Uninvited (1987)

Given the option, most people would consider themselves to be either dog people or cat people.  Now, there are all-around animal lovers, and people who love both dogs and cats but not other animals (and even other animals but not dogs or cats), but we’re not talking about them.  Personally, I’m a dog person.  Dogs seem to want to be friends (you know, barring the ones that want to take a piece out of you), and they love letting you know it.  They love when you give them some attention, and they’ll wait all day for it, if they have to.  Cats, not so much.  If you’ve ever been on the internet, you’ve seen at least one photo of a cat doing whatever it damn well pleases along with a sentence or two describing how selfish and aloof cats are.  I’ve been around cats that loved being petted.  I’ve been around cats that couldn’t care less if you lived or died, so long as they stayed fed.  But this is the defining difference in the perception of the two animals.  Dogs are seen as warm and friendly.  Cats are their polar opposites.  I don’t think preferring one or the other defines a person in any way whatsoever in the same way I don’t think the animals prefer the type of owner they have if that person simply cares for them.  So, before the five of you who read these reviews decide to bombard me with passive-aggressive hate mail or just your garden variety hate mail (I know, I laughed at the thought of hearing anything from anyone, good or ill, too), kindly bear two things in mind.  One, I know this is not an in-depth dissection of the psychology of our four-legged friends.  It’s not meant to be.  It’s an introduction to a crummy film review.  Two, I do not hate cats.  I simply like dogs more. 

Doctor Grey (director, writer, producer Greydon Clark) and assistant Paul (Paul Martin) work at a genetic testing lab.  Discovering something odd about an orange tabby (I think) called Subject ST-618, they decide to have a look-see, but before they can sedate the little bugger, he manages to get away.  While in pursuit, it’s revealed that there’s an angry, mutant cat monster (cat-ster?) living inside ST, and it swiftly takes out its pursuers and makes good its escape.  Meanwhile, Wall Street honcho Walter Graham (the ever-crusty Alex Cord) and cronies Albert (Clu Gulager) and Mike (George Kennedy) need to cruise to the Cayman Islands before the SEC (that’s the Securities and Exchange Commission, for those who don’t know) can close in on them.  The naturally charming Walt manages to tempt Spring Break bimbos Bobbie (Clare Carey) and Suzanne (Shari Shattuck) aboard his yacht.  Of course, the girls want to bring along more age-appropriate companions in Corey, Lance, and Martin (Rob Estes, Beau Dremann, and Eric Larson, respectively).  As well as a certain orange tabby.

Uninvited has at its center a premise which is both keenly interesting and fundamentally ludicrous.  The cat-ster lives inside the normal cat.  Actually, it would be more accurate to say it wears the cat as a disguise (which I suppose makes some sort of sense from a predatory perspective), making the tabby a kind of Trojan horse.  By that same token, I can’t help but think that this particular mutation would really only be useful in very specific circumstances (say, stuck on a yacht with a bunch of jerks?).  So, was the mutation created to produce some type of living weapon so that the military could just drop cat-sters into the homes of feline-loving despots and let nature take its course?  Was it an unforeseen mutation that still doesn’t make any sense, since it’s the monstrous equivalent of a jack-in-the-box?  In an odd way, the creature is reminiscent of the armpit penis from Cronenberg’s Rabid, but whereas in that film (and in the films of most storytellers presented with a basis like this) the ridiculous aspects were a jumping-off point for the story.  Here, it is the story in total.

Conversely, the aspect of symbiotes and parasites is intriguing as it relates to the characters in the story.  The cat-ster has a kind of symbiotic relationship with the tabby (though, the more I think about it, and not to get too graphic, the cat-ster and cat have a relationship closer to foreskin and penis rather than human and tapeworm).  Just about everyone in the film forms a parasitic relationship with Walt, needing what he has to get what they want or need.  Mike and Albert want money from him.  Rachel (Toni Hudson) wants ownership of her boat from him.  The other guys and gals want to use what he owns to enable their own carefree good time.  Walt, on the other side of this coin, is happy to grant these things, so long as he remains on top and richer than all of them.  He’ll let the others leech him, but he can get rid of them any time he wants, or so he believes (ever tried removing a tick you can’t see?).   

