Westworld (1973)

Directed by:
Michael Crichton

The Delos Corporation has created "The most exciting vacation spot in the history of man," or what they like to call "The vacation of the future... today!" For just 1000 dollars a day, guests have their choice of three distinct destinations. First, there's "Medieval World," a reconstruction of the chivalry, excitement and romance of 13th Century Europe. Then there's "Roman World;" a recreation of the decant, lustful and sensual Pompeii. Finally, there's "Westworld," a recreation of the lawless, unpredictable American frontier of 1880. Guests take a hovercraft deep into the desert, where they're then whisked off to the world of their choice. What makes this so special? Well, each town is populated with like-life robots designed and programmed to make your stay exciting, thrilling and memorable. Aside from imperfect hands, the advanced androids can pass for human and they talk, walk, fight, bleed, have sex, ride horses, serve specific functions and do all the other things that you and I do. Even all of the animals that populate the areas are robotic. Everything is being closely monitored by various scientists and technicians, who stay busy programming the machines, monitoring the action via cameras and, late at night, sweeping in and clearing out any damaged or malfunctioning robots. A voice over the loudspeaker keeps reassuring guests that "nothing can go wrong." Naturally, that turns out not to be the case.

Chicago businessman John Blane (James Brolin), who's already been on a previous Delos vacation, decides to treat his buddy and co-worker Peter Morton (Richard Benjamin), who's just been taken to the cleaners by his ex-wife, to a trip to Westworld. The two guys are given an appropriate wardrobe and all the things they'll need to get by in the dusty Wild West town, including guns. The guns are real guns and take real bullets, except they've been equipped with a censor that won't allow them to fire at anything with a high body temperature to ensure no human uses it on another. As far as the robots are concerned, just gun 'em down as you please. John and Peter live it up for a little while, drinking it up at a local saloon, engaging in bar brawls and shoot-outs, visiting a cathouse (run by Star Trek star Majel Barrett) and even springing each other from jail... but then the robots start behaving strangely. Many of the models have been showing rather peculiar signs as of late; frequently breaking down and occasionally even overriding their programming; prompting the chief scientist (Alan Oppenheimer) to muse, "Doesn't anything work around here?" Still, the Delos staff decide to let the current crop of visitors finish out their stays until closing down for maintenance.

Things start going seriously haywire when robots in all three worlds begin to ignore their commands. Some simply fall over "dead," while others become violent and then start killing not only the other robots but also human guests. All hell breaks loose in Roman World, while In Medieval World a visitor (Norman Bartold) ends up on the wrong end of a knight's sword vying for the attention of the kingdom's queen. In Westworld, John and Peter manage to get on the bad side of an emotionless, black-clad gunslinger (Yul Brynner), a newer model with heightened sensitivity programming, who seems to have the very non-robot-like ability to hold a major grudge...

Being an early 70s sci-fi flick, one may automatically expect elements of Westworld to have dated poorly, but that turns out not to be the case at all. This has actually dated brilliantly and holds up extremely well thanks to an extremely imaginative, intriguing and not entirely implausible premise. While the idea of such a vacation sounds extremely appealing in theory, a certain nagging morality is always in the back of our minds as we examine the scenario. It is really all that healthy to get a thrill out of fake-killing life-like androids at random? If you're in a relationship, is it really cheating to have sex with a robot? One could also imagine this being troublesome for certain types of people; addicting even. When you can basically have your run of an entire world, get all your needs met and get everything you want, returning to the 'real world' and dealing with all of the pressures and disappointments and stress would have to be a depressing downer, right? Crichton's script is smart enough to make passing nods at some of these ideas to ensure we're fully engaged in this idea, even after the movie has ended.

Not just reliant on its creative central idea, Westworld is also very funny at times, exciting in its action and suspense scenes and actually pretty damn scary during the final third. Western movie regular Brynner (The Magnificent Seven) is absolute perfection in his role and gives a superbly chilling performance here. It's impossible not to think of The Terminator (1984) seeing Brynner's cold, steel-eyed gunslinger robot in relentless pursuit of our hero, complete with pixilated robot POV shots and use of heat sensory to track his prey. And just like Schwarzenegger's Terminator, the Gunslinger here doesn't go down very easily. It's also difficult not to think of the later Crichton-penned Jurassic Park watching this, as both feature high tech resort / amusement parks where visitors become trapped inside and are killed by the very attractions they've come to see.

