Nothing but the Night (1972)

**POSSIBLE SPOILERS**

Adults use a lot of rather creepy threats to keep children in line.  “The boogeyman will get you.”  “You’ll shoot your eye out.”  “You’ll go blind if you keep that up.”  My grandmother used to say she’d put me outside for the gypsies if I didn’t behave.  True to her word, one night she did, in fact, lock me out of her house at night, and I was left to wait (for what felt like hours but was likely only a few minutes) in sheer terror for the gypsies to snatch me up.  I swore I could hear the clip-clop of their horses’ hooves (no doubt engulfed in the very flames of Hell) on the then-brick road leading to her place.  Needless to say, I was scared shitless but pretty well-behaved after that.  But what we also had in my area was the Kis-Lyn reform school for boys, and this was the place where the bad kids were left to fend for themselves from the other bad kids, according to popular gossip.  The mother of a friend of mine even packed his things in a suitcase and dropped him off at the doorstep of a different local boys’ home which he believed was Kis-Lyn to put the fear of God in him.  Even though the school had been closed for eight years by the time I was born, you would still hear the name bandied about as a form of punishment for some time.  It’s funny, most parents today wouldn’t dream of intimidating their children with some of the things with which we were coerced into good behavior.  But the impact was immediate and undeniable (at least in the short term).  The kids at the Inver House orphanage in Peter Sasdy’s Nothing but the Night (aka The Devil’s Undead aka Castle of the Living Dead aka Devil Night aka The Resurrection Syndicate) get the double whammy of being menaced not only with death but also with the far worse fate of becoming adults. 

On the Scottish island of Bala, various elderly people are murdered, all of whom are trustees of the Van Traylen Trust which funds the Inver House orphanage.  Colonel Bingham (Sir Christopher Lee) calls on acquaintance and pathologist Sir Mark Ashley (Peter Cushing) to help him investigate after a busload of children crashes with more trustees aboard.  One survivor, the young Mary Valley (Gwyneth Strong), holds the key to all the answers.

Nothing but the Night is a deceptively simple thriller with a rather dark underbelly.  The greatest and clearest piece of that seedy dark side is in how the children in the film are treated.  Kids in this film are little more than pawns.  For the trustees of the orphanage, they are vessels to be filled with their selfish venality.  For Mark and Bingham, they are clues to a deeper mystery.  Bingham even admits that the whole reason he wants the case is because a friend of his was involved; the deaths of the children on the bus are “incidental.”  Mark resents being pulled into the whole affair, only getting involved because he doesn’t like being put in his place by the hoi polloi.  For Dr. Haynes (Keith Barron), children are painful memories screaming to be dragged out into the light of day.  For reporter Joan Foster (Georgia Brown), they are a hot, tabloid-y story to be exploited and splashed across the front page.  For Anna Harb (Diana Dors, in full-on late stage Shelley Winters mode), her daughter Mary is a piece of property, her ownership of which is more important than the girl’s well-being, and this isn’t the only reason that Anna is a poor candidate for motherhood.  Never are the children really treated as individuals, Mary being the exception as she’s the sole clue to what’s going on.  Despite the protestations of the adults who claim to have the children’s best interests at heart, they are more intent on probing them to satisfy their own ends.  It’s a tragic statement on the callous abuse of children as things, and it’s all the more terrible in this instance, because the children are already considered castaways, unwanted by society, and therefore, prey.

In this vein, but to a lesser degree, are issues of identity and maturation.  The orphans are a collective.  We see them playing, and that’s about it.  Mary, as the focus of the narrative, is the exemplar for the film’s depiction of the aforementioned themes.  On the fateful bus ride, she is the cheerleader, conducting her fellow children in a variation of “Ninety-Nine Bottles of Beer on the Wall.”  She usually has the innocent exuberance we expect from a girl her age.  This is the genesis of the person she should grow to become; it should be a process.  Her “repressed memories,” then, are the loss of her childhood identity/individuality and the domination of a new identity, an adult one.  That these two actions are instantaneous and simultaneous is indicative of their nefariousness.  There is no development.  There is only the loss of childhood, and this absence is what produces monsters.  The juxtaposition of virtuous children with iniquitous adults and the unification of the two is where the film derives its horror.

