The B-Masters Cabal

SORCERESS
Sword and sorcery movies are perhaps the purest distillation of a ten-year-old boy’s mind that a ten-year-old boy could ever hope for. Yes, yes, I know. Ten year old boys were too young to watch such filth. We were also too young to read Heavy Metal magazine, know who Sylvia Kristel was, and have opinions about the best Playmates. Sword and sorcery movies were great because not only could you stay up late and watch the R-rated ones, but even the PG ones were full of everything we wanted: monsters, gore, and big-boobed chicks wearing tiny fur bikinis, if they were wearing anything at all. And if that represents the purest distillation of a ten-year-old boy’s mind, then the movie Sorceress represents a sort of cask strength version of that particular spirit. Because Sorceress asks the question, “Sure, what if you had all that, but also the heroes are hot, naked twins?”

After the announcement of 10,000 B.S. the other day, The Rev D.D., one of our regulars, remarked, “Prehistoric Women…I haven’t seen the Hammer one. I have seen the one from the early ’50s, though, and…MAN that one was pain. Except for the “dragon,” which was one of the GREATEST THINGS EVER FILMED.” – a comment posted, as far as I can figure, about four hours after I finished watching Prehistoric Women for the purposes of this Roundtable.

Truthfully…I am just a little creeped out right now.

PREHISTORIC WOMEN (1950)

    In which the members of an all-female prehistoric tribe, who have been feeling – nudge, nudge – “restless”, are sent out by their Wise One to find themselves – nudge, nudge – “husbands”.

The result is a battle of the sexes dramatically highlighted by the savage attack on the tribespeople by a duck wearing a Halloween mask. As a bonus, the film comes with a narrator who helpfully explains EVERY SINGLE DETAIL OF EVERY SINGLE SCENE. Because, you know, the plot’s so complicated.

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WHEN WOMEN LOST THEIR TAILS
Regardless of whether or not the viewer is in line with When Women Lost Their Tails‘ political viewpoint, I think he or she has to agree that it is a much more interesting film with it than it would be without. The cinematic landscape is littered with knuckleheaded sex farces set against a broadly satirical historical backdrop – with not an inconsiderable number set in the Stone Age among them. But, with When Women Lost Their Tails, what we get is like the lyrics of a Gang of Four song acted out within the context of a slightly naughty fanfic version of The Flintstones. If nothing else, it certainly makes for unique viewing, and offers enough in terms of audacity alone to keep one watching until the end. What makes the journey a bit rougher, though, is the queasy disconnect between the film’s superficial layer of lounge-pop marinated goofiness and the unutterably bleak take on the human condition that festers at its core. With its vision of a human race whose existence boils down to either blinding, almost protozoan idiocy on the one hand or vicious, self-devouring avarice and cynicism on the other — with nothing in the middle — it’s enough to make even the most misanthropic giallo seem like a Frank Capra joint by comparison, ebullient Bruno Nicolai score notwithstanding.

I imagine some B movie fans might think they are getting something good with The Sword Of The Barbarians upon seeing the poster or the video box art. They are probably thinking, “A Conan clone done by the Italians? That should mean plenty of unintended laughs along with the majestic backdrops, bloody action, and women who like to show off their melon-sized breasts. And it was picked up by The Cannon Group, who knew a thing or two about exploitation.” Sad to say, the end results, save for the occasional laugh, are pretty dull. In fact, the movie is bad enough in so many ways to embarrass even Ator.

In Johnny Mysto: Boy Wizard (1997), a young would-be magician accidentally gets his hands on an ring ensorcelled by Merlin himself.  Had be been a few years older and we would have gotten essentially another entry in the Zapped! franchise; as it is, the worst he does is inadvertently makes his sister disappear.

Plus: Vote for upcoming movies in Reader Revenge Month!  This week’s options: The Bloody Judge (1970), The Delta Force (1986), or Lethal Ninja (1993).

Let’s start at the end, shall we? Or, if you prefer, at the bottom of the barrel, so we can work our way upwards: Quest for the Mighty Sword (1990).

