Chained Heat (1983)

I've been looking for this much praised WIP classic for years and finally found it on a Mr. Skin 2DVD set with "Red Heat" and "Jungle Warriors". I had my reservations going into it after seeing the abysmal sequel, but a lot of people consider "Chained Heat" to be the greatest women-in-prison movie of all time. It's also the movie Linda Blair blames for ending her film career. The details on the DVD box claim "Chained Heat" is completely uncut, but Amazon reviewers say a rape scene was cut along with a scene of someone shooting drugs.

Blair stars as the Carol, the level-headed first-timer, and Sybil Danning as Ericka, the woman-not-to-be-fucked-with. All of the clichés are here; sadistic prison guards, corrupt warden, lesbians, prostitution, rape, drugs, riots, soapy shower scenes and enough wool to knit a sweater. "Chained Heat" adds bit of racism to the formula, but only to take advantage of it later for a predictable "if we want to get out of here, we have to work together" device during the film's climax.

It's a fun way to spend 90 minutes, I guess, and the sort of thing I would have worn out on VHS in the 80s, but without the benefit of nostalgia it's just another genre cash-in with better than average tits. John Vernon is great, as usual, as is the synth score by Joseph Conlan, but everything else was just okay. There just isn't enough skin to make up for the plot holes and lousy acting. Compared to some of the WIP films of the 70s, this is pretty tame. There are numerous violent scenes, including a couple of deaths, but with the exception of the rape scenes, none of it is particularly brutal. I'm not sure why this is so coveted by WIP fans. Maybe people were just aching to see Linda Blair topless? This is heaps better than the sequel, but didn't live up to the hype for me.

3/5

Losin' It (1983)

Set in 1965, tough guy (Spider), shy romantic (Woody) and a sex-starved dork (Dave) hit the road for a weekend of debauchery in Tijuana. Lacking the money to cover his "tuck and roll" job for his '59 Chevy, Dave reluctantly allows his kid brother, Wendell, to tag along after borrowing the money from him. Along the way, the wife of an adulterous store owner hitches a ride with them to obtain a cheap divorce. Hilarity ensues, blah, blah, blah...

"Losin' It" is a better-than-average coming of age / teen sex comedy. I keep comparing things to "Porky's", but it truly is the measuring stick for these sort of movies. The similarities are there, characters and situations interchangeable, but not enough to make anyone cry "rip-off". People talk about this movie because it features Tom Cruise's first staring role, but, seriously, fuck Tom Cruise. Fuck him and his one front tooth. Jackie Earle Haley is the reason to see this movie as he steals every scene. He's the Pee-Wee Morris of this film; hyperactive, and sex-starved, too gullible for his own good, his eagerness putting him in situations he has to weasel his way out of. Nearly as good as Haley is John P. Navin Jr. as Dave's little brother, Wendell. There's lots of silly, slapstick comedy, a fair amount of coarse language and a smattering of nudity. The sheriff serves well as the antagonist and the ending was decent. The supporting actors (cab drivers, barkers, pimps, etc) were good in their roles, too.

The 70s and 80s were a strange time for film. Someone decided that in a teen comedy it was acceptable for an older woman to prey on Cruise's character and take his virginity. The same thing happened in "American Pie", but it was Finch who pursued Stiffler's mom in that instance, not the other way around. Had the genders been reversed, people would have been up in arms about it.

There are heaps of movies like this, all covering the same territory. This one is good, not great. Jackie Earle Haley, however, is great in this, so it stinks less than a lot of these movies do. See it for him.

3/5

Walkabout (1971)

A teenage girl and young boy are driven into the Australian outback by their father for a picnic. After inexplicably firing shots at them, torching his car and turning the gun on himself, the two are left to fend for themselves in the harsh conditions. Just when survival seems most unlikely, an Aboriginal teen finds them and helps them back to civilization.

It's a simple set-up, but there's a lot going on in this movie. The father's suicide is never explained, and while the older sibling (played by a very young Jenny Agutter) tries shielding the younger boy (director Nicholas Roeg's son, Luc) from reality, he's aware of the situation and seems to deal with it better than his sister. While the boy takes to the Aboriginal youth (David Gulpilil in his first role) immediately, even learning how to communicate with him, the older sibling makes no effort and communicates with him only through her brother. Sexual tension is made apparent through lingering upskirt shots and fixed gazes at Gulpilil's nearly naked body, but the girl doesn't act on it. Because all of Gulpilil's dialogue is in his native tongue, we can only guess at what he's saying. His attraction is more apparent than her's, though, and in a scene in which I assume he professes his love to her, her lack of reciprocation is quite clear. The closer they get to civilization, the less need she has for him.

