All posts by Rod Lott

Thriller

Sisters (1973)

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Brian De Palma sure loves exploring the idea of doubles, duplicates and just plain dupes, and Sisters is one of his finest and earliest such ventures. Opening with a sly trick pulled on his viewers, the psycho thriller centers on French-Canadian model/actress Danielle (Margot Kidder, so good I temporarily forgot she was Superman’s Lois Lane), who’s struggling to make it in New York.

She’s also struggling with the guilt piled upon her by her twin sister, Dominique, especially when Danielle brings home a date (Lisle Wilson, The Incredible Melting Man), which also irks Danielle’s jealous ex-husband, the odd-looking (to say the least) Emil (Bill Finley, Eaten Alive).

It’s difficult to discuss Sisters without spoiling the story’s several twists, so I won’t go beyond details further than Danielle’s across-the-street apartment neighbor, journalist Grace Collier (Jennifer Salt, TV’s Soap, saddled with horrible ’70s hair), witnessing a murder through the window. This allows De Palma to explore his other cinematic obsession: voyeurism.

Call him a Hitchcock rip-off artist if you like, but to do so would be to short-change yourself from a gripping mystery made all the more disturbing by Bernard Herrmann’s score. De Palma established his split-screen storytelling device here — not just a gimmick, but an effective tool to tighten the screws of suspense on his audience. And that he can wield a considerable amount of tension out of a simple act of icing a cake is … well, icing on the cake. —Rod Lott

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Sex

White Slaves of Chinatown (1964)

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In the first of a five-film franchise known as the Olga series, White Slaves of Chinatown follows the adventures, so to speak, of the lovely slave trader Olga (pronounced “Allga,” per narrator Joel Holt). Being “an animal without conscience,” Olga (Audrey Campbell) spends 70 sin-soaked minutes recruiting and then punishing curvy Caucasian women for “the syndicate,” an organization that specializes in heroin, we’re told. In fact, we’re told everything, as the movie’s dialogue is entirely voice-over, and more often than not, writer/director Joseph P. Mawra simply lets Holt (star of Karate, the Hand of Death) do the talking.

Olga keeps her prey locked up with no food, water or clothes, but she’s not totally heartless, checking up on their welfare once a week, whether they need it or not. It’s all part of her plan to brainwash them into prostitution, naturally, and if any of the girls gives her trouble, Olga takes it out on her via physical pain. One young woman may be hanged upside down on a crucifix for days at a time; another, strapped to a table for whippings and the ol’ Chinese water torture.

Despite all this so-called roughie’s sex and nudity, Republicans may cheer for White Slaves for its anti-abortion message. One hooker terminates her pregnancy via a back-alley doctor, and not only does she kill that baby, but she dies on the table, too. Quips Holt, “Chalk up another one to this filthy old butcher!”

Set in Chinatown where the streets are heavy with “sinister fumes of their opium pipes,” the B&W T&A affair delights in watching the lustful ladies get high and writhe around topless or in their pointy Maidenform bras. During such displays, classical music plays so any masturbators watching can feel uptown and elite while yanking it. The symphonies sure beat the incessant Chinese music that permeates the early half. White Slaves would like to have it both ways: to titillate and infuriate, but let’s not kid ourselves: This is vintage exploitation, through and through.

So enjoy! Your grandmother might even be in it. If so, kudos! She was hot. —Rod Lott

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Flick Attack going live to mock Zardoz March 17!

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After John Boorman built up a load of goodwill and power for directing the Oscar-nominated hit Deliverance, he immediately flushed it down the toilet with his follow-up, 1974′s Zardoz. The post-apocalyptic sci-fi epic starring Sean Connery, Charlotte Rampling and a Big Flying Stone Head bombed big, and today is a repeat offender on lists of the worst movies ever made. 

Because few sights are more sore for the eyes than two hours of a former 007 in a red diaper, we’re bringing in special guests to make our screening of Zardoz all better. Your start-to-finish hosts will be The Movie Clubbed, five local writers, comedians and/or creatives — including Flick Attack editor Rod Lott — making their public debut, in the satirical style of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Their pain is your gain!

Set for 8 p.m. Saturday, March 17, this free, live event is part of Oklahoma City Museum of Art’s celebration of 10 years in downtown OKC. One hour before showtime, join us in the lobby for complimentary Stella Artois beer! To reserve your free tickets, visit OKCMOA’s website.

Thriller

Human Beasts (1980)

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In this odd but enjoyable thriller (aka The Beasts’ Carnival) from Spanish hyphenate Paul Naschy, he plays Bruno Rivera, who’s hired by an organization affiliated with his Asian girlfriend (Eiko Nagashima) to snag some diamonds. Syke! He double-crosses them and takes the jewels for himself, but the ruse is not without bloodshed.

Injured, Bruno awakes in the sprawling countryside chalet of Don Simón (Lautaro Murúa), whose two hot daughters (Silvia Aguilar and Azucena Hernández) climb Mount Naschy — but at least at separate times, mind you. While the chalet affords Bruno some safety (and much sexy time), the criminals still come calling for their bling, despite rumors that the place is haunted.

One unfortunate guy gets fed to the family pigs, in a scene that predates that ever-so-controversial one from Hannibal by a full two decades. Strangely, it’s intercut with a sex scene. Other animals at play and in danger in the film include a beetle and a scorpion.

I wonder if Human Beasts refers to the white character who patronizes and hits on his African-American maid/mistress with, “Be a good black girl and light my fire! … Sweet little Raquel, save me some of that stew you make. The one from the other day was finger-licking good. … And you are the best cook in the world, black momma!” (I took three years of Spanish; I know what “negra” means without having to read subtitles.) —Rod Lott

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Martial Arts

Dororo (2007)

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Should you happen to find a basket floating in the river containing a baby with no eyes, arms or legs, don’t freak out — it’s probably just Hyakkimaru! As created by manga master Osamu Tezuka (Black Jack, Astro Boy) in the late 1960s, Hyakkimaru is a samurai whose real flesh was stolen by 48 demons. With each one he kills via the blade that subs for a left arm, he gets back some of that skin and those limbs, one piece at a time, be it an ear or the liver. Don’t ask — just go with it.

Fully grown, Hyakkimaru (Satoshi Tsumabuki, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift) roams the countryside with wisecracking sisterly sidekick Dororo (Kô Shibaski, One Missed Call), looking for demons to slay. Among those they find include a spider-crab creature, girls who morph into oversized caterpillars, a woman who turns into some sort of witch butterfly, a living lotus tree with stretchy neck, something akin to those damned flying monkeys, a pair of talking monster dogs and one hopping devil on horseback. Our heroes gain an ally in a giant ghost baby.

Most of these beasts are all-CGI, but some come in the preferred form of dudes in rubber suits. Given the source material and the country that created kaiju cinema, I much prefer the latter. Regardless, the monster-slaying portions make Dororo quite a kick, but the more Hyakkimaru questions his origins, the more Akihiko Shiota’s epic slows considerably, eventually staying stuck in a 20- or 30-minute lag.

Even today, Tezuka’s Dororo enjoys a page-turning pace; this often-too-serious adaptation could have done that by ditching the dramatic introspection that wasn’t so heavy in the books and stick to the ghost-busting. It’s overlong at two hours and 19 minutes, and ends with no true ending, as Hyakkimaru has two dozen hellions left to stab. If a sequel gets made, I’d certainly like to see him do his thing, but I hope Shiota drops the music score that sounds like you’re being serenaded by a mariachi band in a Mexican restaurant while you’re trying to apply just the right amount of honey to that sopapilla. —Rod Lott

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