Only now does it occur to me... LINK (1986)

Only now does it occur to me... okay, a few things. LINK is a "killer ape" movie (it was pitched as "JAWS with apes") in the vein of MONKEY SHINES and Edgar Allan Poe's "Murders in the Rue Morgue." It is also a Cannon Film––however, they only distributed it: i.e., Menaham Golan and Yoram Globus are not listed in the credits. The director is the accomplished Richard Franklin (PSYCHO II, CLOAK & DAGGER, PATRICK, ROAD GAMES), a suspense-driven Australian auteur who probably ranks second only to Brian De Palma among Hitchcock disciples. The stars are Terence Stamp––who plays a wild-eyed anthropology professor with an eccentric fashion sense and Rod Stewart's hair––

and Elisabeth Shue, who plays his student/housekeeper/ape nanny.

And that's all there is to it. The end.

...

Okay, that's a lie. I didn't tell you the entire truth: LINK is a strange little chamber piece and a "killer ape butler" movie. The Germans had the good sense to call this thing LINK: DER BUTLER, cause that ape butler thing isn't something you want to keep under wraps.

It's kind of like EVERY WHICH WAY BUT LOOSE meets THE REMAINS OF THE DAY. Except it's a horror movie.

I say, after you, old chap


About a chain-smoking orangutan butler who first made his name as "The Master of Fire" in an infamous carnival show.

So allow me to amend that: LINK is a movie about a "pyromaniac killer-ape butler."

There are also some killer dogs thrown in for good measure, but that's not very important.

As to the film itself, it's fair. It starts strong, but loses steam quickly. It's packed with interesting ideas and camera angles and setpieces, but it never quite delivers on its premise. Franklin does acquit himself admirably: there are inventive edits, theatrical sets,

and tour de force sequences of diegetic and non-diegetic sound (the first diegetic sound we hear is The Kinks' "Ape Man" coming from a car radio, soon it bleeds into "Hot Voodoo"––Dietrich's ape musical number from BLONDE VENUS––coming from a television as an ape stalks its feline prey).

There's inspired wide-angle cinematography by Mike Molloy (DP on THE HIT and SHOCK TREATMENT; camera operator on BARRY LYNDON and A CLOCKWORK ORANGE),

 
and overall, Franklin possesses a pure filmmaking joie de vivre that you don't often see outside of Richard Rush, Sam Raimi, or Ken Russell. There's also so much ape POV that at times I thought I was watching a Lucio Fulci film.

This angle does not bode well for the cat

It's extremely atmospheric and makes excellent use of the Scottish countryside, occasionally to great 'melancholy horror' effect, though I would not categorize the entire film as such.

In any event, this movie is about a pyromaniac killer-ape butler, not the Scottish countryside. As it progresses, our friend Link the Butler begins to lose his mind after falling in love (?) with Elizabeth Shue. The most chilling moments in the movie are when he's creepin' on her in the bath and elsewhere.


Look at that face. This pervy performance by "Locke the Orangutan" might be the best in the entire film. In fact, you'd better look outside your own door, right now, just to make sure some indifferent orangutan isn't out there, staring you down. To quote Werner Herzog, "the common denominator of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and murder." Damn.

Also, I must make a special note about the soundtrack, by the legendary Jerry Goldsmith (ALIEN, GREMLINS, PLANET OF THE APES, PATTON, FIRST BLOOD, TOTAL RECALL), which is an insane carnival of circus-y madness, a reverb-heavy '80s nutball score that must be heard to be believed. Seriously, listen to the first minute and a half of this amazing nonsense. It's like if Paganini did the soundtrack to GHOULIES II. Or maybe if Kurt Weill did the score to Bertolt Brecht's CONGO. I don't know, man. But I also think I secretly like it?

Film Review: HARLEQUIN (1980, Simon Wincer)

Stars: 3 of 5.
Running Time: 95 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Written by Everett De Roche. Starring Robert Powell, David Hemmings, Broderick Crawford, Carmen Duncan.
Tag-line: "Can anyone survive?" What? That makes zero sense in context with the film.
Best one-liner: "FLIM FLAM AND HOCUS POCUS!"

