The Ninja Dragon (1990)

To the best of my knowledge, the whole idea behind ninja (the plural of which I’m pretty sure is “ninja,” in the same way that the plural of “moose” is “moose”) is that you don’t see them.  They are “invisible” assassins, skilled in the arts of stealth, camouflage, and murder.  But what do I know?  I’m gaijin.  If you were growing up in America in the Eighties, however, ninja were highly visible, at least in pop culture.  There were ninja comic books (Grendel, Whisper, et al), magazines (Ninja, Ninja Combat, and Spirit Of Ninja, among many others), television series (The Master, natch), and films too numerous to mention.  

My friends and I looked up to the martial skills of Sho Kosugi in Pray For Death as much as we lusted after Lucinda Dickey in Ninja III: The Domination (which also featured Kosugi, though even with his guy-liner, he could just never attract us in the same way), and we even wrote a “screenplay” (yes, that really should be in quotes) for a ninja movie we were going to shoot on video.  Thankfully, it never came to fruition, but that didn’t stop us from buying cheap-ass shuriken and darts and whipping them recklessly at any object made out of wood that would stand still long enough to let us.  We all dreamed of owning our very own ninja uniform (the best ads for these, in my opinion, came from a company called Asian World Of Martial Arts, Inc), but they were simply out of our (more specifically our parents’) price range, and we were too uninventive and too unresourceful to just make our own (then; today I could probably whip up a kickass ninja outfit in minutes, were I of a mind to, and no, I’m not of a mind to).  But I would wager we derived more pleasure from simply fantasizing about being ninja than most actual ninja ever got from being ninja.  I would also wager that any self-respecting ninja reading this review (ha!) would be more than happy to take that bet.

 A giant and a lady in a red dress (pro wrestler Mayumi Ozaki) unceremoniously (and violently) kill several yakuza.  Okay.  Shinobu Nindo (Etsuko Shinkoda), daughter of prominent yakuza boss Takeo (Ikkô Furuya), has a dream wherein she is saved from villains by the three Ninja Defenders: Suzuka Hatai (Matsui Tetsuya), Jun Saruwatari (Cutey Suzuki, significantly also a pro wrestler), and their leader Ryu Momoji (Kenji Otsuki).  Ryu hands Shinobu a dragon bell, which will glow and ring when she’s in danger to bring the Ninja Defenders to her aid.  Meanwhile, Gô Ranjuji (Rikiya Yasuoka), begins his play to take over the yakuza’s rackets for the entire Kanto region.  But there’s something odd about him and his cohorts (y’know, the giant and the lady).

The Ninja Dragon (aka Legend Of The Shadowy Ninja: The Ninja Dragon aka Kûsô-kagaku Ninkyô-den: Gokudô Ninja Dosuryô) is the first (in fact, the only) live-action feature directed by manga artist/author extraordinaire Gô Nagai.  For my money, Nagai ranks up there with the best of the talents in manga/anime, and though he rarely gets the sort of accolades afforded to Miyazaki and Tezuka (at least not popularly in this country), I like to think he is just as influential as either (and if that statement doesn’t get me in trouble, nothing will).  As I seem to so very often state, I am by no means an expert on the life and works of Nagai, but his oeuvre is singular in how groundbreaking it is (at least to me).  One of his most popular creations, Cutie Honey, concerns a girl who can transform into a variety of take-charge women, the process for which involves her becoming stark raving nude for a few moments at a time.  Or take Kekkô Kamen, about a superheroine who doesn’t wear a stitch of clothing aside from her mask and all the sadomasochistic misadventures she gets into.  Or Mazinger Z (initially known in the United States as one of the Shogun Warriors line of toys from Mattel under the name Mazinga and slightly later as the titular anime character Tranzor Z) which standardized the template for damn near every Super Robot/Mecha show to follow straight on to today.  

