Entry 90: The White Buffalo (1977)

The White Buffalo (1977)

Dir: J. Lee Thompson

"Two legendary enemies unite to fight the charging white beast!"

 

Alright folks, it's time for another theme cluster down here in the basement...This time, it's not tied to a particular month, but it should carry me through the next 10 entries up to #100.  Those of you who know me well in "real life" will probably figure it out pretty goddamn quickly.  Actually, it's more like two sub-themes that'll unite...Fuck it, you'll find out.

I'm currently dealing with the fallout from two (mostly) sleepless nights, Thanksgiving, and a hectic Black Friday at work...Let's see if a little booze and a lot of Bronson can prepare me for a solid night of rest!  Join me now as I journey back to the rootin', tootin' old west, where Charlie goes on a perilous hunt for The White Buffalo...

In this 70s oddity, Chuck plays "Wild" Bill Hickok, returning to the west late in his life after working as an actor in the east because he's haunted by eerie dreams of the titular creature.  Clearly, Bill left a lot of enemies behind when he headed east, 'cause he isn't in town for more than 10 minutes before he's forced to blow away an entire platoon  of horse soldiers who try to jump him...Fuck yeah!  At the same time, an Indian village is attacked by the albino beast, an attack which claims the life of the daughter of Crazy Horse (Will Sampson, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Orca).  After a village elder witnesses him crying like a pansy over the death of his child, Crazy Horse is stripped of his name and honor and informed that they won't be restored until he slays the creature.  Once Bill has killed the shit out of a few more "old acquaintances" and gotten some sweet poon from a former lover, he meets up with 'Horse, and "Wild" and Crazy decide to set aside their differences and hunt down the mythical beast together.   

I initially caught this one on TBS with my dad in the 80s and really enjoyed it; rewatching it as an adult, I still enjoyed it, but my abiding thought was: "Who the fuck was this movie made for?"  By '77, the western's decades-long heyday was well behind it; kids were more likely to idolize Steve Austin or Spider-Man and Post-'Nam, Post-Watergate adults had turned their attention to morally-ambiguous cop thrillers and nihilistic political-conspiracy films.  The oversized, rampaging title creature was clearly inspired by the success of Jaws, but the dwindling old-timers eager to see a western in the theatre would've been totally put off by the inclusion of a fantastical monster going on a gory rampage, while monster movie buffs would be bored by the then-quaint, old-fashioned western atmosphere.  I'm sure this only saw the light of day because it was backed by megalomaniacal huckster-producer Dino De Laurentiis (who never met an idea too absurd to turn into a multi-million dollar spectacle), who was in full-on monster movie mode (he made this between his ill-advised remake of King Kong and Orca).  The film plays out as if De Laurentiis and director Thompson (Cape Fear, The Guns of Navarone; at the beginning of a serious career slump) wanted to make something envelope-pushing, but kept backing down out of fear of alienating one of several (and dwindling) audiences.  At it's best, it's a post-Wild Bunch, pre-Unforgiven revisionist western (bloody violence, soiled clothing, occasionally grimy, on-location sets), but dilutes that by filming half it's scenes on surreal-looking, very obvious soundstages and giving the Native characters incredibly miscalculated, anachronistic "How, white man"-type dialogue.  The promise of an aging Hickok's quest to return to the site of his past glories, battle a "dream-demon" representative of past mistakes and the regrets of old age and make peace with a former enemy is tossed away in favor of a literal monster movie.  Having said all that, I can't deny that it's just strange enough to be a lot of fun to watch, the buffalo effects (by Carlo Rambaldi of Alien and Dune) are pretty damn good and Bronson gives one of his better post-Death Wish performances.  Also, Thompson stages a marvelously surreal, eerie scene in which Bronson casually strolls past a literal mountain of buffalo bones; one of the film's more interesting suggestions is that the white buffalo is a spirit animal seeking vengeance for the hunting-to-near-extinction of it's species.  The eerie score is by John Barry (StarCrash, a shitload of Bond movies).  Film fans take note; this has an incredible supporting cast, including Kim Novak (Vertigo, Just a Gigolo), Jack Warden (12 Angry Men, Used Cars), Clint Walker (The Dirty Dozen, Killdozer), Slim Pickens (Dr. Strangelove, The Howling), Ed Lauter (Raw Deal, The Rocketeer), Martin Kove (Death Race 2000, The Karate Kid) and John motherfucking Carradine as an Irish undertaker!  Worth your time, but a bit bewildering (which isn't necessarily a bad thing).         