The film’s tonal shift from giallo-esque thriller, a la What Have You Done to Solange? (sort of), to science fiction/horror film is rather jarring, even though the groundwork is laid out from the beginning.  Said groundwork, however, is cleverly disguised with a few guileful twists you probably won’t see coming because the filmmakers wisely don’t emphasize them.  Lee and Cushing get to play on the same side of the moral coin, much like in the superlative Horror Express, though Cushing infuses his character with just enough of his classic Baron Frankenstein portrayal to give yet another in a long, long list of fantastic, fully-realized performances.  The locales are all gloomy, casting a predetermined pall over the proceedings.  Sasdy (primarily a television director [most notably responsible for the 1972 production of Nigel Kneale’s The Stone Tape], though he directed a few films, such as Hammer Studio’s Taste the Blood of Dracula, one of the less traditional offerings in the series but no less worthy) brings a workmanlike sense of direction that grounds the film in a reality which is both straightforward and twisted.  Overall, the film is satisfying, and the aftermath is chilling, but I can’t help but think what could have been had Sasdy and company played the story straight.  I know I would like to have seen more entries in a franchise featuring Bingham and associates (this was the first and the last film produced by Lee’s Charlemagne Productions; it was adapted from a series of novels by John Blackburn, and the original plan was to produce more of them).  Especially if the dynamic lead duo from this one starred in them.  Alas…

MVT:  It’s Lee and Cushing all day long.  It usually is when they appear onscreen together, and this is no exception.

Make or Break:  The finale slaps all the pieces together, but I could see it not working for some people.  That, and that the reveal of a certain character’s fate made little sense to me, considering the timeline of the film.

Score:  6.5/10

Dark Dungeons (2014)

Directed by: L. Gabriel Gonda
Run Time: 40 minutes

A disclaimer before the review. I backed the Kickstarter for this movie. Please keep this in mind while reading my review. With that out of the way let's move on to how the 80's satanic panic lead to the creation of this movie.

In 1983, Patricia Pulling founded Bothered About Dungeon & Dragons (B.A.D.D.) after her son tragically committed suicide a year earlier. She claimed that Dungeons & Dragons was the gateway game to the occult and Satan. A message that resinated with Jack Chick and his ministry. They make cartoon tracts that are meant to be left in random places in the hopes of saving people from evil and hell fire. These tracts are full of religious righteousness but lack logic, research, and real facts. So when Chick Publications made Dark Dungeons tract 1984 it was made in that same spirit. The tract claimed that D&D spell were real and could be used to corrupt and effect others, meetings with robed cult members at higher player character levels, and committing suicide if your character dies are just a few of the evil things about D&D.

Now the end of this story should be that the tract was a joke in role playing circles but J.R. Ralls had other ideas. After winning a thousand dollars in the lottery, Ralls wrote Jack Chick to buy the movie rights to Dark Dungeons and adapt the tract as close as possible into a movie. For some reason they said yes and then the magic of making a movie happened.

The story follows Debbie and Marcie. Two born again freshmen university students who are looking forward their time at school. After their orientation session, an older student Mike, warns the girls about the popular kids on campus and how getting involved with them will only lead to problems. At this university all the popular students play role playing games. Despite the warning the girls accept an invite from the role playing group to attend a party. It starts out like another normal party with loud music, alcohol, and photogenic people showing off how photogenic they are. With the party this exciting, everyone feels it's time to shut off the music and quietly watch a group of people describe what they are doing while rolling dice.

