Section 3: Suspiria
Welcome to Section 3, the DPP's further viewing list of highly recommended horror and exploitation films that existed outside the Video Nasties list. This first episode we have an eminently seizable title that holds up as a favourite and a classic amongst the catalogue of the horror maestro Dario Argento. Thomas De Quincey provides the inspiration and Argento supplies the beautiful brutality as we join Jessica Harper on a trip into Hell on earth. Ballet and blood and evil incarnate come together in the twisted world of Suspiria.
Susie Banyon travels to Germany to attend a highly prestigious dance academy. Almost immediately on her arrival though things start to take a dark turn when people begin to disappear or turn up dead in gruesome circumstances. As soon as she starts to attend classes she finds herself drawn involuntarily closer to the school which attempts to control every aspect of her life. When Susie looks into the dark history of the school she realises that something is terribly wrong with the staff, and that the sordid past of the school hasn't been entirely consigned to history.
Suspiria, Dario Argento's diversion into supernatural tales, is generally regarded as one of his best. His step outside of the giallo genre that made him famous still bears the marks of his earlier giallo work though the visuals in Suspiria go beyond anything he'd done before.
Suspiria is in every respect a nightmare in cinematic form. Its look, its feel is so deeply ingrained in childish nightmares that the fitful night terrors of childhood come flooding back immediately when you sit in front of this masterpiece of horror cinema. There is an unmistakable childish nature to the story, Dario reportedly had wanted to cast girls of 12 years and younger for the film and this was overruled due to the obvious problems the film would suffer if it meted out such violence upon kids. However despite the casting revision the script, the set, and the events still strongly suggest a story that is routed in a pre pubescent world.
First of all there the authoritarian world that the child exists in, the authority structure of the school is not one that adults would be expected to found in and though Susie does comment on her disdain for the boarding school lifestyle, for the most part the script keeps the dancers in the film as children in all but body, they are rather infantile and Susie herself is a doe like innocent.
The world of Suspiria is filled with images from the dream world, all the childish anxieties of nightmares in fact it goes so far it's almost Freudian in it's obsession with childhood trauma though the sexual anxieties of Freudian concerns is almost entirely absent. For the most part Suspiria bases itself in other fears, most noticeably a fear of authority figures and a fear of lack of control. It's the adults that constantly pose the most overt threat as we are never, until very late, privy to what their plans are, or indeed why they are the way they are. Susie herself is very much out of control, her only glimmer of independence is taken away from her almost immediately when she's forced to take residence in the halls rather than her apartment. She's also constantly drugged, told what and how much to eat and is generally manipulated by the staff of the halls. Childish anxiety is a strong theme through out Suspiria, Susie is even right from the beginning inflicted with separation from the familiar, and immersion into an entirely domineering world that smothers her independence. Following on from the implied youth of the characters these things in particular play into the idea that the subtext to the story is one of the anxieties, fears and frustrations of the transition from prepubescence into the turmoil of puberty where everyone becomes the enemy. The recent release of Black Swan, which ran like a love letter to Suspiria, in a good way I hasten to add, saw a rather different take on the characters in which it is very much a sexual awaking tale, Suspiria doesn't seem to go as far as that though. There are some subtle sexual references, and possibly a couple of passing references to bodily sexual maturity, for the most part Argento focuses on a more innocent mind set with Susie Banyon showing little or no interest in the pretty boys at the academy, other than a passing and childish crush on one of the male dancers, the treatment of her is oddly tentative for Italian horror, though Argento often seems to have these female figures who are entirely innocent, even in the eyes of the often leering camera. Jessica Harper fits into this role perfectly. Her slight figure is strikingly youthful and she has a face and eyes that project a doe like innocence, indeed her appearance and demeanour are child like to the point that she is stripped of sexual focus, and it's rather notable considering how beautiful she is that Argento resists any opportunity to exploit her looks.
Harper has used this aspect of her appearance to create the contrast between innocence and experience in other films, particularly the Rocky Horror follow up Shock Treatment where Janet once again undergoes a character transformation, this time she's seduced by fame to become an attention seeking media whore. The transformation here though is more about breaking the shackles of control, her teachers, though ostensibly evil witches here, are most concerned with control, to the point where Susie's diet and even state of consciousness is controlled. Susie does something that rings of a young girls behaviour when trying to gain some semblance of control of their lives, she throws her food down the toilet.
Another aspect of the world as part of Susie's mind set is the architecture. Much of the architecture in Suspiria has a bizarre look to it, it's very strikingly gaudy and bold, it in many ways resembles a dolls house in appearance and it's a notable feature that the scale of the buildings design is such as to dwarf the actors in them. Even the door handles are placed too high which further reduces their stature, again lending a child like aspect to their interaction with the environment around them.
It's notable that the set design seems to lift from the stylistic approach of The cabinet of Dr Caligari, not only an appropriate choice for the country this is set in but also appropriate because of the sonumbalist thread to that story. The structure and capturing of these sets leans heavily into the expressionist style, and it has an uncomfortable, disorientating sense to it
This aspect amongst others puts us firmly in the point of view of Susie. Suspiria is very much a trip into a nightmare inspired by the anxieties of youth. This world is presented to us in the form a cinematic representation of a literal nightmare. The dream world is not only highly exaggerated, something which is heightened by the use of colour, the crazed, yet strangely formal set design and of course the extraordinary collage of sound, but by the fevered interpretation of the events, in particular the most violent.
In one scene we find one of the girls being chased by the mysterious, faceless killer. When she escapes into the room we get an odd, and tortuous scene where the killer is inexplicably having a hard time raising the catch on a door latch. This feels lifted from the irrational mind, it's the slow, painful and deliberately tortuous, it's also rather abstract and clearly more about the build up of fear than presenting a reality. This is the stuff of nightmares, a slow but inevitable creeping towards you of the big bad and if there's any doubt of that this is a dream world then the girls tortuous death in a bed of razor wire should make it clear. This is a classic nightmare scenario, being slowed down, sometimes painfully, by some bizarre aspect of your surroundings. It's this inevitability, the inescapable and relentless attacks that reflect the nightmare world so perfectly and the iconic opening murder is frankly breathtaking and bizarre at the same time. The victim suffers what could be described as one of cinemas greatest moments of overkill as she's pushed through a window then stabbed time after time only to be dropped from a great height and hanged by the neck while simultaneously her flat mate is killed by the falling debris. It's sequences like this and many others
that display argento's rather refined talent for conducting visuals in an almost musical sense, when this is backed up by his work with the iconic musical landscape the Goblins lay down it all combines to be a seamless combination of image and sound. The skill that this handled with makes Suspiria one of the most accomplished piece of film making not only in the horror genre but in film in general. One of the most fascinating examples of this is a scene right at the beginning where we are introduced to Susie. Symmetry is heavily employed throughout the film, from the architecture to the blocking of the actors, and this is what we immediately find with this shot that seems tense, almost uptight in it's order but not extraordinary in an obvious way. The Goblins play a gentle, almost music box like riff, that despite is gentle, childish qualities also carries an oddly menacing undertone. This of course culminates with Susie walking through the sliding door when the calm and quiet of the airport is suddenly replaced on the cue of the doors hydraulic hiss by the storm outside. Susie's transition from the safe and familiar world into the brutal dream world is now complete. This transition is something of a theme within both this and Inferno, it's the transition from the real world into the fantasy or dream world and it's often accompanied with the familiar use of primary colours that Argento's supernatural films are known for. The depth of the colours was achieved by using the three strip process which allowed Argento to have exquisite control over colour saturation. As a technical side note it seems the scenes were lit with orange gels instead of red which makes sense considering the problems cameras have with reading reds, it allowed the camera to do it's work to a higher standard and the three strip process then allowed Argento to manipulate it colour in post to achieve the desired tone and intensities.
All the various methods and devices Argento uses to construct these dream worlds make them so effective at working their way into the psyche. They play on familiar themes of lack of control, of being an outsider, a fear of strangers and of course the manifestation of evil incarnate.
In the case of Suspiria it's also carries the baggage of childhood and here Argento manipulates everything form the set design in scale and style to make Susie look smaller than she is but also camera angles are carefully selected to further this effect....In this shot where Susie has been taken ill she's infantilsed not only by the actions of the overbearing authority figures around her but is placed very low and in a submissive position, in short she looks very child like in this shot. As I've mentioned before Jessica Harper did already look quite childlike already and this shot does have her reduced in stature to that of a helpless child being fussed over by an overbearing family. The costumes enhance this as well by stripping the girls of sexuality further beyond the innocence of their written characters.
When it comes to costumes, these seem to be deliberately designed to hide the adult attributes of her figure and accentuate the fragile aspects of her stature, again refusing the chance to exploit her sexuality. The overall effect is one of making her seem childishly feminine.
In essence what seems to be happening with Suspiria is that we're following a transition from childhood into adolescence a time that is accompanied by a distrust of and push against authority. It's unusual in this sense that it focuses on some more subtle fears rather than the raging hormones sexual awakening tale ala Black Swan, which I rate very highly though Suspiria is less exploitative in some regards as it tells as involved a tale, just without the promise of eroticism.
Regardless of the subtext of the film though Suspiria is a masterpiece of cinematic art. It's adventurous use of colour, the extraordinary set pieces, the set design and the unnerving dream like qualities all tied together with one of the best and most effective soundtracks to grace a film make this an extraordinary piece of movie making. Visually powerful, aurally gripping and engaging on multiple levels, Suspiria comes as close to being the perfect horror film as is possible and stands in my opinion as the most solidly accomplished film of Argento's that I have seen, some of the others come close but don't quite match this extraordinary film...
Wednesday, 18 January 2012
Section 3: Oasis of the Zombies
Oasis of the Zombies
Welcome to Section 3, home to the near nasties and a voyage into the exploitation movies the kept the police in for many a Saturday night when they could have been arresting rapists and burglars.
This episode we venture back into familiar territory with a director who's filmography runs like a telephone book and contains more gratuitous ass and snatch shots than your average soft core porn flick. Nazi Zombies once again lope across the landscape in this offering from the man with a million names as we take a trip to the desert with the infamous Jess Franco to the 'Oasis of the Zombies'...
