Wolfen (1981)

Wolfen (1981) is a horror movie based on Whitley Strieber’s 1978 novel The Wolfen.

You’re probably going to assume that this will be a werewolf tale. It certainly has some affinities with the werewolf genre. Just as he took a very unconventional approach to the vampire genre in his 1981 novel The Hunger Strieber took an equally unconventional approach to the werewolf genre in The Wolfen. Not everybody likes Strieber’s fiction but I’m a big fan.

And the movie Wolfen is a long way from being a routine werewolf story. Some major plot changes were made but the clever central idea is retained.

A billionaire industrialist and his wife are murdered in Manhattan. Not so much murdered as butchered. They were under constant surveillance by an ultra high tech security and surveillance company but it didn’t help them.

Dewey Wilson (Albert Finney) is a police detective who has been slowly putting himself back together after a crack-up. He has a reputation for being a bit odd but for getting results.

The favoured theory is that this double murder was an act of terrorism. Dewey finds himself with a partner, counter-terrorism expert Detective Rebecca Neff (Diane Venora). Dewey doesn’t really buy the terrorism theory but he’s happy enough to work with Rebecca. She’s a good cop and she’s easy to get on with.

There are a couple of slightly puzzling things about the murders. And then a body, badly butchered, is found in the South Bronx. There is one very surprising common element. Two hairs. The hairs are not human.

From the title of the movie the viewer will guess that wolves of some kind are involved, but are they werewolves or actual wolves? Could it be a psycho with a wolf obsession? Or an elaborate attempt to mislead the police? But until a very late stage Dewey and Rebecca have no idea what they’re dealing with.

Although it takes a long time for Dewey to get on the right track this is not a slow-moving film. Right from the start there are graphic murders, and gore. But they’re filmed in such a way as to ensure that we don’t see what is really happening. Which is as it should be. This movie relies to a huge degree on an atmosphere of spookiness and weirdness. The fact that we don’t know what’s going on makes it all much more unsettling.

There are so many things that I love about this movie. And so many things that I intensely dislike. I love the urban devastation - this is like a city being consumed by a wasting disease. I love the slow reveal of the truth. I love the optical effects which really do make us feel that we’re seeing many of these sequences through the eyes of someone or some thing definitely not human. These sequences really are spooky and menacing. I love the central premise.

Unfortunately director/co-writer Michael Wadleigh added some additional elements to the story and these additions are not just tedious, they seriously undermine the central premise. The political subplots is not too much of a problem. It adds an interesting red herring for the cops to deal with and it’s not intrusive. The hippie-dippie mystical stuff is however a major problem. The movie would have been a whole lot better with all that stuff cut.

There’s also a particular point about the nature of the killers which is stressed in the book but somewhat overlooked in the movie, and this does lessen the impact a little.

These things are annoying but happily they don’t quite succeed in sinking the movie. There are still the cool visuals and the weird menacing atmosphere and some great suspense and some genuinely very good ideas.

Albert Finney is pretty good. He wisely doesn’t try to make Dewey too eccentric or too odd. It’s an effective restrained performance. Diane Venora is a reasonably likeable female lead.

Wolfen has some major flaws but it’s sufficiently interesting and unusual to still be very much worth seeing. It remains one of the most intriguing horror movies of the 80s. In spite of those flaws, highly recommended.

The Warner Archive Blu-Ray is barebones but looks great.

I’ve also reviewed the Whitley Strieber novel, The Wolfen.

The Running Man (1987)

If you’re going to talk about post-apocalyptic science fiction movies then The Running Man, released in 1987, cannot be ignored. It was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s early hits. It’s another movie inspired partly by Richard Connell’s 1924 short story The Most Dangerous Game.

It was directed by Paul Michael Glaser, Yes, Starsky from Starsky and Hutch.

It’s based on a Stephen King novel. King had a knack for writing mediocre novels that could be turned into excellent movies. Steven E. de Souza wrote the screenplay. It bore a sufficiently close resemblance to Yves Boisset's 1983 film The Price of Danger to allow the producers of that French film to successfully sue for plagiarism.

This is a post-apocalyptic story but in this case it was an economic apocalypse. This resulted in most people getting a whole lot poorer but of courser the elites became a whole lot richer. It also resulted in social chaos.

The country is now a police state. The populations is brainwashed and terrorised into submission. The policy is to offer them bread and circuses. The circus is in the form of a TV show called The Running Man.

