Gargoyles (1972)

This might not be an unbiased review, because Gargoyles stars none other than Cornel Wilde, of whom I am a big admirer. A made for TV movie, I was expecting Gargoyles to be a little hokey; and, yes, it is a little hokey. The film begins with a slideshow of gargoyles and demons accompanied by a voice-over explaining that gargoyles are a species that fights with humans for dominance of earth every so often. How they became gutter spouts is a tidbit lost to history, I guess.

Then we skip to the plot. Cornel Wilde plays a pretty interesting character, as the first 5-10 minutes makes clear to us. He's an academic whose research is into mythology, legends, occult, demonology--but all strictly as a non-believer. It's just a dry, academic subject to him. The plot sort of develops out of this. He's going to write a new best-seller on these subjects (these were the days of Eric von Daniken, after all) and wants to check out a story the story of an old curiosity shoppe owner out in the desert. So he takes his lovely daughter (Jennifer Salt, of Brian DePalma's Sisters) and heads out, where the creepy old man shows him the bones of a supposed devil.

This is where things get weird. You expect a lot of build-up before the gargoyles start making appearances. Not so. They show up in the desert and start trashing that old man's curiosity shoppe. This kind of caught me by surprise. This isn't a normal horror film I'm dealing with here, I'm thinking. And I thought right. In fact, after a few more not-really-scary encounters with the gargoyles, we get into a plot about gargoyles struggling to dominate humans and needing human education to do so while Wilde, the police force, and some bikers try to destroy them.

So it suddenly becomes a sort of fantasy epic with horror elements, namely, that the gargoyles have no qualms about savagely killing humans. Oh yeah, and the lead gargoyle tries to put the moves on Jennifer Salt. And she's all like, "Come on, I'm not even sure I'd date a black guy; I'm not ready for gargoyle love."

And that's the gist of it. The gargoyles are clearly guys in suits, but I actually like the costumes. The suits have a nice, skin-like texture that looks plausible enough. The masks are a bit more difficult to accept, but the film does what it can and I felt the film was fun enough to make me want to go along with it.

There are also some moments of unintentional humour, as one might expect in a made-for-tv fantasy horror epic about gargoyles. One of my favourites is when the old curiosity shoppe owner falls down and catches on fire, for no reason Cornel Wilde just declares, "He's dead," grabs the gargoyle skull and runs out of the building leaving the old man to burn. Another favourite is when the gargoyles come to reclaim the body of a fallen comrade and find Wilde and his daughter have slipped out of the window in a matter of seconds carrying a gargoyle body that, it would seem, suddenly weighs no more than a small bag of cat food. Incidentally, there are moments of intentional humour as well.

Gargoyles makes a good effort at entertaining and it succeeds. It is a bit awkwardly structured and doesn't seem 100% certain of what kind of movie it wants to be, but I found myself thoroughly charmed. Old fashioned goofy fun. Check it out.

Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary (1975)

In between his two most famous films, Mansion of Madness and Alucarda, Moctezuma directed Mary, Mary, Bloody Mary. From the title, one might imagine a Hammer film about the Bloody Mary legend. Not even close. In fact, it might as well be called Mexico's answer to Cronenberg, baring, as it does, many similarities to Rabid. It shares some characteristics with Romero's Martin as well.

The plot concerns an attractive female painter who is overcome with the urge to drink blood. She becomes ill, her body cold, until she drinks. So, with her trusty bladed hairpin, she punctures jugulars and drinks. She meets up with an attractive young man by chance and seem to be living happily together until detectives and a mysterious, masked blood-drinker begin closing in on her.

Elements of sci-fi and mysticism are thrown in and not made much of. For instance, we find out that Mary's problem is that her veins keep growing and will eventually start crushing her brain. Nothing's made of this rather fascinating bit of information. In another scene, Mary waxes poetic over an Aztec goddess and her significance. Again, not much comes out of this, but I suppose the connection is there and some vaguely feminist theme is going on.

