Starcrash (1978)

aka The Adventures of Stella Star

Intergalactic smuggler Stella Star (Caroline Munro) and her weird-ass partner Akton (Marjoe Gortner) have been giving the forces of Law and Order quite the run for their money. Finally caught and sentenced to a quintillion years of hard labour, Stella stages a daring escape which is rudely interrupted by a plea for help from the Emperor of the First Circle of the Galaxy (Christopher Plummer) – whatever that is - himself. Apparently, the evil Count Zarth Arn (Joe Spinell) - not Sa Tan, alright - has developed a planet sized secret weapon of horrifying destructive power.

All attempts at actually locating the planet where this weapon is hidden have come up empty and even resulted in the disappearance of the Emperor’s only son Simon (David Hasselhoff) while looking for it. Stella’s superior piloting and Akton’s excellent navigational skills are the only hope left to the forces of good. They are to be supported by one Chief Thor (Robert Tessier) and the law robot who caught them, one Elle (the voice of the fittingly named Howard Camp in the body of Judd Hamilton). Obviously, the bad guys aren’t going to make things easy for them.

Fortunately, Stella has more luck than a Corellian smuggler, and Akton gets a new superpower whenever the plot needs it.

Among the various attempts at ripping off Star Wars on the cheap, this US-Italian co-production directed by the great Luigi Cozzi is one of the most entertaining. Nobody’d ever confuse it with one of those boring “good” films, but it certainly is a great one, a triumph of crass commercialism somehow turning into a feast of childish/child-like imagination, barely suppressed horniness and a love for the joys of pulp science fiction.

The films production design often suggests Star Wars with the serial numbers filed off, full of shapes and constructions that look sort of like the real thing if you squint but never quite so much as to invite a law suit. Every space ship interior, space(!) cavern and mine looks cheaper, weirder and more improbable than in the movie’s guiding light, but little of it looks carelessly thrown together. This may be the tackier, cheaper version of what George Lucas did, but it is a tackiness and cheapness somebody has clearly worked hard at, so it feels personable, alive, and exciting in a deeply goofy yet undeniable way.

Also palpable, and very typical of Cozzi as well as Italian SF cinema as a whole, is a sense of enthusiasm when it comes to hands on special effects. The stop motion robots may be ill advised, what with them looking as if they come right out of a peplum, yet they are also lovely, silly and exciting. The same goes for miniature effects that hold up to little scrutiny while exuding a sense of sheer joy. I can’t help but imagine Cozzi (who is a genre movie nerd in the best meaning of the phrase) looking at what he has wrought grinning from ear to ear.

The script does its very best to hit all of the pulp science fiction tropes, not just those Star Wars used, so the plot evolves/devolves into a series of encounters with everything from evil space amazons to space cave men, environmental dangers our heroes survive via random magical space powers, and only from time to time touches base with more direct, usually preposterous moments trying to evoke light sabres and Jedi.

On the acting side, Starcrash is a series of inexplicable yet awesome casting and acting decisions. See Joe Spinell as the awkwardly overweight big bad from what I can only assume to be Space New York! Be astonished at the way Caroline Munro goes through most of the movie in what amounts to fetish gear (particularly the colour-changed Vampirella costume is quite the thing, what little there is of it) and makes the costumes look like clothes a woman would actually wear! Puzzle at whatever Marjoe Gortner is doing in his role as Han Skywalker Wan, and at whatever any of his facial expressions mean! Gaze in awe at Christopher Plummer’s heroic attempts at suppressing the giggles by speaking very, very softly, attempting to project great personal charisma and sleepiness at the same time (whose flow he can hold, by the way, because of course he can)!

There are glories to behold in Starcrash.

Past Misdeeds: Il Gatto Nero (1989? 1991? Always?)

Through the transformation of the glorious WTF-Films into the even more glorious Exploder Button and the ensuing server changes, some of my old columns for the site have gone the way of all things internet. I’m going to repost them here in irregular intervals in addition to my usual ramblings.

