WNUF Halloween Special (2013)

 

Director: Chris LaMartina

(Additional Direction for the Ads by: James Branscome, Shawn Jones, Scott Maccubbin, Lonnie Martin, Matthew Menter and Andy Schoeb)

Screenplay: Chris LaMartina, Jimmy George, Pat Storck and Michael Joseph Moran

Cast: Paul Fahrenkopf as Frank Stewart; Aaron Henkin as WNUF Announcer (voice); Nicolette le Faye as Veronica Stanze; Leanna Chamish as Deborah Merritt; Richard Cutting as Gavin Gordon; Brian St. August as Dr. Louis Berger; Helenmary Ball as Claire Berger; Robert Long II as Father Joseph Matheson

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #199

 

Iron Maiden rules! White Lion sucks! Woo!

WNUF Halloween Special is one of the most inspired shot-on-video/low budget films ever made. Made to look like the content of a local American television special 1987, with fake adverts, it recreates the tone as accurately as possible. Adding to the film's intentions, the first time the film was made available was by Chris LaMartina taking VHS copies of a limited amount and placing them in places, like Goodwill stores, to deliberately cause people to think it was an actual recording.

Set on the holiday, this begins with the local news and moves to their special investigation of a haunted house, evoking in its own way the legendary BBC production Ghostwatch (1992), which was a major production meant to look like an actual BBC live special. Things will go wrong here too, but not after the "Orange Blast-Off" and "Halloween Make-Up Kit" adverts. Contextually this gets the tone perfectly, set up also as a found footage film, befitting Chris LaMartina's original method of releasing the movie, as if it was recorded off television. Beginning with the evening news hosts, dressed for Halloween and the male host Gavin Gordon (Richard Cutting) a pun merchant willing to cram in as many seasonal related ones in as possible, the humour is not with irony but a recreation of the era. The humour instead is sly jokes or the cheesy mood of public television the creators are trying to recreate, LaMartina the main director but some of the adverts involving other collaborators alongside his own work.

Some of the film is even fast forwarded through, which would have still taken work to film those scenes designed to be sped through, fully setting up the presentation with the unseen viewer adding comedy by becoming bored, or that for accuracy to actual television adverts do repeat, especially the one for a carpet store. The individual adverts, and there are a lot of them, are eclectic but as necessary in their amount. The film is as much a nostalgic ode to the eighties but a far more legitimate one as it is not interpreting the era in a distorted idealised, but actually shooting on real television equipment and looking of the era. The humour comes from unintentional comedy or the material likely to have been found of the era, such as a quaintness of old ads (or the bluntness of the political attack ads in the midst of an election year), or from the characters themselves. Gavin Gordon as the male presenter who tries to milk jokes from his news materials, with his co-host Deborah Merritt (Leanna Chamish), or Frank Stewart (Paul Fahrenkopf), the grizzled host of the TV special, promising in-between ads for a Video Arcade with a Pizzeria ad a live séance. Fahrenkopf as Stewart is the stand-out of the film, an exceptional performance, but in general, this film raises the highest bar in terms of quality for a micro-budget genre film, as with everything from the film the acting from everyone is good.  

Everything in the film is pitched at the perfect tone, as much the show to see the presentation as it is the narrative, balancing a story where the TV special becomes increasingly likely to have been invaded by malicious forces, and the cheap-and-cheerful humour of this presentation in tone and in the adverts, having to match the time period and becoming inspired as a result. The fictional TV movies are a hoot for this in particular, from Doggone It!, a TV movie about a working woman who has to learn to take care of a dog, to Sarcophagus, one I would gladly see about an Egyptian mummy rampaging across a metropolis. There are also ads meant to recreate what the period was actually like, such as for wildlife video cassettes.

Nostalgia can be the cheapest pop to entice an audience with, cinema frankly plagued by its inability in the 2010s to move past the eighties or remember the decades beforehand, but WNUF feels like a historical recreation even I, who was born in England in 1988 when the decade was going out the door, can find meaningful due to the heart and hard work for accuracy. It delights not in a handful of mainstream films and pop culture references, but so much of the decade called the nineteen eighties. The local television itself or the jokes about glam metal, be it a reference to a real band like White Lion to a fake metal compilation album "Feel the Steel", with made up bands like Jaxxon and R.O.T.O.R. or all the anti-drug adverts, from the time when saying no to drugs was a huge political campaign in the United States. Not merely one, but multiple ads about the dangers of drug taking.

Eventually the plot drip feeds in more and more, how in the midst of this planned séance, at a home of a son who apparently murdered his parents under the influence of a Ouija Board, there is an ominous prescience there alongside the indignation of the show not going to planned, elaborate enough to have hired a married couple of paranormal investigators involved as interesting eccentric figures in their own right. Most of this still plays out as comedy, and shows the casts' talent in the performances, such as Frank's straining annoyance with members of the public joke they would call the Ghostbusters or phone the séance to tell their dead grandmother she is a bitch, to Robert Long II as Father Joseph Matheson, a Catholic priest very reticent to perform an exorcism after all the times he is called to do so, which has a reason to it plot wise but also feels like an amusing parody of the fact Catholic priests are always the figures brought in when something unnatural is afoot in horror fiction.

The film does build more horror as it goes along, and in this sense the film is as much a tribute to that era as well, even managing a lot more subtle named references to horror directors for minor characters, more so because they are not the known horror stewards referenced but the likes of micro budget filmmaker Todd Sheets or David DeCoteau. Only around the last half an hour does WNUF have more broader jokes, particulate the more adult ads that appear as it gets later in the world's time scale, such as one for a Gentlemen's club (who offers special offer breakfasts) or a video rental store that, as accurate to the time by offering VHS and Betamax, does have its tongue in its cheek by mentioning the Adult Section before the Family one. It has however fully fleshed out a world by this point, with ads even interlinking with references to others, and when it does build to a more serious tone, the structure allows creativity, such as cutting to a news special report on a rise in Satanic vandalisation and animal sacrifice as the producers panic, allowing the film to also reference the Satanic Panic movement of the eighties at the same time.

There is also a bit of anti-fundamentalist content as, in contrast to the celebration of Halloween, there are Christians fervently against the season who are not subtly depicted at all. [Major Spoiler Warning] That plays into the final with no one thinking of the contradiction against Christ's own teachings as they act like sociopaths. [Spoiler Ends] Whilst I was fully aware of how the film ends before seeing the film, affecting my opinion, it does have a twist which does drastically effect the context of WNUF's structure as a found footage film, a subtle one even if the film does lean more into gruesome content in the finale. I will say thought that, as a result of never having the twist jump me from nowhere, it is not really the crux of the film for me with the work. It is helped though by the fact, whilst it confirms some things and is an interesting ending, there is still a lot left unknown which can allow for subjective opinion, allowing it to have more mystery to it to compensate for this fact.

