All Through the Night - 1942

 Something in New Zealand made me think about Humphrey Bogart and I mentioned him to my family and it turns out they’re all fans also! We traded favorites and least favorites and it put me in the mood to watch some of his films again.

All Though the Night is described on the back as a proto film noir, and also as a loose satire of the type of films that it itself is. Those would be detective adjacent, mob adjacent films, noir adjacent character stories involving edgy characters, and situations that build to a climactic finish.

Bogart plays a man named Gloves who is a regular at a restaurant where he gets cheesecake every day. One day, the man that makes his cheesecakes is killed, and that brings Bogart into a bizarre situation of exploitation and Nazi presence in his little town. Gloves will have to use his cunning and his connections to solve the case.

The back of the movie box over sold the satire a little bit as well as the meta aspect a little bit. I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up, but they truly made it sound like a romp and it wasn’t really. At an hour and 45 minutes it’s perhaps 30 minutes a little long, This movie made me miss some of the quick A to B old films that I normally like. 

This isn’t that bad and it certainly is unique among the types of things that was coming out. Maybe they should just rewrite the back of the box. I’ll give it four stars although I do think it’s a little bit too long no matter what.

Tombs of the Blind Dead - 1972

 Also known as. The Night of the Blind Terror and.. Revenge from Planet Ape???  This was apparently trying to cash in on the Planet of the Apes success and it sent me down a research hole trying to find if other movies did that and I couldn't find it and gave up.

The first of this foursome I've always wanted to see prompted a thought in my head.  Could be that one of the reasons these movies remain is that they established a new "type" when it came to zombies.  These are specifically undead templars, who ride horses and wear their cloaks and use swords.  They are specifically blind too, and this puts them in a strange realm between mummy and the skeleton warriors from some of the Ray Harryhausen Sinbad type movies.

Now, I loved Harryhausen as a kid and I love it now, even if these movies are not claymation, the movement and the style is probably directly in homage to those skeletons, and its like someone saw those movies and saw those skeletons and said "lets make a movie just based on these guys."  Lets!

A long preamble has a budding lesbian relationship end when one of the women jumps off a train, escapes to a church way out in the middle of nowhere, and gets killed by the templars who raise from the grave.  The group of friends she had go searching for her and get stalked by the templars themselves.

Again, the atmosphere of this thing is incredible.  This has long scenes of slowly moving skeletal creatures with chanting songs and strange slowed down eeriness and its used often, but does not get old because FUCK does it work!  It kicks ass, every moment you're watching that you're just in and there's no where else you'd rather be, nothing else you'd rather be watching.

Its a good intro to a series which I know gets better, so I'll give this one a 4.

Island of the Fishmen - 1979

 Also known as Island of Mutations, Something Waits in the Dark, and Screamers.

What is this, a Zombie movie?  With these alternative names?  Apparently this movie was slightly edited and shipped around to several different countries, with alternate names, and none of the versions were very successful.  Maybe the apt name should've been something like Lipstick on a Pig.

Fishmen stars Barbara Bach from James Bond, and in one of the versions it had a clunky sounding scene with Cameron Mitchell and Miguel Ferrer edited into the beginning.  I don't remember if my version had that, honestly.  I can't be bothered to check, either.  Okay I did check and yes I watched the US version that had these two in the beginning.

From the director of Torso comes this almost Lovecraft feeling story of a lost isle that has fish human hybrids on it, ala Dagon.  Barbara Bach and some others land there and its shadowy, inept chaos from there on in.

Shot with a negative lighting budget, the real question you'll be asking yourself is what is going on.  Now, this is not the worst thing I've seen by far but yeah its just another example of a truly amateur low budget schlockfest.  No nudity and no real violence either, its another one of these as well where I ask, could this be rated like PG?

Its fun low brow trash, I give it 2.5 stars.

