Baba Yaga (1973)

...aka: Black Magic

...aka: Devil Witch, The

...aka: Kiss Me, Kill Me

Directed by:

Corrado Farina

Lanky, short-haired fashion photo-grapher Valentina (Isabelle De Funes) takes time out of her busy schedule snapping photos of naked babes to soak up the advances of tall new boyfriend Arno (George Eastman, Mr. Antropophagus himself in a rare good guy role). Out of nowhere appears Baba Yaga (Carroll Baker), a mysterious black-clad lesbian sadist something-or-other who challenges Arno for the affections of our malnourished heroine and uses her supernatural powers in nasty ways to get her. She also has a bottomless pit under a rug in her living room (that leads to hell?) and an S&M doll named Annette who comes to life in the form of sexy Ely Galleani to do her bidding. This extremely pretentious (but still fairly entertaining) Eurotrash effort masquerading as an art flick was based on a popular Italian comic book by Guido Crepax, which actually does a fair job of capturing the spirit of its source material. It's full of comic stills and female nudity and features an interesting role for the amazingly wooden Baker during her prime weird period. Angela Covello (TORSO) also has a small role.

I saw this under the title KISS ME, KILL ME. It wasn't released to video in the U.S. at all during the video boom era (to my knowledge), but later a censored print would became a fixture on all those cheap DVD sets. In 2003, Blue Underground released an uncut and restored print of the film, which looks excellent.

★★

Tenderloin (1985)

...aka Haven of Horror

Directed by:
Louis Ferriol

College student Beth Landers (Leslie Duncan) wakes up in a hospital bed at a private clinic called Gravesbrook with a broken knee. The last thing she remembered was eating at a diner and then passing out in her car. Dr. Goreman (Dick Biel) eventually shows up, claiming her name is actually Georgann Miller and that she was transferred there from another mental institution. Nurse Olga (Jane De Leeuw) tells her she started a fire that killed her mother, stepfather and siblings, but Beth claims she was an only child and her birth parents were never divorced. Medical examiner Donaldson (Bob Rose) brandishes a picture of Georgann that looks identical to Beth. He also tells her that her stepfather molested her. Before too long, Beth's being doped up and fondled by the doctor, who then ties her to the bed. The nurse slaps her a few times and then force feeds her. Robertson gags her, strokes her leg and then suddenly takes a bite out of it. Next thing Beth knows she's getting shock therapy. Her efforts to get the nurse's high school aged grandson Bryon (R. Craig Eaton) to help her prove futile. She's chloroformed and raped (off screen), and when she wakes up she's tied down to a table in a basement. Then (in slow-motion) she has her tongue pulled out, is sliced open with a scalpel and has her legs roasted over a grill. The end.

The title I saw this under was Tenderloin and it ran just 33 minutes. IMdb lists it as Haven of Horror with a run-time of 48. It's definitely what I'd refer to as a "homemade horror film" and is one of a half-dozen similar films from an obscure company called Vidimax. That company apparently even managed to get their short films into some video stores during the 80s. I've personally never seen one of these things for rent before, but if I had picked this up back in the day I would have been pretty pissed off about it. While my description might make this sound pretty nasty, it's actually very tame considering; there's no nudity and very little gore. The majority of the run-time consists of (very badly recorded) talk with very mediocre actors shot in someone's bedroom. There are about three location changes during the whole film. It also seems to be fetishy when it comes to legs. It opens with slow-motion shots of some blonde woman who has nothing to do with the rest of the film shaving her legs, and throughout there are long close-up shots of the lead actresses legs being rubbed by various characters. Strange.

