The Saga Of Gösta Berling (1924)

Based upon the novel by Selma Lagerlöf. Gösta Berling (Lars Hansen), a minister, is defrocked after responding to criticism of his drinking by denouncing the hypocrisy of his congregation. He finds a new position as tutor to the devout young Ebba Dohna (Mona Mårtenson), who falls in love with him, not knowing his history; while Gösta himself is unaware that he and Ebba are being thrown together by the Countess Dohna (Ellen Hartman-Cederström) as part of a plan to secure Ebba’s estate for her son, Henrik (Torsten Hammarén). When Ebba learns the truth, the affair ends in disaster… Fleeing, Gösta is found half-frozen by Margaretha Samzelius (Gerda Lundequist), the mistress of the Ekeby estate, which is the community heart of a remote area of Varmland. As one of its social duties, Ekeby provides a refuge for retired soldiers, who are known as its “Cavaliers”: Gösta is accepted into the group, and repays by assisting with the various entertainments staged at Ekeby. One night, a practical joke backfires and exposes a scandal in Margaretha’s past, resulting in her being turned out of her home. The Cavaliers take over Ekeby, with serious consequences for the community; while Gösta continues to bring ruin upon the women who love him…One of the most acclaimed Swedish films of the silent era, The Saga Of Gösta Berling was originally released in two parts, together running for approximately three hours. Like many films of its time, it was roughly handled, cut down into shorter versions and losing almost half its running-time along the way; and it was not until 2018 that an almost-complete version was reassembled and the original tinting restored. As a film, The Saga Of Gösta Berling is both beautiful and compelling; but as an adaptation of its source novel, it is simplified and oddly prosaic. The screenplay by Ragnar Hyltén-Cavallius and director Mauritz Stiller removes all the supernatural elements from Selma Lagerlöf’s novel, which draws heavily upon the folklore of Varmland; and it also eschews the book’s rather stern Christian morality in pursuit of a conventionally happy ending. The film version does, however, retain several other vital plot-threads: the fall and redemption of Gösta Berling and Margaretha Samzelius play out in parallel, with both suffering for their sins but ultimately atoning—though infuriatingly, Gösta is treated more leniently by the screenplay in spite of his transgressions and his talent for wrecking more lives than his own. It is through the lovely Elizabeth Dohna, the young bride of Henrik, that Gösta finds his way back—and it is here that the historic importance of The Saga Of Gösta Berling makes itself felt: Elizabeth is played by Greta Garbo, and this was the film that made her a star; while it is possibly to Stiller’s pursuit of a certain image for his actress that we can attribute the altered ending. Other plot details are retained, including one that might not have been treated so casually in America. Elizabeth has already infuriated her mother-in-law and alienated her husband by her exposure of their schemes against Ebba and her championing of Gösta when an irregularity is discovered in her marriage documents. Summoned to sign the papers that will reconfirm her marital status, Elizabeth hesitates—asking herself who it is that she really loves…

Laughing Sinners (1931)

Based upon the play Torch Song by Kenyon Nicholson. Cabaret performer Ivy Stephens (Joan Crawford) is involved with travelling salesman Howard Palmer (Neil Hamilton), a relationship that involves hurried meetings when their schedules permit. One night, Palmer comes to the nightclub where Ivy performs with his friend, Fred Geer (Roscoe Karns), another salesman; Ivy is thrilled to see him and promises to sing a torch song just for him: she does not know that Palmer has come to break things off, planning instead to marry his boss’s daughter. Unable to tell Ivy to her face, he leaves her a note—slipping out as she sings for him… Plunged into depression, Ivy hides in her small apartment, rejecting the helpful overtures of her friend, Ruby (Marjorie Rambeau), and neglecting her job. Finally she is driven to contemplate suicide—only to encounter help from a most unexpected source… Laughing Sinners is quite an interesting film, but also one that’s not easy to swallow. This was the second co-casting of Joan Crawford and Clark Gable, lying in between Dance, Fools, Dance, which finds Crawford as a newspaperwoman trying to bring down a crime boss; and Possessed, in which she is the mistress of Gable’s rising politician: and a greater contrast with those films can hardly be imagined, with Gable playing Carl Loomis, a young Salvation Army officer who saves Ivy Stephens literally and figuratively after the implosion of her love affair. A lapse of time finds Ivy amongst Carl’s group of “soldiers”, singing on street corners and helping his work with the disadvantaged. It is a life she finds satisfying—but when she encounters Howard Palmer again, now a married man, she faces a terrible temptation… There are several issues with Laughing Sinners, a couple of them self-evident. The main one is that Palmer is such an obvious skunk, we grow impatient with Ivy for not seeing through him—and for nearly throwing her life away for him. Ivy’s conversion is a challenge to the viewer; while Clark Gable’s casting is more of a meta-challenge—though he does “nice guy” rather well, neither smarmy nor sanctimonious. (We do learn along the way that before being saved himself, Carl did a two-year stretch for crimes unspecified; and despite his saving he is finally provoked into giving Howard Palmer a sock on the jaw, for which we thank him.) In the final wash-up, this is a film to be enjoyed for its details rather than its main plot. It is very much a pre-Code drama, and frank about the relationship between Ivy and Palmer; it also draws a tacit distinction between their initial arrangement, illicit but equal, in that each works to support themselves, and a future as a married man’s hidden mistress that Palmer offers Ivy when they are reunited. Two other – and very different – pre-Code touches here also catch the eye: the first is that the swarm of disadvantaged children for whom the Salvation Army holds a picnic is determinedly desegregated; the second is that when Ivy does her torch song, Joan Crawford is clearly not wearing any underwear…

The Vanishing Shadow (1934, 12 chapters)

