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Fade to Black
1980/Color/100 Min./Media Home Entertainment, Inc & American Cinema & Leisure Investment Company Movie Ventures Ltd. & Fade to Black Venture/Rated R
Director............Vernon Zimmerman (Unholy Rollers)
Screenplay......Vernon Zimmerman
Music................Craig Safan
Producers.......George G. Braunstein & Ron Hamady
Executive Producers.Irwin Yablans & Sylvio Tabet
Dramatis Personae
Eric Binford...Dennis Christopher (Chariots of Fire,Breaking Away,It)
Mickey.........Mickey Rourke (Angel Heart, Barfly, Diner, 9« Weeks)
Dinner Date....Peter Horton (Thirty Something, Children of the Corn)
Marilyn........Linda Kerridge (Alien From L.A., Down Twisted, Surf 2)
Not Available
Gwynne Gilford
Normann Burton (Bloodsport, The Gumball Rally, Scorchy)
Morgan Paull
James Luisi (The Red Light Sting)
Eve Brent Ashe
John Steadman
Marcie Barkin
Hennen Chambers
Melinda Fee
Critique: Lovers of classic cinema will have their fun watching Watch Moriority for the worst acting to be found outside of a porno movie.
All this and Mickey Rourke gets killed.
* Blood * Violent * Strong language * Sexual Situations *
* Brief Nudity * Not Particularly Gory *
Plot Summary: Night of the living dead Kiss of Death Public Enemy Horror of Dracula Creature from the Black Lagoon. At 200 River Street. a Cigarette smoking, beer drinking Eric Binford falls asleep listening to a B-ganster movie. Auntie comes in in her motorized wheelchair. Important men had been begging to marry her. She blames him unjustly for the loss of the use of her legs. Professor Moriority has been given six months to get results with the juvenile delinquents of the neighborhood. Binford makes a bet with some local punks that they can't come up with Rick's last name in Casablanca in forty eight hours. Binford seduces a Marilyn look alike with movie trivia. Unfortunately, she's forgotten the date. He goes home and packs himself in to watch old movies. When auntie Stella knocks over Binford's film projector, she's gone too far. Eric is becoming a bit unworldly. He's changed his name and even his street name and number. Now "Cody Jarrett is applying the makeup. Dressed as Dracula, he finds Marilyn alone in the shower and plays the Psycho scene. Then he follows the dark haired prostitute who was mean to him. She trips over a fence, cutting her neck severely. He tastes the blood of the fallen woman. Mickey won't pay up. He gets hopalongged. Moriority suspects Binford but the police don't. He's getting a bit aggressive. Binford shows up at his former place of business, and the new Cody Jarrett (Cagney's name in "White Heat") identity doesn't go over well with the boss. He's fired. He comes back as the mummy, not good for the weak of heart. A producer steals his idea for a movie, and gets rubbed out gangland style. He brings Marilyn in for "The prince and the showgirl" The police are now on Binford's trail. Can they get to the scene of the prince and the showgirl in time? The climax inevitably is played out on Hollywood Boulevard. Binford's aunt was really his mother and she never told him. 99 River St.
Fatal Pulse (Slasher) 4***skulls
1988/Color/90 Min./Celebrity Home Entertainment & Great Entertainment Group/Not Rated
Director.........Anthony J. Christopher
Screenplay.......James Hundhausen
Music............Martin Mayo
Producer.........Anthony J. Christopher
Executive Producer......J. Richard Charbit
Dramatis Personae
Lisa.......Michelle McCormick
Jeff.......Ken Roberts (The Great Land of Small)
Ernie......Joe Phelan (South of Reno)
Prof.......Alex Courtney (Enter the Ninja)
Stephanie..Kitty
Cassie.....Cindra Hodgdon
Carol......Maureen O'Hanlon
Brad.......Steven Henry
Mark.......Blair Karsch
Ann........Roxane Kernohan
Karen......Christie Mucciante
Sheila.....Sky Nicholas
Critique: Why does Mark have a "Peter and the Wolf" leitmotif silly sound that accompanies his entrances? Your jaw will drop when when you hear the boink. Cut out all eight minutes or so of dreadfully inconsistent "comic-relief" "Mark" and this "movie" could pick up a skull or two. One would have thought the elements were there for a serviceable movie. Unfortunately, this didn't happen. The victims in this movie are so faceless and uniform that the only way to distinguish them is by the size and shape of their bare breasts as they prepared to be murdered. The music is a bit abrasive as is, but there are interminable music video moments in this film but they aren't really that much worse than the rest of the movie. The pace problems are severe. The lighting is just oppressive.
