Horror

Prince of Darkness (1987)

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There are seven reasons why John Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness is awesome:

1. The plot revolves around an aged container of sickly green liquid that contains Satan himself. “A life form is growing out of pre-biotic fluids. It’s not winding down into disorder, it’s self-organizing.” The idea is so ridiculous, it’s awe-inspiring.

2. This is auteur John Carpenter at his most unfettered, working with extremely low budgets and unconstrained by the dictates of producers. Yes, some effects are dodgy, the acting is rough, and this ain’t a suspense classic like Halloween or a monster epic like The Thing. But when vested in the material, Carpenter works the creepy like few can. The dream sequences gave me daymares for weeks.

3. Right smack in the middle, a religious tome reveals that Jesus Christ was an extra-terrestrial who tried to warn humans about the dangers inherent in the liquid, and no one bats an eye. That is some cold analytical shit happening right there.

4. Carpenter wrote the screenplay as Martin Quatermass, after the hero of the British Quatermass films, and their influence is obvious. Technobabble such as “Say goodbye to classical reality, because our logic collapses on the subatomic level … into ghosts and shadows” does epic battle with theological nonsense: “It’s your disbelief that powers him. Your stubborn faith in, in … common sense. He lives in the smallest parts of it.”

5. The soundtrack is a classic Carpenter synth score.

6. Donald Pleasence! Victor Wong! An unlikely odd couple who debate Carpenter’s absurd science-vs.-religion dialogues with grace and aplomb.

7. Can we get a little love for the lesser Simon? Yes, we all dig Major Dad, but dammit, Jameson Parker needs some respect! And he rocks the ‘stache! —Corey Redekop

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Thriller

Orca (1977)

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It’s impossible to watch Orca without thinking of Jaws. Hell, director Michael Anderson (Logan’s Run) won’t let you! Ennio Morricone’s score borrows a cue or two from John Williams, shots of the fin are like a constant visual reminder, and — let’s be honest — producer Dino De Laurentiis never would’ve made this project had Jaws not eaten up box-office records. Given Dino’s Kong-sized ego, the killer-whale film even acts like it’s out to top the Great White, opening with a scene in which a shark is turned to bloody chum by a whale, as if to say, “You’ve been pwned, Spielberg!”

He wasn’t. Not just a flop, but a real slog, Orca stars Richard Harris (Gladiator) as the possibly insane Capt. Nolan, who’s out to hunt down the “most powerful animal in the world,” according to a marine biologist (Charlotte Rampling, Zardoz). That angers her, and so does Nolan’s interest in her, prompting her to diss him with a curt, “You’re a sensitive bore.” (Oh, no, you di’n’t!)

Nolan hooks a female killer whale, not knowing the beast was pregnant. When he hoses its expelled fetus back into the deep, the father whale (Orca, I guess) makes it his life’s work to follow them across the ocean and take ’em out. When Orca makes off with a character’s leg, Nolan channels his inner Ahab and clunkily vows, “I’ll fight you, you revengeful son of a bitch!” The last five or so minutes provide the thrills and atmosphere missing all along.

Among the supporting cast, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest‘s Will Sampson plays the Native American no one listens to, and soon-to-be-sex-symbol Bo Derek makes her film debut as the girl who seemingly cannot blink. Orca is played by himself; he’s a talented whale, somehow capable of screaming underwater. —Rod Lott

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Sci-Fi & Fantasy

A Trip to the Moon (1902)

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With roughly 14 minutes, no sound and the barest of film technology, Georges Méliès sure did pack a ton of stuff into A Trip to the Moon (Le Voyage Dans La Lune if you’re French), the world’s first science-fiction film.

After a wizard demonstrates via chalkboard the path their rocket will leave Earth and land on its near-instant journey to the lunar body, laborers build the metallic capsule. Once complete, with much pomp and circumstance, it’s loaded into a giant phallus of a cannon by chunky ladies in short pants and Buster Brown hats. With half a dozen rich, old white men as passengers, it lands with a bloody thud into the right eyesocket of that creepy, creepy moon face.

The would-be astronauts climb out — clutching canes, but no oxygen tanks — and wave to their friends back on Earth. Then, being white-haired and all, they bunk down and sleep, wake up to a storm of stardust, and climb into the moon’s underground garden of oversized mushrooms, where hopping demons scoot their butts across a log like a dog with troubled anal glands does to your carpet. Our Earth warriors beat the crap out of them (they go up in puffs of smoke) and high-tail it home, only to land in the ocean. They get a parade in their honor, and probably got crazy laid.

Kidding aside, Méliès’ imagination is as off-the-charts as his ingenuity. Repopularized by Martin Scorsese’s Oscar-winning Hugo, the cinema classic is best viewed in its 2011 restored form, containing its original, hand-colored images and with missing frames mimicked. It also now boasts a score by Air that’s — dare I say it — out of this freakin’ world. This Trip truly is one. —Rod Lott

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Western

Django (1966)

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Django: The “D” is silent; the movie is not.

Sergio Corbucci’s answer to Sergio Leone’s masterful Dollars trilogy helped entwine the spaghetti Western further into the DNA of world cinema. Starring as the title traveler is Franco Nero, the scruffy Civil War vet who pulls a coffin behind him as he drifts from town to town. As the film opens, he saves a perfectly lovely woman strung up for a good whippin’ from bandits.

She’s Maria (Loredana Nusciak, Gladiators 7), a prostitute fleeing from Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo, a fun name to say) and his band of red-hooded executioners who collect “protection money” from uncommonly muddy ghost towns that don’t need protecting from anything but more rain. Jackson follows her and Django to one of the saloons on his racketeering list.

Jackson finds out the hard way what’s in Django’s coffin: a Gatling gun, with which our protagonist easily kills all the baddies but Jackson himself, and that’s only because he has designs on Jackson’s bonanza of bullion. Only through joining forces with Mexican Gen. Rodriguez (José Bódalo, Companeros) can Django hope to snag it.

With more trigger pulls and resulting bullet wounds than the era was used to, Django shoots its way into your good graces. Corbucci (Super Fuzz) keeps the story going without losing steam, proving that an epic feel can be attained minus an epic length. Naturally, Nero is the big (and quick) draw as Django, a Western antihero who could use a good antidepressant. Often imitated, never duplicated, this is one quicksand-sinkin’, cork-spittin’, mud-wrasslin’, ear-shavin’, bottle-shootin’, hand-breaking good time! —Rod Lott

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