RAW MEAT

RAW MEAT (aka Death Line/1972). Director: Gary Sherman. 

When an important dignitary vanishes from a London subway station, Inspector Calhoun (Donald Pleasence of Halloween) questions American student Alex Campbell (David Ladd) and his girlfriend, Patricia (Sharon Gurney), who discovered the man unconscious (he later disappears). You learn very early on from Inspector Richardson (Clive Swift of Keeping Up Appearances and Frenzy) that before the turn of the century some male and female workers were trapped in a cave-in while scooping out a new station nearby. Apparently they managed to survive via cannibalism. Now the last survivor (Hugh Armstrong) of the descendants of this group is plucking hapless people from the subway to become his supper, and the latest would-be victim is poor Patricia -- Alex goes in search of her. 

Raw Meat benefits from some highly atmospheric and creepy underground settings (and some gross, explicit and well-done make-up effects), but suffers from very, very somnambulistic pacing. Virtually every scene and shot goes on for far too long. Because you know exactly what's happened to the people who disappeared almost from the very first, there's absolutely no suspense. In fact, the film is pretty tedious until the final few minutes. Donald Pleasence is also hard to take, playing his character in a fashion that is meant to be humorous but is merely obnoxious. The best performance in the film comes from Christopher Lee, who shows up for five minutes as an understandably condescending (to Pleasence) member of MI5. Gary Sherman also directed Dead and Buried, which is much better than this. 

Verdict: Nice idea but poor execution. **. 

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND 4

FILMS I JUST COULDN'T FINISH ROUND FOUR. 

As noted previously, these are not reviews, per se, but notes on films that I watched or suffered through until I just gave up on them for one reason or another. Sometimes I skipped to different sections just to get a sense of what was going on or to see if the film became more entertaining. Not all of these pictures are necessarily bad, they just didn't hold my attention. If you see one on the list that you think deserves another look, let me know.

Meet Mr. Callaghan (1954) is a British private eye movie about the murder of a wealthy man with four nephews and other suspects. The main character and lead actor are both rather irritating in their way, and the movie is full of cliches. I couldn't care less who the murderer was.

Sodom and Gomorrah (1962), which was directed by Robert Aldrich,  actually did not necessarily seem like a bad biblical spectacle of sorts, but I didn't care for the cast, which included Stewart Granger and a lot of actors whom I didn't find that interesting. This is an international co-production, not a Hollywood film, the reason why the cast is not exactly stellar. It all seemed a little tacky as well, just not something I wanted to spend another hour and a half on.

The Weekend Murders (1970) is actually a dubbed Italian film originally entitled Concerto per pistola solista. It is a take-off on an Agatha Christie-type British manor mystery with a reading of a will and (off-screen) murders occurring afterward. Comedy is provided by a Scotland Yard Inspector and a country sergeant who proves smarter than his superior. I actually watched most of this but it's rather slow and silly and eventually I just skipped to the end to find out who the killer was. The film's "composer," Franceso de Masi, has the temerity to rip off Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto # 1 for the theme music, which one hopes was deliberate. The picture has no style and is not memorable.

Innocent Bystanders (1972) is a late-entry spy saga starring Stanley Baker as an aging operative who is sent on assignment by Donald Pleasence, but isn't apprised of all of the facts. I found the "mod"-like style of the film to be off-putting, and couldn't quite get through a quarter of it.

Screamers (1979) is a dubbed Italian film with Richard Johnson and Barbara Bach hoping to get treasure that is guarded by some mutated Atlanteans who have become half man and half fish. The prologue in a cave with Cameron Mitchell and Mel Ferrer has some gory moments and appears to be added afterward. In the main story Joseph Cotten plays a scientist who wants to study the fish-men. This is slow and unrewarding and isn't really a horror film at all.

Frances (1982) stars Jessica Lange in a very heavily fictionalized version of the life of actress Frances Farmer based on a biography that was later largely discredited. I didn't just turn this off after a time because I knew I wasn't going to get the real story -- Sam Shepard saunters through the movie and narrates even though his character never actually existed -- but the dramatic license at times becomes ludicrous, illogical and even outlandish. For the record Farmer was never lobotomized as this film depicts!

The Human Stain (2003) didn't hold my attention even though it actually has some interesting aspects in this study of an academic (Anthony Hopkins and Wentworth Miller in different time periods) who has hid the fact that he's African-American for virtually all of his adult life. (Ironically, he quits his job when he's accused of racism.) Based on a novel by Philip Roth (The Humbling) we have yet another old man in an improbable relationship with a much younger woman (Nicole Kidman). Both Hopkins and Kidman are miscast, and the film meanders a little too much, although Miller (bi-racial in real life) gives a very good performance.

Masks (2011) is a German-language version of an Italian giallo film, or at least that's what its proponents say it is. About a young lady who comes to study at a strange acting school, the movie is slow and dull despite the occasional bloody sword attack. Comparing it to the (best) work of Dario Argento is ridiculous. This had trouble holding my attention for more than a third.

Camp Dread (2014) is a pretty terrible film about a down-on-his-luck horror film maker (the down-on-his-luck Eric Roberts) who concocts a scheme to use troubled youths on a reality show that will ultimately turn into something like one of his horror movies. Then the youths begin getting killed. The film hasn't a dollop of atmosphere and some of the actors are amateurish to boot. Not compelling nor well-made enough to keep watching.

