DEATH RACE: BEYOND ANARCHY (2018)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

It is devoutly to be hoped that this is the last of the DEATH RACE series. I've certainly seen worse serials, but from the first in the series, the franchise, as re-invented for the 21st century, has remained resolutely formulaic.

BEYOND ANARCHY takes place some time after the 2008 DEATH RACE, making this the only direct sequel. The 2008 sequel focused on the prison's attempt to make "new fish" Jensen Ames assume the identity of the once-popular racer Frankenstein. One presumes that even after the demise of the 2008 villains, someone else picked up the gauntlet and eventually enlisted someone to take over the role. In fact, the new Frankenstein is so successful that he becomes the de facto ruler of "The Sprawl," a subculture that has grown out of the prison community. Indeed, there are only occasional scenes of oversight of the Sprawl by prison authorities. The Sprawl is actually closer in concept to the aforementioned film TERMINAL ISLAND, in which convicts are turned loose on a remote island to sort out their own affairs.

Frankenstein isn't the hero this time, though. Another new fish, Connor Gibson (Zack McGowan, a dead ringer for Keanu Reeves), is enlisted by the warden to challenge the power of Frankenstein so that the prison can bring the cons back into line. Danny Trejo reprises his role from the other films to serve in Gibson's pit crew, while Danny Glover signs on in a related support-role. Gibson and Frankenstein exchange bon mots about their destined encounter, and despite all the distractions Gibson finds time to romance a local girl from the Sprawl.

There are enough fights and fast-cars to keep one engaged on the purely kinetic level, and a few of the lines are at least passable "tough guy" dialogue. But I don't think the returns can diminish much more than this before descending into total incoherence, and so ANARCHY seems like an ideal place to park this particular vehicle for good.

THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH (1959), CIRCUS OF HORRORS (1960)

PHENOMENALITY: (1) *marvelous,* (2) *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Anton Diffring certainly lucked out, Many actors-- Peter Lorre, Basil Rathbone, Bela Lugosi-- became typed after having starred in horror films. Diffring was tapped to headline Hammer's THE MAN WHO COULD CHEAT DEATH because Peter Cushing declined the role. Diffring then also starred in a second terror-flick the next year, Anglo-Amalgamated's CIRCUS OF HORRORS. Yet he continued to act in numerous mainstream movies thereafter, only occasionally dipping his toes into other metaphenomenal fare.

CHEAT adapted Barre Lyndon's play THE MAN IN HALF MOON STREET, which had previously been adapted in 1945 under that name, though I have the impression that the film was not a major success. The premise is that scientist Georges Bonnet (Diffring) becomes a renowned amateur sculptor in late 19th-century Paris, as well as a social bon vivant, since he appears to be a handsome man in his thirties. In truth, Bonnet is one hundred and four years old, his youth preserved by a glandular experiment he conducted with his now aged colleague Ludwig, the only person who knows his secret. Over the decades, Bonnet and Ludwig have staved off the Devil of Age by harvesting glands from corpses and transplanting them into Bonnet. Bonnet's doing so well that he throws over his current flame, a model named Margo, in order to pursue an earlier love, Janine (Hazel Court)-- much to the displeasure of another of Janine's conquests, Doctor Gerrard (Christopher Lee).

Unfortunately, if Bonnet doesn't get his gland-fix in time, he becomes a green-eyed maniac. Ludwig's hand has succumbed to paralysis, so he can't perform the transplant operation any more. His suggestion is to acquire the services of the best possible surgeon to take over-- none other than Gerrard. 

CHEAT is an okay thriller, but it's very talky and Bonnet's downfall feels by-the-numbers, with no strong insights as to why he wanted immortality so badly in the first place. Diffring is decent but unexciting, but I doubt Cushing could have done any better. Chris Lee's supporting role resembles many others he did during the sixties, where he was injected just for the effect of his name. However, he makes the most of an underwritten role. Bonnet's transformations are decent but unremarkable.

CIRCUS OF HORRORS is a very different beast. Pop fiction is full of polymath mad scientists who can conjure up both laser-ray cannons and mutated beast-men with a flick of the wrist. However, to my knowledge the evil Doctor Schuler of CIRCUS is the first time a mad plastic surgeon revealed himself to be equally expert at running a circus-- even one nicknamed "the Jinxed Circus."

In 1947, Schuler flees English prosecution for a botched surgical operation and ends up with his two aides in France. By chance he comes across a run-down circus, suffering from a postwar disinterest in cheery attractions. The young daughter of the rumpot circus-owner has a disfiguring scar, so Schuler talks the owner into letting him fix the girl's face. In gratitude the father signs over part ownership to Schuler, after which the father conveniently gets himself killed by a performing bear. (It's one of the few "accidents" at the circus for which Schuler is not directly responsible.)

Years pass with Schuler and his assistants-- one being a woman deeply in love with him-- making "Schuler's circus" a resounding success. Yet Schuler isn't content with square living. He believes himself a genius of plastic surgery, and since he can't practice openly, he recruits low-class women with disfigurements and entices them to join the circus in exchange for facial repair. If Diffring's Bonnet was Faust, Schuler is a road-company Mephisto-- and any time his conquests try to leave his service, they have unfortunate accidents.

However, the circus's reputation sparks an investigation by a young reporter, who chats up Nicole, once the little daughter of the late circus-owner, and now a lissome young acrobat. (At least her transformation into a performer makes sense, given her having lived with the circus all her life. The shady ladies, not so much.) Inevitably the sinister surgeon is undone, less by the investigator than by Schuler's own controlling nature. 

Both the direction of Sidney Hayers and the script of George Baxt (both of whom would later work together on 1962's BURN WITCH BURN) provide good barnstorming entertainment to paper over the lapses in logic. Diffring makes a good hissable (if one-dimensional) villain, and of all the mad scientists who pursued evil to nurture their egos, Schuler must be the only one who "ran away to join the circus."

DEAD AGAIN IN TOMBSTONE (2017)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Despite the sequel-setup at the end of DEAD IN TOMBSTONE, it took another four years for Guerrero de la Cruz (Danny Trejo) to get a second revival.

I mentioned in my review of the previous film that the idea of a protagonist going around killing evildoers for Satan was a dubious one. The sequel's makers evidently decided to drop that concept, for there's just a quick mention of Guerrero going around doing the devil's business, but with no appearances of Satan or Hell as such. Guerrero still wields the powers of Hell-- he can survive a lot of punishment, such as getting shot up or blown up by dynamite-- but he doesn't seem to have to report to his Infernal Majesty any more.

Guerrero suddenly gets a yen to check on his only surviving relatives. a grandmother and a daughter named Alice (Elysia Rotaru), in the town of Silver River. (Despite the title, none of the action takes place in Tombstone.) But there's a new enemy in the offing: ex-Confederate officer Jackson Boomer (Jake Busey). Boomer is convinced that Guerrero's family possesses a book of Satanic spells with which Boomer can raise the dead and conquer the world. Eventually the evildoer succeeds in raising a handful of zombies clad in Confederate grey, and despite the presence of other anachronistic dialogue, no one makes the obvious pun about the South rising again. Guerrero's grandma is killed during all the contentions, which forces Alice to bond with the father she never knew. In addition, there's a vaguely angelic doctor who comes to Guerrero's aid, and so the agent of Satan is forced to make a definite choice between heaven and hell. 

