Vultural

Wandrei, Donald - Colossus

“… The average air temperature was rising.
Smog and pollution had created a thermal blanket around the globe. As the climate warmed, the forest line retreated farther and farther northwards throughout Canada and Siberia, where new brushlands developed, then forests, and birds and animals never before observed in those regions. The icecap of Greenland shrank more every year. Entire ledges and shelves broke off the crumbling fringes of the Antarctic.
Perceptibly and inexorably, the ocean level rose, initially by mere fractions of an inch, but eventually by inches per year. And the pace of this ecological disaster became accelerated by several related events …”

from “Requiem For Mankind” © 1971

A hefty collection of over twenty stories from the visionary Wandrei.
Most are 1930’s science fiction, pulp style, emphasizing pseudo science, where an enthusiastic Dr. Hans Zarkov would feel at home.
A few stories are overweighted with gobbledygook and techno-babble. Descriptions of lab equipment, voltages, metallurgy, stretched hypotheses regarding unexpected results.
Better stories, such as “A Race Through Time” and “Farewell To Earth” deal with time on an epic scale. Wandrei works in blocks of 100,000 years or more.
Two of this best known works, “Colossus” and “Colossus Eternal,” embrace epochs of time and distance. Masters here are towering beings, the Titans, who have the ability to foresee the future – for good, for ill.
“The Blinding Shadows,” “Life Current,” and “Earth Minus” are cautionary tales. Miscalculations that lead to cataclysm.
These are not Tom Swift yarns, crafted to stimulate and thrill young boys. There is a dark streak in Wandrei, perhaps caused by the Depression, the approach of World War II, or the filthy aftermath.

Colossus remains Fedogan & Bremer’s flagship title, and they have done Wandrei proud.
There are illustrations. Richard Tierney provides an excellent introduction, sketching Wandrei’s life, elaborating on the stories, with observations of the publishing business.
The back of the book contains photos, a glimpse of the author’s young days and his later years.
Worth a place in your shelves if you have a fondness for pulp, or if you are curious about what the future used to be.

The Void - 2016 - 6/10

Horror flick explodes out the door (literally) and the pace and tension seldom let up from there.
Local cop picks up tweaker tumbling from nearby woods, races to the hospital.
The hospital is closing (most of it has relocated) so staff is slim and supplies low.
Oh, and it appears no one paid those derned power bills cause the lights start to flicker …
just as a pack of white robed, knife carrying spooks surround the place.
There are about ten characters who separate out - what is the matter with them! - and often the peril to each interweaves back and forth.
This is basically a revved up drive-in beast, with a ton of imagination and scenes to burn.
Despite budget limitations, and a couple WTF moments, this is a fairly ripping ride.

Edgar Allan Poe: Love, Death, and Women - 2010 - 6/10

Curious documentary on the writer’s female influences.
Actress mother, child bride, fellow poet, and the last attempted fling.
Film follows Poe’s well known chronology, literary career, as well as social skills shortcomings.
Actors play the women, reading from letters and poems. Narrator reads Poe.
Story is intercut with silent films (I could not recognize) and experimental shorts.
In some ways effective, in other ways distracting.
Likewise the score. Ambiant music is mixed with Pink Floyd, The Cure, others.
Perhaps not the first-choice documentary on Poe, and it does have odd moments, yet the theme of the four women in his life provides a unique slant.

Oculus - 2013 - 6/10

Junior gets released from psychiatric ward after years of “observation.”
Seems he whacked ole Pa - after - Pa went nutzo, and starved and murdered Ma, then tried to kill the kids.
Both children survived, by the way, and the adult sister greets her brother in the parking lot.
He wants to heal, she wants revenge.
See, she thinks it was the ornate mirror that was responsible.
Or there was malevolence within.
So she tracks down that looking glass and hangs it in her house!
Film swings back and forth between timelines, and shows the gradual disorientation and disintegration of our modern warriors.
Oft used horror premise is obvious and predictable.
Solid advice - when faced with supernatural evil, flee!

Harbinger Down - 2015 - 6/10

Alright horror B-film, unremarkable yet solidly done with a stone faced adult cast.
Arctic crab-fishing boat hauls aboard an icebound chunk of metal with a beacon of sorts.
It’s a Soviet space probe from the 1980’s, with dead cosmonaut inside.
While the crew returns to crabbing, one of the passengers (a science type) decides to dissect the corpse.
Sure enough, there is an alien stowaway who escapes into the darkness of the ship. Then - dinner!
Plot borrows heavily from dozens of films. The Thing, Alien, Life …
The hungry critter, which grows rapidly, reminds one of the crawling chaos.
Predictable, with a couple twists, and the acting corps, led by Lance Henricksen, is sturdy.