A deserving critical and commercial success upon release, this prompted the sequel Futureworld (1976) three years later, which also featured Brynner reprising his role. In 1980, a TV series called "Beyond Westworld" was produced, but low ratings led to only three of its initial five episodes to air before the plug was pulled. In 2007, a remake was announced to be directed by Tarsem Singh (The Cell) and star Arnold Schwarzenegger. That never happened. In 2011, Warner Brothers announced plans to remake it as a feature film. That also never happened. Just a few months ago as of this writing (August 2013 to be exact) HBO announced plans to do a television series pilot based on the premise, to be directed by Jonathan Nolan and co-produced by J.J. Abrams. Though this original film is a fine stand-alone, there's really a lot of potential for further expansion upon this material if someone manages to do it correctly.

★★★1/2

Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker (1991)

... aka: Silent Night, Deadly Night V: The Toy Maker

Directed by:
Martin Kitrosser

A present addressed to young Derek Quinn (William Thorne) arrives on his doorstep late one night. Luckily for him, his father Tom (Van Quattro) ends up opening it instead and is killed when a strange ball / toy latches onto his face and causes him to fall and gouge his eye out on a fire poker. Two weeks pass and Derek hasn't spoken a word since the incident. He also refuses to go into his bedroom, where the deadly toy sits on a shelf, and seems to be frightened of packages and Christmas things in general. Derek's mother Sarah (Jane Higginson) didn't see what really happened and is, of course, completely oblivious to why Derek is behaving the way he is. In an effort to cheer him up, she takes him to a small, struggling toy store run by Joe Petto (Mickey Rooney), who crafts handmade toys. Joe seems like a jovial and friendly sort... until customers are out of the store and he starts sucking down Jim Beam and snarling "I oughta break you in half!" to his awkward teenage son Pino (Brian Bremer). Joe isn't very nice to his poor boy, whom he berates on a regular basis and forces to sleep in the cellar, and Pino himself may be more than just a run-of-the-mill oddball himself.

Army vet Noah Adams (Tracy Fraim) shows up in town with a clipping about Tom's murder in his back pocket. He begins  frequenting the toy store, buys up bunches of the toys at a time and takes them back to his hotel room to disassemble them. Seems like he's caught on that something fishy is going on over at Petto's Toys; namely that some of the toys that come out of the place have been designed specifically to kill. Behind on his rent, Noah pays off the hotel owner with a "Larry the Larvae" toy from the store, which ends up springing to life. It forces itself inside the guy's mouth, pushes out his eyeball and causes him to crash and blow his car up. Another boy puts on a pair of roller blades, which are hard-wired to make him go out of control and he's run down by a car. Strange packages keep getting left at the Quinn home by someone. Joe and Pino used to live there and are resentful they've fallen on hard times. And if you think the references to Pinocchio in the character names have nothing to do with the plot, you'd be mistaken.

Sometimes it's a good idea to watch horror franchises in order and in quick succession or else you'll probably miss out on clever little touches when they actually are present. This is one of those cases. There's a lot of poking fun at the previous film if you pay attention and some of it is actually pretty amusing (like the above-mentioned larvae toy). Neith Hunter, who starred as Kim in the previous entry, plays Sarah's best friend and neighbor, who's also named Kim. At one point she says "You would not believe the things I've been through. I hardly believe them myself." in winking reference to all the crazy things that went down in Silent Night 4. Clint Howard, who played Ricky the mentally-impaired rapist bum in Part 4, has a one scene cameo as a department store Santa Claus named, you guessed it, Ricky. 

