'Diabolik' is lots of fun, despite its excesses

Danger: Diabolik (aka "Diabolik") (1968)
Starring: John Phillip Law, Marissa Mell, Michel Piccoli, and Aldolfo Celi
Director: Mario Bava
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

In "Danger: Diabolik", the long-standing rivalry between the mysterious supertheif Diabolik (Law) and police inspector Ginko (Piccoli) becomes personal when Ginko forces a top gangster (Celi) to take action against his foe and the love of Diabolik's life, Eva (Mell) is caught in the middle.

I read maybe a couple dozen of the "Diabolik" comics when I was a kid, and two I have the fondest memories of is the one where Diabolik and Ginko team up to rescue their wives from a crook who has kidnapped them, and another where they are both on a cruise ship that gets taken over by terrorists, forcing a sort-of team-up between the two.

As portrayed in "Danger: Diabolik", such cooperation would never have taken place--the two men appear to dislike each other entiely too much, even if the respect they have for one another in the comic books still seems to be present to some degree--but aside from this small "failing", I think this film mostly conveys the essense of its source material better than most other comic book movies out there. It's not quite as dark as I remember "Diabolik" being, but it's entertaining enough.

Star John Phillip Law and the costume designers even took pains to match the physical appearance of Diabolik from the comics. There is no arbitrary "re-imagining" for its own sake in this film, as everyone seemed comfortable with and knowledgeable of the source material ot the point where they could do a faithful adaptation. (Even the musical score captures the simultaneous playfulness and grim intensity that were the hallmarks of the "Diabolik" comic.

There's further icing on this cake, as there literally isn't a single scene in this film that isn't staged in a visually arresting fashion. Director/cinematographer Mario Bava manage to fully bring a comic-book feel to the screen, presenting the sort of motion and three-dimensionality that the illustrators of the "Diabolik" comic are attempting to achieve with the many chase scenes and close calls the characters execute in those pages.

Bava also manages to bring a comic book feel in subtle and visually creative ways. Many scenes have the sense of being panels in motion, with action being framed in various ways, sometimes even feeling like "inset panels", like where Diabolik and Eva are staking out a break-in target, and we see their faces in the review mirror, framed before the building they are watching. The most impressive of the many instances of this in the film is a conference of gangsters that is viewed through a lattice, with characters positioned around the room and isolated in their own frames while speaking.

While the creative cinemagrapy is a joy to behold, some of the sets and mat-paintings are equally impressive. Diabolik's secret hideout, with its many security precautionsand gadgets is the sort of thing James Bond's nemisis Blofeld wishes he could have. Lex Luthor probably has lair-envy as well. (Although neither Blofeld nor Luthor would know what do to with Diabolik's huge rotating bed where he and Eva have wild sex while coverd in millions of dollars....)[/left]

As much as I admire the visuals and the sets, I think these also end up being counted among its weaknesses, despite their beauty (or perhaps becaome of it). Director Bava also seems to have been aware that he and his crew had made a very special movie here, and he is just a little too proud of their work and he shows off the sets and the matpaintings just a little too much. On more than one occassion, he spends so much time dwelling on them that the movie starts to sputter and stall--the worst of these is the scene of Diabolik and Eva making love, while visually cool, goes on for so long that it becomes downright boring. It always recovers thanks to even more great visuals and a script that is jam-packed with action, but the film could have been so much better if some of the scenes have been trimmed a bit.

Speaking of the script, this film would also have been alot better if its creators had known when to quit. There is a perfect ending for the filmd, and even a suitable denoument, but it continues well beyond that point and even gets a bit repetitious.

I'm certain the intent was to include a truly impossible crime in the film--to push it completely over the top--but the end result is a feeling that two different major heists and two different endings had been contemplated for the script (each with its own impossible escape for Diabolik) and in the end it was decided to use both of them. The result is that viewers will start feeling a little impatient during the film's final 10-15 minutes, but because we've already sat through something that's thematically identical and that brought the story to a satisfying close.

