THE BIG DOLL HOUSE (1971)

PHENOMENALITY: *naturalistic*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *sociological*


Though BIG DOLL  HOUSE was not the first WIP film, it was arguably the one that defined the genre for the 1970s and subsequent decades. And one thing that makes it stand apart from the rest is that, although it's in no way a metaphenomenal narrative, it does use tropes that, given a different approach, could have been aligned with the uncanny.

HOUSE sets up its action with many of the usual patterns seen in WIP films from earlier decades: the new fish (Judy Brown) enters prison to do time for an offense that the audience doesn't think is so bad (in this case, killing a scummy husband). She meets a set of predictable yet still vivid character-types: the tough girl (Roberta Collins), the revolutionary idealist (Pat Woodell), the lesbian and her heroine-addled partner (Pam Grier and Brooke Mills). There's a sympathetic prison doctor, who's pretty much the only decent male, a couple of comical delivery guys (one of whom is played by Sid Haig), and a bunch of cruel guards, all women. But for once there's a little mystery: though a woman named "Miss Dietrich" is nominally in charge, there's also a mystery man, Captain Mendoza, who is supposedly the real warden, though the prisoners never see him. The audience gets to see Mendoza as a weird masked figure who presides over the frequent tortures of prisoners: whippings, electroshock, and torment with snakes (the last two providing naturalistic versions of "bizarre crimes," even as Mendoza's outfit is a naturalistic "outre outfit.")

Since all of the women are impossibly glammed-up, it's hard to take even the violence very seriously, and a constant stream of one-liners reinforces the lighter mood, with the stand-out being the oft-quoted "You'll get it up or I'll cut it off!" There are some mild subtexts of feminine liberation here, roughly linked to the then-popular vogue for proletariat revolution, though these too don't bear strong examination.

There's more implied than actual sex, and catfights are featured far more than gunfights, including a classic battle between Collins and Grier (the last time Pam Grier would ever lose a filmic fight). The revelation of the mysterious warden's identity is pretty obvious, though the script adds a twist by showing that the corrupt official has a psychological hangup against the sexual proclivities of the female convicts. Though I used to think that the next-year follow-up THE BIG BIRD CAGE was the better of the two productions, I've come to feel that the latter is a little too jokey, and thus misfires when it comes to providing good sleazy melodrama.

DOOM (2005)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological, psychological*


I've no familiarity with the 1993 video game DOOM or any of its later iterations. Wikipedia informs me that the original concept's "first-person shooter" scenario took a lone gunman  to the planet Mars, where he shoots it out with an assortment of demons from Hell itself. In contrast, the movie DOOM remains firmly within a science-fiction universe, aside from a highly speculative assertion by a scientist that there may be a genetic code for the human soul.

The year is 2046, and humankind has gained access to Mars by finding a teleport-device, left in Nevada by ancient Martians who apparently deserted their planet. There's no evidence as to what happened to the emigrants, and Mars itself shows no trace of living creatures, but a facility of Earth-scientists has been built on the planet to study the remains of the long-dead denizens. When communication between Mars and Earth breaks down, a squad of Marines, all armed to the teeth with advanced weapons, are sent via portal to Mars to rescue the scientists and, perhaps more importantly, their research. However, once there, the soldiers are repeatedly attacked by monsters.

Because of the combination of marines and monsters, some critics chose to see DOOM as overly indebted to the 1986 ALIENS. There are rough similarities, particularly the idea of humans attempting to co-opt alien science or resources for human military advantage. As in ALIENS, most of the military grunts are "doomed" to become cannon fodder. However, the David Callaham-Wesley Strick script emphasizes the way in which the monsters from the outside are identical to those on the inside.

Only three characters are of great consequence: the mission-leader "Sarge" (Dwayne Johnson), his subordinate "Reaper" (Karl Urban), and Samantha Grimm (Rosamund Pyke), who, in addition to being one of the facility's scientists, is also Reaper's twin sister. In between conflicts with monsters, Samantha eventually reveals that her fellow scientists performed a genetic analysis of the human-like inhabitants of Mars. The oldest remains of Martians showed 23 pairs of chromosomes, just like humans, but later Martians had 24 pairs. Samantha theorizes that the 24th chromosomal pair was synthetic, and that it boosted the strength and healing-powers of the natives. However, she further theorized that the genetic tinkering caused a cultural upheaval that resulted in the extermination of the race, including, presumably, those that failed to colonize Earth.