What WNUF Halloween Special is altogether is something really special, and in dire need of greater accessibility even if a cult does grow around the production. SOV films are an acquired taste, but this is arguably the best of them I have seen, good enough to show to anyone with the delight that it was so well put together and ambitious, embracing the cheap when necessary and on purpose without irony, and making sure everything from its tone to the public television aesthetic were properly replicated. It shows this sub-genre of filmmaking's best virtues, the ones I have fallen in love with them for, but also with absolute devotion to making a legitimately good film at the same time. It is also a perfect Halloween viewing experience, a film which in context is perfect to view on the day and, to time stamp this review a little, to deliberately choose to put the first review of mine of this film on the 31st October rather than a more well known production.

Demons (1985)

 

Director: Lamberto Bava

Screenplay: Dario Argento, Lamberto Bava, Dardano Sacchetti and Franco Ferrini

Cast: Urbano Barberini as George; Natasha Hovey as Cheryl; Karl Zinny as Ken; Fiore Argento as Hannah; Paola Cozzo as Kathy; Fabiola Toledo as Carmen; Nicoletta Elmi as Ingrid, the usherette; Stelio Candellias Frank; Nicole Tessier as Ruth; Geretta Geretta as Rosemary; Bobby Rhodes as Tony; Guido Baldi as Tommy; Bettina Ciampolini as Nina

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #198

 

Demons is curious how, not long after this film, the ball would start rolling that would lead to the decline of the Italian genre film industry, but there were films of note still to come, one of which being Demons, a film (and its sequel to a lesser extent) beloved by fans of this area of cinema. One figure who was still going to be strong in the quality of his work is Dario Argento, where it is only into the nineties where people questioned his output, leaving the eighties on a high with Opera (1987). He would be involved in other peoples' work however, to which here he helped co-produce and co-write Demons.

It is a very simplistic film, predating the modern zombie films of the upcoming decades if you stop to think about it, where at the Metropol cinema, one person is turned into a "demon" and, as a blood bath takes place, these figures can run and spread their lot, multiplying as any scratch or even tissue and goop from them entering a victim can infect them. Where Demons is interesting, beyond a gory and energetic movie, is how it belongs to a period of playful self-reflection from Italian genre films, not a great deal beyond a handful but enough that, at this time, some were self-aware of themselves.

The setting itself, the main one of the Metropol cinema is a key part of this. Our initial lead Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) among many gets a free golden ticket for a mysterious film screening. Whilst it bizarre there is a working motorbike and a samurai sword, a real one, in the foyer, this film plays to its medium with a setting where there are posters¹ on the wall and a sense of paying respect to the medium in a winking way, the beginning of the film spectators watching a film about four young adults searching for the crypt of Nostradamus. In this film-within-a-film, someone wears a metal demon mask and, when it cuts his face, infects him to become a demon; in Demons itself, a woman cuts her face on the exact demon mask, in the foyer too, and becomes a far more grotesque version of a demon, multiplying her group immediately whilst committing horrible violence, including Dario Argento (as a co-writer) continuing his obsession with blind men being traumatised.

The film is schlocky but, having before preferred Demons 2 (1986), I have upon revisiting the original film grown fonder of it. It feels underappreciated how well put together and elaborate the film is in even context of the time, as for all its cheese and excess once you are willing to see work less elaborate in production in the horror genre, and less creative, it grows better from the sense of hard work to even make this film as ridiculous as it is. It is also inherently dreamlike, or at least fantastical, in tone beginning when, as the cinema patrons attempt to flee through the exit from demons, they strip everything away only to find a brick wall through which they once entered the building. Some of the film just does not make sense even in this context - such as the female usher who was not part of the cursed cinema but still hired - but I suspect now most of it was deliberate or of least not a concern for the creators.

To this film's credit, unlike less absurd horror films meant to be taken seriously, this at least has smarter characters than usual at first, bothering to amass a barricade to protect themselves and try to escape when they realise their situation. Also to the film's credit, these demons are distinct creations. Horrible mutated figures, with the practical effects gore exaggerated, such as a demon bursting out of someone's back, and a sense of chaos tonally appropriate to the material. The film also feels like a crossroads for Italian genre cinema in general. Alongside Argento and Lamberto Bava collaborating, the later the son of the legendary filmmaker Mario Bava, future filmmaker Michele Soavi plays a sinister man connect to the curse in a metal Phantom of the Opera half mask. Nicoletta Elmi, who was a child actress in films like Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), is the cinema usherette, and the first person to turn into a demon is Geretta Geretta, who also is memorably in Rats: Night of Terror (1984). Also famously, returning in the sequel as a different character, Bobby Rhodes is an actor here who stood out in what little screen time he had, the person who immediately starts acting as sensibly as possible against the demons, that he got to return in Demons 2.

One aspect, however, which is thinking ahead, are the licensed songs. It has been looked down, especially when used in Argento's Opera, as they both lean on heavy metal, but to Italy's credit this was a huge catch. Not just any old songs, but between Rick Springfield to Motley Crue, even White Wedding by Billy Joel making an appearance, they managed to ride a wave of hip music from the era that would be far more difficult to get the rights to over the decades without a lot of cost. And unlike some American films from this era where the cost of music rights have been an issue, Demons managed to be unscathed, which is good as they managed to be trendy and relevant. Yes, the film is not really scary, especially when Accept's Fast as a Shark plays in a scene of someone riding a motorbike through the cinema seats waving a samurai sword, but for the atmosphere it works completely, particularly as when even American horror films could not acquire known artists, more metal heads would have recognised Accept let alone the likes of Billy Joel on the soundtrack². That Claudio Simonetti, formerly of Goblin, also produced an iconic original soundtrack too, especially the main themes, helps considerably.

The lack of logic this time won me over fully. Italian genre cinema has had an irrational edge for me even with its best films, and I adore them for this. Here, probably the moment to cement this is when the helicopter literally drops out of the sky as a deus ex machina. It brings in a dream logic fully, late in the film but realising how much of a visceral thrill, growing the film in its teasing, fun and exaggerated form to admire.

 

=======

1) Posters include: Argento's own Four Flies on Grey Velvet (1971); The Terminator (1984); Metropolis (1927), likely Giorgio Moroder's 1984 colourised version with music from the likes of Queen; Harry & Son (1984); Werner Herzog's 1979 version of Nosferatu; a concert film AC/DC: Let There Be Rock (1980); and probably the most curious for me, another concert film crossed with a documentary called No Nukes (1980), recording September 1979 Madison Square Garden concerts by the Musicians United for Safe Energy collective, an anti-nuclear campaign which prominently included performances by Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band.