This is perhaps not a pure post-apocalyptic movie. This is not a wasteland in the mode of A Boy and His Dog (1975). The collapse of society has not been total. But it is very much a dystopian movie and the post-apocalyptic and dystopian genres do overlap.

Ben Richards (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is a cop who is ordered to massacre unarmed civilians. He refuses and ends up in a labour camp. He makes a daring escape. He finds that his brother’s apartment where he hoped to find shelter is now occupied by Amber Mendez (Maria Conchita Alonso). He is recaptured, but this time falls into the hands of Damon Killian (Richard Dawson), the sleazy producer and host of The Running Man TV series. Amber turned him in to the cops but when she sees the TV newscast report that claims Ben killed several people during his escape attempt she figures out that people are being lied to. She knows that he did not kill anyone. Maybe Ben will now have an ally.

Whether he likes it or not Ben is now going to be a contestant on the show.

In the show there are Runners and Stalkers. The Stalkers hunt down and kill the Runners much to the delight of the folks watching at home. Ben is going to be a Runner, along with his two buddies from the labour camp and Amber.

Their aim is not just survival but to destroy the show by hooking up with the Resistance.

Much mayhem will ensue.

Maybe Schwarzenegger isn’t the world’s greatest actor but he’s quite competent, this is well within his range and the man has serious charisma. He even copes with some truly cringe-inducing dialogue.

Richard Dawson is delightfully and outrageously evil and slimy.

The action scenes are fine although they’re not as varied as they might have been.

This is obviously a satire on television. A satire with all the subtlety of a baseball bat to the back of the head.

I saw this movie many years ago and thought it was trashy and reasonably exciting. Seeing it again I still think it’s trashy and reasonably exciting but today I have a bit more tolerance for 80s trashy excess.

It’s not particularly original. There are striking similarities to Lucio Fulci’s Warriors of the Year 2072 (1984), made a few years earlier. I think Fulci’s is the better film. It also bears some very slight resemblance to the very underrated Australian movie Centrespread (1981), which is a much much better film. But The Running Man is entertaining and it’s recommended.

The Blu-Ray is barebones but looks good.

Erotic Ghost Story (1990)

Erotic Ghost Story is a 1990 Golden Harvest release directed by Lam Ngai Kai. It’s one of those Hong Kong movies that doesn’t fit neatly into one genre. It’s a horror movie, an erotic movie, a sex comedy and a quirky supernatural romance gone wrong movie. It’s a Category III movie, equivalent to a U.S. NC-17 rating.

There’s a strange opening sequence in which bandits take some girls into the woods for some fun but what the bandits get is horror and terror.

Mostly this sequence lets us know that we shouldn’t take any of the characters at face value and that we are going to be dealing with the supernatural.

We might three pretty girls. We assume at first that they are sisters. The way one of them (Pai, also referred to as Big Sis) deals with an importunate bandit suggests that they have some formidable kung fu skills.

Pai meets an old wandering Taoist priest. They have a bit of a fight but he is perhaps trying to tell her something. Something that she will remember later. She will meet the old Taoist master again.

The sisters encounter a shy young scholar. He is being pursued by brigands. He is rescued by the oldest of the sisters. He is horrified at the impropriety when she touches his hand.

But just as the three girls are not what they seem to be so the young scholar is not a shy sexually repressed bookworm. He’s a demon, and a very very lustful demon.

From the start you’re going to realise that there’s something odd about these three girls. Are they ghosts? Shape-shifters of some kind? Witches? The title (at least the English-language version of the title) might lead you to suspect that they’re ghosts. Given that ghosts in Chinese folklore are corporeal that seems plausible. Chinese ghosts can eat and drink and have sex. But these girls are not ghosts. They’re foxes. Fox spirits. Which are a big thing in Chinese folklore. Such foxes can assume human form. They’re slightly similar to the old European folkloric concept of fairies in the sense that they’re not evil but they can be troublesome and dangerous. Or they can be harmless. In this movie the girls are definitely not the least bit evil. Although they are rather lustful!

These three girls are trying by means of Taoist study to achieve a permanent transformation from their fox forms into human form.

Their problem is that they just can’t keep their clothes on when the young scholar is around.

The movie seems to be settling into being a lighthearted romance with some sex comedy touches. There are plenty of comic moments that are genuinely amusing. And lots of sex. This is a Category III movie. This is strong softcore with very explicit female nudity and fairly raunchy sex scenes. The sex is good-natured and joyous. These girls enjoy a good tumble with a man.

