Meteor (1979)

It wasn't that long ago I watched Meteor and wrote a few word about it, but after getting my hands on the gorgeous German DVD from Warner Brothers I had to revisit it. First of all, the DVD beats the hell out of the US and UK DVDs, and the movie looks like it never looked before. It helped me appreciate it a bit more, because the framing was correct and the colours a lot better than before. The effects (some say those are the weakest spot in the movie) also felt better processed.

After watching it now, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a bit unfair to call it a bad movie. It’s certainly generic to the brink of stealing everything from other movies, but Ronald Neame still makes it work with a slick and commercial style of filmmaking. The shots are big and bold, the actors are famous and the lines are ridiculous. A typical American disaster movie. Now, this has all the big names, but it came to budget it probably had less than the more famous disasters from the era. This shows in several ways: lots of dialogue – and the use of stock footage.

Thank heavens the dialogue is less clunky than some other movies, and with a bunch of fun actors – especially Natalie Wood and Brian Keith as Russians (both spoke fluent Russian in real life too), our own Bo Brundin in a small part and the great Sybil Danning in small part where she gets buried by an avalanche. Sean Connery had a tough time during these years and more or less took every job he was offered, but manages to not look to bored. It’s a bit eerie to see Natalie Wood almost drowing in mud, when you think about her famous fear of drowning – and how she died two years later.

So, the disasters then? The main attraction. Better than their reputation. The Swiss-sequence is mostly built around stock footage from the Roger Corman-produced Avalanche and has very little new to offer except a few effect shots that looks ok and the little story about Sybil Danning and her boyfriend. But it’s nicely cut and has some suspense.

The Hong Kong-sequence is actually a lot better with a great build up and a tidal wave that looks way better than some other critics claims. The processing works very good and the miniature-water in combination with the real footage looks kinda neat. Sybil Danning gets a billing in big letters, but the two main Chinese actors here is quite anonymous. But it’s Yung Henry Yu who had (and still has) long career in Hong Kong, and tried his luck as “Bruce Ly” for one movie too! His wife is played by Tsui Ling Yu, a Shaw Brothers veteran who’s credited with twenty movies between 1977 and 1983!

The final in New York looks a lot better in widescreen, and has a cool miniature of WTC exploding – but the rest is mostly footage of real houses getting torn down with explosives, and with a fancy filter on top of it. But it works a lot better here than I’ve seen before. The rest of the show, where our heroes is trying to escape thru the subway, almost drowning in mud, is exciting and fun.

No, Meteor isn’t a masterpiece. But it’s really neither better or worse than Deep Impact or Armageddon, only with less budget and a slightly bored Sean Connery in the lead. Ah, I can’t forget Henry Fonda in one of his one-day-cameos either, as the president of the US. I can never get enough of these one-day-shoots, a good way for a famous character actor to earn some doe and still work minimal time :)

Hurricane (1979)

Poor Timothy Bottoms. He thought he had something going. Big disaster-drama. Fancy European director, mega-producer fixing the money. Wonderful co-actors and a one hundred percent hit on the box office. But Timothy Bottom was wrong, as usual. Hurricane cost over twenty million US dollar and didn't earn much money. The chaos on set is legendary, and Swedish director Jan Troell once said that he could spend hours every day on the beach, just laying there watching the sky. Nothing else. So what is the problem with Hurricane? I think it's mainly the script, which a classic love-story: white rich woman falls for nature boy and everyone get's angry at them, but everything is told very lifeless. Characters are either reacting to hard or to little on what's happening, and when stuff is starting to get interesting the hurricane arrives and kill everyone.

So during ninety minutes nothing really important happens, except the love story which never has that spark. Nothing wrong with either Mia Farrow or Dayton Ka'ne, it's just nothing between them. Jason Robards transformation from nice dad to psychopatic military is sudden and it's hard to imagine it ever happen in real life. Good character actors like Bottoms, Von Sydow and Howard are slumming in the background and never gets something good to do. The only time the movie lives is when Troell is focusing on the island natives, which are a lot more interesting and well written than all the whiteys running around pretending to be important.

But thank the fairy tale-god, finally the storm hits and it's a nice thirty minutes of classic Dino De Laurentiis-megabudget-action. A good combination between nice minatures and real life physical effects shows a realistic and powerful disaster, one of the best I've seen actually. It's far from typical Hollywood but never shy away from some big budget extravaganza. Hurricane also has a kinda downbeat ending which makes up for the ninty minutes I almost fell asleep. One can wonder what would have been if Roman Polanski didn't get in trouble at Jack Nicholsons house and he instead of Troell directed Hurricane? I doubt it would have been better, but maybe Polanski was more used to the big budget politics and could handle a production like this better. Troell admits this wasn't his cup of tea and went back to Sweden and directed some of most critically acclaimed Swedish movies ever.

And Timothy Bottoms? Some years later he starred in classics such as Amando de Ossorio's The Sea Serpent, Don Sharp's What Waits Below and of course the legendary killer-baboon movie In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro. He's still the best, and has worked steadily since then... but very far from the movies he deserves.

Anyone got this movie: Black Sun (1978)

I just got this great little poster for Black Sun (aka Mannen i Skuggan), a Swedish-Yugoslavian (probably shot in English) action-thriller directed by the one and only Arne Mattsson. I've been looking for the movie during many years now, and it MUST have been released on tape somewhere... so, anyone got it? Anyone want to fix me a DVD-R of this very obscure movie? :)

Three DVD's from DDDhouse

Profile in Danger, Phantom Killer and He Lives by Night - cheap as usual and released by good old Fortune Star. Gonna be fun to see them.

