NIGHT FRIGHT (1967), TOP LINE (1988)

 

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

Despite having lots of trash-films to choose from on streaming channels, I can't help checking out the various junk offered on the Mill Creek collections. I haven't found anything outstanding yet, even in a "so bad it's good" way. Yet at least sometimes even crap gives me exercise in finding a new way to condemn it.

I'd seen the cheapie "teens vs space monster" flick NIGHT FRIGHT broadcast on TV long ago and remembered nothing about it but a general negative impression. And there really was almost nothing to remember. It's at least a small curiosity that this dull 1967 drive-in fodder got re-released on some 1980s video label with a new title, implying that FRIGHT might be a more violent version of Spielberg's E.T. 

Most of the film involves a gorilla-like monster who emerged from a "spaceship" stomping around a rural town and killing off a few generally "clean" teens, before the sheriff (John Agar, the only "name" actor) brings the creature down. No one else can act their way out of a paper bag, and the monster is only shot in darkness, probably to conceal the suit's zipper. One small novelty in the script is that the monster isn't an alien. According to an explanation by the town's high-school professor-- who was apparently involved with the US space program at some time-- the creature is an Earth-animal, possibly a real gorilla, whom American scientists experimented on so that it could survive in outer space. So the "spaceship" was American-made, but it was launched with, what, zero publicity?  Frankly, the 1959 origin of DC's monster-ape Titano-- also an Earth-anthropoid sent into space, where he got special powers-- makes this bland piece of tedium look pretty sad.

     

TOP LINE, an actual eighties movie, is at least lively if no more consistent than NIGHT FRIGHT. 

Italian writer-director Nello Rossati had worked on at least two decent junk-movies known to me: the Ursula Andress sex-flick THE SENSUOUS NURSE and DJANGO STRIKES AGAIN, the only legitimate sequel to the 1960s DJANGO. I suspect that Franco Nero's association with TOP LINE was born of having worked with Rossati on the DJANGO sequel. The poster makes TOP look like another Indiana Jones clone, but what viewers got was an erratic, confusing "thriller" about an author and his girlfriend who discover that there are aliens among us.

What's the nature of the aliens, and what are they doing on Earth? Why do various government agencies pursue Author Ted and gal-pal June (Nero and Debrah Moore) to keep them from revealing the aliens' dubious secrets to the public? Why did guys like William Berger and George Kennedy consent to do glorified cameos here? Maybe this nonsense would have been more bearable if Nero and Moore had played a tough guy and girl like the leads of RAIDERS. Then, TOP might have been a decent "Indiana Clone." But all the stars do here is run away a lot. There are just two diverting scenes. In one, the protagonists are pursued by a Terminator-like robot, but they manage to thwart the automaton by luring him into the horns of a dilemma-- a dilemma consisting of a savage bull. In the other, Ted finds out the hard way that his ex-wife is one of the aliens, and that she's actually a lizard-like humanoid in Earth-disguise. Rossati doesn't write any memorable dialogue here, but Nero sells the scene with his look of horror, implicitly at having slept with a lizard-lady without catching on to any difference. The bottom line is that TOP LINE is pretty close to the bottom, but Moore and Nero keep this crap from being as stinky as many other timewasters.

            

FIST OF THE NORTH STAR (1995)

 

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

In my review of the 1986 anime adaptation of this ultraviolent shonen manga, I gave that flick a "fair" mythicity rating, but only because the makers were loosely keyed into some of the philosophical concepts behind certain forms of the martial arts. That said, it was still just a garden-variety fantasy-adventure, in which a brooding hero wandered around a devastated earth, dispensing violent justice to depraved criminals and madmen. I think director Tony Randel and writer Peter Atkins-- reunited since their teaming on HELLRAISER II, which was also the best film on both of their resumes-- tried as best they could to make a decent time-killer on a very modest budget. But the results were less consequential than the sort of efficient-if-average American chopsockies for which star Gary Daniels became best known, such as BLOODMOON and HAWK'S VENGEANCE.