After his crusading father is hounded to death by crime boss Wade Barnett (Walter Miller), Stanley Stanfield (Onslow Stevens) vows to continue his campaign. Stanfield’s real work is in electronic design: he meets with Professor Carl Van Dorn (James Durkin), an expert in the field, to discuss with him one of his projects. Both are developing a “vanishing ray”: Van Dorn realises that Stanfield has found the solution to a problem that has been holding up his own work. Leaving, Stanfield rescues a girl when she is almost hit by a car. She introduces herself as Gloria Grant (Ada Ince). As Stanfield drives her home, both notice Burnett in a nearby car, watching them: Gloria then confesses that she is his estranged daughter; while Stanfield tells her of his campaign, with which she is in sympathy. Meanwhile, Barnett plots to acquire the stock in the Tribune newspaper inherited by Stanfield, reasoning that he will then control all the local papers and be able to pursue his schemes without opposition… The Vanishing Shadow is another of this era’s all-too-common bait-and-switch serials, setting itself up as science fiction, but with its main plot actually revolving around the struggle for control the Tribune, with editor-in-chief MacDonald (William Desmond), who also owns stock in the publication, likewise falling foul of Barnett. (In the course of all this, we learn that no-one connected with this serial had any idea how proxy voting works.) The action soon settles down into a tiresomely repetitive pattern of chases, abductions, escapes, flailing-arm fist-fights, unconvincing cliffhangers and death-traps that don’t kill anyone; the only original touch in this being that, without saying why, Barnett puts an embargo on Gloria being hurt, which in turn puts a serious crimp in his goons’ efforts to follow his orders with regard to Stanfield—until his head henchman, Dorgan (Richard Cramer), gets fed up with having his hands tied and turns on his boss. The Vanishing Shadow was produced by Universal, so its electronic doo-hickeys are the real deal. The “vanishing ray” isn’t a ray, but a hook-on device that renders its wearer invisible—except that, in an oddly accurate touch, they continue to throw a shadow that sometimes gives away their whereabouts. (Though I would have thought that was less of a problem than the loud buzzing noise that accompanies the transition.) The one really unexpected thing here is the character of Professor Van  Dorn, who might be the first genuinely mad scientist we’ve encountered during this era: despite being one of the good guys, he devotes all of his energies to developing terrible weapons and other destructive devices, including what is considered the first hand-held death-ray in American film—and he really, really wants to kill someone with them (something Stanfield at first treats like a joke, before progressing to, “Now, Professor, perhaps you’d better not take your destroying ray along…”). Among the Professor’s other inventions is yet another of this era’s hilariously designed robots; and after introducing it in Chapter 1 in what looks like yet another bait-and-switch, it is finally allowed to go on the rampage as the cliffhanger to Chapter 10—with the Professor shrieking with maniacal laughter as he sics it on the bad guys. And if it nearly kills Stanfield instead, oh well… While the cast of The Vanishing Shadow is undistinguished, Lee J. Cobb made his screen debut as a foreman who tries – unavailingly – to stop Stanfield and Gloria driving through his detonation area.

(I’m thinking it’s almost time I constructed a photo-gallery of these robots…)

Flying Lieutenant (1942)

Sam Doyle (Pat O’Brien), a former WWI flying ace, is involved in a crash that kills his co-pilot, William Thompson. Although not directly blamed for Thompson’s death, it is ruled that Doyle had been drinking and, as a consequence, he has his licence revoked. The verdict does not sit well with Thompson’s brother, John (Warren Ashe), who directly accuses Doyle of murder. Shunned by the widow, Doyle turns to lawyer Joseph Sanford (Jonathan Hale) for help setting up a secret trust for Mrs Thompson and her young daughter. Doyle then tries to find other work, but his publicised disgrace hounds him. Finally, he decides to leave the country and find work as a pilot in South America. He also changes his name, and that of his young son, Danny (Douglas Croft), and arranges for Sanford and his wife to act as the boy’s guardians. For years, the only contact between Doyle and his son are letters and an annual posed photograph that gives a misleading idea of the father’s circumstances. As a young man, Danny White (Glenn Ford) joins the air force; and it is while he is in training that he meets and falls in love with Susie Thompson (Evelyn Keyes), another of Sanford’s trustee children, whose uncle is his flight examiner… Despite its title and its production date of 1942, Flight Lieutenant plays out pre-war and mostly on the ground, with Danny’s ignorance of his father’s real history and the concealment of his own identity forming the basis of a rather soapy drama. Matters reach crisis-point when, finally lured away from “Dutch Guiana” (Suriname, I think) by the promise of seeing Danny graduate, Doyle discovers the identity of his son’s fiancée and encounters her still-embittered uncle—and vice-versa. Susie’s instinctive recoil at learning the truth sends Danny hot-foot to South America after his fleeing father, where he further discovers that he has been lied to all his life about that, too. He returns to the US and the air force where, determined to prove himself, he becomes a test pilot… Overall, there is precious little aviation in this alleged aviation drama—at least until the moment eventually comes when Sam Doyle sees a chance for personal redemption, and even then the poor model work is distracting. Flight Lieutenant does offer a certain amount of footage of contemporary military aircraft, and while this might be of interest to some it’s probably not enough to offset the soap. Despite its framework, this is one of Pat O’Brien’s sentimental films, so approach with caution. At this time Glenn Ford was still rushing through B-movies like this at Columbia on his way to stardom, and he gives a fair performance except for his attempt to talk like someone who was raised by Pat O’Brien. Lloyd Bridges and Hugh Beaumont have uncredited bit-parts as two of Danny’s cadet buddies.

Ossessione (1943)

Based (uncredited) upon The Postman Always Rings Twice by James M. Cain. Having hitched a ride on a truck, Gino Costa (Massimo Girotti) finds himself at a roadside tavern where he seeks something to eat. There is an immediate attraction between himself and Giovanna (Clara Calamai), the wife of the tavern’s owner, Guiseppe Bragana (Juan de Landa). After Gino leaves, Giovanna quickly pockets the coins left on the table and tells Guiseppe that he didn’t pay—knowing that her husband will go after him; while Gino, understanding the ploy, offers work in exchange for his meal. When Guiseppe asks Gino if he can fix his truck, the latter quickly pockets the distributor cap and tells Guiseppe that he will need a new one. As soon as Guiseppe has left for town, Gino goes to Giovanna… As their affair progresses, an impossible tension develops between the lovers. Gino begs Giovanna to leave with him but she, though she despises Guiseppe, has married for the security he represents and cannot bring herself to embrace Gino’s footloose life; while he, in turn, increasingly hears the call of the road. Finally they part—until a chance reunion drives them to drastic action… Produced, incredibly enough, with the permission of the Fascist regime – but promptly banned and almost destroyed when it turned out not to be the straightforward crime drama The Authorities had been led to expect – Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione is now considered a forerunner to the post-war Neorealist movement. The film’s origins are clear enough, and its plot retains many of the novel’s original elements while being also very much of its own time and place—offering a bleak, unromanticised view of contemporary (or perhaps more correctly, pre-war) Italian provincial life. There is a sense here, not so much of doom as of futility: even in the earliest, blindest days of their relationship, there is an irreconcilable tension between Giovanna’s need for material security and Gino’s wanderlust; the two opposed stances are coded feminine and masculine, and the film tacitly champions the latter via the invented character of “Lo Spagnolo” (The Spaniard), who befriends Gino and travels with him after his first attempt to break away from Giovanna. However, an accidental encounter with her and Guiseppe draws Gino back in, and blundering, unpremeditated murder follows… Ossessione’s Neorealist credentials are perhaps strongest in the pragmatism of Giovanna, which led her to marry Guiseppe in the first place—and which allows her to live with his death in a way that Gino cannot. He, having mistaken Giovanna’s loathing of Guiseppe for loathing of her life, is appalled when he realises that her plans for the future revolve around what is now her business: that the desperate act that was supposed to set them both free has only drawn the net tighter about them—or about him. Massimo Girotti’s performance as Gino has, initially, a certain naivety about it believable in spite of what we know his life to have been—allowing the viewer to accept both his mistaken view of Giovanna and her instinctive grasping for what seems like a means of escape. Clara Calamai, meanwhile, projects the aching world-weariness that would soon become familiar in this genre’s female characters. And though the film’s sympathies are with Gino, what finally lingers most is Giovanna’s bitter observation that, in one short month, Gino has travelled from, “I can’t live without you!” to, “I can’t bear the sight of you!”

