FIlms Catch Up 8

More films I watched earlier this year

1. Battle Beneath The Earth

Dr Kramer is discovered in Las Vegas listening to the pavement, claiming that he can hear people tunnelling underneath. He’s committed to a mental hospital but later the naval seismic station gets him out. Commander Shaw’s deep sea underwater base was wrecked after an unexpected earthquake. Also there is an accident in the deepest mines in Oregon.

Investigating the mines they discover strange tunnels, strange machines and strange people. They’re Chinese! This is a 1960s paranoid fantasy about being undermined.

There’s a twist though. The tunnelling is being directed by General Chan Lu, who claims to be a descendant of some sort of ancient Chinese society. He is not only tunnelling under the Pacific to plant atomic bombs under major US cities. He is also working on underground farms and power – he had built an entire underground civilization. And he’s not under the control of the Chinese government any more; he has placed a bomb under Peking [sic] and is extorting them.

He's also got some (sigh) secret/ancient Chinese hypnotism. He uses this to convert some prisoners. “Red is green and green is red/ The east is rising the west is dead.” The film keeps turning to mental states, never quite connecting the dots.

In perhaps the most interesting sequence, the seismic stations can’t locate the tunnels because there is too much noise. So they arrange to ground all flights, stop trains, cars, trucks, all mining, all industry. It’s The Day The (United States) Stood Still. And this rather good bit of them phoning up various states who are delayed or have forgotten things, intercut with stock footage of empty streets and airports, then leads to the big reveal.

Sadly most of the film is men creeping down tunnel sets, fighting in tunnel sets, standing in control rooms or General Chan Lu doing weird evil stuff in his opulent underground quarters. Men? The film keeps introducing women who seem to be about to play an important, ongoing role, only for the plot to forget about them.

Watch This: A strangely compelling journey from man committed for paranoia for trying to listen to tunnels to fighting in those tunnels while the timers on nuclear bombs tick down
Don’t Watch This: Shifts between explicit and implicit racism, also the tenth time the naval soldiers (?) are having a submachine gun fight in a tunnel with the Chinese miners it gets a bit samey.
For Some Reason: Available to see on the youtube

2. Burnt Offerings

A family rent a house for the summer at a bargain price. There’s exactly one weird stipulation; that they give meals to the elderly mother who keeps herself upstairs, hidden away, leaving them outside the door if she doesn’t answer.

Ben, the father, (Oliver Reed) is haunted by memories of the weird chauffeur from his mother’s funeral. Marian, the mother, (Karen Black) is keen to clean tidy and mend things in the house, some of which happens mysteriously, also starts to wear old fashioned clothes. Davey, the boy, generally enjoys himself but has accidents. Aunt Elisabeth (Bette Davis) paints, seems oblivious.

As things get stranger and more bad things occur, the house get brighter. Flowers bloom. The lady upstairs never appears. She also collects photos of things.

It’s a haunted house film, lifted by the cast who do great work with a spooky plot. That Ben is haunted by his own mother’s death and there’s a mystery lady upstairs does keep us guessing as to what’s going on, long enough that it’s only after it’s over that we know it doesn’t matter.

Watch This: A cool haunted house film with shocks, creeping dread and a bit of true horror from a superior cast
Don’t Watch This: Some people get a bargain holiday; it turns out to have strings attached

3. The Incident

Two hoodlums in New York cause trouble in a pool hall, mug a guy then head for the subway (here above ground). Then we get to see all the other passengers destined for that subway car, and find out what their deal is. A husband and wife with a sleepy child have been kept late at the wife’s mothers and he refuses to pay for a cab. A dating couple make their way home, as do an elderly Jewish couple arguing about what the younger generation owe them. A pair of soldiers on leave, one with a broken arm, have been visiting the uninjured soldier’s family (eating lasagna, new to the other, who is from Oklahoma).

Further on are a middle-aged couple arguing because the husband earns much less than the people at the cocktail party they’ve been at. A black couple who disagree about how to deal with racism. And finally a recovering alcoholic guy and the gay bloke who tried and failed to pick him up.

Also on the train, all this time, is a sleeping down-and-out.

The two hoodlums get on the train, harass and hassle everyone, threatening them, not letting anyone get off and blocking the doors. The situation eventually escalates to a resolution.

