First, a quote from Keats’ 1820 poem, Ode on a Grecian Urn:

When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say’st,
“Beauty is truth, truth beauty”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I was reminded of this poem after viewing a movie written, directed and produced by one of the first women in the industry, Lois Weber. She directed between two hundred and four hundred pictures, most of which are probably lost for good. The Library of Congress, however, has made a point of preserving what it can for future generations, which is why I was able to watch Hypocrites this week, a silent film from 1915.

Basic plot to the movie: a priest is finishing a Sunday sermon about hypocrisy (Matthew 23:28) aimed at a very bored congregation. After the congregation leaves we get a quick glimpse of some well dressed men (Deacons?) who were bothered enough by the tone of Gabriel’s sermon to suggest his resignation. Inside the church, Gabe has confiscated a newspaper from one of the choir boys that a couple were reading during his sermon earlier. He asks God’s forgiveness on behalf of the dumb lunkhead, but before he can do much else, he’s interrupted by a girl from the choir that might have a crush on him. He rolls his eyes at that, at least, then sits down to mull things over. The paper’s headline catches his eye:

It’s both a foreshadowing technique, and a nod to news stories coming out of Paris at the time. It may even (I’m guessing here) be related to the wicked tango in Paris which was a hot issue before the first World War. The Vatican went so far as to describe the dance and its popularity as, “offensive to the purity of every right minded person.” A low key version of the dance was performed for Pius X who later stated with derision that if it were ever decided to use the tango as a penance for sins, it would be “sheer cruelty.” It became known as a “whore’s dance” and it was thought that the doing of would lead to drunken “murderous brawls” and gross indecency by even the most proper of women. And, anyone who admitted to dancing this way but who was unwilling to quit the practice would never be allowed to absolve their sins. No forgiveness of sin by men of God. I found no mention of how many of God’s men may have learned the steps on their own time, though.

Back in the movie, the style of it changes and the priest’s costume turns to a Monk’s robe. Perhaps the priest has fallen asleep and is now dreaming. The rest of the movie is devoted to Gabriel the Ascetic who seeks the Truth of the world to show everyone. A noble gesture, I must say, but considering what happens to him later, not the wisest move he could have made.

Weber provides us with these quotes first.

Milton may have been referring to freedom of the press in terms of politics at the time, but we’ll let that slide. The point is, Truth is seen as a woman. Weber chose to film Truth as a beautiful naked woman whom the monk pursues. She also makes a visual point while filming that anyone can aim for the same goal if he or she is willing to make the effort and the sacrifices. Few do.

The idea of “The Naked Truth” is hardly recent. There is record of a pamphlet of the same name from 1675 that condemns the primitive church. It came out the year after John Milton died. In it is proof that Protestantism was the only approved belief in town; the Roman Church is likened to a place full of superstition which priests don’t mention until they’ve snared a new believer. This was also prior to James II’s pointless attempts at a Declaration of Liberty of Conscience and the (limited) Act of Toleration which allowed schisms of Protestantism the right to worship, but those who followed the Catholic ritual of transubstantiation or the trinity were not allowed the same luxury. (Keep that in mind for the next time you catch someone whining about persecution.)

Aren’t digressions fun? Anyway, the monk is so enamoured by Truth that he tries to sculpt her image and show off what he has found. Sadly, most of the town freaks out over the nakedness and refuses to fully appreciate his efforts. The Abbot mobs them all up into a religious fervor, I guess, and they kill the monk for even daring to assume he could bring them the truth. He doesn’t fight them at all; he martyrs himself to the greater Truth.

They didn’t really want to see Truth, not the way the monk did, anyway. She’s too naked and obvious and innocently shows her true and whole self without guilt or shame, something people are fearful of or incapable of doing.

Truth begins showing the spirit of the monk evidence of hypocrisy everywhere (Truth hurts, baby); “honest” politicians taking bribes; people acting decent when they really want to booze it up or take all their clothes off; accepting Truth only so far as it fits their own ideals.

Even love falls victim to hidden desires from both sides as neither side owns up to their true ambitions, or expectations. Truth even expects the monk to look inside his own self before he try to judge others of failing to uphold Truth. (Matthew 7:1,5 come to mind). He also has to admit to liking the girl who had a crush on him earlier, or liking the attention. Both are equally bad in Truth’s eyes since he’s be en avoiding the acknowledgment of it and thus not putting the poor deluded woman in her place, which will never be with him. Everyone’s putting an image out there that hides what’s really going on.

And as the movie ends, some of the congregation that Truth revealed as hypocrites in politics, modesty, love, or family dysfunction find the priest dead in the church and still clutching the newspaper. Then they call him a hypocrite in the next edition.

End credits.

I have nothing more to add, but if you want to read more about Lois Weber and the significance of this film, read this article. It’s so interesting, I don’t have to offer up any tantalizing quotes ahead of time to prove it.

Also known as Mitt liv som hund in the original Swedish, it was filmed in 1985, but takes place in 1959. It’s about a young boy named Ingemar who goes to live with his uncle in some strange little Swedish village when his mother gets ill. Ingemar can’t take his dog with him but the neighbour (or doctor?) arranging his trip tells him they’ll “kennel” it. Yeah right.

Ingemar loves his dog at least as much as he loves his mother but feels the lack of the dog’s company a lot more than he misses his mum. We aren’t treated to many scenes where the two of them are happy together. We do see one beach scene about seven or eight times though, as it’s the only real happy memory he has of her laughing. His attempts to connect with her at other times in the picture are pretty sad because she’s frail, off her rocker, and more likely to be reading or screaming than paying attention to what he has to say.

