This 12 page pressbook from Warner-Pathe Distributors, Ltd. covers all the bases: kiddie audiences, it's in here; astronaut pens, and moon-buggy rentals, it's in here; gogo-booted females baring skin for the guys, it's in here; future fashions that remind you of Gerry Anderson, it's in here, too. All of this courtesy of Hammer Studios. I have to split this into two posts because it's so overwhelming. And man, I'd take on James Bond for that fold display artwork. Wouldn't you?
The "exploitation aid"mentioned in this bi-folded, one sheet pressbook is a keeper; the movies, not so much.
Zombos Says: Fair
All the ingredients are here for a scary ghost story: there's a tragic mystery to solve; people disappearing all around; the doom of being locked in with a malevolent spirit; and the vexing problem that no one believes you. John Carpenter can't seem to put them in the right order to provide suspense or mounting terror in The Ward, a surprisingly dull effort from a director who should know better. Gregory Nicotero's stalking ghost is not scary, only perfunctory, like he was doing a Face Off contest entry. He should know better, too. Amber Heard as Kristen is believable and fiesty, but it's the movie that isn't. As for the other characters, they're window mannequins for dressing the story, but being well worn over, they hold little interest. No one broke a bead of sweat in this movie, onscreen or off, and that's certainly not conducive to good horror drama, especially when it takes place in a mental ward.
It's 1966. Kristen runs through the woods in a slip and sneakers to a farmhouse and sets it ablaze. The police take her to North Bend Psychiatric Hospital. Maybe that's where she escaped from. She suffers from sudden flashbacks involving a young girl bound in shackles, locked in the basement of a farmhouse, sexually assaulted by a brutish figure. Kristen doesn't seem to have any memory beyond knowing her own name. She's told to take her medications and behave. This isn't One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) or Shock Treatment (1964): the orderlies and Dr. Stringer (Jared Harris) are stern but they really do want to help her with their shock treatments and little pill cup dosages. If you've seen any stuck-in-a-mental-ward movies, you already know all the tricks she pulls to keep from swallowing her pills. Carpenter has seen them, too. He even cracks out the old chestnut of an air-vent big enough for Kristen to shimmy through in one of her escape attempts, the metal grille of which is conveniently fastened by flat-head screws a handy penny can open.
The penny comes from another patient, Zoey (Laura-Leigh), a girl so regressed she acts like a child, sucking her thumb, her hair in ponytails, and clutching a small stuffed animal. The other patients, oddly there are only three more--Iris (Lyndsy Fonseca), Sarah (Danielle Panabaker), and Emily (Mamie Gummer)--are frightened by the ghost of Alice (Jillian Kramer), a former patient now prowling the halls looking to punish them. "Why?" is the driving question that Carpenter's fabricated mental ward with few patients to treat, mostly empty hallways, and with a surprisingly small staff to ignore Kristen's concerns and fears, will eventually be revealed.
Once you get past the shock-drop opening before the credits roll, when Tammy is dispatched during a dark and stormy night by Alice, the remaining actions and terrors build in preposterous leaps and bounds, although the ending provides the explanation for this. Once explained, however, the red herring-ish opening scene becomes contextually improbable (and if I weren't so polite, I'd even say nonsensical.) Clearly its only purpose is a contrived jolt, effective, but meaningless. the explanation confuses more than it clarifies, making the logic-bending events leading up to it even less plausible. I can't really tell you why because that would be a major spoiler; but should you see this movie to the ending, think about Kristen's companions throughout, their physical presence around the ward, the aside deadends each of them reaches when Alice comes calling, then ask yourself how any of it can be pieced together realistically for the story's sake. Any one of Hanna-Barbera's Scooby Doo cartoons make more sense than this script.
As for me, I'm asking why Carpenter insists on repeating past mistakes. His eye's better than this. His story-sense is better than this. When the dramatic opening credits, animated in splintering glass shards reflecting images as they fly through space, trumps the movie itself, I can't fathom how you wouldn't have questions to ask here.
Professor Kinema had this sanguine vinyl bat flapping around his archive shelves, so I thought large scans of the great Jack Davis artwork and monster trading cards would be something you could sink your teeth into. Click graphics to open them, then use your browser's back button to return to the post. A groovy hit to watusi is included.
Dracula's Greatest Hits -- Surf monster
Zombos Says: Very Good
There's an irresponsible, commercially driven abandon, tawdriness, and pandering to prurience seen in many of the comic book covers of the 1930s, '40s, and '50s. How wonderful!
From the crowded magazine racks of the time, these covers must have screamed "Buy Me!" to those young boys holding onto their slippery dimes as they rummaged among the pulp pages to find the baddest issues to spend them on, and share with their friends. (I'm sure girls spent their dimes, too, but I doubt it would have been for any of these testosterone-building wonders.)
