Review: Mobile Suit Gundam

Going with this image because Sayla is best girl of the show.

BEST. GIRL.

Hello there, long time no see. Blogging output stalled out for a while, partly because of (positive) changes in work schedules, and also because I've been forging ahead on a pulp novel time permitting. So reading classic SF/F has kind of dropped off for the moment.

But in the name of “research,” I went back and watched Mobile Suit Gundam all the way through.

Mobile Suit Gundam aired on Japanese television in 1979 and birthed a brand new sub-genre of giant robot fiction: the “Real Robot.” Where the 60s and 70s had a thriving “Super Robot” field populated with classics like Tetsujin-28 Go, Mazinger Z, and Getter Robo (worthy in their own ways), Yoshiyuki Tomino's Gundam treated giant robots less as giant superheroes calling out their attacks, and instead as advanced weapons of war against a backdrop of space opera and large scale warfare. More Space Battleship Yamato meets Starship Troopers than Giant Robo/Johnny Socko and his Flying Robot.

In this house we respect Daitarn 3

This isn't a knock on Super Robots. I actually prefer them, to be honest, but Real Robots are damn good too, and Gundam stands at the top of that heap.

Except it wasn't always so. The show was initially a failure, and low ratings led to early cancellation and a mad dash to finish the series at 43 episodes with a dwindling budget. It wasn't until reruns, a compilation trilogy of animated movies in 1981, and perhaps most importantly, the introduction of plastic model “Gunpla” kits in 1980 that transformed Mobile Suit Gundam from a flop to a mega franchise. As far as 40 year old science fiction franchises go, its as important as Star Wars, equally as merchandised, and actually in a much healthier state, currently. (Yes, a holding pattern without much innovation IS healthier than a dumpster fire rapidly bleeding long-time fans).

Back to the show itself: The year is 0079 of the Universal Century. Mankind has set up multiple large space colonies as a unified Earth Federation takes control. One group of Colonies, collectively called Side 3, renames itself to the Principality of Zeon, declares independence from the Federation, and declares war. In rapid succession, nuclear and biological chemicals are heavily used, and Zeon achieves early dominance in space thanks to newly developed mechs called “Mobile Suits.” Oh yeah, and Zeon gassed a neutral colony, killing everyone on it, and then dropped said colony onto Earth, hoping to destroy the Federation's capital. Instead it destroyed a giant chunk of Australia.

This backstory all happened in about 8 months.

The show picks up at the Side 7 colony, where the Federation's top secret Project V mobile suit development is taking place. Amuro Ray, the teenage son of one of the head engineers, is thrust into the cockpit of his dad's mobile suit, the RX-78-2 Gundam, when two Zeon scouts get ahead of themselves and try to destroy the Federation facility.

Stumbling his way through his first couple of fights, Amuro is effectively forced into a combat pilot role alongside the crew and civilians of the carrier White Base, and the makeshift crew:

Bright Noa: A naval ensign forced to take the burden of command when the original captain is fatally wounded.

Mirai Yashima: The daughter of a wealthy family whose father died early in the war, who's glider training makes her the best suited to take the helm.

Fraw Bow: Amuro's childhood friend/sort-of-girlfriend thrust into a Communications/team mom for the orphan kids on the ship role.

Hayato Kobayashi: Amuro's neighbor and friend who's more grounded but less talented. He becomes the pilot of the Guntank, a clunky artillery mobile suit. Think Krillin before Krillin.

Kai Shiden: An abrasive, sarcastic, cowardly loner who gets drafted into a combat role almost against his will. After some significant character development, Kai becomes the second-most dependable pilot on the ship, operating the Guncannon mid-range artillery mobile suit.

Ryu Jose: A stocky pilot cadet and the only combat pilot on the White Base with any actual training to start with. Not a particularly good pilot, but he does his best to keep the crew together. Bounces between a Core Fighter and co-piloting the Guntank.

Sayla Mass: A mysterious blonde girl who's the sister of Zeon ace pilot Char Aznable (oh we'll get to him in a bit) who becomes one of the most well-adjusted members of the crew, first on the bridge, then as a combat pilot in the G-Fighter.

Except these three. These kids are the worst.