★

Psycho II (1983)

Directed by:

Richard Franklin

Rehabilitated, Norman Bates (Anthony Perkins) returns to the Bates Motel after spending twenty-two years in a state institution for the murders committed in the first film. After getting a job in a diner and returning to the motel to try to live a normal life, he thinks he's losing his mind after receiving notes and phone calls from "mother." Then the murders start up again... Has Norman returned to his old ways, are others conspiring against him or is it perhaps a combination of the two? Could it have something to do with co-worker Mary (Meg Tilly), who starts to live with Norman after her boyfriend kicks her out? You know how mother loathes "whores." Or bitter and vengeful Lila Loomis (Vera Miles, returning from the original), who doesn't seem too happy that Norman was able to walk a free man. He's actually not on the good side of many in his small town, including sleazy hotel manager Dennis Franz, and others at the diner and around town who are very well acquainted with his history. After a badly cropped and unnecessary recap of the Janet Leigh shower death in the 1960 classic, this picks up in a big way and becomes a surprisingly worthy sequel. One could nit-pick and deconstruct it and unfairly compare it to the original, but as far as 80s horror sequels go, this is by far one of the superior ones; suspenseful, scary, very well acted and extremely well crafted.

Director Franklin does an excellent job setting up the shock scenes and building suspense, all with great respect for the style and humor of The Master. Restraint is used for the most part when it comes to gore (with some mainly sliding in at the very end), and there are many deliberate and knowing camera angles that instantly bring the films of Hitchcock to mind. The ending possibly goes too far, but it's still a surprise I doubt many people will see coming. One of the major reasons for this film's success however is the outstanding central performance from Perkins, who manages to pull off being sincere, sympathetic and creepy all at once. Regardless of how batty Norman becomes throughout the film, Perkins has made sure he's human first and foremost; never a cardboard cut-out. Many of the supporting cast (including Hugh Gillin, Robert Alan Browne and Lee Garlington) returned in PSYCHO III, which was directed by Perkins himself. The score (also fashioned with respect to composer Bernard Herrmann) is from Jerry Goldsmith. Look out for that peephole scene!

★★★1/2

Psycho III (1986)

Directed by:

Anthony Perkins

Perkins (making his directorial debut here) has some good ideas, there are some macabre comic moments that really work, a lot more gore and even a welcome flashback to the great shovel death in Part 2, but the scares are too few and far between and the suspense is almost nonexistent. Oddly, Norman is treated with much less empathy than the previous two films, giving this an awkward, wholesale, hollow slasher movie feel. The character was never meant to compete with Jason and Mike Myers and part of the great appeal of the first two films is almost entirely lost this time out. The major question is: Why the sudden change in tone? Norman was previously a complex, tortured and queasily sympathetic kind of psycho, yet here he is frequently depicted as someone who receives more glee from his sadistic killings than inner torment, anguish or remorse. The latter is usually a more interesting slant to me (how many faceless, cardboard killers haunt the shelves of your local video store?), unless you are dealing with a film like HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER (ironically made the same year). That film thrived on icy objectivity, yet still afforded the emotionless killer with one scene to dryly comment on, and lash out at, the sadistic abuse he had faced early in life. We had something of an understanding how someone could get to a point where killing another human being holds the same emotional resonance as brushing their teeth. I'm assuming the writers of PSYCHO III were attempting something similar to Henry. If we've seen the first two films, we already know what Norman has been through. We've bore witness to his conflict with inner demons and childhood abuse, his disquieting confusion, his remorse, his attempts at rehabilitation... We don't really need a return course in Norman 101. It's just a matter of time until the already-batty-as-they-come Bates slips into the realm of unfeeling killing machine, eh? Though this film has nowhere near the raw power or genuine insight of the John McNaughton classic (not that the two films are exactly comparable to begin with), I think I still see where they wanted to take it. And for the record, and despite my initial, slight disappointment about the direction of the series and character, Roger Ebert was one of several high-brow critics to actually give good marks to this installment and defend it by praising its clever Hitchcock references and black comedy. However, I can't help but wonder why exactly this film was made other than monetary reasons. The ending of Part II, silly as it may have been, already accomplished in a couple of minutes the exact same thing this film spends 90 minutes doing. Not that it's not entertaining or bad by any means. It's well above-average for the demands of the slasher movie crowd, it's just not quite up to par with either the 1960 classic or the grandly entertaining 1983 first sequel.