Please keep in mind these are the old posts without any re-writes or improvements. Furthermore, many of these pieces were written years ago, so if you feel offended or need to violently disagree with me in the comments, you can be pretty sure I won’t know why I wrote what I wrote anymore anyhow. Though I have to say I have seen even more Cozzi films, and do now expect the insanity rather than the boredom.


Not to be confused with all those other films about black cats, which comes especially easy in this case, because the black cat isn't important here at all.

Plot? Oh right, there was something kinda-sorta plot-like hidden away in here somewhere. Ah, there it is: Director Marc Ravenna (Urbano Barberini) is trying to re-ignite his faltering career by making a semi-sequel to Argento's Suspiria (wouldn't that actually be a semi-sequel to Inferno at this point in time?), based on a witch named Levana from an essay in De Quincey's Suspiria De Profundis. If you just ignore that Levana isn't actually a witch but a goddess and wasn't invented by De Quincey, you'll be as surprised as I was by the realization that someone working on the script for this one might have read the book the film's talking about (and, going by the inclusion of an actual quote from Poe, even more than just a single book; Italy sure ain't Hollywood). You can also be sure someone had seen Suspiria, what with parts of that movie's theme playing on the soundtrack whenever someone mentions it or De Quincey's book.

Anyway, Marc plans on giving Levana's role in his planned movie to his wife Anne (Florence Guerin), a big horror star right now playing in an adaptation of Poe's The Black Cat (this, like everything else, is not going to be important later on). Unfortunately, Levana is real and disagrees with Marc's casting decisions, so she begins to threaten Anne, first by going all green and red light on the couple's house, then by jumping out of a mirror and vomiting green goo in Anne's face, exploding the fridge, materializing a non-threatening fridge repairman and a slightly more threatening pale teenager. She also seems to induce random dream sequences, although - given how the film is structured - I'm at a loss to decide if any given scene is supposed to be a dream sequence.

Levana has plans for Anne's and Marc's baby, too, it seems. Something about possessing it and the end of the world. I think. That might just be a fake plan, though. Or not. Other stuff happens. Caroline Munro in her "big hair, unwilling to act, keep me away from the tanning bed, please" phase plays an actress sleeping with the film's scriptwriter who wants Anne's role. Cozzi lets the movie's camera leer on her legs so often even I'm getting uncomfortable with it. Brett Halsey appears as a producer sitting in a wheel chair, glaring angrily and demanding TOTAL COMMITMENT. Anne talks to the fairy girl that lives in her TV (or in her head; matters are confused, and so am I). Hearts explode. Cartoon lightning is shot from hands. Even weirder shit happens. Shots of something that might be a mouldering plastic doll appear. There's some sort of plot twist about mutants as not seen in the X-Men. And of course, any horror film containing a baby must end with the classic "baby with glowing eyes" shot.

Usually, when I sit down to watch a film directed by Luigi Cozzi, I expect one part shoddy directing and one part refined boredom, so the full-grown, random what-the-hell-is-this-ness of Il Gatto Negro (or whatever the film's title is supposed to be) hit me as a complete surprise. Starting with the insanely ambitious ploy to rip-off Argento's Suspiria and his and Lamberto Bava's Demoni and Poe's Black Cat in a single film without said film having anything to do with its supposed predecessors apart from stealing parts of their soundtracks, Cozzi uses every technique from the handbook  of Italian exploitation cinema: there's the crude yet hilarious dialogue, acting perpetually swinging between sleepwalking and hysteria, the chopped editing that again and again does counterintuitive stuff like intercutting random (and I mean random) shots of houses while people inside those houses are having a conversation for no good reason at all, the special effects of the rubbery yet gooey kind, and plotting so wavering and random one can't help but imagine someone playing scene roulette. Or, as it might be, the film being completely improvised. Obviously, on any sane level, Demons 6 is an abomination barely fit to even be called a feature film. On a less sane level, it's perhaps one of the most successful films I've ever had the honour to experience.

