All posts by Rod Lott

Action

Black Oak Conspiracy (1977)

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blackoakconspiracyAfter receiving the double-whammy news that his elderly mother suddenly has sold her land and been placed in a nursing home for a vague blood disorder, Hollywood stunt man Jingo Johnson (Jesse Vint, Macon County Line) returns home to Black Oak. It’s a depressing little town — the kind where the only thing to do on Saturday night is watch a talent show of kazoo-playing and helium-singing.

Jingo immediately runs afoul of two people in particular. One is a stogie-smoking developer (Robert F. Lyons, Death Wish 2) who not only now owns the Johnson farm, but is dating Jingo’s ex (Karen Carlson, The Octagon). The other is Sheriff Grimes (Albert Salmi, Caddyshack), a man so shorn of scruples that he tells the wife he’s cheating on why he doesn’t spend time with her: “Because you look like sumthin’ a wolf ate and shit over a cliff.”

blackoakconspiracy1Something with his mom’s situation just doesn’t sit right with Jingo. One might say that more he noses around, the more he’s stuck in a conspiracy — a Black Oak Conspiracy!

This Roger Corman production was a big one for Vint (the poor man’s Dennis Hopper, and that’s not meant as a slam), for whom this represented a first try at writing and producing. The directing, however, was left in the hands of Bob Kelljan (Rape Squad), who fills the flick with enough fistfights, shoot-outs, car chases (one scored with goofy music bearing that sound of plucked rubber bands) and casual sex to make it a solid, overlooked entry in redneck-vengeance cinema. —Rod Lott

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Horror

House of the Damned (1963)

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housedamnedI assume the real estate listing for this film’s titular abode would go something like this: “Spacious Rochester Castle, private drive, lakeside view, 50 doors, basement dungeons, built-in elevator and black cat. Full disclosure: is damned.”

In the hourlong House of the Damned, architect Scott Campbell (Ron Foster, Private Lessons) has been hired to do a survey of the California place, abandoned without notice by a crazy old heiress. It’s a weekend of work, so Scott brings along not only its ring of 13 keys, but his wife, Nancy (Merry Anders, Legacy of Blood).

housedamned1“Isn’t this something?” Scott says upon crossing the threshold, to which Nancy replies, “If you like Early Dracula!”

Vampires are nowhere to be seen, but while the Campbells snooze, some … thing hobbles into the bedroom. I won’t reveal the castle’s altogether-ooky secrets; I’ll only say that although 7-foot-2 Richard Kiel (007’s Jaws) is among the cast, he is not among its strangest.

The black-and-white B picture generates a great deal of good-natured fun from its unusual take on the haunted-house premise and William Castle-esque sensibilities. Directed by Maury Dexter (Raiders from Beneath the Sea) and written by Harry Spalding (Curse of the Fly), it makes for a slight, but efficient sleeper from the separate-beds era. —Rod Lott

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Sex

Shandra: The Jungle Girl (1999)

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shandraLegend has it — at least within the realm of Surrender Cinema/Full Moon’s ultra-cheap skin flicks — that deep in the wild exists a strange yet voluptuous creature named Shandra: The Jungle Girl, who kills men by pleasuring them to death. Naturally, some scheming, slimy millionaire-type with the devious name of Travis Fox (David Christensen, The Mangler 2) wants to capture her and sell her to the highest bidder.

Fox recruits a couple of scientists (or rather, softcore porn actors decked in white lab coats) and the token tubby Hispanic, Diego (John Lopez, Mutant Species), to accompany him into the jungle, played here by a largely barren field in Southern California, complete with man-made rock walls. (Likewise, in the movie’s opening jungle montage, one shot is of a parrot who’s clearly at a zoo, what with the concrete sidewalk and barbed wire visible in the background.)

shandra1The team finds and snares the mute Shandra (Lisa Throw, aka Neena Quiroz, I Like to Play Games Too), but only after they speak this three-line exchange twice: “Hear that?” “Sounds like a dream girl, doc. She’s close.”

Shandra feeds on her prey by sneaking up for a kiss on the lips before moving on to more carnal activities. The men falling victim to her wiles fully cooperate, whereas I wouldn’t be able to get past the vaginal-hygiene issue. Call me old-fashioned. (Speaking of victims, the first guy to go says shortly beforehand, “No sign of the creature described to us by the Amazonians. In fact, other than a gaggle of squirrel monkeys above my campsite, there’s been no contact with any life at all.”)

