Jogger, The (1988)

Directed by:

Robert Resnikoff

One of five short films made for Chanticleer Films, as part of a project called The Discovery Program, which offered up fledgling directors the money, talent and resources to make their first film, which was to act as a resume builder of sorts to hopefully help them get their foot in the door in Hollywood. Believe it or not, in most cases this actually worked exactly as planned. From this first crop of directors, there were numerous success stories. Bryan Gordon, director of Ray's Male Heterosexual Dance Hall (which went on to win the Academy Award for Best Short Film, Live Action in 1988), was making a major feature for Universal, the John Hughes-scripted Career Opportunities (1991), just a few years later. Since then, he's directed dozens of TV shows, including, most recently, Curb Your Enthusiasm. Stephen Tolkin made The Price of Life for the program, then moved on to work extensively on TV for such shows as Brothers & Sisters and Summerland. Robbie Fox (The Great O'Grady), went on to script major studio comedies for the likes of Mike Myers and Pauly Shore, which some may consider successful.

And that leaves just two others from the original slate of directors unaccounted for: Susan Rogers (who made the sci-fi short Astronomy) and the director of this one; Robert Resnikoff. It does not appear that Rogers received much work after this, though she was a budding female director and it was 1988 so that, sadly, may not need any further clarification. Resnikoff, on the other hand, was given the chance to direct the 10-million-budgeted horror film The First Power (1990) soon after, which more than doubled its budget in its U. S. theatrical run and also did well on home video. Despite his feature debut being a modest financial (but not critical) success, it was curiously the only feature he'd ever make and, according to IMDb, also the very last film project he has worked on to date.

Considering Resnikoff was already 40-years-old when he made this and Tinseltown has always been obsessed with fresh young talent, the lack of further opportunities could have boiled down to something as simple as ageism. In fact, part of the reason this project came into existence in the first place was the fact it was easier for a fresh-outta-film-school young man to be given the chance to direct a feature film than a very experienced veteran who worked in other film-related capacities for years but had yet to be given the chance to direct anything. And it's always possible that Resnikoff simply didn't enjoy his time working on the feature and / or preferred to go into another line of work. It's difficult to tell. (By the way, you can read more about the genesis of this project RIGHT HERE.)

Cast in lead here is Terry O'Quinn, who was fresh off his success in The Stepfather (1987); a role which garnered him several high profile award nominations plus excellent reviews even from critics who didn't love the film itself. In The Stepfather, he played Jerry Blake (more specifically, "Jerry Blake," as that was merely one of many identities), and here plays another Jerry; only this one an average middle-aged man facing typical middle-aged man problems. He's at that age where he needs to start taking better care of himself. That means, up at 6:30 a.m., throw on some sweats, down a few pills, gag down a nutritious shake ("I've got bean sprouts and carrots coming out my ears!") and then start exercising. It's especially important for Jerry, who's had a little cholesterol problem that led to a little heart attack and now doctor's orders specify he needs to be more careful about what he's doing, what he's putting into his body and how much stress he's under.

Jerry has recently started jogging every morning and set a 5 mile goal for himself. His wife (Elizabeth Ruscio) playfully nags him a bit about needing to take it easy. And he will. Once he reaches his goal. Jerry must wear a watch that monitors his heart rate, though, which sounds an alarm any time his pulse starts to get dangerously high. Whenever that happens, Jerry has to stop whatever he's doing, take a few breaths and start counting backwards from 5.

As Jerry sets out for his jog through the heavily-wooded hills behind his home, another, fitter jogger (played by professional stuntman Tom Morga) starts catching up behind him. The man, clad in all black and sunglasses, doesn't say a word but challenges Jerry to a race. Jerry manages to speed ahead. Then he loses the guy. And then the man reappears, moving even faster, catches Jerry and body checks him; pushing him over the side of a hill. Dirty and startled, Jerry regains his composure, goes back to the trail and continues his jog. But then he's tripped up by a rope intentionally tied between two trees. Sensing the first attack wasn't a one-off incident of path-rage, Jerry grabs a branch and starts scouring the area. The next time he encounters the man, he pulls out a switchblade, slashes his stomach and then punches him in the face. From then on out, it's a game of cat-and-mouse through the woods as Jerry fights for his life against an almost inhumanly relentless attacker.

Nothing groundbreaking here, but this is still a compact, skillfully-crafted short that's entertaining, well-edited, suspenseful and provides a few good jump scares, as well as a typically fine performance from O'Quinn. It would have been right at home as an episode on any number of 30-minute anthology TV shows (this one runs 23). Since these things can never just be cut-and-dry, there's a Twilight Zone-style twist at the very end that makes you question most of what you've just watched. The budget was 30,000 dollars, it was shot in around a week and, along with all of the rest of the shorts, played at the Sundance Film Festival in January 1989. The music is by Stewart Copeland (from The Police), who also did the end theme song "Strange Things Happen."

This and the other Discovery Program (which continued on well into the 90s) shorts were all released as part of a 7 disc, 56 film DVD box set titled Cinema Collection. This is also currently on Youtube.

★★1/2

Pop Phi Hian (1990)

... aka: ปอบผีเฮี้ยน

... aka: Ghoulish Ghost Mother

... aka: Pop Is Strong Enough

... aka: Pop Phi Hien

... aka: Porb Phee Hien

Directed by:

อัจกลับ (Atklub) (?)

