B-Movie Double Bill: It's Alive and Blazing Magnum - 4th March 2011
He stared out a writer and series runner for run of the mill TV Shows such as 'Branded' but when he did branch out into directing features it was with 'Black Caesar' one of the famous Blaxploitation films of the early 70s. It wasn't long after this and 'Hell Up In Harlem' that he penned and directed the demon baby classic that spawned not one but two sequels, 'It's Alive'.
Basically the film revolves around a family who own possibly the most ludicrously decorated 70s house ever, the mother tarts herself up to go into labour and the husband wonders around the hospital waiting room with other would-be Dads, smoking heavily and lending morons money for the vending machine. His wife then gives birth to a deformed, crazy baby that kills all the attending staff and escapes through the roof. Just another normal Friday night in a Larry Cohen film.
All this mutant baby hullabaloo leads the mother to be branded as crazier than bucket of miniature Piers Morgans, which, let's be fair, she is and she spends most of the rest of the film wondering around her home in an orange paisley nightie strobing with the olive green paisley wall paper while her husband, who is inexplicably fired from his job for having a ugly, violent offspring (surely that would result in 80% of the human race being unemployed but anyhew...), believes himself to be in a serious melodrama and, with the police, goes on the hunt for the demented sprog, over-acting his weirdly odd little face off.
The beginning and end of the film are rather exciting, dealing, as they do, with the birth of the malevolent little quisling and then of course the inevitable capture of the mutated, toothy brat. In the middle, however, not much happens. This is most likely due to budgetary restraints, as we hardly ever see more than just bits of the deformed, veiny headed, midget oik and it doesn't so much run amok as it does occasionally leap out of hedges and kill milkmen.
The film is played more as a family melodrama than an out and out horror and in order to drag the thing out to the requisite 90 minutes the police have to do ineptly stupid things like wonder into a school where they know it is for certain without turning any lights on, also it doesn't quite have the intelligence, beyond an obvious 'child-birth is hell' subtext, that it appears to be reaching for.
Still, that said, when watched with a rowdy group at a B-Movie night it's a bit of good fun and while it isn't exactly The Brood or Rosemary's Baby, it has it's own sort of demented charm and John P. Ryan, the lead actor is a pleasure to watch as he mugs and grimaces throughout the proceedings.
6.5 out of 10 very hammy sandwiches
Points from The Wife 6 out of 10
At first glance this is a B-Movie Dirty Harry rip off written and directed by some nutty Italians and filmed, no doubt for monetary reasons, in Montreal and it's interesting to note that everywhere but America sold it under names that hinted as such: Blazing Magnum, Tough Tony Siatta, The 44 Specialist and Big Magnum 77 (Which, in Britain, sounds like a new addition to the ice cream brand and everywhere else sounds like a ridiculously large sex aid). In America, however they sold it more as a horror/thriller, calling it 'Strange Shadows in an Empty Room' which I mention because, while there are certainly elements of Dirty Harry, Bullet and French Connection in there, the plot is also typical of Giallo, which is an Italian form of cinema, dabbled in most frequently by Dario Argento and his ilk, that deals with twisty turny murder and crime thriller stories, usually featuring nudity and gore, which Blazing Magnum has too, just not in abundance.
The truth of the matter is that it's a bit of both, part 70s, ruthless cop caper, part bizarre crime drama. It is curious and certainly interesting to note, however, that America and not Italy sold the film with a much more authentic Giallo sounding title and with a poster that depicts a blind woman and the feet of an obviously hanging corpse.
The plot, as far as I could figure it and not that it is relevant, had to do with a hardbitten detective, Stuart Whitman, whose wayward younger sister is killed at a party where she is being implausibly sleazed all over by Martin Landau's lips and, with John Saxon in tow, he must find out who killed her and why. Along the way they meet a blind girl, do battle with transvestites, lock up a doctor without any evidence, have one of the most ridiculous foot chases in the history of cinema, abuse possible suspects only to find they know absolutely nothing, turn up some information about some expensive and mysterious Oriental black pearls that may or may not be important, trash apartments, damage several cars during a chase sequence that is completely and utterly legendary, putting many modern big budget films to shame and, eventually, shoot down a helicopter over a city full of people with a hand gun.
