Another movie review for a film you have probably never heard of: A Tale of Two Sisters (Korea).

One of the staples of this blog was to do one or more movie reviews of scary movies just before Halloween.  Although I doubt I should call it a “tradition,” I thought I might take this opportunity to review a pretty intense horror film.

The film is A Tale of Two Sisters, which was made in South Korea in 2003.  I only knew about this film because I have the DVD of the 2009 American remake entitled The Uninvited.  (There is also a 1944 film of that same name, which stars Ray Milland.  That is a fine vintage haunted house film, but discussion of that one should be left to another day.)  The Uninvited is a pretty decent horror film.  However, once I discovered that there was an earlier Asian version on which that film was based, I decided I needed to see it.  Asian horror films are always superior to their American remakes, such as Ringu/The Ring, Dark Water, and Don’t Look Up.  

I will get to the punch line first.  This is a great horror film.  The plot is very interesting albeit highly convoluted, the acting wonderful, the cinematography is fantastic, and the scares are pretty great.  I highly recommend it, if you can find the DVD.  As of this writing, this film is also in Comcast’s On Demand film selections for under three bucks.  Do you like horror films that make you think?  (Note:  Slasher films involving a group of teens out by themselves terrorized by a scary wossname armed with all sorts of very sharp implements are NOT horror.)  You should see this film.

Asian horror films are very non-linear compared to your standard American films.  That is, they jump around a lot.  They also tend not to explain very much to the audience in a way of a backstory or any explanations of things that you might actually need to know to understand what’s coming next.  American films, at times, spoon-feed the audience with all sorts of forced revelations and expositions.  Not so with Asian horror films.  As a viewer of a film like A Tale of Two Sisters, you are expected to be fully alert and engaged. 

Personally, this is a very difficult task for me, as I am a very literal person.  If I am presented with a scene or a conversation, I almost always take it at face value.  This is a mistake when watching this film.   Some scenes are flashbacks without really explaining they are flashbacks, and almost ever scene involves some sort of subtle symbolism as to what is going on.   With this film, once I watched it, I went on the Internet Movie Database  to read some reviews there.  A number of things were explained to me, but many were still left unanswered.  And then I watched it again.  Now that I knew the ending and was armed with some facts about the symbolism involved, I came away with a much greater understanding, as well as a great admiration, of this film.   But there are still a number of scenes that are pretty bizarre and inexplicable, even when I knew the ending.  As an aside, if you have seen the American version I discussed earlier, you will have at least a partial knowledge of what is going on.  But there are many, many more twists and very shocking scenes that didn’t make it into the Hollywood version.  Even with the plot twist at the end of The Uninvited, I suppose the filmmakers decided that American audiences couldn’t process all the information that is in Two Sisters.

I do not want to discuss the details of this film too deeply.  I am giving this film a high recommendation for you to go find it (if you haven’t seen it already), so I don’t want this review to be full of spoilers.  And I can’t really figure out what to write about without playing spoiler.   

The basics of the plot, to begin with, are pretty straightforward.  There are two teenage sisters, living with their obviously overwhelmed and emotionally disengaged father and a pretty malevolent stepmother.  One of the girls (you aren’t absolutely certain which one) has just been released from some sort of mental institution and is coming home for the first time in a long time.  Some dark incident in the past, referred to several times, was obviously one of the triggers for this girl’s complete mental and emotional breakdown.  The girls seem very attached to each other and united in dislike that borders on outright loathing of the stepmother.   Then, the strange events start occurring that become more and more bizarre and inexplicable.

I will admit that a couple of the scary moments in the film rely on the usual tricks of scary movies, such as a hand jumping out from a dark place and grabbing you.  I look at those kinds of scary tricks as just that, a trick, and a cheap one at that.  But there are not that many of those in this film.  In fact, there were a number of scenes where I was expecting one of those tricks to take place, and they didn’t.  That actually had the effect of making those scenes that much more suspenseful.  There are several sequences that are just brutally difficult to watch, such as the scene where the evil step-mum grabs the younger sister and locks her in the dark closet, of which the girl is obviously terrified.  The screams and pounding on the door are pretty gut wrenching, as is the reaction of the stepmother.  How could someone hate a child so much to do that to them?  There are several scenes that just come out of nowhere, such as the young female dinner guest suddenly having a seizure or fit during a very, very awkward conversation at the dinner table.  That was a very shocking scene to me.  But even though it appeared out of the blue, it is yet another clue as to what is going on in the film.

Again, this is a highly recommended film, if you can find it and don’t mind having to read the English subtitles along with simultaneously watching the unfolding scene.  I would also plan on watching it more than once.  

Is the "Hunger Games" a ripoff from the 2000 Japanese cult film, "Battle Royale"?

I just watched Battle Royale last night on PPV, a Japanese cult film from 2000.  I had never heard of it before, but some of the scenes in the preview looked pretty compelling.  Once I got into the film, I was going "Hey, wait a minute...."

Apparently, this is not a new observation.  This controversy has been going on for some time, even before the movie version of The Hunger Games.  See this story for an example.  Of the few that I have read, however, the writers seem to be going out of their way to marginalize those who might suggest that Suzanne Collins took her ideas right out of Battle Royale.  OK, sure.  There aren't that many original ideas running around anymore, especially when it comes to films.  But really...  Let's take a bit closer look at this, given that Ms. Collins is saying she had never heard of this film when she was writing The Hunger Games.