This starts Debbie and Marcie's corruption into Satanism and evil. Also, Debbie and Marcie's friendship starts to have problems as Debbie is selected to learn real magic and be one of the popular role players. Things get even worse when Marcie's character gets killed, kicked out of the role playing group, and ends up killing herself. Distraught over her friend's death, Debbie is at a loss as to what she should do next when Mike comes back into the picture. He has been praying and fasting for Debbie and he has a way to free her from this evil. She has to accept Jesus into her life and burn all her D&D stuff in a big bonfire.

Overall it is an okay movie. There is a lot of inside jokes in the movie that detracts from the overall enjoyment of the movie. Examples would be knowing about the insanity that are Chick tracts and various incidents that people have blamed on D&D. It's worth a watch but don't go out of your way to find this unless this sounds like your thing.


MVP: Possessing the balls to buy the rights for this thing and make just as insane as the original source material.



Make or Break: The unexplained references and inside gamer jokes did a lot to take me out of the film.

Score: 4.5 out of 10

Blowback 2: Love and Death

Joe (Riki Takeuchi) and Baku (Takashi Matsuyama) are on a bus riding through the Philippines countryside with a briefcase of money (which has no backstory to it at all) when they’re set upon by a band of guerillas led by the villainous Yamaneko (Mike Monty).  Baku is killed, and Joe is left for dead, but he crawls back, and, with the aid of local bar owner Rei (Mie Yoshida) and local bounty hunter Ratts (Shun Suguta), he takes his revenge.

This is the plot for Atsushi Muroga’s Blowback 2: Love and Death (aka Blowback: Love and Death), which I assume was labeled as a sequel for two reasons: one, so as it not be confused legally with Marc Levin’s Blowback released the same year, and two, to ride the coattails of Marc Levin’s Blowback, for whatever that may be worth (I’m thinking very little), but probably more the former than the latter.  This film was produced by Japan Home Video, and it appears to have been produced specifically for the home video market, not that this alone makes it an inferior effort.  In fact, it has all the elements it could possibly need to be an entertaining, successful revenge/action film.  And, ironically, that’s its main fault.  It has a personal motive for vengeance (aren’t they all, though?).  It has a MacGuffin in the form of the money that was taken from Joe (which seemed to me was completely forgotten about after the opening shoot out).  It has a broken angel archetype in Rei, who, of course, will become the great love of Joe’s life.  It has a dark stranger who helps out for mercenary reasons of his own.  It has an army of faceless (but still colorful) henchmen.  It has a reptilian bad guy with a distinguishing feature for Joe to focus on as he tracks him down (here a wildcat tattoo that, honest to God, looks like it was drawn in three seconds with a ballpoint pen [and likely was]).  It has a metric ton of gunplay and things exploding left, right, and center.  

If John Woo showed us anything, it’s that these basic components can be combined in intriguing, stylish ways to give us action films with flair and a modicum of emotional resonance (no matter how contrived), and Blowback 2 uses all of them.  There is slow motion out the wazoo (sometimes motivated, sometimes not).  There are freeze frame dissolves galore to the point that they simply stand out (notice how I’m making note of them?).  The characters are all emotionally walled-in by the bad ass roles they inhabit (the exception being Rei, who gets a few moments to shine, but otherwise does a thankless job in service of Takeuchi’s character arc).  There are double handguns being fired at the same time.  Sergio Leone and Spaghetti Westerns in general also get a lot of play in the film.  The opening credits and music harken back to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.  Baku carries a pocket watch that chimes, and this chime will, invariably, come into play in the film’s climactic showdown, a la For a Few Dollars More.  There’s a chaotic character who likes to toss TNT around as a first resort, as in Duck, You Sucker!.  There is the coffin toted around that hides a nasty surprise, like in the original Django.  The initial glimpse we get of Joe, he’s wearing a cowboy hat.   