2) Would Coca Cola have appreciated one of their cans being full of cocaine, when we follow a group of punks who are pulled into the Metropol cinema? Probably not, but thankfully no one noticed.

Perfect Blue (1997)

 

Director: Satoshi Kon

Screenplay: Sadayuki Murai

Based on the novel by Yoshikazu Takeuchi

(Voice) Cast: Junko Iwao as Mima Kirigoe; Rica Matsumoto as Rumi; Emi Shinohara as Eri Ochiai; Emiko Furukawa as Yukiko; Hideyuki Hori as Sakuragi; Masashi Ebara as Murano; Shiho Niiyama as Rei; Shinichiro Miki as Taku; Shinpachi Tsuji as Tadokoro; Tohru Furusawa as Yatazaki; Yoku Shioya as Shibuya; Yousuke Akimoto as Tejima

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #197

 

The following review is to be found on my other blog 1000 Anime as well. If this is of interest to you the reader, follow the link HERE for many more reviews.

 

Who are you?

Once seen, a long time ago, Perfect Blue has stayed with me for a long time. The irony is that, in another context, this plot would have become a lurid and dumb thriller, as clichéd as the one in the television show, Double Bind, that lead Mima Kirigoe transitions to from an idol singer to an up-and-coming actress from her idol group Cham. Alongside the fact Satoshi Kon was a one-off, this also became an animated production, the tone and rules changed alongside the people behind the theatrical film taking the best route forwards to make a great film from such material. The irony is that this production was meant to be live action, adapting Yoshikazu Takeuchi's source material, only for the 1995 Kobe earthquake to prevent that version and an alternative animated version from Madhouse studios to be created on a lower budget. It says the final film's advantage that, even with a 2002 live action existing, this Kon helmed version is the definitive adaptation to many.

Returning to Perfect Blue, this film's deconstructive nature immediately begins with a live tokusatsu performance beginning the film as a cold opening. These are a cultural detail, especially with knowledge of this film getting such notice in the West it even inspired American filmmaker Darren Aronofsky, that I have seen in many anime but are very idiosyncratic and likely to be ignored without batting an eyelid, where actors dress as Power Ranger-like heroes or monstrous villains to entertain kids at theme parks or at least outside, two stating how disappointing this looked to the original television show. Cham are introduced, a three woman idol singing group who are struggling to find success, and the film intercuts the performance with the banality of our lead Mima away from work buying groceries.

Satoshi Kon, who tragically died at too early an age at only forty six, due to pancreatic cancer, would build a reputation as a director, baring Tokyo Godfathers (2003), of stories breaking down reality, exploring psychological states and even dreams. This is where, literalised, Perfect Blue takes a new level as a suspense thriller, where Mima is transitioned by her agency to become an actress, with a stalker soon to murder people "debasing" her. Throughout there is a meta tone, as when we are on the TV show Double Bind, where she is a secondary character on, there are scenes being acted out and also behind-the-scenes ones of the cast breaking character. Mima, as she fears a doppelganger of her exists, is also beholden to her old self to obsessive fans despite trying to grow as a person.

All the fans of the idol group with their own versions of Mima are seen, including the sinister Me-Mania, an obsessive fan connected to the doppelganger. I could not help but think of how much of the film now is tackling gender politics, as this film is structured around a fragmentation between an idealised version of Mima as the Cham idol singer, the star of a lurid TV show and who poses in nude photographs, and Mima Kirigoe herself, a twenty or so year old woman not from the metropolis, wandering along in this career of hers as work, who is neither. The idol singer is another cultural aspect from Japan that is distinct. It is in itself not a squeaky clean industry, but it is also prominent how strict some of the rules imposed on female idol singers can be, some including not even allowing their stars to date, to impose an idealised image for fandom without scandal.  

Mima, as she fears a doppelganger dressed in her old Cham costume haunts her, is beholden to her old self to obsessive fans. All the fans have their own versions of her as mentioned which we see, Kon himself tackling this subject of obsession in a negative light, from this to nostalgia, throughout his career, but in this particular case there is an added poignancy of following a young woman having to step out of her squeaky clean persona, an innocent who sings twee love songs only to now become a fully formed human being, who lives in a tiny apartment and has a regular life. Even though this was based on a novel by a man, and directed by a man, bearing in mind the animators and production team too, there was on this viewing a lot which stood out in terms of gender politics, a strikingly poignant line in particularly, when confronted by her doppelganger, when the other mocks her with the equivalent of "nobody likes idols with tarnished reputations".

But the other side is not glamorous either. Probably one of the darkest theatrical anime made, it has one of the most uncomfortable but morally well executed rape scenes in either live action or animation, involving one Mima acts out on the Double Blind TV show as her character turns to stripping only to be mobbed by the male pundits. It includes the behind-the-scenes of everyone breaking character, the main rapist just an actor asking between takes if she is okay, yet the scene is still uncomfortable with emotional aftershocks for her, acted out in the shooting of the film in full with complete intensity to the content. Now there is a new edge that, in the machinations, there is an added creepiness of the screenwriter writing a scene for an ex-idol, as spoken in the dialogue in regards to her agency wanting more of a role for her, to shed her innocence. Even that it leads to her character developing a multiple personality and being revealed to be the killer of women feels more like a lurid shock to get TV viewers on this viewing, Mima having to put up with this to become a great actor as she goes along.

Outside of notoriously lurid anime like Urotsukidôji or others with dangle precariously (or fall into) the same ball park, Perfect Blue is a dark and intense production in terms of adult content but without stepping over into trashiness. With industrial synth and eerie group vocals adding to the mood, by Masahiro Ikumi before Kon found his frequent collaborator Susumu Hirasawa, Perfect Blue does quality as a thriller but is definitely of the horror genre in mood and content. Even the one dated aspect, from a time when the internet was new and had weird terminology like "URLs", is still uncomfortably relevant about false personas, a false autobiographical diary of Mima's life she finds online scaring her, starting her psychological breakdown, because of how it even knows accurately what foot she steps off a subway train with first.

It is a bloody film, probably the most intense in Kon's career thought his work could be very adult, even over Paranoia Agent (2004) which did not shy away from subjects like suicide, but there is a tone and details here that in the modern day would startle even the world of uncut fan pleasing anime with erotic content. Some of it is unexpectedly subversive, such as how most of the victims in a series of murders are male characters. Some of it is the intensity of scenes of violence in general. One such thing is that, with Mima's nude photo shoot, you have depiction of female pubic hair. In Japanese culture, I have seen male and female genitals blurred in art, and even Japanese pornography is censored for depictions, and whether Perfect Blue was an exception in its home land or not, it would have a greater shock for a viewer (even Western fans outside of uncensored hentai) to see. One scene, where a male victim is stabbed to death with a phallic weapon of a screwdriver, even goes as far as have cuts to the nude photo shot mid-stab, and projected on the television in the background of the murder, intercutting an eroticised female body to a man being penetrated violently with a weapon.