An Afrika corps unit transporting some of the nazi spoils of war is attacked while resting at an oasis by Alied forces. One Alied soldier, Robert, survives the attack only to be visited by a German treasure hunter, Kurt, who kills him after finding out the location of the oasis. When Roberts son
finds out about his fathers murder he and his friends decide to look for the treasure themselves. However they find there is something less welcome than treasure to be found as the oasis is inhabited by the dead Nazi soldiers who are still intent on guarding the gold.
Yep Jess is back and this time it's Nazi zombies that are his muse. Certainly one of the oddest areas of exploitation cinema is the Nazi zombie genre, I mean, how do you make histories number 1 bad guys even more repellent..... you have them be maggot infested corpses that still want to kill you.
I've spoken about the Nazisploitation genre a bit before, they are an almost semiotic sign for bad guy, a generic bastard that we can all recognise as being evil without any exposition needed. Essentially this means that they are kind of the fast food of the stock bad guy world, the Mc.Villain if you will, bland, shallow and doesn't take any thought to produce
Is Oasis of the Dead different in this regard?....not in the slightest. What we have with Oasis of the Zombies is more of the same when it comes to the bad guys...they're all German. Things do look up in some departments though. First off there is the fucli-esque feel to the zombies, they seem to be straight out of zombie flesh eaters which is a good thing in some respects if a little unimaginative. The zombies do also play second fiddle to the story which essentially boils down to a treasure hunt and it's only really at the last minute that the whole thing becomes the gut muncher one would expect. The story is very basic though manages to be quite confusing because of the flashback sequence which could have been presented a bit more clearly. It's confusing because it's so protracted that you forget that this stuff you're seeing is actually exposition and not part of the stories main narrative.
Story has never really been Franco's strength in these kind of knock of movies that he's well known for and Oasis of the zombies really doesn't make too much effort, or rather Franco doesn't seem to concentrate on the important aspects of the story which had they been more coherently handled may have made for a half decent, undemanding action film. What we have instead is a seriously rambling, story which is prone to half arsedly wandering around plot points, pausing on insignificant details and killing any pacing stone cold dead. There is no sense of rhythm with the film at all, it all jerks from one place to another and feels like some sort of Frankenstein's monster, stitched together crudely but somehow vaguely animated into a gross parody of what it should actually be.
For the most part it's standard Franco fare, cheap, nasty and it doesn't even have Franco's normal flare for cinematography. The dialogue is of course stilted and is often delivered by some very bored sounding dub actors. [clip]
the good guys in this film are pretty awful as well, they go off on what is clearly going to be a dangerous journey, totally unprepared and with an attitude that makes most of the teen camp councillors in any given slasher film seem like responsible and smart adults.
While this and many other things are clearly wrong with this movie, and believe me it makes bloody moon look like a multi million dollar production in comparison, it does actually carry a certain creepy air to it as well. There is a droning meandering bontempi sounding soundtrack that is quite incessant. Sometimes it works rather well, harking back to some earlier exploitation movies but it does also wander into the irritating as well as it just doesn't let up... for over three quarters of the movie.
For all it's faults, and they are the overwhelming feature of Oasis of the Zombies,the pay off's are occasionally not too bad. The war scenes are rather exciting, to the point that one wanders if they are borrowed from another movie, which is a little sad but possibly true. The zombies are well realised and though the pacing problems continue into these scenes as well it is only fair to recognise that the zombies are pretty damn creepy. But frankly it's all a bit too little way too late.
One wanders how is it that Franco could have done this as much as he did, constantly produce films that have some great ideas but end up being such a mess. Certainly the manufacturing line products that constitute the vast majority of his output have an air of simply being another days work farted out into the movie market, though Oasis of the zombies is by no means the worst of Franco's work. It does have something about it that indicates Franco may well have been slightly interested in the project but ultimately it's poor in almost every technical aspect and the artistic content is woefully low with only the occasional glimpse of the brilliance that Franco can on rare occasions throw out. The film as a whole is also way to dry and serious, sadly without reason, and isn't even as much fun as some of Franco's other work can be and unfortunately the final product is simply way too flawed to even be charming to some degree. The worst thing is that it simply drags it's leaden arse through it's surprisingly short runtime and magnifies each minute by a factor of 3, it's incredibly hard work to get through and the padding that you have to sit through just destroys any good will that is generated by the films highlights.
While I have just spent a fair time highlighting the faults of this movie and I realise it's not going to be one that many will rush to see now it has to be said that as these cheapo zombie films go Oasis of the Zombies could have been so much worse. Had it's pacing been kept tight and the story more efficient then it may have been at least a half decent movie despite it's lack of budget. Franco does deliver some horrific zombies and an exotic and unusual location for the action. It's look is unusual, it's sound bizarre but occasionally effective and if nothing else it's a rather decent take on the Nazi zombie sub genre.
Overall though I can't imagine too many people being able to appreciate this film even despite the occasional decent moments, it's just way too slow, way too choppy and feels like an amateur movie instead of being a film by a man who directed more movies at this point than almost any other director in the industry.
Welcome to Section 3, home to the near nasties and a voyage into the exploitation movies the kept the police in for many a Saturday night when they could have been arresting rapists and burglars.
This episode we venture back into familiar territory with a director who's filmography runs like a telephone book and contains more gratuitous ass and snatch shots than your average soft core porn flick. Nazi Zombies once again lope across the landscape in this offering from the man with a million names as we take a trip to the desert with the infamous Jess Franco to the 'Oasis of the Zombies'...
An Afrika corps unit transporting some of the nazi spoils of war is attacked while resting at an oasis by Alied forces. One Alied soldier, Robert, survives the attack only to be visited by a German treasure hunter, Kurt, who kills him after finding out the location of the oasis. When Roberts son
finds out about his fathers murder he and his friends decide to look for the treasure themselves. However they find there is something less welcome than treasure to be found as the oasis is inhabited by the dead Nazi soldiers who are still intent on guarding the gold.
Yep Jess is back and this time it's Nazi zombies that are his muse. Certainly one of the oddest areas of exploitation cinema is the Nazi zombie genre, I mean, how do you make histories number 1 bad guys even more repellent..... you have them be maggot infested corpses that still want to kill you.
I've spoken about the Nazisploitation genre a bit before, they are an almost semiotic sign for bad guy, a generic bastard that we can all recognise as being evil without any exposition needed. Essentially this means that they are kind of the fast food of the stock bad guy world, the Mc.Villain if you will, bland, shallow and doesn't take any thought to produce
Is Oasis of the Dead different in this regard?....not in the slightest. What we have with Oasis of the Zombies is more of the same when it comes to the bad guys...they're all German. Things do look up in some departments though. First off there is the fucli-esque feel to the zombies, they seem to be straight out of zombie flesh eaters which is a good thing in some respects if a little unimaginative. The zombies do also play second fiddle to the story which essentially boils down to a treasure hunt and it's only really at the last minute that the whole thing becomes the gut muncher one would expect. The story is very basic though manages to be quite confusing because of the flashback sequence which could have been presented a bit more clearly. It's confusing because it's so protracted that you forget that this stuff you're seeing is actually exposition and not part of the stories main narrative.
Story has never really been Franco's strength in these kind of knock of movies that he's well known for and Oasis of the zombies really doesn't make too much effort, or rather Franco doesn't seem to concentrate on the important aspects of the story which had they been more coherently handled may have made for a half decent, undemanding action film. What we have instead is a seriously rambling, story which is prone to half arsedly wandering around plot points, pausing on insignificant details and killing any pacing stone cold dead. There is no sense of rhythm with the film at all, it all jerks from one place to another and feels like some sort of Frankenstein's monster, stitched together crudely but somehow vaguely animated into a gross parody of what it should actually be.
For the most part it's standard Franco fare, cheap, nasty and it doesn't even have Franco's normal flare for cinematography. The dialogue is of course stilted and is often delivered by some very bored sounding dub actors. [clip]
the good guys in this film are pretty awful as well, they go off on what is clearly going to be a dangerous journey, totally unprepared and with an attitude that makes most of the teen camp councillors in any given slasher film seem like responsible and smart adults.
While this and many other things are clearly wrong with this movie, and believe me it makes bloody moon look like a multi million dollar production in comparison, it does actually carry a certain creepy air to it as well. There is a droning meandering bontempi sounding soundtrack that is quite incessant. Sometimes it works rather well, harking back to some earlier exploitation movies but it does also wander into the irritating as well as it just doesn't let up... for over three quarters of the movie.
For all it's faults, and they are the overwhelming feature of Oasis of the Zombies,the pay off's are occasionally not too bad. The war scenes are rather exciting, to the point that one wanders if they are borrowed from another movie, which is a little sad but possibly true. The zombies are well realised and though the pacing problems continue into these scenes as well it is only fair to recognise that the zombies are pretty damn creepy. But frankly it's all a bit too little way too late.
One wanders how is it that Franco could have done this as much as he did, constantly produce films that have some great ideas but end up being such a mess. Certainly the manufacturing line products that constitute the vast majority of his output have an air of simply being another days work farted out into the movie market, though Oasis of the zombies is by no means the worst of Franco's work. It does have something about it that indicates Franco may well have been slightly interested in the project but ultimately it's poor in almost every technical aspect and the artistic content is woefully low with only the occasional glimpse of the brilliance that Franco can on rare occasions throw out. The film as a whole is also way to dry and serious, sadly without reason, and isn't even as much fun as some of Franco's other work can be and unfortunately the final product is simply way too flawed to even be charming to some degree. The worst thing is that it simply drags it's leaden arse through it's surprisingly short runtime and magnifies each minute by a factor of 3, it's incredibly hard work to get through and the padding that you have to sit through just destroys any good will that is generated by the films highlights.
While I have just spent a fair time highlighting the faults of this movie and I realise it's not going to be one that many will rush to see now it has to be said that as these cheapo zombie films go Oasis of the Zombies could have been so much worse. Had it's pacing been kept tight and the story more efficient then it may have been at least a half decent movie despite it's lack of budget. Franco does deliver some horrific zombies and an exotic and unusual location for the action. It's look is unusual, it's sound bizarre but occasionally effective and if nothing else it's a rather decent take on the Nazi zombie sub genre.