I think it’s fair to say the story is not about a boy’s life, but life through a boy’s eyes. We see Ingemar’s cute forays into sexuality without anything becoming awkward or trite. There are some hilarious scenes of him reading lingerie descriptions to an elderly house renter, among other things. We see him making friends and coming to grips with a strange situation and even stranger neighbours. He learns to box, bonds with his uncle (while endlessly listening to a Swedish version of “I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts” — had I been Uncle’s wife, I would have snapped it by day three) and becomes a young tomboy’s confidant and probably her first serious attraction.

As to what the title means, I think I figured it out. There are a few instances where Ingemar pretends to be a dog, but I think the title has more to do with Ingemar’s feelings of abandonment and fears of being unwanted, like his own dog turns out to be. In his flashback narrations he mentions Laika a lot, often wondering how she felt about being wired up and launched into space, and how the scientists might have felt about the one way trip.

Documents were released in 2002 that finally revealed the results of the Sputnik 2 experiment. Turns out that Laika only survived a few hours up there due to stress and intense heat. They figure an equipment malfunction had something to do with it but the whole thing burned up during reentry some months later, thus rendering the debate moot.

Laika was an abandoned mutt that gained a family, albeit briefly. No doubt Ingemar realizes by the end of the film that he has gained one, too.

It’s a sweet little movie. I was actually sad to see it end. That doesn’t happen with movies very often. The only others I can think of where that’s happened to me would be Return of the King and High Fidelity.

I was hoping to invite some strange creature to join my movie-watching exploits tonight but how could I have known I’d find the perfect way to round out this Cheezy Drive-In Movie series? I overheard this monster head mumbling to itself on a store shelf. Intrigued, I purchased it immediately. But what is it saying?

Drrrrurr*
Durrrrurrrr.**
Drrrurrrrrer. Durrurrereerrr…***

I wondered what the worst movie of this Cheezy Movie collection would be and I finally found it. Dracula vs Frankenstein sounds like it should be the best of the bunch, but wrong. Oh so wrong. It’s so poor, I’m not even wasting much time explaining it, nor caring if I get the plot of it right. Two quotable moments from the Doc at the beginning:

“The greatest mysteries in the world are not mysteries at all, when we take time to get familiar with them.”

“They want to see illusions. What they don’t realize is reality itself is the grandest illusion of them all.

If only the movie had gone in that direction, it might have been entertaining and thought provoking. Instead, the mad doctor runs an amusement park freak house and as a hobby he works on a serum that might rejuvenate him and give him back the use of his legs. He has a mute, murderous lunk doing his bidding and the serum’s main ingredient seems to be the blood of recently beheaded girls, which the lunk provides. He then puts the girls back together as props for his freak house or something.

Dracula arrives to tell us all (in a strange tinny echoing voice) about how the mad doc is a descendant of Doctor Frankenstein and how he, Dracula, has Frank’s monster, a mute and murderous lunk who is also willing to kill on demand. It’s hard to tell why Doc would need him, unless he can sic this monster onto the scientists who tried to have him committed and broke his legs with sledgehammers when he tried to run away. Am I making that up? Maybe, maybe not. I dare you to watch this movie and find out.

This is supposed to be the monster, so it’s clear they had no support from Universal when it came time to design the make-up.

Of course, Dracula did dig him out of a grave and who’d look pretty after that?

According to information at imdb.com this film was meant to be a sequel to some motorcycle gang flick and when that plan fell through, they kept filming anyway. The addition of hippies on parade and a cabaret singer searching for her beheaded sister do nothing to improve this movie. Is this the worst bad movie ever made? Apparently that title is still coveted by the Star Wars Holiday Special, a show I’ve only seen brief portions of.

Better to be had in movie number two, if only by default. Jesse James Meets Frankenstein’s Daughter.

Maria is continuing her grandfather’s artificial brain work at an old abandoned mission in the American south-west while brother Rudolph longs for the non-stormy skies of Vienna, even though they aren’t welcome there anymore. The superstitious Christian locals in the town down the hill have left, scared of a “plague” that’s killing their kids. Juanita would rather blame the scientists than God for losing her brother, though. It’s not God’s will at all, she tells her parents before they leave town. And she looks to be right.

Here we see Maria eager to bring the young dreamboat brother back to life. Maria does all the science-style techie work while Rudolph stands around looking worried. He also decides to poison the young man instead of giving him the precious digitalis that might keep him alive.

Maria takes the blame for lack of success there and stops to consult Granddad’s work. It turns out she HAS been missing a vital step – the body must be connected to a living brain in order to give an artificial one any vibrational benefits. She needs someone else to experiment on. Rudolph asks a pertinent question here: what good would it do to succeed? It turns out she wants a guy she can order around and kill off when she gets bored of him. Taking kids and raiding graves just isn’t good enough anymore. She needs a real man. A powerful giant of a man. And she has only one artificial brain left from Granddad Frankenstein. If she fails in the next attempt, she’s willing to end her own life. This chick is a serious perfectionist.

So enter the perfect victim – Jesse James.

Or at least his shirtless pal, Hank Tracy, who just won a fight here. After a failed heist attempt, Jesse and Hank make a run for it and soon find Juanita and her parents hiding out in the woods. Juanita realizes the only hope Hank has of surviving his gunshot wound rests with those damned European doctors. Her folks try to stop her from leaving with them, but fail. Gotta love the girls in this one. So bold, so daring, so willing to do whatever they have to, no matter how good or bizarre the reason.

Juanita sends them to the mission as soon as they reach town and Rudolph has a bit of a panic, thinking Juanita brought the law to their door. Maria gladly lets them in, though, delighted by Hank’s bloody shirt and all the big hero body under it. Maria’s even more thrilled when she realizes Jesse James is under her roof, too. They’re both good looking fellows.

