Galaxy Invader, The (1985)

Directed by:
Don Dohler

Dohler's fourth feature is pretty much just like his previous efforts THE ALIEN FACTOR (1978), FIEND (1980) and NIGHT BEAST (1982); it's very low-budget, was shot around Baltimore, has horribly acting and dialogue, long dull stretches where nothing much happens and involves an alien visitor 'terrorizing' the countryside. A glowing, meteor-like object falls out of the sky and lands in the backwoods of Harleyville. Teenager David Harmon (Greg Dohler) happens to spot it and immediately calls up his father's friend, professor and UFO enthusiast Dr. William Tracy (Richard Dyszel) to make a five hour trip to check things out. Meanwhile, we meet the Montague's; a family of rednecks. Pa Joe (Richard Ruxton) is an abusive, obnoxious, crazy drunk who has a reputation around town for being a liar and a cheat. He's also having problems keeping his sassy and disobedient 25-year-old daughter Carol (Faye Tilles) in check. After she calls him a "drunken bum" and Pa slaps her in the face, Carol runs off into the woods towards her boyfriend's house. Joe grabs his rifle and chases after her. And eldest son J.J. (George Stover, also an associate producer), who I think is supposed to be a little "slow" (though it's hard to tell), chases after him to make sure he doesn't do anything stupid.

Joe and J.J. end up bumping into a green, scaly alien that wears suspenders. They shoot at it and it drops a softball-sized glowing orb before fleeing. Thinking he can make money off the object, Joe takes it back to his house. He calls up his beer-drinkin', cigar-smokin' friend Frank Custer (Don Leifert), who also has a shady reputation around town, and his girl Vickie (Theresa Harold) to come over. When J.J. lets slip that they also saw a "green man," Frank comes up with the idea to capture the alien because it would probably be worth even more money. They go into town to a local bar to draft some local yokels to help, but the alien shows up at Joe's farm, knocks J.J. out and takes its orb back. The posse of men set out that night armed with rifles and get into a gun / laser fight with the alien. A bunch of men are killed before the alien is finally apprehended. They tie it up and put it in Joe's barn. David and Dr. Tracy get wind of what's going on and decide to sneak over to the farm themselves.

Dr. Tracy believes the alien isn't actually hostile and is just reacting violently to protect itself, and he turns out to be right. But greed over the discovery of the alien and its high powered laser weapon (Joe thinks "The Russians would pay a million dollars for this!") results in more fighting and more unnecessary deaths. Joe even uses the gun to kill Frank's girlfriend after he tries to unsuccessfully rape her. Eventually, the entire Montague family; Carol, J.J., Ma Ethel (Anne Frith, also the assistant director, associate producer and production coordinator) and youngest daughter Annie (Kim Dohler), Carol's boyfriend Michael (Cliff Lambert) and David decide to band to together and get the orb and laser back from Joe, believing if they just give it back to the extraterrestrial visitor all of this will stop.

Despite being poorly made in nearly every regard, it's difficult to flat out hate Dohler's work. I appreciate what he attempts to do, even though he never quite pulls it off. The down home regional filming has a certain charm to it, as well. This one attempts to tell a more old-fashioned, well-intentioned story about a mother and her children fighting back against their brutal patriarch, but it takes too many detours and lacks focus. Combine that with mostly bad acting and dialogue, inadequate character development and poor pacing, and the effect is cardboard schmaltz. There's also not enough man-in-a-rubber-suit alien action in here either.

John Cosentino - who'd previously worked on fx for the other Dohler films - designed and created the alien. Dohler not only directed, but also wrote, edited, did special sound effects and shot some of this (on 16mm). His next filmed-in-Baltimore opus was BLOOD MASSACRE (1988).

★1/2

Terror Is a Man (1959)

... aka: Blood Creature
... aka: Creature from Blood Island
... aka: Island of Terror

Directed by:
Gerry (Gerardo) de Leon

With Terror Is a Man came a template that would become popular in The Philippines over the next few decades; most notably in the popular sex 'n' gore "Blood Island" trilogy that began with 1968's BRIDES OF BLOOD. Terror came almost a decade before any of those and was made during a time where nudity was a no-no and graphic violence had to be limited, but it still laid down a tried-and-true foundation for the later films. The plots of many of these were almost exactly the same; a handful of characters are on an secluded tropical island that's difficult - if not impossible - to escape from and have to contend with some kind of monster or mutant that's usually the result of a scientific experiment. There was also a familiarity with the casting and characters. The producers would draft a couple of Caucasian actors to play lead roles so the film would sell internationally (American actor John Ashley would corner the market on these parts starting in the late 60s) but fill the supporting roster with unknown locals. The character archetypes here would remain the same, as well: at least one oblivious person who travels or becomes shipwrecked on the island, a sometimes well-meaning, other times evil doctor / scientist living there, his frustrated and often neglected wife (who usually is drawn into the arms of the outsider), a young native beauty, etc., etc. Terror Is a Man is certainly not very original (it's pretty much an uncredited version of The Island of Dr. Moreau), but it's still influential as far as Filipino genre cinema is concerned.

