I guess this is supposed to be a joke, but if this is not meant to be taken seriously- it's not very lively. It's remarkably flat. So, I never reacted. I'm sure those who feel this is a masterpiece were able to get so involved that they were shocked and laughed, etc. Not me. I guess the best thing I can say is that it's not exactly boring. It's well-made for what it is but I just didn't get the humor of it. Especially worth mentioning is the scene where "half-black" Sarah Jane is brutally beaten by her white boyfriend. Even I was shocked. On what planet is something like that the slightest bit amusing?
This was my 4th go-round with the films of Mario Bava and by this time, I hadn't found one I could honestly say I liked. My general reaction to Bava is: is this it? Well, this time, my reaction was: what the hell am I watching? And; why am I watching it? I guess out of all the director's work, most people aren't too crazy about this film. But Tim Lucas, Anchor Bay / Image DVD's go-to guy for the history of Bava, seems to consider it just about his best. That's pure insanity talking. As far as I can tell you- this movie is all symbolic. So it's somewhat stuffed to the gills with all of Bava's obsessions and interests. That's all well and good for people who like their cinema purely symbolic- but I need effect. And this movie is so stiff, it's not even funny. It's visually dusty, ugly, dull, and completely unattractive. The characters (
especially the men) are infuriatingly annoying. Pretty much the only good thing I can say is that the music is fantastic and the camerawork is good. There's obviously a lot of "deep" stuff going on here- but the characters find themselves in something that's like a bad leftover of one of AIP's much better 1960's castle flicks- especially Tomb of Ligeia, which also involves reincarnated spirits filling the body of a present-day living woman. Again, Roger Corman rules.
Not a painful experience by any means, but it's extraordinarily weak on character and heavy on industrial stuff- a lot of tanks, vans, chase scenes, guns, machinery, tracers, tech, buttons, wheels, etc. It's not exciting, which means it has to be really smart instead and it's not very. There's absolutely nothing going on with Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg at all. No wonder they wouldn't come back for the sequel- though that was a big mistake.
Still not the thrill-ride these movies could easily have been (not until the end, that is), but this time around- the movie itself actually has a brain and some true ambition. The humans aren't very interesting but the movie's tv-quality gags are better than the typical 80's-cheese sitcoms. The movie is really about the robot and at first, I thought I was going to tap out of the movie because they changed so much about him from the first film- but they actually did it for a reason. Because the movie is a kind of lowkey mainstream piece of existentialism and social commentary. Johnny-5 goes to church and reads books on created characters (Pinocchio and Frankenstein), yet the movie isn't really shoving religion down our throats. Not as far as I could tell. It's got a lot of stuff like this in it. Then, when the robot is actually almost-"disassembled," I almost felt something. Definitely not sadness. But I think the movie adequately made you want him to win in the end and I actually felt like he wasn't going to make it.
My 5th Bava film and definitely the first I truly enjoyed. Since this was made before Lisa and the Devil, it's worth noting that this also feels like one of Roger Corman's castle / Poe flicks. Those were very entertaining and stylish films, but they all usually lacked a creepy feeling (with the possible sole exception of The Haunted Palace). This film more than makes up for that. It starts off incredibly quietly but keeps getting better and better. It's also the only Bava film with a scene that almost took my breath away- Rada Rassimov's one-woman campfire seance. The death scenes are surprising if not fully satisfying. The ending is a little strange (the final shot of the evil baron is very head-scratch inducing given the events of the last scene) and the music could be a little better, but hey- this one has a lot to offer. Perhaps even more than all of Vincent Price's follow-up horror films from the 1970's (he was the star of almost all of Corman's 60's AIP castle horror films, something like 10 in all). It's mentioned on the audio commentary that he was offered a role in the film but turned it down. His loss.
Finally got around to watching this oldie and... WOW! Now
this is writing! Obviously with a movie like this, its' praises have already been sung and then some. So there isn't much for me to add. I'll just say- it's pure cinematic perfection...except for possibly the very last scene. I doubt this film invented the cliche of the "new seed of evil" picking up where the old one left off but by the time of seeing this, there's no punch in it at all. I'm not sure they needed Pheobe. Otherwise, I was very much bowled over by the film. A lot of high-grade movie bitchery.
I haven't been much on Hitchcock in the past, but I loved this one. I actually laughed out loud hard- twice. I was time and time again surprised by how clever the film was. And for me, I found it unpredictable. Probably because I kept expecting it to slip somehow. The characters were a lot of fun, the mood light-hearted but interesting, and it was completely charming. I may very well have to check out another of his films this weekend.
Another sleeper-charmer from the Bava catalog, the 2nd of 6 I've seen that I have found myself able to say I enjoyed. And perhaps the only one of his films that actually looks good (wait- Bay of Blood/Twitch of the Death Nerve). Naturally, this is because it takes place at a trendy beach-front mansion with almost James Bond type spy chicness flying all around (the rotating bed and the robe-clad assassin- need I say more?). Truly unpredictable murder mystery turned insane black comedy / slasher film / stylistic free-for-all with a wonderful futuristic ending, amusing plot twists, and one hell of a dead body reveal- the glass balls down the staircase shot is deserving of legendary status. Trashy, yes. But definitely worth checking out.
I guess after Eve, I was really looking for more Bette Davis. This movie is another ridiculous soap opera / melodrama type film of the sort Imitation of Life might have poked fun at had this not been a period film. It's ridiculous because almost any attempt to be dire is most unintenitonally funny (the earthquake scenes especially). But I also thought it was still pretty well made for its' type, the scenes with the sisters all together were uniformly strong, and Errol Flynn is gorgeous. His character is fairly intolerable but still; it's hard to get stuck on that when he's so damn gorgeous. Take it or leave it- I would probably never watch it again. But for it's 98 minutes (which felt like 3 hours), it was a decent piece of mainstream filmmaking.
