Psychic Killer (1975)

The ability or power to perform acts of vengeance through astral projection would be quite desirable to anyone who had an ax to grind.  Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t use this power for acts of murder or violence but maybe something embarrassing for my enemies.  For example, a depantsing of one of my foes in a public place.  That would probably bring me satisfaction.  If one were more bloodthirsty and felt their enemies deserved death for what they had done, you could potentially make a pretty interesting film from that premise.  Psychic Killer from 1975 attempts to tell a thrilling story from this idea, but unfortunately the idea is the only thing interesting about this movie in the end.

Psychic Killer is an early example of the slew of psychokinesis horror and thriller films that were being made during the 70’s and early 80’s.  Psychic Killer even came one year earlier than Carrie, which is the film that launched this sub-genre into popularity.  Unlike Carrie, Psychic Killer fails to generate any sympathy for the suffering protagonist, Arnold Masters, played by Jim Hutton.  Hutton does his best with what he’s given, but after the first act his character spends much of the movie sitting in a chair as his unseen spirit does the violent deeds.  The film also fails at being an effective proto-slasher.  Psychic Killer and Patrick, from 1978, share a lot in common.  With the exception of one kill, Psychic Killer simply doesn’t deliver when it comes to a good murder sequence like Patrick was able to do three years later.

We’re introduced to Arnold Masters as he awakes from a nightmare and attempts to escape from an institution for the criminally insane.  He claims he’s innocent of killing the doctor who treated his now deceased mother.  Masters holds a very strong grudge against those who incarcerated him and those he feels neglected his mother prior to her death.  Masters befriends another imprisoned patient who, with the help of an amulet, teaches Masters the art of astral projection.  After the real murderer of the doctor is convicted, Masters is exonerated and released from the institution.  He is now ready and capable of exacting his revenge on those who have caused him so much pain through his newly learned powers.

The film starts off promising.  Hutton does well early on expressing his character’s torment and we begin to get behind him.  There’s a pretty amazing dummy death in the first act and an introduction to a slimy psychiatrist who’s taking advantage of one of his female patients.  The setup of the astral projection is decent and makes for an interesting mode for revenge.  Unfortunately, when we get to the scene with the psychiatrist the film begins to slowly go downhill.  Masters chooses the psychiatrist as his first victim but there’s really no payoff with his death.  He’s killed off-screen with just a dribble of blood running from his mouth as he lies motionless on the ground.  Most of the murder sequences are a letdown.  The film doesn’t go far enough with the gore, with the exception of one scene but by then it’s too little too late, and it fails at building any suspense.

At times it didn’t seem like the filmmaker was sure what kind of film he wanted to make.  It’s setup like it’s going to be a thriller but there are no thrills or suspense.  The editing doesn’t work and the score is forgettable.  Because our killer can’t be seen stalking his victims, we’re never on the edge of our seat waiting for him to strike.  It just sort of happens.  The film doesn’t work as a horror film either due to the already mentioned lack of violence and gore.  There’s a shower scene death that’s decent but not that memorable and a death at a butcher shop near the end that’s pretty good but by then you’re pretty much checked out of the movie.  It even at times feels like the director was going for some dark comedy.  An attorney, whom Master’s blames for his imprisonment, is shown singing opera at a construction site just before he is crushed flat by a pillar like in a cartoon.  The intentional comedy falls flat and there isn’t enough unintentional comedy to save the picture.

It doesn’t help that the film is a bit confusing at times.  This should never be the case in a low-budget B-movie, such as this.  When Masters is preparing for his out-of-body experience, we get quick black and white dreamlike sequences that show a person harming Masters’ mother.  We’re not sure until later who these people are.  In the case of the lawyer, I wasn’t sure who he was and why Masters wanted him dead until I had deduced that he could be the only character left on Masters’ hit list.  Another example of this is the murder of the butcher, played by Neville Brand.  There is never a motive given for why Masters wants this character dead or how the character is linked to Masters’ mother.  It just seems like the filmmakers wanted to increase the body count and they had access to Neville Brand for an afternoon.