Richard Derr, who'd starred in the big budget end-of-the-world classic WHEN WORLDS COLLIDE (1951) just eight years earlier, stars as our unlucky hero William Fitzgerald. Not only did the freighter ship he was on explode, killing everyone else on board, but his little dingy has floated to an uncharted island a thousand miles from civilization. Unconscious, he's fished out of the ocean and brought back to a house, where he briefly meets the Dr. Charles Gerard (Francis Lederer), one of the only white inhabitants of the island. Others include Gerard's voluptuous blonde bombshell wife Frances (Miss Denmark 1952, Greta Thysson) and his assistant Walter Herrera (Oscar Keesee). There are around 75 native islanders there as well, but they don't stick around very long once the obligatory monster escapes one too many times and kills a few villagers each time it does. The only two stragglers are pretty island girl Selina (Lilia Duran) and her kid brother Tiago (Peyton Keesee), who both work as servants for the doctor.

Several years earlier, Dr. Gerard and his wife (who's a nurse) had traveled there so they'd have privacy and isolation to conduct their experiments on a black panther. Fifty-some experiments later, the panther has taken on almost human form. Its body is now shaped liked a humans, it walks on two legs and is getting close to actually being able to talk. Gerard has been toying around with some kind of glandular hormone that he injects directly into the animal's brain which has sped up the evolutionary process. It hasn't, however, completely tamed the being's animal instincts. Walter, who's something of a sadist, not only beats on poor Selina and forces her to have sex with him, but has also been secretly beating on the animal when the doctor isn't looking; keeping it volatile and on edge. Frances has taken a liking to the creature, pities it and has gotten to the point where she refuses to assist her husband. Because she's also being neglected by Charles, she also finds herself starting to fall for William and vice versa.

Much time is spent dealing with the heated love triangle that unfolds (which is done in a surprisingly mature way) and it's rather lightweight for a creature feature, with minimal action and violence, but I still quite enjoyed this one. The monster doesn't really get to do much of what we expect it to and spends most of its time strapped to an operating table. It's also barely ever shown and, when it is, the lighting is so dark we can't really make out much detail on its face. However, the writing insures it's an interesting enough creation and this actually does a good job making us feel sorry for the poor thing. The three lead actors are also good enough to keep us interested in the non-creature-oriented drama.

Opening the film is a warning from "the management" about "... a scene so shocking that it is necessary to forewarn you." The sound of a bell (which actually sounds like a telephone ringing) is inserted before the scene to warn squeamish viewers to shut their eyes and is then sounded again once the "shocking" scene is over so viewers can open them again. Hilariously, the big ballyhoo is over a bloodless shot of a scalpel slicing open skin! Of course, this early gory moment is nothing compared to what we're used to seeing these days.

De Leon also directed THE BLOOD DRINKERS (1964; aka The Vampire People), CREATURES OF EVIL (1966) and co-directed both the first (the aforementioned Brides of Blood) and second (1969's MAD DOCTOR OF BLOOD ISLAND) entries in the "Blood Island" trilogy with Eddie Romero (another key Filipino director of the 60s and 70s).

★★1/2

Justine de Sade (1972)

... aka: Justine
... aka: Justine - Lustschreie hinter Klostermauern
... aka: Violation of Justine, The

Directed by:
Claude Pierson

After being tossed out of a convent, 15-year-old Juliet (France Verdier) is forced to look for a way to support herself. Thankfully, a local brothel is hiring. After passing her virginity test, Juliet is promised retirement after just ten years as a working girl. In that time, she makes all the right connections and manages to carve out a cushy life for herself as the wife of a wealthy count. The same cannot be said for Juliet's sister, Justine (Alice Arno). Instead of prostituting herself, Justine decided to try to live a more virtuous life. And if you're familiar with the de Sade novel in which this is based, you'll realize that trying to take the more 'respectable' road has its own misfortunes. This begins with Justine, who now goes by the name Thérèse, being brought into a tavern by two armed guards on their way to Paris. Justine has been accused of theft, arson and murder, and may face death if convicted. Juliet happens to be in the same tavern and, married to a Count, gets a chance to talk to Justine. Since the two women were separated as children, and Justine has only revealed her alias, they don't even realize they're sisters.