The main drama in each comes in when groups of young people are sent out in an isolated area and are required to kill each other to survive.  Per the rules, only one can come out alive.  (That's the first similarity.)  Yep, the two groups came to be in this predicament in totally different ways.  But that, as the linked article might suggest, isn't a huge difference in my mind.  Each of these contests is government sanctioned.  (Second similarity.)  Each of these contests creates a media frenzy and is considered to be a huge sporting event.  (Third similarity.)  Each contestant (for the most part, which I will discuss later) is there against his/her will, being chosen by random lottery.  (Fourth similarity.)  Each contestant is provided a weapon, all different from each other, with some being much better than others but sometimes, the oddball weapon is of much more use than they might have expected.  Bow and arrow or crossbow are highly prized items.  (Fifth similarity.)  Announcements are made periodically through the contest, mostly to tell everyone who has been killed during the last period.  (Sixth similarity.)  Smaller alliances within the big group are formed, in order to hunt down the individuals easier.  (Seventh similarity.)  Survivors of earlier games are included in the current game.  (Eighth similarity.)  The heroes of the story are a pair, boy and girl, trying to survive together but ultimately know that they may not be able to both survive, given the rules of the game.  But they are certainly going to give it a try.  (Ninth similarity.)

Now, it is certainly possible that Suzanne Collins had had no exposure to this film before she wrote her books.  But boy...  That claim certainly seems, to me, to be really stretching at the bounds of credibility.  Some of the articles that I noted earlier really played up the differences between the two.  Well, sure.  If someone was going to copy someone else's idea, you wouldn't do it scene for scene, would you?  I mean, The Magnificent Seven is a different movie with different settings and different dynamics, but the idea still came from Kurasawa's classic, The Seven Samurai.  And the earlier film was given due credit in the American western version directed by John Sturges.  But to have that many, very detailed similarities between the two doesn't seem to be overshadowed by some admittedly different plot aspects (such as why these games are being conducted in the first place).

Like I said, it is possible, but boy.  I certainly see why some critics are really howling about how unlikely it is that Ms. Collins really had no idea she was writing something that paralleled so closely a huge hit film in Japan.

Upon reading an anthology of stories by H.P. Lovecraft, or why I will never, ever own a Kindle.

Artistic rendering of Cthulhu, which also sort of represents my feeling towards complex electronic devices in general.

Yes, I recognize the fact that I am somewhat of a technophobe. Anything more complex than a ratcheting socket wrench usually ends up not working for me. Computers do not work. Wireless connections do not work. OK, my cell phone usually works, but that seems to be an exception, probably because it is one of the very low end devices that really does not do anything other than make and receive phone calls and text messages. I will never own a “smart phone.” I absolutely hate crap that doesn't work for me and I have to spend more time figuring out how to make them work correctly than the time I want to use them for.

So, I know that I am already predisposed not to be very enamored of a Kindle or other similar “electronic book” device. But here are some thoughts about why real books – for me, in any case – are vastly superior to a Kindle.

As the title states, I just finished reading an anthology by the great horror writer, H.P. Lovecraft. Click the link if you don’t know who he is. I realize that some younger folks in America might not have a clue as to the influence Howard Phillips Lovecraft had on American horror, and still exerts to this day. Horror writers such as Stephen King freely acknowledge Lovecraft’s influence on their own work. Films such as the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, many films by John Carpenter such as “The Thing,” probably all of the films by Wes Craven, etc. etc. owe their existence to the work of Lovecraft.

That doesn’t do a lot to explain my love of real books over a Kindle, other than to set the stage. I picked up my Lovecraft anthology in a used bookstore (absolutely the best kind of bookstore) for seven bucks a few weeks ago. This particular one was printed in 1945. The cover is in pretty good shape for something that old, although the top of the spine is pretty frayed looking and the corners are rather smashed with the cardboard sticking through the cloth covering. The pages are all very yellow, especially around the edges, as are many books that were printed during the war years of the 1940’s when they used much cheaper paper with a higher acid content than normal. There are water stains on the edges and the book has this very “old book-ish” smell to it. In other words, it is an absolutely perfect vehicle from which to read a little Lovecraft. In case I have whetted your interest, you might go looking for a version of “The Colour Out of Space.” That might be the most frightening short story I have ever read. I remember reading it when I was in jr. high school, probably at 11 o’clock at night. It made quite an impact. “The Cult of Cthulhu” is also a very good read, and is probably his most famous story. I just could not envision reading something like that from an electronic reader, where you are just scrolling up and down an LED powered screen. Where are the browning pages? Where is that interesting smell? An e-book would just not have worked for me.

I just like books as the means to deliver the words to the reader. Books have a substance to them that a Kindle could never have. Books, especially older books that have been read many times, develop a character all their own. They become unlike the next book you pick up off the shelf. I even love paperback books. I enjoy flipping back and forth between pages when I am taking a break from actual reading, which I do rather often. I go back and look at the cover art. My, isn’t that an interesting piece of artwork? I contemplate the creases in the spine and the missing chips from the cover. The more dog-eared the copy, the better. One book that I have that I re-read about every other year is “The Magus” by John Fowles. I won’t go into a literary discussion of that particular novel at this time. Many people don’t like it; as it sometimes seems to be an exercise in the worst excesses of that particular writing style, “Let’s try to confuse the hell out of the reader.” But I somehow find it fascinating. It just has a very unique, mysterious air to it, even when I know what is coming. My original copy of that book split into two pieces because of multiple readings and admittedly less than careful handling. I put lots of Elmer’s glue on the outside of the spine and then several layers of Scotch tape. That worked fine and it gives a very unique feeling to the book. I know exactly which book from my collection I am holding when I have that in my hand.