The Flying Missile (1950)

The test firing of a V-2 rocket from the flight deck of USS Midway, arranged as a demonstration for Congress, is also made the opportunity for simulated submarine attacks. The technology on the Midway allows it to detect and “sink” the submarines; the Bluefin comes closest to a successful attack but it is ruled that the vessel was hit with by depth charge. The men of the Bluefin, led by Commander William Talbot (Glenn Ford), can only look on as the Midway fires its rocket—with Talbot becoming convinced that what is needed is for submarines also to have the capacity to launch missiles. He carries his idea to his commanding officer, Admiral Scott (Henry O’Neill), and learns that such an idea has been on the table for some time, but that limited appropriations have kept it there. Finally Talbot receives permission to take the Bluefin to the Pacific Missile Test Center at Point Mugu to outfit his boat for a demonstration, but the short time-frame available and the strict rules under which the Test Center is operated drive him to some dangerous measures… The Flying Missile tells the only-just-declassified story of the US navy’s first first mounting and firing of cruise missiles from the deck of its submarines. It is a film made with the cooperation of the military, and its greatest point of interest is probably its range of hardware and its location shooting at real naval bases, on aircraft carriers and surface fleet ships, and its scenes featuring real submarines (the Bluefin was played by USS Cusk). On a story level, the film is rather more problematic. There is a strange tension here: on one level this is like one of the Pat O’Brien / Jimmy Cagney war dramas of the 30s, with a cocky rookie learning the hard way that the rules are there for a reason, usually by getting someone else killed. Talbot is no rookie, however—so his constant rebellion against the strict procedures and security measures at Point Mugu is alarming in spite of the film’s approval of his whatever-it-takes spirit. In fact, the film has it both ways—giving Talbot his head, but finally revealing that the authorities were onto him all the time and just giving him enough rope. And in his great haste to meet the deadline for the demonstration of his test missile, Talbot does finally get someone killed… The peculiar handling of its protagonist makes this a hard film to enjoy (Talbot’s rule breaking also costs the woman he supposedly loves her job); while given the film’s proud showcasing of its technology, we are inclined to raise eyebrows at the scene in which naval secretary Karin Hansen (Viveca Lindfors) assures her fisherman uncle (John Qualen) that the navy hates having to develop such weapons, but… The Flying Missile also features Joe Sawyer as “Fuss” Payne, Talbot’s loyal quartermaster; while Kenneth Tobey appears as one of the submarine’s crew.

Trapeze (1956)

Based upon the novel The Killing Frost by Max Catto. The career of aerialist Mike Ribble (Burt Lancaster), one of the few men to achieve the triple-somersault, is ended by a fall that leaves him with a permanently injured leg. Years later, seeking someone to teach him how to do the triple, brash young Tino Orsini (Tony Curtis) tracks Ribble down at the Bouglione circus in Paris. Since his fall, Ribble has been demoted to working as a rigger; he also drinks heavily. At first he brushes off the newcomer, though he feels a flicker of interest upon learning that his name is “Orsini”; but when Tino climbs up onto the trapeze to show what he can already do, Ribble sees his potential—finally agreeing to train him, and to act as his catcher. Meanwhile, Bouglione (Tomas Gomez) continues to assess acts for the upcoming season. With no interest in the art of the circus, but only in what the public will pay for, Bouglione is ambivalent about “Ribble and Orsini”: assuming sourly that if they succeed, the two men will leave him for greener pastures. However, when her own acrobatic act with her male partners is cut from the roster, the beautiful but selfish Lola (Gina Lollobrigida) tells Bouglione that she knows a way to keep both men in line… As I’ve said before – here? – I don’t know why I like circus films, when I don’t like circuses. First answer: for the same reason I like shark films, despite how they all end… Second and more cogent answer: because circus films are kissing-cousins to disaster movies, inasmuch as there’s no story unless something goes horribly wrong. And that’s exactly what’s wrong with Trapeze, which is too much soap and not enough circus…and not nearly enough disaster. The focus of the film is not really Tino’s attempt to pull off the dangerous triple-somersault, though we are given a lengthy training sequence early on, but rather the triangle that inevitably develops when Lola, on her own behalf and Bouglione’s, insinuates herself into aerialists’ act and emotions. From there all the drama is built around the shifting romantic pairings: Lola and Tino, Lola and Mike—and yes, if we’re honest, Mike and Tino, since that’s where most of the genuine emotion lies. None of these three people are very likeable, and it’s hard to care how it all works out. The film’s ending is also unconvincing, particularly Lola’s voluntary relinquishing of her beloved spotlight. Burt Lancaster’s own circus background allowed him to do most of his own stunts here, though the triple-somersault was performed by aerialist Eddie Ward, who was also the film’s technical advisor. The editing around Tony Curtis is more obvious; while Gina Lollobrigida hasn’t much to do besides standing around in brief spangled costumes and pouting. Much more appealing is Katy Jurado as bareback rider Rosa, who was once involved with Mike but has since married the controlling horse-trainer, Chikki (Gérard Landry). Amongst all the angst, we tend to go looking for compensations—and it should probably be mentioned that Gina’s spangles are paired with lengthy scenes of Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis in tights. Myself, though, I was mostly focused on Sid James as Harry the snake-charmer: I don’t think it would be much of a circus act, but his main snake is gorgeous.

The Lost Missile (1958)

The flight of an unidentified missile-like object is detected behind the Iron Curtain. Though the first thought is an American strike, the unlikelihood of a single-missile attack leads merely to an attempt to shoot the object down. Instead, it is deflected to a trajectory much closer to the ground, where its extreme heat cuts a fiery path through everything it passes over… At New York’s Havenbrook Atomic Laboratory, Dr David Loring (Robert Loggia) and his assistant, Joan Woods (Ellen Barker), decide to slip away and quietly marry—their several attempts to organise a wedding having failed due to work demands. Even now Loring has trouble keeping his thoughts away from his project, developing a hydrogen warhead for a new type of missile; until finally a distressed Joan calls the whole thing off. Back at Havenbrook, Dr Joe Freed (Philip Pine) is also caught between his work and his desire to be with his pregnant wife, Ella (Marilee Earle). The decision is taken out of his hands when Havenbrook is put on lockdown by General Barr (Larry Kerr), when a strange burning object is detected in Alaskan airspace… The Lost Missile is usually classified as science fiction, but while in a way it is, it is much more a preparedness film—showcasing the cutting edge of American Cold War weaponry, but also delivering a stern lecture about the sacrifices necessary in the defence of the nation…and I do mean “lecture”. Joan Woods is supposed to be an atomic scientist too, but in reality she is very much The Chick: her role is to throw tantrums, to have her focus on petty human concerns like weddings and babies contrasted with David Loring’s grasp of the bigger picture, and finally to learn the error of her ways. That’s part of the problem here; an even bigger part is that at least half of The Lost Missile consists of stock footage. While a portion of this concerns contemporary military hardware, the rest is just establishment stuff used to pad out the meagre running-time: footage of cities, of traffic jams, and of crowd scenes clearly lifted from other productions. There are also bits and pieces from actual preparedness films, and seeing “duck and cover” in a film like this is chilling in a way its makers probably didn’t intend. Sitting through all this is a grueling exercise—though unexpectedly, there are finally a few rewards if you do. What struck me immediately was the level-headed Soviet response at the outset to what at first glance looks like an American attack; furthermore, when the Soviets later deny that the object is theirs, the Americans just take their word for it. (Anything else, of course, would require a retaliatory strike, and this isn’t that type of film.) Meanwhile, The Lost Missile is absolutely uncompromising in its scenes of destruction, which finds the rogue object burning its way across Canada and heading straight for (of course) New York; so that no-one in-film has time to listen when Joe Freed realises where the “missile” must actually have come from—leaving only the viewer to ponder the fact that the object is – or was – a spaceship full of aliens… During its final act, The Lost Missile becomes extraordinarily grim, taking risks that a bigger budgeted studio production wouldn’t have touched with a ten-foot pole. I don’t want to spoil the ending for anyone, but I will say this: without drawing direct comparisons, the one other film that I was put in mind of – also a non-studio work – was Rocketship X-M…

