1980s Foreign Horror Part Nine

DEATH WATCH
(1980)
Dir - Bertrand Tavernier
Overall: GOOD

Shot primarily in Scotland with a recognizable, international cast, (Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton, Max von Sydow, and French actress Romy Schneider in one of her last screen performances before committing suicide two years later), Death Watch, (Le mort en direct), is Bertrand Tavernier's bleak yet humanizing adaptation of David G. Compton's novel The Unsleeping Eye.  It bares little to no hallmarks of the conventional horror or even thriller genre, but its themes of voyeurism and the objectification of women are quite disturbing without becoming unpleasantly overbearing.  Even the characters that seem one-dimensionally callous are not all together unsympathetic and the same goes for Schneider as the more obvious victim.  All of this gives the entire film a rather gray, emotionally ambiguous pallet to work off of, one that spends no time spoon-feeding the audience.  As a challenging, somewhat dystopian bit of science fiction then, its lack of clear-cut fulfillment, (as well as its often imposing length), may sit uncomfortable with some.  It is still an impressively done work though, most likely worthy of repeat views to grasp more fully.

POSSESSION
(1981)
Dir - Andrzej Żuławski
Overall: GOOD

The only English-speaking film from Polish filmmaker Andrzej Żuławski, Possession can be seen as one of the most strangely intense horror movies ever made about a marriage coming to an end.  Written by Żuławski and American novelist Frederic Tuten, shot in West Germany, and precisely inspired by the director's recent divorce from actress Malgorzata Braunek, the film morphs into an increasingly disturbing and increasingly strange exaggeration of the guilt, confusion, and obsessive desperation felt and then materialized by a crippling marital partnership.  Almost laughable at times in its over the top abstractness, the fact that it is all played incredibly straight as an arthouse movie may be completely lacking in intended humor, but it also makes for a dizzying, strange tone.  It is not just the absurdly horrific events that transpire, but the performances are all levels of unorthodox.  Every character regularly seems in a wide-eyed daze as they compulsively cannot sit still, asking and answering horribly upsetting questions at a breakneck pace.  While Sam Neil is quite excellent, it is really Isabelle Adjani who deserves top honors for her recklessly unhinged performance of a violently befuddled adulteress, one of the best such portrayals in screen history really. 

AMERICAN GOTHIC
(1988)
Dir - John Hough
Overall: MEH

This Canadian/British co-production by John Hough's is a schlocky, somewhat lame-brained mess.  Rather pedestrian in concept, American Gothic is another in the "held against their will by an evil Bible-quoting family" line of horror films and it does nothing to elevate the already stale sub-genre.  Following a predictable structure up until it embraces its tongue-in-cheek silliness by going with a more implausible final act, one's only chance of enjoyment is to sit back and find unintentionally amusing attributes.  To be fair, the movie has a generous amount of them.  As the elderly couple who does not believe in non-married folk sleeping in the same bed and still think the Charleston dance is what the kids are into these days, Rod Steiger and Yvonne De Carlo ham it up to the tilt and give funny enough "Eh, it's a paycheck" performances.  Their senior citizen aged children who behave like eight-year olds are less creepy and more just dumb and unsympathetic.  Same goes for the dipshit "normal" characters who find themselves at the mercy of the textbook disturbing family, though at least one of them has a horrific mullet that deserves a standing ovation of its own.  Nothing in the film is clever, including all of the kills which are just kind of brutal and random.  An easy pass all around.

1980s Foreign Horror Part Eight

DE LIFT
(1983)
Dir - Dick Maas
Overall: MEH

Killer machinery is always unstable footing for a horror movie premise and Dutch director Dick Maas' De Lift, (The Lift), is a clear example of such a problem.  The concept alone of a malevolent elevator is laughable of course which makes the movie's mostly straight-faced tone fail to provide any properly frightening moments.  Instead, it is a solid contender for one of the least scary horror movies ever made.  It is also incredibly boring.  To flesh out the running time, Maas has a mechanic spend his free time tracking people down and trying to get to the bottom of what could be causing so many accidents in the high-end building complex.  What else is there to do really then wait for the title "monster" to decide to murder someone or simply stop working so its passengers pass out from heat exhaustion?  Even though most of the time the elevator runs just fine, including at the end when the main guy whose especially convinced that it is dangerous just takes a ride in it anyway.  Speaking of malfunctioning equipment, either telephones work different in Amsterdam or they forgot to add the ringing sound effect as characters multiple times pick up the receiver and just start talking to whoever called them.  Whatever.  Moving on.