Nagai loves pushing the boundaries of acceptability.  He loves delving into transgressive material, but even at his most outrageous, his work (what I’ve seen) is always entertaining.  Despite his sticking to certain generic contrivances, there is always something onscreen which must be beheld, not simply looked at.  This film is no different.  It is extremely lean in the story department.  The characterizations are non-existent.  But there’s a building up of weirdness beginning from the very first scenes, and once the inevitable showdown hits, Nagai removes all the stops (or more precisely all the stops he could afford to remove) and releases the hounds, so to speak.  

Like a great many of Nagai’s narratives, this film deals with prophecies and fate.  Characters are chosen to be leaders or warriors by forces beyond their control.  So Shinobu is given the dragon bell, a talisman that marks her as special, someone whose destiny insists that she be protected over others.  By that same token, Shinobu just wants to be a young girl.  She wants to experiment with smoking, go shopping, ogle boys, and so forth.  It’s the struggle between these two forces (service to a higher power on one side, personal satisfaction on the other) that has driven stories like this one for decades.  It is also a very Japanese idea.  Their culture (or my understanding of it) is built on an idea of honor in service to a group harmony which is supposed to provide a person’s ultimate satisfaction.  To give one’s all to their employer is tantamount to the attainment of (private) happiness.  Ryu and the Ninja Defenders embody this facet of selflessness for a common good.  Conversely, Shinobu is taken out of her complacent comfort zone, and she has to deal with what that does to her life.  Unfortunately, she never truly grows as a character in the film.  Her arc is hinted at, but it is never explicitly depicted, and this is an aspect shared across the board in this film.  

The film has other ideas that are teased; themes like maturity, personal responsibility, and so on, but none of them are developed.  They are tinsel on a Christmas tree and little more.  In fact, The Ninja Dragon is strictly surface-level on the whole.  It is a pure entertainment, since it has absolutely no other purpose whatsoever.  But on that level of amusement it modestly succeeds.  Despite the broad humor seemingly endemic to most Asian genre films (and whatever you do, do not watch this film with the English dub on, as it will actually make you dumber, though I’m sure, being good little cinephiles, you would never dream of watching this in anything other than the subtitled version), I never found myself bored.  Needless to say, I was never elevated, either, and though I don’t think this is one of Nagai’s best products, it also isn’t wholly offensive.  This is a decent time-waster, and sometimes that’s all you need.

MVT:  Nagai wins the MVT spot.  This is his baby, and it bears his stamp all over it.  That it doesn’t reach the heights of some of his other work is most likely a result of the obviously tiny budget of the piece.  But the film still has its share of the bizarre and the quirks on which Nagai built his reputation. 

Make Or Break:  The Make for me is the “spontaneous” pro-wrestling-style melee that breaks out between Suzuki and Ozaki.  It’s so out of left field while still being enjoyable and just a little sleazy, you can’t not like it. 

Score:  6.25/10

SAHARA (1983)

Watching this now because no movie featuring John Rhys Davies will go unwatched.

Its kind of sad that this was directed by the same guy (Andrew C. McLaglen) who did THE WILD GEESE (Roger Moore & Richard Burton & Richard Harris), THE SEA WOLVES (Roger Moore, Gregory Peck & David Niven), FFOLKES (Roger Moore, Anthony Perkins & James Mason), MITCHELL (Joe Don Baker, Martin Balsalm & John Saxon) and, well, yes, also BANJO HACKETT: ROAMIN' FREE (Don Meredith, L.Q. Jones & Dan O'Herlihy). SAHARA came out in 1983 but it plays like it was made in the 1930s...it could only have been directed by an old-geezer-who-had-been-directing-(mostly television)-for-decades-by-this-point-and-who-was-probably-losing-his-grip-on-reality-because-he-was-63-years-old-when-he-made-this.

Brooke Shields is predictably bad (she even pulls a YENTL by dressing up as a man, complete with mustache), but that has its charms, its just a matter of whether you will ask yourself, on your deathbed, as you leave this mortal coil, be it slowly, quickly, peacefully, or violently: "Did I really spend precious time of my life watching SAHARA with Brooke Shields?!?"