In the end, the detective learns the deep, dark truth about his not so perfect sibling, they save blind Mia Farrow's sister and Martin Landau's lips are free to continue practicing medicine and dribbling all over healthy young co-eds. The city, I presume, foots the bill for all of Whitman's ridiculous and destructive crime solving methods.
So what we are talking about here is a film that has some of my favourite elements of all time: crime, mystery, horror, action, car chases, ridiculous one liners, stern men in brown 70s suits not taking shit from anyone all wrapped up in a crowd pleasing B-Movie bow. They honestly don't make them like this anymore, they would try but it would be hapless, self-referential, obvious, soulless pap and there'd be no slow motion shots of tits either.
Stuart Whitman's performance is a suitably snarling, gruff, heavy handed affair and as he is the only one with anything to do really, he makes the most of it. He seems to be literally one step away from actually chewing some scenery. John Saxon and Martin Landau, however, while it's always a bizarre pleasure to see them in a mad movie like this, don't have a whole lot to do at all and the less said about the somewhat drip-tasticly bland and weak performance of Tisa Farrow the better.
It is just a fantasticly ludicrous film, with absolutely no real morality (except it's wrong to kill Whitman's sister), a good dollop of over the top, brilliantly done action and a phenomenal 70s soundtrack complete with a funky full orchestra, perfect to watch in a group as a seriously amusing evening's entertainment but I suspect also a bit of fun as a Sunday afternoon action caper to watch by yourself.
The real shame is that it only seems to exist in a bad video to DVD transfer on the "Grindhouse Experience, Vol.2 Box Set" someone needs to do a special edition of this, possibly as a double bill with Gone With The Pope. It has completely whetted my appetite to just hunt down and watch more and more of these brilliant, old, curious B-Movies.
I will arrange another night like this one soon I think!
9 out of 10 gravelly voice creating shots of hard liquor
Points from The Wife 7 out of 10
Dead Heat - 13th September 2010
So say what you like about the 80s, the music was mostly awful, the fashion preposterous, the politics was a corporate gang-bang nightmare and the decade started with the gunning down of John Lennon and ended with the world domination of New Kids on the Block, something was clearly amiss.
Yet, despite the cold war, AIDS, Thatcher and Reagan, Exxon Valdeze and neon yellow leg warmers, there is one thing that means I will always have fondest for, what could quite easily be described as, the worst decade in the history of hair and, no, it isn't the sodding Rubik's cube or the collected hits of Spandau Ballet.
To put it simply, movies and the advent of video (although Betamax and VHS both debuted in the 70s, it wasn't till the 80s that these video formats took hold).
Ok, so the Oscar winners of the decade weren't anything to write home about, unless you're an insomniac who has grown immune to strong pills when would you ever sit down to watch The Last Emperor, Ghandi, Chariots of Fire or Driving Miss Daisy?
Looking at the top earners of the decade starts to reveal more of what I am talking about with the likes of Empire Strikes Back (the best Star Wars movie), The Indiana Jones films, Back to the future and Beverly Hills Cop but as great as these pictures are it's not entirely what makes me nostalgic for the era.
Firstly there was the fairly mainstream stuff, such as the best comedy films from the late 70s SNL crew, Stallone, Schwartzenegger & Willis at the top of their game, John Hughes flicks & the brat pack, the classic horrors of The Evil Deads, Nightmare on Elm Streets & Friday 13ths, John Carpenter genius such as Escape from NY, The Thing & Big Trouble in Little China, the good Muppet movies, the not-really-kid-friendly kids movies like Flight of the Navigator, Short Circuit, Labyrinth & the Young Sherlock Homes, American Werewolf in London, the Long Good Friday, Time Bandits, Brazil and Roger Moore and Timothy Dalton as awesome Bonds (I like them!).
I know I am missing so much but I think this list illustrates my point.
Then there were the other films, the weird ones, the creative ones, the ones you would discover on video's distributed by such companies as Vestron Video, Embassy Home Entertainment and New World Pictures. Falling into this category would usually be random stuff like Shogun Assassin, Toy Soldiers or Volunteers and horror/comedy stuff like The Burbs, Maniac Cop, Scanners, The Howling, Wacko, Return to Horror High, Ghoulies, Tremors, Re-Animator and, tonight's choice, Dead Heat.
