The Bigger and Badder Halloween Top 13: #5: Attack of the 50ft. Woman (1958)

For the second time on this list, I will be talking about an exclusively humanoid giant, but unlike the teens in Village of the Giants, this time it isn't played so much for laughs. In the eyes of a conservative nation, which America has steadily grown out of over the years, the rise of the Women’s Christian Temperance Organization in the 1870s-80s was nothing less than monstrous. While their purpose was to ban alcohol, something that few people would rally around now, one of their main reasons was to improve the home life of women who were abused, beaten, and neglected thanks to the rampant alcoholism which had spread like wildfire among the nation’s male population. To many, the members of that group, as well as the women’s suffragettes, were nothing less than monstrous. However, these two movements were the seed of what would grow to be the modern feminist movement, which came into its own nearly a hundred years later in the 1960’s. Despite winning the vote in the 1920s and powering the country through World War II, when the men came home, they still expected to find meek partners who bent to their husband’s will, but by the late 1950s the strain between the sexes was beginning to show even in idyllic middle America. So it comes as no surprise that a movie came along and exploited the fear of the powerful woman whose cause was just, if not her methods. Granted she was still dressed in an awfully titillating style, but Attack of the 50 Foot Woman offered up a giant woman in the place of a giant movement just waiting in the wings.

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.

Get Off on the Goldfoot: Kicking off Summer with Vincent Price

While the calendar might denote a specific day that summer begins astrologically, I think most of us will agree that when June arrives, summer is upon us. Here at the Lair, it’s no different. It’s the time of year I break out the Bermuda shorts, drag out the lawn chair, slather up with coconut oil, and start soaking in the rays. It also means that my heart turns to the lighter side of genre fare. From the blood soaked beaches to the dense tropic jungles, you’ll find me turning up the heat all summer long. To start it off, I wanted to bring in the king of cool in a pair of sizzling films. When you think about beaches, surf, and sand, the name Vincent Price surely springs to mind right away. Well, perhaps not right away, but I think today I can bring it  a little closer with two films featuring Price commanding a phalanx of two pieces.

Les Adventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (2010) : Rollin In the Deep with Luc Besson

If you're like me, and I assume you are because you're reading this, then you didn't care for Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). Apart from nuking the fridge and making Indy's adventures an interstellar affair, Spielberg made a film that lacked heart, a surprise from a director who is usually all heart. Between Indy's adventures, trials, and foibles, I needed something more to connect the series of action sequences. What I never would have thought was to look to France, and Luc Besson, for a film to sate my appetite for an adventurous blockbuster with as much introspection as explosions. Les Adventures Extraordinaires d'Adèle Blanc-Sec (a.k.a The Extraordinary Adventures of Adele Blanc-Sac for the French impaired) features a woman who is no wan Indiana Jayne, but rather it paints a portrait of a strong, independently minded woman who is educated, sexy, and clever, in the era directly after World War I, not a time renowned for advances in feminism. She doesn't explore for science or greed or even the discovery, but rather to save her sister's life. .

Blood Games (1990):A Real American Pastime,Vengence

Since it's National Blood Donation Month and I'm picking movies with a sanguine connection, I couldn't resist checking out Blood Games, a rape-revenge flick that has balls... baseballs I mean. The Australians always have a way at cutting to the core of things, and they might not have ever hit it on the head more accurately than with their re-titling of Blood Games as Baseball Bimbos in Hillbilly Hell. That evocative title lets you now everything you need to know about the film. There will be hicks, tits, shotguns, sub-Roadhouse level redneck wisdom, and the great American pastime. In short, Blood Games is an exploitation goldmine, and there's nuggets in there big enough to make a Kanye West necklace with. This is definitely an under-seen, under-appreciated gem, and I'm proud to make it the next selection in Blood Donation Month. So sit back and relax while I tell you about a time when men struck out and women struck back... with bats and guns and buses.

