Only now does it occur to me... THE WRAITH (1986)

Only now does it occur to me... that THE WRAITH is the only opportunity you'll have to see the ghost of Charlie Sheen wearing a faux-H.R. Giger stillsuit 

 

and seeking revenge on a gang of the world's oldest teenagers, a utopian coalition of punks, jocks, nerds, tweakers, and middle-aged bad boys,

 including everyone from Clint Howard with an ERASERHEAD hairdo

to a smug and scenery-devouring Nick Cassavetes.

 

Throw in Randy Quaid as the surly Sheriff and between this Sheen/Cassavetes/Howard/Quaid nexus, you begin realize that almost everybody involved has a significantly more famous relative!

 

This is technically a horror movie, but it has a lot more in common with MAD MAX or HIGH PLAINS DRIFTER, as it's a part-sci-fi/part-supernatural/part-Western inflected revenge actioner featuring a vigilante specter driving a cyberpunk murder car around the American Southwest. It's an '80s movie that's drenched in nostalgia for the 1950s; so much so that the inciting incident is "murder by drag race." It's set in Tucson, Arizona (like the '80s Cannon giallo, WHITE OF THE EYE!) so there's plenty of saguaro cacti

 

and roadside charm.

 

Large chunks of the film take place at "Big Kay's Burger," an AMERICAN GRAFFITI-style teen drive-in hangout with roller-skatin' waitresses,

 

 

and at one point there's an extended "Makin' Burgers" montage set to Robert Palmer's "Addicted to Love"

 

which is a nice reminder that the director (Mike Marvin) also directed the (very real) HAMBURGER: THE MOTION PICTURE.

There are a number of John Carpenter references sprinkled throughout: the supernatural car element certainly speaks to CHRISTINE, at one point someone describes ghost-Charlie Sheen as "weird and pissed off" (referencing a line of dialogue from THE THING), and Randy Quaid's character is named "Loomis," like Donald Pleasence from HALLOWEEN.

I would also be remiss if I didn't mention Sherilyn Fenn ("Audrey Horne" from TWIN PEAKS), who is trapped in a love triangle between ghost-Sheen and the man who killed him (Nick Cassavetes). Here, Fenn has none of the stylish charm that defines and elevates her iconic role in TWIN PEAKS (this particular role is severely underwritten, and all of her scenes with Charlie Sheen were rushed into a single day's shoot), and the best part of her performance is probably the parade of terrible/amazing Southwestern '80s outfits they forced her to wear.

 
Lotta fringe  

 
Were there supposed to be pants? 

Spray-tan overdose

Also, word on the street is that Oliver Stone hated THE WRAITH, and believed that Sheen's presence in such a B-movie would make a negative impact on PLATOON's Oscar chances. He didn't need to worry, as he still walked away with a Best Director statue, and PLATOON won Best Picture. (I'd have given it to THE MISSION or A ROOM WITH A VIEW, myself.)

Television Review: ZUMA BEACH (1978, Lee H. Katzin)

Stars: 2 of 5.
Running Time: 104 minutes.
Notable Cast or Crew: Suzanne Somers (THREE'S COMPANY, SERIAL MOM), Michael Biehn (ALIENS, TOMBSTONE, THE TERMINATOR), Rosanna Arquette (PULP FICTION, AFTER HOURS, DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN), P.J. Soles (HALLOWEEN, ROCK N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, CARRIE), Tanya Roberts (THE BEASTMASTER, A VIEW TO A KILL), Steven Keats (DEATH WISH, THE FRIENDS OF EDDIE COYLE), Mark Wheeler (THE CONVERSATION, APOLLO 13), Gary Imhoff (SUMMER SCHOOL, THE GREEN MILE), Delta Burke (DESIGNING WOMEN, WHAT WOMEN WANT), Kimberly Beck (ROLLER BOOGIE, FRIDAY THE 13TH PART IV: THE FINAL CHAPTER).
Tagline: "Her life had suddenly become a long drive to nowhere... so what better place to get it all together than her old stomping grounds, Zuma Beach! Let's get it together with a batch of beach boys and their golden girls... frolic with Suzanne Somers on Zuma Beach!"
Best one-liner: "Have some confidence in yourself." –"I can't. It's 9:30, and the stores stop selling confidence at five o'clock. And tomorrow is a holiday."

"I wrote that for a producer who just said he wanted a beach movie. He ended up selling it to Warner Bros., and soon Suzanne Somers was starring in it. I was going to direct it––for about ten seconds––but one of my mentors, Richard Kobritz, who later produced Christine, helped me see I didn’t want to do it. It was vastly rewritten, so I really shouldn’t have taken credit for it, but I was a little asshole in those days."