MEMOIRS OF A SINNER
(1986)
Dir - Wojciech Jerzy Has
Overall: GOOD

This adaptation of James Hogg's novel The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Killer by Polish filmmaker Wojciech Jerzy Has is a deliberately paced, surreal exercise in internal struggles between Christian-fed values of good and evil.  Memoirs of a Sinner, (Osobisty pamiętnik grzesznika przez niego samego spisany), is a part-horror film in mood; one which occasionally becomes intoxicatingly fitting with eerie music and fog-laden cinematography.  The opening scene of a cemetery full of corpses rising up from their graves at dusk and embarking on a candlelit procession is less cliche-ridden zombie movie fare and more of a curious, ethereal beginning that sets the tone for the rest of the movie.  Has embellishes in a number of long takes throughout which are visually grand and impressive, though they also tend to extend the running time a bit too long than is perhaps necessary.  The dialog is mostly philosophical and though it is not necessarily cryptic in nature, it is less a routine, point A to point B story .  Instead, it is ambiguous in its message or lack thereof which involves a disturbed man who justifies his vile deeds against those whom he sees as already damned.  While the pacing is cumbersome at times, it is a beautiful film with enough haunting imagery to keep one intrigued.

THE BRAIN
(1988)
Dir - Edward Hunt
Overall:  MEH

A wildly silly, cheap schlock-fest from Canada, The Brain has many hallmarks of craptacular cinema.  Several of the actors turn in embarrassing performances, Edward Hunt's direction is laughably inept at times, the script is pure nonsense, and the title monster is a cheap, slimy mess.  Thankfully, the amatuer-hour presentation does not bleed too much into the pacing at least which besides a middle act eventually getting bogged down by chase scenes, is kept brisk.  Another sleeze-ball, hammy performance from Re-Animator's David Gale certainly helps as well, though sadly he is a bit underused.  Many of the set pieces involve elaborate hallucinations where floppy, rubber tentacles choke people or on the lighter end of the spectrum, make teddy bears start moving and women's clothes disappear while they are holding an apple.  Sodium also plays a critical role, which is indeed a bizarre sentence to write.  While its attempts at mass-hypnosis creepiness kind of fall flat amidst all of the other lame-brained, (har, har), production qualities, for the most part the movie lays into its dumbness enough to make it consistently easy to laugh at.  It is trash, but it is trash with a much needed, good amount of eye-winking towards its audience.

1980s British Horror Part Five

INSEMINOID

(1981)

Dir - Norman J. Warren

Overall: MEH

This D-grade Alien-adjacent rip-off from sexploitation director Norman J. Warren is plagued by a number of elements, all of them related primarily to its measly budget being rather noticeable.  Bland, overly-lit art direction, uninspired cinematography; the only atmosphere slammed home is a cheap one which enhances the lousy sets and costume design.  Performance wise, the somewhat recognizable, British cast is comparatively fine alongside two, American add-ons, (Robin Clarke and Jennifer Ashley), who are just laughably terrible.  The script was penned by the husband and wife team of Nick and Gloria Myley, (both of whom worked with Warren before on 1976's Satan's Slave), but it may as well have been written by any office temp under the gun at Roger Corman's office.  In fact the whole of Inseminoid, (Horror Planet), comes off as a rushed, cliche-ridden sci-fi Corman production even if that is not  technically what it is, several of which such movies were still similarly being made at the time and are indistinguishable from what is present here.  It all further gives the movie a generic, lackluster quality which is really only to be appreciated by B-movie junkies who enjoy laughing at such low-rent nonsense.

