Don't Open Till Christmas (1984)
Dir: Edmund Purdom
"The gift of terror that just won't wait..."
'Twas the night before Christmas
And all through the house
Not a creature was stirring
Not even Michael James Harmon
He was comatose on the couch
And watching the shit out of Don't Open Till Christmas!
A quick note before getting to the entry. I realize I haven't exactly been prolific with the Basement the past month or two; I've had a lot going on and, believe it or not, maintaining this shitty blog takes effort that I'm not always willing/able to put in at the end of the day. I TRULY appreciate all of you who've stuck with me this long; you're comments and support (mostly in person) mean A LOT. I'm hoping to crank out entries at a steadier pace in January. Alright, enough with the touchy-feely horseshit; let's get to the goddamn movie!
Alright, this British slasher opens with a way-too-skinny department store Santa meeting his (unrealistically well-dressed and hot) girlfriend in an alley. They are followed POV-style by an unseen, heavy-breathing assailant who proceeds to slaughter them both when they try to fuck in their car. THEN we get to the opening credits, which are set against a burning Santa Claus candle (subtle!). Next, a (much more suitably chubby and middle-aged) Santa is killed with a sword through the back of the head at a bitchin' Christmas costume dance party (has that ever been a thing? Maybe in Europe? One of German readers should lemme know...). It doesn't take long for the crack minds at Scotland Yard to determine that they've got a Santa serial killer on their hands, and Inspector Harris (director Purdom, Ator: the Fighting Eagle, 2019: After the Fall of New York) and Detective Powell (Mark Jones, Tales of the Unexpected, The Empire Strikes Back-"Captain Needa, the ship no longer appears on our scopes!") are assigned to the case, just as another Santa is garroted and fucking burned alive! Meanwhile, Kate, the daughter of one of the victims ("My father's just been killed...I can't concentrate!" Belinda Mayne, Krull, Lassiter) and her boyfriend Cliff (Gerry Sundquist, Boarding School) begin their own investigation and are hounded by tabloid newsman Giles (Alan Lake, TV's Hart to Hart). Cliff's clearly not the sensitive type, as not a day after her father's death he tries to pressure Kate into doing a nude, Santa-themed photoshoot with his sleazy pornographer friend, Gerry (Kevin Lloyd, Britannia Hospital, Link, in a great, super-scuzzy performance). Cliff and Kate end up reconciling, and the killer pops up again, this time dispatching a Santa using a goddamn knife-shoe, and another by CHOPPING HIS FUCKING DICK OFF with a straight razor in a urinal (think about THAT next time you're taking a leak in public!)! In a totally nonsensical plot twist, it turns out that the killer is Giles, who is the long-lost brother of Powell; they were separated at birth at Christmastime and Giles is out for revenge! Giles murders Kate and, after he's offed by a peep-show worker he'd kept hostage, the sanity-doubting denouement reveals that Giles, after receiving a knife for Christmas, witnessed his mother accidentally murdered by a man in a Santa suit.
To say that this scuzzy import resembles Silent Night, Deadly Night with the sleaze quotient turned WAY up doesn't really do it justice. Oddly, though released the same year, it didn't cause nearly the uproar Silent did (possibly because that film's misleading ad campaign featured Santa as a serial killer; in this film, ol' St. Nick is the victim). While the plot is threadbare and Purdom is a pretty blase director, he fills the flick with a an endless display of blood, boobs and seedy 80's London locales; enough to make this a yuletide classic for sleaze enthusiasts.
So, from the bottom of my heart: whether you're spending time with family, swilling hooch in a gutter somewhere or beating off or finger blasting yourself in a peepshow booth, merry goddamn Christmas from the Basement of Sleaze!
Enter...If you dare!
Big thanks to "Diamond" Dave Wheeler for the bitchin' logo!
Thursday, December 24, 2015
Saturday, December 5, 2015
Entry 92: The Incredible Hulk (1977)
The Incredible Hulk (1977)
Dir: Kenneth Johnson
"Within each of us, ofttimes, there dwells a mighty and raging fury."