Watch This: A dark, tense film about urban fear
Don’t Watch This: No one gets resolution to their story

4. The Great Flamarion

The Great Flamarion is a vaudeville performer, the greatest trickshot artist in the world. His act is that he comes home, discovers the actress playing his wife with another man, shoots lightbulbs, flowers, glasses out of hands etc.

The story is told in flashback in a theatre in Mexico City where a shot has rung out and then a woman found strangled. Later, when the theatre has emptied, a stagehand discovers the dying Flamarion who explains what happened. He was arrogant and obsessed with shooting, and wanted to fire Al, the man in his act, who would get drunk and miss his cues. However Connie, the woman, was married to Al, so he was mulling over if he should fire them both.

Connie then seduced Flamarion, and convinced him to shoot Al on stage. This goes off without a hitch, but Connie was already looking for another man (a trick cyclist). She convinced Flamarion they shouldn’t be seen together for three months, he gave her money and then they parted, for her to not turn up at the rendezvous. Flamarion lost his fortune on drink and gambling, but eventually caught up with Connie here in Mexico City.

It's a fairly pacy film-noir with a femme fatale who first gains our sympathy by the way her husband abuses her, then loses it almost immediately by going off with the good looking bicyclist. Flamarion is fairly compelling as a man obsessed with shooting, only to discover there are other things in life (romance) and then have that taken from him too.

Watch This: High concept 1940s film noir, with a couple of good stage acts thrown in
Don’t Watch This: It’s all men being corrupted by a woman of loose morals

5. Black Adam

4,500 years ago Khandaq was oppressed by a tyrant who made a magic crown, but was freed when a wizard council gave the SHAZAM superpowers to a hero known as Teth-Adam. Now Khandaq is occupied by Intergang, criminals and mercenaries, who have a lot of interest in the ruins from that period.

Adriana Tomaz (blog favourite Sarah Shahi) is an archaeologist trying to work under this regime. She and her team get into the tomb and find the crown, but are interrupted by Intergang. She reads an incantation and this awakes Teth-Adam (The Rock) from his slumber. A bronze-age vengeance driven superhero runs wild across the city-state.

This draws the attention of Amanda Waller, who sends in the third or fourth super-team she’s put together in this version of the DC superhero universe, the Justice Society. Her doomed volunteers are Dr Fate (magic helmet, Pierce Brosnan!), Hawkman (grows wings, blog-favourite Aldis Hodge) who have worked together before and two new kids, Atom-Smasher (comic relief size changing, Noah Centino) and Cyclone (wind stuff, Quintessa Swindell whose name should really be a superhero’s secret identity). Those two have inherited their powers through their suit and nanobots respectively, I think. The film is barely interested in this so I don’t see why I should be.

They arrive in their super-high-tech plane to stop Teth-Adam’s murderous rampage, the fight causing quite a lot of damage. They track down Adriana who confronts them with an interesting question. Intergang have been occupying Khandaq for months, causing death and chaos* and now someone has risen capable of defeating them, now the international superheroes decide to turn up and act. It’s an interesting point that the film has no interest in exploring.

In fact that’s kind of the problem with the film. It raises lots of interesting points and then loses interest in them. Amanda Waller has screwed up two or three times and she’s still running covert ops super teams. This whole movie series began in Man Of Steel and every time they bring in a new character it turns out there have been superheroes running around earlier, now extending back to 2600 BCE. Captain Marvel (don’t say his name for legal reasons) is SHAZAM with the SHAZAM powers. And the Marvel family have the SHAZAM powers, and so does Teth-Adam. That’s kind of interesting. And Intergang may just be a cruel organised crime syndicate/private military company but they have stealth guys on flying jetcycles on the roster**.

And the Justice Society have a long history, Hawkman older than he looks, Dr Fate may be or not, but the helmet of Dr Fate is much older. Why haven’t they ever done anything before? Where were they during Justice League or Suicide Squad or Shazam! or Aquaman? Worse still we don’t see them in action before they arrive to fight Teth-Adam, a fight they stalemate/lose. They have to lose because Teth-Adam’s story doesn’t work if he’s captured again, The Rock (allegedly) writes that he can’t lose fights into his contracts, and the Justice Society's story needs them to regroup and figure out the plot rather than bring a captured superhero home. So our first impression is that they’re kind of incompetent.

