Daikaijû Gamera (1965)

...aka: Gamera

...aka: Gamera, the Giant Monster

...aka: Giant Monster Gamera, The

Directed by:

Noriaki Yuasa

Thanks to the international success of Toho's GODZILLA series and all of its offshoots (MOTHRA, RODAN, etc.), several rival companies decided to give chase in the giant monster sweepstakes. GAMERA, from Daiei Studios, is one of those, and probably the most popular of all the non-Toho Japanese monster flicks from the era, spawning six sequels in its original run as well as a new rebooted series beginning in 1995. GAMERA not only holds the distinction of being the only movie in its series to be filmed in black-and-white, it's also the last kaijû eiga to be filmed in black-and-white. The film is also noteworthy for being the only one in its series where the titular monster doesn't face off against another giant monster. So how's the actual movie? Somewhat fun, I guess. How can a giant upright-walking nuclear turtle not be a little fun?

The world's at war again (there's even mention of us being on the verge of WWIII) when a Russian airplane being pursued by some American fighter pilots decides to drop an A bomb out in the middle of the Arctic. The ice cracks open, steam rolls out and a gigantic prehistoric turtle (gah!) is awakened after a two-thousand year frozen slumber. It goes on to sink a ship, destroy a lighthouse, derail a train, demolish a geothermal plant and eventually turn Tokyo into a big pile of rubble. Amusing stuff? Yeah, pretty much, especially when a dance club full of bopping teens is smashed. The turtle ramage scenes deliver as is expected of them and the special effects are pretty fun. The rest of the movie is basically a snooze. Your typical group of scientists, militarymen, reporters, etc. try to bait the beast and discover it actually thrives on all manner of fire, nuclear energy, missles and bombs. There's also an orphaned boy who has a special connection to turtles of all sizes, thinks Gamera is just lonely and needs a friend and manages to get in the middle of everything. How our heroes rid the earth of the terrifying tortoise (for the time being, at least) is pretty amusing.

Sequels: GAMERA VS. BARUGON (1966; aka GAMERA STRIKES AGAIN), GAMERA VS. GAOS (1967; aka RETURN OF THE GIANT MONSTERS), GAMERA VS. VIRAS (1968; aka DESTROY ALL PLANETS), GAMERA VS. GUILLON (1969; aka ATTACK OF THE MONSTERS), GAMERA VS. MONSTER X (1970) and GAMERA VS. ZIGRA (1971). The series saw a resurgance years later with the release of GAMERA: THE GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE (1995).

Eiji Funakoshi (BLIND BEAST), Yoshiro Kitahara (who also appeared - playing different roles - in the first three Gamera sequels) and Jun Hamamura (KWAIDAN, JIGOKU) star. In America, producer Sandy Frank scrapped some of the original footage and added brand new scenes featuring Albert Dekker, Brian Donlevy, Dick O'Neill and Alan Oppenheimer, among others. That version was released as GAMMERA THE INVINCIBLE in 1966 and is also available on DVD. I will likely review it separately on here eventually.

★★

Daimajin gyakushu (1966)

...aka: Majin Strikes Again

...aka: Return of Daimajin, The

...aka: Return of Majin, The

...aka: Return of the Giant Majin, The

Directed by:

Kazuo Mori

After the surprisingly successful MAJIN, MONSTER OF TERROR came this immediate follow-up, which was filmed back-to-back with the two other Majin titles and is more or less just a rehash of the original. Unfortunately for this viewer, lightning didn't quite strike twice. There's a new set of characters here, but they're less interesting and less defined than the ones in the previous film. Furthermore, while the first featured several child characters, this one makes the mistake of centering the entire film around four of them, resulting in an overabundance of the cutesy that's not going to sit well with the glucose intolerant. The script doesn't really bring anything all that new or interesting to the table either. There are a couple of new additions to the Majin mythos, but the film still has the same basic premise as the first. The pacing is identical, right down to how (Dai)majin doesn't spring to life until the last 15-20 minutes of the film.