The Demon - 1979

 This movie has more years on its title than almost any I've seen.  1979, 1980 1981, and 1985 are all seemingly valid.  Also known as Midnight Caller.

A evil shadowy figure haunts peoples dreams with claws on his hand...what is this?  A Nightmare on Elm Street?  No, its the other dream-haunting claw hand guy, The Demon.  Cameron Mitchell is this movie's John Saxon, the elder statesman brought in to fight the demonic entity.  He'll protect the leagues of topless women that The Demon is after in this strange flick from South Africa.

Shadow Killer or Shadow Demon could easily have been the title cause holy crap is this movie dark in color.  Shadows fill frames and the killer or main character or anyone are all bathing in darkness in this movie.  The Demon especially, who by the way goes completely unexplained, is only seen somewhat in the light at the end, also wearing a mask.  Not complaining, keep the horror movies dark is my middle name, just sayin'.

A bit slower than its 1984 cousin, this movie is certainly a bit more interminable and plodding.  We don't really have lore or explanation here, which also makes it feel that way.  So I can't really land on good or bad, it was certainly fun though, so I give it 3 stars.

Wake in Fright - 1971

 As soon as I started watching Australian movies, I knew that I would need to rewatch this one, a movie I’ve meant to rewatch for years now and that I finally now got around too.

It’s not just that it stars Donald Pleasense and it’s also not just that it’s a defragmenting story and study of masculinity, it’s also a very interesting dark film that has a lot more themes on a second viewing. There’s a lot I forgot about this and there’s a lot that I love about this movie, a movie that I saw referred to online as the best film ever made in Australia.

Straightlaced school teacher John Grant gets into gambling in a drunken night and loses all his money. His only friendships are a bunch of backwoods kangaroo hunters in this beer soaked sweat soaked underbelly of society study about masculinity in general. 

The strange hazing rituals, the homoerotic parts of masculinity, the ways in which we measure ourselves and each other, the embracing of the old and the new, the mixture of intellectual versus redneck, and certainly the need and want to fit in all are illustrated perfectly in a relatively light on dialogue film. 

Perhaps the only movie to have Donald Pleasense as a sex symbol, he has a bizarre, charismatic appeal, despite never really knowing what he’s talking about.  Thel other characters all sort of float around in a mysterious haze of potential threat or best friend. It is an odd feeling for this movie and one that makes you not really understand what’s happening with the main character or with anyone else, but not in a way which bothers you. Rather in a way that makes you have a certain amount of acceptance - Not necessarily resignation just acceptance. 

Films in general can allow for us as the audience to put ourselves in the shoes of a character, and I think that this is something that is only helped by ambiguity and minimalistic dialogue. I think in a certain way it’s the quietness of older films that helps us attach ourselves to them, it is their mysticism and their innate ambiguity that makes us pair ourselves to the happenings of the film. In that way, this movie feels extremely identifiable without having any amount of things in it that anyone can actually relate to. But feeling like an outsider, feeling social pressure, feeling mixed sexual desires, and feeling lost as major themes, anyone can attach themselves to in this. 

The feeling of this film is the feeling of a moment, those weird ones that you can’t really explain that stick with you despite the fact that nothing happened in them. Things do happen in this film and there are things that would stick with anyone but the same time their meaning and their interpretation is completely up for grabs. In that way it’s a masterpiece of strange evocative motion while being a little thin on explanation and plot, it’s certainly a great vibe film. 5 vibe stars. 

Harlequin - 1980

 Also known as Dark Forces. 

 Dude, never say you’ve seen it all. This is not some strange horror movie about a wizard like the poster shows, but rather a story based on Rasputin? I might have to read more about Rasputin. 

There is a dying child who has a clown come to his birthday party, where they form a connection. The clown turns out to be Gregory Wolfe, a mysterious self proclaimed harlequin, master of illusion and hypnosis. He cures the child and instantly comes under the scrutiny of the family, which includes rich powerful Senator Rast. Not believing in magic, they try to figure out Wolfe’s deal as he grows closer to the child and the family. 

