The Mutations aka The Freakmaker aka Dr. of Evil (1974)

/ billy peppers / Leave a comment
directed by jack cardiff
getty picture corporation/cyclone productions

Roger Corman’s name somehow is not attached to this tale of a mad scientist creating hybrid creatures by meshing flora and fauna. “My theory of Total Genetics is all-embracing,” intones the dependably taciturn Donald Pleasence, playing the nutter professor with his hair and beard varying its balance of black and white from scene to scene. Presumably this movie has played countless times on the types of late-night programs that specialize in daffy, misbegotten, or just plain awful cinema. Not merely horror, this flick is equally science-fiction-flavored, all the better for those sorts of showcases. Contents: Plant/human hybrids, plant/animal hybrids, fake deformities, actual sideshow freaks, and a whole lotta stock footage of vegetation. The real star is either the ludicrous monster costume that looks like a deconstructionist Creature from the Black Lagoon (or Swamp Thing, I guess) or the hilarious props in the lab of Dr. Pleasence, a cross between the Little Shop of Horrors and the workplace of Bunsen Honeydew.

why did i watch this movie?

I don’t remember, but probably because it sounded completely ridiculous. And Donald Pleasence.

should you watch this movie?

It’s the kind of presentation you enjoy while wondering how in the world any of the people involved possibly could have been taking their jobs seriously. It’s … definitely amusing.

highlight and low point

Once “Tony” escapes the lab in his hybridized form, the proceedings shift into another realm entirely. It’s almost must-see stuff, almost enough to justify sitting through the rest of it … such as the blatant exploitation of Freaks, for instance. Basically, the plot of Dr. Freakmaker (hmm … ) is grafted onto a rehashing of certain themes of that infamous pic, including an approximation of the “One of us!” scene and an abridged version of the revenge piece.

rating from outer space: C+

that’s not subtle

Ghostkeeper (1981)

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directed by james makichuk
badland pictures

Early in this film, the viewer is treated to more than a few meandering shots of nothing in particular that go on for a little too long, in lieu of any action. (Such shots also recur toward the end.) Primarily concerned with mood, the first third of this flick focuses on a subset of what we’re told is a New Year’s holiday group outing in the wilds of Canada, an unsteady troika consisting of a couple plus a third wheel who seems to have more on her mind. Though the tryst we expect never occurs, despite the promising setup of a bathtub scene, two of the smarmy city slickers do rub the small-town folk the wrong way. Meanwhile, hints are made of mental instability in the partnered woman’s past – this is obviously foreshadowing – and as the first victim is claimed, things start getting weird. Though we never get much explanation about what, exactly, is the entity being “kept,” the resolution we expect is preceded by some unforeseen developments. Altogether, this no-budget obscurity is pretty effective and surprisingly enjoyable – even with all the interminable shots of people floundering around in deep snow.


why did i watch this movie?

It tangentially has a “New Year’s Eve” theme.

should you watch this movie?

While I wouldn’t recommend that you race right out to the “video store,” if you stumble across it you’ll probably get a kick out of it.


highlight and low point

Actually, my favorite thing was lead actress Riva Spier’s disdainful attitude. I also enjoyed the scenes involving snowshoeing, as you don’t come across those very often. It was dismaying to find out that had he the budget, the director would have ruined this film completely with an ending that was “a whole lot bigger.”

rating from outer space: b+

Bride of Frankenstein (1935)

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directed by james whale
universal

These old horror pictures really appreciated comic relief, particularly from strident women portraying minor characters, and they also relished lampooning petit bourgeois authority, such as this film’s burgomaster. Plus, they really enjoyed overacting to the point of buffoonery, although that can be forgiven due the transition from stage to screen. Now, with all that musing done and out of the way, it is time to allow that this production, though a bit slight, is quite accomplished. “Karloff” – that’s all he’s credited as – does wonders with his role, even under heavy prosthetics, and the script does an excellent job of playing on any variety of emotions in underscoring the plight of “the monster.” The “monster’s mate” doesn’t appear until just five minutes remain in the picture, of course, which is another thing these great old-time movie stars had going for them: pacing and suspense. Realism may be another matter entirely, but given the subject at hand, any such observation is probably misguided.

why did i watch this movie?

