Black Moon Rising (1986): Carpenter Hits Top Gear

Creedence might have seen a Bad Moon a-Risin', but I kind of wish they had seen today's film, Black Moon Rising, because I would love to hear a rootsy rock number about it. Tommy Lee Jones stars as Quint, a master thief in the employ of the federal govement tasked with stealing a data tape with information to bring down the villainous Lucky Dollar Corporation. Quint gets the tape, but when the heat rises, he stashes it in the back of an experimental super car on its way to a big auto show. Unfortunately, before he can recover the tape again, the car is stolen by Nina (Linda Hamilton) and Alex for her boss Ed Ryland (Robert Vaughn). None of this goes over well with Quint's FBI handler Agent Johnson (Bubba Smith) who gives his charge 72 hours to recover the car or face the consequences.

Hot Summer in Barefoot County (1974): Moonshine in the Sunshine

Living in the South, moonshine is something of a cultural heritage, and very close to me there’s a section of the county known as The Dark Corner where 'shine flowed like water to hear the historians tell it. A couple of years ago, they even made it legal to manufacture and sell moonshine around here, and let me tell you, if you haven’t had a cool glass of Apple Pie moonshine on a warm summer day then you’re missing out. Today’s film is just the type to watch while sipping away your cares. Hot Summer in Barefoot County sounds like a porn title aimed at Tarantino as a target audience (and with the amount of buxom barefoot ladies on display it still might be), but it’s really a dose of hicksploitation complete with hillbilly honeys, sputtering stills, and fast cars kickin’ up clouds of dust as they speed away from the fuzz.

Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It #13- Drive Angry (2011)

There's a lot of chatter about Drive starring Ryan Gosling as a cooler than cool getaway driver, but this is the start of The Halloween Top 13 and I'm not about to let it get cool in The Lair one bit.That's because for 13 days I'm going to be turning up the heat on all the demons, devils, possessions, and Armageddon-esque action right up until Halloween. Welcome everyone to The Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It. While Drive might be the the most talked about car film this year, if Satan's on your tail, good looks and a satin jacket are not going to be enough. You're going to need to get mad, you're going to have to be mean, you're going to have to get angry. You're going to have to hire Nicolas Cage, give him crazy blonde hair, and send him on a mission. Something like escaping from Hell in a car to track down a cult of Satanists looking to bring about Hell on Earth by killing your granddaughter. It just so happens that someone did just that, and coming in at #13 on the countdown, is 2011's Drive Angry.

It all begins when John Milton (Cage) escapes from hell in a car... stop me if you've heard this one. There is more. He makes an unlikely alliance with Piper (Amber Heard), an alluring blonde waitress with a tricked out ride,  gets perused by the Accountant (William Fichtner), Satan's retrieval service, and gets ever closer to Jonah King (Billy Burke), the leader of the cult. Along the way, Milton kills a an incredible number of badguys in a style I could only compare to 2007's Shoot 'Em Up. (Like that film Drive Angry seems aware of its format without being too coy and cloying about it.) Along the way, Milton gets help from his friend Webster (David Morse), goes toe to toe with the police captain (Tom Atkins), and shoots about fifteen guys while smoking a cigar, drinking jack, and having sex. And I do mean at the same time. Life out of Hell is no bed of roses, and this Milton is not about to let Paradise get lost. (Ok, his granddaughter's name wasn't Paradise, but wouldn't that have been great.)

So I bet there's a few confused looks out there. Well let me clear a few things up. I exclude any title I've reviewed before on The LBL from being chosen for the countdown. That means there's some big titles that I have to leave off, and some I've avoided that I finally get to talk about. I also get to have some fun, and folks, I'm here to tell you that Drive Angry  is a lot of fun. It's the perfect kind of flick to throw on when you have some friends over to carve a pumpkin or before you go out to a haunted house. It's exciting, it's got a fair amount of splatter (though the "Filmed in 3D " look detracts from this a great deal.), and it's got Nic Cage running from the Devil in an assortment of classic cars. Now I don't know a manifold from a marigold, but I know awesome cars when I see them. Drive Angry takes a couple of pages from the 70's grindhouse, the car flick, the revenge film, the Satanic Cult, and a generous helping of nudity, balls them all up, and lights them on fire.

