Horror and Sci-Fi films old and new, weirdo trash, arthouse, forgotten gems, well loved classics, and I'm watching the original Dr Who from the beginning.
Knocked out cheaply and quickly to cash in the youth culture and music of the day, Gonks Go Beat is by turn astonishing, excruciating and deathly dull.
In the not too distant future, Earth is split into two opposing factions, Hip, hairy, and cool Beat Land versus neat, tidy, crooner loving Ballad Isle. Every year they have a musical competition to decide who is best, with the judge being the subtly named Mr. A&R (Frank Thornton). Meanwhile the galactic overlords who rule over everything have for some reason decided to put an end to the squabbling, so send their worst agent, the ever bungling Wilco Roger (Kenneth Connor) to sort the situation out and bring the two sides together.
Having first about this many years ago, I was hoping for an unhinged lost classic, with a rip roaring sixties soundtrack, shoddy sets, a baffling plot, and genuine talents such as Connor, Thornton and Terry Scott degrading themselves, but the reality is a curate's egg. The songs play like promo videos, and music wise, Beat Land wins hands down, with the likes of Lulu, the Graham Bond Organisation (with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker), leaving Ballad Isle with some insipid, coma inducing tripe.
The story is baffling, the characters unengaging, and the comedy is painful to watch, and having seen some of the things Connor and Scott appeared in, I know they can make the corniest of gags work, but this is beyond even their talents.
I was hoping for a British version of Plan 9 From Outer Space, at least in terms of jaw dropping weirdness, but it lacks the truly deranged vision and energy of Ed Wood's work, and what should be a brain rotting piece of fun soon becomes a slog. If you're a fan of 60s Beat / Blues music, it is worth a watch, but it has little to recommend for anyone else.
The Plan 9 from Outer Space of 80s British slasher movies, Bloody New Year can be called many things, but it can never be called dull.
After fleeing a menacing gang of gypsy bikers at a funfair, a group of teenagers/ young adults find themselves trapped on an island. Taking refuge in a hotel, they find it seemingly abandoned, and untouched since the New Year’s celebrations of 1959. But is it abandoned? Why do the group start disappearing one by one? And what are people from the past doing in the present?
Clearly made on a low budget, with little time or money for retakes, special effects or discussions on character motivation, it would be all too easy to sneer at a film like this. I suspect it is likely that director Norman J Warren had to contend with interfering producers insisting on seeing "scenes where X happens, like in Y film", hence at times the film is obviously aping the likes of The Evil Dead, Lamerbero Bava's Demons or the likes of Lucio Fulci's more delirious and disjointed zombie films. Sure the acting is lousy, the situations the characters find themselves in baffling, and their lack of reaction doubly so, and the end result is never going to knock Citizen Kane off the BFI best film list. There is an interesting idea buried somewhere in the film, involving a government time travel experiment gone wrong, an idea that, properly developed, would have lifted the film beyond a standard slasher.
However, fortunately, what we get instead, while goofy and incoherent has enough energy to be always fun, and never boring, thanks to the sheer audacity of some of the twists and turns of the story. Do not attempt to make sense of things, just sit back and enjoy the ride. Bloody New Yearby FLIXUMovies
For many people, Plan 9 From Outer Space is the gateway drug to the world of bad movies, and it was certainly the case for me. Writer/Director Ed Wood Jr can be accused of many things in terms of deficiencies of plot, characterisation and special effects, but there is no way you can call his work boring. While on a routine flight airline pilot Jeff Trent (Gregory Walcott) and his co-pilot Danny are surprised by a bright light and loud sound, and are shocked to see a flying saucer. The saucer lands at a cemetery, where a number of suspicious deaths have taken place. It turns out aliens are hiding out there, carrying out their fiendish plan to take over the world: reanimating the dead, otherwise known as Plan 9 From Outer Space. The basic elements of the story, mad scientists, atomic power, alien invasions, zombies (albeit the pre-Romero, non contagious, non-flesheating kind) are not unfamiliar in the genre films of the time. In the hands of another film-maker, what could have resulted is the sort of pleasant but forgettable film that so many others were churning out at that time. Thankfully the job was turned over to Ed Wood, a man whose enthusiasm for movies was only matched by his enthusiasm for vodka. This meant that his scripts were bursting with ideas, and while he was not always the best at shaping these into a coherent whole, they have an anarchic energy and anything-can-happen atmosphere, coupled with dialogue that veers between the drearily banal and the outrageously surreal.
There are so many other points of interest along the way, from the health and safety loving police sergeant who insists on punctuating every line of dialogue by pointing at things with his gun, the Styrofoam Gravestones, the outrageously camp chief alien, and the heroic disregard for continuity, especially in terms of what time of day it is. The star of the film, Bela Lugosi died a few days into shooting, the sort of event that would have crushed a lesser man than Ed Wood. Instead, he simply carried on, getting his wife's chiropractor to play the Lugosi role with his cape over his face so that we can't see the difference, even though he is at least a foot taller than Lugosi. When I first saw this, back in the early 1990s the consensus was that this was something silly and terrible, something to be sneered at. Nowadays, I feel nothing but admiration for Wood. Granted his film-making skills are not up there with the best, but his enthusiasm and tenacity shines through in the movies, The surfeit of ideas means the film never gets dull and stands up to repeat viewings.
