The Sore Losers (1997)
Rating: B-
Dir: John Michael McCarthy
Star: Jack Oblivian, Mike Maker, Kerine Elkins, D’Lana Tunnell
Can’t be many films that start with a quote from the Comics Code, but it does kinda sum up the sensibilities here. It’s part parody, part homage to horror comics, exploitation movies (David Friedman, producer of Blood Feast and Ilsa, has a cameo), juvenile delinquency, hot-rods, rock ‘n’ roll and Betty Page – you know the stuff. Blackie (Oblivian, looking like a young Bill Paxton or Kevin Bacon) is an alien sent back to Earth to complete the dozen murders he started in the 1950’s. Unfortunately, he racks up 13 corpses, so is ordered to undo the extra, by killing #14 – who just happens to be the world’s strongest woman, now on death row. Maker plays his old friend, Elkins channels Tura Satana, and there’s enough nudity ‘n’ violence to keep everyone amused.
Indeed, the film’s main problem is perhaps that it crams in too much; its 80 minutes sometimes feels like a lot longer, not least because of lurid cinematography which grabs you by the eyeballs and squeezes hard. Sometimes, less is more, and it’s not as if the rest of the film needs distracting from. Technically a little rough, especially in the sound department, but you can’t really complain about a film which features a catfight in the electric chair and ends with… No, I shouldn’t say. This is all over the place and, while not all of it works, enough does to make for viewing that’s never far from entertaining. We saw three films today at TC Towers: although the competition had much bigger budgets, this was the only one for which Chris and I stayed awake throughout. There’s no substitute for imagination, even an excess of it.
The Strangers (1998)
Rating: D-
Dir: Sergei and Yuri Ivanov
Star: Richard Bent, Shana Betz, Victoria Hunter, Jennifer Marks
While a werewolf film – albeit one where the make-up looks more like a vampire bat, and where stakes work better than bullets – in some bizarre way, it feels like a Russ Meyer pic, all seething passions, rural setting and backwoods characters. However, save an unexpected lesbian session in a toilet stall, this lacks any of the energy, imagination or enormous breasts for which Meyer is famous. This is, in fact, largely unwatchable, thanks mostly to appalling sound design which had us screaming “What?” at the screen more frequently than a wrestling audience listening to Kurt Angle.
As far as we can tell, the story involves Trent, a werewolf who killed the leader of the pack (vrooom, vrooom), then headed out on his own. However, alpha bitch Jade (Hunter) tracks him down, intent on making him fulfill his lycanthropic responsibilities, i.e. ripping out people’s throats. But the daughter and stepdaughter of Trent’s employer also have the hots for him, and each other – see the above bathroom action. There’s also, for no apparent reason, a lengthy scene where a minor character engages in autoerotic asphyxiation. Sadly, it’s nowhere near as entertaining as it may sound, and the most amusing thing is the unfortunate name of the lead character – I bet Dick Bent had a fabulous time at school. The effects suck, the story is dull or nonsensical, and the videographer leans on the “strobe” button with ridiculous frequency. Avoid. Avoid. Avoid.
Witchcraft X: Mistress of the Craft (1998)
Rating: B
Dir: Elisar Cabrera
Star: Wendy Cooper, Kerry Knowlton, Stephanie Beaton, Eileen Daly
When I re-watched this, I knew there was no way I could truly do this justice in a couple of hundred words. The other entries in the series are a mix of light occult shenanigans and heavy petting, set in Los Angeles. But for the tenth entry, they shifted things to London, and apparently threw everything you knew out of the window on the flight there. The results are all an Incredibly Bad film should be: it contains laughable concepts, pathetic production values and some performances that would disgrace a school Nativity play. Yet, it’s certainly more memorable and, dammit, I’d say entertaining than any of the nine preceding installments.