Now a few words on Nic Cage. There's going over the top. That's, say, Adam West or Shatner. Then there's going Nic Cage. Which means going over the top and then you just keep going until someone calls cut. I'm so glad they didn't. Cage doesn't as much chew the scenery as devour everything around him. It took all of Amber Heard's sexual charms to even make her blandly named character Piper memorable. Actually that's not fair, the All the Boys Love Mandy Lane actress proves to be a strong, capable foil for Cage without any romantic overtones necessary. Still this is Cage's movie, that is until William Fichtner shows up. The character actor, who was seen recently on Entourage, has never been better. As The Accountant, Satan's agent on Earth, Fichtner gives off a quiet menace that he proves to be able to backup. (Don't try and sneak up on The Devil's tight bro with a bat.) While Cage is the whirling dervish in this film, Fichtner is the calm in the center of the storm. The Accountant also serves to remind us that demons are not always bad, as long as it all ends up their way.

Director Patrick Lussier impressed me a few years back with a reasonable remake of My Bloody Valentine though once again the 3-D filming detracts from the enjoyment of the home viewer. His next project is picking up the reins of the Halloween franchise, and here's to hoping he can leave Michael Myers in 2 dimensions. Drive Angry sets itself apart by neither taking itself too seriously or trying to become a cult movie by force. In doing so, Lussier has created a film that deserves any cult that it gets. That is unless that cult is looking to steal a baby to bring about Hell on Earth. Because then they'll have to answer to Nic Cage with the pedal to the metal, and no one wants that. Except me, in the sequel.

That brings us to the end of #13. Join us back here tomorrow for #12 on the countdown, and remember if you want to be a part of The Halloween Top 13: The Devil Made Me Do It, then send me your list of favorites to thelightningbug (@) charter.net. Before I go, let me direct your attention back to the top of the page to the awesome banner. That was custom made for me by my friend V. Daniel Leslie, and I can't thank him enough for a job well done!

Bugg Rating 

The King of Wilmington - Maximum Overdrive (1986): Uncle Stevie Grinds The Gears

When a movie kicks off with an ATM machine telling the director he’s an asshole, that‘s a dangerous statement to make. This is especially true if the first time director in question is coked out of his mind and promised in the trailer to “scare the hell out of you”. This is doubly true if you’re Stephen King and after famously pooh poohing Stanley Kubrick’s vision of The Shining, you also say in the trailer, “If you want something done right, do it yourself.” On Dino De Laurentiis dime, the King of Horror went to Wilmington,  North Carolina to make good on his promise. There he brought to the screen his short story “Trucks” in the form of Maximum Overdrive, a movie that has been reviled and derided over the years.  While it undoubtedly caused many in the audience (and in the production for that matter) to agree with the ATM machine on the director’s character, today I am happy to be talking about Maximum Overdrive in this second installment of The King of Wilmington.

As a strange comet envelops the Earth’s skies with a greenish haze, machines everywhere decide they’re done doing what we tell them too. For the patrons and employees of The Dixie Boy truck stop that means dealing with rogue electric knives in the diner, impertinent gas pumps, and worst yet runaway 18 wheelers. Parolee Bill Robinson (Emilio Estevez) works as the short order cook at the diner, but when the machines start to rebel, Bill is the only one brave enough to fight back.  Despite the protestations of his boss, the surly Mr. Hendershot (Pat Hingle), Bill inspires the truck stop staff, newlyweds Connie (Yeardley Smith) and Carl (John Short), and hitchhiker (Laura Harrington) to band together armed with Mr. Hendershot’s private cache of weapons to fight back against the mechanical menace.