After examining “the jungle bitch,” the scientists determine she has the ability to implant footage from previous Full Moon films into the minds of whoever she touches. That’s really quite a gift … to pad out the running time, of course, because director Cybil Richards (Femalien) had to have something beyond grammar-be-damned dialogue (“Doctor, you have did the test to determine Shandra’s actual age?”) and unsexy simulated sex. And, hey, who knew feral women were afforded the benefits of underwire support? —Rod Lott

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Horror

The Birds II: Land’s End (1994)

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birdsIIPart of what has allowed Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds to live on as one of his most enduring masterpieces was its unapologetic, ambiguous ending. So why spoil that lingering note of ominousness with a sequel? Especially one made for basic cable? Money, one guesses, and out of greed hatches The Birds II: Land’s End. Despite the subtitle, it’s not based on the clothing catalog, although it is as shallow and disposable.

Dim bulb Ted (Brad Johnson, Flight of the Intruder) and dim babe May (Chelsea Field, The Last Boy Scout) transport their two tots to an island shore town for the summer. Hoping for a season of R&R, the family instead ends up being dive-bombed by stark-raving-mad seagulls. The process is so routine that no suspense is to be found, but the telefilm is not without its cheap pleasures, fleeting they may be.

birdsII1It’s also not without a multitude of problems, leading one to wonder things like:
• Why is ’63 Birds star Tippi Hedren here if she’s not playing her Melanie Daniels character?
• How did the shot with the boom mike escape the editor’s notice?
• Why did director Rick Rosenthal (Halloween II) take the Alan Smithee credit for this, but not for Russkies?

At least the little girls get to discover a washed-up corpse with its eyes pecked out, and their dog fails to survive an onslaught by owls. But what a cop-out ending: The birds simply fly away. Hey, I may have sat through all 87 minutes of this, but I’m not that stupid. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

The Horror Show Guide: The Ultimate Frightfest of Movies

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horrorshowguideAt first glance, Mike Mayo’s The Horror Show Guide: The Ultimate Frightfest of Movies looks like one of those beloved, phone-directory-thick Videohound genre guides Visible Ink Press issued throughout the ’90s, particularly his own Videohound’s Horror Show.

Turns out there’s a good reason: The new book is a second edition of that 1998 book, but stripped of the Videohound brand. Thus, gone is the dog-bone rating system, along with many capsule reviews of the earlier work.

Although Horror Show Guide claims to review more than 1,000 movies (compared to the first edition’s 666), it doesn’t feel like it. For a number of reasons, it seems less authoritative — and not just because Mayo calls The Mothman Prophecies “one of the very best” of scare cinema.

In addressing one 1960 picture that rightly is considered a bona fide classic, the author praises it like he should … but only under its alternate title of The Horror Chamber of Dr. Faustus without mentioning the one that curious consumers would need to search in order to purchase it: Eyes Without a Face. Otherwise, it’s of little help or value to readers.

While Mayo does take advantage of an updated edition by including many titles that came into being within the last 15 years (likes Misty Mundae and Amber Heard’s tits; dislikes 3D and Rob Zombie), a number of them are simply not horror: Mel Gibson’s Jesus epic, The Passion of the Christ; the Italian sex-comedy omnibus Boccaccio ’70; Steven Soderbergh’s all-star medical thriller, Contagion; the Nicolas Cage action vehicle Drive Angry; the weather-paranoiac drama Take Shelter; and — why, God, why? — those wretched Twilight teenage romances. I wouldn’t worry about their inclusion so much if he hadn’t had to cut out so many legitimate films to make room for them.

Many of the photos are irrelevant (like, red-carpet paparazzi shots) instead of being stills or posters, or inexcusably printed in low resolution. Mayo makes some glaring errors along the way (such as crediting William Friedkin as director of 1996’s The Island of Dr. Moreau debacle) and has a real problem with properly reporting titles.

Or should I say the problem with properly reporting titles? In many instances, he adds the word “the” where there shouldn’t be; in many more, he leaves the word off when it should be there. This infects the book throughout, which makes him look lacking in knowledge and/or his editor look lazy.

If you own Videohound’s Horror Show, stick with that. This not-ultimate Ultimate Frightfest update comes up far too short to be worth an upgrade. —Rod Lott

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