Wendy's Films of 2010 # 166 - #176: A Rush to Finish 2010's Reviews! - The End!

#166. The Shop Around the Corner (1940)

Not as much of a Christmas movie as I'd hoped, but I loves me some James Stewart and this was no disappointment.

#167. American Pop (1981)

Neat animated film chronicling the history of pop music throughout the 20th century by following the descendants of one immigrant boy. There's one portion of the film (or one character, I should say) that's hard to like, but such is life.

#168. Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975)

A 70s movie from Japan where an alien race attempts to destroy earth with their Mechagodzilla, Godzilla comes to the rescue! Unfortunately a bad scientist has created Titanosaurus and uses him against Godzilla. It's pretty much exactly the way it sounds!

#170. Network (1976)

Was pleasantly surprised by this one; an intriguing drama about a television network: "I'm as mad as hell and I'm going to take this anymore!"

#171. Miracle on 34th Street (1947)

I grew up with the 1994 remake of this classic, and boy am I glad I finally saw the original.

#172. TRON: Legacy (2010)

I don't suppose we'll be getting this one in now, but hey! Why not add it to the reviews? I found it provided a good source of entertainment, perhaps a wee bit long though.

#173. Black Swan (2010)

As a wise man named Posen told me today, his three questions of the week are: "How was your Christmas?" "What are you up to for New Years?" and.. "Have you seen Black Swan?!?" I

thought it was the best film of the year, though I haven't seen every one, but it seems to be a wide-spread consensus among those I know.

#174. Chinatown (1974)

Second Faye Dunaway film I watched this week and both were excellent! Jack Nicholson was so good back in the day, I wish he and Robert De Niro would come back to life.

#175. Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey (1991)

I loved Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure growing up, so it was only a matter of time before I had to check this one out. It started off really strangely, but I ended up laughing a fair amount. Also, it references this next movie!

#176. The Seventh Seal (1957)

It almost seems fitting that the last film I saw this year would be this one, especially since GenX will soon be closing. It wasn't done on purpose, I just didn't have the time to watch Throne of Blood before tomorrow night. As such, my last film would be a seemingly bleak one, but one that has hope and a sparkle in its eye. What a wonderful way to end the year.

Wendy's Films of 2010 # 135 - #165: A Rush to Finish 2010's Reviews! - Part 2

#135. Scott Pilgrim vs. the World (2010)

A really good adaptation of the graphic novel series, and also by one of my favourite directors Edgar Wright. I loved it, but Hot Fuzz is still my favourite.

#136. Knight and Day (2010)

Not a completely awful film, but I probably wouldn't recommend it to anyone unless they were looking

for a completely stereotypical romantic comedy.

#137. I'm Not There (2007)

Really good. I love it when people take a different turn on bio films (like getting six different actors to play Bob Dylan.) Cate Blanchett was definitely my favourite.

#138. Inception (2010)

I saw this at the BFI Imax in London, England! Haha, alright, bragging done. I liked it quite a lot, but not as much as everyone else seemed to.

#139. The Runaways (2010)

All I wanted was to see a film in Cannes, but the only one I could find was in this dingy old theatre showing a movie already out on DVD in Canada. Wasn't bad, I surprisingly liked Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart in it!

#140. The Warriors (1979)

A classic in its own way, but it just didn't quite hit the spot.

#141. MacGruber (2010)

Some great comedic moments, but I don't know if I'd watch it again.

#142 & #145. Sugata Sanshiro (1943) & Sugata Sanshiro: Part 2 (1945)

The first films of Akira Kurosawa (one of my favourite directors) and though it may not be my favourite, it definitely made a good impression. It's about a man who must learn to encompass the attributes of judo not only in practice, but in life. The second film is quite as good as the first, I'd say.

#143. Dracula (1931)

Starring Bela Lugosi as Dracula, this film reeks of being a classic: reeks in a good way, that is.

#144. Repulsion (1965)

Wow, what a good film. It got under my skin and I couldn't shake it off for hours (even days). Catherine Deneuve is stunning.

#146-148. Back to the Future (1985), Back to the Future 2 (1989), Back to the Future 3 (1990)

What a great series. I can't believe I'd never seen them before. I think I liked the first and third ones the most, but they're all pretty awesome.

#149. Zombieland (2009)

A fun zombie themed comedy, good for a laugh.

#150. Rosemary's Baby (1968)

Really good: not recommended for pregnant women. Between this and Repulsion (both part of Polanski's apartment trilogy,) I prefer Repulsion

(and I found it creepier).

#151. Death Kappa (2010)

Pretty much just another Japanese monster film, but one I enjoyed and would recommend to lovers of the Japanese monster film genre.

#152. The Old Grey Whistle Test (1971-1987)

This DVD was a sampling of famous acts that aired on the show throughout its history, really quite a good collection of musicians (John Lennon, Bruce Spingsteen, Tom Waits) and something interesting to listen to if you've got an hour or two to spare.