"Danger: Diabolik" is an mostly well-done, light-hearted action flick, and it's definately underrated and under-appreciated. I recommend you purchase or rent this flick. If it didn't keep going past the point where it should have ended, and if it had been a little more like the actual comics, it would have been perfect.

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Megan Fox

My thanks to actress Megan Fox for demonstrating the unifying theme of this blog.

Mediocre Gothic Thriller with a Goofy Title

Terror Creatures from the Grave
(aka "Cemetery of the Living Dead")(1965)
Starring: Walter Brandi, Mirella Maravidi, Barbara Shelley, and Alfredo Rizzo
Director: Massimo Pupillo (credited to producer Ralph Zucker)
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

An attorney (Brandi) answers an urgent request to prepare a will for a country doctor living at an isolated estate. When he arrives, his strange wife (Shelley) and neurotic daughter (Maravidi) tell him the doctor couldn't have written the letter as he's been dead for over a year. Before he can sort out the mystery, the doctor's old friends start dying as well, apparent victims of the ghosts evil sorcerers who spread a plague across the land 500 years ago.

We are informed during the main credits that "Terror Creatures from the Grave" was inspired by the writings of Edgar Allan Poe; it certainly bears more resemblance to them than several films that have claimed to be based on them (such as several Lugosi vehicles from Universal), I think I'll still have to go with the Real Thing over this movie.

The film's hero, an attorney visiting a house of secrets and madness, certainly feels like he stepped out of a Poe story, and Barbara Shelley, yet again playing another two-faced, treacherous bitch who causes not only her own downfall but also that of pretty much the entire cast, also could easily have been a Poe character, but the film never quite manages to be as creepy as a Poe story. It has some nice moments, but in general in plods along too slowly to generate any real sense of dread and fear in the viewer. The mystery of a dead man writing letters in intriguing, the array of characters present clearly set the stage for some Very Bad Things, but the film wastes too much time with overlong establishing shots and with too many meandering scenes for it to really add up to anything.

Except for roughly the last ten minutes. When the Plague Spreaders FINALLY make their appearance, we finally get some real spookiness. Although the climax is ultimately a bit rushed and relies a bit too much on the Deus Ex Machina, it's a pay-off worth waiting for. Steele's death scene is especially chilling and well-filmed.

(Oh... I don't think it's much a spoiler to reveal that Steele is the villainess and that she comes to a bad end. It's her place in most films she appeared in, and it's pretty obvious from the outset.)

There's nothing in "Terror Creatures from the Grave" that you haven't seen done better elsewhere, but it's main offense is its mediocrity. Fans of Barbara Steele will enjoy it more than most, but even for those it's not worth going to far out of your way for. But if present in one of those movie mega-packs, which is where I came across it, it's a bit of harmless filler that's worth checking out when you're in the mood of nightgowns and candlesticks and creepy castles.

Another failed attempt at capturing a webcast

Dead on Site (2011)
Starring: Mai-Ly Duong, Jamie Perkins, Robbie Daymond, Maggie Guzman, Christopher Burnham, and Jaymz Johnson
Director: Scott Kenyon Barker
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A group of college students set out to webcast reenactments of gruesome, unsolved murders from the house they happened in. But after their website goes live, mysterious happenings, both online and in the house, make them fear that they are being watched... either by supernatural forces, or perhaps by a very real killer who might want to some reenacting of his own.

"Dead on Site" is the third horror movie I've seen that tries to build a story around webcams and the broadcasting possibility they represent vis-a-vis "reality television". It's also the third time I've seen filmmakers fail to make a good horror movie based around the concept.

The first was "Halloween: Resurrection" (2002) a sequel so misbegotten that Michael Myers felt shoe-horned into his own series. Then came "Hell Asylum",which was either a symptom of not-so-great minds thinking alike, or of what happens when schlock filmmakers want to rip off what they perceive as "the next great thing". Now, it's "Dead on Site", which is better than the ones that came before, but which is still a deeply flawed movie.