Yes, I am somewhat of a collector of old books, which also no doubt colors my perception of a Kindle. I have a number of very interesting editions, such as a what appears to be a first edition from 1901 of “Mr. Munchausen,” from spawned several films over the years, including Terry Gilliam’s “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen,” and a 1894 first edition of “Trilby,” which gave us the evil manipulator, Svengali, and popularized the notion of “animal magnetism,” also known as hypnotism. I could go on, as I have quite a number of interesting volumes in my collection. I just don’t see the attraction of reading any of those books on a Kindle device. Any book that I would read purely for enjoyment, I really want that book. I may get rid of it later, but I want to hold that copy in my hand while I am reading it. Being able to download it from Amazon for a couple of bucks instantaneously holds no attraction for me.

Now, this is not to say that I think that the Kindle should not exist. I have heard a number of stories about how someone’s mother has started reading again, mostly because of the ease of use and the fact that you can make the font really big for someone who would otherwise have to strain to read smaller print. Great. Maybe it would be good for a collection of technical books as well, although I still like being able to flip back and forth between pages, where you can easily see where you are in the volume, rather than try to scroll around or jump around between pages. I have enough of that with these technical documents I have to read on the computer for my job. And I can see where a search function would come in really handy from time to time. But I grew up with books. My mom had lots of books lying around. She read to me from some very old copies of “Winnie the Pooh.” I avidly read all the Hardy Boy books when I was a kid. I have always had a large collection of books that has followed me to place to place as I moved around during my life. When I remodeled my house, I specifically included a largish library/computer room with two walls covered with built-in bookshelves, which were filled immediately when I unloaded all the boxes that contained my books.

Carrying around an electronic tablet thingy that probably wouldn’t work the way I wanted it to and the battery would run out when I needed it and didn’t have the recharger just wouldn’t cut it for me.

OK, if Gandalf is so damn smart, why didn't he know about this?

Obama-bots deployed to force white, heroic Americans to become socialists and have abortions.

"Come! I shall now murder your unborn baby, even though you are not pregnant."

Obama-bots, or O-bots as they are affectionately called, are indestructable. The product of the nefarious mind of George Soros and the Kenyan-Muslim Jihad and Chowder Society, these automatons were created solely to destroy the God-Fearing United States of America. In its place, a trans-national Muslim caliphate will be created. White people will be forced to bow down to all to scary brown and black people and be forced to sit in the back of the bus. All Christians and Capitalists will be brainwashed, by such entities as the Peace Corp., public schools, and Hollywood blockbusters, so that they won’t wish each other “Merry Christmas” and will demand that the Nanny-State-Government will coddle them when they fall down and get a boo-boo on their knees.

Publicity photo from “Target! Earth”

OK. this is a real story title and picture in the NY Times.

Aside From the Vampires, Lincoln Film Seeks Accuracy


Ahh....... I'm willing to bet that is the VERY FIRST time that particular sentence has ever been constructed in the history of mankind.

Well, why not? That's Hollywood for you. There isn't any story you could possible come up with that can't be enhanced with vampires. Or zombies, of course. But vampires will probably work best here. Hot, young, sultry, terribly self-indulgent vampires.

Lest you think I jest, here is the NYT link.

I am starting to have this same feeling of unreality about the Japanese nuclear disaster that I did about the oil spill in the Gulf.

This is a very serious situation and I believe that we don’t know half of what is going on. Here is a short description via DailyKos about what the people on the ground are dealing with.

The world today got its first glance of the 50 workers, until now an anonymous group of lower and mid-level managers. Pictures from inside the plant show staff in full protective suits and masks working in debris-strewn control rooms lit only by torchlight. They are also pictured working to reconnect power supplies and trying to make the towers in the plant safe.

Five are believed to have died and 15 are injured while others have said they know the radiation will kill them. At first light today officials were alarmed to see steam pouring from reactors 1, 2, 3, and 4. It was the first time that steam has escaped from the No 1 reactor.

I have heard about the two or three workers that got radiation burns on their feet and legs by walking in radioactive water. But this is the first time I have heard about people actually dying and receiving enough radiation to know that they are going to die. I also did not understand the true devastation because of the hydrogen explosions. The controlling mechanisms, even if they get electrical power restored, may not actually function. And we are now hearing that one of the main containment vessels has a very large crack in it and that was probably the source of the radioactive water that burned the workers as they valiantly attempted to do whatever they could to help the situation.

Remember, also, that these plants are on the shoreline of the ocean. All this radioactive runoff is going directly into the ocean.

I know this is poor taste and I think many people have been avoiding making these comparisons just for that reason. But I can’t help but notice that the situation now resembles many of the mutant monster sci-fi films of the 1950’s, both Japanese and American. No, I don’t expect a giant whatsits to come lumbering out of the sea and start crushing cars. The giant monsters were just metaphors anyway. The real monster, the unknown entity that we were all totally unprepared to deal with, is radioactivity. The only real differences here are the fact that an earthquake and tsunami were act the heart of the disaster, not an atomic bomb. Otherwise, those filmmakers were very prescient.

I keep hoping that this will all just go away. The situation can’t possible be as dire as I am thinking it might be. I was having some pretty awful thoughts about not being able to cap an oil gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico. The situation in Japan is much, much worse. I really don’t even want to consider the possibility of the “worst-case scenario.”

I'm sorry, but Newt Gingrich's wife is really kind of creepy.

Does this photo remind anyone else besides me of The Stepford Wives? (The original one...) Can you imagine this person as the First Lady? Which is a much lesser horror, I admit, than the one involving her husband as the President of the United States. But still...

Movie Reviews: Four classic comedies from the Golden Age of Film that you probably aren’t familiar with.

I hope that everyone had a very Merry Christmas and is looking forward to 2010 getting the heck out of Dodge. I know I am, although the chances of 2011 being an improvement are rather slim.

Anyway, it seems traditional around the Intertoobs that everyone will have an “End of the Year List” of some kind. I think I have done something similar in past years. I certainly don’t want to go revisit politics, so I will pick a favorite subject of mine, classic movies! I don’t know what I would do without TCM.