Babe and the Ballgirls are a traveling exposition baseball team. Along with their coach, Midnight (Ross Hagan), they travel from town to town playing local teams while the coach makes large wagers on the team to pay off their mounting debts. In one small town, they run into a bit of trouble. The losing team of hicks doesn't take too kindly to being beaten by a group of gals, and town boss Mino Collins (Ken Carpenter) doesn't want to pay up on a thousand dollar bet. Midnight and Mino rumble in a barroom bathroom, and Mino pays off the debt. However, it has taken too long for the coach to get back to his team. Midnight's daughter Babe (Laura Albert) and one of the other girls go to look for him. Instead they find Roy Collins (Gregory Scott Cummins), Mino's son, and his best friend Holt (Don Dowe) who try and rape the girls. When Midnight shows up, he gets stabbed helping the girls and Roy gets shot in the leg. Trying to escape town, the team boards their bus head out quickly, but Roy and Holt  shoot the bus off the road resulting in Roy getting crushed to death. Mino takes no small offence at the death of his boy, and soon the town forms a posse to go after the girls and kill them one by one.

If you were sitting with me right now, Blood Games would be all I want to talk about. From the quotable lines (Mino drops bon mots like "There is no such thing as pain." and "You're fucking with the devil now boy.) to the gratuitous shower scene, slow motion action sequences, and the mere existence of George "Buck" Flower in this flick, I could ramble on about this one like Tarantino on speed. So I apologize if the synopsis ran a little long. I'd also talk at length about director Tanya Rosenberg, I have no idea who she is. She only directed one film. She's not listed or talked about anywhere. It's like she appeared, dropped this exploitation gem on us, and disappeared like some kind of cult film fairy. It amazes me that this rape-revenge flick (there is a full blown rape later in the film) came about in the early 90s, well past the heyday of such fare. It's almost unfair to call this a 90s film. The French cut panties, big hair, and neon colors the girls wear places this movie squarely in the pre-grunge era when the 80s were still stubbornly leaving their mark in a new decade.

One of the big things that Blood Games has over other wrathful women film is that there's not one woman in peril, there's nine of them (and the coach, but he's only in danger long enough to get killed). Laura Albert, as team leader Babe, is the film's center, and she holds the surviving girls together as they escape into the dense woods surrounding the town. Albert is one of the only girls who appeared in movies both before and after Blood Games though now it seems she finds most of her work doing stunts on Batman Begins, Pineapple Express, and this year's Oscar nominated film The Artist. The other standout among the gals is Donna, Shelley Abblett in her one film role. Abblett delivers one of the film's most memorable lines, "I have been pushed around by men my whole life, and I'm sick of it.", a war-cry for vengeance seeking gals everywhere. While few of the girls ever did any acting or went on to do anymore, I found each of their performances enjoyable.

Veteran actor/director Ross Hagen does a fine job as Midnight, the team's coach, but sadly his role is minimal at best. Gregory Scott Cummins (Stone Cold, Phantom of the Mall) also has a small part as Roy, the sore loser, but he impresses with rampant dickery and a certain Kevin Sorbo-esque look. He also has one of the best arm wrestling scenes this side of Hands of Steel though instead of snakes it's done over candles. More impressive is Ken Carpenter as the town bossman Mino. Carpenter, who would later appear in Hellraiser: Hell on Earth as the Camera cinobite, gives a great tough guy perfromance, and his fight with Ross Hagan in the bathroom with his pants around his ankles is surely one for the books. Don Dowe, a character actor still working today, also turns in a fine performance as Holt, the dumbest of the hunters and Roy's best friend. Something about him made me think about Bill Fagerbakke as Dauber on Coach, Except, you know, more rapey. That beings us to the film's final delight George "Buck" Flower who appeared here under the name Ernest Wall, a screen name he only used once. I hope each and every one of you knows who Flower is and can imagine how good he'd be as a hillbilly named Vern. He also has one of my favorite exchanges in the film. Holt says, "Vern, you can't beat your own meat." to which Vern replies, "I can beat it better than you can." Comedy gold.