Entry 89: StageFright (1987)

StageFright (1987)

Dir: Michele Soavi

"The theatre of death."
 

When Alicia (Barbara Cupisti, New York Ripper, Opera), lead actress in an "intellectual, new wave musical" (read: pretentious, off-Broadway claptrap which includes a man dancing around in an owl mask), injures her ankle, she seeks medical treatment at the nearest available facility, which, of course, happens to be a mental institute housing insane actor Irving Wallace.  Wallace follows Alicia back to her theatre, dons the aforementioned owl mask and begins stalking and killing off her co-stars and her tyrannical director (David Brandon, Emperor Caligula: the Untold Story, The motherfucking Blade Master!).  That's about all the plot you need to know.

I enjoyed the hell out of this stylish, MTV-inspired late-entry giallo from the director of The Church and the cult hit Cemetery Man.  It begins with an effectively grotesque murder that is revealed to be a fictitious sequence in Alicia's play and ends with a baroque setpiece involving staged corpses, flying feathers, hissing cats and rickety theatre scaffolding.  While the script relies on hoary cliches (the actors are forced to stay in the theatre even after the killer is revealed due to either injury or desperate need of a paycheck; the cops assigned to the scene after the first murder is reported suffer car trouble), Soavi (who had acted for Fulci and served as an ADA for Argento and made his directorial debut here) keeps the pace fast enough, and expertly fills the picture with enough well-handled genre requisites (cacophonous rock score, neon colors, masked killer, murder set pieces) that the film is over before you really notice.  Speaking of murders, the effects are great, and highlights include a pick axe through the eye, drill through the stomach and a man bisected via chainsaw (illuminated by flashlight in a particularly effective sequence).  Genre vet Giovanni Radice (AKA John Morghen, Cannibal Ferox, City of the Living Dead) is a hoot in an against-type role as a bitchy gay dancer.  I can't recommend this enough to genre fans; it's stylish, artistically-mounted and FAR more entertaining than films produced by mainstays Fulci and Argento during the same period.  I need to show this one to Mrs. Basement of Sleaze; she LOVES owls!  As the stage director in this film is fond of saying "the show must go on," I'll leave you with this gem:

   

Fucking.  A.

Entry 88: Witchery (AKA Evil Encounters-1988)

Witchery (AKA Evil Encounters-1988)

Dir: Fabrizio Laurenti

"A nightmare possession, horrific satanic rites and a gruesome sacrifice."



Basement MVP Linda Blair is back, baby, and this time she's got the Hoff riding shotgun!  If you're not on board already, get out of my basement and go fuck yourself.  Those of you who are still here, sit back, get cozy and settle in for a night of Witchery!

David Hasselhoff (TV's Knight Rider and Baywatch) is photographer Gary, who's come to a small New England island with virginal girlfriend Leslie (Leslie Cumming, Killing Birds), a writer who is working on a book on a local witchcraft legend.  Horny-as-shit Gary can't stop "Hassel"ing Leslie to jump in the sack, calling her twentysomething virginity "unnatural."  Gary and Leslie keep witnessing strange prismatic lights around their spooky old hotel, which Leslie attributes to witchcraft, and a creepy old woman (Hildegard Knef, a LONG way from her appearances in classics like The Snows of Kilimanjaro and The Dirty Dozen) is lurking about the premises.  Linda shows up as Jane, a pregnant Bostonian woman who is plagued by nightmares of witches being persecuted.  Jane glimpses one of the prisms and, in a scene that has to be seen to be believed, gets sucked down the drain of a dirty bathtub through a Laser Floyd-like vortex and winds up in hell, where she witnesses two old folks roasting and eating a GODDAMN FETUS while Knef skulks around and laughs.  A convenient storm arrives, and Gary, Leslie, Jane, Jane's parents and little brother and real estate agents Linda (Soap star Catherine Hickland) and Jerry wind up trapped in the hotel together.  Soon, Blair's mom gets sucked into the hell vortex and has her lips graphically sewn shut (this sequence features VERY good makeup effects and is legitimately tough to watch); she's then stuffed in the fireplace and burned alive when her (unknowing) family and friends start a fire to keep warm ("That wood sure smells funny!").  Linda and Jerry get zapped to hell when they slink off for some intense, haunted hotel fucking; she's garroted until unconscious, then impaled through the neck on a mounted swordfish (!) and he ends up crucified and burned on an upside-down cross.  Leslie dreams of being raped by a lipless demon, then awakens to find her hymen broken, and Blair's dad hemorrhages uncontrollably from his neck until he bleeds to death.  Anyway, it turns out that Knef is actually an emissary from hell, and she's chosen each of our victims based on their correlation to one of the seven deadly sins.  She ends up possessing Blair through her unborn child, heroic Hoff gets messily impaled and Blair gets to homage her own The Exorcist  by killing herself during a moment of clarity by throwing herself out of a window.  In the final scene, Leslie makes it out only to realize she's become pregnant by her demon-dream...