#153. Bubba Ho-Tep (2002)

An older Elvis who wakes up from a coma in a nursing home and must attempt to save the other patrons from a mummy who attacks them nightly. Makes for an interesting concept, no? I didn't go crazy for it, but thought it was neat.

#154. Micmacs (2009)

A great new film by one of my favourite directors Jean-Pierre Jeunet; it has his quirky humour, unique visual style and fun atmosphere.

#155. Killer Klowns from Outer Space (1988)

A kind of terrible film, but sort of good in a terrible way. It's pretty much what you'd imagine.

#156. Trick 'r Treat (2007)

A great film to watch on Halloween, though not too scary (which is great for me!)

#157 & #158. Samurai I (1954) & Samurai II (1955)

The first it a pretty good samurai film, but the second made my lose interest and I never ended up watching the third.

#159. Look Around You: Season 1 (2002)

I loved the concept for this series. It's basically all those old science videos you used to watch in school, but completely nonsensical and awesome.

#160. Barton Fink (1991)

Please don't go into this movie thinking it's going to be funny. It's really really good, but it's not really funny.

#161. King Kong (1933)

This really is a classic. I'm really glad I finally got to see it and enjoyed it more than I anticipated!

#162. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 (2010)

I'd go so far as to say this is my favourite in the series. It just has way better pacing and the story gets a chance to breathe.

#163. Star Trek: First Contact (1996)

I won't lie, I really liked this

movie. The Borg are frightening (I've always found the concept of AI or human/robots to be fear-enducing) and all the usual cast do their part well.

#164. Howl (2010)

An interesting take on the work and life of Allen Ginsberg. It grew on me, I liked the animation, but probably won't watch it again.

#165. Freakazoid: Season 1 (1995-1996)

Just a good old Saturday morning cartoon; I'd forgotten how much I liked this as a kid (the few episodes I'd seen anyway) and I love how self-referential it is!

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #89: Forbidden World (1982)

Hello Space Marine. Care to have space sex?

The innuendo
drips like the slime from
black meta-mutants

Another Roger Corman alien-ripoff oh shit we're stuck in a space lab movie! When will it end? Hopefully never, because it's like a beautiful dream.

I was smitten with Forbidden World from the start because it gives you this trippy opening montage where a robot wakes a guy out of cryogenic stasis with some Beethoven. While the ship is being attacked by raiders. That's how I'd do it.

This one's actually pretty cool. I'm pleased to say that there's an attempt to keep the camera interesting throughout most of the movie, since we get a pretty wide variety of shots of things from places you wouldn't expect, but not so many that it starts to look like an overenthusiastic student film wank. You will get gratuitous ass shots of women walking in high heels, though. Quite a few. They're made to walk up and down the corridors in what must be standard space lab attire: skin-tight silvery jump suits with low cut chests and high heels. There are nighties too, and many situations where the female characters feel the need to be topless. Babes will literally bump into the protagonist and introduce themselves by batting their eyes. As one scientist puts it, the women there are apparently starved for new faces.

I absolutely love how often people will stop to have sex when there's a killer mutant loose in their science facility. It's got to be a space fetish of some kind. There's this ridiculous and great sequence where a security guard, who is watching for the goddamned deadly mutant, watches the blonde scientist get it on with the dopey space marine protagonist instead. It's an amazingly creepy violation of security camera protocol. As he watches, he pulls at some kind of light up space yo-yo and sweats profusely. This is the greatest form of space sex innuendo possible.

The scene is extra funny because the security guard looks exactly like Tim Roth. We get some fantastic space porno music evidently coming from a token black guy playing a screechy clear plastic space saxophone. This all goes on for a full two minutes, and the song actually gets pretty darn catchy by the time they hit orgasm. Forbidden Planet has a genuinely cool soundtrack by the way, a very Goblin one.

So while watching, the guard catches a glitch on a sensor and decides to investigate. That, of course, is serious trouble. What I love about his cautious search for the alien is that every 25 seconds or so we get a split second of the scientist and space marine having sex in their room. At first I was confused - is this guy afraid he's about to die and is reliving the happiest moment of his life? The one a minute ago when he was watching space marine fuck that girl he probably wants so badly? Then I thought: no, wait, the monster is using psychic projections of her getting it on to lure him in, because every time he hears something or looks over, it cuts to a few frames of sex. By the time the monster hits it's clear that they were going for a sex and murder montage that actually turns out to be fairly effective. An orgy of blood! An orgy of love! Everything the viewer might want in a scene! We get a shot of a different scientist smoking a cigarette afterwards, and I feel in my heart that it was Roger Corman in spirit.