A Marshall and some Wild Bunch guy out for vengeance come to town looking for the pair of outlaws and after Jesse spurns Maria’s advances (he and Juanita have a thing) she jealously sends him into town to get medicine captured. That plan backfires, but Jesse returns too late to save Hank from getting Igorized. Maria controls Hank/Igor now and commands him to kill her brother, attack the Marshall, and club Jesse over the head so she can tie him up. But when she tells him to kill Juanita, he can’t, and turns on Maria instead. Hank likes the girl as much as Jesse does. He’s still willing to strangle Jesse (jealous of him getting smoochie with Juanita?) but Juanita figures out how to use a gun just in time and saves the man she loves. Aww, how sweet.

And that’s that. Eleven cheezy movies. There is a twelfth in the collection, but I didn’t get Robot Monster in time to include it. Also, it seems a version of this set includes Battle of the Worlds and Horror Planet, instead of Shark, and She Freak. Ah well, I suspect I’m not missing much in the way of quality entertainment. I’ll end this with DVD Verdict’s take on the “appeal” of these films.

In this post-millennial, everyone’s a movie expert pandemic, criticism is chaos. Everything’s classic, everyone’s a misunderstood genius, no previous oeuvre can be discounted for being the results of amateurish production values or subpar skill. In the mind of these messageboard Eberts, everything’s been done before, simply repackaged to take advantage of a demographic unaware of a film or filmmaker’s past proclivities or paltriness.

The truth is, most of the offerings here were contemplated and created to do one thing—swindle the passion pit populace out of a few isolated petting zone make-out dollars and then quietly disappear into the entertainment ether. Instead, geekdom has given rise to zombie like celluloid that never dies, but slowly rots whatever gray matter your socially stunted cranium has left.

Speaking of craniums:

* “I have an owie.”
** “I can’t find my pants.”
*** “Don’t think and jive. My body is moving without me…”

“I’m not a freak. Shinigami cannot be judged by human standards of attractiveness. Still, Minion thought this photo of me was very dark and freakish looking, and a perfect start to the next movie. I don’t really care. I’ve already lost the map to my new box of chocolates and have no idea which ones hide the coconut. It turns out I really hate coconut and without the map, I have to bite each and every piece…”

I don’t think She Freak (1967) should be considered a remake of Freaks (1932) although there are some similarities. Both movies involve women working at carnivals looking to marry rich men, for example, but the focus in each one is completely different and any attempts to make She reflect the original work makes She look like a reflection in a fun mirror – warped in all kinds of places. More about that at the end.

The opening credits of this one are all about the carnival and a brief look at the side show for a teaser then we scoot into the interior of a junky diner where Waitress Jade is craving a new life. Why she thinks joining a carnival will help that makes little sense, but whatever. The diner boss tells her that she’s going down, way down, all the way down to hell if she takes a job with them. Her response to his idiocy: “From here, it’s all the way up.” At least she’s thinking positive.

Too much of the show is spent on set-up, take down, scenery, and crowds. Historically interesting, but proof the story isn’t strong enough to stand on its own. I’ll admit I’d consider throwing $50 worth of softballs to get this rabbit.

(Side note – My cousin had that dog. I won a small prize version of that some years later which was a yellowish colour a lot kinder on the eyes than Torture Orange.)

Jade gets hired as a waitress (probably her only skill), befriends a stripper and catches the eye of Blackie, the Ride Foreman. She’s not flirtatious by any stretch (yet); she just chats and smiles and guys watch her (ass) walk away.

Jade stops in to see the sideshow one afternoon but finds she can’t handle it. Little is actually shown of that place beyond a sword swallower and snake handler and no real reason is given at the time, but it appears their deformities horrify her. Her friend reminds her that “God made them that way” and they’re better off in a freak show than other places. Sad but true back then, I suspect. “Why do they have to be anywhere?” sneers Jade. Oh, my my my.

Later, Stripper and Jade are in their shared room at a nearby “motor hotel” and Jade asks her about the men she knows. Who’s worth a look? Stripper tells her flat out to skip Blackie. He’s all good looks but no substance. She decides Jade should meet the guy who runs the freak show, St. John, who has a car, house, no wife or kids, and is pretty well off. Of course Jade’s interested.

Other guys are interested in her but Blackie still looks strangely good and she doesn’t hesitate when invited into his trailer. She doesn’t even flip out when he slaps her across the face. That would be the point where I’d say, fuck you, asshole, and march my ass out of his rat trap. What does Jade do instead? She turns to find that he’s ripped the blanket off the bed and whipped his tight black shirt off. She breathes heavy, slides her hand down her breast and goes over to him. And then..

The fuck?!? The assumed sex scene is not included so we can only guess that watching whirly rides go around represents the wild ride of love she’s experiencing. Then she leaves the trailer, catches a glimpse of one of the short side show fellows (named Shorty in the credits) and runs away. There aren’t enough scenes with Shorty to justify her feelings about him, sadly. Is it a phobia, or a hatred of anyone “different”?

She does wind up engaged and married to St. John the side show owner and married life suits her – or at least her husband’s cash does. We see her spending a fortune on new clothes but money can’t buy a new attitude; seems she’s just as put off by Shorty as she ever was.

Blackie doesn’t seem thrilled to see her married, but no matter. I don’t think she married for love. While her husband is busy playing poker, she wanders past Blackie’s trailer again and he’s outside without a shirt on. A brief attempt to remain faithful to her new husband is made, but hey, it’s Blackie and he has no shirt on. And Shorty (played by Felix Silla who played Cousin It, among other roles) sees the pair of them together, finds Jade’s comb in the grass outside the trailer and brings it to St. John the next day. Unfortunately, Jade wanders up at just that moment and Shorty misses his chance to tattle on her.

Jade tells St. John that Shorty doesn’t like her. St. John finds that hard to believe and reminds her that Shorty and all the other side show people are friends of his and “just like you and me.” Jade sneers at that. She’s not like them. Obviously not. They probably aren’t filled with that much hatred. “I’m no freak!” she shrieks at him. I guess this is the first time St. John realizes he married a two-faced bitch who can play nice in public, but rips heads off in private. She’d rather he ran an insane asylum than spend time with what must be sins against nature, in her eyes.

