Movie Review- The Mutilator (1985)

The Mutilator is an oddity; it is the apotheosis of the slasher film, but it came out several years after the subgenre's boom in the early 1980's. It's an endearingly ramshackle film. It is appparent that everyone involved making this film was having a grand old time, and never taking themselves too seriously. Any slasher film that features a catchy shag song as its theme has clearly placed fun as its chief priority.

The story is effectively simple. In an opening flashback, a young boy named Ed accidentally shoots and kills his mother. Flash forward years later and the young boy is now a 20something-pretending-to-be-a-college-student headed to a North Carolina beach house for some fall break shenanigans with his friends. Unfortunately, when they arrive, Ed's father is still hanging around, and Dad is still upset about the whole "dead wife" incident. And so he stalks and kills the nubile youngsters in the classic slasher formula.

My personal meter of slasher film quality is its ability to successfully provide a variant on a well-worn theme. This usually amounts to "Are the horror parts inventive?" and "Are the non-horror parts engaging?". The Mutilator's villain is just a crotchety old guy, so nothing particularly scary there. But if nothing else, this film is dedicated to its cheap thrills and presents gory scenes that still manage to shock today. The filler in between the audience-attracting violence is where the film's charm lies. The sloppy technical details are endearing in a way. There is no consistency between night and day shots; characters continually walk in from the moonlit beach to the sunlit beach house. The comic relief character Ralph is operating on some strange manic level of existence that is always entertaining. The music cues often drown out dialogue, and so on. This is not a so-bad-it's-good film, the movie is having too much fun with itself to be truly bad. This is a film that invites you to have fun alongside it, not at its own expense. The Mutilator set out a modest goal to be a lunkheaded slasher film, and not only does it achieve that goal, it manages to  have fun in the process. With a narrow subgenre like slashers, that bit of fun is all I ask for.

Movie Review- The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)

Originally written 4/8/16

The Roger Moore Bond films are often maligned as campy dreck. Those detractors would be right, but that is the appeal of the Moore films. They are Bond at his goofiest, and it sure is fun to watch. The Man with the Golden Gun is no exception. It makes little sense and is over-the-top, but it sure is entertaining.

The Bond movies have always unabashedly cashed in on what was popular at the time. Live and Let Die has elements of Blaxploitation, Moonraker is James Bond in space, Die Another Day is the x-treme early 00's Bond, and so on. The Man with the Golden Gun was made when kung-fu movies were popular, so of course Bond fights a karate dojo and sumo wrestlers. It must be seen to be believed. The creative team seemingly dumped any idea they had into the film, and it is a wonderful mess. A midget henchman? Okay. MI6 has a secret base inside a partially sunken ship, so that all the rooms are tilted? That would be cool to see, throw that in. That racist Smokey and the Bandit reject sheriff from Live and Let Die? Nobody liked him, sure we can bring him back. A slide whistle sound effect during a car stunt? Hell yeah, go for it! This movie is gloriously silly and bizarre. It is hard not to be won over by its discombobulated strangeness.

The plot is loopy and nonsensical. Some junk about the energy crisis. Christopher Lee is a villain named Scaramanga whose defining traits are "Has a golden gun and a third nipple". Bond disguises himself as Scaramanga at one point by wearing a fake third nipple. (Which he later peels off and throws onto the side of the road. Because this movie is really whacked.) Scaramanga has a secret island base with a shooting gallery in the basement so he can practice Golden Gunning people. Why his basement setup has a full array of animatronics and neon German expressionist decor is never addressed. He uses a solar-powered laser to blow up a plane. Truly this is an amazingly dumb film.

In the few "serious" moments of the film, the point is brought up that Scaramanga is essentially the evil version of James Bond. He is a hitman and kills for money, whereas Bond does the same thing but because he works for the government. The few scenes in which they address this point are well done, and I would have liked to see this point developed further. However, that would have required a complete overhaul of the film. A spy movie with a flying car is not the place to discuss moral gray areas.

