(1971)
Dir - Del Tenney
Overall: WOOF
A boring voodoo zombie movie that seems particularly antiquated in a post-Night of the Living Dead landscape, the only thing that I Eat Your Skin, (Zombie, Zombie Bloodbath, Voodoo Blood Bath), has going for it is some garish, low-rent makeup to laugh at. The movie's obsolete factor even when it was released is understandable considering that it was shot six years earlier in Florida, around the same time that filmmaker Del Tenney did The Curse of the Living Corpse and The Horror of Party Beach. This one could have been giving its eventual title to lock it into Romero-styled zombies even though there is no flesh feasting of any kind. In any event, it is a lazily contrived and produced bit of schlock with charisma-deficient actors and a story line made up of a number of cliches were civilized white people get caught up in the violent cultures of primitives. It is as sluggish as any other Z-grade cinematic product from the era and mainly consists of tribal drum voodoo ceremonies inter-cut with uninteresting characters trading pleasantries or being concerned that a pretty girl is going to get sacrificed; all of course while standing and talking in rooms with the camera left stationary.
(1972)
Dir - Jack Smight
Overall: MEH
This reworking of a Ray Bradbury story, (one that originally appeared as a 1948 radio play for Suspense), focuses on an infidelity murder and everyone on screen not believing a word that Olivia de Havilland says. The Screaming Woman's title could refer to either de Havilland ranting and raving to everyone who will listen about the woman that she heard burred underground or it could refer to said woman herself who is howling away for release. In either event, this ABC Movie of the Week is bogged down by an aggressively repetitive presentation that utilizes the ole "Pay no attention to the upset woman" cliche to typically annoying effect. While it is always nice to see a Golden Era A-lister like de Havilland, (and Joseph Cotten for about twenty seconds), doing her professional best in lighthearted genre fare, she alone cannot overcome the monotonous material. Her character's backstory of being in a mental institution serves as an excuse for everyone to just roll their eyes at and humor her, but it also allows for an uninteresting side-arc with her financially desperate son and his miserable wife. Ed Nelson's portrayal as a sly yet nervous, murder-attempting husband is more interesting at least, but he still does not get to do much besides uncomfortably pace about in fear of getting caught.
(1978)
Dir - Irvin Kershner
Overall: MEH
Just before landing the coveted The Empire Strikes Back gig, director Irvin Kershner made the slick though ultimately lackluster American giallo Eyes of Laura Mars.
John Carpenter had originally written an eleven page treatment that was tweaked once Hollywood's favorite giant-mechanical-spider-enthusiast
producer John Peters took over the project, originally as a staring
vehicle for his then girlfriend Barbara Streisand who ended up only
delivering the theme song "Prisoner". With the title role handed to
A-lister Faye Dunaway who was hot off of her Oscar winning turn in Network,
the script was re-written, (or by Carpenter's assertion, "shat on"), by
David Zelag Goodman and the results are the typical combination of a
quirky gimmick, a black-gloved, misogynistic killer, and red herrings
that ultimately point to the person you least expect but probably
suspected anyway. It is textbook stuff, but the energetic,
recognizable cast elevates it above more than what the material is worth. Aside from Dunaway who overdoes things just enough,
Tommy Lee Jones, René Auberjonois, Raúl Juliá, and Brad Douriff also get
to chew some scenery, with the latter probably delivering the most
impressive, New Yorky performance here.
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