Recently Rated Movies: A Hodgepodge of Varied Horrors

I watch a huge variety of films throughout the year, in nearly every possible genre, and from nearly every decade in film history. My need to complete any number of film lists (some from other sources and books, and some of my own devising) has me hopping about in nearly every possible direction to check ever more films off of those lists in a relatively consistent fashion.

However, around September and October, my choices tend more towards horror and science fiction, or variants thereof. It is the one time within the calendar year where I actively try to keep within those genres exclusively. Hence, the trio of absolutely unrelated films that I have seen over the past week, reviewed briefly below...

The Beast of Borneo (1934)
Dir: Harry Garson
TC4P Rating: 3

None of this nonsense is in this film.

"Ve've got to haff an O-rang!" The gorilla in the poster at the right is not in this film, nor is the scantily clad woman lying prone in the picture to the gorilla's right. As for the "gorilla gland injection" mentioned at the picture's bottom, it too is not to be found in The Beast of Borneo, for the ape in residence within its frames is an actual orangutan, not a guy in a suit (for the most part; there are a couple of scenes where it is obviously so), and it is never represented as a gorilla. I suppose gorillas were generally scarier to the movie-going public in those days (it was not long after the mighty Kong came and went), but this film employs footage of real orangutans and works them into its story.

A lot of the orangutan interest early in the film, before it bogs down in its melodramatic story involving a mad Russian scientist who wants to hunt an orangutan in Borneo in order to prove his theories on an evolutionary link between humans and apes, seems to be on the orangutan's ability to make a certain noise. That noise is shown in the film to be a low, elongated growl crossed with a yell. It sounds remarkably human to my ears, and it wouldn't surprise me if the sound effect in the film was created in a studio by the human voice. In my limited experiences in zoos and watching nature videos, while orangutans are certainly cable of long, low growls, I have never heard the noise portrayed in this film come from an orangutan, and a quick search online revealed nothing that replicated it. To me, the noise reminds me of the start of the novelty rock song, The Crusher, by the Novas, from 1964. (Not sure if orangutans can do "the Hammerlock" either, but if they don't, they're a bunch of turkey-necks.)

On the brief Wikipedia entry for The Beast of Borneo, it is mentioned the film is "made up mostly of leftover footage from Universal Studio's 1931 'East of Borneo,'" but there is no source cited for this information, nor does any such connection between the two movies appear on the page for either one on IMDb. I would think that, were this true, somebody on IMDb would have included it in the trivia section on either page. At the very least, The Beast of Borneo provided me with the directions by which discovered other items within my range of interest. It provoked me to do a direct search for East of Borneo (which is a very striking movie in many ways) and finding that film online also made me run into the fascinating story of the surrealist film made about lead actress Rose Hobart by artist Joseph Cornell from a print of East of Borneo, also named Rose Hobart (1936).

Of The Beast of Borneo itself, it is very low-budget, crude, has horrid sound, and exists primarily in the public domain, with the ups (easy access) and downs (poor, unrestored prints) in viewing that entails. The acting is the stiff standard of its quality level, but it is not unentertaining. Much of the fun in the picture comes from a baby orangutan who is as adorable as hell and is very proficient in extricating himself from any knot imaginable. The film is also just over an hour long, so despite the crawling slowness of the talky scenes in building the thin plot, it flies by swiftly enough. You get some mild jungle thrills, and that is all. And if you are me, you get pleasantly reminded of The Crusher... RRRRRRRRAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHH!


Hell Baby (2013)
Dir: Thomas Lennon & Robert Ben Garant
TC4P Rating: 5

I thought this one was in the bag. Or, in the womb, as it were...

I am fond, to varying degrees, of a large number of comic actors working in the entertainment field these days. A good many of them come from The State, the MTV sketch show that was relatively short-lived, but has had a zillion other shows and movies spring from the creative minds of its talented cast over recent years. 

Two of these cast members, Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant, had a very successful turn in creating the Cops spoof, Reno 911!, but have had even greater success as the screenwriters of films in which I have very little interest: The Night at the Museum series, Taxi, The Pacifier, Balls of Fury, and Herbie: Fully Loaded. All of these films, while panned critically by a majority of film critics, made money, which is the most important part if you want to continue writing in films. Except for Let's Go to Prison, which was not a financial success, I have had little interest in these films (there are two on this list I have yet to see), and Let's Go to Prison mostly sucked. But Lennon and Garant were having mostly hits with very few misses as far as the bottom line was concerned.