Well, here it is...I've had a few folks ask me if ol' Greenskin was ever going to make an appearance in this blog; see, in addition to off-kilter cinema, I'm also a huge fan of comics, and the Hulk is my absolute favorite. While many superhero film adaptations are a little too big/mainstream to pop up here in the Basement, there are a few that fit my (admittedly pretty goddamn lax) criteria. So toss on your best pair of purple pants, dial up the gamma radiation and join me for the 1977 telemovie The Incredible Hulk!
Years after failing to save his wife from a fiery car wreck, brilliant but obsessive biologist Dr. David Banner (Bill Bixby, TV's My Favorite Martian and The Magician) is determined to discover why some human beings are able to exhibit feats of superhuman strength during times of crisis while others are not. He is aided by foxy fellow scientist/love interest Dr. Elaina Marks (veteran TV actress Susan Sullivan). Determining that increased gamma radiation from the sun's rays effects human strength, Banner accidentally exposes himself to a gamma overdose during a botched experiment, which causes him to painfully transform into a 7-foot green creature (Lou Ferrigno, Pumping Iron, Hercules) whenever he grows angry or terrified. After spooking some hunters, the creature draws the attention of tabloid reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin, Embryo, Child's Play), who comes snooping around Banner's lab. After McGee's meddling and the creature's destructive rage cause an accidental explosion, Marks is killed and Banner, believed to be dead, is forced to go on the run in hopes of finding a cure for his affliction...
I'm pretty goddamn fond of 70s TV movies in general, and The Incredible Hulk is at the top of the heap of my personal favorites. Writer/director Johnson (TV's Bionic Woman and V) was famously bewildered by comics and threw much of the source material away, choosing instead to base the tone of his film on Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and the melodramatic angst and mad scientist-trappings of Universal's classic Frankenstein and Wolf Man movies. The comics fan in me may chaff at this, but I can't deny the effectiveness of the results. As Banner, Bixby gives a soulful, riveting, haunted performance and grounds the film in broken human emotions. His remains the DEFINITIVE screen Banner. Ferrigno is imposing and genuinely scary as the monster and Colvin brings the right amount of sleaze and slime to his reporter role. While the time-elapse transformation effects and slow-mo action sequences (something Johnson perfected during his tenure as showrunner on Bionic Woman) feel extremely dated today, the film carries an emotional weight that still resonates and is often lost amid the bombast of today's superhero blockbusters. Jesus Christ, I'm getting all touchy-feely about a 70's superhero movie...Somebody get me a box of tissues! The Incredible Hulk was a ratings smash and led to a 1978-82 regular television series. That occasionally-effective, often-silly series never quite matched the high watermark set by this impressive movie. Do check it out. Fun fact: though he's become indelibly linked with the character, Ferrigno was Johnson's third attempt at casting the role. First choice Arnold Schwarzenegger was deemed too short and too handsome; second choice Richard Kiehl (Jaws from the Roger Moore Bond films) was actually cast and filmed for a few days, but was ultimately deemed "too skinny" to play the Hulk.
Dir: Kenneth Johnson
"Within each of us, ofttimes, there dwells a mighty and raging fury."
Well, here it is...I've had a few folks ask me if ol' Greenskin was ever going to make an appearance in this blog; see, in addition to off-kilter cinema, I'm also a huge fan of comics, and the Hulk is my absolute favorite. While many superhero film adaptations are a little too big/mainstream to pop up here in the Basement, there are a few that fit my (admittedly pretty goddamn lax) criteria. So toss on your best pair of purple pants, dial up the gamma radiation and join me for the 1977 telemovie The Incredible Hulk!
