TOMB OF NOSTALGIA: SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS (1977)

SATAN’S CHEERLEADERS (1977)

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Horror comedy has a cheer-leading squad and their coach being kidnapped by a group of Satan worshipers. One of the girls will be chosen as his bride and the rest will be used as sacrificial offerings. That’s it in a nutshell.

Exploitation comedy is directed by Greydon Clark (Without Warning) from a script by he and Alvin L. Fast. It’s a goofy flick filled with bad sex jokes, exposed breasts and Satan worshipers who don’t evoke much fear and don’t seem all that competent at evoking Satan either. A lot of the humor falls flat and the flick seems like it’s made up as it goes along and lacks the charm of Clark’s 1980 extraterrestrial cult classic. One wonders if Clark has treated the material more seriously and let the situation itself provide the humor, it would have been more successful at accomplishing it’s goals. The story is ripe for exploitation fun, but it’s the misfiring dirty jokes and goofball humor that don’t click. There is plenty of skin shown by our pom pom wielding heroines, but the villains just don’t evoke much threat for us to feel like our girls are in any real danger, even for a comedy. The last few moments do click, but it took us 90 minutes to get there and the first act is all lame, naughty high school stuff before our girls even find themselves in peril. It’s one of those flicks where a great title is in need of a far better movie and sadly from a director who can deliver the B-movie fun as Without Warning proves.

Clark has a decent cast here. The veterans like John Ireland, Yvonne DeCarlo, Jack Kruschen and John Carradine all perform well and get the tone of the material, even if their cultists are more comical than creepy. The young cast of unknowns are very uneven, but no one really expects acting from a cast probably hired for their looks, especially our young ladies. Kerry Sherman is the one standout, mostly because she shows the most skin and she seems to be the only one to go on to other roles in film and TV.

As much as I love B-movies and exploitation flicks from this era, this one doesn’t live up to the fun of it’s title. Most of the jokes and goofball comedy falls flat and it’s attempts at horror are equally unsuccessful. There is some fun to be had, the nostalgia is certainly present and at least the ladies look good in and out of their uniforms. It still just seems like a bit of a mess and director Clark was far better combining horror and humor a few years later in the cult classic Without Warning. Worth a look for the 70s nostalgia, but not the midnight movie it could have been with a tighter script and maybe playing it a bit more straight.

-MonsterZero NJ

2 and 1/2 pom poms.

 

 

 

TOMB OF NOSTALGIA: THE SENTINEL (1977)

THE SENTINEL (1977)

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Flick is a prime example of the type of big studio, all star cast, horror films that came out in the 70s after the success of films like The Exorcist and Rosemary’s Baby. It tells the story of emotionally troubled model Alison Parker (Christina Raines), who moves into an old building in Brooklyn with a group of eccentric neighbors, including an old blind priest (John Carradine) who lives on the top floor and constantly stares out the window despite his handicap. No sooner does she movie in, that strange things start to happen. She begins to suffer headaches and strange dreams and she’s even told by the realtor (Ava Gardner) that, aside from the old priest, there is no one else living in her building. Despite these developments, Alison continues to live there and her nightmarish visions continue to worsen. It appears that the apartment is a gateway to hell and the old blind priest is it’s guardian. It’s time for a changing of the guard, though…and guess who has been chosen to watch the gateway next?

Film is written and directed by British filmmaker and frequent Charles Bronson director, Michael Winner from Jeffery Konvitz’s book. It has some genuinely creepy and disturbing moments, thought they are inconsistent in their delivery and the film takes about halfway through for stuff to really start getting spooky. Winner has a very straightforward style, so the film has a very by-the-numbers feel, though he does manage some legitimate chills here and there. There is some good gore and makeup FX from the legendary Dick Smith and the film did receive some harsh criticism for it’s use of actual deformed people as demonic minions in it’s unsettling climax. The pace is a moderate one and we get a very ominous conclusion, as was common with 70s horror flicks. It’s not a bad flick, but one that could have been a lot better with a more stylish director behind the camera to give it some life and intensity…though, again, Winner does create a memorable and atmospheric climax and some chilling moments along the way. It’s just a little stale at times.

Christina Raines is fine as the emotionally scarred young woman thrust into a nightmarish situation. She is a little wooden in her performance, but she does alright. As stated there is an all star cast in support of lead Raines. Chris Sarandon plays her high profile, lawyer boyfriend who doubts her at first, then does some investigating which changes his mind and gives us needed exposition. He is a little uncharacteristically bland in the role. Carradine has little to do as the blind priest Father Halliran and has no dialog. We also have Ava Garder as a realtor, Burgess Meredith as one of Alison’s spectral neighbors, Eli Wallach as a hard-nosed cop and Martin Balsam as an eccentric professor. We also have some rising stars such as a young Christopher Walken as a detective, Jeff Goldblum (who starred as a thug in Winner’s Death Wish) as a photographer and Tom Berenger as a new tenant.

