Death Double Feature: Death Walks at Midnight / Death Walks on High Heels

GIALLOCTOBERFEST 2017 continues! 

I did a Luciano Ercoli DEATH DOUBLE FEATURE this week - DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT (La morte accarezza a mezzanotte ) and DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS (La morte cammina con i tacchi alti ) . One I loved and one...not so much. This was particularly interesting to me because it's the same director and much of the same cast, but one resonated with me far more than the other. It might have been the writer lineup for the screenplay and story. MIDNIGHT had this grouping...

Sergio Corbucci     ...     (story)   
Ernesto Gastaldi     ...     (screenplay) 
Mahnahén Velasco     ...     (screenplay) (as May Velasco)

And HEELS had....

Ernesto Gastaldi (screenplay)
Mahnahén Velasco (screenplay) (as May Velasco)

I think the addition of Corbucci might have sweetened the spices Midnight offered. He wrote the wacky, super police officer story SUPER FUZZ back in the day and I loved it. Midnight had more flavor and buzz with a plot that I found to be more interesting and engaging. Let's talk about it.

Now, don't get me wrong - I liked DEATH WALKS IN HIGH HEELS well enough. The plot is relatively simple. A woman's Father is involved in a diamond heist. He's out of the picture, but the diamonds are missing. Does his daughter know where they are? Maybe. And someone - a masked killer with striking blue eyes....wants her to tell where they are...or DIE!

Classic.

So, all that's working for me here, but honestly, the characters bored me to tears and the pace made me shake with desire to fast forward....which I did.

The lovely Nieves Navarro (or...Susan Scott as she was known)  stars in both films. Here, she's a exotic dancer named Nicole Rochard with a penchant for wigs and elaborate costumes...including a "black face" nubian number that was truly cringe-worthy! hehehehe  The shot and line below....wow....

And, Ms. Nieves Navarro is NOT a good dancer, so the first part of the film was rather painful for me there as well - watching this woman jerk around like she's having a seizure.

We're treated to some good bully acting from Luciano Ercoli, the Director of both of these films AND Nieves' real life husband, as I found out. Rather cool.

Here he's the boyfriend of Navarro and not 100% sweetheart. Sweethearts don't toss knives at their girlfriends.

When the mysterious masked diamond hunter comes after Nicole and demands to know where the diamonds are, she decides that the advances of an admirer from the clubs she's performed in - a Dr. Robert Mathews (Frank Wolff) - seem pretty great and she runs off with him without a word to anyone.

They have a grand time and Nicole is treated like a Queen as the Doctor buys her dresses and dinners and the two seem like they are made for each other. The Doc whisks her away to a cottage he owns in a small town and Nicole pretends to be his wife as they live life to the fullest - happy and content.

Sure, the small village is filled with gossips and nutty people...including a strange man missing a hand, but I'm sure everything will work out for them.

Again, all of that was great for a story perspective, however the pace made me CRAZY. We see them shopping....eating....exchanging cute banter with a local fish seller....making love....saying they'll miss each other when the Doctor has to fly back to London for a while, but it all takes WAY TOO DAMN LONG to deal with. There's just not enough story to support the run time for me. I felt like I was being dragged behind a very slow pony.

Ercoli's direction is great and the film does manage to wrap very nicely in true giallo style, but it just took to long to get there for me. And the exposition at the end.....whew. Pretty funny, really. "Let me explain everything I did and why I did it...."   DEATH WALKS ON HIGH HEELS might require me to re-watch at some point in the near future, but I'll start it in the middle for sure.







Now, DEATH WALKS AT MIDNIGHT was a different viewing for me all together.

From IMDB:
Valentina, a beautiful fashion model, takes an experimental drug as part of a scientific experiment. While influenced by the drug, Valentina has a vision of a young woman being brutally murdered with a viciously spiked glove. It turns out that a woman was killed in exactly the same way not long ago and soon Valentina finds herself stalked by the same killer...

Now this film really hit the mark for me. The pace, character interactions, and visuals were interesting, engaging, and fun. Nieves Navarro as Valentina is strong, confident, and doesn't take any crap from anyone.  Simón Andreu is this magazine guy  (always get him and Luciano Ercoli mixed up!) who manages to get Valentina fired from her job and exposed to the murdered after backing out on his promise to keep her masked and anonymous for this wacky drug experiment that kicks this who plot off. Their chemistry is fun to watch as they snip at each other and fight. 

Suuuuuuure, the main catalyst for the plot - a vision of a killer while under the influence of a drug - falls right into the WTF?! gialli plot nuttiness for sure, but it's really just used to get things rolling and get us involved in this murder situation. After that, it's cat-and-mouse with the killer (who we see right away)  as he tries to silence Valentina.

