The Awakening (1980)

I noticed The Awakening in the TV guide a couple of weeks ago, in the middle of the night, on one of the new digital channels (in Australia), and thought it sounded interesting. Charlton Heston, Susannah York, and based on a Bram Stoker novel. What could possibly go wrong?

As it turns out, just about everything. This has to be one of the least scary "horror" movies ever. I don't know whose fault it was; Mike Newell certainly went on to better things (he's still making movies, and big-budget ones at that), and at least half the leads had names and reputations that (you'd think) they'd want to protect.

Heston is one of my least favourite actors; he was hammy, thought he was wonderful, and had no sense of humour. It's unfortunate that he was cast in so many of the best films of their time (Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, The Omega Man, come immediately to mind, each of which is amongst my favourites). While he detracts from good films, if The Awakening is any indication, he is quite capable of completely destroying an already bad film. He was practically the Nicolas Cage of his time; seemingly cast in every second film made, and always to the detriment of the production.

Of course, while Cage is the acting equivalent of Uwe Boll (i.e. an absolute guarantee that I'm gonna hate the movie), Heston was at least capable enough that you can look past his faults and appreciate the rest of the film. If there's anything to appreciate, of course...

The basic plot is simple enough; obsessed archeologist discovers the lost tomb of some un-named Egyptian princess, ignores all the dire warnings of what will occur if he enters the tomb, and dooms his unborn baby to becoming the vessel for the long-dead princesses return to earth. Nothing we haven't seen before, of course, only not as well done.

Anyway, the first 30 minutes or so are set 18 years in the past - And, in case you forget, or were late getting to your seat in the cinema, they'll remind you fairly early on when we get back to the "present". Heston's long-suffering, pregnant, wife (Jill Townsend in pretty much her last role), gives birth just as he's violating the tomb, but we know, of course, that, even though the baby is born dead, she'll be fine in a minute or two, just as soon as Heston releases the evil princesses spirit. Which, of course, he does. The baby starts crying, and he finally takes the time to go see his wife in the hospital. Too little, too late, so she leaves him, and takes little Maggie with her.

Heston isn't overly bothered, though - he goes onto an illustrious career as a university professor and marries his smart, practical, and attractive assistant, Susannah York. Oh, and anyone trying to interfere with his plans for the princess' mummy is conveniently killed in an "accident". These accidents, which occur off and on throughout the film, make it clear that this was a deliberate Omen rip-off. Only, as silly as The Omen was, it was at least fun and well-made.

Anyway, the rest of the plot will be obvious to anyone watching the film, and proceeds in a pedestrian manner to the Omen-like ending, so I won't talk any more about it. It's all been done before, only better.

What stood out, more than anything else, was the lack of build-up in the script. As an example, Susannah York goes from being supportive, sensible, practical, and scientific, to superstitious, fearful, and stupid instantly. No gradual realisation of the horror to come, just a light-switch change in personality. And the same goes for every other "scare" in the film - There is no gradual increase in tension at any point. Either you already know exactly what's going to happen next, because it's inevitable, or you are suddenly confronted with a complete change in a character.

The only shining light in the entire mess was Stephanie Zimbalist's performance as the doomed daughter of Townsend and Heston. She even won an obscure award for "Best Supporting Actress" for the role, and she really does the best she can with such appalling material.

At any rate, it does serve as a nice counterpoint to The Omen, if nothing else. While both films have very similar plots, the execution of each couldn't be more different. I'd recommend The Awakening to anyone who wants to watch how not to make a film. Garbage! I want my two hours back, please.

Big, Bigger, Biggest

A little while back I decided to have a "giant people from the 50's day"...

I started with Attack of the 50 Foot Woman (1958) proceeded to The Amazing Colossal Man (1957), and wound it all up with War of the Colossal Beast (1958). Let me say that, apart from sheer amusement value, none of these films is actually worth watching. They are all unrelentingly stupid - I guess I'm just a glutton for punishment.

So, let's start with the one with, at least, the best title. Attack of the 50 Foot Woman evokes everything that is best about 1950's B-grade movies. What it doesn't warn you about is that there isn't a single character in the movie who's even the least bit likeable. Nancy Archer (the titular character, played by Allison Hayes) is a spoilt (and stupid) rich woman with a philandering husband, who is obviously only after her money. She runs into an gigantic alien on the way home, with the result that she grows really, really big overnight.

Apart from the blatant misogyny of the script, the biggest fault with this film is the fact that, quite often, you you can see right through Nancy as she strides across the landscape, and the giant alien is also transparent a lot of the time. Now, giant people are one thing, but giant transparent people seems just a bit stupid! At any rate, I can only recommend this film to all the people out there who, just like me, will just have to watch it because its famous and has a great title!