Hammer Horror: The Warner Bros Years - 2018 - 6/10

Nicely turned documentary on a disappointing period for Hammer.
The 70’s, when they partnered a distribution / financial agreement with Warners.
Hammer’s prime was past, though the influx of cash did not hurt.
Nor did Warners (apparently) interfere with them very much.
Nonetheless, their Gothic look, costumed horror yarns grew out of step with the times.
(Edgier competition included Night Of The Living Dead, The Exorcist, Texas Chainsaw Massacre.)
Excellent, passionate narrators. The films, so-so.

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The Autopsy Of Jane Doe - 2016 - 6/10

An unidentified female corpse is found in a gory home invasion slaughterhouse.
The sheriff, spooked by her, nonetheless hauls her to the coroner.
Coroner and assistant, father and son, begin to examine the nude,
Junior, by the way, passed on his hot girlfriend’s offer of wet lovin’ to help ole Pa.
Pezhead.
Straight away, the body indicates shattered bones under unbruised skin, mutilations, mysterious items nestling in the torso.
The radio goes haywire, overhead lights flicker, do the men notice?
Naw, they are too busy examining the naked girl. And neither seems to have ever viewed a Horror flick.
While eerie at times, most of you gentle readers will experience déjà vu with this.

Mausoleum - 1983 - 4/10

At the cemetery, ten year old Susan wails as mom is being planted.
She runs off, eventually makes her way to a fenced, locked crypt.
Only thing, it opens up for. She enters, ignores a passel of rats, hears the voice.
Turns out, she is a descendant of the Nomed family.
Twenty years later, now married and fabulously rich, the family curse awakens.
See, Nomed, if spelled backwards becomes … oh no!

Growed up Susan gets flirty and frisky with men, only to put the death spell on ’em.
A truly awful movie, I watched with keen interest throughout.
Clearly, producers were trying to emulate Italian horror (Argento, Bava, Fulci).
Tinted lenses, oddball characters, morphing monsters.
Casting a Playboy centerfold ensured nudity and softcore rompings.
Miss September cannot act. To compensate, producers hired players who imitated tree stumps.
But wait! What if the story is great?
Sorry, this is a howler. Watching, I wondered if there was even a script.
Many times, I gathered filmmakers were making it up as they went along.
“Oh, how about we do this?” “Ooh, yes, so cool.”
Nope, stupefyingly terrible. In other words, sheer delight.

99.9 - 1997 - 4/10

Spanish film about paranormal radio host whose boyfriend goes to a ghost village.
One minute he’s naked, running for his life, then dead.
Of course the female host packs her suitcase, hits the village, and begins questioning everyone in sight.
The title refers to the station radio dial, though if you are cute you could invert those numbers and get … OH NO!
There were gaping loose ends and inconsistencies that ruined a pretty fair horror flick.
I docked this movie because, at the Toronto Film Festival, the director confessed there were aspects of the narrative that didn’t interest him, so he dropped them.
Another wannabe Lynch, Suzuki, or Goddard (take your pick) who delivered a half baked film to viewers.
For gore hounds, mayhem was largely offscreen.
Though there was a sequence near the end, with the three females, the pit and the blood … Ah, if only.

The Tomb - 2009 - 5/10

Man … I just knew this was going to blow.
But I saw Wes Bentley, Michael Madsen, Eric Roberts listed on the box. How bad could it be?
Hot Ukranian babe (Sofya Skya wearing get-ups designed to showcase her gravity defying twins) conducts “research” on capturing souls of the recently dead.
Or slain.
Wes Bentley is the unshaven prof / fly who is lured into her parlor.
Blood, absinthe, and spawning round out this bucket fest.
If cut to 45" this would have been fine on the old Friday The 13th television series. Yawn.

