Retro Review: Julie Darling (aka Daughter of Death, 1983)

Young Julie (Isabelle Mejias) loves her daddy. A little too much, unfortunately. They spend lots of time together, mostly hunting, and Julie, it seems, is quite a crack shot. After a string of fall outs with her mother (Cindy Girling) which culminates with her setting the teen's pet snake loose, Julie has a strop and puts her headphones on and locks her door. This coincides with her mom getting brutally attacked and raped by the local delivery boy she asked to help get rid of the pet. Just about hearing her screams in the nick of time, she grabs her rifle (every girl should have one) and aims it at her mom's assailant. Dawdling a little too long, and suddenly mom is dead, her head smashed against the wooden floor. Realising she now has her Father (Anthony Franciosa, Tenebre) to herself, she allows the assailant to make his escape.

Father and daughter adapt to live alone, the blossoming teen taking advantage of having the grieving father to herself, even going so far as to consoling themselves by sharing a bed. As time goes on, father  Harold meets a new woman, Susan (the marvelous Sybil Danning) who moves in along with her son. Julie isn't happy with this arrangement, but puts up with it until a chance comes that she must take. Playing hide and seek while the folks are away, the boy hides in the refrigerator that is conveniently lying around their garden, and Julie shuts the door on him. When the parents return, they find him just in the nick of time, and drop the bombshell that they have married. Susan has her suspicions about Julie, and has it out with her in a fantastic scene acted out over a game of chess. Julie must hatch a bigger plan to oust the pair and have daddy all to herself again.

This early 80s piece of nastiness comes (with the "help" of co-writer Maurice Smith) from Paul Nicholas, the director who brought us the best WIP flick, Chained Heat (1983). Although it is a thoroughly entertaining piece of sleaze, there are a few moments that are quite troubling. The homicidal child routine has been done before, many times, and better than this. The troubling moment comes when Julie awakes to the sound of her father and his new wife making love. She opens the door slightly to peek inside, and then imagines herself in the throes of passion with him instead. It's one thing having incest hinted at, or just under the radar, but to go all out and show it takes some balls as a film maker! I'm guessing Mejias was older than her character when she played this, as there is some nudity involved, and the film has not been impounded. The real problem with having this in the story, however is that is never mentioned, or hinted at again. Similarly, Susan has a tense heart to heart with Julie over the game of chess. Basically telling her that she knows she is trying to get rid of her and her son (who we don't see again after he's saved from the fridge) . Yet, a scene or two later, she asks the young girl to help steady a ladder she's working on, right at the top of some stairs! Talk about trust. Talk about a missed opportunity for Julie!  Although there are flaws - some of the younger actors are abysmal - it is a quite effect exploitation film, with plenty of nudity and well put together scenes of violence. The ending is fantastic, so I won't ruin it.
THE UK VERSION ANOMALY

I picked this up for £4 on a UK DVD release by Elstree Hill. They have, of course, got a reputation of putting out shoddy and awful prints on their DVDs, and Julie Darling is no exception. It's probably sourced from a VHS copy, full frame, not even pan and scan. The opening titles are actually "Ulie Darlin" and it's quite muddy and dark. There is a Code Red US release, but it's OOP and costs a lot more than this (although I wouldn't mind hearing the commentaries, as there are one for each of the two main actresses). The back of the box does warn "some quality may have been lost during the transferring process". No kidding. At least it's not as bad as some of their other releases. The real interesting (for want of a better word) thing about the UK release, is it has a PG rating. Considering what I have already said about the subject matter, the fact that there's plenty of violence, nudity (although no front bottoms, sadly) and one "F" word, I was surprised to say the least. After doing a check on the BBFC website, which has a great database search facility, I found not only had Elstree Hill not put the film through the board to get the PG certificate, but the film has NEVER been rated in the UK, making this release completely illegal. I'm pretty sure it would have had a pre-cert VHS release, but it was never rated for cinema or home viewing. Buy it now, kids before they get wise.

Apart from all that, it's a good, solid piece of trash cinema and Sybil Danning's boobs are always worth a look, ain't they? (No disrespect meant, as she is brilliant in this)
6 out of 10

The Taint (2010) - hold on to your wangs!

Imagine Bad Taste, Street Trash and all the Troma films you can think of being put in a cinematic blender with a parody porn movie... and you still wouldn't get anything as "out there" as The Taint.