When Mr. King made his promise in the Maximum Overdrive trailer, people expected the author to remain faithful to his work and present something dark and moody. What people did not expect was a film that verged on high camp chock full of b-movie flourishes, sight gags, and inconsistent logic. The later is of course what they got, but the twenty five years since the release of Overdrive have disconnected the film from King’s promises. This allows Maximum Overdrive to be enjoyed as what it is, a silly retelling of Night of the Living Dead which recasts trucks for zombies and the farmhouse survivors as patrons of The Dixie Boy. While the film features flashes of King, Overdrive belongs on your shelf nestled right between Troll 2 and Killer Klowns from Outer Space, and in my book that’s a pretty damn nice place to be.

In general King acquits himself as a director fairly well capturing some well constructed shots, but King has even stated that he was so coked out of his mind that he doesn’t recall making the film, much of the credit should go to Italian cinematographer Armondo Nannuzzi (La Cage Aux Folles, Frankenstein Unbound). It was not like Nannuzzi walked away from the project unscathed. During a sequence involving a killer lawnmower, splinters shot everywhere including (in a Fulci-esque twist) directly into the eye of the cinematographer. He would later sue Stephen King for 18 million dollars, but the case was settled out of court. This was only one of two major accidents on the set. The other, which happened during the stunt involving the flipped over ice cream truck, fortunately injured no one.

Thankfully not adding insult to injuries, the majority of the actors in the film really sell the material. Emilio Estevez (The Breakfast Club, Repo Man) definitely got the memo about what kind of film this is. If there’s any question about that, just check out the scene where a truck pushes him across the parking lot. Emilio takes it so far over the top it comes back around (and makes Martin glad he didn’t take the Sheen name).  Also on the same page was legendary actor Pat Hingle who hams it up as “the biggest fuckhead” that Estevez’s character has ever met, Yeardley Smith (the voice of Lisa Simpson) as a screaming banshee of a newlywed, and Ellen McElduff (OZ, Homicide: Life on the Street) as the freaked out waitress. McElduff was a real highlight every time she would yell at the sky, “You can’t do this! We made you!” regardless of the fact that the only thing her character had a hand in constructing was a breakfast platter. The only actor who really missed the mark was Laura Harrington as the love interest. Not only was her acting bad, there was no chemistry at all between her and Estevez to sell their sudden, intense relationship.

Now of course this feature is all about the Stephen King films made in and around Wilmington, North Carolina, and I would be remiss if I didn’t talk some about the effect this film had on the area. While many locals were cast as extras in the opening bridge scene, many locals were also confused when the full size Dixie Boy opened up outside of town. Both locals and truckers tried to stop in on the set before a sign was erected letting everyone know it was only a set. After filming, the truck stop was bought by local investors who opened it for real, but after a few years they went under. I understand some of the Dixie Boy signing is still in existence. It also brought some special visitors into the area. Not only did King and crew descend on Wilmington, but he brought with him AC/DC who he tapped to do the soundtrack for the film. If you look very closely in the opening scene where the bridge raises, you can barely make out the Aussie rockers on a boat that passes under the bridge.

Maximum Overdrive has a reputation for being a film that’s not even “so bad it’s good”, but rather just bad. I think this reputation probably comes from a mixture of King’s own dismissals of the film and the rabid disappointment of his fans who expected the ultimate Stephen King film. For the rest of us who just like good old fashioned cheesy entertainment, Overdrive is a win all around. Even as the film sags in the middle with long, pointless expository passages, it redeems itself with trucks blowing up, military vehicles who speak Morse code, and trucks who bully Martin Sheen’s kid. So if you haven’t seen Maximum Overdrive for a while, I definitely encourage you to check it out. If you’ve never seen it and you love campy, silly horror/sci-fi fun, then invite your friends over and kick back. For those about to watch Maximum Overdrive, I salute you!

I’ll be back next Monday with the next chapter in The King of Wilmington when I cover the Wheelchair/werewolf film Silver Bullet.