Cinezilla showed his, so I'll will show mine...

... and I think mine is a bit bigger.

Mr J at Cinezilla took a photo of his newly found Godzilla-figure, and I felt I had to do something similar too. This Godzilla was a gift from a psychotic ex-bf, and the only thing I saved from that disastrous relationship (at the time I also tattooed Godzilla's head on my shoulder).

Why would grown men want to have plastic toys? Well, it's not just a toy. It's Godzilla, the greatest monster on earth. Some people have a complicated and expensive stereo system, some like to show off their strenght in sports. Some, like us, gain power from plastic toys of Japanese monsters. Like an amulet. A religious icon, not far from the wall ornaments in strict catholic homes.

The only difference between us and all these people, is that we're cool. Cool as hell.

La Herencia Valdemar (2010)

Nah. Bah. I'm not sure really. Or? Shit. Really, this is difficult. On one side La Herenica Valdemar is a prime example of classic Spanish horror, and with Paul Naschy in a supporting role (his last too). On the other side it's the first part of two movies, and if this one didn't leave so much hopla around the world, will we ever see a sequel?

The Valdemar Estate is not up for sale, but the owners - a strange organization - want's it valued and cataloged. The send the young and ambitious Luisa Lorente (Silvia Abascal) there, but she soon disappears after a terrifying experience and soon the president of the organization and a private investigator is on it's way. On the train the president tells him about the Valdemar legacy and it's a tragic story. The house was once owned by a young couple and uses it as an orphanage (of course, it's Spain...). They also gets some extra money by arranging seances for the rich and powerful. After some trouble, the husband gets in contact with Alistair Crowley... and then shit hits the fan!

Now, Le Hernenica Valdemar looks stunning. It's a beautiful piece of cinema, and it really feels old-fashioned. It has that wonderful European feeling. The pace is not especially fast, and they spend to much time showing the young couples life and troubles before the fun starts. They spend way to much time doing that, which probably is because it's meant to be the first part. Big mistake, because this means we get one seventy minutes of drama, and just thirty minutes of Crowley doing what he does best, demons, some gore and cool and well made visual effects. All this, in the finale, looks stunning - but it's probably not only me that asks why they couldn't have done the opposite: thirty minutes drama and seventy minutes horror (it even has some kinda zombie!)! Most of the story is also a flashback, and in the end it leads up to those horrible events that starts the show.

It's a lot of loose ends, and I'm almost willing to pray to Satan Almighty so they can get the money to do the sequel! The best thing with the movie is of course Paul Naschy. He looks frail and old here, not only because of the make-up, and moves slower. But he's still Naschy and injects so much humanity and layers in his character as the young couples manservant. He's in the whole movie, but the part isn't that big - but important and well written. Like in Rojo Sangre, he really shows the world what a master-actor he was, something that can be forgotten among all naked ladies, werewolf-masks, beards and fistfights.

La Herenica Valdemar is one part excellent horror movie, but also a big part disappointment. That last disappointing part could be saved and erased if they made the sequel, if not I'm afraid this will be more forgotten than it deserves.

Specters (1987)

You can say a lot of bad things about Marcello Avallone's Specters, but it's virtually impossible to say it looks bad. I would even consider Marcello Avallone a very decent director with a clear and intelligent view how to create atmosphere and cool set-pieces. The main problem is the script, which has to much clichés and never raise above the rest of the Italian horror movies from the eighties. Donald Pleasence plays some archology professor (and no, I refuse to "joke" about the quality of movies he made during the last years of his career - god damn, the man had to survive and it's not much room for actors like him even today) who together with his students find an old crypt. In this crypt a demon or maybe even Satan himself lives (I didn't bother enough to hear any explanation), and starts killing them off one by one.

That's all. But to understand why this is a fun movie you'll have to understand that only two things can make a movie good:

1. Crypts, tombs and catacombs.
2. There's a real man-in-suit monster in the movie.

It also has a tribute both to Creature from the Black Lagoon and Nosferatu and special effects make-up by Sergio Stivaletti! There's really nothing more with the movie, it's pure eye candy. The cinematography looks gorgeous and the Avallone manages to create a lot of mood and scenes that rivals the best of Italian horror. The gore is sparse, but the little there is works fine. I wonder if this version (the R2UK) of the movie is trimmed? The crushed head looks very fine, but might be a little bit to short to come from an Italian movie.

One important thing that may low budget movies fails at, is to find good locations. Here we have a lot of fine places, both real catacombs and sets. These and the other locations makes the movie looks bigger and more expensive. As you notice, I can't write so much about the story. It's paper thin and easy forgotten, just an (a good one too) excuse to show some nice horror scenes and the danish actress/model Trine Michelsen. She had a short stint in Italian genre cinema with this one, Sergio Bergonzelli's Mercenary Squad and Lamberto Bava's handsome but deadly boring Delirium: Photo of Goia. She died last year after a seven years long battle with cancer. She also starred in Lars Von Trier's The Idiots. I like that movie, but I can't remember her in it - I'll watch it again as soon as possible.

I really like Specters, even if it never will change the world... or anything else. It's just a quite slow movie with great set-pieces and some gore that needs a better DVD-release. I doubt it will sell enough for anyone to release it again, but I hope it someday happens - at least for my sake.