Here we have the third sequel to a movie nobody really wanted in the first place. We’ve got a plot that runs out of steam before it’s even got started… acting that gets worse on a logarithmic scale as the film progresses… a substitute Ator who’d much rather be doing comedy… leftover costumes from Troll 2… just about everything you’d need to push the whole “Sword and Sorcery” subgenre into obsolescence. Heck, the movie’s got Laura “Black Emanuelle” Gemser in it — but she stays fully-clothed, for Crom’s sake!

But the final indignity, at least as far as I’m concerned? Guess which famous story writer/director Joe D’Amato decided to rip off this time…!

OK, so five years ago at B-Fest I finally met the amazing Jessica Ritchey in person. Many of our readers probably remember her pithy reviews for The Agony Booth. I told Jessica that any time she wanted to contribute a guest review to Braineater.com, I’d be honored to run it.

And Jessica did send me a review. That, apparently, was the cue for me to leave my brain soaking in a pan in the basement… and I left it there so long I forgot I don’t even have a basement. It wasn’t until The Brain that Wouldn’t Die came up in the comments today that the re-animated monster of memory broke through the cellar door of my subconscious. And lit a fire under me.

So here it is, at long long last: Jessica’s account of the movie that was her gateway drug to B-movie depravity. Enjoy!

NEUTRON VS THE DEATH ROBOTS
The combination of the shadowy tones of classic Hollywood horror and noir films with the wholesome thrills of the Republic superhero serials of the 40s was a hallmark of early lucha films, and the Neutron films offer an example of the practice at its most visually sumptuous and alluring. To some extent the films even prefigure Hollywood’s current vogue for “going dark” with costumed hero tales. And Neutron could hardly present us with a better hero to receive such treatment, blessed as he is with mysterious origins, a disturbing habit of popping up unexpectedly in peoples’ bedrooms, and what one could easily be forgiven for describing as a gimp mask.

Time for more Science In The Reel World! Sometimes movie science turns up in the strangest places. Over the last couple of weeks I have, quite unknowingly, stumbled upon two romantic melodramas from the Golden Years Of Hollywood in which the hero turned out to be a scientist.

The other thing that these films have in common is that, in thus describing them, I’m using the word “hero” very loosely indeed…

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HIS BROTHER’S WIFE (1936) - which manages to transport Robert Taylor and Barbara Stanwyck from the nightclubs of New York to a laboratory in an unidentified jungle, and sees them swapping cocktails and gambling for spotted fever research. The results are about as credible as you might imagine.

DISHONORED LADY (1947) - in which disillusioned party girl (and closet nymphomaniac) Hedy Lamarr finds romance and a new way of looking at life when she falls for the poor-but-honest scientist living in the apartment below her own. However, her course of science for the soul is interrupted by a nasty case of murder…

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Some call him the Colombian Ed Wood. He prefers to be called the Colombian Hitchcock. The best description of all is simply the Original Jairo Pinilla.

Pinilla was one of the first Colombian film-makers to turn his attention to horror and fantasy. Unfortunately for him, the Colombian film industry at the time expected its artists to make serious dramas, or short documentaries about poverty and social issues. Pinilla’s movies were considered an embarrassment. Even more embarrassing? The local audiences loved them: Pinilla’s first film held the box office record for a Colombian film for years.

Eventually, the Colombian film commission found a way to put him out of business in 1985*. But before that happened, he managed to put out a very unusual body of work. Funeral siniestro (1977), for all its rough patches, is still a remarkably assured first film; 27 Horas con la muerte has a story that Poe might have chuckled over (and then rejected); while Extraña regresion may very well be the film that got Pinilla the “Ed Wood” title.

* Thanks to afforable video, he’s now back making films.

The Bird With the Crystal Plumage (1970) — written and directed by Argento, in his first directorial effort — is not only beautifully shot and composed, but it is also serviceable in the plot department. I wasn’t captivated by the story, but it moved along gracefully enough that it didn’t distract from the compelling camera work which is, really, the movie’s claim to fame.

There’s a film missing from this update.  One of the screener DVDs I meant to review wouldn’t play on any of my equipment, so the promised “experimental weirdness” will not be forthcoming.  I’m sure you’re all terribly broken up about that, huh?  As for the movies my DVD player would accept, we have…

Alien Resurrection (1997), in which the good names of a great many talented people are dragged enthusiastically through the mud…

Hardware (1990), in which we see what a hazardous undertaking giving your girlfriend a present can be when you live in a post-apocalyptic future…

and…

My Body Burns (1972), in which dirty old men, coniving young women, and rabidly jealous lesbians team up to power some of the least erotic erotica since Anais Nin blessedly returned her pen to the desk drawer.
 