Johnny Ramone awarded “Bride” first place in his rankings, which overall are pretty fair. (I personally don’t think The Wolf Man and Freaks hold up well enough, but who the hell am I.)


should you watch this movie?

When the mood is right for a picture from this era, such as during Samhain, it would be quite suitable.


highlight and low point

The sequence during which the MONSTER busts out of the dungeon in which he’s been confined, evades the hunt, and tumbles into the crypts from which Pretorius and his henchmen are commandeering corpse parts is pretty memorable. Once again, the studio-lot sets are awe-inspiring, at least the interiors. (The outdoor scenes, not so much.) I could have done without the “humorous” touches and their focus on the lowbrow.

rating from outer space: a−

Dwight Frye as Karl

Martyrs (2008)

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written and directed by pascal laugier
eskwad/wild bunch/tcb film/canal+/cinÉcinÉma

After this film finally ended, I started writing a polemic on what I condemned as its senseless brutality, its transgressive excesses flaunted purely for their own sake, its purposeless exhibition of sickening abuse, its obscenity.

Morning found me still pondering what I’d seen, contemplating the motive behind the disturbing displays, so I read a lot about it, including an enlightening interview with the director. Along the way, I realized a positive critical appraisal of “New French Extremity” films, several of which I’d enjoyed, had suckered me into seeing a picture I’d scrupulously avoided for a decade,

Martyrs is a vile movie, full of sadistic horrors and irredeemable suffering and graphically unsettling trauma and grievous bodily harm inflicted upon a guileless young woman. The first half is only intermittently assaultive – nothing too out of the ordinary – but as the second half began, I had a sinking feeling, which proved prescient. It definitely goes too far, and it’s hard to find justification for what occurs. What reason could there be for grotesquely prolonged images of torture of an innocent, you might wonder.

The Laugier interview helped. Some things are indelible, though.

why did i watch this movie?

Mea culpa. I tend to favor productions that feature people doing horrible things to others. This selection has me questioning myself.

should you watch this movie?

Look, this picture’s culminating moment is a woman being flayed alive … but by that point the savagery inflicted upon her has been so objectionable it may barely register. You have been warned.

highlight and low point

It’s provocative, I’ll give it that. As to my charge of “obscenity,” French film commissars originally concurred, rating it 18+, though it was lowered to 16+ after intervention from a filmmakers society, a journalists’ union and the Minister of Culture.

rating from outer space: B

Antisocial (2013)

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directed by cody calahan
breakthrough entertainment/black fawn films

So what you have here is a film wherein a handful of millenials have to barricade themselves in a residence as refuge from the ultraviolence burgeoning outside, and as it’s picking up steam, I’m losing interest rapidly. I mean, I’m wondering what’s with this The Purge–meets–28 Days Later–meets–Pulse–meets–every–zombie–flick–ever business, you dig. As the story finally develops, though, it redeems itself to some degree, becoming more insidious – and, actually, a lot more ironically funny – than it seemed it was going to be. Still not exactly the most original concept or execution, but credit must be given to the portrayal of social media manipulation and the ever-growing battle for constant connectivity. (The portrayal of the presumably heroic lead female role could have used a little work, though.) Ooh, hey, look! A sequel that sounds really dismal!

why did i watch this movie?

It was New Year’s Eve, and this movie is set on New Year’s Eve.

should you watch this movie?

Not a whole lot of horror pics have “New Year’s Eve” as a setting or a theme.

highlight and low point

The tensions and relationships between the five twentysomethings hoping to survive whatever the hell it is that’s going on are portrayed rather well, and the gradually encroaching understanding of what exactly is happening, and how, is skillfully handled. Once again, however, here in the world of the horror movie, we have a paucity of original ideas, even with the wicked insinuations of the latter stages of the “viral infection.” Oh, and the black guy dies first. Followed by the party girl.

rating from outer space: C+

Concepts and business entities portrayed in this motion picture are fictional. Any resemblance to actual concepts or business entities is purely coincidental.