This is a moderately entertaining 70s horror flick from a director more known for his Bronson headlined action flicks. It has some legitimate creepy moments, but takes awhile to get started. It’s basically all a set-up for it’s disturbing climax which came under fire, in the day, for using real deformed and handicapped individuals to portray it’s demonic creatures. Regardless of how one feels about that, it is very spooky and makes up for some of the film’s somewhat staler aspects. Some feel it’s a classic and while I’m not one of them, I respect that opinion as it certainly has it’s moments. Worth a look.

-MonsterZero NJ

2 and 1/2 spooky specters

TOMB OF NOSTALGIA: THE BOOGEYMAN (1980)

THE BOOGEYMAN (1980)

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The Boogeyman is another film I saw in a theater back in the day when low budget stuff like this could be seen on the big screen. It’s a cheesy, somewhat amateurish, slasher/supernatural horror that has earned a reputation as a cult classic.

The movie opens with two small children Lacey (Natasha Schiano) and Willy (Jay Wright) watching their philandering mother (Gillian Gordon) getting it on with one of her various lovers. They get caught and her partner (Howard Grant) takes it out on the older Willy, cruelly tying him to his bed. Lacey waits till her mother and the jerk she’s with move their activities to the bedroom and cuts Willy free with a large kitchen knife. Willy then takes the knife and goes to his mom’s bedroom where the little boy carves up the man, while Lacey watches it reflected in a mirror on the wall. We then cut to 20 years later where Lacey (Suzanna Love) is grown up with a family of her own and still taking care of Willy (Nicholas Love), who hasn’t spoken since the incident. Lacey has her own mental scars and her husband Jake (Ron James), in an effort to free her of what haunts her, takes her back to her mom’s old house. Seeing the mirror again triggers a vision of the murdered man and she breaks it in a fear filled rage. Her husband takes the broken mirror back to their home…this guy’s a real therapist, isn’t he…where they soon discover the angry spirit of the murdered lover resides within the mirror and breaking it has set him free to kill anyone caught in the mirror’s glare!

Written and directed by Ulli Lommel this film has a few effective moments here and there, but is a slightly amateurish film with some very cheesy sequences…though that can be fun. The film combines a slasher flick, with victims being slain by the murderous spirit one by one in graphic ways, with a supernatural horror, as our killer is a ghost and eventually a priest is called in to try to stop him. The heavy Halloween influence is obvious with certain camera shots and the electronic score by Tim Krog, which evokes Carpenter’s scoring work, and the title itself referencing the legendary character as did the classic Carpenter thriller. The film does do it’s own thing, but Lommel really doesn’t generate much suspense and some of the kills are borderline silly and poorly executed. The most effective sequences are the opening flashback…the scene with young Willy being bound to his bed by their mother’s guest, who is wearing a stocking over his head, is very uncomfortable…and a surreal dream sequence where Lacey finds herself bound and gagged to a bed like Willy was, but with someone (Willy?) about to savage her with a kitchen knife. The overblown final confrontation with the malevolent spirit is also kinda fun, if not a little silly. The plot as a whole is a bit convoluted. The idea that Lacey’s husband would bring her to her old house so abruptly and then take the broken mirror home and put it up, is quite a stretch. The fact that shards wind up all over the place and that anyone caught in a shard’s glare is murdered, is a plot device that only serves to up the body count and it makes no sense that the dead man would kill random victims instead of focusing his rage on the family…was he a serial killer to begin with?… We never find out, not even his name. And since most of our victims are random, they evoke little emotional reaction from the audience as they are no one you really care about or particularly like. There are some funny scenes along the way, including some of the murders and I, even upon my recent revisit, have trouble deciding if they are intentional or not. But they are cheesy fun.

The cast are all fairly wooden. The pretty Suzanna Love (who was also Mrs. Lommel at the time) has a few moments here and there, but is otherwise a bit bland. Her best scenes are when acting with the boy playing her son (Raymond Boyden), so maybe the mommy thing suits her. She does have a girl-next-door beauty that definitely qualifies her as a MILF and that certainly gives her appeal. Nicholas Love (Suzanna’s real-life brother) basically does little but stand around looking distressed as Willy and Ron James is pretty wooden as Lacey’s husband Jake. The only person who performs with a little life is legendary actor John Carradine, in a small role, as Lacey’s psychiatrist Dr. Warren.

