The Invisible Ray (1936)

Greetings, readers, Bill here. I just got back from a little road trip, visiting friends I hadn't seen in a while -- including fellow reviewer Dan -- and generally having a good, geeky time. We hammered out some ideas of new things to do with Radiation-Scarred Reviews, which hopefully you'll be seeing soon. Since I am a bit tuckered out from my travels, tonight's film is relatively short (clocking in at 79 minutes) and reasonably light fare for my tired eyeballs.

On to the review! Spoilers follow, like they always do.

Meet Dr. Janos Rukh (Boris Karloff, last seen around these parts in BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN). A scientist, he's developed a telescope that can see into deep space, specifically the "Nebula of Andromeda." With this telescope, and some other Super Science gadgets, he can look into Earth's past.

He demonstrates this to a trio of investors -- Sir Francis Stevens, his wife, and nephew, Ronald Drake; with them is Dr. Felix Benet (Bela Lugosi, last seen around these parts in THE WOLF MAN), intent on insuring that Sir Francis isn't swindled -- Dr. Rukh takes it as Benet trying to "disprove" Rukh's work.

Rukh shows them a meteor crashing to Earth hundreds of millions of years earlier. An expedition is organized -- for Dr. Rukh, it's an opportunity to find the meteor and it's rare radioactive composition, rich in "Radium X." Dr. Benet is doing other research.

Rukh finds his meteor and it's powerful radioactivity. The radiation poisons him, making him glow in the dark. He goes to Benet for help, nd Benet is able to synthesize an antidote, but Rukh will have to take it every day for the rest of his life. The interplay of the radiation and the antidote begins to drive Rukh insane.

Rukh devises a death ray powered by Radium X, while Benet intends to use Radium X for healing purposes. Rukh becomes so obsessed that his wife Diane leaves him for Ronald Drake.

Months later, Rukh confronts Benet in Paris, and his megalomania is readily apparent. While he's getting credit for the discovery, he feels that Benet and Sir Francis are getting more than him. Rukh fakes his own death, and sets himself up in a little apartment overlooking the church where Diane and Ronald got married.

Soon Sir Francis is dead of Radium X poisoning, and his wife quickly follows. Upon examining her corpse, Benet discovers radioactive fingerprints on her throat -- she was strangled by someone contaminated with Radium X! Benet has his suspicions that Rukh may have faked his death, and sets a trap, using Diane as bait.

It backfires a little when Rukh kills Benet. Rukh attempts to kill Diane, but can't bring himself to do so, instead stalking out to kill Ronald. Rukh's own mother shows up and confronts him, smashing the last of his antidote with her cane. Rukh accepts his fate, grimly, and throws himself out a window as he collapses into ash.

THE END!

What a nifty little film. Karloff and Lugosi are both in excellent form here, though Karloff (unsurprisingly) steals the show as the manic, glowing Janos Rukh. Hah, for a change, Karloff has the exotic/"weird" name and Lugosi's name is "normal!" The primary appeal of the film is, of course, the interplay between Karloff and Lugosi's characters, and neither disappoints -- not that either of them ever would. These two titans of terror absolutely exude a raw energy that permeates their scenes. Imagine THE MUMMY, only with two characters capable of carrying a scene without moving a muscle.

The science in this science fiction film is, as can be expected, sparse and powered by "handwavium," though I love Karloff's art-deco tripod-mounted ray gun.

The story is decent but lightweight, and the rest of the cast fades into the background when around either Karloff or Lugosi. The one exception being Frances Drake, who plays Diane Rukh/Drake. Stunningly beautiful, she holds her own as an actress opposite the two horror heavyweights, and even carrying a couple scenes of her own -- good, because her love interest, played by Frank Lawton, is about as strong as a wet newspaper.

Final Analysis: A film to see more for it's place in the annals of Karloff/Lugosi match-ups than any other inherent quality of the movie itself. I say give it a watch regardless -- goofy science makes everything better.

Overall, I give THE INVISIBLE RAY (1936)...

THREE BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.

Children of the Corn (1984)

Greetings readers, Bill here, with a little confession. I have something of a love-hate relationship with Stephen King. Some things he's written I've thought were good, and many things he's written I've had nothing but disdain for. I never finished The Tommyknockers -- I threw the book out a window in disgust. The only things he's touched that I've really, truly enjoyed were the movie CREEPSHOW (even though the segment "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verill" was another rehash of Lovecraft's The Colour Out of Space, much as The Tommyknockers was) and the short story "Jerusalem's Lot," which takes place in the same town, in the same house as the novel 'Salem's Lot but is a completely unrelated Lovecraftian pastiche. Tonight's film is adapted from a novella by King, hence this confession.