What makes De Profundis such a great success - at least, if you measure a movie's success by the number of times it drives you into fits of giggling and the shouting of "what the fuck!?" - I might also have thought of throwing food at the screen just for the love of it - is how completely it gives itself over to being a structureless mess consisting of one weird-out moment after the other. There's not a single second in the film's running time to suggest Cozzi was trying to tell a story, or make what boring people call "a proper movie", not even an illogical or boring one. Instead, narrative logic gives way to whatever the hell Cozzi ate when he wrote the script (apple pie?). Coherence has left the building long ago; viewers are left in a state of confusion and with a blissed-out feeling only a very few films can produce.


And here I always thought Luigi Cozzi was a bit of a bore; in truth, all the boredom of his other movies was only proof of a director saving his true powers for a magnum opus that would show humanity a) the blind idiot god at the centre of the universe b) what a man can create when he just lets go of all his mental faculties c) the last fanfare for the era of Italian movies that were more dream-like than dreams themselves.

In short: I Don't Want To Be Born (1975)

aka The Devil Within Her

aka Sharon's Baby

aka The Monster

aka The Baby

Winning the fight for the heavyweight championship for the worst movie about killer babies is clearly this British production directed by Peter Sasdy. The plot, such as it is, concerns Joan Collins as the most horrible burlesque dancer/stripper imaginable getting cursed by a spurned dwarf, and soon enough popping out The Devil Baby after getting together with Ralph Bates.

Hubby Ralph is so disturbed about his offspring that he's talking in an Italian accent so ridiculous it's difficult to imagine he's meaning it seriously (he does). Note to casting directors of the past: Ralph Bates is neither Italian nor able to pretend he is.

The dialogue may regularly inform the viewers that the baby, or rather The Baby, is abnormally large and strong for its age, but the hoped for effect is a bit ruined whenever Sasdy cuts to the actual baby - looking fat, satisfied, totally normal and so completely good-natured it's impossible not to laugh when the next character comments on its size or goes through a bad "oh my god! The devil baby scratched me!" rigmarole. Given how ridiculous baby's physical feats get during the course of the movie, I find it difficult to understand why the script doesn't just give it explicit telekinetic powers or something of that sort. That would have been silly enough, but slightly less ridiculous than a baby that's able hang Ralph Bates on a tree. Of course, it is hardly possible to watch I Don't Want To Be Born without developing doubts about the intellectual capacities, or at least the willingness to give a damn, of everyone involved behind the camera.

Because all this is not dumb enough, the film also sees fit to try to get at some of that sweet, sweet Exorcist money by adding a Catholic nun who works in the animal experimentation field (Eileen Atkins) and is related to Ralphie Bates, so that she can discuss the nature of evil babies with the family's doctor played by the great Donald Pleasence. The latter seems to have a lot of fun in his few scenes and brings some conscious irony and even class to a cast - there are John Steiner as sleazy script club owner and Caroline Munro as Collins's ditzy best friend, too - that should be able to do better, even when having to work with a script like this. Again, it all seems to be a case of nobody willing to give a damn.

I Don't Want To Be Born is a film you either stare at in disbelief and giggle continuously at, or give up on after fifteen minutes, depending on your tolerance for unbelievable nonsense.

 

Technorati-Markierungen: in short,british movies,horror,peter sasdy,joan collins,eileen atkins,donald pleasence,ralph bates,john steiner,caroline munro

On WTF: Il Gatto Nero/Demons 6/De Profundis (1989? 1991?)

Did you know that La Terza Madre isn't the first third part of Dario Argento's Mothers Trilogy? And that the first third part was directed by Luigi Cozzi and is also a Poe adaptation and the sixth part of the Demons movies? And would you expect that not to be the most insane aspect of the resulting movie? Read my madly excited rambles about the film on WTF-Film!

