Busy Weekend-Quick Review

TO HELL WITH THE DEVIL-1981-John Woo made this good vs. evil horror-comedy with part of the story-line borrowed from BEDAZZLED a year before PLAN JANE TO THE RESCUE.

Ricky Hui (also in PLAN JANE) is Bruce, a pop singer/songwriter who makes a deal with the Devil's henchman (Stanley Tong) to become a star. Needless to say nothing turns out right and a priest (Paul Chun) tries to help him out. There's a lot of whacky comedy and well choreographed fights.

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Sleaze with Stars

 


POOR PRETTY EDDIE-1975-Leslie Uggams plays singer Liz Weatherly (apparently known for singing the Star Spangled Banner on TV). When her car breaks down in the back woods somewhere she runs into some demented hillbillies at restaurant/motel. It’s run by floozy digusto drunk Bertha (Shelly Winters) and her Elvis impersonating psycho lover Eddie (Michael Christian). Unfortunately, Bertha gets jealous when Eddie decides to hold Liz prisoner. Ted Cassidy (former TV 's Lurch) is the hired hand who they both order around. Slim Pickens plays a perverted redneck sheriff with an idiot assistant. It’s a pretty sleazy and bizarre film with the low light being the sicko scene of Eddie raping Liz inter-cut with a scenes of Cassidy and some other rednecks watching two dogs humping (while a country love song plays)! After some weird goings on Eddie wants to marry Liz. Dub Taylor plays the Justice of the Peace. Cassidy seems to die twice but manages to break up the wedding ceremony where Liz get her revenge (while "Amazing Grace" is heard).

Director Richard Robinson made other unusual movies like ADULTERY FOR FUN AND PROFIT and IS THERE SEX AFTER MARRIAGE?. Cinematographer David Worth may have been a co-director.

I really wonder about some of the casting in this movie. Pickens, Cassidy and Taylor would have done anything, but two years later Uggams played a major role the hot mini-series ROOTS. Was her singing career so non-existent that she had to do this? Winters was an Oscar winning actress. WTF??

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Before Craven's Nightmare

SWAMP THING-1982-This adaptation of the DC comics character takes place in “the unexplored reaches of an un-mapped swamp”. Adrienne Barbeau (who was in a segment of George Romero’s CREEPSHOW the same year) is Cable some kind of government liaison assigned to the secret lab of Dr. Alec Holland (Ray Wise) who’s experiments involve recombinant DNA and making plants more aggressive. Unfortunately a thought to be deceased evil genius Arcane (over acting Louis Jordan) is alive and takes over the compound. Holland is accidentally doused with is own rejuvenation formula and goes up in flames. He’s reborn however as a big green galoot (Dick Durock) who’s very strong, impervious to bullets and can bring people back to life! Cable escapes into the swamp and gets help from a young black kid named Jude (Reggie Batts).

While it’s certainly no classic SWAMP THING is ok especially for a comic book adaptation. Most of the SFX are pretty cheesy. The monster Arcane turns into at the end for the final battle is horrible and many of the scenes seem all to deliberately to be spotlighting Barbeau’s breasts but it is cool to see Nicolas Worth and David Hess (as Arcane’s lead henchmen) have decent speaking roles!

Writer/director Wes Craven was still 2 years away from NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET and he still had his roots planted in low budget exploitation.

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Curse from Canada

CATHY’S CURSE-1977-This French Canadian EXORCIST inspired possession story is pretty bizarre. A young girl named Cathy (Randi Allen) is possessed by the spirit of a dead girl through a left behind doll. The girl was killed in a car accident after her mother left her and her father and took their son with her. Years later the now grown up son and family come to live at the family house. Cathy is possessed by a glowing eyed portrait of the dead girl who makes Cathy curse a lot, talk in a weird voice and generally just act creepy. She drives her mom is crazy (although she was acting weird anyway…). The father (Alan Scarfe, who reminded me of Quenton Tarentino!) is oblivious to the weird happenings and a caretaker (Roy Witham, who reminded me of Mick Fleetwood) comes to a grisly end.

There’s also a psychic woman who tries to help but she has a bad encounter with an evil double of herself and the picture of the dead girl. The acting is pretty bad (except for Allen who's very good but never acted again). The effects run from cheesy to ok but the print I saw had a color problem and was badly edited.

The director Eddy Matalon also made BLACKOUT.

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Better Thor

THOR-2011-I really wasn't prepared to enjoy this movie and so maybe I liked it a little more than some. There were a 1000 ways for the filmmakers to screw it up but instead they did a pretty good "Hollywood job" with it.

Chris Hemsworth is the hammer yielding Norse god from the Marvel comic book. In Asgard he's a very arrogant thunder god who starts a new war with the frost giants and is banished by his father Odin (Anthony Hopkins) to Earth. But the real culprit behind it all is his jealous half brother Loki (Tim Hiddleston).

Natalie Portman is kind of miscast as Jane Foster, a scientist who becomes his love interest and Rene Russo is Thor's mom Frigga. Stellan Skarsgard is an archeologist who eventually figures in the future AVENGERS movie (a post end credits scene also features Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury). Even the Warriors Three are featured. Ray Stevenson is Volstag, Tadanobu Asano is Hogun and Josh Daniels is Fandril. Of course Stan Lee has a cameo as does J. Michael Straczynski who developed the story.

Actor-director Kenneth Branagh did a better job adapting this than he did Frankenstein.

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God Almighty Bad Thor

ALMIGHTY THOR-2011 -In this stupid made for TV fantasy ("presented" by the SyFy channel) Richard Grieco is a pasty faced Loki and pro wrestler Kevin Nash is Odin! They have a big fight because "the prince of mischief" wants "the hammer of invincibility" that Odin has. During their battle Odin is tricked into killing his eldest son. Then Loki kills Odin but not before the king of the gods sends the hammer to another dimension. It's left to the youngest son named Thor (Cody Deal who had un-credited roles in GET HIM TO THE GREEK and THE HANGOVER before this. From his acting I can see why!)) to retrieve the hammer and defeat the evil Loki who is assisted by several giant CGI like canines. The characters speak mostly modern English ("Just gimmie the hammer, Odin"). Thor meets up with Jarnsaxa (Patricia Velasquez) and they travel to Earth. He and Loki engage in several fights.

It was directed by Christopher Ray, the son of director Fred Olen Ray. You've been warned!

Thanks to Tony for giving me this (it's ok, we're still friends..).


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