The Man with the Golden Gun is a fun mess of a film. It has all the dumb campy junk you would expect from a Roger Moore Bond movie, but for once it actually clicks. Most of the Moore movies are amusingly campy on occasion. This one is just balls-to-the-wall weird. It is by no means a good film, but it is one of the most fun James Bond films in the series.

Movie Review- The Long Goodbye (1973)

Originally written 4/1/16

A truly fantastic film. The Long Goodbye exists in its own quirky, loopy world and sucks you right in. It is a shaggy dog detective story that rambles and wanders through a cast of strange characters, and we are along for the ride. Elliot Gould is magnificent as the droll, deadpan Phillip Marlowe. He reminds me of Garfield in his delivery, just so dryly beleaguered and schlubby. It is difficult not to like him. He is as affably lost and confused as the viewer, and his "just roll with it" attitude toward all the film's strange events helps to anchor the film. He is not snarky or gritty, just endearingly put-upon.

The film is gorgeously shot. The night scenes are full of rich shadows, and the beach locale is fabulous. I love this shot where two characters are talking behind a glass door and you can see Gould wandering the beach in the reflection. Strange, idiosyncratic things like that really make this film. All sorts of quirks, like the score that is the same song re-orchestrated over and over. It is reminiscent of a Coen Brothers film but with only the quirky characters. That is not to say that the film has no serious moments. It does, and they are great because they stand out in contrast to the quirkiness. It is the kind of movie Inherent Vice was trying to be, except more coherent than Inherent Vice. The Long Goodbye is charmingly odd and rambling, and wholly enjoyable.

Movie Review- Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)

Originally written 3/22/16

The original buddy flick has not aged well. Perhaps this movie was funnier and more charming in 1969, but today it is dry and hokey. The antihero characters are more crusty than loveable, so it makes it hard to sympathize with them or stay engaged in their misadventures. Technically speaking, the film is fine. The cinematography is pretty, and I am a sucker for wild west scenery. The pace is snappy and keeps the film from being wholly dull.

But the buddy banter feels fake, due in part to the unconvincing chemistry between the leads. Paul Newman and Robert Redford were seemingly put together in a movie because they were both handsome. Although to be fair, Paul Newman has enough dashing looks and charisma to outweigh his generic roguish character. Maybe the charming rogue was not as prevalent an archetype in 1969, but today he is forgettable. There is also the ill-fitting Herb Alpert-esque score. I am open to unusual score/soundtrack choices, but bossa nova lounge music and cowboys do not mix. And lest we forget the comically out of place Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head sequence.

There are a few scenes that do work. The opening scene in the saloon, the duel with cowboy Lurch, and the unique travelling sequence that consists of a montage of sepia photographs. On the whole, the movie is just okay. Other movies have improved on the buddy dynamic since. (Even then, Bonnie & Clyde did the antihero thing much better only a year prior). It is not a bad film exactly, just extremely dated.

Movie Review- Night of the Hunter (1955)

Originally written 3/20/16

Night of the Hunter is a dark, eerie thriller bookended by cheesy Leave It to Beaver-esque sequences. Robert Mitchum steals the show as the creepy ex-con preacher. His character is one of the most disturbing villains in film. His sheer levels of menace are still unsettling some 61 years later. The cinematography is stunningly shadowy, and Mitchum is often lit as an ominous silhouette. But the movie has a murky message about sex and temptation, as well as a hammy supporting cast of hillbilly stereotypes that really distracts from the story. At time the movie feels like a hardened criminal wandered onto the set of the Beverly Hillbillies and started disrupting all the cheerily glib 1950's TV antics. The ending drags on for too long and is jarringly happy. Talk about forced happy endings. There's a really creepy movie in here being held by clunky 50's filmmaking conventions. It is worth seeing for Mitchum and the visuals alone, but the story itself is tonally confused.