Overall though I can't imagine too many people being able to appreciate this film even despite the occasional decent moments, it's just way too slow, way too choppy and feels like an amateur movie instead of being a film by a man who directed more movies at this point than almost any other director in the industry.
Section 3: Mausoleum
Section 3: Mausoleum
welcome to Section 3, home to the near nasties and a place of final rest for films that tickled the balls of bad taste when pre cert cassettes were simply video cassettes and the police felt the need to help themselves to your collection. This episode we have a film that features the worst kind of hand me down as a young girl gets herself good and cursed by a family demon in Michael Dugan's Mausoleum.
Susan is orphaned at a young age and after running away at her mothers funeral she happens across a rather ominous looking mausoleum which she seems compelled to explore. Inside she encounters a horrifying creature that kills off the stranger who followed her in, something odd is apparently afoot. Years later and we find Susan grown up and having inherited her mothers old house. Things are not quite right though as her family and friends notice unusual things going on with her
Mausoleum is a silly and kinda nonsensical film. From the very beginning we get a rushed out piece of exposition that culminates in the Young Susan running away from her guardian. The reaction of the guardian, Susan's aunt, is rather bizarre to say the least and only explainable in retrospect but the film likes to play these games with the audience, even if it's never directly addressed. The general shoddiness of the film is on full show just in this first scene from the less than spectacular optical effect of the mausoleum, to the random killing of the stranger, the way that Susan is somehow already enthralled by the demon but still feels the need to go see it emerge from the crypt to the soon to be reoccurring nomed reference (psst.....spoiler alert but it's Demon spelt backwards.....) I guess Son of Dracula was more influential than I realised...
It's this kind of cheese that typifies Mausoleum as a whole it's all a bit flaky and when it comes to making sense then the shit really hits the fan. The first twenty minutes brings up a plethora of unanswered questions such as why does the possession happen so young but not manifest again until much later in her life, how come the young Susan looks nothing at all like herself those years later, why does she play the games with the gardener, seducing then berating then shagging him before killing him? If these kinds of unanswered questions are going to drive you nuts then strap yourself in because it's not going to be an easy ride.
Even some fundamental questions such as why it is the family are cursed are skated over in the briefest of fashions, nothing is really explained and so much is taken for granted. This is really the irksome thing about Mausoleum, it just doesn't bother to so much as care about the simplest things that it itself hangs the story on. It is to the core, deeply sloppy and messy in these respects. As a result of this the entire film feels rather disjointed, there is a disconnect between what's seen and what happens, cause and effect are so loosely tied and sometimes even completely detached to the point that you just don't even have to be paying attention to catch the plot holes. This oddly can sometimes works in favour of a film but in the case of Mausoleum it really doesn't do anything for it. Mausoleum does have a very nightmare like quality to it the fractured images and plot as much of a hindrance as it is does almost falteringly tie into this, though had it been better executed in terms of the story then maybe it could have tied in the woolly plot structure and flaky attention to detail and made it contribute to the bizarre atmosphere of the film more effectively but as it is it simply makes for a barely coherent mess of a story. It's clear that when an explanation for something happening was identified that a contrived solution was whipped up to fill in the gaps, but it also seems that that was as far as the writing would go, answer the immediate question with an answer that makes little to no more sense than the original problem. Point in case the funeral scene....(opening scene) okay so sure they seem to know about the curse but why fulfil it by taking her to the very place where the problem exists....hold the funeral somewhere else for crying out loud. This is really a film with more holes than a mole infested golf course and if you hope to have anything substantive to watch here then frankly you're in for a disappointment as it's just nonsense upon nonsense with an ending that makes less sense than anything in the movie before it, no spoilers here but damn if it isn't the strangest and most ill thought out use of a plot twist ever and aside from that it leaves so much up in the air it'll put Nasa to shame.
This is really Mausoleums major flaw, and it's a big one, however its not so big as to entirely kill the film off. What we have here is basically an Omen/Exorcist inspired film, though Mausoleum really doesn't get to the dramatic height of either of these films by a long shot, it's just too cheap and nasty to compete on either films terms and considering the story was rather thrown together it's not like it even has that going for it. However, Mausoleum does manage to generate a weird atmosphere that peps up the film as a whole, sure it doesn't make too much sense but it does feel like a stroll into a fevered nightmare of someone suffering terminal malaria.
This is amplified by the bizarre characters, from the odd Aunt, to the creepy doctor and the slimy gardener. The later, the gardener is one of the more ….. uncomfortable portrayals in this film. The ethnic characters are not only rather screwball they are rather, stereotypical. I say stereotypical rather than racist as I don't think its malicious rather than a bit lazy. The black maid is straight out of the worst kind of parody even down the exclamation of Great googly moogly! This just peppers the film rather than permeating it and it would be easy to overstate it. It comes across more as ill advised humour rather than being malicious and there is a moment of levelling in one scene between Susan and the maid........[19:30ish shopping list]............it ain't much but it's there and it does make the portrayals lean more towards comedy than being mean spirited.
To add to the off the wall feeling there is the casting of Marjoe Gortner who's surprisingly capable here but it's fairly strange to see the ex child evangelist superstar acting alongside a naked playboy model.
I am very aware that this has so far been a rather negative review of the film, this is not what you should take away from this review though as Mausoleum actually works out to be a moderately fun film despite its shortcomings. It's certainly hokey enough to be amusing, the performances just the right side of bad and the special effects are particularly amusing. It all comes over as being an early 1900 horror that arrived at the cinema in the wrong decade. The shadows of the monsters come over as a lift from the classic Nosferatu, though to the casual viewer its of course a cheap way around the low budget, truth is it's probably a bit of both. Then there is the exorcist like make up of Susan as the monster and the indiscriminate use of ultra violet lighting that makes some of the scenes seem like they've been filmed at a cheap Halloween party but for whatever reason the film works, not overwhelmingly well but it is a halfway decent and undemanding watch that at least has some fun deaths along the way.
If you can put up with the nonsensical and ragged plot, the contrivances that move the story along and the dubious special effects, including a very prominent appearance by a flying rig, then Mausoleum does at least offer a bizarre acid trip of a horror film. While it can't be called a good film by any reasonable standards it does however provide a decent degree of fun along the way at least and frankly that can sometimes be just about enough. Just be prepared to be in for a goofy and almost surreal ride.
welcome to Section 3, home to the near nasties and a place of final rest for films that tickled the balls of bad taste when pre cert cassettes were simply video cassettes and the police felt the need to help themselves to your collection. This episode we have a film that features the worst kind of hand me down as a young girl gets herself good and cursed by a family demon in Michael Dugan's Mausoleum.
Susan is orphaned at a young age and after running away at her mothers funeral she happens across a rather ominous looking mausoleum which she seems compelled to explore. Inside she encounters a horrifying creature that kills off the stranger who followed her in, something odd is apparently afoot. Years later and we find Susan grown up and having inherited her mothers old house. Things are not quite right though as her family and friends notice unusual things going on with her
Mausoleum is a silly and kinda nonsensical film. From the very beginning we get a rushed out piece of exposition that culminates in the Young Susan running away from her guardian. The reaction of the guardian, Susan's aunt, is rather bizarre to say the least and only explainable in retrospect but the film likes to play these games with the audience, even if it's never directly addressed. The general shoddiness of the film is on full show just in this first scene from the less than spectacular optical effect of the mausoleum, to the random killing of the stranger, the way that Susan is somehow already enthralled by the demon but still feels the need to go see it emerge from the crypt to the soon to be reoccurring nomed reference (psst.....spoiler alert but it's Demon spelt backwards.....) I guess Son of Dracula was more influential than I realised...
It's this kind of cheese that typifies Mausoleum as a whole it's all a bit flaky and when it comes to making sense then the shit really hits the fan. The first twenty minutes brings up a plethora of unanswered questions such as why does the possession happen so young but not manifest again until much later in her life, how come the young Susan looks nothing at all like herself those years later, why does she play the games with the gardener, seducing then berating then shagging him before killing him? If these kinds of unanswered questions are going to drive you nuts then strap yourself in because it's not going to be an easy ride.
Even some fundamental questions such as why it is the family are cursed are skated over in the briefest of fashions, nothing is really explained and so much is taken for granted. This is really the irksome thing about Mausoleum, it just doesn't bother to so much as care about the simplest things that it itself hangs the story on. It is to the core, deeply sloppy and messy in these respects. As a result of this the entire film feels rather disjointed, there is a disconnect between what's seen and what happens, cause and effect are so loosely tied and sometimes even completely detached to the point that you just don't even have to be paying attention to catch the plot holes. This oddly can sometimes works in favour of a film but in the case of Mausoleum it really doesn't do anything for it. Mausoleum does have a very nightmare like quality to it the fractured images and plot as much of a hindrance as it is does almost falteringly tie into this, though had it been better executed in terms of the story then maybe it could have tied in the woolly plot structure and flaky attention to detail and made it contribute to the bizarre atmosphere of the film more effectively but as it is it simply makes for a barely coherent mess of a story. It's clear that when an explanation for something happening was identified that a contrived solution was whipped up to fill in the gaps, but it also seems that that was as far as the writing would go, answer the immediate question with an answer that makes little to no more sense than the original problem. Point in case the funeral scene....(opening scene) okay so sure they seem to know about the curse but why fulfil it by taking her to the very place where the problem exists....hold the funeral somewhere else for crying out loud. This is really a film with more holes than a mole infested golf course and if you hope to have anything substantive to watch here then frankly you're in for a disappointment as it's just nonsense upon nonsense with an ending that makes less sense than anything in the movie before it, no spoilers here but damn if it isn't the strangest and most ill thought out use of a plot twist ever and aside from that it leaves so much up in the air it'll put Nasa to shame.