First off, the final college project that the film is based around is very inept in its execution, vaguely defined, and not the sort of thing I can see a professor signing off on, let alone giving a passing grade for at the end of the day. (Well, except out of sympathy, given the way things turn out but that's not what they could have counted on going in.)

Secondly, the script is poorly written. Each character sounds and talks alike and they don't even have much in the way of personalities to distinguish one from the other, so when they start getting killed off/disappearing, you'll find yourself asking, "Who was that again?"

It doesn't help anything that the attempts at casting this or that character as the possible killer that has infiltrated the group boil down to a pair of characters threaten to kill the one truly obnoxious member of the group.

The couple of characters that have interesting back-stories are also not properly utilized, such as the wanna-be detective hoping to crack the murder mystery--I don't think I've seen less investigation or less serious recreation of a crime scene take place outside of backyard cops-and-robbers games among 9-year-olds--or the B-movie actress turned grad student at the end of a flamed-out career. Both of these characters could have been utilized to add some depth and texture to the story. The performances given by the actors aren't bad, but the material they are working with is so thin that there's not much they can do with it.

Finally, there's a completely unnecessary and out-of-left-field supernatural element inserted into the story at the 11th hour when the killer is revealed to be an immortal servant of Satan. There is no set-up of this element, nor does it have any connection to anything else in the movie.

Perhaps if the script had been taken through another draft or two, the dialogue would have been sharpened and the character elements would have been more clearly defined and utilized in driving the story. Heck, perhaps even the "immortal killer" idea would have appeared at some point earlier in the story.

Basically, this film fails because of the one thing that even the lowest of low-budget filmmakers has complete control over: The quality of the script. And it's too bad that an otherwise decent cast is let down by it, with Jamie Perkins is particularly good at playing a complete jerk.

"Dead on Site" premieres on DVD on April 5. My thanks to Maxim Media for providing me with an advanced copy of the film to review.

Saturday Scream Queen: Barbara Shelley

Barbara Shelley spent her early career as a model and bit-player, but in 1957 she landed the starring role in "Cat Girl," a picture about a woman cursed with a psychic link to leopard. Over the next decade, she appeared in some of Britain's most celebrated horror films of the 1960s, such as "Dracula: Prince of Darkness", "Village of the Damned", "Quatermass and the Pit", and "The Gorgon". Whether playing a demon or a damsel in distress, Shelley always brought poise, grace, and beauty to the screen.

Along side her film appearances, Shelley maintained a thriving television career, and she transitioned to TV full time by the time the 1970s dawned, leaving horror behind except for a role in the 1974 chiller "Ghost Story". She retired from acting in 1992.

'The Gorgon' is a Hammer Films masterpiece

The Gorgon (1964)
Starring: Peter Cushing, Barbara Shelley, Christopher Lee and Richard Pasco
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Nine of Ten Stars

When the spirit of the sole surviving Gorgon sisters of Greek legend rises again to plague a Balkan village, The doctor in a small Balkan village (Cushing) attempts to cover up the fact that citizens are being turned to stone under the full moon, even as a visiting scholar (Lee) attempts to determine the fate of a colleague.


"The Gorgon" is a curious mixture of elements, being part ghost movie, part romance movie, part fantasy epic--but all the elements congeal into a fabulous horror film.

With the usual lush sets that marked Hammer Films of this period, and the usual topnotch direction from Terence Fisher, we have a film that is gorgeous to look at. Add a great script being performed by a fantastic cast, some of whom are in parts we don't typically see them in (Christopher Lee is the monster-busting scholar here, while Peter Cushing is the antagonist who may or may not be in league with the monster) but all of whom are at the top of their game.

"The Gorgan" contains a number of truly chilling moments and the script features a couple of twists and turns, so that the viewer is kept guessing as to who is actually host to the gorgon's spirit until it is revealed. Even better, the final confrontation between the heroes and the Gorgon is one of the most dramatic endings to a Hammer film, period! (The film loses a bit of steam as it heads toward the climax, but the finale more than makes up for the slight drag.)