John Rhys D. is in full-on Connery/THE WIND AND THE LION mode, complete with turban. He is attacking Brooke right now, mounting her, ripping her clothes, Brooke's screams are bad-actress-feeble but I do think John Rhys D. really did cup Brooke's breasts right there, he is downright mauling her. Oh, now she got away in a not entirely convincing fashion (blame the director).

The score by Ennio Morricone is uncharacteristically terrible. I was expecting some lush theme(s) that, I dont know, highlighted the beauty of the desert or something, but no, his heart isnt in this project, his action cues sound like what you would hear accompanying desert action scenes in ABBOTT & COSTELLO MEET THE MUMMY, faux Egyptian-y type things. Here's the love/sex scene between Brooke and her Saharan prince but Morricone just aint bringing it. Maybe Morricone wasnt inspired because Brooke's love/sex scene is so bad-actress-awkward-bad.

Maybe Morricone wasnt inspired because the cinematography is so...nothing. I was expecting at least beautiful vistas but, no, this may as well have been filmed on a studio set, its so flat. The cinematographer was some guy I never heard of (with the unfortunate name of David Gurfinkel) but, oh, look, it turns out he seems to have been the house cinematographer for Cannon Films: he shot RETURN OF THE NINJA, DELTA FORCE, THE APPLE, AMERICA 3000 and, yes, even RAPPIN'.

Did I mention that SAHARA is a Golan/Globus production? You knew that already, I didnt need to tell you.  I dont think Cannon has made a worse film than this.

I dont think Brooke has made a worse film than this (and this is a person whose filmography includes BRENDA STARR).

(random insert of a Brooke poster)

Did I really spend precious time of my life watching SAHARA with Brooke Shields?!?

Episode #239: Ninja War Massacre

Welcome to another episode of the GGtMC!!!

Thie week special guest Fnord steps in to help the Gents with reviews that were selected as part of our Kickstarter campaign. Fnord and good friend of the show Blake chose Massacre Mafia Style (1978) directed by and starring Duke Mitchell and Ninja Wars (1982) starring Sonny Chiba and Hiroyuki Sanada!!! We want to thank Blake and Fnord for the support of the show!!!

Direct download: ggtmc_239.mp3

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

Voicemails to 206-666-5207

Adios!!!

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

Instant Action: Haywire (2011)

Two people come together, one I like, one I loathe, what will be the result?

Written By: Lem Dobbs
Directed By: Steven Soderbergh

I really love Steven Soderbergh as a director. I've become quite the fan of his work these last few years, and Haywire is full of the touches I have come to look forward to from his films. Gina Carano is at the other end of the spectrum, I loathe her in every way it is possible to loathe a human being who hasn't committed a heinous crime. Most people won't care about her transgressions, but as a former competitor and fan of mixed martial arts I grew tired of her prima donna "I don't need to make my scheduled weight" attitude. Couple that with her not actually being that good of a fighter who was pushed purely because of her good looks, and you have the reasons I loathe Miss Carano as a person. I avoided Haywire for some time because Miss Carano was involved with the film, but in the end my affinity for Mr. Soderbergh got the better of me and I had to sit down and watch the film.

As I watched Haywire I became even more convinced about the great skills of Steven Soderbergh as a director. I'm not going to say that Miss Carano was terrible in the film, but she wasn't very good. Every time she would open her mouth and speak it was evident that all of her charisma was tied to her physicality and not her ability to act or be charming in a traditional sense. In Haywire Mr. Soderbergh does something with Miss Carano that reminded me of what he did with Sasha Grey in The Girlfriend Experience and Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight. His camera highlights what they have working for them, and he visually trims away all the elements that would cause the viewer to turn against them. In the case of Miss Carano the camera focuses almost exclusively on her physicality. When she is talking the camera draws away, as if even it knows that she's not on screen for ability to act. Miss Carano does shine in the fight scenes, although due to the aforementioned personal bias I couldn't help but cringe at her attempts to work her MMA past into the fights. It is thanks to the way that Mr. Soderbergh so smartly frames Miss Carano that she shines so brightly. She becomes a force, a wrecking ball destroying everything in her path. Mallory Kane isn't quite super human, but the camera conceives of her as the epitome of an action star in motion.