The plot this time out is only a slight, less complex variation on what we've seen before in Richard Franklin's PSYCHO II (1983); picking up right at the end of that film, Norman Bates is even crazier than before and is murdering people left and right at the infamous hotel. He becomes involved with a suicidal former nun (Diana Scarwid) who fled her convent after feeling responsible for an accidental death (the falling-from-a-bell-tower sequence even employs direct, intentional visual cues from Hitch's classic VERTIGO). She also happens to look like Marion Crane (and shares the same initials), which causes even more confusion for our anti-hero. Jeff Fahey co-stars as a sleazy musician whom Perkins hires to work night shift. When he tries to frame Norman, he gets beat to death with his own guitar. Roberta Maxwell is a author who wants to write an article on Norman. Back from the previous film are Hugh Gillin as the friendly local sheriff (involved in one of the most memorable bits involving an ice chest and a hidden dead body), Robert Alan Browne as the diner owner and Lee Garlington as the bitchy waitress. B-Queen alert: Juliette Cummins (also in FRIDAY THE 13TH 5, SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE 2 and others) is one of the victims, as is future director Katt Shea (Ruben), who went on to a successful career working as a writer and director on such good love-budget efforts as DANCE OF THE DAMNED (1988) and STREETS (1990). And, oh yeah, Brinke Stevens (who has nothing but good things to say about the director/star in interviews) worked three days on the film as Scarwid's body double during her shower scenes. Though to me, a step down in quality for the PSYCHO series, outing number three is well worth watching and was a promising debut for Perkins (who would also go to direct only one more film - the cannibalism black comedy LUCKY STIFF - in 1988).

Perkins reprised his role in PSYCHO IV: THE BEGINNING (1990), which was made for cable and details Norman's horrific childhood, and did a parody of the character on a famous Saturday Night Live motel management sketch in the 1970s. There was also BATES MOTEL (1987), an awful NBC series pilot starring Bud Cort that was understandably not picked up (Perkins himself said he boycotted the awful, misguided project) and Gus Van Zant's equally pointless 1998 remake, which should seal the fate of the idea of stretching this franchise any further.

★★

Revenge of the Stepford Wives (1980)

Directed by:

Robert Fuest

I saw this made-for-TV sequel before I saw the original STEPFORD WIVES (1975) and thought it was alright. Well, I thought it was alright until the ending partially ruined it. It's from the director of AND SOON THE DARKNESS (1970) and THE ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES (1971), two fairly stylish films genre fans seem to think very highly of. But Mr. Fuest either phoned this one in or was too limited by the script and/or TV production values to do much with it. Future "Cagney and Lacey" star Sharon Gless stars as a blonde TV newswoman who travels to the picturesque small New England town of Stepford to do an expose on why the city has the lowest crime and divorce rate in the country. After teaming up with another Stepford newcomer (Julie Kavner, the now familiar voice of Marge on "The Simpsons"), the two discover that all of the women are devoid of personality, act robotic and live to cook, clean and serve men. Of course, there's a silly explanation to all this, and the local "Men's Association" would rather see the ladies dead than to expose the secret. Don Johnson appears in a supporting role as Kavner's policeman husband (and is prominently featured on the video box). It's not rated, but would qualify for a PG. Not much "objectionable" material in this one. Not a whole lot to really recommend, either.