Mongolian Death Worm - 2010 - 3/10

I found a bad movie in the aisles.
Seconds later, I saw Mongolian Death Worm, easily one of the most ridiculous titles ever.
“Choose me,” it whispered. And the fool listened.
Terrible film, poorly acted, the worms were closer to giant grubs who dined on innocent humans and gangsters.
As always, gun shooting bad boys can’t hit creatures as big as a truck.
There was a subplot revolving around Genghis Khan’s treasure straight outta Romancing The Stone.
Where I was, within fifteen minutes everyone hit the exits other than me. And the cat. The cat fell asleep.
I would have given it less points, except there were lots of grubworms and they ate lots of meals.
In my book, any movie with carnivorous monsters ought to chomp dozens of humans like they were eating a sack of Long Pork Nuggets.

Pig Hunt - 2008 - 3/10

Half a million flicks available, yet I see this one on the rental shelves and go, “Hoo whee!”
Buncha pampered San Francisco yuppies go hunting for a 3000 lb porker in Northern California.
Our hero intends to take this man-killer down with his trusty crossbow.
Add a Dogpatch community of hillbilly rednecks, and a whole mess of ganja smoking, naked hippie chicks, and you have this future cult winner.

Warning #1 - Every human in this film is box-o-rocks stupid.
Warning #2 - Animal lovers, do not watch this movie whatsoever.

Zombiepura - 2018 - 3/10

Oh, man, this is embarrassingly bad.
Within a Singapore military post, one of the soldiers catches the “zombie” virus.
Soon, almost everyone is infected, save for a handful of clueless survivors.
The humor is forced and juvenile, actiony bits play out over five to ten sluggish minutes.
Our main female is simply called “Beauty,” the soldiers are unskilled with weapons.
This film is a good 20-30 years behind the times.
I felt bad for the actors, trapped in this cinematic Titanic.
Another 1000 of my brain cells, RIP.

Note: Until Halloween, all my postings will be Horror related.

^ Simon Marsden ^

Enemy’s Enemy - 1990 - 7/10
AKA - Fiendens Fiende

Excellent adaptation of Jan Guillou’s Carl Hamilton series.
Commander Hamilton, operative for Swedish military intelligence, is accused of being a double agent.
Rivalries between hostile police and protective military are heightened as the foreign service sends Hamilton abroad.
There are a series of small stories within the overall arc. Location filming includes the Mid-East and Moscow.
Plenty of action, espionage, tentative alliances, and ethical lapses.
This is a spy thriller for adults.
Jan Guillou introduces each episode with a synopsis and insights.
(Guillou, should you look him up, has led an extremely interesting life.)

The Bank Job - 2008 - 6/10

Solid caper / heist flick starring Jason Statham.
Tucked in the cast were David Suchet and Mick Jagger (!! I had to go back and look for him).
Government types use a group of motley crooks to retrieve incriminating photos.
Double crosses, S & M, crooked cops, all make for a fast paced actioner.
Statham is good in this, not merely some running prop for explosives.

The Student - 2016 - 7/10
AKA - (M)uchenik

Russian male student refuses to participate in high school swimming class.
Hauled before school administrators, he declares the bikini clad females are an affront to Biblical teaching.
What teaching? His mother beside him wonders. She works three jobs, they do not attend church.
No matter. He carries the day and is exempt from swim class and girls are ordered to wear one piece suits.
Next, he escalates confrontations with teachers, his mother, priests, any who might buckle.
Unpleasant, uncompromising story of someone claiming moral authority to seize control.
Stage roots show after a bit, but acting is uniformly excellent.
I detested most characters: the disrupter, the obsessed, the weaklings.

The Story Of Temple Drake - 1933 - 7/10

Southern belle, Temple, is the gorgeous granddaughter of the local judge
She is pampered, spoiled, and a wild thing. Both her parents are dead.
Temple dates, parties, runs free. To men, she is cocktease. For everyone else, endless gossip.
Dashing from a drunken party, she’s in a car crash out in the boondocks.
Rescue comes from bootleggers and gangsters.
Hard men, who know how to pluck a ripe flower.

Adaptation of Faulkner’s - one might think unfilmable - “Sanctuary,” still packs a jolt.
Audiences in the 30’s must have been floored by this lurid, tawdry affair.
For yes, Temple’s assault is only the beginning of her descent into the ways of the world.
The cinematography by Karl Struss, replete with dark shadows and slashed lighting, is stunning.