The Amazing Colossal Man is often considered to be the "Gone With the Wind" of giant people films, and with good reason. It has all the required ingredients (crazy explanation, stupid physics, even stupider physiology), some really good effects (and some equally shoddy ones).

Lt. Col. Glenn Manning (Glenn Langan) gets a little to close to a plutonium bomb explosion, and gets a little burned... Like, 3rd degree burns over just about his entire body. At any rate, he miraculously heals overnight, then begins to grow. And grow. And grow. Where it gets really silly, though, is in the explanation that his heart is, for some reason, not growing as quickly as the rest of his body. Why this should be is both never explained, as well as not making any sense at all, but there you go.

His small heart causes circulatory problems, which results in him having a really bad temper for most of the film, and leaving him really, really stupid at the end of it, when he goes on the obligatory rampage, before being "disposed" of. While the miniatures were excellent, and many of the other effects shots were equally impressive, there were some "transparent" moments as well, which detract from the overall affect.

Which brings us, at last, to War of the Colossal Beast, sequel to The Amazing Colossal Man, and, I think, a better film than either of the others. Lt. Col. Manning has made his way down to Mexico, where he is hijacking food trucks to feed his enormous appetite.

Where this film stands out is the makeup. Manning is left horribly disfigured after his "demise", with half his jaw exposed, and one eye missing. While obviously an "additive" effect (i.e. makeup over the actor's face), it is still very impressive, and quite gory. It holds up extremely well, despite the film's age. The miniatures are also very impressive, even if they don't always match the full-scale vehicles at all times! There were also far fewer "transparency" problems in evidence.

Manning appears to have lost his mind completely in this one, and is basically just a giant monster. He finds his way to California, with a climax at the Griffith Observatory which is a lot of fun. Oh, and his heart attacks don't seem to be a problem any more (he should be long dead, according to the experts in the first film!).

At any rate, of all of these "giant people" films, War of the Colossal Beast is, surprisingly, the standout. It's fun, silly, and has the best SFX. You really should watch The Amazing Colossal Man first, if only so you get the whole story, but it's probably not absolutely necessary (the original distributors certainly didn't think so - they didn't even bill it as a sequel). I know for a fact that, now that I've seen it, I won't be feeling the need to watch Attack of the 50 Foot Woman again any time soon (or ever!).

The Mist (2007)

Well... What can I say?

I just saw The Mist.

An almost perfect adaptation of my all-time favorite Stephen King story, except it’s 2 minutes too long :-(

Stop reading now, if you don’t want to know any more...

It gets the paranoia right. It gets the hopelessness right. It gets the critters right. Then it tacks on the most depressing ending since 1984.

Apparently Frank Darabont made a deal with the producers that, if they let him keep his miserable ending as written, he’d make it for half as much money. They should’ve paid the full amount.

So, my suggestion? Watch the film till they run out of petrol, then turn it off. That way it’s up in the air, just like the original story.

What’s most amusing is that I normally like “Director’s Cuts” of movies. In this case, I’d really like to see a “Producer’s Cut”!

The ending itself is almost an “anti-Spielberg”... Instead of the standard Spielberg approach of tacking on a pathetically happy ending to an otherwise forlorn and depressing film, Darabont has taken the exact opposite approach. He’s tacked on a ridiculously cynical ending onto a forlorn and depressing film.

It all just makes me pine for more endings like Screamers... i.e. endings that, while incredibly dark and dismal, are totally in context, and stem from what we’ve already seen of the behavior of the characters. The one thing that stood out in the story, and in the film right up until that point, was that, in a hopeless situation, the one thing you can’t afford to give up on is hope.

No matter how impossible the odds, or widespread the catastrophe, if you give up, what’s the point of fighting before you give up? It cheapens and detracts from any previous effort.

It also reminds me of the beginning of Alien 3. Ripley never gives up in Aliens, and saving Newt is her moment of glory. At the start of the next film, however, Newt’s just dead. “Oh, I’m sorry, but that was all a waste of time and effort. You understand, don’t you”. I mean, how pathetic!

Oh well, enough of a rant. See it. Don’t see it. Whatever. The shame of it is that it’s just SO good right up until that point. What the hell was he thinking? Why, oh why, do people think they can “improve” on something that they proclaim to love?

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)

A masterpiece.

No matter how dedicated one is to a genre, or even to film in general, there are always some classics that you just never get around to seeing. You know they're gonna be good (or at least they should be, with all the fuss that's made about them), but, for one reason or another, you just keep missing 'em on TV, or there's always something newer and shinier at the local video shop to attract your attention. Or, more and more often these days, you've seen the remake and it was pretty good, so why bother watching the old black & white version of the same story...

