Tag: 1976

Directed by Jack Weis [Other horror films: Mardi Gras Massacre (1978)]

I wanted to like Crypt of Dark Secrets, and aspects of it were decent, but large sections of the film were slow as all hell, and it was generally a bit of a slough to get through.

Here’s what I enjoyed, though, about the film: the setting, being the swamps of Louisiana, was great. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – swamps are underutilized in horror. I imagine filming in a swamp would be a nightmare, but boy howdy, what beauty. Much of the film here takes place on a haunted island in the middle of a swamp, and if that doesn’t scream stellar setting, nothing else could.

I also appreciate how the basics of this film can’t help but remind me of “The Legend of Wooley Swamp” by the Charlie Daniels Band. See, in that song, an ornery old man, who had a bunch of money, lived alone in a swamp and was killed. Here, we have a younger man (though still with 15 years experience in the military, serving in both Korea and Vietnam), and when three people hear about the money he has stored up there, they go to kill him and take his riches. I’d argue that the song is a hell of a lot more fun, though.

At this juncture, I did want to briefly talk about one of the main characters, played by Ronald Tanet. As the guy living on a haunted island with a decent chunk of money, I was consistently amused by how little emotion this guy showed throughout the film. I sort of get it – if you’ve been a soldier for almost twenty years, I can imagine not having the capacity to care much about anything once you’re out, but this guy was like a blank slate. It may well have been intentional, but having a focal character with absolutely zero emotion was impressive.

Things take a turn in the second half of the film, though, after the three ne’er-do-wells (played by Butch Benit, Harry Uher, and Barbara Hagerty) successfully get the money they sought, and things slow to crawl. To be fair, it had been sluggish before, in the way that some 70’s films suffered from, but once we get the origin of the snake-woman Damballa (played by Maureen Ridley) in a drawn-out eight minute sequence, I was outtie.

Certainly some elements past that point are fine, but I have to admit I was a lot less invested, and it didn’t help that on two different occasions, we had scenes of a nude, or nearly nude, woman dancing for minutes on end. One of the final scenes was a three minute dance sequence, and I just didn’t really think that was necessary. I was painfully reminded of Snake People, and Snake People is a movie I try to think about as little as possible.

Wayne Mack was the closest thing to a traditional main character here, and I don’t really think he classifies. Still, his performance as a folksy police lieutenant was solid. I’ve already spoken a bit about Ronald Tanet; his performance was void of emotion, but that’s not all bad. I wasn’t wild about Maureen Ridley, but she could dance in the nude with the best of them. Really, the only other performance worth mentioning is that of Harry Uher’s, and it’s possible that Uher stood out solely for the fact that he’s Cajun, and had that Cajun accent I rarely hear in horror films.

It can also be fairly said that along with the movie being slow and occasionally torturous to get through, there’s not a ton of horror. There’s a lot of potential, of course – anytime you have a woman that can turn into a snake on a haunted island in the middle of a swamp, that’s called potential – but I don’t think the movie lived up to it at all, which was disappointing. There was some suspense toward the end, but much of the film seemed like conversation after conversation, and perhaps the best sequence was the literal blood money that briefly haunted the three punk bitches.

In summary, Crypt of Dark Secrets (which didn’t have a crypt in it, nor am I aware of what the dark secrets were, or who was keeping them) was a slow and tedious time with a handful of decent scenes. I do tend to think it’s better than Weis’ later film, Mardi Gras Massacre, but given the set-up, this is one that I wish I liked a lot more.

5.5/10

Directed by John McCauley [Other horror films: Deadly Intruder (1985)]

Certainly a movie with potential, Rattlers was an okay entry into the mid-1970’s. The finale is pretty sudden, and the overall story seems sort of lackluster, but I didn’t exactly have a terrible time watching it.