Anyways, enough of that. On to the review. Spoilers follow.

Meet Burt and Vicky (Linda Hamilton!). While driving across Nebraska for Burt's new internship, they run over the body of a young boy in the road. Burt realizes that the boy's throat was slit. Travelling down the road, they find a gas station. The attendant (R.G. Armstrong, who previously appeared in THE BEAST WITHIN) urges them to avoid the nearby town of Gatlin and instead go further down the road.

Meanwhile, we get periodic narration from a young boy, Job, who explains what happened in Gatlin. God, in the shape of He Who Walks Behind the Rows, spoke to a young boy, Isaac, making Isaac His prophet. He Who Walks Behind the Rows commanded Isaac and almost all the children in town (who joined Isaac in the corn field -- Job was at church with his father, and his little sister Sarah was home sick) to murder the adults of Gatlin.

Burt and Vicky end up in Gatlin, finding it deserted except for hiding children. Burt and Vicky are deemed "Outlanders" by the Children of Gatlin, and Isaac decrees that they are to be sacrificed to He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Burt and Vicky learn what's going on from Job and Sarah.

Vicky ends up captured, to use as a lure to bring Burt to the cornfield which serves as the Children's religious center, and the home of He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Unfortunately, there's something of a religious schism as Isaac's main enforcer, Malachi, argues that He Who Walks Behind the Rows is best served in blood and sacrifice, while Isaac is more about ceremony and ritual. Malachi overpowers Isaac and puts him up on a cross made of corn husks.

He Who Walks Behind the Rows claims Isaac, but sends him back to claim Malachi. Burt, Vicky, and the other Children take refuge in a barn as He Who Walks Behind the Rows rages outside. Fortunately, in a touch of Deus ex Machina worthy of a lightning bolt from Zeus, Job just happens to have the page torn out of the Bible that, years earlier, a police officer tried to use to stop He Who Walks Behind the Rows. Burt figures out that the thing can be stopped with fire.

Burning down the cornfield results in a flurry of pyrotechnics and post-production special effects as He Who Walks Behind the Rows explodes. Burt and Vicky start walking for the next town, Job and Sarah in tow.

THE END?

That was...well, the premise was interesting, and while I haven't read the original story, it sounds a lot better then this was. I'm a sucker for a good "malevolent force masquerading as God to lead well-intentioned people to evil ends" story, which this had the potential to be. I'm not even sure what was necessarily wrong with it, I just struggled to remain focused on the film, which is never a good thing.

One thing I really disliked was the way He Who Walks Behind the Rows was presented. If they'd kept Him limited to blasting wind and something moving just beneath the surface, I would have been happier. The red-and-purple cloud, and rotoscoped sparkles as He feeds on Isaac? I could have done without. Sometimes less is more, Hollywood.

Courtney Gains was really effective in his first film role, here as the bloodthirsty Malachi. Despite the very 1980s mop of hair on his head and a general look of physical awkwardness, he comes across as brooding and sinister, a scythe-swinging Angel of the Lord. John Brown he's not, but few can swing a scythe and a Bible like Gains' performance.

Final Analysis: A fairly bland little horror film, noteworthy as a late entry in the trend of Neo-Pagan, rural-gothic horror such as THE WICKER MAN. And if you're looking to see some Neo-Pagan, rural-gothic horror, watch THE WICKER MAN instead of this tepid little movie.

Overall, I give CHILDREN OF THE CORN (1984)...

TWO BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.


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Masters of Horror: Dreams in the Witch-House (2005)

Greetings, readers, Bill here. Now, Showtime, for a while in the middle of the last decade, ran a TV series consisting of hour-long films by horror's top directors. This lasted all of two seasons. My understanding is that these short films varied wildly in quality, with some being excellent and some being terrible. I have seen almost none of them. In fact, tonight's review is of the only one I have seen, which I picked up solely because it was Stuart "RE-ANIMATOR" Gordon directing a Lovecraft adaptation.

Anyways, on to the review. Spoilers follow!

Meet Walter Gilman (Ezra Godden, who'd previously worked with Stuart Gordon on DAGON). A physics student at Miskatonic University, he needs a quiet place to study. To this end, he rents a room in an ancient house, managed by Mr. Dombrowski. The old man gives Walter a hell of a time. He also encounters his neighbors -- Masurewicz, an elderly Polish man who prays loudly at all hours of the day and night, and Francis "Frankie" Elwood, a young mother and her infant son Danny.

Strange things begin to happen. Walter first connects with Frankie when he saves Danny from being bitten by a rat. At about the same time, he realizes an oddly angled wall in his room matches some computer projections he's been running involving string theory.

Then the dreams begin. First, he dreams of a rat with a human face, talking to him about "her."

