All posts by Rod Lott

Thriller

Grand Piano (2013)

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grandpianoGrand Piano is the best Brian De Palma work in this millennium. It just happens to be directed by Spain’s Eugenio Mira.

Virtuoso pianist Tom Selznick (Elijah Wood, 2012’s Maniac remake) has just begun tinkling the ivories at a classical concert when he notices a threatening note scrawled on his sheet music: Do what he’s told, or die. Because the message is written in red capital letters, Tom pays attention. Well, that, and because whoever left it has Tom’s fashion-model wife (Kerry Bishé, Red State) in his gun sights.

grandpiano1The culprit is Clem (John Cusack, The Raven), mostly heard and not seen. He communicates via earpiece, barking do-or-die orders at Tom throughout the event, including a demand to perform an über-difficult piece on which the pianist very publicly choked a few years prior. Mira gets Tom off the bench as the concert proceeds, which is ludicrous, yet Grand Piano embraces and thrives upon just that. As preposterous as it is pleasurable, the high-concept howler achieves an operatic quality of disbelief — all the better to ape De Palma’s swipes, split screens and stabbings. For fans of impossible suspense, it hits just the right note. —Rod Lott

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Action

The Lost Empire (1985)

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lostempireIf it looks like Andy Sidaris, walks like Andy Sidaris and talks like Andy Sidaris … well, it’s probably Andy Sidaris. But it’s also The Lost Empire, which has the distinction of being the debut film of Jim Wynorski, whose thirst for the big breast is Sidaris’ equal and trumped only by Russ Meyer.

The bountiful babe at Empire’s creamy center is Melanie Vincz (Hunk) as blonde policewoman Angel Wolfe who goes undercover, Charlie’s Angels style, on a not-so-secret island fortress. Ruled by religious nutso Dr. Sin Do (Phantasm’s Tall Man, Angus Scrimm), the place is the site of an annual $25,000 “spiritual competition,” which advertises for contestants in the classifieds. Joining Angel in the mortal combat are another large-chested blonde (Angela Aames, Bachelor Party) and, to shake things up, a large-chested brunette (Raven De La Croix, Screwballs).

lostempire1There’s much more to the story, but damned if it makes sense, and doubly damned if Wynorski means for it to: ninjas with yo-yo stars, a ridiculously phallic laser gun, Lemurians using scientific secrets into tangible jewels that glow as red as a monkey’s ass. Speaking of, there’s also a gorilla; De La Croix punches him in the face and kicks him in the balls and, therefore, makes a play straight for your heart.

Sloppy and scrappy, the pic bears the sensibilities of the three magazines present on Angel’s boyfriend’s coffee table: Playboy, Mad and King-Sized Cracked. Wynorski fills the minutes with everything he can jam in — robot spiders, Angelique Pettyjohn — as if he would not get the chance to make another movie. We know now that certainly wasn’t the case, but there once was a time when Wynorski made some blasts of B movies, rather than the softcore dreck he grinds out today. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Brides of Blood (1968)

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bridesbloodEvery two-bit tropical island needs a health center, right? Peace Corps good guy Jim Farrell (John Ashley, Beyond Atlantis) thinks so! Brides of Blood boats Jim o’er to ol’ Blood Island — name not official — with Dr. Henderson (Kent Taylor, The Phantom from 10,000 Leagues) and the doc’s young, hot wife (Beverly Powers, The Comedy of Terrors).

Dr. Henderson is going for another reason: The isle sits on the fringe of the range of atomic tests from the 1940s, causing some mutations. We’re talking land crabs, banana trees whose branches move like tentacles, shapeshifting butterflies, exploding flowers — you name it.

bridesblood1And then there’s the creature to whom topless natives are sacrificed. If you can imagine that Swamp Thing were created by Sid and Marty Krofft, but they couldn’t afford a movable mouth, you’ve got a good grasp on the where the needle points here: straight to the Bs! Fans of the stool-loose Blood Island series, of which the Philippines-lensed Bride is part one, wouldn’t have it any other way. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

Sightseers (2012)

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sightseersComedies rarely come darker than Ben Wheatley’s Sightseers, written by its lead actors, Alice Lowe and Steve Oram. Both can be seen in The World’s End by Edgar Wright, who lends his name here as stamp of approval with an executive-producer credit. The British film doesn’t need it — it’s funnier than any of his works, for starters — but if it attracts more eyeballs to Wheatley’s little picture, mission accomplished.

Lowe’s Tina is dumpy, dowdy, living with her woe-is-me mother (Eileen Davies, Bright Star) and, for the first time in her 34 years, has a boyfriend. He’s the bearded, burly Chris (Oram), with whom she’s going on holiday via RV, over Mum’s passive-aggressive protests. Chris’ meticulously planned agenda covers national parks to museums (separate) celebrating trains and pencils, all leading to the area he grew up.

sightseers1What he has not planned for — but should have — is the selfish disrespect of fellow tourists, both to one another and the sites of varying sacredness. When Chris senses the proper reverence is not being shown, Chris snaps and Ellen follows.

Sightseers‘ trick is that our travelers turns out to be hypocrites, as much of an intrusion as everyone else. It asks, “What if Clark and Ellen Griswold were psychopaths?” and the answer takes unexpected turns — not out of course correction, but deliberate defilement of viewers’ expectations. As with his previous film, the highly recommended shocker Kill List, at no point does Wheatley shy away from the edge of the ledge. Luckily, he and his star scribes know just how to play terrible acts — from dog puncture to potpourri sex — so that they come off as awfully, wrongly funny. —Rod Lott

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Horror

The Legacy (1978)

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legacyI’ve seen enough movies to know that if you receive a sizable sum from a bank account with the numbers “666,” Something Is Up. In The Legacy, an interior-design team gets such a deposit to the tune of $50,000 — an advance payment for a project whose particulars go undisclosed, beyond that a trip to England is required. Something Is Up.

After arriving in the UK, Margaret (Katharine Ross, The Graduate) and her partner/lover, Pete (Sam Elliott, Hulk), are involved in a motorcycle accident and taken to a remote countryside estate for a cup of tea and cleanup. The kind gesture threatens to turn into an eternity when Margaret and Pete find their every effort to leave the premises quashed, as if a conspiracy prevents an exit. Plus, a nun lives there. Something Is Up.

legacy1Worse, the other guests — The Who’s Roger Daltrey among them — start to die horrific deaths, and their host is some sort of bedridden demon with claw-like hands in need of a manicure and serious moisturizing. Something Is Up. While that may not be an individual viewer’s pulse, The Legacy nonetheless boasts several creative kill sequences, courtesy of director Richard Marquand (Return of the Jedi) and co-scripter Jimmy Sangster, who specialized in penning the type of Hammer Films product (i.e. Fear in the Night) this modern-day Gothic exercise emulates, more successfully than not.

Produced at the wane of the 1970s’ satanic-panic subgenre in horror (see: The Omen, The Sentinel, Race with the Devil and so on), The Legacy is good enough to deserve not being forgotten. One cannot say the same for the sore-thumb ballad serving as the film’s theme song, warbled with MOR saccharine by Kiki Dee. What Was Up? —Rod Lott

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