Bugg Rating

Fast Company (1979): Cronenberg’s Body (Shop) Horror

When David Cronenberg’s films are brought up, people wax poetic about Videodrome, discuss how disturbing The Fly really is, or how he was the only director who could ever get close to bringing Burroughs’s Naked Lunch to life. If the conversation turns to his early work, then likely Marilyn Chambers poking people with her stinger in Rabid or Shivers general creepiness will be discussed. One film that doesn’t come up nearly as often is 1979’s Fast Company. It made its debut the same year as The Brood, but unlike that horror classic, Fast Company has been all but forgotten. In recent years, Cronenberg has gotten much critical praise for going outside the horror genre to direct films like Eastern Promises and The History of Violence, and so I thought it was high time I look back at this early non-horror curiosity. Plus it just happened to star today’s Beautiful Lady of Genre, Claudia Jennings, in her last film role.

Lonnie “The Lucky Man” Johnson (William Smith) is a huge star on the drag racing circuit, but when he gets pressured by FastCo executive Phil Adamson (John Saxon) to worry more about selling product than winning races, Johnson begins acting erratically. His girlfriend Sammy (Claudia Jennings) wants him to quit the dangerous sport, his rival “The Blacksmith” want to beat him anyway he can, and the young man who idolizes him Billy “The Kid” Broker wants to be him, but all Lonnie wants is to be his own man. When FastCo finally fires Lonnie, his friends rally behind him and they steal a car so Lonnie can have one more shot at drag racing immortality.

Although filmed primarily at the Edmonton Racetrack in Alberta, Canada, from the opening strains of the title song “Fast Company” with its pseudo-Bob Seger sound, Cronenberg’s film seems completely geared to the American drive-in audience. I can only imagine how great this film looked blown up to drive in proportions or how loud the rumble of the funny car’s engines would have been coming out of dozens of speakers. In a way the film is quite basic, the noble older racer, his younger sidekick ready for the spotlight, and the evil manager/corporation ready to make a fast buck. Fast Company plays with the classic Western formula and replaces horses with Funny Cars and shootouts with head to head drag races.

Fast Company was the first of Cronenberg’s films that he did not script himself. Instead he worked from a screenplay from Nicholas Campbell, who also stars in the film as Billy “The Kid”. Cronenberg was billed as a writer on the film though, and I have to wonder if the climax, a Cronenbergian twist that even involves some body trauma, was the director’s contribution. So while the film lacks the kind of flair that he exhibited in his early films Rabid and Shivers, it does have a style to it that definitely was the mark of the director. He filmed the races with almost a fetishistic level of detail, and some of the interior shots of the cars while they race are extremely well shot. The most interesting of these overlays a timer and we see a race, over in only 6 seconds, from the driver’s point of view. The sound is also amazing. In that same scene you hear the rumble of engines, squalling sound as the RPM’s rev, the roar as the race begins, and finally silence punctuated only by the heavy breathing of the driver. It brings the experience of drag racing to life, and even for someone like me, who could care less about car racing, I found these scenes very thrilling.

If I had just listened to this film, I would have assumed this was the work of one of many drive-in directors of the time. The script is heavily laden with clichés and ham-fisted dialog, but it seems to fit the general goofy tone of the film. However, when it turns to the more serious matters brought up in the film, the evil corporate stooge or jealousy among drivers, it quickly falls apart. It’s hard to tell if Cronenberg and Campbell thought they were making a drama with comedic moments or a serious indictment of the quest for fame. Another thing that doesn’t help the film’s uneven tone are the many songs, such as the aforementioned “Fast Company”. When singer Michael Stanley starts his crooning, it seems like the kind of thing that would have come from the minds of satirists like Trey Parker and Matt Stone for a South Park episode.

Even though the material the actors were working with was not the best, many of them rose to the occasion. William Smith (Red Dawn, CC & Company) gives a charismatic performance as “Lucky” Johnson, and it was kind of interesting to see him get to play the affable lug instead of the baddie that he usually plays. He makes for a sympathetic character, and the strength of his performance is what really brings this film together. John Saxon (you should know what The Saxon has been in) also shines as the evil representative of the oil company, and the moments he appears on the screen sliming it up are perhaps the best. Nicholas Campbell really didn’t give himself too big a part as “The Kid”, but he does pour motor oil all over a naked girl’s breasts, so take from that what you will. The most comedic moments in the film come by way of the pit crews, and in an interesting bit of trivia, rival mechanic Meatball, George Buza, would go on to voice The Beast in The X-Men animated series while unfortunately his more beastly fellow mechanic Stoner, David Graham, never appeared in another film.