Now, there are a huge number of classic comedies that I could pick to highlight. Some of the classic comedies are my absolute favorite movies. I could pick films such as any of the Marx Brothers films (except The Big Store, that is, which rather stinks), The Philadelphia Story, Arsenic and Old Lace (which was, if my memory serves, my very first exposure to classic comedies and also Cary Grant), W.C. Fields, the Road pictures with Bing and Bob, Some Like It Hot (which some say is the best comedy ever filmed, althoug hI am not sure I agree)… All of those are very worthy of attention, especially in these days of the big budget blockbusters (in 3D!) where subtle humor, satire and really witty dialog are not held in great esteem.

However, those films would be too easy. Everyone who is a fan of classic films knows about those. So, I picked a few films that may not be terribly well known but should be. Perhaps this will inspire you to go out and look for these. I will try to stay away from the big time spoilers, but I can’t be assured that I won’t say something that can be categorized as a spoiler. So, you have been warned! Sort of…

So, with that overly lengthy explanation that I could have probably done without, here is my End of the Year List of Fairly Unknown Classic Comedies that You Should Check Out Immediately, If You Like Such Things.

Murder, He Says: This one may sound like a film adaptation of an Agatha Christie novel, but it isn’t. This screwball comedy is from 1945 and stars Fred MacMurray as a door-to-door pollster that gets caught up with a family of crazy and murderous hillbillies. Marjorie Main, who is famous for her role in the Ma and Pa Kettle series, stars as the matriarch of the crazy Fleagle family. Fred falls in the middle of a quest for a huge amount of stolen loot, as well as some dark scientific experiments by the step-father of the Fleagles. There’s a cute girl masquerading as a long lost cousin, in order that she can help clear up her father’s name who was wrongly implicated in the bank heist. There’s the twin boys, Bert and Mert, who look to be straight out of Lil’ Abner, except for the propensity of wanting to shoot most anything that moves. The climax of the picture, with Fred and the imposter Fleagle trying to evade the rest of the family, is worthy of a Marx Brothers picture. Although this has been seen in a number of cartoons like Bugs Bunny, I think this is the first actual film where I have seen real people fall into a hay baling machine and end up coming out where they are all nicely packed up in large bales of hay.



This one is worthy of a look. It is also interesting in that this role for Fred MacMurray came not long after his role in Double Indemnity. That’s quite a difference, and it shows MacMurray’s versatility. There’s even a very interesting direct reference to the Bob Hope film, The Ghost Busters, that I found particularly amusing.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037931/

Merrily We Live: From 1938, this one could be classified as one of the early screwball comedies. This film reunites Constance Bennett and Billie Burke, in almost a reprise of their Topper roles. Constance Bennett successfully plays Jerry Kilborne, a high society debutant who isn’t as shallow or as self-satisfied as her friends and suitors might think. Burke is at her ditziest best. Of course, everyone is familiar with Burke as Glenda, the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. However, that particular role seems to have been an aberration for her, as she usually played, with extraordinary energy, high-class society women that have a very tenuous grasp of reality.

In this one, Billie Burke plays Mrs. Kilborne, who has an intense desire to rescue all the “hobos” around and reintegrate them into society. The film opens with the family discovering that the last bum employed by Mrs. Kilborne has just made a fast getaway with not only the fine silver but also the kitchen silverware. The breakfast scene where everyone is attempting to eat slices of cantaloupe with large mixing spoons and strainers sets the mood for the film. Bonita Granville, who gained fame as the first film version of Nancy Drew, adds incredibly energy to the proceedings as the younger sister.


Of course, a dashing young man who appears at the front door, looking to use the phone, is taken to be a hobo and inserted into the position of head chauffeur without his understanding how it happened. All sorts of mayhem ensues, with Jerry falling for the handsome Wade Rollins, who has taken to his role in the family a bit more than was expected. Of course, it turns out that he wasn’t a hobo at all, but a novelist on a vacation, but played along because it suited him. The entire premise is very much like My Man Godfrey, which was a bit hit only two years earlier. I like this one much better.

Give it a whirl, if you can find it or the next time it shows up on TCM. The jokes and witticisms are fast-paced to the point of barely being able to react to one before another one comes zinging at you.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030442/

The Palm Beach Story: From 1942, starring Claudette Colbert and Joel McRae. This one is of the best of the Preston Sturges screwball comedies. Rudee Vallee has a great role as the straight-laced J. D. Hackensacker III, a society tycoon who has fallen for Ms. Colbert. Unfortunately for Mr. Hackensacker, although she and Joel McRae are presenting themselves as brother and sister, they are actually married. The comedic set-up comes from the fact that the two are very much in love, but Gerry Jeffers (Colbert) is trying to divorce her husband Tom (McRae) and then marry a millionaire, so that Tom can achieve his dream of designing and building a flying landing field for airplanes.

This film has some of the funniest one-liners around, usually delivered in a dead-pan style. It also features some great support from what would normally be considered to be bit-players. Robert Dudley as the Weinie King and William Demerast as a member of the Ale and Quail Club are perfect in their roles.


Gerry Jeffers: Isn't it wonderful?
Tom Jeffers: Sensational. But you haven't quite answered my question yet.
Gerry Jeffers: What question, dear?
Tom Jeffers: Why this alleged old man gave you - how much is it?
Gerry Jeffers: Seven hundred dollars.
Tom Jeffers: Seven hundred dollars. Why?
Gerry Jeffers: No reason.
Tom Jeffers: Oh, is that so? He just - seven hundred dollars? Just like that?
Gerry Jeffers: Just like that.
Tom Jeffers: I mean, sex didn't even enter into it.
Tom Jeffers: Oh, but of course it did, darling. I don't think he'd have given it to me if I had hair like excelsior and little short legs like an alligator. Sex always has something to do with it, dear.
Tom Jeffers: I see.
Gerry Jeffers: From the time you're about so big and wondering why your girlfriends' fathers are getting so arch all of a sudden. Nothing wrong - just an overture to the opera that's coming.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0035169/

Beat the Devil: From 1943, directed by John Huston and has a absolutely blockbuster cast of Humphrey Bogart, Jennifer Jones, Gina Lollobrigida, Robert Morely, and Peter Lorre.