But then came Hell Baby. Not only were Lennon and Garant co-directing the film this time (Garant directed the Reno: 911! movie, which I loved, but you have to be a Reno fan to appreciate it -- filmgoers didn't generally), but they have prominent roles as ass-kicking Vatican exorcists. Hell Baby seems to be right in my wheelhouse, and they stacked it with comic actors, as I mentioned at the beginning, for whom I hold a great fondness: Rob Corddry, Keegan-Michael Key, David Wain, Michael Ian Black, Rob Huebel, Paul Scheer, Kumail Nanjiani, and a tasty Riki Lindhome. And best of all, from the trailer I saw a couple of years ago, Hell Baby held promise of being a fun horror comedy. I thought it was a sure winner.

I'm not sure why I put off seeing the film ultimately, but it doesn't matter. Hell Baby is never as good as you hope it will be, though it is not a chore to watch. It's really just standard. The actors perform at the top of their abilities, but the story never jells. Scenes go on for far longer than they need to; I suppose they are going for the uncomfortable vibe of much comedy these days, used successfully on many Adult Swim programs that star many of these same actors (Children's Hospital, as an example), and perhaps that shortened format seems to work better for the style. Here, it just makes the film grind to a halt again and again. Lennon and Garant as a team are the best part of the movie, but that is onscreen, and even there, the priest characters (while having most of the funniest lines) get a little overplayed (yes, I get it... these priests love strippers).

And can we have a moratorium on movie characters getting run down by motor vehicles from out of nowhere for comedic effect? At least it is not a bus speeding at an insane rate of speed for a city street this time. (I really, really hate when that happens...)


Pernicious (2014)
Dir: James Cullen Bressack
TC4P Rating: 3

NOT the poster on Netflix
mentioned in the text.

Let's play pretend for a bit. Let's say that, chiefly because I get obsessed with the sound of various words, that I became uniquely driven to locate a movie with the unlikely name of Persnickety on Netflix. Instead, I undershoot in the alphabetical order a tad and end up seeing something called Pernicious instead.

OK, that's not how it happened. It was actually, "Hey, let's see what horror movies have been added to streaming. Pernicious? What a stupid title. Oh, cute girls on the cover in various states of undress posing with a creepy Asian goddess statue. Seems dumb and quick. Let's watch it." I wish that I were beyond such measures, but there you go. Just a dopey male driven by libido like the others. 

Pernicious lost me almost from the start, and at no point did it come close to winning me back. Its opening scene has the actresses speaking what is probably vapid dialogue over the opening credits, but no sound emits from their eating orifices as they travel from America to Thailand, and take a boat downriver. We only hear some cheap music played, and are left not hearing their voices until they arrive at the house in which they will be staying while they serve as teachers at a local school. Not sure what a couple of them will be teaching, as they seem mostly idiotic except for the brunette (naturally). Such cliches don't matter, as one of the girls will blankly remove some sort of amulet from a small spirit house perched outside of the abode, the trio of idiots will discover the creepy gold statue of a prepubescent girl in the attic, and then will deal with the spirit within that statue as it seeks revenge for being murdered as a little girl so many years before.

That's the plot in a nutshell. You think you are getting an "Americans abroad encountering a crazy Asian ghost's bloodlust" movie, much like in The Grudge, and you do indeed get that. But the film takes a weird turn about a third of the way in when the girls run into a trio of British ex-pats in a bar, and the turn is on the level of the way From Dusk Till Dawn shifts midway through that film, but in even less of a positive way. Even though the ghost movie that is occurring never goes away, and in fact, comes back even stronger in the second half, Pernicious briefly swerves into full-on torture porn territory, as the girls, after seemingly being "roofied" by the Brits, suddenly have the boys tied up in individual rooms and slowly and methodically torture and kill them as bloodily as they can. Eyeballs are gouged and force-fed, body parts sliced, teeth yanked... this might hold appeal for certain fans of extreme filmgoing, but for me, it was all wrong tonally when matched against what comes before it and what comes after it. It is like you fell asleep watching Pernicious on cable, woke up in the middle of another horror film, fell back asleep, and were catching the rest of Pernicious on its next showing.

The other problem is that soundtrack. Not just the lack of dialogue over the credits when all of the characters are clearly having conversation, but later in the film when two of the local residents have a full scene speaking Thai, which is pretty important to the plot, but there is not even the slightest impulse to put subtitles on the screen for the majority of the world that does not speak Thai. It is fairly easy to tell what is implied by their dialogue, especially from the actions that happen both during and immediately after, but really... it seems like lax production. 

