All posts by Rod Lott

Thriller

The House on Straw Hill (1976)

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housestrawhillAfter nailing down a cool half-mil on his debut, novelist Paul Martin (Udo Kier, Flesh for Frankenstein) is having a tough time writing his sophomore book. Even after hiding himself and his typewriter in the British countryside House on Straw Hill, he’s only slightly more productive as an author than The Shining’s Jack Torrance.

With deadline looming, Paul hires a typist to whom he can dictate, and off the train pops Linda (Linda Hayden, Taste the Blood of Dracula), a pretty young thing who packs a dildo in her suitcase — not that Paul can cast much judgment, as he dons latex surgical gloves for his sexual trysts with his shapely ginger girlfriend, Suzanne (UK sex symbol Fiona Richmond, History of the World: Part I).

housestrawhill1Linda proves as skilled at her job as she is at self-pleasuring, which she does often throughout the picture, but having her around is not good for Paul’s fragile mental health. He keeps experiencing visions of a grisly, bloody death, sometimes during the most inopportune times (such as, say, while Suzanne writhes atop his unit like an Olympic gymnast). Just what the hell is going on?

Viewers will wonder, as writer/director James Kenelm Clarke (Let’s Get Laid) keeps the film’s secret under his hat for a little too long. It becomes evident once you realize how little story is at work, with a lot of sex and violence to pad it out — not for nothing did The House on Straw Hill stake a claim on the dreaded “video nasties” list in the regressive-repressive 1980s (often under its alternate title of the apt Trauma).

In exchange for sticking it out, audiences are rewarded with a sick little thriller in which Paul’s freakouts are so heavily laden with dream imagery and actions don’t always adhere to logic that one wonders if the entire film isn’t a facade of sorts. For example, what kind of woman is raped at gunpoint by two guys — one of whom sports a T-shirt reading, “I Am a Vampyre,” no less — yet able to brush off such an act as if nothing happened? You’ll get the answer, actually; note that I have not accused Clarke’s work of possessing good taste. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Cellar Dweller (1988)

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cellardwellerDon Mancini created two horror villains in the fall of 1988. One, of course, was Chucky, as seen in Child’s Play. The other was Cellar Dweller, as unseen in Cellar Dweller, a dirt-cheap creature feature from Empire Pictures and Troll director John Carl Buechler. For his first credit, Mancini went under the nom de plume of Kit Du Bois — a name with more style than the movie.

Thirty years ago, horror comics artist Colin Childress (Jeffrey Combs, Re-Animator) died when a monster he drew on the page came to life. Thirty years later, Childress is idolized by cute brunette Whitney Taylor (Debrah Farentino, Storm of the Century) who attends the Throckmorton Institute for the Arts in order to create “the ultimate monster.” The school stands on the site of Childress’ former home, so Whitney is hot to use his basement studio to create her “populist tripe” (as comics are dubbed by the school’s administrator, played by Yvonne De Carlo of TV’s The Munsters).

cellardweller1Whitney draws what Childress did: a hairy demon with a pentagram carved into its chest. For no good reason, she draws separate stories of the monster attacking and eating her classmates, and whatever she draws actually happens. (“I told you so!” cries Dr. Wertham, from hell.) As George A. Romero proved in Creepshow, incorporating comic-book elements can be cinematic; as Buechler certainly learned, however, simply cutting from the action to a motionless panel is like applying the emergency brake to the story.

There’s a scene in which a scheming filmmaker (Pamela Bellwood, Hangar 18) folds a vintage comic book in half to hide it in her jacket, and I can imagine any fanboys cringing at the damage she does. I bring that up because that’s the most reaction Cellar Dweller can muster. The titular beast is a nifty practical effect, which was Buechler’s bread and butter, but the movie itself — all 78 slow-going minutes of it — makes his Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College look like high art. Cellar Dweller is so stupid that Whitney foils the hirsute varmint with white-out correction fluid. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

Super Fuzz (1980)

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superfuzzI have warned my kids that whatever pieces of popular culture they like today, they’re bound to wonder what they were thinking, 20 years from now. I speak from experience, having revisited Super Fuzz, the Italian superhero spoof I saw in theaters for David Huckabay’s 10th birthday party. There wasn’t a kid among our fourth-grade group who didn’t find it hysterical, both then and multiple HBO and VHS viewings later.

Fresh from the police academy, Officer Dave Speed (Terence Hill, My Name Is Nobody) gets his first solo assignment of tracking down a parking violator, but accidentally explodes an experimental rocket with one bullet while trying to frighten an alligator. (Don’t ask.)

superfuzz1On the plus side, he gains super powers from the fallout to which he’s exposed. Dave can see through walls, run really fast, walk on water, move things with his mind, catch speeding bullets in his teeth, make a stadium disappear — basically anything and everything, as long as he doesn’t see the color red. These feats of strength irk his tubby partner (Ernest Borgnine, Escape from New York) to no end. Why? Comedy, I guess.