The direction and scripting is no less formulaic than before, but because the budget is leaner, the action set-pieces aren't as overblown-- though the only one I really liked was a long catfight between Alice and Boomer's prostitute ally. And despite the banality of Boomer's raise-the-undead scheme, and of Confederate villains generally, Jake Busey makes an appealing dastard. The film ends so as to suggest that there won't be any more adventures for Guerrero as an agent of Hell-- which definitely sounds like a blessing for this reviewer.

DEAD IN TOMBSTONE (2013)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

There's the germ of a decent idea in this DTV "weird western," though the idea itself is nothing new and in many ways contradicts the Christian mythology of Satan's influence on Earth. Most Biblical accounts indicate that Satan wants evil to proliferate on Earth, the better to spite God. Therefore it seems counter-intuitive that His Infernal Majesty would do anything that decreases Earth's supply of evildoers.

Nevertheless, the idea of Satan empowering agents who go around harvesting criminals to send them to Hell has persisted in popular culture, at least since 1940, when Timely Comics unleashed one such agent, the original Black Widow. Sometimes there are variations: evil souls escape Hell and Satan's agent has to send them back, as in the 1998 teleseries BRIMSTONE. But DEAD IN TOMBSTONE doesn't bother to ring in any more logical setup.

The film does start off with what almost sounds like an ironic take on the prevalent mythos of the Wild West. The West was not an arena devoted to duels of good and evil, but rather, to conflicts between differing levels of evil. However, nothing in the story follows up on this potential. 

Guerrero de la Cruz (Danny Trejo) is a career outlaw who has led the Blackwater Gang on many a robbery. His sole virtue is that when we see him organize his gang to raid the bank of Tombstone, he tells his men-- including his rash half-brother Red (Anthony Michael Hall)-- that he wants them to pull off the crime with as little killing as possible. However, Red wants to lead the gang, and to that end he talks the other five owlhoots into backshooting their leader.

Down to hell goes Guerrero, and in the interests of budget, all we see of hell looks like a blacksmith's forge, occupied by Satan (Mickey Rourke), though he's billed in the credits as "The Blacksmith." Satan begins gratuitously torturing Guerrero, but by accident or design lets slip that he needs more evil souls to stoke his furnace. This concept is more in line with the evil acts of fairy-tale creatures like ogres, but this potential too is dropped. Guerrero makes a bet with Satan: in exchange for being returned to life, Guerrero will execute all six gang-members and send them to Satan's fires. Satan agrees, but only if the bandit-leader can kill all six in one day, and all by his own hand. If Guerrero fails, he returns to the service of the devil.

The avenger of Hell returns to Earth and proceeds to lay waste to the Blackwater Gang, naturally saving the worst traitor, half-brother Red, for the last. Guerrero gets unwanted aid from sexy sheriff's wife Calathea (Dina Meyer), who wants vengance for the gang's murder of her husband. This complicates Guerrero's quest to ace all six bandits himself, but as one might expect, he does show his inner hero by protecting the feisty femme. In the end, Guerrero kills all of his targets but loses his bet, so that he's consigned to continue as Satan's harvester.

TOMBSTONE is replete with many violent scenes of shooting and fighting, but none stand out. Trejo's performance as the accursed badass is sturdy but similarly unremarkable, while Hall and Meyer do their best with unrewarding characters. Despite the apparent setup for a sequel, it took another four years for Guerrero to get "dead again."

ELFEN LIED (2004)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

I rated the original 2002-2005 manga ELFEN LIED as one of the most impressive manga serials in terms of its pervading mythicity. The 2004 TV adaptation lasted just one season, consisting of thirteen episodes, meaning that the show wrapped up long before mangaka Lynn Okamoto was even close to finishing his opus. So, given that the storyline of the anime had to be shortened with a generally arbitrary conclusion, is it as mythic as the original story?

The answer probably won't be the same for every uncompleted adaptation, but ELFEN LIED has the advantage that, as noted in my manga review, of not being "densely plotted." Two ordinary school kids, Kouta and Yuka, give shelter to Nyu, a strange young woman with horns, little realizing that she's a member of a race, the Diaclonii, that evolved parallel with human beings. Though Nyu seems childish and innocent, she has a second persona, Lucy, who is filled with bitterness against humanity for years of ill treatment. Lucy-- capable of slaughtering people with her powers-- has escaped from a nearby scientific installation, and the agents of that installation are willing to move heaven and earth to imprison her once more. Thus the Japanese youngsters and their small coterie of friends are plunged into a world of ultraviolent assassins and monsters. 

The thirteen episodes just barely have time to introduce all of the principals, and a couple of minor villains (both killed by the series' end) before the aforementioned climax. One episode does allude to a new "Big Bad," whose function in the manga was to raise the stakes of the ongoing conflict. This villain's presence suggests that the anime's producers may have been hedging their bets in case they were granted a second season. However, at least the third evildoer remains on the sidelines and doesn't generate a plotline of his own, so there's no great loss when he fades from the narrative.

My concept of mythicity depends on a process I call concrescence, which is generally defined as a "growing together of separate parts." Mythic concrescence appears in narratives where the "parts" we generally call "symbols," and which I call "correlations," join so as to form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. This isn't always possible with a plot-heavy narrative. However, because both the manga of ELFEN LIED and the anime adaptation focus largely upon characters, both are able to illustrate the tribulations of the freakish Diaclonii, monsters who fiercely desire the pleasures of humanity but who are denied them by their very nature. The conclusion of the anime bears some broad similarities to that of the manga, so it may be that Okamoto was consulted about the general direction of his concept so that the climax would possess some of the manga's general resonance. All that said, the anime's chief virtue is its potential to introduce audiences to the manga's terrible beauties.

Note: after the conclusion of the series, a thirty-minute ELFEN LIED OVA was marketed. I have not seen this, as it was not included with the streamed series, but my understanding is that its events remained within the span of the timeline for the thirteen episodes, which suggests that the OVA did not advance the existing narrative further.

DARIO ARGENTO'S DRACULA (2012)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, metaphysical, sociological*

This film debuted on movie screens under the title DRACULA 3D, though unlike numerous other efforts of the kind, the non-3D version just looks like any other film. The title DARIO ARGENTO'S DRACULA is at least more honest than that of the 1992 BRAM STOKER'S DRACULA, since the latter adaptation did not follow the Stoker book, but rather structured its narrative to include whatever struck the fancy of director Francis Ford Coppola. Argento like Coppola just emulated whatever aspects of the Stoker book pleased him, and added in a number of extrinsic elements. So maybe the best of all possible titles for this effort would be ARGENTO'S COPPOLA'S DRACULA? That said, for all its demerits the 1992 film does engage with many elements of Bram Stoker's mythic figure, while Argento doesn't produce a compelling take on the vampire count. 