* Blood * Violent * Strong Language * Sexual Situations *
* Lots of Nudity * Not Particularly Gory *
Plot Summary: When Jeff tells Stephanie that he must go to the party rather than to stay for what she all too clearly has in mind, she is not pleased. And calls out a few choice epithets at his retreat. However, another fellow is skulking outside. When she opens to his knock he grabs at her. She is pursued up the stairs and strangled. The professor shows up to discuss the stochastic questions on the test. He seems reluctant to discuss his what happened to his wife. Just when Wayne shows up to say that he's interested in getting back together with Jenny, Brad shows up and is belligerent. He tells them that Stephanie was murdered. Jeff then shows up and when he sees its true and runs away making the police suspicious. The girls in the sorority try to go about their business, but someone is still peering in their windows. One of the girls wants to process it but the others seem close lipped. Jeff comes by and Lisa is disappointed in his going to Stephanie. A man is sitting on the stoop having a Vietnam flashback. Carol is next as gloved hands enter her room. Her throat is cut with a record. At this point Jeff insists that Lisa move in with him. Ernie is shuffling around in the dark and Jeff asks him about the girls that have been murdered. He says he inherited the building and he isn't responsible for anything that happens there. "Why the long face?" The girls engage in some inane grousing about problems with their parents. What about the murders? Jeff and hung over Mark go to investigate the murder site. Meanwhile, Ernie is working in the apartment of one of the girls. She comes out with a towel on offering that if he needs anything he need only ask. One of the girls is Marated by the anti-sororitist. Jeff goes and sees the professor who seems a bit melancholic. Lisa sees Ernie in the dark and tells him it's hot in her room and that she has to take off almost all her clothes to work in there. Ernie comes in looking a bit slimy. The jogger girl is pulled into a place, has her clothes cut off her and is electrocuted. Brad comes by and says that Jeff had an argument with Stephanie was killed. The professional track girl has someone watching her through the window. A skate boarder is followed to her home and thrown out a window. Karen is plastered. By now a lynch mob led by Brad who feels that Jeff took Lisa away from her. Brad shows up smoking a cigar. A brief struggle ensues and the surprisingly fragile Brad falls backward unconscious. Jeff finds evidence that the murderer is terminally ill, and using hallucinogens to put the disease in remission. Jeff theorizes that in that state, he no doubt commits the anti-sororital activities. Unfortunately, the mob is still out after Jeff.
The Fear (Psychology/Woods/Doll) 6******skulls
1994/Color/98 Min./Apix Entertainment & Devin Entertainment & Morty LP/Rated R
Director........Vincent Robert
Screenplay......Ron Ford
Music...........Robert O. Ragland
Producer........Richard Brandes
Executive Producer....Greg H. Sims
Director of photography....Bernd Heinl
"Morty" effects by M.M.I.