The lab facility has a space sauna, and in the morning the space marine gets it on with girl number two there. The actor's attempt to look seductive just looks really weird - this doofy smirk and wide eyed "Heh heh, eh baby?" expression that makes the guy wholly unlikable. This look of course works within seconds on girl two, who's boyfriend was killed by the monster the previous day. Incredible. Space marine walks in and 'EEEK GET OUT! LEAVE NOW LEAVE NOW!' and after that pervy look, switches to (and this is a quote) "Fair's fair, get naked."

After the mutant attacks them both, some guy actually bulldozes over the fact that there's a killer creature on the loose by asking "Hey you know what I wanna know? I wanna know what you and Tracy were doing in there dressed like that." Just so girl number one can add a catty comment. Clearly, what they were doing in the sauna is much more important than the fact that they were nearly transformed into a digestible food tissue by a vicious mutant, and somebody better damn well take care of it. Nobody seems to give a shit about the mutant until it's attacking someone.

Hmm...maybe we should do something about this soon?

Now, you might have read my review of 1991's Dead Space. Turns out that Dead Space was in fact Roger Corman's remake of Forbidden World. Same plot. Same characters. Different names. At least three lines of dialogue that I noticed in Forbidden World found their way into Dead Space. The opening space battle in DS is lifted from the opening of FW, and I'm guessing that FW probably takes it from some even earlier Roger Corman film. Probably Battle Beyond the Stars, though it's been a while since I've seen that one.

So: You really have to watch any movie where characters hit computer keys with glowsticks. Standard, ordinary dollar-store glowsticks. Because fingers just aren't good enough.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #83: The Creature From The Black Lagoon (1954)

Still insatiable
hungry for monster movies
I watch Black Lagoon

There are embarrassingly huge gaps in my cinema history, and The Creature From The Black Lagoon has been on my 'to watch' list for years and on my mind for the past few months. Finally saw it, and was surprised by how much I liked it. Great atmosphere, great monster, and an environmental subtext I hadn't been expecting. There's a shot where the leading lady tosses an unwanted cigarette into the creature's lagoon, and the camera moves below the surface to the face of the creature, who watches silently. Thanks to how it's shot the cigarette becomes invasive, and, more importantly, insulting. This is some of the earliest environmental awareness I've seen in a Hollywood film, sci-fi fear of toxic waste and nuclear war aside. There's a scene where poison is dumped into the lagoon to force the creature out of hiding, and the comatose fish that litter the water's surface highlights the disregard for the natural world that the scientists, behaving more like hunters, are exhibiting.

The creature itself looks awesome, and the amount of understanding and sympathy we find in him makes for great monster cinema.

So: A thoroughly satisfying classic.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #82: Pig Hunt (2008)

Fangoria Magazine's foray into horror film production is a welcome experiment. Of the handful of films they've produced so far, I've only managed to see Pig Hunt because I was drawn to the dark and epic boar on the cover.

I'd heard it said that with Pig Hunt, the filmmakers realised that having a giant boar as a nemesis makes for demanding special effects, so they decided to throw a bunch of other dangerous obstacles in their way. Rednecks. Dangerous hippies. Lesser boars. This is for the most part effective, but in the end I found myself wanting Moby Dick in the forest far too much to reach any full appreciation.

The soundtrack is pretty nifty thanks to it having been partially composed by slap-bass demi-god Les Claypool, of Primus fame. He's also in the movie, as a violent redneck priest. The only kind of redneck priest, I suppose.

The giant pig, once it hits, is puppetous and satisfying for it. In general, if you've got the choice between low-budge CGI or low-budge practical effects, you'd better pick the latter. At the very least, your actors have something physical to contend with. Who doesn't want to watch a giant and slimy pig puppet crunch into a human being?

So: Has its moments, but the characters are mostly boring. This one's a maybe.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #78: The Mummy's Hand (1940)

Continuing my march into monster movie mania, The Mummy's Hand!

A lot of light comedy and not as much hammy horror as I had hoped. You do get a bit of it though - the sort where there's a slow-moving monster creeping closer and closer to a half-asleep love interest and EEEEEEEEK other love interest bursts in and BLAM BLAM but too late! Her dad is maybe dead but no he's just knocked out cold and she's gone! Oh noes! If only it had more of that and the lurchy dusty mummy responsible for the whole mess it might have been worth sitting through. We've seen the mummy before, we don't really need him saved up for a big reveal or final act. Turn it loose. Let the new Egyptian empire begin its ancient reign of terror anew! Bricka bracka firecracka' siss boom bah! Go Mummy Go, Amun-Ra-Ra-Ra!

Instead you'll have some dull character set-up that ends up accomplishing little by the time the curse hits home. A good chunk of the movie is spent on a magician character's various parlour tricks, or rather, the edits that make them work. A buffoony support character practices one of tricks throughout the first half of the movie so he could, I thought, use it at an opportune moment and save the day later. Turns out it was just filler. Like the stock footage they used from the first movie with Boris Karloff edited out.