And....we have J&B references! 

I loved watching this film. The banter was grand and natural, the characters were well rounded, and the pace was clipping right along from set piece to set piece. And, the mystery was interesting and really had me guessing. I'll watch this one again for sure.

So, I plan to watch Forbidden Photos of a Lady Above Suspicion to break this Luciano Ercoli tie. :::grin:::   I loved one of his films and wasn't so happy with the other. We'll see what PHOTOS has to offer. (also on Shudder U.S. at the time of this posting)

Have you seen these? The SHUDDER reviews put HEELS in a far better light than I've placed it - hence the planned rewatch. I'd love to hear what other people have to say about these films.

Am I missing something? LET ME KNOW!

LAST SHIFT v. THE ABANDONED

The films LAST SHIFT (Oct 2014) and THE ABANDONED (June 2015) had several similar aspects that I found interesting. Seeing as the two films were released relatively close together, it seems like the two of them were just synchronous and fate spun them out at the same time. Two relatively new Directors as well.

As it turns out, however, the films vary greatly as the films progress, so it's really just the first acts that are super similar.

Louisa Krause - THE ABANDONED

Juliana Harkavy - LAST SHIFT

Both films focus on a woman working a night shift in a new spot she's not familiar with.  They are greeted and ushered in by someone who is rather antagonistic in nature. The buildings are empty save for the one person (in LAST SHIFT) or a skeleton crew (ABANDONED).

Various "bump in the night" situations occur which the lead finds jarring - as we all would, I'm sure.

Then a homeless man shows up and enters the picture. In both cases, the homeless man seem off. Mentally unstable. The main character interacts with him and lets the man stay in both cases - a prisoner and an overnight guest to get out of the rain.

You're lead down a "I wonder if this person is just crazy" trail in both cases, then the paths switch drastically at the end of the second acts.

The paths also separate as far as the stories go - LAST SHIFT holding fast as a great ghost story and THE ABANDONED running off the rails in the third act and skittering off into a gully somewhere after turning in on itself and bursting into flames. hehehehe

While I thought LAST SHIFT was a super strong, smaller budget picture with a strong story, I could see what THE ABANDONED was aiming for and it allllllmost made it, but floundered a bit in the end. It was like an aircraft landing successfully with one wheel not functioning. While everyone was alright and a bit shaken, the plane was ripped up, scraped up, and smouldering after it finally came to a stop - still recognizable as a plane, but in bad shape. :)

BUT...I didn't want my time back at the end of ABANDONED and only skipped a bit when it started to slow down, so I think most of my "MEH" feeling about it is just me not being interested in the story line enough to fill in the minor plot-holes it has within it.

While I still think that LAST SHIFT is the winner here, you still might want to give THE ABANDONED a go. It's interesting and well shot and acted.

Remakes: The Blob

I'm not a fan of remakes. I'm just not.

There are so many ideas out in the world that I just can't believe what gets turned around into a remake at times. Case in point: The most awesome [rec] being remade in the SAME YEAR, only to fail at the box office. But, with that said, there are some remakes that really bring something new and fresh to the table. Perhaps it's just a retelling of a story that has been around for a long while. THE BLOB is one of those exceptions to the rule. The Blob remake updates and retells a story that's loved by many while adding a little spice to the execution.

The original 1958 Blob is pretty awesome on its own. If you have yet to see it, you can view it through the wonders of YouTube. The title music alone is well worth a viewing! :) And...I mean...Steve McQueen? Oh yeah! The action is fun and the 50s styling is a sight to behold. It has that youth against the man thing, too, which is always a nice little nugget in these films.

 

The story is simple. A meteor falls out of the sky and the poor man that finds it finds out that the goo contained within is alive and hungry. The goo wraps itself around the old man's hand and he can't get it off. McQueen and his date Aneta Corsaut (purrrr) find the old man and bring him to the doctor. And so begins the tale of THE BLOB. As it eats, it gets bigger. You see where this is going. Along the way, you get a bit of small town feeling, youth vs. adults and general terror as the Blob grows and grows as it eats it's way through the town. Nothing seems to be able to stop it. It can crawl through small openings and under doors and it becomes more mobile as it grows larger. A great story with some fantastic moments of tension and suspense.

The original relies on some masterful edits and storytelling to avoid showing much in the way of gore or body horrors as the Blob ingests it's victims. So, for the 1988 remake, they add that into the mix to liven things up a bit, retelling the original story with the addition of some grotesque and nasty body horror moments. The Blob is like the perfect eating machine, breaking people down within moments and adding them to it's own body mass.