This was Nicholas Roeg's first solo directing effort and his last cinematographer job. The latter is superb. The harsh, barren outback has never looked better; everything deceptively beautiful. The aforementioned lingering shots of Jenny Agutter, both in and out of her clothing, caused "Walkabout" to be slapped with an R rating on it's release. Nothing remotely sexual occurs on screen, though, so the ratings board eventually knocked it down to a PG. The shots were particularly pervy, though. That sort of stuff wouldn't fly in American cinema today. Roeg flexed his muscle as a director on this first outing, inserting multiple freeze frames and juxtaposing scenes of Aboriginal hunting with those of a butcher chopping meat in a shop. The number of animal deaths in this film were unnecessary to the telling of the story, likewise the graphic detail in which it's shown, but hunting is essential in surviving the outback. Vegetation is scarce, so meat is all there is. All of the performances were excellent, but especially so from Luc Roeg. How he could act so well at such a young age is a mystery. Nicholas had an eye fit talent, I guess.

This film leaves me with many questions, even after multiple viewings. I've watched this several times looking for an explanation for the suicide, but haven't found one. I suppose it's possible there aren't meant to be answers to those unanswered questions. Who knows? I only know that I've thoroughly enjoyed this every time I've watched it and will watch it several more times in years to come.

5/5

The Snuff Files (199?)

A friend of mine sent this to me unsolicited. I assume it's something he downloaded. I don't really know what this is. There are no credits to be found other than "Club-Dead presents The Snuff Files, staring Christy & Loren", no listing on IMDB and nothing turned up when I Google'd it. If I had to guess, this was something made for the fetish market and there weren't too many copies in circulation. There are "coming attractions" at the end with the exact same actors and set-ups. 

This is broken into 4 segments, the first of which is "The Chase". A woman enters a home calling out someone's name and gets no answer. After 5 minutes or so of snooping around, a grey-haired dude walks up behind her and breaks her neck. He lays her out on a bed (which just happens to be there) rubs his hands over her still-clothed body for a few minutes, then rubs under her clothes before carrying her to his car, depositing her in the trunk and stripping her naked. 

"Exercise Break" starts out with a woman jumping on a hotel room bed for a couple of minutes until a guy breaks in and snaps her neck. The same grey-haired guy from the first scene comes in and is shocked to find her dead, then runs his hands over her still-clothed body for a few minutes before eventually stripping her naked. He positions her on the bed and begins to take off his pants, but hears a noise and runs off. 

In "Ransom", a woman is lifting weights (camera zooming tightly on her crotch) until a guy comes in and pulls a gun on her. He caresses her with the gun, then calls her father demanding a $250,000 ransom. After hanging up, she tells him he's got the wrong person and that her family doesn't have any money. A second phone call confirms this and he decides to kill her instead. He places her in the bathtub and shoots her twice (neither gun shot makes a sound other than the click of the trigger). She moans and writhes in pain before eventually dying. 

The fourth segment, "The Harem Execution", is the strangest of the bunch. A woman dances in a sheer outfit for a long fucking time, shaking her ass to music that doesn't sound one bit Arabian. She strips out of her clothes, then puts them back on before a guy comes in and hands her a letter. She reads it and begins crying, he explains that it is "his duty" and tells her she must die. Her last wish is to dance for him. He grants her wish, bringing on another lengthy dance scene which he ends prematurely by shooting her in the abdomen with a crossbow badly injuring her. She begs him to finish her off and he plunges a sword into her chest.  

This mess was shot on video. There are copious amounts of VCR hum and slow-motion scenes that crawl at a snail's pace with no audio. If I had to guess, at least 20% of this "film" is in slow motion with no audio other than the droning VCR hum. There's no acting to speak of, so it's pointless to go into how bad it was. Numerous times, though, the eyes and limbs of supposedly dead women move on their own. Once, a mouth closes while panning down to her groin. 

Nothing brutal or sexual ever happens throughout the film - just a bunch of groping and a couple of chuckle-inducing special effects. If they wanted this to look like a snuff film, they probably should have skipped the hokey set-ups, ridiculous costumes, multiple camera shots and shitty attempts at video editing. What they ended up with was 65 minutes of shit. 

I doubt you'll find this without going out of your way looking for it. Save yourself the trouble and don't. This is a failure in every way. 