This is really Mausoleums major flaw, and it's a big one, however its not so big as to entirely kill the film off. What we have here is basically an Omen/Exorcist inspired film, though Mausoleum really doesn't get to the dramatic height of either of these films by a long shot, it's just too cheap and nasty to compete on either films terms and considering the story was rather thrown together it's not like it even has that going for it. However, Mausoleum does manage to generate a weird atmosphere that peps up the film as a whole, sure it doesn't make too much sense but it does feel like a stroll into a fevered nightmare of someone suffering terminal malaria.
This is amplified by the bizarre characters, from the odd Aunt, to the creepy doctor and the slimy gardener. The later, the gardener is one of the more ….. uncomfortable portrayals in this film. The ethnic characters are not only rather screwball they are rather, stereotypical. I say stereotypical rather than racist as I don't think its malicious rather than a bit lazy. The black maid is straight out of the worst kind of parody even down the exclamation of Great googly moogly! This just peppers the film rather than permeating it and it would be easy to overstate it. It comes across more as ill advised humour rather than being malicious and there is a moment of levelling in one scene between Susan and the maid........[19:30ish shopping list]............it ain't much but it's there and it does make the portrayals lean more towards comedy than being mean spirited.
To add to the off the wall feeling there is the casting of Marjoe Gortner who's surprisingly capable here but it's fairly strange to see the ex child evangelist superstar acting alongside a naked playboy model.
I am very aware that this has so far been a rather negative review of the film, this is not what you should take away from this review though as Mausoleum actually works out to be a moderately fun film despite its shortcomings. It's certainly hokey enough to be amusing, the performances just the right side of bad and the special effects are particularly amusing. It all comes over as being an early 1900 horror that arrived at the cinema in the wrong decade. The shadows of the monsters come over as a lift from the classic Nosferatu, though to the casual viewer its of course a cheap way around the low budget, truth is it's probably a bit of both. Then there is the exorcist like make up of Susan as the monster and the indiscriminate use of ultra violet lighting that makes some of the scenes seem like they've been filmed at a cheap Halloween party but for whatever reason the film works, not overwhelmingly well but it is a halfway decent and undemanding watch that at least has some fun deaths along the way.
If you can put up with the nonsensical and ragged plot, the contrivances that move the story along and the dubious special effects, including a very prominent appearance by a flying rig, then Mausoleum does at least offer a bizarre acid trip of a horror film. While it can't be called a good film by any reasonable standards it does however provide a decent degree of fun along the way at least and frankly that can sometimes be just about enough. Just be prepared to be in for a goofy and almost surreal ride.
Section 3: G.B.H.
Welcome to Section 3, home to the near Nasties that the police just couldn't keep their hands off of. This episode I have for something for you that captures the age of the video revolution, being as it is low budget, almost unheard and actually shot on video for video... Lets delve into the murky world of the Mancunian underground with the bad ass bouncer with Cliff Twemlow's GBH....
Night clubs across Manchester are being raided by heavies working for the local crime boss Keller and being extorted for protection. When club owner Murray realises his club may be next he calls for the services of an old ally, a man who's just about to be released from prison after helping him before. That man is Donovan, the legendary bouncer known as The Mancunian.
As Donovan begins to work he quickly comes face to face with the heavies sent to threaten the club
and so a battle begins for control of the scene and a few old scores will be settled.
GBH is a rather distinct film in several regards. It's one of the very few films on the list that really typifies the video revolution. The relatively cheap cost of recording and distributing on video meant that film making suddenly became something that almost anyone could do with the a comparatively modest budget. Of course at the time there was an explosion of shot on video productions, many went nowhere and even the most successful were minor hits in the grand scheme. Occasionally some true cult gems emerged, and GBH was in my opinion one of the best.
Now when I say the best I don't mean in practical terms. The acting is very shaky for the most part, the editing, rather amateur, the general construction of the movie is done by people that clearly are working with not just a limited budget but struggling with limited resources in experience with the technology. So what is it that makes this at least an interesting film. Well it starts with the utter enthusiasm that this seems to buzz with. This is one of those films that clearly comes from people who genuinely seem to want to make movies, and this enthusiasm is quite infectious. The main character Donovan is a well meaning man, clearly a man of violence but one of noble intent. There is a strange handling of the character in some respects in that the film occasionally slips into near homo-eroticism but then Donovan is also clearly a ladies man. This duality of character is quite interesting, certainly Donovan is a clearly macho man, slick with the ladies but also a sensitive man with a close bond to his male comrades, even those who are his enemies. This is really a minor point though, the character is a good man regardless of sexuality and his willingness to resort to violent means to ensure rough justice.
This is the heart of the film, Donovan's integrity against the scum and thugery of his enemy Keller. It may be possible that the identification that can be made with a character like Donovan was something that the DPP felt was problematic. He's a character who is ambiguous in his methods and quite alluring as an anti hero, certainly he's not as clear cut as the desirable hero in terms of morality. To some extent he's a misogynist, he's also not averse to being a thug but his moral compass is true if somewhat rougeish. In some respects he's very much like the wild west hero, trapped in a violent society and forced to play the game of the lawless, though for the good guys. Indeed the film itself seems directly inspired by westerns with the nightclubs replacing saloons, and even with there being a violent shoot out that could almost be lifted directly from any number of westerns. There are hero's, villains, the woman who can potentially salvage the hero's soul, and an unspoken bond even between enemy’s and even a butch and sundance style going out in a blaze of glory ending, the similarities are uncanny, though the violence in the film are probably more reminiscent of the spaghetti westerns than anything else. It does also cross over with the more notable crime drama's but then both genre share common ground, choosing to humanise what would in normal society (what ever that may mean) be recognised as being amoral or at least dubious.
GBH also both suffers and is lifted by it's localisation. This is clearly a film for British audiences, how well it would cross over to foreign audiences is questionable and most likely would be unsuccessful. This isn't because the characterisation is shoddy or the story unrecognisable but the specifically British urban feel is something that even many British audiences would struggle to get over. The fact that it particularly Mancunian in tone can itself be an obstacle though this for me was part of it's charm and there a hard core of Twemlow fans who very fondly embrace the specific regionalising of not only this but of Twemlows other films. The overarching feel of this film is one of utter enthusiasm for the project and the characters are played with what seems to be a great deal of gusto. It's often apparent that there is an awkwardness to the performances and the lines and action can not only be very cliché but ham to a significant degree but it all seems so very forgiveable because despite all of this it trundles along at a decent pace and doesn't waste much time trying to be anything pretentious.
It's this honesty that really makes GBH what it is. While it's still a fantasy of the rough diamond good guys standing up to the injustice of the bad guys it plays in an honest and sincere manner that frankly leaves many major movies in the dust and I suspect this is in part what appeals to fans of this film.
It's the heart that the film has rather than it's technical accomplishment that rings through and this shows through in the key characters, in particular in Donovan who comes over as a true working class hero.
When it comes down to it GBH seems to be a labour of love by all involved in making it, though it will always languish in obscurity because it's technical shortfalls alongside it's amateurish overtones will be too much for many viewers to get over. Which is a shame because what likes underneath is a rather fun story with a decent central character and story that, if you can be charitable enough to forgive the multitude of rough edges, is actually quite engaging and fun. It's all a little done maybe but what with the Manchester background and recognisable landscapes this should actually a be a rather endearing film to at least a British audience, at least those who appreciate wild west/crime drama kinds of films. Even for those who can't bring themselves to enjoy the film the one thing that should be very apparent is that this is a rather strong example of how the video revolution presented unparalleled opportunities to film makers. Where the final product may stand separate from the mainstream, there were at least chances to make independent films on a nearly non existent budget, for better or for worse. It's a small taste of a more level playing field in the film world, something that has been sadly lacking for the most part and something that given new media opportunities we are beginning to see again, much to the angst of major studios.
As way of a parting comment it bears mentioning for the unwitting that this is not the GBH you will generally find by Googling it. The one you are most likely to find will be Alan Bleasdales drama staring amongst others, Michael Palin. If you can get to see Twemlows rather rare title, by whatever means you can, I think it's a worthwhile watch that you may either love for its charms, or loathe for its aesthetic.
Night clubs across Manchester are being raided by heavies working for the local crime boss Keller and being extorted for protection. When club owner Murray realises his club may be next he calls for the services of an old ally, a man who's just about to be released from prison after helping him before. That man is Donovan, the legendary bouncer known as The Mancunian.
As Donovan begins to work he quickly comes face to face with the heavies sent to threaten the club
and so a battle begins for control of the scene and a few old scores will be settled.
GBH is a rather distinct film in several regards. It's one of the very few films on the list that really typifies the video revolution. The relatively cheap cost of recording and distributing on video meant that film making suddenly became something that almost anyone could do with the a comparatively modest budget. Of course at the time there was an explosion of shot on video productions, many went nowhere and even the most successful were minor hits in the grand scheme. Occasionally some true cult gems emerged, and GBH was in my opinion one of the best.
Now when I say the best I don't mean in practical terms. The acting is very shaky for the most part, the editing, rather amateur, the general construction of the movie is done by people that clearly are working with not just a limited budget but struggling with limited resources in experience with the technology. So what is it that makes this at least an interesting film. Well it starts with the utter enthusiasm that this seems to buzz with. This is one of those films that clearly comes from people who genuinely seem to want to make movies, and this enthusiasm is quite infectious. The main character Donovan is a well meaning man, clearly a man of violence but one of noble intent. There is a strange handling of the character in some respects in that the film occasionally slips into near homo-eroticism but then Donovan is also clearly a ladies man. This duality of character is quite interesting, certainly Donovan is a clearly macho man, slick with the ladies but also a sensitive man with a close bond to his male comrades, even those who are his enemies. This is really a minor point though, the character is a good man regardless of sexuality and his willingness to resort to violent means to ensure rough justice.