Special Effects Design by John Carl Buecheler
Dramatis Personae
Richard........Eddie Bowz
Ashley.........Heather Medway
Leslie.........Ann Turkel
Pete...........Vince Edwards
Troy...........Darin Heams
Tanya..........Anna Karin
Gerald.........Antonio Todd
Vance..........Leland Hayward
Mindy..........Monique Mannen
"Morty"........Erick Weiss
Dr. Arnold.....Wes Craven
Young Richard..Hunter Bedrosian
Rose...........Rebecca Baldwin
Claude.........Greg Littman
Becky..........Stacy Edwards
Father.........Daniel Franklin
Mother.........Lisa Iannini
Son............Corey Wilson
Critique: Through the woods with a doctoral candidate in psychology Richard and his group of deeply troubled friends/subjects where they alternately terrorize each other or are terrorized by a wooden mannequin named Morty, a concrete manifestation of Richard's guilt at having played a minor role in the death of his mother. A rather scary movie monster is introduced here and executed wonderfully from make-up effects to acting (Eric Weiss). Indeed, this monster would have been a wonderful main character around which to have made a horror movie. Instead, we are regaled with an unending sequence of insights into the flawed characters of the participants. Particularly troublesome is that the viewer forms no attachment with Richard, the main character. The rest of the group are equally damaged goods. We get some satisfaction at the demise of some of the less agreeable characters, but that won't carry things. In addition, the whole campus rapist issue is simply a distraction in a film about an animated childhood playmate. In addition, introducing a two hundred thousand dollar theft as a further justification for knocking off the already thoroughly disagreeable Vance is surely overkill. All this is distracting and leaves the viewer baffled about the point in the film. It is as though the Morty story was deemed indadequate to hold the viewer's interest, and thus a series of side shows were devised to keep us entertained. Oh, Troy's California patois is particularly annoying, and the fact that he is an irritant and a rapist should have sufficed to put him in a poor light. Motto: "There is no devil but fear"
* Blood * Violent * Strong Language * Some Nudity *
* Sexual Situations * Gory *
Plot Summary: In a game, Richard as a child is chased, and runs through the woods and finds a face carved into a tree, just as two shrowded and masked figures dig under a fallen tree. They begin chanting what sounds like "diamond trick". It was a dream of Richard's when he was much younger. He is discussing his thesis in psychology with professor Arnold, and hypothesizes that it is some buried memory. Richard proposes a woods fear-workshop with other students. His professor offers him a ball with a piece missing and tells him to find the missing piece as homework--still pushing Richard on his . A female coed heads toward her dorm at night, and though she is warned by the security guard, Becky Graham goes it alone. A shrouded figure drops from a tree and she is attacked--the implication from the focus on the genitalia of a nude fountain being she is raped. The next day, our psychology student puts up a flier for his group. The cops are asking Rasta-man Troy about Becky Graham, who was raped last night, the fourth or fifth. His Rasta haired pal had dated her and the implication is he is under suspicion. Rasta's sister Leslie from Oregon and her friend uptight and put-offish Vance Cooper, and two African-Americans are in for the weekend of fear. The participants pile into a van and the weekend begins. Rasta notes that Leslie has aged. Vance implies that Troy isn't actually her brother. Richard owns the cottage the students are visiting. Leslie had been an exec, but is now unemployed. At the cottage, Richard's girlfriend, Ashley, looks at a photo that includes a rather shadowy looking figure in a window. She finds a life size wooden man figure in a roll out bed and her screaming alerts the others. It has a real presence. It had been a mannequin in Richard's uncle's general store. They brought "Morty" to the cottage as a guardian. Woith disturbing honesty, Richard admits that when he was a kid it had been his best friend. Richard announces that Morty will be guardian--he can be trusted with secrets and won't judge. Everyone has to admit to Morty what scares them. Initially too cool, Troy is tricked to admit that he's afraid of bugs. Leslie does seem to resent little brother Troy. She admits that after having been so popular in school, she had to raise troy and now fears getting old. Matt has his one arm wrapped, and has an impressive tattoo on his other arm. He doesn't enter into the game - "bullshit". Ashley doesn't feel comfortable playing either and leaves when Troy mocks her. Blustering middle-aged Uncle Pete shows up in a Santa outfit with his very young girlfriend Tanya Larsen. Tanya admits that based on a near childhood drowning, she hates water. New-age Mindy thinks she has had many lives which ended in falling, she is afraid of heights. Rudy's father is a minister--he is an atheist and brushes off the experiment. Uncle Pete says santa's helper in Holland, black Peter, will punish all the bad little children. The mask of black Peter on the