Action! Mystery! Thrills! Comic Book Covers aof the Golden Age 1933-1945 boasts, in lurid colors and terrifying situations, long-haired dames in distress and undress, fiendish scientists armed with sharp instruments and drooling ghouls, dashing and brawny heroes rushing to the rescue, and evil villains with guns and hooded figures with sharp knives, and enough sensationalism to fill a book, which in this case would be the whole comic.
The best artists condensed all this action, thrill, and mystery into a one-page visual story that told you everything you needed to know about that issue from it's cover, give or take a little accuracy or so. Looking at these covers you'll see the beginnings of the horror tropes we see to this day.
Greg Sadowski provides capsule comments on each of the covers shown in this collection, citing their artists, but unless you're a diehard golden age comic book fan, the information isn't very satisfying because it assumes you know who he's talking about.
But these covers are completey satisfying. In this less golden age of false propriety and parroting of values without substance, it's refreshing to just go with the flow of all this innocent naughtiness.
Now, if I can just get them in poster size... please?
Zombos Says: Excellent
"By mistake, he actually made a good picture once and awhile." -- Jack Nicholson, Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
"Taste was out of the question." -- Martin Scorsese, Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel
Cinema Trash filmmaking is an art form--seriously, it is-- and its greatest ideologist and practicioner is Roger Corman. He didn't invent cheap sensational movies, but he knew how to make them highly profitable and when to kick-start a trend or exploit it to sell more theater seats (or drive-in car slots). Soft-spoken but craftily articulate, Corman is the star of Alex Stapleton's no frills documentary, Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel, which highlights how Corman ignited the careers of actors and directors who embraced--more like succumbed to, really--his pragmatic, and unwavering, bottom-line focused, moviemaking eye.
I first became acquainted with Corman's work through The Terror, a movie whose inexplicable mix of budget-friendly moments and left-over sets went unnoticed by my 7-year-old eyes as I ruined my parents night out. I couldn't help it. I refused to stay home with the babysitter so they had to take me along to the Loew's Oriental theater (this was in Brooklyn). I quietly sat between them as I watched Jack Nicholson, Dick Miller, Boris Karloff, and Sandra Knight chew up the gothic scenery, not really understanding what was happening. Of course, after the five or so directors got through with it, no one else did, either. I'm sure I had hit up the concession stand for treats, but I don't remember what I ate. What I do remember is that scene: Helene (Sandra Knight) melting away into brown goo after Andre (Jack Nicholson) rescues her. That I remember. I blame Corman for hooking me on horror movies because The Terror is the first one I saw on the big screen (or small, for that matter).
My father isn't much into horror movies, but my mom was. I'm sure she had forced him to see The Terror. What my dad did like back then were biker movies, so the next memorable Corman movie for me was seen at a New Jersey drive-in. It was on a double bill (maybe triple, actually) that I saw The Wild Angels and Richard Rush's Hells Angels on Wheels (starring Jack Nicholson). I peetered out by the time the third movie started playing so we headed home. My dad forgot to unhitch the speaker from the car's window, so we took that home, too.
Biker movies always scared me more than the supernatural and monster ones. The odds of being beat up by a biker (my nose was broken by one) were greater than being attacked by a giant, head-eating crab with googly eyes or a giant plant noshing on my body parts. Between the bikers, the seafood, and the florist, Corman's cinema world percolates with its roughness, exploitation, hipness, and edgy cheapness, and all of this is revealed by Stapleton through movie clips, Corman's own words, and words from the notable creative people who brought us these independent--in attitude as well as production--movies.
Stapleton shows us the lean, iconoclastic, must-not-deviate-from-plan Corman machine with its output spanning nearly every genre: western, gangster, science fiction, horror, teenage angst, biker, psychedelic, and social commentary with his more daring--AIP didnt' want it, so he produced it himself--The Intruder, which starred William Shatner. For horror fans, it's the Poe cycle of the 1960s, with Vincent Price, that makes Corman a household name. House of Usher, Masque of the Red Death, The Raven (with Boris Karloff and Peter Lorre), The Haunted Palace (actually taken from H.P. Lovecraft's The Case of Charles Dexter Ward), The Pit and the Pendulum, and The Premature Burial (starring Ray Milland and Hazel Court instead of Price) are atmospheric. Aided by recognizable actors and stylish use (and re-use) of sets, costumes, and storylines, they remain clear examples of how artistic expression and commercial success can be achieved on a shoestring budget.
The Raven's sets, when Corman realized he had a few days left on the shooting schedule before they would be torn down, were used in The Terror. In turn, Peter Bogdanovich, who cut his teeth for Corman with Voyage to the Planet of Prehistoric Women, would utilize footage of The Terror in Targets, his disturbing movie that highlights the demarcation line between the old style monsters of Universal Studios and the new, socially misfitted, psycho-killing monster living next door. (See my review: Targets: Is This What I Was Afraid Of?)