Now one of the main reasons I checked out this film today was the appearance of today’s B.L.O.G, Claudia Jennings. Unfortunately, despite the large font proclaiming her name and the tagline on the back hailing this as her last film, Ms. Jennings’ appearances in the film are brief and without any real merit. If you’re a fan of the 1970 Playmate of the Year, then you’re better off checking out her 1972 starring role in the roller derby film The Unholy Rollers if you want to see more of the vivacious beauty. Fast Company was indeed her final film. She died in a tragic auto accident when she fell asleep at the wheel of her car the next year, and now beyond fans of ‘70’s genre film, she has been nearly forgotten. That kind of neatly sums up the female characters in Fast Company. They serve mainly as trophies or sex objects, and if you’re looking for strong, interesting women, something Cronenberg displayed in his earlier films, you will find it severely lacking here. While Ms. Jennings is horribly underused here, she has a lot to like on her résumé and I encourage people to check out her other films.

David Cronenberg has had a long career, but not extremely varied until his last couple of features. Most fans of the director enjoy his horror output, and I consider myself a huge fan of Videodrome, Rabid, and Naked Lunch. It would be hard for me to say if horror fans would get much out of this feature. Being a fan of ‘70’s cinema in general, I enjoyed this strange slice from Cronenberg’s career, but it is clearly not a film that will appeal to everyone. It does show off the skills of a young director still finding his way, and there are flashes of the filmmaker that he would become. Cronenberg completists will have to check this one out, and fans of car films should give it a shot. For anyone else, be warned, it might just be a drag.

Bugg Rating

Multi-Monday Brings Down the Hough-se With The Legend of Hell House (1973) and Dirty Mary Crazy Larry (1974)

Hello folks and welcome back to another installment of Multi-Monday. This week I’m looking at two films from director John Hough. The name might not be familiar, but some of his movies will certainly ring a bell. Hough began his career in the early Sixties acting as Assistant Director and occasionally Director of the popular British spy series The Avengers. As the Seventies began, Hough helmed Twins of Evil, a film from Hammer studios starring the ubiquitous Peter Cushing. After working with Orson Wells on Treasure Island, Hough made a duo of genre films, one a mediocre affair and the other a classic, that would forever seal his legacy in the genre film world.

First in 1973, The Legend of Hell House starred Lair favorite Pamela Franklin (The Innocents, And Soon the Darkness) and Roddy McDowell (Planet of the Apes, Fright Night). The film was based on a novel by Richard Matheson, the pen behind I Am Legend and many classic Twilight Zone episodes, and the author adapted his work for the screen as well. The film follows a team sent to the notorious Hell House to prove/disprove survival after death. The team is lead by physicist Lionel Barrett (Clive Revill), his wife Ann (Gayle Hunnnicutt), a young female medium Florance (Franklin) and the only survivor of the previous investigation, psychic Benjamin Franklin Fisher (McDowell). Previous visitors have either been killed or gone mad, and the further the team gets into uncovering the secrets of former resident "Roaring Giant" Emeric Belasco,the more likely it appears that they will suffer the same fate.

I was hoping that it would combine the British horror styles of the Seventies with the moody atmospherics of films such as The Changeling, The Innocents, or The Sentinel. Unfortunately, while the film tries to capture the feeling of being in a haunted house, it comes out more ham fisted than spooky. Usually reliable, McDowell’s character seems like a non-entity until the final act of the film, and by then it’s too little too late. Pamela Franklin put on a nice act as the often terrorized and occasionally possessed medium, but as the film grinds on her performance veers too far into the overdramatic to be very enjoyable.

The only redeeming quality of this film is some of the over the top moments that caused me to break into peals of laughter. The particular scene that springs to mind involves Ms. Franklin being attacked by a cat. Not since the opening scene of Fulci’s Cat in the Brain have I seen a faker feline, and watching Franklin struggle with it was more than a little amusing. Matheson had to tone down both the violence and sexual situations from his novel, and while I am no fan of remakes, I would be interested in seeing a modern interpretation of the story with more of Matheson’s original material retained.

