Castle Keeper!

13 Ghosts  (Allied Artists, 1960)

Before the Camera:

Charles Herbert (The Fly '58 - he's the kid!)
Jo Morrow (The 3 Worlds of Gulliver)
Martin Milner (TV's Adam 12)
Rosemary DeCamp (Yankee Doodle Dandy)
Donald Woods (The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms)
John Van Dreelen (Sex Kittens Go to College)
and
Margaret Hamilton (The Wicked Witch of the West herself!)


Behind the Camera:

Produced and Directed by William Castle

Written by Robb White


Much has been written about producer/director William Castle - the Movie Gimmicks Master (Even here - see the entry entitled Blog-O-Rama!). From insurance policies against dying of fright to seats wired to tingle the backside, William Castle could sell a movie like no other filmmaker. He opens this movie too, sitting in a cool office set and explaining his new process Illusion-O and how to use the Ghost Viewer you got coming in to the theater. (More on that later)
    For the story, Castle again turned to his frequent writer Robb White, who cobbled up a story of the Zorba family. White must have been getting his kicks where he could find them at this point - get the monikers on this bunch: dad Cyrus (Woods), mom Hilda (DeCamp), daughter Medea (Morrow), and son Buck (top billed Herbert - a very popular child star of the time who obviously had some canny agents and managers). Cyrus is a paleontologist at the local university who apparently makes bupkus at his job; as the film opens he takes a call from Hilda who is letting him know the furniture is being repossessed. Again. (And not by the ghosts. They show up later.) After getting a tush pinch from one of the repo men, (!) Hilda is ready to throw in the towel. Cyrus comes home to his empty house to commiserate, just as a telegram is delivered (luucky!) that lets the Zorbas know they have just inherited a house from Cyrus's eccentric uncle Plato Zorba (and the names keep coming!)
   The family meets Uncle Plato's lawyer Benjamen Rush (Milner) (and yes, it's spelled Benjamen) who passes over the deed, tsk tsk tsking. With a little prompting, Ben advises that Plato had spent his life hunting down and capturing ghosts, which he kept trapped, and that "they come with the house." Eleven of them, to be exact. Ben also passes over a small wooden chest, which at first appears to be some kind of futuristic self contained central air conditioning system, because every time the lid is lifted, winds kick up and blow around the room. But no, it's actually the receptacle for a very special pair of glasses Uncle Plato had made up that allow the wearer to see his ghosts. The Zorbas give Ben the raspberry, disbelieving all this nonsense. Then they get to the place and meet the housekeeper and it turns out to be the freaking Wicked Witch of the West (!) and they believe every word.



After terrorizing Oz and before shilling for Maxwell House coffee, Margaret Hamilton spent the 60's getting her doctorate in Disapproval.

    Shortly thereafter, the family messes with the Ouija board they find, (Lesson #1: Never a good idea in a movie like this) and get a couple of creepy messages that predict ghostly ill will toward the family and especially daughter Medea. You would think about this time the family would just pick up and go, but no, screenwriter White throws in a cockamamie contractual obligation that the family MUST stay in the house or lose it to the state, which plans to raze the place and make the land into a park (apparently someone in the state legislature bought the whole ghost story). So burdened, they settle in for the long haul. Soon everyone in the family is taking turns popping on the ghost viewer and seeing the ghosts; some of whom are actually creepy - the burning skeleton - and some of whom are kind of silly - the headless lion tamer and his spectral lion pal - yeah, I get that the guy died when the lion bit his head off, but what killed the lion? Cheap shampoo? It also turns out there are twelve ghosts in the house as good ol' Uncle Plato starts to make his ectoplasmic presence felt. The final twist comes when the family discovers Uncle Plato converted all of his riches into cash which is hidden somewhere in the house and someone solid and earthbound is willing to kill to get that money. And just what is the mystery of that thirteenth ghost?

    Quite simply, there is nothing like a William Castle movie. His films could be by turns fun, silly, clever, creepy, cheesy, over-the-top, and at times even genuinely frightening. What makes this flick one of the best to watch today is that you can still experience Illusion-O. (My used DVD was missing the ghost viewers, but a standard pair of red/blue 3-D glasses work too). It's doubtful you'll ever view The Tingler with a wired up "Percepto" theater seat, or watch "Emergo" send a skeleton flying over your head during The House on Haunted Hill; but you can take the Fright Break during Homicidal; you can vote on Mr. Sardonicus's final fate, and you can see the ghosts (look through the red lens) or not see the ghosts (sorta, when you look through the blue lens - they're still fairly visible) in this movie. It's funny, because in his opening bit Castle instructs you to put on the glasses when the screen turns blue. Okay, no problem there. But then he instructs you to take the viewer away from your eyes when the screen loses the blue tint. But looking through the viewer, red or blue, precludes you being able to see the screen changing back to black and white, so they gave up and simply told you what to do and when:

    Of course, any movie that throws instructions at you in subtitles is not meant to be taken too seriously, and that's definitely the case here. The cast is pretty good playing the all American family with weird names, and it's great to see the familiar TV face of Milner out of his police uniform; but really, it's all about Margaret Hamilton, Castle's greatest bit of stunt casting ever. It is so awesome to see her running around doing her creepy shtick, and even better, the script runs with the joke and has the family call her a witch several times and they even get in a broom joke! Friends and neighbors, it does not get better than that!
     This is the kind of scary movie the whole family can enjoy, with enough scary moments to make it fun for kids but no graphic violence, nudity or profanity; and the silly bits lend themselves to a little MST3K-ing for the older kids and adults. It would be perfect Halloween viewing with or without ghost viewers, and it gets a high recommendation from me so track it down and check it out!


