Phase IV (1974)

DECEMBER 7, 2008

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REVIVAL SCREENING)

If you ask me, some movies just aren’t suited for midnight. While not a bad film, Phase IV just doesn’t work when you’re already a bit tired. I need something with a lot of action, or a lot of goofy moments, or something I’ve seen enough to be able to doze off for a few minutes without being “lost” when I wake up. Over The Top, for example, is the perfect midnight movie – it’s ridiculous, it has a really annoying kid to laugh at, and plenty of big rock songs and truck driving footage to keep you from heading off to sleepytown.

The obscure Phase IV, on the other hand, is a terrible choice for me. It’s a killer ant movie, but they are normal sized ants, which means no goofy effects. And there’s only like 3 people in the entire movie, so they don’t do a heck of a lot of killing until the final 10 minutes. And instead of rock songs, you get Brian Eno-y moody electronic stuff. Needless to say, I was “resting my eyes” a bit more than I liked (even my wife was dozing off, and she NEVER falls asleep at the movies), but I was able to catch up thanks to MST3k, as it was one of the movies featured on the very first season of the show, which aired on a Minnesota based public access channel.

But it’s not a bad movie. You gotta admire the idea of making an artsy movie about mankind’s perceived dominance and setting it during a Chosen Survivors style end of the world story. And adding killer ants. It’s very talky and slow, but it’s strangely alluring too, in the same way that The Keep and 2001 are. And damned if the ant footage (which is pretty goddamn incredible at times – the movie may work better as a documentary) doesn’t contain some excitement, like when an ant tries to bring poison to the queen (I guess if she eats it she will be immune, or something). He gets it to a certain point and then dies from the poison, so another ant comes along gets it a bit further before it dies as well. This continues until the ants get it to the queen. Awesome. Also, the ants somehow make some solar panels that bake the scientists inside their lab.

As you may not have cared, the movie stars Michael Murphy, who is rather Tom Jane-y here. He’s a guy I like to see in movies, but rarely actually do. Interestingly enough (to me anyway) he is given 2nd billing behind Nigel Davenport, despite the fact that he has way more screen time. Murphy would take his revenge 15 years later though, taking top billing in Shocker over (actual star) Peter Berg. He narrates a lot of the movie, and some of his stuff is baffling (the ending is woefully underexplained), but he’s a nice sane balance to Davenport’s rather batshit fellow scientist. I like the bit where he figures out a way to determine the anthills' (giant anthills!) weakness – he bounces every sound in the world at the structure, and only one is absorbed instead of bouncing back. Cool idea, even if a bit bullshit (I guarantee his sound database did not include the sound of me gargling mouth wash).

Most surprising about the movie is that it was directed by Saul Bass, who is best known for creating kick ass title sequences (this was his only feature length directorial gig). Even more surprising, the movie doesn’t even HAVE opening credits, and the ones at the end are rather minimal. Speaking of credits – when the hell does Phase III start in the movie? I missed it both times.

So if you can catch it on cable or whatever, by all means check it out. It’s a nice little curio. But at midnight? Absolutely not. Call me when they are showing Road House.

(Road House will show on February 28th)

What say you?

Phase IV (1974)

By: Abdallh Gamal on: 8:34 AM

Chosen Survivors (1974)

JUNE 3, 2008

GENRE: PREDATOR, POST-APOCALYPTIC
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

Like, well, not many of the films I watch ("many" would be like, 250 at this point), Chosen Survivors is a film I never heard of until I saw a trailer for it at the New Beverly (which film it was attached to I can no longer recall, sadly). It didn’t look particularly good, but it did promise killer bats and cheesy 70s disaster movie scenarios. I figure, if nothing else, maybe there’s a joke from Airplane! that would make more sense after I saw it.

Nope.

It’s not a terrible movie by any stretch, but it’s painfully dated (again: THIS is the type of movie that should be getting remade) and jarringly paced. I wasn’t expecting nonstop killer bat action, but after a good 20 minute chunk in which the bats are pretty much the major focal point of the film, they all but completely disappear for another half hour or so, only to once again become the main antagonist again for the final act. In between these sequences is like something out of another movie, in which our eponymous characters try to cope with their situation, pair off in order to breed, etc. One film or the other would be fine, but they are combined so clumsily they end up canceling one another out; at no point do the two plotlines feel intertwined.

Essentially, it’s like a lost Michael Crichton adaptation. We have our group of experts in various fields stuck together in a situation that requires them to work together to fight off a common threat. You know, like Jurassic Park. Or Congo. Or Sphere. Or Timeline. Or Prey. Or...