ARGENTO'S is not the first Dracula film to take place fully in Eastern Europe, thus eschewing the "English invasion" trope of the book. Argento does work in a little more social commentary regarding Dracula's monarchical control of the Hungarian town Passo Borgo. Several times the script emphasizes that the ruling powers know well what a parasite Dracula (Thomas Kretschmann)  is, but they won't do anything about it, not even warning Englishman Jonathan Harker when he comes to Castle Dracula to catalog the count's library. Even before Harker's arrival, the audience sees the evil vampire attack and enthrall local sexpot Tanya, making her into his bride. (Like HORROR OF DRACULA, this version eschews the canonical threesome of vampire wives.) When Harker does arrive, the castle is inhabited only by the count and his bride, and both of them are eager to prey upon the young mortal's blood. 

This version of Dracula doesn't need Harker for any real services, so he immediately turns Harker into an undead. There's a vague suggestion that somehow the vampire lord used Harker to lure his wife (not fiancee) Mina (Marta Gastini) to Passo Borgo. The book intimates that Mina resembles one of Dracula's brides, and over time this was elaborated into the idea that Harker's beloved was the reincarnation of a long-dead countess, a trope used to strong effect in Coppola's film. In any case, when Mina arrives she's greeted by old classmate Lucy Kisslinger. Like the Lucy of Stoker, this version makes brief reference to her having more than one paramour. And Argento sorta-kinda follows Stoker by having Dracula vamp Lucy before Mina, though there really isn't any particular reason for Argento's count to fixate on Mina's friend.

Mina seeks out the castle but the Count puts her off, claiming he sent Harker out of town on an errand. This gives Dracula the chance to put his moves on Mina, telling her of her resemblance to his dead wife. Mina seems to recollect the count, intimating that reincarnation may be a possibility, but in due time she begins to fight back against the Count's control. Some of the local bigwigs also contemplate a rebellion, but the vampire appears among them and slaughters them all.

Providentially, vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing (Rutger Hauer) arrives in Passo Borgo to save the day. He slays Lucy, Tanya the vampirized Harker, and Renfield (who's an asylum resident as in the book, but who has almost nothing to do in this film). To be sure, the vampire-slayer only manages to do so with the help of his anti-vamp paraphernalis, not because he's a good fighter per se. This is demonstrated by the climax, when Dracula beats Van Helsing to a pulp and is only slain when rebellious Mina gets hold of one of the hunter's weapons: a garlic-infused bullet. However, after all these alarums and excursions, the finale brings the vamp back to life for a "surprise ending."

While this flick is nowhere near as bad as Argento's previous outing with a classic monster, the misbegotten 1998 PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, it's still generally underwhelming, despite the fact that Argento has some sort of violent activity going on most of the time. The abortive love-affair of Dracula and Mina casts few sparks despite the actors' attempts to give it their all, and Argento seems to have decided that Dracula's traditional metamorphoses were not cool enough, since the director has the vamp changing into such things as a swarm of flies and a (very risible) giant grasshopper. Rutger Hauer makes a decent Van Helsing, and Argento does at least give the guys in the audience a couple of very sexy vampiresses in both Miriam Giovanelli and the director's own daughter Asia. 

THE CRAVING (1981)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

The ninth film in the "Hombre Lobo" series also goes under the title NIGHT OF THE WEREWOLF, which is serviceable enough, though the video title THE CRAVING has the advantage of making the customer wonder who's doing the craving and what they're fancying. CRAVING is substantially a remake of 1971's THE WEREWOLF VS.THE VAMPIRE WOMAN, though with a number of references to other horror films worked in. 

Once again the legend of Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) gets rebooted. This time he starts out as a nobleman in 15th-century Hungary, condemned to death for the Satanic activities he undertook with his mistress Elizabeth Bathory (played by Julia Saly and based on the real-life mass murderess of the same name). The trial scene apes elements of Bava's 1960 BLACK SUNDAY, wherein a vampire-witch and her servant were executed in medieval times, but in CRAVING, Waldemar is already a werewolf, so he must be sealed in a crypt with a silver cross. (Note: in the 1971 film, a silver cross was used to restrain the titular "vampire woman.") Bathory is executed and consigned to a separate tomb.

Fast-forward to 20th century Europe: Erika, a student of black magic, decides that she wants to resurrect Bathory, and even kills an old professor to gain access to his records. She then talks two other students, Karen and Barbara, into joining her on a trip to the Bathory tomb in Hungary. But before they reach their goal, a couple of unwise tomb-thieves (almost surely copied from a similar pair in FRANKENSTEIN MEETS THE WOLF MAN) invade Waldemar's tomb, swipe the silver cross, and inadvertently revive the werewolf. As in the 1971 film, the recrudescent lycanthrope then somehow gets hold of an estate, so that when the three lissome ladies arrive, he's there to save them from vile rapists with his trusty crossbow, and then to invite them to his home.

Since Waldemar always charms at least one lady per film, this time it's Karen who exchanges goo-goo gazes with Waldemar. This dalliance possibly distracts Waldemar, who has no desire to see his former mistress revived, so that Erika successfully brings Bathory back to life. Bathory sets about vampirizing various locals, particularly hot young women, until Waldemar unleashes his inner wolf and the two fiends battle it out. The fight is better choreographed than the one from 1971, though the ending is more doleful, for Waldemar kills his love even as she kills him.

The budget for CRAVING was higher so that the makeup and photography counts among the best for the Hombre Lobo series, though it never conveys the dreamlike mood of WEREWOLF VS. THE VAMPIRE WOMAN. Though the Naschy-wolf often encountered other monsters, most were generic types-- a mummy, a yeti, etc. Thus CRAVING is the only one in which El Hombre Lobo meets an "established" monster, even if it is a fictionalized version of the historical Bathory, making this the only true crossover in the series.

THE HORRIBLE SEXY VAMPIRE (1971)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

Though not expecting much, I'd long wanted to see this Spanish vampire flick just for the daffiness of the English title alone. I'm sure I'll never watch it again, but my verdict is that it was moderately entertaining for one pass, as long as one's expectations are low.

One online review found it the dullest vampire film on record, and that can't be, since I already reviewed the dullest, the 1967 talkfest BLOOD OF THE VIRGINS. In contrast to that snoozer, SEXY at least has a basic backbone of incidents and a dab of characterization.

Even though the German undead Count Winnegar is outfitted in the usual Lugosi-esque regalia, he actually does not come off as sexy at any time. He's first "seen" as an invisible force violently attacking a couple at a motel somewhere around Stuttgart, and these scenes are modestly effective, even if he was invisible just to save money. A would-be vampire-hunting mortician convinces a local commissioner to investigate the long uninhabited castle of Winnegar, but they have no time to learn anything, for Winnegar is up and about and kills them both. The bodies are found but the other cops just think it's a serial killer at work.

