The Bride and the Beast (1958)

Horribly predictable, 11 October 2019

Things take a weird turn for newlyweds Laura and Dan when Laura finds herself strangely mesmerized by - maybe even attracted to - a gorilla.  It seems that Dan keeps a gorilla in a cage in his basement like it’s the most normal thing in the world. Oh, and he forgot to mention his basement gorilla to Laura prior to the wedding.  Nice surprise! Through hypnosis, Laura learns she was a gorilla in a previous life. As the newlyweds head off to Africa for a honeymoon, it’s pretty easy to see where this thing is headed.  It’s that predictable.  

Beyond being predictable, The Bride and the Beast meanders it’s way through about an hour of runtime with little to advance the main plot.  Instead, the movie gets sidetracked into a story about tigers loose in Africa (don’t ask). By the time we get back to the gorillas, I’d almost completely forgotten what the movie was supposed to be about.  And when it’s not dealing with the silly tiger plot thread, the runtime is filled with some wonderfully dull padding. Wandering through the jungle, stock footage of animals, and watching Dan rub his face - that’s part of the excitement of The Bride and the Beast.  

In short, The Bride and the Beast is a mess of a film.  It wasn't much of a surprise to discover that the schizophrenic plot was at least partially written by Ed Wood.  It’s that incompetent.  

2/10

El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (2019)

Aaron Paul is incredible,, 11 October 2019

I’m not going to go into any real plot details so as not to spoil the ending of Breaking Bad.  Instead, I’ll just say that El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie (or just El Camino for the rest of this) tells Jesse Pinkman’s story immediately following the events in the series finale.  

The thing I absolutely loved about El Camino was seeing Aaron Paul play Jesse Pinkman one more time.  I thought he was good in the series - as good as Bryan Cranston - but here, he takes his acting up a notch.  Watching him play the beaten and frightened Jesse, it’s truly amazing. I could almost feel the pain Jesse was going through.  Paul doesn’t even speak much for a big hunk of the first part of the movie, but he’s still able to express his feelings quite clearly.  It’s really an acting masterclass from Paul.

The plot is okay.  It’s a very slow moving film with just a couple of action set-pieces to break up the drama.  But while it may be slow, it ever feels like a long movie. It’s about the fastest 2+ hours I’ve spent watching a movie recently.  When the action does come, it’s expertly handled just as you’d expect from Vince Gilligan. And the ending is perfect. Gilligan fittingly wraps up Jesse’s story as neat and tidy as you could hope. 

My main complaint is that El Camino never really feels like the big movie I was hoping for.  Not that that’s a bad thing, but I expected more. Breaking Bad told a larger than life story with outlandish characters, incredible dialogue, over-the-top violence, and amazing plot twists.  El Camino, in comparison, is much more laid back and doesn’t feature a lot of the elements that I loved in the show.  

The other thing that bothered me about El Camino was all the fan service.  Other than Jesse, all of the other characters / actors have little more than cameos.  It was nice to see some of them again, but a lot of them don’t do much. 

6/10

Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident (1979)

- Missile X - Geheimauftrag Neutronenbombe
Not very good, but it can be quite hilarious, 8 October 2019

A US secret agent and his Soviet counterpart are hot on the trail of a madman with a stolen nuclear missile.  The meet-up in Iran and decide to work together to save the world.  

This is yet another case where I readily admit the movie in question isn’t very good.  To me, however, there is some (some - not a lot - just some) entertainment to be had in Missile X: The Neutron Bomb Incident (we’ll shorten that to Missile X for the rest of this).  Granted, much of the enjoyment I derived from Missile X wasn’t what the filmmakers were going for, but this film is quite often unintentionally hilarious. I’ll limit this to three examples.  First, there’s Peter Graves as the Bond-like hero, Alex Franklin. It’s near impossible to take him seriously. He’s far too old for the role. And watching him put the moves on some young woman is just plain hysterical.  Next, Missile X features some of the worst (and funniest) fight choreography I’ve seen. There’s a hotel casino fight that had me laughing out loud. Or the shoot-out between the good guys and the bad guys where they're no more than 10 feet apart, yet no one gets hit.  Third, there’s the ridiculous music accompanying almost every scene. It has 70s feel to it that is totally out of place in Missile X. It’s hard not to giggle when even the most mundane events, like getting in a taxi, are backed by a loud, funky organ riff.  

I suppose that one of the most interesting aspects of Missile X are shots of pre-Revolution Iran.  Other than the Iran bits and laugh or two, there’s not much here to recommend.  

4/10

The House on Sorority Row (1983)

“You’re the last one of your friends alive.  You’re the bait.” , 7 October 2019

A group of sorority sisters decide to play a prank on their vindictive house mother, but things go horribly wrong and the woman is killed. With a party about to begin, the girls decide to hide the body in an abandoned pool until they can decide what to do.  When their friends go missing and the woman’s body disappears, the girls are convinced she’s come back to seek revenge. Meanwhile, the whitest party ever put on film carries on like nothing’s going on.

 I’ve always found The House on Sorority Row to be a lot of fun with some creepy moments and a few nice death scenes.  As with a lot of films of this type, the best parts only happen once the final girl is running for her life - and here, she has to do it will half-drugged out of her mind.  And that finale always gives me the creeps. The first time I saw this movie, when the killer makes his presence known near the end, I about jumped out of my seat.  It really worked on me. If you can get past some of the acting and a murky plot point or two, The House on Sorority Row can be a very effective, little, low-budget 80s horror movie.