The show follows the White Base as it fights its way to Earth, then across the Earth, then back to space as the Federation rallies for an offensive against Zeon's territories. People change, important, likable character die off dramatically, and Amuro grapples with the toll the war is taking on him while he grows as a pilot and eventually awakens as a Newtype (a kind of step in human evolution adapted for living in space that, in practical terms, gives heightened spacial awareness that gives Newtype pilots a significant edge against “Oldtype” pilots, but when ramped up dramatically turns into Acid Trip levels of SPAAAACE MAGIC).

While Zeon's status as the aggressor in the war makes them the default bad guys, the show goes to great lengths to make both sides human. The White Base crew are clearly good guys, but the Federation as a whole is bureaucratic, slow to react, and impersonal, with a few heroic standouts like Matilda, Wakkein, and Sleggar “CHAD OF CHADS” Law. Most of the lower level Zeon troops are decent people fighting for their country and trying to survive. Some, like guerilla warfare/moustache expert Ramba Ral are downright tragic heroes. Even the ruling family of Zeon, the Zabis, isn't all bad. Supreme ruler Degwin Zabi compares his tyrannical son Gihren to Hitler when he tries to scold him for his cruelty. Vice-Admiral Kycillia is a manipulative ice queen. But Admiral Dozle Zabi is a loving father and a soldier's soldier who's only real flaw is his fierce pride, and Garma Zabi is a naive fop at worst.

And then there's Char Aznable.

Building off of a previous Tomino character, Prince Sharkin from Brave Raideen, Char is a dashing masked enemy ace pilot and a viewpoint antagonist who initially comes across as a Red Baron type. But while loyal to Zeon, he's plotting a secret revenge against the Zabi family, for he is Casval Deikun, the missing son of the late Zeon Deikun who founded the Republic of Zeon and who died of sudden and mysterious circumstances allowing Degwin to take over.

Amuro's a good guy trying to do right by the world and his friends, but Char is a deeply compelling antagonist with all kinds of nooks and crannies of character development to dig into. Part heroic war hero, part revenge-driven madman, Char's such an effective character that he's become an archetype. Every subsequent Gundam series has its own variation of a Char Clone: a mysterious, often masked ace pilot who has his own code and agenda that he follows. Char is easily one of the best villains in all of anime.

But here I am talking about the effects of Mobile Suit Gundam and not about the show itself. Its good. Very good, actually. The characters are likable and compelling. The mech designs range from iconic for the Gundam and the Zaku II to the adorably goofy like the Zakrello and the Guntank. The action works well too, considering the late 70s made-for-TV budget, especially the Battle of Jaburo, Battle of Solomon, Duel in Texas Colony (yeah, really), and the Battle of A Bao Qu being major standouts. The animation also nosedives in a lot of places near the end as the show had to wrap things up. Even the pacing is largely solid, with the worst patch being the stretch between the Garma arc and before Ramba Ral shows up. Those episodes have a lot of drawn out filler as Amuro mopes around feeling sorry for himself and going AWOL a couple times.

Beyond just being an Important Show For Anime, Mobile Suit Gundam is genuinely entertaining, and I do recommend it. 43 episodes of a late 70s anime might be asking a bit much, but that's what I hear the compilation movies are for (even if they cut out a ton of stuff like the Texas Duel). Either way, its worth a watch.

Octoverride '17: Blacula (1972)

Blacula. This little 1972 Blaxploitation horror movie has quite a reputation for its name alone. Black Dracula, essentially. Directed by William Crain, a black director with a few other Blaxploitation movies to his credit, along with several tv shows, including some episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard, and with a screenplay written by Joan Torres and Raymond Koenig, the movie starts out strong.

Campy, but strong.

In 1780, Prince Mamuwalde (William Marshall, the Future King of Cartoons on Pee-Wee's Playhouse) and his wife Luva (Vonetta McGee) are on a diplomatic tour of Europe and end up in Transylvania. Count Dracula (Charles Macaulay) patronizes them and constantly needles the prince about race until Mamuwalde tries to leave, and Dracula captures him, turns him into a vampire, and buries him in a coffin in his castle because Dracula is an asshole. Oh yeah, and Dracula dubs Mamuwalde “Blacula.”

Because Dracula's an asshole.

Fast forward to the 70s and an interracial gay couple of interior decorators buy up a bunch of stuff in Dracula's castle, including Mamuwalde's coffin. They're goofy, and definitely campy, but they're also innocent of what's about to happen, so there's definitely sympathy for them when they inadvertently ship Blacula to Los Angeles and awaken him and get killed.

