Review 2019-03 Mesa of Lost Women (1953)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046066/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Directors:

 Ron Ormond, Herbert Tevos

Writer:

 Herbert Tevos (written for the screen by)

Stars:

 Jackie Coogan, Allan Nixon, Richard Travis

Synopsis:

          A couple stumbles out of the Mexican desert and recall their tale of an evil doctor and his collection of deadly spider women and evil dwarfs.

Review:

          This is a tough one, but not all is lost. The good news is that it’s only 69 minutes, but the bad news is that it is 69 minutes of your life you will never get back. Have no fear because I have made the great sacrifice for you. Typically, I have to watch these things 3 or 4 times to write these reviews. I usually enjoy them a lot more than you’d think; just not this time. If this had been stretched out tot the usual 90 minutes, I think there would be some justification for a class action lawsuit provided enough people survived watching it through to the end. I seriously doubt that the numbers would warrant it.

          So… like the synopsis says, our show opens with a couple stumbling across a barren desert until a survey team rescues them. It’s a good thing too, because the woman is wearing heels and a past the knee length skirt neither of which was intended for hiking through the desert. But, the joke is on us because what we are seeing is actually the end of our story. It is their survival and eventual telling of the story, which is sort of strange considering when the flash back begins, it is told from some unknown narrator not in the film. Enter Dr. Leland Masterson.

          The narrator tells us when it comes to specializing in research; Masterson is the man, for now. I have to admit he seems interesting at first while providing us some nice little nuggets of exposition, but then he starts telling us stuff we didn’t need or want to know. It turns out Dr. Aranya is very interested in the pituitary gland and hormones, and so much so, that it makes me think this was developed for the drive-in crowd where hormones rule. As per usual the Dr. shows Masterson a girl spider, a few evil looking dwarfs, (what’s with evil scientists hanging out with dwarfs all the time?) and a bunch of hot spider/chick hybrids so we can see how busy he’s been. I know they are part spider, but they still look all girl and you don’t see many spiders with a rack like that (I’m sure some purvey producer suggested eight boobs).

          We find out that after turning down Aranya for some sort of evil doctor fellowship and having him say he can’t leave alive, we find out Masterson has been in an asylum for the last year. Masterson manages to escape from the asylum in style. He gets out by making a make shift rope out of his bed linen so he can go out through the window just like in a cartoon and just as impractical. After getting loose he makes a beeline to the nearest bar to get a drink and finds company in a pair of newlyweds in town due to plane trouble. The local entertainment turns out to be a spider/chick from Aranya’s clubhouse and Masterson shoots her during her dance. Then he takes them all hostage including his nurse George from the asylum who had been hot on his trail.

          Once Masterson finds out the newlyweds have a plane he demands they all go to it because he wants to fly.  There we get to meet Grant again, the other half of our desert survivors from the opening. Grant tells them he’s still having trouble with one of the engines and the plane can’t fly, but Masterson’s Colt .45 says different. With sirens blaring in the background they all climb aboard preferring a fiery crash in the desert to a bullet in the back. So with such subtle foreshadowing those of you more perceptive than a 3 year old can guess there’s going to be a crash on top of a mesa as mentioned in the tittle.

          No point in dragging it out much longer, they crash land on the same mesa the story started on. Masterson is so nuts, he doesn’t recognize the place he was on before, or he isn’t telling anyone about it. One interesting thing you’ll see from time to time in the film are curious close-ups that seem out of place. I don’t mean gratuitous boob shots or giant spiders. I mean these really strange close-ups where the backdrop doesn’t match the scene Some times it seems like they are there like a buffer between shots, but other times it seems they hold a bit too long like they were added for time. At 69 minutes running time, that’s a real possibility.