Suspiria (2018) is a remake of a much better film by Dario Argento centering on a coven of witches in a dance studio. The remake takes place in post WW2 Berlin, and in an attempt to add some depth and pathos to the story, drags in the events of the holocaust. The movie is long but the real problem is that it just didn't grip me or pull me into the story the way that Argento did. If they had stuck to making a simple and effective horror film this might have amounted to something. Tilda Swinton is quite good -- amazing, in fact -- in a dual role. I got about halfway through this and then peeked at subsequent sequences, some of which seemed so silly as to be laughable. Jessica Harper, the lead in the original Suspiria, has a cameo role.

Book Club (2018) has four friends -- Jane Fonda, Diane Keaton, Candice Bergen and Mary Steenburgen -- reading "Fifty Shades of Gray" for their book club and having assorted misadventures with men. Okay, for awhile this was cute, but it seemed too much like an extended ad for "Fifty Shades" (I wouldn't be surprised if the book's publisher is a division of the production company.) Too much like a sitcom, the humor is of the variety of friends getting together and making jokes about sex, the same stuff you can hear in any bar. This wasn't terrible, it just didn't hold my interest for more than half an hour. I was surprised that for a film supposedly against age discrimination, it portrays the very elderly in the same disdainful light as everything else.

Other films that failed to grip me: Hootenanny a-Go-Go; A Swingin; Summer; Gidget Goes to Rome; Every Day's a Holiday with Freddie and the Dreamers; Tough Kid; Racing Blood with Frankie Darro; Juvenile Court with Rita Hayworth; Wild Racers with Fabian; Promises, Promises with Jayne Mansfield, Maid for Murder; Hollywood Dreams; This Man is Dangerous; Adventures of a Private Eye; A Yank in Ermine; Badge of Honor with Buster Crabbe; Girl Loves Boy with Eric Linden; the eurospy flick 13 Days to Die; Doorway to Suspicion; Tale of Five Cities/Women starring Bonar Colleano; The Final Countdown with Kirk Douglas in bangs; and Master Stroke, a caper movie. 

EYE OF THE DEVIL

Deborah Kerr

EYE OF THE DEVIL (1966). Director: J. Lee Thompson.

Phillipe de Montfaucon (David Niven) lives in Paris with his wife, Catherine (Deborah Kerr), and their two beautiful children, Jacques (Robert Duncan) and Toni (Suky Appeby). Learning that there is a possibility that his vineyards back in his ancestral home of Bellenac may be failing, Phillipe returns there and tells Catherine to stay in Paris with the children. But Catherine misses her husband and brings the children to his side, where she discovers strange things are going on around the Castle Bellenac. Men in black robes gather in underground rooms and in the forest, and also hovering about are a strange brother and sister team, Christian (David Hemmings). who shoots doves with his bow and arrow, and Odile (Sharon Tate), who seems to have magical powers. Catherine eventually figures out exactly why her husband came back to Bellenac, but she may be too late to save him ... Eye of the Devil predates both The Wicker Man and Thomas Tryon's novel Harvest Home, both of which also deal with pagan sacrifice, but there's something a little off in this movie. Niven and Kerr, along with Edward Mulhare, Flora Robson, Donald Pleasence and little Robert Duncan all give good performances, but there doesn't seem to be much of an attempt to create real tension or a sense of encroaching dread until the admittedly effective climax. Two sequences when Jacques and then his mother nearly fall to their deaths from the castle roof are also taut. Sharon Tate [Valley of the Dolls] had appeared in one film and several TV shows before she was "introduced" in this movie, and she is perfectly cast and adept (if possibly dubbed) as the very strange and rather sinister Odile. Hemmings [Deep Red] has less to do but maintains the proper spooky attitude.

Verdict: Not entirely successful and slightly supernatural thriller. **1/2.

THE DEVIL WITHIN HER

Cute li'l fella

THE DEVIL WITHIN HER (aka Sharon's Baby/I Don't Want to Be Born/1975). Director: Peter Sasdy.

Lucy Carlesi (Joan Collins) does an act with a dwarf, Hercules (George Claydon), who tries to take liberties with her in her dressing room. When she doesn't comply, he puts a curse on her. The result is that Lucy becomes suspicious of, and terrified by, her adorable baby boy, Nicholas, who is apparently possessed by the still-living Hercules and runs about committing fiendish murders, such as beheading Lucy's doctor (Donald Pleasence) with a shovel! The Devil Within Her is utterly absurd but entertaining, greatly abetted by the very good performances of Collins, Pleasence, John Steiner as a sleazy club owner, Tommy; Ralph Bates [Horror of Frankenstein] as Lucy's husband, Gino; Caroline Munro [The Spy Who Loved Me] as her sister, Mandy; and especially Eileen Atkins [Madame Bovary] as her sister-in-law, Sister Albana. It's Alive, which was made the year before and also featured a killer baby, at least gave its monster fangs and claws and a hideous appearance, but aside from a couple of illusions of the infant resembling the dwarf, this baby is just an adorable little tyke, making the whole project even weirder (the child is so angelic-looking that his gruesome acts seem rather comical). Peter Sasdy also directed Hands of the Ripper and many others. The original title of the film was Sharon's Baby even though the mother is named Lucy. While this film is by no means intellectual, one could claim that it cleverly exploits parents' fears about children and the life/financial changes the little dears bring about. Ray Bradbury once contributed just such a story to an EC horror comic in the fifties.

Verdict: Ridiculous but has a good cast and even some suspense. **1/2.