The psychokinesis thriller is an interesting sub-genre that has brought audiences many entertaining films over the years.  Psychic Killer has the honor of being one of the first of its kind and perhaps even inspired some of the films that would follow.  Sadly, that’s as much praise as I can give this one.  When I think of some of the most entertaining movies that could be lumped into this sub-genre, films like Carrie, Scanners, and The Fury, I’m reminded of their spectacular endings and having to pick my jaw up off the floor.  When I think back to the end of Psychic Killer, I’m reminded of its lackluster ending and having to pick my eyelids up off my face.

MVT: The premise of the film.  It had so much potential.

Make or Break Scene: The murder of the lawyer.  This scene broke it for me.  No suspense, no gore, no laughs.

Score: 4/10

Rat Man (1988)

I was not a huge fan of the show Friends, even when it was at its most popular.  Maybe it’s because I was severely inebriated much of the time it was first being shown.  Maybe it’s because these characters and their lifestyle were so alien to me.  Maybe it’s because the show isn’t very good.  Maybe it’s a combination of a multiplicity of factors.  Regardless, there was one bit they did on the show that has always stuck with me, and I still refer to it to this day.  Ditzy blonde Phoebe is talking with smarmy Chandler, and she inquires why Spider-Man isn’t pronounced like Goldman, Silverman, etcetera.  Chandler, astonished by this (more or less his permanent state of being throughout the series), explains that it’s “because it isn’t his last name, like Phil Spiderman.  He’s a Spider…Man.”  I catch myself far too often pronouncing the names of superheroes like Phoebe would, and, even though it’s not laugh out loud funny, I do find it endlessly amusing.  This is possibly the elitist comic book fan in me taking a poke at people who “aren’t in the know” or maybe just taking a poke at elitist comic book fans themselves.  That said, even though Peter Parker is not, in fact, part spider (I’m not as up on the character as I once was, so this may have changed), the little fella dubbed Mousey (Nelson de la Rosa, whom most people know, ironically enough, from the John Frankenheimer/Richard Stanley version of The Island of Dr. Moreau) in Giuliano Carnimeo’s (under the genius pseudonym Anthony Ascot) Rat Man (aka Quella Villa in fondo al Parco, which translates roughly to That Villa at the Bottom of the Park, which may very well be a better title or may simply be the film’s producers desperately trying to cash in on The Last House on the Left sixteen years later; leave it to the Italians to beat a dead horse into glue) most definitely is part rat.  The problem is, he’s also part monkey, so, if anything, the film should have been called Rat Monkey, but I guess that just sounded more like a nature documentary than a horror film.  I would rather watch that fictional documentary than either Friends or Rat Man ever again.

Crusty, sweaty Dr. Olman (Pepito Guerra) is set to unveil Mousey to the world at the next scientician conference when the little rascal makes good his escape.  Next thing you know, bikini models like Marilyn (Eva Grimaldi) are being spied on and chased around, and her sister Terry (the divine Janet Agren) has to team up with perpetually-open-shirted crime writer Fred (David Warbeck) to track her down and save her.  

Rat Man owes the entirety of its existence to two sources.  One is the Slasher film.  On top of Mousey’s natural predilection for murdering people thither and yon accompanied by copious amounts of blood, Carnimeo delights in two types of Slasher-esque shot whenever Mousey is around (which is constantly; this little fucker is more ubiquitous than air).  The first is the classic point of view shot, and, of course, it’s from Mousey’s perspective.  The thing of it is, these POV shots are overused, so they are not nearly as effective as they could be.  Every now and then, it might be nice to build a little tension by not signaling to the audience that the tiny terror is lurking just out of sight.  The second type of shot which is repeated early and often is the extreme closeup.  There are multiple cutaways to a detail of Mousey’s dark, little eyeball.  Later, there are closeups of his fangs and claws as he attacks.  These shots, in my opinion, work better than the flood of POV shots, but even these wear out their welcome and detract from what the audience wants to see, namely, the “critter from the shitter” (that’s part of one of the film’s taglines, and he does, indeed, crawl out of a toilet at one point in the movie) gnawing away at young, pink flesh and innards for minutes on end.