The plot-device of the long-distant upheaval recalls a similar trope from 1956's FORBIDDEN PLANET. In that film, the humans who investigate the titular world learn that its long-vanished native race invented mind-boosting machines that unleashed the "demons of the id," so that the natives destroyed themselves in their quest for advancement. In the course of all the monster-slaying, Samantha observes that although some monsters came about from the project using human test-servants, and others were "infected" by contact with mutated persons, the infection doesn't spread to everyone. She observes that the genetic mutation occurs only in persons who have a propensity for excessive violence in their (figurative) souls. This leads to a combative confrontation for Reaper, for his superior officer Sarge soon reveals the dark nature hidden behind his military facade. Fortunately, Reaper, who also gets exposed to the genetic mutagen, also has his positive nature boosted by the mutagen. Overall, I found DOOM a reasonably good example of military SF-cinema, though I found tedious the movie's attempt to reproduce a "first-person shooter" scenario. Happily, it only took up about five minutes toward the end.

Whereas ALIENS is a film in which the titular extraterrestrials are on center stage, dwarfing the importance of the space-marines fighting them, determining the "main characters" of DOOM becomes a little more dicey, given that the actual Martians are all dead. However, their genetic legacy-- that of passing on the mutagen  that can enhance either "good" or "evil"-- has more central importance to the narrative than any of the three human characters. A quick check of Wikis about the video game suggests that there's no generic name for the "Doom Monsters," probably because they are largely supposed to be either Hell-demons or humans possessed by demons. So for my own satisfaction, I'll state that the stars of DOOM are indeed the "Doom Mutants"-- and, since both Sarge and Reaper become affected by the mutagen, they become reflections of the mutagen's potential to create both monsters and monster-fighting heroes.

ADDENDUM: Though there are no literal devils in the movie, it's interesting that in one scene Samantha demonstrates that mutagen-infected flesh literally goes out of its way to infect violent people, and ignores those who are not so spiritually polluted. This may be a psuedo-scientific way of saying that people who have already "signed over the souls to the Devil" are the main victims of the mutagen.

COUNTESS DRACULA (1971)

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


COUNTESS DRACULA is something of a Hammer anomaly for a couple of reasons, neither of which has to do with the studio's use of the name "Dracula" to sell a film based on the crimes of 16th-century noblewoman Erzebet Bathory.

First, COUNTESS was only Ingrid Pitt's second starring film-role, after her moneymaking debut in 1970''s THE VAMPIRE LOVERS-- and yet, COUNTESS had Pitt conceal her beauty beneath old-age makeup for many of her scenes-- which probably was something of a turn-off for viewers who wanted to see Pitt follow up on her earlier, very sexy performance.

Second, though there are various scenes of bloody violence, in keeping with Hammer's increasing penchant for exploitation, they're fairly low-key for Hammer and for the director Peter Sasdy, who showed far more flair for cinematic violence both in his previous movie TASTE THE BLOOD OF DRACULA and in the one that immediately followed COUNTESS, HANDS OF THE RIPPER. Perhaps Sasdy or his producer (Alexander Paal, also one of the film's scripters) had some notion of using the Bathory legend to make a comment on the dangers of vanity. Coming from Hammer Films, such a righteous message seems a little like a barman give lectures on the virtues of teetotalling.

The script also fails to "up the game" once the setup's been established. Elizabeth, an aging noblewoman recently widowed, listens to the reading of her late husband's will and learns that she must share the inheritance with her daughter Ilona, currently attending school far from the Bathory castle. By accident Elizabeth learns that when she's exposed to fresh blood, her wizened skin becomes rejuvenated, though this is given no real explanation whatever, and her few confidantes just take this miracle in stride. Being one of Hammer's many nasty aristocrats, Elizabeth begins exsanguinating various female victims, though far less than the historical Bathory allegedly did, and for a time, the countess enjoys being young again. A young nobleman, Imre, arrives at court as part of an arranged marriage to Ilona, whom Imre has never met, so Elizabeth simply usurps her daughter's place and makes passionate love to the younger man-- much to the disgust of her confidante Dobi, an older man who liked the countess the way she was. Receiving news that Ilona is scheduled to return to the castle soon, Elizabeth arranged for her to be waylaid and imprisoned, so that Elizabeth can continue living the life of a young woman.