I can’t figure out why this one isn’t better known and appreciated. Perhaps it is the fact that Bogie really isn’t known for his comedic roles. I think this is one of his best films, for no other reason that he kind of plays the same tough character as in his other, more well known roles, but in a way so tongue-in-cheek that it is hard not to laugh out loud.

Morely and Lorre are part of a criminal gang on their way to South America to try to get a claim to a what could be a substantial fortune in uranium ore. Jennifer Jones, who is cute as a button as the wife of a very dour and proper Englishman, constantly invents a fantasy life for herself and anyone she meets (including Bogie), such that it becomes difficult to tell what is reality and what is her dreamworld. Bogie and his wife (Ms. Lollobrigida) get entangled with both sets of characters while waiting for their ship to get repaired so they can resume their journey.


The plot almost doesn’t matter with this. It’s situational comedy as its best. There is an interesting story associated with this film, as recounted in the IMDB link below. Bogie has a serious accident during the filming of this move, which knocked out several of his teeth and made it difficult for him to speak some of his lines. Peter Sellers actually provided some of the dubbed dialog for Bogie. I would have never guessed that one.

Don’t let some bad reviews scare you away from this. It certainly isn’t what might be expected from a cast like this. But for unusual humor and a change of pace from all the actors and actresses (who would ever think that Gina Lollobrigida would end up as about seventh on the billing), you may not be able to find a better film to spend an evening with.

IMDB link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046414/

Movie Review: The Quiet Earth

Fair warning: Here be spoilers!!

As long term readers of this blog (I have some of those, right?) might remember, October is sci-fi and horror film review month! I like to review movies that most people may not have heard of, much less seen, or are so lost in the depths of time (say, 20 years ago) that many people will go, “Yeah, I think I have seen that one. Does it have Robert Downey Jr. in it?”

This little gem is from New Zealand, circa 1985. On the face of it, it resembles one of your more straight-up, end-of-the-world with only a few survivors left alive, sci-fi flicks. It has a plot that has some striking similarities to Harry Belafonte’s “The World, the Flesh, and the Devil.” After surviving an event which kills almost every other living person on the face of the earth, the borderline antisocial hero rummages around empty cities on his own for a while, and then encounters (in the following order) a beautiful woman and a rival male intent on taking his supposed mate. “Oh, you AREN’T the only guy left on the planet, are you?” The two males flirt with a duel to the death, the hero unwillingly so, but then, before they end up killing each other, they realize that working together is their only real way to survive. Come to think of it, this is also pretty much the plot of Roger Corman’s “The Day the World Ended,” except that one has a really silly guy-in-a-rubber-suit monster, where these other two are more dramatic in nature.

“The Quiet Earth” is set in New Zealand and actually attempts to inject some what might pass for a scientific explanation of why almost living thing (not just people) on the face of the earth has vanished into thin air. But that line is somewhat secondary to the film. The most interesting part of the film, in my estimation, is when Zac (that’s a nice, heroic sounding name, dontcha think?) wakes up and finds himself totally alone. After the totally expected “Where IS everyone?” panic attack, he starts going a little bit crazy, wandering around the streets of Auckland in a woman’s slip or in a policeman’s outfit playing a saxophone in the middle of the night. He sets up cardboard figures of infamous figures such as Hitler, Richard Nixon, etc. in the yard of the mansion he has appropriated for himself, and to the background of recorded triumphant music and great applause, sets himself up as God of His Domain. He also takes this opportunity to express the deep guilt he is feeling, as it turns out he and his scientific buddies were probably at the bottom of all of this. It’s kind of a fascinating study, in a very embarrassing, voyeuristic sort of way, of a descent into madness. I thought the best scene in this sequence was when Zac finds himself in grand cathedral with a shotgun in front of a life-sized statue of Jesus on the cross. He starts shouting at God. “Come on out, or the kid gets it!” And he then proceeds to blast away at Jesus. But Zac comes to his senses when he runs over a child’s stroller in a huge earth moving machine that he has just used to demolish a large building. He realizes that, right before “the event”, this stroller held a living, breathing child.

I found the second half of the film a little less enjoyable. That’s when the very cute girl shows up. After a bit of a rough start, it looks as if Zac and Joanne (that’s her name, Joanne) are going to have a nice time of it. However, they keep searching for others, just in case. Joanne: “If we find anyone alive, what do you think they will be like?” Zac Hobson: “We might find all manner of horrors. Politicians... Transvestites...” Unfortunately for Zac, they do find someone else, in the form of a very large, well muscled, could possibly be an escaped criminal, guy with some very deep unresolved issues regarding hostility and relationships with other people. I suppose I found this part rather depressing and embarrassing, as I tended to relate to Zac, the somewhat nerdy scientist that almost never gets the girl and more than likely had something to do with the end of the world as they know it rather than the hunky guy. Of COURSE, Joanne is going to pick the good looking, anti-social guy. It was obvious who was going to win that one.