The girls and the scholar are having lots of good times until one of the girls notices something very disturbing about herself. Something is happening to her.

Now Pai remembers the old Taoist master. She may need his help. The girls’ kung fu skills will not be enough to deal with the situation.

The movie now becomes more of an action movie and much more of a horror movie.

The three lead actresses are all good and they’re all pretty and they’re likeable. Pal Sin is very good as the young scholar. All of the cast members are quite comfortable when it comes to handling the comic moments.

And it’s a visually impressive movie. It’s obvious that the aim with the special effects was to make them crazy and fun.

Erotic Ghost Story has plenty of style and energy and entertainment value. It’s a lot of fun. Highly recommended.

If this movie whets your appetite for Chinese folklore and especially for stories of fox-spirits get hold of Pu Songling's Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (readily available English translations).

The 88 Films Blu-Ray offers a lovely transfer and quite a few extras including two audio commentaries. This is one of those rare cases in which an audio commentary really is useful. To appreciate this movie fully you need to know at least a couple of things about Chinese folklore, and about Category III movies.

Latitude Zero (1969)

Latitude Zero is a 1969 Japanese-American co-production (Toho being the Japanese partners) with a largely American cast. It was directed by Ishirô Honda. 

This movie takes goofiness and cheesiness to whole new levels but it’s hard to dislike it.

A bathysphere is caught in an undersea volcanic eruption. The crew, who were accompanied by photojournalist Perry Lawton (Richard Jaeckel), mostly sustain only minor injuries and find they’ve been rescued by a mysterious submarine.

The submarine, the Alpha, is commanded by Captain Craig McKenzie (Joseph Cotten). At first we think he’s going to be a Captain Nemo type but he’s one of the good guys. He has plenty of experience, being 204 years old. Things will get a bit stranger when they arrive at Latitude Zero, a vast utopian underwater city.

One of the crew members, Dr Masson needs emergency medical care that can only be provided at Latitude Zero. He’s under the care of Dr Anne Barton (Linda Haynes). I don’t know about you but when I need specialised medical care it always fills me with confidence when the treating doctor is a scantily-clad young hot babe. I just know that I’m going to get healed.

The marvels of Latitude Zero are partly due to eminent scientists who have been kidnapped and taken there. But not kidnapped in a bad way. Kidnapped in a good way. And they get to work for the betterment of humanity.

Captain Craig McKenzie has a sworn enemy, Dr Malic (Cesar Romero). They had been students together nearly 200 years earlier. Dr Malic has how secret headquarters on a tiny island known as Black Rock. He and his mistress Lucretia (Patricia Medina) spend their days plotting evilness. Dr Malic has a super high tech submarine as well, the Black Shark, commanded by the evil but glamorous Captain Kuroiga (Hikaru Kuroki).The trouble is that she’s in love with Malic and he takes way too much interest in her and as a result Lucretia is insanely jealous. And trust me, you don’t want to get on the wrong side of Lucretia.

A team from Latitude Zero was about to kidnap (in a good way) a Japanese scientist and his daughter but Malic’s henchmen strike first and kidnap them (in a bad way). The scientist has discovered an anti-radiation serum which could be used as a means of achieving world domination.

The crew at the bathysphere are eager to help Captain McKenzie in his struggle against Malik. They will have to face Malik’s terrifying monsters.

This is a utopian movie and it’s a mad scientist movie. It borrows ideas from countless sources. 

It’s clearly pitched at kids although there are few creepy scenes involving Malic’s insane experiments. There’s a very cool submarine battle.

The science and technology are wildly crazy comic-book stuff. Try not to think about scientific plausibility.

Cesar Romero is in splendid form, overacting outrageously. He’s more a Batman villain than a Bond villain. Patricia Medina oozes evilness and feminine jealousy.

The special effects run the gamut from very cool to incredibly cheesy. The visual style is bizarre. Joseph Cotten’s uniform is a sight to behold.

It’s amazingly goofy but it’s lively and fun. Highly recommended if your tolerance for cheesiness is very high. It’s amazingly goofy but it’s lively and fun. Highly recommended if your tolerance for cheesiness is very high. It’s a bit hard to find but the Spanish DVD is around and offers a very nice transfer.

Atragon (1963) is a much better Ishirô Honda-directed submarine sci-fi adventure movie.

I Am Frigid... Why? (1972)

I Am Frigid... Why? was a follow-up by Max Pécas to his 1971 hit I Am a Nymphomaniac. Pécas later admitted that he made a big mistake with the title. I Am a Nymphomaniac sounded sexy and fun. I Am Frigid... Why? doesn’t sound like fun at all. In fact it sounds like a terribly serious Danish sex hygiene film. It failed to equal the commercial success of the previous film.