The moments when the film trips up are when drama is inserted in the form of a romantic entanglement between Miss Carano and Channing Tatum. Mr. Tatum is perfectly fine in the role of Aaron, and the direction of the scenes between Mallory and Aaron is perfectly fine as well. It's the script of Lem Dobbs that lets the film down in the final dramatic moments between Mallory and Aaron. Specifically there is a lack of romance and drama in their relationship. Then, suddenly the script stops the film and shouts to the high heavens that there is drama and romance between those two. It only does this to try and make for a dramatic moment, but that moment fails because it is not earned and it does not jive with the emotions, or lack thereof, previously displayed by the characters of Mallory and Aaron.

Haywire is more of a film about the form of action than it is a film about action. The streamlined nature of the film allows Mr. Soderbergh to explore the framing of a fight scene versus the actual action a fight scene entails. The action in Haywire means violence, and much like real life the violence in Haywire comes in waves of staccato like bursts. The action in Haywire doesn't just happen, it is carefully framed and constructed to give the audience the most direct form of action they could ever hope for. If anything the action in Haywire is alarming because of how tenacious and suddenly the violence takes over the screen. Always probing, always exploring the why and the how instead of just presenting. Those are tenets behind the career of Steven Soderbergh, and in Haywire he continues to show how special of a director he is by exploring form and delivering quality action at the same time.

Rating:

9/10

Cheers,
Bill

Episode #238: From Beyond Rumble Fish

Welcome to the GGtMC!!!

This week we are programmed by our good friends at diabolikdvd.com and it was Sammy's turn to make the selections!! Sammy brought the thunder with From Beyond (1986) directed by Stuart Gordon and Rumble Fish (1983) directed by Francis Ford Coppola!!! Large William got pumped and Sammy gave hime the spot for the bench press during coverage daddy!!!

Direct download: ggtmc_238.mp3

Emails to midnitecinema@gmail.com

Voicemails to 206-666-5207

Adios!!!

Frankenstein's Castle Of Freaks (1974)

Why in the hell would anyone ever put their faith in an assistant?  They are a uniformly untrustworthy breed of employee, as just about every version of the archetype has proven in both prose and visual media.  Fortunately, they are typically also deformed physically so as to show us their unfaithfulness without dint of anything approaching proof of any variety.  Unfortunately for the mad scientists and so on who hire them, the assistant is also craftier than his/her master.  And while the boss may wield the full powers of the supernatural from his very fingertips or be able to breathe the spark of life into a corpse (or collection of corpses), the assistant knows how to procure the raw materials needed to achieve the master’s goal.  Ever tried making veal piccata without the piccata?  Assistants are usually so sycophantic, because they want what their employer has, and as the old saying goes, if you can’t be an athlete, be an athletic supporter.  Besides, who knows better how to topple a giant than someone who knows the weakest spots on its body?  

Naturally, the other side of this coin is the assistant who actually values his/her master’s well-being above all else (think Waylon Smithers), though this makes them no less dangerous to other people (who have the major disadvantage of not being the boss).  The relationship between master and assistant is singular (just pray you’re on the master’s good side, though that doesn’t guarantee your safety, either).  Imagine my surprise, then, when Count Frankenstein (Rossano Brazzi) in Dick Randall’s Frankenstein’s Castle Of Freaks (aka Il Castello Della Paura aka Terror Castle aka The House Of Freaks, etcetera, etcetera) has not one, not two, not three, but four assistants, all of them creepy, duplicitous, and ugsome(except for Gordon Mitchell’s Igor, who is the very exemplar of a Mitchell-ian granitic performance).

