All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

The St. Francisville Experiment (2000)

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stfrancisvilleRushed out to catch a ride on that crazy Blair Witch Project mania, the soundalike-titled The St. Francisville Experiment places four young people overnight in a haunted mansion in the Louisiana town of St. Francisville: a team leader with a poor haircut, a film student with limited vocabulary skills, a busty history major and a dog-faced psychic with front teeth the size of Chiclets.

According to the found-footage film’s prologue, St. Francisville is home to more haunted houses than anywhere in America, and everything we are about to see is real. Oh, bullshit.

stfrancisville1So that you don’t think it’s a total rip-off of Blair Witch, a few subtle differences exist:
1) There are four people instead of three.
2) Instead of a creepy basement, there’s a creepy attic.
3) Nobody says “fuck.”

Like Blair Witch, it has few shocks placed between near-excruciating stretches of shot-on-video footage. Unfortunately, its shocks are most tame: Ooh, a chandelier fell! Yikes, the chair moved! Eew, there’s a bug in my sandwich!

The finale is even more ridiculous (not to mention all the proof you need this is faked): Oh, no, the door shut! Yuck, live rats! Help, I’m trapped in a piece of carpet that’s fallen through the floor, just like Tom Hanks in The Money Pit! Directed by Ted Nicolaou (TerrorVision), this Experiment may be better than sitting through Book of Shadows: Blair Witch 2, but a failure is a failure. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Contaminated Man (2000)

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contaminatedmanPoor William Hurt. How does one go from being nominated for the Best Actor Oscar three years in a row to toplining a below-average virus thriller called Contaminated Man?

With a mullet that makes him look like a Foghat roadie, Hurt stars as David Whitman, a hazardous materials specialist for the United Nations. He’s called to a chemicals company in Budapest (economically enough), where veteran employee Joseph Müller (a bald Peter Weller, RoboCop) has just been downsized and taken revenge by unleashing some, like, really bad chemical stuff.

MCDCOMA EC002Unfortunately for Müller, he’s also gotten himself exposed to the stuff and becomes … wait for it … the Contaminated Man! Basically, this means he coughs a lot and everyone he touches grows pus-filled blisters and spews skim milk within the hour. All the viewer gets is an uninvolving, sub-Outbreak-type chase where Whitman tracks Müller from one public place to another. It all culminates in the latter filling a remote-control submarine with his infected blood and threatening to taint the water supply.

Director Anthony Hickox has done fun work before in pure B-movie mode (Waxwork), but this is not another notch in that belt. No, this is drab, bleak viewing, made all the more drab and bleak by being set in the aforementioned Budapest. Both actors deserve better. The only thing great about Contaminated Man is its title. —Rod Lott

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Comedy

Kindergarten Ninja (1994)

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kindergartenninjaOnly one film in history is endorsed by California’s San Leandro Police Department — and I mean endorsed via an introduction that’s actually part of the movie, with the police chief addressing the camera when he’s not looking down to read his lines. That lucky sonofabitch is Kindergarten Ninja.

Or, if you prefer, as the DVD label reads in all caps, “KIDNERGARDEN NINJA.”

Former San Francisco 49ers wide receiver and two-time Super Bowl champion Dwight Clark stars as former San Francisco Gold Rush football star Blade Steel, a playboy who manages a stable of at least 10 sex partners, uses “Hey, do you like French fries?” as a surefire pickup line and keeps a cooler of beer in his convertible. The latter helps earn him a DUI, but an argument can be made that fighting outside a Payless ShoeSource marks his true low point — either way, a judge assigns him to 90 days of community service at a children’s sports program.

kindergartenninja1Meanwhile, in heaven, where the likes of Elvis Presley and Charlie Chaplin engage in stick fighting, Bruce Lee (Anthony Chan) must intervene in Blade’s life to become an angel. Thus, at a dojo where everyone drinks Coca-Cola Classic, Blade learns karate from a blind master (George Chung) named the Chosen Wan. Get it?

Such high-kickin’ skills will come in handy when Blade faces Hector Machette (Juan Chapa, Fight to Win), a drug dealer slinging the hot new street narcotic, Buzz. However, the cops aren’t too happy to have Blade’s assistance: “Hey, I don’t need no washed-up wide receiver vigilante tryin’ to play policeman out here.”

kindergartenninja2Needless to say, Blade Steel does not become a ninja as the title hints, and he barely spends any time with the kids. He’s too busy romancing their teacher, Miss Linda (Suzanne Stanke), a goody-two-shoes who’s co-opted Peter Pan’s hairstyle. Together they go to a karaoke club that clearly is some crew member’s living room.