Next, he dreams of being seduced by Frankie, who turns into a hideous old crone and carves a pentagram into his back with her nails. He wakes up screaming in his own bed, which is odd since he dozed off in a chair in Frankie's room while babysitting Danny. Frankie is understandably perturbed that he "abandoned" Danny like this.

The next dream has him signing a book in blood at the rat's urging. He wakes up in the restricted area of the Miskatonic Library, in his underwear, with the Necronomicon open in front of him, to a diagram of a Satanic ritual, with a figure clearly identifiable as the old crone and her rat familiar.

He figures out that this crone is using string theory to travel between dimensions, and that she needs a male figure to sacrifice Danny for an important ritual. She tried decades earlier using Masurewicz and failed, and now she's targeted Walter as her male hands.

He struggles to resist, and seemingly saves Danny from being sacrificed, though once Frankie and Mr. Dombrowksi bust down the door, they find Walter crouched over Danny's tiny, eviscerated body.

The scene shifts to Walter in a straight-jacket and rubber room. He tries to explain what happened, but the detective will have none of it. Even when confronted with the Crime Scene Investigator's discovery that the child bones found in Walter's room dated back to the 17th century, the detective orders the case closed. The human-faced rat burrows through Walter's chest, killing him and then hopping away, chuckling to itself.

THE END?

Stuart Gordon has done it again. The man strikes gold again and again in mining Lovecraft's fiction. What we have here is probably one of the most faithful cinematic adaptations of Lovecraft's fiction ever produced (and probably only dethroned from the position of "most faithful" by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society's 2005 silent film, THE CALL OF CTHULHU).

The story updates well to the present day, and actually, to a small extent, improves on Lovecraft's original tale. Because let's face it, Lovecraft had quite a few flaws as a writer, and among them was characterization. His narrators in first-person tales are always basically himself, and other characters are bland and barely more than brief sketches. Gordon has fleshed out some of the other inhabitants of the Witch-House and brought them into the story as something more than window-dressing. Of particular note is the old Pole, Masurewicz, who provides quite a bit of exposition and more than a little pathos. After failing the crone, Keziah Mason, he spends the rest of his life in the house in order to try to seal her away with his nonstop prayers, and to try and protect or save anyone else she sinks her claws into.

I think the story benefits from the Masters of Horror series having a run-time of an hour per episode. Lovecraft's stories are, by and large, pretty damn short. An hour-long episode means not having to pad the story out too much. I mean, with FROM BEYOND, Gordon and Paoli had to do quite a bit of building off the nucleus of Lovecraft's fiction. DREAMS IN THE WITCH-HOUSE...not so much.

If there's one weakness, it's in the realization of Brown Jenkins, Keziah Mason's rat-like familiar. In long shots, he is a trained rat. In close-ups, a human being in false teeth and a fringe of hair, shot using forced perspective. It's...jarring, particularly since the hair on the actor and the hair on the actual rat don't match in terms of color all that well.

Final Analysis: A phenomenal Lovecraft adaptation, by one of the few directors I trust to do so well. Well worth a watch, especially since it's only an hour (55 minutes, technically). Plus, the DVD comes with a Stuart Gordon trading card!

Overall, I give MASTERS OF HORROR: DREAMS IN THE WITCH HOUSE (2005)...

FOUR BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.


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Hellraiser (1987)

Well readers, Bill again. I'm really enjoying this 5-7 reviews per week schedule I've got going. Keeps me constantly seeing new films, keeps my mind sharp, and keeps me from sitting around bored after work. Tonight's film is another pick by my friend Kristen, who is responsible for my reviews of THE HITCHER, FRIDAY THE 13TH, FRIDAY THE 13TH (2009), and THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN. Maybe I should invite her to become a contributer, eh?

Anyways, on to the review. Spoilers, as always, ensue.

Meet Frank Cotton. In Morocco, he picks up a mysterious puzzle box from a mysterious Chinese merchant. After weeks of obsessing over it, he manages to get it open. Immediately supernatural barbed chains pierce his flesh and tear him to pieces. A supernatural creature with a face full of needles (Doug Bradley -- the character is not yet known as Pinhead, but is listed in the credits simply as "Lead Cenobite") appears and twistes the box back into its original configuration, causing everything to disappear -- including Frank.

An indeterminate amount of time later, Frank's brother, Larry, moves into the house with his second wife, Julia. While Larry is moving things in, Julia is wandering the house, finding photos of Frank with various sundry women. We also learn, via flashbacks, that Frank seduced Julia at one point. Larry's daughter Kristy also comes to visit during this time.