 While these wants (most of which are strictly of the base variety) drive the characters’ actions, it’s also interesting to note that the truly bad characters (creature notwithstanding) are all older.  The young characters are basically dumb and want to get their rocks off and have a good time, and Corey is even outright venal, but they’re not out to hurt anyone.  It’s the older characters who kill to get their way.  Most people’s natural inclination is to look to their elders for proper guidance of some type (at least for a few years).  In Uninvited, however, you can’t trust anyone over thirty.  The filmmakers equate the point-of-view of the film with the film’s target audience.  For my part, I give Clark and company credit for matching up the disparate generations, and the first two-thirds of the film actually works fairly well developing the relationships between the characters and creating some compelling conflicts and foreshadowing.  

The last third of the film, on the other hand, just disintegrates, trying to satisfy generic tropes, both Horror and Exploitation, in general and not quite doing either.  The film’s climax is so farcical and impossible to swallow, I refuse to believe that the filmmakers didn’t go in with that knowledge and just played it up to the nth degree.  The film is still entertaining to some extent.  It has aerobicizing, some wicked hot licks, and Cord, Kennedy, and Gulager in a three-way race to see who can eat every last ounce of the scenery before they all drown.  Plus, the silly cat-ster puppet does have a cheapjack charm all its own.  You know, I thought about writing this review as a dialogue between myself and my dog, Pepper Ann.  In retrospect, I probably should have.   

MVT:  As stated, the cat-ster is pretty neat as a monster.  Despite the monster’s ever-changing size, it’s still the thing I looked forward to seeing most throughout the film (not including the female skin I was deprived of setting eyes on).  The creature looks like a shrunken-head version of King Seesar from Godzilla Versus Mechagodzilla (1974), which is probably why I like it as much as I do, since Seesar was basically a giant dog with a jewel on his forehead.  Irony, no? 

Make Or Break:  The monster makes its presence known on the boat in quasi-spectacular fashion.  There’s a little bit of blood, some chaotic violence, and George Kennedy swinging for the fences of Histrionics Memorial Field.

Score:  6.25/10

The Dead Are Alive (1971)

Many, many years ago, advertisements for a fascinating type of pet were profligate, especially among the comic book set. The pet? Sea-monkeys. The ads depicted a family of the beasts lounging on the grounds outside their undersea castle, their creepy, pink bodies and trident-pointed heads a clear indication that these were unlike any other pet you could buy anywhere. For the measly sum of $1.25, you could own "the real, live fun-pets you grow yourself," and you were assured they were "so eager to please – they can even be 'trained.'" Never mind the small disclaimer in the bottom corner stating, "Caricatures shown not intended to depict Artemia." What you got in the mail was a plastic fish bowl with magnifying bubbles to look through and a sealed paper pouch (like what Pop Rocks candy comes in) containing the sea-monkey eggs. Following the instructions to the letter, the eggs would hatch before your very eyes to reveal...brine shrimp. What the hell?! 

I had the same sort of reaction to The Dead Are Alive (aka The Etruscan Kills Again, aka Overtime, aka L'etrusco uccide ancora). The poster graphically depicts a man half-flayed, viscera exposed and spurting, staring right out at you. Reading about the film, you'll find many references to the Etruscan god, Tuchulcha, and you'll be lead to believe that, somehow, this wrathful deity is set free and starts killing folks who come back to life as his zombie army. Here's where I give you the information that the sea-monkey shills wouldn't. This film is not a horror film. There are no supernatural aspects to it at all, so if you buy or rent this looking for a bloody monster movie, you will be disappointed. However, viewed through the proper filter, you'll find a decent Giallo with its fair share of problems.

Alcoholic archaeologist, Jason (Alex Cord) is exploring an Etruscan tomb with a probe and camera. Along come Jason's ex-girlfriend, Myra (Samantha Eggar), her son-in-law, Igor (Carlo De Mejo), and their flamboyant friend, Stephen (Horst Frank). While developing the photos, Jason notices a mural featuring the god Tuchulcha (more specifically, his eyes, as the rest of his face is indiscernible). Soon after, a pair of nubile teens sneaks into a nearby tomb and are brutally beaten to death after some brief heavy petting. Meanwhile, Myra's husband, conductor Nikos (John Marley), is concerned that sparks between Myra and Jason may be reigniting. When Jason's missing steel probe is found to be the murder weapon, the besotted tomb raider finds himself being framed for the killings. As the bodies start to pile up (and don't come back to life, might I add), Jason takes the initiative in clearing himself of the crime and uncovering the real killer.