Despite not officially being an entry in the HOUSE OF POP series (which is the longest-running film series in Thai history), this may as well be! Compared directly to the first two Pop entries, this features a near-identical plot and characters, the same stars, the same supporting actors, the same unsuccessful mixture of folklore-steeped ghost-horror and truly irritating slapstick comedy (often speeding up the action for "comic" effect and such) and appears to have been filmed in the same exact locations. I assumed it was also made by the same director too, but, surprisingly, that doesn't appear to be the case (unless the name on the poster is an alias).

Most Thai genre films from this time are basically equivalent to B-movies made in other countries, except for the fact that most aren't as well-made, they're generally even lower-budgeted and they were never meant to be distributed internationally. Quickly and cheaply shot so that the minuscule budgets could be recuperated fast, these were cranked out in fairly large numbers, with prints touring the countryside to be shown to more superstitious "common folk" in small villages, who typically were more into ghost legends and such. Those in major metropolitan areas in Thailand weren't especially interested, though many of these films saw a second life as cheaply-pressed and poor-quality VCD releases, often presented with an incorrect aspect ratio. I suppose one could refer to these as poor man's horror movies as they were cheap to make, cheap to see and then cheap to own on a home viewing format.

All the men in a village lust after the beautiful but reclusive Kaew, who's played by actress / singer / model ตรีรัก รักการดี / Trirak Rakkarndee, whose name is spelled differently on just about every website you visit (Treerak Rakkandee, Trerak Rakkandee, TeeRuk Rukkarndee...). Kaew lives in a small home on the outskirts of the village along with her intense grandmother, Chom, who seldom goes out into public. While their humble little abode isn't anything to write home about, a greedy developer and his wife are after their land. Poor Kaew can't even go from one end of the village to another without being harassed by a quartet of thoroughly obnoxious hooligans; once again played by Thongchai Prasongsunti and those same dudes with the ponytails from the HOP movies. These are the kind of guys who chew with their mouths open, loudly slurp their drinks, never shut up, constantly stick out their tongues, fart a lot (which they eventually discover works as a ghost repellent) and behave like complete morons the entire movie, so prepare to be annoyed!

A pop (cannibalistic female ghost) has been going around the village late at night ripping the guts out of victims with her clawed hand, so an old exorcist is brought in to fight her. The pop is revealed to be Chom and she and the exorcist have a magic duel featuring a spear, a flaming staff, exploding rocks and one of those cheap plastic glow necklaces. Injured in the battle, Chom stumbles home and spits an orb into Kaew's mouth before falling over dead; transferring the evil spirit into her granddaughter's body. Now that Kaew has been left all alone, kindly new village leader Phalat (Ekapan Banleurit) steps in, develops feelings for her and vows to help take care of her, though little of their relationship is actually fleshed out.

The portly developer shows up at Kaew's home offering her a wad of money for her place. When she refuses, he attempts to rape her, but she gets away after pushing him into a lake. Later that night, she lures him into the woods and rips out his guts. Seeing how the apple doesn't fall far from the tree, the developer's equally-scummy son (Narong Jenklongtham) starts a sexual relationship with a poor village girl named Plau, knocks her up and then, instead of marrying such a lowly creature, brings an old woman abortionist over. The two force her to drink poison, pin her down and start putting extreme pressure on her belly, which not only kills the baby, but also her. Kaew stumbles into the hut afterward and the pop exits her body and resurrects Plau's corpse.

Now in its new host body, the pop pays a late night visit to a snobby rich woman, amusingly played by veteran actress Metta Roongrat (THE WOLF GIRL), and her prissy daughter in a surprisingly funny scene where the mom panics and accidentally locks her daughter outside with the ghost. The pop then goes after her former lover, tricks him into kissing her and then bites off his tongue, spits it out, rips open his chest, pulls out his guts and eats them. After unsuccessfully attempting to bully Kaew out of her land with her thugs, the developer's widow joins forces with the exorcist and they both end up dead. While this does a fair job of following a basic plot line for a little while, at least by 80s Thai standards, that's all eventually thrown right out the window during the disastrous final act. Yikes.

To be fair, this actually starts out as an improvement over the first three House of Pop movies in that it delivers more gore, has a few bits that actually ARE funny, some atmospheric night scenes using fog and backlighting and features the spirit going from body to body, which at least keeps things a little bit interesting. There's also a fun character in the form of a no-nonsense Amazonian waitress (played by Maneerat Waiyawut) who frequently has to chase the annoying local guys out of her restaurant with a bamboo pole and meat cleaver. She even pulls a rifle on them at one point... and I can't say that I blame her.

However, this completely runs out of gas well before the hour mark and keeps falling back on the dumb-as-dirt and seldom-funny antics of those pesky village idiots, who unfortunately take over completely during the finale. The make-up, editing, photography and special effects are all terrible and the sheer awfulness of the last twenty minutes almost have to be seen to believed. It features a spiritualist riding around on some cheap-looking floating cart who eventually gets blown up, a random zombie, lots of very poorly-executed jump cuts, the pop flying around a lake, several characters being sexually violated by guinea pigs (!?) and the moronic dudes climbing trees, putting boxes over their heads to "hide," running around dressed in foliage bikinis after losing their clothes and other such assorted nonsense; most of which is sped up and accompanied by truly irritating music. Parts of John Carpenter's Halloween score are also used.

Very few Thai B horror flicks from the video era were ever officially released outside of the country nor were they ever given English subtitles. And once you sit down to actually watch one of these things, it's easy to see why. These were simply unable to compete with similar films being produced by major studios elsewhere in Asia at around the same time. Actually, the best part about most of these older Thai productions are the excellent posters.

★1/2