Where Perfect Blue fully hits its stride is when all reality breaks down, starting with little tricks, such as seeing police sirens in the next scene but only to pull back to see a child riding a toy ride-on vehicle. With very realistic character designs, even having a playful touch of cutting to an exaggerated stereotype of a female anime character in one scene, a toy model with comically big eyes up against the camera, you could wonder why this could not be in live action aside from the fact that Kon's film is completely plastic in its ability to distort reality as a result. Literalising psychological states, contrasting the real Mima with a Cham idol Mima whose skin even glows and looks unreal, and with far more preciseness get away with the "it was all a dream" twists by television plotting invading her real life and bending reality. Double Blind scenes blur to psychological analysis Mima herself with obvious ideas, clichés from a trite TV show coming more meaningful when she herself is scrutinised. This became Kon's trademark, a willingness to bend his worlds to scrutinise its characters.

[Major Spoiler Warnings] You can argue this uses broad caricature. The culprit is actually Rumi, an older larger woman, and Me-Mania looks completely alien, but Perfect Blue is thankfully still more complicated than this. This is a very simple plot, with resolution, a clear conclusion where Mima even states in the last shot and line she has found herself, but the execution completely succeeds in adding weight...especially when the final scene I have mentioned, in the Japanese dub, has a play with which voice actor says the final line for added distortion of what is real. [Spoilers End]

Returning to Perfect Blue, it is still a success. It did not come from an abrupt spark of genius mind. Kon worked his way up as an animator, as well as in writing screenplays, and this was created by Madhouse, so this was a collaborative effort where everyone was on fire creating with. The great thing is that, making a lasting impression when Manga Entertainment acquired the licence, Perfect Blue is still held aloft, not an obscurity, and that Satoshi Kon in his brief career never dropped the ball after this initial promise.

Sadako vs. Kayako (2016)

 

Director: Kōji Shiraishi

Screenplay: Kōji Shiraishi

Cast: Mizuki Yamamoto as Yūri Kurahashi; Tina Tamashiro as Suzuka Takagi; Aimi Satsukawa as Natsumi Ueno; Masahiro Komoto as Shin'ichi Morishige; Masanobu Andō as Keizō Tokiwa; Mai Kikuchi as Tamao; Misato Tanaka as Fumiko Takagi; Masayoshi Matsushima as Sukemune Takagi; Ichiruko Domen as Hōryū; Runa Endo as Kayako Saeki; Elly Nanami as Sadako Yamamura; Rintaro Shibamoto as Toshio Saeki

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #196

 

Originally beginning with a trailer released on April Fool's Day 2015, Sadako vs. Kayako was officially confirmed in December of the same year as a film which would have two Japanese horror franchises, Ring and The Grudge, cross over. A Western equivalent would be like Freddy vs. Jason (2003), where the villains of the Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th franchises crossed over to fight. This type of crossover in its nature that will appeal more to fans, to which Sadako vs. Kayako itself has to effectively retell these characters whilst yet appealing to their existing fandoms, all to pit two fictional female ghosts against each other in an actual fight.

The Ring franchise originates from a 1991 novel by Koji Suzuki. The actual first film was a strange 1995 TV movie ‎Ring: Kanzenban, which was yet far more accurate to the source material in adaptation; the film that caused a cultural phenomenon, in the West and the East, was the first theatrical adaptation, Hideo Nakata's 1998 movie. From there, as someone who has seen quite a few of the films in this franchise, it kept going through sequels to that original Japanese film, including two attempts at a direct sequel (Rasen (1998) and Ring 2 (1999)), a US remake with its own franchise, and reboots. The Grudge, known as the Ju-On franchise, is fascinating as it is, in contrast, entirely a property from cinema itself, the creation of filmmaker Takashi Shimizu who began with experimental shorts and a V-Cinema film before his theatrical length version Ju-On: The Grudge (2002) started the ball rolling for this franchise, with its own sequels and own US remake franchise.

This film, from the director of Noroi: The Curse (2005), is very self aware of itself with a humorous edge. By this point in their franchises, including Ring having a brief fling with 3D frills, there is time now to poke with humour at the material. Mostly this is a Ring continuation, as the central figure dominating the film mostly is Sadako, the antagonist of that franchise. There is a retelling of the original narrative from the 1998 film, but also a playful absurdity coming from the fact that, originating from the idea of a cursed videotape which when watched cursed you with death by Sadako, the narrative has to bear in mind the drastic technological shifts which make videotapes obscure over the passing decades. So here, two young women requiring an old VHS player to transpire the parent's wedding video of one of them to DVD accidentally find one with Sadako's crusty and cursed tape within it in a second hand store. Thankfully for one, she is distracted by a text message on her mobile phone so does not watch the short film on the tape that causes the curse.

The figures from The Grudge, a murdered woman Kayako and her son, turned vengeful ghosts whose death curse acted as much as a virus able to be spread, feel like loose ends. It would be in itself inspired that, if all these franchises crossed over, ghosts and monsters of such priority in their own narratives would just be in each other's vicinity by coincidence, but it does feel tacked on how The Grudge's connection is ultimately. It means another disconnected plot line about a schoolgirl becoming tempted to their haunted house just next door from her new home, but honestly a big factor to consider with Sadako vs. Kayako is that is meant to be selling a full length fight between these horror figures. It is a contrived one, as by the end it is not really a fight, just a bag containing one ghost being thrown into another's location.

Truthfully, looking back, the entire point of the film, to see two horror figures fight, is less appealing for me whilst there is nonetheless a fascinating with such ideas as a crossover. They have existed for a long while long before the modern day, as far back at least when Maurice Leblanc sneakily had Sherlock Holmes in his Arsène Lupin stories without copyright permission, and they are fascinating more to imagine how two different figures existing in the same space would react to each other. It makes less sense, mind, to have the equivalent of the playground argument of who would win a fight between Batman and Superman transpire between two ethereal female ghosts.

