Breeders (1986)

My love for Douglas Cheek’s C.H.U.D. has been well-documented for some time now.  It is, for me, the best monster movie of the Eighties this side of John Carpenter’s The Thing.  It has a strong story that’s about more than one thing.  It has excellent performances from some great character actors (including interesting cameos from the likes of John Goodman, Jay Thomas, and Jon Polito).  It has an outstanding synth score by David A Hughes which is haunting, evocative, and melancholy, as the best synth scores are.  It has excellent special effects work by John Caglione, Jr.  It should be said here that Ed French, who was a member of C.H.U.D.’s makeup effects department, not only did the makeup effects for Tim Kincaid’s Breeders (aka Killer Alien aka Breeders: La Invasión Sexual) but also appears as Dr. Ira Markham in the film (special effects artist Matt Vogel also worked on both movies).  The popping up of French on both C.H.U.D. and Breeders makes for a nice, little coincidence, because the similarities between the two movies is enough to say that the former film was, at the very least, a heavy influence on the latter.  There is a monster that has a disgusting lair underneath New York City.  There is a crazy bag lady (Rose Geffen) who runs afoul of the monster.  There is a featured character, Gail (Amy Brentano), who is a photographer.  There is a scene where Gail’s lights go out, and she has to go down to the basement to investigate (like C.H.U.D.’s Kim Griest but, astonishingly, without the shock shower scene).  Now, I wouldn’t declare that Breeders is only a ripoff of C.H.U.D. because it “borrows” from so many other films -  Humanoids from the Deep, Scanners, The Fly, and Lifeforce just to name four – to the point that it feels a bit like looking at old photos of that time you tried to do yourself up as The Wolf Man for Halloween, and you wound up looking like an idiot with a bunch of brown cotton balls glued to your face.  

So.  Breeders.  The film concerns itself with the violent rape and mutilation of a bunch of virgin women by an oily, insectoid creature.  I’d get into more of the plot, but there isn’t one.

This film is a sleaze lover’s wet dream.  Every woman in it is a virgin (sometimes - okay, always -  unbelievably so; a coke-snorting, former-gymnast-turned-fashion-model is a virgin?  I suppose stranger things have happened), and that term is treated like a four-letter word.  The women are all attacked specifically because they are virgins.  The one character who isn’t a virgin is A) ugly, B) insane, and C) torn apart by the experience.  What does that say about the rest of the women?  Well, not much, since the filmmakers don’t really give a rat’s ass about any of them.  Gamble Pace (Teresa Farley) is a doctor, and she’s ostensibly the protagonist.  She’s also as weak-willed and ineffective as every other woman in the film (though Kincaid does give her a poignant scene at the very end that almost saves the film; Almost).  All the women feel a great desire to tell us why they are virgins, as if it were any of our affair.  Kathleen (LeeAnne Baker) states, “In this day and age, it’s almost some sort of dirty word to be a…virgin.”  She even has a hard time saying the word.  Alec (Adriane Lee), Gail’s stylist, explains to Gail about how she’s a virgin for no reason whatsoever other than to fly a giant red flag telling us that she’s the next victim.  All the women strip down at the most unlikely of times (while cooking dinner, while talking with their mother on the phone [okay, one is actually pretty likely], while on a break during a photoshoot, etcetera), and since there’s no reason for any of this, these scenes simply stand out as being the portions of the movie where Kincaid signals to the audience that this is what they are there for, and, hey, it’s been five minutes since you had a boner.  That the women ogled so heavily are virgins plays to men’s craving towards the Madonna/Whore Complex.  These women are willing to get naked for your eyes only, but they’re unsullied, and boy oh boy, unspoiled territory is the most irresistible, just so long as, you know, she’s also great in the sack.