★★

Returning, The (1983)

...aka: Witch Doctor

Directed by:

Joel Bender

While camping on a Utah Indian reservation with his parents, young Jason finds a strange-looking black rock and brings it back to his suburban home where some kind of ancient spirit is released. The boy is run over and killed by a distraught truck driver (who seems to be psychically tuned-in to what's happening) and the father becomes possessed by the little boy's spirit and starts acting weird. He (Gabriel Walsh) starts speaking an Indian dialect, beats a schoolteacher up, tries to burn down the house, hears voices, digs up the dead son's corpse and brings him back to the house and more while his wife (Susan Strasberg) just tries to make sense of it all. The final plot revelation has to do with warring Indian spirits, an ugly medicine man and reincarnation. There are a few good ideas here and it picks up a bit toward the end after a terrible opening (tying up a lot of the loose ends), but it's also ineptly edited and paced by people who don't understand the importance of continuity and scene structure. You can tell the music is by Harry Manfredini, because much of it sounds just like his scores for the FRIDAY THE 13TH movies.

A few other well-known people worked on this one; British cinematographer Oliver Wood went on to shoot such hits as FACE /OFF (1997) and SCOOBY DOO 2 (2004) and documentary filmmaker and writer Laurent Bouzereau (author of the book Ultra Violent Movies) also worked on this film. I wonder what the audience reaction was when it played at the Montreal Film Festival?

★1/2

Private Parts (1972)

...aka Blood Relations

Directed by:

Paul Bartel

Paul Bartel was already starting to make a name for himself with the shorts THE SECRET CINEMA (1968) and NAUGHTY NURSE (1969), but he came into his own with this creepy, one-of-a-kind cult hit. It's a completely engrossing and unpredictable mixture of sleaze, art, horror, black comedy and sexual eccentricity that you won't soon forget. Plucky, cute teenager Cheryl Stratton (Ayn Ruymen) is hiding out in Los Angeles after stealing money from her parents and running away from her home in Cleveland, Ohio. She's thrown out of her apartment by a bitchy girlfriend and decides to hunt down her estranged Aunt Martha Atwood (Lucille Benson), who runs a hotel in a seedier part of town. Martha (whose favorite pastime is going to the funerals of strangers to photograph the corpses!) is hesitant at first about letting her niece stay, but finally gives in under the condition that Cheryl stay put and not go snooping around. Naturally, Cheryl defies her wishes, gets the keys (kept on a nail hooked up to a powerful electric charge!) and begins entering various rooms while the tenants are out. Each apartment seems to tell a different, lurid story. For instance, there's a clergyman (Laurie Main) whose room has a large lit-up statue of Jesus... and an even bigger (hidden) alter dedicated to muscle boys. An incomprehensible drunk and a senile old lady wander the halls. A vacant room conveniently located between Cheryl's room and the communal bathroom has peephole access. And then there's George (John Ventantonio); a tall, dark and handsome, but very peculiar and voyeuristic young photographer who lives upstairs and likes to take pictures of people having sex in a public park. Cheryl and George seem to share a mutual attraction, but is he the one who's been spying on her and leaving letters and provocative clothes in her room? Furthermore, is he the one who's been murdering just about any outsider who sets foot inside the hotel? And what happened to Alice, a young woman whose pictures adorn many walls but has seemed to disappear into thin air?

PRIVATE PARTS is full of unconventional people doing unconventional things and likewise will most appeal to people who like watching unconventional characters in unconventional films. There's some nudity, some sex (including a memorable bit involving a water-filled sex doll and a syringe), some gore (a clumsily-edited decapitation, an impalement and a body thrown into a furnace) and plenty of effective black comic moments to go around. The hotel atmosphere is about as seedy as it gets; atmospheric, evocative, eerie and colorfully threatening thanks in equal part to effective production design and Andrew Davis' sharp cinematography. The dialogue is well written and the performances are also very interesting. Ruymen, 25 at the time, is very convincing in as the inquisitive, troubled teenager, and Benson (amusingly playing the aunt with the authority of a prison matron), Main and Ventantonio all contribute to the film. Stanley Livingston (of TV's My Three Sons) has a less-showy supporting role as a "normal" guy who becomes interested in Cheryl and wants to take her to a rock concert.

★★★1/2