Nevertheless, Muroga just slaps these ingredients together and throws the plate on the table.  Blowback 2 is too by-the-numbers.  Oh, it makes a valiant effort, to be sure.  It’s jam-packed with violence and action and mayhem, and it even goes for the throat in its gonzo moments, like when Ratts saves Joe and Rei by hurling dynamite at them, or when Joe picks up an M-60 and mows down the baddies, or when Joe whips out a Vulcan cannon and mows down the baddies.  But none of it is attached to anything else in the film aside from the tangential needs of the wafer thin plot.  This is all sound and fury, and you can guess what it signifies.  You would get the same fulfillment by watching Youtube clips of the same actions/things/events being depicted, because you would have the same level of involvement with them (read: none).  It’s all so detached and constantly happening, it quickly descends into numbed overkill.  This is what Martin Scorsese described as a modern film where there’s a climax every two minutes, and it was produced twenty-five years ago.  The more things change…

There are a few attempts at themes outside of the revenge facet.  For example, the main characters are all foreigners in a foreign land, and this land is hostile to them.  As Joe and Baku travel along, Joe comments that you could be murdered for your shirt here.  Rei is a Japanese bar owner in the Philippines, but we’re never told why she moved.  Slums and the living conditions of the common folks are shown throughout, but it’s all just background, as the protagonists plow through anything and everything in pursuit of their goals.  In addition is the idea that money is freedom.  Joe and Baku talk about what they’re going to do with their case of money (turns out, not much).  Ratts is out for the bounty on Yamaneko’s head.  Rei thinks that money will mend her soul (“money can heal most heartaches”).  That said, this is all just tinsel on a Christmas tree made up entirely of ornaments.  Make of that what you will.

I realize that I’m slagging off on Blowback 2 pretty hard, and perhaps that’s because it gave me exactly what I wanted, just in the wrong proportions.  I wanted some ambitious action setpieces, and I got far too many.  I wanted some reason to compel me to follow these characters through their journey, and I got just about none.  This is the definition of mindless action, and for some that may be the exact balm they require.  Hell, had I been drunk enough while watching this (I was stone cold sober, incidentally) or been in a different frame of mind, I may have loved it for what it is.  That’s the trick.  This film needs to be accepted at face value, because that’s all it really is.  Consequently, I kept finding myself distracted by what was happening in the real world of my life while watching, and that’s simply no good for watching a film.  For folding laundry, though?  Sure.

MVT:  Funny enough, the action is the sum and substance of Blowback 2.

Make or Break:  The finale takes everything the film has built up to, and it pays it off the only way it can.

Score:  5.5/10     

The Butterfly Murders (1979)

Fong (Siu-Ming Lau) narrates the backstory of where the martial world stands (all we need to know is that there was some ruckus, we’re currently in the “Quiet Period,” and there are now seventy-two forces who control the martial world, the only one with which we need to concern ourselves being the Ten Flags Clan led by Tien [Shu Tong Wong]).  After the murder of a paper mill owner prompted by a counterfeit copy of Fong’s memoirs, The Ten Flags are summoned to Shum Castle, where Lord Shum (Kuo-Chu Chang) is hiding in fear for his life.  It seems some flagitious ne’er-do-well is using poison butterflies to off people, and it all ties in to a secret deep beneath the castle’s surface.

The Butterfly Murders (aka Dip Bin) is Tsui Hark’s first feature length film following his graduation from The University of Texas and his return to Hong Kong (I always remember his anecdote [I believe from an issue of Fangoria] where he was filming a dance or ballet class as a student, and his teacher pointed out to him that the shadows the dancers cast were more visually interesting than the dancers themselves; that is, a different way of looking at cinema).  The film itself is chock full of jump cuts and a storyline that assumes we’ll catch up to whatever is happening onscreen (and, yet again, we have to look at this as being, one, partially a cultural thing with how the Chinese construct and engage with film, and two, possibly something caused, at least in part, by the editing that happened oh-so-often after a foreign [but especially Chinese] film left its director’s hands and traveled abroad).  