 
 

And I had such plans… But then my design/publication program and my server decided that they had irreconcilable differences; the upshot being a fortnight spent predominantly on hold. (And if I never have to listen to David Bowie’s “Golden Years” again…)

There are moments when I really think that the Luddites were onto something.

Time was short, and so is my main subject; so short, indeed, that it comes with a supporting feature…

THE WIZARD OF OZ (1933)

Aka The Long And Winding (Yellow Brick) Road: Part 4. In which we take a brief look at the history of Technicolor, and ponder whether this obscure, independently-produced cartoon is in fact one of the most influential films of all time.

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HOMESDALE (1971)

Six guests gather at an island retreat for a weekend of fun, games, introspection, role-playing, performance art, ridicule, abuse and violence…

A critical step in the early career of Peter Weir, forming a bridge between the early, experimental shorts on which he cut his teeth and the feature-films that followed, Homesdale was also an important factor in the re-birth of Australian film at the beginning of the 1970s.

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Nikka/Nikkatsu month marches on…

3 SECONDS BEFORE THE EXPLOSION
Yabuki’s task is to find the jewels if he can, though it’s more important that he keep them out of the hands of certain other parties than it is that he actually get them into his own hands. Those other parties include a shady businessman named Takashima (Takashi Kanda), who actually possesses the jewels, and a gang of international drug smugglers staffed by an assortment of classic Eurospy archetypes: the competent hitman, the abusive underboss, the karate guy, the guy in a slim suit and fez, and of course, the German mastermind played by an American actor (Erik Neilson) doing the worst German accent ever and occasionally tossing out words like, “Achtung!’ and “Wunderbar!” to enforce the illusion that he is German. Everyone is in overdrive with their various plotting, because the deadline for the jewels becoming fair game for anyone who has them is fast approaching. I don’t quite understand why the deadline means so much for the jewel thieves. One assumes that they would be just as happy to steal the jewels from Takashima after he could claim to be the rightful owner. You know, what with them being a murderous gang of thieves and all.

And what to drink while watching a silly Japanese spy film from the 1960s? How about Nikka’s 17 year old Taketsuru Pure Malt?

Just minutes ago, I put up the 500th review on The Unknown Movies. I never imagined years (and years) ago when I first started, I would get this far. I wish to thank Chris and Scott, the good folks at Stomp Tokyo, for sponsoring my site. I also wish to thank my fellow B-Masters for letting me join them and for all their support. Anyway, it’s business as usual, though I thought that for a fantastic occasion I would review something to do with the fantastic. That movie is Maxie, a major studio movie with Glenn Close dealing with spirits from the afterlife. As you might have guessed, there’s a good reason why you haven’t heard of this particular major studio movie.

Nikka/Nikkatsu month rambles on, this time with David serving up:

BRANDED TO KILL
The job is a fairly simple one. It is to transport a bigshot business man to Nagawa, but from the outset there are signs that this job is a little strange. Firstly, when they collect the car provided for them, Hanada and Kasuga find a dead body on the back seat. Hanada simply assumes it was the previous owner of the vehicle and arranges to dump the body on the way. Once they collect their ‘passenger’, a mysterious black car begins to tail them. In fact, at every length of the journey it appears that they are being followed. The tension begins to take its toll on Kasuga who begins to drink heavily — it is intimated that Kasuga was kicked out of the Yakuza because he has lost his nerve, and now drinks to conceal his fears.

Also, I have myself a dram of Nikka Whisky from the Barrel.

Blonde Ice was supposedly considered a lost film by the mid-’70s, though obviously prints have since surfaced. To label something a “lost film” conjures images of hidden treasure and holy grails, which in this case is certainly overselling what was found. It’s not a bad film; instead, it’s a mostly competent little B-list suspense-drama, the likes of which there dozens and dozens of examples among the non-lost films most of us have never seen.

Plus: Take the poll for Reader Revenge Month slot #2!