"The Gorgon" is one of the most underrated horror flicks from Hammer Films. For years it was unavailable even on VHS, but Sony finally released four Columbia-distributed Hammer Films in a multi-movie set as part of their "Icons of Horror" series. Get it. All four films in the set are excellent, with the "The Gorgon" being the very best.

Fear-filled Phantasms: Vampirella in Trouble!

Vampirella has been the baddest of the Good Girls since she first bared her fangs in 1969, but it's been far from smooth sailing. Here are some images of her being menaced by a variety of threats. (All paintings appeared on covers from the original run of the Vampirella Magazine.)

You can see more visions of Vampirella at Cinema Steve, and you can read reviews of her original adventures at Shades of Gray.

And that's when Voltar realized....

... that polygamy might not be such a grand thing after all.

'Fangs of the Living Dead' has no bite

Fangs of the Living Dead (1969)
Starring: Anita Ekberg, Julian Ugarte, John Hamilton, Diana Lorys, Adriana Ambesi, and Guy Roberts
Director: Amando de Ossorio
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

A model (Ekberg) is summoned to her ancestral home to receive her inheritance. She comes under the influence of her sinister uncle (Ugarte) and the cult of vampires that is forming around him.

"Fangs of the Living Dead" plays like a lobotomized version of "Dracula", with several scenes heavily inspired by the novel and with Ekberg's Sylvia standing in for Jonathan Harker, crossed with a "dark old house" movie and flavored with the graphic sensibilities and tight dresses of 1960s Hammer gothic horror flicks. If the filmmakers had stuck with this approach, the over-the-top acting, the melodramatic dialogue, and the dippy characters would all add up, whether intentional or not, to a hilarious send-up of the gothic horror genre. The overblown soundtrack music only makes it all the more funny. Unfortunately, it's all ruined when writer/director Amando de Ossorio tries his hand at a twist ending that tries to undo everything that unfolded in the film and reduces what was funny to a level of idiocy. And the twist on the twist doesn't help any. In fact, these are such misguided twists that one wonders if everyone involved with the production has severe memory issues, as it doesn't fit with much of what unfolded earlier. (That said, the "twist" itself could be a misfired attempt at spoofing horror movies, which would mean the movie was intended as a send-up all along; in the 1930s and 1940s, it wasn't uncommon for the supposed supernatural elements in a film to be written off through a revelation in the third act that it was all a hoax. The most blatant example of this can be found in "Mark of the Vampire".)

The film is further crippled by the fact that headliner Anita Ekberg is miscast. At 38, she was a bit long in the tooth to play the part of the "naive young heiress" and as a result she comes across more like a blonde so dumb that calling her retarded would be a compliment.

However, for all its weaknesses, the film features some nice cinematography, and the director manages to evoke a chilling atmosphere here and there, especially during the sequence when Ekberg is running around the castle in terror, and the one that riffs on the "Dracula" scene where the heroes wait for the undead Lucy in the graveyard. The drunken village doctor who stands in for the Abraham Van Helsing character is also a great deal of fun... and then there's the vamp-on-vamp battle to the death during the film's climax, one of the great cat-fights in cinematic history.

In the end, though, the bad far outweighs the good. The film rates the lowest possible Three I can give it, and it is only suitable for viewing as part of a Bad Movie Night.

Picture Perfect Special: Princesses of Mars, Part Five

Starting the week with visions of beautiful Martian princesses sure beats starting it with images of a syphilitic madman whose brain was further damaged by too much time spent under the desert sun.

By Ben Dunn

By Frank Brunner

By Mitch Foust

'The Sadist' is surprisingly effective

The Sadist (aka "Profile in Terror") (1963)
Starring: Arch Hall Jr, Helen Hovey, Richard Alden, Marilyn Manning, and Don Russell
Director: James Landis
Rating: Seven of Ten Stars

Three friends (Alden, Hovey, and Russell) are subject to terror mind-games and cold-blooded murder when car trouble lands them under the power of a psychotic killer (Hall) and his deranged girlfriend (Manning).

Here's a film that anyone who is trying to make a horror movie on a low budget needs to see. That goes double if you have your heart set on making the latest, greatest torture porn epic. Even in this age where even comedies feature vicious brutality, "The Sadist" has several effect and shocking moments.