This is the heart of the film, Donovan's integrity against the scum and thugery of his enemy Keller. It may be possible that the identification that can be made with a character like Donovan was something that the DPP felt was problematic. He's a character who is ambiguous in his methods and quite alluring as an anti hero, certainly he's not as clear cut as the desirable hero in terms of morality. To some extent he's a misogynist, he's also not averse to being a thug but his moral compass is true if somewhat rougeish. In some respects he's very much like the wild west hero, trapped in a violent society and forced to play the game of the lawless, though for the good guys. Indeed the film itself seems directly inspired by westerns with the nightclubs replacing saloons, and even with there being a violent shoot out that could almost be lifted directly from any number of westerns. There are hero's, villains, the woman who can potentially salvage the hero's soul, and an unspoken bond even between enemy’s and even a butch and sundance style going out in a blaze of glory ending, the similarities are uncanny, though the violence in the film are probably more reminiscent of the spaghetti westerns than anything else. It does also cross over with the more notable crime drama's but then both genre share common ground, choosing to humanise what would in normal society (what ever that may mean) be recognised as being amoral or at least dubious.
GBH also both suffers and is lifted by it's localisation. This is clearly a film for British audiences, how well it would cross over to foreign audiences is questionable and most likely would be unsuccessful. This isn't because the characterisation is shoddy or the story unrecognisable but the specifically British urban feel is something that even many British audiences would struggle to get over. The fact that it particularly Mancunian in tone can itself be an obstacle though this for me was part of it's charm and there a hard core of Twemlow fans who very fondly embrace the specific regionalising of not only this but of Twemlows other films. The overarching feel of this film is one of utter enthusiasm for the project and the characters are played with what seems to be a great deal of gusto. It's often apparent that there is an awkwardness to the performances and the lines and action can not only be very cliché but ham to a significant degree but it all seems so very forgiveable because despite all of this it trundles along at a decent pace and doesn't waste much time trying to be anything pretentious.
It's this honesty that really makes GBH what it is. While it's still a fantasy of the rough diamond good guys standing up to the injustice of the bad guys it plays in an honest and sincere manner that frankly leaves many major movies in the dust and I suspect this is in part what appeals to fans of this film.
It's the heart that the film has rather than it's technical accomplishment that rings through and this shows through in the key characters, in particular in Donovan who comes over as a true working class hero.
When it comes down to it GBH seems to be a labour of love by all involved in making it, though it will always languish in obscurity because it's technical shortfalls alongside it's amateurish overtones will be too much for many viewers to get over. Which is a shame because what likes underneath is a rather fun story with a decent central character and story that, if you can be charitable enough to forgive the multitude of rough edges, is actually quite engaging and fun. It's all a little done maybe but what with the Manchester background and recognisable landscapes this should actually a be a rather endearing film to at least a British audience, at least those who appreciate wild west/crime drama kinds of films. Even for those who can't bring themselves to enjoy the film the one thing that should be very apparent is that this is a rather strong example of how the video revolution presented unparalleled opportunities to film makers. Where the final product may stand separate from the mainstream, there were at least chances to make independent films on a nearly non existent budget, for better or for worse. It's a small taste of a more level playing field in the film world, something that has been sadly lacking for the most part and something that given new media opportunities we are beginning to see again, much to the angst of major studios.
As way of a parting comment it bears mentioning for the unwitting that this is not the GBH you will generally find by Googling it. The one you are most likely to find will be Alan Bleasdales drama staring amongst others, Michael Palin. If you can get to see Twemlows rather rare title, by whatever means you can, I think it's a worthwhile watch that you may either love for its charms, or loathe for its aesthetic.
Section 3: Dawn of the Mummy
Welcome to Section 3, home to the near nasties and major concern for all those of a superior moral standing. This episode we head to Egypt for a tale of an ancient curse, lost treasure, grave robbers and a gaggle of beautiful people as a classic movie monster returns to the screen looking surprisingly like a very different kind of movie monster. Lets dive into the Frank Agrama's....Dawn of the Mummy.
Ancient Egypt and Sephriman, an Egyptian Pharaoh, wages a cruel campaign against the population until he dies and is buried with full honours and a curse that means if any one tries to help themselves to his treasure then he will rise and kill and his henchmen will also revive to all go on a jolly little escapade of rising and killing. Thousands of years later and grave robbers discover the untouched tomb but as they try to find the hidden treasure inside they attract the attention of a group of models on a photo shoot nearby. When the models let themselves into the opened tomb and decide to set up and shoot in there, unwittingly they manage to revive the dormant Sephriman who proceeds to go on the rampage against all of Egypt, rising and killing.....well you can't say they weren't warned.......
Dawn of the Mummy certainly is a rather odd little film, probably not watched by many and saddled with the look of the cheapest horror films like the forcibly crapped out Oasis of the Zombies it seems to swing wildly from the kind of film that Jess Franco would later disown for being crap to something rather attention grabbing. The story is set up with the revelation that an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh was so protective of his gold that when he died he had a curse placed upon himself and the treasure to ensure that any thieves would be brutally dealt with should they be so brazen as to insult him so. Being an absolutely arrogant thug in life this is of course not surprising. A couple of millennia later of course and enter the impressively Arian Rick who has found the tomb and wants to make the gold his own despite the curse. Of course him being an absolutely arrogant arsehole with a gold fixation that would make Yosemite Sam suggest an intervention, Rick picks a rather oddball collection of buddies made up of some guys who die in an attempt to rip him off, all a misunderstanding of course, and two closer colleagues who have something of the hysterical about them. One of the later manages to get the models attention by shooting at them to which they respond by going to pay the shooter a visit......... now not only do they not get the hint about not being entirely welcome here they decide that they're going to go crashing into the tomb citing an all access pass from an antiquities minister of some kind which apparently means they can storm into sites of historical significance set up blazing lights and touch whatever the hell they please in whatever manner they wish..........say hello to the good guys folks, my god this is going to be a bumpy ride. And the grave robbers don't just bump them off and have done with it, they stand back and let them get on with it.... And this is the best bit... After Rick and his buddies have set off numerous high explosives and rattled around the tomb in the most unsubtle piece of archaeology since the opening scene of Indiana Jones it takes a bunch of models and an arsehole of a photographer to revive the big bad by heating him up with their lighting. Oh yes, this is all the American model tourist brigades fault. Of course carnage eventually ensues but not before we get to hate the photographer guy enough to want to see him have his giblets slowly removed via his anus by a long dead Egyptian despot.
Dawn of the Mummy is not a good film in almost all respects. The characters and characterisation are abysmal to say the least. The good guys are not only the cause of the carnage they are so amazingly arrogant and frivolous that one wanders if this isn't a sly and bitchy comment by Agrama on Americans in general. The bad guys are so outrageously over the top that they are nothing more than parody. They are at least a lot more likeable than the group of models though and do provide many laughs along the way, possibly unintentionally. One example is the exploitation staple of subbing out the rat......this time with a beautiful fluffy cute white mouse...... seriously.... the beast in heats set guys at least took the time to paint their guinea pig rats the right bloody colour. These are our bad guy folks, a group of guys lead by a man who makes Giovanni Lombado Radice's coke fuelled Mike Logan seem like a steady guy and some side kicks that give us the worst kind of ham since porky the pig was found dead in his apartment after a month of laying there.
The thing is with Dawn of the Mummy that it takes a rather two tone approach to telling the story and these tones are rather polar. The hammy tone I've already talked about but at about the 30 minute to go mark things really get ramped up in the gore stakes. Now the movie has touched on this kind of stuff throughout but the climax to the movie gets full on with the stage blood....and it's surprisingly effective. These mummies could almost give Fulci's zombies a run for their money and it's here that the films Italian influences come in full force as up until this point it's ran like one of Jess Franco's more animated efforts. It's clear that the director was relishing making these scenes and although its not necessarily the most competently put together sequence it certainly has a lot of energy.
The whole film carries off the very strong euro exploitation vibe incredibly well, particularly in regards to the acting, the very stock the film is captured on the piled on gore and ham acting it all works towards that aesthetic really well and it's surprising that in fact this is an Egyptian/ US production rather than a Eurocine release. The first half of the film is rather ramshackle though, the credit sequence for instance seems to want to establish the main characters in a photo shoot in New York, fine but it goes nowhere, all we get is the cast posing in New Yorks parks and the likes, padding, it's all just padding. When we do get to hear them speak for the first time then we immediately get to know the photographers an asre and the girls are largely vacuous, colour me amazed.
Obviously being shot in Egypt there are some terrific locales that Agrama got to film in and there are plenty of times when they really take advantage of this, unfortunately the crypt does look exactly like what it is....a cheap set. It's a low budget film though and much of this can be forgiven really. Where it can be a drag to watch on some short occasions it usually breaks the boredom on regular enough intervals to keep you awake and damn it it's pretty amusing. It's Italian exploitation feel, as fake as that may be, makes it a fun watch for fans of that particular chapter of cinema history, but I for one would have guessed at it being one of the better Jess Franco knock off films because as bad as it is, it just seems frivolous and fun.
Dawn of the mummy really should have been an utter disaster, the bad bad acting, the hokey story, the low budget, the models......it should have been abysmal. However it somehow manages to drag itself through all this crapness and become a rather enjoyable film, at least in part. For one thing it is incredibly funny, laugh out loud at some points, some of it it seems to be intentional too. True you can't really give a crap about any of the good guys and the bad guys give some pretty out there performances but it does make their inevitable demise a guilt free pleasure. It's just the utter abandon with which the film is made seems to result in it being a completely fun 90 minutes of film. It chugs through the exposition fast enough to get it over with and then treats us to a suitably bloody climax. It's not the most exciting film out there of course but for what it is and what it could have been it's certainly worth the time out to see it. I can't help but think that this is the very least that Jess Franco should have been kicking out, Dawn of the Mummy at least shows that an entertaining film can be churned out for a minuscule budget.
Ancient Egypt and Sephriman, an Egyptian Pharaoh, wages a cruel campaign against the population until he dies and is buried with full honours and a curse that means if any one tries to help themselves to his treasure then he will rise and kill and his henchmen will also revive to all go on a jolly little escapade of rising and killing. Thousands of years later and grave robbers discover the untouched tomb but as they try to find the hidden treasure inside they attract the attention of a group of models on a photo shoot nearby. When the models let themselves into the opened tomb and decide to set up and shoot in there, unwittingly they manage to revive the dormant Sephriman who proceeds to go on the rampage against all of Egypt, rising and killing.....well you can't say they weren't warned.......