          A very strange and confusing part of the final 3^rd of the film is the way we keep cutting back to Dr. Aranya and his thugs updating him on the progress of the crash survivors. At one point he seems to think they’re all acting in accordance with some elaborate plan he had no idea about until they crashed. The newlywed’s faithful man servant Woo seems to be on Aranya’s payroll as he reports to him faithfully before he sets the spider chicks on him. That’s a hell of a Double D severance package. I almost cheered when those chicks went after him so we wouldn’t have to hear any more of his fortune cookie proverbs, “For every man there is a day to be born and a day to die.” Woo is great at philosophizing the obvious in a very corny deliberate slow Kung Fu style so much that even Master Po would call bullshit on.

          I won’t spoil the ending for you, mostly because I don’t think I can since we started with the ending. I’ll say this much though, you won’t like it. Perhaps you might remember as a kid when you went to see a great movie, and thought the ending was great you were so sad it was over. This isn’t one of those movies. This is more like surviving some sort of horrible experience that everyone wants to say they were part of, but no one wants to go. Take a chance to be one of the few survivors.

Lessons Learned:

·       If you meet a chick named Tarantella you should keep looking.

·       Film Editors are real important.

·       The desert is barren and unforgiving except on top of the mesa covered in lush vegetation and spider/chicks.

·       Modern dance is alive and thriving in small Mexican towns.

·       Mi mesa, es su mesa.

Review 2019-02 Night of The Blood Beast (1958)

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051993/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Director:

 Bernard L. Kowalski

Writers:

 Gene Corman (story), Martin Varno (screenplay)

Stars:

 Michael Emmet, Angela Greene, John Baer |

  
Synopsis:
            Man’s first launch into space ends tragically when the orbiter crashes back to Earth killing the first astronaut, or it seems until he is reanimated by an alien force using him as a surrogate host for his/hers invasion babies.

Review:

          This is another one of those gems from one of my super 50 movie packs from Amazon. I thought this was going to be horrible and it sort of is, but it turned out to be a wonderful sort of horrible. In the beginning, they say the pilot Major John Corcoran was supposed to be the first man sent up to a satellite and then return, but not dead like they find him. It isn’t all that surprising when you consider we first see John in his ship in a G Suit instead of a Pressure Suit, so it was going to be death no matter what. Or as the man who found him said, “Looks like he bought it. All the way!” Of course the rest of their group finds this upsetting as they hear it come over the radio, but Doctor Julie Benson is a little more upset than the others since she is John’s new fiancé. Their apparent leader Doctor Wyman consoles her saying they knew there would be risks and they’ve got a lot of stuff to do. They always say it’s in the pursuit of science, but there doesn’t appear to be much science stuff going on here. For the next while they spend a lot of time working on dead John; he confused them. From the examination the Doc realizes John isn’t breathing and he has no pulse, however Julie finds he has excellent blood pressure leaving them all with the same mystified look as my Doctor when he says my BP is both great and very suspicious. Our movie Doc says it’s impossible and he’s right, but we won’t let little details like that ruin a strange movie.

          As things progress they start having other problems such as their radio communications won’t work, their power is out, their vehicles won’t start, and finally their watches have all stopped just like for me, the film makes it feel like time has stopped; one insanely dull experience. It should come as no shock, nor be any sort of spoiler that John is eventually reanimated. Of course there are a few moments when they think there is something after them in the night. At the same time, Julie is examining a blood sample from dead John and finds his blood is very active and we are treated to a microscopic animation of the battle going on in his blood, done in the style of a cheap breakfast cereal ad from the ‘60s (I should know, I was there).

          So the first thing Zombie John does once he is up is kill the Doc or it is meant to seem like it, because we only get to see the aftermath when the body is discovered. Once John is fully up walking around, and scarring the shit out of the others, he confesses to have absorbed the Doc’s being. I know it doesn’t make much sense, but you are in good company, because the actors all look just as confused. You can only wonder if it was and extra page slipped into their script that day. Or it could simply be a matter of a page from a different script getting mixed up in theirs. I’m not convinced they would notice.

          Eventually John starts to act a lot more like himself except for his sympathy and understanding of the parasites growing inside of him. As he stomps around on his moral soapbox advocating for interplanetary relations the Blood Beast bursts in just in time to support the fears of everyone but John. As the Beast lumbers around waiting to be noticed, the others draw on it and start shooting while John pleads for it. No one seems to want or need to aim their guns despite their close proximity in the small room they are in.