The other major influence on this movie, as you may have guessed, is H.G. Wells’ The Island of Dr. Moreau.  To be more precise, Carnimeo and company ignored the anti-vivisection angle of the novel, focusing on the juicier aspects.  For example, Mousey is a combination of animals in humanoid form.  Dr. Olman walks around in a Panama suit, was shunned by the scientific community for his activities, and cares more about proving the value of his work (the purpose of his experiments is never explained to us) than he does for any living thing.  Olman has a loyal assistant, Tonio, who fills the Montgomery role, though far more incompetently.  Marilyn and skanky photographer Mark (Werner Pochath) come to be at Olman’s villa because of a car wreck instead of a shipwreck, but the effect is the same.  Mousey revolts against Olman and causes havoc on the villa and its occupants, and this is the heart of what the film is in its entirety.  It’s little more than a drawn out, constant stream of “animal” attacks, none of which are suspenseful, and none of which are all that satisfying in the gore department, either.  Why Fred and Terry are in the film at all is mindboggling, since all they do is tool around looking vaguely inquisitive, are flat as a pancake character-wise, and serve no narrative function whatsoever other than to facilitate the indifferently obvious “twist” ending (though, I’ll be honest, I could stare at Agren all day, every day).

I’ve read in several places how this film is supposed to be a sleazy piece of trash.  I can verify the latter half of that statement, but the sleazy part has me confused.  There’s some nudity from Grimaldi, there’s some shitty gore (including a skull sitting in a puddle of what looks like Ragu spaghetti sauce), and Mousey himself certainly appears greasy as all hell.  But outside of that, Rat Man is tame stuff.  Worse than that, it is hardly a movie, as it doesn’t attempt to develop a story in any way.  It’s a very simple idea that, instead of doing anything interesting with, the filmmakers simply padded out with somnolent sequences that don’t go anywhere.  Mousey may be a critter, but perhaps he and this film would have been better off left in the shitter.            

MVT:  I want to give it to Janet Agren, just for being Janet Agren, but I’m going to have to go full-pig and give it to Grimaldi for stripping down and showing off her appreciable assets.

Make or Break:  Probably around the third or fourth time Carnimeo cut back to Terry and Fred driving around in the dark, as if they’re going to find anything remotely interesting in what is the ultimate in cinematic blue balls.

Score:  4.5/10

Curse of the Dog God (1977)

I don’t know much about Folk Horror other than that, whenever it’s brought up, most people simply point meaningfully to Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man, and their audience nod their heads in enlightened agreement.  And fair play, because that is the ne plus ultra of the subgenre.  From what I understand, Folk Horror is rooted firmly in European traditions, but, when I look at something like Shunya Ito’s Curse of the Dog God (aka Inugami no Tatari), I have to wonder why films from other cultures can’t be included?  Maybe they are, and I’m simply ignorant of the fact, but a lot of Asian Horror that involves itself with the supernatural tends toward the struggle between modernity and tradition.  Perhaps proper Folk Horror’s ties to religious themes is the key, since they specialize in Christian/Pre-Christian ideologies in conflict, and Christianity isn’t the religion that most think of when they think of Asia.  Even in Ito’s film, the only religion represented is Shinto, but the eponymous Dog God is an ancient, rural force taking revenge on a man who is contemporary and interested in exploiting a small village for its Uranium deposits (that is, something which brings more modernity, both good and bad).  Still, this man, Kano (Shinya Ohwada), quickly embraces the concept of the Dog God and the old methods employed to try exorcising it.  Also, there is no ancient sect at the heart of the plot, just some paranoid, superstitious farmers (who happen to be half-right).  With that in mind, I can’t say that the film is Folk Horror by definition, but it is in spirit, at least to some degree.  But, hey, I could be wrong.

Kano and his co-workers race around the countryside looking for Uranium to refine.  On their way to the village of Kugamura, they pull a trifecta of transgressions.  First, they spy on a pair of maidens skinny-dipping (this is really the most innocent of the three, though the women play a crucial part in the remainder of the story).  Then, they run over a shrine (guess who it’s devoted to).  Then, they run over a young boy’s dog, and then they split.  No amount of business success is going to save these guys at this point.