The film centers around two basic locations; a peaceful village and a mining camp. Right smack in the middle of the two is the steep mountain home of the giant (Dai)majin stone idol. Anyone who tries to side step the rocky terrain is kidnapped by an evil warlord and his army and forced to mine sulfur at a slave camp. If the prisoners cause any trouble or try to escape, they face death by being tossed into the boiling hot sulfur springs. Winter is quickly approaching and back at the village four concerned little boys want their missing fathers (now amongst the enslaved workers) back, so they decide to sneak off and brave the treacherous mountain all on their own. They scale cliffs, take a raft down rapids, try to avoid getting smashed by rockslides and avalanches and eventually are caught in a bad blizzard while trying to (sometimes comically) outwit the evil guards sent out to apprehend them. The kids also have an ally in a magical hawk who guides them along on their perilous quest. Naturally, when all seems lost, prayer brings Daimajin to life and he heads down to the mining camp to smash the place up, pummel the baddies and liberate the prisoners.

Though not nearly as enjoyable as the first, many of the same aesthetic pleasures have carried over to at least keep this juvenile fantasy-adventure watchable. Nearly every scene takes place outdoors and the mixture of well-designed sets and picturesque outdoor locations is fantastic. The special effects are also very good, as is the cinematography and music score. Then again, if you've seen the first already, you won't be seeing much new here. It was followed by THE WRATH OF DAIMAJIN, the third and final film in the series. Again, the top quality DVD release from AD Vision Films is recommended.

★★

Daimajin (1966)

...aka: Devil Got Angry, The
...aka: Giant Majin, The
...aka: Majin
...aka: Majin, Monster of Terror
...aka: Majin, the Hideous Idol
...aka: Majin, the Stone Samurai
...aka: Vengeance of the Monster, The

Directed by:
Kimiyoshi Yasuda

When it comes to Japanese monster movies, it's hard not to have visions of horribly-dubbed extras running around in a panic as some silly-looking giant man-in-a-rubbery-monster-suit rampages through a city. We've all seen at least a couple of these things before. They're good for a few dumb good laughs, right? Not so at all in this case. Hell, it might not actually be so in many or even most cases if this is any indicator of what these things are like when presented in pristine shape with the original soundtracks. Visually speaking, this movie is beautiful. The sets and art direction are top notch, the production values and cinematography are excellent and the performances are good. It's well-written, with an intriguing central premise and decent characters. And the special effects - mostly showcased during the final fifteen minutes though the film has no problem maintaining interest without them - have held up beautifully over the years. There were many times watching this where I was in awe at how smoothly they managed to blend the model work with the live actors. It's a hell of a lot more effective than most of today's overpriced CGI effects.

Set in 17th Century feudal Japan, DAIMAJIN (initially released in the U.S. as MAJIN, MONSTER OF TERROR) centers around a small village about to be overthrown by warlord / chamberlain Samanosuke (Yutaro Gomi) and his chief henchman Gunjuro (Tatsuo Endo). They and their brood murder kind samurai lord Hanabusa and his wife, and then attempt to murder their two young children; Tadafumi and Kosawa. Thankfully, vassal Kogenta (Jun Fujimaki) manages to get the kids out of the village before its too late. Kogenta and the kids seek refuge with Aunt Shinobu, an elderly high priestess who lives at the base of Mount Okimadini. Located at the mountain right in front of a huge waterfall sits a huge stone statue of Daimajin, a God worshipped by many in the village. Ten long years later, evil Samanosuke has turned the village into a slave camp where the villagers are little more than slaves who are whipped and killed if they dissent in any way. Kogenta, the Aunt and the now-teenage Tadafumi (Yoshihiko Aoyama) and Kosawa (Miwa Takada) are still hiding out in the woods. After both men are captured and tortured, Auntie is slain and Samanosuke's troops unsuccessfully attempt to demolish the statue, Kosawa pleads to the huge statue to avenge the village. She gets her wish as Daimajin comes to life, waves its arm to reveal a green monstrous face and beings its rampage of destruction.

Even though I'm still very much a novice when it comes to Japanese monster movies, what I got here wasn't at all what I was expecting. And I mean that in the very best of ways. Not only is the film extremely well made and highly entertaining, but it's also filled with brilliantly composed and downright beautiful shots; from the waterfall pouring over the mountainside to low angles peering up at a cloudy, sometimes red sky as the revived stone statue marches toward the village. Like many other films, this has been issued on both video and DVD under many labels, so you need to be careful about which version you get. It's hard to imagine any of them stacking up to the high quality disc released by AD Vision Films, which is a gorgeous print with English subs. Judging by stills I just looked at, the version released by Image Ent./Retromedia doesn't stack up anywhere near the ADV version quality wise.