I've seen some speculation that Blood Games was intended to be a parody of female vengeance flicks, but I saw no trace of anything that could point to that. While there are certainly some funny moments, intentional and unintentional, Blood Games doesn't seem like it was supposed to be played for laughs. Like a mash-up of I Spit on Your Grave, Deliverance, and a sports film (some say A League of Their Own, but apart from girls playing ball I fail to see a correlation), Blood Games is indeed one of the best exploitation movies of the last twenty five years. Right now it's playing on Netflix Instant Watch, and I can't recommend this enough. If you like your exploitation violent, sexy, and down and dirty with a giant dollop of 80s on the top, then you really can't afford to miss this one. This film starts with a baseball game, and it is a crackerjack. When it comes to cult fare like this, I really don't care if I ever come back. I got to root, root, root for the gals to win, and the ones that die, it is a shame, but this flick gets One-Two-Three (and a half) Buggs to count for the old Blood Game. 

Bugg Rating 

Monday Bugg Zappers: The Bowie-lynx Cometh & Bringeth Links

Referring here to the manual, it says that the only thing better for a Monday than Bugg Zappers are links. Interesting, Bugg Zappers are links to some cool posts I read through the week. No wait, I read it wrong the only thing better are lynx. I can see it in a way, the crazy ears, the spots, and the wild mane. If David Bowie were an animal, I'd think him to be a lynx. That hasn't happened to my knowledge. We all know that circa 1974, Mr. Bowie was dog from the waist down, but that is completely unrelated. So no matter what this zoology manual says, Bugg Zappers are still cooler than  lynxes until The Thin White Duke becomes one. Want proof, read on....

Over at Day of the Woman, BJ-C might just have faced some karmic retribution : 

And God Said, Let The Be Twi-Hards

Over at Dfordoom's Cult Movie Reviews, my main man looks into Arizona Colt director Michele Lupo's the ominously titled peplum pic, Goliath and the Sins of Babylon

If you're like me and the words, Linnea Quigley's Murder Weapon sound like something incredibly deadly yet totally sexy, then you've got to check out The Bloody Pit of Horror for the review!

Johnny LaRue's Crane Shot got deep into Deathstaker and Deathstalker II, a guy after my own heart I tell you. 

Pierre, Pierre, where do you get those wonderful toys. Over at Frankensteinia: The Frankenstein Blog, this week Mr. Fournier featured a lovely post about the Frankenstein Re-release Program Book, Austria 1957

When I see that James from Behind the Couch is reviewing The House on Sorority Row, I'm clicking faster than someone trying to un-send one of those e-mails. The one's you write and then close. Imagine, if you will, the speed at which you would click everything trying to stop an accidental sending of said mail. Faster than that clicking (though less frantically, instead with a more the cool, decisive clicking of a hardened gunslinger), I checked it out, and so should you. 

That about wraps it up for today, so check those out, and maybe next week I can get a manual to work this thing. Or maybe I can get Emmanuel Lewis in to do this for me. Don't count on it, but I'll work on it behind the scenes. Anyhow, until next week, consider yourselves Zapped!

Blood and Lace (1971) : "Evil Breeds Evil, Honey."

One of the great joys in life is perusing the selections available for Instant Watch on Netflix and finding the same kind of oddball titles and offbeat films I used to dig up in video rental places. Lately, they’ve even been expanding their catalog to add rare and even out of print titles to their racks. As I can’t seem to go through a week without seeing a horror film that I have to check out, I figured I would share them here on what I’m going to call Instant Terror Tuesdays. For the first selection, I chose a film that I’d wanted to see for quite some time, 1971’s Blood and Lace. (Not to be confused with the similarly named 1964 Mario Bava giallo film Blood and Black Lace.)  I wanted to see if the film’s reputation for being a progenitor of the slasher film, a twisted thriller, and one of the hardest PG rated movies ever was warranted. Plus, it had Vic Tayback, and that will sell me on any film.