One thing I never expected this film to have in common with yesterday’s was something that reminded me of Tourist Trap. Early on, as the elevator taking the characters down to their new home begins to crash, they all flail about in slow motion. However, the AUDIO is quite obviously recorded at the correct speed, with the actors just trying to SOUND slow. Thus, they just utter some hilarious “aaahhhh”s and “ohhhhh”s, sounds that remind me of my favorite Trap scene (where all the mannequins “scream” before falling on the girl). It’s the best part of the movie by far, but sadly, nothing else is as hilariously inept.

One thing that certainly isn’t funny is a would-be rape scene halfway through. Jackie Cooper (Perry!) suddenly attacks one of the female survivors and forces her to the ground. He keeps pressing on and yelling “I won’t hurt you!” and such, and then finally she says “All right!” and returns his kiss. Uh... no. In a straight up exploitation film this might be perversely hilarious, but in the middle of a melodramatic thriller it’s just awkward and wrong. Then again, for all I know there were more things of this nature; according to the IMDb, the film once ran 130 minutes, but all existing copies run only 99 (and thank god, even at that it gets pretty dull – another 31 minutes would be borderline torture).

The bat effects are actually pretty good. They obviously use real bats as often as possible, and there’s a scene where a few of them crawl (yes, crawl) around on one of the girls’ bed and attack her that’s actually pretty damn great. And the film’s most promoted setpiece, where one of the guys climbs up the elevator shaft to try to reach an emergency button (good place for it), is also pretty thrilling, and again, the effects are reasonably believable. Only in the final bat attack did the effects budget clearly run out, with bad projection and an odd blue outline around all of the characters being attacked. Oh well, can’t have it all.

On a two pack with the superior (and shorter, woo!) The Earth Dies Screaming, this is a pretty good deal for under 10 bucks. No extras, but in the age of Roland Emmerich, it’s sort of refreshing to see post-apoc movies with actual ideas, not effects.

What say you?

Chosen Survivors (1974)

By: Abdallh Gamal on: 5:06 PM

The Earth Dies Screaming (1965)

MAY 31, 2008

GENRE: POST-APOCALYPTIC, ZOMBIE
SOURCE: DVD (ONLINE RENTAL)

George Romero has frequently listed Carnival of Souls as a source of inspiration for Night Of The Living Dead, but I don't think The Earth Dies Screaming has ever been name-checked. Which is surprising, because it is even more similar than Carnival, in my opinion. Both feature a group of folks holed up in a single location (a hotel), our hero is hated by another, balder survivor, and everyone's dead EXCEPT our heroes, not the other way around.

It's a pretty good movie to boot, despite an abrupt ending. The movie is only 62 minutes long, and with only 7 to go they haven't really begun fighting back or making any real plans to escape their predicament. But then, all of a sudden, the hero begins rambling about finding a radio transmission by doing some simple triangulation (which he does wrong), they drive over to the radio tower, blow it up, and the movie's over. Did they have it in their contract that the movie could only be 62 minutes long?

As for the zombies, they are also rather short-changed. Our villains, robotic men that may be from our own government (our being the British - the American government would NEVER do something so shady!) occasionally ray-gun someone, and they come back as staggering, mindless drones with giant contact lenses to white out their eyes. They don't eat anyone (dammit) but they are, for all intents and purposes, zombies. But their cumulative screentime is brief, even relative to the film's already-brief length. Speaking of the robots, the best moment in the film comes when this is discovered by our heroes. They kill one and see all the robot shit inside its corpse. "A robot!", the hero exclaims, "That makes sense!" He's not being sarcastic.

The opening scene is fantastic. We see the immediate results of the virus that has killed everyone. A guy driving a car dies and the car instantly beelines for a brick wall, a train conductor dies and the train smashes off the rails; a pilot dies and the plane suffers a low-budget plane crash (it goes behind some trees and then we see some smoke); etc. But just when you think that perhaps the virus is limited to killing only folks who are operating transportation vehicles, a few Brits in traditional bowler hats suddenly drop dead for good measure. If they chose to pad out the running time by just displaying an endless succession of folks dropping dead, I would fully endorse the decision.

I also like that the movie always has corpses lying around in the background. So many post-apocalyptic movies are lacking in this department; everyone's dead, but they are nowhere to be seen. It's one thing when it's a full on zombie film, but otherwise it's always been an issue of mine. Blame my morbid sense of humor added to my love of background extras (an organization for which my 'membership' has recently run out - if Navy NCIs ever needs the return of my dockworker character, they will have to recast).