The film is suffused with the lurid, pulp feel of the Italian Giallo subgenre. This is not surprising, as the story is adapted from a short work from writer Bryan Edgar Wallace. The name may be familiar to you, because he's the son of writer Edgar Wallace. Wallace's work became the source of the German Krimi films as well as heavily influencing Gialli-to-come. It doesn't hurt that he was also the screenwriter of King Kong (1933). The emphasis here is on two-fisted action, and Cord plays Jason so hard, he makes Ralph Meeker's Mike Hammer look like Pee Wee Herman. The killer kills in POV shots mostly, and the murders are both graphic and jarring. We're clued into his (or her, but for brevity, I'll just refer to the murderer as male) cracked mental state through the use of raspy breathing, an indication (or red herring, if you prefer) that when the killer is killing, he has devolved into little more than an animal. The murders (and most action scenes) are also set off by quick insert shots of the painted eyes of Tuchulcha, a further indication the murderer is not himself, but possessed of the evil god's spirit (not literally, of course). Interestingly, the one Giallo staple missing from the film is the black-gloved killer, made popular by Dario Argento's early work, but it's not greatly missed here and feels almost inappropriate for the material and setting.

The Giallo film is almost always concerned with style and atmosphere over story structure and coherence, and The Dead Are Alive is no exception. In fact, the film's biggest problem is its head-scratching method of doling out clues and building the plot, and I believe the editing to be the main culprit in this regard. Myra walks away from Jason, we get a shot of two teens dead in a tomb, we hear a scream, and Myra's suddenly in Jason's arms, distraught. A little later, we find out that the killer has stolen two pairs of red shoes from the local theater's costume department and placed them on victims, but it's mentioned offhand, as if we were made aware of this earlier. Things occur offscreen, and we're told nonchalantly about them later. I think it's one thing to place aesthetics over storytelling, but it's frustrating when the audience is posed with a "whodunit?" scenario, and then not be given clues that are common knowledge to all the characters. Still and all, the film does create some effectively tense ambience through the use of chiaroscuro (I finally got to use that one), and the camerawork is solid. 

One of the main motifs of the film is theatrics and artifice. We see several plays at various stages of rehearsal, and the killer even steals from the theater and uses props in his murders. Dead bodies are displayed in a staged manner. Every aspect of the story is an act put on by the killer to illustrate his mental state. Of course, the murderer's identity is hidden from the audience and the other characters through his outward appearance of normal behavior, an act to illustrate how others see him. His true personality is presaged by shots of Tuchulcha's painted eyes, both peering into his soul and stating his intent. The juxtaposition of opposites (what we see versus what is truth) is a key theme throughout, and it extends to other characters. For example, scumbag blackmailer, Otello (Vladan Milasinovic), plays the charming tomb guide for the tourists, but secretly enjoys immolating insects. Nikos is the classic temperamental artiste, pitching manic fits over just about anything, and this aspect is mirrored by his filmic opposite, Jason. Jason is also prone to quick flares of temper, but where Nikos is older, accustomed to opulence, and works in the arts, Jason is younger, accustomed to living unpretentiously, and works in the sciences. It's a classic conflict of obverse characters, but both men's melodramatics further inform the movie's sense of theatricality.

Like with many a film noir, the Giallo is often concerned with memories and how the past comes back to hurt us. The killer in Gialli has more likely than not been scarred by some event in his past (usually sexual and always violent in nature). The audience is keyed into this aspect here via the archaeological angle. Archaeology is literally digging up the past, and it's only after this particular tomb has been opened up, that the killer finally snaps. The demon mural and its overt connection with the madman's mind links the past with the present. As more clues are dropped on the viewer (some seemingly out of thin air), the connections between events of the past and the present solidify. And while the final reveal of the killer and his motivations ultimately come off as implausible, the plotting is ridiculous, and the editing is confusing to say the least, it's the film's more thoughtful components that raise it a notch or two above average.

MVT: Samantha Eggar plays her meager, thankless role totally straight, and while just about every other actor engages in wild histrionics, she remembers that it's acting, not ACTING.

Make or Break: The final reveal sequence nicely pays off what we've endured ninety minutes of confused story and editing for with a tense stalking sequence and decent melee between our pro and antagonists. That's a "Make."

Score: 6.5/10