One thing "The Sadist" has going for it is that it wastes no time in getting started, and it keeps a steady pace through to the very end. The movie starts with our hapless victims stuck in a deserted junk yard and we are given their back story as the creepiness of the place builds... and the titular sadist and his twisted girl sidekick make their appearance at just the right moment. Another is the fact the murders are varied--one has a long build and tension-filled build-up and another comes suddenly and shockingly. Finally, the movie closes with an ending more effective than I would ever have expected from a cheap film like this. It is also refreshing that the characters stay consistent through to the end--it's nice to see that there was a time where screenwriters could write a suspense film where characters don't inexplicably transform from cowards to Kung-Fu fighting bad-asses in the final reel.

One surprisingly effective part of the film is the performance given by Arch Hall Jr. When he first made his appearance as the killer, walking as though he has crapped his pants and squinting and grimacing and speaking a voice that is anything but menacing, I thought this movie that started so strong had just veered into "so bad its good" territory.

But as silly as Hall seems initially, his over-the-top performance develops a frightening quality, because there is no doubt whatsoever that this is one guy who is completely off his rocker. The funny walk is probably Hall's way of trying to show the murderer is barely more than an animal, as there is a simian quality to his gait. (He mostly drops the walk during the film's climactic quarter hour, an extended game of cat-and-mouse between him and his victims. And it is during this part of movie where Hall is genuinely scary.)

The rest of the cast are adequate, giving solid performances of well-drawn and consistent characters, making this a surprisingly entertaining movie that is worth seeking out.

Picture Perfect: Changing for Spring

Janet Leigh

Angelina Jolie



Marlene Dietrich



Saturday Scream Queen: Nicole de Boer

Canadian actresss Nicole "Nikki" de Boer started acting professionally in the late 1980s while still in her teens. She has been quietly and steadily working ever since, bringing her good looks, charm, and considerable talent to a wide variety of television series, such as "Star Trek: Deep Space 9", the drama "9B", the sci-fi chiller "Deepwater Black", and the horror-tinged mystery "The Dead Zone".

On the movie front, de Boer's career has been mostly horror-centric, with most of her projects being films like "Prom Night IV: Deliver Us From Evil" (a slasher film with Catholic conspiracy overtones from before Dan Brown made Catholic conspiracies kewl) and "Cube" (possibly the first, but certainly among the best, of all "torture porn" films.

More recently, she's headlined a pair of Syfy Channel Original Picture, "Iron Invader" (about a Golem-like statue rampaging through a small farming town) and the forthcoming "Metal Tornado (about a magnetic storm that literally threatens to tear the world apart).

Hammer unmasks the 'Phantom of the Opera'

The Phantom of the Opera (1962)
Starring: Edward DeSouza, Heather Sears, Herbert Lom, Thorley Walters, and Michael Gough
Director: Terence Fisher
Rating: Eight of Ten Stars

As if Harry (DeSouza), a young director and producer of operas, didn't have enough problems dealing with the massive ego of the creator and backer of his latest show (Gough), and the backer's unsavory designs upon the young, virginal diva (Sears), the production is plagued with mysterious disasters. Harry soon uncover darks secrets surrounding the production, but will he manage to placate the Phantom of the Opera (Lom) before it is too late for all involved?!

The Hammer version of "The Phantom of the Opera" is the fastest moving, most-visually interesting adaptation of the tale that I've seen. The watery lair of the Phantom is very cool, Heather Sears is a hotty and she also plays nicely off Lom, and Michael Gough is the perfect upper-class slime and wanna-be musical genius who only acheives that status when he steals the life-work of another man. All in all, the cast here is great, and it's another Terrence Fisher-helmed movie that's absolutely gorgeous to behold.

There ain't much Irish in this Banshee

According to the original Irish legends, the banshee is a spirit that followed five powerful Irish clans and her mournful howls would fill the darkness of the eve before one of their numbers were to come to a dark end. Recent tales have expanded the nature of the banshee to a more general nature... although one has to wonder if the creators of this film even bothered looking up the word "banshee" in a dictionary.