Then a young fellow, Count Oblensky, shows up to discuss his inheritance of the castle with the new commissioner. Oblensky claims to be the great-grandson of Winnegar, and he looks just like him, so surely he's just the vampire masquerading as a regular aristocrat. But no, when Oblensky moves into his new digs, he soon finds that he's got an unwelcome ancestor hanging around. He tries to tell the cops but they just think he's drunk.

He's joined in the castle by his girlfriend, but she doesn't believe him either. By now the audience may be wondering why the resident vampire hasn't knocked off his descendant, but toward the end of the film Winnegar belatedly tells Oblensky that he's tired of being a bloodsucker and hopes the young man will end his cursed life. However, Winnegar changes his mind when he sees the cute blonde babe and decides to convert her to his side. Oblensky manages to destroy him, and for another minor surprise, the girlfriend does NOT end the film by revealing that Winnegar made her fang-happy.

Though Winnegar is the central character he's pretty dully conceived and acted, though German actor Wal Davis does considerably better with Oblensky. There's a creditable amount of female nudity in the film, though one victim, killed just after emerging from a shower, may hold the record for shortest shower in a horror film.

EXORCISM (1975)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

The best thing I can say about this dull exorcism drama, co-written by headliner Paul Naschy, is that it does not attempt a beat-for-beat imitation of the groundbreaking 1973 EXORCIST. That said, it doesn't have much of an identity of its own, either.

One online review perceptively pointed out that whereas the possession of Regan in the 1973 film made audiences empathize with the victim, here possess-ee Leila (Mercedes Molina), is just a rich girl acting out long before she gets invaded. She's seen attending some sex-and-drugs party out in the countryside, and later dialogue implies that her boyfriend may be a Satanist as well as a drug-pusher. It's possible that she gets possessed at this event, though the sequence of events is never clear, and the maybe-Satanist guy disappears halfway through the narrative.

When Leila starts getting more violent, her mother and sisters initially think that she's reacting to the recent death of her father. We never know anything much about the father or the circumstances of his passing, but very late in the picture, it's stated that it's his spirit, not a demon's, possessing Leila. But the script gets zero dramatic impact out of this.

The family calls in Father Adrian (Naschy, though voiced in English by Jack Taylor). The priest mucks about with a lot of talking-head scenes that kill time until the exorcism climax, which proves utterly forgettable. Naschy undercuts his own strengths by playing a fundamentally dull "good guy." The ladies are pretty but they too aren't given anything interesting to do. Not the dullest of its type but still not very diverting.

TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER (1976)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

I hadn't seen the Hammer film TO THE DEVIL A DAUGHTER in thirty years, and even then, that viewing might have been a censored TV cut. I remembered nothing much about it, which usually means that there wasn't much worth recalling. Then I saw that DAUGHTER was offered on streaming. As I'd also come into possession of the 1953 Dennis Wheatley book from which DAUGHTER was adapted, reviewed here, I decided to read the source novel for purposes of cross-comparison. I'm aware of the school of thought that claims that the film adaptation is its own animal, and that comparisons to the source work are untenable. But I believe that the latter proposition is only true when the adapters have brought something new to the game. However, in the case of director Peter Sykes and the three scripters (one of whom, Christopher Wicking, had collaborated with Sykes on the intriguing DEMONS OF THE MIND), there's nothing to their DAUGHTER but a bad parody of the original narrative. 

Wheatley's occult thriller is a dense adventure-tale, with lots of exotic locales, daredevil feats and escapes, and a good smattering of Christian metaphysics (without being compromised by the author's reactionary worldview). Even a film with a multi-million dollar production budget probably would have cut a lot of the book's scenes for simplicity's sake. Yet budgetary limitations are not a sufficient excuse. The 1968 DEVIL'S BRIDE is a creditable adaptation of Wheatley's original work, and it was budgeted at under $300,000 (American), while DAUGHTER was roughly $100,000 over that. (From the look of the film, the extra dough probably went to pay for the star power of the lead.) Wheatley was very displeased with the adaptation, and given that he passed away the next year, the filmmakers might have done better just to steal outright the basics of the "bride consecrated to Satan" narrative and not bother attributing any of their folderol to Wheatley.

I fully understand why Wicking and company wouldn't choose to follow Wheatley's lead as far as introducing the plight of said bride, one Catherine Beddows (Natassja Kinski), since the prose author devotes several chapters to building things up. But even though the script has attempted to streamline the exposition, the pacing remains draggy, and this unfortunately gives the viewer a lot of time to think about improbabilities. In the book, the heroine's father promises her to Satan and then makes a minor effort to liberate her, though the book's main heroes are almost totally responsible for coming to the heroine's aid. DAUGHTER opens with Henry Beddows (Denholm Elliot, giving the film's best performance of a badly written character) approaching occult thriller-writer John Verney (Richard Widmark). The two have never met, and there's nothing to prove that Beddows knows anything about whether or not Verney believes in occult forces. Yet out of nowhere, to make the ramshackle plot work, Verney obligingly takes Beddows' place in picking up Catherine when she flies into London from the continent. Indeed, whatever Verney's plans may have been-- he's in London for a book tour-- he drops everything to take this teen-aged girl, also a nun of a mysterious Bavarian order, under his wing. Meanwhile, Beddows disappears from the story, having given Verney no way to contact him, and at that point Beddows starts to act more like the novel-character, going into seclusion to avoid the vengeance of the Satanist order to which he has sacrificed Catherine.

The novel makes much of the fact that the heroine was not baptized, with the result that it's possible for her to be sold to a Satanist cult, run by a devious ex-cleric of the Church of England. This also gives the heroine a Jekyll-Hyde nature: good girl by day, not so nice by night. I suppose Catherine, who is being pursued by the forces of renegade priest Father Michael (Christopher Lee), was probably not given a standard baptism if she was brought up in a fake Christian order. But the script is similarly weak about telling the audience just why Catherine's soul is compromised, and one result of this failing is that it's never clear to what extent Father Michael controls her. We see the evil priest casting spells from a distance, using sympathetic magic to strangle people with a cord, but Catherine is neither a very good or very bad girl. She's a plot device, and as such, she remains vacant as a character from first to last. She does kill one person charged with watching Catherine in Verney's absence, but she's not interesting as either Jekyll or Hyde. Father Michael is also a pallid villain, though Lee brings his usual gravitas to the role, and Widmark as Verney is never more than adequate. Strangely, the script devotes an unusual amount of attention to author Verney's friends, none of whom are important to the story. Did the writers do so simply so that the star would get more talking-heads scenes?

The one sequence that owes most to the Wheatley book takes place after Father Michael has summoned Catherine away from Verney. By this time Verney is fully convinced that the priest plans to make the innocent girl "a vessel of Astharoth," so the author seeks out Beddows in order to learn where Father Michael does his sacrificin'. Beddows knows the location, but won't tell Verney until the latter brings back a token by which Beddows dedicated his soul to Satan. This sequence is thoroughly logical in the book but thoroughly muddled in the movie, and the latter serves only to give Verney an extra hurdle to traverse before the final confrontation of the writer and the Satanic priest. 

