All posts by Rod Lott

Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Mission to Mars (2000)

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missiontomarsBrian De Palma shelved the Hitchcock homages just long enough to ape another esteemed cinematic master — Stanley Kubrick — for a foray into big-budget sci-fi, Mission to Mars. The epic space odyssey aims very much to be another 2001 — the mystery is well in place; the pacing is deliberately slow; the feeling of reality is there.

And then he blows it at the end with a wholly unnecessary visit to Mars’ built-in planetarium and spook show, complete with crying aliens. It’s the same problem that plagued the endings of Robert Zemeckis’ Contact and James Cameron’s The Abyss. For God’s sake, when will Hollywood learn? Don’t show the mystic aliens!

missiontomars1But before all that, Luke Graham (Don Cheadle, Iron Man 3) heads an exploratory mission to the red planet that ends tragically, and only Graham survives. A rescue mission is deployed to save him, consisting of astropals played by Gary Sinise (sporting Maybelline MoistureLash), Tim Robbins, Jerry O’Connell and the delicious Connie Nielsen. Despite several obstacles — resulting, as expected, in the usual incredible De Palma set pieces — and even further tragedy, the team makes it to Mars. The scene in which Sinise stumbles upon a mentally unstable Cheadle in a makeshift greenhouse plays like something out of De Palma’s over-the-top Raising Cain, or some nonexistent film where the white man busts in on Bob Marley’s weed farm.

And soon this leads to the aforementioned Twin Peaks-esque trip to the “Golly Gee-Whiz” exhibit at the Mars State Fair, where all credibility is checked at the door for a laughs-aplenty sequence that clearly just should’ve been axed. But up until then, Mission is pretty damn good. It’s intelligent, well-made and looks fantastic. Too bad there’s That Goofy Ending, likely the culprit for the film’s punching-bag rep. —Rod Lott

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Action

Mission: Killfast (1991)

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missionkillfastMission: Killfast seems like Ted V. Mikels’ answer to the Andy Sidaris series of spies, lies and exposed thighs (and then some), yet the result is so bad, Sidaris looks like a Cahiers du Cinéma-lauded auteur in comparison. That’s bound to happen when your sections of principal photography are separated by nine years.

The plot, as it is, revolves around missing detonators, which pass through the hands of the characters as if water. Should said detonators fall into the mitts of someone who also possesses “the components,” kablooey: nuclear bomb. Called in to prevent this global catastrophe from occurring is martial-arts master Tiger Yang (Game of Death II), playing himself and fresh off “a world tour.” His first order of business once in town? Appearing in the local parade as its “grand marshall” [sic]; certainly there are better ways to keep a low profile when on a life-or-death mission, but how could Mikels justify so many minutes of parade footage otherwise?

missionkillfast1The director/writer/producer uses it in the same way Mission: Killfast‘s villains do their “skin mag” empire: as a front to keep people distracted. The would-be Playboy Mansion, largely a pool adjacent to a neighborhood golf course, allows for some skanky ladies with rockin’ bods to cavort about in swimwear apparently swiped from Star Search‘s spokesmodel wardrobe. For whatever reason, the woman Mikels’ camera chooses to focus on has a shaved head, as if she stopped by after chemo.

Elsewhere, there’s ’80s B-movie starlet Jewel Shepard (Hollywood Hot Tubs), eschewing thread. Appearing in a see-through mesh shirt to accentuate the bare nipples, Mikels himself. Later, he appears with novelty eyebrows, which is something to see, even if the movie is not. Coming out between his War Cat and the drama (allegedly) Female Slaves’ Revenge, it’s an incomprehensible mess of polka dots and mullets, of Canon fax machines and Casio scores. —Rod Lott

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Horror

Nurse Sherri (1978)

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nursesherriFour years before Barbara Hershey infamously got raped by a ghost in The Entity, Al Adamson had it done (poorly) to Nurse Sherri, his attempt at cashing in on the then-popular possession-pic craze.

Sherri (Jill Jacobson, The Jigsaw Murders) has the unfortunate position of working the ER when a cult leader (Bill Roy, Black Samurai) with occult powers dies on the table, and passes his soul into her. That night, as she lay on her bed, a barely animated patch of green dots and squiggly lines enters her room, parts her legs and goes to town.

nursesherri1From then on, Sherri’s literally not herself, speaking in a deep register reminiscent of third-rung Looney Tunes characters and slaughtering those responsible for her possessor’s death. His disembodied, superimposed head occasionally pops up to laugh manically at others. Meanwhile, all her fellow RNs can do is think of sex — and acting on it, as if they’re in one of Roger Corman’s Nurses movies.

Adamson’s reputation is that of an inept, bottom-of-barrel filmmaker à la Ed Wood — a position not quite accurate if one considers the entirety of his work, but wholly warranted if one were to judge him on Nurse Sherri alone. It’s an ambling, scattered-focus potboiler made for all the wrong reasons, and given that Adamson’s usual starlet, real-life leading lady Regina Carrol, is absent from the cast, one can’t help but wonder if he just couldn’t harness any passion this time. Viewers who are able to might want to watch both cuts; the theatrical one plays up the horror, while the alternate amps up the copulation. —Rod Lott

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Action

Spies Against the World (1966)

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spyaroundtheworldAnthology films largely reside in the realm of horror, only occasionally landing in comedy and science fiction. But spy movies? It happened — in Italy, of course — in Spies Against the World, aka Killer’s Carnival and, seriously, Where Are You Taking That Woman. In the wraparound tale, a wanted and armed murderer (Peter Vogel, The Black Cobra) of “four young and beautiful girls” breaks into the study of a professor (Patton’s Richard Münch), who warns his captor what a life of crime will get him by telling him three tales. Each conveniently takes place in a renowned locale across the globe — lavish spots to which I cannot afford to travel.

In the first segment, in Vienna, a woman insists on seeing David Porter (Stewart Granger, 1950’s King Solomon’s Mines), because the crab apple is the only one who can find the men responsible for killing her knew-too-much journalist brother.

spyaroundtheworld1Rome if you want to for Spies’ inventive middle section, which sees a secret agent (Pierre Brice, Apache Gold) receive his orders Mission: Impossible-style, on vinyl made of spaghetti. He’s to track down some material from a gang, but story is secondary; goofy comedy is the main course as crosses and double-crosses are held together with thick layers of slapstick.

Finally, detective Glenn Cassidy (Lex Barker, The Torture Chamber of Dr. Sadism) finds his investigation of beached corpses in San Francisco takes him to Rio de Janeiro during its Carnival celebration, where the president is the target of an assassination plot. Yes, the two are connected, and it all leads to an electrifying finale on a merry-go-round. Eagle eyes should watch for the future Nosferatu himself, Klaus Kinski, wiping his sweaty face in the background of this one.

Spies Against the World deserves exploring for being such an obscurity, but the puffery is also tremendous fun for those with an affection for ’60s swinging spies that proliferated in James Bond’s wake. Naturally, the scenery is terrific — both the destinations and the delightful beauties who grace them, including Karin Dor (You Only Live Twice) and Margaret Lee (Venus in Furs), whose passports beg for stamping. —Rod Lott

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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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