 

1/5

White Dog (1982)

Kristy McNichol plays Julie, an actress who hits a dog while driving home one night. After taking it to the vet, she places ads trying to locate its owner. She decides to keep it and learns that not only is he an attack dog, but a "white dog" trained to attack and kill black people. Rather than have the dog put down, she takes it to an animal trainer in an attempt to have it reprogrammed.

This film was completed in 1982, but Paramount shelved after the NAACP protested it's controversial subject matter. It didn't see a release until nearly a decade later, and then as an edited for TV version or in arthouses. It is an uncomfortable film, I imagine so for both sides, dealing not only with racism in the present, but also with passing down prejudices to future generations. The dog is the face of evil, but in reality, is completely innocent. He's a tool acting on his training, making man the monster. Julie's compassion for the dog is strong, but not as strong as trainer Keys' persistence in reversing his training, even after discovering the full extent of the violence he's capable of. Julie finally gives up on the dog after a pivotal scene in the film and asks Keys to shoot him, but he refuses. His devotion to correcting this racism is undying, claiming "you can't experiment on a dead dog." Can racism be unlearned, though?

This is the only Sam Fuller film I've seen, but I've read he had a history of making confrontational films. He was so disgusted with Paramount's decision to shelve the film, he moved to France. Stylistically, this was fine. There were a few too many slow motion shots for my tastes and the casting of Burl Ives is a bit of a head scratcher, but everything else seems okay. Kristy McNichol did a decent job, though her character was a little underdeveloped. Paul Winfield (Keys) and the dog are the real stars here. There was no need to expand on Julie's character when there was so much going on between the dog and its trainer. The ending is great, no giving it away here. This one's worth seeing. Not a fun film, but entertaining.

4/5

Blow Out (1981)

John Travolta plays Jack Terry, a guy who records sound effects for low budget movies. While recording wind sounds for a film he's working on, he captures audio of an auto accident involving presidential candidate Governor McRyan. After saving a woman from his car submerged in the creek, he examines the tapes and finds it wasn't an accident, but an assassination. This revelation ends up putting both of their lives at risk.

I remember seeing this once as a kid and really liking it. I found it used for $4.00 and seemed to remember there being a Criterion release of this, so I picked it up. It's one of the better DePalma movies I've seen. Often there's something cheesy and dated about his films that drag them down, but this one didn't seem to suffer from that. This is a stylized thriller, almost Hitchcock-like, with an interesting premise, decent pacing and acting. Travolta delivers one of his least annoying performances in this and John Lithgow, surprisingly, is quite believable as the killer. A young (and thin) Dennis Franz is great as a sleazy, cigar-chomping photographer, giving the best performance of the film. Best of all , there were many technical shots of film and sound editing throughout the film. One of the aerial shots of Travolta at work, surrounded by tape machines stood out to me as the best scene in the film.

While it didnt occour to me until much later, my wife spotted the ending from the very beginning. It was effective, nonetheless, and wrapped it all together nicely. Other than Nancy Allen's mush-mouthed dialogue being utterly indecipherable through the first half of the film, there's very little to complain about. If you've never seen this or even if it's been a while, it's worth revisiting.

3.5/5 

The Twelve Chairs (1970)

Though I've been a Mel Brooks fan since childhood, I've somehow managed to miss this one. I went into this thinking that because it wasn't so well known it wouldn't be very good, but I was wrong.

"The Twelve Chairs" (adapted from a Russian novel) is set in the Soviet Union a few years after the Russian Revolution. Vorobyaninov, a former aristocrat in old Russia, learns from his mother-in-law on her deathbed of a wealth of jewels sewn into one of twelve chairs in a dining room set, but not before she tells the priest, Father Fyodor, while giving her last rites. The dining room set was lost during the chaos of the revolution, and so begins a madcap rush to find the chairs. At the beginning of his search, Vorobyaninov encounters a con man, Ostap Bender, who forces him into a partnership after threatening to turn him over to the police. Together they race to find the chairs before Father Fyodor does.

Compared to Brooks' other efforts, this one is pretty straight. There's no talking to the camera, no breaking 4th wall, etc. Dom DeLuise's performance as Father Fyodor is the most over-the-top in the film and it's comparatively tame to what followed in Brooks' later films. The story is predictable, but never boring and the ending was great. Ron Moody is excellent as Vorobyaninov, and after being generally unlikable for a good chunk of the movie, you begin to feel empathy for his character after a pivotal scene. Mel Brooks himself even has a small role in the first third of the movie, marking the first time he's cast himself in one of his pictures.

This is every bit as good as his classic films, just with a different approach. It's really much better than the trailer lets on. If you haven't seen this one, check it out.

4/5