          The others want to believe John’s claims about the peaceful nature of the Beast, so they decide to burn it alive with Molotov Cocktails. John helps them to track down the Beast to a cave, but he jumps ship to be with the Beast and learns about its secret plan to get it on with all of humanity and take us over for our own good. For some reason John has an epiphany suddenly understands he is the focal point of an invasion, while Julie is remorse at the thought of all the engagement gifts she is going to need to return. John demands they kill him along with the Beast and when they are slow on the trigger, he makes the decision for them by sacrificing himself so they can get the BBQ started. And the invasion is stopped and the Earth saved.

Lessons Learned:

• Once you’ve been to space, you no longer need a heart to have great blood pressure.
• Some guys will do anything to stay a bachelor.
• The best way to get bad news is over the CB Radio with others listening and watching.
• Getting knocked up by and alien is easy, but not as much fun as the way Capt. Kirk did it.
• NASA scientists are trigger happy and lean heavy to pyro.

Review: The War of the Robots

The War of the Robots (1978) 

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077640/?ref_=nv_sr_1

Director:

 Alfonso Brescia (as Al Bradly)

Writers:

 Alfonso Brescia (story) (as Al Bradly), Aldo Crudo (story) (as Alan Rawton)

Stars:

 Antonio Sabato, Yanti Somer, Malisa Longo |

          Synopsis:

Earth’s leading expert in genetics and longevity is kidnapped along with his assistant by aliens from a world with a dying population and no future in the hopes that he can solve their problems, but back home he’s left his latest work in the atomic oven that if left unchecked will destroy everything in 8 days.

Review:

          We start off with very little information on this one except to say, that despite all of the efforts of producers to spoil things, we still wind up with the notion the setting is some time in the future (I hope it isn’t mine). I could be giving them too much credit, since the word ‘Robots’ is in the title. You have to see this one to appreciate just how utterly unsophisticated their attempts were at bringing this future to the big screen. Now I don’t want to spoil the magic for anyone who hasn’t seen this one, but consider when you watch the blurry white blobs bouncing on a string in front of a black velvet backdrop try to imagine those that put up 4 or 5 bucks to watch this just one year after that stunning giant space ship that flew over your head in Star Wars.  Then they decided to hammer the point home with some sort of cheesy giant screen lava lamp reporting that their security satellites have detected a breach or something like that in Italian.

          Eventually they have to show us what caused the security alert, so we get to see a bunch of Robot men in gold suits with matching blonde golden locks, each sporting a Buster Brown hairdo. If you understand that reference it could be much more of a commentary of your sad life, and you should be out doing grown up stuff instead of being trapped by nonsense like this. It is both a curse and a joy to force myself into enduring these gems for others. A thankless job, but still a job and that’s how I explain to my wife when she asks why I watch this stuff. Plus I could say it’s better than doing the dishes, but this one would be pushing the line hard.

          As usual for these sorts of things, it all comes down to our big space hero Captain John Boyd and his special space team that don’t seem to do all that much other than follow him around. Of course there is a bit of a side drama going on with one of the girls on his crew waiting for him to notice her while he has a thing for the kidnapped professor’s assistant Lois. As a bit of a minimal spoiler, the professor and his assistant change what side their on so often it almost registers as a subplot until you start to realize it doesn’t matter one bit, but that happens much later on. In the mean time you have to suffer watching them battle more stuff hanging from a wire until their ship is damaged forcing them to land on a near planet with an atmosphere remarkably similar to earth’s. This turns out to be the perfect place to make some repairs to their ship while doing a bit of spelunking in the nearby caverns.

