All posts by Rod Lott

Mystery

The Gorilla (1939)

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Following a plague of murders committed by the titular beast, a rich man (Lionel Atwill) receives a note that fingers him as the monkey’s next victim, to be killed at midnight. He calls his niece, her fiancée and three bumbling detectives (The Ritz Brothers) to his mansion, which turns out to house a ton of secret passages, which the gorilla uses to terrify the houseguests (which include butler Bela Lugosi).

But director Allan Dwan’s The Gorilla is no horror film — rather, it’s Edgar Allan Poe’s “Murders at the Rue Morgue” mystery rejiggered as a screwball comedy. And the comedy is perfectly stupid, which helps make the movie perfectly enjoyable.

The Ritz Brothers are like a combination of The Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello and … oh, I dunno, Sammy Petrillo and Duke Mitchell, just to even things out a bit. (Typical exchange: “How do you spell ‘gorilla’? Two Rs or two Ls?” “Gorilla. G-O … Gee! Oh! Gorilla!”)

Every old, dirt-cheap, 66-minute movie should have a killer monkey on the loose running through a hidden maze of corridors, bonking guys on the head. Yeah, I kinda loved it. —Rod Lott

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Horror

The Reaping (2007)

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Like a little Omen with your Outbreak? The sixth horror film under the Dark Castle Entertainment shingle, The Reaping takes investigative scientist Katherine (Hilary Swank) to Haven, La., to determine why the dirty little town’s river has turned red with blood. The locals blame a cute lil’ girl (AnnaSophia Robb) who looks as if she’s feral and has menstrual blood caked on her leg, but Katherine’s not so sure.

She’s a miracle-buster, after all, explaining away dozens of so-called religious occurrences with good ol’ scientific know-how. Her time in Haven may change all that, however, as frogs rain from the sky, flies swarm, lice propagate, cows die, locusts attack, Idris Elba takes off his shirt, yada yada yada – it’s as if the 10 biblical plagues are actually happening!

Stephen Hopkins’ film isn’t nearly as bad as its icy reception would lead you to believe. Okay, so it’s overly orange-looking and has an end scene that you can predict halfway through, but it’s fun enough and I’m always up for a movie in which fat people’s faces are covered with boils.

The one thing that does suck is the climax, in which Hopkins goes overboard on the special effects, bleeding every last drop from the budget. I liken it to when you go to Chili’s and pay with a gift certificate, and then the waiter tells you he can’t give you change, so you’re like, “Okay, I guess we’ll get the Molten Chocolate Cake, too.”

Moral: Never trust a British actor trying to wrangle a Bayou accent. —Rod Lott

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Thriller

Stealing Candy (2002)

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In a premise so sleazy you’d expect it to be rated X, Stealing Candy has three ex-cons plot to kidnap glamorous but prudish movie star Candy Tyler, and force the busty blonde to have sex on the Internet in a one-time-only event so they can net millions.

The bad guys are played by Daniel Baldwin, Coolio and Alex McArthur (aka the fat one, the black one and the one who’s aging so poorly he looks like Jan Michael-Vincent). McArthur is the mastermind, recruiting prison buddy Coolio to help with the forced entry (of Candy’s house, mind you) and Baldwin to handle the technical end of things, which entails lots of really fast typing and making lines of code scroll onscreen.

Candy (luscious Jenya Lano), who has a no-nudity clause in her contract, agrees to, um, perform, but only to save her life. When it comes time for the big bang, the movie actually delivers the goods. And when the netcast is over and $13 million sitting in an offshore account, alliances are tested, secrets are revealed, tables are turned and Lano’s breasts go back in her bustier.

Lano’s no great shakes as an actress, but in the shaking department, she’s tops! In other words, she’s teasingly voluptuous enough to make the movie work. At one point, Coolio tells Lano she has the nicest “tits and ass I seen in a long time,” and it’s hard to argue. Without her, the movie would just be another turd on one of the lesser Baldwin brothers’ résumé.

I’m not sure Baldwin is playing a simpleton or if he simply is a simpleton; it’s too close to call. But I’m pretty sure Coolio is playing himself, and doing so terribly; every line is delivered in that macho rap-video posturing solely to convince us he’s a hardcore thug. You’re not — your name is Coolio, for crying out loud.

It’s effectively directed by Mark L. Lester (whose big-budget days of Commando and Firestarter are long gone), making for a no-brainer nugget of death and D-cups worth your meager four-dollar investment. —Rod Lott

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Action

Highwaymen (2003)

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A man in a beat-up El Dorado hunts shapely women to rundown and kill, and only Jim Caviezel can save them. Yes, it’s Duel meets The Hitcher meets The Passion of the Christ! Ladies and gentlemen, it’s Highwaymen!

Five years earlier, Caviezel lost his wife to the careless driver, so he chased him down and plowed right into him, forcing the guy into an 18-month hospital stay, during which he had his limbs rebuilt — not bionically, but with a brown bag of spare parts apparently purchased at a local TruValue hardware store.

Ever since then, the six-dollar man has been traveling the country, knocking off someone every thousand miles or so, with Caviezel hot on his rusted bumper. Next on the disabled driver’s hit list? Doomsday’s Rhona Mitra, who has the advantage of built-in airbags. And I don’t mean in her car.

The reason for watching a movie like this is for the carmageddon, and on that level, Highwaymen delivers some efficient and mildly gory B-movie thrills. But it is repetitive and padded (even at a mere 80 minutes), so it’s not quite the high-octane ride one would hope. —Rod Lott

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