Justine's story is a sordid one full of cruelty, abuse and misery. As a poor orphan girl, Justine got her first taste of what men are really like when a potential employer forced her to jerk him off and then ejaculated on her face. Humiliated by that ordeal, Justine moves on to the home of eccentric Mr. Du Harpin, who encourages her to steal a gold box from an upstairs neighbor in exchange for a raise. After Justine refuses, Du Harpin frames her and she's thrown in prison. There, she meets a notorious gypsy named Madame Dusbois, who usually runs with a pack of thieves. Dusbois starts a fire which kills 21 people so she can escape, and takes Justine along with her. Justine refuses to give up her virginity to Dusbois's bandit friends, so they make her do other sexual things instead. Right when one tries to enter into "the altar where I will burn my incense" (her ass), Justine is saved by the arrival of Saint-Florent (Franco Fantasia). The bandits rob him but spare his life when Justine agrees to do any sexual favors the men want. Instead, she unties Saint-Florent and the two manage to sneak out the next morning before any deflowering of incense burning can commence.

Saint-Florent rewards Justine for saving his life by knocking her out with a stick and then violating her while she's knocked out. Afterward, she encounters a young man "immolating his master with a colossal spear" (i.e. fucking another guy) in the woods. When they realize she's spying on them, they "flush the slut out," strip her naked, scare her and then take her back to an aunt's home to work as a chambermaid. When she refuses to take part in poisoning the aunt, she's taken outside, where De Bressac lets a couple of dogs chew up her ass. Justine goes to a seemingly charitable surgeon, who tends to her wounds and lets her convalesce for a month. Nice guy? Nope. He turns out to be a sadist who likes being whipped and is a pedophile who uses his daughter Rosalee as a sex slave and then plans on killing her. When Justine tries to help Rosalee escape, she's branded a criminal and tossed out of the boarding school.

Off to a monastery Justine goes, where she hopes to find sanctuary with some holy men. Nope. These monks are actually sadistic creeps just like the rest of the men in this movie. The men have their own female sex slaves, who have been beaten into complete submission during their stay there. They'd like to add Justine to their little harem. She's gang raped multiple times, has her ass beaten bloody with a piece of wood, is whipped, forced to take part in orgies, is douched with boiling hot water, has a communion wafer shoved up her ass (!) and has to have sex with another woman. She escapes from there after six months and is immediately kidnapped and brought to the home of a bisexual painter with a major ass fetish who lives with his sickly wife (played by Arno's real-life sister Chantal Broquet) and two boy toys and likes to slice them all up with a scalpel. Her last little adventure involves a wealthy, well-endowed nobleman (with a cock "the size of half an arm") who's into torturing and killing women and oxygen deprivation.

This makes quite the interesting companion piece to Jess Franco's MARQUIS DE SADE'S "JUSTINE" (1968), an adaptation of the same controversial tale. Both movies had a major central casting flaw. Franco's movie featured 17-year-old Romina Power (forced upon him by producers) in the titular role. While Power certainly looked the part of an inexperienced, naive young virgin, she lacked the talent and experience necessary to make the character anything more than a wooden plank to bounce the action off of. Pierson's choice of Alice Arno (then in her mid-20s) also doesn't really ring true. Though a better actress than Power, she's still pretty wooden herself and doesn't look anywhere near as fresh and innocent. To solidify the connection between the two films, Arno was a frequent player in Franco's films both before and after this one. She was a victim to incestuous father-and-daughter killers in EUGENIE DE SADE (1970), played the titular cannibal in THE PERVERSE COUNTESS (1973), was a sadistic lesbian in FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973) and had numerous other roles for the Spanish director.

Franco's film was the bigger-budgeted, better-looking, more visually stylish of these two movies and had the star power of actors like Jack Palance, Klaus Kinski and Mercedes McCambridge to fall back on. Despite having a cast not well-known outside of France, Pierson's film is actually the better acted of the two movies and is also adequately produced itself, with fine sets, period costumes and production values. Pretty much in the pocket of his producers, Franco had to tone down the material considerably to ensure a wider release. Pierson, however, did not. He covers more of the novel in much less time and is able to stay more faithful. His film features lots of kinky sex and full-frontal nudity and even retains de Sade's downbeat ending (which Franco had changed). It's almost as if one took the best elements from both of these movies we'd have a very good adaptation instead of two watchable though highly-flawed ones.

If possible, try to view this one in French with subtitles. The English dubbing makes the whole thing rather laughable. Many versions are censored; including the original U.S. theatrical and VHS releases (there's now an uncut DVD from Blue Underground). The most complete version runs 115 minutes.

★★1/2