–John Carpenter, when asked about ZUMA BEACH by Fangoria in 2013 

 

Almost ten years ago, I did a "Poor Man's Carpy" series on this blog, devoted to John Carpenter marginalia like the co-scripted TV movie SILENT PREDATORS, the Tommy Lee Wallace-helmed VAMPIRES: LOS MUERTOS, trashy Hallo-sequels HALLOWEEN 666 and RESURRECTION, and the Dennis Etchison novelizations of THE FOG and HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH. One which slipped under the radar was ZUMA BEACH. So here we are, in the dog days of summer, finally taking a look at this forgotten CBS Late Movie "sort of" written by Carpenter and three other guys.

What can we learn about John Carpenter from ZUMA BEACH? Very little, I'm sure, given his above quote, but I think it's worth looking into. (Says the guy who did a two-part deep dive into John Carpenter's filmmaker-buddy-garage band, The Coupe de Villes.)

It's a straightforward slice of life, giggle and jiggle flick designed to eliminate two hours on a lazy, hazy summer evening. Though it ends with a volleyball game, it never even possesses stakes as high as in SIDE OUT. 

 Suzanne Somers plays a pop star (whose big hit is the fictitious "Silent Whisper"), and she's having a mid-career crisis. 

In need of a reset, she clears her head at Zuma Beach, where she once enjoyed poetry and sand castles as a child. Zuma Beach is populated with a rogue's gallery of horny teens, pre-makeover nerds, beach bums, surfers, football jerks, hot dog enthusiasts, kite fliers, windjammers, cool visor-dudes and the like.

Somers becomes something of a beach elder here, primarily because it's a teenage hotspot. She dispenses wisdom, smiles pensively, and takes in some rays. 

 

Bullies vaguely receive their comeuppance, romances spark and fizzle, and everyone more or less fritters the summer away. This is ZUMA BEACH, ladies and gentlemen. It's so dedicated to its quotidian ensemble that if it were better written and had more interesting characters, it might even feel like an Altman or Linklater flick. As is, it's merely a pleasant time-waster filled with bright 1970s colors and some amusing and unexpected performances. For reference, the real Zuma Beach is in Malibu, about a 70 minute drive from the PRINCE OF DARKNESS church.

If I were trying to draw a real John Carpenter connection, I'd probably compare it to THE FOG, which also sees a strong woman adjacent to the music industry (Adrienne Barbeau as "DJ Stevie Wayne") finding her footing in a California beach community. There are even times that ZUMA BEACH feels like "a Carpenter horror movie, but before the horror begins."

The image of a child playing with his dog in the surf... recalls Stevie Wayne's son finding a plank from the Elizabeth Dane in THE FOG? C'mon, I'm trying here.

Oh, and there is a lot of feathered hair in this movie. Might I remind you that it was shot in 1978.

Mark Wheeler's elaborate feathered coiffure helmet puts Mark Hamill's to shame

With such a bare bones plot, you start focusing on strange details. Like Suzanne Somers' suntan oil, which looks like it's being dispensed from an Elmer's glue bottle.

We have young, Toto-era Rosanna Arquette as a character who tokes a lot of reefer. She's doing that quirky comedic 'Rosanna Arquette thing,' mostly indistinguishable from her performances in AFTER HOURS and DESPERATELY SEEKING SUSAN, which is okay!

You have to admire (pre-Reagan) CBS Standards & Practices allowing such casual drug use to slip by without dramaturgical rebuke. 

Michael Biehn pops up, also in one of his very first roles, as a crazy-eyed, eyebrow-indicating lifeguard who uses his lifeguard tower as a bachelor pad.

Here, he's trying to pressure HALLOWEEN's own P.J. Soles into pre-marital sex. It's a good thing Michael Myers isn't around!

HALLOWEEN was released October 25, 1978; ZUMA BEACH debuted September 27, 1978. HALLOWEEN was filmed in May, and based on the look and general disposability of ZUMA BEACH, I have to imagine it was filmed that summer. It's quite possible that P.J. appears here as part of some John Carpenter favor; but given his disconnect to this movie, it's equally plausible that it's pure coincidence. I at least have to hope that John Carpenter was not responsible for a line of dialogue about "extracurricular sex-tivity."

Soles: "I have six pigtails"

As usual, P.J. Soles is a hilarious delight. And she has six pigtails. Count 'em––six! Why would anybody need six pigtails? Maybe she's choosing to pull focus by-way-of ridiculous hair/costume accoutrement––she does has a history of that. You may recall that in Brian De Palma's CARRIE, she established herself as the Queen of Pulling Focus with her big 'ol red rainbow ballcap. Bless.

There are some terrible, copyright-skirting faux-Beach Boys songs which play throughout, Tanya Roberts and Delta Burke wander through the frame, and Michael Biehn gets sand kicked in his face: a sobering experience for Zuma Beach's resident bully/Casanova.