The film is set up as a potentially interesting one. They have changed Sadako considerably from how I knew her, even in the South Korean remake from 1999 let alone the American version, where she now curses people to commit suicide rather than the more eerie prescience of before with a background in psychic powers. There is far playfully dark humour here though that would have added a greater reflective tone, and with a scene where young boys make the mistake of visiting the Grudge house for a dare, no one is safe in this film. It suggests a lot of potential, such as the apocalyptic notion of someone uploading the cursed videotape online. Throw into this two interesting side characters, a surly ghost exorcist and his female child ward, a girl who is just as gifted in sensing ghosts and has a cynical habit of telling people's ill fated futures, and I could have easily appreciated a dark humoured take on these two characters. [Major Spoiler Warning] It definitely comes off as even nihilistic, as everyone one baring the ghosts dies in the end, something which could have followed the humoured tone as much as its own dark morality tale about the dangers of curiosity. [Spoilers End]

Instead, this does feel like empty calories. It definitely does not have the slower mood, or the mad energy, of other Japanese genre films I have come to admire. It was fun whilst it lasted, but ultimately a sad case of a film within the Ring franchise especially, as a huge fan of it, where it is not even interesting in terms of its mistake and curiosity, like Hideo Nakata's sequel to his own film inexplicably (and knowingly) being inspired by the misfire that was Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), or the weirdness of Ring: Kazenban, or the fascination of The Ring: Virus (1999), the South Korean remake. Considering how the characters from The Grudge as well, this is not a great attempt at expanding upon these characters either. This will definitely be a case of a film that will leave my thoughts very quickly as time passes...

"...once you get to the climax you realize you've been waiting 80 minutes to see two nightgown-wearing Japanese ghost ladies with long black hair twitchily walk up to each other in the dark and it dawns on you that maybe, just maybe, you need to set better priorities in life..." - Barthalen (Criticker.com Review)

The Old Dark House (1932)

 

Director: James Whale

Screenplay: Benn W. Levy

Based on the novel Benighted (1927) by J. B. Priestley

Cast: Boris Karloff as Morgan; Melvyn Douglas as Penderel; Charles Laughton as Sir William Porterhouse; Lilian Bond as Gladys; Ernest Thesiger as Horace Femm; Eva Moore as Rebecca Femm; Raymond Massey as Philip Waverton; Gloria Stuart as Margaret Waverton; Elspeth Dudgeon as Sir Roderick Femm (as John Dudgeon); Brember Wills as Saul Femm

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #195

 

Have a potato.

I had the pleasure to see The Old Dark House the first time during a brief British theatrical release in the 2010s. This is a rarity for me to experience as sadly such screenings have never been practical for me to access. This rare case in particular was a fascinating case, to experience a film from the era of mono sound and Academy ration framing on a large cinema screen, culturally alien to modern theatrical cinema which is post-widescreen and 5.1 sound. The film itself however is something completely alien even in context to when it was made, thankfully so. It is a film made by James Whale, in the midst of the boom in American horror films and when he made a huge iconic success with Frankenstein (1931) for Universal Studios, which is perplexing, hilarious and peculiar as something meant to be a horror film. Something I was thankfully able to experience in the dark on a giant theatrical screen in a pristine 4K restoration, rather than the history of a film once presumed lost and also neglected over the years.

And The Old Dark House is definitely a weird film. Not one of the strangest ever made in premise or aesthetic, but so peculiar. It is in premise a Universal horror movie without a main monster, and baring one major event it is a plot which is entirely against expectations for horror, completely going against its peers with a tone that is completely off-kilter the moment we get to the titular house. One which, baring of course a model avalanche nearly hitting a model car in the prologue bringing in some of the main characters, and one of two struggles, is entirely told in dialogue.

To think as well a film of this vintage was already possessing such a dark, scathing sense of humour with a deliberately sense of camp is already amazing to even consider, arguably more timeless than other peers of the era due to its and why, whilst not a major film of its era originally in success, it has thankfully grown in reputation over time. It is one of the most deliciously camp films populated by a smorgasbord of great performances firing on all cylinders, all purposely adding to this, in which a group of people - Philip Waverton (Raymond Massey), his wife Margaret (Gloria Stuart), and their friend Roger Penderel (Melvyn Douglas) - end up at the titular home to escape the extreme weather in the middle of isolated Welsh countryside. The people in the aforementioned house though are just off in their entirely - the godless and eccentric Horace Femm (Ernest Thesiger), his surly and religious near deaf sister Rebecca (Eva Moore), and Morgan (Boris Karloff), their voiceless hulking servant they have to keep around but is a problem whenever he gets to the alcohol. This does not even begin to elaborate on where the film goes, as another couple, Sir William Porterhouse (Charles Laughton) and his female friend Gladys DuCane (Lilian Bond), appear, and there are secrets about the house and its lineage including the figure locked away upstairs to contend with.

I can see why The Old Dark House was not as well known like Frankenstein or another of Whale's horror films The Invisible Man (1933), but having grown to admire him as a filmmaker, he is a fascinating figure. In mind of him as an openly gay man during his career at this point, a subversive streak in the material exists just going from these horror films. Bride of Frankenstein (1935), his even bigger success, is known as the film where he was able to get away with far more eclectic, humoured and even camper content, but even The Invisible Man also happens to be a lark juggling humour alongside full blown misanthropic content. I wonder how an audience back in 1932 reacted to The Old Dark House, but in hindsight the result's magnificent and perfect for our generation of viewers to finally appreciate.

It is still at its heart a Gothic tale, capable of incredibly atmospheric moments, the scene inter-cutting Gloria Stuart and Eva Moore in fragments of reflections masterful for the era, as Rebecca berates the younger woman in her late sister's room how beauty is a limited thing which decays and dies out. But this at its heart has its tongue so firmly in cheek it could dangerously pierce through the skin. Ernest Thesiger in particular is a shining star - a feat in a film with Charles Laughton and Boris Karloff among everyone else stomping through scenes - who manages to even make the phrase "I like gin" have incredible comic timing. Even before his introduction, when we start with the lead characters trying to drive through the Welsh countryside during a downpour, the potential problem of two milquetoast characters lead the film which has always plagued these older horror films, a heterosexual American couple, is counteracted by their friend Penderel being a likable wisecrack, and a spark of dialogue which allows all the characters to have personality. When we are introduced to the house and its occupants, even a gag of Thesiger's Horace suddenly throwing flowers into the fire is hilarious.

Even the fact Boris Karloff is not with a speaking role, which might be seen as a tragedy as he had an incredible speaking voice, is thankfully avoided by his stature and the physical acting he portrays. Charles Laughton is exceptional too, which is not a surprise, and to the film's credit, with no one necessarily bad, Laughton's character of a self made man conscious of his low self esteem is lovable as its own plot. Even the fact his female friend Gladys falls for Penderel does not lead to Laughton's character being demonised, but with a lovely grace to it of acceptance and a great little subplot as a result.