Later in bed together, St. John is trying to inject some compassion into her tramped up bitchy heart, telling her about the lives his friends had outside the show, and how being in the side show at least gives them a feeling of equality because they can earn money, make friends and be an integral part of their carnival community regardless of their physical or mental deformities. She continues to comb her hair and roll her eyes at intervals, finally stating that they’re all disgusting, friends of St. John or no.

Some time later, Shorty gets another chance to tell St. John about his wife but the news doesn’t go over well. Still, St. John suspects that Shorty wouldn’t lie to him about this, even if Jade doesn’t like him and vice verse. Meanwhile, Jade’s at the motel and hears someone knock on the door so she puts her robe on to go see who it is.

Blackie follows her to the bed and a quick cut later we see him quietly leaving, but not before St. John catches him outside their room. Blackie’s prepared for St. John’s lack of duel skill and guts him like a fish with a dagger he pulls out of his boot. He runs off when Jade comes out of the motel room. St. John’s bleeding out of a belly wound and Jade just looks down at him and smiles before slowly walking away. She is the trashiest whore ever. Slutbag.

Blackie doesn’t get away with it and although Stripper suggests Jade take some time off, do some grieving, Jade refuses. “Who’s gonna run my show?” she asks. Yeah, I guess she got the side show business in the will, too, poor freaks. Shorty’s there when she comes to “work” but she promptly fires him. But, since he worked for the carnival for 12 years and has no where else to go, it’s no surprise to find him lurking near her car when she’s ready to leave for the night. Shorty is easy to avoid but he wasn’t the only freak in the show and we finally get a look at everyone else who’d have a reason to hate the widow. She’s not screaming at all, which is a nice relief. She’s just being chased and cornered by all of St. John’s friends, which is where the movie does become something of a mock homage of Freaks, but with a twist. The diner boss turns up later and sees what she’s become and smiles pretty much the way she’d smiled at her soon-to-be-dead husband.

And it ends with this sweet darling of a Christian tag line:

Vengeance is mine:
I will repay.
Saith the Lord
(Romans 12:19)

Paul (hopefully) meant that God would sort it all out in the end, that people didn’t have to decide for Him who deserved it. Jade certainly deserved it, though. Fucked up cow. I don’t think they needed to do what they did to her, but whatever. It fit with how Freaks ended, so maybe they felt compelled to honour it.

I think the ending of Freaks is its only flaw. If you can find a copy, watch that one. It’s told from the side show performers’ point of view, backstage when they aren’t working. It’s mostly about a little person who’s fallen in love with a regular sized woman who leads him on because she knows he’s rich and willing to do anything for her. She’s so charming, yet so despicable and you really cheer for the schadenfruede by the end. What really makes that show better than She Freak was their serious attempt to maintain dignity and respect when filming the performers, and nearly all of them had side show acts at one time or another.

Final note – soundtrack. I drooled through the whole of it. I’m a big fan of lounge lizard jazz. Check out anything in the Ultra Lounge collection and see if you can claim the same. I can see some iTunes shopping in my future. Also in my future, a look at the next movie, Shark. Any guesses what that might be about?

I’m the Devil! I’m the Devil! Just kidding!

It’s only Minion and her markers making me look like the Devil!

Minion is a silly sort, isn’t she? I hope her strange sense of humour hasn’t put you off.

Anyway, Minion thought this would be a great way to introduce tonight’s movie, Lisa and the Devil.

So, here it is, another DVD from the Drive-In Cheezy Movie Collection, like all the rest of these have been. This particular title hit screens in 1974. I almost feel some guilt at having to ruin the surprises in this one, but stop reading now if you actually would want to see this movie and would prefer to watch it not knowing what to expect. I’ll tell you right now I liked it all up until the craptacular ending that made no sense. You’ve been warned.

So, the show. Lisa, played by Elke Sommer in a fine, relatively scream-free role, is visiting some unnamed European city.

Here she is, recently separated from her group and filmed in a very funky way that highlights the monstrosity and height of the buildings to elicit a fear of the unknown. And there’s a lot of unknown to be had in this one. She makes the mistake of stopping at a curio shop instead of following the gang and gets weirded out by a patron in there who looks alarmingly like a fresco portrait of the devil on a plaza wall nearby – at least he would if described by a half-blind witness to an amateur Etch-a-Sketch artist. But whatever. The fresco has nothing to do with the show. It just sets up how strange and mysterious the Leandro character is going to be.

Leandro (played brilliantly by Telly Savalas who also played Kojak) is a complete enigma and as the show progresses, he gets joyfully stranger. They certainly gave him the best of all possible lines and a terrific monologue to deliver once the dead people start piling up.

Leandro collects dummies that look like dead people and somehow they wander around and freak people out. No explanation is provided for why, unless we are to assume Leandro is a very playful type of devil who gets a real kick out of pranking people to death. The filmmakers also made his character incredibly likable, even if you couldn’t figure out what his purpose was. He seemed like just a guy who liked to sneak a smoke when the boss lady wasn’t around and hid his bad breath by sucking lollipops. And he’ll roll dead bodies around on the tea trolley. What a delightfully sensible solution to avoid scuffing a fine floor, eh?

Lisa has a brief run in with a man who looks a lot like Leandro’s dummy and after he mistakes her for someone else, she’s freaked enough to shove him down some stairs. Feeling vaguely guilty about that, she seeks out help, but finds none. Later, she comes across a couple and their chauffeur who agree to give her a lift but the car breaks down by a villa or mansion of some kind and who opens the door but the weird Leandro.

Max, the young man of the house, is full of smarmy charm and completely taken by Lisa’s beauty so invites them all to stay the night. The Countess is less than thrilled but still instructs Leandro to take them to the guest house for baths and other things people want to do before supper – things like a quick kiss’n'canoodle with the chauffeur, which is what Sophia does while her husband Frank plays with the soap.

