POMO

Produced by Roger Corman, this lesser-known B-movie variation on Bonnie and Clyde is crazy and wildly amoral. Angie Dickinson is a top MILF, and it’s no wonder that Tom Skerritt seduces her first and then both of her daughters (at the same time). I’d join them in the car too (and elsewhere). As a comedy, Big Bad Mama is quite infantile and as a crime flick, it’s laughable. The relationships are utterly silly and not very realistic. But that Angie is a knockout!

Turkey Shoot is an action-adventure B-movie with a high-octane plot and a surprisingly big budget. Its subject matter is reminiscent of Battle Royale / Hard Target, but not as a rip-off, but as those films’ bold predecessor. Its violent and coarse, and shockingly politically incorrect by today’s standards. Mainly, however, it is well cast. The prison guards and the warden, the hunter “visitors” and each of the prisoners on which the film focuses fit superbly into the jigsaw puzzle of malevolent and supportive relationships that gradually increase in tension and finally explode – figuratively and literally. The film is actually well written, with unexpected scenes and a little surprise. Only the directing, though dynamic, smacks of 1980s B-movie quality, particularly in the unrealistic and “blind” shootouts, when the characters shoot like idiots into the ground instead of at the target.

The Words has a great subject with Oscar potential, the possibility of a multi-layered idea and a great acting opportunity for the cast. It’s not that it didn’t succeed, but it didn’t do as well as it deserved to do. The flashbacks, which were meant to let the viewer feel the pain of Jeremy Irons’s character, are done in a kitschy way that weakens the whole foundation of the film. But the “in the present” level works, as we understand the decisions that Bradley Cooper makes in his situation, and he does a fine job of portraying the subsequent feelings of guilt and the effort to make everything right. The superstructure with Dennis Quaid attempts to summarize the ideas in hindsight and even playfully relativize them intellectually, but I found that somewhat unnecessary, at least in terms of its benefit for the story.

Werewolves on Wheels is a case crappy filmmaking, which was perhaps due to the amount of weed smoked by both the actors and the crew. From the shots of the gang riding motorcycles on desert roads, it’s completely obvious that it was inspired by Hopper’s Easy Rider. However, the film’s cast is a bland bunch of bumpkins led by Adam, who is not a charismatic badass, but just an insipid dolt with a big ego. Even a supporting character, an Indian named Tarot, is more interesting because he has intuition and is the only one in the film who actually thinks. More should have been done with the werewolf motif, which comes into play late in the plot, and the would-be horror scenes don’t have even a bit of charm in any of the paramaters of horror (i.e. they are not scary, disgusting nor made in a formalistically interesting way). In a few weeks, my only memory of the film will perhaps be the pretty naked biker chick dancing in an occult ceremony. And in a few months, I will remember nothing of Werewolves on Wheels.

Someone shot some footage and then edited it into something. The subject matter has something to it, as it is likably bizarre and some viewers may even see it as a critique of capitalism (the protagonist’s machismo and his roots in a rich family give him a sense of superiority, while other people are just objects for him to play with). But in terms of directing, it’s a straight-up B-movie and the editing is almost Ed Woodian. Like the cuts to the titular amphibians jumping in the grass in the horror movie Frogs, shots of hundreds of meowing cats in a large cage are edited into the plot wherever possible, even when the main character is flying a helicopter or his sexy prey is lying by a swimming pool. However, the filmmakers’ goofy and in some ways creative fantasies combined with the trashy poetics make this an entertaining and rather unpredictable obscurity that could have been an exemplary exploitation flick if it had contained some sex scenes, grittier murders (not just strangulation) and gore (dismembering victims before feeding them to the cats).

E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial for the new millennium? Not a chance. Midnight Special is rather like an average episode of The X-Files. Though it is well cast and the plot is well paced, the film is emotionally flat (with only a succinct depiction of the characters), not very clever (a boy is able to knock a satellite out of the sky through force of will, but he can’t stop a car in which he is being kidnapped by two old men?!) and, in working with the genre, it merely repeats familiar motifs without the slightest update or surprise. The climax reaches for narrative grandeur, but it doesn’t offer even a fraction of the awe or intellectual depth of similarly conceived genre climaxes (The Abyss, Arrival, Annihilation). For Nichols, this must have been just a routine studio commission; I don’t believe that he made Midnight Special for creative gratificaiton. Two and a half stars.

Except for two lapses in logic (the gardener’s groundless threats / the probability of using spray) that are utterly obvious in an otherwise decently written screenplay, this is a solid thriller with a precise form and a well-cast main character.

Based on a high-quality novel, Night of the Devils is neither a B-movie nor Euro-trash. Giorgio Ferroni delivers a captivating drama about the members of a cursed family living on a farm in a Yugoslavian forest. Or rather, a drama about a lost passer-by who asks them to help him repair his car. Everything – from the casting and portrayal of the characters, to the revelation of the consequences of the curse, which, together with the main character, we are initially sceptical about – works so well that the purely horror gore scenes are actually surprising with their straight-forwardness. But pleasantly so – similarly high-quality character-based drama is rare, if not exceptional, in old Italian horror movies, which are more or less built on gore. Of course, there is the gothic atmosphere of the location, beautiful women and sensuality, and a tender love motif that lends depth to the film’s conclusion, almost foreshadowing the cult climax of some cinematic masterpieces (I don’t want throw out any spoilers).

Romero was a master. Otherwise, a film about a frustrated suburban housewife with a distracted look could not have been so interesting. But the psychology of the characters works here, as do the sparks between them, the feeling of futility and the seductive desire to finally change something in their lives, to “go over to the other side” and be something extraordinary. And what else could there be for such a character – a jaded woman slapped by her husband and bored with the daily routine of an exemplary American family – if not the role of a witch? Romero wrote, shot and edited Season of the Witch, and even fifty years, the film is still pleasing with its feel for composition and editing, and it’s comprehensible in terms of content. Romero knew what he was doing.

Locke comes across as if you were filming, in real time with hidden cameras, the car ride of a man on the telephone dealing with a tricky life situation that could turn his successful professional and personal life upside down in the course of a single night. It is a situation that tests him on the character level, shaped by his difficult childhood, and on the professional level, in maintaining ambition in his responsibility for successfully carrying through an important social cause. It is also as if he is a charismatic man whose emotions and dilemmas you understand and sympathize with. Then all you have to do is edit it down to a smoothly running 85 minutes and you have a gripping study of a superbly played film character. Not everyone will understand that character and not everyone would behave like him, and the film is thus also an interesting test of the viewer’s hierarchy of values. Life can be a dog, but it only takes a few tricks to make an excellent film. If you know how.