Pécas made a series of stylish erotic movies during the 60s and 70s some of which were distributed in the United States by Radley Metzger. Which is appropriate. They have a slightly similar aesthetic and are both filmmakers who mix art and eroticism.

I Am Frigid... Why? is the story of Doris (Sandra Julien), a gardener’s daughter from the provinces. We know right from the start why she is frigid, and she knows as well. She was raped.

After boarding school she meets a man and falls in love with him but it just doesn’t happen for her in the bedroom. He tries to be understanding for a while, until he finds a more willing and exciting bed partner.

In Paris she tries to start a new life, and finds herself drawn into a world of decadence.

She becomes involved with a woman, but still no bedroom joy.

Then she becomes a call-girl, in the belief that being frigid will boost her career.

Eventually she finds a psychiatrist. It’s not that she needs to know why she has this problem. She needs to know how to fix it. And he may be pointing her in the right direction. She needs to find the right man, the man meant for her, the man she is destined to love. There are a couple of candidates, and in both cases there are reasons why things might not work out.

The lovely Sandra Julien gives a fine performance as a woman who craves love more than sexual pleasure but believes that you cannot have one without the other.

The erotic scenes are reasonably well executed and I think Pécas was aiming for the same arty erotic vibes as Radley Metzger (although Metzger did it better). The psychedelic freak-out sex scenes are rather cool although the slapstick sex scene I cringe-inducing.

I love late 1960s/early 1970s euro-decadence. It’s something the Italians did particularly well, especially Umberto Lenzi and Massimo Dallamano. Pécas demonstrated that the French could play that game as well.

I love the night-club scene with the giant fish tank full of girls.

There are some delightfully groovy moments and some hints of psychedelia. And lava lamps! Doris’s Paris apartment is just so incredibly early 70s, but in a good way.

This is a movie that tries to be an art movie and an exploitation movie and a psychological melodrama and it does so with mixed success but it’s an interesting attempt.

This is another movie that could not be made today. It’s a movie that suggests that black-and-white moral judgments are simplistic and unworkable when you’re dealing with real people.

Mondo Macabro have presented both I Am a Nymphomaniac and I Am Frigid... Why? on a single Blu-Ray. Both movies look pretty good.

I Am a Nymphomaniac is the better film but they’re both worth a look and the Blu-Ray is a very worthwhile purchase.

I’ve reviewed a much earlier Max Pécas movie, Daniella By Night (1961), a spy thriller romance staring Elke Sommer and the excellent classy sophisticated juvenile delinquent movie Sweet Violence (1962), again with Elke Sommer.

Circle of Iron (1978)

Circle of Iron (AKA The Silent Flute) is an odd one. It’s best known for being based on a screenplay by Bruce Lee. Well, sort of based on a screenplay by Bruce Lee. Lee and James Coburn wanted to do a martial arts fantasy film with lots of philosophising and reflecting Lee’s interest in Zen buddhism. Lee and James Coburn worked on the script with Stirling Silliphant. Lee and Coburn later lost interest in the project. The script was later extensively reworked by Stanley Mann. This is certainly not a Bruce Lee movie in any meaningful sense at all but he did provide the original germ of the idea.

There is martial arts action here but Circle of Iron is really trying to be an art film.

As you might expect it ends up being a total mess. To be honest it’s a bad movie. But it’s a weird fascinating oddball mess of a bad movie and it’s enjoyable in its own deranged way.

This is a quest movie, but it’s a spiritual quest. A quest for enlightenment. Yes I agree, that does sound ominous.

It takes place in a fantasy world which is a mishmash of lots of other fantasy worlds.

David Carradine gets top billing and he plays four roles. He’s kind of fun. I’m not a fan of his as an actor but he’s pretty good here. There’s an incredibly bizarre cameo by Eli Wallach as a man who has spent ten years in a barrel of oil trying to dissolve the lower half of his body. There are cameos by Roddy McDowall and Christopher Lee as well.

The central character is Cord, played by Jeff Cooper. He and David Carradine were great buddies which is how Cooper got the part. He certainly didn’t get it on the basis of his acting ability.

Cord is a martial arts champion who has to undertake a quest to find Zetan and the book. Or rather, The Book.

Zetan might be a sorcerer or a holy man or a warrior. Nobody is sure. Nobody knows anything about The Book except that it’s incredibly important.