I have to be honest, I set out to rip this movie a new one; why did it have to be so fucking likable?  Witchery is everything you'd expect/want from a low-budget, late 80s Italian horror flick!  It grabs shamelessly from The Exorcist, The Sentinel, The Beyond, The Evil Dead and The Shining, but director Laurenti is thoroughly incapable of replicating any of the artistry or enthusiasm of those classics.  That said, it's impossible to hate a film that so brazenly rips off so many genre mainstays, casts both Blair (who seems bored during most of the film, but seems to be having a blast once possessed!) and Hasselfhoff (who plays meathead Gary exactly the way you'd want/expect him to) AND features some top-notch, over-the-top gore effects.  Witchery has nothing new to say, and will likely have no place in the pantheon of horror greats, but I implore you to toss it in the player and have a couple beers with some horror aficionado friends...I guarantee you'll have a blast!   

              

Entry 87: Malibu Beach (1978)

Malibu Beach (1978)

Dir: Robert J. Rosenthal

"Everything can happen on...Malibu Beach!"



I'm at the end of a LONG couple of weeks, so I thought I'd relax with a cocktail and a dumb sex comedy from America's greatest decade!  Slather on some suntan lotion and join me in the Basement of Sleaze as I soak up a few rays on Malibu Beach!

 Kim Lankford (The Octagon, Cameron's Closet) stars as lifeguard Dina in yet another dumb, plotless, American Grafitti-inspired teen flick from Crown International.  There's plenty of pot-smoking, drag racing, drinking and LOTS of T&A as the large cast of characters drive around, talk, party, intermingle, couple and fight as seemingly-random story threads weave together.  The movie also features a Rolling Stones American tour 1972 poster (the tour on which the legendary Cocksucker Blues was filmed!), not one but SEVERAL "comedic" scenes in which dogs steal bathers' bikini tops, skinny dipping, a disco scene and a break-in to ride bumper cars in an amusement park!  A pretty awesome girl drives a Corvette Stingray with a "Cure Virginity" bumper sticker.  In the silliest scene, teens pressure a rookie cop into smoking dope while his seasoned partner gets shitfaced in a bar across the street.  Tough-guy actor Steve Oliver (Werewolves on Wheels, The Van, who kind of resembles a giant Peter Dinklage) plays beach tough Dugan, who shows up seemingly at random to threaten/beat the shit out of various characters (he has snake tattoos VERY similar to Kurt Russell's in Escape from New York!).  In the "A" plot, Dugan and sensitive lifeguard Bobby (James Daughton, Animal House, TVs The Incredible Hulk) duel for Dina's affections.  It ends in a swim-off, complete with a guy wearing a fake shark fin and some knockoff John Williams music.

I'll fully admit that I was only half paying attention to this one.  It's an inoffensive bit of time-capsule entertainment, no better or worse than any of the other dozens of similar flicks that Crown and AIP were cranking out around the same time.  Still, it's fun enough if you're in the right mood.  Director Rosenthal wrote previous B.O.S. entry The Pom Pom Girls (for those keeping score), and 80's teen comedy Zapped (a staple of the USA Network when I was growing up).