I won’t bother to explain the entire plot. It’s worth seeing (maybe Netflix one weekend?) just on its own merits as an unusual, little known sci-fi film. But here is why I wanted to review this movie. It has one of the more astounding ending sequences, with just a brilliant accompanying soundtrack, of any film I have ever seen, sci-fi or otherwise. Zac, after (probably) saving Earth and everyone on it (Joanne and Api, pretty much), finds himself on the shore of an ocean on what could a moon orbiting another planet, or maybe in an entirely different dimension. As he is staring, in total bewilderment, at some very strange cloud formations over the ocean, a huge ringed planet is seen rising over the horizon. It is one of the most memorable scenes I have ever seen in a film, just utterly astounding. I couldn’t take my eyes off the screen. And, as I said before, the musical score behind this just adds to the awe-inspiring sight unfolding in front of the dumbstruck Zac. This single scene, which probably isn’t more than a minute long, is worth the price of sitting through the film. I found it interesting that the filmmakers chose to start running the credits on top of this stunning visual sequence. I rather wish they hadn’t done that, as I would have much rather let it play out without that visual distraction.

Rating: A to A-. Definitely worth your time, if you can find it. There are no easy answers, or even easy interpretations, of what this all means. I usually do not like vagueness in a movie, as I think, in most cases, it is just a cop-out by the filmmakers. “Here, here is a story we thought up and put on film. YOU figure out what it means. We don’t have a clue….” In this case, the lack of specificity and explanations significantly adds to the nature of this film. I think concrete explanations would have diminished the film, not enhanced it.

Photo from SciFiCool, which includes another review and also a video trailer.

America is like that guy in the movie, “Memento.”

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"No, Buffy. You are at fault here and you must admit your mistake."

"After all, if it hadn't been for you falling in love with Angel, we wouldn't currently be overrun with good-looking, brooding vampires that attract young girls. The world would have never been exposed to Twilight, Underworld and the Wizards of Waverly Place if it hadn't been for your rash, impulsive behavior. I hope you realize that now."

Movie Review: Six really very strange horror/sci-fi movies you probably have never heard of before, much less seen.

Updated per comment....

One of the reasons I started this blog was to do some movie reviews for off-the-wall films that might not get a lot of attention from mainstream reviewers. I am quite the film buff, in my own way. I specialize in science fiction and horror; the more unusual, the stranger, the more obtuse, the better, in my mind. Eventually, I got away from doing movie reviews, as I became very focused in on politics and the current insanity of our society, which I am not enjoying at all at this point in my life. But I thought I would go back and try some reviews, just to do something different and get my mind off of the very disturbing crap that is going on in this country on a daily basis.

So, with that explanation, here are my picks for some really quite strange films.

Goke, Body Snatcher from Hell: This is from Japan, but is definitely not your prototypical Japanese monster film, with guys in goofy rubber suits knocking down small, fake looking buildings. This one is rather disturbing and very hard to describe, since it only has a passing nod to anything that might resemble a plausible plot.

A commercial airliner full of passengers experiences very odd goings-on, such as bloody birds throwing themselves against the plane’s windows and some unusual visual phenomena in the sky. After being hijacked by the bad guy, the plane crashes as it is trying to return to the airport. Lots of very strange things occur. It turns out that the Earth has been invaded by aliens, intent upon exterminating the human population. One of the aliens, I believe, referred to as a Gokemidoro (space vampire, I suppose?) takes over the bad guy's body and then prowls around the wreckage of the airplane and picking off the crash survivors, one by one. You can tell who is the Gokemidoro by the fact that the person has a very strange wound on his or her forehead (caused by the alien blob like creature entering through the forehead to take control of the person) that has more than a passing likeness to a vagina. This effect sounds pretty ridiculous when reading about it, but when you see it, it is very odd and disturbing. Not terribly frightening, of course, just odd and disturbing.


The film definitely strikes an unusual, surreal mood. In many ways, it’s not a lot different than a lot of modern “horror” films where the “bad thing” picks off the characters one at a time. You stop really being involved with the characters, as you know many of them are going to end up toast in the end. The only suspense about it all is trying to guess who is going to be left alive. This one, however, definitely has a very unnerving quality to it. And, in the end, everyone dies because the aliens win. One of the final scenes where the survivors escape from the crash site and make their way to civilization, only to come across a toll road full of thousands of stalled cars full of dead people, is a bit shocking.

Recommendation: Eh, it’s a coin flip. If you can find it and enjoy Japanese films (which tend to be a lot less linear than American films and don’t really waste a lot of time filling in the back story for the audience), you might try this some Friday night. You might decide that you wasted about an hour and a half of your life that you won’t ever get back. But then again, where are you ever going to see a space vampire with a vagina in his forehead?

Bubba Ho-Tep: This is a pretty recent film that stars Bruce Campbell (“Army of Darkness”) and Ossie Davis (a very accomplished actor who, unfortunately, just passed away). Now, it has what I thought a great setup just because it is so weird. (I tend to like weird, if you haven’t figured that out by now.) But it never really follows through on what could have been a promising premise. It just ended up as sort of a turgid mess of a film with a bunch of scenes that you know were meant to be funny in a strange, black kind of way but really weren’t.


Campbell plays either Elvis Presley or an Elvis impersonator living in a retirement home in rural Texas, and he demands that everyone treat him as Elvis. He is friends with Davis, who believes himself to be Jack Kennedy. This takes a bit of rationalization on his part, of course, given that a) Kennedy is dead, and b) he is black. Odd things happen in the nursing home, such as people dying suddenly. Since this is a nursing home for the very old and infirm, no one really asks any questions. But it turns out that an ancient soul-sucking mummy from Egypt is really the cause, wandering the halls at night, looking for victims. The mummy effect is actually rather creepy, but is somewhat diminished by the fact that the mummy wears a nancy-looking cowboy hat and cowboy boots. Elvis and Jack Kennedy figure all this out and team up to destroy the mummy, using Molotov cocktails and Kennedy’s motorized wheelchair.