So: Not terribly worth it.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #77: Frankenstein (1931)

So much is different from the original story that comparing the two is a pretty good waste of time. This film exists as its own entity and really has a life of its own. Of the classic monster movies I've seen to date on my Hallowe'en trek, this one is by far the best. I daresay it's a masterpiece. At its heart it contains a 'who is really the monster' dynamic that has since become awfully trite, but in its original form still potent.

As if the hints of German Expressionism wasn't enough to catch my interest, much of the acting is actually pretty good, which, given the other classic Universal horror films I've watched, was a total surprise. Boris Karloff is fantastic as the monster, and it's easy to see how, I think after this film, he became a household name. His monster is incredibly sympathetic. After a sheltered and grim life filled with torture, the monster frees himself and escapes into the woods. There's an amazing scene where he finds a little girl. The little girl hands him a flower, and they sit down by a pond. She shows him how you can throw a flower into the water and watch it float gently along. The monster is so overjoyed to find something kind and delicate and beautiful in the world that it is genuinely tear-pulling when something goes wrong. He gets up, trying his best at laughter, and throws the little girl into the water because she's like a flower too. She drowns, and it's genuinely disturbing to see the monster's panicked reaction when he doesn't understand what's happened. I hadn't felt that stirred by a movie in a long time. I was really bothered by the moment.

Made before the motion picture code was actively enforced, you get some cinema that's not afraid to upset you. While the edges will sometimes show, the violence is shocking when it wants to be, and I found myself continuously surprised by what the film was prepared to do. The film bubbles with potential violence, and by the time the mob lights their torches, the loss of control that you didn't realise was creeping into your brain reaches its apex. People shout through the streets, dogs yelp, women and children cower on the sidelines, and the beast has been loosed on the monster. It was a torch that was initially used to torture the monster, and it's unsettlingly fitting that an army of them tries to flush him out of hiding, trap him, and set him ablaze. Karloff's thrashing screams while the flames rise about him will stick with me for awhile.

Also surprising, I'm noticing that the female characters in these early monster movies aren't as helpless as I expect them to be, and I wonder if that had anything to do with the code as well. They're not neutered characters, and rigid gender roles don't seem to have been installed as safety mechanisms yet. The women in these films are just as sensible as the men, and they aren't afraid to speak their mind. In the years to come, that wouldn't be the case for quite a while. Hell, it's mostly not the case in films today.

Despite all of the injustice in the film, it's hard to really hate anyone in it save for an annoying comic relief character I'll just ignore. The monster is understandable, Dr. Frankenstein is understandable, the angry torch-wielding village folk are understandable, and even the abusive Fritz is understandable. He's a deformed hunchback that Dr. Frankenstein treated like shit. Of course he was going to whip the monster and burn him when Frankenstein wasn't looking. Nobody's really to blame in this film, which makes it so remarkable. It ends off remarkably too, with an an ironic ending that presses home the severe tragedy at the centre of the film.

So: Fantastic. I expected an iconic cheese-fest and got a dramatic masterpiece that probably made it to my list of favourite films.

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #76: The Mummy (1932)

Still going on my Hallowe'en kick and finally getting around to seeing the great monster classics of film history. I had decided a few weeks back that I was going to go for a classic costume this year, and I settled on the one that (I won't call the Invisible Man a monster, he was just a big jerk) is probably talked about the least: the Mummy!

You're probably familiar with the Brendan Fraser Mummy from 1999. I'll pause to shudder for a sec. It lifted some elements from the original Mummy, namely the fact that there's a guy named Imhotep that fell in love with the Pharaoh's daughter. She died. Then his love drove him to seek out forbidden rituals and raise her from the dead, but he was caught, and soon sentenced to be buried alive and partially mummified. A terrible curse was laid down upon his tomb.

Made a year after the success of Dracula and featuring much of the same cast and crew, The Mummy doesn't possess the same magic but manages to be a pretty cool flick for a number of reasons. I guess I'll tell you what those might be, since this is a review and I only get fed my fish heads if I write a review. I also might get my beloved red bouncy ball back.

For starters, I saw this film before I watched the historic Frankenstein, and this was my first run in with the real Boris Karloff. I find that I love Boris Karloff. He's starring as Imhotep, and his rigid creepiness, sullen voice, and gaunt face have all been parodied so often that I felt immediately familiar with him. It was a treat to finally see the icon at work.

Secondly, like with Dracula, I was surprised to find an interesting female character, this time one both alluring, evasively clever, and amazingly unafraid to refer, just once, to sex. She's played by Broadway actress Zita Johann, who was actually seriously interested in the spiritualism of the occult and took her role perhaps a little too seriously. There's a famous scene in the movie where she dies in a past life. She reportedly fainted for real in that scene, after a strenuous day of filming without much food or water thanks to the director's cruel and ridiculous feud with her.