Let's Get Out of Here ?

At around 40:00, Rosemary DeCamp uses The Line after a particularly harrowing ghost encounter, prompting Donald Woods to tell her about their contractual obligation to stay and count all the ghosts.


Eye Candy ?

Although she is cute, I'm afraid Jo Morrow just stays too wholesome in her sweaters and long skirts to qualify. Sorry Jo.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "13 Ghosts proves Castle is King!" 

And until next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Band on the Run! (Part 2 of 2)

Hanging with Charlie Band under the Full Moon...

If you'd like to know more about Charles Band and his movies, your local library is a good place to...kidding! Check out part one of this two parter, my historical perspective on the filmmaker, using the link to the right.

    On October 16, 2009, I jumped in my car with my wonderful wife Suzie and we headed up I-40 to Raleigh NC. I was wondering if this was going to be like a stadium event, with thousands of attendees and hours of waiting in lines to see a tiny Charles Band in the distance, or would Full Moon's niche status make this a smaller, more intimate thing? We arrived at the venue, which was a bar called Volume 11 (nice Spinal Tap reference there). The parking lot was relatively small, and about a third full. Visible near the building was the SUV and trailer that carried the Full Moon Roadshow from city to city, all decked out in the company logo and looking cool. I wish now I'd gotten a picture, but oh well. There were about 8 people lined up outside, and Suzie and I joined them. Some of them knew each other, though it was obvious they'd met up at the show instead of coming together. They were all chatting about previous experiences meeting Charlie and going to conventions Full Moon had appeared at. I had none, so Suz and I just stood quietly and listened. The show was scheduled to begin at 8:00pm, and we'd arrived early, around 7:20 or so. There was no other activity around the club, and I was happy we were so close to the front of the line.



The picture so nice I used it twice!

    Eventually it turned out we were seemingly waiting for no good reason, as the bar was open. We stepped inside, where a guy checked our tickets but thankfully did not rip them or take them, leaving us a nice souvenir. (Sure, I have four, but that just means more scrapbooking possibilities!) The guy also gave us a special ticket, because our admission also came with a special contest: everyone who came to the show was entered in a drawing - the winner would be invited to participate in the filming of a big mass electrocution scene Band was planning for Gingerdead Man 3 - yes, it was a no expenses paid trip - meaning you'd have to get yourself to Los Angeles and put yourself up when the scene was to be filmed in order to participate - but still a neat idea - and I planned to pass the chance along to one of my pals in Los Angeles if I won. (Digression: this was not the first time Charles Band killed a lot of people in one movie scene as a kind of prize - back in the glory days of Full Moon he arranged for several videostore and video chain owners who'd purchased a lot of his product to come out to Los Angeles to be "killed" by having them all in a bus that goes off a cliff in the movie Shrunken Heads.)



Help set a world record, and make movie history! Uh...yeah!

    Back at the Roadshow, we went on into the club, which consisted of a large area with the bar, and a second large room with a small stage which was where the show proper would go on. There were probably either side of a hundred people there, not all present for the Roadshow, some just apparently at their favorite Friday night watering hole. What the hell? The more the merrier! Or, the more the money-er! Because let's make one thing perfectly clear: Charles Band is an old time huckster. Almost everything Full Moon does is geared in some way to sell you something. As I said in the previous blog, every movie they've made in the last ten years features some kind of living toy, animated inanimate object, or little creature that can be marketed as a "collectible figure" and of course there are DVDs, posters, T shirts and the like available through the Full Moon website. So as you might expect a big part of the Full Moon Roadshow was going to be about moving some merchandise. I have no problem with this - it's no different than the old roadshow presentations that would show the audience some kind of seamy movie ostensibly in the interests of "public education" then try to sell dirty picture books after the show as "educational" material. Therefore, I was not surprised that the bar area was filled with tables and tables of Full Moon branded stuff for sale, surrounded by some not-for-sale props from the movies (though I wonder how long Mr. Band would resist selling them if you started throwing piles of filthy lucre at him). I wasn't sure I wanted Suzie walking around the show with her expensive digital camera, so we only got a couple of pictures with our mobile phones, but at least we commemorated the evening photographically in some fashion.

Hanging out before the show with Six-Shooter from the Puppet Master series.

    After checking out everything on display and purchasing a T-shirt and a couple of DVDs, (coincidentally enough to get another entry in the mass electrocution scene contest) Suzie and I went into the second room and sat down. There were several more props and things scattered around the stage, like King Bong from Evil Bong 2 and an electric chair. (?) There was a screen behind the stage, and a slideshow of pix from various Charles Band productions was going on. Then, some of the lights faded, the slideshow disappeared, and a short video sequence highlighting very fast clips from 30 years of Charles Band movies came on with incredibly loud sound. The finale of the video flashes what appeared to be every title logo of every movie Band's ever been connected with in about ten seconds, giving the viewer subliminal memories of some of the flicks, or an epileptic seizure. Maybe Charlie was just experimenting with Psychorama, who knows? With the video ended, the room went dark, then a spotlight came on and there he was. Charles Band. Holding a microphone and showing the quick and ragged setup this show must have gone through with the venue's sound-and-light man in every city, he spent the first minute or so getting the sound level and spotlight adjusted to suit him. Thankfully, he did this in a light and airy manner, not sounding as exhausted and cranky as he might have more than halfway through his crosscountry jaunt.