The general tone and plotting evoked mid-viewing two later films I lov for this type of comedy with horrific tones. They feel like they belong on their own peculiar family tree, bearing in mind that it was only in the late sixties due to the hard work of director Curtis Harrington that the film was rediscovered and preserved, and that in 1963 William Castle, the legendary hype man and filmmaker, remade the film. Jack Smith's Spider Baby (1967) is the more b-flick version of this strangers-in-a-strange-home story, handsome in its own idiosyncratic qualities, a whit to the dialogue and with Lon Chaney Jr. a nice web of connection back to the Universal horror films. And than there was Thundercrack! (1975), the infamous bisexual porno haunted house melodrama, which is so visibly influenced by this film in hindsight, especially as The Old Dark House was rediscovered and saved in the sixties, I cannot help wonder that it would have been a huge inspiration for a production that was a collaboration between screenwriter/co-star/LGBT experimental filmmaker George Kuchar and its director Curt McDowell. Even with its reputation for actual hardcore sex in the uncut form, Thundercrack itself is just as bonkers and relishable in its own dialogue too, and its eccentric characters, that this grows as a theory for me.

And there is a lot in The Old Dark House itself to admire beyond its humour. Willing to be surprising explicitly in sexuality just before the Hays Code was properly enforced, such as Gloria Stuart in revealing negligee, able to bring in implicit gay subtext, such as the hidden away patriarch who is over a hundred years old being played by a woman, or how Laughton's character, with a northern accent just above my neck of the woods to be proud of, introduces class issues into this light hearted romp. For an American film in particular it is also incredible British and, much to my amusement, set in Wales with the appropriate level of rainfall to match I experienced when I went there as a lad. It sadly was not shot Wales, so we could not get their beautiful countryside, but the choice and the cultural ticks from the British director and a story adapted from a British novelist's work do stand out.

That the plot itself is not really about much but still manages to go through various tropes of classic Gothic storytelling, of hidden attic rooms and mad relatives locked away, bringing them together into a nice potpourri, is a huge virtue for me, in mind that a lot of these horror films from the thirties are very short, even less than eighty minutes, and this one feels more detailed and elaborate than others. Of Christianity and heathenism butting head in two older siblings who've driven each other mad, or that Karloff manages to evoke such a great deal of emotion just through grunting and speaking gibberish.

It was a wonderful experience to see this type of film on the big screen, particularly as this is a rare case of a film even back in the past that, as a Hollywood bankrolled production, would have been an oddity to witness, and in the modern day is one too but has been thankfully canonised as a gem. I think back to the dining room sequence in particular, of how a horror film, or what is meant to be one, has a lengthy scene of just characters dining at a table, discussing their lives, and how Thesiger manages to say "potato" in so many different ways within a short passage of time and make that the main excitement of the sequence. If I could ever get away from quoting anything Thesiger says in this film in my ordinary life, I would gladly do so with the appropriate relish.

Mikadroid: Robokill Beneath Disco Club Layla (1991)

 

Director: Satoo Haraguchi and Tomo'o Haraguchi

Screenplay: Tomo'o Haraguchi and Junki Takegami

Cast: Hiroshi Atsumi, Sandayû Dokumamushi, Yoriko Dôguchi, Kenji Hayami; Kaizô Hayashi; Masatô Ibu; Kiyoshi Kurosawa

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #194

 

This is another obscurity I had been obsessed with all these years, almost entirely because of the full title, which in its evocative nature and oddness definitely stands out. As much of this is as an admirer of Japanese genre and pulp cinema of any budget, something I am fond of in all forms and willing to partake in whenever I can. This film became far more enticing as, released by Toho, we had a production being handled by the company who made their name in monster films. The production also had Akio Jissoji as an advisor, which stood out for me. Still an obscurer name in dire need of reassessment, Jissoji's eclectic career meant he could have radical art films from the Art Theatre Guild like This Transient Life (1970), but also tackled high minded pinku (Marquis de Sade's Prosperities of Vice (1988)), genre films and even developed a legacy working within the Ultraman franchise a lot, both in cinema and television, which he kept returning to over decades. Hence, an advisor who was a great filmmaker but also did not look down on these types of films. The score is also by Kenji Kawai, which was an even bigger surprise, a composer known for his work in anime especially with the iconic figure of Mamoru Oshii. There is even a small role from filmmaker Kiyoshi Kurosawa onscreen, which adds to the strange crossing paths of Japanese filmmaking at hand here.

The set up offers an interesting slant to address World War II, which alongside Japan's occupation of Asian in era beforehand has always been a contentious and controversial aspect in terms of how the country addressed their past afterward. Here a project to create superhumans, to fight the United States, was violently shut down, a dehumanising nature to their war effort as not only was it discarded and covered up, but that three subjects were left as a result, all male friends who grew up together. Two, half way through their transformation before the end of the project, were left ageless and able to exist timeless in the current day Japan. The third was fully turned into the Mikadroid, a superhuman robot/man hybrid which ends up waking in the modern day at a time an underground disco club is built in the area, alongside the car park above it, next to the long forgotten lab he was created in.

This is unfortunately a dull film. The premise is effectively a slasher film baring the unusually rare case that this killer, whilst he also uses a sword, is armed with firearms. This in the modern day has developed a greater real sense of scariness due to real life horrors. It does not help, in the opposite spectrum however, that in one angle Mikadroid looks like a bomb disposal officer due to the costume, which is still ominous, but is also in other scenes looking like the Michelin car tire mascot if he went evil. It is not helped the suit audibly squeaks.

This could have been avoided, as early on the film has some playfully ghoulish moments. A corpse stood erect on a moving skateboard is an evocative moment without any real world logic but is utterly inspired, as there is a really lurid but striking sequence within that same set piece. A full torso and head bloody print, holding hands to figures on a wall mural, due to a prolonged scene of female nudity, violence and fake blood gore.

The problem is that there is not a lot here. You have a film just involving a male electrician, who comes on the worse day possible, and a female fashion designer, with a very eighties look, fleeing the Mikadroid which is not as compelling for me without more inventive creativity involved. One of the aspects of Japanese pulp cinema, even when it has problematic content or can be utterly trashy, which has led me to admiring it is always a sense of unexpected creativity or unpredictability rather than anything remotely generic, which makes a film like this one more disappointing as a result. Even with the attempt at an emotional subplot, where the two ageless friends are involved to put the Mikadroid out of its misery, there is not a lot even in terms of conventional narrative drive to really stand out.

That proves a real burden in how slight the film is, as well as the fact I cannot even bang on, like the poor guy who gets his head banged into a water fountain here, about my obsession with Japanese public spaces because this entire film is set underground on sets, be it the Disco Club Layla (which we barely see a lot of at all), a car park, and the old science lab hidden underground. Particularly  as, even with guns, our villain moves as if made of car tires, there is the sense of sluggishness to the production as well, and not even any really lurid or body horror related content either in spite of the premise. The unexpected appearance of robo-spider limbs way too late in the narrative is the one moment by the final act which stands out, and even that is just an idea that was never used once beforehand when it could have been of interest.