That’s it for everything normal. The rest of the plot is convoluted and bizarre, so a brief pause here for some interesting stuff I noticed when I should have been trying to follow the story.

Clocks and watches were prominent all over this film. Why? I assume it’s because life is limited and time’s ticking away with every tock. That many of the clock hands were not moving or missing altogether might be a warning that life’s already over for every one of these characters.

There are several music box moments that had nothing in the way of noticeable significance beyond being hellishly creepy with death dancing around with a group of maybe soon to be corpses. Best guess for this thing to exist would be as foreshadowing for later events.

There are bits with mirrors and reflections that I’d be tempted to suggest were attempts by the filmmakers to get the idea across that we all might be images reflected off other things and people. That what people see of us is completely the reverse of the reality. It’d go a long way toward explaining why nobody realized just how big a whackaloon Max turns out to be. He goes from this dreamboat vampire wannabe:

to a sick and twisted wreck of a man who rapes unconscious women while the bones of the last one lay comfortably on the other half of the bed.

Because, you see, it turns out that Lisa looks almost exactly like that Elena woman, the woman Max once loved and later killed because she was about to run off with his own mother’s husband, Carlos. It’s Carlos that Lisa saw on the plaza steps, the dummy of the dead that’s come to life to look for his lost love. Max had to kill Carlos, too, of course, for trying to take his beloved Elena away. Max winds up feeling haunted by the pair of them. Maybe the Countess feels their presence in the house, too. There are moments when that could be the case.

George the chauffeur gets the car fixed but gets murdered before his passengers can get back in. I think Max did that but Frank certainly would have been in the running as a “person of interest” since he’d always known what his wife was up to.

And Sophia must have thought the same thing since she later runs George over, and backs up over him, and does that a few more times to make sure he’s well and truly crushed under the wheels of devastated love. Oh, parallel to Max’s crime of passion there. Nifty. Almost missed that.

Max most definitely kills Sophia, though. We see that happen after she catches Max in the act of “killing” Carlos again because he’s been caught with a passed out Lisa, and the reveal is a big OOH! moment. I never suspected him. Too much time was invested in wondering what the fuck Leandro was doing to care anything about Max’s lovelorn behaviour.

Max also opts to kill the Countess once it becomes clear she isn’t on his side anymore. She’s kept him a virtual prisoner in his own home, knowing how nuts he is and all, and he’s sick of it. The Countess reminds her boy that carnage gets kind of obvious when people never get to where they were supposed to go, yet I think she would rather he killed Lisa than let her leave the place and report him. But Max can’t kill her, he “loves” her, so he kills his blind mother instead. Nice.

Leandro gets back at him easily enough. Max comes into the dining room to find every recent corpse (and dummy Carlos) at the table watching him. Even Mom comes into the room at this point and that’s what causes Max to fling himself out the window. No other way to get away from what he’s done.

During all this rigmarole, Lisa has still been naked and passed out on that bed, by the way. And when she finally wakes up, she discovers the house is completely decrepit, overrun with vegetation and wide open to all the elements. She finds her clothes and stumbles out into the street, shocking some school girls who think she’s a ghost because nobody’s lived on that property for a hundred years or so. But she’s still able to find a cab and get on a plane at the airport. Or does she? The plane winds up empty except for dead people and Leandro is her smiling lollipop sucking pilot. Last scene makes her a suddenly decaying Elena in her old green dress who flops onto the floor of the cabin. Roll end credits.

Too bad they didn’t just let her fly away wondering what the hell drug got poured into her latte to give her such a weird ass dream. Ah well. That’s why it’s a B movie, I suppose. What could have been good wound up sucky, and what was sucky wound up even worse. Overall, though, I have to say I liked this one. It was just twisty-turny enough to keep my interest.

Next weekend, I think I’ll move out of the campy horror bits of the collection, and try the campy sci-fi. Star Knight will be Friday night’s fright, so check back. It “stars” Harvey Keitel, apparently, in a role I’m sure he’d be glad to forget.

I’m a headless ghost! I’m a headless ghost!

No, no! I’m just teasing! You don’t have to run away! No! Come back! Minion was only playing with her photo program…

Oh dear, I feel so ashamed! What a silly idea this was! I’ve scared away every one of Minion’s readers! Oh dear! Now what are we going to do? This is terrible! So terrible! Oh, it’s a disaster!

What’s that you say? You’re still here? I don’t believe it! I didn’t scare you away? What a relief! You’re a bold one to check this blog tonight, though. Haven’t you noticed Minion is running a super scary weekend special this month to honour all that’s scary and fun? The past couple weekends were all about crazy killers and magic spells. I hope you like spooky movies because Minion is about to watch The Headless Ghost!

The movie starts with a group of tourists coming to see Ambrose Castle. After the current Earl of Ambrose shows them around a little, Ingrid and her American classmates have a disagreement about the existence of ghosts. Ingrid is positive they exist, Bill is skeptical and Ronnie’s prepared to stay overnight to see what they’ll find when everyone else is gone. He’d like to write a newspaper story about it the castle, and what a story a ghost story would make!

Once alone and exploring the portrait hall, they are startled by the ghost of the Fourth Earl of Ambrose who pops out of his picture to provide a few gags and some exposition. It seems there’s a headless ghost in the castle named Malcolm who can’t rest until he’s reunited with his head and that can’t happen until an incantation is spoken, and some magic powder is thrown on his portrait.

The boys have a bit of an argument over hoaxes and the supernatural but Ingrid insists that the boys help her help Malcolm. Still, it doesn’t take many weird occurrences before all three of them are willing to scrap that idea altogether. But, not so fast silly students. Malcolm still wants his head and he won’t let any of them go until they’ve done what they promised.

That would be bad enough but the whole castle suddenly comes “alive” with a ghostly party because Sir Randolf doesn’t want the head found and plans on getting in their way as much as possible. He still enjoys being merry, even though he’s very long dead so he’ll delay them any way he can think of, be it with banquets, bands, or belly dancers.