After that, it slows down pretty hard. A doctor, Gordon Thomas (Thalmus Rasulala) begins investigating the deaths and turns into this movie's Abraham Van Helsing. Meanwhile, Mamuwalde runs into Tina (Vonetta McGee again) who's a dead ringer for his long-lost love and he chases her, getting run over by a taxi, and exsanguinating the sassy black cabbie lady as consolation.

Then it turns into a slow build of Dr. Thomas figuring out Mamuwalde is Blacula, and his allies trying to save Tina and stop a vampire outbreak across the city. There's a fun scene of a photographer developing a photo of Mamuwalde that he doesn't show up in (before she gets eaten by Blacula, of course), the vampire Cabbie waking up in the hospital and charging down character actor Elisha Cook Jr (from The Maltese Falcon) that's actually kind of spooky, some vampires in cheap capes get thrown into cardboard boxes, and a bunch of extras dressed like motorcycle cops get killed.

There's really not a whole lot to the movie, actually. It borrows heavily from the classic Bela Lugosi Dracula plot while throwing in the love story angle from Boris Karloff's The Mummy. That's fine, its just very pedestrian. The cast is fine, the effects are low budget, and it would be rather forgettable if not for one thing: William Marshall.

Marshall anchors and elevates the movie above its shortcomings by bringing a sense of tragic gravitas to the character. His rumbling bass voice helps too, along with his Shakespearean background. He's more sympathetic than Dracula traditionally is, and despite running rampant across LA for several nights, his death at the end of the movie is handled with a lot of dignity. After he is denied love one last time, he chooses to walk out into the morning sunlight. Marshall makes a scene where he walks up a flight of stairs and falls over dead into something not goofy. That's some real talent there.

Blacula occupies a kind of middle ground of averageness in the Blaxploitation genre. Its inoffensive, competent enough and mostly forgettable. I do, however, recommend it for William Marshall's performance as Mamuwalde. That's worth seeing.

Octoverride '17: The Thirsty Dead (1974)

The Thirsty Dead AKA Blood Hunt AKA The Blood Cult of Shangri-La is a 1974 American-Filipino co-production shot on location in the Philippines. It was directed by Terry Becker, an actor with a few TV episode directing credits. This was the only movie he directed. The story was written by Becker and Lou Whitehill (another actor) with the screenplay by Charles Dennis (another actor, who's done a lot of voice-over work in recent years).

It begins with a long establishing shot of a harbor, then a dancer entertains a bunch of sailors in a sleazy dive bar before her set ends and she goes back to her dressing room to listen to exposition radio discuss a rash of women being kidnapped and because this is 70s schlock, she fantasizes about being taken as a white slave to Hong Kong. This is Claire (Judith McConnell) and sure enough, she herself is soon captured by mysterious people in dark robes. After the credits, another woman, Laura (Jennifer Billingsley) turns down a marriage proposal and goes home alone so she can be kidnapped by the same monk-lookin guys. She wakes up half-drugged in a sewer and tries to get away, doesn't, and is taken by boat into the jungle with another girl, Ann (Fredricka Myers). They get dropped off with Claire and a local girl, Bonnie (Chiqui da Rosa) and are then escorted through the jungle by some bored-looking men in loincloths to a hidden cult.

The cult is led by Ranu (Tani Guthrie) with religious services by Baru (John Considine) and his giant silly collar. They worship a head in a red plastic box called Raul. At least, I think its Raul. The audio of the version I watched was terribly muddy and difficult to understand. Doesn't matter. Raul's only in one scene anyway.

The four women arrive and Laura is singled out by Baru because Raul mentioned her name as part of a something-something prophecy and Baru painted a portrait of her thanks to a prophetic dream he had of her because he's a lonely weirdo and so they can throw in a weak romance plot.

An IMMORTAL lonely weirdo, as it turns out. This cult is kidnapping attractive young women so that they can harvest their blood and mix it with leaves from a local jungle plant with remarkable healing properties and the resulting cocktail extends their life and youth. Interestingly enough, the cult uses the leaves to heal up their wounds so they don't die. Those “rejected” by Raul eventually turn into withered and crazy old people who get locked away in a cave.

Anyway, Baru tries to woo Laura over to his side and while she has some attraction to him, she's horrified by the cult's practices. The conversation goes “What right do you have?” “We are the chosen ones.” Rinse. Repeat.

Claire, on the other hand, likes the idea of being young and immortal and not being the one who's blood is being drunk. This leads to some half-assed tension and the four girls escape into the jungle, wander aimlessly for a while, then get caught and brought back.