I think I would have found DAUGHTER excessively dull and plodding had I never read the source novel. The writers and director show no insight into the Christian concepts of salvation and damnation, and the result is that all the "Satanic panic" never rises above the level of your basic boogieman. The only halfway compelling scene is a hallucinatory ritual in which Catherine has sex with Father Michael in a golden mask-- although at times it seems it's not the priest, but a golden statue being manipulated by cultists. This resembles nothing in the book, but at least it's one isolated attempt to bring a proper set of weirdness to the proceedings.

X-MEN: DARK PHOENIX (2019)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological, sociological*

Since I have a suspicion that the MCU will screw up the X-Men worse than anything in the Singer-verse, I wanted the last one-- written and directed by Singer's sometime collaborator Simon Kinberg-- to be exceptional, at least in some small way. And I guess that's what I got, though there weren't that many little things to like.

It sounded promising when I first read that Kinberg wasn't happy with X-MEN: THE LAST STAND, the franchise's previous adaptation of the "Dark Phoenix saga," on which he Kinberg had collaborated. However, PHOENIX displays many of the worst problems of the Singer X-Men: a cavalier disregard for carefully building the appeal of the ensemble characters and the over-emphasis of particular fan-favorites at the expense of the whole. (At least by 2019 Hugh Jackman had done LOGAN, ostensibly concluding his run with the role of Wolverine, but that doesn't keep Kinberg from shoe-horning Michael Fassbender's Magneto into a story where he really has no coherent part to play.)

Thanks to the reboot of the first X-Men continuity in DAYS OF FUTURE PAST, Kinberg could ignore Jean Grey's previous incarnation of the Phoenix. However, he also pole-vaults over X-MEN APOCALYPSE (set in 1983) by setting PHOENIX in 1992. In addition to the indispensable Jean Grey, the script keeps Cyclops, Beast, Mystique, Storm, Quicksilver and Nightcrawler, as well as the actors portraying them. But jumping ahead so far also liberates Kinberg from the need to say what happened to other X-members from APOCALYPSE, like Psylocke, Jubilee, Havok and Angel. The result is that the viewer doesn't really know where the characters stand at the film's opening, with the exception of Jean Grey. 

For Jean we get an extended flashback showing how as a child she accidentally killed her mother, which resulted in her father spurning his daughter by consigning her to Xavier's school. The script hammers in the point that Jean's been made psychologically unstable by her trauma, and later she'll contend with her "new father" Charles Xavier for manipulating her to become a member of his superhero team.

One small pleasure of the opening, though, is that in 1993 the X-Men have redeemed themselves enough that when they board a rocket to rescue astronauts on a damaged space shuttle, the populace actually cheers for them. To be sure, Kinberg only dangles this moment of traditional heroism in front of the viewer in order to snatch it away later. 

In the process of saving the astronauts, Jean is irradiated by a mysterious cosmic force that amplifies her power to godlike levels. She confronts the father who deserted her, causing both the X-Men and the local cops to attempt stopping her. Jean's interference with the cops puts her on the law's wanted list, while during Jean's altercation with her partners, Mystique is accidentally killed. 

Mystique's death provides a very anti-climactic conclusion to the long running arc of how her character was the "bone" over which Xavier and Magneto competed, but it does provide Kinberg with a reason to squeeze the master of magnetism into the flick. Jean, overflowing with both power and grief, seeks out her former foe, who out of nowhere is suddenly running the mutant colony of Genosha. Magneto doesn't want to give Jean a haven, so although he does defend her somewhat from armed pursuers, Jean flees once again.

During all this, the audience has seen some mysterious persons scoping out Jean, and these turn out to be the remnants of an alien race, the D'Bari. This race had a minor role in the comic-book "Dark Phoenix" continuity, but the film elevates them into antagonists. They reveal to Jean that she's become the incarnation of a cosmic force, the Phoenix, which years ago destroyed the homeworld of the D'Bari. The survivors of that catastrophe dogged the trail of the Phoenix until the cosmic force invested itself in Jean, at which point the aliens convince Jean to transfer her power to one of their number, Vuk (Jessica Chastain). However, when it's revealed that the D'Bari intend to use the Phoenix-power for evil ends, the X-Men must enter the fray.

The basic plot is serviceable, but none of the character bits are compelling, and so even "big events" like Mystique's death and the conflict of Jean and Xavier fail to impress. Sophie Turner does a creditable job with Jean, but at least some of her success stems from the fact that she gets more scenes than any other performer. Extremely consequential questions like "what exactly is the Phoenix" are ignored as if the audience doesn't care as long as there are a lot of fight-scenes-- though the relatively low budget of PHOENIX keeps these from even coming up to the level of APOCALYPSE. One last small pleasure is that PHOENIX, like most of the X-films, largely eschews the Progressive ideology of the MCU productions, though there is one banal moment where an irritated Jean Grey remarks that the group ought to be called "The X-Women."

DEATH RACE 3: INFERNO (2013)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Since all the principal actors from the previous film return, and the director and writers are all the same, INFERNO is inevitably more of the same as Part 2. Considering how some franchises have wandered aimlessly looking for inspiration, though, predictability has some charms.

The biggest change-up is that the script shifts the action from Terminal Island to a South African race course, presumably because some of the film was shot in that terrain. The Ving Rhames character from the previous entry serves two purposes before he disappears: he fixes Lucas's disfigured face (so main actor Luke Goss doesn't have to remain in makeup all the time) and he loses ownership of the Death Race franchise and signs it over to a rich British guy, Niles York, who insists on the change of venue. At this point all of Lucas's friends, including his lover Katrina, think he's dead, although they've had suspicions about Frankenstein after working with him. York tells Lucas that he wants the driver to lose one of his races, and Lucas capitulates to keep York from harming his friends.

Eventually Katrina and the pit crew find out Frankenstein's true identity, and all resent not being taken into his confidence, despite his excuse of York's blackmail. Katrina no longer wants to be Frankenstein's navigator, but she's obliged by York to compete with a bunch of other female prisoners for the privilege. (The battle is something of a reprise of the "Death Match" setup from Part 2, but with a melee of girls kicking the crap out of each other.) York and his female aide Satana find yet more ways to torment Lucas into obedience, but of course, by the final race Lucas comes up with a means to defeat not just his competitors but also the man pulling the strings.

The Lucas character is still underwritten, but the script gives the support players more to do, particularly Danny Trejo and Tanit Phoenix. These two prequels come to a predictable but satisfying end and the final entry in the remake series comprises a literal sequel to the 2008 DEATH RACE. 

DEATH RACE 2 (2010)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

The 2008 DEATH RACE doesn't register as a prequel to the cult film DEATH RACE 2000, but there's no question that DEATH RACE 2 is the prequel to the 2008 film. It's also, despite being cheaper, a little less formulaic in its script, even though one of the writers was Paul W.S. Anderson, who both wrote and directed the previous entry.