Yes, I do think there are themes in this film. It is clever, well-developed, with a decent and powerful ending. It isn't the equal of Cronenberg, but it isn't far off. It is a good movie.

However, my experience of watching the movie was not always enjoyable. I can't say why, but the film infuriated me. I hated most of the characters, everything they did and all the words that poured from their slimy mouths. Every time Mary screamed "Bob" I hoped the masked man would kill her. They are just a frustrating lot of characters. It's possible I wasn't quite in the mood for the film; but then, were the characters genuinely likable they would have won me over.

Mark of Cain (1985)

Apparently based off a play, the film takes place in mostly one setting: an old house. In this house identical twin brothers were raised by a fanatically religious family. One brother turned out a lunatic who thinks he's pure evil; the other brother is a normal guy with a normal wife. Normal brother wants to sell the old house because he lost his job and needs money; lunatic brother breaks out of the mental hospital for trying to sell his house.

The film is shot with some film school pretension. I really don't know who Bruce Pittman is, but he has an abtract style that runs wild early in the film. I like this. I think there are some visually fascinating moments. An unintentially funny moment of this sort is the first 15 minutes in the house, where several dramatic moments occur making you think, just maybe, something horrible is going to happen. It reminds one (or me, anyway) of the Sandwich Nightmare sketch from Kids in the Hall.

The writing is actually sufficiently interesting to make one wonder what's going on with this lunatic twin. What drove him mad? Is the other twin possibly mad? What significance does that have? Well, they never explore this. In fact, just in case you were wondering, "When are they going to explore this?" they have a very dull moment where the psychiatrist character is plainly asked about the very subject, to which he, as a surrogate for the screenwriter, says "I don't know."

And that's the answer you get, because the end of the film turns into a series of typical suspense moments that you've seen many a time before. Including, of course, SCDs. What are SCDs you ask? Stupid Character Decisions.

Warning Sign (1985)

What we have here is an unofficial remake of The Crazies. You could also call it a rip-off. Rip-off is a term with certain negative connotations, however; Warning Sign is not a bad film at all. It lacks the cynical bite, the aggression and sprawling vision Romero brings to things, but it is also scarier and with significantly more engaging heroes.

Anyway, the gist of the plot is this: a biotech company, under the guise of working on genetically engineering crops, is in fact a biotech weapons base designed to give the Russians a run for their money. An excellent, very tense opening gives us an almost purely visual account of a biotoxin's outbreak in the facility. The sole member of the security team (mmm, Kathleen Quinlan) follows protocol and locks the place down. A somewhat inept team from the Department of Defense comes in, the local hicks start to get angry and eventually violent, and inside the facility Quinlan must defend herself from an infection that makes its victims into very angry, very violent people.

The characters the film gives us to personalize the tragedy are Quinlan and her husband sheriff on the outside, Sam Waterston. Sheriff enlists a scientist who used to work on an antitoxin in the facility and the three of them try to solve the problem the inept military can't. These characters are all very likable, particularly the scientist, making their plight more engaging than what Romero manages in The Crazies.

The goings-on within the facility are actually very suspenseful. There are enough signs that these people are going to go all George Romero's The Crazies on you, but the film takes its time getting to that. Once it does, it is appropriately jarring. The first kill is done with brutality.

Once one comes to the end, a great deal of suspension of disbelief is required on the part of the viewer. The film had earned my faith enough by this point that I let it go and just enjoyed the film for what it is; but it gets sloppy. An elevator that was jammed to the monsters becomes unjammed just the moment the heroes need it. The scientist figures out an antidote and Quinlan and Waterston, in a ravaged laboratory, manage to find all the ingredients within minutes and prepare it. I've seen episodes of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles that were more plausible.

The film is still fascinating on some grounds. Yaphet Kotto's character, who leads the military side of things, is, as in Romero's film, competant, but at the same time gives the impression that these protocols he's following have really only been theoretical up until this point; that he's not entirely sure what he's doing, though he's charged with making it work. This ambiguity is a tribute to Kotto's acting. The character is mostly left behind once the scary climax has to get going.