Laura wins Ranu over to her side, and with his help escapes again and frees the rejected ones, who predictably turn on their masters. Claire decides she wants to stay, Laura tries to force her into escaping with the group, Claire tries to run away, takes a wrong turn and falls down into a spike pit and dies. Good job missing the point of why forcing people into doing things they don't want to is bad, Laura.

Anyway, the three girls escape with Ranu, and he leads them toward the exit, only they pass the “Ring of Age” which borders the cult's territory and he rapidly starts aging because we needed fake drama introduced at the last minute. The slave revolt is put down and the three women barely escape their pursuers by reaching a road and flagging down a passing jeep.

The movie ends with police searching the jungle with helicopters while a police lieutenant who was investigating the disappearances (Vic Diaz, who I only mention because he was a prolific actor in the Philippine horror movie industry of the 70s) tells Laura that they can't find any trace of settlement on the mountain, not even with helicopters. Meanwhile, Ranu looks at the futile search through a telescope and has a good laugh.

The biggest problem is complete lack of tension in the movie. After getting captured in the beginning, most scenes revolve around “how will the girls be able to escape?” and until the finale, the answer is “they can't.” Everything reverts back to them being captured without much trouble and more scenes of them talking about escaping. Bonnie has a deadly snake crawling at her feet! Never mind, it leaves without any fuss. Ann's bloodletting wound opens up! Never mind, somebody used one of the magic healing leaves to fix it. Its dreadfully boring.

The moral conflict of “We are the chosen ones!” versus “You don't have the right to do this!” feels like a bad episode of Star Trek. The cult's silly robes, propensity for interpretive dance, and soundtrack all add to that feel.

Is there anything good? Well, its got a talking head in a box. That counts for something. The character of Claire, while being a two-dimensional turboslut, is at least entertaining to watch and McConnell has scene-chewing fun with the role, which can't be said about the rest of the cast. That's really about it.

Ultimately, its a boring movie with a paralyzing reluctance to move its own plot forward.

Absolutely not recommended.

Movie Review: Mr. Majestyk (1974)

1974's Mr. Majestyk is a curious little early action film that's largely been forgotten, despite having a reasonably large pedigree.

It stars timeless tough guy Charles Bronson as Vince Majestyk.

It was written by pulp western and crime novelist Elmore Leonard.

And it was directed by big picture filmmaker Richard Fleischer, who directed 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Soylent Green, Fantastic Voyage and, uh, Conan the Destroyer.

Its about a grumpy Vietnam veteran with a criminal record who now owns a melon farm in Colorado. All he wants to do is bring in his harvest for the year, but fate seems to have it out for him.

Sounds like a Steinbeck novel about the plight of the working class and death of the American Dream, right?

Wrong. This is Bronson we're talking about, not Tom Joad.

After a confrontation with a small time shakedown scheme, Majestyk gets arrested on bogus charges. During a stay in prison, he meets mob hitman Frank Renda, played by gangster character actor Al Lettieri. The two hate each other immediately.

When the mob tries to spring Renda during a prisoner transfer, a firefight with the cops ensues. In the chaos, Majestyk grabs the keys to Renda's handcuffs and drives off with him in the prison bus. Renda tries to cut a deal, but Majestyk has other plans.

He wants to hand the hitman over to the police in exchange for dropping the charges against him so he can go back to his melon farm. It doesn't work out as planned. Renda escapes and boy is he mad.

The good news is that the charges against Majestyk got dropped. The bad news is that Renda's out to kill him. The best news is that he can go back to his melon harvest. On one condition: That he act as bait to lure out Renda.

The harvest is brought in successfully. He starts up a relationship with migrant worker and union activist Nancy Chavez (Linda Cristal). He helped her out at the beginning of the movie and hired her group.

But then tragedy!

Renda makes his move, but Majestyk's not at home, so the mobster settles for the next best thing: destroying the melon harvest with sad violin music playing over it. I swear it makes more sense in context.

What follows is a very satisfying road to revenge. Its got shootouts. Its got an old Ford pickup barreling down perilous mountain trails with Bronson bouncing around in the flatbed shooting a shotgun. Its got ramp jumps. Its got a car going over the side of a cliff and exploding. Its got Bronson jumping through a window blasting away with his shotgun.

Its good stuff.