 

An experimental fluid, meant to have the same effect as viagra, only stronger has gotten into the water supply causing all the males (and their members) to become very angry and very violent. Can our hero, Paddy O' Ginny (co director Drew Bolduc), himself a misogynistic wimp and the lovely Misandra (Colleen Walsh) save the day from the marauding,  head smashing, jizz spurting morons who have become tainted?

 

While most low (no) budget films rely on their gross out effects and eagerness of their female cast members to disrobe to entertain, The Taint spends large chunks of its brief 70min running time on back story and plot. But don't worry, the gore is back sooner than you think! The effects here are nothing short of superb, regardless of the budget - although the constant fake penises are a little too, well, fake (the adult shop must have sold out of dildos while these guys were making this, that many get destroyed!)

The thing with this film is, it's actually very well made. The guys have managed to make a no budget film that uses it's lack of budget to it's advantage. The characters have that throw back to the 80s look with the wigs, etc.. (remember the Beastie Boys' Sabotage promo shot by Spike Jonze?) and the dialogue is suitably over the top, but the winner here, as I say is the effects. It's the sort of film Bill Zebub wishes he could make, but keeps missing out on. 

What's even better is the price of the film. You can get it from the guys themselves for less than £10 UK delivered. ($12 in the US). They are also selling it on good old retro VHS and with other packages that are worth looking at. This is a cult classic just waiting to be discovered, and devoured, the perfect film to watch with a few mates and a few beers . Go and discover people...
8 out of 10

Retro review: Dwain Esper's Maniac (1934)

Dwain Esper is renowned in film history as a poverty row, bad film maker. Maniac is particularly singled out as one of the worst ever made. Now, I'd like to go on record and say that is not true. Not by a long chalk. There are hundreds of films much worse than this.
In order to get round the codes of film conduct imposed at the time, Maniac is presented as an education piece. An introduction tells us about fear, being a psychic disorder and that it is highly contagious and infectious. We live in an age when unhealthy thoughts creates warped attitudes and in turn create criminals and maniacs. Actually quite wise words, especially in this day and age.

Maxwell, pre-dating Henry in Eraserhead by many years...

Dr Meirschultz (Horace Carpenter) is a doctor whose experiments in bringing dead cats back to life is ready to be tested on a human subject - shades of Lovecraft here - so he decides to go to the morgue and collect a subject. He is aided by Don Maxwell (Bill Woods), an ex-vaudeville impressionist who is on the run (we never know what from). Dressed as the coroner, Maxwell and the Dr examine a young female suicide victim, and inject her with the serum the doc has been working on. As she is coming around out of death, they are watched by two embalmers who, it has to be said, are obviously not actors. 
The doc wants Maxwell to find a body for him to transplant the heart he has kept alive in a jar, an idea and vision also used in one of my favourite films of all time - Michael Curtiz's Doctor X (1932). When he fails to bring a body in, the doc suggests Maxwell shoot himself so he could bring him back. He is handed the gun, and promptly shoots the doc. He is interrupted by  visit from a Mrs. Buckley (Phyllis Diller - NOT the famous one, by the way), who is concerned about her husband who is having hallucinations and is convinced he is the orang-utan killer in Murders In The Rue Morgue - the Bela Lugosi version of the story had been released in 1932 and one of many Edgar Allan Poe nods - and insists the doc sees him. Panicking, and spiralling further and further into madness, Maxwell uses his stage skills and takes place of the dead doc. He injects Mr Buckley with 'super adrenalin' by accident, and he goes 'ape' and abducts the re-animated suicide victim, taking her out into the woods and stripping her.

Hays code busting boobage!

The power and deception of being the doc is driving Maxwell more and more insane. He bricks the docs body up in his cellar - more Poe - and, horrified that he is being watched by the doc's cat, Satan, grabs the feline and plucks its eye out - All in view of the camera, I must point out. Then to further cement his madness, eats the eye - "just like an oyster, or a grape!"

Maxwell's wife, on the other hand - a showgirl, who we meet in a changing room with lots of scantily clad girls - has found out the he had a rich uncle who has died and left him a fortune. So she goes to seek him out. Under the heavy influence of paranoia, he believes she wants to him for the money, and that Mrs Buckley wants him to kill her husband. He conspires to get the two women to do away with each other. Trapped in the basement the two women have a screeching cat fight, involving plenty of torn clothes and some quite frankly harsh violence. The police arrive just in time to discover the cackling Maxwell and feuding girls. They are also alerted to the doctor's corpse behind the brick wall by the cat's meow. Maxwell's descent into madness is complete and justice is done. 