(More on The Lost Missile at 1000 Misspent Hours – And Counting.)

Cyborg (1989)

In a post-apocalyptic America, a small band of scientists works to develop a cure for a plague known as “the living death”. However, they need information stored in a computer system in New York, and this must be carried to Atlanta past the violent gangs led by Fender Tremelo (Vincent Klyn), who is determined to control the cure. A woman called Pearl Prophet (Dayle Haddon) volunteers for the mission, which requires her to be surgically turned into a cyborg. Pearl sets out with a bodyguard, Marshall Strat (Alex Daniels), but they are intercepted by Fender. Strat sends Pearl away, telling her to find a mercenary known as a “slinger” to escort her to Atlanta, then is killed defending her escape. Pearl finds the slinger she needs when Gibson Rickenbacker (Jean-Claude van Damme) intervenes to save her from more of Fender’s gang, but they are then overwhelmed with Pearl falling into Fender’s hands. When he regains consciousness, Gibson follows the trail of the gang and, on the coast, finds a scene of slaughter where Fender and the others have stolen a boat—reminding him only too clearly of his own past encounter with Fender, which left him alone, embittered and on the trail of revenge… Ah, Cannon Films! Ah, Messrs Golan and Globus! – how I’ve learned to miss you…although not necessarily via Cyborg, it must be said. This cyberpunk-ish action – or “action” – movie was a hastily thrown-together attempt to re-coup costs when Cannon’s grandiose plans for a Masters Of The Universe sequel and the first live-action Spider-Man film (!) crashed and burned simultaneously. With a screenplay knocked out over a weekend and feeling like it, Cyborg is an entirely typical Albert Pyun film in that it is all set-up and back-story and extraneous details like the irritating guitar allusions, but nothing actually happens. Its one lasting surprise is that the cyborg of the title is not Jean-Claude van Damme – honestly, you kind of expect a Blade Runner-ish revelation at some point – but the little-seen Pearl Prophet. Call me crazy, but wouldn’t multiple couriers carrying multiple copies of the information on disc be more practical than an all-your-eggs-in-one-basket approach like – in a post-apocalyptic dystopia – turning someone into a cyborg!? Also—those scientists in Atlanta? I know I pretty much react to every science-fiction film with, Who’s funding their research?, but really – in a post-apocalyptic dystopia – Who’s funding their research?? (Nice to know that Sigma will survive the downfall of humanity.) Hmm. See what I mean about extraneous details? Anyway— The plot of Cyborg, such as it is, has Pearl fall into Fender’s hands, while Gibson tracks her accompanied by a young woman called Nady Simmons (Deborah Richter), who also lost her family to the brutal gang. Periodically the two sides encounter each other and there’s a fight; but really, there are too many guns and knives here and not nearly enough head-kicking. In between, Gibson has flashbacks to his personal tragedy, which occur with such regular promptitude that they make an excellent basis for a drinking game. When the desired running-time is reached, there’s one last fight, Gibson wins it, Pearl reaches the CDC, and humanity is saved—yay, I guess. Cyborg was JCvD’s attempt to expand his repertoire after the success of Bloodsport, but its failure and the very experience of making it sent him scuttling back to the realm of mixed martial arts…

The Hunt For Red October (1990)

Based upon the novel by Tom Clancy. The Red October, the prototype of a new Soviet ballistic-missile submarine, departs on its maiden voyage under the command of Captain Marko Ramius (Sean Connery). Meanwhile, CIA analyst Jack Ryan (Alex Baldwin), who is based in London, carries to Washington surveillance photographs of the Red October obtained by an agent of MI-6. He consults with James Greer (James Earl Jones), the Deputy Director of the CIA, pointing out the new design features of the vessel including doors at the rear, for which no-one has yet been able to assign a function. On the Red October, Ramius follows the Soviet procedure of formally accessing his orders in conjunction with his vessel’s political officer, Putin (Peter Firth); but when they have opened the safe, Ramius suddenly attacks and kills him, staging his death to look like an accident. He then announces to his ship’s crew that their orders are to conduct drills off the east coast of the United States. Turning his ship south, Ramius orders the deployment of its new silent propulsion system… Ryan is asked to brief the Joint Chiefs on the Red October: his report, in conjunction with reports of the Soviet fleet tracking the vessel, raises the possibility of a rogue nuclear strike. Ryan disagrees: in his opinion, Ramius is defecting… John McTiernan’s The Hunt For Red October is one of those film adaptations likely to drive fans of its source novel a little nuts. This is a very streamlined version of Tom Clancy’s story, which eliminates the bigger picture of political manoeuvring and international involvement, and also prunes away a supporting cast of experts to focus on its main characters. At first glance, Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan is a terrible piece of casting—but the film’s Ryan is a more conventional action hero and one-man know-it-all, which makes it not so inappropriate; though Baldwin hardly convinces as an academic and historian. (The franchise’s second thoughts on Ryan were far more on-point.) Sean Connery’s casting as a Lithuanian-born Russian submarine commander is also, shall we say, challenging, particularly once Ramius starts speaking English; however, you can understand the producers’ desire for someone with Connery’s screen presence, and his involvement adds to the film’s enjoyment. And if you can make it over these hurdles (or didn’t care in the first place), The Hunt For Red October is in its own right a tense and effective action thriller that retains the novel’s central game of cat-and-mouse between the Americans and the Soviets, with the former attempting to find a way to help the defection along and get possession of the Red October, and the latter determined to prevent it—by sinking the submarine with all hands, if that’s what it takes. Jack Ryan’s argument for defection is persuasive but, with so much at stake, the US can take no chances: he is given three days to prove his theory, before the Americans too will start hunting the Red October with a view to destroying it. On USS Dallas, Petty Officer Jones (Courtney B. Vance) has found a way to track the submarine in spite of its silent propulsion, by using his new acoustics software to isolate its signature. After a dangerous mid-ocean transfer to the Dallas, Ryan must convince Captain Bart Mancuso (Scott Glenn) of his theory, and work with him to contact Ramius. But time is running out, and not just because of Ryan’s deadline: a Soviet attack-class submarine, the Konovalov, commanded by Ramius’s former student, Captain Tupolev (Stellan Skarsgård), has also found the Red October—not by tracking the submarine, but by understanding its commander… Despite my problems with the film’s leading actors, the supporting cast of The Hunt For Red October only looks better after all this time—including also Sam Neil as Ramius’s loyal executive officer, Tim Curry as the Red October’s medical officer, Tomas Arana as a mole, Joss Ackland as the Soviet ambassador, Jeffrey Jones as the design expert consulted by Ryan, Fred Dalton Thompson as a fleet admiral, and (rather disconcertingly, it must be said) Gates McFadden as Caroline Ryan. And speaking of which—amongst the film’s impressive array of military hardware and vessels, we get a cameo appearance by USS Enterprise…