There's a few nods to the labor disputes of the early 70s, but at its core, its basically a libertarian western. The man just wants to get his harvest in and make some money, and the cops do nothing except get in the way of that.

Everybody else in the movie thinks he's crazy, since with all the madness going on, his main fixation is the melon harvest. But in context, it makes sense. Its his livelihood and independence on the line, and he'd be ruined it he couldn't sell the crop. Even the melon massacre works in that context. The hero and villain both understand the symbolism of the crop.

There are some slower parts here and there, but Leonard's script keeps things building nicely.

It may not be his finest work, but at the end of the day, its Charles Bronson kicking ass for a hundred minutes. What more do you need to recommend it?

“The bottle is more distinguished than its wine.”

The best-selling novelist of all time (at least according to the Wikipedia and Infogalactic entries both citing The Guinness Book of World Records), and arguably the most popular murder mystery writer in the history of the genre is Agatha Christie (1890-1976). An absolutely fascinating woman. She acted as a volunteer nurse during WWI, struggled to get published for a very long time, married twice, had a fascination with paranormal and occult themes, and took an active interest in archaeology, often traveling to the Middle East with her second husband to go to digs. She also wrote a total of 73 novels over the course of her life, 66 of them being murder mysteries. Those, along with 165 short stories and 16 plays, cement her as a deeply prolific writer. She may not have been a pulp writer, but damn did she write at pulp speed.

Her most enduring creation is Hercule Poirot, an eccentric Belgian detective with an outrageous moustache and a knack for solving odd crimes. By the time she published Murder on the Orient Express in 1934, it was her 16^th novel.

I'm laying all this backstory on you because when it comes to 20^th Century Female Authors, Agatha Christie MATTERS. She's a BIG DEAL. So when the 1974 adaptation of Murder on the Orient Express by Sidney Lumet (12 Angry Men, Serpico, Dog Day Afternoon) was released, that too was a big deal, especially since she was still alive to see it. She approved of it, but felt Poirot's moustache needed to be bigger.

The plot is deceptively simple. Hercule Poirot is in Istanbul returning to England where he boards the Orient Express train to the port of Calais. A mysterious and dangerous-looking American named Ratchett tries to hire him as a bodyguard. Poirot declines, and the next day, Ratchett turns up dead in his bed with twelve stab wounds and train car full of suspects with motives. He has until the train is dug out of a snowdrift to solve the murder, and discovers that the victim was an important figure in the kidnapping and murder of a little girl five years prior in a case based on the real-life Lindbergh kidnapping.

The cast is outstanding. Albert Finney as Poirot, followed by Lauren Bacall, Ingrid Bergman (who won a Best Supporting Actress Oscar for her role), Jacqueline Bisset, Sean Connery, John Gielgud, Anthony Perkins, Vanessa Redgrave, Richard Widmark, and Michael York, among others.

Lumet's directing and cinematography are top notch, and aside from a prologue sequence that provides important background on the baby kidnapping case that feels a little long, is grand in its presentation of the luxury of the Orient Express and the tight confines of a train car stuck in the snow. Everything works great and is a deliberate throwback to classic Hollywood filmmaking.

I wish there was more I could say about it, but its a murder mystery and it really is worth experiencing for yourself. Absolutely recommended. Its a classic.

There's a remake coming out later this year with another high profile cast and with Kenneth Branagh at the helm. Might be good, even thought its largely unnecessary thanks to the strength of the original. There's also a 2015 miniseries from Japan that I discovered while researching this review. It looks rather charming.

My music is for Phoenix. Only she can sing it. Anyone else who tries, dies!

Phantom of the Paradise is a 1974 camp horror/fantasy/comedy/penny dreadful rock opera by a young Brian De Palma who was just getting off the ground. His big breakout film, Carrie, would come two years later in 1976 and the rest is history, as they say.

The movie's nuts. Winslow Leach (William Finley) is a sensitive singer/songwriter type common in the 70s, and is working on a concept cantata adaptation of Faust. He tries to approach Swan (Paul Williams), the mysterious producer who runs Death Records and the biggest name in the music biz. Swan wants to open up a concert hall called The Paradise and Winslow wants to get signed.

Well, Swan likes the song but not Winslow, so he has his assistant Arnold Philbin (George Memmoli) feed him a line about signing him and steals the song, which Winslow believes for a while, but after hearing dead silence for a month, returns to see what's happening and finds a bunch of women auditioning to sing the song he wrote. One of them, Phoneix (Jessica Harper), catches his eye and they have a moment, but Winslow is thrown out (multiple times) and Swan has him put away for life on trumped up charges.