The man in action, on stage in a Chicago Roadshow appearance. I repurposed it - pretend he's in Raleigh and this is what we saw that night!

    The next hour or so was basically Charlie telling us stories of being Charlie Band. And removed from the constraints of most print interviews, he was pretty open, funny, and profane. Along with some short bits, his biggest stories involved his most notorious ad campaign, and perhaps his most notorious casting ever. The ad campaign was for the movie Ghoulies, and although he told it in a expansive and detail laden manner, I'll boil it down for you: he made the movie (a Gremlins "homage") and set up distribution through his own Empire Pictures. There wasn't a whole lot of interest in the movie from theaters, so a partner in Empire told Charlie they had to come up with an ad campaign that would get the movie moving to theater owners. Eventually Charlie came up with a cute idea and got together a photo shoot for the poster using one of the Ghoulies and one other important prop. Here's the poster:

    Ha! Pretty funny, right? Well, this print image was also extended to the movie's trailer and TV spots, and the kicker of the story is, a week after the advertising goes out on movie screens and across America's airwaves, Charlie goes in to the office and finds a huge pile of hate mail and death threats from angry parents who are suddenly having problems getting the little ones to sit on the toilet for potty training. Charlie knew he had a hit!
    The other main subject for the evening was about an actor Charlie worked with. Now keep in mind, Charles Band has worked with some actors across 200+ movies. Gotta be up around 4 digits, right? So what actor could provide so much material that Charlie spent half his time onstage talking about him? Is it Tim Thomerson, who's made five or six movies with the director? Jeffrey Combs, also in several Empire and Full Moon movies? No, it's an actor who only worked one day on set with Charlie, and spent one more day with him in a sound studio doing some looping of dialogue. Two days of work altogether, yet did enough crazy stuff for "ten stories," according to CB. Who could it be?

Who else?



The face of peace and calm. Or the face of your worst nightmare. One and the same, sharing the name:
Gary Busey.

    Gary made a cameo appearance in the movie Gingerdead Man as the psycho whose later executed-and-cremated remains end up in some baked gingerbread dough, spawning the meanest, craziest cookie of all time. According to Band, during the lengthy all day shoot, Gary completely reworked Charlie's tightly planned directorial blueprint for his scene; ad libbed beyond the scripted dialogue in every take, sometimes for minutes at a time; spoke quiet motivational doubletalk to nearly everyone he met; and disappeared from set only to be found moments later nearby terrorizing several young women with his thoughts on pubic grooming. And in case you read that wrong, that's not "public" grooming. After his one day of shooting, Gary went in to the sound studio a few weeks later to dub the voice of the little puppet Gingerdead Man as he spouts off his baking pun one liners while killing off the cast. This get together was a tiny bit less outrageous, with Gary bringing a date and serenading her while accompanying himself on the guitar during the brief bits of downtime from laying down lines like "Eat me!" and "Save room for dessert 'cause I'm coming after you!" (Quick aside, in case you're a big Busey fan - like me - and now want to see very frame of every Gingerdead Man movie to complete your GB jones - Gary was only involved in the first movie - the sequel and the in-production part 3 use a soundalike.)

    After we'd heard three of the ten Busey stories, our headliner decided to leave us wanting more (especially one particularly drunk guy in the audience who periodically heckled Charlie to tell more Gary stories for the rest of the program) and moved on to some video -  a couple of trailers for then upcoming movies Demonic Toys 2 and Skull Heads; a clip piece showcasing actors who worked for Empire Pictures and Full Moon who have gone on to bigger things (among them Viggo Mortenson, Demi Moore, and Helen Hunt) and some behind the scenes footage of the production of Puppet Master: Axis of Evil in China.

Trancers (1985)

Demi Moore in Parasite (1982)



Viggo Mortensen in Prison (1988)

    Next up was an auction of some of the bigger, more expensive pieces that were for sale during the show - limited edition Puppet Master figures for the most part - and Charlie let them go for much less than the listed retail price (but at what I'm sure was still a tidy profit.) After that was the drawing for the winner of the "Get yourself to Los Angeles when we tell you and you can be electrocuted by the Gingerdead Man" contest. I did not win. La de dah.

    Then came the show finale, a bit of impromptu theater directed by Band and featuring that aforementioned electric chair. Basically Band auditioned members of the audience to play four roles: a psycho about to be executed, his treacherous brother, the killer's girlfriend who has been making time with the brother, and a female friend for the girlfriend. The director wanted a small weaselly guy for the brother, a larger, more imposing guy for the psycho, and two young ladies who would preferably allow their tops to be popped for some cheap thrills. I tried out for the psycho, along with five or six other guys. I used my brief introduction time to tell Charlie I'd been a fan since seeing Laserblast. On BETA. (See how I keep trying to use that punchline?) He countered that had I told him I'd seen it in a theater he would have been impressed. Damn! But all in good fun. The audience assisted the casting by applauding for each prospective actor, and I lost out to a bigger, younger, more psychotic looking fellow. (I guess that's really a compliment) The actors were chosen, Charlie laid out some directing, and we watched about three minutes of fun, bad theater that ended with one of the two girls flashing her breasts at the audience for a total of 1.3 seconds. One more auction and the show was over. But Charlie told us to hang around as he would join us in the bar in a few minutes for autographs and pictures.