Blown Away (1994)

In Northern Ireland, Ryan Gaerity (Tommy Lee Jones) escapes from a maximum security facility by blowing out the back wall of his cell using a jury-rigged explosive device. In Boston, James Dove (Jeff Bridges) of the bomb squad is called away from his long-time girlfriend, Kate (Suzy Amis), and the birthday party of their daughter, Lizzie (Stephi Lineburg), to MIT, where a terrified young woman has been left hooked to a bomb by her suiciding ex-boyfriend. Dove manages to defuse the device. Afterwards he visits his mentor, Max O’Bannon (Lloyd Bridges), a former cop, to discuss his future. O’Bannon tells him that if it’s time for him to quit, he’ll know; Dove replies obscurely that he doesn’t yet feel “absolved”, but nevertheless takes drastic steps—retiring from the bomb squad and becoming an instructor instead, and finally proposing to Kate. As family and friends celebrate at their wedding, Dove’s former team is called away to inspect a device on the underside of a bridge—and from the balcony of his honeymoon suite, Dove himself is witness to a huge explosion that kills one of his squad. When two more officers are killed in a separate blast, Dove realises that his past – in the form of Ryan Gaerity – has caught up with him… Blown Away is an action film that tries to mix a serious storyline with the expected pyrotechnics, but one that ultimately fails due to some unfortunate artistic choices and what feels like an attack of cold feet. The film’s most interesting and courageous touch is having Dove turn out to be Liam McGivney, once a member of an Irish terrorist cell—but having made this revelation, the screenplay immediately starts back-peddling to soften Dove’s / McGivney’s guilt as much as possible: he later throws at Gaerity that he, “Bought your bullshit”, with the suggestion that he was led astray by Gaerity’s wiles (plus his interest in Gaerity’s sister); but if Liam McGivney was a young man in Northern Ireland during the 1970s, he’d hardly need to be told what was at stake, or what his choices might lead to—yet we’re asked to believe that, having constructed a bomb for Gaerity, he then ratted him out when he discovered he was going to use it. (What did he think it was for??) With Gaerity in jail, McGivney escaped to Boston, where under an assumed identity he spent the next twenty years expiating his sins as a member of the bomb squad—and, of course, lying to everyone in his life with the exception of Max O’Bannon, his uncle. Consequently, Gaerity’s campaign against the man he views as a traitor to himself and to his cause is more firmly motivated than usual in this sort of film—although clearly we’re not supposed to be thinking that; and the screenplay tries to push us away from any sympathy with Gaerity not by his bombings and body count, but via the cheap, shitty ploy of having him kill Dove’s dog. Meanwhile, Blown Away takes basically the same approach to its central characters as Backdraft (which it feels like it was trying to outdo), presenting its bomb-squad members as a family of sorts and celebrating their working-class bonhomie—and going one better (or truthfully, much worse) by pouring on the Irish as well. According to director Stephen Hopkins, both Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones initially nailed their accents—but test audiences couldn’t understand a word either of them said, resulting in Bridges toning his down and Jones cranking his up; WAY up. In fact, Tommy Lee Jones is awful here: Gaerity is almost a comic-book supervillain, coming and going as he pleases and being everywhere he needs to be to harass Dove, while building an increasingly Rube Goldberg-esque series of bombs and being as painfully Irish as possible. His performance makes it impossible to really take this film seriously, leaving us without much to enjoy except the location shooting in Boston and the staging of the film’s explosions which – again per Backdraft – were achieved almost entirely through practical effects. (Apparently the climactic blast at the docks rattled more than a few Bostonian windows.) This was Jeff Bridges’ big shot at being an action hero, but it doesn’t quite work. Forest Whitaker, as his abrasive replacement on the bomb squad, gives a more interesting performance; while Lloyd Bridges, alas, is another of the film’s Jolly Irish People^TM*.

(*Blown Away’s issues in this regard are perhaps best summed up by the fact that it kept bringing to mind the French and Saunders take-off of Titanic: “Oh, Jack! Let’s just run away and be jolly Irish people!”)

Mind Prey (1999)

Based upon the novel by John Sandford. While picking up her children, Grace (Natasha Greenblatt) and Genevieve (Dara Perlmutter), psychiatrist Dr Andi Manette is suddenly attacked, overwhelmed and, with her girls, forced into the back of a van. The kidnapping falls to Deputy Chief Lucas Davenport (Eric La Salle) and his team, who question Dr Manette’s estranged husband, George Dunn (Christopher Cousins), and her father, Tower Manette (Kenneth Welsh), who suggests that Andi’s work with “the worst of the worst” may be behind the abduction. Over the objections of Andi’s practice partner, Dr Nancy Wolfe (Maria Ricossa), Davenport gains access to their records and discovers that Manette was right: that the two worked with sexual predators including paedophiles—and without always reporting potential or actual threats to the police; but the abduction of Andi herself seems to suggest a broader motive. Meanwhile, confined in a cellar at a remote location, Andi must fight desperately to save herself and her daughters from a psychopath out for revenge… I gather that Mind Prey is in most respects a terrible adaptation of its source, the seventh entry in John Sandford’s series featuring Lucas Davenport, in that it has (i) been taken away from its Minneapolis setting to generic TV-movie-land and (ii) turned into an inappropriate vehicle for Eric La Salle, in addition to (iii) as Sandford’s own site puts it, having its other characters transformed by “being hit with the diversity stick” (including an overt gay stereotype: that’s supposed to help!?). It isn’t surprising that fans of the book series all seem to hate it. I can’t chalk my own disappointment up to that, though: Mind Prey is an unsatisfactory movie in its own right, skittering away from the brutal reality of its plot, and struggling too with a “hero” for whom violating legal process is obviously a way of life. More amusingly, though no less exasperatingly, the film evinces the familiar American TV part-wariness, part-contempt (and all-incomprehension) attitude to “gaming” and “video games” despite Davenport’s own sideline as a game designer: consequently, it labels its villain “a gamer” and seems to feel that explains everything. In practical terms, this translates to that villain not only knowing who Davenport is, but – of course – turning the situation into a personal battle between the two of them – a “game”, if you will – with the usual round of taunting phone-calls and obscure, game-reference clues. Nevertheless, Davenport becomes convinced that there is someone else pulling the strings of Andi Manette’s abduction—but who, and why? When an attempt to trap the kidnapper goes disastrously wrong, leaving a member of his team dead, Davenport takes extreme steps to force the person behind the kidnapping out into the open, even though he knows it may mean the end of his career… Mind Prey also stars Titus Welliver as John Mail, Judy Reyas as Detective Cheryl Vega, Jayne Eastwood as Police Chief Roux and Nicole Ari Parker as Weather Karkinnon, Davenport’s girlfriend (with whom, I may say, he spends an inordinate amount of time arguing about their relationship, considering the nature of the case he’s involved in.)