The effects are nasty and the tension and action is ramped up considerably. What we're really seeing here is the same story ramped up from 1950s acceptable horror to the over the top effects heavy world of the 1980s. And, every bit of the fun is on screen and in your face.

 

Kevin Dillon is no McQueen, but turns in a decent performance. Fans of the SAW franchise machine will recognize Shawnee Smith as Dillon's main squeeze on this thrill ride. Chuck Russell's stylistic direction works well for this film and there are some really smart and interesting scenes of the blob attacking that I'm not sure I'll ever forget. (Sink and phone booth come to mind...yikes...) I remember my palms being sweaty when I saw this in the theater back in '88 and it holds up rather well today. Especially the horrific results of the Blob attacks.




But, now we come to the point of this little article - did The Blob need to be remade? Did it need the ramped up action and gore-heavy effects work? Did it need to be updated and retold in a modern day setting?

I guess that really depends on the viewer. There's a lot to be said for classic horror cinema. Of watching a film like The Blob and seeing the charm and style of it's original world that it was created in. The time frame and reference point of creation. However, seeing something retold in a new world can be very interesting as well when done properly. A cleaver screenplay and a new breath of life into a film can be very refreshing and fun to take in.

In short, I'm starting to see that remakes are not necessarily the issue. It's often that fact that there is little time or effort made on some of these remakes that is the real issue and the real source of my hatred of the "remake" in general. Sloppy and silly screenplay writing will always give a film nothing to stand on - remake or not.

So, keep trying, Hollyweird. Go safe with the remake path and have at it tossing more cash, effects and time into them. At the very least, older movies can be viewed by children and people with a lower tolerance for violence and gore.

Just don't fruck 'em up.   :)

HILL HOUSE films

Hill House has caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people  over the years. It rattles the soul and jars the nerves. Some people never leave Hill House...alive.

It started back with The Haunting of Hill House (1959) by Shirley Jackson. The story involves a scientist and three "research assistants" spending time in old Hill House looking into the things that go bump in the night there.

 







THE HAUNTING (1963) was a film based on Jackson's book. The film is rather well done. A simple, yet effective "Old, Dark House" tale directed by Robert Wise (The Sound Of Music, West Side Story, Run Silent Run Deep AND MORE!) and staring Julie Harris, Claire Bloom and Richard Johnson.  The film was made before big special effects and gimics, so all the thrills take place in camera with the use of odd angles and zooms and the like. This makes it more enjoyable for me than some of it's other incarnations. It has that fantastic, black and white play-like set up where people interact and exchanges may mean more than their face value. And the scares - a la 1963 - are enough to make you cringe a little. Especially if you put yourself into their shoes. Little things, unseen in the shadows and heard through the walls, add to the atmosphere and the thrills.

Julie Harris is fantastic. She's our main character. We follow her out of her horrible life and into Hill House. We hear her thoughts. We know she's not 100%...balanced. And the poor thing...   :)
 

THE HAUNTING a great, old haunted house film with some good twists and turns within it.

In 1971,  Richard Matheson took a pass at the tale with Hell House. Evidently, it's close to the original book, but has more violence and situations of a sexual nature. It makes sense seeing as it was written in the 70s. I think this was more of the take of the film made shortly after Matheson's book was written.

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE (1973) was the first HILL HOUSE film I saw. It was featured on CREATURE FEATURES and I remember it sending shivers through me a bit as a child. Bob Wilkins assured us that the film was going to be fun and it was. Creepy music and a fantastic old house made this a fave of mine for years.
John Hough was the Director on this film and he holds a little space in my heart for his film ESCAPE FROM WITCH MOUNTAIN. It's funny, he was a Disney guy for a long while, but also directed TWINS OF EVIL and DIRTY MARY CRAZY LARRY. 




Roddy McDowall, Gayle Hunnicutt and Pamela Franklin star and they do a great job bringing the characters to life. The film sports more effects and more thrills. And, more sexual naughtiness as found in films of the 70s. Poor Pamela Franklin goes through quiet a series of mishaps. And the story is fleshed out differently with more mystery behind it in many ways. There's something wrong in Hill House - affectionately referred to as HELL HOUSE - and it involves ghosts for sure. And, more science and more psychics. The team is still the same, but more is made about their abilities and they bring WAY more equipment with them to check out the house.
After seeing THE HAUNTING, I'm not sure which I like more - the old, dark house feel or the "There DEFINITELY is a ghost here!" feel this 1973 version has. I think they are both good in their ways, but if you want more punch, this is the version for you.