    We made our way out to the bar area, where the large fellow who was handling the merchandise selling was back on duty. While we wait for our star to appear, let's take a look at the show we just saw with a critical eye, shall we? If you do an internet search for the Full Moon Roadshow, you'll find a fair amount of reviewing of the show on various blogs. And the positive/negative split is about 50/50. The bad reviews tend to get down on Charlie for his overuse of the words "Dude!" and "Duuuuddeess!" But Band knows exactly what he is doing, repeating those words through funny, past unfunny, and back to funny again. The next biggest complaint is that the show is one long commercial trying to sell you expensive merchandise. Duh? If you've watched any Full Moon DVDs made this century, you should already know about the hard sell the company brings to their entertainment -  no different than the Hooters waitress imploring you to buy a T shirt from her, or the timeshare presentation you have to sit through to get that free steak dinner, or whatever they're dangling in front of you. Lighten up. Lastly, they complain that it's creepy for Band to try to entice the young women in the audience to come up on stage and show their breasts. Well, I'm not sure what kind of Shakespeare festival they were expecting, but this is Full Moon, which hasn't had very many actresses in very many of their movies keep all their clothes on for the whole flick. Charlie asks the young lady to do it (admittedly several times) but he is up front about the prospect before they ever come to the stage, so it's not as if he's springing it on them in the middle of their time onstage and trying to use surprise and audience pressure to get boobs on display. For any woman who doesn't want to be seen topless, it's only a matter of not going up there. Or, if you're itching to take part in this nonsense or are dying to be directed by Charles Band, but your exhibitionism ends there it only takes saying no to him a couple of times (as the secondary girl in our little finale did) and he backs off, defending the woman and her choice to the audience. I guess there still may be a tiny bit of creep factor there, but not much of one considering all that.

    After a few minutes Charlie came out to the bar area bearing two big marker pens. He took up position behind one of the bar's tall tables and people immediately started lining up. He spent a moment with each person, signing whatever they had with a fast and confident hand, and posed happily for pictures. When I got to him (the line was moving very quickly) he signed three DVDs for me, and when he saw Suzie nearby with her phone in camera mode, he not only got ready for the photo, he suggested we move several feet away from his table to a better lit spot, and click!

The man, the legend, the really cool guy. And Charles Band.

Right after the photo, I asked Charlie to consider bringing the Roadshow to Wilmington in 2010. He asked where it was, and I told him a couple of hours east, on the coast. He seemed to give it serious consideration, and with that, he went back to his table to continue interacting with the fans. With Suzie's help, I had completed nearly everything I wanted to accomplish that evening (only missing out on a chance to pitch a screenplay idea to him - I would love to write a Puppet Master movie!) we left Volume 11 and headed home. I had met and chatted with a man who had entertained me scads of times over the years. I couldn't have been happier. The next night, he was doing it all over again in Richmond Virginia. I wish I could have been there.
    Postscript: Sadly, as it turned out, there's been no official 2010 Charles Band Full Moon Roadshow. Charlie has actually been making movies, finally wrapping Gingerdead Man 3 just a week or so ago. He is making Roadshow style appearances at a few horror movie conventions throughout the year, but so far none of them are close enough for me to attend. I did end up pitching an idea to the man through email for Evil Bong 3, but my idea was not chosen. (It might have been the fact that I haven't caught up and seen either previous Evil Bong movie...) (I'll try again the next chance I get!) Best of all, having met the man I gained a new appreciation for the more recent, smaller Full Moon movies and have started seeking them out again. If you want to watch some with me, let me know. Until then, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Like the Drive-In circa 1983, in 2010!

The Expendables (Lionsgate, 2010)

and

Machete (20th Century Fox, 2010)

The Expendables - Before the Camera:

Sylvester Stallone  (Death Race 2000 '75)
Jason Statham  (Death Race '08)
Jet Li  (Black Mask)
Dolph Lundgren  (Red Scorpion)
Mickey Rourke  (Fade to Black '80)
Steve Austin  (The Condemned)
Randy Couture  (UFC champion!)
Terry Crews  (Idiocracy)
Gary Daniels  (Fist of the North Star)
Charisma Carpenter (TV's Buffy, the Vampire Slayer)
Giselle Itié (Telenovela star)
and
Eric Roberts  (Doctor Who '96)
and if you look fast -
Bruce Willis (TV's Moonlighting)
Arnold Schwarzenegger (political figure from the West Coast)


Machete - Before the Camera:

Danny Trejo  (From Dusk til Dawn)
Steven Seagal  (Hard to Kill)
Jessica Alba  (The Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer)
Jeff Fahey (Planet Terror)
Michele Rodriguez  (TV's Lost)
Cheech Marin  (Born in East LA)
Tom Savini  (Knightriders)
Lindsey Lohan  (I Know Who Killed Me)
and
Robert DeNiro  (Bloody Mama)
and
Introducing
Don Johnson  (Dead Bang)


The Expendables - Behind the Camera:

Directed by Sylvester Stallone

Produced by Avi Lerner, Boaz Davidson, Danny Dimbort and 12 other assorted producers

Written by David Callaham and Sylvester Stallone (story by David Callaham)


Machete - Behind the Camera:

Directed by Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Maniquis

Produced by Robert Rodriguez and 16 other producers, including Quentin Tarantino

Written by Robert Rodriguez and Álvaro Rodríguez


    This is turning out to be quite the summer for maniacal movie fans - first Piranha 3-D swims into our faces, now this double shot of old school action rocks 'em and socks 'em at the theater.