After a rough time, Winslow escapes, smashes up Death Records a bit and disappears after an accident involving a record press, presumed dead. Then musicians start ending up dead, killed by a grotesque, deformed Phantom who haunts the Paradise. Swan, though, is more than he seems, and has sinister plans for the Phantom and Phoenix.

Oh yeah, and there's a crazy Glam rocker named Beef (Gerrit Graham) who's in the movie for a short while but steals every scene he's in.

Visually, the movie is a technicolor-soaked acid trip with plenty of surrealistic camera tricks that often work to unsettle you. If you haven't noticed from the character names above, we're in Allegory Town, and not reality, so the more stylized the world becomes the better.

More than that, the look of the Phantom himself is fantastic. Tight black leather, cape, black lipstick, metal teeth, electric voice box on his chest, obvious scarring on half of his face and bizarre mask that's either creepy or goofy depending on the angle. He's like Darth Vader's Gothic rock opera cousin, only three years before Star Wars.

The acting goes full ham, or, Beef, as the case may be. Beef is a prancing, pill-popping glam prima donna who still manages to be one of the most sympathetic characters. He's a head case who's in over his head at the Paradise, but largely innocent.

Phoenix is probably the most grounded character, which makes sense as the plot pivots around her (whether she knows it or not). She just wants to sing and be famous, and her willingness to do anything for that goal helps escalate things.

Winslow/The Phantom starts off as a nice guy goofball who wants to be famous but isn't sure how to break into the industry. He gets taken for a ride and his work is stolen (not uncommon, if you know anything about the early music industry) and he flips out. As Winslow, Finley plays him a bit close to being too over the top to be sympathetic, while as the Phantom he dials it up even further, which makes him more sympathetic. Weird, maybe, but it works really well.

Swan's the most fascinating character, and largely because of Paul Williams. Williams was/is a very successful songwriter who penned a large number of 60s-70s hits, songs for films, and frequent acting roles. You might recognize him as Little Enos in Smokey and the Bandit or the voice of the Penguin from Batman: The Animated Series.

Swan's riveting because his voice is smooth, his demeanor is calm, and he's got an unassuming baby face that gives him a youthful innocence. Which juxtaposes perfectly with how much of a manipulative asshole he is. Swan's evil. Unquestionably, unrepentantly evil. And he revels in it, which is itself a joy to watch.

Williams ends up being the cornerstone of the movie, writing the songs for the soundtrack as well. They're unified by themes of dying for art and selling one's soul for fame, from the doo-wop style teen tragedy song that opens the film right on through to the haunting “The Hell of It” that rolls over the end credits.

Those same themes carry through the script, written by Brian De Palma and an uncredited Louisa Rose, and it also draws heavily from classic horror. Faust being the most obvious, of course, but also The Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein, Psycho, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and The Picture of Dorian Gray. If you're going to steal ideas, might as well go whole hog. It works well here and the movie never bogs down like, say The Rocky Horror Picture Show (which was released a year later in 1975).

It is, I would say, a much, much better movie than Rocky Horror, but that's subjective taste speaking. I think the songs are better, the characters better defined, the conflict more interesting, and the underlying themes tapping into a more mythic vein. Its been years since I've seen Rocky Horror, but once I got past the “wow, Tim Curry in fishnets is shocking and outrageous” it was a vast stretch of “wow, this is really boring.”

Is there Action? A modest amount, but its all practical effects and explosions, which is nice.

Adventure? Not really. The Paradise is a bubble of Swan's ego, but its in America.

Romance? Quite a bit, but twisted. Winslow's love is what keeps him going once mere revenge is out of the question.

Ideals? This is more of a cautionary penny dreadful tale, but yes. Despite being an unhinged murderer, Winslow ends up fighting for something other than himself.

Mystery? Not a whole lot. The plot is fairly straightforward.

Wonder? Not immediately apparent, but the supernatural abounds and the Faust connections are more than just symbolic.

Phantom of the Paradise is too classy for grindhouse, too weird for mainstream and too good for “cult” movie status. Totally recommended. 

“Even the children threw rocks at me.”

Horror Rises From the Tomb, also known in its original Spanish as El espanto surge de la tumba, is a 1973 eurotrash horror movie. I knew nothing about this going in, which should be fun, I guess?