Now, the plot is almost identical to the plot of Dracula. We get the dude who played Van Helsing playing Doctor Muller, who is, like Van Helsing, a master of occult lore and adept at fighting the supernatural. He helps everybody out when shit hits the fan. Like Dracula, the Mummy seems to be after a young woman in Muller/Van Helsing's care. Imhotep also seems to be able to control people's minds, like Dracula could, by staring hard at them. What makes him different, though, is motive. The man isn't entirely evil, he's just obsessed with a love he couldn't attain. That's all. Leave him alone, you guys.

I was hoping, especially for my costume research, to get some serious dusty cloth-wrapped mummy action. Sadly there is virtually none in the first Mummy. Instead you get a slightly wrinkly Boris Karloff, who has inexplicably been restored to much of his living health. There's no lurching violence, but there are a few ancient Egyptian spells used to wreak some havoc.

So: A cool piece of monster history, if not as great as other first monster appearances. Certainly better than most Monster Movie sequels to come. The Mummy manages to hold his own. Also, look at this:

Ryan Watches A Motion Picture #72: Dracula (1931)

Since it's the season for witchery and other assorted evil delights, I decided to check out the Dracula Legacy Collection, which collects the classic Dracula films done by Universal Studios, the set of films that laid out the iconography of the vampire. Empty castles, long candles, winding staircases, cobwebs, capes, heavy accents. All the campy Count Dracula signifiers we now pick up from saturday morning cartoons came from that first Bela Lugosi hit.

And it's cool. It has some really memorable moments - great lines, great visuals, and some pretty engrossing scenes; my favourite being a scene where an aged Dr. Vanhelsing is visited by Dracula and told to leave. Their battle of wills is timeless, and most of it comes through in their almost archetypal posturing, a posturing that has the ring of the silent film era.

Since Hollywood really started flexing their sound film muscle in 1927 (The Jazz Singer being among a host of big '27 releases), in 1931 'talkies' were still a new art. Dracula director Tod Browning, also of Freaks fame, was pretty uneasy with sound and was one of those silent directors that kind of petered out after sound came into the picture. He had thrown in the towel by 1936.

His Dracula seems to forget that it's a sound film at times. I say his, but allegedly Browning's set presence was at near zero and most of the directing was done by the cinematographer, which might also account for the persistence of silent image over sound in the film. There are long stretches of dialogueless silence, and an insistence on capturing strong facial expression and holding the shot for emphasis. The make-up work is pure silent film, with its heavy whites and dark lips. Also, apart from the brief and orchestral 'come out to the movies' style opening credits sequence, there's no soundtrack. Not one shred, not a hot lick of music to be found in this film. While it gives the film the sensation I imagine the fish that chokingly set a first flipper on land had, it's a strangeness that works. It creates pools of tension and atmosphere that might have been ruined otherwise with unnecessary dialogue or the emotional imposition that music carries.

So: A classic treat and a fascinating look at a silent film probing into the world of sound.

Pose Reviews A Movie. #16: Monsters, Inc.

If there’s one thing Roland Emerich taught us with his horrendous 1998 remake of Godzilla, any idiot can (and did) make a blockbuster monster movie.

Sure, some are better than others, but the conventional formula is simple: [(lizard / insect / alien) x (special effects)] + (general screaming and fleeing) + [(protagonist stupidity) x (multiple close calls)] ≥ $50,000,000.

But leave it to Disney/Pixar to make a monster movie that’s cleverly fun, funnily clever, endearingly delightful and most importantly, doesn’t involve Matthew Broderick. At all. (Not even a little bit.) Ladies and gentlemen of the moviegoing jury, I give you Exhibit M: 2001’s ninety-two most entertaining monster-movie minutes, Monsters, Inc.

What I like most about Monsters, Inc. is not necessarily its star-studded vocal cast or top-notch computer animation, but the clever social commentary carried out by its premise. When an energy shortage (sound familiar?) hits Monstropolis, energy company Monsters, Inc. takes action (sound familiar?) by scaring those who naturally possess the monsters’ coveted source of energy (sound familiar?).

The source, of course, is the screams of frightened children, which the monsters extract by wandering nightly through their closet doors and scaring the bejesus out of them. It’s not until one of the kids emerges from the other side of the closet that the scare-ers become the scare-ees, and as with any other Disney/Pixar feature, hilarity ensues.

Monsters, Inc. is full of humour that appeals to young and old, but it also has a valuable educational quality.

For example, the goofy and loveable monsters in the film can assist your child, teenager or spouse get over their fear of monstrous closet dwellers.

Plus, the monsters’ reaction to the feared little-ones reminds us that it’s OK to be afraid of children.

