Being a monster obsessed person
for the majority of my youth (I blame King
Kong mostly), I was, of course, also obsessed with dinosaurs (again, I
blame King Kong). There wasn’t a book concerning dinosaurs at
my local library that I didn’t check out multiple times (including, but not
limited to, Dinosaurs and Other
Prehistoric Animals by Darlene Geis and
R.F. Peterson, the book brandished
by Harry Holcombe in King Kong Versus Godzilla). Since dinosaurs are real-life monsters, I
loved them all to some degree or another, even the goofier ones (come on,
Diplodocus, what is up with you, anyway?).
Sure, I enjoyed the ferocious Tyrannosaurus Rex, but I was much more
inclined toward something like the Anklyosaurus, with its death-tank-esque
build (yes, I know they were herbivores).
Another of my go-to dinosaurs was
the bizarre Archeopteryx. This beast
wasn’t large and menacing like a T-Rex.
It wasn’t built like the proverbial brick shithouse. It was essentially a small bird with the head
of a thunder lizard. And yet, it
fascinated me, perhaps because of the duality of it, the overt evolutionary
look of it. Like with the Mighty Men and Monster Maker drawing toy
(look it up) I spent way too much time with (yet somehow never enough), the
Archeopteryx was a hodgepodge of lizard and bird, and the dichotomy of its two
sides formed something of a gestalt for me.
Sure, this little guy would never dominate the dinosaur world, but it
had its own place in the pecking order (sorry), and I think it’s an important
one. It’s the same attraction I had to
films like Lawrence Huntington’s The Vulture (a film I was dying to see
when it played on late night television back in the day). However, the gap between expectation and
reality with the Archeopteryx is much narrower for me than with this film.
Walking through a cemetery on a
dark and stormy night, Ms. Ellen West (Annette
Carrell) witnesses the grave of Francis Real open up (which we get to see)
and unleash some monstrosity (which we don’t get to see) into the sky, cackling
all the way. The local Vicar (Philip Friend) doles out some
convoluted back story about Real, his beloved pet bird (let’s just assume it’s
a vulture), and his hatred for the Stroud family (oh, and a cask of gold
coins). Cue Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton), a “nuke-u-lar”
scientist who has married into the Stroud family, and has a rather obsessive
fascination with solving the mystery of what’s going on (the viewer does not
have to strain as much to put this together, I assure you) before his family
all wind up dead.
The primary theme this film
focuses on is the idea of myths and superstitions. The film’s opening sequence pretty much nails
this home with the bus driver warning Ms. West not to walk across the fields
and through the cemetery at night because of all the ghosts. The story about Real and the Strouds is local
folklore, and the people of the community have no problem believing that Real’s
vengeance from beyond the grave can and will come to pass. Eric posits that Real may have visited Easter
Island at some point, because the indigenous people there have a myth about a
bird man (Manutara, which, from what I was able to gather, is more of a sacred
bird of the island than a cool monster/deity); some thin reasoning, to be
sure. What’s kind of interesting is
that, for as much of a man of science as Eric claims to be, he’s pretty damned
quick to suggest that an experiment must surely have created some monster bird
(it is, after all, the most logical explanation; I mean, what else could
possibly turn a woman’s hair white overnight?).
Equally interesting is Eric’s desire to find and kill the creature
rather than study it (he is, after all, a horror film protagonist in the
Sixties). Some scientist. But you get the feeling that Eric wants to
believe in these things. Sure, he plays
around with “nuke-u-lar” power at his day job, but his heart’s desire is to
explore the deeper mysteries of the world (read: monsters). Tolferro, Cornwall, where the film is set, is
to Eric, “where life goes on undisturbed.”
In other words, this is a place where monsters can exist, because pesky
things like science aren’t as prevalent there as superstition is, and Eric buys
right into it. In this world, legends
not only trump facts; they create reality.
The Vulture is one of those movies that for me brought up the
eternal question, “what does the villain do when he is offscreen?” Has this quandary ever occurred to you? This is due largely in part to the structure
of the narrative. The antagonist means
so little outside of his role as an occasional threat, and his actions are so
curiously limited that you really have to wonder what else could possibly be
occupying his time? I mean, why doesn’t
the titular monster simply take out the Stroud family in one fell swoop when he
has them exposed? The reason is because
the film is segmented into vignettes whose sole purpose is to give us a cheap
thrill and pick off characters individually so that the film isn’t just a half
an hour long. Sometimes in films like
this, we’re given some specious reasoning as to why the villain doesn’t just
slay his enemies all at once (he’s regrouping, he’s injured, he had to file his
taxes, whatever). With a film like this,
however, the lack of any explanation sets the viewer’s mind adrift into the
realm of pondering.
I have to say, I enjoyed the
film’s first half, even with its lack of monster sightings (outside of some humongous
prop bird legs) and its mountains of inane chatter. There’s something about a film taking its
time, trying to build a story and a sense of expectation for seeing its
creature, that I enjoy immensely (even when the characters act like
idiots). That said, the endless dialogue
scenes which leap to such far gone conclusions and are repeated so often in
this film eventually wear thin. Add to
this the fact that there is absolutely no mystery as to who the monster is
(this despite one of the reddest red herrings in the history of cinema which
goes absolutely nowhere), and you’re left with nothing but the slog to finally
see the fiend. The kicker is that even
when we do see him, we still don’t, and the overall effect is simultaneously
weak and ridiculous (this in a film built upon ridiculousness). The climax is anticlimactic enough (it just
sort of happens), but what the characters do afterward in the film’s denouement
is pretty baffling, even while the characters continue to talk and talk and
dispense even more exposition. And then
the film just ends. For as much as the
film tries to do, it simply doesn’t pull it off, and yet, I still found myself
okay with the vast majority of it.
Figure that one out.
MVT: I really like the idea
of an oddball monster like this one created through science and myth. It’s an intriguing concept that provides the
vast majority of The Vulture’s charm.
Make or Break: In line with
the MVT, I like the opening sequence for what it does while showing us almost
nothing. Had the rest of the movie been
as clever (or at least less concerned with talking), it could have been
something special.
Score: 6.25/10
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