An Hour and Twenty Minutes Later

“Fun” may have been an overstatement. “Curious” might be a better word. “Heavily edited for television to get the juicy bits out” would be several better words.

For a bit of context, the name Paul Naschy looms large in Spanish horror history. Born Jacinto Molina Alvarez, Naschy (a screen name he came up with to better market his films internationally) was a big fan of classic horror films and eventually turned to screenwriting and acting and eventually directing. Incredibly prolific, especially in the 70s, he performed in over a hundred projects, including 12 werewolf movies where he played a tortured soul named Waldemar Daninsky, before his death in 2009 at the age of 75.

Here, Naschy plays three roles in a script he wrote under his real name. The first is Armand de Marnac, a 15^th century nobleman who executes his wicked warlock brother Alaric de Marnac (also Naschy). In Ye Olde Times, Alaric was accused and convicted of a litany of horrible and supernatural crimes that made him a Satanist, warlock, werewolf and vampire all at the same time. He had a lover, Mabille de Lancre (played by Helga Line) who was more of a vampire herself, but no less evil. Before their deaths, the two cursed Armand that they will come back and take revenge on his descendants.

Fast forward to modern times (well...1973 Modern, at least). Hugo de Marnac (also Naschy) is a professional bored aristocrat with a bunch of boring and kind of dumb friends. The first is Maurice Roland, descendant of Armand's friend Andre Roland (both played by Victor Alcazar). Maurice is an artist haunted by dreams of a pair of sinister eyes. Maurice is also dating Paula (played by Cristina Suriani), a journalist stationed in Germany home on vacation. Hugo himself is in a one-sided relationship with Sylvia (played by Betsabe Ruiz). Sylvia wants Hugo to settle down and marry her, but Hugo's ambivalent about that.

At a party they all decide to take part in a séance, where the ghost of Alaric messes with the medium, table, and a candlestick to get across the point that he can't rest until his head is reunited with his body. Intrigued by the thought of treasure buried on the property, they all go to the de Marnac estate to look for it out of idle curiosity.

Along the way they get attacked by thieves who are in turn killed by some shifty village vigilantes, reach the estate, find a conveniently head-sized chest, and the spirit of Alaric de Marnac starts possessing people and killing them and its a whole thing as he works towards getting his head reattached to its body and resurrecting his bloodthirsty consort Mabille.

Oh, and we also meet Elvira (played by Emma Cohen). She's the daughter of the caretaker Gastone and sister of Chantal, and the childhood friend/lover of Hugo. And his affection for her is why he hasn't committed to Sylvia.

Anyway, people get killed by sickles, people get possessed one by one and disappear, and there's an interlude where a bunch of people killed over the course of the movie who were dumped into a lake get revived as zombies that unsuccessfully try to capture/kill Hugo and Elvira. Then it reaches a bloody but somewhat standard climactic fight.

The movie was directed by Carlos Aured, and despite being a quickly-produced, low-budget horror, has some nice visual touches. The medieval opening is cold and moody, and the claustrophobic atmosphere of the rest of the movie is well executed despite taking place in a reasonably large estate. The makeup effects are serviceable for the zombies and tricks like teleportation and Mabille's resurrection are achieved with simple editing tricks in a low-budget but somewhat respectable way. Its cheap, but at least an effort was made to overcome budget limitations.

This is, however, a heavily edited version of the film that removed all of the nudity and most of the goriest elements, presumably so it could be suitable for broadcast on American television. The downside is that it makes an already slow burn downright boring for long stretches, since all that's left is people trying to figure out what's going on and making stupid decisions that get them killed in poorly edited ways. A better cut exists, without the editing hack job and with better visual and sound quality, but I can only review what I've seen.

And what I've seen is a ponderous, frequently dull movie with characters that have to act stupid in order for the already thin plot to happen. The script isn't great and steals heavily from vampire, witchcraft and werewolf movies and combines them all into a duo of villains who are quite overpowered except for some very specific weaknesses. Except instead of a holy crucifix driving back the vampire, its an amulet with “Thor's Hammers” on it that can undo the evil warlock's magic.

There are flashes of entertainment, such as Naschy's scenery chewing stare as Alaric de Marnac (a character he would revisit in a later movie) and the atmosphere is often successfully creepy with a few noteworthy setpieces near the end, but man is it a boring journey most of the way. The complete version is probably better, but I'm in no hurry to see it.

Not recommended.