Cord meets a blind martial arts guy who is never named. He plays a silent flute. Only Cord can hear it. Cord asks him to be his teacher.

Cord naturally has to go through a series of tests. Firstly he has to fight the dreaded monkey men. Then he encounters a warrior chieftain, Changsha (one of Carradine’s four roles). Changsa lends Cord one of his wives for the night. Her name is Tara (Erica Creer). Cord has dedicated himself to this spiritual quest and has taken a vow of chastity but Tara is really hot so that’s the end of his vow of chastity. This has consequences.

Eventually Cord will of course find Zetan and the movie then becomes even more New Age-y.

There’s lots of dialogue loaded with Spiritual Wisdom and Philosophical Questioning and general Mysticalness.

It was made on a modest budget but it looks great. The very incoherence of the visual style adds to the interest and there are some lovely images. There are definite hints of psychedelia. There’s great location shooting. It certainly succeeds in creating a dreamlike look. This is a world that perhaps does not even exist.

Despite its many flaws Circle of Iron is rather entertaining in its own weird goofy way. It tries so hard and it mostly fails but it fails in a likeable way. It’s definitely not boring. And it’s endearingly weird. Recommended.

Blue Underground released this one on DVD as a two-disc set. The transfer is extremely good. The pick of the extras is the interview with Carradine. The DVD is still easy to find and not expensive. I believe the only Blu-Ray release is the Spanish one.

Autopsy (1975)

Autopsy (Macchie solari) is an odd little 1975 giallo directed by Armando Crispino who also co-wrote the screenplay. It could be argued that it lacks several essential ingredients of the giallo genre. It doesn’t really slot neatly into any particular genre.

There has been a rash of rather gruesome suicides in Rome. This is of professional interest to young American pathologist Simona Sanna (Mimsy Farmer) whose particular field of study is suicide. Or more specifically, the ways to distinguish real suicides from fake suicides.

She has a slight personal interest in the subject when a young woman with whom she had a very brief acquaintance becomes the latest suicide victim.

The woman’s brother, a priest, thinks she was murdered but he has zero evidence.

It’s important to note that until very late in the film the viewer has also seen no evidence to suggest that any of the suicides are anything other than straightforward suicides.

Simona’s father keeps an apartment upstairs from Simona. She believes he uses it to entertain his young lady friends. He has a lot of young lady friends.

There are more suicides. Maybe it really is sun spots. Yes, that’s a theory that Simona has.

The priest, Father Paul Lenox, is hoping that Simona will help him to find evidence about his sister’s death.

There are half a dozen main characters all of whom are damaged or troubled or odd or unstable in some way. Any one of whom could be a potential murder suspect. If in fact there have been any murders. But in all cases their behaviour could have innocent explanations.

Simona’s father is hiding something but it might just be his womanising.

His creepy caretaker might just be a bit creepy.

Her father’s mistress Danielle (Angela Goodwin) might just be a scheming bitch.

Paul Lenox had been a racing car driver until an accident in which his car left the track and killed a dozen spectators. Paul spent some time in a mental hospital and then became a priest. He is still troubled by guilt, but that’s understandable, and now he also fees guilty that he was unable to save his sister.

Simona’s boyfriend Riccardo (Ray Lovelock) is a successful photographer and does not appear to be crazy at all. He’s simply anxious to get Simona into bed.

Simona has been having disturbing hallucinations in which corpses in the morgue come to life. It could be stress, or she could be crazy.

And of course it could be those sun spots!

The plot is convoluted but that’s one of the joys of Italian genre cinema. The important thing is that there are revelations about all the major characters and they’re psychologically plausible.

I like Mimsy Farmer. She had a touch of oddness that works for her here. She makes us uneasy and that’s a good thing.

One of the extras is an interview with the son of director Armando Crispino. His quotes from notes made by his father at the time make it clear that he was trying to avoid making a conventional giallo. It’s also clear that he was interested in the idea of sudden inexplicable epidemics of suicide and other extreme violent behaviours and was hoping to explore that that theme in the movies. And yes, there was a theory floating around at the time that sun spots might influence human behaviour. So those sun spots are not entirely an oddball gimmick thrown in to add a touch of spookiness.

Autopsy is a fascinating offbeat giallo-esque film. Highly recommended.

This movie is included in Vinegar Syndrome’s Forgotten Gialli Volume Three Blu-Ray boxed set. It gets a very satisfactory transfer.