 

THE SENDER

(1982)

Dir - Roger Christian

Overall: GOOD

The trippy, mostly well made psychological horror outing The Sender from Roger Christian, (who also had the severe misfortune of being behind the lens on Battlefield Earth eighteen years later, poor guy), served as his full-length directorial debut.  Having previously worked as an art director, set decorator, and second unit director on iconic sci-fi such as Star Wars,  Alien, and Return of the Jedi, (as well as making the short film Black Angel which was shown along with The Empire Strikes Back in select theaters), he has an eye for staging memorable, hallucination scenes and building the proper level of unexplained tension around them.  As is often common, usually these moments are more arbitrary than scary and might make the movie unintentionally silly for some viewers.  Christian deserves credit though for maintaining the right, serious tone, never letting the film divulge into calculated camp when it easily could have.  The cast, though not A-list, is persistently strong, with Željko Ivanek and Shirley Knight working ideally as a mysterious, psychically creepy mother and son duo at the center of such oddness.

PAPERHOUSE

(1988)

Dir - Bernard Rose

Overall: MEH

 

Based on the novel Marianne Dreams by Catherine Storr, (which also served as the basis for a 70s, children's television show called Escape Into Night), Bernard Rose's Paperhouse has some interesting, dark, and imaginary concepts at play as well as generally pleasing visuals, yet it suffers from some annoying attributes.  Most prominently, its main child protagonist is a thoroughly obnoxious, rude brat who lies and talks back to her mother and basically everyone she meets, yet the film endlessly tries to garnish sympathy for her from the viewer.  The sprightly, cheerful keyboard score incessantly plays through scenes it has no business playing through and along with the final act seemingly overstaying its welcome a bit, it all forces an air of sentimentality that becomes overbearing at times.  Beautifully shot by cinematographer Mike Southon, the film works best when it lingers in its dream world, only briefly becoming nightmarish yet effectively so.  To be fair though, it is not a proper horror film to begin with, but more of a contemporary-set fantasy that sprinkles a few otherworldly ideas into it via a child's somewhat troubled imagination.

1980s British Horror Part Four

THE GODSEND

(1980)

Dir - Gabrielle Beaumont

Overall: MEH

 

The non-television, full-length debut from Gabrielle Beaumont, The Godsend follows a long tradition of evil child movies such as The Bad Seed, Village of the Damned, or most obviously The Omen.  Based off of the novel of the same name by Bernard Taylor, the fact that no one believes for a solitary second that the innocent looking, platinum blonde demon brat is the one causing any mischief whatsoever for so long is rather ridiculous and annoying.  Considering she was birthed in their house by a creepy, random woman who then immediately disappeared to begin with, (Angela Pleasence looking as unsettling as ever), these dipshit parents just blame whatever other child was around.  They also continue to leave all of them unsupervised on the regular, even after more than one of them begins dropping like flies when said evil, adopted spawn is always around when things go south.  You would think that the death of just a single offspring would be enough to turn even the most inept parents into helicopter ones, but that is where this story proves you wrong. With any sympathy let alone plausibility for the central characters null and void then, the movie laboriously struggles with its own flawed lack of logic for most of its running time.  It is miserable and stupid, about all there is to it really.

THE BRIDE

(1985)

Dir - Franc Roddam

Overall: GOOD

Sometimes it is nice just to have a, well, nice ending.  This ambitious, off-shoot adaptation, (or continuation more accurately), of Mary Shelley's landmark novel Frankenstein picks up near the end of the book and presents a remarkably different chain of events than what took place not only in the original, written work, but also every film version since.  It is so different in fact that it pulls of the tricky feat of standing on its own amongst the well-cinematized source material. Taken on its own grounds as it should be then, Franc Roddam's The Bride is only a slightly flawed film with redeemable qualities in spades.  For one, the presentation of the Monster, (a heavily made-up Clancy Brown), is given substantial screen time and leans almost entirely into his gentle, misunderstood nature.  In this context, Frankenstein's creation is given a chance to at least attempt some semblance of a "normal" life, growing as a benevolent character far more than he possibly ever had before.  The film's themes of feminist empowerment, bigotry, and the questionable ethics of class systems are rudimentary presented, but by bouncing between the increasingly interlocking adventures of the Monster and his would-be mate, Roddam balances such things without letting the somewhat hefty length feel that way.  Lastly, for his part as the god-playing Barron, Sting is a bit underwritten, but he ultimately makes for an adequately evil, Peter Cushing-esque doctor.