The Invisible Man (1933)

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directed by james whale
universal pictures

Although hampered at times by a bit of slapstick and what feels like leftover vaudeville attributes, and a little too enamored of the photographic trickery by which the effects of the invisible antagonist are achieved – though it’s hard to fault them for that – this SF tale of the inexplicable manages both to convey more tension than you might figure and to be downright creepy at times. When the title character first reveals his condition, it’s pretty disturbing, even as you are obviously prepared for it 85 years later. And at least one other scene along the way provides more than a bit of a shock, albeit tempered a bit by the fact that it is unmistakably done with miniatures. Claude Rains gets top billing for a role which he performs mostly by voice alone, and his dialogue ratchets up the intensity and insanity as this picture progresses. All in all, this one rather deservedly can be called a classic, and remains a significant precursor to more than one film genre.

why did i watch this movie?

The Invisible Man occupies the second slot on Johnny Ramone’s top 10.

should you watch this movie?

In discussing classic horror with others, it repeatedly arose that most had never seen this picture. I hadn’t, either, and honestly never had much interest, figuring I was familiar with the story – despite the fact that I’d also never read the novel. I’m glad I’ve now rectified this oversight.

highlight and low point

As alluded above, a few too many shots here feature things flying around by themselves and people reacting in astonishment or fright. The representation of malevolence by the title character reaches the pinnacle, highlighted by curt pronouncements such as “At 10 o’clock tomorrow night, I shall kill you.”

rating from outer space: B+

a poignant deathbed scene

Haunted aka The Haunted (1977)

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written and directed by michael de gaetano
northaire communications, inc.

Wow, I might owe an apology to a few of the other terrible movies I’ve lambasted, because compared to this abysmal folly, some of them look much better. While nothing could make films like Home Sweet Home and Monster look “good,” compared to this debacle, a relative respectability may be easier to obtain. It’s hard for me to precisely describe this fiasco, because the script is a disaster, the acting atrocious, the concept absurd, and the pacing and editing undisciplined and unstructured. You probably couldn’t write dialogue this poorly if you tried, and its recital is akin to unlettered folks reading cue cards with missing words and disorderly syntax. It’s astonishing. Unbelievably, the filmmaker claimed that budgetary constraints robbed his flick of its brilliant philosophical insights, but with what’s in evidence, that very idea strikes one as utterly asinine.

why did i watch this movie?

This intro doesn’t mention a “phone booth,” but the poster does. Details below!

should you watch this movie?

The fact that is even a possibility says too much about this modern world.

highlight and low point

A “phone booth” was a “box-like kiosk containing a public payphone.” A “public payphone” was – I am not making this up – a coin-operated telephone that stood alone in public spaces, so people could use them to make calls.

In this movie, a “phone booth” is erected in a cemetery for some damn fool reason, and it is claimed that this device allows Abanaki’s Indian spirit to inhabit a terrible English actress, but she never uses the structure until far too late for this to have occurred.

Any claim that reincarnation is involved in this picture is spurious at best.

rating from outer space: F

El Pacto aka The Pact (2018)

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directed by david victori
ikiru films/4 cats pictures/el pacto la pelÍcula aie/sony pictures international

Your standard-issue bigger-studio-budget supernatural horror thriller, replete with incredible scenarios and people having to make hard choices, this Spanish production doesn’t take a whole lot of chances. This tendency to play it safe is perhaps best exemplified by the ending, where for a few brief moments it seems as though the film might lurch in an unexpected direction, but ultimately relents. Ordinarily, film lore and legend would suggest such a correction was the result of test-audience feedback, but in this case it feels like what had been planned all along. The tale of a worried mother who makes a murky PACT with a shady personage known as la araña albina (“the albino spider”), it’s passable entertainment, but it runs 106 minutes, eventually delivering very little for the time investment.

why did i watch this movie?