Recommendation: Don’t waste your time. I just thought I would review it because it has such a weird premise.

Incubus: This one was considered to be a “lost film” for a while, which is unusual given it is a relatively recent film. It stars William Shatner, just before he moved into his signature “Captain Kirk” role in Star Trek. It was produced and directed by Leslie Stevens, of Outer Limits fame. In fact, many of the Outer Limits crew were involved in this film. What is really unusual about it, however, that every bit of dialog is done in Esperanto. This is probably the only movie ever filmed using Esperanto.

Shatner plays a man living out on a secluded Greek (I think) island with his sister in a shack. As so often happens in Greece, malevolent spirits are prowling about, looking for humans to screw around with. Kia is a succubus who tires of seducing the local men, as they are such easy pickings. She needs a new challenge, so she sets her sights on a truly “good” man, which, of course, is Kirk, er, Shatner. (Yeah, as if Kirk, er, Shatner ever resisted a female within 30 feet.) He sort of avoids her immediate sexually-baited trap, but still falls in love with her, and she with him, which is rather unfortunate for a succubus. Kia’s sister gets pretty upset about all of this, as this isn’t really supposed to happen to succubii, and eventually calls up the titular incubus to wreak vengeance upon Kirk’s, er, Shatner’s sister.

It’s all very slow moving but somewhat interesting, just because it is so weird to watch Shatner actually speak his lines in Esperanto. The two lady demons are not terribly seductive and don’t seem to have the hang of sending men’s souls to eternal damnation down.

Spider Baby: This film stars Lon Chaney Jr. as a chauffeur for a really strange family with a terrible medical affliction who live out in a secluded tumbled down mansion that bears no small resemblance to Anthony Perkin’s mother’s house. As a person in the family begins to grow older, they begin to revert to a child-like state and develop an unfortunate tendency toward cannibalism. Some distant relatives (Carol Ohmart, who starred in “The House on Haunted Hill”, plays the rapacious cousin) show up with a little weasel of a lawyer, intent upon raiding the family’s wealth. The family consists of two very cute but really creepy teenage girls, their older brother (played by Sid Haig, who went on to later fame in such gorefest classics as “House of 1000 Corpses”), and various elder family members who are kept locked away in the basement.



It’s all played very tongue-in-cheek, of course. Lon Chaney actually sort of “sings” the introduction song, “The Maddest Story Ever Told.” Sid Haug chases Carol Ohmart, in her rather risqué nightgown, around for a while. One of the girls ties up the other cousin, one of the only two sane people in the entire film, and threatens to cut him up into little pieces. The lawyer gets his due when he gets eaten by the family in the basement. Lon Chaney finally realizes he can’t hide the family anymore, so he steals some dynamite from the local road building crew and blows up the house, with him and the family in it. The sane cousin and the lawyer’s assistant escape and get married. The film ends by focusing on the couple’s happy home and their young daughter, who is seen out in the garden capturing and eating spiders…. The End.

This one is quite a bizarre one, although the 60’s did put out quite a lot of obscure, bizarre films. Not everyone was intent on making that “blockbuster” film which would pull down tens of millions on the opening weekend. I would highly recommend this one, if you can find it and you have the inclination toward black humor and weird people.

Shanks: I had never even heard of this one until recently. It stars the great (depending, I suppose, on how you regard mimes) Marcel Marceau. He plays, what else, the town fool, who is mute, also not much of a surprise. He has a bit of a crush on a pretty young girl who doesn’t regard him as a fool. He lives at home with a shrewish sister and her husband who treat him rather poorly. This is all pretty standard stuff, so far. The fool, at the insistence of his sister, gets a job with the local mad scientist (also played by Marceau). Said scientist is working on experiments with little radio controlled servo things that he can put into objects, including dead animals, that he can eventually get to stand up and walk around.

Well, the mad scientist sort of dies one day. The town fool is despondent for a while, but decides to try the doctor’s experiment on the doctor himself. He successfully “reanimates” the doctor and gets him to walk around the lab. The sight gags are pretty wonderful, in my estimation. Many things ensue which I won’t go into, but it turns out that the fool’s shrewish sister and drunk husband also get themselves killed. The fool, quite naturally, reanimates them as well. The funniest scenes in the entire movie are when the fool take both of them into town to go shopping. The visual humor is really good, especially since the two radio controlled puppets that look so silly were introduced to the audience as pretty nasty, unsympathetic characters. The fool eventually throws his young lady friend a banquet using the two as servants.



It is unfortunate that the film’s writer and director (William Castle, in his last film) decided to take this film in a very dark direction. I was with them up to this point, thoroughly enjoying the black humor. A motorcycle gang invades the banquet. The young girl ends up being raped and killed by the gang members, which causes the fool to use the doctor’s diabolical inventions to take his revenge. In the end, he triumphs over the evil motorcyclists and reanimates his young flame so he can live happily ever after, I suppose.

I really hated this ending. Don’t do that to me. Don’t make me care about a character, especially a pretty young girl, and then kill her off in a very violent and sadistic manner. You lost me at that point. (That is one very big reason I absolutely hated “Alien 3.” After making the audience really become emotionally invested in Newt in “Aliens”, the character becomes a burden to the script in the third film, so they just kill her off in a crash landing so they can get the movie going. I fumed through that entire movie and never did enjoy a single minute of it because I was so mad.)

Anyway, back to Shanks. The first three quarters of the film was thoroughly enjoyable. Sort of E.T.A. Hoffmann meets the Brothers Grimm meets “Death Becomes Her” meets Shields and Yarnell (if anyone remembers them, from the old Sonny and Cher show, I believe). Quite an unusual movie and pretty amusing, again using lots of dark humor. I would just recommend you turn it off after the banquet scene. I rather had a sour taste in my mouth after seeing the ending with its broad hint at necrophilia. Ick.