Also interesting is how the film begins by playing off bio-engineering fears of the time. As it turns out, the engineering of crops is protrayed in a positive light, as the hero scientist engineers crops as a hobby. Long live Norman Borlaug, I guess.

There's a final attempt to humanize the events, to give a nod to those who died (killed by the heroes, mostly) before the antitoxin was discovered that deserves some praise. It could have been glossed over without much notice.

And that's probably more than anybody has ever written about Warning Sign. So there you go.

10 Czech Fantastique Films You Must See

The Cat Who Wore Sunglasses - A charming, innocent fantasy film about a small town, particularly the elementary school of the town, that is disrupted by the appearance of a traveling circus and a cat wearing sunglasses. When the cat's sunglasses are removed, everyone's true colours are revealed (literally); moreover, everyone ends up in a ballet-like trance. Consequently, some of the towns morally dubious folks conspire to do the cat in.

Mysterious Castle in the Carpathians - An adaptation of a Jules Verne novel, it begins with hints it might be a ghost story, but it quickly transpires that it is an over-the-top comic (in the Mel Brooks fashion) mad scientist film. An opera singer has tracked his kidnapped bride to a castle in the Carpathian mountains--a MYSTERIOUS castle. This castle is owned by an insane technological genius who uses his various contraptions to thwart the opera singer.

Valerie and Her Week of Wonders - Whenever someone asks about the greatest vampire movies ever made, the more pretentious lot on the board (like me) will mention Valerie. A young girl begins menstruating. At just that time, a procession of friars comes into town. In the lead is the Constable, a Nosferatu-style vampire in black cloak and carrying a distinctive handfan. The Constable is trying to get Valerie's magic earing by seducing her grandmother. Meanwhile a lot of strange *beep* happens.

Who Wants to Kill Jessie? - An engineer trying to solve a lifting problem at his factory gleans inspiration from a comic book he finds involving superheroine Jessie and her antigravity glove. Meanwhile his genius (but shrewish) wife has invented a machine that can read dreams; only it malfunctions and turns dreams into reality. Just so happens, the engineer has been dreaming of Jessie, her antigravity glove, and the supervillains who want it. All come pouring into the real world, complete with speech bubbles.

The Cremator - An eccentric crematorium operator, under the pressures of concerns for physical and spiritual purity, turns to the Nazi side in German-occupied Prague. Known for its abstract and psychologically deep approach to horror, it's also a black-as-night comedy.

The Vampire of Ferat - From the same filmmaker who brought you The Cremator, the Vampire of Ferat concerns a futuristic car that runs on HUMAN BLOOD! A doctor and a vampire hunter team up to investigate.

Svankmajer's Faust - Ostensibly a telling of Goethe's Faust, it's really quite different. A man receives a mysterious message (from a huge egg, if I recall) leading him to a theater where puppets perform. Here he's made one of the puppets temporarily and is participating in a performance of Faust. Behind stage more Faustian goings-on are occurring, as well as some surrealistic shenanigans that I won't even try to explain.

A Case for a Young Hangman - Part Alice in Wonderland, part Kafka, part Gulliver's Travels, the film is about a man, Gulliver, searching for his lost love in the land of Balnibard. Balnibard is a surreal, nightmarish world, in which Gulliver finds goals frustrated.

The End of August at the Hotel Ozone - Yay! It's a post-apocalyptic sci-fi and Amazon warrior movie all in one. After a nuclear war, a band of women rove the land and commit some acts of animal cruelty. Eventually they come across an old man. Do they want to be impregnated or have they lost all concern for life?

The Damned House of Hajn - An odd psychodrama wrapped in an old dark house film with surrealistic touches, Damned House concerns a young married couple travel to her family house and he discovers how odd they are, particularly her invisible and horny Uncle Cyril.

Most of these films are available with English subtitles.