits of Carpenter's ambitious lounge singer who cannot keep his pants on around any woman that he meets, all of whom are blonde since apparently women only have that hair color in this universe.  He gets to thrust his pelvis to terrible music at several instances while wearing an open color shirt, plus we get a handful of love-making/beach frolicking montages to further lull us into boredom.  There are a couple of deaths and we do get a scene of someone in a mask who is stabbing a woman, but it abruptly cuts off another unrelated moment and is never referenced again.  Ilsa herself Dyanne Thorne gets to do her sultry thing and even goes full raving bitch in the finale, but alas, she cannot save what is a dated, stupid, and embarrassing melodrama the whole way through.

RACE WITH THE DEVIL
(1975)
Dir - Jack Starrett
Overall: MEH

While its interesting in parts, Jack Starrett's road chase/occult horror hybrid Race with the Devil has some unmistakable problems wearing it down.  Things get off to a slow start which would be forgivable if it helped establish the characters as intended.  Instead, nothing serviceable to the overall plot is discovered neither there or along the way.  It is a double-edged sword that when things do get interesting from a suspenseful standpoint, the story stops and everything just becomes a monotonous series of set pieces.  While these set pieces are expertly handled by Starrett who maintains a tight control over them, it is also simultaneously apparent that the script ran out of gas as soon as the second act started.  Plausibility is also a major concern as mysterious, Satan worshiping hillbillies both seem to perpetually catch up to the protagonists no matter how many hundreds of miles they put between them and more ridiculously, said cult members never once take the easy opportunity to finish off their prey.  They just repeatedly act polite and send them on their way, just so the audience can be creeped out and second guess everything going on.  It is fun if you can tune your brain out to the plot holes and also thoroughly enjoy a well-executed chase sequence though.

PROPHECY
(1979)
Dir - John Frankenheimer
Overall: MEH

A rare foray into horror from director John Frankenheimer, Prophecy is a highly insufficient work.  A lackluster, somewhat preachy script about Native American mistreatment, shady corporate dealings, and marital drama with a scant amount of bear monster scenes thrown in to wake the audience up, the material itself is fighting quite the uphill battle to be even remotely engaging.  Frankenheimer's inexperience with the genre is quite noticeable and even for the guy behind such noteworthy political thrillers as The Manchurian Candidate, he fails to garnish any excitement out of the few opportunities the story presents.  Other issues persist such as a faulty sound design where the music and background noise drowns out the dialog and also the glaringly Italian Armand Assante being laughably cast as an American Indian.  Speaking of laughable, there's some unintentional howler set pieces such as a racoon attack and a girl bouncing away from the monster in a sleeping bag and then exploding into feathers against a rock.  More moments like that and one could recommend it as hilarious schlock.  Sadly instead, it is primarily just a bore.