True, almost twenty minutes is burned away establishing that Carl Lucas (Luke Goss) is a really boss getaway driver for a heist gang. Nevertheless, he's captured and sentenced to private prison Terminal Island. One problem on the horizon, though he doesn't know it, is that his old boss intends to have Lucas bumped off in prison. His more immediate concern, though, is that he gets pulled into a televised game called-- "Death Match," because "Death Race" hasn't been formulated yet. 

The evil genius behind Death Match, which is simply two guys fighting in an arena with weapons like flamethrowers, is September Jones (Lauren Cohan). She's a beauty contest winner who climbed the corporate ladder on her back, so to speak. However, the ratings for Death Match are down, and her boss (Ving Rhames) threatens termination. So she comes up with the not-very-logical idea of having prisoners pitted against one another in a televised "Death Race," and she persuades Lucas to be one of her drivers. She's also the creator of the idea of having most of the navigators provided by the women's prison. Not surprisingly, sparks fly when Lucas crosses paths with hottie queen Katrina (Tanit Phoenix), not least because unlike previous navigators in the franchise, Katrina is a certified tough girl as well.

The first race begins, and the convicts are challenged to fight for the right to take one of the cars and begin the process of winning clemency. Despite the fact that the show-runners don't know who's going to get what car, there's an announcement of the drivers for the benefit of the audience, all given fancy nicknames like "10K" and "Big Bill." Death Race becomes a hit with home audiences, leading to a second race. This time Lucas and Katrina drive together for the first time, but several drivers target them because of the gang-boss's bounty. Lucas's car is wrecked, and although Katrina is not hurt, Lucas is badly burned. Katrina and the pit crew for Lucas think he's dead, but September keeps him alive.

More importantly, the idea of the disfigured Frankenstein, merely a fantasy in DEATH RACE 2000, becomes a reality. September, not wanting to lose a skilled driver, gives Lucas a face-mask and introduces him to the world as Frankenstein. However, in an ending that ties things up a little too quickly, Lucas has a prison-ally kill off his old gang-boss in order to eliminate the bounty, and terminates September's control of him by running her down-- the first "pedestrian death" in the remake-series. 

Hand-to-hand struggles are more emphasized here, doubtless to save money on the vehicular violence. Lauren Cohan is the standout here, in that she's deliciously evil in her conception of the bizarre deathsport, but both familiar faces (Danny Trejo, Rhames) and relatively new ones (Phoenix) provide good support for Goss, who essays a decent but somewhat underwritten main character.

DEATH RACE (2008)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

One online review said that it was possible to view this movie as a "prequel" to the classic DEATH RACE 2000. While I like certain types of retroactive continuity, the two films don't even belong in the same conceptual universe. DEATH RACE 2000 is a film devoted to spectacle but which also broadly satirizes the human love of spectacle. DEATH RACE is a simple, straightforward adventure film with little interest in politics. Thus not only does the "death race" of the later film eliminate one of the first movie's most memorable tropes-- that of race-cars running down pedestrians as part of the demented game-- it also sand-blasts away the first movie's quirky peculiarities to deliver a fairly derivative thrill-ride.

Right away, a crawl informs viewers that the film's sociological villain will not be government in general, but privatized prisons. One particular prison is "Terminal Island" (cleverly named after a 1973 exploitation movie that looked for all the world like a Roger Corman production, even though it was not). Terminal Island's warden Claire Hennessey (Joan Allen) offers convicts the chance to race for eventual freedom by risking their lives in the televised Death Race. 

The only thing that separates protagonist Jensen Ames from dozens of other Jason Statham protagonists is that, because he's primarily a fast-car guy, the script doesn't give him the usual Statham martial-arts wizardry. Thus anyone looking for dazzling hand-to-hand battles will be disappointed: all the fighting is between drivers slamming their cars into one another. Ames is framed for his wife's murder and sent to Terminal Penitentiary, where Hennessey blackmails him into assuming the guise of Frankenstein, a driver who became a popular icon but who died in his last race. 

Like the Frankenstein of the Corman film, Ames-- who barely wears the mask seen in the 1975 flick-- gets a hot young chick for his navigator, this time named Case (Natalie Martinez). The remake almost entirely eliminates the arc her character had, except for the suspicion of being a traitor to the hero. Ames also inherits the previous Frankenstein's foremost enemy on the track, again called "Machine Gun Joe," but this time imagined as a modern gangbanger rather than a ganster, and essayed by Tyrese Gibson. The actor had up to that point only been in one film of the "Fast and the Furious" franchise, but as if anticipating his addition to that franchise's ensemble, this version of "Joe" ends up more ally than antagonist to Ames. Politically correct though this may be, it does deprive Ames of a major opponent on the roadway in order to place all the narrative attention on the evil warden.

The movie has more than its share of (dare I say it) high-octane chase scenes, complete with lots of crashes and uses of wild gimmicks, none of which are specifically science-fictional. RACE takes place in a "near-future" of 2012 because the script doesn't say anything more about governmental breakdown except as it pertains to prison privatization, while the 1975 film set its events further ahead in order to explain how America became so thoroughly effed up. However, while some near-future narratives are merely uncanny, the societal transformation for RACE seems extreme enough to justify the marvelous phenomenality.

DEATH RACE 2000 (1975)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological, sociological*

The name "Roger Corman" does not usually get paired with the concept of irony, and even the few movies he's made within that category, such as 1959's A BUCKET OF BLOOD, tend to be among his more cheapjack efforts. But DEATH RACE 2000 is actually a better satire than a lot of arthouse efforts, precisely because it wallows in the sort of spectacle with which Corman's name is synonymous-- lots of sex and violence. To be sure, viewers will never know how RACE would have turned out had director Paul Bartel not been forced to elide a lot of his preferred humor-scenes, almost certainly in favor of more breasts and blood. But the result is a balancing act between the priorities of Corman, the consummate carny showman, and Bartel the aesthete trying to eschew mere kinetic entertainment.

It's 2000, and the American government has become a totalitarian government which keeps citizens happy with bread and circuses in the form of the Transcontinental Road Race. The drivers in the race are not only allowed to kill one another if they can, they're also allowed to run down any citizens that get near the race track, for "bonus points." This combination of gladiatorial games and government-imposed euthanasia doesn't go over well with everyone, so a Resistance group led by Thomasina Paine (descendant of the Revolutionary War philosopher) seeks to undermine America's corrupt regime by sabotaging the race.

Most of the racers have become popular personalities with names approximating those of professional wrestlers: "Nero the Hero," "Matilda the Hun," and "Machine Gun Joe," the last being a guy outfitted like a thirties-style gangster and played by a young Sylvester Stallone. Machine Gun is the second most popular racer with the frantic fans, but the favorite is Frankenstein (David Carradine), a mysterious costumed combatant whose face-mask is said to conceal scars from many racing injuries. Each contestant drives with a navigator in the passenger's seat, and in Frankenstein's case, he gets a comely young woman named Annie (Simone Griffith) as his new partner.