Despite a solid performance by Pitt, the character of Elizabeth never comes alive. It goes without saying that almost everyone can identify with the desire to cast off the bonds of age in favor of renewed youth, but the viewer knows so little about Elizabeth that even her joy in regaining said youth falls flat. Even a political reading of the Bathory story-- the ruthless noble, literally bleeding the life out of the lower classes-- gets less textual support from COUNTESS's script than one can find in any of the "regular" Hammer vampire flicks. Only once did I find myself repulsed by a character's immoral action, and that was in a scene where Elizabeth's nurse, a commoner who simply hitches her wagon to the Countess's star, makes it clear that she'll do anything to protect her meal ticket.

The other narrative flaw is that Elizabeth remains largely confined to the castle and the surrounding terrain, so that she doesn't really DO anything. Imre and Ilona don't come alive as characters, and though there's one clever line in which Dobi tells Imre that the ideal mate is also a "mother," COUNTESS has none of the interesting Oedipal themes found in Sasdy's RIPPER.

BLADE (1998)

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

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

Wikipedia credits BLADE with having initiated Marvel's success in live-action films. I wouldn't give it that much credit for two principal reasons: (1) few of the viewers who made the film a success (spawning two feature-film sequels) knew that Blade was a (very minor) Marvel character, and (2) nothing about the film reflected the mindset of Marvel Comics as it would come to be defined following the important live-action adaptations of the early 2000s: X-MEN (2000) and SPIDER-MAN (2002). I'll note in passing that if these two adaptations of Marvel's "big guns" had bombed, such failures could well have jinxed the later MCU films. Had BLADE failed, I don't imagine that said failure would've had any more long-term repercussions than the actual flop of 1999's under-rated MYSTERY MEN.

The original comics-character debuted as a supporting character in Marvel's TOMB OF DRACULA series, and only enjoyed a handful of starring appearances. Sole scriptwriter David S. Goyer, though later responsible for a number of bad superhero films like MAN OF STEEL, succeeded here in fusing the fragments of Blade's history into a cohesive whole, and, in some cases, improving upon them. For instance, one of the many plot-threads of the movie-- which, to my knowledge, was not in the comics-- is that in Blade's world, there's a conflict between the elder vampires, who keep the existence of their kind concealed from humanity, and a younger, ambitious breed. Thus the movie starts with a gratuitous display of vamp-on-human violence that foreshadows this conflict, even if the scene's main purpose is to gross out the audience and to introduce Blade as the champion of put-upon humanity.

The opening violence also leads Blade to one of his primary support-characters, Doctor Karen Jenson. One of the hero's vampire opponents is severely burned but not killed, and when he's taken to the local ER, the bloodsucker kills one doctor and bites Karen. Blade initially succors Karen to use her as bait to lure more vampires, but over time her skills as a hematologist become increasingly important to the story, not least in terms of humanizing the protagonist, who's become almost as fearsome and implacable as the monsters he stalks.

One of the younger breed is Deacon Frost (Stephen Dorff), who is indirectly responsible for imbuing Blade with quasi-vampiric powers (resistance to vampire bites, slow aging, strength). Frost bit Blade's mother when she was still pregnant with him, and though she apparently died, the infant Blade survived to develop into a "day-walker." Blade and his mentor have been looking for Frost for years, and their alliance with Karen just happens to parallel the young vampire's newest project: to perform a special ritual that will give him rulership over the vampire kingdom.

The action-scenes in BLADE are sometimes too fast-paced to follow, creating confusion more than excitement. Snipes' powerhouse performance as the hero sells the film even when Stephen Norrington's direction falls short or turns lackluster. Unlike the superhero films of the 2000s, BLADE's combination of horror and adventure doesn't leave much room for comedy relief, though there is a cute repeated bit about a recurring vampire henchmen (Donal Logue) who keeps losing his hand to Blade's formidable sword.

The one aspect of the film that justifies my SPOILERS is that I'll now reveal that, in contrast to the original history of the character, Blade's mother, instead of bleeding to death, rises again as one of Frost's undead. She both fights with Blade and attempts to seduce him to Frost's cause, which could have had the effect of making the villain into a father-surrogate figure, a Claudius to the hero's Hamlet. However, precisely because this version of Frost has been retooled as "the young upstart," and because he's being played by an actor about ten years younger than Wesley Snipes, the standard Oedipal arrangement doesn't work here.

PURGATORY (1999)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

One of the best metaphenomenal westerns I've ever encountered, aside from the best episodes of KUNG FU, debuted on the TNT cable channel-- which I would have to say, never struck me as a font of great original film-making.