Larry cuts himself on an exposed nail, spilling blood on the floor of the room where Frank died. This blood allows Frank to reconstitute himself, to an extent, rising from the floor as a skinned zombie-like creature. He seduces Julia into helping him continue to rebuild himself. She soon begins to pick up men in bars, bringing them back to the attic. She murders them, Frank feeds on them. He wants to rebuild himself as quickly as possible, before the "Cenobites" come looking for them. By reclaiming his body, he's voided a contract with them. He gave them his body and soul, and they gave him experiences beyond any naturally possible, an indivisible blending of pleasure and pain.

Kristy accidentally witnesses Frank's feeding, and flees with the puzzle box. She accidentally opens it, summoning the Lead Cenobite and an underling, the Chatterer. She manages to convince them that Frank Cotton is alive and free, and they agree to spare her if she helps them get Frank back, with the warning that, if she fails, they'll "tear [her] soul apart."

Frank, meanwhile, has consumed Larry and taken his likeness, leaving the old flesh on the floor. He uses Larry's face to put Kristy at ease. The Cenobites are briefly fooled, demanding of Kristy "We want the man who did this." Thinking her father is responsible, she refuses to give him up to them. However, Kristy soon realizes the truth.

The Cenobites claim Frank, who manages to utter "Jesus wept." before being torn apart. The Cenobites attempt to claim Kristy as well, but she uses the puzzle box to force them out of this dimension. At which point a bizarre wall-crawling monster shows up to take the puzzle box from her, only to be repelled itself. The house bursts into flames, and Kristy throws the puzzle box on the fire.

Soon, however, the puzzle box is back in the hands of the Chinese merchant from the beginning of the film -- "What's your pleasure, sir?"

THE END?

Hmm. I'm not quite sure what to make of this one. This was Clive Barker's directorial debut, following his dissatisfaction with the filming of UNDERWORLD. While I can appreciate Mr. Barker as a storyteller, I'm not sure film is really his medium. Derived from his novella "The Hellbound Heart," (which, I'll be honest, I've not read) story-wise HELLRAISER just feels a little lackluster to me. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but the plot of the film didn't grip me at all.

What I did find fascinating, however, is the implied mythology around the Cenobites. The word "cenobite" or cenobitic refers to a style of religious monasticism, contrasted with erebitic, which is religious hermithood. In keeping with this religious element, the Cenobites shown in the film are dressed in a style blending religious vestments and S&M fetish gear. Ultracosmic hedonists, they seek to expand the limits of sensation, of pain and pleasure and that which is both. In a way, the S&M elements blend into the religious elements, bringing to mind good ol' penitent flagellation, the practice of beating oneself to remember the agonies of Christ and to bring oneself closer to the divinity.

Bringing all this together, along with a line that the Cenobites are "demons to some [and] angels to others," from this film alone I'd almost conclude that the Cenobites are a race of heavenly servitors who dole out tests of worth and encouraging penitence (coupled with a reminder of God's love) as deemed necessary. However, I'm aware that the sequels and spin-off media take the Cenobites in an assortment of directions. Which is kind of a shame, because I like my take on the pseudo-Catholic sadosexuality of the film.

The make-up and creature effects are beautiful, with only a few weak moments -- when the hooks enter Frank's face in the beginning, the skin looks extremely rubbery as it pulls away. Of particular noteworthiness, I'd like to single out the reconstitution scene where Frank resurrects himself out of the blood and goo. The leg bones sprouting out of the floor, flesh stringing itself over them, the skull un-caving, the brain slithering into it...it's beautiful, it's vibrant, it's stomach-churning...and it's all practical effects. No CGI here, by golly! Pay attention, Hollywood; these effects look as good today (22 years and some months as of this writing...it was released theatrically in the United States four months and two days after I was born) as they did at the time. Let's see CGI achieve that milestone!

Final Analysis: An intriguing little film, though perhaps worthwhile more for the introduction of the Cenobite myth cycle than the actual plot of the film. Definitely worth a watch, even if you're not into the kinky stuff.

Overall, I give HELLRAISER (1987)...

THREE BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.


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The Tripper (2006)

Evening, readers, Bill here. Now, tonight's movie is a recent entry in the slasher subgenre, being released in 2007 as an addendum to After Dark Films' EIGHT FILMS TO DIE FOR series. As soon as I heard the basic premise, I knew I had to see it. This just sounded too amazingly ludicrous to pass up on. Plus, I got it used for about $2!

Anyways, enough chatter, on to the review!

Welcome to Frank Baker's (Paul "Pee Wee Herman" Reubens) FREE LOVE FESTIVAL, where the music is loud, the beer flows like water, and every party drug imaginable is being done in conjunction -- nitrous, ecstasy, LSD, pot, you name it, it's in 90% of the party's systems. The film follows a small group of hippies to this Free Love Festival. Most of them aren't too important, but the character Samantha (Jaime King), who recently got out of an emotionally-abusive relationship with a spoiled rich boy who now stalks her via constant cell phone calls, is somewhat significant.

