The Pit

Release Year: 1981
Country: United States
Starring: Sammy Snyders, Jeannie Elias, Sonja Smits, Laura Hollingsworth, Laura Press, Paul Grisham, Wendy Schmidt, Andrea Swartz, Edith Bedker, Lillian Graham, Richard Alden, Gerard Jordan, Cindy Auten .
Writer: Ian A. Stuart
Director: Lew Lehman
Cinematographer: Manfred Guthe
Music: Victor Davies
Producer: Bennet Fode
Availability: Buy it from Amazon

Years ago, while living in Atlanta, my roommate Rachel and I happened across this film one rainy afternoon. We were fascinated, and I have looked for a copy of it ever since. Thanks to the Internet, I now own my very own copy of The Pit. The overall feel of this movie hooked us. It was perfect for a rainy afternoon. Director Lew Lehman somehow found the exact same film stock, lighting techniques and acting methods employed so successfully by the ABC Afterschool Specials. About a quarter through, we were wondering what lesson The Pit was trying to teach us.

And luckily, The Pit is full of lessons.

The movie begins with what English teachers call “foreshadowing.” A kid dressed as a ghost lures two other kids dressed as a pirate and a ballerina into the woods, where he throws them into the pit referred to in the title. Then we get the credits. I have a theory that in any group of kids, there is always a “Moody.” Moody would be the kid with a long bowl cut, wearing those baseball shirts, flipping people off, and generally starting down the wonderful path of juvenile delinquency. In The Pit, Moody is called Jamie. Or, as the credits identify him, “Jaime.” When we first meet him, twelve-year-old Jamie is writing some sort of punishment on a blackboard. His teacher flips through a book she confiscated from him (I guess), entitled Creative Nude Photography. One of the models is cut out. This is more foreshadowing, in this case used to reveal that Jamie is a little creep. The teacher returns the book to the librarian, who finds a picture of the missing nude with her head copied on it. Jamie watches her, creepily. He gets caught and runs home, but stops to admire a bike. As he touches it, he’s accosted by a snotty little girl, who tells him, “Why don’t you go back where you came from, you funny person?” Here is the first problem with The Pit. The movie wants you to feel sorry for Jamie, since he is constantly being punched, yelled at by old ladies, and generally misunderstood. However, he is such a perverted little creep that it’s hard to muster up too much sympathy for the freak. | More »

The Terror

Release Year: 1938
Country: England
Starring: Wilfrid Lawson, Bernard Lee, Arthur Wontner, Linden Travers, Henry Oscar, Iris Hoey, Stanley Lathbury, Lesley Wareing, Alastair Sim, John Turnbull, Richard Murdoch, Edward Lexy.
Writer: William Freshman
Director: Richard Bird
Cinematographer: Walter Harvey
Music: Marr Mackie
Producer: Walter C. Mycroft
Availability: Buy it from Amazon

It’s another old British production of an Edgar Wallace mystery novel. I sure hope you folks don’t get tired of these, because I’m not going to. This time around, the villain of the piece is a mysterious criminal mastermind known as O’Shea (on the list of “awesome super villain names,” O’Shea does not find itself near the top). O’Shea, along with two accomplices, orchestrates a fantastic gold robbery. Upon successful completion of the heist, O’Shea betrays his partners in crime, leaving them behind to slow down the police while he makes off with the gold. Understandably miffed, the two luckless criminals swear to avenge themselves when they are finally released from prison. When, some ten years later, they are finally let go, each man embarks on a plot to track down and kill the elusive and unseen O’Shea, making sure that he doesn’t die before telling them the location of the gold.

Independent of each other, the two ex cons show up at the sprawling monastery-turned-mansion now belonging to Col. Redmayne (Arthur Wontnor, best known for playing Sherlock Holmes in films like Murder at the Baskervilles, before the masses forgot anyone besides Basil Rathbone had ever played Sherlock Holmes). If The Gaunt Stranger was a Bulldog Drummond-esque police procedural, then The Terror is an Edgar Wallace variation on the “old dark house” films that were so popular with audiences in the 30s and 40s (and remain highly popular with me). The basic premise of these types of films is contained in the name. They are mysteries — sometimes supernatural, often times not, many times supernatural unmasked as something more mundane — set in and around some exceptionally huge, exceptionally spooky old mansion. The mystery aspect of the films almost always involves trying to unmask a murderer or trying to unearth some hidden treasure, and besides the usual plot contrivances that serve to generate a list of suspects, the house itself lends to the mystery, as it will inevitably contain a large number of hidden doors, secret passageways, and mysterious underground catacombs. Often, the cast becomes secondary to simply watching actors sneak in and out of various trap doors and trying to guess which piece of furniture or shelf of books is going to end up being a disguised doorway to some underground crypt or mad scientist’s lair. | More »