In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I present a review of a movie featuring the Banshee... kinda. And while the Banshee may be an Irish spirit, it admittedly has about as much to do with St. Patrick as this movie has to do with the Banshee. (This is an expanded version of a review that appears in Movies You Should (Die Before You) See.)


Cry of the Banshee (1970)
Starring: Vincent Price, Hilary Dwyer, Patrick Mower, and Elizabeth Bergner
Director: Gordon Hessler
Rating: Three of Ten Stars

When the ruthless, psychopathic Lord Edward Whitman (Price) has a coven of witches massacred, the leader (Bergner) escapes and calls forth a Banshee that will visit death and destruction upon the entire Whitman line, until it exists no more.

Every so often, a movie comes along where every character in it is so unlikeable or so one-dimensional and flat that the viewer really doesn't care what happens to them, and has no one in particular to root for or identify with. "Cry of the Banshee" is one of those films.

The writing here is so bad that not even Vincent Price, who usually manages to bring a fresh feel to even the corniest villian, and some degree of twisted charm to even the worst psychopathic murderer, can tease anything from the character of Edward Whitman other than "this is a bloodthirsty upperclass twit in Elizabethan England who gets off on killing buxom peasant wenches suspected of performing pagan rituals in the woods."

The opposite side of the story--the coven leader Oona--is a performance that stands as a tribute to the questionable gift of overacting. Then there's the story problem that her "revenge" is as broad and uncalled for as the atrocities of Lord Edward's random witch-hunts.

The most glaring example of how bad this movie is the complete illiteracy of anyone involved with the production side. A simple consultation of a dictionary to find the defintion of "banshee" would have gone a long way to making this movie a little less dumb.

The film almost redeems itself at the end with a nicely executed twist (even if the sudden shift in Price's character was a little odd) and there's some honest-to-god horror to be found there, as opposed to simple sadism and brutality, but it's too little and too late. By then, "Cry of the Banshee" is firmly in the Bad category. (There are worse--and director Hessler is responsible for some them, such as "Scream and Scream Again"--but there are also far, far better.)






--
Trivia: The opening titles sequence was by Terry Gilliam of "Monte Python" and "Time Bandits" fame. It's pretty nifty and more creative than "Cry of the Banshee" deserves.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

One of the receptionists at my office told me that even though it's St. Patrick's Day today, I can't come to work drunk. Posting this picture will have to make up for that.

Meat Loaf's 'I Would Do Anything for Love'

It's a great video for one of his greatest recordings. (It was directed by Michael Bay.)

Picture Perfect Wednesday: Josh Howard Horror

Here's a small gallery of horror art from Josh Howard, the writer/artist behind graphics novels such as "Dark Harvest", "The Lost Books of Eve", and "Clubbing".

If you like the spooky stuff, be sure to visit Terror Titans, my horror movie-centric blog.

The outcome of the reactor meltdown in Japan

(Artist's Conception)

You can donate to the Red Cross' relief effort here.

Mohammed Monday: Did you feel the earth move, too?

Today's Mo-toon recalls the "Boobquake" event from last year while reminding us of the root cause of the destructive earthquake that hit Japan this past week. (Click on the picture for a larger, legible version.)

At this point, it's unknown which immodest woman caused that earthquake, but the Tectonic Tuesday research project will soon identify the culprit.

Meanwhile, here are a few likely suspects....

Milla Jovovich

Halle Berry

Jennifer Love Hewitt

Batman's notorious foe, Catwoman!

Saturday Scream Queen: Hilary Swank

One thing's for certain about two-time Best Actress Oscar-winner Hilary Swank: Neither of those were given for her horror movies.

While horror films already rank pretty low on the Academy's list of things to consider when handing out awards, there can be little argument that they've properly ignored the dozen or so thrillers and chillers Swank has appeared in since making her screen debut as a child actress in 1991.