Not only are some cast members back, but so are some of the crew people. Part 4's director Brian Yuzna also co-wrote the screenplay and produced this one and Screaming Mad George and Tom Rainone are back on fx duties. Yuzna's son Conan Yuzna, who had a small role in Part 4 as Lonnie, also plays a kid named Lonnie here. Cathy Yuzna (Brian's wife) and Zoe Yuzna (their daughter) also have small roles. As silly and utterly ridiculous as this whole thing is, I had quite a bit of fun with it. Production values are fine, acting's OK, there's plenty of humor, lots of nifty little killer gadgets and some moments here and there that genuinely take you by surprise. The ending had me laughing out loud.

Apparently, Mr. Rooney was among those who publicly protested the original SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT (1984) and wanted it removed from theaters, so for him to show up later on down the line in the same series is quite odd. Then again, if there's one thing that can get someone off their moral high horse and make them forget their values, it's a wad of cash being waved in their face. Rooney's presence here probably just boiled down to nothing more than another paycheck for the 70+ year old. This is most certainly not in better taste than any of the others in this series, particularly during a scene where the teenage babysitter and her boyfriend get accosted in bed by a slew of killer playthings that Rooney's character (dressed as Santa Claus!) unleashes upon them. So what's really less moral: a killer dressed as Santa committing axe murders or a killer dressed as Santa who lets killer toys loose in a bedroom where a disembodied hand sticks a finger up a guy's ass and a toothy piece of green plastic chomps down on a girl's crotch? These "good moral values people" are a fuckin' riot!

Director Kitrosser also wrote the third and fifth installments of the Friday the 13th series, directed the Bad Seed rip-off Daddy's Girl (1996) and has served as a script supervisor for Quentin Tarantino ever since Reservoir Dogs (1992). This, SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT III: BETTER WATCH OUT! (1989) and SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT 4: INITIATION (1990) are all available from Lion's Gate.

★★1/2

Silent Night, Deadly Night 4: Initiation (1990)

... aka: Bugs
... aka: Initiation: Silent Night, Deadly Night 4
... aka: Silent Night, Deadly Night IV: Initiation
... aka: Welcome to Hell

Directed by:
Brian Yuzna

I've always liked Brian Yuzna, despite the fact his resume is all over the map. Though he's been involved in mostly mediocre movies (and some downright bad ones), he'll occasionally take everyone by surprise by turning out a real gem. Aside from his creativity, I think what I enjoy most about the guy is that he seems to possess a great deal of humility and isn't some huge egomaniac who thinks everything he touches is golden like many of his contemporaries. In an October 2013 interview with Phil Wheat, Yuzna categorized himself as "...someone who has made a lot of horror movies that I wouldn't characterize as 'really good.'" In the same interview he pretty much nails the stale state of contemporary genre fare: "Horror has become so mainstream that it seems to have mostly lost that transgressive creativity that used to make it so exhilarating." Yuzna (who was born in the Philippines but later emigrated to America) started out very strongly on the scene in the mid-80s, producing the cult favorite RE-ANIMATOR (1985) and producing and co-writing FROM BEYOND (1986); both loose H.P. Lovecraft adaptations for director Stuart Gordon. Yuzna's directorial debut came in 1989 with the successful and highly imaginative SOCIETY (1989). That same year he helmed the middling sequel Bride of Re-Animator and soon after that landed this gig. Uneven as SNDN4 undoubtedly is, one has to give Yuzna some credit for at least attempting to do something different.

Unlike the three films preceding it, each of which involved a "Santa Claus Killer" (first Billy and then his brother Ricky), Part 4 goes a completely different direction much like HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH (1982) ditched the Michael Myers routine for a brand new supernatural horror story set on the same holiday. There's no killer in a Santa suit here (aside from on a TV set) and it's not a slasher flick. It also happens to be completely bonkers! Things begin with a woman whose lower half is engulfed in flames falling to her death from a rooftop. The victim's identity is unknown and there's no explanation behind her death, leaving the murder cold. Kim Leavitt (former model and Richard Gere squeeze Neith Hunter), who works for "The L.A. Eye" newspaper usually doing their classified ads, wants to be taken seriously as a journalist, so she insists on doing an investigative story on the mysterious death. After some persistence, she's finally able to convince her boyfriend, fellow reporter Hank (Tommy Hinkley), into sweet-talking their sexist boss Eli (Phantasm series star Reggie Bannister) into giving her the story.