Spiders 2 (2001)

Also known as: Spiders II: Breeding Ground. A yacht is attacked by masked men: the young people onboard are overwhelmed and carried off, while the boat is scuttled via a grenade… While out sailing, Jason (Greg Cromer) and Alexandra (Stephanie Niznik) come across the burned-out remains of another vessel. They plan to radio its position, but are overtaken by a violent storm that sinks their boat and leaves them adrift in the water. Jason uses his emergency flares to signal a passing cargo ship, and the two are rescued; the captain, Jim Bigelow (Daniel Quinn), makes them welcome, offering a hot shower, a change of clothes, and medical care courtesy of Dr Grbac (Richard Moll). The latter, examining the cut on Jason’s throat, gives him an injection. As Alexandra tries to relax, Jason notices the boat’s apparent lack of cargo and the crew’s reluctance to allow him to use the radio. His physical condition soon worsens, and Dr Grbac gives him further injections which result in his collapse and transportation, not to the ship’s infirmary, but a secret laboratory where Grbac requires human specimens… Though supposedly a sequel to Spiders, this lower-budgeted killer critter film has no in-film connection to its predecessor, and offers no hint as to how or why its resident mad scientist came to be using a near-derelict cargo ship as his secret spider-breeding laboratory. I complained that the first film took too long to get going, and this one is even worse: it is more than half over before we get anything more than glimpses of its spiders, and longer again before things really kick into gear. Before that we have a lot of dreary footage of the ship and Jason growing increasingly suspicious—which brings us to the one really interesting thing about Spiders 2, the role-reversal at its heart. It is Jason who gets the you-and-your-imagination treatment from his sceptical spouse re: a meat-locker full of frozen human bodies; but when his worst fears are even surpassed, it prompts a remorseful Alexandra’s rather eyebrow-raising transformation into Action Girl, as she punches and knees her way through the crew in an attempt to rescue her husband, before battling several giant spiders. The other thing I liked is that Spiders 2 doesn’t make a kicker ending out of Jason’s situation but works it into the plot, with both he and Alexandra knowing exactly what’s at stake if she can’t retrieve Dr Grbac’s vaccine from his spider-infested laboratory. And what is at stake? It turns out that Grbac is using his human prisoners as incubators – all for the benefit of mankind, of course – to be roughly impregnated by his queen spider, before her football-sized babies (only one per customer, alas) erupt from the host’s abdomen, with fatal consequences. Previously contained down below, when Alexandra cuts the ship’s power as part of her rescue mission it releases all the electronic locks and sets the spiders loose… Apart from its pacing issues, the effects in Spiders 2 aren’t as good or as extensive as those in the earlier film, nor is the film itself as much fun; though it livens up considerably over its final act. The spiders screech and roar while impaling, rather than envenomating, their victims; and both humans and spiders die in a variety of gruesome ways. The acting here is nothing to write home about, but Stephanie Niznik clearly enjoyed doing her action scenes; and Richard Moll gives us plenty of ranting as Grbac, though the way his accent comes and goes is very distracting.

Mega-Scorpions (2003)

Also known as: Deadly Stingers. Outside a small town, a rocky gully is used for the illegal dumping of chemical waste… A date between Eric (Jeff Dylan Graham) and Joey (Sarah Megan White) has already turned nasty when something plunges into the house—and into Eric. Covered in his blood, Joey runs screaming into the night, back to the halfway house run by her older sister, Dr Alice Kelly (Marcella Laasch). She interrupts a counseling session between Alice and her patient, Elroy (Trent Haaga), who complains that even though he is now clean and taking his medication, he is still seeing demons… As they inspect the scene of Eric’s bloody demise, Mayor Carl Baxter (Jay Richardson aka John Henry Richardson) orders Sheriff Evans (Stephen O’Mahoney) to get a search warrant for Fairview House, on the basis of Joey’s hysterical exit. Meanwhile, the coroner (Sewell Whitney) has discovered some mysterious acid burns on the remains; and the neighbour who reported Joey to the cops is finding out the hard way what really happened to Eric… Produced by Full Moon in 2003, what was then known as Deadly Stingers sat on a shelf for a decade after a distribution deal fell through, before finally seeing the light as Mega-Scorpions. It was one of its production time’s three competing giant scorpion movies, along with Tail Sting and Stinger; and while I’m tempted to add “each one worse than the last”, if you’re in a generous mood you might find that, like Tail Sting, Mega-Scorpions has a few mild virtues. The first half-hour of this low-budget killer-arachnid movie is pretty terrible – so is its kicker ending, apparently tacked on when director J. R. Bookwalter belatedly realised he’d forgotten the gratuitous nudity – but in between that things take an unexpected up-turn when the main cast members settle down into their roles and give halfway decent performances. However, the film’s most pleasant surprise is that after initially copping out via compound-eye vision and disembodied stingers, it actually starts showing us its scorpions in full—and if the special effects aren’t exactly convincing (in certain shots, some of the scorpions look knitted), they are at least generously employed, with the critters rampaging through the very small town and gruesomely killing off all the most annoying and/or badly acted characters—yay! Finally, Alice and Joey, along with recovering crackhead Elroy, queasy coroner Collins and suspected wife-murderer Jim Crane (Nicolas Read), realise that if the scorpions are to be stopped and the town saved, they’re going to have to do it themselves… Mega-Scorpions includes a cameo appearance by Brinke Stevens as one of the early victims, while Sunny Leone brings the boobage as, ahem, “Hot Tub Hussy”.

The Eden Formula (2006)