The film opens in media res with a bunch of villagers (including one in a pair of designer blue jeans and a plain white dress shirt) surrounding and being attacked by a caveman (Loren Ewing) who is later named Goliath.  Once the creature has been felled, Frankenstein and his cronies make off with his corpse and perform some enigmatic procedure on it.  They next dig up a woman’s corpse for some nebulous reason, though dwarf Genz (Dr. Loveless himself, the Oscar-nominated Michael Dunn) just can’t stop himself from groping one of her breasts.  The Count’s daughter Maria (Simonetta Vitelli) soon shows up with beau Eric (Eric Mann) and friend Krista (Christiane Rücker), and things turn even odder.

It’s interesting to me; for as much as the very concept of sleaze is important to this film (I would even argue it was the chief reason it was produced in the first place), the filmmakers didn’t go for the brass ring like they could have.  The women get naked throughout the film, and there’s some groping and mud bathing, but it’s also some pretty chaste stuff.  Considering the movie came from Italy (though admittedly [and curiously] directed by an American), home to some of the great cinematic sleaze-meisters, one would think the kinkier aspects would have been played up more.  Nonetheless, the film feels as though they wanted to go for it, but they held back for some undisclosed reason.  Genz watches Frankenstein’s daughter and guests from behind the walls of their rooms.  He’s called a necrophiliac outright, though the only nod we get to this particular quirk is the aforementioned feel-copping.  The majority of the film’s skeeziness comes from the voyeurism of its characters, not their overt participation in specific acts, and the majority of this voyeurism is partaken by the uglier male characters.  Because they are unattractive, the implication is that they are impotent.  Ergo, their only source of sexual gratification is the act of gazing at better-looking (I won’t say “beautiful,” per se) people having successful sexual encounters or reveling in the sensuality of their own bodies (like in, say, a milk bath).  Naturally, the act of looking will eventually give way to action, but even with their ardor up, these males prove as incompetent as they are flaccid.

The film goes to great lengths to emphasize the doings and intrigues of what we would normally consider to be the background characters over bestowing any sort of depth to the main characters.  Bug-eyed Hans (Luciano Pigozzi) hates Genz and wants him gone.  Hunchbacked Kreegin (Xiro Papas) is secretly tagging Hans’s homely wife Valda (Laura De Benedittis), who, incidentally, likes her loving a bit on the rough side.  It’s almost like a gothic soap opera, just with Frankenstein and live cavemen in the mix.  In this sense, it truly is a castle of freaks, since it’s the bizarre assistants who are the focus.  They’re the only characters who seem to display any type of emotion.  Despite the cooing and lovemaking in which the “normal” people partake, it is they who are cold and fairly soulless, on the whole.  The Frankenstein’s Monster facet of the film, which one would think is the whole reason to make a film with the Baron’s/Count’s name in the title in the first place, is not only secondary to the film entirely, but it comes within a hair’s breadth of being superfluous in total, except for the required finale carnage quotient (try saying that three times fast) he fulfills.

Frankenstein’s Castle Of Freaks is an outré mashup of clichés, and there is much in it that is simply unexplained.  Where did this Goliath come from?  Where did the other caveman, Ook (played by Salvatore Baccaro under the outstanding pseudonym of Boris Lugosi; the only thing that could make this cooler would be if Fleming played Goliath under the name Bela Karloff), come from, and do the two cavemen know each other?  What happened to the woman’s corpse from the film’s opening scenes?  Why is there a mineral bath in the middle of Ook’s cave, and why is it okay to bathe in for only short periods of time, and how did Ook never discover this before if Maria likes going there so much?  The filmmakers bring up these oddities, drop them onscreen, and then just leave them dangling in the wind without explanation.  The audience begins to connect dots in their minds which may or may not actually be present in the work (more than likely not), and damn it all if these ludicrous elements don’t make what is essentially a slipshod piece of schlock filmmaking into a bona fide curiosity.  It may never make any sense whatsoever in the grand scheme of things, but it still compels as a filmic anomaly, a Fiji mermaid to be marveled at from one side of the glass, studying the obvious stitching while willing it to be the genuine article.

Make Or Break:  The very first shot of the film thrusts the viewer into an outlandish tableau, and it is our choice to either accept it and go along or to laugh and dismiss everything that follows.  Oddly, either reaction would be valid with this particular piece, and it could even be argued that these reactions may co-exist in the same moments throughout.  This is trash, but it’s oddly engaging trash.