Randel's direction has been attacked by some fans, but he closely followed the storytelling example of his template, as much as did the NORTH STAR anime. The manga, being a typical shonen of the 1980s, leavens its bloody mayhem with scenes of the tormented hero Kenshiro (Daniels) brooding over his sufferings. His stoicism is expressly contrasted with the freakish fiends who sadistically prey upon the weak and helpless, not least a pair of winsome children. Randel and Atkins deliver pretty much the same content in their live-action movie, but somehow it doesn't ring as true as some of the better (but still average) post-apoc films in the Western tradition. It's true that the actors playing the main villain's nasty henchmen, such as Chris Penn and Clint Howard, mug horribly. But such roles don't generally allow for any nuance, so that's not really the performers' fault.

The live-action film's main problem may be writer Atkins' inability to do anything interesting with main villain Shin (Costas Mandylor). He's pretty much the standard ruthless conqueror who plans to rebuild a shattered world in his own image, but his only personal aspect is his history with Kenshiro. Years previous to the film's "present," Shin coveted Julia (Isako Washio), girlfriend of Kenshiro and challenged Kenshiro to possess her. Though both are masters of their respective styles-- "North Star" and "Southern Cross"-- Shin won the battle. The villain then departs with his prize and leaves the hero alive. This is a pretty good reason for the hero to brood, but in most chopsockies, the humiliated protagonist trains like a demon to overcome his enemy in a return match. If Kenshiro trains in the time between his defeat and his rematch, it wasn't depicted-- and I don't think the 1986 anime shows anything similar either. 

Randel's film is also undermined in that Kenshiro's signature move involves rapid-fire blows to his opponent, which transmit such massive stress to a human form as to cause it to explode. Animation can make this fantasy seem persuasive, but in live action, even a greater budget for practical effects could not have pulled off this stunt. So it all comes down to Daniels and Mandylor slugging it out in a boring and predictable climax. The only good thing about the film is, as I said earlier, that it did lead to Daniels-- a mediocre actor but a quality martial artist-- making other films that weren't as ambitious but did not, so to speak, have as far to fall.

    
                   

THE ANGEL STRIKES AGAIN (1968)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

I suppose ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS must have made money, for by next year director Lo Wei was back again with more of the same thing in this sequel. He used a number of the same actors, albeit in different roles, and for some reason changed the name of Lily Ho's main character from "Luo Na" to "Ai Si." I can't fathom any reason for the change, since Ho's playing the same basic character, with the same low-tech arsenal (the most impressive item of which is a small flamethrower).

This time the "angel" is taking on opponents who seem more in tune with the heroine's role as a government agent: the Bomb Gang, whose leader Hsiang Hsiang (Shen Yi) uses explosives to extort businesses, which sounds a little like terrorist activity to me. That said, everything in STRIKES is a candy-confection with little resemblance to real espionage.

Both Ai Si and Hsiang Hsiang assume peculiar guises at one point, the secret agent dressing as a man for no good reason and the Bomb Gang leader wearing some sort of snaggletooth in her mouth, which I guess was supposed to be funny. The pace is a little better than it was in FISTS, and there are more fight-scenes, though they're all very basic uses of punches, kicks, and karate chops. Both of the ANGEL films would be quickly overshadowed as Hong Kong's kung fu genre developed and brought forth an amazing variety of flicks starring chopsocky divas.

           

BEASTMASTER: SEASON 3 (2001-02)

 

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

In the ranks of syndie adventure-serials, it's a rare bird-- or beast-- that survives to three seasons. I'd like to report that BEASTMASTER's last outing was at least as good as the first two. Unfortunately, though Season 3 wasn't plagued by as many cast-shakeups as Season 2, Three ends up feeling like the writers and showrunners were just spinning their wheels. Based on the fact that Season Three displays what might be a record number of clip shows in one season-- at least I think three might be a record-- I hypothesize that the show might've had its budget slashed. That sort of cost-cutting can eventuate in the creative people losing focus and hacking things out.