The core here is a British government department, Bureau 17, who have been charged with investigating any paranormal shenanigans. Their tiny staff (I blame budget cut-backs: perhaps governmental, more likely by the film’s producers) have captured Hyde (Knowlton), a mass murderer with Satanic tendencies, and are holding them pending the arrival of Detective Lutz (Beaton) from Los Angeles, who’s going to extradite him back to the States. However, the vampire Raven (Daly) and her minions, break Hyde out, because she needs his help to translate a tome that will allow her to summon the demon Morshenka, who will give her unlimited power. It’s up to white Wiccan detective Celeste Sheridan (Cooper), Lutz and the other members of Bureau 19 to stop them.
If that sounds kinda cool to you, it does to me as well, actually, and with a respectable budget and some cast changes, it probably could have been. However, here? Well, I don’t use the words “woefully inadequate” often, but this film will probably provide my entire 2013 quota. It’s apparent almost from the start, where London is reduced to some quickly shot footage from Soho, and stock footage from a packed night-club, before cutting to the sparsely-populated (it’s those cutbacks, I tell you!) location where Raven’s conveniently-bisexual minions chow down on some poor guy. We then move to Bureau 17’s headquarters, which is even more the product of poverty-row film-making, with no effort spared made to make it look like a functioning building, except for lobbing a few unrelated photos on the wall.
That’s where Hyde is being interrogated, and let’s pause to discuss the acting here, because there is truly something for everyone. At the top of the pile is Cooper, who is genuinely good, despite having to handle dialog and her powder-blue PVC costume, which are constantly battling over the title of “Most Ridiculous Thing in This Movie.” I’m calling it a tie. In contrast so sharp you could slice your wrists with it (and will probably want to, at various points) is Knowlton, Apparently a pro-wrestler, I get a more emotive reading from the text-to-speech program on my Kindle; stunningly, his acting is not the least of his contributions to the movie, as we’ll see later.
In contrast, there’s Daly, who appears to have been the recipient of all the emotion which is completely missing from Knowlton’s performance, overacting ferociously for every line, enunciating each Syll-A-Ble like it was a newly discovered Shakespeare soliloquy. Is it appropriate? Hmm. The jury is still out on that. Is it entertaining as hell? F’sure. The best scenes are when she and Knowlton play opposite each other, it’s a contrast in styles of epic proportions:
Raven (chewing scenery like a crack-crazed Tasmanian Devil): “Have you ever heard of a ceremony of… Walpurgis?”
Hyde (reciting share prices): “Walpurgis? The stuff of myths. Walpurgis belongs in a story book about demons. I serve Satan, the only true master.”
The rest of the cast fall somewhere between those extremes. Beaton is solid enough, but doesn’t have enough to do, except wander round with her shirt tied loosely under her voluminous cleavage, as shown on the left. Seems a bit informal for any supposed police detective on an international mission. There’s a bit where she gets scratched by one of the vampires, and initially, it seems this is going to go somewhere. My notes actually say, “somewhere interesting,” but even by this point, about 25 minutes in, I was doubtful that was going to happen. Although it does lead to her sitting in the bath, soaping her breasts with the enthusiasm and care usually found only in a vintage car-club owner, waxing the bodywork of his Jaguar.
That comes as part of a triple-dose of nudity, which suddenly pops up, as if the makers realized they were falling short of the statutory quota of breasts. So we simultaneously get Raven bonking Hyde (as in their dramatic scenes, she does all the work, while he just lies there), Celeste making love to her boyfriend, and Lutz in the bath. Of course, it was during this Nipplepalooza that our son wandered upstairs, though it’s a tribute to him being so inured to my viewing of crap, he was more concerned as to whether or not I was going to eat that other Hot Pocket. This question answered, I explained that she’s a witch, that one’s a vampire and the lady in the bath is an LA detective, to which he replied “It sounds like the best version of Being Human ever.”
