China Lake (1983)

Directed by:
Robert Harmon

After working as a cinematographer on the documentary The Jupiter Menace (1982) and the strange and pretty good The Black Room (1982) and doing photo stills for Charles Band movies like Adult Fairy Tales (1978) and TOURIST TRAP (1979), Harmon made his directorial debut with this 35-minute, self-financed, 3000-dollar-budgeted short that he also wrote, produced and photographed. Filmed in 1981 over a 11 day period with the entire cast and crew working for free, China Lake was in post production for two long years before being shown theatrically. After being well-received at the Chicago International Film Festival, it then became a handy promotional tool for the director and helped him land an agent and other film jobs. Soon after, he secured the director's seat for the 6 million-budgeted studio film THE HITCHER (1986), which ended up under-performing at the box office but would eventually pick itself up a following of sorts. Both this and The Hitcher, as well as Harmon's later Highwayman (2004), share many things in common. All three involve a psycho targeting victims along desolate, picturesque stretches of quiet road. Producer / co-writer Beth Tate later co-produced a feature-length “sequel” (more like a remake actually) to this short called The China Lake Murders, which starred Tom Skerritt and Michael Parks and debuted on the USA Network in 1990.

L.A. motorcycle cop Donnelly (Charles Napier) has just earned himself a much-needed vacation, so how does he spend it? Catching up on his sleep? Going to the beach to work on his tan? Vegging out in front of the TV with a stack of horror DVDs? Nope, nope and nope. He's up bright and early as soon as the sun rises and back out patrolling the streets. This guy is dedicated. He's also unhinged. On a stretch of nearly-deserted desert road, Donnelly gets his kicks terrorizing anyone unfortunate enough to be driving through. His first victim is Helene (Gilmer McCormick), who's sober but subjected to a humiliating sobriety test anyway. After walking a straight line drawn in the sand, closing her eyes and touching her nose with her fingers and lifting one leg, she finds herself handcuffed and stuck in the trunk of her car. “Don't worry about it,” the officer soothingly tells her, “Somebody will be around shortly...I'm sure.” Donnelly swings by a closed gas station long enough to change back into civilian clothes and steal some gas after shooting the lock off the pump.

The next day, he swings in to a diner; the same diner he goes to the same time every year on his way up to visit China Lake. Waitress Kitty (Lindsey Fields) points out that China Lake is a dump but Donnelly explains its appeal to him: “I can go up there. I can be alone. Do what the hell I want to do. Nobody bothers me.” And “Do what the hell I want to do” is exactly what he does. This trip is a way for him to blow off some steam from work by violently venting out his frustrations on others. A pair of loud, dirty cement workers, which he nicknames Little Germ (William Sanderson) and Big Guy (Mickey Jones) in his voice-over, manage to piss him off by their mere appearance. He fantasizes about torturing one by burning his hand and tongue on a grill and, later, lucks out when one of the men gets a flat tire and he stumbles upon him.

Character actor Napier does typically fine work in the lead role (especially in the diner scene where he subtly alternates charm and menace), the desert scenery is great to look at it (and nicely shot) and there's some imaginative camerawork, with fast-moving POVs zooming down the highway and looking over the handlebars, with many shots attached to the side of a moving motorcycle. Fans of The Hitcher will also find this of interest and have fun spotting all of the similarities between the two. That said, the thrills and suspense are pretty much nonexistent and the concept of a "trust-worthy" rogue killer cop wasn't anything new by 1983 standards (about as "shocking" as a killer priest thanks to the dozen or so Italian gialli of the 70s that used that as a "twist"). Harmon went on to make the shitty box office flop They (2002), but did better on the small screen, receiving Emmy and Director's Guild nominations for his TV biopic Gotti (1996).

As with many short features from the 80s before DVD extras came into play, China Lake sat out for the entire VHS era. It went mostly unseen until the German company Kinowelt Home Entertainment included it as an extra on their 2 disc Special Edition release of The Hitcher in 2003. The short even comes with a text introduction and director's commentary track. This same release was distributed by Momentum Pictures out of the UK and Studio Canal out of France.