This movie was one of the stranger ones I’ve seen. I’ve seen a bit. It’s just very unlike anything else, and it’s all done very well. The actors are all selling it and the effects are great. The thing also moves at a great pace and while there are times for the dramatic family stuff to be explored it doesn’t feel like we overstay our welcome with a lot of that kinda stuff. 

It all builds to a place where 30, 20 minutes from the end I still don’t know what’s real and what to expect and if you can do that, well you have done a lot is all I’m saying. 

Directed by Simon Wincer who also did Snapshot, these are two excellent and well made, well paced films. I give this a 4.5

Snapshot - 1979

 Another Aus new wave, which I’m going to stay in for a little while now after finishing Zombie. 

I’m going through the filmography of Hugh Keays Byrne, I won’t watch them all but I’ll watch the weird ones or horror or basically what I can find for free online. Such as this strange exploration flick. 

This movie feels either way earlier 70s or possibly even late 60s. 79 seems a little late to be doing a “seedy world being uncovered by a naive young girl” type thing. I’m not slamming this, just yeah. 1979? There’s also a disco like club scene in here. Again, 1979?

Angela is an innocent 20 year old working at a salon dreaming of bigger and brighter when an older, attitude-throwing woman comes in and offers her a job. $1000 for half a day of what ends up being topless modeling. She does the job and soon it sends her entire world is turned upside down and someone is after her. 

Whether it be the lesbian seductress, the weird off kilter ex boyfriend, or the powerful mysterious producers she’s now involved with, it’s a light mystery romp with not too much fat or meat on it’s bones. It’s quick and easy and nothing is really delved into all that much. It’s just simple A to B sorta a thing that won’t leave a sour taste in your mouth or leave you with much at all, for better or worse. 

Good music and tight direction helps, topless scenes hello but there could’ve been more. I dunno man, it’s an example of slightly better than “it’s fine”. It’s a “it’s good” but without a ton of supporting citations. I give it a 3.5

Lorca and the Outlaws - 1984

 I’ve reviewed a few Italian ripoffs of Star Wars. They’re moderately well known, as far as these things go. Turkish Star Wars is even in there, cemented as a strange cash in. So what about Australia?

Also known as Starship. 

This is an incredibly strange blender of the things from Star Wars again put through a nonsense filter and taking certain lessons “right” and others “wrong”. It occurred to me while I watched it, how many people grew up with this and liked it?  Star Wars is also nonsense. The plot is linear and it’s a simple heroes journey which is why it works but it doesn’t explain jack shit either as far as anything else goes. 

So Lorca and the Outlaws is a the same thing slightly as things like these. This time it’s an executive order asking all androids to take over the work being done on the ship or whatever and to eliminate all humans. Main character Lorca teams up with a kid robot to fight the baddies and to lead a revolution. 

There’s also a random Peter Gabriel musical portion?! San Jacinto plays with a dude lip synching to it…why?! What is this?!

I watched this because I’m in New Zealand and wanted to watch things relevant, related, nearby or whatever. This was a fairly unknown sci fi movie that I watched online seemingly taped off TV. I think for this type of thing this is pretty cool, except my god is it hard to follow. Just like the Italian ones it’s more you’re watching “stuff happen” versus a real plot or a movie. It gets kinda tiring and dense, borderline impenetrable at times. Luckily this one is a bit easier to watch but still a challenge. 

It’s a strange and uneven movie, but it looks great and it can certainly be engaging.  3 stars

Pulgasari - 1985

 Also known as (supposedly in Pakistan) Zombi 34: Communist Bull Monster.

We’ve seen poster and even tagline is better than the movie stories, how about lore is better than the movie? This movie isn’t bad, it’s gonna get like a 3.5 or so, but how can one beat this lore??!