The phrase "worst film ever" has been bandied around so often that it has lost all meaning, but it also invites debate as to how we define what that phrase actually means. I have a great fondness for films like ROTOR, Gymkata, and The Courier of Death, as well as the work of Ed Wood, but while the makers of these may lack the budget and skills of others, their lack of self-awareness creates a fun, delirious, anything-can-happen approach that is rarely boring, at least not for long. Boring to me is a bad film, and the worst one ever would have to be the most boring.
Demon Cop is not boring, but neither could you call it entirely fun. It is in fact one of the most painful, deranged, useless, and hilarious messes I have ever sat through. The plot is just about impossible to decipher, crammed as is with characters and storylines that come and go at whim. An ageing Cameron Mitchell appears for an opening monologue, playing a chain-smoking psychiatrist who rambles on about Edgar Allen Poe and madness, none of which has anything to do with anything.
The main character is neither a demon or a cop, but a probation officer, who may or may not have been in Vietnam and may or may not have contracted something during a blood transfusion that turns him into a werewolf. Every now then two detectives show up and moan that they are investigating gang shootings when they should be on vacation. In addition, a radio talk show host and an ostensibly German Interpol agent put in appearances for some reason. At this point the relentlessness of the noise, the editing, the overloaded incoherent script, the teeth grindingly awful dialogue becomes too much and the experience becomes a painful blur, something to be endured, that you can brag about to your friends.
Without knowing anything about the film’s production history, I would say that it feels like somebody has got hold of some half-finished footage and gamely tried to stitch something together as quickly and cheaply as possible, to shove out to an unsuspecting audience. The video box promises special effects from “the creators of Terminator 2”, but wisely avoids getting bogged down in too much detail as to who these people might be.
Demon Cop is hard to describe or write about and it’s even harder to recommend. Frankly if the inmates at Guantanamo Bay had been subjected to this rather than waterboarding, they would have sung like canaries. However, if you do get to the end with your brain catching fire, pat yourself on the back, as you will have joined a very elite club.
The history of cinema is filled with people who did not make the big time, but along the way still managed to make at least one film. As that is one more film than I have ever made, I usually have a certain amount of admiration for them, especially if the film is as deliriously entertaining as Courier of Death. Whatever else you might call this film, it is certainly not boring.
JD Blackman is a courier, and his latest job involves a straightforward delivery of a briefcase containing millions of dollars in bonds, which is securely attached to the arm of his partner. However, things quickly go wrong leaving his partner dead and the bonds stolen, quickly followed by the kidnap and murder of his wife. Shortly after all of this an old army buddy, now high up in the government, contacts him with two pieces of news; firstly, the people behind the murder and theft are part of an underground fascist network; secondly, the government are giving Blackman tacit permission to hunt down and kill those same people.
While at no point could you claim this is a well-made movie it is not devoid of positive elements. While the dialogue lacks the deranged poetry of Ed Wood of Plan 9 from Outer Space and Bride of the Monsterfame, the bizarre plot twists and almost dreamlike feel are on par with these films. The fine story details are a little confused, but the premise is straightforward and clear, a classic action move revenge driven plot, and JD is (conveniently) given a group of people to hunt down one by one.
Granted, in practise you have a series of baffling scenes that don’t always make sense, individually or in the context of the whole film, my favourite being the main bad guy chasing JD over a bridge to an island, then deciding as JD isn’t going anywhere, to put his head down and get some sleep. As well, let’s not forget the endlessly quotable awful dialogue (“I’m going to kick BOTH your eyes out”), and while I suspect that much of what we see on screen was made up they went along, this in itself may account for the energetic anything-can-happen feel of the film.
The other astonishing and genuinely good element is the soundtrack, which at its best is a relentless mix of pulsing and droning synths, industrial noise and weird atmospherics, which is reminiscent of the likes of Skinny Puppy or Throbbing Gristle.
Plenty of films are bad, but only a select few take it to a supreme level of incompetence, breaking all of the rules and logic of how to make a motion picture. R.O.T.O.R is definitely one of these, a film where the creators make baffling choice after baffling choice on nearly every level of the finished product, creating a truly unhinged world where anything can happen.
Made in 1987, this was presumably put together to cash in on the contemporary success of Robocop and the still recent success of The Terminator. The Dallas Police Department has decided that the only thing that stands between them and the end of civilisation is an army of mechanised law enforcers. Their dedicated robotics department is working on a prototype, R.O.T.O.R. (Robotic Officer Tactical Operation Research), but when this unfinished creation is accidentally activated, it goes on a murderous vendetta against one woman. Can the machine’s creator, Dr Coldyron (pronounced Cold-Iron) stop it before a bloodbath occurs?