THE HAUNTING (1999) is fine. It's just...fine. It's a classic example of "more is not necessarily better". You have some heavy hitters in this film. Liam Neeson, Catherine...ZETA-Jones, Owen Wilson and Lili "Nutty" Taylor all do their best with the inflated script and try their best to be scared by the effects, but it's just...too much of everything. Too much attention placed on scares, too many special effects and not enough haunted house simplicity. You move through the movie and are beaten about the face and neck with effect after effect and it's distracting. Of course, if you like your scares generated by a computer, you'll love this film. It managed to take everything I loved about HELL HOUSE and added exclamation points, bells, whistles and fire to them all.

All in all, I put my money on...well, the books first - I plan to pick them up. Books always give a lot more than films. But, see THE HAUNTING, then watch THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE. You'll be happy you did. It's a great double feature!

THE HAUNTING TRAILER

THE LEGEND OF HELL HOUSE

THE HAUNTING

And, if you've seen the Tarantino / Rodriguez film GRINDHOUSE, you've seen the fantastic parody of the HELL HOUSE trailer. I love it!

DON'T

ARGENTO DOUBLE FEATURE: Do you like Hitchcock? and GIALLO

 

ARGENTO DOUBLE FEATURE:

DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? and GIALLO

I was really happy with DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? (2005) Dario Argento's homage to Hitchcock turned out to be a lot of fun for me. It's a rather basic story, but the execution is fun and entertaining. The story line is very "giallo" feeling and is really nothing new. There's been a murder and someone has witnessed it. Who did it and why? Will our witness live to tell the tale?

The Hitchcock aspect is fun. You can really see the call outs to Hitch throughout the film. Is it brilliant? Is it another SUSPIRIA? Nope - not at all. But, it was an entertaining romp with some fun twists and turns and some grand tension throughout.  And, it was made for TV, so people with a short acceptance of gore won't be too agitated with this one. It's far from SUSPIRIA levels when it comes to the viscera.  It's well worth a viewing.

I think this is one that is held up as "the last good Argento film". I was going to say the same thing, but after seeing GIALLO, I'm not so sure.

~~~

GIALLO  (2009) was a bit of a mess, but I didn't hate it afterwards like I did with MOTHER OF TEARS. The kind of "MAN! I want my two hours back!" kind of bitterness that I felt with MOTHER was not present with this film at all. Most of the mess stems from some bad makeup effects applied to the lead baddie in the film. It's not fooling anyone and I found it to be really rather distracting.

 

However, that's where the trauma ended for me. I was ok with everything else in the film including the gravel voice acting of the film's main star - the "amazing" Adrien Brody. :)  now, I know what you are thinking. "WHAT?!  Adrien Brody is in this?!  It MUST be a 10 out of 10 star film, right?!"  Well, contrary to popular belief, Brody is a bit of a wanker in this film, but it's not as bad as his PREDATORS, Dark Knight voiced performance. He's a tough, New York City cop on the case in Italy and he's not gonna take any bullshit. That's right. He's a tough guy. :)

The film score by Marco Werba struck me and stuck with me as well. I'm not sure why, but I really loved it. It has a striking, big sound that made the film something special. It took it into an old school direction that worked really well with the way the film presented itself. I felt like I was watching older, cooler Argento right off the bat.

The film manages to entertain and there are some good moments mixed in with the bad. The bad moments really are what made the film. It went from ok, to bad, to worth the viewing bad within minutes for me.  I found myself blurting out, "Wait...WHAT?!" a few times while viewing it. 

I told a friend about it and he watched it at once. I was immediately flooded with updates while he watched - most of which were comical, "WTF?!" exclamations while the film washed over him. I thought it was a lot of fun and pure Argento madness that was also well worth a viewing.
 

Keep an open mind and give these a view!

Boys in Trouble Double

BOYS IN TROUBLE DOUBLE:
DORM & THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE

A perfect double feature for foreign movie fans, these two features are very similar, but different enough to make things interesting.

In DORM, a boy is sent to a boy's school and he has a hard time acclimating to the new surroundings. Of course, when a ghost singles you out, things can be rather tough as well. What is the mystery of the poor soul that haunts the school?





THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE has a similar feel. Director Guillermo del Toro brings his delicious style to the tale of a boys school during the Spanish Civil War (Part of the set of films del Toro helped get out into the world set in this time period - DEVIL'S BACKBONE, PAN'S LABYRINTH and THE ORPHANAGE. A must have set of DVDs!!) Times are hard and this home for boys is barely holding it together. The place is run with love by an older man and woman, however a dark younger man is filled with so much hate and rage that he is like a cancer that eats away at the soul of the home.
And...what of the home's dark secrets and frighteningly AWESOME child ghost that roams the halls at night?
Some of the coolest ghost effects I've seen.




All in all, this would make a fantastic double feature.


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