And I guess there’s something to be said for the monsters’ socially-minded observation that ‘kids just don’t scare like they used ‘ta.’ But whether this is a sign of the times or a warning of the potential effect that ‘TV, Wii and PS3’ are having on our youngin’s is safely left up to the viewer.

Truly, Monsters, Inc. is a frequently overlooked member of both the Disney/Pixar catalogue, and the monster-movie genre. And with great bonus features like outtakes and animated shorts, it’s the film that keeps on giving alllll night long.

Much the way Matthew Broderick doesn’t.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #27: Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dr. Frankenstein (1973)

Having taken care of Frankenstein's Daughter already in a previous film, Dr. Frankenstein must now be dealt with. Dr. Irving Frankenstein, that is.


After a snappy title sequence with a swingin' and funky soundtrack we're shown a city where beautiful women are vanishing and returning as zombies to murder their friends and family in their homes. It's clear to authorities that this is the work of Dr. Frankenstein, and true enough, it's the good doctor's attempt to garner fear and respect, which clashes quite a bit with his want and need to live in secret and conduct his dubious research. He is of course attempting to unlock the mysteries of immortality, and thus far, his greatest Frankensteinian work is in Golem, a tall and ripped black man immune to bullets and to the screams of his victims. He's powerful, but he's slow and not very bright (such a racially sensitive film!), and Frankenstein surmises that to create the ultimate reanimated warrior he will need the superior brain of El Santo. Both Santo and Blue Demon aren't quite going to give him what he wants. Interestingly, Blue Demon actually has to come to Santo's rescue at one point, finally proving to be more than just El Santo's sidekick. He seems much more like his own entity in this film, whereas before he was more like an extension of Santo's good will.


Of the Santo films I've seen, this one has the most action, as it seems to be chock full of car chases, gun play, and thugs in dark warehouses and on dark streets just asking for a pounding. In addition, as always, we're given awesome introductory wrestling matches between Santo and Blue Demon and their various lucha libre opponents. Which reminds me: something I really like about this Santo installment is that more than any of the others I've watched, you're reminded the most frequently that Santo and Blue Demon are professional wrestlers, and have wrestling careers to maintain when they're not tangling with the evil forces of Mexico. The plot actually ends off at a wrestling auditorium with a wrestling match between the disguised and remote-controlled Golem and Santo and Blue Demon in the fucking ring. Way cool.

That's right, just sign here and this strangely familiar and massive horror will kick your ass in the ring, Santo.

So: A really fascinating Santo flick. Lots of cool action and wrestling sequences, and a Blue Demon with a bit more attitude.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #26: Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman (1972)

I told you I'd be back Santo. I brought a friend.

Here it is, my favourite of the Santo films that I've seen. If you're going to deny yourself the heady pleasures of El Santo and indulge only in one of his films, let this be the one.

While it doesn't have the degree of characterisation that Frankenstein's Daughter (also directed by Miguel M. Delgado) holds, for sheer cool factor you really can't beat Santo and Blue Demon teaming up against monster heavy-weights like Dracula and the Wolfman. The only thing that could propel this movie to the tip of the Olympus Mons of b-movie greatness would have been to put Dracula and the Wolfman into an actual tag team match against Santo and Blue Demon so that they could wrestle out their differences on the mat with the dignity befitting a luchadore. We don't get that. That bubble burst, on with my praise.

Aldo Monti reprises his role from Treasure of Dracula and takes up the vampire's cape once again, this time recruiting a master of seduction - the Wolfman - to finally achieve his big dream. His big dream is, of course, to cover the world in satanic darkness. A dream we all share.

Waiting for Satan's forces to attack.

But this is more like a problem for Santo. You see Santo has a hot new girlfriend named Lina, and this girlfriend is a descendant of the wizard that stopped Dracula's machinations in the distant past using some ancient weapon called the Dagger of Boidros. The same Dagger of Boidros sitting on Lina's dad's shelf. Her dad knows that shit's about to get real, so he tells her to get Santo involved. Santo, no doubt knowing that Dracula and the Wolfman are serious business, promptly recruits his old luchadore friend the Blue Demon to help keep Lina's family safe.

The game of luchadores.

A few words about Blue Demon. Where El Santo is a boyscout, and friend to all children, Blue Demon is more like Thor, and friend to all children. He's less inclined to show mercy to two-bit thugs, and would care little for the due process of law if it weren't for Santo's guiding moral sensibilities. Also, his mask is cooler, his body more sculpted, and, quite frankly, his wrestling prowess greater than Santo's. In fact, the two luchadores didn't like each other outside of movie-making, and when pitted against the other in some films would be notorious for laying the punches on a bit thick. They were rivals, and Blue Demon was no doubt unhappy about the strange and enormous gap between Santo's popularity and Santo's wrestling skill. Blue Demon starred in a number of his own films, but was known by the public by and large for being a sidekick of El Santo.

