All posts by Rod Lott

Mystery

Seven Blood-Stained Orchids (1972)

Leave a comment

7orchidsWho else but a black-gloved killer could provide the menace for a giallo? (That’s rhetorical.) In Seven Blood-Stained Orchids, the staple of such Italian films murders lovely women, leaving them half-naked and clutching an amulet shaped like a crescent. The press dub him “the Half-Moon Maniac,” and among his victims are a street prostitute, an abstract artist and a newlywed in a train.

The latter, Giulia (Uschi Glas, The Sinister Monk), survives, but the cops and her metrosexual fashion-designer husband, Mario (Antonio Sabato, Grand Prix), stage a funeral to give them the upper hand, as well as protect her. Mario and Giulia whisk away on their honeymoon, but instead of putting their parts against one another where they belong, they stick their noses where they don’t, investigating leads in hopes of uncovering the killer’s identity before he kills again.

7orchids1Or at least before he kills too many times again, as the man is quite prolific.

Once revealed, the motive for his madness strikes one as underwhelming, but it’s the getting there that counts, and Seven Blood-Stained Orchids is enjoyable up until those final few minutes. It bursts with great pedigree among Italian cult cinema: Umberto Lenzi (Spasmo) directs and co-writes with Roberto Gianviti (Don’t Torture a Duckling), based upon an Edgar Wallace novel; Riz Ortolani provides a superb, groove-laden score; and standing out among the eye candy is the gorgeous Marisa Mell (Danger: Diabolik). —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Horror

Maniac (1980)

1 Comment

maniacMeet Frank Zito. He’s a Maniac, Maniac, I sure know, and all because he was locked in the closet as a boy.

As played by Starcrash’s Joe Spinell, who co-wrote the screenplay, Zito is a sweaty louse, looking like a slightly taller Ron Jeremy. He has extreme mommy issues, to the point where he sleeps with and talks to mannequins, which he dresses up in lingerie, makeup and wigs.

maniac1He also spends his nights murdering women, from strangling a hooker in hot pants to stabbing a nurse in a subway bathroom. Seconds after each kill, Zito scalps them. While the ladies are his target, pity any man who should get in his way — ergo, the film’s famous slow-motion explosion of the head of effects artist Tom Savini (credited as “Disco Boy”) via shotgun.

In professional photographer Anna (Caroline Munro, Slaughter High), Zito actually meets a woman he doesn’t want to kill — at least not immediately. To get close to her, Zito fibs that he’s a painter. Speaking of, Maniac is a portrait — both literal and metaphorical — of Times Square at its seediest. Director William Lustig (Maniac Cop) seems to capture every grain of dirt, every bead of sweat, every smear of grease, and every puddle of God-knows-what. It looks as grimy as its subject matter feels, so much that you might want to shower afterward.

As 42nd Street-ready as they come, the flick enjoys an undying reputation as being so gory it’s disturbing, but I found it more dull and slow than anything else. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Horror

Bloody Moon (1981)

Leave a comment

bloodymoonMore lucid than Jess Franco’s usual directorial output (but not much), Bloody Moon sets its slasher sights on a language school in Spain. Sporting a sign with those peel-and-stick letters from your local Ace Hardware, the new institution has 40 female students and nearly as many red herrings.

One of its employees, Manuela (Nadja Gerganoff), gets a new roomie in her brother, Miguel (Alexander Waechter). Noticeable because the entire right side of his face is a giant scab, Miguel arrives fresh from serving time for stabbing a girl with scissors. Soon after he moves to campus and renews his incestuous relationship with Sis, the school’s elderly benefactor (María Rubio) is torched in bed, setting off a string of brutal murders.

bloodymoon1The remaining victims, however, are the students. Since they’re all beautiful, it’s tough to tell them apart. I could do so only by how each is dispatched: a knife through the nipple, a head removed by a circular saw, and so on. Eventually, we learn we have a lead by default in the lovely Olivia Pascal (1977’s Vanessa).