          They don’t get far into the caves before having to fend off a bunch of thugs with hoods to conceal that a thick membrane to protect them from radiation covers their eyes. The fighting is stopped when their leader Kuba, with his normal eyes intervenes to question the strangers, but is interrupted when the Gold Robot guys arrive to attack the locals, or are they after Boyd and his crew: we will never know. Even though Kuba and his people wanted to beat the truth out of them, Captain Boyd decides they should get involved and teach those gold guys a lesson that can only be delivered by their flashlight guns (the only way to describe them, they look like someone stuck a pistol grip on a flashlight and the special effect is when they light up). Kuba is impressed with their weapons for some reason,  and is convinced his suspicions were wrong. He also learns about their mission and they bring him along to help, because he just happened to have been a captive laborer on the bad guy’s planet and he knows his way around the palace.

          I won’t bore you with the specific details other than to say the professor changes sides so much you will be left bewildered. The thing to take note at this point is just how much this movie stole from others rather than sticking to a single idea. Even one of the posters for this film is a rip off of a scene in 2001, but it doesn’t stop there. At one point the flashlight guns stop working so they bring out the light/laser swords and I simply cannot describe how unimpressive as well as ineffective they are. Just when you think the stolen material is over they start stealing from Battlestar Galactica when suddenly a bunch of little fighter jet space ships come shooting out the ass of the main ship. That gives them a chance to zip around chasing each other shooting more light and crap. It doesn’t make a lot of sense at this point, but that could be the point. Was it ever meant to make sense? I won’t tell you how it ends, because I don’t remember or I don’t remember if I watched the end. You might like it, you might laugh at it, or like me you might just give up and let it die.

Lessons Learned:

• The future looks sad, but the cars are cool and hideaway headlights are back in.
• Just because your eyes are closed over doesn’t mean you don’t cut eyeholes in your mask.
• If you meet an alien and he says he knows the way, bring him along.
• Nothing says robot like a bad haircut.
• If someone says, “Push the red button,” don’t do it.

Review 2017- 01The Swarm

Blog Post no 25 The Swarm

A long time ago in what we now call the not so dark, but still dark ages, or the days when there wasn’t really an Internet. I mean it was still there, first developed long before the days of the personal home computer, but it just wasn’t used or had a use until everyone got on it. Today we have YouTube and the rest of the sites out there in the ever evolving cyberspace that is able to fulfill a unique purpose in providing us with the “Where are They Now” pages and videos. These are the slightly better than gossip rags trying to fill in the details of what has become of the big stars from three months ago, because if you are not in front of every entertainment craving slug in the world, then you are rapidly sliding down the celebrity hell of anonymity chart.

So what did we have all those years before TMZ and YouTube? We had something incredible bringing the top talents and has-beens together in one massive monumental feature known as the disaster movie. No one was better at the disaster movie than Irwin Allen. He was responsible for, The Poseidon Adventure, The Towering Inferno, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, and of course a lot of TV. These movies brought  mega stars like Paul Newman and Steve McQueen together in the same film as stars your parents would have to explain their relevance like Fred Astaire or Shelly Winters. To be honest, I think I prefer the old method better.

•        

The Swarm (1978)

Director	Irwin Allen
The Main Players
Michael Caine	Brad Crane
Katharine Ross	Captain Helena Anderson
Richard Widmark	General Slater
Richard Chamberlain	Dr. Hubbard
Olivia de Havilland	Maureen Schuster
Ben Johnson	Felix
Slim Pickens	Jud Hawkins
José Ferrer	Dr. Andrews
Fred MacMurray	Mayor Clarence
Henry Fonda	Dr. Walter Krim
Patty Duke	Rita
There’s a lot more, so look it up.

Synopsis: 

            As usual, mother nature is striking back at us, now with killer bees that have slowly been traveling north form their South American origins and they just happen to make their way to a secret American Military establishment (possibly nuclear in nature) killing everyone except a lone entomologist tracking the bees with aspirations of stopping them and saving mankind.

Review:

            This is a strange movie and when you watch it, you'll start to understand how it’s the film example of putting the cart before the horse. Basically there’s a very well structured plot involving a large ensemble of characters that have their lives suddenly intertwined by a large disaster making both friends and adversaries alike, come together to save everyone. It’s an excellent formula offering the right amounts of drama and touching moments, but when you watch, you can’t help but feel like they started with everything but what the disaster was going to bee (little pun). It felt like they had everything in place and someone just got up and said, oh yeah, what is everyone supposed to be afraid of. Some P.A. probably just shouted out, Killer Bees and then they tried to ram that square peg into the round hole giving us this remarkably un-disastrous disaster movie.