Let the Wolfman seduction begin.

So an evil hunchback has reawakened Dracula's forces, and more than any of the characters in the film, presents the most interesting bit of character drama. There's a touch of ambiguousness to him, and he's not altogether when you'd expect. Our two heroic luchadores defend the family from both him, the seductions of the Wolfman, and the hypnotic power of Dracula, but fair poorly. People are taken, and Santo and Blue Demon must take the fight to Dracula's lair. You'd think they'd use the Dagger of Boidros, but Chekhov's famous rule is ignored and a much more ridiculous strategy is used to defeat the monsters. You really must take great care when designing an evil lair.

So: B-movie awesomeness. Get some Mexican drinks and some pizza and some friends.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #25: Santo vs. Frankenstein's Daughter (1971)

What gives El Santo, "the multitude's idol", his amazing power? How is he able to get up so quickly after being thrown down so violently? How can he recover so expertly after a receiving a flurry of strong blows? The answer is in his blood, and Dr. Frankenstein knows it.

The daughter of the famous Dr. Frankenstein, alive today because of an age-stopping serum she has developed, needs Santo's regenerative blood to perfect the now failing potion before she ages and dies. She'll get him by nabbing his hot girlfriend and using Truxon to defeat him when Santo comes to the rescue. Truxon is this big half man half gorilla monster created by...well...by injecting gorilla blood into a man. That's really all it takes, people.

It's gorilla time.

So I was amazed to find that there's actual character development in this film, and interesting character development to boot. That utterly blew my mind. Frankenstein's Daughter possesses villains that are actually interesting to watch, who don't serve instead as mere fodder for El Santo's panther-crushing arms. They demand pathos, they suffer, and merely seek to stay alive. Even what's usually just a host of generic henchman are sympathetic and interesting - they live in fear of Dr. Frankenstein's power, and are presented as individual people with differing personalities. The lead henchman seems to have genuine concern for Dr. Frankenstein, and may in fact be in love with her. A more memorable example is the eye-patch wearing henchman that can't take part in Frankenstein's plot to send a freshly hypnotized girlfriend to claw out Santo's eyes. He can't guard Santo because he can remember what it was like to lose his own eye when he was young. It's indicative of the effort that was put into this Santo installment, and it really works to produce what I consider the best kind of B-movie - the sort that takes itself seriously enough to garner emotional investment from its audience.


Most interesting for me was Ursus, a frankensteinian monster that poses a terrible threat to Santo and his compatriots when the gorilla-man Truxon fails. The interesting part is that after Ursus takes a terrible wound and is left for dead, Santo finds him again later, suffering horribly and near death. Santo takes pity and uses his shirt to bandage the monster up. Santo tells the monster that he'll come back for him when Dr. Frankenstein is defeated, and when Santo can't seem to move the heavy gravestone that hides the entrance to Frankenstein's base, the monster, in terrible pain, does it for him. He secretly follows Santo and his companions and gives more aid at an integral moment, at the cost of his face. You'll see why. When Frankenstein's base starts to collapse, Santo doesn't want to leave the monster, but realises that his suffering must come to an end. Fantastic stuff.

Oh, and something I think I keep forgetting to mention is how awesome the soundtracks are in Santo movies. Swingin', ultra groovy tracks that usually kick the film's mood off accompanied by colourful opening credit sequences that really encapsulate the era they come from. Frankenstein's Daughter provides no less.

So: Another really cool Santo film, and the first directed by Miguel M. Delgado. Probably the best of the ones I've watched, though Santo and Blue Demon vs. Dracula and the Wolfman (also Delgado) comes a very close second for sheer awesomeness.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #24: Santo in the Vengeance of the Mummy (1970)

Now in colour! Except not this photo.

Influenced heavily by Death Curse of Tartu! (1967), the Hammer horror films, and El Santo being a demigod, Vengeance of the Mummy features Santo joining an expedition into the wild jungle to locate the tomb, and the treasure, of an Olpache prince. What they find of course is a mummy, and a serious bout of vengeance.

Oh, great. A mummy.

We get the mummy's story in flashback, and it's actually done really well. Good costuming and set work that actually surprised me. In it we learn that prince Nonoc, who refused to let his love be sacrificed at the altar, makes a fateful run for it. It's that classic story we all know and have seen ourselves at some point in life: boy meets girl, girl is scheduled to be sacrificed to the gods, boy is unsure he approves of that business, boy elopes with girl, girl is killed, boy is entombed alive in a cave by his pursuers. All awfully romantic.

This is definitely a jungle, friends.