In the end, I can’t see Legend of Hell House ranking with the classic films that tackle ghostly themes. It tries to build up tension, but instead of having a slow burn, this flick has a slow dousing. Any tension that does manage to get built is extinguished by the plodding pace of the narrative. I have great patience with films, but I found Hell House hard to watch from a pacing standpoint alone apart from the other issues that the film contains. If you have ninety minutes and the desire to watch this film, be warned it will seem much longer and in the end lack a satisfying payoff.

Bugg Rating

John Hough’s next film would be a cult movie classic, but Hough chose to move away from the horror genre and British film. Instead he produced a film that by its very nature is one of the most American of genres, the car movie. Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is often brought up in the same discussions as films such as Vanishing Point, Bullitt, or The French Connection because of its legendary car chase scenes. Dirty Larry Crazy Mary even got several mentions a couple of years back when Quentin Tarantino made his fase paced vehicular love letter, Death Proof.

While The Legend of Hell House Lacks the tension that would have made that tale convincing, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry begins with enough suspense to have filled two or three viewing of Hell House. Starting the film with the two male leads Larry (Peter Fonda) and Deke (Adam Roarke) pulling off a robbery seems like an exciting premise. They plan to knock over a supermarket for their daily cash drop, but they way they go about it is very unsettling. Deke breaks into the supermarket manager’s home and keeps his wife and child hostage while Larry strolls calmly into the store picking up the cash from the manager (Roddy McDowell) who has been informed that his family will suffer if he makes a scene.

The sequence is suspenseful and very tense, but more than that it’s a hell of a way to introduce your leads. From the very start they are desperate men who seem very unsympathetic. It’s also interesting that their plan mirrors that of the criminals in the Johnny Cash film Five Minutes to Live. While Crazy Mary Dirty Larry departs from the crime portion of the film quickly, it seems that the opening scene had to have been modeled off the little seen film starring the Country music legend.

After Larry gets away with the cash, the plan is to pick up Deke and speed out of town, but things start to go haywire when Mary (Susan George), who had spent the evening with Larry, shows up sprawled out in his car. With no time to get rid of her, Larry must agree to take her along, and she becomes their surprise co-conspirator. They take off into the countryside, but soon the local cops call in their best man, the individualistic officer Everett Franklin (Vic Morrow). Franklin takes command of the squad cars and begins to use everything at his disposal to bring the thieves to justice.

As the film unfolds and you begin to know more about Larry, the ex-car racer, and Deke, his dry drunk mechanic, they become more relatable characters, but the memory of their home invasion is never far behind. The only likeable character is Susan George’s Mary though she is a consummate and perpetual liar. In some ways Dirty Mary Crazy Larry mirrors the Peter Fonda classic Easy Rider, but while Captain American and his cohorts were good time rebels who might run some drugs, Larry, Deke, and Mary are on the edge of becoming career criminals.

Hough’s film is an interesting character study, but it remains hard throughout to like any of the leads much. Fonda especially continues to be a massive asshole as the film goes on, though both Deke and Mary evolve into sympathetic losers. I have no doubt that Peter Fonda played his part as written, and he definitely succeeds in being a complete jerk. Adam Roarke does a wonderful job as Deke, the mechanic who screwed up Larry’s chances of being a NASCAR star. Roarke is probably the least recognizable name in the cast, but anyone who has seen a fair amount of biker flicks will recognize him from films such as 1970’s Hells Bells or 1968’s The Losers. Susan George is the picture of ‘70’s cuteness as Mary. George may well best be known as rape victim Amy in Sam Peckinpah’s 1971 film Straw Dogs, but she deserves to be remembered for the plucky, cute freeloader in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry.