I do think it’s fair to say that, compared to other animals-gone-mad films from the 1970’s, that Rattlers is on the lower end. Sure, it’s better than The Food of the Gods and possibly more entertaining than Grizzly (though not a better film overall), but there are plenty of more enjoyable films, such as The Swarm, Phase IV, Squirm, Piranha, The Pack, Nightwing, Jaws 2, Stanley, Kingdom of the Spiders, Orca, Prophecy, Tentacles, hell, even Night of the Lepus.

My point is that though I don’t think Rattlers is awful, it’s certainly not a stand-out movie. The finale seems to pop up so suddenly, and I personally found it widely unsatisfactory, which isn’t helped any by the lack of good snake action in the last half hour.

In fact, many of the later snake attacks seem so weak. One of them happened in a mine, which might sound good, but it wasn’t executed very well. Another had two characters in a tent surrounded by snakes, but that didn’t even feel that action-packed either. I think there were some good snake attacks – a plumber getting bit while under a house, and a woman attacked in a bathtub as snakes slither through the pipes – but you can’t really tell that from the final half hour.

One thing I was mildly amused by was the small point of Elisabeth Chauvet’s being a woman photographer, which upset the patriarchy, in the form of lead Sam Chew Jr.. Chauvet’s character made good points about how there weren’t women holding high positions, and Chew Jr.’s character just waved the explanations off. This point is muddled by the fact that, of course, the two of them fall in love and engage in carnal activities and have an out-of-place date that lasts a minute in Las Vegas, but hey, it’s the 70’s, who needs equality, right?

There’s also a portion which deals with the mystery behind why the snakes here are so aggressive, which, of course, is all the fault of the Commies. See, Communists had a better political system than capitalists did, and the USA (capitalism’s #1 defender) lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to get young American boys killed in Vietnam. Naturally, biowarfare is the only way to defeat a better economic system, and so due to the Communists, the American military created deadly snakes.

Damn those Commies.

Actually, it’s somewhat amusing, because this same idea was also used in Piranha, which came out a couple of years later. In both, the military is so intent on killing innocent people in Vietnam that they wind up killing innocent people in the USA, but then again, that’s how the military do.

As a socialist, it’s always nice to see solid political messages come up (which is one of the reasons that Prophecy, from ‘79, is a personal favorite). It doesn’t play a huge part here, though it does lead into what truly is a weak finale.

Sam Chew Jr. (Time Walker) makes for an okay lead. Honestly, he never really came across as having that much in the way of character, but he had a good look to him. Elisabeth Chauvet was okay, but she never really added that much to the story, and was pretty forgotten by the end. Lastly, Dan Priest was, I guess, okay. I mean, he seemed pretty ridiculous toward the end, but I’m guessing his character had an off-screen mental breakdown, so it’s all cool.

The more I consider Rattlers, the weaker I think it is. For the first hour or so, it honestly wasn’t a bad time, but the last twenty minutes really dropped the ball. It’s definitely a below-average film, and though I maintain it’s still not terrible, I can’t blame others who tend to think it is.

5.5/10

Directed by Stu Segall [Other horror films: N/A]

I promise I’m not crazy, but this movie is decent. Well, actually, I can’t promise that my sanity is entirely intact, but I can promise that I have seen this movie four times now, and each and every time has been a blast.

In many ways, no doubt, Drive In Massacre is pretty bad. Part of it has to do with the commonly-available print, which has quite a muddled audio quality along with iffy lighting at times. Even without those issues, the story itself is pretty weak, the conclusion somewhat ridiculous, and though it only runs for around 75 minutes, it can feel boring.

All of that said, though, like I said, I’ve seen it four times now, and I really do find a good amount of this movie a hoot. Though not a horror-comedy in a traditional sense, the scene in which the two main detectives are undercover as a couple at a drive-in (one of the detectives being dressed as a woman) had plenty of lines in it alone that were laugh-worthy (“Kiss me, you fool” / “I hope so, we don’t need anymore of that” / “My God, married only two hours and you don’t want anything to do with me”), so it’s not as though the film is void of charm.