Also known as: Tyrannosaurus Wrecks, Carnosaur 5. At the delivery dock of Calgorin Industries, armed mercenaries take down the security guards and enter the main building. Working late into the night, scientist Dr Harrison Parker (Jeff Fahey) and financial officer Rhonda Shapton (Dee Wallace) prepare for a major stockholders’ meeting. Parker objects to the simplified and incomplete way in which his work is to be presented, and accuses Rhonda of turning an amazing scientific breakthrough into a media event. In particular he objects to “that thing downstairs”, which he categorises as, “Calgorin playing God.” Rhonda argues that what they have done simply offers the most dramatic illustration possible of Parker’s “Eden Formula”. Meanwhile, in the basement, an attendant drops huge slabs of meat into a barred enclosure… Having established a base, the mercenaries, led by James Radcliffe (Tony Todd), go over their plans to seize the building and steal the formula. Hacker Rebecca Winters (Alexandra Ford) succeeds in accessing the building’s electronic security system and releases all the electronic locks—and soon a Tyrannosaurus rex is on the loose… Though it sometimes carries the “Carnosaur 5” moniker, The Eden Formula is not strictly part of that franchise. It was, however, written and directed by John Carl Buechler; and in addition some reused footage from the earlier films, Buechler uses the same puppets and models to create new scenes, with the T. rex escaping the Calgorin building and rampaging through downtown LA, as the disbelieving cops field what they consider an outbreak of prank calls and do nothing. Like pretty much every other film of this ilk that I’ve watched lately, this is all about possession of a miraculous cure-all – the script remains typically vague about what it is actually for, besides its dinosaur-creating capabilities – and consequently, though I don’t know if you could exactly call it an “original” touch, The Eden Formula rips off Die Hard rather than Aliens, as the mercenaries search the building for Parker’s formula and its supporting data, and Parker – former special ops, naturally – takes on the invaders more or less single-handed. This scenario has its good points, chiefly that it allows for plenty of speech-making from Tony Todd; but it is also used to just drag out the running-time, with lots of tiresome posturing and swearing from the other team members. The scenario finally narrows down to a face-off between Parker and Radcliffe, who of course served together Way Back When: Jeff Fahey convinces even less as a military hard-ass than he does as a scientist, and the scene in which he pins Tony Todd to a wall with his own knife is harder to swallow than the rubbery dinosaur that then polishes Radcliffe off. On the other hand, I like the fact that Rhonda Shapton is allowed to change sides and not pay the ultimate price for her bean-counting ways; the script even gives her the last word—

Rhonda:  “Okay, maybe a giant dinosaur wasn’t a great idea…”

Zodiac (2007)

Based upon the books Zodiac and Zodiac Unmasked by Robert Graysmith. In July 1969, a young couple is shot by an unknown assailant; the woman dies. A month later, the San Francisco Chronicle receives a letter from someone taking responsibility not only for this shooting, but a double murder six months before. The letter includes a cipher, which the writer insists be published on the front page of the paper—or there will be more killings. As the editorial staff argues how to proceed, cartoonist Robert Graysmith (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has a passion for puzzles, begins working on the cipher. He tries to talk about it to political reporter Paul Avery (Robert Downey Jr), who is assigned to confirm the given details of the killings, but is dismissed; though Avery later remembers Graysmith’s prediction that the killer’s name will not be found in the cipher, despite his claims. The cipher is cracked by an ordinary couple, demonstrating that it is more straightforward than it seems; but it is Graysmith who interprets the message’s remark about man being the most dangerous animal to hunt as a reference to the film The Most Dangerous Game. Another letter is received by the newspaper, with more details of the murders. In this one the killer does give himself a name: “Zodiac”… Despite the strong opinions of those involved in the case as to the killer’s identity, which this film goes as far as it reasonably can in explaining and justifying, the “Zodiac” case remain officially unsolved: something which forms the dark heart of this crime thriller directed by David Fincher. Actually, it is something of a misnomer to call Zodiac a thriller: this is, rather, a grim factual account of how the Zodiac case pretty much ruined the life of everyone who came in contact with it—although I doubt very much that’s how it was pitched to the producers. Telling a true story, and dealing with unsolved murders, is something that Fincher and his collaborators took very seriously, spending many months in preparation for filming and consulting with everyone who would talk to them, including the Zodiac’s surviving victims. This film’s ultimate achievement, in fact, is to highlight just how superficial, and artificial, most fictional crime dramas really are; and there we get at both the value and the inevitable frustrations of this film. The overwhelming desire for an answer drives this story, and it is the failure to achieve this – a failure not only in terms of catching a killer, but simply and baldly to know – that progressively poisons the lives of detectives David Toschi (Mark Ruffalo) and Bill Armstrong (Anthony Edwards), of Paul Avery, and even of Robert Graysmith—who got a best-seller out of it, but whose growing obsession with the case cost him his marriage. Those who have criticised the film for “not enough focus on the killer” (really?) or for its “indeterminate ending” (REALLY??) have entirely missed the point. Zodiac traces the investigation from 1969 through to 1983, using location shooting, excellent production design and an appropriate but unobtrusive soundtrack to emphasise the passing years. The film does have a few stumbles elsewhere: Robert Downey Jr is a bit too much himself (if I can put it that way) as Avery; and there is a fuzziness around Graysmith, perhaps not surprising given the screenplay’s source, but which fails to really make understandable his shift from nerdy cartoonist to self-destructive crime obsessive. However, Mark Ruffalo and Anthony Edwards are impressive as Toschi and Armstrong, particularly the former. The cast also includes John Carroll Lynch, Elias Koteas, Philip Baker Hall, Chloë Sevigny, Dermot Mulroney, Adam Goldberg, Clea DuVall, Ione Skye—and Brian Cox as Melvin Belli (and yes, cue Star Trek allusion).

The Darkside (2013)

This sort-of-film, sort-of-documentary began as (and indeed still is) an attempt by Australian director Warwick Thornton to gather indigenous ghost stories from the people who experienced such encounters. Thornton’s initial thought was to use this material to create an anthology of “scary stories”; but while some of the stories submitted fitted the bill, a significant proportion involved, conversely, spirits that seemed benign or even protective, or simply intent upon reminding the witness of their previous existence—prompting him to re-think his own view of his subject matter. The Darkside is both fact and fiction: it presents thirteen of the stories submitted, delivered by actors working from recordings of the original tellers and retaining the vocal style, idiosyncrasies and digressions of their narratives. There is almost no action at all here: the story is everything, with most of the segments consisting simply of someone sitting and talking, some more “actorly” than others. In this, Thornton consciously attempts to replicate the indigenous tradition of oral history, though the story-tellers are both black and white. The film’s title increasingly takes on a double, or even triple, meaning: the stories not only take for granted indigenous beliefs and a world of spirits both malignant and serene, but an emerging theme is the pushback against white attempts to deny or to bury certain aspects of Australia’s history. (In one segment, a white woman is assured by friends that “no-one” occupied a certain piece of land before their family claimed it, but then has an encounter that convinces her otherwise.) The keynote segment here is also the exception to Warwick Thornton’s rules: author, historian and film-maker Dr Romaine Moreton – who does not appear on camera – tells of her own experiences when doing research in the National Film and Sound Archive in Canberra: her discovery of its history as the Australian Institute of Anatomy, and her realisation that in both its guises, the building collected and housed indigenous “specimens”. The images that accompany this story are distasteful and confronting. Those interpreting the other stories are Aaron Pedersen, Jack Charles, Deborah Mailman, Brendan Cowell, Bryan Brown, Miah Madden, Hakeem Davey, Lynette Narkle, Shari Sebbens, Sacha Horler, Claudia Karvan, David Page and Ben Quilty; with Warwick Thornton acting as off-camera “interviewer”.