Sadly, this is as much as this review can go because, under ninety minutes, Mikadroid is really lacking in a lot. Solidly made definitely, but not of note baring that even this early in his career Kenji Kawai's score is evocative, awaiting the time he would work on the likes of Ghost in the Shell (1995) and make his reputation in the West. In fact, if there is a positive from this film, it was a production where people could work out their craft. One of the film's directors Tomo'o Haraguchi, whilst the other Satoo Haraguchi would not work on much else, would go on to a career making films like Death Kappa (2010) as well as in special effects, so there is something positive to end the review on if nothing else.

A Warning to the Curious (1972)

 

Director: Lawrence Gordon Clark

Screenplay: Lawrence Gordon Clark

Based on the short story by M.R. James

Cast: Peter Vaughan as Mr Paxton; Clive Swift as Dr. Black; Julian Herington as the Archaeologist; John Kearney as Ager; David Cargill as Boots

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Shows) #34

 

No diggin' 'ere.

Broadcast as part of the BBC's A Ghost Story for Christmas strand, the public broadcaster made a staple one hour TV films especially at Christmas of supernatural and horror genre stories¹. They made good in general, regardless of the time of the season, for fascinating productions over the decade just in the seventies in terms of horror storytelling, including feature length stories or one-shot series, and one such production. From the series, not the only M.R. James adaptation over decades, A Warning to the Curious is a famous one.

Most will know of James, an English born author, for Casting the Runes. Adapted as Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (1957), in which a man is hexed by an occultist with a slip of paper with hexing runes snuck onto his person, James for me came early in my life with a BBC adaptation of Whistle and I'll Come to You (1968), which I saw in secondary school as a young teenager. James, between that story where a man finds a whistle buried in the sand and is constantly, after blowing it, afraid he is haunted, and A Warning to the Curious, James has made the English coastline a haunted place, proto-hauntlogy as well as here playing with our folklore as it begins with the idea of three Saxon crowns of Anglia. Only one, in the prologue, of these crowns buried to protect the land from invaders is said to survive, one which a clerk named Mr. Paxton (Peter Vaughan) wishes to discover in ‘Seaburgh’ in north Norfolk.

This television adaptation by Lawrence Gordon Clark, who directed and wrote the adaptation, actually condenses and rearranges the original short story to work on the screen better. Originally set up with two men encountering Paxton, who recounts back the progress to finding the remaining crown, the tale in that extended flashback now becomes half of this TV film's length whilst the two men become merely Dr. Black (Clive Swift), who at first is the only other person at the bed and breakfast with Black only to be pulled into his tale when Paxton has the crown, only to be immediately haunted by a shadowy figure.

Digging up the past, especially graves and sacred sites, are a moral quandary, finding old (centuries old) graves and placing the discoveries in museums a morally complicated idea. In colonial history, expositions to the likes of Egypt have been rightly condemned. Even in our own lands however, how we treat the past earth is carefully done, such as when construction accidentally uncovers burial grounds and everything shuts down to carefully move them. Then you have an event such as King Richard III being found beneath a Leicester car park in 2012, after a search for his remains, where even the decision of when he would be reburied carefully debated. Here, there is a supernatural and folklore slant of this moral, to never transgress the dead, which I would argue we still have even in a materialistic worldview. Here however the dead get angry, as even before that, the prologue introduces the last living guardian killing a man digging the ground where the crown lays just for his landowner.

Even after his death however, this figure will haunt the film. Both in his existence, as Paxton learns of him as a very physically ill man, the last of his family, who shortened his life in his task, but also after the crown is found, as a shadow over Paxton's shoulder who people if they squint can see. An audible motif, of strained breathing, builds this film's eerie atmosphere immensely.

The TV movie is completely successful. Lawrence Gordon Clark himself made his career with productions like this and with this adaptation, it embraces the tone of the short story whilst adding its own ominous one. The results evokes the aforementioned "Hauntology" movement, a term coined by French philosopher Jacques Derrida which was latched upon retroactively to tackle how a huge part of British pop culture still effected people reflecting upon it, the eeriness of the past haunting the present which can intertwine with nostalgia but with as much an ill-ease too. This usually referred to the culture of the seventies, including horror television, though whilst not set in the then-modern day A Warning to the Curious is tapping both into this idea through its subject matter, literally unsettling the past, but that its production values and style helps stamp it to its era but also stand outside of it.  The steam trains in particular stood out for this. They were still easy to access for productions like this, elaborate instant production design, yet they are ghosts of the past even before they were replaced by electric railways. Their existence here as archaic forms to my generation, and more so to the ones after mine, startling as with fully accomplished design to capture the plot's time period, such details were still available with ease alongside costumes or the timelessness of Norfolk, which is a new geographical location from James' original narrative one of Suffolk.

The film has many virtues. The music is exceptional, quiet until necessary when its crawls under the skin. The performances are good, not surprising as, with Clive Swift for example, British actors would move between our television and cinema with ease, none looked down as inferior to either. The setting is perfect in how it evokes how the British countryside is beautiful yet haunting, and it is fascinating that the production changed the location of the narrative completely as a creative choice. The decision evokes that, whilst what is British in the modern day is rightly multinational and multifaceted, one of said facets this belong to should not be forgotten. The ageless world of railways, bed and breakfasts, of curiosity stores, things you can find even decades later in the post-internet day, where you can still find 19th century books and taxidermy foxes as here, and these coastal locations are still in existence in the modern day.

It should not be pinned down as one specific type of British/English culture, as it can change and flutter in spectrum of context, but it is persistent even today as there are still B&Bs, haunted beaches and local woodland, making this slow burn drama still striking as a horror tale you could set in the modern day. Positively, M.R. James's tale has become timeless as a result, without any problematic ideology of the author or antiquated language have, or at least anything severer than being by all accounts reactionary, the tale feeling more a quaint lark before its own finale is macabre and more so due to its matter-of-fact nature. It is goreless, but the result is even more startling than even the source material in its tone, a dark moral conclusion of not angering the dead that ends the tale, even punishing the bystanders...

 

=======

1) One time they even screened, as part of the arts-based British documentary series Omnibus on 23 December 1979, a feature length adaptation of Sheridan Le Fanu's Schalcken the Painter, an impressive production worthy of its own review.