BLACK RAINBOW

(1989)

Dir - Mike Hodges

Overall: MEH

 

Shot in South and North Carolina with an entirely American cast, Black Rainbow from British filmmaker Mike Hodges, (Get Carter, Flash Gordon), plays somewhat like a supernaturally-tinged Elmer Gantry.  Jason Robards is quite strong as an emotionally abusive, alcoholic father who continues to coax his medium daughter into performing her traveling clairvoyant "scam", as is Tom Hulce as a skeptical reporter with a Southern drawl at his disposal.  In the lead, Rosanna Arquette is unfortunately kind of uneven, though a lot of that has to due with her underwritten character.  While the plotting is rather straightforward, the story itself treads murky waters.  Hodges' ideas could have possibly worked if the tone more consistently matched the weirdness, but the cookie-cutter/TV movie presentation instead undermines them.  It is a frustrating mess that becomes arbitrarily unfocused, particularly by the ending which offers no satisfying payoff to the mystical mumbo jumbo happenings that kicked everything into motion in the first place.  With many of the characters behaving somewhat randomly, there being no real humor, and certainly no scares or even suspense, it is a poor effort for whatever it may have been trying to achieve.

1980s American Horror Part Thirty-Three

FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2
(1981)
Dir - Steve Miner
Overall: MEH

With the case of 80s slasher films, generally you do not even need to see one to know how it is going to play out.  With the case of Friday the 13th films specifically, this rings even more true.  Well, at least that is the case for the second installment, which went into production rather quickly after the first one dropped the year before and is almost hilariously the exact same movie.  Original director Sean S. Cunningham stepped down with associate producer Steve Miner stepping in both here and for the following year's Part 3.  This was after Paramount's initial idea to have each entry in the franchise be a stand-alone one was tossed aside in place of making that kid who popped up out of Crystal Lake for five seconds the main antagonist from here on out, sans hockey mask at this point.  A few of the cast and crew returned, though Tom Savini bailed as he thought a machete-wielding Jason was a stupid idea.  Plus he was busy making the abomination that is John Russo's Midnight anyway.  The stock, retreaded script of another crop of school counselors taking their clothes off, getting spied on, and then murdered is horrifically boring to endure yet again.  To make it even more of a pain in the ass, there is an insulting amount of psych-out jump scares just to up the cliche count even more.  Is it any worse than the other twenty-to-thirty slasher movies that came out the same year?  No, but why compare the texture and feel of piece of shit to other pieces of shit?  It is all shit.

THE MONSTER SQUAD
(1987)
Dir - Fred Dekker
Overall: GOOD

One of the best kid-friendly horror comedies certainly of the 80s and possibly ever, The Monster Squad is fun, tight, silly, and in on its own charm.  As the direct follow-up to his Night of the Creeps, Fred Dekker, (and co-screenwriter Shane Black who also wrote Lethal Weapon the same year), concoct a part-homage to Universal's classic monsters and horror movie logic in general, but if the film was nothing sans nostalgic nods then it would not be nearly as successful.  The fact that the movie is genuinely funny and moving outside of its sentimental horror geek service essentially makes it work as a quick-paced, Goonies-style kids vs. bad guys excursion.  While the well-equipped child actors get the most screen time, Duncan Regehr makes for a solid Count Dracula and as Frankenstein's monster, Tom Noonan honestly does the best job since Boris Karloff and his could rank as the most humane of any such portrayal.  There is some dated, political incorrectness and the script while entertaining makes no attempt to ground a single solitary plot point in any semblance of plausibility.  Yet for a movie specifically designed to be light-weight popcorn fare, it does more than enough things right to get by on charisma alone.  Charisma which it thankfully has in spades.

