I’m logging my Monster Movie Month © viewing with ultra-mini reviews every Monday in October (as was the case last year, I’ll only be discussing movies I haven’t reviewed elsewhere on this site). I write it. You read it. No one needs to get hurt.
September 29
Thinner (1996- dir. Tom
Holland) **½
Entertainingly bad Stephen King (oops, I mean “Richard
Bachman”) novel becomes entertainingly bad Tom Holland movie. Holland directed
some good movies (Psycho II, Child’s
Play), but this isn’t one of them. An old “gypsy” stereotype curses a big-boned
chap with unceasing weight loss after he accidentally runs over her daughter while getting a blowjob. The fat prosthetics make actor Robert John
Burke look like Jiminy Glick. The skinny prosthetics misguidedly attempt to
make Burke look skeletal by building up his features, so he looks just as fat
when he’s supposed to be thinner. Still, Thinner
is fast paced, there are a couple of effective gross-outs, and the lousy acting
is campy fun. Plenty of material for a home session of Mystery Science Theater 3000.
The Stuff (1985- dir.
Larry Cohen) ****
Ladies and gentlemen, I have seen the apocalypse and it is
coated with Cool Whip. Tasty white
gunk called The Stuff is the latest culinary craze. Corporations dispatch spies
to learn the recipe. Families stockpile containers of it. Swimsuit models hawk
it in neon-lit T.V. commercials. The only problem is The Stuff is a sentient
monster: part Blob, part body snatcher. Writer/director/genius Larry Cohen
takes on corporate immorality, our junk food-addicted culture, advertising, and
the military. His satirical script is funny and clever and gives Michael Moriarty
lots of great things to say (“No one is as dumb as I appear to be”). Plus
there’s an unforgettable cameo from Clara Peller. If you don’t know who that
is, you’re too young to be reading Psychobabble.
October 2
Pharaoh’s Curse
(1957- dir. Lee Sholem) **
Imperialists go on a tomb raid in Egypt. They encounter a
mysterious lady, and bad stuff starts happening: their food and water
disappear, a woman gets nibbled by a scorpion, and a guy rapidly ages. That’s
the only thing that happens rapidly in Pharaoh’s
Curse. The sets and photography are atmospheric enough that the slowness
might be forgivable if there were some decent monsters. Instead we get a
cat-shaped shadow, an Ace-bandage mummy, and a sleepy old man. Maybe he was so
sleepy because he was watching Pharaoh’s
Curse.
Murders in the Zoo
(1933- dir. Edward Sutherland) ***½
When Lionel Atwill isn’t delivering big game to the local
zoo, he’s using his animal buddies to off everyone who crosses him. The title
and premise may sound goofy, but Murders
in the Zoo was strong meat for 1933. The film was often censored, and even
today, it is easy to see why. The opening sequence in which Atwill sews up the
lips of a guy who’d been smooching his wife remains disturbing. Atwill’s hands
spend a lot of time on his wife’s boobs too. She’s played by Kathleen Burke,
whom you may recall as Lota the Panther Woman in Island of Lost Souls. Atwill has fun as the psychopathic Dr.
Doolittle, but Charlie Ruggles almost kills the depraved mood with his awful,
ham-flavored clowning.
October 4
The Haunting of Julia
(1977- dir. Richard Loncraine) **½
A decade after Rosemary’s
Baby, Mia Farrow is still having
problems with her kids. Her daughter ruins breakfast by choking to death on an
apple. Instead of even attempting the Heimlich, Mia opts for a home tracheotomy
with a steak knife. Spoiler alert: Mia is no surgeon. Her marriage to Keir
Dullea soon crumbles, and she moves into a new house haunted by a little girl
with her own penchant for killing things. The final scene is pretty creepy, but
as a whole, The Haunting of Julia is
just too lethargic to be really scary. A few years later, The Changeling would tackle similar material with much better
results. And why does Mia pick up her Chinese takeaway in the kitchen of the
restaurant? Hasn’t she ever heard of a front counter? That really bugged me.
October 6
Frankenweenie (2012-
dir. Tim Burton) *****
Tim Burton animates and expands a wispy 1984 short and makes
his best movie in 18 years. A kid unsubtly named Frankenstein resurrects his
dead dog and all his science geeky school chums get monster fever. Frankenweenie presents a nicely balanced
view of science that sets it apart from all the great but God-fearing mad
scientist films that inspired it. Tim Burton’s movies are visually spectacular
(well, maybe not Alice in Wonderland)
but often lack soul. Frankenweenie is
atypically emotionally affecting. It’s also very funny (watch out for a great
“Hello Kitty” gag), in love with classic monster movies, surprisingly gruesome,
and of course, visually spectacular. You can’t do this stuff with computers,
kids. I loved it.