It was made by Daiei Studios and was followed by two immediate sequels; THE RETURN OF MAJIN and THE WRATH OR MAJIN. All three films were shot back-to-back in 1966. Several box sets containing all three Daimajin titles are available.

★★★

Mannekäng i rött (1958)

...aka: Mannequin in Red

Directed by:

Arne Mattsson

This is the second of a five-part Swedish murder-mystery series, all of which were directed by Mattsson, starred Karl-Arne Holmsten as police detective John Hillman and were based on novels written by Folke Mellvig. The others in this series (none of which have been officially released in the U.S.) include THE LADY IN BLACK (1958), THE RIDER IN BLUE (1959), THE LADY IN WHITE (1962) and THE YELLOW CAR (1963). While I haven't seen any of the others to confirm whether or not they're "horror" enough to include on this blog, Mannequin certainly deserves a spot here for being an obvious precursor to both the German krimni (which were largely adapted works of Edgar Wallace) and Italian giallo movements. Speaking of giallo, this movie is surprisingly similar in numerous ways to Mario Bava's acclaimed BLOOD AND BLACK LACE (1964); so much so that BABL almost seems like a remake! And while Bava's movie (often cited as one of the first of its type) has the upper hand when it comes to visual style and depictions of on-screen violence, Mannequin is actually the better written and acted of the two. It's also visually sumptuous in its own right. Hilding Bladh's Eastmancolor cinematography is gorgeous and the art direction, lighting and imaginative costume designs are all outstanding.

Just as in BABL, the film is set in and around a colorful high fashion house full of designers, models and beauticians who cater to obnoxious and wealthy sophisticates. Both films open with the murder of a mysterious model and feature a killer who seems to be trying to conceal his/ her first crime with each new murder. The list of suspects is long. Very, very long. But don't worry, they're soon trimmed down. The fashion house itself is run by bitter, bitchy, wheelchair-bound Thyra Lennberg (Lillebil Ibsen), whose foster son Bobbie (Bengt Brunskog) is more interested in cars than clothes, so he's promptly written out of the will. Naturally, Bobbie's a bit upset about all this, especially when he learns that mum is planning on leaving everything to her snooty niece Gabriella (Gio Petré), who's more interested in a singing career than running the fashion house, and her playboy nephew Richard (Lennart Lindberg) instead. Each of the four characters are primary suspects in the first murder since each was in possession of a rare 17th Century dagger that was found in the victim's back.

Others thrown into the mix include put-upon designer Birgitta (Anita Björk), who is romantically involved with Richard and Bobbie, cosmetics counter girl Sonja (Lena Granhagen), who is romantically involved with one of the investigators, and a woman who goes by the name of 'Peter' (Lissi Alandh) and seems to be Gabrielle's lesbian lover. There's also a mysterious older woman lurking about carrying a cat that belonged to one of the victims. Detective Hillman is on the case and has some help from his wife Kaisa (Annalisa Ericson), who goes undercover as a model to see if she can uncover the killer. One character who you'll wish was 86'd is Det. Hillman's partner Freddy (Nills Hallberg), a stuttering buffoon who keeps popping up to provide completely unfunny "comic relief." His presence is a minor debit in this otherwise solidly made, sometimes quite suspenseful and very entertaining, if overlong (108 minutes), little thriller. The performances (especially from Björk and Ibsen) and camerawork are both very good, there's an eerie music score and the whole movie looks fantastic.

In addition to this series, director Mattson (a three-time nominee at Cannes) also made KORKARLEN (1958; aka THE PHANTOM CARRAIGE, a refilming of the 1921 silent classic of the same name), MORIANNA (1965), NIGHTMARE (1965), DIRTY FINGERS (1973) and MASK OF MURDER (1985). Most of those were never released in the United States.

