All posts by Rod Lott

Horror

The Awakening (2011)

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awakeningIn 1921 London, Florence Cathcart (Rebecca Hall, The Town) keeps busy in her work, exposing so-called “spirit mediums” for the greedy charlatans they are. It’s not only a living, but a distraction from emotional wounds not yet healed.

Implored to do so by the stammering, handsome history master of Rookford (Dominic West, Punisher: War Zone), Florence travels to the boys’ prep school, where students have reported seeing a gh-gh-gh-ghost! While our skeptic heroine is inclined to approach the situation with disbelief, one boy literally became frightened to death. Suffice to say, the Rookford faculty takes the haunting — whether real, imagined or an elaborate hoax — rather seriously.

awakening1The Awakening unfolds in a purposely calculated manner that matches the supernatural literature of its setting’s post-Victorian era. Some call that boring; I call it a slow ratcheting of suspense, and the lovely, headstrong Hall serves as a terrific guide through the good ol’ ghost story.

Directed and co-written by feature first-timer Nick Murphy, the visually rich film does suffer from a needlessly extended ending, so it lacks the payoff of 2012’s The Woman in Black, which The Awakening closely resembles in theme, mood, production design and basic overall Britishness. It’s not quite as simple as its stick-figure credits would suggest; speaking through Florence, Murphy and co-scripter Stephen Volk (the BBC’s infamous Ghostwatch special) tackle head-on the fear-vs.-science debate that sadly, inexplicably remains relevant even today. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

The Swarm (1978)

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swarmThat buzz you hear is The Swarm, disaster mogul Irwin Allen’s speculative epic about killer bees. As far as that subject goes, this one runs a distant second to 1991’s coming-of-age dramedy My Girl (Macaulay Culkin, nooooo!), but with Allen at the rare helm (he functioned not as director, but as producer for the influential The Towering Inferno and The Poseidon Adventure, practically birthing his own subgenre), this notorious turkey doesn’t disappoint in delivering all-star cheese.

A swirling mass of millions of African bees swoop down to sting a bunch of people to death. The insects first do some damage at a military base, then take down a few helicopters and disrupt a family picnic before moving on to more fertile ground, like a schoolyard busy with first-graders just itchin’ to get it.

swarm1Michael Caine (who later saw true disaster in Jaws: The Revenge) fronts as Brad Crane, the stuffy scientist who knows all about the stingers. His partner in the effort, (Katharine Ross, The Stepford Wives), mostly just sits there and looks gorgeous. And what a supporting cast: Richard Widmark, a wheelchair-bound Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, a corpse-hugging Slim Pickens, Lee Grant, a pregnant Patty Duke Astin and big ol’ Ben Johnson. Of the celebrity deaths, I most enjoyed seeing Richard Chamberlain’s.

Caine and company throw everything at the bees in an attempt to appease their anger — firebombs, poison pellets, Fred MacMurray — but nothing quite works. Finally, something does, and only then do we get this incredible, full-screen, closing-credits disclaimer: “The African killer bee portrayed in this film bears absolutely no relationship to the industrious, hard-working American honey bee to which we are indebted for pollinating vital crops that feed our nation.”

So, wait: Was Allen was afraid of offending bees? —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

The Alligator People (1959)

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alligatorpeopleIf you’ve never seen an alligator in slacks before, you owe it to yourself to see The Alligator People. To be fair, this sci-fi schlocker technically should be titled The Alligator Person, but that’s hardly as marketable.

In the needless wraparound story set at a sanitarium, two men hypnotize a woman (B-movie queen Beverly Garland, Not of This Earth) to tell the story she otherwise doesn’t remember: the one where she was newlywed nurse Joyce Webster, seated on a train heading to her honeymoon with hubby Paul (Richard Crane, TV’s Rocky Jones, Space Ranger). But one telegram and station stop later, Paul exits the choo-choo without explanation — not to mention consummation — and leaves his nonplussed bride behind!

alligatorpeople1Sniffing for clues, Joyce hits pay dirt years later when she traces an old address of Paul’s to a stately plantation smack-dab in Louisiana swamp country. She’s invited to spend the night, provided she does not break the one red flag house rule: Do not leave the bedroom at night, no matter what. Joyce agrees, then totally leaves her bedroom at night, because she’s a nosy, horny woman and hears a piano playing. Unless this is your first film viewing ever, it spoils nothing to say that she finds Paul, his skin like cracked scabs, thanks to a science experiment entailing some 6 million volts.

Directed by Roy Del Ruth (Phantom of the Rue Morgue), this minor but merry flick bears echoes of the previous year’s mad-scientist classic The Fly, but lacks its lasting appeal. There’s still plenty to recommend, however, from Lon Chaney Jr. growling through a supporting role to Dick Smith’s alligator-man makeup effects. I want to rub my hand on them. —Rod Lott

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Kitchen Sink

Spring Breakers (2012)

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springbreakersHarmony Korine’s Spring Breakers is both a crime film and a crime against film. The critical adoration for it puzzles me, for the indie is about as deep as the puddle of urine its largely vapid quartet squats to make on the pavement in broad daylight.

Four girlfriends are anxious to flee college for Florida for spring break, but don’t have enough cash between them for even one night’s stay (yet somehow, they are consistently able to afford cocaine). Problem solved: Rob a diner using squirt guns and sledgehammers, and it’s par-tay time! The young ladies then imbibe and engage in all sorts of 24/7 debauchery — always in their color-coordinated bikinis, presumably hand-picked to match Korine’s Sour Skittles palette — until cops bust up the fun. They’re bailed out of jail by Alien (James Franco, Oz the Great and Powerful), a white, cornrowed rapper/dealer with a fox’s sly smile … if foxes sported enough gangsta grills to nauseate four out of five dentists.

springbreakers1The skeevy Alien leads the ladies further down a slippery slope, headfirst into his trumped-up fantasy world of loaded machine guns and hot-tub threesomes and (I assume) vicious STDs. Halfway through, the God-fearing good girl named, of course, Faith (Selena Gomez, former Disney Channel princess of Wizards of Waverly Place) decides she’s had enough and flees. Viewers may pray they could go with her.

It’s not that I find Spring Breakers‘ content offensive — a recurring theme involves pornographically sucking everything from Rainbow Popsicles to gun barrels — but what I do find offensive is how empty that content is. It serves nothing but itself. Flirting with the mainstream, provocateur Korine (Gummo) is not framing his flimsy story as a morality tale; his leering camera is too busy focusing on the crotches of women whose faces are cropped purposely out-of-frame, reducing them to mere holes.

Franco’s on another level than the female cast (Gomez, Ashley Benson of TV’s Pretty Little Liars, Sucker Punch-er Vanessa Hudgens and Korine’s wife, Rachel), but his performance is hardly a saving grace when the movie revels in maddening repetition. One such instance is the oft-voiced rallying cry of “Spring break forever, bitches! Spring break forever!” The trip certainly feels endless. —Rod Lott

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