            Michael Caine shuffles his way through this as the loud obnoxious know it all about bees of all varieties named Brad Crane. He spends a lot of time arguing with authorities about how to deal with the bees. The military people want to go to war against them and don’t do so well in their first encounter. After losing a couple choppers in the battle with the bees Slim Pickens shows up at the front gate looking for help for his son and to make nice cameo to represent the simple folks lining in the area. There is a heart felt scene between Slim and his injured boy that everyone sort of rallies around deciding they will fight the bees. With so much going on with the military trying to intervene we have have a catalyst to drive the thin plot forward and we get it with some kids in the park.

            One kid, who’s only just recovered from being stung, gathers his friends with intent to strike the first blow through the magic of fire bombing and few of them in the hollowed out tree they live in. All this does is stir up the bees and what  would any ruthless group of killers from South America do when restless in their hide out, they head in to town to stir shit up. The bees are now more riled than ever before as demonstrated by their need to find a way into a storage area that they have now way of knowing of it’s existence, and will stop at nothing to get inside including going through the air conditioning system. They are  after all ,super killer bees, and it quickly appears they are holding a grudge of equally super proportions. Despite the number of scientists working to find a solution to battle the bees, we learn very little about bees. Most people are unaware that bees communicate with each other by means of a sort of dance to show others where the best nectar is. You’d think given the kind of budget and star power pulled together for this one, they could have at least had the bees do the dance of Lets Kill Everyone We See.

            My favorite part is when we get to see how the attack of the bees is a major news item bringing the big news networks to town in their giant motor homes featuring moment by moment commentary by the on air talent. What they don’t explain is the courage of the unsung heroes of the network. The humble and brave cameramen up on top of the motor homes brining you live minute by minute images while being swarmed to death and never once flinching. It’s just another level of preposterous activity forcing you more and more to suspend suspending disbelief. My immediate first thought was how could the union let this happen. Regular bees would be one thing, but South American undocumented illegal bees would not be tolerated.

            Of course, we can’t rely on union action alone to stop this ecological disaster, and we all know you have to fight fire with fire. In this case they decide to attack one Eco-disaster by starting another. Now, for some reason, the bees decide to attack a nuclear plant, and one can Oliy assume they just want in on that industry as well. Through some amazing, and yet to be invented  device, Crane discovers the real reason the bees attacked the military base in the first place. Like everyone else they hate the sound of an alarm siren blasting into the peacefully outdoors, which is very interesting when you consider bees don’t have ears. They don’t hear sounds but they can feel vibrations and I can only assume tops on their list is the incessant buzzing all around them. That would turn anyone into a killer. So, Cranes our hero uses helicopters with speakers ballasting out the sound bees cant hear to lure them out to the ocean where this thoughtfully environmental warrior has lay ed out a nice slick of premium crude oil. They set it ablaze killing all of the bees and any marine mammal life that just happened to wander into the spill zone. Kind of like a Dawn detergent commercial but instead of washing the fuzzy duckies off, you set them on fire.

           

             

Lessons Learned:

•       Cameramen will do anything to get the shot.

•       Bees do not respect international boarders or coastal exclusion limits.

•       For aging actors, if you’re going out, it might as well be with the help of Irwin Allen.

•       Despite being barely able to fly, bees can keep up with a Huey unless playing Ride of the Valkyries.

•       Flame-throwers aren’t just for fun anymore.

•       Train travel is still the safest form of… never mind.