Dawn of the Mummy certainly is a rather odd little film, probably not watched by many and saddled with the look of the cheapest horror films like the forcibly crapped out Oasis of the Zombies it seems to swing wildly from the kind of film that Jess Franco would later disown for being crap to something rather attention grabbing. The story is set up with the revelation that an ancient Egyptian Pharaoh was so protective of his gold that when he died he had a curse placed upon himself and the treasure to ensure that any thieves would be brutally dealt with should they be so brazen as to insult him so. Being an absolutely arrogant thug in life this is of course not surprising. A couple of millennia later of course and enter the impressively Arian Rick who has found the tomb and wants to make the gold his own despite the curse. Of course him being an absolutely arrogant arsehole with a gold fixation that would make Yosemite Sam suggest an intervention, Rick picks a rather oddball collection of buddies made up of some guys who die in an attempt to rip him off, all a misunderstanding of course, and two closer colleagues who have something of the hysterical about them. One of the later manages to get the models attention by shooting at them to which they respond by going to pay the shooter a visit......... now not only do they not get the hint about not being entirely welcome here they decide that they're going to go crashing into the tomb citing an all access pass from an antiquities minister of some kind which apparently means they can storm into sites of historical significance set up blazing lights and touch whatever the hell they please in whatever manner they wish..........say hello to the good guys folks, my god this is going to be a bumpy ride. And the grave robbers don't just bump them off and have done with it, they stand back and let them get on with it.... And this is the best bit... After Rick and his buddies have set off numerous high explosives and rattled around the tomb in the most unsubtle piece of archaeology since the opening scene of Indiana Jones it takes a bunch of models and an arsehole of a photographer to revive the big bad by heating him up with their lighting. Oh yes, this is all the American model tourist brigades fault. Of course carnage eventually ensues but not before we get to hate the photographer guy enough to want to see him have his giblets slowly removed via his anus by a long dead Egyptian despot.
Dawn of the Mummy is not a good film in almost all respects. The characters and characterisation are abysmal to say the least. The good guys are not only the cause of the carnage they are so amazingly arrogant and frivolous that one wanders if this isn't a sly and bitchy comment by Agrama on Americans in general. The bad guys are so outrageously over the top that they are nothing more than parody. They are at least a lot more likeable than the group of models though and do provide many laughs along the way, possibly unintentionally. One example is the exploitation staple of subbing out the rat......this time with a beautiful fluffy cute white mouse...... seriously.... the beast in heats set guys at least took the time to paint their guinea pig rats the right bloody colour. These are our bad guy folks, a group of guys lead by a man who makes Giovanni Lombado Radice's coke fuelled Mike Logan seem like a steady guy and some side kicks that give us the worst kind of ham since porky the pig was found dead in his apartment after a month of laying there.
The thing is with Dawn of the Mummy that it takes a rather two tone approach to telling the story and these tones are rather polar. The hammy tone I've already talked about but at about the 30 minute to go mark things really get ramped up in the gore stakes. Now the movie has touched on this kind of stuff throughout but the climax to the movie gets full on with the stage blood....and it's surprisingly effective. These mummies could almost give Fulci's zombies a run for their money and it's here that the films Italian influences come in full force as up until this point it's ran like one of Jess Franco's more animated efforts. It's clear that the director was relishing making these scenes and although its not necessarily the most competently put together sequence it certainly has a lot of energy.
The whole film carries off the very strong euro exploitation vibe incredibly well, particularly in regards to the acting, the very stock the film is captured on the piled on gore and ham acting it all works towards that aesthetic really well and it's surprising that in fact this is an Egyptian/ US production rather than a Eurocine release. The first half of the film is rather ramshackle though, the credit sequence for instance seems to want to establish the main characters in a photo shoot in New York, fine but it goes nowhere, all we get is the cast posing in New Yorks parks and the likes, padding, it's all just padding. When we do get to hear them speak for the first time then we immediately get to know the photographers an asre and the girls are largely vacuous, colour me amazed.
Obviously being shot in Egypt there are some terrific locales that Agrama got to film in and there are plenty of times when they really take advantage of this, unfortunately the crypt does look exactly like what it is....a cheap set. It's a low budget film though and much of this can be forgiven really. Where it can be a drag to watch on some short occasions it usually breaks the boredom on regular enough intervals to keep you awake and damn it it's pretty amusing. It's Italian exploitation feel, as fake as that may be, makes it a fun watch for fans of that particular chapter of cinema history, but I for one would have guessed at it being one of the better Jess Franco knock off films because as bad as it is, it just seems frivolous and fun.
Dawn of the mummy really should have been an utter disaster, the bad bad acting, the hokey story, the low budget, the models......it should have been abysmal. However it somehow manages to drag itself through all this crapness and become a rather enjoyable film, at least in part. For one thing it is incredibly funny, laugh out loud at some points, some of it it seems to be intentional too. True you can't really give a crap about any of the good guys and the bad guys give some pretty out there performances but it does make their inevitable demise a guilt free pleasure. It's just the utter abandon with which the film is made seems to result in it being a completely fun 90 minutes of film. It chugs through the exposition fast enough to get it over with and then treats us to a suitably bloody climax. It's not the most exciting film out there of course but for what it is and what it could have been it's certainly worth the time out to see it. I can't help but think that this is the very least that Jess Franco should have been kicking out, Dawn of the Mummy at least shows that an entertaining film can be churned out for a minuscule budget.
Section 3: Cannibal
Section 3: Cannibal
Welcome to Section 3, film supplier to her majesties finest in the decade that fashion sense forgot.
This episode we take a wander back into the green inferno in an earlier work by the director of one of the most infamous films of the video nasties scare. The cannibal genre would never be quite the same again. Careless explorers, deep jungle and bitey natives take the screen in Ruggero Deodatto's...Cannibal.
A group of oil prospectors on an assignment land in the jungle to meet some colleagues. The plane is damaged in the landing and the group find themselves alone in the jungle with no sign of the people they were meant to meet. After realising that they in danger and having missed the window of opportunity to leave they are soon separated and Robert Harper is captured and the others have vanished, presumably dead. After an ordeal at the hands of the natives Robert goes on the run for his life with one of the native girls and must try to find the plane and escape from the Cannibals
Before Cannibal Holocaust the cannibal film was alive, well and eating healthy explorers with a few offerings that at the time must have been quite an eye full. Deodatto himself, before his infamous offering, presented the world with Cannibal, later also known as Jungle Holocaust and otherwise known as last Cannibal World and Ultimo mondo cannibale, a much more straight down the line film than it sibling.
Cannibal will usually be the second of Deodatto's Cannibal films that an audience would be likely to see and it couldn't be more different. For one thing it's very similar in tone to Man from Deep River and again stars Cannibal movies stalwarts Ivan Rasimov and the astoundingly gorgeous Me Me Lai. It also follows a more traditionally cinematic approach, there is no blurring of reality and fiction here, at least beyond that of the mondoesque animal footage the hallmarks the cannibal genre. Yes there is animal slaughter here again, some seems to be documentary footage, other bits staged for the film. Once again Italian cinema gives the weak of constitution a legitimate bone of contention, but this is nothing new and something I've already explored in other videos [cannibal holocaust etc.] so I'm not going to address it yet again, it's a relic of it time.
As a result of this less heightened reality Cannibal does at least feel less threatening as these films go. This is not to say it doesn't have its strong moments, because it really does, but no one is likely to mistake this for a snuff film like Cannibal holocaust is.
What we do have with Cannibal is a rather decent action adventure movie that's played in typical Italian exploitation style, in other words over the top. This said it isn't camp like Cannibal Ferrox is, it's played very straight faced and thankfully in this case it's not as brutal as Cannibal Holocaust which makes it all the more fun to watch. It is a rather simple affair for certain, there is a certain amount of commentary with the white guys invading the third world and taking the resources and of course it's rather significant that these guys are oil prospectors, if ever there were an industry that typifies western greed and arrogance it's the oil industry. Deodatto has always seemed like a fairly angry director, his protagonists are rarely entirely sympathetic and those in Cannibal are no exception. The main character here, Robert Harper, is a rather unpleasant guy to begin with. He's rather brusque,agitated and unreliable to the point that given the opening text one wanders how accurate his recollection would be anyway. Harper is rather like a softer version of the horrifically unpleasant Alan Yates to some degree, arrogant and ignorant but most importantly he represents something bigger than himself. With this of course Deodatto's familiar themes are present here, the criticism of western behaviour and corporate interests and a typically ambiguous approach to the central characters. Harper is not a hero, he certainly has his less than stellar moments right from the beginning and along the way he indulges in some fairly repulsive behaviour, but Deodatto does keep him human enough as to not alienate him entirely from the audience. He does on occasions come over as being simultaneously capable and callous, if nothing else he is an interesting and multidimensional character. As I've mentioned Ivan Rassimov is here too and while his character is more likeable and certainly the one you would expect to be the films focus, he soon disappears and we're left with Harper which is an interesting turn in the movie considering he would normally be the one we'd celebrate getting turned on by the natives. The main thrust of the character development is aimed towards Harpers deterioration in civilised behaviour and ceremony scene where he is stripped and encouraged to fly seems to be the beginning of the removal of his western standards. It's a slow process, it begins with the removal of the trappings of western society, including his watch which a native tries to literally consume only to become frustrated with its in edibility which prompts him to smash it, not that time has meaning in this world. Harper reverts to basic survival and goes through several stages of change becoming more primitive in his behaviour.
He has to fight animals for food, even the most repulsive morsels, and even reverts to less than progressive tactics to win over his female companion. This is suggestive of the idea that when it comes down to it our primitive side is only a few meals away. Harper certainly becomes less than civil and resorts to rape as a means of possessing her, certainly a very primitive act but one that certainly seems to work. Obviously this is a bit of a problem, he rapes her, she brings him dinner and is suddenly compliant. Whatever reading you can apply to this, and it can be read in all manner of ways, it certainly flounders in the awkwardness of the most basic interpretation and this, ironically, made it past the BBFC on its cinematic certificate. In some ways it's possibly a comment on the behaviour of western industrial behaviour presented literally on screen, though with the cut I'm reviewing here there is a shortfall in the communication of that idea given the act and the result of it.