It's a shame that Swank hasn't been featured in better horror films, because she is often the best thing about ones she's been in. She continues to appear in scary movies (with her most recent one being "The Resident" from the revived Hammer Films), so there's still hope for fans that she will be in the right project sooner or later.

'The Reaping' nets a thin harvest

The Reaping (2007)
Starring: Hilary Swank, Idris Elba, David Morrissy, AnnaSophia Robb, and Stephen Rae
Direector: Stephen Hopkins
Rating: Five of Ten Stars

A former missionary turned college professor-and-professional-debunker-of-miracles Katherine (Swank) is called to an isolated Louisanna village to provide a scientific explanation for a series of events that mirror the Ten Plagues of Egypt as depicted in the Old Testament. As scientific explanations start to wear thin, Katherine and her deeply religious assistant (Elba) uncover signs that something supernatural is indeed happening in the town--something that may well be of Biblical proportions--and it centers around a 12 year-old girl (Robb). But is she a savior or a destroyer?

"The Reaping" is a fairly standard, paint-by-numbers supernatural thriller with religious themes that will you'll derive enjoyment from in direct proportion to the number of other films in this vein that you've seen. There's not much here that hasn't been done better in other films, although it is well enough paced, decently acted, and decently executed on the technical level. (It does feature one of the best "When Bugs Attack" moments ever put on film, and this sequence is when the film is at its best and its scariest.)

Like so many other modern thrillers, however, its fatal weakness lies with the script. It's not only unoriginal, but its shallow both emotionally and spiritually. The viewer never experiences the pain and horror that caused Katherine to lose her faith in God, and her rediscovery of it is likewise nothing that we feel any emotional investment in. (It's necessary for the plot, but we never get close enough to her--or any of the characters, really--to feel the process happening.)

The film is also not helped by the way it devolves into a special effects extravaganza where the viewer feels even more detached from the action and the characters than at any previous point in the film. Then, just to botch the finale completely, we're treated to a lame "twist-ending" denouement instead of some sort of emotional wrap-up to the story.

"The Reaping" rates a low 5 on the 0 to 10 scale... it's watchable, but there are probably other films you'd be better off spending your time on. It did hold my interest throughout... although I'm not sure if this was to the story's credit or Hilary Swank's tight tanktops and flimsy nightgowns.

'The Demons of Ludlow' is one of Rebane's best

The Demons of Ludlow (1975)
Starring: Paul von Hausen, Stephanie Cushna, Carol Perry, James R. Robinson, C. Dave Davis, and Angailica
Director: Bill Rebane
Rating: Four of Ten Stars

A curse that's haunted a small New England town since its founding two hundred years ago is brought fully to horrible life when a piece of its secret history--a piano that sounds like a harpsichord (or is that a harpsichord that looks like an upright piano?)--resurfaces. Will the town preacher (Von Hausen) and a pair of young journalists (Cushna and Robinson) stop the curse, or will they fall victim to it?

I watched several of Bill Rebane's movies, and I don't know whether my ability to tell crap from quality started to erode when I got to this one, but I think that "The Demons of Ludlow" is actually pretty good for a low-budget horror film. Compared to some of Rebane's other efforts, it's downright brilliant.

Unfortunately, like another of Rebane's almost-good movies--"The Game" (aka "The Cold")--he and his writers simply can't seem to pull off the ending. Remember my question im the summary above as to whether the preacher and the journalist escape the curse? That remains a question at the end of the movie, and it's not a question that hangs there in a good way. The ending is so abrupt that seems as though Rebane ran out of film and had no money to buy more. The film simply feels like the ending was left off.

If a little more care had been taken to construct a story with a decent end, this could have been a solid 5 rating. The soundtrack is decent, the acting is better than most of what you see in films of this kind, and there are even some pretty scary scenes--the sequences where the preacher's alcoholic wife is being tormented by the ghosts' of Ludlow's past are particularly well done. But, again, Rebane screws up the ending.

Picture Perfect Wednesday: The Milla Jovovich Quarterly

That's what Milla's face looked like when she learned that she's a recurring feature on Shades of Gray.