The opposite side of this is, naturally, the Monstrous Male Sex Urge.  Going all the way back to, at least, 1931’s Dracula, the idea of being raped by (or at the absolute minimum, giving one’s body over to) an Other has been present in probably about half or more of every Horror film ever made.  The most famous example is the underwater ballet/sex scene from 1954’s The Creature from the Black Lagoon, and this is what begat Humanoids from the Deep once the walls had been broken down about displaying graphic monster-on-human sex on screen.  What’s kind of interesting in Breeders is that all of the attacks are initiated by normal guys who transform into (apparently) just the one monster.  He keeps popping up like the Great Gazoo.  The mere presence of a woman is enough to arouse sexual urges in men (even gay men are not immune) that cannot be overcome until their base desire is satiated (the film eggs this along by almost always having the women be naked in the men’s presence first).  Even when the men aren’t actual monsters, they’re lasciviousness is brazen and on full display.  Karinsa (the glorious Frances Raines, niece of legendary actor Claude) avers to the guy who barged in on her naked calisthenics, “It’s not like you were after my body” in an almost porno-coquettish come-on manner.  Kathleen asks creepy boyfriend Brett (Mark Legan) how much he saw of her taking a shower.  His unctuous response: “Enough that I know I want you to bear my children.”  But the monster is, as stated, The Other (read here as “non-white male”).  It wants to propagate its race, and it does so by stealing “our women.”  Further, it’s “semen” is described as a “thick, black substance.”  Have no fear, however, since all the beast’s victims later get to frolic together in a giant, gross, “semen”-filled (this time white in color, just to make all the men in the audience think of women frolicking in semen) hot tub, which I’m convinced was taken, unwashed, directly from Plato’s Retreat.  One can just imagine the bacteria in that thing.

This is not to say that Breeders doesn’t have a certain appeal.  After all, I’m a heterosexual male who enjoys seeing a naked woman (or several), and I have a love for special makeup effects going back to my pre-adolescence.  Both of these bins are filled to overflowing by Kincaid and company.  It’s just that the rest of the bins that a truly successful film needs to fill (compelling characters and a narrative, namely) are ignored almost entirely.  If nothing else, this film is an American-made Hentai, and it does that as well as it was going to be done in 1986.  It’s just disappointing that the non-exploitation elements are so clumsy and dull that it dragged down the whole experience for me.  I think I expected too much from a film titled Breeders.

MVT:  The nudity and special effects.  Well-done on both counts.

Make or Break:  The first attack scene is admittedly unexpected in how it plays out, and it raises some questions that the film quickly answers in the most ham-fisted way possible.

Score:  6/10

The Norliss Tapes (1973)

***SPOILERS***

Journalism, as a career for cinematic and television protagonists, isn’t in favor like it once was.  This could be because technology has changed how news is both reported and absorbed.  It could be because journalists aren’t as trustworthy as they used to be (which also ties in with how technology has changed the landscape).  Outside of social issue films, journalists just ain’t sexy no more.  The only two recent exceptions to this that I can think of are Clark Kent in any given DC Comics film featuring Superman and Sam Turner and Jake Williams in Ti West’s The Sacrament.  While I’m sure people are still inquisitive, there is also a bold streak of cynicism that pervades most people’s attitude toward everything they hear (I’m no exception).  If anything, this should provide a hardboiled edge to any contemporary journalist characters, marrying the nobility of truth-seeking and the gruff edge of film noir.  

On television, we still have cop shows, lawyer shows, doctor shows, etcetera, but no shows about reporters spring to my mind.  Gone are the Lou Grants, the Murphy Browns, the Les Nessmans, sequestered off to discreet retirements though they’re sometimes whispered about in nostalgic reveries of when reporting was a noble cause worthy of pursuit.  It can be argued that most protagonists on the boob tube are truth-seekers; the police who solve crimes, the lawyers who defend the wrongly accused or prosecute the wicked, the soldiers and agents who fight amorphous menaces that threaten our existence, the doctors who must find the cure for a mystery illness.  But the main difference is that the reporter sheds light on things so the whole world can see, and while the other archetypes sometimes strive for a sense of transparency, their findings are often isolated, given weight in how they affect even only a few lives.  If they do carry more widespread ramifications, they are likely hushed up or spoken of only in muted tones.  Characters like David Norliss (Roy Thinnes) in Dan Curtis’ The Norliss Tapes shouts his findings from the rafters, and this narrative deals with the consequences of that.

Norliss is a man with a problem.  He’s become despondent, and his book debunking paranormal charlatans is long overdue.  When the worrisome word scribe goes missing, and friend and publisher Sanford Evans (Don Porter) finds a pile of cassette tapes dictating the tome Norliss hasn’t yet finished.  The remainder of the film details the first chapter, wherein Ellen Cort’s (Angie Dickinson) sculptor husband Jim (Nick Dimitri) just won’t stay in the family crypt.