Cannibal is a rather patchy affair in these kinds of terms though. It has some fairly well set up ideas that suddenly get diverted from. It's this lack of focus that lets it down and the way the film runs has a tendency to betray a certain lack of completeness to the movie, as such it does feel patchy, as if several ideas have been awkwardly stapled together. There's the preamble which puts them in the situation which has a healthy degree of suspense, then there's the second act which delivers the gore and cannibal fixation, and finally an extended chase scene. These parts are decent enough in their own right but do feel like stand alone sections rather than part of one story. The presentation of the story does occasionally jump around at random with in particular the sudden inclusion of Harpers inner monologue. This is rather jarring, it comes out of nowhere and is utterly out of character with the rest of the film, it's just another thing that makes the proceedings that bit more messy. However the film in parts does show some serious potential and demonstrates Deodatto's penchant for not holding back in the slightest. There is just enough coherence in the story and its undertones to raise it above being a mere gore film, even if occasionally Deodatto does fumble it a bit. It could be argued that the portrayal of the natives is rather less than flattering, possibly racist, however as with Holocaust I think that the film is not really trying to portray a realistic cannibal, it's rather more about the western characters than it is about any jungle dwellers and as such the cannibal people are more to do with creating a situation to which the white guys react to, they themselves are not really the main focus of the film. It is undoubtedly a much rougher and less well formed film than Cannibal Holocaust was to be but it is worth acknowledging that it is a very different kind of film. For all its faults it is a more palatable and somewhat less ferocious film despite the obvious Italian exploitation gimmicks, though for many this will still be way beyond the pail. One does wander how this one got away from the DPP, It possibly to do with it already having had a cinematic certificate awarded and the fact that it was already cut significantly on VHS, it still remains even in the cut form a rather bold and difficult film though, lesser films, in terms of excessive gore and violence, had made it on to the DPP list for far less than this offers, but then consistency was not a key priority for the powers that be back in those days.
All things considered Deodatto's Cannibal presents a rather exciting adventure and is one of the best of the genre with a real hard core adventure atmosphere that is peppered with enough madness and gore to keep most fans of the genre happy. It's certainly worth a watch if you can stomach the genres typical excesses, don't expect the genius of Cannibal Holocaust but you will find out where some of that gut punching gut munching came from in this movie.
Welcome to Section 3, film supplier to her majesties finest in the decade that fashion sense forgot.
This episode we take a wander back into the green inferno in an earlier work by the director of one of the most infamous films of the video nasties scare. The cannibal genre would never be quite the same again. Careless explorers, deep jungle and bitey natives take the screen in Ruggero Deodatto's...Cannibal.
A group of oil prospectors on an assignment land in the jungle to meet some colleagues. The plane is damaged in the landing and the group find themselves alone in the jungle with no sign of the people they were meant to meet. After realising that they in danger and having missed the window of opportunity to leave they are soon separated and Robert Harper is captured and the others have vanished, presumably dead. After an ordeal at the hands of the natives Robert goes on the run for his life with one of the native girls and must try to find the plane and escape from the Cannibals
Before Cannibal Holocaust the cannibal film was alive, well and eating healthy explorers with a few offerings that at the time must have been quite an eye full. Deodatto himself, before his infamous offering, presented the world with Cannibal, later also known as Jungle Holocaust and otherwise known as last Cannibal World and Ultimo mondo cannibale, a much more straight down the line film than it sibling.
Cannibal will usually be the second of Deodatto's Cannibal films that an audience would be likely to see and it couldn't be more different. For one thing it's very similar in tone to Man from Deep River and again stars Cannibal movies stalwarts Ivan Rasimov and the astoundingly gorgeous Me Me Lai. It also follows a more traditionally cinematic approach, there is no blurring of reality and fiction here, at least beyond that of the mondoesque animal footage the hallmarks the cannibal genre. Yes there is animal slaughter here again, some seems to be documentary footage, other bits staged for the film. Once again Italian cinema gives the weak of constitution a legitimate bone of contention, but this is nothing new and something I've already explored in other videos [cannibal holocaust etc.] so I'm not going to address it yet again, it's a relic of it time.
As a result of this less heightened reality Cannibal does at least feel less threatening as these films go. This is not to say it doesn't have its strong moments, because it really does, but no one is likely to mistake this for a snuff film like Cannibal holocaust is.
What we do have with Cannibal is a rather decent action adventure movie that's played in typical Italian exploitation style, in other words over the top. This said it isn't camp like Cannibal Ferrox is, it's played very straight faced and thankfully in this case it's not as brutal as Cannibal Holocaust which makes it all the more fun to watch. It is a rather simple affair for certain, there is a certain amount of commentary with the white guys invading the third world and taking the resources and of course it's rather significant that these guys are oil prospectors, if ever there were an industry that typifies western greed and arrogance it's the oil industry. Deodatto has always seemed like a fairly angry director, his protagonists are rarely entirely sympathetic and those in Cannibal are no exception. The main character here, Robert Harper, is a rather unpleasant guy to begin with. He's rather brusque,agitated and unreliable to the point that given the opening text one wanders how accurate his recollection would be anyway. Harper is rather like a softer version of the horrifically unpleasant Alan Yates to some degree, arrogant and ignorant but most importantly he represents something bigger than himself. With this of course Deodatto's familiar themes are present here, the criticism of western behaviour and corporate interests and a typically ambiguous approach to the central characters. Harper is not a hero, he certainly has his less than stellar moments right from the beginning and along the way he indulges in some fairly repulsive behaviour, but Deodatto does keep him human enough as to not alienate him entirely from the audience. He does on occasions come over as being simultaneously capable and callous, if nothing else he is an interesting and multidimensional character. As I've mentioned Ivan Rassimov is here too and while his character is more likeable and certainly the one you would expect to be the films focus, he soon disappears and we're left with Harper which is an interesting turn in the movie considering he would normally be the one we'd celebrate getting turned on by the natives. The main thrust of the character development is aimed towards Harpers deterioration in civilised behaviour and ceremony scene where he is stripped and encouraged to fly seems to be the beginning of the removal of his western standards. It's a slow process, it begins with the removal of the trappings of western society, including his watch which a native tries to literally consume only to become frustrated with its in edibility which prompts him to smash it, not that time has meaning in this world. Harper reverts to basic survival and goes through several stages of change becoming more primitive in his behaviour.
He has to fight animals for food, even the most repulsive morsels, and even reverts to less than progressive tactics to win over his female companion. This is suggestive of the idea that when it comes down to it our primitive side is only a few meals away. Harper certainly becomes less than civil and resorts to rape as a means of possessing her, certainly a very primitive act but one that certainly seems to work. Obviously this is a bit of a problem, he rapes her, she brings him dinner and is suddenly compliant. Whatever reading you can apply to this, and it can be read in all manner of ways, it certainly flounders in the awkwardness of the most basic interpretation and this, ironically, made it past the BBFC on its cinematic certificate. In some ways it's possibly a comment on the behaviour of western industrial behaviour presented literally on screen, though with the cut I'm reviewing here there is a shortfall in the communication of that idea given the act and the result of it.
Cannibal is a rather patchy affair in these kinds of terms though. It has some fairly well set up ideas that suddenly get diverted from. It's this lack of focus that lets it down and the way the film runs has a tendency to betray a certain lack of completeness to the movie, as such it does feel patchy, as if several ideas have been awkwardly stapled together. There's the preamble which puts them in the situation which has a healthy degree of suspense, then there's the second act which delivers the gore and cannibal fixation, and finally an extended chase scene. These parts are decent enough in their own right but do feel like stand alone sections rather than part of one story. The presentation of the story does occasionally jump around at random with in particular the sudden inclusion of Harpers inner monologue. This is rather jarring, it comes out of nowhere and is utterly out of character with the rest of the film, it's just another thing that makes the proceedings that bit more messy. However the film in parts does show some serious potential and demonstrates Deodatto's penchant for not holding back in the slightest. There is just enough coherence in the story and its undertones to raise it above being a mere gore film, even if occasionally Deodatto does fumble it a bit. It could be argued that the portrayal of the natives is rather less than flattering, possibly racist, however as with Holocaust I think that the film is not really trying to portray a realistic cannibal, it's rather more about the western characters than it is about any jungle dwellers and as such the cannibal people are more to do with creating a situation to which the white guys react to, they themselves are not really the main focus of the film. It is undoubtedly a much rougher and less well formed film than Cannibal Holocaust was to be but it is worth acknowledging that it is a very different kind of film. For all its faults it is a more palatable and somewhat less ferocious film despite the obvious Italian exploitation gimmicks, though for many this will still be way beyond the pail. One does wander how this one got away from the DPP, It possibly to do with it already having had a cinematic certificate awarded and the fact that it was already cut significantly on VHS, it still remains even in the cut form a rather bold and difficult film though, lesser films, in terms of excessive gore and violence, had made it on to the DPP list for far less than this offers, but then consistency was not a key priority for the powers that be back in those days.
All things considered Deodatto's Cannibal presents a rather exciting adventure and is one of the best of the genre with a real hard core adventure atmosphere that is peppered with enough madness and gore to keep most fans of the genre happy. It's certainly worth a watch if you can stomach the genres typical excesses, don't expect the genius of Cannibal Holocaust but you will find out where some of that gut punching gut munching came from in this movie.
Section 3: Aftermath
S3: Aftermath
Welcome to Section3 where we go beyond the nasties and explore the horror and exploitation that the fuzz just had to get their hands on. This episode I have you a post apocalyptic story that the DPP in their infinite wisdom thought should be kept off the shelves of your local video store, Lets delve into the remains of a society destroyed by man's madness with Steve Barkett's Aftermath.
Two astronauts return from a mission only to find the world by and large abandoned after a devastating nuclear war. As they try to create some semblance of a life they encounter some small groups of survivors and find that the remnants of society are somewhat less civil than what they left behind.
After rescuing some women and children from the clutches of the brutal rapist and murderering gang leader Cutter,, Newman and his group must then fight to survive the attacks from not only the vicious gang, but from the scavenging mutants that wander the wastelands.