And in general, Vengeance is all pretty thoroughly entertaining. When you note that Santo is actually wrestling - I kid you not - a real fucking panther, you have to acknowledge that you're watching something fairly special. The poor cat ends up getting choked in the air by Santo and thrown, by the neck, a good distance. The panther sensibly flees after that, realising that in the great natural food chain Santo is listed just below 'utah-sized asteroid.' Santo's actually pretty uncharacteristically harsh in this film, as he genuinely threatens to kick the asses of the hired village folk who, legitimately afraid for their lives, want to abandon the expedition after the first mummy-related death. Santo aside, there's a good deal of murder going on in this movie. Old men getting murdered, women, mercenaries, assorted village folk. Everyone's at the mercy of the angry mummy and his decrepit arrows. The Olpache prince's vengeance and the presence of Olpache descendants among the village people actually partially hints at a political significance that bobs up to the surface just barely, one poking a finger at the white man's Imperialism, which lends Vengeance a gravity that most Santo films lack.

So: Good fun, the first Santo film I wholly liked, annoying bumbling professor aside. Ends off with a lame twist for an added bonus.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #23: Santo and the Treasure of Dracula (1968)

Santo! I will return again in El Santo y Blue Demon vs. Dracula and El Hombre Lobo!!

For those unfamiliar with the El Santo phenomenon, you can either read about it in depth here, or read my brief sum up here: The man who would become El Santo, the most famous masked luchadore of Mexican wrestling, began wrestling in the mid 1930s. In 1942 he answered the call of his famous Silver Mask, and his popularity grew until it became a genuine cult phenomenon. This was largely fuelled by a penchant for being presented as a peasant hero, fighting against other wrestlers embodying corrupt politicians, drug lords, and American imperialists. After a bout of successful comic books, he took to the Mexican B-movie screen in 1958 with Santo vs. The Evil Brain.

I've devoured all of the El Santo movies Gen X has in stock - which is a reasonable 6 or 7 out of an astonishing total of 52 film appearances - in chronological order. The first on my delirious journey into lucha libre was Santo and the Treasure of Dracula. As Campy as I could have hoped, but a little on the dull side.

It's the spiral what does it.

So basically, in addition to Santo being a star wrestler, he is also a brilliant scientist capable of building a time machine that lets people time travel into a past life of theirs. So he builds one. He tests it out on a woman who ends up being one of Dracula's victims in the distant past. This lasts for half the movie, and that would be fine if we got more of Santo than his worried looks at a monitor every 20 minutes, reminding us that he's watching through time, in the comfort of his lab. Once Dracula is dealt with by a helpful doctor Van Roth, Santo manages to pull the woman back to the present, and the rest of the movie can begin. A masked enemy who had been secretly watching Santo's progress in the lab decides to find a treasure revealed by Dracula before Santo does, but instead of finding a treasure, enemy thugs decide to awaken Dracula again.

You only fool yourself, young upstart.

While the first half is a bit boring, this film does introduce you to the Santo formula pretty well - Santo creeping around in tombs, beating up thugs, saving girls, and getting into wrestling matches to settle scores.

So: Not the best in Santo's saga, but seeing him as a prominent scientist is a hilarious wonder.

Ryan Watches a Motion Picture #21: Buffy The Vampire Slayer (1992)

Cheerleading at its best.

Believe it or not, as a highschooler I was never keen on the television shows that were very clearly geared to my age group. If it dealt with teenagers in hishschool situations at all it was very likely filled with characters I didn't like, doing things I never really did. They were just dull soap operas, and you'd think a show like the famed Joss Whedon's Buffy, whose first incarnation was in the '92 film I've just watched, would have fed me with a little extra something - vampires and demons all crazy-go-nuts on a quiet town. But I found that even there I couldn't shake the feeling that these characters were people I didn't like, know or understand very well. Or maybe my tolerance for teeny romance stuff is just on the low side. Or maybe I just really don't like ol' Sarah Gellar.

I wasn't too sure what to expect from the movie, but I had a hunch it would give me a much campier serving of vampire killing than the series did, and that's pretty much what happened. The plot's thin and has a mostly inexplicable, lightly addressed twist part-way through, but the film has some interesting characterisation, particularly in Kristy Swanson's transformation from shallow to genuine, teen to adult. The film also has a lot of retro flavour going for it, and that always entertains me. The early 90s wardrobe and Luke Perry probably had a lot to do with that, and Paul Reubens of Peewee Herman infamy is a favourite of mine. Seeing him as a cheeky vampire thug is a pretty big treat. Donald Sutherland, who's pretty much built to be mysterious and sage old men in films, does his thang. Oh, and Rutger fucking Hauer as a crazy vampire lord? I'd watch Rutger Hauer in anything. I'd watch him throw children out of helicopters. I think I might have before, even. In a beautiful dream?

Speaking of beautiful dreams, it seems there's a Buffy remake listed on imdb for a 2012 film. Curious.

So: Kristy Swanson kicking wooden stakes into vampire chests? Sure.