★★★

Macario (1960)

Directed by:
Roberto Gavaldón

Hard-working, quiet lumberman Macario (Ignacio López Tarso) spends his days laboring in the forest to acquire enough firewood to sell to a local bakery so they can keep their ovens burning. His wife (Pina Pellicer) is a laundress. Their combined income is barely enough to feed their five small children. On the eve of "The Day of the Dead," as a special treat for Macario (who often times has to sacrifice his own dinner to his hungry, growing kids), his wife steals a turkey, roasts it and then secretly gives it to her husband to eat all by himself as he heads off to work one morning. Macario takes it into the forest, but as he sits down to eat, he's approached by three different men (one representing Satan, one representing God and one representing the Angel of Death i.e. The Grim Reaper) who all ask to share his turkey. The first, a mustached, smooth talker clad in black (José Gálvez), and the second, an ethereal older man dressed in white (José Luis Jiménez), are both politely refused. But Macario allows the third man (Enrique Lucero), who appears to be a fellow peasant who seems to have fallen on hard times himself but is actually the human guise of Death itself, to share his meal.

Afterward, Death offers Macario a special gift to pay him back. He taps the ground and a water spring gushes forth. He fills Macario's flask with water has the special ability to cure some (not all) of those who are ill. The peasant also informs him that he will appear (in ghostly, transluscent form) by the bedside of each person he hopes to cure. If he's standing at the foot of the bed, it's OK to revive them with the water. If not, the person's time to die has come and nothing can be done.

Macario first uses the water to revive his son after he falls in the well. Rumor quickly spreads around the village about Macario's special abilities and he's asked to help wealthy Don Ramiro (Mario Alberto Rodríguez) to cure his dying wife (Sonia Infante). After successfully curing her, Don Ramiro and Macario strike up a partnership and wealthy people from all over the country begin stopping by their inn for the miracle cure. A jealous local doctor whose business is taking a hit decides to tip off the Catholic moral authorities, who promptly send a bunch of inquisitioners into town to do their own investigation. Despite the claims of those he helped (who believe he's doing God's work), the witch hunters brand Macario a sorcerer, lock him up in a cell/torture dungeon and threaten to either cut out his tongue or burn him at the stake. The only way he may be able to save his wife is by healing the dying son of a nobleman.

Based on a novel by mysterious and elusive writer B. Traven (who also wrote THE TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE), this beautifully filmed (by Gabriel Figueroa), hauntingly atmospheric allegorical tale is dramatically sound (with a well-paced storyline and a quietly compelling central character), very well-acted by the entire cast, humorous and charming at times (though topped off with a tragic ending) and has enough fantasy and horror touches (the wily presence of Satan, the witch hunting/torture chamber sequences, the "Day of the Dead" skull aesthetic, Death's foggy, cavernous home filled with candles...) for me to include it here on this blog. The cast also includes Eduardo Fajardo, José Dupeyrón and Alfredo Wally Barrón.

It was the first Mexican film to be nominated for an Academy Award as Best Foreign Language Film (it lost to Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING) and was also nominated for the Golden Palm at the Cannes Film Festival (where it lost to Fellini's LA DOLCE VITA).

★★★

La tête froide (1970)

... aka: Cold Head, The
... aka: Deuxième partie

Directed by:
Patrick Hella

Shots of a car speeding down the road are intercut with kinky sex flashes (a woman with a whip rides a guy, for instance). Then the car crashes into a tree, the male driver (Christian Chaix) is decapitated and the bloody, injured female ("Marie Laurence" / Marie-Paule Mailleux) scoops up his head and returns to her home. There, she cleans herself and the head off, prepares dinner for herself and the head, buys the head a Ken Doll to keep it company, puts the head on a mannequin's body and then has a series of strange hallucinations, which include having sex with her bloodied lover, dancing in a room by herself with a spotlight, etc. Things culminate in her having sex with the head and then throwing it into the trash bin.

Although this seems to have been somewhat inspired by Repulsion (1965), right down to the sound of a clock ticking during one scene, it's also somewhat interesting as a boundary-pushing precursor to such later films as Lamberto Bava's Frozen Terror (1980), which also featured a couple getting involved in a car crash and the woman bringing the severed head home to make love to, as well as Re-Animator (1985), which turns out to not be the first movie with a disembodied head, uh, going down on a woman. There's no dialogue, technically-speaking it's pretty rough around the edges and it runs just 13-minutes (a scene with fellow underground Belgian filmmaker Roland Lethem, future Jess Franco movie regular Jean-Pierre Bouyxou and others was removed).