An exploitation film far above it's reputation, Maniac is ahead of it's time in its depiction of violence and nudity, and some very questionable animal rights issues but for all it's faults it's a striking early horror film. The ultimate mad doctor film maybe. Reoccurring images of fighting cats are interspersed throughout the film - cats with mice, cats fighting cats and cats fighting dogs - which are paralleled with the girl's fight in the cellar at the end,  and there's even a strange man who lives next door who breeds cats for their coats!  It's worth pointing out for the animal lovers out there the cat that is used in the gouging had already lost it's eye, and is a totally different colour to one used in the scenes leading up to it. However, it does appear that to achieve the cat's 'leaping into frame' shots, they just threw the feline and hoped for the best. Not too bad, I suppose since they are meant to always land on their feet, but doesn't look good to the one that goes into a plate glass display case! Myself, I hate cats (totally allergic to them) but will officially point out I do not condone cruelty to them (but it's fun to watch!)
The film owes more than a nod to Edgar Allan Poe, with at least three of his stories referenced, if inadvertently. The Black Cat is the most obvious, but there are recurring images of eyes, Maxwell becomes convinced the cat, and the women have a 'gleam' in their eyes - a nod maybe to The Tell Tale Heart? - The cat, by the way ends up eating the heart the doctor has beating in the jar! Also, of course the mention of The Murders In The Rue Morgue -a Poe tale. Also, H.P. Lovecraft's Herbert West - Re-animator may well have been the inspiration for the doctor's serum.
Maxwell's decent into madness is often overlaid with stolen images from an obscure Italian silent film, Maciste All'inferno (Maciste In Hell) and there's plenty of stock footage of racing police cars. There are several parts however that are genuinely shocking - the gouging of the cat's eye for one - and some just plain shocking - the acting, and the out of focus camera work. Even the over the top dialogue is entertaining. But for all it's faults, it's an enjoyable 50 minutes of film. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. It's no Citizen Kane, but it's entertaining, and isn't that what films are meant to be? Esper made movies to make money, like everybody does.Like HG Lewis and the like later, he used exploitation techniques to do so, what's wrong with that? The people wanted to see that sort of thing obviously, and the cheaper he made them, the more he'd make. Good business sense! He also made films exploiting the drug scene (Narcotic, Marihuana - the films spelling, not mine!) and about STDs, Sex Madness (aka They Must Be Told). He is often wrongly assumed to be behind the infamous anti-drug exploitation movie Reefer Madness (originally called Tell Your Children) but he had nothing to do with that, other than being behind it's re-issue - which he also did with Tod Browning's Freaks.
In fact, go over to the internet archive where, as it's public domain, the film is available free.
A fun early exploitation flick, worthy of a better reputation
7 out of 10.
As a footnote, a good warm up for this, and re-create a 1930s grindhouse double bill would be Esper's short "How To Dress In Front Of Your Husband", in which he warns of the perils of peeping toms with cameras as an excuse to watch Elaine Barrie Barrymore (then the wife of screen legend John Barrymore) disrobe. This is contrasted with Trixie Friganza, (who had an uncredited spot in the sound remake of the Lon Chaney classic The Unholy Three) a rather rotund and ungraceful vision, to be fair. Nice and sleazy does it....

American Grindhouse (2010)

An new documentary on the still in vogue genre of "grindhouse" Over the past few years a few films have come out in the forced 'style' of the grindhouse film, kick started by the Tarrantino/Rodriguez film, which was a brilliant idea, with it's fake trailers and missing reels, but was not a big hit with the cinema paying audience. (hence the release of the two films separately). More and more films are having the style applied, some very good (Hobo With  A Shotgun) and some horrendously bad (the Norwegian I Spit On Your Grave rip off Hora).
A collection of talking heads and film clips that benefits from being a little more in depth than some others I've seen and takes us from the dawn of cinema to the 'usual suspects' of the 70s classics and beyond.

With contributions from two of my favourite directors, John Landis and Joe Dante. American Grindhouse is easy to watch, and very informative. Narrated by Robert (Jackie Brown) Forster in a dry 'obviously just reading it' tone but the input from the academics and directors more than makes up for it. People like Fred Olen Ray, David (Last House) Hess, William (Maniac - also behind Blue Underground DVD) Lustig, Jack (Spider Baby) Hill, the wonderful HG Lewis, blacksploitation star Fred Williamson and in what was probably his last interview before his death in 2009, Ilsa director Don Edmonds, amongst others. The winner of 'tache of the doc goes to the wonderful Ted V. Mikels although Landis' beard always entertains.