    The Expendables starts right off with the titular gang (including Stallone, Statham, Li, Lundgren, Crews, and Couture) taking out a couple of dozen bad guys with action packed alacrity before heading back to pal/guru Tool's (Rourke) combination motorcycle repair shop/tattoo parlor for some rest and relaxation, which mainly involves booze and more thrown knives. Barney (Stallone) is then called in to a meeting with the mysterious "Mr. Church" (Willis) who needs someone to travel to the island of Vilena to knock off the military dictator there. But the job is up for grabs, and in walks the Expendables' main business rival Trench (Schwarzenegger). Trench passes, but Barney takes the job. In Vilena the general is working with rogue CIA agent Malone (Roberts) and his henchmen (Austin and Daniels) running drugs and arms, and there's an army numbering in the hundreds ready to cut the Expendables down - can even a gang of mercenaries consisting of some of the most popular action stars in the world stand up against that kind of firepower?

Every action fan's dream scene, or a Planet Hollywood shareholder meeting?

      
Speaking of firepower, there's also plenty on display in Machete. Longtime movie hardass Danny Trejo gets his first lead role, as Machete, the legendary cop-turned-avenger out to stop evil wherever he finds it. Which is absolutely everywhere. All the time. Nobody ever calls Trejo anything but Machete, leading one to wonder, is he called Machete because it's his weapon of choice, or is it his weapon of choice because it's his name? Well, you actually get the answer to that in the film, but I'll leave you to look for that tidbit on your own time. The movie Machete is the feature expanded from the at-the-time faux trailer on the front of Grindhouse (2007).  After an opening sequence in which Machete is ambushed, forced to watch some family be killed and is then left for dead by Mexican crimelord Torrez (Seagal - really?) he hits rock bottom and ends up a day laborer eking out a living on the streets of some city in Texas. He is drawn into an assassination conspiracy by the shadowy Booth (Fahey), with the target right wing anti-immigrant Senator McLaughlin (DeNiro). Nothing is quite as it seems, and soon immigration agent Sartana (Alba), Mexican activist Luz (Rodriguez), nasty vigilante border guard Stillman (Johnson), Booth's druggie daughter (Lohan), and Machete's priest brother (Marin) all get wrapped up into a pretty convoluted story for a movie like this. In the end, can even the raw power of Machete cut through this Gordian knot of plot?

The last guy who wore this coat tripped. They found him in 37 pieces.

    Truly, sitting in these two movies in the same afternoon was like reliving a weekend from one of my high school summers. The Expendables is a meat and potatoes action flick with the added gravy of an incredible cast of action stars of the past and present. Machete is a grindhouse style thriller with an amazing cast done to a T and that stands for trashy which rhymes with flashy and that all describes this movie.
    Everyone in The Expendables is up to the game, and director Stallone gives all of his costars some moments along the way. The standouts are Statham, (not usually one of my fave action guys) but terrific here supporting Stallone as his right hand man; and the diabolically dynamic duo of Roberts and Austin, superb in their screen villainy. But don't get me wrong, the entire cast is first-rate and it's great to see every one of them back on the Big Screen, even if this might be the first time for some of the usually direct to video stars. And how about that Stallone, still ripped and rippling at the age of 64? And speaking of Stallone, as a director he keeps the movie zipping along, with enough fists a'flying, knives a'slashing, guns a'firing, and bombs a'blowing to make The Expendables a must for action fans.
    As for Machete, it completely fulfills the promise of the original fake trailer that was the first thing seen when the lights went down in Grindhouse. And amazingly, they managed to weave almost every shot from that trailer into the movie! Rodriguez showed with Planet Terror (his half of the Grindhouse double feature) that he knew exactly how to make this kind of fast paced homage to the low rent action flicks he used to watch back in the day, and he suffers no sophomore slump here. His cast sparkles, with kudos going to Trejo, for handling his first lead with aplomb; Seagal, for jumping in as the movie's villain with Raquel Welch's unidentifiable accent from Bandolero!; and Johnson, "introduced" in the credits and wonderfully nasty in a role that I'm guessing was originally meant for Michael Parks. Everyone in the cast is in on the joke, showing up on set with tongue firmly in cheek; and if the joke doesn't always work, as is the case with Lohan's turn as the druggie daughter (it might have been funnier to get an actress less known for hijinks to play the part), at least in the end she's actually okay in the role, so I'll shut up about her. The R rating kicks in in the first couple of minutes, and once it starts, the movie never lets up with a constant stream of action, graphic violence, nudity and hilariously profane dialogue from beginning to end. I will say that Machete might be overlong by about ten minutes or so, but that's just quibbling. If you don't mind your action fare gory and gratuitous, then by all means check Machete out!



Let's Get Out of Here ?