Trip To Moon

Release Year: 1967
Country: India
Starring: Dara Singh, Master Bhagwan, Anwar Hussain, Padma, S. Nazir
Writers: Dr. P. Balakrishnan, T.R. Sundaram
Director: T.R. Sundaram
Cinematographer: M. Krishnaswamy
Music: Usha Khanna
Producer: Jambulingam

In the Summer of 2003, the movie Koi Mil Gaya opened on India’s theater screens. While in most respect no different from other big budget Bollywood romances of its day, the picture boasted a couple of elements that enabled its publicity department to set it apart from the pack. If you’ve seen the film, you know what I’m talking about: Our hero, played by doe-eyed muscle farmer Hrithik Roshan, is one of those lovable movie retarded guys, but a lovable movie retarded guy who somehow has to be gotten into pole position to romance the film’s lovable but not at all retarded heroine, who is played by Preity Zinta. How KMG bridges this troublesome, albeit poignant, gap is to have Hrithik granted a genius IQ as the result of his close encounter with a gnomish, benevolent space alien.

I have to confess to finding Koi Mil Gaya pretty god-awful, though I know it has its share of boosters. It’s basically little more than a queasy amalgamation of ET and Flowers For Algernon – though one that, in it’s aggressive sweetness, manages on the one hand to out-saccharine Spielberg’s original and, on the other, to out-patronize every Hollywood portrayal of the developmentally challenged in recent memory. When you think about it, that’s actually quite impressive. But rather than touting those dubious accomplishments, the people charged with marketing Koi Mil Gaya instead chose to focus on the story’s fantastic elements, promoting it as “India’s first science fiction film”. | More »

The Gaunt Stranger

Release Year: 1938
Country: England
Starring: Sonnie Hale, Wilfrid Lawson, Louise Henry, Alexander Knox, Peter Croft, George Merritt, Patrick Barr, John Longden, Patricia Roc, Arthur Hambling, Charles Eaton.
Writer: Sidney Gilliat
Director: Walter Forde
Cinematographer: Gordon Dines, Ronald Neame
Music: Ernest Irving
Producer: Michael Balcon
Availability: Buy it from Amazon

1938’s The Gaunt Stranger marks the third time Edgar Wallace’s story, The Ringer, was adapted for the screen. There has already been a silent version in 1927, and a sound picture remake in 1931. And there would be yet a fourth version made, some years later. The 1938 version is the only one readily available on the home video market, so it’s the only one I’ve seen. We’ve previously discussed the history of British thriller writer Edgar Wallace and how films based on his works became hugely popular in Germany during the 1960s. Before the German revival, however, Wallace’s stories were frequently made into films in his native England. The old English movies are considerably less warped than the later German ones, owing partially to the difference in sensibilities between the two countries but, more importantly, likely owing to the fact that the British adaptations were made at a relatively conservative time in film history, and did not benefit from the more out-there film styles and techniques that would have been at the dsposal of the later films.

As such, the old British films play out like more straight-forward whodunits, though there are certainly some of the hallmarks of what would become known as the krimi already present in them. In the stories of Edgar Wallace, practically everyone is effectively put forth as a suspect. The villain of the piece is almost always some manner of criminal mastermind who hides his identity either behind a veil of secrecy and disguises or behind outlandish masks. In the case of The Gaunt Stranger, which to the best of my memory, didn’t feature an actual gaunt stranger, the villain is a mysterious spectre known as The Ringer, a master of disguise and criminal genius assumed drowned in Sydney Harbor — at least until, years later, a London lawyer gets a bouquet of flowers and a death threat from someone claiming to be The Ringer. | More »

Avenging Disco Godfather

Release Year: 1979
Country: United States
Starring: Rudy Ray Moore, Carol Speed, Jimmy Lynch, Jerry Jones, Lady Reed, Frank Finn, Julius Carry, Hawthorne James.
Writer: Cliff Roquemore
Director: Cliff Roquemore
Cinematographer: Arledge Armenaki
Music: Ernie Fields Jr.
Producer: Rudy Ray Moore
Availability: Buy it from Amazon

In this 1979 movie, Rudy Ray Moore stars in another Cliff Roquemore scripted vehicle, abandoning the Dolemite persona to teach the kids the dangers of angel dust. If that sentence right there doesn’t make you run right out to the video store, then I feel sorry for you. This is the last time that Roquemore and Moore would team up, and it seems like they jettisoned a lot of the tried-and-true comedy for a more gritty, hard-hitting action film. Only problem is, once they ditched the comedy, they ended up with an unintentional comedy. Rudy plays Tucker, a retired cop, who decides to open a disco called “Blueberry Hill.” Coming out on the heels on Saturday Night Fever, someone decided to throw in as much disco dancing as possible, in an effort to attract a wider audience. This means the audience is treated to LOTS of shots of dancing, and for some reason, Rudy’s hands turning some volume controls up, over and over again. If the dancing were left out, the movie would probably be a lot better, and a lot shorter, but then, I guess it couldn’t be called Avenging Disco Godfather.