One particular section intercuts the shower scene from Psycho with the bath scene in Blood Feast, to show the similarity the two movies, no matter how much of a difference in quality there was. There's plenty to learn, even if you've seen other 'midnight movie' type documentaries, and the DVD is packed full of extras in the shape of trailers and stills galleries. In fact there's so much I haven't gone through them all yet. Its also a great documentary to add films to your shopping list of must see movies! There were at least a dozen I hadn't seen that I must track down!!

Don't be afraid! It's only Don Edmonds director of the Isla films

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Uncle Russ at work.

Very highly recommended. It's available on Region 1 DVD, but also in a double pack with another good documentary Nightmares In Red White And Blue.  
9 out of 10

Retro review: Norman J Warren's Outer Touch (aka Spaced Out) (1981)

British horror legend Norman J. Warren made this low budget sci-fi sex comedy as a way of cashing in on the trends at the time - Star Wars was big, and the ABC type cinemas were still showing the UK sex films of George Harrison Marks and the like. As a fan of Norman's horror output (Terror, Satan's Slaves and Prey especially) and his other venture into sci-fi Inseminoid (produced by the legendary Richard Gordon) I was keen to check this out, and since it's release on DVD I now get the chance to!
The film starts with a Brad and Janet type couple, Oliver (Barry Stokes) and Prudence (Lynne Ross) in a parked car being spied on by Cliff (Michael Rowlatt), who looks like his day job is a comprehensive school PE teacher by his dress. Sad thing is, though he's not got going to get any jollies since Pru is rather frigid, and keen to hold off any hows your father until they are married. Then, she tells Oliver, "you can have it as often as you want, well Saturday anyway"
On the other side of the park, Willy (Tony Maiden) is sneaking around to find a quite place to "read" his copies of "Bouncers" magazine, and have a quick knuckle shuffle. Willy it must be said looks like Robin Askwith playing Harry Potter.
The peace of the park (well these characters are the only ones there) is disturbed when a UFO lands and they all decide to board to have a look around. The aliens are all female, in fact they have never seen a male before and a curious to examine them. These aliens are quite amiable and even have an hospitality room complete with food, drink and an advice dispensing Wurlitzer (voiced by Bill Mitchell, who had voiced the famous Carlsberg ads - probably the best voice in the world -he was also the narrator in The Beast Must Die).
The aliens decide to head back into space when they feel threatened by a Earth forces - a herd of cows, giving them time to get to know the men further. It's quite apt that the aliens look like Maya's poor cousin, since the spaceship effects were lifted from Space 1999! They are led by the Skipper (Kate Ferguson), a feisty warrior type, the medical examiner, Cosia (Glory Annen - star of cult fav "Felicity") and Partha (Ava Cadell, who went on to be a sex therapist and founder of Lovelogy University, obviously utilising skills displayed here) and all very nice they look too. There's also a sardonic and camp ship's computer, not dissimilar to HAL9000.
There's quite a few good moments in the film, it's not nearly as cringe-worthy as some so called sex comedies, and for fans of the genre, there's some things to watch out for:
While looking through the rooms on the ship, Willy picks up what looks like a Tusken Raider's Gaffi Stick (I've noticed these in other films too, so guessing there were a few left over in the stock cupboard of the UK studios!). Willy is stripped and examined by Cosia, (taking measurements that keep increasing.. ahem) and is scanned with what looks like a toy light sabre, I'm pretty sure its exactly the same one I used to have as a kid. There's also some familiar friends' framed pictures on the walls!
It's interesting to see Barry Stokes doing his thing here, I always get him mixed up with the other Barry, (Evans) but Stokes only really did one other sex comedy, "The Ups and Downs of a Handy Man" (1976), which was another that wasn't too bad! He eventually gets his girl though, and in true British fashion, keeps both glasses and socks on throughout.

There was an American version released with the Wurlitzer voiced by Bob Saget, which from the trailer I've seen makes it a little more acerbic. There was also apparently a little more nudity added, but in all fairness, there's enough on show in the UK version to keep most hard happy. It's also amusing, if not belly busting funny, which is more than most of these types of films are. Only for fans of this genre really,  but an entertaining 80mins none the less. Go get yourself a copy, invite some mates round, get some beers and enjoy. That's what these films are for. (no tissues required) Follow it up with Inseminoid and you have a great double bill!
5 out of 10 but a lot of fun.