From Zombos' Closet

Mexican Lobby Card: Voodoo Island

Mexican Lobby Card: La Sangre De Nostradamus

The inimitable German Robles and a colorful, sophisticated illustration provide the menace in another beautiful example of Mexican lobby card movie promotion.

 

Movie Review: Ghost Rider Spirit of Vengeance (2012)

Zombos Says: Good

There are moments in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance when Johnny Blaze (Nicolas Cage), as the demonic Ghost Rider, forces men to gaze into his big, dark, empty eye-sockets with his penance stare. The penance stare makes his victims experience all the suffering they've caused. During those long staring matches, I anticipated seeing pinpoints of red that would slowly grow to become like eyes, filling his dark skull-orbs with crimson light.  The pinpoints never come. Someone in production should have noticed how dull it can be looking at someone else looking into dark, empty, eye-sockets with little else happening. Other moment's  in this second, more pyrotechnically intense, yet more oddball, franchise entry should also have received notice. Watching Ghost Rider's magical chain, whipping around to char-broil assailants into glowing embers and ash, and his flaming touch consuming everything is more exhilarating than the first movie, but everything else is underdone.

Johnny Blaze isn't doing well with his deal with the Devil. He's sulking in Eastern Europe (which considerably cuts production costs).  A mysterious religious order needs his help to protect a boy the Devil (Ciaran Hinds) wants badly. The boy, Danny (Fergus Riordan) is the Devil's son. In order to become supremely powerful on Earth, the Devil needs to take over his son's body. Although Danny has the required "D" sound for being the Devil's offspring, he's not evil. Not yet. His mother's (Violante Placido) deal with the Devil is going sour, too. 

That's it. You now know the whole story. Johnny Blaze reluctantly agrees to become the boy's protector, but Ghost Rider provides the seering muscle. Weapons with escalating destructive power are employed by the underlings hired to kidnap the boy. The weapon-toting underlings are employed by suitably nasty Carrigan (Johnny Whitworth). He gets whumped in spite of all the fire-power, but Roarke (that's the Devil's human name), brings him back to life, adding the power to decay everything he touches. With Johnny Blaze turning everything to smoking charcoal and Carragan turning everything to rot, the computerized special effects team earns its pay. One funny bit has Carrigan unable to spoil a famous snack. It's sweet and moist, and a zombie hunter in another movie has quite a hankering for it. Guess?

When the boy is safely sequestered with the tattooed monk, Methodius (Christopher Lambert), who lives in a cave, Blaze gets a new deal to become Ghost Riderless. But the tattooed monk is Christopher Lambert, so any genre fan worth his or her salt will already know how safe that situation is. A not so surprising reorganization of effort to stop a Satanic Mass and save the boy leads to a Mad Maxish road rage confrontation that flames out too soon.

Perhaps that's because the four or so writers and two directors, Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor, don't all go in the same direction. There's a Ghost Rider hissy-piss that either will crack a smile for you or insult, brief tender moments that should have been felt more, and Cage's crazed and damned Johnny Blaze needs a bigger plot to simmer and boil in. Every other character is two-dimensional in spite of the flat 3D embellishment. Animated, graphic novelish, backstories show strong visual flair (and provide a cheaper way to bring an audience up to speed), but their tone doesn't jive with the rest of the movie.

Opportunity for another sequel is given, but it better run on a higher octane than this one or I'll be using the penance stare myself.

Mexican Lobby Card: La Momia Azteca Contra El Robot Humano

A robot, a mummy, how can you go wrong with these essential combatants in Mexican Fantastic Cinema?

 

Mexican Lobby Card: El Charro De Las Calaveras

Simply superb, from the positioning of the masked gunfighter to the nibbling werewolf (or immensely hirsute individual, anyway).  Gives me goosebumps just looking at it.

 

La Maldicion De La Momia Azteca (1957) Mexican Lobby Card

Stop me if you've heard this before, but a mummy, a masked wrestler, and an evil scientist...

Mexican Lobby Card: Neutron, El Enmascarado Negro

 

 

Mexican Lobby Card: Las Mujeres Panteras

Mexican Lobby Card: La Mansion De Los Espectros

A composition combining menacing images with an action shot of Bela Lugosi, and a color scheme that looks like dried blood, makes this Mexican lobby card a visual treat.

 

Dracula and Frankenstein Golden Frame-Tray Puzzles 1991

Don't you wish you could just get up and go like Dracula? How does he do it? I love the little hankie tucked into his coat pocket. Does he really need to blow his nose? Maybe all that dirt's moldy and he has an allergy. The Frankenstein Monster's my favorite iconic image, of Glenn Strange strapped to an operating table; although he appears a lot more animated here than he usually does in the movies.

 

 

Graphic Book Review: Criminal Macabre, Two Red Eyes A Cal McDonald Mystery

Zombos Says: Good

That walking pill box, Band-Aid strip, and Phillip Morris cigarette pack rolled into one, Cal McDonald, once again gets beat up bad, smokes more than a few, and tangles with impossible odds that scare the dead enough to steer way clear of him. Only this time, after all this doom and gloom build-up, the odds even up pretty quick, and surprisingly easily, in the last few pages of this four issue graphic novel. 

You'd think Nosferatu, after demolishing the Santa Monica Pier upon his arrival, would do more than gloat as he and McDonald duke it out. No way. Instead, Steve Niles let's the vampire manhandle McDonald, and his loyal ghoulfriend MoLock, only just enough to stretch their necks to the breaking point, then pulls out the too simple gimmick of third-party intervention to save their smoked butts. Perhaps Nosferatu was too badass even for Niles to figure out a more McDonald-involved solution?

At least it's quite a build-up to that takedown letdown. Kyle Hotz makes Nosferatu glow with menace and us hurt just looking at McDonald's bruises. The police are out to get McDonald, we know why, and Nosferatu is out to get him, not quite sure why since McDonald's small fry in comparison, and the lycanthropes make a play to get him while he's busy puking past his withdrawal and nicotine starvation in the hospital. A text message from McDonald's girlfriend's phone sparks his recovery. Who'd have thought old Nosferatu could type with those claws on such a small phone?

You'd think four issues wouldn't be enough to hold all this menace and you'd be right. The easy-breezy showdown takes place at the Hollywood sign, no idea why. Maybe Niles is trying to tell us something with those big white letters. 

Keep trying.

Movie Pressbook: The Leech Woman (1960)