Now if all of that sounds like a straightforward, albeit derivative, film, then that is because I have left out the details, and the details are what make this so brilliant. A few of my favourites include:
1. Every one of the scientists involved knew that the robot could either be a success or a genocidal maniac – but they still went ahead with it anyway
2. Despite it being many years from completion, the robot already has a locker with a perfectly fitting uniform already there for him.
3. The police headquarters parking lot looks like a used car showroom, with a shiny new motorbike, ready and waiting to be ridden off.
4. In case you are concerned you do not know enough about Coldyron and his morning routine the film opens with a ten MINUTE sequence, detailing his love of making coffee, riding horses, giving coffee to his horses and blowing up tree stumps before driving to work
5. Despite supposedly being years away from completing the artificial intelligence, they already have a seemingly fully cognizant droid – a sassy little sidekick called Willard, complete with police cap, a gun, and a back chatting attitude
6. R.O.T.O.R has a moustache
Characters and plot strands come and go seemingly at random, such as Coldyron’s disappearing girlfriend, or the co-creator of R.O.T.O.R who is never mentioned until the last 20 minutes, and just happens to be a muscle bound martial arts expert. These sort of touches give the whole thing a hysterical almost dreamlike feel that is always entertaining.
Then, there is the dialogue, which is up there with the best of the surreal stream of consciousness poetry of Ed Wood. My favourite quotes include “It's like a chainsaw set on frappe”, “Fire me and I'll make more noise than two skeletons making love in a tin coffin” and “The only difference between a hero and a villain is the amount of compensation they take for their services”. If you think I am taking these out of context for cheap laughs, then, believe me, they do not make any more sense in context.
The only truly painful bits are the attempts at ironic self-commentary through lines like “What do you think this is a bad Sci-Fi film?” and “Bet this is how Terminator started”. Thankfully, the rest of R.O.T.O.R displays a magnificent lack of self-awareness by the makers. A never give up and never think things through attitude that is almost heroic and gives this film a well-deserved places in the crapola Hall of Fame.
Ed Wood seems to have a status as one of the worst, if not the worst film director of the 20th century. This reputation, established by snarky works such as the Medved Brothers Golden Turkey books, and maintained through the likes of Tim Burton's, admittedly well intentioned, film Ed Wood is, to my mind unfair, as a movie like Bride of the Monster ably demonstrates. While I am not suggesting Wood should be put on a pedestal with the likes of Kubrick or Kurosawa, nobody who produces work this entertaining and unhinged can possibly be called a failure.
Dr. Eric Vornoff (Bela Lugosi, in one of his final roles) is holed up in his secret lab with his mute sidekick, Lobo, trying to build an army of atomic supermen so that he can conquer the Earth. Unfortunately, thanks to his decision to use a giant pet octopus to guard the lab, he seems to be attracting the attention of the local police. It seems the creature is responsible for the deaths of some of the local townsfolk, news which also attracts both a determined reporter and a shadowy figure from Vornoff's past.
Now, granted, on a technical level, it is certainly possible to point out some flaws in Wood's approach to filmmaking. His shot compositions are often flat and uninspired, and he seems unwilling or unable to get anything like decent performances from his actors (or hire decent actors in the first place).
Instead, Wood's skills lie in his montage of ideas, and his relentless energy and enthusiasm. A lesser director might have buckled under the strain of a morphine-addicted star, a minuscule budget, a rancher turned film producer insisting his son take a major part, and a malfunctioning stolen mechanical prop - but not Edward D Wood Jr. Unfazed, he works like a chef, blending whatever ingredients are to hand. He has Bela Lugosi, so we can have a mad scientist character (he certainly makes a wise choice by giving as much screen time as he does to Lugosi, the film's biggest human asset). It's the 1950s, so he has the perfect subject matter, with everyone thinking about atomic power, and its consequences for humanity - such as giving people superpowers; and he has access to a giant rubber octopus - so that’s the creature for the feature sorted, even if it means that the people being attacked by it have to move the creature's limbs themselves.
In addition, a lesser writer might have made a boring script. So many 50s monster flicks are largely turgid affairs, but not Bride of the Monster. It zips through in just under 70 minutes, and constantly piles in with crazy plot twists and ripe dialogue. As mentioned, much of the talking is wisely left to Lugosi, who seems to relish the chance to get stuck into it, especially the big speech where wistfully he speaks of being “outlawed in a world … which previously honoured me as a genius”
Dialogue like this shows that, although entertaining in its own right, when placed in the wider context of the lives of Wood and Lugosi, Bride of the Monster becomes quite a poignant milestone. Lugosi finally managed to kick the morphine addiction that had plagued him for years, only to be killed by a heart attack shortly after the film was released. Wood would go on to make his best-known film, Plan 9 from Outer Space, but his reckless ways with money and booze would soon kill off his Hollywood hopes forever.
It would be a shame if people only watch his films in a sneering and ironic fashion, as, for me, the complete lack of sneering and irony in them is what makes his films so endearing. They are heart felt expressions of Wood's love of movies, monsters, and Bela Lugosi.