Anyway there’s some uninspired revelations, a cool betrayal I should have seen but didn’t, Teth-Adam getting over his bronze-age barbarian slave revolt instant violence and an almost affecting sacrifice. If only we’d got to know the character involved a little more! In the end it’s another superhero film, and despite some good casting and tossing in some interesting ideas from the corners of the comics, never quite manages to come together.

Watch This: A superhero film with a charismatic cast and characters engaging with differing moral and ethical systems
Don’t Watch This: Every interesting point raised is then left dangling in favour of destructive fights and people grimly choosing what they’re willing to pay to get the job done

* Although Adriana’s son was cheeking some of them at a roadblock in an earlier sequence, the relationship between occupier and occupied is always in flux, something the film has no interest in exploring.

** In the comics they get these from the New Gods of Apokolips; is DarkSeid making a return after his defeat in one or other version of Justice League? Or are these the first fruits of their mining of the magic metal? Film not interested.

6. Krull

On the planet Krull, the Beast and his army of Slayers (gothic cathedral armour and one shot/slow cycling laser spears) have come in his Black Fortress, which moves and attacks a new place every day. Prince Colwyn and Princess Lyssa marry with a flame ceremony, to unite their kingdoms against the Beast. The Slayers attack, killing almost everyone except Colwyn and kidnapping Lyssa.

Colwyn is found and healed by Ynyr, an old and mystical man who tells him he needs the Glaive, a five-pointed star. As they travel they meet various people, recruiting some; a comic relief magician, a group of outlaws* and a cyclops**. They go to seek a seer who can tell them where the Black Fortress will appear but this goes wrong.

Ynyr goes to meet the Widow Of The Web who lives within the lair of a giant spider. She tells him where to find the Black Fortress, sacrifices herself. Ynyr returns to the rest, tells them and dies. The location is 1000 leagues away and it will leave at the next dawn, so they catch Fire Mares in a cool horse stunt sequence and ride there for a final confrontation.

The Beast has been trying to seduce Lyssa despite being an eye/a disembodied thing/the fortress itself. It does not succeed. There’s some entertainment in the final fight. Still we’ve been given a prophecy at the start of “a girl of ancient name that shall become queen", who "shall choose a king, and that together they shall rule their world, and that their son shall rule the galaxy.” So we know how it ends up.

Watch This: Fun 80s fantasy action with swords versus lasers
Don’t Watch This: It doesn’t really cohere and it’s silly and predictable

* Including a young Liam Neeson and a young Robbie Coltrane

** Bernard Bresslaw, playing the last of a large and dying race in a fantasy quest film for the second time, having played Gort the giant in Hawk The Slayer in 1980.

7. Scream And Scream Again

There’s a serial killer who has raped and murdered young women, draining them of blood. The metropolitan police are on their trail. There’s a spy, returning home to a Nazi-coded Eastern European state, where he kills the man debriefing him with a shoulder grab. And there’s another man, falls down when jogging, wakes up in what looks like a hospital. Every time he wakes up another limb has been amputated.

Eventually these storylines link up. Until then though the one that actually progresses is the police hunt for the serial killer. One of the women was employed by Dr Brown (Vincent Price) but he seems to be a dead end. Another was picked up at a disco, so they send in an undercover policewoman. They’re just in time when her attacker is drinking blood from her wrist, then shows superhuman strength in a fight and getaway. Is he… a vampire? He escapes them and finds his way to an estate where he destroys himself in a vat of acid. The estate turns out to back onto Dr Brown’s property.

The spy kills a superior (Peter Cushing) and returns to the UK. There he meets with a British Intelligence representative (Christopher Lee). They agree to turn over the evidence from the investigation in return for a pilot who crashed in the foreign country. But both the policeman leading the investigation and the forensic doctor assisting him are in Brown’s laboratory where revelations and mayhem will ensue.

It's 1970 and filmmaking has got a bit psychedelic and disorienting. Here’s three storylines that will eventually knit together, you figure it out! The title of the film suggests a camp shocker, and that is an ingredient, but it’s also a paranoid, dark science fiction film, about human experimentation and the grim compromises of politics.

Watch This: A genuinely creepy film that doesn’t hold your hand
Don’t Watch This: Eventually everything is explained and it’s a lot of very silly eugenics clone nonsense

8. The Dunwich Horror

At Miskatonic University in Arkham Massachusetts, Dr Armitage gives a lecture on the Necronomicon. One of his students, Nancy, takes it back to the library. Wilbur Whateley convinces her to let him look at it, though it’s the only copy*. Dr Armitage interrupts them, and is familiar with the Whateley family who have a bad reputation.