A slight improvement is that the Ancient One disappears or dies by the time Season 3 begins, and the original Sorceress (Monika Schnarre) escapes the prison her tutor placed her in. Both Marjean Holden and Stephen Grives get main-credit billing this season. However, Holden's Arina is never truly integrated into the series, appearing whenever writers choose to inject her. By contrast, Steven Grives's despicable King Zad gets a lot more time here than in either previous season, and Grives makes the nasty conqueror so vital, he's almost likable. 

On the minus side, out of nowhere Zad has now become the servant of a gimcrack demon-lord, Balcifer. (Ooohh-- Baal + Lucifer-- bet that took a whole ten minutes to come up with). As for the Sorceress, the writers aren't able to come up with much for her to do. They use her to get rid of a leftover demon-woman, "The Apparition," from a previous season, and she duels another demoness, Yamira, in order to help Dar. However, she also betrays Dar in an attempt to restore the eagle Sharak to his human form. Sharak, however, sacrifices his humanity to redeem Dar's quest. With the Sorceress' "Ladyhawke" arc concluded, the character fades from the series before the climax.

The biggest change is one derived loosely from the first movie. Rather than being simply the last survivor of a tribe that Zad exterminated, Dar is now an "orphan of high estate," the son of a noble slain king, Eldar. A cocky older man named Dartanus (Marc Singer, the original Beastmaster) informs Dar of his special destiny: to prevent Balcifer from gaining dominion over the world. To do this, first Dar must reclaim the magical sword of Eldar (which he does, though Dar still doesn't kill his enemies with said weapon). Second, Dartanus reveals that five of Dar's proximate relatives didn't die as thought but were transformed by Dar's adoptive tribe into ordinary animals. Most of Season 3 involves Dar, Tao and Arina attempting to round up these creatures and place them in a magical Crystal Ark. This ark will redeem the world not by preserving animals but by allowing Dar's family to transform back into humans, which event is crucial to Balcifer's defeat. Occasionally this running plotline is diverting, but often it feels undeveloped and low-energy.

I no longer felt that Dar's world was as mythic as in the previous two seasons, in the sense of "anything might happen," and no episodes met my criteria for high-mythicity. Too many of the stories were dull, not even counting the clip shows, and there were only a handful of tales with fair mythicity. For instance:

"Slayer's Return"-- Dar and Tao once more encounter Princess Zuraya, for whom Dar had a small thing. Zuraya is getting married to another noble, but wouldn't you know, he's a pawn of Balcifer, who wants to be reborn in the child he spawns in Zuraya. (Devotees of the first "Ms. Marvel" will find this concept a tad familiar.)   

"Serpent's Kiss"-- the succubus Nadeea offers her services to Zad to drain the souls of the heroes

"The Alliance"-- Dar has a fractious first meeting with Princess Talia (Gigi Edgley of FARSCAPE fame), but it seems to bode well that her brother Galen pledges the armies of his kingdom to aid in the war against Zad and Balcifer. There's also an old marriage contract between Galen's kingdom and that of Dar's people that would bring Dar and Talia into holy matrimony, and this prospect makes Talia even more quarrelsome, though she naturally comes around somewhat. However, Galen's a servant of Balcifer, and Talia sacrifices her life to destroy her corrupted brother.

"Double Edged"-- a teen girl dressed like a ninja steals Dar's magic sword, hoping to use it to kill Zad. Instead, she ends up leading Zad to the village of the people who made Dar's fateful blade. 

Lastly, Season 3 introduces one decent recurring character for three episodes: Callista (Mel Rogan), Zad's half-sister. Rogan and Grives seem to be having great fun trading acerbic jibes, up until the final section, where Callista tries to kill both Zad and the Beastmaster. It's not clear why the evil female-- another dang Balcifer servant--chains the two of them together, unless she-- or her writer-- had just watched a telecast of "The Defiant Ones." Still, it's fun to see Dar nearly rolling his eyes at the venomous intensity of Zad's malice. Zad, of course, doles out an impressive punishment to his errant sibling. 