In The Norliss Tapes, the truth is something worth pursuing, but it comes with a heavy price (it has to, the truth being something the powers-that-be seldom want known).  As Norliss delves deeper into the mystery of Jim’s reanimation, people around him start dropping like flies.  This applies not only to Norliss and Ellen’s acquaintances but also to completely innocent bystanders.  Further than that is the possibility that our protagonist may not be able to save anyone at all, himself included (this is the basic premise of the series this film was intended to spin off and didn’t).  In a post-JFK assassination, post-Vietnam War, post-Watergate America, this type of foreboding ambiguity was popular.  It wasn’t enough that we didn’t trusted in our institutions anymore.  Our heroes had changed, too.  They were no longer stalwart supermen who always saved the day and got the girl.  More and more, they were everymen with flaws and doubts we recognized in ourselves.  They didn’t necessarily come out on top, and even when they did, they typically were left to ponder the aftermath of their actions.  They had become reflective of the cultural timbre.  Norliss is no different.  His attempts at stopping Jim are constantly stymied because he doesn’t fully grasp the monster’s nature, and though this doesn’t discourage his resolve, ultimately, he’s left with the realization that he’s in way over his head.  It was a common feeling for the era.

Another interesting aspect of this film is its intertwining of art and the supernatural.  While nothing new in and of itself, The Norliss Tapes deals specifically with the creation of art and, by extension, the creation of life.  Jim is known in the art world, though I can’t recall if it’s ever mentioned how successful or well-regarded he is.  At any rate, he makes a deal with a demon named Sargoth (Bob Schott) whereby Jim will be granted immortality via an ancient Egyptian ring after he completes a sculpture of Sargoth made from a mixture of clay and blood (hence Jim’s victims).  The sculpture provides a gateway (or a birth canal, if you will) for the demon to be born onto our Earthly plane.  Further, Jim’s sculpture, like Norliss’ writing, imparts another means to eternal life, assuming some portion of his body of work remains extant.  This is something which has forever fascinated me as a concept, to create something living outside the marriage of egg and sperm, and it begs quite a few questions.  Why do we create in the first place?  What does it say about us?  What does it say about itself?  Is the act of creation governed by us or by some external force?  What happens when what we create becomes bigger than us or grows beyond our control?  It’s a simple idea which leads to a labyrinth of things to ponder, and it’s here in this film, just not especially developed.

The Norliss Tapes followed hot on the heels of the Curtis-produced The Night Stalker, which gave us the character of Carl Kolchak, arguably one of the most enduring and beloved cult figures in genre circles.  It’s no surprise that this later film gets lumped in with The Night Stalker as it’s practically a carbon copy of it.  Norliss and Kolchak are both writers.  They both want to find the truth and disseminate it.  They both encounter the supernatural and attempt to overcome it with their wits, though Kolchak is a natural believer in the paranormal and Norliss is a skeptic.  They both must face the consequences of their actions.  They both start their films in a lowly state, and their tales are told in flashback.  That said, it’s clear to see why Kolchak got a (short-lived) series and Norliss did not.  For one thing, The Night Stalker dealt with a vampire, a popular monster even back then (its sequel, The Night Strangler, dealt with a slightly less standard boogeyman), while zombies hadn’t yet taken off like they have today (the demon aspect doesn’t crop up until the last act).  Also, Kolchak is a journalist, which naturally allows him to meet up with interesting characters in the course of his investigations.  Norliss, as a writer of books, is more solitary and internalized, but he tries.  Most of all, Darren McGavin played Kolchak as a charming huckster, right down to his seersucker suit and straw hat.  Thinnes, as much as I like him, is far too dry and brooding for audiences to want to follow him overlong in this mode.  It’s kind of a shame, because the final setup to the hoped-for series may have been just enough to overcome its failings.  We’ll never know.

MVT:  The story has enough familiar and strange elements to feel almost fresh, though the shadow of Kolchak looms large.

Make or Break:  The final scene is open to the possibilities this property could have been.  Plus, it eschews a classic, upbeat ending for something more sinister and nebulous.

Score:  5/10  

Flash! Future Kung Fu (1983)

Fascism litters the landscape of dystopian cinema.  Everything from 1984 to 1990: The Bronx Warriors deals with government agencies seeking to control every aspect of a country’s economy and populace.  Fascist governments tell us what to do, where to work, how much we get paid, with whom we can associate, what we can do for leisure, etcetera.  This is a fear most people have deep down in their guts, because we recognize that, ultimately, no matter what form of government we say we have, there is always the faint possibility that the leaders of same will suddenly decide that they know what’s good for us better than we do (I mean, obviously, this never happens in real life).  This plays with the concept that power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, something with which I do agree.  Wouldn’t it be interesting if there were a future-set story where the government is actually peopled with civil servants who genuinely care about the citizens under them, but the common people still live in a dystopian society (there probably is one somewhere; WALL-E comes close, I guess)?  Of course, we don’t see this because it goes against the simple, black and white, cause and effect we anticipate in a post-apocalyptic/future world.  A beneficent, well-meaning government would only produce a beneficent, prosperous society and vice versa, right?  The old saw of the road to Hell being paved with good intentions rarely rears its unwanted head in these scenarios, and maybe casual audiences (and filmmakers) just don’t want to try to deal with the complexities involved in such a narrative.  Thankfully, Kirk Wong’s Flash! Future Kung Fu (aka Health Warning aka Digital Master aka Da Lui Toi) sticks to the accepted script and gives us a future which is not only dystopian but also one in which the Nazi party has actually made a successful comeback (flags and all).

