Thriller

Final Judgement (1992)

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After all those Chucky movies, seeing Brad Dourif play a sane, law-abiding citizen seems as rare as a ponytailed priest investigating a serial killer of strippers. Dourif does both in the erotic thriller Final Judgement, from Roger Corman’s Concorde Pictures. (Note the title’s misspelling of “judgment”; perhaps the frugal Corman had a BOGO coupon for the vowel?)

A man of the cloth in the City of Angels, Dourif’s Father Tyrone finds himself Suspect No. 1 when a parishioner’s exotic dancer of a daughter, Paula (Kristin Dattilo, 1990’s Mirror Mirror), is found murdered after he counsels her. The true culprit is Rob (soap star David Ledingham in his lone movie), an artist living alone in one of those enormous warehouses. After convincing strippers to let him paint their portraits, Rob strangles each subject to death with picture-hanging wire — hey, like Corman, he’s resourceful.

When the police lieutenant on the case (Isaac Hayes, Truck Turner) won’t listen to Tyrone’s theory, Father heads to Paula’s club to look for a girl to pound for info. He finds her in Nicole (Concorde queen Maria Ford, Stripped to Kill 2), who at one point wears pants with a floral pattern so gaudy, it looked better as the guest room bedspread at my parents’ house.

Old pro he is, Dourif keeps Final Judgement from becoming less than perfunctory. He’s not helped by his director, Louis Morneau (Werewolf: The Beast Among Us), who lets Ledingham sail so far over the top (while Ford merely discards hers), he should have been reigned in. I doubt the script — written by then-future Hollywood Reporter film critic Kirk Honeycutt — called for such level of hysterics.

As a disciple of Andy Sidaris (read our interview with him in our book), I also wonder why Roberta Vasquez is the only woman on the poster, yet has such a small role. She’s not only a better actress than Ford, but better built for the part. The Lord works in mysterious ways, indeed. —Rod Lott

Comedy

American Drive-In (1985)

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American Drive-In feels like its financiers watched 1976’s Drive-In and ordered, “Make that, but with boobs, ass and grass!”

Depicting one crazy night at SoCal’s City Lights Drive-In, Krishna Shah’s contemporary comedy centers on clean-teen country couple Bobbie Ann (Emily Longstreth, Private Resort) and Jack (Pat Kirton, The Staircase Murders). Jack promises a night to remember — and how!

Other recurring characters in this IBS-loose structure include a power-hungry councilman (John Rice, Time Chasers) attempting to bust marijuana dealers, a hefty family of four who exist only to gorge themselves on a bucket of KFC and fistfuls of spaghetti, and a little person (Phil Fondacaro, The Garbage Pail Kids Movie) marveling at himself on the movie being played. That’d be Hard Rock Zombies, which Shah also directed.

Meanwhile, a hooker sets up shop on the grounds; a guy tries to get his prudish girlfriend to give him head; and the councilman’s scorchingly hot ’n’ horny daughter (Rhonda Snow, Shadows Run Black) sneaks away to get laid in a van. In the movie’s one concession (no pun intended) to Porky’s-brand prankery, her moaning and groaning get broadcast to every car speaker. It’s all as zany as a pair of Slinky Eyes, which the pic features.

And then things take such a dark and violent turn, you’ll diagnose it as bipolar: Bobbie Ann is kidnapped and molested by a greaser gang led by Sarge (Joel Bennett, Hellhole), on the hunt for “beaver.” It’s no stretch to categorize the climax as post-apocalyptic, demolition derby and all.

Until then, though, Shah captures a lot of the drive-in theaters’ nostalgic elements, which combine to make whatever was showing secondary: the snack bar, the playground, the door prizes and, yes, the nookie. That he does so with complete stupidity — and perhaps pure dumb luck — can’t be ignored, but for the era’s tits-and-zits formula, American Drive-In beats its more brainless peers. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Reading Material

The James Bond Films 1962-1989: Interviews with the Actors, Writers and Producers

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Goldberg. Lee Goldberg.

The prolific crime novelist began his professional writing career as many scribes do: at the college paper. Whereas I had to report on the facility management department at the University of Oklahoma, Goldberg leveraged UCLA’s ink to write about his first love: 007, if you haven’t guessed by now.

The resulting interviews and articles from those pages — as well as Starlog, Cinefantastique and Prevue magazines — come collected in the slim, but satisfying The James Bond Films 1962-1989: Interviews with the Actors, Writers and Producers.

Four consecutive outings make up the bulk of the 120-page paperback: the “unofficial” Sean Connery comeback, Never Say Never Again; Roger Moore’s final outing, A View to a Kill (a set visit to which kicks off the contents); and both Timothy Daltons, The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill.

octopussyHowever, the best chapter involves none of the above. It’s an interview with Richard Maibaum, screenwriter of much of the franchise since its ’62 start. On the eve of Octopussy’s release, Maibaum redefines “candid” by trash-talking everything from the one-liners and scripts he didn’t write to, heck, leading man Roger Moore! I have no idea what Maibaum was thinking (or drinking?), but with such self-bloviating, I’m surprised producer Albert R. Broccoli didn’t can him. It’s the kind of interview studios wouldn’t let happen in today’s environment of fanboy-baiting paid junkets. (Journalism is dead, folks.)