The two-part finale is somewhat listless and doesn't even give Zad a very dramatic finish. In a conclusion that seems to come out of nowhere, Dar, in order to rule over his restored people, must leave his fantasy-world for another realm, accompanied by his animal friends but not by his two main human friends. Since the regular BEAST-verse is only occasionally said to be trending toward some quotidian fate, this conclusion is not quite the same as its likely LOTR inspiration, where Frodo Baggins goes off into the mists of the past because the world is changing. It's more like, by thwarting Balcifer, some Camelot-like regime has been restored-- though originally Dar's people were just regular folks in the BEAST-verse. So it's not clear why the New Realm is set apart in such a way that Tao and Arina can't just drop in and visit when they please. Yet I find I kind of liked the ending, since it hearkened back to the quality of the first two seasons, where everything was a bit mysterious and many phenomena didn't admit of simple explanations.  

As I said, the mythic resonance of the previous two seasons is largely absent, and, aside from the usual quota of sexy, scantily clad women, Season Three's best element is finding out how many different ways Steven Grives can put maximum spitefulness into uttering the name "Beastmaster!"

                                        

SISTER WRATH (2008)

 

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

While this film's alternate title NUN OF THAT was accurate in describing its wacky comical nature, I like SISTER WRATH better. While there have been a smattering of straightforward adventure-stories featuring vengeful nuns, the idea of undercutting the "merciful" association of nuns to make them into vessels of God's wrath carries its own vibe of absurdity.

In fact, nearly no one in director/co-scripter's Richard Griffin's world of crazy Catholics could strain the quality of mercy if their lives depended on it. The Church maintains a cadre of killer hit-nuns-- no word as to why there don't seem to be any male assassins-- and cheerfully sends them out to knock off sinners, primarily hardcore gangsters. But at the start of the movie, the nuns lose one of their number, so they need a replacement.      

Sister Kelly (Sarah Nicklin) is getting called on the carpet by Mother Superior for having beaten up a pedophile priest-- who foolishly shows up to see Kelly drummed out and gets pounded on by Kelly some more. Kelly is transferred to a new diocese, but as soon as she gets there, three gun-toting nuns show up and ventilate Kelly's penguin outfit, with her in it.

Surprise: Kelly ends up in Heaven, where she's expected to become one of God's holy hitwomen. Getting shot dead is like an initiation ceremony, and it means that she can once more descend to Earth, in a mortal body, and start knocking off cannoli-munching Mafioso. Only one problem: if Kelly-- now dubbed Sister Wrath-- gets killed a second time, it's for good. Kelly also learns that ascending to Heaven also has special perks, for being a "bride of Christ" means becoming part of the Heavenly Savior's own private harem. (To be sure, we don't see "Jesus" having sex with any of the hot nuns; presumably Griffin wasn't willing to get quite that crazy.)    

So on Earth Kelly is joined by Sisters Gluttony, Lust and Pride, and they start violently gunning down Italian gangsters. Local capo Momma Rizzo sets a killer to catch a killer, and a Jew to take down the Brides of Christ: one "Viper Goldstein." Viper's presence allows Griffin to take a rest from Catholic jokes in favor of Jewish ones, but no one could be offended as this sort of over-the-top nonsense. Many jokes fall flat and a fair number work okay, but the funniest moment is when the Killer Nuns get assistance from whoever was Pope in 2008. Perhaps Griffin signaled his cinematic inspiration for this movie, with its balls-to-the-wall gunplay and frequent fistfights, by having the papal eminence played by Lloyd Kaufman of TROMA fame.

WRATH is episodic and simplistic, but unlike a lot of "so bad they're good" poser-flicks, this one at least has a good level of energy.

            

BUTT ATTACK PUNISHER GIRL GAUTAMAN (1994)

 

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

There's not much info online about this one-shot obscurity, though one site translated about thirteen installments of a manga series, with the added info that the feature enjoyed about 60 chapters. I'm going to guess that the GAUTAMAN manga was not terribly successful, but that this lack of success made the franchise cheap enough for some studio to snap up the rights. Maybe the studio hoped to garner some attention with yet another fanservice-heavy "magical-girl" concept (though nowhere near as heavy as KEKKO KAMEN). As far as I know, there was just this 45-minute OAV.