Honestly, both of the central detectives, played by John F. Goff (The Fog, Alligator) and Bruce Kimball (An Eye for an Eye, Snakes), were pretty interchangeable, and while they had some funny dialogue now and again, neither one stood out. Robert E. Pearson’s performance as the somewhat sleazy drive-in manager (as one character describes him, “He’s what you would call your perfect asshole”) was a lot of fun, and I definitely find his character a memorable one.

Douglas Gudbye’s performance as a mentally-challenged character was one of the strongest in the film, and I really felt for him at times. Lastly, though he was utterly added in only for padding, George ‘Buck’ Flower (Maniac Cop, Wishmaster, Pumpkinhead, Cheerleader Camp) was fun to see.

For a proto-slasher, there wasn’t much in the way of slashing. The best kill is easily the opening decapitation, but there was also a woman stabbed through her neck and the aftermath of a few other killings. Nothing amazing, but at least the opening kill could theoretically hook someone in.

I certainly understand why many people don’t care for this movie, and some find it laughably bad (at the moment of this writing, Drive In Massacre sports a 3.5/10 on IMDb with 1674 votes), but it’s a movie I personally dig. It’s far from a movie without flaws, but coming from a guy who willingly watched this four times, it’s #golden.

7/10

Directed by George A. Romero [Other horror films: Night of the Living Dead (1968), Hungry Wives (1972), The Crazies (1973), The Amusement Park (1975), Dawn of the Dead (1978), Creepshow (1982), Day of the Dead (1985), Monkey Shines (1988), Due occhi diabolici (1990, segment ‘The Facts in the Case of Mr. Valdemar’), The Dark Half (1993), Bruiser (2000), Land of the Dead (2005), Diary of the Dead (2007), Survival of the Dead (2009)]

Easily one of George A. Romero’s most well-known films I’ve not seen until now, I felt somewhat mixed about Martin come the credits. On one hand, it’s a pretty engaging look into potential mental illness with an interesting backdrop and occasionally solid scenes, but on the other, it’s drenched in the almost hopeless, gritty aura that 70’s films are so good at as to almost take any fun out of the experience.

Certainly I think the movie does some things really well. The attacks Martin perpetuates against multiple individuals throughout are all decent, the opening train attack being wonderfully claustrophobic, the later murders being good also. There was just enough gore to get the point across, and even more note-worthy would be the setting, a rather poor-looking city in bad condition (much of this was filmed in Braddock, Pennsylvania, which has suffered greatly since the steel industry disappeared in the 1970’s). Though never the focal point, I think the decaying city added something a little special to the film.

John Amplas (who played Martin) did a fantastic job with his role. He was often awkward, but given what his character’s gone through, that can be expected. Aside from Amplas, it’s hard to really pin-point other great performances – I think that Lincoln Maazel had potential, but I don’t really feel like we get a good enough grasp on him. The same is true for both Christine Forrest and Tom Savini (making this Savini’s earliest work with Romero).

To be sure, the focus of the film is Martin, so the fact that no one else really stands out doesn’t really hurt the film. I did enjoy Martin at least trying to experience a normal relationship with Elyane Nadeau’s character, and that little story had a pretty sudden and somewhat surprising conclusion, which is also true for the movie itself. It’s not as though it comes out of nowhere, but the build-up wasn’t really all that (which, it can fairly be said, makes the ending all the more sudden).

From my point-of-view, I think it’s fair to say that Martin dealt with a lot of mental illnesses, which wasn’t at all helped by the religious mania that seemed to surround him much of his life. Certainly Martin was sympathetic, and those segments which he’s speaking to a radio host on a call-in show really give him additional depth that I found welcomed. Being a 70’s film, there’s no hope for cooler and saner heads to prevail, though, and pretty much from the beginning, everyone in this film was screwed.