The townsfolk, all staunch Republicans, are for the most part unhappy about the damned dirty naked hippies converging on their town, though the mayor is convinced it will bring in money that the town desperately needs. The only security/law enforcement in town is Deputy Cooper, who is just trying to do his job to the best of his ability, despite being heckled by both the townsfolk and the hippies.

As an added hassle, hippies are starting to turn up dead, starting with the hairy naked guy wandering the woods looking for 'shrooms. They find him strung up, upside-down, hacked up with an axe.

It is soon apparent that a maniac with a Ronald Reagan fetish is hacking up hippies with an axe, and sprinkling their corpses with jelly beans. He even goes so far as to wear a disturbingly realistic Reagan mask and imitating the Gipper's voice.

Soon Ronnie amps up the violence, from isolated killings in the woods to a full-blown rampage at a concert/rave/orgy, every swing of the axe another dead hippie. Samantha's friends are all dead, and as she runs off into the woods, Ronnie follows her. Panicking as he attacks her, she manages to frantically fight back, killing Ronnie. Deputy Cooper unmasks him, and finds he's Gus, a tired old man who hangs around the cracker barrel, used to work for the local lumber industry, and whose son, twenty years ago, went berserk after binging on televised Reagan speeches and listening to his father's concerns about his mother's health problems. The young boy, no more than ten years old, killed a tree-hugging hippie with a chainsaw for threatening to put Gus out of a job.

The next morning, as the bodies are being cleared away, it's mentioned that Gus' body disappeared. Frank Baker, clutching his cash-box, sneaks out of the port-a-potty where he spent the night hiding, and makes his escape into the woods, where he's met by (surprise!) Ronnie, who cuts him in half vertically with a chainsaw.

THE END?

Uhm...yeah. That was worth $2 to me. It had it's entertaining moments, but overall it fell kind of flat. The only character given more than two sentences of back story was Gus (and other than him, Samantha, and Frank Baker, none of them are given even a single word of motivation other than "drugs"), and ultimately he's the most sympathetic character in the film, and he gets about eight minutes of screen time all total! Most of the cast were lackluster attempts at presenting the stereotypes of drugged-up modern hippies. I don't particularly care for cardboard cutouts in place of characters -- it's acceptable for the background crowds at the Free Love Festival, but for Samantha's friends? Eesh. Give them more than a name and a preferred hallucinogen.

I try to avoid discussion of politics here, and especially my own politics, but I must admit an appreciation of writer-director David Arquette (best known for acting in Wes Craven's post-modern slasher, SCREAM)'s tactic of lampooning both the conservative right and the liberal left. While large portions of the film come across as indictments of Ronald Reagan's and George W. Bush's policies while in office, at the same time he's also showing the careless selfishness of the American Hippie. I found it particularly amusing that Frank Baker is running this "Free Love Festival" not out of any sort of faith in the Free Love philosophy, but as a way to squeeze as much money as possible out of these clueless pot-smoking acid casualties. This quite neatly mirrors the fact that the original Woodstock festival was put on by businessmen intent on profiting off the free love fad, and profit they did. As far as political satire goes, THE TRIPPER is better than ZOMBIE STRIPPERS, but still a far cry from Swift or Bierce.

One bit I laughed really hard at (despite it not being supremely funny): Samantha's rich kid ex shows up to plead with her to come back to him. Ronnie runs up and axes him. Rich kid's last words are, "But...I'm a Republican..."

Some of the editing irritated me, along with an overuse of slow-motion/repeat effects, which seem to be used for nothing more than "look what we can do! Yaaaay!" This film's "characters on acid" scenes were okay in that kaleidoscopic sort of way, but nothing to write home about. Samantha's acid freak-out that led to her and her rich kid boyfriend breaking up is pretty funny, when she hallucinates he's a zombie.

Final Analysis: If you can see it free or cheap, it's an amusing post-modern political satire/slasher. Maybe get a bag of jelly beans and some reefer to consume while watching it.

Overall, I give THE TRIPPER (2006)...

THREE BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.


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The Descent (2005)

Greetings, readers, Bill here. It is now February, and in my region of the world that means we are deep in the throes of winter (February 2nd's rodent-based prognostication notwithstanding) and it is cold and dark, particularly in my basement lodgings. Tonight's film, written and directed by Neil Marshall, who previously brought us DOG SOLDIERS, is not only proof that lightning sometimes strikes twice, but a testament to the horrors that lurk in the cold, cold, darkness...

That being said, on to the review! Spoilers, as always, follow.