The film opens on a vicious POV murder of a couple by a hammer wielding killer who sets the room on fire to cover up the crime. The scene ends as a young woman screams and Ellie Masters (Melody Patterson) wakes from the nightmare that has plagued her since her mother’s murder. Seems like mom was the town whore, and the murder has gone unsolved due to the fact that every man in town would have been a suspect. Ellie fell under the care of social worker Mr. Mullins (Milton Selzer), but now she’s being sent off to Mrs. Deere’s Orphanage despite the protestations of town detective Calvin Caruthers (Vic Tayback) who thinks her life might be in danger from her mother’s killer. What he doesn’t know is that Mrs. Deere (Gloria Grahame) might be the bigger danger. Wanting to keep every child she can to continue getting paid from the state for their care, Mrs. Deere and her dastardly handyman aren’t beyond keeping a few kids on ice for safe keeping. With danger on all sides, her nightmares intensifying, and a disfigured man with a hammer stalking her, Ellie Masters will be lucky to get out of anywhere alive.

Blood and Lace is one of those films where 10 or 15 minutes in I was ready to look up director Phillip Gilbert and track down everything he’d ever directed. However, when I did just that, I found out that I was watching his entire catalog currently. Released by American International Pictures with a script by Spider Baby producer Gil Lasky, Blood and Lace remains something of a mystery with precious little information about the film floating around out there. Try as I might, I couldn’t dig up any revelations about one time director Phillip Gilbert, but somewhere between his and b-movie cinematographer Paul Hipp’s (Policewomen, The Incredible Two Headed Transplant) vision, Blood and Lace grabs an atmospheric style. The film owes something to Hitchcock, lends something to slasher films, and would be a killer double feature with 1968’s Pretty Poison. By the time the shocking revelations come about at the film’s end, they not only pack a punch, but also manages to be surprisingly satisfying after Blood and Lace’s many twists and turns. The subtitle of this review is a quote directly proceeding the most devastating of the film's final shocks and leaves the viewer in the awkward state of figuring out the most horrifying of the events before him.

The film is headed up by two familiar faces to folks who’ve watched far too much Nick at Night. The first and most recognizable is the aforementioned Vic Tayback, famous for his role as Mel on the sitcom Alice, but Tayback was a character actor in many films even co-starring with Johnny Cash in Five Minutes to Live. As the town detective with an uncomfortable interest in Ellie, Tayback balances coming off like a hard boiled detective and a skeezy perv. The second TV alum is the object of his inquiries, Ellie Masters played by Melody Patterson. Ms Patterson appeared on 65 episodes of F-Troop before going on to bit parts in The Monkees, Bruce Dern’s biker flick The Cycle Savages, and Blood and Lace. She was honestly not the best actress, but she made up for it by selling Ellie’s rebellious streak and looking quite good doing it. Gloria Grahame, far from her early role as the minx who tried to steal Jimmy Stewart from Donna Reed in It’s a Wonderful Life, give a striking and  sadistic late career performance as Mrs. Deere, the house mother with some interesting ideas about life and death. Putting the icing on the cake is one last familiar TV face, though the years may prevent recognizing him. Len Lesser, better known as Uncle Leo on Seinfeld, is convincingly menacing as Tom, the smarmy handyman in Mrs. Deer’s employ.

Blood and Lace is one of the rare times when my high expectations were actually rewarded with a film sure to take a place on any shortlist of under-seen classic horror. While some may criticize the Hammer style orange-ish blood and some of the more predictable (though perverse) twists as being campy or belonging to the “so bad it;s good” camp, I appreciate Blood and Lace for what it is, a proto-slasher cut from the same cloth as Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, The Evictors, and Pretty Poison. It’s well worth a watch, and for anyone with Netlfix, it’s only a few clicks away. I hope you folks enjoyed the first installment of Instant Terror Tuesday, and I’ll be back again next week with another piece of dementia on demand. Until then, don’t forget to come back Thursday for the first installment of Thanksgiving with Alejandro (Jodorowsky) and look out this weekend for Movies that Killed, the lighter side of the Lair.