Years after failing to save his wife from a fiery car wreck, brilliant but obsessive biologist Dr. David Banner (Bill Bixby, TV's My Favorite Martian and The Magician) is determined to discover why some human beings are able to exhibit feats of superhuman strength during times of crisis while others are not. He is aided by foxy fellow scientist/love interest Dr. Elaina Marks (veteran TV actress Susan Sullivan). Determining that increased gamma radiation from the sun's rays effects human strength, Banner accidentally exposes himself to a gamma overdose during a botched experiment, which causes him to painfully transform into a 7-foot green creature (Lou Ferrigno, Pumping Iron, Hercules) whenever he grows angry or terrified. After spooking some hunters, the creature draws the attention of tabloid reporter Jack McGee (Jack Colvin, Embryo, Child's Play), who comes snooping around Banner's lab. After McGee's meddling and the creature's destructive rage cause an accidental explosion, Marks is killed and Banner, believed to be dead, is forced to go on the run in hopes of finding a cure for his affliction...
I'm pretty goddamn fond of 70s TV movies in general, and The Incredible Hulk is at the top of the heap of my personal favorites. Writer/director Johnson (TV's Bionic Woman and V) was famously bewildered by comics and threw much of the source material away, choosing instead to base the tone of his film on Victor Hugo's Les Miserables and the melodramatic angst and mad scientist-trappings of Universal's classic Frankenstein and Wolf Man movies. The comics fan in me may chaff at this, but I can't deny the effectiveness of the results. As Banner, Bixby gives a soulful, riveting, haunted performance and grounds the film in broken human emotions. His remains the DEFINITIVE screen Banner. Ferrigno is imposing and genuinely scary as the monster and Colvin brings the right amount of sleaze and slime to his reporter role. While the time-elapse transformation effects and slow-mo action sequences (something Johnson perfected during his tenure as showrunner on Bionic Woman) feel extremely dated today, the film carries an emotional weight that still resonates and is often lost amid the bombast of today's superhero blockbusters. Jesus Christ, I'm getting all touchy-feely about a 70's superhero movie...Somebody get me a box of tissues! The Incredible Hulk was a ratings smash and led to a 1978-82 regular television series. That occasionally-effective, often-silly series never quite matched the high watermark set by this impressive movie. Do check it out. Fun fact: though he's become indelibly linked with the character, Ferrigno was Johnson's third attempt at casting the role. First choice Arnold Schwarzenegger was deemed too short and too handsome; second choice Richard Kiehl (Jaws from the Roger Moore Bond films) was actually cast and filmed for a few days, but was ultimately deemed "too skinny" to play the Hulk.
Thursday, December 3, 2015
Entry 91: Snowbeast (1977)
Snowbeast (1977)
Dir: Herb Wallerstein
"An unknown terror stalks a ski resort!"
How does that song go..."Baby, it's cold outside/I gotta go away/Baby it's cold outside/Holy shit! There's a goddamn Yeti trying to rip my fucking arms off?" Well, here in the northland it certainly IS cold outside, so take off that jacket, grab a hot cup of coffee and join me in the Basement for the seasonally-appropriate 1977 telemovie Snowbeast!
As the movie opens, shit's not going so well for Gar Seberg. The former Olympic Gold-medalist skier is broke, out of work and hasn't been up on his skis in years. At the end of his rope, he packs up his reporter wife Ellen (Yvette Mimieux, The Time Machine, The Black Hole) and heads to celebrated Rill Lodge to beg a job off of his former rival, Tony (Robert Logan, TV's 77 Sunset Strip). To make matters worse, Tony was once Gar's romantic rival for Ellen, and seeing him again brings her old romantic feelings bubbling to the surface. Oh yeah, while all this is happening, a rampaging Yeti-type monster is killing off skiers at the lodge, a fact that owner (and Tony's grandmother) Mrs. Rill (Sylvia Sidney, God Told Me To, Beetlejuice) insists on covering up so as not to endanger the tourist dollars brought in by Rill's 50th anniversary winter carnival. Ordinarily, this would be a problem, but Gar is played by Bo-goddamn-Svenson (Breaking Point, Walking Tall Part 2), a genre icon so manly that he can deliver the most mundane of expository dialogue while looking like he's fully prepared to beat the living shit out of somebody. After the creature attacks Rill's gymnasium during a performance by a high school marching band, Gar straps those skis back on, reignites the fire in Ellen's loins and kills the shit out of the Snowbeast using skiing poles during a Mano-y-mano final battle!