The film opens on a group of women -- Juno, Sarah, and Beth -- whitewater rafting. Sarah's husband and young daughter watch from the bank. On the drive home, he loses focus, drifts into the other lane, and they suffer a head-on collision. Husband and young daughter are killed in the crash, though Sarah survives.

A year later, Sarah, Juno, and Beth meet up with Sam and Rebecca, along with Juno's new friend Holly, in the Appalachians. The ladies have arranged a spelunking trip together.

All is not well in the caves, however. A cave-in traps the women, forcing Juno to confess that she's led them astray, into a previously-unexplored cave system. She admits that she did so in hopes of rekindling her strained friendship with Sarah. To make matters worse, Holly falls, breaking her leg. They splint it as best they can and carry her onwards.

And if that weren't enough, Sarah is convinced she saw something in the dim phosphorescence. The other women doubt her until they flip on the infrared setting and see a pallid, humanoid creature right...behind...them. The creature and it's brethren attack, killing Holly as the other girls scatter.

Beth accidentally surprises Juno, who panics and hits her in the neck with a climbing axe, running when she realizes her mistake. Shortly thereafter, Sarah finds Beth, who is still alive but in excruciating pain. Beth gives Sarah a pendant she'd ripped off of Juno's neck -- a pendant bearing Sarah's husband's favorite saying. It's concluded that he was cheating on Sarah with Juno. Beth asks Sarah to euthanize her, which she does, though with great emotional difficulty.

Sarah and Juno reunite in the maze of cave tunnels, but not before Sam and Rebecca are killed by the blind, carnivorous creatures. Sarah asks if Juno saw Beth die; when Juno replies in the affirmative, Sarah shows her the pendant and impales her through the leg with a pick-axe. Sarah then leaves Juno for the monsters.

Sarah scrabbles and crawls towards what she believes is daylight. Escaping the cave, she makes her way back to the car. Once in the car, however, she sees...Juno next to her! Opening her eyes, she realizes she's still in the cave, bathed in a reddish glow. She hears her daughter's voice, sees her with a birthday cake, and crawls towards her. Panning out, the camera reveals the glow coming from a burning torch. Sarah is hallucinating still, oblivious to the encroaching howls and gibbers of the monstrous creatures.

THE END?

What a chilling and effective film! At first I almost got the vibe that this was a gender-bending retread of DOG SOLDIERS; I think there's a definite similarity between the scene where the women are drinking and reminiscing, and the scene where the men are sharing stories around the camp fire, the same sort of sense of camaraderie. However, there are differences lurking just beneath the surface; the men in DOG SOLDIERS have all been betrayed together by a superior officer. In THE DESCENT, only Sarah is betrayed, on multiple fronts. Her husband betrayed her by cheating on her; Juno betrayed her by sleeping with her husband; and the affair seems to be something of an open secret among the women, with only Sarah oblivious. Thus while in DOG SOLDIERS the camaraderie remains strong, and even grows, throughout the film (to the point where Wells almost cheerfully sacrifices himself to save Cooper), in THE DESCENT the women are reduced to attacking one another in the midst of being besieged by monsters.

Likewise, the...I want to say style of horror (though I'm not sure that's quite the phrasing I'm looking for), is very different between the two films. In DOG SOLDIERS, the horror comes in gunfire-like bursts, with periods of waiting in between that allow fear to grow, gnawing in your belly. In THE DESCENT, we experience a gradual ramping up of horror, as Marshall takes us first through the all-too-real nightmarish possibilities of spelunking -- cave-ins, injury, isolation, drowning -- and then adds a race of feral, degraded, troglophilic (not truely cave-bound, as it's suggested they come to the surface periodically to hunt) humanoids, because caves weren't perilous enough to begin with. Once these humanoids -- dubbed Crawlers in the closing credits -- appear, the film becomes a non-stop assault on the characters, and, to an extent, the audience.

The Crawlers themselves are a work of terrifying art. Their pale, grubby skin is almost translucent, and their eyes are blind and reduced in size, with their ears enlarged in proportion. Without sight, their senses of smell and hearing are enhanced, and it's suggested that their hunting howls form a sort of echolocation, like a bat's. Their fingers and toes are clawed, and they sport rows of razor-sharp teeth. All of this combines to create a wonderfully realistic take on what humanity could be reduced to in a subterranean environment over thousands of years. Neil Marshall has said that H. G. Wells is one of his favorite authors -- hence the name of the Sergeant in DOG SOLDIERS -- and I can't help but suspect that Wells' Morlocks might have been the basis for the Crawlers, though Marshall's underground race is more frightening and savage then Wells ever imagined.

