(1971)
Dir - Stephanie Rothman
Overall: GOOD
A noteworthy erotic vampire film from an era quite saturated with them, Stephanie Rothman's The Velvet Vampire, (Cemetery Girls), is immediately of interest due to it being co-written and directed by a woman. It is a peculiar work otherwise though. Equal parts art movie and bizarre, Ed Woodian black comedy, its tone is often baffling yet fascinating for that very reason. The acting is so hysterically wooden and the dialog so routinely preposterous that it is difficult to believe such things are accidentally embarrassing. Spliced together with such silliness though are romantic dream sequences with a positively haunting, classical/rock guitar score. The customary, early 70s soft focus photography accompanies the entire film and even though the budget is clearly on the minuscule end of the spectrum, it is visually quite captivating. Flawed yes, but undoubtedly peculiar for what it is.
(1974)
Dir - Brian De Palma
Overall: GOOD
Brian De Palma's Phantom of the Paradise is his loving, gleefully over the top rock musical ode to The Phantom of the Opera, Faust, and The Picture of Dorian Gray. As far as almost childishly critiquing pure, 70s excess is concerned, it does not get more on the nose than with De Palma's unapologetically stylized approach here. Comedic, garish, and gorgeously designed, there is not a dull frame in the entire proceedings. Even if Paul William's excellent score wasn't so hooky and engaging, it is likely that the film would still get by on its visual flare, inflated performances, and ambitious camera work. Released only ten months before The Rocky Horror Picture Show which had an even grander, deliberately tasteless and kitsch-laded approach that warranted far greater fan devotion, De Palma's oddball mock opera is wonderfully fun in its own right. A quintessential cult movie by its very design, the fact that it was a box office disaster upon release but is now regularly cherished really could not be more fitting.
(1977)
Dir - George Barry
Overall: MEH
The only cinematic work from "filmmaker" George Barry, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats is easily one of the strangest, sluggish, and singular cult films the 70s ever produced. Independently financed for around $30,000 and failing to receive proper distribution upon being finished, it lingered as a rarely seen curiosity for decades until savvy critics and Patton Oswalt re-ignited some interest. The acting is stiff enough to imply that the entire cast was on ludes, the pacing is void of any urgency whatsoever, and the dreamlike anti-narrative produces one baffling set piece after another. There is an artist supernaturally living behind a painting, (who also narrates the movie), a guy and his sister lackadaisically staring at his burned-off, skeletal hands, a woman having a dream about eating a gourmet meal of live bugs, and a four minute almost uninterrupted shot of another woman slowly, (and I mean, SLOWLY), crawling away from the titular, velvet canopy demon bed that eats and digests its victims in acid after oozing yellow bubbles. All the dialog is ADR and there are numerous other bizarro-world touches that appear to be comedic in a comatose-inducing way. The movie is as mind-numbingly boring as it is, well, mind-numbing.
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