A gang of bandits, led by Britton (Eric Roberts) and Guthrie (Peter Stormare), robs a bank in a western town, and during a gunfight, an innocent woman is slain. This moves none of the outlaws save Sonny, nephew of Guthrie (Brad Rowe), but a posse comes after the robbers, so they must flee into the desert. After passing through a dust storm, the gang finds itself in an isolated town named Refuge.

At first glance the citizens of Refuge look like ordinary peacable folks, which should make them easy pickings for the outlaws. None of the locals, even the sheriff (Sam Shepard), carry guns, they won't swear or drink, and every time the church bell rings, the citizens drop what they're doing and assemble in church.

Sonny, by chatting one of the pretty girls, is the first to get an inkling that Refuge is not an ordinary town. Some of the outlaws begin noticing that certain citizens have a resemblance to famous dead gunfighters-- Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, Jesse James-- while the sheriff himself bears a likeness to Wild Bill Hickock. Eventually the secret comes out: Refuge is a literal "ghost town," where the spirits of dead people have come together to endure a form of purgatory. If they can live righteous lives for a period of time, the citizens can ascend to the rewards of heaven. When one of the locals loses his patience with a nasty outlaw and clouts him with a shovel, a mysterious Indian shows up and escorts the local away to an unknown fate.

The outlaws, though not entirely believing the story, waste no time in taking advantage of the situation. At this point Sonny loses sympathy with his former comrades, particularly when his uncle threatens to rape the pretty young thing whom Sonny likes. It also helps his belief when he actually witnesses a new arrival to town, none other than the woman he saw slain back in the mortal world.

Though the film starts with the outlaws, Gordon Dawson's script is really centered on the former gunfighters, who, to win entry into heaven, must try to resist their instinct to fight back. Sonny, whose name suggests his low-ranking status in the gang, becomes crucial to encouraging the gunfighters to do the right thing, to battle evil even if they may have to go to hell for it.

One might cavil that PURGATORY changes its ground rules from time to time, as when one outlaw is literally smitten by heaven, though the skies are silent when it's time for the big showdown. However, one might argue that everything that happens in Refuge has been ordained by "the big man" in order to test the residents, much like the depiction of God in the "Book of Job." But in most isophenomenal westerns, religious characters are nominal figures, confined to watching the battle of good and evil play out. PURGATORY reverses that trope, putting religion in the driver's seat, but still lending validity to the western's crucial myth of the showdown. All of the actors-- even Randy Quaid, whom I personally don't like-- acquit themselves well, though clearly Sam Shepard is "first among equals" here.

PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1950)

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *psychological, sociological*


There had been a lot of cavemen-comedies before PREHISTORIC WOMEN, but up to 1950, this is probably the best, with writer-director Gregg G. Tallas mining the tradition of the Greek Amazons to

sow dissent between the sexes in prehistoric times.

Since none of the cave-people speak English, a narrator serves to tell the viewers what's going on for most of the film. Thus it's through the narrator that we learn that, in contrast to the Classical Amazons, the "Prehistoric Women" of the title only separate themselves from men for one generation. Following a prologue that shows some cave-women dancing wildly in "frustration"-- particularly dark-haired Tigri (Laurette Luez)-- we learn that some years ago Tigri's mother Tana rebelled against the men who tyrannized the tribe's women, and beaned the chief with a rock. Then all the women of the tribe followed Tana to make a separate tribe with their children, who were apparently all girls, since Tigri grows to womanhood with no men around.

However, Tigri and her fellow cavewomen don't want their tribe to die out for lack of available males, so they anticipate the later practices of the Greek Amazons and quest forth to abduct male slaves. The girls happen upon the young men of the tribe from which Tana fled, though viewers never see any of the mean older men of Tana's time. Instead, the only men are a bunch of young studs out hunting. It's not clear whether or not Tigri's group has ever encountered the cave-studs before, but the cave-girls have an advantage, being armed with slings that swiftly clobber most of the guys. One caveman, Engor, escapes to contemplate what he'll do to rescue his friends.

The girls bring the guys back to their village, using the threat of their pet black panther to insure that the men accede to their new slave-status. The guys don't seem to mind being lorded over by the women too much, probably because the girls are all hotties. Engor, while following in the tracks of the Prehistoric Women, accidentally discovers how to make fire. However, this doesn't immediately help him in the village, for the girls overpower him as well. Tigri, who hasn't selected her own mate-of-convenience yet, chooses Engor for herself and fights off a competitor. However, when a pterodactyl (played by what looks like a pelican) attacks the village and threatens to carry off Tigri, Engor manages to drive off the beast with a torch. Having put the women in their place, the men assume dominance once more, and Engor considers bringing all the fugitive women back to the original tribe.