Seriously? Because it’s called “El Pacto,” un título que me pareció ridículo en español.

should you watch this movie?

It’s not as though it’s terrible or anything, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it wouldn’t have been nearly as interesting if I hadn’t had to read along with the subtitling, you know? A well-trodden path, this one.

highlight and low point

A bit of an interesting diversion develops maybe halfway through this picture, though it’s confused by some earlier hints and thus doesn’t carry as much impact as it should. The unexpected reveal in the denouement also comes across a bit subdued, though it’s fairly clever. One large problem here, however, is that the character that’s a rather major part of the plotline – hombre araña, that is – effectively disappears long before the conclusion. Important continuity issues really shouldn’t plague a flick that doesn’t come across as all that ambitious yet lasts nearly two hours.

rating from outer space: c−

simbolismo!

The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974)

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directed by tobe hooper
vortex, inc.

To paraphrase Chuck Eddy on Motörhead, “If you don’t know by now, you’re sure as hell not going to learn from me.” That’s more or less how I feel about this devastating picture, which retains its deeply unsettling effect with every viewing. No, it’ll never be the way it was the first time, when it felt the way a nightmare does – everything confounding, elements changing without rhythm or reason, with no apparent end to the confusion and tension – but it doesn’t need to be. This movie still gets my vote for terror champion of all time. Tobe Hooper never came close to matching it, but you don’t catch lightning in a bottle more than once.

why did i watch this movie?

It’s a personal favorite, but this time I watched it because Johnny Ramone ranks it third on his list. Only third, John? (Johnny also thought that “loud guitars” were what made the Ramones great, so … )

should you watch this movie?

Of course, but again, I’m a bit biased. Not only is this the pinnacle of horror in my opinion, it’s also one of my three favorite movies of any sort. (Trivia! The other two are Fargo and Repo Man.)

highlight and low point

The moment when film audiences first meet Leatherface is one of the greatest moments in scare cinema, and Sally and Pam variously exploring different rooms of the house are highly disturbing moments, but the scene that begins as Sally seeks refuge in Drayton’s gas station barbecue outpost does it for me every time. Some of the vaguely suggested parallels between the teens and the family of killers are never explored, and Sally escaping the remote farmhouse twice in the same manner might be a bit questionable (although the first time is astonishing).

rating from outer space: A+

Zhǒng guǐ aka Seeding of a Ghost aka 种鬼 (1983)

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directed by Yang chuan
shaw brothers

I think this flick must have been intended to be a horror-comedy, but as it’s a Hong Kong production I couldn’t honestly say. If Shaw Brothers didn’t intend for it to be humorous, then something was definitely lost in the translation, whether linguistic or cultural. Granted, one wouldn’t presume that a film with a rape as its central action was meant to be funny, but certainly some elements of even that particular scene don’t seem to be played completely straight. Plus, I mean, a mouldering reanimated corpse copulates with a wraith while levitating during part of the black magic ritual that adds the “revenge” component to this business, and the company that brought the DVD to the U.S. market bills it as the “mind-melting Asian answer to The Evil Dead.” The picture also features a kung fu fight scene, an exploding pregnancy, and some kind of evil spawn that looks something like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors, only as a crawling, tentacled Lovecraftian nightmare. So you tell me.


why did i watch this movie?

I was reading somewhere about how over-the-top Hong Kong cinema can be, and then elsewhere saw similar references to a variety of its horror films. This was one of them.

should you watch this movie?

The next time you’re in the mood for something outrageously ridiculous, Ghost will fit the bill nicely.

highlight and low point

Almost every character reacts with incredulity to something or another at some point or another in the course of this movie, which neatly aligns with the viewing experience. I suppose any number of questionable sequences or developments could be assessed unfavorably, but let’s be realistic here: this is exploitation-level trash, the foreign equivalent of a Troma venture.

rating from outer space: c+