Apparently North Korea wanted a few movies and didn’t have a strong cinematic culture. So why not steal from the South? They kidnapped a South Korean director and had him make them a few movies including this one. He later escaped during a film festival somewhere, but what?! Crazy!

Pulgasari is a Korean legend, and this reminds me a lot of the Daimajin films. Specifically these are all films that take place feudal times and revolve more around the monster as a blessing and a curse. 

The soul of a blacksmith gets roused to protect his daughter from a warlord in this North Korean epic. When she is in pain, Pulgasari gets raised first as an inch tall creature and will eat iron to grow larger and larger until it is Godzilla size and the warlord is trying to stop it. First with fire, then with a stone trap and then with cannons, nothing seems to work to stop the monster.

Featuring a great costume and fun effects, this is a kaiju film that also embraces some of the silliness of the Godzilla series around this time. There are segments that remind me of Son of Godzilla and there are segments that harken back to classic Godzilla films. I’m a little bit surprised that this is such a hit because it is very similar to most of the fare around this time, but I suppose that it was popular enough that there was room for one more.

I don’t believe honestly that this was ever truly released with the Zombie title. Maybe it was they just didn’t know what to call this… But whatever it doesn’t matter. I hadn’t seen this since high school, and it was fun to revisit so I’ll give it a 3.5.

Revenge in the House of Usher - 1983

 Also know as Neurosis, The Fall of the House of Usher, and Zombie 5. 

I’m going to watch Pulgasari again and then I’m done. Usher was a story by Edgar Allen Poe which I haven’t read, and this is maybe that or maybe inspired by that or maybe nothing at all. 

What it is, you have an old man recounting his abductions and killings of young women to a blood hungry creature. He has a glass eyed Igor like assistant and that looks fun, modern era in color and flashbacks in black and white. 

I’ll say there’s some atmosphere to this and some of the flashbacks and such are interesting? But holy fuuuck does this feel long. It just sits there and it absolutely doesn’t pull you in. Once it stops being a flashback to I’d be hard pressed to tell you what happened in the rest of the movie, because it’s not clear. 

No nudity or gore, was this thing rated G? It’s also unintentional but these are getting less “Zombie” with each one I watch and spoiler alert the next one is the least Zombie of them all. Weird. This is a 1.5 zone snooze fest. 

The Cars That Ate Paris - 1974

 Reportedly a large inspiration for Mad Max, and I can see it, this is another strange down under apocalypse(?) movie. 

The similarities are many. Both films are about strange societies and the laws and rules they have, and are NOT POST apocalypse!! It’s more like society is in a place of moral and economic decay, strange things happen that are out of the control of the main character, and shit goes sideways from there. 

Arthur is a bad driver. He is vacationing with a towed trailer and goes off the road for some inexplicable reason and crashes. He ends up in Paris Australia where he discloses he also hit and killed(?) a old man driving once. The mayor or whatever, some guy, basically adopts him. Meanwhile, creepy cars are getting closer and closer to the city, crashing and acting all dangerous in what is likely more a metaphor for mental disease than a real threat. 

The movie should be looked at that way because, I’m not trying to slam it here, but if you look at it as a real narrative it doesn’t make sense. Characters and circumstances and events are never explained.  They seem to want the cars to be alive yet they do admit and confront the people driving the cars. The what is happening of it all doesn’t have explanation,  the old dude that adopts a grown man is never explained.

However if you look at it as a man with repeated trauma enters a period of rehab or a sort of  experimental therapy, confront his fear and overcomes it, the film makes sense.  Again I do enjoy this I just think it’s interesting that this and Mad Max get looked at as films where that certainly was not the original thing. Max was a police officer, society was fractured but intact.  You’re telling me police exist in a world with a bullet farm and Immortan Joe?

Cars here is a really strange and slightly inexplicable film that is slightly long and tedious with a few absolutely thrilling sequences.  I give it a 2.5

Oh and I’m traveling in New Zealand for a month  entries will be minimal.