The Expendables gives us The Line at around the 30:00 mark, as Stallone wants Statham to accompany him away from their plane and into town.

Machete did not go for The Line that I heard, but I will need to confirm that with a second viewing before I'll commit 100% on the no.



Eye Candy ?

The ladies definitely take a back seat in The Expendables, with neither Giselle Itié or Charisma Carpenter qualifying for the list on the basis of lack of screen time and import to the movie.

Machete, on the other hand, gives us plenty of Jessica Alba and Michele Rodriguez, so welcome to the list, ladies!

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "If you want testosterone and explosions, The Expendables is indispensable. If you want the three B's (boobs, blood, and beasts) then Machete will cut your mustard. Check 'em both out!"

Til next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

I'm with the Band! (Part 1 of 2)

How I discovered I was a different kind of Band nerd...

A recent promo photo of the man surrounded by some of his movie minions.

    My interest in producer/director Charles Band's movies started while reading an article on his then-upcoming movie Laserblast in my pal Terry's copy of Starlog magazine #12 sometime in early 1978. I didn't manage to see Laserblast in the theaters - a fact that would come back to haunt me, as will eventually be seen - but I thought it looked amazing from the article. I finally did catch up with the movie a couple of years later, when it became one of the very first movies I ever rented. On BETA.

This isn't the copy I watched. Or maybe it is. How many could there have been?

    (Making up the first three movies I ever rented: Halloween, Xanadu, and Laserblast. I don't know how long it was before I rented a movie with two words in the title.) I enjoyed the flick, returned it to the stereo/TV repair store (!) where I rented it, and that was that. As the 80's kicked into gear, I started renting more and more movies, even moving over to VHS at some point, and I started to notice the name Charles Band was on a lot of them. Parasite, Tourist Trap, Ghoulies and Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared-Syn were some of the titles. I was sorry I'd missed Parasite and Metalstorm in the theaters, as they were Band's contributions to the short-lived 3-D revival in the early 80's.

    By the time I watched the last credit to Trancers roll up my TV screen, I was hooked and from that point actively sought out any movie that had the name Charles Band or his Empire Pictures logo on it. And there were a lot of them. Band said at the time of Empire's heyday in the mid 80's that he wanted to make 1000 films by 2000. He didn't quite get there, but he did make a lot. They weren't all gems, but enough of them were at least diamonds in the rough that I never gave up being a fan. Band and his Empire company faded from view as the 80's ended, but as the 90's began he sprang back up like a phoenix with his new company, Full Moon Productions.

The word under Full Moon changed a lot, but the logo stayed gloriously the same.

    Full Moon picked up and then some where Empire Pictures left off, and at their peak in the early 90's Full Moon was putting out a movie a month (!) direct to video and released through Paramount Studios video distribution. At their best, these movies are fast paced low budget nonsense, and both Charles Band and I share a love of sequels. His Puppet Master series is now around 10 movies or so (depending on if you refute the existence of any of the later, lesser sequels) - they just added Puppet Master: Axis of Evil to the series this month - haven't checked it out yet, but initial reports are good; Trancers got to five flicks before rebooting with number six; Subspecies made it to four entries before stalling out. Eventually as 2000 came and went (and presumably when the profits lessened) the deal with Paramount ended and Full Moon was left adrift briefly. Band hadn't made it to 1000 pictures, but he had a couple of hundred under his belt, which is nothing to sneeze at. Full Moon has come back in slightly different iterations about three times now. (Quick, can you tell the differences between Full Moon Productions, Full Moon Entertainment, and Full Moon Features? Yeah, me neither!)

Charles Band's biggest little stars. How many can you name without peeking?

    Band branched out in two directions from his normally R rated horror and science fiction flicks in the video boom of the 90's: he launched a family friendly video line and a harder edged line of erotic videos. (More than R, less than X.)

Band's kiddie label

Band's grown up label

I skipped most of the kid flicks and don't like my filth so clean, so in the late 90's and into the first five years of the 21st century, I drifted away from Band and his movies. He put out a couple of clip jobs (When Puppets and Dolls Attack! and Monsters Gone Wild!) that to me seemed to be taking advantage of the goodwill of his fans.

Worse, his productions were starting to be extremely low budgeted (no budgeted?), making the movies of old look Avatar-esque by comparison. All of his films started to revolve around tiny creatures as well (the better to merchandise with) and they all took place in small areas with just a few characters, so there were no bigger scale movies like Dr. Mordred or Robot Jox showing up anymore, and I went from actively seeking out to actively avoiding movies with his name on them for a couple of years. I dipped back in occasionally, but found nothing to light the fires again.

    Then in 2006, Band started his Full Moon Roadshow, a travelling exhibition of the man and his movies. They didn't get closer than Charlotte NC the first three years which is a four hour drive from Wilmington. Then I heard that the 2009 Charles Band Full Moon Roadshow would be throwing down in Raleigh NC, just a couple of hours away. Having no real idea what to expect, but thinking it sounded fun, I got a couple of tickets from his website (getting a great deal - Buy One Get One - and then they threw in a couple more tickets - so 4 admissions for $10 - sadly, no one else was available to take those extra two tickets. *sigh*) and settled in to wait for the show. (I filled the time in the two weeks previous by writing a horror movie screenplay - what they hey, kept me off the streets!)

I didn't find this in a Wonka bar, but it was still kind of a Golden Ticket for me.