Released as 'DARK FORCES' in the U.S., HARLEQUIN is an Aussie supernatural thriller from director Simon Wincer (D.A.R.Y.L., QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER, FREE WILLY) and writer Everett De Roche (ROADGAMES, RAZORBACK, LINK).

I can see you want to get down to brass tacks– 'Is it good?,' you wonder. Well, let's not speak in absolutes. I don't think the Wolfe would want it that way. A better query might be, 'Does it hold your attention?' And the answer is... not really. 'So why three stars?,' you ask. Well, allow me to paint you a colorful picture. David Hemmings (who, by all accounts was wrecked, juiced, and well-sozzled for real during filming) plays a politician who tries to uphold his dignity and keep his family together in the midst of his son’s terminal illness. There's some kind of government corruption/conspiracy going on, and since it involves an aged Broderick Crawford (ALL THE KING'S MEN) the film doesn't feel the need to present it coherently, as if the audience will recall the political framework of that previous film and just apply it to this one.

"You there, Hemmings?"

"Yeah...just hanging out with the Wolfe."


"We've got your flask, Hemmings."


...


Just when you think it's going to be an unsalvageable snorefest, however, we get THE WOLFE. The Wolfe, played by Robert Powell (THE ASPHYX, Mahler in MAHLER, the unfortunate RAF dad in TOMMY), singlehandedly swoops down and saves this movie from the shitter.

(It should also be noted that Mel Gibson originally auditioned to play The Wolfe.) The character Powell plays is basically "Rasputin" combined with "David Bowie in the 'Ashes to Ashes' music video." Thus, in a movie that I think is trying impart a weighty political message, the show is stolen by telekinetic Chinese Checkers,

crazy eye makeup, and an outfit that can only be described as "Leather daddy Klaus Nomi meets Siegfried and Roy at a biker rally."

Powell's levitating sequences and accomplished, real-life sleight of hand even prefigure Bowie in LABYRINTH. He's got black-polished nails with little mystical symbols painted on them in red. He vociferates- with extreme sincerity- lines like "FLIM FLAM AND HOCUS POCUS!"

"FLIM FLAM AND HOCUS POCUS!"–


–and the aftermath of flim flam and hocus pocus.

He dresses as the eponymous Harlequin and brandishes a giant bum paddle.

He spits 80's lightning and dangles a kid over a coastal precipice- for real!


Three stars...for the WOLFE.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD (2009, Mark Hartley)

Stars: 3.9 of 5.
Running Time: 103 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Interviews or archive footage with everyone from Richard Franklin (ROADGAMES), Jamie Lee Curtis, Stacy Keach, Dennis Hopper, George Miller (MAD MAX), Russell Mulcahy (HIGHLANDER), Ted Kotcheff (RAMBO, WEEKEND AT BERNIE'S), George Lazenby (ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE), Steve Railsback, Jeremy Thomas, Quentin Tarantino, Rod Taylor, Bruce Beresford (BREAKER MORANT), Alan Arkin, Henry Silva, Broderick Crawford, David Hemmings, Christopher Lee, Olivia Hussey, James Mason, George Peppard, Donald Pleasence, and Lesley Ann Warren.
Tag-line: "Finally an Aussie film packed full of boobs, pubes, tubes ... and a bit of kung fu."

Grab a "thick, crunchy hamburger," sit back, relax, and enjoy a measured overview of that oft-forgotten, oft-maligned genre: 'Ozploitation.' Now, there's not much depth to this film, the reality-TV style (different, generic, upbeat music cues every 25 seconds; the inability to hold a shot for more than 2 seconds) is frequently obnoxious, and a lot of your enjoyment will hinge on your ability to tolerate Quentin Tarantino, but the absurd clips, psychotic personalities, and colorful anecdotes go a long way.

If you can't even stomach this photograph, you'd do best to stay away.