Incidentally, the only reason I rented this film was because it came along with a movie I actually wanted titled Chosen Survivors. I thought the film was a horror movie, but I checked the IMDb before I sat down to watch it and it is listed as Action/Adventure/Sci-Fi or something. The trailer made me think it was horror, so I will have to watch it and decide whether it qualifies on a day that I have time to watch something else if not. If any of you fine folks have seen it - do you think it counts as horror? Supposedly killer bats are in there but I don't know if they are the focus or just the subject of a single sequence.

What say you?

The Earth Dies Screaming (1965)

By: Abdallh Gamal on: 8:41 PM

Doomsday (2008)

MARCH 15, 2008

GENRE: CANNIBAL, POST-APOCALYPTIC
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

The first time I ever got a letter printed in Fangoria was a big deal to me, and the fact that it was about my idol, John Carpenter, made it all the more special. In particular, the letter concerned Escape From LA, which was just released at the time. In the letter, I bemoaned how the film was identical to the first film in just about every way possible, yet it was STILL a fun movie (and remains Carpenter's last worthwhile film). Well, now it's 12 years later, and I could be writing the exact same letter for Neil Marshall's Doomsday.

Like LA, Doomsday is, for all intents and purposes, a remake of Escape From New York. A tough as nails anti-hero (who has a missing eye) is sent into a walled off city in order to locate someone, and is met with heavy resistance from the assorted survivors living inside. The character also has to fight in a gladiator deathmatch, repeatedly ask for cigarettes, and use a recording in order to bring down a high ranking official who is using less than admirable tactics to promote his career. Hell, Marshall even restages the "this is how the wall works" computer image sequence from Carpenter's film, followed by a shot of a guy walking up to and then looking over said wall. And even the fucking FONT is the same!!!

Luckily, Marshall isn't limited to "homaging" just Carpenter. Along the way, we are treated to chunks of Road Warrior, Aliens, Apocalypto (...wow), 28 Days Later, and I swear to Christ, a bit of Monty Python and the Holy Grail. If there is a single scene in this movie that wasn't done in another film, I didn't catch it.

And yet, I wholeheartedly recommend it. It's fun as hell. If Carpenter can remake NY as a sequel, why can't Marshall remake it as an homage, along with a few of his other favorite movies? If NY is a bag of Doritos, Road Warrior is a bag of Cheet-Os, and Aliens is a bag of pretzels, then Doomsday is a bag of Munchies, offering equally delicious samples of all the items while not really being its own thing. And, I might add, that is the worst metaphor available on the internet.

Some might not consider it horror, but I think it qualifies (certainly moreso than the other Post-Apoc movies I've watched recently). The first few good guys that are killed are done so in a very horror-ish manner (axe to the head, throat slit, arrow to the throat...). This is a very gory movie, with guys getting run over, beheaded, etc. in every action scene (and there are a lot of those).

Another plus - as great as Kurt Russell is, there's just something more visually appealing in Rhona Mitra. She's ripping off Beckinsale from Underworld as much as she can, but it fits the rest of the film. The rest of the acting is fine, with Sean Pertwee in a small role and Bob Hoskins as Mitra's father figure as two highlights. Malcolm McDowell, in his second Carpenter remake in a row, narrates the backstory/exposition in the first 10 minutes of the film (if it was in text form it would be longer than the one in Alone In The Dark - I am not joking), but his actual character doesn't show up until the 3rd act, and he's sort of useless. Perhaps it was edited, but his character isn't even given a closure, which is kind of odd when the first hour of the film is all about finding him.

I would also like to point out Tyler Bates' top notch score. It's like a Carpenter score crossed with Bruckheimer-ish bombast, and I loved every minute of it. I hope it's released on CD. I also highly recommend seeing the film in a well designed theater with quality digital sound - the sound mix as a whole is the best I've heard all year. Let's hope Universal figures out how to make Blu-Ray DVDs by the time this hits home video (which sadly won't be too long, judging from the film's dismal performance this weekend).

However, fun is just that: fun. It's still a bit of a disappointment from Marshall, since his previous two films are among the best in their respective sub-genres. Hopefully this was just him having a bit of fun as well, and his next film lives up to his potential. Anyone can copy/paste great scenes/plot elements and make a fun movie out of it, but Marshall has shown he can do a LOT more.

What say you?

Doomsday (2008)

By: Abdallh Gamal on: 6:01 PM