PUPPET MASTER
(1989)
Dir - David Schmoeller
Overall: MEH

Installment number one in a whopping thirteen film deep franchise to date, Puppet Master is another that comes from the hands of writer/director David Schmoeller who has made horror films practically his entire career.  Though to his credit, he would bow out creatively after this one.  Many hallmarks of straight to video horror fare are present, including flat, inexpressive lighting, laughably poor acting by unfamiliar actors, dated special effects, and an incessant keyboard soundtrack that hardly ever shuts up.  While some of this is amusingly hokey at least in small doses, matters are further complicated by the, well, complicated plot.  The first act is oddly unforgiving.  Instead of creating an air of proper intrigue, it seems amateurish with all of the other subpar elements of the production at play.  Any movie where tiny toys are the monsters is bound to come off a bit or a lot ridiculous anyway, so in this regard it cannot really afford such shortcomings unless a full blown, schlocky approach is taken.  While it does venture into such terrain at times, the slow build and foggy narrative is quite hindering.  Even when the little puppet people do start finally running around playing stabby stabby, we are mostly treated to boring POV shots of them while inter-cutting with more lame characters and dialog.

1980s American Horror Part Thirty-Two

FORBIDDEN WORLD
(1982)
Dir - Allan Holzman
Overall: MEH

With a tag line such as "Part Alien...Part Human...All Nightmare", a nifty painting that combines Frank Frazetta tantalization with sci-fi bug monsters, and the text "Produced by Roger Corman" hovering over the R rating, the cover art for Forbidden World, (Mutant, Subject 20), gives you all the information you need.  Meaning it is much lamer than it looks and fulfills all expectations that a typical B-rent Corman movie would have.  It was shot on existing sets from the previous year's Galaxy of Terror, (also produced by Corman), utilizes footage from Battle Beyond the Stars, (also also produced by Corman), and allegedly went into production with no script and nothing more than a few notes from Corman.  The cast is far from A-list and far from good, with the women being nothing more than vacant-expression boobs to look at and the guys being mostly macho cliches.  Plot wise, it is Alien without any of the atmosphere, any of the budget, and any of the brains.  If it was not for all of the exploitative nudity and gore, the film would fit right at home with any 50s drive-in, monster B-movie.  Whether or not that is a good, bad, or laughable thing is up to the individual of course.

SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT
(1984)
Dir - Charles E. Sellier Jr.
Overall: MEH

One of the more lucrative entries in the Holiday horror sub-genre that spawned four sequels and a remake, Silent Night, Deadly Night was also one of the most notorious.  Successful protests were launched, complaining about its add campaign that took the film out of theaters only a week after its release.  The almost unanimously appalled reviews did not help much either.  While the premise of a kid whose parents were murdered by a guy in a Santa Clause costume right in front of him is solid, all of the future problems he faces seem easily avoidable.  If all of the nuns who proceed to raise him are aware of this, why would they torture him about it so mercilessly?  Then as an adult, why on earth would he get a job at a toy store and furthermore, why on earth would he agree to be their resident mall Santa when the normal guy cannot make it?  How 'bout just telling your boss, "Um, I'd love to, but you see my parents were killed and raped by a lunatic in a Santa costume so I'm a little touchy about the whole St. Nicolas thing".  The film is pretty consistently in poor taste, which is a problem in that it also plays itself very seriously instead of leaning more on its camp appeal, which would have maybe lightened the nastiness.  Linnea Quigley runs around naked and there are several shots of Star Wars and Masters of the Universe merch on the shelves so that is something at least.