Aftermath is a rather old fashioned movie in many respects. Far from being something that should have been torn from the shelves of the video store it's actually a fairly decent film in some regards. Aftermath is to be fair a flawed film in many respects, some of this is budgetary, other things are more to do with its structure but essentially what we have here is a lift from Omega Man with a little bit of Mad Max thrown in. As we enter the film we find the astronauts returning to earth, the first problems come in here as we have no idea when the film is set...It seems to be futuristic but then this is contradicted by what we find on earth, which is decidedly contemporary. Near future possibly? In which case why were the Astronauts out of contact with the Earth for so long, they seem to have returned from a long distance mission, possibly a few years, during which they couldn't communicate with the earth and have been away long enough for the nuclear attack to have
died off. What we see here is some seriously post apocalyptic times. This is clearly decades after an attack, so why did the astronauts not get a message of some kind., why were they not concerned about the lack of response until they were practically about to land. It's this kind of thing that is the main weakness of the film, it's a bit lazy in it's set up and frankly is left wanting in creating the world we find.
However....Yes it is a bit haphazard, mainly in its introduction, it's also rather derivative, taking its cue from the likes of Omega Man and Mad Max, though Aftermath actually feels of the vintage of the former, what we have here is a half decent piece of sci fi action. It ventures into the last man alive territory of Omega man, though this soon becomes a small group and also in common with the Charlton Heston classic it has its deformed mutants that stalk the survivors. This last part is though a very small part of what's going on. So small a part is it in fact that it seems to have been thrown in simply to spice up or pad out the film at points where it would be otherwise lifeless or uninteresting. Given that one of the alternative titles is 'Zombie Aftermath' it's not in any way a zombie film. Even if you were to be generous and class these mutants as zombies, and even with my wide scope for the zombie mantle, theses just don't qualify, their appearance in the alternate title is very misleading as they really do figure very very low in this film.
The bad guys in this film are in actual fact a gang of rapist murdering thugs led by exploitations staple bad guy Sid Haig as the disturbingly sleazy Cutter. While Cutter is a noticeably exaggerated bad guy he does have a rather disturbing edge and he never really becomes a light hearted caricature. The things he does are really quite revolting and this is actually one of the effective elements of this film, as rough and ready as this film is it doesn't seem to take the violence lightly. Whether or not this is deliberate doesn't matter too much, the effect is that the things Cutter does feel as horrible as they should. To some degree this does lend the film a mean spirited edge when it comes to Cutters scene but given the other characters its not something that seems to be the overall intention of the film.
While Cutter is a particularly horrible character Aftermath uses the character and his despicable acts to play off against the humanity of the main character, Newman. For the over the top and terrible antics of Cutter, Newman is an effective antidote to the bad taste that Cutter has a tendency to leave.
It does sometimes almost get to the point of over sentimentality but given the alternative Newman is a likeable character. In some regards although this is set in a post apocalyptic setting it runs rather like a most nihilistic cowboy film, Cutter being the evil outlaw and Newman being the reluctant deliverer of justice. Certainly most of the action scenes seem to be inspired by the violence of Sam Peckinpah's movies and though they aren't nearly as accomplished in terms of skill in any department they do carry a sense of urgency and occasionally can be quite unsettling. While the film does lapse into sentimentality from time to time it manages to steer clear of being sickly about it. It would be all to easy for the righteous man to become annoying but Newman does manage to remain likeable and even admirable, it's clear the writers liked this guy, possibly even too much as he's almost flawless in character.
The supporting characters also seem to fare pretty well including remarkably the young boy Newman takes into his care. He's played down a bit, not made into a victim and is handled well by both the young actor and the writing for the most part. Where normally this character normally ends up being somewhat of an annoyance, a cliché object of sentimental gushing at best, he manages to provide some purpose to Newman without becoming a millstone.
And this is the nice thing about aftermath, for all it's cheapness and its multiple flaws it's a story that is sympathetic to its protagonists and for such a low budget film Aftermath does at least try hard to be more than its budget would allow.
Though the technicalities of the film suffer because of that the director makes some decent use of locations to create the devastated world, and thanks to the limitations of VHS, which have ironically boosted the effect of many a movie by virtue of it's low quality, the more shaky effects and the model cities blend in quite well.
There is an apparent enthusiasm for the project both on screen and off and while it couldn't be classed a classic it is at least respectable attempt that presents what amounts to more of a situation rather than a story. It does come over as being a bit kitschy at times, it's budget also shows quite prominently too and it's a very simple affair that doesn't delve into any apparent depths however for what it is it's a decent effort at making a film that has some heart instead of being all about the violence.
As B movie sci fi goes Aftermath isn't all that original, it isn't always that well done but it is a sincere, often atmospheric and rather enjoyable film
Welcome to Section3 where we go beyond the nasties and explore the horror and exploitation that the fuzz just had to get their hands on. This episode I have you a post apocalyptic story that the DPP in their infinite wisdom thought should be kept off the shelves of your local video store, Lets delve into the remains of a society destroyed by man's madness with Steve Barkett's Aftermath.
Two astronauts return from a mission only to find the world by and large abandoned after a devastating nuclear war. As they try to create some semblance of a life they encounter some small groups of survivors and find that the remnants of society are somewhat less civil than what they left behind.
After rescuing some women and children from the clutches of the brutal rapist and murderering gang leader Cutter,, Newman and his group must then fight to survive the attacks from not only the vicious gang, but from the scavenging mutants that wander the wastelands.
Aftermath is a rather old fashioned movie in many respects. Far from being something that should have been torn from the shelves of the video store it's actually a fairly decent film in some regards. Aftermath is to be fair a flawed film in many respects, some of this is budgetary, other things are more to do with its structure but essentially what we have here is a lift from Omega Man with a little bit of Mad Max thrown in. As we enter the film we find the astronauts returning to earth, the first problems come in here as we have no idea when the film is set...It seems to be futuristic but then this is contradicted by what we find on earth, which is decidedly contemporary. Near future possibly? In which case why were the Astronauts out of contact with the Earth for so long, they seem to have returned from a long distance mission, possibly a few years, during which they couldn't communicate with the earth and have been away long enough for the nuclear attack to have
died off. What we see here is some seriously post apocalyptic times. This is clearly decades after an attack, so why did the astronauts not get a message of some kind., why were they not concerned about the lack of response until they were practically about to land. It's this kind of thing that is the main weakness of the film, it's a bit lazy in it's set up and frankly is left wanting in creating the world we find.
However....Yes it is a bit haphazard, mainly in its introduction, it's also rather derivative, taking its cue from the likes of Omega Man and Mad Max, though Aftermath actually feels of the vintage of the former, what we have here is a half decent piece of sci fi action. It ventures into the last man alive territory of Omega man, though this soon becomes a small group and also in common with the Charlton Heston classic it has its deformed mutants that stalk the survivors. This last part is though a very small part of what's going on. So small a part is it in fact that it seems to have been thrown in simply to spice up or pad out the film at points where it would be otherwise lifeless or uninteresting. Given that one of the alternative titles is 'Zombie Aftermath' it's not in any way a zombie film. Even if you were to be generous and class these mutants as zombies, and even with my wide scope for the zombie mantle, theses just don't qualify, their appearance in the alternate title is very misleading as they really do figure very very low in this film.
The bad guys in this film are in actual fact a gang of rapist murdering thugs led by exploitations staple bad guy Sid Haig as the disturbingly sleazy Cutter. While Cutter is a noticeably exaggerated bad guy he does have a rather disturbing edge and he never really becomes a light hearted caricature. The things he does are really quite revolting and this is actually one of the effective elements of this film, as rough and ready as this film is it doesn't seem to take the violence lightly. Whether or not this is deliberate doesn't matter too much, the effect is that the things Cutter does feel as horrible as they should. To some degree this does lend the film a mean spirited edge when it comes to Cutters scene but given the other characters its not something that seems to be the overall intention of the film.
While Cutter is a particularly horrible character Aftermath uses the character and his despicable acts to play off against the humanity of the main character, Newman. For the over the top and terrible antics of Cutter, Newman is an effective antidote to the bad taste that Cutter has a tendency to leave.
It does sometimes almost get to the point of over sentimentality but given the alternative Newman is a likeable character. In some regards although this is set in a post apocalyptic setting it runs rather like a most nihilistic cowboy film, Cutter being the evil outlaw and Newman being the reluctant deliverer of justice. Certainly most of the action scenes seem to be inspired by the violence of Sam Peckinpah's movies and though they aren't nearly as accomplished in terms of skill in any department they do carry a sense of urgency and occasionally can be quite unsettling. While the film does lapse into sentimentality from time to time it manages to steer clear of being sickly about it. It would be all to easy for the righteous man to become annoying but Newman does manage to remain likeable and even admirable, it's clear the writers liked this guy, possibly even too much as he's almost flawless in character.
The supporting characters also seem to fare pretty well including remarkably the young boy Newman takes into his care. He's played down a bit, not made into a victim and is handled well by both the young actor and the writing for the most part. Where normally this character normally ends up being somewhat of an annoyance, a cliché object of sentimental gushing at best, he manages to provide some purpose to Newman without becoming a millstone.
And this is the nice thing about aftermath, for all it's cheapness and its multiple flaws it's a story that is sympathetic to its protagonists and for such a low budget film Aftermath does at least try hard to be more than its budget would allow.
Though the technicalities of the film suffer because of that the director makes some decent use of locations to create the devastated world, and thanks to the limitations of VHS, which have ironically boosted the effect of many a movie by virtue of it's low quality, the more shaky effects and the model cities blend in quite well.
There is an apparent enthusiasm for the project both on screen and off and while it couldn't be classed a classic it is at least respectable attempt that presents what amounts to more of a situation rather than a story. It does come over as being a bit kitschy at times, it's budget also shows quite prominently too and it's a very simple affair that doesn't delve into any apparent depths however for what it is it's a decent effort at making a film that has some heart instead of being all about the violence.
As B movie sci fi goes Aftermath isn't all that original, it isn't always that well done but it is a sincere, often atmospheric and rather enjoyable film
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