Most of the Crawlers scenes are edited into a series of lightning-quick flashes of action. This has the three-fold effect of disorienting the audience, delivering unto the audience the chaos of the attacks, and disguising the fact that the Crawlers are guys in rubber suits and prostheses. The editing conveys an inhuman gait to the Crawlers that would have been much more difficult to pull off in regular shots. On the down-side, this editing left me scratching my head, rewinding to watch attacks over and over again not to revel in the beautiful technical effects, but even just to figure out what I just saw. It also, to be perfectly honest, left me with a bit of a headache, right behind my eyes. This seems to be one of those damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't situations, and I don't fault Marshall for this editing choice.

What I do fault him for is one cheesy cheap-scare scene, where a Crawler suddenly drops down from the ceiling, seemingly clinging there by its hind claws as it waves its hands in the actresses' faces. While some of the Crawler scenes are masterfully creepy (the initial reveal with the infrared camera, for instance), this one has all the subtlety and dread of a carnival fun-house.

Final Analysis: One of the most unrelenting and savage horror movies I've ever seen. A beautiful blend of real-world and fantasy-horror, coupled with believable characters, talented actresses and exquisite special effects. A sequel, THE DESCENT 2, was filmed and released in the UK in December 2009, and has not yet reached my side of the Atlantic.

Overall, I give THE DESCENT (2005)...

FOUR BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.


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Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV (2000)

Happy Sunday, readers, Bill here! So, after a couple days of high quality horror films, I think it's time to sink back into slime-spewing cheese. And who better to hose us down with slime and gore than that maestro of mayhem, Lloyd Kaufman? I think it's time to pop in this, the thrilling conclusion (so far) to the saga of the Toxic Avenger!

Spoilers follow.

Welcome to the Tromaville School for the Very Special, where diversity is being celebrated with "Take a Mexican to Lunch Day." The festivities are interrupted by the intrusion of the Diaper Mafia, a group of armed maniacs in adult diapers and baby bonnets. Under the command of Tex Diaper (led by Trent Haaga, last seen around these parts in SKI WOLF), they string up the teacher, Ms. Weiner (the lovely and talented Debbie Rochon) and start shooting Very Special students. Fortunately, the Toxic Avenger is on hand, along with his "Young, Morbidly Obese Ward," Lardass (Michael Herzman, last seen around these parts in POULTRYGEIST: NIGHT OF THE CHICKEN DEAD), to save the day.

Tex Diaper's last resort is a bomb wired to his heart. If his heart stops, the bomb goes off, destroying the school and everyone in it. Toxie nevertheless tears his heart out, and though the bomb is wired for five seconds, has time to run home, bang the snot out of his blind wife Sarah (now played by the lovely Heidi Sjursen), chat with her about their attempts to conceive, run back, urge a Very Special student to stay off drugs. Lardass smears the bomb with peanut butter and eats it. Though the bomb itself is contained, his resulting flatulence is ignited by a Very Special student's post-coital cigarette.

The resulting explosion creates a dimensional rift: Toxie (along with Very Specials Sweetie Honey and Tito the junkie) is pulled through to the parallel universe of Amortville; likewise, his counterpart, the Noxious Offender, is pulled through to Tromaville. Noxie is as evil as Toxie is good, and there is immediate culture shock; Noxie's first acts in Tromaville are to tear the arms off the police chief and hurl a twelve-year old girl face-first into a brick wall.

Toxie tries to bring some sense of justice to Amortville, and is horrified by what he finds. This dimension's Lardass is an out-of-work particle physicist-turned-prostitute named Chester, whose deaf wife, Claire, was kidnapped and is kept as a sex-slave by Noxie. Tromaville's Sgt. Kabukiman, NYPD is Amortville's evil drug-dealing Kabukiman.

Back in Tromaville, Noxie kills the mayor (Ron "The Hedgehog" Jeremy), and becomes mayor himself, as revealed in newsreel footage of Noxie partying it up at "Tromadu" before collapsing into a post-cocaine stupor, dropping a snowglobe and muttering, "Nose blood..." He vows that his first act as mayor will be the kill the goofy team of superheroes that the previous mayor organized: Sgt. Kabukiman, Dolphin Man, the Vibrator, the Mad Cowboy, and the Master-Bater. Kabukiman is the only one who escapes, by staggering off in a drunken stupor while Noxie butchers the rest of the group.

Toxie is down in the dumps, but Chester, grateful to Toxie for reuniting him with his wife, has a plan to return Toxie to Tromaville. If Toxie puts on the Ruby Slippers and clicks his heels three times...as Toxie says, "Oy gevalt." Their first attempt (dimensional travel being difficult) takes them to a 1970s porno set, and the next try lands them in Heaven, where Toxie discovers that God is an ill-tempered midget. God agrees to send Toxie home so long as Toxie kills all the murderers and child rapists, and tells the Pope to stop talking about him (and that he has a stupid hat).