Bugg Rating

The Eddie Romero Files: Case 1- Black Mama, White Mama (1973)

Case File: Eddie Romero-01
Reason for Inquiry: Subject has made a number of cult films that have gone unrecognized for many years.


Background: The subject of this investigation is well respected Filipino director Eddie Romero (a.k.a The Other Romero). Born in 1924 in the Philippines, the subject began selling short stories to local papers at age 12 and graduated to film scripts by the time he was twenty three years old. Romero won award for his writing and eventually his direction for a number of films in his native country, but in 1957, he embarked on a different path. Romero began to make war films with the express desire to export them to the West. While he never broke through, a number of the films reached an American audience, including Day of the Trumpet. It got the attention of actor Burgess Meredith (a.k.a The Riddler a.k.a Mick) who then conspired with the subject on a film entitled The Kidnappers in 1958.

Furthering his desire to break into the American market, he made a number of low budget horror films, and it should be no surprise that a thrifty director making movies for less than nothing would get the attention of Roger Corman. During these years, Romero turned out genre and cult fare on par with any of his contemporaries and worked with shady characters such as John Saxon, Pam Grier, Jack Hill, Sid Haig, and Cherrie Caffaro.l. Then in 1975, Romero moved back to the Philippines once again taking on the mantle of Award winning film maker. While the subject might have perfected a perfect cover, this report is set to blow the lid off Romero’s little remembered genre entries. All that's left is to collect the research from our man in the field, T.L. Bugg.

Agent’s Report: When I first got asked to go into the field by the CIA (Cinema Intelligence Agency), I didn’t go because I knew such a thing didn’t exist, but when a couple of hardened agents showed up on my doorstep and threatened to make me watch Merchant Ivory flicks while strapped to a chair all “Kubrick style”. I don’t usually cave under pressure, but I could have changed my named to Carlsbad J. Caverns at they moment. So I took the file they wanted me to look at, and I realized why I was chosen for the job, I had already seen one of Romeo’s films. This past association with the subject was going to go a long way, but as I dug deeper into his dossier I found a film that I’d heard of many times but never seen. It turned out that the film in question, Black Mama, White Mama, was to be my first assignment.

Made in 1973 right during the middle of the blaxploitation boom, Romero’s film, produced under the prodigious banner of American International Pictures, starred one of the icons of the genre, Pam Grier, as well as cult cinema legend Sid Haig. The script by H. R. Christian, based on a story by Angels As Hard as They Come author Joe Viola and future director Jonathan Demme, combined a flash of blaxploitation with a healthy dose of Jack Hill inspired “women in prison“ drama. With all of these factors coming together, it is no wonder that Black Mama, White Mama is easily Romero’s most recognized film in the United States.

The film kicks off with a sleazy introduction that could serve as a perfect primer to Romero’s work. Lee (Pam Grier), on the run from a drug kingpin whose fortune she stole, and Karen (Margaret Markov), the girlfriend of the local revolutionary leader, get thrown in to a Filipino women‘s prison. They are stripped and put in the shower, and as they folic and play, squirting each other with water as if being in a jail shower was the same as going to a water park, a female guard spies from a hole in the nest stall over and masturbates. So, yeah, if you don’t like a hefty dollop of sleaze in your ‘70’s cinema, his work with AIP and others around that time will not be for you. Now, if you’re like me, and you enjoy flicks where chicks kick a lot of ass while sporadically showing skin, shooting guns, or having catfights, Eddie Romero is your man.