Primal Species (1996)

 

a.k.a Carnosaur 3: Primal Species

Director: Jonathan Winfrey

Screenplay: Rob Kerchner, Constantine Nasr and Scott Sandin

Cast: Scott Valentine as Col. Rance Higgins; Janet Gunn as Dr. Hodges; Rick Dean as Polchek; Anthony Peck as Gen. Pete Mercer; Rodger Halston as Sanders; Terri J. Vaughn as B.T. Coolidge; Billy Burnette as Furguson; Morgan Englund as Rossi; Stephen Lee as Sergeant; Justina Vail as Proudfoot; Cyril O'Reilly as Dolan; Abraham Gordon as Billings

A Night of a Thousand Horror (Movies) #193

 

The American Dinosaur Association monitored all Dinosaur action. Scenes depicting violence to dinosaurs were simulated. No dinosaur was harmed or mistreated during the making of this film.

Sometimes you want to watch something ridiculous, and here post-Jurassic Park (1993), New Horizons and the legendary producer/director Roger Corman thought "Let's make its equivalent to Aliens (1986) with soldiers versus dinosaurs". That comparison is more apt as, without realising this, as the film in the early days of British DVD was never promoted as such, this is actually the second sequel to Carnosaur (1993), Corman's attempt to capitalise on the megahit by Steven Spielberg, even getting a theatrical release in the United States. The sequels like this were straight-to-video, and baring some plot references to before, Primal Species exists as its own work, part action film crossed with part-low budget horror, part psychotronic production.

You can tell how broad the production knew it was because the initial main villain shows his evilness in his sunglasses and black leather jacket. Primal Species does have a curveball as, paced like a straight-to-video action film where this character and terrorists hijack a truck from soldiers, they do not get the uranium they were hoping for but ending up with reptiles. Why you would keep sleeping velociraptors and a T-Rex small enough to put in the back of a freezer truck I do not know, but the logic is not the concern in favour of dinosaurs versus soldiers, leaving a "Friday the 13th nightmare" as one of the cops call the resulting massacre before they get eaten too.

If there is one unintentional aspect to this film, it is both unfortunately but with historical curiosity to see if you could map out portrayals of masculinity and groups like the American military just in these types of forgotten genre films. It is fascinating to see, whilst with some discomfort, that the cops here in their little appearance do not come off well, anti-Arab sentiment reminding you this is definitely of the nineties, post First Gulf War, but also salient to how their public image has never be great for some decades later nor how the West's relationship with the Middle East has evolved (i.e. devolved) along the proceeding decades. The soldiers, as they are meant to be the heroes, are curious to see in terms of what was viewed of them by a screenplay for a straight-to-video film. Mostly as a result they are a group of (mostly) boring white cis-male grunts who only really work because, alongside the film being quite well paced, it manages to avoid being dull by making these character just make jokes and be goofballs all the time. One figure, Polcheck, is a literal walking goofball among them, the King Goofball to rule them all, a cherry on top of a paradox of characters so stereotypical they are interesting to watch, but also so unsympathetic macho meatheads. It is compelling to think a screenwriter depicted their military like this and though it made sense.

This is not going to be a political PC review - this is a film where their leader points out they have no hand-to-hand combat experience with dinosaurs, when asked to capture them alive in the dock location the production stays at. We are not going to spend this review pointing out how wrong it is that the characters are depicted as they, merely point it out as it is as absurd as having to sell that these reptiles initially need to be recovered back alive for medical benefits, as absurd as Deep Blue Sea (1999) was having sharks being made as intelligent as humans to research and cure Alzheimer's Disease. With a score that is sprightly, especially the horn section which is loud and proud, it is a deeply silly film, particularly as of a low budget, the dinosaurs are rubber puppets and possibly in some shots extras in dinosaur costumes.

This is a film with self awareness of the absurdity of the premise as already mentioned, but has a surprising amount of layers however when you start to pick apart what was once considered the ideal protagonists. Either this is, like other genre films, what people presumed of the idealised figures, or falling back on tropes for creating a film quickly, which I think in reality is where most of our cinema, television and other arts really comes to be how it is. This is why these films have unintentional humour, some intentional, but also archetypes which prove problematic as we watch many and see them, particularly in horror. It is the mid-nineties, so a female soldier takes umbrage to sexist macho soldiers, letting one win an arm wrestling contest to make him look bad, but these are still macho men who ogle the female scientist who explains the dinosaurs and even use homophobic language, the term "faggot", clearly needing to assure themselves of their masculinity all the time.

Even in terms of the female cast, as the soldiers are not invulnerable to dinosaurs and are picked off frequently, the only one who stays is that scientist, a stereotypical blonde horror lead who in herself adds a potentially questionable stereotype. I can only point to this and Deep Blue Sea, in a surprise comparison, but I wonder as I review films like this whether I will start to encounter an alternative version of the mad scientist, two brought up who are misbegotten figures driven to dabble in what humankind should do in emotional, medical goals. This particular one is contrasted by men who just think blowing the scaly bastards is the right direction and proven so. Whether this stereotype has any legs, or enough examples, to make this an actual archetype to document is to be seen, but this is another of those details which could not help but stand out least here.

This is all in mind that I seriously do not think the producers thought carefully about this. This is likely the case with many films like this, and if this is not an issue for someone, Primal Species does what it says on the tin and is actually enjoyable in its own dumb way. It does also raise some interesting thoughts, more light heartedly, considering that dinosaurs to our knowledge are extinct baring their modern ancestors, a species whose behaviour we have had to try to pattern out based on only their remains, theories and their closest inheritors. A student of palaeontology might look at you the viewer funnily for asking about a velociraptors's combat intelligence, but it would be funny to imagine what a student would offer on how a raptor could outthink a soldier.

Beyond this, this is b-movie fodder, specifically the kind that I did grow up a little within my childhood as, when DVDs suddenly became a huge thing and there were once DVD rental stores, Global Video our local one my parents rented films from, there were as much a glut of these b-movies coming into our home as well as new Hollywood films. It sadly shows its age in all I have talked about, but in terms of a film set around soldiers versus dinosaurs at the docks, only if you desired or imagined something significantly beyond this film's budget or too weird for Corman to produce would you have been disappointed. And honestly, whilst I really do not want to binge on these type of films continually, there is a merit to standing back and admitting most cinema is in this ballpark, not just horror, of so much produced cinema meant for a cheap thrill. These films offer a fascinating counterbalance to the pretentions of artistry.

Thankfully, this one did not exist in the era of irony either, as whilst it has many jokey characters, this is not one of those later films with obvious CGI monsters or deliberately made badly. Instead, surprisingly gore as well as it does not hide from the damage a T-Rex biting your arm off would cause, it feels sincerer and more entertaining as a result even if it is still tacky. I can appreciate a film which goes for the action with no padding a fake looking dinosaur or two that has plasticity, and it also says a lot even as a sequel it works by itself. Just accept that it is tawdry beforehand.