In no time the racers are flying down the track, callously running down any pedestrians-- even fans-- incautious enough to come close. At the same time, the rebels begin setting traps for the cars, and even Frankenstein almost falls victim. He begins to suspect Annie of colluding with the Resistance. Meanwhile, Annie learns that Frankenstein's supposed disfigurement is just a narrative designed to justify the wearing of the mask, since the government constructed the identity so that various wards of the state could assume the persona. (Thus, this "Frankenstein" is made up not of disparate body parts but of disparate people.) With all of this unburdening of secrets, eventually Frankenstein and Annie end up in bed together, though at first it appears to be something of a "wham bam" encounter. However, the taciturn road-warrior reveals that he shares the ambition of the Resistance: to get close enough to the President to kill him. But before this ambivalent hero can do so, he has to get past the blasting assaults of Machine Gun.

Since the script was produced by three primary contributors, I can't say which may have contributed the naive notion of being able to overthrow a regime just by killing off the head of state. But the way in which the notion is conveyed-- complete with Frankenstein and his bride Annie immediately assuming the status of the new rulers-- draws attention to the falseness of the trope, so that, like all ironies, it subtly undermines the myths it seemingly endorses-- though arguably doing nothing but making a different type of myth.

METROPOLIS (2001)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological, sociological*

In my review of Osamu Tezuka's graphic novel METROPOLIS, I said that I fully believed Tezuka's public statements that he'd never seen the 1927 Fritz Lang classic of that name. Given some of the changes between the manga and this much later anime adapatation, though, I think it very likely that the film's director and writer-- respectively Rintaro and Katsuhiro "AKIRA" Otomo-- were fully aware of the Lang narrative. What emerges is an affecting amalgam between some of the basic themes of Lang-- though not much of the plot-- and several tropes from Tezuka's imaginative but somewhat disorganized concoction.

As in the manga the story begins in the megacity Metropolis, but though readers don't see a "babel" of character-voices at any point, the story of the Tower of Babel is directly referenced throughout the Otomo script, beginning with a massive new building, the Ziggurat. Said structure, rumored to be a military base, has been brought into being by industrialist Duke Red, whose popularity with the masses challenges that of the city's mayor. In the manga the Duke is a super-criminal out to overthrow the rightful government, but here he works though established channels, though his plan is still to usurp control of Metropolis. While the manga-version lacks any sentimental aspects, this Duke is said to have lost his only daughter years ago. This trope strongly resembles one used by Tezuka in the origin-story of Astro Boy, where the titular robot was constructed by a grieving father. Thus when this Duke instructs inventor Laughton to make a robot, the artificial human resembles an elementary-school-aged girl, given the name Tima. Sentiment is still not a major consideration, though, since Tima will play a role in the Duke's conquest. Equally removed from sentiment is the fact that this Duke has adopted a teenaged orphan boy, Rock, but Duke treats Rock like a slave, playing upon the boy's desire for filial feeling to make him work harder.

Rock's job is command a city-corps called "the Marduks" (patently named after the Babylonian god) who monitor the activities of the city's robots. In contrast to the 1927 film, the robots are the underclass that threaten rebellion, although there's also some conflict from various humans who have lost their jobs to robot workers. 

This conflict is witnessed by two Japanese visitors to the great city: police detective Shunsaku (paralleling the "Mustachio" character from Tezuka) and his nephew Kenichi. Shunsaku has come to Metropolis looking for an organ smuggler. The local cops give Shunsaku a robot helper named Pero (implicitly, Spanish for "dog"), but Pero doesn't play much of a role overall. Eventually Shunsaku tracks the smuggler down, arriving at Laughton's laboratory.

In the manga Laughton destroys his laboratory so as to escape with his robotic creation, Michi by name, and to raise the fake child as a "real boy." But Rock arrives at the lab before Shunsaku and Kenichi, and the oft-rejected adoptive son becomes jealous of Tima, so that he fires the lab. Laughton perishes but Shunsaku and Kenichi find the little lost robot child and take her under their wing, teaching her how to speak. Whereas Tezuka's Michi possessed the (mostly useless) ability to change from boy to girl and back again, Tima is always female, probably to cement her resemblance to Duke Red's deceased daughter.

Kenichi and Tima bond, much as Michi did with a young human boy, but Rock eventually discovers that Tima has survived the inferno and kidnaps the robot girl, planning to destroy her. Shunsaku and Kenichi get her back, but have another conflict with Rock. However, Duke Red shows up, chastises Rock, and takes Tima with him. Tima for her part only wants to see Kenichi again, but does not as yet know that she's an artificial creation.

Soon Duke Red's dastardly scheme is revealed: the Ziggurat is a superweapon, but it needs an android like Tima as an interface-- meaning that in the end, the Duke's desire to reproduce an image of his lost daughter was less important than using his faux daughter as a means of controlling Metropolis. Shunsaku and Kenichi can do nothing, but the persistent Rock intrudes again, wounding Tima so as to expose her circuitry. 

Because Tima has patterned her emotions on those of humans, she goes berserk at the revelation of her true nature. Tima unleashes the weapons-system upon the city, desiring only massive destruction, much as the underclass in Lang's film seeks to decimate the city ruled by the overclass. The extra-Biblical narrative of the "fall of the Tower of Babel" is evoked, but Kenichi saves Metropolis by seeking to save Tima-- and he succeeds in the one endeavor while failing in the other.

The 2001 METROPOLIS rates as a very good, if not quite exceptional, film on the themes of both Fritz Lang and Osamu Tezuka. The tone, though, is closer to that of Lang (and of Otomo) than to Tezuka, given that the film is almost completely lacking in any kind of humor, especially not the baggy-pants antics favored by the "God of Manga."

THE GIRL IN ROOM 2A (1974)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*

There are just two incidents that shift this movie's phenomenality from uncanny to marvelous, and both are needed to set the movie's female protagonist Margarent (Daniela Giordano) on the trail of a murderous satanic cult. 

Margaret has been released from some low-security women's jail because she was implicated in selling drugs. When released, she's sent to a halfway house run by an older woman, Mrs. Grant, who has a slightly weird grown son, Frank. When Margaret stays in the room assigned her, she beholds a bizarre bloodstain on the floor that won't permanently vanish no matter how she scrubs it. A prologue has informed the audience that an innocent girl named Evie was killed in the room by a Satanic torturer, but though Margaret doesn't see this, she does dream of the image of the red-masked torturer.

The heroine also crosses paths with Jack (John Scanlon), brother of the missing Evie, and Charlie (Brad Harris). The audience is also given some extra information by seeing conflicts between some of the Satanist cultists (including Raf Vallone) and some of their enemies, though the good guys really have no part to play in the main plot. There are some rambling metaphysical observations about the conflict of good and evil but nothing substantive.

Soon Margaret and Jack learn that the halfway house under Mrs. Grant is in league with the Satanists, making it possible for the cult to lay hands on young women to torture and murder, presumably for the glory of Satan. But at least all the Satanists aren't just a bunch of men slaughtering women for pleasure, for in addition to Mrs. Grant there's still the identity of the red-masked killer to reveal.