While Black Mama, White Mama is often billed as a “women in prison” film, Lee and Karen spend the majority of the film on the run from their captors, the drug runners, and even unknowingly Karen’s Guevara-esque boyfriend. They do spend most of that time chained to each other, and this leads to a requisite knock down drag out fight between the two as well as giant plot holes such as how the pair both manage to don nun’s habits while handcuffed. Not that picking apart a film like Black Mama, White Mama does it any kind of service. The girls naturally put aside their differences in the end, and Romero keeps the film well paced right up to the climax, a massive gun battle on a pier.

Grier gives a midrange performance that doesn’t rank near her best work, but it’s Pam so I forgive her. Markov, who also appeared with Grier in Joe D’Amato’s 1974 film The Arena, I was unsure of at first. She seemed too annoying for words, but as the film went on and her revolutionary stance proved to be more than bluster I warmed up to her. Other than the two female leads, there are really only two standout actors in the film, Eddie Garcia and Sid Haig. Garcia was a frequent collaborator with Romero from the 1950’s right through the 70’s, and while I had seen him in a sleazier role before, he impressed equally as the police captain. Sid Haig is a name that should be familiar to most genre fans. Sid really chews up the screen Rufus, a bounty hunter with an affinity for fringed western shirts. I don’t think I can mention his character without saying that he executes one poor chap just because he is pitifully endowed. How did the film ever get to such a point? Well, that is the beauty of an Eddie Romero film.

As is usual with Eddie Romero’s films, they were obviously made on the cheap, but he was out to make the most of every last penny he had to spend. While it doesn’t reach the heights of Jack Hill’s films like The Big Bird Cage, it is definitely an interesting offering that will please both fans the chicks in chains genre as well as those who just like to bask in the majesty that is Pam Grier. When it comes down to brass tacks, it’s a middle of the road offering made a tad more interesting by Romero’s hometown locals and willingness to really amp up the sleaze factor at all costs. Thus ends my first report on Eddie Romero. Next week I will diver deeper into the film to find out how Mr. Romero met The Saxon!

Bugg Rating

Pretty Poison (1968): The Girl Mr. Yuk Never Warned You About

If there’s one thing that Anthony Perkins can verifiably do, it's play a crazy person, and if there’s a similar truth to be said of Tuesday Weld, it’s that she can certainly be relied on to play a sex kitten. That’s what makes 1968’s Pretty Poison such an engaging film to watch. Eight years after Perkins forever typecast himself with his turn as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho, he had been unable to define himself outside of the mentally disturbed box he had trapped himself in. Though he made some great films such as Orson Welles 1962 adaptation of Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Perkins had failed to shake the Bates’ specter. Pretty Poison allowed Perkins to tap back into the crazy person that audiences knew him as, and Weld, building on roles in films such as Rock Rock Rock, Sex Kittens Go to College, and The Cincinnati Kid, makes for a devilish and Beautiful Lady of Genre.

Perkins stars as Dennis Pitt, a recently released mental patient with a record for arson. With help from his counselor, Pitt gets a job at a chemical plant in a sleepy little New England town where he meets the beautiful high school cheerleader, Sue Ann Stepanek. Pitt’s mysterious nature intrigues Sue Ann, and when he tells her that he’s a secret agent working for the CIA, that only serves to heighten her fascination. Sue Ann and Dennis embark on a number of “missions” where the young girl soon proves herself to be a cold blooded and calculated killer, far more capable of violent acts than the delusional Mr. Pitt. Sue Ann soon begins to pressure Pitt to run away with her to Mexico, but before they go, Sue Ann insists they must do away with her domineering mother (Beverly Garland).

Director Noel Black was a relative novice in the film world with only two films and a handful of TV credits to his name, and though he never rose to a loftier perch (his 1982 TV film version of Ray Bradbury’s The Electric Grandmother is his other career highlight), Pretty Poison is a skilled thriller which turns the audience’s expectations on their ear. With Anthony Perkins being so closely linked to Norman Bates, I spent a good deal of the beginning of the film waiting for him to off someone. The twist (which I don’t think is a spoiler as it happens in the first third of the film) of having the innocent, blonde Weld being the callus killer was quite enjoyable. The plot combined with the slick, beautiful cinematography of David L. Quaid, who also shot Santa Claus Conquers The Martians of all things, give the film an essentially modern look. From the camera angles to the pacing, Pretty Poison delivers on all fronts.