Last but not least, I have to say that the best and most likeable performance in the film comes from Vic Morrow as the lawman Franklin. He refuses to wear a badge or gun, he can think like a criminal on the run, and he’s not beyond ramming a car with a helicopter if he has to. While the other cops are squarely obsessed with modern techniques of law enforcement, Morrow’s Franklin almost seems like a sheriff in a western film. Morrow of course had a long career of character roles and starred in the TV series Combat!, but he will infamously be remembered for when he lost his life. Morrow was one of the victims of the tragic helicopter crash on the set of Twilight Zone: The Movie. With so much of his screen time in Dirty Mary Crazy Larry being in a helicopter, it was a bit eerie.

Where Hough’s Hell House failed was having unsuspenseful situations filled with characters that I could not get into. On the other hand, Dirty Mary Crazy Larry, gained strength from putting challenging characters in a tense situation. Hell House plodded along revealing little of itself to the audience while DM,CL continues at a breakneck pace from start to finish. If you can only see one of these films, then make it Dirty Mary Crazy Larry. After all who needs a sub-par ghost tale when you can watch one of the best and longest car chase sequences ever put to film.

Bugg Rating

The fascinating thing about John Hough is after making Hammer horror, supernatural scares, and one of the best chases in film history, he ended up bringing a bit of all that to Walt Disney Pictures. In 1975, Hough helmed the Disney classic Escape to Witch Mountain and followed that up with what has been called the scariest of the Disney films, Watcher in the Woods. These two films left an indelible imprint on those of us who grew up in the ‘80’s, and I found it very interesting to check the films that Hough cut his teeth working on. He would eventually fall back into the fold of the straight up, non-kid friendly horror fare with films such as 1988’s Howling IV: The Beginning, but none of his other productions ever reached the heights of the Witch Mountain films.

I hope you all enjoyed this installment of Multi-Monday. Join me back here for the rest of the week for some hippie horror, more Hitchcock fun, a visit from beautiful lady, and another Giallo to round out the month! Then the furious posting begins with 31 horror films in 31 days including the Sequel to the Halloween Top 13!

The Grab Bag: Sergio Martino's the Violent Professionals

Argento might have been the artist, Fulci the purveyor of sleaze and filth, and Castellari the master of the action sequence, but there’s a director whose workhorse dedication to film put him in a class all to himself. I’m talking Sergio Martino here. With 63 movies to his name spanning from 1969’s Mondo Sex to 2008’s L'allenatore nel pallone 2, Martino has worked ceaselessly throughout a forty year career. Martino himself once commented on his catalog saying, “My movies are like a soft drink -- sparkling, unaffected products for mass consumption. A soft drink doesn't have the prestige of champagne, of course, but I'd rather have a good soda pop than watered down wine anytime.” While I think this downplays much of his work, there’s truth there. Whether you’re watching Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key, Giovanna Long Thigh, or Hands of Steel, Martino is going to give you a movie experience that will entertain and sometimes leave you with a big silly grin on your face.

Tonight I’m taking my first look at one of Martino’s Polizia/Crime pictures. He made a number of this kind of film throughout his career. Like many other Italian directors, Martino had no fear of hopping from horror to crime to suspense to western to comedy and back again, and while some efforts are better than others, you can always tell that Sergio had his mind, and often his camera, in just the right place. When I put in the disk for The Violent Professionals (1973) [Italian: Milano trema - la polizia vuole giustizia], I expected to see Martino and star Luc Merenda go through the paces of the genre that I have come to expect from directors like Castellari , Caiano, Girolami, and Lenzi. What I didn’t expect were the special twists and turns Martino and screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi built into the story.

Luc Merenda stars as Lt. Giorgio Caneparo, a loose cannon cop who endears himself to me right away by ruthlessly blowing away a couple of escaped convicts turned child killers. Unfortunately, he doesn’t endear himself much to the top brass, but thanks to his Commissioner, he might be spared the brunt of an investigation. However, when the Commissioner is gunned down in the streets, Giorgio is soon given a suspension from the force. Even though he’s been denied his badge, Giorgio is not going to let something like that stop his investigation into the shooting, and he decides to work his way into the underworld to get answers.