The movie opens in a disco, with Rudy getting down on the dance floor. Soon he takes over the DJ booth, where he instructs the crowd to “Put ‘cha weight on it, put ‘cha weight on it.” This is the first time this phrase is heard, but not the last. Every time Rudy gets up into that damn booth, he has to say this. And he gets in there a lot. Anyway, his basketball star nephew, Bucky, takes some PCP and freaks out. Bucky hallucinates that he is in a deadly basketball game, one of his opponents being a witch with a samurai sword. I think this is the same witch costume used in Dolemite 2. Rudy shakes Bucky, pleading, “Bucky, what is you done to yourself?” | More »

Cutthroats Nine

Release Year: 1972
Country: Spain
Starring: Claudio Undari , Emma Cohen, Alberto Dalbes, Antonio Iranzo, Manuel Tejada, Ricardo Diaz, José Manuel Martin, Carlos Romero Marchent, Rafael Hernandez.
Writers: Joaquin Romero Hernandez, Santiago Moncada
Director: Joaquin Romero Marchent
Cinematographer: Luis Cuadrado
Music: Carmelo Bernaola
Original Title: Condenados a vivir

Wow! This movie just plain hates people. Cut Throats Nine is easily the most mean-spirited, hateful, gory spaghetti western I’ve ever seen. Is this a compliment? Well, probably. It’s rare that you find a movie with this much vitriol for the characters, the viewer, and the whole damned planet.

Our story revolves, at least at first, around a soldier who is escorting a gang of vicious criminals back from their forced labor camp. The criminals are all chained together, of course. It isn’t too long before the caravan is ambushed by a gang of different criminals lead by a guy who would have undoubtedly been played by Dennis Hopper had this been an American film. He wears a goofy top hat that also reminds me of Tom Petty in that one video. Those two things combined make it hard to really be scared of this guy. The bandits lead by Dennis Hopper’s soulmate meet with the soldiers to discuss the future of gold on the stock market, resulting in some blood-spurtin’ neck-slicing fun before the main soldier, his daughter, and the criminals are left to fend for themselves in the snowy mountains.

We soon learn that the soldier is every bit as brutal and mean as the criminals he brutalizes, tortures, and pokes in the eye with sticks. The film relishes each torturous moment with gleeful abandon. They roast one of the criminals, chop his crispy leg off, and shoot someone’s eye out all for fun. Or is it survival? Either way, it becomes evident that the soldier is just as willing as the criminals to commit unspeakable acts of brutality. Oh yeah — at some point, they learn the chains binding them together are made of gold. Turns out the government had this bright idea of disguising the gold so the bandits wouldn’t get a hold of it. The prisoners, then, become unwitting couriers, totally unaware that they are bound at the ankles by a fortune. | More »

Stage Fright

Release Year: 1987
Country: Italy
Starring:David Brandon, Barbara Cupisti, Robert Gligorov, Giovanni Lombardo Radice, Clain Parker, Loredana Parrella, Martin Philips, Ulrike Schwerk, Mary Sellers, Jo Ann Smith, Piero Vida.
Writer: George Eastman
Director: Michele Soavi
Cinematographer: Renato Tafuri
Music: Simon Boswell
Producer: Joe D’Amato, Donatella Donati
Original Title: Deliria
Alternate Titles: Bloody Bird, Sound Stage Massacre, Aquarius

Michele Soavi, protege of Italian director Dario Argento, has blown me away on two occasions (Dellamorte Dellamore and The Church), and sorta wowed me on another occasions (The Sect). All things considered, that’s a pretty good track record. Three for three in terms of enjoyment is nothing to sneeze at, although I admit I’m pretty easy please. You put some gore, nudity, kungfu, or super powered midgets in the film, and make sure you keep emo teen vampires out, and I’m probably going to say the movie is at least okay.

But Soavi has impressed me as a lot more than just a competent horror film maker. Without the obnoxious fanfare and self-congratulations of Wes Cravens, Soavi has been subverting the horror genre since the beginning of his career, though he’s doing it by taking generic plots and making them spectacular rather than taking generic plots and just making fun of them. In each of his films, Soavi has taken a well-worn plot (zombies in Dellamorte, Dellamore, murderous cults in The Sect and the popular Demons movies in The Church) and put inventive and unique spins and interpretations on them. In Stage Fright, which I gleefully devoured after enjoying so much of his other work, he does the same thing for the slasher genre that he would later do for other genres of horror. It makes sense that for this, his first film as a director, Soavi would both attack and celebrate perhaps the best known of all types of horror film. | More »