Reading reviews around the internet tonight, I’m a little shocked to see how much hate The House on Sorority Row gets. I can’t tell you how many times I read that it’s cliched or unoriginal.  While I agree that it does borrow from some of the slashers that came before, a lot of what you’ll see here has been copied endlessly since the film’s release. The prank gone wrong, the college / sorority house setting, the exposition-filled flashback - they weren’t the standard slasher movie tropes then that they are now.  When I saw this in the theater in 1983, it was as fresh and innovative as any of the boatload of other slashers being pumped out.  

7/10

Jonny Quest “Monster in the Monastery” #1.25 (1965) (TV)

Jonny and the Yeti, 7 October 2019

Dr Quest decides to land in Tibet so he can pay a surprise visit on an old friend (the man had friends in literally every corner of the Earth), Raj Guru.  Quest finds the normally tranquil village where Raj lives under attack. When Bandit goes missing, Jonny and Hadji decide to look in an abandoned monastery. They quickly find the source of the village’s problems - Yeti.  But why would the Yeti attack the village? 

Monster in the Monastery is another of those episodes that I vividly remember from childhood.  The yeti were quite a sight - hurling boulders at the village while screaming through the night.  I’ll never forget seeing that first yeti pick up a man like a doll and throw him off the side of the mountain.  Good stuff. The middle part of the episode does get a bit silly when the yeti’s secret is revealed and Jonny and Hadji decide to fight back.  Yeti or not, the boys should have had no chance. The silliness, however, ends before the conclusion and we’re treated to one of the more chilling finales in a Jonny Quest episode.  The pile of twisted bodies left behind in the monastery is as violent an image as any in the show’s run. Overall, it’s a good one.

One thing that really impressed as I rewatched this last night was some of the background artwork.  The mountains and the monastery look incredible - and ominous. And when you consider this was all hand done and not computer assisted artwork, it’s even more amazing.  

7/10

Dark Future (1994)

Garbage, 4 October 2019

This thing is so bad that I can’t be bothered to come up with my own plot summary.  Here’s the one from IMDb: “In the 21st century, most of mankind has been wiped out by a plague. The few remaining people are forced to live in an underground world, serving as prostitutes and slave to cyborgs that now control them. When the first baby in 30 years is born, a bartender leads a revolt against the part-man, part-machine creatures that seek to capture the baby for their own ends.”

Dark Future is complete and utter garbage.  Everything imaginable is about as bad as you’ll find in a movie.  Acting – bad. Plot – bad. Special effects – bad. Music – bad. Cinematography – bad.  Sets – bad. You get the idea. I’ll bet that even the catering was bad. Director Greydon Clark made some reasonably enjoyable trash during his career (Final Justice and Satan’s Cheerleaders for example), but with Dark Future, he hit rock bottom.  It’s absolutely horrible.

There are two things that keep me from raring Dark Future a 1/10.  First, there is at least one interesting idea involving using the baby to somehow keep some old dudes alive.  Of course, it’s not fleshed out and it’s handled poorly, but the idea is there. Second, I’m trying to limit the number of movies I rate a 1/10.   

2/10

The Mummy (1959)

“He who robs the graves of Egypt dies!”  3 October 2019

The plot of Hammer’s The Mummy should be familiar to anyone who has seen a mummy movie or two.  It’s 1895 and a group of archeologists find and open the tomb of the Princess Ananka. One of the archeologists goes mad immediately.  After returning home, the other members of the group are killed off one-by-one. Could it be a mummy (in this case Kharis) back from the dead to avenge the desecration of Ananka’s tomb? 

Until last night, I hadn’t seen Hammer’s The Mummy in at least a decade.  In that time, I had completely forgotten just how good it is. Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are teamed up once again and the result is something special.  Cushing is such a fun actor to watch. He’s perpetual motion. Whether it’s lighting a cigarette or bounding off the wall with spear in hand, his acting style is a sight to behold.  Lee, in a largely non-speaking role, is his equal. Through the rotting bandages, Lee does an amazing job of expressing his feelings with just his eyes. It’s subtle (about the only thing subtle about this mummy) and nicely done. I was equally impressed with George Pastell as the mysterious Egyptian, Mehemet Bey.  He more than holds his own with Cushing and Lee. 

Beyond acting, The Mummy is a very visually appealing film.  Lee’s mummy get-up is quite good – especially the face and head.  Hammer films were notoriously done on the cheap. But other than what I thought was a visible zipper on the back of Lee’s mummy suit in a scene or two, you don’t get much creepier than the mummy in this film.  The sight of Lee stumbling out of the swamp is one of those iconic images that lives with you long after the film has ended. Most of the sets (the Egyptian “desert” set being the most notable exception) are stunning.  They’re bright and colorful – just what you expect from Hammer. Throw in nice lighting effects and solid cinematography and you end up with one very good looking movie.

Finally, I think Terence Fisher’s direction should be mentioned as another component in the success of The Mummy.  Other than the seen-it-all-before Egyptian flashback bits, Fisher’s pacing is a key to my enjoyment of the film. There’s rarely a dull moment.  And the decision to make the mummy more mobile than most previous cinematic mummies helps. Watching Lee’s mummy crash through doors and windows is a frightening sight.  It’s a nice piece of film making.

Weaknesses?  I’ve already mentioned the outdoor Egyptian sets, the flashback, and the zipper – there’s really not much more to complain about. 

8/10