The 4th Earl helps get them out of the banquet (much to Bill’s dismay – he liked the dancing girl) and reminds them of what they’re supposed to do, namely find the lost magic pouch of powder they’ll need to throw at Malcolm’s portrait while the incantation is said. Although the dungeon provides a few scares of the rat and snake variety, they succeed in finding what they need.

Meanwhile, the current Earl of Ambrose has been woken from a sound sleep by Parker, the castle caretaker, who’s come to him about strange sights and sounds over there. The same thing happened earlier in the movie but when they went to the castle there was nothing to hear. This time, though, the Earl hears and sees enough to justify involving the police.

The castle seems quiet once officers arrive but they take a look in there anyway. The students are on their way down to the portrait room when they run into the cops. They try and explain that the ghosts won’t let them leave but the police don’t believe a word of it. The police try to take the pouch from Ingrid, thinking she’s stolen it, which gives the boys an excuse to run around playing Keep Away. One of them flings the pouch back to Ingrid so she can work the spell while they keep the cops occupied. Then everyone’s there to witness Malcolm getting a head.

The cops still insist on dragging the students down to the station, probably with the crazy hope that their own stories won’t sound insane if the whole group tells the bosses what happened and that rounds up the end of the movie.

I think the little spooky frights were pretty cute, whether it was cats or rats or snakes they got startled by. The cast also did a great job of collectively reacting to stuff, whether it was a ghost sneezing, or a mysterious voice in the room. The actress and one of the guys had very little for screen experience when they filmed this but I thought they did a fine job for what there was of the script.

There was an interesting moment midway through the show that could have been worth exploring for longer than a couple minutes, but the movie itself was only an hour long so no real surprise there. Also, 1959.

Anyway, Ronnie manages to get Ingrid in a bedroom alone to confess some affection for her. The interest is somewhat reciprocated and there’s a brief kiss before the pair gets interrupted by two spirits trapped in time – namely a Crusades era soldier who thought his wife had someone else’s child while he was away, and his poor wife whom he strangled to death. So, Ronnie and Ingrid hear what must be their last ever fight before he wrings her neck and Ronnie says something like, “she probably got what she deserved.” Ingrid is appalled by the comment and pushes him away, shoves his frat pin back to him and insists she doesn’t want anything to do with him. She’s just glad she found out how big an ass he was before she got too attached.

I was pleased to see Ingrid’s reaction to such a comment. Considering we’re never told if the soldier was right, or if he got his wife preggers before he left and the kid just wound up looking like somebody unrelated. Killing her over it might have been a snap decision on his part, one he later regretted, and centuries of replaying that moment in that bedroom over and over will never change that moment for either of them.

Well, that wraps up tonight’s show. Saturday I’ll give over to Lisa and the Devil, even though it means having to see the screamer from Baron Blood in another film. Maybe Elke Sommer’s Lisa character won’t be that annoying. We can but hope. Check back tomorrow to see if those hopes will be dashed…

And so far I like it – but not because of Sookie and Bill. No, it’s the rest of the regulars that are making it enjoyable. Tara’s awesome, Sam is sweet, and Jason’s hilarious.

Why did they pick Anna Paquin to play a Southern waitress? Are there no good actresses from Louisiana and area that could have taken on the role? I just don’t get how they pick casts sometimes. But whatever.

I wonder how close they’re going to follow the books by Charlaine Harris. It’s been a while since I read that series.

K, that’s it for a bit. I think I’m going to dare to bundle up and take pictures of our stupid early snow now. Thank you Old Man Winter. If I could find your ass, I would kick it…

“I don’t know what to think of this project Minion’s taken on. Is she in need mental aid?” the Stegosaurus wondered. “After last week’s crazy Aussie innkeeper killers, I think I’d rather be deaf than listen to more ham acting. No offense.”

“None could possibly be taken,” Cow replied, feeling pained. “Ham comes from pigs.”

Minion always came home from work with several DVDs and Cow was tired of hearing Stegosaurus grumble about the quality of them. She didn’t like Minion’s taste in entertainment either, but it did no good to complain. And besides, what could they do about it anyway? They were squeaky toys Minion picked up at a Dollar store for goodness’ sake.

“So, what is it this time?” asked Stegasaurus.

“Why do you even ask me?” Cow replied, testily. “You know I can’t read.”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry,” Stegosaurus said without a hint of sincerity. “You know what I meant. It was a retro oracle question.”

Cow thought about that for a moment, then rolled her eyes. “You mean rhetorical.”

“I mean whatever. What are we in for?”

“I think I remember Minion saying it was a movie about a crazy Austrian castle killer this time,” Cow supplied.

“More Aussie crap?”

Cow let out an exasperated sigh. “Austria and Australia are two different places.”

“You sure?”

“Positive. Now, would you shut up? Minion’s ready to start watching Baron Blood.”

“I don’t like the sound of that,” Stegosaurus whispered.

Peter arrives in Austria with the intention of visiting relatives and learning more about his ancestor known as the Bloody Baron. It’s not hard to see parallels to Vlad related tales, but the story actually carries itself well enough to brush that aside.

Get ready to hate the castle renovation woman, Eva, though. If you don’t after the first scream, you will by the 22nd, I assure you. All the running she does in that castle, that torturer’s castle filled with torture implements, and it never once occurs to her to grab something pointy? At least make the effort to save your own damn self once in a while, lady. But anyway…

Peter has a document he found at Granddad’s years ago, written by a witch the Baron later burned. It’s an incantation that has the power to revive him from death, just so he can be killed and revived and killed again and again until he’d suffered a hundred times worse than any of his victims. Peter tells his uncle that he brought it along hoping “to scare up a little family history” — hardy har yar. You will, Peter. You will…

The uncle is skeptical but superstitious enough to be wary of all things witchy though Eva’s game to try reading the incantation (do they not watch these kinds of movies?!) even though it means finding the room where he died. And guess who’s overheard all that occult planning.