He does this just like you think he might. First he picks up a hooker, robs her, and finally waits until the next morning to work over her pimp. He takes over the operation, and soon makes himself a nuisance anywhere he can to try and get to attention of the big bosses. It doesn’t take long before they come calling and Padulo (Richard Conte) comes to hire him to be a driver in a bank heist. Busting up that heist brings him closer to getting his badge back, but no closer to finding out who killed his boss. Using his fists and guns, Giorgio busts his way further and further into the criminal organization until he finds out that money is not their only motivation, they intend to take over the country and destroy democracy.

I know that was a pretty long summation of the story, but it barely scratches the surface of the action contained in The Violent Professionals. This is a film chock full of fistfights, shootouts, and some of the craziest car chases filmed. I always enjoy seeing car chases in Italian films because I love to see people put the pedal to the metal of a Fiat. Those must have been the toughest cars ever made. Not only can they speed along the streets at breakneck speed, they can slam into each other heavily, ram their way through piles of burning crates, and propel themselves down the steepest of inclines and just drive away. This film features some of the best Fiat action I’ve ever seen, and I found it quite strange that the worst car footage comes when Merenda gets behind the wheel of a sports car in a poorly edited segment.

The first experience I had with Luc Merenda was seeing him as a Mexican? Indian? (Hard to say really.) in the Charles Bronson meets samurai western Red Sun, but recently I got my hands on the rare giallo Pensione paura (1977) and enjoyed him as the slimy Rudolfo. (You can check out a full review of that title and many others in the forthcoming Cinema de Bizarre newsletter) I was quite interested in checking him out in a lead role, and I quite liked him. It was interesting to see him go from detective to his undercover persona of a slimy pimp. He had a great hard stare, and while he will never be a Franco Nero or Fabio Testi in my eyes, I found his performance quite enjoyable and engaging. I must mention that I watched this film dubbed, and Merenda’s voice was provided by Michael Forest, a House of Corman veteran who did voiceover work for lots of Italian films.

The other standout performance of the film comes from Richard Conte, better known as Don Barzini to fans of The Godfather (1972). Having seen that film many times, just seeing Conte on the screen instantly made me dislike his character, and then he went on to give me plenty of good reason. Not only does he commands his gang to do despicable acts with no regard for the lives theytake, he is just one slimy little weasel. He also has a knock down drag out fight with Merenda where the much older actor looked like he was holding his own against the younger man.

The Violent Professionals is also greatly enhanced by the score of the De Angelis Brothers. These two fellows, who also provided scores for Yor, The Hunter from the Future (1983), Martino’s At the Mountain of the Cannibal God, and Castellarti’s The Big Racket, are consistently great when it comes to scoring films with action sequences. What Gobin is to Horror, and Morricone is to the Western, the De Angelis Brothers should be to action films. Every piece of music in this film perfectly fit the pace and timing of the feature, and I loved every moment.

The cinematography from frequent Martino collaborator Giancarlo Ferrando is nothing stunning, but it gets the job done and, in the case of the car chases, succeeds in making the moments quite thrilling. Ferrando, it should be noted, worked on many other projects including that trash classic of all time, Troll 2. The main strength of the film comes from the clever scripting of Ernesto Gastaldi. I really did not expect some of the turns the film took, and the idea of a gang having political motivations to reinstall a fascist state in Italy was quite interesting. Gastaldi was also the pen behind some of my other favorite films including Hands of Steel and Forbidden Photos of a Lady Beyond Suspicion as well as many, many more.

After seeing The Violent Professionals, it has only enhanced my desire to go further and further into Sergio Martino’s catalog. I do have to warn folks that I watched this from The Grindhouse Experience Vol 1 boxed set, and the film had a terrible buzz throughout. I was willing to overlook it because I liked the film, but it may well ruin the experience for some viewers. However, if you really like the crime genre or Sergio, then this is one I encourage you to check out. While it may not have been executed with the skill of some of the genre’s directors, the film has enough style and charm to more than make up for it.

Bugg Rating

Here's the trailer, but you can also watch the whole film RIGHT HERE on YouTube and it's legal and everything!