In fact, looking at those two hefty, yet still fairly incomplete, lists, I wouldn't just say the 80s was good for movies, I would say they were damn near perfect, not a Michael Bay or a Tyler Perry in sight!
The films themselves have an indescribable quality, an inventiveness and a creativity that seems to be fairly lacking in today's CGI heavy, by-the-book, predictable re-treads of previous, better ideas. That may, of course, have a lot to do with the fact I viewed them all first on video.
I don't want to sound like an old fart and I don't have too much against modern home-viewing technology on the whole but video just had something special about it. They also had a weight to them, a certain feel, a pleasing aesthetic and they had a noise to them, the pop of the video case, the rattle of the tape and the whirr and click as you slid it into the machine, to say nothing of the frantic grinding you would hear as you fast forwarded or rewinded them. On the tapes would be loud, bright, neon logos, funny looking warnings and the sometimes lined or blurred picture quality, if watching the right film, would actually add to and enhance the picture. I don't care what anyone says Raiders of the Lost Arc looks better on VHS any day of the week, I don't know why, but it just does and horror films like Evil Dead, Nightmare on Elm Street etc. benefit hugely from video's lesser quality because it adds to the feeling that you're watching something you shouldn't, that the tape itself is evil or haunted.
Say what you like but there is nothing scary or interesting about modern slim, shiny technology, you think the Poltergeist would come out of your big 50 inch plasma or the girl in the Ring possess a blu-ray disc? just sounds crap doesn't it and I would go as far as to say that any film that uses a mobile phone or the internet as a plot device is a big pile of steaming dung.
I mention all of this because it all applies to the enjoyment and somewhat unique brilliance of the film Dead Heat which is an 80s zombie cops & robbers horror/comedy written by the writer of Lethal Weapons' brother Terry Black, starring Treat Williams and the guy nobody talks about or remembers from the not very funny series of SNL in the 80s, Joe Piscopo, it features one of the last screen appearances of Vincent Price and a fantastical, hysterical and disturbing scene in the back of a Chinese takeaway that includes re-animated duck heads.
I first saw this back on video, way back when and thankfully the DVD transfer isn't so pristine that it spoils this rare and bizarre film which definitely falls firmly into the category of films that people just don't seem to have the sense of humour or fun to make anymore.
Ok, firstly and quickly, the things that are semi-wrong with it are that it's not as funny as it could be or thinks it is, which is mostly down to the distractingly weird looking Joe Piscopo, some of the film lacks pacing, there isn't that great 80s synth-pop soundtrack it so desperately craves and, apart from the toupee sporting, hand ringing and suitably manic villain who is excellent, most of the supporting cast are spectacularly wooden and bland looking. Oh and it could do with a lot more zombies.
Apart from those fairly typical B-Movie style complaints, this movie does everything else right. It spends all its money on the over-the-top set pieces which include a street shoot out at the beginning, the previously mentioned, infamous and rather gooey dinner-comes-alive sequence, a clever make-up and special effects piece in which a human decays and the ambulance sequence that leads to the big climatic action scene.
Treat Williams has more and more of a blast as the film continues, including a tremendous tour-de-force revealing-the-villain scene that harks cleverly back to the style of Bogart detective films and the more make-up he's wearing, towards the end of the film, the more he hams it up to great effect behind it.
The film is also directed simply but suitably well with good editing and, apart from the odd joke falling flat and while it's no Lethal Weapon, the script keeps its tongue firmly and pleasantly in it's cheek and never resorts to commenting on or trying to make too much sense of what's going on and instead opts to just go happily with the flow. It, also, isn't afraid to stop the wackiness for a minute and have genuine, serious character moments.
Yes it is ultimately throw away and it's no Maniac Cop but it's an interesting, creative and well intentioned attempt to make something exciting, crazy in the best way, weird, wonderful, different and fun.
If you can, find it in the back of an old junk shop selling VHS, take it home, invite a few like minded friends over, pop it into the old creaky player, switch on your ancient, large, CRT television and sit back to watch a film, the likes of which we may never see again.
6 out of 10 still quacking duck wraps
Points from The Misses 6 out of 10 still quacking duck wraps