Happily, the patriarchy doesn't get any further than the matriarchy, thanks to the menace of a nine-foot-caveman named Guadi. Having menaced the cavepeople on other occasions, this embodiment of male aggression, who apparently has no female equivalent, attacks Engor's new tribe. Engor is ultimately able to destroy Guadi by setting the forest ablaze. The cave-girls don't do anything to bring this state of affairs, but with Guadi gone, Engor changes his mind and decides that they will all return to the village and carry on with their new tribe, that respects both men and women.

Though the scenario is risible, as are the gorgeously coiffed cave-girls, Tallas's comedy has some clever "war between the sexes" bits, and thus PREHISTORIC WOMEN remains moderately charming despite its low budget.

FIRST SPACESHIP ON VENUS (1960), PLANET ON THE PROWL (1966)

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: (1) *drama,* (2) *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *cosmological. sociological*


It's 1985, and Earth had passed through a non-baptism of fire-- that is, the Earth nations managed to put aside their differences enough to cease menacing one another with nuclear fires, not unlike the history attributed to STAR TREK's Federation a bit later in the 1960s. However, amid all this international peace, scientists unearth a strange relic from the 1906 Tunguska meteor-strike. The item turns out to be a magnetic tape, apparently the last surviving remnant of a Venusian spaceship. Though the scientists labor to translate the tape, a multinational conference decides to investigate the possibility of life on Venus. As it happens, the Soviets had prepared a ship, the Kosmokrator, for a journey to Mars, but the agenda is changed, and a multinational crew of experts is selected. As is par for the course in such films, there are no national duplications: there's one Russian, one American, one Black African, one Japanese, and so on. (Reputedly the American release altered some of the nationalities as established in the original German/Polish film.)

Not much is said about the method by which the Kosmokrator traverses the millions of miles separating Earth from Venus, but it doesn't take long and no one needs to enter cryosleep. There are a few soap-opera bits here and there-- the American Robert once had an affair with the Japanese lady doctor Sumiko-- but the trip has no major hiccups. There's even a slightly comical R2D2-ancestor, a little robot named Omega. However, partway to their destination, one of the scientists manages to fully translate the magnetic record, and the cosmonauts all learn that Venus sent one of their ships to Earth on a scout mission, prefatory to launching an attack. In the movie's most dramatic scene, the crew-mates have to decide whether or not to divulge this discovery to the people of Earth.

Though capable of simply turning the ship around and going home, the cosmonauts decide to forge onward, all the way to Venus. The ship sends down a landing-craft with Robert in command, but though he discovers some entities that look like bat-winged insects-- actually artificial in nature-- he learns that there are no longer any living Venusians. Further investigations indicate that the Venusians had been preparing atomic weapons with which to attack Earth, and ended up destroying themselves instead. There are even some outlines of slain Venusian bodies in certain walls, a clear reference to a historical phenomenon recorded in Hiroshima. However, the Earthpeople's advent sets one of the doomsday machines in motion, and now they have to endeavor to prevent the Venusians' deadly plans from coming to fruition.

VENUS, purportedly based on a Stanislaw Lem book, never develops either its characters or its theme of an atomic specter that returns to haunt human civilization. Oddly, in the same year an American independent company released another space-voyage tale involving a multinational crew, TWELVE TO THE MOON, which, while no classic, was somewhat more engaging.

Stodgy as VENUS is, it's far more watchable than PLANET ON THE PROWL, which title I prefer to the original WAR BETWEEN THE PLANETS.

PROWL is the third entry in Italy's so-called "Gamma One" series, preceded by THE WILD WILD PLANET and WAR OF THE PLANETS. Both of these are decent cheapjack soap-opera, but though Film #3 takes place in the same future-Earth environment, the characters of the first two films are jettisoned in favor of a new cast. all of whom manage to be even less well-defined than the first group. 

Unfortunately, even though schlock-meister director Antonio Margheriti helmed all four films, he or another producer decided to dust off a SF-trope that had become hoary even by 1966: a gigantic asteroid on a collision course with the Earth. As the asteroid comes closer, the planet suffers cataclysms, forcing the Earthpeople to send a spaceship to deal with the cosmic intruder. Suffice to say that even the astronauts don't seem to have any sort of plan in mind, they manage to destroy the asteroid, which may or may not be a living thing. In place of good action, there are a lot of scenes of actors clambering over phony asteroid-parts. There is one fistfight between the ship's commander and a subordinate, and that's about it for PROWL.