Predictably, Franco loves to paint his canvas with the bright-red stuff, so it should not disappoint fans of ever-decreasing casts. Bloody Moon is equally colorful in depicting the landscape’s tranquil beauty as it is scenes of savagery. There’s a feeling of mishmash that exists in the shapeless script by Contamination’s Erich Tomek — one that willy-nilly throws in can’t-be-accidental nods to Psycho and Halloween — so laser-accurate focus is not to be expected. Pouring plasma, however? Positive. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.

Kitchen Sink

Banned (1989)

Leave a comment

WTFbannedAll but lost, the unreleased Banned represents the final film of cult New York director Roberta Findlay (Tenement). Beholden to no genre and without an internal logic to call its own, the movie is utterly strange even for her.

Ostensibly, it’s about the ghost of Sid Vicious-esque punk rocker Teddy Homicide (Neville Wells), he of Rotten Filth. While laying tracks at Impulse Studios, he suddenly snaps, mows everyone down with a machine gun, and then drowns himself in the toilet. His soul remains in the commode for 10 years, until the band Banned (get it?) scrounges together enough cash to cut an album there, and jazz guitarist Kent (Dan Erickson from Mrs. Findlay’s Blood Sisters) becomes possessed when sprayed with toilet water. It happens.

banned1Findlay only marginally pursues that angle; it’s secondary to everything else, which can be broken into three major categories:
1. automatic weapons — Guns are handled by many characters throughout. Whether incidentally or in the hands of a Middle Eastern terrorist trio, they’re played for laughs, no matter how many lives are snuffed out. Ditto Banned‘s climax of Kent/Teddy being chased through Central Park with a rocket launcher.
2. groupie sex — Banned’s drummer, Serge (Fred Cabral), balls anything with a cervix. He never finishes, because copulation is interrupted by the ringing of an alarm clock, which he then hurls against the wall. Its broken parts fall into a pile of so many, it’s a wonder Serge doesn’t have the HIV. Among the women who strip nude is D-list scream queen Debbie Rochon (Santa Claws), in only her sixth credit of (at press time) 225.
3. slapstick comedy — Or “attempts at,” to get technical. Characters plunge into open manholes, and if it’s not funny the first time (and it’s not), Findlay hopes it will be the third (nope). Similarly, when Serge lapses into a religious rant, his pals press a surge protector labeled “Serge Suppressor” to his chest; Findlay draws attention to the pun thrice just to make sure you won’t miss it. You won’t, but you’ll groan instead of guffaw.

Depicted twice, the weirdest gag has Broken Records’ owner — an old, short, round Jewish man — snort lines of “beef adrenal tissue,” thereby turning him into a young, tall, muscular African-American hulk à la Kentucky Fried Movie‘s Big Jim Slade.

Almost as an afterthought, Kent is exorcised by a preacher who moonlights as a plumber. Banned is worth about an equal amount of contemplation; while certainly not boring, its intent and execution are perplexing. Erickson bothers to give an actual performance, but everyone else — to borrow a line from the movie — can “go fuck a coconut.” —Rod Lott

Thriller

The Paperboy (1994)

Leave a comment

paperboyAs Johnny McFarley, the psycho preteen of The Paperboy, Marc Marut gives what may be the single worst performance ever by a child actor.

He’s cursed with Alfalfa freckles and the range of a dime-store water pistol, and everything Marut says or does as he obsesses over single-mom neighbor Melissa (Alexandra Paul, Christine) is downright laughable, thus negating any “horror” that Whispers director Douglas Jackson’s film purports to contain.

paperboy1In one scene, Melissa comes home to find Johnny in her kitchen:

Melissa: “What are you doing here, Johnny?”
Johnny: “Apples! I’m peeling apples!”
Melissa: “Get out!
Johnny: “Aw, c’mon, won’t you make me an apple pie?”

Annnnnd scene. Later, Johnny flips his proverbial lid as he spies Melissa getting down ’n’ dirty with her boyfriend (William Katt, 1986’s House), and it’s an absolute riot, cementing Marut’s footnote status in modern North American cinema. —Rod Lott

Buy it at Amazon.