From the thirteen chapters I read, the concept is relatively novel. Mari Amachi is a Japanese Christian of high school age. She's enrolled in an extraordinarily "multi-culti" school, the Perfect Religion Institute, where all students and teachers belong to a wide variety of religions. The manga starts off gradually, showing how Mari arrives at school and is befriended by future best friend Saori, a Hindu girl. However, the anime jumps ahead to a point where Mari and Saori have also become acquainted with another classmate, handsome Tobishima, with whom Mari is smitten. In the anime Mari has already been transforming for some time into "Gautaman," a name that may be a combination of the 1970s anime GATCHAMAN and the personal cognomen of the Buddha. Mari's origin is super-simple; the first time she's in peril, she calls on God for help, but instead the Buddha answers and gives her the power to change into Gautaman. It's not clear exactly what powers Gautaman has, for she's usually seen just hitting villains with punches and kicks. Once or twice, she satisfies the oddity of her name by slamming into someone with her big, well-exposed butt. Yet even in 45 minutes, there aren't as many butt-jokes as I expected.

As for the source of peril, Guataman's source of enemies is a gang called the "Black Buddhas," who want to force everyone at the school to convert to their religion, whatever it is. There's nothing remotely Buddhist about any of the villains: some of them dress up like octopi (I think they get turned into sashimi) and their leader calls himself "Pope Johann" and dresses accordingly. (He also turns into a Terminator at the climax.) Mari in her "secret identity" is terribly embarrassed by her alter ego's showiness, especially since Tobishima considers Guataman to be little better than a whore. Yet he really has no room to talk, for Tobishima is a member of the Black Buddhas.                       

The biggest surprise for GAUTAMAN is that for a one-shot OVA, it actually has a unifying arc despite the rampant silliness. Two-thirds of the way through, Mari's father recognizes her in her superhero ID, because-- he recognizes her exposed butt as that of his own little girl. Surprisingly, there's no sense that his butt-recognition is pervy in any way, which perviness is something one sees a LOT of, in anime. Further, because the dad disapproves of Mari being a half-naked hero, he tells her that unless she gives it up, he'll remove her from school. Of course at the end, Mari must become Gautaman to battle Tobishima in his super-villain guise. She wins, but then loses, because the OAV does end with Dad and Mari departing the school by train. We don't see Tobishima wishing her goodbye, but Saori does. She for her part had been tossing out a few lesbian overtures to Mari throughout the anime, and Mari didn't pick up on them, but for the conclusion she confesses to Mari as she leaves. Mari pledges that they'll see one another again-- roll credits. It wasn't anything heart-rending, to be sure. But it was at least an original way to finish up a video that was mostly naked boobs and butts, dopey religious jokes, and light lesbianism.

        

ANGEL WITH THE IRON FISTS (1967)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*

If you know in advance that ANGEL is primarily a modern-day superspy flick, you may think that the title suggests a blend between that genre and the nascent genre of the Hong Kong chopsockie. What the viewer gets, though, is a pretty low-wattage effort, even if it's one of the few 1960s secret agent flicks to focus on a female hero.

Lily Ho plays Luo Na, alias "Agent 009," and her assignment is to infiltrate a gang of crooks called the Dark Angels. They really seem to be nothing but crooks, with no ties to international espionage and no plans to conquer the world. Nevertheless, even though Luo is doing the job of a police undercover agent, she has a smattering of uncanny spy-weapons, like a metal-edged card that can be used to disarm enemies or a perfume-spray filled with knockout gas. 

 I have no information on the films that director Lo Wei helmed before ANGEL, so it's not impossible that this was one of his first movies that needed strong action sequences. Lily Ho does project pretty good authority in her few fight-scenes, but the only one that catches fire is a battle with a mobster's jealous girlfriend (Fanny Fann). Later Lo Wei would distinguish himself with entries like Bruce Lee's big success FIST OF FURY and my personal favorite of the works I've seen, VENGEANCE OF A SNOW GIRL. But ANGEL is no more than a period curiosity, made risible by the repeated use of musical passages from the library of 007 cinema.