See the one-armed censor; endless vomit; a Mondo-style film called AUSTRALIA AFTER DARK; Henry Silva dangling 70 feet above the ground without a safety net; clips from Russell Mulcahy's early 'giant warthog' flick RAZORBACK; and endless, marauding biker gangs, scouring the Outback for people to fuck with! You hear about a washed-up David Hemmings' drunken directorial style, Richard Franklin’s big break with the coma-horror flick PATRICK (immediately ripped-off by Italians, and later by KILL BILL), the xenophobia faced by Jamie Lee Curtis and Stacy Keach while starring in Franklin's ROADGAMES, Steve Railsback delivering semi-coherent rants, and Dennis Hopper pronounced dead while filming MAD DOG MORGAN.

Hopper, in fact, survived.

Witness the miracle of marsupial werewolf birth in HOWLING 3:

live ammo fired at Railsback in TURKEY SHOOT (a.k.a. ESCAPE 2000 on DVD):

Railsback shot at FOR REAL.

George Lazenby on fire for real in THE MAN FROM HONG KONG; a possessed game of Chinese Checkers in HARLEQUIN (a.k.a. DARK FORCES on DVD); and majestic, SHINING-style, bone-chilling cinematography in NEXT OF KIN. You’re forced to respect these filmmakers’ ingenuity, their commitment to trash cinema, and their nonchalance about risking life and limb for movies about giant alligators, killer bikers, or naked ladies who take lots of showers. It’s almost like if a dozen quasi-Herzogs were unleashed upon the heyday of American International. So if you can stomach the periodically inane presentation, NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD is well worth a watch.

-Sean Gill

Film Review: ROADGAMES (1981, Richard Franklin)

Stars: 4 of 5.
Running Time: 101 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Stacy Keach and Jamie Lee Curtis (both John Carpenter favorites, with the former in BODY BAGS and ESCAPE FROM L.A. and the latter in HALLOWEEN and THE FOG).
Tag-lines: "The truck driver plays games... The hitchhiker plays games. And the killer is playing the deadliest game of all!"
Best one-liner: "Hors d'ouevre, Boswell?"

A lot of people like to blather on about how Brian de Palma is the most noteworthy Hitchcock disciple, but I gotta say that the Aussie Richard Franklin (PSYCHO II, CLOAK & DAGGER) seriously deserves his due. I find myself increasingly impressed by his engaging stories (which exquisitely blur the line between paranoid fantasy and reality), his obsessive attention to aesthetic and aural detail, and his ability to duplicate that elusive Hitchcock atmosphere with such confidence that he doesn't need to pour in gratuitous heapings of sex and violence to mask his own insecurities (like de Palma).

But on to ROADGAMES: Stacy Keach is brilliant as our jocular, overeducated truck driver, or, I should say, a man who at the moment happens to drive a truck. He lives only to share his internal monologue with his dingo, Boswell, and to dazzle the unsuspecting hitchhiker with his encyclopedic knowledge of Bronte and Pope, his rapier wit, his stylish innuendo.

He is a man with boundless imagination, capable of transforming his cab into Madame Geoffrin's salon, his harmonica noodlings into 'Eine kleine Nachtmusik,' and a fellow traveler into Jack the Ripper- or maybe he's not imagining things at all...

Teaming up with hitchhiking runaway heiress Jamie Lee Curtis, Keach becomes an amateur sleuth par excellence- he just needs some sleep, or perhaps a few more pills, to avoid the frame and unravel the enigma.

Franklin tautly and gleefully imparts his tale with little slices of pure cinema: the killer lurks behind a victim as she tunes a guitar- the pitch rising with each step- this diegetic sound cleverly replacing what could have involved a cliched musical score.


A 360-degree pan in a roadhouse (as Keach tries to call the cops) is a mini-master's course in filmmaking- a natural rhythm is established by the inviting noises of a pinball machine, the reactions of the patrons are gradual and believable, and a macabre mural is revealed at the perfect moment. Bravo! I know Hitch would be proud. Four stars.

-Sean Gill