Though IMDB claims that the directorial duties were shared by two Americans with lots of grindhouse credits, one online review asserts that Dick Randall did all the work and the co-credited William Rose did little, and that the script, co-credited to Rose, was mostly the creation of Gianfranco Baldanello, also known for directing (under  a psuedonym) the Eurospy flick DANGER DEATH RAY. A number of reviews found GIRL a substandard giallo, but its combination of torture and softcore sex held my interest, which is more than I can say for a lot of giallos.

THE NEW YORK RIPPER (1982)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

Since the rise of the psycho-killer subgenre in the 1960s-- some history of which I covered in this essay-series-- there have been numerous works in the specific subgenre-of-the-subgenre, which I will dub the "sleaze psycho-killer." In this sub-subgenre, the killer is always located in an urban environment, and his activities bring both the killer and anyone pursuing him to delve in the seamy side of city life.

Most of the sleaze-psychos aren't especially well made. Hitchcock's FRENZY is the best known in this category, but as my review should make clear, I found the 1972 movie one of the least compelling works from the Master of Suspense. America and Italy seem to have produced more sleaze-psychos than any other country, and few are noteworthy even from a purely technical standpoint.

Though I've never been a Lucio Fulci fan, NEW YORK RIPPER justifies the director's claim that he was seeking to emulate the work of Hitchcock, at least in the technical sense. RIPPER is a hard film to watch. Not only do its events take place in a vile version of New York, almost destitute of any goodness, the titular psycho preys upon helpless women with an ugly, bloody violence far removed from the artful assaults of Fulci's countryman Dario Argento. And yet RIPPER is technically better than the majority of sleaze-psycho films, and certainly better than FRENZY.

Aging, seen-it-all cop Williams (Jack Hedley) investigates the grotesque killing of a young model, and soon the New York Ripper piles up more bodies in his rage against pretty women. Eventually some witnesses claim that the killer is missing two fingers and that he is heard to speak in a falsetto Donald Duck-voice, and he even has some inside info on Williams, giving the cop an insolent call while the policeman's in bed with a working girl. Concerned by the escalating violence, Williams engages a psychologist to help profile the madman. Though the psychologist does render some aid during the narrative, he makes clear that he will only do so if the police pay him adequately-- one of many references to the dog-eat-dog nature of all levels of New York society.

Fulci introduces a number of potential targets and builds suspense as to which may be the Ripper's next victim. Of these female targets, only Fay (Almanta Suska) survives an attack from the Ripper, and so she becomes the linchpin of Williams' investigation. She's also the only female character who learns the psycho's true identity and manages to deal him a near fatal wound, though admittedly she has to be saved in the end by Williams. But not too many Hitchcock heroines get even that much agency in terms of defending themselves, excepting Grace Kelly in DIAL M FOR MURDER and a tiny number of others.

Most sleaze-psycho directors produce unremarkable visuals and practically exhaust themselves in putting together scenes of sex, violence, or of the two combined. But Fulci makes mundane scenes in the police department look just as well planned as his gross-out moments. RIPPER's main weakness is that the script doesn't really work out much of a psychology for its psycho. I did guess correctly that his affectation of a cartoon-duck voice had something to do with a struggle between the world of childish innocence and the world of mature experience. But Fulci doesn't really have a handle on the former, since RIPPER is almost entirely devoted to the horrors of New York existence. Along with Hitchcock's rural psycho-killer film-- the one that gave the subgenre its name-- NEW YORK RIPPER falls squarely into the mythos of the irony.

THE ROAD WARRIOR (1981)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*

Like many other viewers, my initial big-screen viewing of the great chase scene in ROAD WARRIOR made me instantly deem that sequence one of the great action-chases in all cinema.

I still believe that. However, in my recent re-viewing of WARRIOR, I found a number of flaws that keep it from being a great myth-film overall.

Compared to the original MAD MAX, director/co-scripter George Miller devotes at least a bare minimum of time to explaining the reasons why the whole world is out of fuel. One consequence of this crisis is that the terrain of Australia has become dominated by gangs of marauders that prey on both settled communities and on other vehicles.

Max (Mel Gibson), having lost both his wife and child, becomes a lone scavenger roaming around looking for food and fuel. He's attacked by marauders led by the flamboyant Wez (Vernon Wells), but Max escapes thanks to his driving skill. He encounters a crazy old pilot, the Gyro Captain (Bruce Spence) who tries unsuccessfully to hijack Max's fuel. After getting rid of the loon, he encounters one of the settled communities, and tries to make a deal for fuel. The settlers are hostile toward Max until the marauders show up and demand fuel from the compound.

Max manages to strike a deal with the settlers to give them access to a new source of fuel, and with the help of the repentant Gyro Captain, Max succeed in his task. His accomplishment causes the settlers who place a new faith in him, hoping that he may be able to help the entire community move to a new and more secure domain-- which means a major battle against the marauders.

The script includes a few "hero's journey" motifs: the potential hero's initial refusal of his task, his estrangement from the community, and so on, However, I never found the journey compelling, partly because I felt Gibson just phoned in his performance. The only actor I found just as vital as he seemed in my first viewing was Vernon Wells as the mad marauder Wez. The tricked-out vehicles and the metal boomerang were pretty cool too, but this WARRIOR didn't quite manage to conquer the world of cinematic myth.

 

ALIEN OUTLAW (1985)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphyscial*

Director Phil Smoot and B-western star Lash LaRue should have quit collaborating after producing the mildly entertaining horror-thriller THE DARK POWER. I don't know if ALIEN OUTLAW made less money than POWER, but for whatever reason, Smoot directed no more feature films (though he remained involved in film production), and LaRue only made three more movies in marginal roles.

The film provides a mild salute to the long-vanished days of Hollywood's B-westerns, both through LaRue's presence and that of Sunset Carson, another toiler in the oater category. But the movie's "high concept" is that a much younger heir to the western tradition, trick-shooter Jesse Jamison (Kari Anderson), gets challenged to a duel by an "alien outlaw." Why does some alien outlaw want to shoot it out with Jesse? The world will never know, for the script is utterly uninterested in developing the ET's motives, even to the extent one sees in PREDATOR (surprisingly, not on screens until two years later).

Unfortunately, what the script is interested in doing is burning up time until the concluding duel, and it does so by having Jesse run into a lot of "funny" characters. I'm going to guess that a lot of these people were unpaid amateurs, because they overacted so horribly, I almost missed the films of Ted V, Mikels. At least when Mikels would turn loose rank amateurs upon filmdom, they were confined to reciting their lines very flatly and dully, with no attempts to "act." Surprisingly, Anderson-- the heroine, whom one might expect to put herself out there-- barely projects any character at all.

OUTLAW is a film of just two curiosity-points: the presence of two B-western actors-- who predictably are better actors here than they were in their old flicks-- and the film's anticipation of PREDATOR.