While Hill remains affable as ever, Super Fuzz is no longer funny, assuming it ever truly was. As slapsticky as a Three Stooges marathon in the middle of a Keystone Kops retrospective, the movie suffers from an overall shoddiness of belabored gags, bad dubbing and a theme song that burrows into your being like a tapeworm. It’s disorienting to think that Sergio Corbucci, the director responsible for Django and other violent spaghetti Westerns, is also responsible for a movie that ends with a hero chewing enough gum to make a giant bubble on which he can float away. Where’s a badass gunslinger to shoot such a thing down when you need him? —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Only God Forgives (2013)

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onlygodforgivesIf Drive were the only film by Nicolas Winding Refn you have seen, you might approach his follow-up, Only God Forgives, with the expectations of it being just like that Ryan Gosling vehicle. While that’s understandable, it’s also wrong.

While Gosling, neon and brutal violence all return from that 2011 instant crime classic to front this Bangkok-set crime drama, the similarities end there. Gosling’s soft-spoken Julian may be a drug smuggler, but he’s a saint compared to his brother, Billy (Tom Burke, Donkey Punch), who is murdered after raping and killing a 16-year-old prostitute.

onlygodforgives1Flying in from America upon hearing the news is the cold-hearted Crystal (a frighteningly good Kristin Scott Thomas, Gosford Park), their tigress of a mother coming to avenge her fallen cub. (Her character’s animal-print dress can’t be accidental.) Her consideration of Julian as the inferior child is not an opinion she hides — rather, she revels in it — yet Crystal still counts on him to bring down those men responsible for Billy’s bloody end — namely, Chang (Vithaya Pansringarm, The Hangover Part II) the corrupt cop who travels with a very sharp sword he’s not afraid to use.

Using all the fluorescent colors in the Crayola box, Refn is in no rush to draw his tale of good vs. evil; characters often move at literal half-speed. By design, the story is rather simplistic — the moral code of the 12th-century samurai basted in a contemporary dressing. With Refn, what’s most important is not the depth of the tale but how it’s told, and Only God Forgives more resembles David Lynch than Drive. To that end, its calculated visuals can lull the viewer into a trance of sublimity. I get why so many will hate it; I’m just grateful I’m not one of them. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema

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There’s something you should know about Simon Sheridan’s Keeping the British End Up: Four Decades of Saucy Cinema: It stinks. But only literally. I don’t know what paper stock Titan Books used for this hardcover, but it carries the waft of B.O., crossed with perhaps a hint of eau de post-coital, so maybe it’s appropriate.

Anyway, what matters is whether the contents are worth reading, no matter how obnoxious the scent, and that is a resounding “why yes, guv’nor!” In chronicling the history of the UK “slap-and-tickle” subgenre, Sheridan whips up a big bundle of fun. The book originally saw release a decade ago, but this recent new edition has been, according to the copyright page, “completely revised.”

Ask Sheridan in his introduction, does risqué equal sexy? Answers the remaining 300 or so pages, again, “why yes, guv’nor!” As was in America, the floodgates to depicted sex onscreen — we’re not talking hardcore porn here, it should be noted — opened only after the dawn of the “educational” health film and the “nudie cuties” that gave Russ Meyer and Herschell Gordon Lewis their starts.

Once Agneta Ekmanner gave moviegoers their first glimpse of pubic hair, in 1968’s Hugs & Kisses, there was no looking back, especially in the UK, where for a solid quarter of a century, the sex film saved cinema from the threat of television. In other words, the raunchy comedies were the CGI-laden superhero adventures of their era, making bona fide stars of physically gifted gals like Fiona Richmond and Mary Millington (an actual prostitute).

The bulk of the book is comprised of a chronological look of sex flick to sex flick, not just with lively plot summaries, but candid, behind-the-scenes bits from those involved on either side of the camera. It matters not if you’ve seen none of these movies, because Sheridan makes it entertaining reading; I haven’t seen a single one, but I came away with more than few for which to look out.

At the end, as the sex film moves from theaters to home living rooms via VHS, where they can be better — ahem! — appreciated, Sheridan includes brief bios of some of the subgenre’s superstars. Whether or not they’re covered in that section, it is interesting to note how many of the players are known to those shores: You have not only actresses like Joan Collins and Ava Cadell (an Andy Sidaris mainstay), but legit mainstream directors at various stages of their careers, including Jack Arnold (The Creature from the Black Lagoon), Michael Winner (Death Wish) and perhaps most notably, Martin Campbell (Green Lantern).

None of this would amount to anything if Keeping the British End Up were just text. It’s lavishly illustrated with stills and poster art throughout. While there’s a color insert, it’d be nice to see all of the art not in black and white, but just be glad it survives and that, hey, boobs aplenty. Keep it away from the kids, and close to your never-ending to-watch list. —Rod Lott

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