This no-budget, shot-on-video movie will give viewers plenty to laugh at, but not in the way Chan and Chung intended. Doubling as the director and screenwriter, respectively, the two men are in on the joke — it’s just the wrong joke. They think Kindergarten Ninja is hilarious; it’s not. It is painfully inept on all levels imaginable, particularly with its wooden performers. On the scale of gridiron vets turning to acting, Clark may be the worst; by comparison, Hunter‘s Fred Dryer would excite Joseph Papp.

Kindergarten Ninja ends with an unrealized threat (“The End … for now”); a shout-out to Hot 97.7 Radio; and a reel of bloopers, as if the entire project weren’t one in itself. —Rod Lott

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Reading Material

The Horror Hits of Richard Gordon

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horrorgordonPerhaps being British has something to do with it, but Richard Gordon’s name is hardly a household one to fright-film connoisseurs, despite a body of work that would suggest otherwise. While hardly classics, the producer’s 14 films in the horror realm are well-known enough in cult circles that worship such low-budget efforts.

In his book-length interview with the man, author Tom Weaver hopes to change that. Unless I missed it, The Horror Hits of Richard Gordon does not state when the interview(s) took place, but Gordon passed away months after its release, so kudos to Weaver for getting these behind-the-scenes stories when he did.

I mean, it’s not like we need to know the ins, outs, ups and downs of shooting something like 1981’s Inseminoid, but I’m glad we now do.

Published by BearManor Media, Horror Hits is arranged chronologically. Made between 1958 and 1981, each film is introduced with a brief synopsis, followed by a transcript of Weaver and Gordon’s talks, presented in the easy-to-read Q&A format. With little prompting by the author, Gordon touches on all aspects imaginable, from the genesis of each project down to the salaries of all involved. It’s the anecdotes in between, however, that offer the meat, such as Boris Karloff acting like a saint, but Christopher Lee acting like anything but.

Weaver is unafraid to point out plot holes and other shortcomings, and Gordon doesn’t shy away from addressing them, which makes for a refreshing and frank discussion. Some of the questions that spark such talks are priceless, such as this query about 1958’s Fiend Without a Face: “Why do brains have heartbeats in your movie?”

Up until now, I’ve only seen one of the 14 films that make up this heavily illustrated, oversize volume (1970’s utterly bizarre Secrets of Sex), but that soon will change. In other words, prior exposure to these pictures is not required. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

Beowulf (1999)

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beowulfThe classic, Old English epic poem known as Beowulf saw a surprising resurgence in popularity in 1999 with Seamus Heaney’s new translation; that same year’s film adaptation of Beowulf is in no such danger, but its fantasy brand of cheese actually tastes quite enjoyable.

The inhabitants of a big, spooky castle are under constant threat of attack by a ghost demon named Grendle, who likes to eat people. Their saving grace comes in the form of a visiting mysterious stranger named Beowulf, played by Christopher Lambert, Highlander refugee and graduate of the Angry Whisper School of Acting.

beowulf1Beowulf has a gift of sensing danger, so he knows when the monster is near. The beast is mostly a CGI creature given a wavy effect that looks like someone dragged a big magnet across your TV screen. The fight scenes — set to a techno score by Juno Reactor — alternately ape those found in Mortal Kombat, The Matrix and Evil Dead II. Beowulf also busts out some Gymkata fight moves. Assisting Beowulf is a foxy brunette (Rhona Mitra, Underworld: Rise of the Lycans) who has a name, but I didn’t catch it because her bosoms threaten to break free the entire film.

Now, I don’t know how faithful this superheroic take on Beowulf is to the source material, as the piece of literature was a chore to get through in high school, but I’m pretty sure if the castle dudes were being visited in their dreams by a horny Playboy Playmate, I would’ve remembered, and maybe even aced the test. The filmmakers end up dubbing the Playmate (Layla Roberts, Miss October 1997); maybe director Graham Baker (Alien Nation) should’ve done Lambert while they were at it so we could understand him once and for all. —Rod Lott

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