Yes, the Nazis are in power again, and Kung Fu students like Killer (Lung Wei Wang) constantly train, either at their Kung Fu schools or in “Black Boxing” matches (think: underground fight tournaments), to fight them.  After meeting Monique and Fever, two femmes fatale who extol the virtues of doing drugs and living life like today was your last, Killer must choose between his Master Lau’s (Eddy Ko) naturalistic teachings and getting some.  And maybe beating up some Nazis.

Homoeroticism is alive and well in Flash! Future Kung Fu.  Lau’s students love to hang out together and shower together.  Men are constantly rubbing each other to relieve sore muscles and/or to bring them back to health after getting beaten or overdosing on drugs.  The Nazis seem to have a true fascination with navy blue briefs, because just about every male in their group prances around in them.  Master Lau commands Killer to burn his collection of Playboys (which may not seem that farfetched, but considering the context of the rest of the film…).  The arcade where Monique and Fever hang out features muscle boys posing all over the place.  When Monique offers to give Killer a rubdown, he demurs, then he yells at his buddy for letting her almost see him naked.  When a male character actually has sex with a woman (involuntarily, might I add) it leads directly to his death.  What’s interesting about all this is that it isn’t presented as the Nazis being against homosexuality and the Kung Fu students being for it.  They all seem to embrace it equally.  It’s accepted as just a way of life (it reminds me just a bit of Matt Wagner’s short-lived comic The Aerialist, which posits a world where homosexuality is the norm and heterosexuality is deviant), and it leads directly into one of the other major aspects of the movie.

The main ideological conflict of the film is between the world of science versus the world of traditions.  Seemingly, Monique and Fever were grown in a Nazi lab (there’s no true explanation, as in so very, very much of this film).  The Nazis do drugs constantly, relying on scientific breakthroughs to bring them to new highs (and when that doesn’t work, they’re perfectly fine with pumping carbon monoxide directly into their own cars).  When Killer is shot up with rabies, Master Lau is offered the antidote, but he turns it away, saying it’s “a blasphemy against nature.”  Lau then takes Killer to some herbal medicine guy to get healed.  This healing process, however, is almost as barbaric as the disease and its delivery system.  Killer is rubbed with a fresh, open chicken carcass.  He beheads a snake and drinks its still-pumping blood.  He is bludgeoned with all manner of implements to harden his body.  Lau and company hold that “all-natural” is how everything should be done.  In fact, Lau sends Killer out to knock trees down with an ax as part of his training.  Theoretically, this breaks the opposing sides down further to being body versus mind.  The Nazis believe in strengthening (and enjoying) the body through science/drugs, whereas the students believe in strength through the power of the mind, their force of will.  Unfortunately, this is a distinction which is nebulous in the film, except when the head Nazi declares, “The power of the body is superior to the power of the mind.”  So there.

If my analysis of Flash! Future Kung Fu’s facets appears muddled, that’s because the film itself portrays them in muddled fashion.  Now, from what I understand, the original version of this movie was something much more elaborate and cogent.  It’s also, to the best of my knowledge, considered something of a lost film (which is not all that shocking considering China’s track record on film preservation).  More’s the pity, because this could have been something special.  As it stands, and in the only format I was able to see it (a crappy, pan and scan VHS copy), the film is a mess.  There’s no plot, no characterization, no reasons for why things happen.  In its current form, the movie simply sets you adrift in a succession of scenes, none of which matter, because we have no frame of reference for any of it.  Scenarios and interactions we expect to have some significance go nowhere and mean nothing.  The final twenty-two or so minutes are okay, because it busts out some nice imagery and moments (in a race to prevent something nonsensical which we couldn’t possibly give a shit about because it hasn’t been built up in any way, shape, or form), but it can’t save this puddle from itself.  Here’s a flash: this film is mostly junk.

MVT:  There is some decent production value on screen.  But it’s wasted on this thing.

Make or Break:  The finale.

Score:  4/10