Technorati-Markierungen: italian movies,horror,reviews,other places,wtf,luigi cozzi,florence guerin,urbano barberini,caroline munro,brett halsey

At the Earth's Core (1976)

Eccentric British scientist Dr. Perry (Peter Cushing) has invented a fabulous drilling device, the Iron Mole. Before going on some more interesting travels deep within the Earth's core in it, he and his former student and current financier, two-fisted American David Innes (Doug McClure) are making a test run through some Welsh hills. But the Mole works better than anyone could have expected and transports our heroes right to the centre of the Earth, where they find a whole new world - called Pellucidar - to explore.

Only armed with an umbrella and Doug McClure's fists, the men have to fight off ridiculous suitmation dinosaurs, are captured by the swine-faced servants of a race of hypnotic, telepathic, man-eating dinosaur-birds, romance a princess (Caroline Munro) - alright, only McClure romances, but what can you do - and incite a human revolt against the evil dino-bird people.

Poor Amicus studios, always playing the second fiddle behind the Hammer juggernaut, having to somehow make movies on budgets even lower than those of their more successful rivals. In the second half of the 70s, Hammer was of course already racing towards financial doom itself, and it's not difficult to imagine that times for Amicus must have been even harder.

So, while Hammer was trying to turn Dracula into a James Bond villain without a James Bond to fight, Amicus turned its misshapen but loveable head towards the non-Tarzan works of Edgar Rice Burroughs, of course biting off much more than their budgets could have been able to chew even at the best of times, as At the Earth's Core amply demonstrates.

Seldom have the 70s (this is shortly before the first Star Wars movie, mind you) seen a more rickety looking conglomeration of cardboard sets. The often nearly immobile and always terrible looking giant monster suits are usually crosses between dinosaurs and other animals. My personal favourite here is the toad-o-saurus who seems barely able to move its head but is at least able to breathe fire (as toad-o-saurusses do) and explodes when punctured by arrows shot by famous action hero, elderly (and terribly ill looking) Peter Cushing. The toad-o-saurus is exemplary for the special feeling of ambitious ridiculousness the cramped but colourful sets and the monsters exude, the charm of the inept but beautifully sillily imagined that one can find in certain Taiwanese fantasy films, and that one wouldn't expect to find in a film from the UK. On a technical level, the special effects are of course utterly embarrassing, but I haven't got what it takes to complain that a fire-breathing toad-o-saurus, a boar-o-saurus or the awesome cave octopus doesn't look "realistic" enough.

Where the special effects either embarrass or charm the pants off of one, the script turns Burroughs' rather sprawling (at least as far as I can remember) novel into exactly the theoretically tight, yet easily distractible, simple adventure yarn one usually finds Doug McClure starring in. It's all very silly (and takes place in surprisingly few sets) and somewhat dumb, but it hangs together well enough while providing the basic thrills it promised to deliver.

I also dig (sorry) the trio of B-movie stalwarts at the film's core (sorry, I can't help myself), or rather the professional enthusiasm they bring into a film with such a thin script and dubious production values.

Beloved B-movie icon Peter Cushing looks rather terrible, and has to play an often annoying "idiot scientist" role, but does this with his own peculiar sort of dignity that makes my inner child cheer whenever he does things like trying to fight a chicken-o-saurus with an umbrella, explodes the turtle-o-saurus, or states the obvious with one of the better lines of his career, "You cannot mesmerize me, I am British!" (of course echoing something very similar from Horror Express).

Doug McClure gives exactly the same easy-going, two-fisted manly man performance he does in all of his films (to be honest, I never understood why his films even bothered to give him a character name other than "Doug McClure"), but fortuitously this is exactly what the film wants of him, no more, no less. Caroline Munro is, as was so often the case in her career, relegated to the role of the stunning girl that doesn't wear much clothes and needs to be rescued repeatedly. On paper, it's a waste and a shame, but in practice, she's at least so good at the stunning bit that I'm glad it's her and not blonde bimbo number three playing that role.

So, although probably nobody would want to call At the Earth's Core a good movie, I find it quite irresistibly charming. It's a little weird, a little cheap, a little stupid, and sometimes, that's exactly what a film is supposed to be.

 

Technorati-Tags: british movies,doug mcclure,peter cushing,caroline munro,reviews,adventure,fantasy