Peter’s cousin, Gretchen. What’s her deal, nosy kid, or something far more sinister? Earlier she claimed to have seen the tall gaunt Baron at the castle, but nobody believed her so we’ll have to see if that leads to anything.

In the castle later, Peter chants, fog rises, bells toll, and Eva gets cold feet. Doesn’t matter anyway, next day it doesn’t look like anything actually happened. Peter thinks they were in the wrong room so they try again using a map he has that includes a hidden chamber. The spell works but then the parchment burns in a fire and Eva does a lot more screaming. Please Baron, please kill her off. There’s nothing worse than a woman who can’t keep her head in a crisis…

The newly resurrected creature goes on something of a killing spree, attacking people in and around his castle, like the caretaker, shown in frightful agony here.

What will this mean for the poor wheelchair bound guy who just bought the place at auction? Eva feels compelled to confess to the new owner what they did, then gets another chance to run around unarmed and screaming and Peter gets his chance to run around like a headless chicken, too, while trying to find the room that Eva’s passed out in. She’s an ocean of calm by the time he gets her home so they kiss each other like dreamy lovers and have a nice pointless “you’re all that matters” moment together. Talk about shoehorning. But soon she’s off and running again because that bloody Baron somehow beat her home. She manages to escape to the uncle’s place where she can scream some more.

The uncle’s getting convinced by Eva’s ravings by this point and suggests they involve a clairvoyant he knows who can channel the witch and get answers to their questions. The witch seems content to leave the Baron alive and suffering, though, so that’s a bust. She says they already have a way to kill him but leaves it up to them to figure out. And then the Baron kills the retro oracle since he seems to be after anyone connected to the castle or the curse. Then everyone belatedly realizes that this makes young Gretchen a target, too.

They catch up with her on the way past the castle where she’s just had a brush with the Baron but appears to be fine. They decide it’s high time to warn the new owner again but he laughs off all their dire warnings. Gretchen thinks that he’s the ghost and this leads everyone else to get suspicious of him. He’s new in town and nobody knows where he got the money. (The Baron did hightail it up to his secret room before that auction to see if his box of jewelry was still there…) And Gretchen’s listening in again, that sneaky kid. Another trek to the castle makes them even more sure the Herr is the Baron, especially after he overpowers every one of them and ties the guys up in his fully functional dungeon. Scream scream panic panic, who’s left to save the day?

Apparently it’s the caretaker that the Baron stabbed with an iron maiden earlier in the show. Eva drops an amulet on the dead guy by accident and now the Baron’s writhing in agony and the dead guy is coming back to life, as are all the rest. And it turns out Eva actually knows how to untie knots and winds up rescuing the boys. Will wonders never cease. She’s full of tears and screams again as soon as the boys are free, though, so I guess it was too good to be true. We hear the Baron screaming, too, as the undead torture him with his own devices and the useless “heroes” carry Eva away.

All in all, not a bad picture. I’ll bet the actress who played Eva every day went home hoarse a lot of the time. I’m glad we’ve gotten to a point in film where women aren’t all hysterical idiots. I found myself wishing Ripley or Buffy could pop in and solve their problems. It sure wasn’t looking like they knew how.

So, check back tomorrow night. I’m planning to open…Doctor Blood’s Coffin!

—
edit Oct 29, 2009 – just found a nifty website ClassicHorror.com and Brandt Sponsellor has a nice rundown of this movie.

and forgetting that money will be worth squat after that happens anyway…

So, I saw Zombieland today. Don’t worry, I won’t spill any of the intentionally ridiculous guts of the show if anyone’s trying to go into it not knowing what to expect. That was my desire and I think had a funnier experience than I would have knowing what was in there beyond the trailer. I’ll just mention stuff about the main actors really quick, and then get to the meat (har) of my post.

I think Woody Harrelson was channeling his Natural Born Killers days. There was an aura of Mickey around that Tallahassee character in a big way. Jesse Eisenberg, who recently did Adventureland (a movie I think deserves far more notice), plays Columbus and has that awkward likability going for him, much the same as John Cusack used to be good at in his younger days. I thought the girls seemed more like plot devices than fleshed out characters, unfortunately. The movie got a little blah if it was only them on screen. Fortunately there weren’t many scenes like that. Most of the time they were paired up with the boys and came to life within the ensemble.

And that’s all I’ll say about that movie. Now, about the trailers I watched before it. Of the ones I remember, three of them had to do with end of the world type stuff. Doesn’t that seem like a lot?

There was Legion, which I think I’ll wind up seeing, just because it’s angels gone to hell and it looks really cool. I love those hard core good against evil shows, especially when the evil is so horrifyingly evil. Of course, the good guys always win those ones, so it gets to be a bit of a drag. It’s better when things are a little bit grey, you know? Not so cut and dried. Dennis Quaid and Paul Bettany star. Bettany is an archangel apparently sent down to protect the unborn child of some waitress. Second coming shit, I suppose. Whatever. There’s funky demons. I’m in line. Bring it.

There was one for Cormac McCarthy’s The Road starring (among other big names) the ever nummy Viggo Mortensen and the ever gorgeous Charlize Theron in a cold dark future in dire need of moral standards. Whatever cataclysmic event leads them to head south, it seems it’s also brought out the worst in people. It looked gritty and dramatic and I’m starting to think I should be reading that man’s books.

The other one, which I’ve left to last for a reason, was the trailer for 2012, starring the once great John Cusack in what looks like the crappiest bit of film-flam since The Day After Tomorrow, which starred Dennis Quaid and was directed by 2012’s director, Roland Emmerich. Maybe I should rethink Legion? Or should Roland take all the blame? This is not the same trailer I saw today, but watch for the little plane. It’s in here:

Would a pilot really fly so low as to risk being hit by cars and trains falling off broken overpasses? Or even low enough to risk being crushed by a tipping high rise? Would not a pilot with any lick of sense crank that steering thing into his crotch and get some fucking altitude?