Kim goes to where the woman had died and discovers the building is owned by the glamorous Fima (Maud Adams), who also runs a bookstore out of the building. Fima, who's extremely touchy-feely right from the get go, gives Kim a giant fig to eat and a free book entitled "Initiation of the Virgin Goddess" before inviting her to a picnic she's having with some lady friends. Immediately after, tons of strange things begin happening. Kim sees a spiral ("The symbol of woman's power") in a plate of spaghetti and notices faces all over the place formed out of food, tree branches, etc. Her apartment becomes infested with bugs, including a king-size cockroach, and a strange, mentally-disturbed vagrant named Ricky (Clint Howard) seems to be stalking her. Fima doesn't really have anything nice to say about men. In fact, she despises them ("There seems to be this parasitic quality to men...") and seems to have sexual designs on our heroine. I guess I'll just let the cat out of the bag now: Fima is the leader of a lesbian witch cult who worship Lilith; biblically-speaking, Adam's first wife (who is reportedly in portions of the bible removed by the Catholic church). Since Lilith was made from the same dirt as Adam, she didn't have to take any of his shit, and these ladies seem to follow the same philosophy.

Kim is drugged and goes through an extremely icky ritual where she has a larva inserted into her stomach and vomits up a huge worm. Fima wants to impregnate her with her mutant "child," but Kim manages to escape before finishing the ceremony. She goes home, starts to lose it and tries to down a bottle of pills. Ricky sneaks into her apartment and, while she's in the middle of having sex with Hank, sits on the edge of the bed, turns on the TV and watches a scene from SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT III (!!) Kim is eventually dragged back to the cult, where she has to go through a second and much more horrifying part of the initiation. What could be more horrifying than yakking up a giant bug, you ask? How about having Clint Howard rape you while wearing a dildo-nose mask while a bunch of old women slather him with oily goo? The finale explodes with a bunch of surreal, rubbery, body-twisting fx courtesy of Screaming Mad George which are similar to what he did for Society, only on a smaller scale.

I'm not quite sure what point the filmmakers were really trying to make here but it's pretty obvious they were attempting to convey some kind of allegorical message. There's an extremely strong and extremely odd anti-feminist theme that runs throughout. Kim becomes loud, shrill, demanding and unreasonable once she starts getting involved with the cult. It's clear that these women are a bad influence on her and she's even told at one point that the only way to become a "whole woman" is by killing a man. When a man is killed, it's no big deal to these ladies because he's "just a man." The only guy the cult has any use for is the slow-witted Ricky, and they use him specifically to do their dirty work. That could be viewed as either them being too weak to do the physical stuff themselves or them being too smart to be risk implicating themselves. 

On the flip side, the men in this film are far from sympathetic and all of the guys Kim works with are smarmy, sexist creeps. At her job, the only way Kim is able to advance her career is through the guy she happens to be sleeping with. In addition, a subplot involving Hank's father (Ben Slack) shows him to be yet another sexist asshole who's intolerant of Kim being Jewish and says that a woman's place is in the home. Maybe what this is really about is a career woman having trouble navigating a sane path; trying to avoid both a lesser position in a male dominated world and extreme feminism. It's is all very strange and muddled, but I'll gladly take the imaginative oddness on display here over yet another routine Santa slasher flick.

There's a plug for Psychotronic Magazine and the cast includes Allyce Beasley, Jeanne Bates (a regular in David Lynch films going back to Eraserhead), Marjean Holden, David Wells and Conan Yuzna (the director's son). The score is from Richard Band. Yuzna followed this one up with the mediocre Lovecraft-inspired anthology Necronomicon: Book of the Dead (1993) and the very good zombie sequel Return of the Living Dead III (1993). The fifth and final installment in the series was Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toymaker (1991), which is again unrelated to what came before it.

★★1/2