The real joy of the film is the chemistry between Perkins and Weld. Like Norman Bates, Dennis Pitt is also controlled by a woman, but it is not the spectre of a dead mother but rather the innocuous virtue of Sue Ann Stepanek that controls Pitt. The film’s quick turn, from watching a crazy man con a young girl to the unveiling of the cheerleading sociopath is so well played by the actors that I took great joy in watching them develop the bait and switch. While Perkins is exceptional, Weld really impresses. Though later in her career she’d make higher profile films like Looking for Mr. Goodbar, I had always considered her more of a pretty face than a skilled actress. Pretty Poison flatly proved me wrong. Weld’s calm demeanor only cracks once, and when it does, it is a sight to behold. Apart from the leads, the film is also blessed by a pair of solid supporting characters. Beverly Garland, who got her start in the 1950 noir D.O.A., turns in solid work as the shrewish mother, and veteran character actor John Randolph (Serpico, Prizzi’s Honor) shines in the small role of Pitt’s probation officer. In an odd bit of trivia, both Randolph and Garland would later appear in Christmas Vacation movies though Garland was in the sequel, Cousin Eddie’s Island Adventure.

Pretty Poison definitely left an impression on me, and films in the same genre such as Poison Ivy and Fatal Attraction definitely owe a dept. Noel Black’s film derived its own inspiration from Lolita and everything that Alfred Hitchcock ever filmed about obsession (which is a lot), but Black managed to twist his film in subtle ways that would have surely made the Master of Suspense proud. Fans of thrillers should definitely check this one out, but don’t be fooled by the film’s ‘R’ rating. There's little that isn't pretty tame stuff even for 1968. So don't go into it expecting buckets of blood and Tuesday Weld to doff her top. Pretty Poison isn't about the exploitative or the lurid. It's about the pure terror that the crazed killer might not be the person let out of the loony bin, but rather the sweet innocent girl next door who is secretly a violent predator. We've seen that story time and time again now, but in '68 this was some pretty strong stuff. Though I'd still have to say that this Pretty Poison goes down plenty smooth.

Bugg Rating

Before we get to the Trailer, I could not help but also include this great photo of Tuesday Weld that I found while trolling the back alleys of the interwebs. 

Angel of Death (2009): Zöe Bell Proves There's Life After Death (Proof)

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Like most folks, I was introduced to the stuntwoman turned actress Zöe Bell through her performance in Quentin Tarantino’s part of Grindhouse, Death Proof. While her acting was only so-so, the skill she showed with her stunt work was incredible, and when I came home and checked her out, I was surprised to see how many times I had seen her work and not known it. From Xena: Warrior Princess and Alias to Kill Bill 1 & 2, Bell had worked the stunt double for many of my favorite shows and films, but when I heard that she had headlined a movie on her own, I was a bit skeptical. After all, her acting in in Death Proof hadn’t blown me away and the film had been produced as a web series for Crackle.com. Still I was interested enough by the attachment of comic book writer Ed Brubaker and the idea of seeing the beautiful Australian stuntwoman kick some ass. So with some trepidation, I checked out 2009’s Angel of Death, and right before my eyes, a new action star was born.

Eve (Zöe Bell) is an assassin for hire, but when a hit goes wrong causing her to accidentally kill a 14-year-old girl and end up with a knife embedded in her head, the cold-blooded killer starts to have problems getting her job done. Dr Rankin (Doug Jones) removes the knife, but warns Grahame (Brian Poth), Eve’s handler, that she may never be the same again. The tough as nail killer isn’t going to let a little thing like a knife wound to the head get her down. Eve begins to have hallucinations of the young girl she killed encouraging her to get her revenge on the mob family that hired her for that ill fated hit. She becomes an unstoppable force taking out the mobsters from the ground up as she guns for the head of the family.