Martin makes for a pretty interesting movie, some of the more memorable scenes (such as the creepy foggy playground sequence with Maazel or Nadeau’s final on-screen appearance) coming across as really striking, but at the same time, I can’t really say I had an enjoyable time with this (in a somewhat similar way that I experience The Texas Chain Saw Massacre).

I don’t doubt that, for the smaller budget they had, Romero did a pretty good job with a story that goes beyond what the average vampire movie might attempt, and I think both the setting and aura goes to help with that, but it’s not a movie I wholly loved. I’d recommend it still, but for my personal take, I think there are plenty of other 70’s films I’d rather watch.

6.5/10

I didn’t love Martin, but I did talk about it on the Fight Evil podcast. How’s that for a segue? Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss Martin.

Directed by Alfred Sole [Other horror films: Pandemonium (1982)]

Certainly a proto-slasher classic, at times almost feeling like an American giallo, Communion (more commonly known as Alice, Sweet Alice) is definitely a worthwhile and interesting film, and worth the watch if you’ve not yet seen it.

Like many 70’s films, there is a chance some of the material could come across as dry, but personally, I think the story here was interesting enough to combat some of those inclinations. It also helps that the mystery of the killer is an engaging one, and though we happen to find out who the killer is with around thirty minutes left to go, the mystery still holds up.

Another aspect that I can’t help but give kudos to is the gritty setting. This isn’t a high-budget film, and it really shines due to it. The broken down city, what with empty factories and other industrial constructs, really gives the movie additional feeling. Assisting with the gloom is the heavy rainfall, and I think it does wonders to the atmosphere of the film.

With plenty of competent and compelling performances all around, it’s hard to point to any one actor or actress as the best here. Certainly Linda Miller and Rudolph Willrich work well together, and Willrich’s scenes with Niles McMaster (of The Incredible Torture Show) positively stand out. Mildred Clinton gives a great performance of a character with quite a lot of emotional punch, and you can’t forget Alphonso DeNoble, who’s atypical physical appearance and sleazy behavior really allows him to stand out.

Oh, and of course, playing Alice, there’s Paula E. Sheppard, who, amazingly, despite playing a 12-year old girl, celebrated her 19th birthday during the shooting of the film. She certainly doesn’t look it, and I think she gives off a great performance, especially early on when there’s still some mystery surrounding the mysterious deaths of those around her.

Of course, what would a review of Communion be without talking about the deeply religious nature of the film? I was raised Roman Catholic, and though much of that is far behind me, I did enjoy seeing much of this carnage play out around parishioners of the Catholic church. Some see this film partially as an attack of the church, but that needn’t be the case. Some of the mayhem occurred due to religious reasons, to be sure, but there are good and bad people throughout the film with Catholic leanings, so I think some calling this an indictment upon the church may be over-reacting.

Like I relayed in my review of Children of the Corn, among other films, religious mania, leading to violence, is especially horrifying because, at least in the USA, it’s very much a possibility. In Children of the Corn, Isaac and his peeps thought age inevitably led to moral corruption, and so logically made the move to kill them before reaching that age. Here, the killer has a perfectly logical reason, at least in regards to their beliefs, for the actions they take, and when such atrocities can be defended due to religious beliefs, and there’s no chance to possibly break through to them, that’s a good show of the real world coming into the film.

Communion, or Alice, Sweet Alice, isn’t a perfect film, but I do think it’s an exceptionally strong one, and really fits in with the gritty and serious nature of 70’s horror. In fact, had this been made even five years later, I think it would have been a significantly different film, so I’m happy that this was made when it was, as it encapsulates much of what I love about that time period. The kills aren’t the focus, but they’re solid when they pop up, and I love the mystery here. Definitely a classic that’s worth a watch.

8/10

This is one of the films covered by Fight Evil’s podcast. Listen below as Chucky (@ChuckyFE) and I discuss Alice, Sweet Alice (or Communion, if you’re partial to original titles, brah).