TERRORVISION
(1986)
Dir - Ted Nicolaou
Overall: WOOF

Made by the founding creative team behind the production company Full Moon Features, (including writer/director Ted Nicolaou, producers Albert and Charles Band, and composer Richard Band), TerrorVision could be one of the dumbest and least amusing horror comedies that you are hopefully never likely to see.  Deliberately schlocky and juvenile, it takes quite an in-your-face approach to its moronic, B-movie subject manner.  This would be tolerable if any and I do mean ANY of the jokes actually connected, but boy do they never.  Each character is more obnoxious than the next from the horny, gun-toting grandpa, to the horny guy fixing a satellite, to the horny mom and dad swingers, to the horny Cyndi Lauper-clad teenage daughter, to her horny "woah, gnarly bro" metalhead boyfriend, to the horny Greek gay dude, to the horny kid that no one believes when monsters start showing up.  There is even an Elvira stand-in with giant hooters who is about a million times less funny than Elvira ever was.  Complaining about the plot, dialog, or character motivation for a movie as braindead as this is probably unnecessary since its entire purpose is to be the antithesis of clever.  Trying too hard and failing even harder, it is definitely best not remembered.

1980s American Horror Part Thirty-One

NIGHTMARE
(1981)
Dir - Romano Scavolini
Overall: WOOF

An overly pretentious trash film with amateur production qualities, Italian writer/director Romano Scavolini's Nightmare, (Nightmares In a Damaged Brain), became one of the most notorious video nasties of the early 80s.  It was the only film on the U.K.'s naughty list during its time of being enforced where the distributor was actually jailed, garnishing it a place in film history whether the movie's quality or lack-thereof is deserving of such a thing or not.  Further controversy exists as to whether or not the legendary Tom Savini was involved with the special effects, a claim that the director and others involved insist on but one that Savini himself has consistently denied.  Scavolini, (who comes from a hardcore pornography background), tries desperately to match his story ambitions about a schizophrenic mental patient with his meager budget, bad actors, bad script and an overabundance of sleaze and gore meant to convey something more psychologically profound than it can ever hope to.  The movie is just more of a mess than anything, bouncing between laughable incoherence, annoyance, and (lots of) boringness from scene to scene.

THE HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW
(1982)
Dir - Mark Rosman
Overall: MEH

Stacked up against the gallons of other slasher films to emerge in the early 80s, Mark Rosman's The House on Sorority Row, (House of Evil), is still mostly a hum-drum offering despite its small handful of divergent aspects.  From a gore perspective, it is relatively restrained, but packs a few memorable visuals when it indulges in such things, (a severed head in a toilet is of particular note).  It is shot rather well by prolific cinematographer Tim Suhrstedt, (Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, Office Space), and at least none of the characters are annoying stereotypes even if they are still a combination of horny, nerdy, noble, and bitchy college girls on paper.  It is by-the-books slasher nonsense everywhere else though.  Psyche-outs and red herrings, jump scares, victims practically with giant red targets on their faces when they are about to be killed, a masked bad guy who withstands bodily damage that would kill Hercules, a final girl, etc.  The usual problem with such films that are so derivative in style is that all moments of supposed tension-building are rendered boring and predictable.  Case in point here.  It is not as seedy or insulting as the title would suggest, but you are not likely to remember much of anything after finishing it either.  For what it is worth though, the band you never heard of 4 Out of 5 Doctors does make an appearance for extra, 80s power pop nostalgia.

MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE
(1986)
Dir - Stephen King
Overall: MEH

It was somewhat a wise move that Stephen King had the good sense to realize his short story "Trucks" about machinery coming to life and murdering people would probably work better as a comedy if brought to the big screen.  Now whether or not King has the directing or even screenwriting chops to make his lone effort behind the lens in Maximum Overdrive actually work as a comedy is another matter entirely.  Arguably the most infamous stain in King's entire career and one of the 80s "so bad it's...still bad" novelties, the world's most famous horror author was by his own admittance coked out of his mind while behind the lens.  The finished product easily supports this claim.  On the plus side, the movie is easy to laugh at with hilariously terrible dialog right out the gate, ("This machine just called me an asshole!"), goofy action set pieces, and a nonsensical plot every step of the way.  Unfortunately though, King's filmmaking inexperience also leads to frequent interruptions of stagnancy.  Basically, when people are not yelling profanities in bad southern accents at trucks that are trying to kill them, the movie becomes an embarrassing snooze.  That said, it ends up having a lot of people yelling profanities in bad southern accents at trucks that are trying to kill them anyway and AC/DC provided the soundtrack for some reason so all things considered, it could be a lot lamer.