After reading over the synopsis, it should come as no surprise to anyone that Angel of Death was written by a comic book writer, Ed Brubaker. Angel of Death was the first screenwriting gig for Brubaker, best known for his gritty take on Captain America (as well as killing off the beloved character), and his foundation in comic books definitely shows through in this tale. It even invades the cinematic style paneled scene transitions that brought to mind Ang Lee’s Hulk. Being a fan of Brubaker’s work, I found his scripting and dialog to be just as strong off the page as on it. However, some of the fantastical portions of the plot (i.e. the knife sticking out of Eve’s head) which would have worked fine in the pages of a comic don’t quite mesh with the overexposed, gritty style of the film. For a first time effort, Brubaker really scores. There’s talk of a sequel coming down the pipeline, and I for one can’t wait to see where the writer takes the story.

Before I get into talking about the acting, I want to take a moment to talk about director Paul Etheredge. This is only his second feature, his first was a gay themed slasher called HellBent that I’m planning to look at in the near future. Etheredge has been in the business for a number of years in the art department for films like I Shot Andy Warhol and Oliver Stone’s JFK, and that background serves him well here. While some of the action seems outside of reality, the film itself has a great look to it though it does occasionally border on that tired overexposed look that has been done to death. Overall, the whole film has a great style, and the action sequences, which are the bread and butter of this film, look incredible. Part of this is due to the special skills of the leading lady, but even the most skilled action star can only do so much. The credit should rightfully go to Etheredge and his cinematographer Carl Herse for providing some great action set pieces.

Now, on to Ms. Bell. Zöe’s acting has really improved from Death Proof to Angel of Death, and in a bonus feature on the DVD, she talks about going to an acting coach and really getting inside the head of her character. The hard work she put in really pays off, and by all rights and reasons, Zöe Bell should be a huge action star. She has the acting chops, the physical presence, and the experience to do her own stunts and make them look great. In many female-fueled action films, it is hard to believe that the waify star could take down a lumbering brute or cold bloodedly blow someone away, but I didn’t have that kind of issue with Bell at all. Everything about this performance was spot on, and I’m glad to see that she’s getting some other roles. She recently appeared in Drew Barrymore’s Whip It and 2009’s Gamer, as well as upcoming roles in Wesley Snipes film Game of Death and her second lead performance in The Reapers.

Several great performances in this film deserve a mention. First off, I want to say that this film boasts a “featured” performance from Ted Rami. The amount of time he has on screen is directly proportionate to the amount of time it took you to read this sentence. It is always nice to see Ted pop up, but I don’t think such a minuscule role really deserved special billing. Lucy Lawless, who Bell got her start stunt doubling for, shows up in a slightly larger role than Mr. Rami (who is also a Xena alum). The former Amazon Princess is nearly unrecognizable as Eve’s prostitute with a heart of gold neighbor, but it was fun to see her as well. Perhaps the biggest surprise performance came from Jake Abel as the twenty something mob boss in waiting Cameron Downes. He was thoroughly a little shit, but like Bell, he completely convinced me he could be the arrogant psycho douche bag that he plays. Brian Poth, who is a regular on TV’s Southland, as Eve’s handler and Doug Jones, Abe Sapien from Hellboy: The Golden Army, both impress in their respective roles as well.

Angel of Death is not a film that inspired high expectations. With its comic book writer, stuntwoman star, and web series hallmarks, I figured on a middling stab at an action film at best. Imagine my surprise when I discovered it was not only one of the better action movies I’ve seen in a while, but it also introduced me to a beautiful and believable action heroine. So if you like your chicks kicking ass, your action fast and furious, and your films hard-boiled, then I highly recommend checking one out. This film might be called Angel of Death, but for me it was nearly action film heaven.

Bugg Rating