The Inherited (2015)

Also known as: Stranger In The House. Newly married couple Eve (Jenn Liu) and Tom Stewart (Nathan Darrow) move into a beautiful mansion house in the Hudson Valley, which Tom inherited from his first wife, Margot, who died some years before. The two are met by Sanders (Dennis Boutsikaris), who has worked for Margot’s family for many years and prepared the house for their reception. Eve is delighted with her new home, although her dog, Buddy, is nervous and uncomfortable. While Tom drives into the city for work, Eve settles in, working on recipes for a planned cookbook and exploring the nearby village. Her first check comes with the strange attitude of some of the townspeople, who speak regretfully of Margot—and ominously of her death. Meanwhile, the Blake housekeeper, Mrs Menabar (Annabella Sciorra), returns to her old job: Eve is glad of her company but disturbed when she, too, begins making odd allusions to Margot. A small dinner-party goes horribly wrong when Wendy (Tammy Blanchard) reveals to Eve that, not only is she Margot’s sister not Tom’s, as he had implied, but that the two were involved after Margot’s death. But even more disturbing are the strange sounds and shadows that begin to convince Eve there is something badly wrong in the house… The Inherited is a more than usually absurd Lifetime movie with only one firmly positive quality (two if you want to count its location filming), and that is the presence of an Asian lead in this persistently white-bread genre—though we note that Jenn Liu had to produce and write her own story to make that happen. That story, as should be evident from the synopsis, is a fairly shameless riff on Rebecca, with the added twists that it offers two Mrs Danvers figures for the price of one, and that the house to which Tom carries his bride may be literally haunted by the first Mrs Stewart. In typical Lifetime style, Eve turns out to know nothing whatsoever about her new husband, who the surrounding townspeople – one and all devoted to the late Margot – are firmly convinced murdered his wife for her house and money. Eve, of course, rejects this suggestion—at least until she, too, begins to suffer a strange illness, accompanied by insomnia and hallucinations—or are they? While Tom works with his lawyer to discover a loophole in his late wife’s will, which will allow him to sell the house, Eve begins to research his life with Margot—and makes a terrifying discovery… To say The Inherited stretches credibility would be putting it mildly, but it has its amusing aspects if you can let yourself go with the absurdities of its plot. It does provide one genuine surprise – a third positive, I guess – in how it concludes its narrative; though of course that requires you to sit through the rest.

Into The Labyrinth (2019)

Fifteen years after being abducted, Samantha Andretti (Valentina Bellè) is found unconscious, half-naked and with a broken leg in a remote area in the Italian countryside. When she wakes, Samantha finds herself in hospital, but with no memory of her ordeal. An American profiler, Dr Green (Dustin Hoffman), who specialises in such cases, explains to Samantha that the two of them are going to work together, to piece together her memories and find her abductor… Private investigator Bruno Genko (Toni Servillo) has long specialised in money matters, but many years before he was involved in a missing-persons case when he was hired by Samantha Andretti’s parents to help find their daughter—and failed. When news breaks of her reappearance, Genko vows to solve the case: his determination fueled by the knowledge that he is suffering from a heart complaint that could kill him at any moment. Exploiting all his contacts, Genko begins to uncover a network of abuse… Written and directed by Donato Carrisi, and based upon his own novel, L’Uomo del Labirinto, Into The Labyrinth is a nasty-edged thriller that, despite a number of powerful individual qualities, never quite gels. Part of the problem is that it is so intent upon making allusions to other films and to other directors, it almost forgets to forge an identity of its own. Another difficulty for the viewer is the tension between the plot’s horrifying real-world elements and the unreality, if not quite surrealism, of how that plot plays out. The film’s narrative is divided into two, and it toggles between Genko’s investigation of the circumstances of Samantha’s abduction and return – or escape – and Dr Green’s in-hospital sessions with her, in which he helps her access her missing memories. Both narratives are unsettling, and neither plays out in a wholly recognisable reality; but instead of offering what we might call an overall, organic weirdness, such as we might find in the films of David Lynch (who is very much cited here), what we end up with is two different kinds of weirdness that increasingly work against each other. Furthermore, though the co-casting of Dustin Hoffman and Toni Servillo seems intended to balance out the two halves of the story, Bruno Genko’s side of it holds the interest in a way that the scenes between Dr Green and Samantha do not; while the film’s need to accommodate Dustin Hoffman forces Valentina Bellè to perform in English, which is unlikely in-film, given Samantha’s circumstances, and occasionally makes her dialogue difficult to decipher. (The film’s deep narrative division is reflected in the fact that Hoffman and Servillo share only one, clearly tacked-on scene.) While Green works to draw from Samantha the bizarre nature of her captivity, marked by cruel games leading to reward or punishment, Genko begins to uncover a horrifying story of cyclic abductions and of the abused becoming the abuser…

The Lift (2020)

Original title: Thang Máy (Elevator). Student Trang (Yu Dương) watches via her phone as her friend, Jina (Tống Yến Nhi), attempts to play “the elevator game” in an abandoned hospital—and is witness to her disappearance… A year later, Trang struggles with claustrophobia and other issues as she tries to lead a normal life. She is angry when she discovers that her stepfather, Son (Nguyễn Xuân Hiệp), a doctor, has accessed her diary in an effort to understand her problems—and the game; she retaliates by threatening to tell her mother, Puong (Kiều Trinh), about his affair with Jina. Son still presses her, wanting to know what happens in the game when the elevator reaches the fifth floor. Trang replies that “the woman in the black silk dress” will come; that the entrance to the Shadow World will open… The conversation revives all of Son’s guilt over Jina – and his feelings for her – and when Trang suggests bitterly that Jina was playing the game as a form of suicide born of her own guilt, he decides that he, too, must play the game—to save her, or join her. His final message to Trang sends her and her cousin, Ngoc (Mai Bích Trâm), rushing to the abandoned hospital on a desperate rescue mission… I was unfamiliar with the Korean urban legend of “the elevator game” before I saw this film—but having acquainted myself with it, I must say it seems more than ordinarily senseless, with nothing to be gained from playing it and a great deal to be lost: your soul, in fact, if Trang is to be believed. Written and directed by the American Peter Mourougaya but produced in Vietnam, The Lift is a disappointment—its overriding sin being that it just isn’t scary. Most of it unfolds in an abandoned hospital (and only in an Asian film would we get a casual remark like, “The hospital was abandoned because it was rumoured to be haunted”), but these scenes are so underlit that the film gets little value from its setting. Occasionally something lurches out of that darkness, but offers nothing more than the mildest jump-scare in doing so. The obliqueness of the film’s plot is another problem; and while this is more or less explained towards the end, the explanation does it no good. Eventually we understand that the different floors of the hospital represent Trang’s various fears—fears that she must overcome if she is to rescue those who went before her, including – if her fractured visions are to be believed – her mother… The one thing that really struck me about The Lift is that, in sharp contrast to all those productions that devote so much effort to explaining why the characters don’t have their phones and/or their phones aren’t working, this is one horror movie that lives and dies by its phones: the characters use them to communicate directly, send messages, watch each other, light their way—and in one instance, more or less interrupt a demonic encounter to answer the phone. But amusing as this is in an objective sense, it doesn’t make The Lift any better. There is an increasing feeling of futility about this film that is only confirmed by its ending—but which is, I guess, quite in keeping with the urban legend that inspired it.

(…and no, I don’t know why it’s “The Lift” instead of “The Elevator“…)