There's a volleyball game and a riding-men-by-the-shoulders race,

and that's all she wrote. Er, rather, that's all John Carpenter and (at least) three other guys wrote. Do you feel like know all you need to about the ZUMA BEACH experience? I hope so.

Only now does it occur to me... SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO (1991)

Only now does it occur to me... that SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO––a film by action master Mark L. Lester, director of COMMANDO and CLASS OF 1984––functions as a true culmination of his favorite thematic obsessions: brilliant/groan-inducing action one-liners, explosions, and male musculature.

From my understanding, this film was butchered by the studio during the edit, but I think the general sensibility of Lester's vision still shines through. For instance, the man who brought us the lingering closeup of Arnold's jiggling pecs during a machine gun battle in COMMANDO begins SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO with what feels like a formalist experiment: male musculature––covered in full-body irezumi (yakuza tattoos) is drenched in, alternatively, light and shadow.

It's the early 1990s action equivalent of Hollis Frampton's experimental 1969 short LEMON, whereupon a static shot of a lemon is subjected to different lighting techniques, revealing something 'profound' about the nature of darkness. Anyway, Lester and Frampton both pare the narrative to the bare essentials: in this case, pectoral muscles, and the different and dramatic ways in which one can view them.

Also, this movie––and those pecs, by extension––were shot by David Cronenberg's resident cinematographer Mark Irwin (SCANNERS, VIDEODROME, THE FLY, etc.). How 'bout that!

What is this movie about? You may be wondering. I've already told you. But if you insist on labels, it's about two tuff cops: Dolph Lundgren

 

 and Brandon Lee.

It's set in Los Angeles' (apparently) yakuza-ravaged Little Tokyo, and its premise is firmly rooted in 1991. You see, Dolph's Aryan-looking buddy cop is fluent in Japanese and was raised in Japan. Whereas Brandon's Asian American buddy cop was raised in the Valley and apparently has never even heard of Japan. This creates what we call dramatic tension. 

 

Acting-wise, as "the straight man," Dolph is basically doing That Thing that Dolph does, and Brandon, as the "funny one," is kind of doing a less cartoonish Bruce Campbell shtick. My wife and I are pretty sure that Brandon Lee took some acting classes before appearing in THE CROW.

Tia Carrere (WAYNE'S WORLD) is in here, too, as a singing gangster's moll who eventually is swept up in a (chemistry-challenged) romantic subplot with Dolph. The tracks she sings sound very "Olivia Newton John."

The villain is yakuza boss Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa (MORTAL KOMBAT, THE PHANTOM, VAMPIRES, LICENSE TO KILL) who, as usual, treats us to some solid scenery chewing throughout.

The music, by David Michael Frank (THE MASK, OUT FOR JUSTICE), is, like the pecs, majestically pared down to the basics. There are essentially two tracks here, a "danger" track––used for all the action/peril scenes––and an "ambient" track, for everything else. The ambient track sounds a lot like the rootin-tootin electro-nonsense in THE GARBAGE PAIL KIDS: THE MOVIE. All of this is intended as a compliment. 

The one-liners are amazing. COMMANDO brought us "Don't disturb my friend, he's dead tired" and "Remember Sully, when I promised to kill you last? I lied." SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO gives us "You have the right to remain... dead!," "It's kinda like one of those video games... you just defeated the first wave," and "We're gonna nail this guy, and when we get done, we're gonna go eat fish off those naked chicks!" The latter refers to a yakuza restaurant featuring the klassy combination of nude women and sushi, and is immediately followed up by this manly hand clasp, straight out of PREDATOR.

Speaking of gender politics, SHOWDOWN IN LITTLE TOKYO objectifies the male and female form with relative and trashy equivalency.

Of course, we have to give the advantage to the male form, so celebrated in this film that I'm pretty sure both Dolph and Cary-Hiroyuki spend more time in various states of undress than they do clothed.

 

The highlight (lowlight?) may be when Brandon Lee's character tells Dolph, apropos of nothing, "Kenner, just in case we get killed, I wanted to tell you, you have the biggest dick I've ever seen on a man." That being said, I am certain there is nothing in this film that can match the poetry of the final battle in COMMANDO.

In the end, I would categorize this as second-tier Lester and a damn fun time. Also, I'm pretty sure Tarantino is a fan, since A. It stars Dolph Lundgren, and one of Tarantino's first jobs was working as a P.A. on the Dolph Lundgren workout video, MAXIMUM POTENTIAL; B. it stars Brandon Lee, and Tarantino is a Bruce Lee obsessive (and a "children-of-Hollywood-stars" obsessive); and C., Dolph's character's backstory is very similar to O-ren Ishii's in KILL BILL (as a child, his parents were murdered in front of him by yakuza, in their bedroom).