Invasion of the Body Snatchers lived up to its reputation. Taut, tense, and action-packed,  modern-day thrillers owe a lot to this film. It's only 80 minutes long, but it's got more action and suspense in it than most films manage to pack into 3 hours. I was literally on the edge of my seat for almost the entire time!

Directed by Don Siegel (who's other films include Escape from Alcatraz and Dirty Harry), and starring Kevin McCarthy as an ordinary GP who, upon returning from a medical conference, finds that an awful lot of people in his home town seem to have developed an identical paranoid delusion... Their relatives are not their relatives. They look like them, sound like them, and even remember things that only they could possibly know, but they are not who they appear to be. He investigates, and, slowly but surely, the evidence starts to accumulate, until even the "rational" Dr Bennell can't help but admit that something terrible is going on.

This has to be McCarthy's best role. His character is the absolutely archetypal small-town doctor. He's friendly, debonair, sophisticated, and caring. He's divorced, because his patients always came first. He's witty, charming, and handsome. Of course, by the end of the film, he looks like he's just escaped from a psych ward, but that's the beauty of it.

Of course, by this time he also hasn't slept for about 48 hours, not to mention the horrors he's just been through!

Dr Bennell's love interest in the film, Becky Driscoll (Dana Wynter) also goes from total glam (the dress she wears in her first scene is just gorgeous) to dishevelled wreck during the course of the film. This, of course, is something that we don't see very often, especially in films from this period - Normally, no matter what the heroine's suffered through, the worst that will happen is that she might have a little mud on her dress, and, perhaps, a misplaced hair or two!

As impressed as I was by Kevin McCarthy's performance and character, the cast highlight for me was the always exquisite Carolyn Jones. Her big eyes and delicate features (not as accentuated as they were in The Addam's Family, of course) always portray an extreme level of vulnerability, especially when she plays the role of "the woman who screams at the scary thing".

While described as metaphor for either the imagined communist threat of the 50's, or, equally, as a metaphor for the all-too-real threat of McCarthyism, none of that matters while you're watching it. As you're propelled from one chase scene to the next, and introduced to the exact nature of the threat one step at a time, you are simply buffeted along by the whirlwind. The last thing you care about is the politics; all you care about is whether the hero and his girl are gonna escape...

Yes, it's a bit dated. Some of the romantic scenes are a little flowery and over-the-top by today's standards, and the patriarchy of the 50's is, well, conspicuous (Becky is just a little bit too hopeless when she starts to get tired!). Nevertheless, this is a genuine masterpiece, and one that anyone who wants to make a taut, suspenseful action thriller could learn a lot from.

4D Man (1959)

You know how you remember seeing a film in your childhood which you really enjoyed, and then when you see it again, many years later, it really sucks? Happens to me a lot, I'm afraid. Of course, every now and again, there's an exception, and 4D Man was one of those. Now, I know it's not a great film, not by any stretch of the imagination, but it was still entertaining; well acted, good special effects (for the time), and a reasonable (though derivative) story.

It's probably close to 35 years since I last saw this, and while I remembered the basic concept, of a man who could pass through solid objects, I really couldn't remember much more about it. I did remember thinking it was not bad, though. The most interesting thing, to me, was that I firmly believed that Ray Milland had played the main character. In reality, it was Robert Lansing, in his first film role. Oh well, memory is a fickle thing... Especially mine!

Tony Nelson (James Congdon) is obsessed with the idea of being able to merge solid objects, after seeing a lump of lead and gold which had merged over a long period of time in a museum as a kid. He manages to burn down his employer's factory while experimenting (through sheer carelessness, mind you), and finds himself unemployed. Off he goes to see his brother, Scott Nelson (Robert Lansing), where he meets Linda Davis (Lee Meriwether, in her debut), Scott's assistant and love interest. When Linda falls for Tony, Tony decides to do the honourable thing and leave, but she's insistent.

Anyway, all this is just background. The fun part starts after Scott catches the two of them together and decides to break open Tony's locker and play with the apparatus. Of course, Scott (who, all-in-all is a pretty decent guy, and really doesn't deserve to be cuckolded) succeeds where Tony had failed, and this is where things start going really badly for everyone involved.

Scott soon discovers that he doesn't actually need the gizmo in order to move through objects. After a playful scene where he's walking down the street reaching through shop windows, we see him studying the bank... I guess the temptation was just too strong. Of course, it doesn't take long for Scott to discover that he ages rapidly by using his power, and the next logical step is for him to find a way to reverse the damage. Unfortunately, as it turns out, the easiest way for him to rejuvenate is by sucking the life out of others.