Speaking of which, at the end of an important expository scene with a local "witch," there is a split-second of cacophonous noise that bears no relation to any other sound in the scene nor to the score of the movie. It is just sheer slopping sound editing (or film processing, take you pick), and adds to the notion that this film has an unsteady captain at the wheel.

Recently Rated Movies: Catching Up with Christopher Lee (the actor, not my brother…) Pt. 2

Of the Christopher Lee films I have seen to this point, the one area in which I hardly need delve are his most famous and popular roles. It has been decades since I first saw his Hammer Draculas and his turn as Frankenstein’s Monster, his villainous appearances in Bond and Three Musketeers films, and his Fu Manchu series countless times, and every role is etched in my memory. His later appearances in major modern epic series (LOTR, Star Wars) are also to be counted in this group, even if I hold little fondness for the last three Star Wars entries. I have also seen many of his supporting roles in films such as Serial (1980, of which I am still fond), a variety of turns alongside his old chum Peter Cushing in non-Hammer horror flicks, and his odd cameo in The Magic Christian (as a vampire waiter on an ocean liner). 

The point is that I am already well-versed in his major roles. In reviewing his oeuvre over the past couple of weeks and recalling his movies that I have actually seen to this point, there have been few thus far (except for some of the horror ones and The Magic Christian, which is certainly memorable but actually not very good) that I would describe as resting near even the lower rungs of the higher echelon of filmmaking.

But, as I make my way through his unseen flicks, I am discovering that there are plenty of near misses. As I recounted the other day, Hannie Caulder turned out to be a pretty good revenge western, if not great. Then I ran into three films which are ever so close to being good solid films, but just narrowly miss the mark for me. I am fairly certain that if I saw any of these three as a teenager or young adult, they would probably rank higher up in my memory, but I only just saw them in the past week. All three warrant follow-up viewings, and I will leave it to those moments to determine whether they move up or down in my rankings. So while I currently have assigned all three my middle of the road “5” rating, they were all worthy of my time and eventual, almost assured revisitation.

The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism (1967) [aka The Snake Pit and the Pendulum; Torture Chamber; Castle of the Walking Dead; Blood of the Virgins; The Blood Demon; and many, many more…]

Dir: Harald Reinl

TC4P Rating: 5

One of the first hurdles for any horror film is evoking and maintaining a haunting atmosphere. This film has atmosphere in spades, as long as the soundtrack doesn’t emit a single musical note. The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism is set in the same type of fairytale, Germanic burg as many of the more famous Hammer selections like Frankenstein Created Woman, and like those films, the fairytale backdrop is betrayed by a lurid series of events that lead to even more chaos. 

Christopher Lee plays Count Regula (which is what I would think Dracula would be if he devoured more fiber), and he is drawn and quartered in the beginning of the film for draining the blood from twelve virgins to give him immortality. (He fails because he had not gotten to the 13th victim.) He naturally swears vengeance before his body parts are ripped asunder, and sure enough, decades later, the script gives him the chance. Based partly on Poe’s The Pit and the Pendulum (at least, the sections involving both a pit and a pendulum), Torture Chamber has a wonderfully creepy middle section where the protagonists (including post-Weissmuller Tarzan, Lex Barker) travel through a dark forest with bodies and limbs hanging from the trees all around them. All of the later scenes of Lee torturing his foes are also memorably committed to film, and I certainly enjoyed how much fun the film seemed to be having with its absolute depravity. 

In fact, my one and only real gripe with the film is the soundtrack, which for much of the running time seems too comic and buoyant for the storyline. However, it does have moments where it matches appropriately, so my initial statement regarding the emittance of a single note was merely to provoke. In fact, I quite enjoy the score all the way through, even the absurd parts. I just feel that at certain moments in the film, the score doesn't seem to belong. Overall, though, this is a fine, new addition to my regular Halloween viewing list, goofy and inconsistent music regardless. 

The Bloody Judge (1970) [aka Night of the Blood Monster; Trial of the Witches; and many more...]