Despite the warning Nancy offers to drive Whateley home after he misses the last bus to Dunwich. There he disables her car, drugs her tea, and hypnotises her to stay the weekend. Worried when she doesn’t come back Dr Armitage and her friend Elizabeth arrive, but she tells them it’s okay. They don’t believe her and start to ask around town.

The town doctor reveals that Wilbur lives with his grandfather, Old Whateley. His mother Livinia is in an asylum; she was committed after giving birth to twins, one Wilbur, the other stillborn – though the doctor never saw the stillborn twin.

Elizabeth sneaks back into the house and looks into a locked door. Something is behind it, something represented by strange colours and sounds. It kills her.

It’s based on the H P Lovecraft story of the same name. Wilbur Whateley and his twin were fathered by an alien god Yog-Sothoth**. Wilbur is mostly human, though with the Whateley ambition to worship and bring the Old Ones to earth. His sibling, the eponymous horror, is a creature outside of normal reality and human understanding, something the film struggles to show. An interesting attempt at a fairly direct adaption.

Watch This: A solid Lovecraft adaption that attempts to offer insight to experiences outside of space and time
Don’t Watch This: The light and sound show does not convince and without it it’s a nasty and uninspiring horror film

* Armitage should probably do something about that, or maybe not.

** Entertainingly, the extended family tree of Lovecraft’s mythos means that Wilbur Whateley is Cthulhu’s uncle.

9. Sandokan Pirate Of Malaysia

A rogue British general has seized control of Borneo. He’s trying to get the king Hassim to abdicate in his favour. The main opposition comes from notorious pirate and freedom fighter Sandokan.

After a bit of faffing about and occasional fights the general sends messengers on the ship Young India to India to ask for reinforcements. Also aboard is the king’s daughter, being smuggled out the country, and possibly to ask the British to knock it off. This is Sandokan’s whole deal, so there’s a big fight on board ship.

I kind of have to say, I don’t find the fights very convincing, but all the stunts where people jump, fall, are thrown or dive off heights are really good. So that all the fights have various levels to break them up makes up for the lacklustre punching and fencing.

This is an old school adventure film, with every plot point moving towards the next setpiece fight with a couple of disguise sections to break things up. Dubbed from Italian, it’s not especially coherent but it does move quickly and painlessly on towards the end.

Watch This: Lots and lots of people fighting and falling great distances
Don’t Watch This: If any of it should make sense

10. Gog

In a secret underground laboratory in New Mexico, the US government is building a space station. Unfortunately there seem to be a number of unexplained fatal accidents. Maybe building a space station is hard and dangerous? They send Dr David Sheppard from the Office of Scientific Investigation to have a look.

Sheppard and his assistant Joanna Merritt work their way through the laboratory, learning about such things as the reflected sun ray, the low gravity simulator* and NOVAC** (Nuclear Operative Variable Automatic Computer) that controls the laboratory and also two robots named Gog and Magog.

There are strange occurrences, radio signals, accidents. The model sun ray goes berserk trying to kill one of the scientists. Other scientists and test subjects (astronaut candidates?) are killed, as is the chief of security. Somehow the giant, ungainly robots seem to vanish and reappear.

The outlines of the mystery are clear to modern watchers, even if the details are not. The robots, intended to be alien and threatening, instead come off as comical. Meanwhile Madam Elzever being chased by a spotlight (sun ray) and having every escape cut off is a pretty good low-budget tense scene.

Watch This: Agoraphobic, paranoid 1950s science fiction thriller
Don’t Watch This: The robots are hilarious when they’re supposed to be scary

* Two acrobats demonstrate the different abilities at different gravities, with the scientists discussing the heights above the earth this would correspond to. True enough if they were in a tower. This is one of several science blunders in the film (how big a space mirror do you need to burn a city? Quite big! Especially if it’s not a model city) and probably forgivable considering the state of space exploration in 1954. Indeed it predicts an earth reconnaissance satellite in the closing scenes.

** Riffing, I assume, of UNIVAC (UNIVersal Automatic Computer) the first commercial electronic computer and the predecessor ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And Computer). The name had me think of Isaac Asimov’s recurring computer Multivac, but a swift check suggests he first used it later, in the 1955 story Franchise.