Six String Samurai: I reviewed this one much earlier at this blog. I thought I would include that one in my list of very strange horror/sci-fi films. Just click the link, I am not going to bother rewriting it. It is a pretty great film if you like weird. Some great lines, too. “You ever try a pink golf ball, Wally? Why, the wind shear alone on a pink golf ball can take the head off a 90-pound midget at over 300 yards.”

Harvey Fierstein as Tevye!?!

O.K., I admit, to my knowledge, of never having heard Harvey Fierstein sing. But in the films I have seen him in (say, oh, Independence Day), his voice sounds somewhat like he had his vocal chords sent through a food processor. I am just having a difficult time envisioning this. And having seen the stage version with Topol, I am thinking I probably won't be taking the time to see this one.

I would have never thought that BP wouldn't have a way to plug a gushing underwater oil well that was already figured out.

Incredible. "Hey, who would have thought that this could happen?" Well, anyone with any sort of engineering background or even a vivid imagination. Anyone who has ever watched any cheesy "scientific experiment gone horribly wrong" B sci-fi movie from the 50's or 60's, that who. This sort of reminds me of a rather old but apparently very rare sci-fi film called "Crack in the World." Some scientists get the brilliant idea to turn a rocket upside down and shoot it INTO the earth. I forgot the point of this little experiment. It all goes horribly wrong and the resultant hole starts a large crack in the ground (hence the name of the film). Actually, two cracks start. Panic ensues. Calamity results. The two cracks eventually come around and merge. The result is that it was like an apple corer had been applied to the Earth. A large chuck was forcibly ejected and, viola! It became another moon.

Oops.... Sorry about that. Certainly didn't see THAT one coming.

O.K., silly analogy. I just am an old sci-fi film buff, so almost everything reminds me of a movie these days.

But what kinds of black belt morons do these people have to be to do something that, in retrospect, looks as dangerous and prone to accidents as it turns out it is without any sort of backup plan?

Unfortunately, that seems to be the way our society is evolving. Risks are not considered. To consider risks and have contingency plans is to "plan for failure." I was actually told that once at a previous job. Anything that anyone can imagine automatically becomes "the plan", which will be wildly successful.

Balls. People have forgotten that life itself is a dangerous business. Pushing the technological envelope in ways that haven't been tried before (such as drilling to such depths in very deep water), by definition, is a dangerous business. To not recognize some possible but somewhat likely outcomes other than the one that you really want to occur is to be blind. Stupid. Idiotic. Which about sums up my feelings about our current society.

Well, this photo certainly destroys some of my most cherished childhood memories.

When I was about 9 or 10 years old, I would stay up late on Friday nights to watch Creature Features, excited at the prospect of seeing Godzilla ravage cities and fight other frightening monsters to the death. But this? Sheesh. A parasol? Really? What a poof. No wonder Ghidrah kicked his ass.

Godzilla is much shorter than he looks on screen.

Photo from Picture Is Unrelated.

News Of The Future: Robots Win Right To Keep and Bear Arms.

The Supreme Court, in a landmark decision, found in favor of the plaintiff, The National Rifle and Particle Beam Destructor Association (NRPRDA), that robots should be considered to be citizens if they were built in the United States of America and therefore should be allowed to possess and carry firearms. The NRPRDA released a statement hailing the decision as "a victory for all Americans, whether they are mechanical, carbon-based or multi-national corporations." Opponents of the ruling predicted an increase in firearm and particle beam destructor deaths, due to the fact that a majority of the mechanical persons designed and built today run Windows 2030 Excelsior! (TM), which some software designers stated has a tendency to randomly jump between applications. Ex-half-term President Sarah Palin and current spokesperson for Clairol Hair Products, stated that she "was thrilled, you betcha, because Russia has millions of robots just waiting to march into Alaska."

Yes, THIS is the man who should be on the 50 dollar bill!

"And THIS is the secret sign we used at our fraternity at Whatssamatta U."













"What are you smirking about? Of course I love you! But Bonzo gets lonely if he sleeps in his own bed!"

Movie Review: Avatar

Sort of a combination of Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Aliens, Dances with Wolves, Disney's Ferngully and maybe one or two episodes of Star Trek TOS thrown in for good measure. The special effects and computer animation was absolutely outstanding and this is the first movie in 3D that I have seen. (My eyes don't work really well together, so I have never been able to watch those 3D movies with the red and blue glasses.) It was pretty dang neat. The imaginative scenery and plant and animal life on the planet were captivating. The storyline itself was a little silly, overly simplistic and more than a little predictable. However, I found it very interesting that by the end of the film, you were rooting for the blue people from an alien world and against the villainous sky people, who just happen to be from Earth. This made for an interesting "teachable moment" while driving home with my 14 year old daughter, to whom I have been introducing the idea of movies as metaphors. I explained the whole "Godzilla as a metaphor for the atomic bomb" one to her a while ago. Actually, I just asked leading questions and let her provide her own answers. "Who did the blue people remind you of? That's right, the Indians!" I didn't even have to point out the horses and bows and arrows. So, it was nice to be able to do that. She was actually the one who brought up the issue of predictability. I was rather proud of her to recognize that.

I won't bother with any sort of substantive review here, as it has been done already in numerous places. It was certainly worth the time and money, which is certainly more than can be said of many recent films. It better have been, considering how much James Cameron spent to make this thing.

Image from Official Avatar The Movies Wallpapers By NOSHOMAX

Robbie the Robot falls on hard times.

It's sad to see when big movie stars hit rock bottom.

Uh, you missed a spot over there by the front tire.