When HG Wells wrote The Invisible Man, he created a precedent which has been used by just about every other writer ever since; power corrupts, and, therefor, if a scientist discovers a new power, they become monsters. Where 4D Man is different is that it isn't the obsessed scientist who becomes the monster/abuses the power, but his brother, who started out with far fewer personality defects. All a bit tedious, but presumably necessary (or, at least, assumed to be necessary) to create conflict.

My only real complaint is the soundtrack. Presumably in an attempt to appeal to a youthful audience, the music is very beatnik and "modern" (for the time). Listening to it now, it just sounds awful! Still, that aside, I really enjoyed this trip down memory lane, and the film still stands up quite well, which is probably why they keep using Wells' Invisible Man paradigm over and over again...

Carriers (2009)

I've always been a big fan of plague movies; probably stems from my love of zombie movies, which are, in essence, a sub-genre of plague, which is, itself, a sub-genre of post-apocalypse... At any rate, while the trailers for Carriers implied that it had zombies in it (which it doesn't), I wasn't disappointed.

This is one of the most depressing films I've seen a long time. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing; sometimes bleak is appropriate. Just don't bother if you're in the mood for Zombieland!

The basic premise involves two brothers fleeing a plague which is spread by contact  across the country with two girls (one girlfriend, one acquaintance) to an idyllic setting they remember from their childhood, whilst trying to avoid dying unpleasantly. While the entire cast's performances are excellent, the standout is definitely Chris Pine (yes, the new Captain Kirk!) as the older brother, not necessarily because of his acting ability, but because he was just so much fun.

It's interesting to compare this film with the more well-known, and popular, Zombieland. Both films include a set of rules to follow in order to survive, and both involve avoiding contagion, but you couldn't get two more different films in mood, execution, and style. While Zombieland was, quite frankly, a one-joke film which didn't have enough depth to support itself, Carriers was tense, gritty, and realistic in its treatment. By the half-way point in Zombieland I was bored and annoyed; this never happened in Carriers. I really was at the edge of my seat the whole time.

I can't recommend this film highly enough for fans of the genre. It's the best plague film I've seen for a long time, the death-toll was realistic, and the post-apocalyptic environment was both convincing and brutal. Enjoy, then watch something cheerful afterwards...

Dr Strangelove (1964)

Dr Strangelove Or: How I Stopped Worrying And Learned To Love The Bomb is one of the all-time great black comedies, Kubrick's sole foray into the genre. Of course, if we count it as an anti-war flick, that's a different matter; Paths of Glory and Full Metal Jacket are both outstanding. I was privileged enough to have had the opportunity to see this brilliant film at the cinema at a Kubrick marathon, and it still looked good even after 30 odd years (at the time).

While my wife reminds me that the humour in Strangelove is not to everyone's taste, I can't imagine anyone not appreciating at least some of the content. The B52 sequences are typical of Kubrick's meticulous approach to technology; the flight procedures are presented in painstaking detail, and the shots of the bomber in flight are still great to look at, almost 50 years later. The pilot, Major Kong (Slim Pickens), represents everything we should be afraid of when we think of the US military; a gung-ho cowboy who just happens to think that dropping nuclear bombs on people is just about the most fun you can have standing up. His crew, on the other hand, display much more humanity in their reactions to the situation, including James Earl Jones making his film debut; his distinctive bass voice always makes me smile.

While Peter Sellers (as Group Captain Lionel Mandrake, US President Merkin Muffley, and the titular Dr Strangelove) and George C Scott (General "Buck" Turgidson) receive top billing, the performance that stands out is that of Sterling Hayden as the insane general who precipitates the crisis. Hayden's General Jack D Ripper is the only major character who is not playing it for laughs, which only emphasises just how completely crazy he really is. His explanation of his motives for ordering a nuclear attack against Russia are bizarre, frightening, and truly twisted. "Women sense my power, Mandrake, but I deny them my essence". Think about the implications of this line, and you'll understand why he's so cranky!

The set design of the war room is still used as the model for films now; I don't think anyone in Hollywood has any idea of what the war room actually looks like, but if it's gonna look like anything, they guess it must look like it does in Dr Strangelove.

Another standout sequence is the attack on the airbase; the use of hand-held cameras gives it a gritty, documentary feel - It really feels like you're watching genuine combat footage. The same technique has been used since, but rarely as effectively.

My favourite scene, though, is the phone conversation between President Muffley and his Russian counter-part, Premier Kissoff. "Keep your feet on the ground while you're speaking to me, Dimitri" has gotta be one of the funniest lines ever.

While I could rave on about this film for hours, I don't want to give too much away. If you haven't seen it yet, you have missed out on one of the all-time greats. It's out on DVD in a couple of different editions, some with more specials than others (annoyingly, I bought my copy about a week before a more feature-packed edition was released), but, regardless of extras, the film is the same. Well worth repeated viewings, and a film which still has something to say about the stupidity and futility of war.