Bogdanovich had to use Boris Karloff in Targets because Karloff owed Corman a few days work, and Corman also insisted some twenty minutes of scenes from The Terror be incorporated by Bogdanovich (but in the final tally it was only a few). Given these requirements, Bogdanovich and Samuel Fuller wrote the screenplay, resulting in a movie that transcends its limitations by embracing them, making it a must-see movie for every horror fan as it presages the reality-terrors of the 1970s. It also earned a place in 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die.
I don't know how Stapleton coaxed the usually laconic Jack Nicholson to talk about his years with Corman, but he opens up in a way that invigorates this documentary through his simplicity and directness about the relationship. At one point Nicholson cries when he realizes how much his career gained by falling under Corman's spell. Film clips keep the documentary lively, while an on location shoot with Corman for Dinoshark provides a glimpse of him in action.
Like Svengali, Corman mesmerizes those who work under him into squeezing their talents through his production funnel to produce usually awful, often memorably awful, and sometimes even noteworthy movies. No drive-in needed.
Zombos Says: Excellent
"Oh, I can see its eyes."
"Not sure those things its eyes..."
Sometimes the simplest premise and the necessities of moderate budget constraints can lead to an understated sci-horror movie that shines with low-key wit, involves us with colorful characters by not forgetting their humanity, and dares to completely tell its story instead of neutering it in hopes of lucrative franchised bastardizations. Joe Cornish manages to accomplish all of this in Attack the Block, a zeitgeist experience, if ever there was one, of realness, fakery, nonplussed attitudes, a variety of cliches, and decade-spanning B-movie horror sensibilities. If that weren't enough, there's fur-ball monsters with large day-glo mouths and teeth to match, with wonderfully nondescript black bodies, yet ingenious in design because it's all about those teeth, and desperately keeping necks, arms, and legs away from them, that propels this sci-horror gem's action along.
Thomas Townend exploits those wonderful teeth with his cameras in two key scenes: during the first appearance of a fur-ball alien the boys think is as easy a target as the hairless, light-skinned one they attacked and killed earlier, and when pot dealer Hi-Hatz (Jumayn Hunter) makes the mistake of not looking out the apartment window. It's amazing how much bang for the buck you can get from such a simple creature design when paired with those ominous, neon teeth.
The many meteors carrying these aliens crash into the neighborhood on Guy Fawkes Night, while fireworks are going off all around. The first crash comes after would-be youth gang's Moses (John Boyega), Pest (Alex Esmail), Biggz (Simon Howard), Jerome (Leeon Jones), and Dennis (Franz Drameh) hood up to mug Sam (Jodie Whittaker) in the street as she's heading home to the Block, the apartment building they all live in. The smashed up car the small meteor hit provides Moses an opportunity to rifle through it, and the chance for Sam to get away. She does, and Moses avoids being nipped by an alien. He and the boys chase after it with youthful abandon, after first grabbing their assorted weapons including bats, a samurai sword, knife, and some firework rockets. Moses kills it and takes it to pot dealer Ron (Nick Frost), who then takes Moses and the creature to see Hi-Hatz, the bigger dope dealer, in his steel-door fortified, ultraviolet-lighted, pot-growing room. Moses is looking for a place to stash the creature safely, but he also wants to impress Hi-Hatz so he can accelerate his criminal career path.
It's the deviation from this path that Moses must ultimately confront when he realizes the consequences of killing the first alien. The fur-balls are nastier, bigger, and unrelenting in their pursuit of him and his gang, but why they keep coming after him is a mystery eventually explained, while holed up in that fortified pot-growing room, by Brewis (Luke Treadaway), the pothead, nerdy, white kid caught up in the mayhem. (Sure, go ahead; imagine a hash pipe's worth of Cheech and Chong-styled humor undercut through all this, if you like.)
Between the gang's bikes and scooters transportation, the frantic chases, Sam and Moses reluctantly teaming up but growing to understand and like each other , Hi-Hatz having it in for Moses because Hi-Hatz refuses to understand or like anyone, the Block's cramped apartments and dreary hallways becoming a battleground, and those fur-balls climbing the building when they're not prowling its hallways--you may feel a subdued 1980s deja vu, but the sensation may also bring some 1950s kitsch and 1970s flow along with it, modulated by Steven Price's techno score.
Then Cornish rythms up with dialog that's one-liner bright and character revealing, pushing his story up two notches beyond the superficial people-fodder most often seen in horror and sci-horror. You may not like these kids at first, but after the movie, you'll wish you had them living in your Block when the alien invasion comes.
Note the large makeup case at the right...