★★1/2

Alien degli abissi (1989)

...aka: Alien: Creature from the Abyss
...aka: Alien: La creature des abysses
...aka: Alien from the Deep

Directed by:
Antonio Margheriti

Science professor/reporter Jane ("Julia McKay"/ Marina Guilia Cavalli) and her cameraman Lee (Robert Marius), both of whom work for Greenpeace, travel to a remote, barely-populated island to investigate claims of illegal toxic waste dumping. They sneak into E Chem; a large, heavily-guarded geothermal plant, catch them throwing barrels of waste into an active volcano and take video evidence. As they're leaving, security camera catch them snooping around. Gruff Colonel Kovacs (Charles Napier, doing that hard-ass, jaw-clenching bad guy routine we love him for), the guy who runs E Chem, sends out some guards to capture them. Lee is smart enough to hide the tape before being apprehended. Jane, on the other hand, stows away on a helicopter, manages to leap out into a lake and is then pursued by the guards through the jungle. Jane is lucky enough to bump into brainy-looking, tobacco-chewing "snake hunter" Bob (Daniel Bosch), who's there on the island to acquire snake venom to see to a pharmaceutical company. With his help, Jane manages to get to safety, at least temporarily. She still plans on sneaking back over to E Chem to rescue Lee and locate the hidden video. We are now over 50 minutes into this movie and only one question remains: "Where in the hell is that alien?"

Rest assured, it does finally show up. At first we get mere glimpses of the beast's giant claw as it reaches out and kills people. The monster burrows through the ground and also seems to have either acidic blood or toxic blood that's been effected by the dumped waste. In other words, getting the green blood-gunk on you is bad news as it melts away your flesh. Several characters refer to it as an alien here. What I don't get is why they even bothered having it be an alien in the first place. They've already spent so much time with the chemical dumping plot, so why not just make it a mutant creature spawned from toxic waste? Oh well, I guess "Mutant Metal Crustacion from the Deep" just doesn't have that special ring to it. Well actually, I like the ring of that better, but it probably wouldn't have the same ability to rope in fans of ALIEN (1979) and ALIENS (1986). Speaking of ALIENS, the finale here is almost an exact carbon copy of its finale. The James Cameron film featured a tank top clad Sigourney Weaver using one of those yellow loading dock contraptions to push the alien out of a time lock into space, while this one features a tank top clad heroine using a yellow bulldozer to push the alien into a volcano. So much for originality.

You will need some patience to make it through this one. It's slow moving, the dialogue is pretty cheesy ("Don't come on to me, you snake squeezer!") and many of actors are poorly dubbed, but patience is rewarded with one of the most bizarre-looking monsters ever created. The best way to describe it by calling it an upright scrap metal crab. It's black, oily, skinny and very tall... and its claws are bigger than its body! The fact that someone actually designed this huge thing full scale is also pretty great and makes me resent CG effects more than I already do. There's a decent amount of violence (including a face being ripped off) and jungle action (including a scene where three guys are killed by leaping cobras in a cave), quite a few explosions and some decent miniature model work of the plant being destroyed. Technically, it's a well-made, well-budgeted movie, but as a whole it's still a bit too predictable, derivative and routine to have much staying power. Prolific Euro horror regular "Alan Collins" / Luciano Pigozzi has a good-sized role as nuclear physicist Dr. Geoffrey.

There's no R1 DVD release. I don't think it was ever released here in the U.S. on video either. It was one of the last films from Margheriti (billed here under his usual "Anthony M. Dawson" alias), who worked steadily in Italian films from the late 50s until the early 90s (and passed away in 2002). His other genre work (as director) includes HORROR CASTLE (1963), CASTLE OF BLOOD (1964), THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (1964), WILD WILD PLANET (1966), SNOW DEMONS (1967), SCHOOL GIRL KILLER (1968), SCREAMS IN THE NIGHT (1968), WEB OF THE SPIDER (1970), SEVEN DEATHS IN THE CAT'S EYE (1972), KILLER FISH (1978) and CANNIBAL APOCALYPSE (1980).

★★

Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Directed by:

William Lustig

After token pre-credits flashback footage, ex-policeman Matt Cordell (Robert Z'Dar) returns from the grave to get revenge on some of New York's finest, starting with those who put an end to his killing spree in the first film (Bruce Campbell and Laurene Landon). This time there's a cover-up subplot as Cordell's facially-scarred, ghostly avenger is after the corrupt cops who wrongfully sent him to prison where inmates slashed him up. His partner in crime (sort of) is a talkative, bearded serial killer (Leo Rossi) who is strangling strippers, while understandably perplexed officer Robert Davi, police psychiatrist Claudia Christian and others are hot on their trail. Larry Cohen's script gleefully stretches credibility to the limit, taking entertainingly wacky turns left and right, the cast (also including Michael Lerner, Clarence Williams III, Charles Napier, Claude Earl Jones, James Dixon, Sam Raimi and Danny Trejo) is good and director Lustig has a firm grip on the material, piling on the fast-paced action, violence, stunt work and pyro FX with engaging enthusiasm for his target audience. It also has one of the best car chase scenes I've ever seen. I haven't seen the original yet but I'm hoping it's at least half as fun as this one.

★★★