Dir: Jesús Franco

TC4P Rating: 5

I not only think that the British tradition of having wigs lodged atop the heads of their judges and lawyers is quaint and rather silly in these modern times (I will put on the brakes before calling it stupid, but.. yeah...), the thought of them actually makes me a bit physically ill. Much in the way that I used to be so repelled by early ‘70s fashion in films (even though I grew up in that time) that I couldn’t watch certain films without a feeling of nauseousness, the courtroom attire of England does the same thing to me when I see it in a movie or on TV. I even want to wretch at the very thought of it, and I really don’t know why. Which is precisely the reason I have always put off viewing The Bloody Judge for eons. Almost always available for me to view, I have never been able to get past the image of Christopher Lee topped off with one of those ridiculous wigs on his noggin, no matter how enjoyably maniacal he was likely to behave in the film.

Well, consider me wrong. I should have watched The Bloody Judge a long time ago. Not that it is any great shakes as a “normal" film, but as a gonzo piece of shock horror, this is a pretty lowdown and dirty but gorgeously shot flick with some nasty torture scenes and bountiful nudity throughout. What you don’t get is the loopiness and lack of narrative drive inherent in many of director Jesús “Jess" Franco’s soft-core “masterpieces” (I am rather fond of some of those loopier films, especially Vampyros Lesbos). 

But what you do get from the other Franco films is the lovely Maria Rohm, who also co-starred with Christopher Lee in other Franco epics, including Count Dracula (1970) and The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968), as well as in several films directed by Jeremy Summers. It is no coincidence that the producer of all of these films, including The Bloody Judge, is her husband, the notorious Harry Alan Towers. Rohm certainly adds sensuality to a film that might otherwise just be unrelentingly grim. (This is my subtle way of saying she gets naked a lot and it distracts you happily from the torture bits.) Of course, I am joking… she doesn’t distract from the torture bits at all, since her biggest scene in the film is when she is locked in a cage and forced to lick the blood from a bound torture victim. I cringe in fear for any perv who actually gets his jollies from such a portrayal, but I will admit that the scene does add to the creeping effectiveness and overall griminess of the film.

Lee himself is solid as usual as the lead character, only loosely based on the real 17th century judge, George Jeffreys, who bullied his way through defendants, attorneys, and juries alike, and in this film’s version of the events surrounding the Bloody Assizes, dispatches accused witches to their doom without remorse. Of course, Jeffreys begins to grow worrisome over the chaos ensuing from his brutal courtroom tactics, and he begins to have nightmares of torture. That he will undoubtedly get his comeuppance is part of the fun of watching Lee in such a villainous role. 

It all depends on one's tolerance of tooth-yanking, hand-spiking, racking, digit-chopping, and beheadings, Don’t go looking for historical accuracy and try looking instead for pure psychotronic thrills, and you will definitely get something out of this.

Crypt of the Vampire (1964) [La cripta e l'incubo aka Terror in the Crypt; Crypt of Horror]

Dir: Camillo Mastrocinque

TC4P Rating: 5

If you have seen and loved Roger Vadim's Blood and Roses (1960) as I have and do, then this Spanish-Italian version of Sheridan Le Fanu's novella, Carmilla will likely pale in comparison to the more famous earlier film. But it is a worthwhile rendering of its own, even if most character names have been changed, some bad dubbing is to be endured, and the director more than once betrays his obvious influencing by Mario Bava (never a bad thing).

Christopher Lee gets a heroic role this time, albeit a tortured one, and as in villainous roles, he has enough talent and range to pull the part off just fine. As Count Karnstein, he has to do battle against the light lesbian leanings of a mysterious vampire who is leaving drained bodies in her wake. It could be his daughter, who may be the reincarnation of an ancestor rumored to have committed such crimes, or it could be her recent companion, who has instilled herself into the daily life of the castle. The black and white cinematography is routinely effective if not spectacular, the sets and darkness of the castle are nicely rendered, and the heavy breathing, haunted ladies look divine onscreen.

This is the one of the three of these films where I am closest to giving it a higher rating, if only because it is the least gratuitous of the trio. This is likely due to it coming from a less permissive time in cinema (and just a handful of years earlier), so it relies more on subtlety and suggestion. However, there is a grandly gruesome sequence involving a dog tugging on the foot of a hanged peddler with his hand severed. Yes, it is derivative of Bava, but when a witch is seen using that hand as a candelabra in the very next scene while she invokes a spell, then you will know the film is a keeper.

[Postscript: I have since watched both Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism and Crypt of the Vampire again, and while I am keeping Torture Chamber's rating at "5," I have shifted Crypt up to a "6," which is my general rating for "good."]