MVT:  The best bits of this film are those which are the most abstruse, specifically because they resist being defined or even acknowledged.  I mean, who would ever think to put Neanderthals in the same movie with Doctor (sorry, Count) Frankenstein and a pervy, pint-sized necrophile?  The makers of this little gem, apparently.

Score:  6.25/10

Dr.Who And The Daleks (1965)

"Now on the big screen....IN COLOUR!",proclaimed the U.K. poster for Dr.Who And The Daleks - and that was essentially the film's selling point in 1965. Whilst viewers could tune in weekly to the BBC's Doctor Who television series,it was shot and transmitted in black and white until the early 70's.....but the film,based on Terry Nation's first Dalek serial,The Daleks,would feature the most evil,ruthless lifeform in the galaxy in glorious colour.

However,this wasn't an entirely faithful adaptation -  it's more of a reimagining in hindsight,as it stars Peter Cushing as Doctor Who,an eccentric inventor,who with the help of his two granddaughters,Susan and Barbara,have invented a time machine called TARDIS. Barbara's boyfriend,Ian,accidentally activates TARDIS which travels to the planet Skaro - where they encounter the evil Daleks who are determined to destroy the peace loving Thals....

Doctor Who And The Daleks is pretty lightweight in terms of its story compared to the original television story - that story ran for 7 episodes with a runtime of just under 3 hours,whereas the film is just shy of 90 minutes.There were also themes of racial purity and the futility of war,whereas the film is a straightforward adventure story aimed towards family audiences,although its saddled with slapstick humour which does get pretty tedious after a while.

But what it does get right is the look of the film - although its a film very much of a time,it looks fantastic. The petrified forest,ravaged by nuclear war,is suitably alien, and the Dalek city and its claustrophobic corridors are a real feast for the eyes. Not sure about the Thals though,who seem to have a thing for eyeliner and makeup.....

Peter Cushing is a sheer delight as Doctor Who. His interpretation of the character was quite a departure from what was on television at the time,but he's a joy to watch as he battles against the Daleks - the real stars of the film. They are slightly different from their television appearances,but they look magnificent in colour as they glide around exterminating all who stand in their way (albeit with fire extinguishers - flames were deemed too scary!).

Overall,Doctor Who And The Daleks is a fun and entertaining film - but i think Peter Cushing put it best when he provided the voiceover for the trailer: ‘Come with us into that strange new world. I cannot guarantee your safety ... but I can promise you unimagined thrills!’

My rating: 7.5/10

Blow Out (1981)

Blow Out was sandwiched between the release of Dressed To Kill and Scarface - and compared to those two films,Blow Out is positively restrained considering that it was made by Brian De Palma,a director who has a reputation for being excessive at times. That's not to say Blow Out doesn't have it moments of excess though....

John Travolta stars as Jack Terry,a sound technician for a low budget film company,tasked with finding the 'perfect scream'.Whilst recording potential sound effects he witnesses a car accident - a blow out. After rescuing Sally Bedina (Nancy Allen), Jack realises that the sound recording he made of the car accident points to something far more sinister....and that he and Sally's lives are now in danger as they have become unwittingly involved in a conspiracy....

This is a tremendous film,with De Palma firing on all cylinders -  there's the typically wonderful use of splitscreen and misdirection,but also ramps up the suspense through sound as Travolta becomes increasingly obsessed (and paranoid?) with uncovering the truth. The film does go off the rails towards the end with an unnecessary setpiece as Travolta races to the rescue in his jeep,but thankfully gets back on track during its final scenes,notably the cruelly ironic ending (perhaps one of Travolta's finest performances).

Featuring solid support from a gleefuly sinister John Lithgow and a sleazy turn from Dennis Franz,Blow Out isn't quite up there with the likes of Dressed To Kill or Carlito's Way for me,but it's certainly one of the better thrillers from the 80's. 8/10