Back in Tromaville, Toxie finds that Sarah's in labor, about to give birth to his son AND Noxie's! Toxie fights his way to the delivery room, basking through Noxie's Nazi guards. It comes down to a duel of mops (complete with Lightsaber sound effects) between Noxie and Toxie, as their children likewise duel inside Sarah for the opportunity to be born. Toxie tears Noxie apart, and from the corpse emerges Evil Melvin (Mark Torgl, reprising his role from the original TOXIC AVENGER), who Toxie promptly throws out a window into a barrel of toxic waste...wow.

Sarah delivers a healthy 60-lb baby boy, and a second child, bearing Kabuki facepaint. Kabukiman flees the delivery room as Toxie snarls and gives chase.

THE END!

Now that is what I call a sequel. The opening narration of CITIZEN TOXIE refers to PART II and PART III as "really shitty" and apologizes for them, declaring CITIZEN TOXIE the true sequel to THE TOXIC AVENGER.

Much like POULTRYGEIST, CITIZEN TOXIE represents a much more gonzoid, excess-is-best approach to filmmaking than "Classic" Troma films such as the original TOXIC AVENGER or the two sequels. According to IMDB, 30 gallons of fake blood were used in the hospital showdown alone, there's more defecation than I've ever seen in a movie before (though the projectile diarrhea of POULTRYGEIST comes close), and more naked breasts then I've seen in any other non-porno. You seriously don't go more than a couple minutes between boobs in this film, and breasts of every shape and size imaginable are in display for your prurient pleasure. Absolutely nothing is taboo to the Troma team. The film contains humor predicated on school shootings, rape, abortion, drug-dealing, S&M, sex slavery, coprophilia, infantilism, and the sexualization of the mentally handicapped, to name only a few. If this offends you, then this might not be the movie for you.

I was really surprised at the number of Troma veteran cameos in this one. A redneck whom Toxie gives a blackface treatment to before delivering him to the Ku Klux Klan is played by Mitch Cohen, who played Toxie in the original film. I'd mentioned Mark Torgl's reprisal of Melvin, and Dan Snow, who played Cigar Face in the previous three TOXIC AVENGER films, appears here as Sgt. Theodore Kazinski of the Tromaville police, who becomes Noxie's second-in-command. Ron Jeremy would go on to appear in POULTRYGEIST, Debbie Rochon previously appeared in TERROR FIRMER and TROMEO AND JULIET (as well as everything else, it seems...Ms. Rochon is prolific in her cinematic appearances), Lisa Gaye (Malfaire from TOXIC AVENGER II and III, as well as TERROR FIRMER, CLASS OF NUKE 'EM HIGH II and III, and SGT. KABUKIMAN, NYPD) as an abortion counselor and Bill Weeden (SGT. KABUKIMAN, NYPD) as the abortion doctor. And that's barely scratching the surface, though I must mention Lloyd Kaufman running down a New York City street in his underpants in the epilogue. Classic.

I'd like to give a shout-out to Troma new-comer David Mattey, who starred as Toxie, Noxie, and also made an appearance out of make-up as a man receiving oral sex from Chester. Standing 6'10" (almost a full foot taller than your humble reviewer), he is the tallest person to play Toxie to date (and probably the tallest who ever will) and plays the part with energy, enthusiasm, and a definite chemical charm. I'd also like to give "props" to Melissa "Tromelissa" Saytar, who played the crack whore lesbian art student who is Toxie's "biggest fan" and is picked up by Noxie, resulting in a not-totally-consensual threesome with Sarah. Ms. Saytar's enthusiasm and enjoyment of the role is evident and a joy to behold, plus she is one of the most attractive young gynos I've seen in a Troma film yet. Thus far, CITIZEN TOXIE is her only film credit. Uncle Lloydie, I beg you, put her to work some more!

The "Tromadu" sequence, parodying Orson Welles' crowning glory CITIZEN KANE, was filmed at the Playboy Mansion, of all places, and allegedly Hugh Hefner (the hormone-crazed 15 year old boy who never grew up) originally had a small part in the film, until his lawyers convinced him to request it be cut.

Final Analysis: A worthy sequel to THE TOXIC AVENGER, as mentioned earlier this film is not for everybody. But, if you're a fan of Troma Studios and have a cast-iron stomach, I have to say that this is a fun little movie with more than enough blood and boobs to satisfy any B-movie afficionado.

Overall, I give CITIZEN TOXIE: THE TOXIC AVENGER IV (2000)...

FOUR BARRELS OF TOXIC WASTE.


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