I'm going to wrap this one up, and give the lowdown on the Roadshow in a separate blog entry so that this one doesn't grow so long it scares anyone away from reading it. (Stupid wordy blogmaster!)

TO BE CONTINUED...

See you there, and until then, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Then I guess Man with One Dies...

Man With Two Lives  (Monogram, 1942)

Before the Camera:

Edward Norris (I Was a Communist for the FBI)
Marlo Dwyer (Follow Me Quietly)
Edward Keane (Captain America - the serial!)
Hugh Sothern (Captain America - the serial!)
Eleanor Lawson (You'll Find Out)
Frederick Burton (The Saint in New York)
and
Kenne Duncan (The Astounding She-Monster)


Behind the Camera:

Directed by Phil Rosen

Produced by A.W. Hackel

Written by Joseph Hoffman


    I think this flick was inspired a lot by the 1940 Karloff/Lugosi picture Black Friday, but it also manages to echo the interesting Wes Craven TV movie Chiller (1985) decades before it aired. Young Phillip Bennett (Norris) has a promising future ahead of him; the son of a prominent banker, he's engaged to Louise (Lawson) and he's a medical student studying under the brilliant-but-eccentric Dr. Clark (Keane). Clark has radical ideas about bringing the dead back to life, an experiment he has performed successfully several times on animals, and now he feels he's ready to move on to humans. If only someone close to him would die so he could convince the family to let him test out his theory on the body! CRASH! Suddenly, Phillip has a car accident! It is terrible, involving stunts and everything! He dies! Dr. Clark wastes no convincing Poppa Bennett (Burton) to let him try out the process. At midnight, natch, because that's the creepiest time he could come up with.
    Coincidentally, a vicious gang leader named Panino invents a sandwich grilled at the same time on both sides...no, wait, that's some guy named Panini, and he's not in the movie. Panino is due to pay for his crimes by taking a ride on the lightning (that's tough guy talk for being executed in the electric chair, see?) at midnight. And no, sorry, that's not a coincidence. In any case, moments after midnight, Dr. Clark finishes, and success! Phillip lives! However, the family is less than thrilled when the previously bright and sunny Phillip is now a sullen mope who spends hours staring through a window at the city outside. Good thing then, the family's not around when Phil sneaks out to the wrong side of town and busts in on a meeting of Panino's old gang using their secret knock, gets all tough guy on the gang's new leader, and shoots him dead! (Lesson #1: If a guy's first act as new head of your mob is to kill the old head of your mob it might be time for a new gang...)  Phillip then takes over the outfit, including Panino's girlfriend Helen (Dwyer), and leads them into a new crime spree of epic proportions. Phillip's a great crime boss and the gang adores him...except for the weird way he does everything EXACTLY like Panino...could there be a connection? Considering the title of the movie, what do you think?

Edward Norris and Margo Dwyer get steamy, 1942 style.

    This turned out to be a pretty good movie, considering it was a a bit of a rip from Black Friday. A lot of Monogram movies from this period are stodgy and creaky, but this one works. It sets up an interesting story, and stays on track for almost all of its brief running time (62 minutes). The ending almost derails the whole movie, and you could turn it off at 61 minutes and have a satisfying movie experience. Or you can let that last minute unspool before your eyes and see where our cliche endings come from. Most of the credit for this one falls on the shoulders of young Norris, who does a great job playing two different men in one body. The rest of the cast is okay, but Norris should be more famous than he is from the evidence here. It also provides some weird subtext to the movie that he really looks like Jason Lee sans mustache in TV's Memphis Beat in a lot of his scenes.There are also the expected giggles at some of the dialogue, as 68 years have changed our slang enough to completely alter the following exchanges:

(Right after Phillip busts in on Panino's old gang, he is challenged by the new leader, then one of the other criminals - Gimpy - wants to know if he's a police officer) 

Gimpy: "How do we know you're not a dick?"

About the time you fully absorb this and start to laugh, Phil suddenly shoots the gang leader in cold blood, prompting your laughter to double when you realize he actually is.

And:

(New girlfriend Helen is chatting with one of the gang members about how tightlipped ol' Phil is) Helen: "Except when we make love, and then he says all the right stuff."

Back then people thought about the picture above when she said that, now they picture the couple nude oil wrestling.

Basically, though this is a very low budget flick, with quite a bit of talking, the talking is good, with conversations about the "transmigration of souls" and stuff like that. One word not spoken anywhere in the movie is "reincarnation" though my fast research shows it was in use certainly by the 1920's. Still in all, some good if farfetched ideas and a sterling performance from Edward Norris overcome the low budget and talky script and bring this over the finish line as a recommendation for anyone who likes a good old fashioned flick now and again. Check it out!


Let's Get Out of Here ?

At around 27:30, Edward Norris drops The Line on his new girlfriend Margo Dwyer; she's also his old girlfriend, but she doesn't know it.


Eye Candy ?

Margo Dwyer almost makes it onto the list, but is ultimately defeated by two many long skirts and feathered hats (see above).

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "Man with Two Lives is okay, but Black Friday is better!"

Tenlist Presents: Title Wave!

Ten Titles to Tempt, Titillate, and Tantalize!

Five Terrific Titles - the Movies? Not So Much...

It’s an alien on a killer motorcycle! Get it? Murdercycle! There! Just saved you eighty minutes!

