Wendy's Films of 2010 #104: Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958)

I was invited over for a movie night this night, unsure about what the film would bring, but flying saucers and aliens waking the dead into a potential zombie vampire army weren't the first things on my mind.


It's always hard to say whether or not this films are good or bad. It's usually more appropriate to appreciate them on a level of terrible or awesome... or both. Plan 9 From Outer Space is perfectly described by both of these words simultaneously: it's a piece of crap that is so crappy that it has become awesome once more. The acting is poor, the effects may be some of the worst I've ever seen, but without these qualities the movie would likely have been lost in the void made for movies that are neither good nor bad. Movies I've either never heard of or would never care to see. Luckily this one is filled with terrible awesomeness, flying saucers hanging from fishing line, tombstones made of cardboard. It also has the luck of starring Bela Lugosi as the "Ghoul Man" and Vampira as "Vampire Girl." It's filled with outstanding moments that you and your friends will hopefully thoroughly enjoy for some time to come. There isn't a whole lot more to say about this old sci fi classic, it's worth your time if you're feeling like a bunch of cheese wrapped in alien vampire bacon.

Pose Reviews A...TV Show?! #23: Buffy The Vampire Slayer (Season One)

Despite being among the target demographic for Buffy The Vampire Slayer while it was actually on television, it took me till now to actually sit down and watch it.

And both to my surprise, and the surprise of die-hard Buffy fans who tend to think the first season is sheer swill, and explain it away with a desperate "it gets better after this," I actually dug it!

Yep, it's safe to say that I've been bitten by the Buffy bug. And given that it's only a bug and not some larger, more sinister creature of the night, I think I got off light.

There are three things that make Buffy so enjoyable, in this converted cynic's opinion...

First, it doesn't take itself too seriously.

Most of the time.

There are certainly instances of melodrama in the first season, but they're usually offset by corny and occasionally self-reflexive one-liners, and charming humour that may inspire more "aww's" than guffaws, but still work to keep the show lighthearted.

It also helps that, despite its outlandish premise, the plot of Buffy manages to covers its bases.

Although some of the explanations for the weird and wonderful phenomena that occur on the show are a little thin, they're there, and if you can suspend your disbelief, you can enjoy the hell out of some of the more ridiculous episodes. (No pun intended.)

Secondly? The characters on Buffy are just so freakin' endearing.

I didn't realize Buffy was a kind of paranormal-themed Freaks and Geeks, but lo and behold, the elements are there!

Buffy herself has trouble leading a normal teenager's life of listening to awful music and sulking, given that she's responsible for guarding humanity against the forces of evil.

And her friends, the adorably awkward Willow (played by American Pie's and How I Met Your Mother's Alyson Hannigan) and the delightfully sarcastic Xander (played by Nicholas Brendon, who isn't really famous but looks like the guy from Boy Meets World) are going through their own growin' pains--more social than biological, but pains nonetheless. (Oh, and occasionally they get punched. Hard. Which I guess just qualifies as "pains" without the "growin'".)

And thirdly? Season One has vintage cred. HARDCORE vintage cred.

Remember, it's from 1997, so some of the episodes make really awesome, outdated references.

Especially the episode where a demon haunts the internet.

Oh yes.

And keep in mind, this is the internet circa 1997, so there are frequent references to floppy disks and modems, made in total seriousness given that they were the height of technological achievement at the time.

And it's hilarious.

All in all, season one of Buffy The Vampire Slayer is cute, campy and thoroughly enjoyable--plus, it gears you up for six more seasons which I've heard get pretty spectacular.

I'd definitely recommend it as a fun twelve hours of entertainment, not to mention a great throwback to the nineties.

Oh yeah, and there's also vampires.

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 #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 #22: Vampire Killers (2009)

Bring out the keg boys!

Or as it's known elsewhere, Lesbian Vampire Killers, is a film where two unlikable guys swap homophobic jokes and get even with the shallow women that have done them wrong by killing shallow vampire women who are also man-hating lesbians with a sword that has a cock for a handle.

"Our women are cursed, and we're all spineless cowards for letting it happen!" says the badass Vicar! Better reclaim your lost masculinity and stop them. Women are apparently all cheating floozies, and the only good ones are pure virgins saving their sexuality up for that special guy. I normally assume this kind of thing is ironic in movies, and is secretly being critical, but in this flick the homophobia is so frequent and so normalised that the humour gets lost, and a weird 'us vs. them' dynamic is created.

Vampire Killers is basically a 'teenagers assailed by supernatural forces in a cottage' movie, and follows the traditional pattern: teens go to a cottage and everything is fine. Crazy shit happens. They defend themselves. Crazy shit defeats defenses and either kills or kidnaps friends and/or love interests. Leave cottage and fight last-ditch effort. A pattern I'm fond of. But when it uses distracting visual effects, like speeding up the last few seconds of a shot because they think it looks cool, it really just makes it seem like your movie is so uninterested in its own shots that it's in a hurry to get through them. You might be too.

So: Presumably written by frat boys. Regressive and embarrassing. I never want to hear "clam-lappers" used again.

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.

tm Does the QT 20 Part 2: Blade

Blade (dir. Stephen Norrington – 1998)

This movie is crap – fist-size plot holes, cheesy effects, a heamotologist that turns into butt-kicking Vampire killer at the drop of a hat, Wesley Snipes trying to drop one-line Arnold-isms that crash & burn, a top-secret Vampire mafia that owns everything and runs the cops and has a “League of Evil” board room and has tattoos and neon signs but yet Blade has trouble finding them, etc. etc. etc.

It’s about a vampire (Wesley Snipes, chiselled and surly) and his buddy (Kris Kristofferson, shaggy and gruff – what a stretch) and they kill vampires; but Wesley not really really a vampire – ya see, his mom got bit by a vampire just before she gave birth to him, so he’s just got some vampire blood which makes him just a semi-pire. And there’s a rebel Vampire (Stephen Dorff, pasty and lame) in the ranks of the Vampire World Order who thinks the current regime is cowardly and he wants to be in charge and has found the way to unleash the real Vampire God, after all the other vampires have been trying for thousands of years. How does he do it, you ask? He uses a computer! Oh yeah, despite the Vampire World Order owning everything, it takes Mr. Rebel to figure that they can put on sunblock and then can go outside. And then there’s the hottie haemotolgist that accepts this all in 5 minutes after almost being killed by a vampire but is rescued by Wes & Kris and then wants to the help them and she uses her powerful medical knowledge about blood to help Wes become a better killing machine.

This movie would only appeal to immature and/or prepubescent males.

The DVD has bonus features but I couldn’t bear to watch them.

tm sez: 2/10