Finally, I must point out that one Little Tokyo filming location––a crime scene exterior––is shot outside the church from John Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS! (Which is now the Union Center of the Arts.)

(Also note, far left: Vernee Watson, a.k.a., "Viola 'Aunt Vy' Smith" from THE FRESH PRINCE OF BEL-AIR.)

Only now does it occur to me... THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR (1975)

Only now does it occur to me... that in his paranoid cloak n' dagger thriller THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR, Sydney Pollack inserts a small homage to Italian master of horror Dario Argento.

In a scene where Robert Redford's character is skulking around in black leather gloves, gaining entrance to a New York City apartment building,

Pollack has one of the names on the buzzer (while the trademark black leather gloves are in shot) listed as "Argento."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While Pollack may have drawn some inspiration from our man Dario, I will also add that THREE DAYS OF THE CONDOR exerted some discernible influence on another Junta Juleil fave: John Carpenter. In addition to featuring three actors who would go on to work for Carpy––Cliff Robertson (ESCAPE FROM L.A.), John Houseman (THE FOG), and Robert Phalen (HALLOWEEN, STARMAN)––the film's central dynamic, between bookish, on-the-run CIA analyst Robert Redford and his cool, formidable hostage Faye Dunaway,

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

strongly resembles the tense back and forth between hapless hostage-taker Roddy Piper and his icy-calm ward Meg Foster ("If I don't see what you see, I'm going to see it anyway") from a quite similar scenario in THEY LIVE.

Coming up next: an in-depth review of an Argento flick I haven't yet tackled on this site!

"Fictional Dystopias Better Than the One We're Living In" in Booth

My latest conceptual piece, "Fictional Dystopias Better Than the One We're Living In" has been published in the January 2020 issue of Booth, the literary journal of Butler University.

Only now does it occur to me... THE GOLDEN CHILD (1986)

Only now does it occur to me... that John Carpenter and THE GOLDEN CHILD share a curious history. Apparently, the script to THE GOLDEN CHILD––a fantasy/action/comedy rooted in surreal distortions of Chinese/Tibetan mythology/mysticism––was first offered to John Carpenter to direct as a film starring Mel Gibson. Carpenter declined, because he much preferred the script to a different fantasy/action/comedy rooted in surreal distortions of Chinese mythology/mysticism called BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA. He even expedited the production schedule of his own film so that it wouldn't compete with the much larger production, which by then had transformed into an Eddie Murphy vehicle directed by Michael Ritchie (PRIME CUT, THE BAD NEWS BEARS). When the dust settled, BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA had grossed $11 million and THE GOLDEN CHILD, $80 million, which apparently was demoralizing to Carpenter. However, I must note that while the cult appeal of Carpenter's film has endured, THE GOLDEN CHILD exists mainly as a footnote in Eddie Murphy's filmography (and for fairly good reason).

While I freely admit my own pro-Carpenter bias, I think it's fairly clear that Carpenter's film approaches its subject material with a greater (albeit absurd) sense of sincerity. It's a nearly timeless, well-choreographed, crackerjack throwback to the cinema of Howard Hawks, whereas THE GOLDEN CHILD feels more like a generic '80s flavor of the week. BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA outshines it in action, pacing, and comedy; Ritchie's film is neither particularly funny nor exciting. However, that's not to say that there's nothing of value here for genre fans––there are a few interesting elements at play.

#1. Practically half the cast of BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA is in THE GOLDEN CHILD. We have Victor Wong ("Egg Shen" in BTILC):

Peter Kwong ("Rain" in BTILC)

and perennial "that guy" actor James Hong ("David Lo Pan" in BTILC)

in roles that are amusing, but substantially more bland than their work with Carpenter.

#2. Ray Harryhausen-style creatures, like a snake woman who recalls Medusa in CLASH OF THE TITANS:

and this little Pepsi can man, who dances to "Puttin' on the Ritz" to the amusement of Randall "Tex" Cobb:



Alright, maybe that alone is worth the price of admission.

#3. There's a bizarre, semi-music video sequence (not pictured) whereupon Eddie Murphy beats up a bunch of bikers listening to "Body Talk" by Ratt, while (contractually-obligated?) images of Ratt's music video intercut the scene. Okay, sure.

#4. Charles Dance. Best known to modern audiences as Tywin Lannister on GAME OF THRONES (and to '90s kids as Benedict in LAST ACTION HERO), Dance is one of the best, most subtle "villain" character actors working today.

As a GAME OF THRONES fan, I must say that it is bizarre to see Tywin Lannister, in the dead of winter, striding into a throne room like he owns the place.


He's later revealed to be a shapeshifting madman who ultimately transforms into a hell-demon like something out of ARMY OF DARKNESS.


Which is fine! It's not quite enough to make this a particularly memorable movie, but it's fine, and certainly plays to my interests on the character actor/hell-demon continuum.