Schow, David - Eye

Caustic assortment of venomous bonbons from the reliably ill-tempered Schow.
Ethan pores through a box of memories in “Unhasped.” Memories of ex-girlfriends. Good – bad, here and in the hereafter.
“Quebradora” will be familiar territory for fans of Schow’s later novel, Gun Work (2011). An inside look at the secretive world of lucha libre.
Paul wakes in the middle of the night, and listens to his wife, examines his wife. It doesn’t sound like her, smell like her, look like her. “Entr’acte” reminds readers, no matter how much we know someone, we really don’t know much about them.
“Calendar Girl” is a dark love paeon to anyone whose youthful “admiration” for a particular pinup endured well into adulthood. Be it Marilyn, Bettie, Anna Nicole, Donna Michelle …
The collection also provides an afterword. Insights, story roots, obstacles, details that may offer aspiring writers sympathetic encouragement. Especially since Comp 101 and those pricey boot camps make the path from keyboard to Stephen King fame sound oh so easy,

Cloverfield Paradox - 2018 - 4/10

I suspected I would not like this, and fifteen minutes in I was rolling my eyes.
To be blunt, I don’t care for Mr. Abrams. To me, he is the Michael Bay of this generation, pandering to the LCD.
Anyway …
Planet Earth has almost run out of energy. Solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear, never panned out, I guess.
Science types construct a big ole generator up in space to power humanity.
Once tests begin, things go haywire.
The crew immediately holler, point and explode emotionally. Sorry, no rational types aboard. (sorta like airline cockpits where pilots point and scream, “What’s that light? We’re gonna die!! Mommy!! Mommy!!”)
Crew members also run all over the station. Hey, ain’t space supposed to be weightless? Reference Gravity or Interstellar or The Expanse. Nonetheless, the producer obviously thinks running is cool.
The plot involves alternate dimensions and the “cloverfield” connection is garbage.
Reviews have been dismal. Believe them. I wanted something spacey … and got space poop.

Hermann Goering: Nazi Number One - 2006 - 7/10

In depth biography of Reichsmarschall Goering, head of the Luftwaffe.
Childhood, member of Von Richthofen’s Flying Circus during World War I, eventually the smiling, genial face of the Nazi party, the one the common folk could relate to.
Loaded with details: his first marriage, his foot dragging regarding European war, morphine addiction, his retreat into dreams once the war soured.
A more ordinary soul, dishonest with sympathetic points, in the midst of clinical architects of the new order.
A wealth of his home movies were unearthed for this doc, which should pique the interest of history buffs.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Fabulous Stains - 1982 / 2008 - 5/10

Obscure, punk flick that played in a few theaters, then disappeared until 2008.
Young Diane Lane leads the Stains, a punk girl group, with Laura Dern.
The group begins ragged (not exactly the Runaways), improves as they lose credence, wind up glossy MTV icons.
A fading, headlining 60’s group features Fee Waybill (The Tubes).
A rival opening act has Paul Cook & Steve Jones (Sex Pistols), and Paul Simonon (Clash).
Not a bad movie, though the background story of the film itself is far more compelling.
(http://nightflight.com/ladies-and-gentlemen-the-fabulous-stains-a-neglected-punk-satire-saved-by-night-flight/)

The Phantom - 2009 - 4/10

On the shelf, this film, which I just heard about, looked godawful.
Of course I grabbed it.
Turned out to be a two part mini series. Busted pilot that never got picked up.
Lots of mistakes for an action film. The action being mostly chases. Running, running, more running.
The main character was an irritating clone of Hayden Christensen’s version of Anakin Skywalker.
The new uniform made him look more like a visitor from planet Womble.
Billy Zane tried to reboot this ancient strip back in 1996. His version was 70 minutes shorter than this runfest.
The Phantom, The Shadow, Flash Gordon, icons from the 1930’s, have resisted modern updating.
OK sets. Zzzzzzzz

Midnight In Paris - 2011 - 8/10

Quietly dazzling film, where banality glides into fantasy.
Owen Wilson plays man out of step with his time, and of no value to his future in-laws.
When his fiancée’s old flame surfaces, Wilson prowls a bygone lane.
And finds himself stumbling into an inventive slip stream.
Literary in-jokes abound. and the MacGuffin conveyance is a wonderful touch.
Allen has done this before, notably The Purple Rose Of Cairo.
Slightly less accessible, perhaps, if you are weak on literary references.
More accessible, however, if 30’s homages from The Purple Rose Of Cairo perplex you.
Photography of Paris is ravishing.