...but wow, both the original and the replacement titles are pretty awesome!

Terrible slasher pic...

Probably the finest "imp-comes-out-of-bowling-trophy-and-terrorizes-Linnea Quigley" movie ever. But only probably. And yes, there's a collector's edition.

There are so many Troma titles to choose from here, but this was one of the first, and one of the best.

There have been some epic battles in society. Ali vs Foreman. Roe vs Wade. Lady GaGa vs Humanity. Then came this: The Brawl for it All. 64 minutes of flashback-clip-padded Oscar bait.

One Oxymoronic Title

Guess that means the first movie wasn’t really The Last Seduction then?

Two Sequels That Weren’t

Two movies with II in the title, neither actually a sequel! In this case, a fair-to-middlin' spoof of both the 60's beach movies and 80’s horror movies (with a great soundtrack), the II was added as an additional joke along with a subtitle - the end of the trilogy!

In the latter, the producers thought more people would watch their softcore beach romp if they thought there had been a first movie that was so good it got a sequel! Directed by Celebrity Rehab Hall of Famer Jeff Conaway! And yes, that's Jessica Hahn, stretching her 15 minutes as hard as she is that bikini top.

One Great "Huh?" Title

Huh?

One Great Almost Title

In 1979 Universal Studios was originally planning to turn the third movie in one of their franchise properties over to the National Lampoon people to parody, however that version was never made and the third film ended up being made as a serious thriller a couple of years later instead. But, oh, what a great title it would have been if left to the Lampoon:

And that makes ten! Till next time, you Can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!

Mob Better Blues!

The Outfit (MGM, 1973)

Before the Camera:

Robert Duvall (THX-1138)

Joe Don Baker (Walking Tall)

Karen Black (Airport '75)

Robert Ryan (Captain Nemo and the Underwater City)

Timothy Carey (The World's Greatest Sinner)

Richard Jaeckel (The Dirty Dozen)

Sheree North (Maniac Cop)

Bill McKinney (Deliverance)

and if you look fast -

Marie Windsor (Abbott and Costello Meet The Mummy)

Elisha Cook, Jr. (College Confidential)

Joanna Cassidy (Who Framed Roger Rabbit?)

Henry Jones (Dirty Dingus Magee)

and

I think Hoyt Axton (Gremlins) is in there too, but he's not listed in it anywhere. Still, if it's not him he had a twin...

 

 

 

Behind the Camera:

Directed by John Flynn

Produced by Carter DeHaven

Written by John Flynn, based on the novel by Richard Stark (Donald Westlake)

 

 

 

    Here we have a down-n-dirty lean and mean crime melodrama, based on a novel by Donald Westlake writing under his harder edged Richard Stark pseudonym. Macklin (Duvall) is released from prison and finds out from his longtime girlfriend Bett (Black) that his brother has been killed gangland style. A little digging turns up the info that the last bank Macklin and his brother robbed was a front for the mob (or Outfit) run by Mailer (Ryan). They put the hit on Macklin's bro, now they want to make it a double Macklin funeral. But he's not going to go gently into that good night and instead goes on the run with Bett. Through one of Mailer's captains, Menner (Carey), Macklin gets word to Mailer that all will be forgiven if the mob will shuck out $250,000 to him. Otherwise, he will commence an attack on their enterprises like they've never seen. (Lesson #1: When a guy like Macklin comes to you asking for $250,000, give it to him. Then kill him later when he's drunk and covered in hookers...) The Outfit respectfully indicates their answer is no, sure their torpedoes will find their mark before Macklin can cause too much trouble. But Macklin's a crafty devil, and re-teaming with his old pal Cody (Baker) they start running and gunning on The Outfit's operations, stealing thousands of dollars that Macklin has already warned would not reduce the $250,000 debt he feels he is owed. Gunfire, fistfights, pistol whippings, girl smackings, and car chases all ensue.


Duvall and Baker discover laundry is the most dangerous chore of all.

Thematically it's very similar to Westlake's novel The Hunter (filmed twice - 1967's Point Blank and 1999's Payback) - with a lead character not likely to win any church or civic awards looking to score a very specific amount of money from a gang of criminals he feels wronged him; but it's also different from both of those films and stands on its own. It's nice to see character pro Duvall get the lead here, and he's ably supported by that cast of familiar faces, with standout awards going to Baker, Carey, and especially Ryan, in his final role - he died before the film was released. The ladies don't have all that much to do, and the movie will never be mistaken for a National Organization for Women training flick, but the actresses do get in a couple of nice moments, Black with that strange allure she always brings to the table, and North nearly falling out of a flimsy little nothing she almost wears in her scene. Director Flynn handles his duties adroitly, keeping a solid pace but not forgetting some solid character moments along the way. These aren't people you would want to have over for Sunday dinner, but it's fun to watch them run around waving guns at each other for an hour and forty minutes.

Let's Get Out of Here ?

At about the 10:00 mark, Karen Black goes large with The Line, proposing a new start on life to Robert Duvall. He declines, natch.

Eye Candy ?

Although Karen Black could qualify, she doesn't get the necessary showcase here. Sheree North, however, tramps right over and takes the prize for this flick.

Buddha Man's Capsule Review

Buddha Man says "The Outfit is good actors, good action, good times!"

Until next time, you can Poke Me With A Fork, Cause I Am Outta Here!