Review 2016-03 Bermuda Tentacles

Just how much influence does pop culture have on regular culture? Take the great state of Texas for example. Everyone knows that Texas is known for big things, or doing things big. But now there is a bit of a sense that there is this sort of big craziness that goes along with Texas. The notion is that when they go crazy there, they go crazy big. Would it be that way without cultural monsters like Leatherface and J.R. Ewing? Or, is it that those abominations come from Texas that make it seem crazier than other places. More importantly, would Texas matter without them. The problem with pop culture and it’s influence is that while we can see where it starts (sometimes), and we can often see where it ends. The real conundrum is why it ever started in the first place. And so, there are other places that have achieved that sort of mythical like status, even when they don’t exist.
The Bermuda Triangle is just that sort of place. It isn’t a place at all. It’s just an imaginary line running between geographical points that has been attributed with paranormal like powers, mystery, and other spooky shit. The problem is that all of the hype has gone. For me it left back in 1977 when NOVA did a special proving that more stuff went missing outside of the Triangle than in. But look, even if they were wrong and Aliens with other mystical forces are at work in the Triangle, lets celebrate that we’ve got the buggers contained to one area. It’s not like you can’t vacation in Jamaica instead.

Bermuda Tentacles (2014)

Director	Nick Lyon
The Main Players
Trevor Donovan	Trip Oliver
Linda Hamilton	Admiral Linda Hansen
Mya (as Mya Harrison)	Lt. Plummer
John Savage	President  DeSteno

Synopsis:  

The President of the United States of America is forced to jettison in an escape pod from Air Force One as it flies through a severe tropical storm over the dreaded Bermuda Triangle, but the massive naval strike force and unknown extra-terrestrial forces from the deep hamper a special operations team sent to rescue him (they don’t seem interested in other survivors).

Review:

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. I love B movies. Sadly, this isn’t one of them. I don’t even have a rating for this one other than I wanted to call it Bermuda Testicles, but someone beat me to it on IMDB. It is a fitting title because when you look at the concept for the script:

President ejects over the Bermuda Triangle.

Navy goes in to get rescue him.

Special rescue team called in.

Giant space/alien/monster tentacles rise from the deep immune to all weapons.

Special team told to stand down - they go anyway.

Special team finds giant alien storage container full of all the missing crap in it.

They find POTUS and get away, or something like that.

Just imagine how big a pair you’d have to have to seriously go forward asking for development money to put this turd into production. If that isn’t a ballsy move, I don’t know what is.

A lot of reviews on line are sort of mean when it comes to Linda Hamilton. They seem to  focus on the way she looks and the mere fact that she is in this movie, which should speak for itself. I don’t know how actors get roped into these things, but we have to keep in mind that they are doing a job. It’s a bad movie, but not because of her. She did a great job and even Vivian Leigh could not have saved this one. I’m just surprised that none of the reviewers touched on John Savage showing up. Tentacles from space is no Deer Hunter. Savage couldn’t do anything for this one except that I will admit that I watched it to see the both of them in it. Everyone needs a reason/excuse.

Lets be honest here, I watched the entire thing, but I did it in stages thanks to the PVR. This movie was painful to watch and I just don’t remember how it ends. I know they make it, I just don’t know why, nor do I care. The cast should be dead. The aliens should have gone back to their home world and deleted us from their stellar maps. Those giant tentacles should have got out a huge jug of white out and blanked out our solar system. If they had been like Columbus the Queen would have been entitled to a full refund. These poor guys didn’t find anything worth writing home about.

Just imagine if you had been one of the aliens getting back to your world and trying to explain how things went on this new planet you discovered. They would be like, “Let me get this straight. They can make machines that fly. They’ve been to space. They’ve learned to harness most of the power from splitting the atom. And they think where you park is magic, and they shoot at you whenever you try to shake tentacles with them?” Hard to believe isn’t it. I’d probably blow us up too.

Lessons Learned:

• The only thing worse than tentacles are tentacles coming out of tentacles.
• The Bermuda Triangle is way deeper than we thought.
• They have a special day in the Navy when you can wear the uniform of your choice and you get to make up the ranks of others.
• Everyone in the Navy has a gun just in case.
• Take your best shot means something different in the Triangle.
• Old actors don’t die, they join the Navy.
• I don’t know if you’ve been told, Navy wings just fall out of the sky.