So it’s got a “deep impact” theme like Deep Impact pounded into viewers back in 1998. I think it’s safe to say this stuff’s been done and it’s now overdone. I’m almost hoping 2012 does kick off an armageddon, if it means never having to see another Armageddon type movie come to screens again.

What are the chances? she thought to herself. Here I am at the library returning that Christopher Lee movie, and now I find another case exactly like the one I just had. How disturbing.

She lingered a ways from the movie racks, begging a god she didn’t believe in to find some reason for that unshaven and pungently aromatic patron perusing the shelves to shift his kiester, and hopefully in the direction of the doors. She could hold her breath a long time but still, why risk melting ear wax if you don’t have to?

But no matter; if there was a patron saint of the library, he or she heard the call, and sent the young man shuffling away from the films and into the adult graphic novel section. No doubt he’d find a quiet spot somewhere to … well, why else would someone draw cartoon boobs so large, Minion wondered.

She waited a few more moments for the odor to dissipate and then hurried toward the case marked DVD INNO.

Not for INNOcent, no. This movie is all about the Damned….at the Inn of the Damned!

I never mentioned it last time but the movies I’m watching are part of the Drive-In Cheezy Movie Collection, so you know I’m not coming into this with any assumption that they’re good.

Inn of the Damned was filmed in 1975 and Dame Judith Anderson is in it. I can’t say the name’s familiar, but her voice is. Why? She played a Vulcan High Priestess in Search for Spock. Fascinating. What’s a Dame doing in this colourful (Australia in 1896) western slash horror slash whatthefuckery? This is less Inn of the Damned and more Inn of the damned idiotic.

Before I start the plot rundown, I have to admit to liking Bob Young’s western music style for some of this picture. Not as thrilled over the synthesizer additions for the horror parts, though. Kind of reminds a person that it’s not a movie to take seriously when no attempt is made to keep the music in tune with the themes. But that’s not the biggest problem. Oh, what a better budget and a dozen more rewrites could have accomplished, we’ll never know.

So, the show. A couple innkeepers have gotten into the habit of killing nearly everyone who stops by, though I assume they arrange for payment first. There’s a bunch of crap going on.

There’s a local fiend they’re familiar with who gets killed by the law not long after in a river scene worthy of Deliverance and the lawman himself gets in trouble later for having both a naked prostitute and the dead man in his room. Why ask why, I say.

The inn people kill off a woman traveling with her stepdaughter, but not before Step-Mommy Dearest tries to molest the naked girl in the bathtub. Hubby/Dad turns up later wanting to set up a search party when they don’t arrive home but the Innfolk pass on that and let him leave unharmed for some reason.

A trooper who looks like a clone of Kevin Costner turns up looking for their American victim (or for the trooper who came looking first.. it got confusing) and they don’t kill him either – at least, they don’t try until they realize he’s getting close to the truth about their bizarre hobby. That comes near the end so bear with me.

This picture is in the film yet has nothing to do with the film, except it kind of ties into the reason the innkeepers are so whacked. It seems losing her kids 14 years ago to a mad man

helped the crazy rise to the top. Why her husband has to do so much killing for her.. well, when it comes to love, you do what you gotta do. And you gotta keep that crazy wife happy… or you’ll wind up with a packet of poison flavouring your tea on some dark night, just like the rest of them.

So, near the finale, the Costner clone, Kincaid, is back to spend the night at the Inn and uses his time there to snoop around. And, the Innfolk have apparently miscounted their dead people because the one in his room’s closet falls on him. He won’t sleep now, that’s for damn sure. So he locks the door and sits with his gun pointed at it. Of course, he has no iPod and groovy tunes, so his head nods anyway. But he’s still alive at four in the morning and happens to overhear the Inn lady talking to people who aren’t talking back. He also hears some kind of creaky wooden device start up. And if he’d been passed out in the bed like they wanted him, he would have been crushed by a slowly descending hamburger maker.

So, when the Inn lady comes to check how flat Kincaid is, he’s right there by the door with a shotgun to stuff in her face. Her screams lure the axe-wielding husband upstairs and it’s game on. And just their luck, a posse turns up in the yard – Kincaid’s boys maybe? I couldn’t figure that out. Kincaid gets shot in the scuffle but he’s okay and they all manage to stop crazy Inn lady and her rampaging hubby. But she’s going totally mental, not wanting them to look in the only locked room, so obviously they must go down and shoot the lock off to see what she’s hiding.

It turns out to be a room containing paintings of two kids. It’s the ones the madman butchered, the original painter tells the men later. He supplies much of the missing back story that would have come in handy much earlier. It seems Inn lady got to a point where she felt those paintings either were her children, or perhaps contained the spirits of them. It’s unclear. It’s also unclear how this all lead to so much death, unless she somehow thought the dead kids might want company? Zero clue.

The ending part was remarkably well done given how pathetic the rest was. A woman scolds her young daughter for being too curious about the corpse visible in the hearse window and the Inn lady gets that girl confused with her own lost daughter. A bit of editing between the present girl and the past girl, some colour changes, and then a few minutes of filming the poor Inn lady who’s keening and crying her eyes out and you actually feel a little bit sorry for her.

A little bit.

What did people do with crazy women prior to the 1900s? Insane asylums were a handy choice. Even if they weren’t actually crazy. If they were depressed or going through menopause or the man just wanted to ditch her for someone younger when divorce wasn’t exactly legal…

Fortunately we have a better understanding of mental health these days and I know I would have to be crazy to willingly watch this again. Thank the patron saint of libraries, because I won’t have to!

Next week’s treats: One Minion’s getting bloody…