Outside of the Folk Horror shadings, Curse of the Dog God is a story of supernatural revenge that stems from several sources.  First, it is pure vengeance, as the outsiders take advantage of the villagers and their land.  Granted, the villagers are paid for their property, but the fact that this company rolls in and starts digging in the mountains, despoiling its natural purity is important.  Kano marries Reiko (Jun Izumi), daughter of one of the men whose land Kano wants to lease.  Despite Reiko and Kano’s statements that they are genuinely in love, it still feels exploitive, or maybe it was at first, but true love developed (we’re never shown this progression, so we have to fill in some blanks).  Therefore, on the one hand, the Dog God is attacking to protect its home turf and for the disrespect it has been shown by these outsiders.  On the other hand, there is the angle of human love and jealousy.  The Dog God, apparently, does not invoke itself but rather is invoked through someone else in a Pumpkinhead sort of way.  The person accused of this is Kaori (Emiko Yamauchi), Reiko’s longtime friend and daughter of a farmer who refused to lease his part of the mountain to Kano and his cohorts.  Kaori also loves Kano, and since she didn’t win his favor (because her dad didn’t acquiesce to Kano’s business dealings, most likely), she wants to remove the competition.  

Yet, even this doesn’t completely explain the mechanics of this sinister force.  In fact, it’s never entirely discernible exactly what, who, or why the Dog God is what it is or does what it does.  There is no exposition clearly detailing what the Dog God wants, what will sate its appetites, or why it chooses whom it does to possess.  It is nebulous and fickle, like the natural world from which it springs.  The one thing it definitely desires is the destruction of Kano and anyone in contact with him.  Even when Kano makes a strong connection with the village and becomes genuinely concerned for the welfare of its inhabitants, he is still a target.  Kano becomes the redemptive hero once certain events and facts come to light, but the Dog God truly doesn’t care.  This encompasses a level of innocence corrupted, not only of the land but of its people.  Young Isamu’s (Junya Kato) innocence dies with his dog, Taro.  The boy is bent on making Kano’s life miserable, going so far as to pelt him in the face with a rock at Kano’s wedding.  The villagers themselves become corrupted, physically by the byproduct of the Uranium mining and spiritually by the superstitions to which they cling.  The turmoil of their traditions vying with their more mercenary desire for money and what this allows into the village breaks them down.  They do not accept that their choices caused any catastrophes they experience.  It has to be caused by the Dog God, so the obvious thing to do is attack the only family in the village who didn’t join in selling out, and that would be Kaori and Isamu’s.  Interestingly, their family were outsiders before any of this happened.  When things go tits up, they are only further ostracized and persecuted.  Finally, there is Mako (Masami Hasegawa), Reiko’s younger sister.  She is friends with Isamu, and she alone tries to bridge the gap between the oddball family and the rest of the village.  Nevertheless, there is a secret in her own family that marks her as corruptible as well, and the Dog God is, if nothing else, an equal opportunity defiler.

Ito brings a nice sense of style to the proceedings, just as he did to no less than three of the famous Female Prisoner Scorpion films, including the arguable best of the bunch: Jailhouse 41.  There are Dutch Angles galore, and Ito does some truly haunting things with lighting throughout the film.  My main problems are twofold.  First and foremost is the point that none of the characters are interesting, with the exception of Mako.  Confoundingly, she also gets the least development and/or attention paid to her until the very end, but by that point, anything that happens to her feels like it’s brought about simply because she’s one of the last characters in the film.  Kano is a slab, and both Reiko and Kaori’s fawning over him is inexplicable, even moreso since we have seen none of how their relationships grew to start off.  There’s no real reason for the audience to care about them.  Additionally, is the fact that the Dog God appears to play by a set of rules we are not only not privy to but that change at a moment’s notice just because.  While this part of the whole setup, it makes for some chaotic viewing.  Thus, Curse of the Dog God is mildly intriguing for how different it is, but this is also the same reason it just doesn’t succeed like it should.

MVT:  Ito’s professionalism and devotion to his craft shines through.

Make or Break:  The big finale plays it as straight as the film ever will, and this part, at least, works like gangbusters.

Score:  6.5/10