Overall, the nostalgia factors of both being a very early 80s style movie and having seen it with friends at the now long-gone Fox Theater in Hackensack, are far more effective than much of the movie itself. It has a few moments and the cheese factor can be entertaining, but as a serious attempt at horror it’s a bit goofy and has a slightly amateurish feel…though it does have it’s chills and Lommel creates some atmosphere in the flashback opening, dream sequences and the final confrontation climax. The cast are all fairly bland and the fact that we know little or nothing about the ghostly killer doesn’t help strengthen his character either. I still recommend this to anyone who is a fan of, or is discovering films of this era. It is fun, but just don’t quite expect the classic it is sometimes referred to as. The film was fairly successful and spawned two semi-sequels.

Rated 2 and 1/2 (out of 4) mirror shards.

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TOMB OF NOSTALGIA: SHOCK WAVES (1977)

SHOCK WAVES (1977)

Shock Waves is a very effective and spooky 70s horror flick that goes in slightly different direction with the traditional zombie formula and does a lot with a little.

The film opens with old WWII newsreel footage telling of rumored German experiments to create a super solider and of allied troops actually meeting squads of German commandos that were relentless, unstoppable and fought with only their bare hands. We then cut to the present with a young woman (Brooke Adams) in shock, being pulled from a boat and it is her narration that sets the tale in motion. The woman, named Rose, was aboard a tour boat near the Bahamas that had an engine malfunctioned and became lost. In the middle of the night, it strikes what appears to be an abandoned ship and is damaged, forcing guests and crew onto a small island where they find an old, apparently abandoned hotel. But the structure is not abandoned and is inhabited by an old German man (horror legend Peter Cushing) who warns that the appearance of the ghost ship that struck them, “The Pretorius” means they are all in mortal danger. He reveals that he was a soldier who commanded a platoon of scientifically altered troops who were vicious and unstoppable and designed to fight in the water. The soldiers were uncontrollable and were taken out to sea to be kept out of allied hands. When the war was lost, he sank his shipload of them and came to live on this island. But now that the ship and it’s living dead cargo has washed up on a reef, the ‘Death Corp.’ are now free to do what they were created to… kill!

Despite a PG rating and being very tame in terms of violence, Shock Waves is a very atmospheric and spooky flick thanks to director Ken Wiederhorn’s creating of a constant and heavy mood of dread and keeping his zombie-like soldiers shrouded in mystery even once they are revealed. He manages no small feat by creating such atmosphere on a sunlit tropical island, but his camera work and skilled scene set-ups overcome the idyllic setting to make a satisfyingly gothic horror. The scenes of his Death Corp. troops rising silently from the water with their scarred faces and dark goggles chills each time as does their silent and relentless pursuit of our ill-fated castaways. Despite a modest budget, Wiederhorn creates the illusion that they are everywhere and that no one is safe, no matter where they try to hide. The fact that they are renown for attacking their fellow soldiers and commanders makes even the former SS commander fearful of them and that he is also afraid, translates to the rest of the characters and to the audience. Add to this a really creepy electronic score by Richard Einhorn and you have a movie that, depute being relatively bloodless and very tame in it’s actual violence, is still quite unsettling from beginning to end. For those who whine about today’s trend of teen friendly PG-13 horror need only look to this PG rated fright flick to learn that it is the atmosphere and chills that make a horror work, not the gore and guts… though I do love a good gore fest, too!

The cast are all fine. Obviously Cushing is in top form, as always, as the SS commander and he is joined by the legendary John Carradine in a small role as the shipwrecked tour boat’s captain. A young Brooke Adams is a strong-willed heroine in her Rose and the fact that the film gets the shapely young actress in a bikini frequently, doesn’t hurt either. The rest of the small cast are relative unknowns, but do a decent job though, there won’t be any awards either. And the men who portray the stalking Death Corp. troops give their characters some lethal and deadly presence, which adds to the film’s effectiveness.

So, in effect, Ken Weiderhorn delivers a very atmospheric and chilling horror, that he co-wrote with John Kent Harrison, that is very successful in delivering the creepy goods, despite it’s low budget and minimalist approach. The film is practically bloodless and is very moderately paced, but it still gives goosebumps and makes very good use of the deserted motel location and even the jungle surrounding it. It’s not a great movie, but is still a very effective little horror that proves that you can chill without extravagant make-up FX or gore. Today’s impatient and visually overstimulated audiences might not be impressed, but for those who can appreciate it’s laid-back approach, it is a very spooky 90 minutes.

3 spooky submerged stormtroopers.