Goldberg unearths another massive ego when he interviews George Lazenby, the infamous one-time Bond, still with a huge chip on both shoulders. By contrast, the other one-timer, Barry Nelson — the first onscreen 007, thanks to a 1954 live TV presentation of Casino Royale — has the right attitude. So does regular screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz, who correctly dubs the Bond series as “the Rolls Royce of action films.”

Goldberg’s book is quite a time capsule for James Bond fans, offering glimpses at select films through major creative talents. What it’s not is a front-to-back narrative, so don’t expect that; do expect a little repetition, necessary for piece-by-piece context — these are reprints, after all. Being a sucker for the 007 movies, I regularly buy books about them … only to usually emerge disappointed. That’s not the case with The James Bond Films 1962-1989, thanks to Goldberg’s access, insight and skill, approaching the work as one should: a writer first, a fan second. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

Horror

Night Screams (1987)

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Allen Plone’s Night Screams enjoys the distinction of being the first slasher shot in Wichita, Kansas. Remember, “first” rarely equates to “best.” Or even “good.” One could sum up where this film falls by using this quick, mid-movie exchange:

Girl 1: “So, where’d you live before you moved to Wichita?”

Girl 2: “In a really nice place.”

Night Screams confuses right from the prologue, as soon-to-be victims watch the ’81 horror movie Graduation Day at home. Rather than show those scenes on the characters’ TV set, Plone (Phantom of the Ritz) chooses to play them in full-screen glory, as if spliced directly into the print; therefore, anyone unfamiliar with that movie may not comprehend which shots are which. (Later, Plone pulls the same trick with a porno to force some nudity into the pic.)

That said, our killer kind of makes up for it with a spontaneous, post-murder rendition of “Chopsticks” on the deceased’s piano. Cut to the opening credits of unknown names and this peculiar tease: “featuring The Sweetheart Dancers.” (Oh, I’ll get to them, promise.)

Night Screams also marks the first and last feature for Joe Manno, in the lead role of David, star of the high school football team and winner of a four-year University of Oklahoma scholarship. While his teammates trade an opened fire hose of homoerotic insults (e.g., “Up your ass!”), he stresses about his full-ride athletic scholarship to Oklahoma, because he doesn’t really want the University of Oklahoma football scholarship, much less to continue playing football, the sport that won him the OU scholarship. And if you think that’s repetitive, get ready to hear it so often from so many people, the film should have an onscreen counter or come with its own punch card.

To blow off steam, David invites his best buds over for a co-ed house party while his overprotective parents are out. Not invited, but looking to crash it anyway, are two escaped inmates from the clink and one newly released mental patient. Are they to blame for David’s friends being slaughtered uno a uno — by pool cue, hot tub, hamburger grill, Glad Cling ‘N Seal — or is David, who forgot to take his anti-anger meds?

The better question: Who cares? Neither you nor I, because Night Screams is so disengaging, its obscurity is deserved. In addition to being nondescript, the students exhibit behavior suggesting they’re occupants from interplanetary craft, from white-guy alley dancing to David acting like a guy on the verge of a Mustang-buying, secretary-banging midlife crisis, not a kid who just wants Dad off his back. Death sequences lack panache and inspire indifference.

Now, because I promised, back to the “nationally famous” Sweetheart Dancers: They’re six young women in sparkly shirts and matching socks who Jazzercise their permed-hair hearts out. They do this as a band called The Dogs performs a song about chilling out. This all goes down at the local club Pogo’s, a really nice place. —Rod Lott

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Documentary

The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012)

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As brave and unsettling as Evan Peters is in the title role of Dahmer — Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, that Netflix series won’t likely stick with me the way 2012’s The Jeffrey Dahmer Files has for a decade.

The documentary is built largely on interviews with three people tied directly to the notorious, 17-time serial killer: apartment neighbor Pamela Bass, medical examiner Dr. Jeffrey Jentzen and aggressively mustachioed police detective Pat Kennedy. Each grabs your attention and holds it with his or her recollections, but given this most unusual case, that’s expected.

The wild card is the other half of the movie, in which pieces of Dahmer’s ho-hum life — trips to buy bleach, to acquire a barrel for acid, to solicit a trick — are depicted via re-enactments, with co-writer Andrew Swant portraying Dahmer. He does so without any hint of playing a monster; not once does he appear unhinged or go over the top, yet somehow, Swant’s performance rings super sinister.

Similarly, Chris James Thompson (We Are Not Ghouls) directs with a clinical detachment, which I mean as a compliment. His decision not to show any acts of violence is genius — not for reasons of prudishness, but because he relies on viewers’ minds to fill in the blanks. You imagine what’s going on behind that closed door, what’s in that suitcase, and whatever your brain whips up is more chilling than Thompson could fake.

Even if you already know the story, it sounds all the more terrifying when told from the mouths of those who were close to the case. Produced in part by American Movie’s Chris Smith (look for that doc’s subject, Mark Borchardt, in the optical-shop scene), this film will haunt you. —Rod Lott

Get it at Amazon.

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