“Best,” is entirely relative, I think we’ll find. Instead, there is so much “wrong” here. Even when Lutz and B17 Agent Dixon (Sean Harry, looking like a concussed Hugh Grant) are driving through London, they are shown in short order going East along Piccadilly, then North towards Piccadilly Circus, West through Trafalgar Square and finally North at the Houses of Parliament. I speak for everyone familiar with central London when I say: “What?” The audio mix is even more incomprehensible, with dialogue which is often inaudible, and sound effects which should charitably be described as occupying the same postal-code as the actions they accompany. Still, it’s nice to see the disabled getting work, and I trust the deaf guy was appropriately grateful.
Remember I said above that Knowlton’s performance wasn’t the worst thing about his work on the film? He’s also credited as a “fight director”, alongside Frank Scantori. Scantori enjoys multiple credits on this, as an actor (playing the head of B17), co-producer, first assistant director, casting director and for transportation, so at least has the excuse of spreading himself a bit thin. On the other hand, Knowlton, being a pro-wrestler, would seem well suited to stage fake violence and make it look real, or at least credible. So you’d think, anyway. Counterpoint:
The above is just one of many moments which will have you cackling maniacally. My favourite was probably Raven bringing Hyde back to her lair, where the decor consists of a table-lamp and a badly-hung sheet. He compliments her on having “exquisite taste,” which would be pure, undiluted sarcasm, except Knowlton does nothing to suggest he can reach such dramatic heights. Other moments include: the vampire minion trying to run away in stilettos, resulting in more of a stagger away; poor editing giving the impression of someone being decapitated with a stake; Hyde wandering round a field for no reason at all; Celeste having the ability to project her image astrally, then later using a pay-phone to call in; and vampires who, for some reason, walk like zombies. Maybe that’s also due to the stilettos.
This is truly a film which keeps on giving: even though there are many aspects that are tedious, there’s easily enough which are amusing, lunatic or simply baffling to keep you watching. Just when my enthusiasm for the series was running low, this completely reinvigorated it, and I’m ready for the final stretch.
Witchcraft XI: Sisters in Blood (2000)
Rating: C+
Dir: Ron Ford
Star: Miranda Odell, Kathleen St. Lawrence, Lauren Ian Richards, Don Donason
As in a previous entry, this one completely ignores its predecessor, going back to California without mentioning the apocalyptic disaster of part X. This time, it’s three college students, who are playing the part of witches in Macbeth, ahem, “the Scottish play.” To get into the spirit, they carry out a midnight ritual in a graveyard, but turns out, the spirit gets into them instead, with one (Lawrence) actively engaged in a plot to provide “vessels” for the Three Sisters, witches who were stopped three hundred years ago from summoning a demon. One is quickly recruited, but the other (Odell) is more resistant. How this ties to the series is that her sister is girlfriend to Will Spanner (supposedly the same one from parts 5-9, though played by another actress, spelled differently, and apparently completely oblivious to everything that happened there), and Detectives Lutz and Garner are investigating the trail of bodies as the witches seek the Stone Key that will allow them to open a portal to hell.
There’s much that’s ludicrous here: the poverty-row production values, random musical notes which pass for a score, typos in the credits (“Dectective” appears more than once) combine to give the impression of an entirely amateur production. Most obvious with regard to the first of these, is the Halloween masks representing the witches, though just behind is the finale: if you can’t come up with anything approximating a demon rising from hell, better not write one into your script, eh? However, the film doesn’t skimp on the nudity, has an eye-gouging that’s probably the goriest moment in the entire series, and at least the three leads are all-natural, if you know what I mean, and I think you do. There’s also the bizarre presence of veteran Anita Page, who at one point was second only to Garbo in terms of fan mail, and is just about the only woman with a speaking role who keeps her top on. Since Ms. Page was approaching 90 at the time of filming, there’s something for which to be thankful.
For all its flaws – and I could go into these at some detail, for about the next two hours – I was actually entertained, albeit more at the film, than by it, if you see the difference. As noted in my original review (to which I refer you for additional gems of dialogue and facial hair), the plot has some potential, and in the right hands, could have been a small cult gem. Those hands, however, are not Ford’s, and the results here are closer to Incredibly Bad territory, though without the necessary loopy invention, which made its predecessor such an undisguised hit in that area.