After making many short experimental films, Hella made a few documentaries and would go on to become a prolific casting director for such films as Duplicity (2005) and In Bruges (2008). Leading lady Mailleux appeared in several other shorts (including some for the same director), landed a small supporting role in José Ramón Larraz's Cannes-nominated psychological horror film SYMPTOMS (1974) and then disappeared promptly afterward (IMDb states that she died in 1999 while living in India).

★★

La casa del tempo (1989)

...aka: House of Clocks, The

Directed by:
Lucio Fulci

Like several other Fulci films, this opens with a literary quote; this time from 19th Century French playwright and novelist Honoré de Balzac ("The Human Comedy"), as if it's striving for some sort of respectibility. A very wealthy and seemingly normal elderly couple; Victor (Paolo Paolini) and Sara (Bettina Milne) Corsini, live in a gated mansion along with their maid Maria (Carla Cassola), one-eyed hired hand Peter (Al Cliver) and army of Doberman Pinchers they let roam free outside. Victor believes that the dozens of clocks that fill the home are his "children," and he and his wife are up to something strange involving the rotting corpses of his niece and nephew, which are kept in a locked room. After Maria discovers the bodies, Sara jams a spear into her stomach until her guts start pouring out. Meanwhile, three thoroughly obnoxious 20-somethings; Tony (Keith Van Hoven), Diana (Karina Huff) and Paul (Peter Hintz) are driving around smoking weed, arguing and plotting to break into the mansion. First, they stop by a supermarket, where Diana distracts the cashier by letting him sniff her panties while the other two shoplift dinner. For some reason, one of them also decides to lighten the mood by suffocating a cat in a plastic bag. Nice.

The three end up at the mansion, where Diana pretends to be a stranded motorist to coerce the couple to let her in so she can use their phone. It isn't long until her buddies barge in. There's a struggle over a rifle and the elderly couple, as well as Peter, are all killed. The thieves hide the bodies, start looting the place and plot to leave, but can't because the dogs are gathering around outside the door. Now trapped inside the home, the clocks all begin rewinding by themselves, bodies turn up missing and characters who were killed return to life and start attacking. There are three impalements (including one with a steel fence), three shotgun killings (including a stomach blown away), a hand stabbed with a knife, a head bashed off a table, a strangling, chainsaw and axe usage (both strangely off-screen) and zombie hands emerging from the ground. Despite this, the film actually isn't as gory as most of Fulci's other 80s offerings.

It's confusing, the characters are all horrible people you could care less about and nothing really makes a lick of sense, which has prompted some fans to refer to it as "a surreal gem," which is the same thing the same fans said about his sloppy, horror clip recycling hodgepodge NIGHTMARE CONCERT (1990, aka A CAT IN THE BRAIN). Sorry, but I still don't buy it. It's easy to come up with a senseless story and then not have the courage of your convictions by writing everything off at the very end. In this case (feel free to skip to the next paragraph if you don't want this thing spoiled) the film settles for a groan-inducing "it was all just a dream" twist as our leading lady wakes up from a horrible nightmare and learns that her friends had the same exact nightmare. Now scared, they decide not to actually break into the house and drive off. That's all capped off with an absurd attempt at irony when the bagged kitty cat comes to life, jumps in the driver's face and causes them to crash and be killed anyway! The "moral" ending is surprisingly similar to the one used by Lamberto Bava for GRAVEYARD DISTURBANCE (1987), and I hated the conclusion of that flick, too.

So while I wanted to kill all the characters myself and cringed at the terrible dubbed dialogue and hated the silly "twist" ending cop-out, the movie isn't completely worthless. It has an OK music score, a basic attempt at atmosphere both inside (spinning clocks, light glittering off various things, some coloring...) and outside (fog rolling in...) the mansion, as well as enough red stuff to keep the gorehounds from straying. I'm sure if you love all things Fulci, you'll also love this. Well, if you can look past the very cheap, very soft look of the "telecolor" cinematography.

It was originally made for Italian TV and was part of a four-part series called Le case maledette ("The Doomed Houses"), which also included the Fulci-directed SWEET HOUSE OF HORRORS, as well as the Umberto Lenzi-directed HOUSE OF LOST SOULS and THE HOUSE OF WITCHCRAFT. This one supposedly was too violent for TV, so it briefly played theatrically before heading to video. Though there was no VHS release in America, it got a R1 DVD release via Shriek Show in 2002.

★★