The way I see it, there are three kinds of people in the world: those who love Snowbeast, those who've never seen Snowbeast, and those I have no use for. This movie-of-the-week hits all the right marks: knockoff of a popular theatrical blockbuster (Jaws), a cast of B-listers and slumming A-listers and ties to then-popular cultural phenomena (Bigfoot, inspirational sports stories). It's also really well-made (director Wallerstein conjures genuine suspense and dread and the POV stalking scenes predate the slashers that would make them cliche by a couple years) and effectively acted. Of course, I'm slightly biased; this was a staple of the Turner networks when I was a kid and is one of my earliest horror movie memories; as such, it's at least partially responsible for making me the unfortunate and depraved individual I am today. Oh, did I mention this picture was written by Joseph "Psycho" Stefano? Snowbeast is available in it's entirety on YouTube, check it out; you're welcome. One last thing-Caligula fans take note: this movie features an advertisement for "Longines" ski equipment!
Dir: Herb Wallerstein
"An unknown terror stalks a ski resort!"
How does that song go..."Baby, it's cold outside/I gotta go away/Baby it's cold outside/Holy shit! There's a goddamn Yeti trying to rip my fucking arms off?" Well, here in the northland it certainly IS cold outside, so take off that jacket, grab a hot cup of coffee and join me in the Basement for the seasonally-appropriate 1977 telemovie Snowbeast!
As the movie opens, shit's not going so well for Gar Seberg. The former Olympic Gold-medalist skier is broke, out of work and hasn't been up on his skis in years. At the end of his rope, he packs up his reporter wife Ellen (Yvette Mimieux, The Time Machine, The Black Hole) and heads to celebrated Rill Lodge to beg a job off of his former rival, Tony (Robert Logan, TV's 77 Sunset Strip). To make matters worse, Tony was once Gar's romantic rival for Ellen, and seeing him again brings her old romantic feelings bubbling to the surface. Oh yeah, while all this is happening, a rampaging Yeti-type monster is killing off skiers at the lodge, a fact that owner (and Tony's grandmother) Mrs. Rill (Sylvia Sidney, God Told Me To, Beetlejuice) insists on covering up so as not to endanger the tourist dollars brought in by Rill's 50th anniversary winter carnival. Ordinarily, this would be a problem, but Gar is played by Bo-goddamn-Svenson (Breaking Point, Walking Tall Part 2), a genre icon so manly that he can deliver the most mundane of expository dialogue while looking like he's fully prepared to beat the living shit out of somebody. After the creature attacks Rill's gymnasium during a performance by a high school marching band, Gar straps those skis back on, reignites the fire in Ellen's loins and kills the shit out of the Snowbeast using skiing poles during a Mano-y-mano final battle!
The way I see it, there are three kinds of people in the world: those who love Snowbeast, those who've never seen Snowbeast, and those I have no use for. This movie-of-the-week hits all the right marks: knockoff of a popular theatrical blockbuster (Jaws), a cast of B-listers and slumming A-listers and ties to then-popular cultural phenomena (Bigfoot, inspirational sports stories). It's also really well-made (director Wallerstein conjures genuine suspense and dread and the POV stalking scenes predate the slashers that would make them cliche by a couple years) and effectively acted. Of course, I'm slightly biased; this was a staple of the Turner networks when I was a kid and is one of my earliest horror movie memories; as such, it's at least partially responsible for making me the unfortunate and depraved individual I am today. Oh, did I mention this picture was written by Joseph "Psycho" Stefano? Snowbeast is available in it's entirety on YouTube, check it out; you're welcome. One last thing-Caligula fans take note: this movie features an advertisement for "Longines" ski equipment!
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