And yet, this disjunctive quality aids in bolstering the mystery element of the film.  The Butterfly Murders, in many ways, is very much an “old dark house” movie.  Disparate guests with nothing in common are invited to an unexpected place.  Said place is hauntingly barren and forbidding.  Said guests are embroiled in a mystery which could cost them their lives.  There are secrets and twists that appear to come out of nowhere but do, in fact, have explanations.  There are hidden chambers which house aspects of the truth.  There’s an odd butler-y character in the form of Chee (Hsiao-Ling Hsu), who is deaf and muter but also far better looking than most cranky, old cinematic butlers I’ve seen.  The only thing really missing is the raging tempest outside (though the sky in the film always looks overcast, and you could look at the swarms of butterflies as being the storm which keeps everyone cooped up).  The three main characters, Fong, Tien, and Green Shadow (Michelle Yim) play detective, piecing the puzzle together.  

Since Fong is our audience perspective character, he plays the primary investigative role.  He questions people but generally keeps out of things, observing and processing the goings-on as a scholar/scrutineer does.  It’s he who will actually learn a lesson from the story, and, as he would pass it on to his eventual readers, Hark passes it on to the viewer.  Fong chronicles tales of the martial world from what he has experienced in it and is highly regarded for this.  This story is yet one more of these yarns, and it unfolds partly as a folk tale and partly as an accounting of what actually happened.  Fong’s memoirs are valued because he is known as one of the great storytellers of his time, and the falseness of the writings being foisted off at the film’s opening is important because it’s telling us that the reality crafted in the writing of guys like Fong is valuable as historical documentation and as fashioning of the world in which everyone who isn’t a scholar/author lives.  Flashbacks take us from the main story to spice up the proceedings, give us backstory, and show us that there are common legends in this world.  Therefore, we get the two clowns robbing a grave who are attacked by the butterflies as well as several shots of the aftermath of Magic Fire’s (Eddy Ko) wrath.  

This world is supported by myths and legends as surely as ours is by science and nature.  This is why the heroes of this world have supposedly magic powers.  And yet, the filmmakers very clearly show us that these abilities are a combination of skill and gadgetry.  For example, Magic Fire can’t actually control and create fire.  He is a master of pyrotechnics and explosives.  Similarly, Thousand Hands has all manner of sharp, pointy objects he can hurl en masse with pinpoint accuracy.  His moniker has nothing to do with him having a thousand hands (though that would have been kind of neat to have seen).  It’s a simultaneous aggrandizement and de-mythologizing of these special people.  Fong’s writing creates larger than life characters, while Hark shows us that there are real world explanations for their gifts.  But in the end, the martial world of the film will continue to be colored by and filled with Fong’s point of view, not Hark’s. 

Oddly enough, for a film set in the martial arts world, there isn’t a ton of fighting in it.  Actually, I should append that.  There is a decent amount, but it takes a while to get to any of it, and, to be perfectly honest, you can tell that Hark was still very much an enthusiastic novice (as an analogy, you almost need to ask yourself whether you’re interested in seeing Salvador Dali’s artwork from when he was four years old; personally, I would leap at the chance).  For as many interesting shots/visuals we get there are just as many, if not more, that are so undisciplined in angle and movement, you almost can’t tell what’s going on, and the editing is as choppy as a prep cook.  Nevertheless, it’s this sense of experimentation that turned Hark into the filmmaker he would become in a very short span of time.  Additionally, the director seems to rein it in a sizable amount as the film rounds third base while ramping up the more fantastical components, and this is when the movie became most satisfying for me.  Yes, you have to work with the film (arguably against it) to make heads or tails of it at the outset, but both the journey and its destination are worth it.

MVT:  The mystery facet keeps the film together and even gels with the rest as it moves along.

Make or Break:  If you can’t make it through the film’s first ten minutes, it won’t be for you.  I loved the challenge of it (as a Western viewer) and where it led.

Score:  7/10