wall looks like the one from Richard's dream. Richard admits he has a fear of commitment based on his poor relationship with his father and the death of his mother--in a trancelike state he begins hearing "diamond trick" and admits he is afraid of Morty- "You scare the shit out of me man". Mindy is an artist. Vance is interested in drawing Mindy, she exposes her breasts but Leslie and Rudy interrupt them angrily. Leslie and Vance complain about each others sexual preferences. Richard and Ashley have sex and are interrupted when Leslie realizes that Morty has been set up at the window at the end of their bed. Richard accuses Troy. The next day, in a session with Mindy, Mindy - with her eyes closesd, compulsively draws a picture of her fear--someone who will be angry at her--perhaps her father. Mindy says something is wrong. Terrified Tanya, pleaing for herself in the third person, is coerced to get into a pool by uncle Pete, but Richard intervenes, blasting Pete fdor knowing nothing about psychology. Tanya overhears and enters the pool of her own volition. laughing with relief until Morty pops up sending her into shock--it looks like another practical joke. Richard cleverly blames Ashley, and she decides she's had it and gives him her ring. Vance comes in and starts molesting Mindy as she bathes and she slaps him, he leaves. They try to track him down, and Morty shows up in his room. The guests insist on knowing Morty's origins. Pete and Richard explain that an Indian had carved Morty and instilled magic into it so that anyone would buy the garments put on him. It appears the magic has taken on a darker side. Things certainly are getting psychological. Troy uses a vulnerability ploy on Ashley, starts to kiss Ashley, but then she decides against it and he tries to force himself on her accusing her of teasing. Pete intervenes. She is all done with Richard for the Morty accusation. They go to a kiddie theme park: a miniature north pole. Vance insults Leslie and is back to chasing Mindy around, but she joins Gerald on the train. Leslie, Troy and and Ashley ride the carousel. Mindy's runaway kiddie train leads her through scary fairy-tale land to what she thinks is Gerald, but she is grabbed from behind and raped. Ashley realizes that the campus rapist is one of them. Vance shows up but when accusatory looks come up, he accuses Leslie "You told them!" and pulls out a gun. Vance and Leslie had apparently embezzled two hundred thousand dollars from Leslie's company, she admits. At the house, Vance finds only a trail of money leading to a box where he is repeatedly bashed on the head by the cover and dragged in by some unknown force. The both van and jeep tires are slashed, so they can't leave. Neither can they find Vance. Tanya and Pete volunteer to walk back to Christmas Village to get a maintanance truck. Ashley deduces that Vance was in Oregon, and couldn't have been the campus rapist. Troy apologizes for his behavior toward Leslie and they engage in some incestuous groping. Troy believed Leslie and Troy had been adopted, but Leslie admits that she is not his sister but his mother. She had hidden it because she had been an unwed teenage mother. Troy wretches on the grounfd outside. Tanya has gone running to get to the village and a phone. She hears voices in the woods calling to her. Back in Santa's village, Pete arrives at Christmas Village and finds Gerald has been skewered and crucified and mutters "not again". While searching for Troy in the woods, Leslie finds Morty, and suddenly she turns old. Mindy, who is convalescing, appears to be possessed and uncovers that Richard killed his mother. Morty next is animated as Ashley watches. He acts as a puppeer for the possessed Mindy who spells out "matricide" on a felt board. It appears that Troy was the rapist as he attacks Ashley. Richard's flashback reveals that he had told his father about his mother's infidelity that he had discovered, and then his father had killed his mother. His father then placed the guilt on the little boy - "This is your own goddamn fault You tell anybody... and Morty will get you!". It appeared Morty came to life as he transferred his guilt in the doll. Mindy beats Richard until he trips her out the window. Morty rises from Mindy's lifeless body. Ashley manages to throw Troy into a bees nest and he goes crazy enough for her to club him with a stick. Richard insists to Pete that he had hated his mother and wanted to kill her. Ashley explains to Richard that "diametric" means opposite, and that Richard was never responsible for the murder. Richard surprises Pete and sees Pete's tattoo: Pete had been his mother's lover. Pete shouts that black Peter gets bad little boys, and in comes Morty. Pete shoots Morty a couple of times, but pretty soon the gun is in Pete's mouth. Next Morty stumps on after Richard and Ashley. Morty moves pretty well for a woodman. Richard finds the carved tree from his dream just as Morty comes upon him, and then Bedlam breaks out. Richard's largely decomposed mother comes out of the ground and gets a hold of his ankle. Black Peter and young Richard himself hang around to observe the proceedings. Young Richard hands Richard the toy ball the professor had given and Richard in turn bounces it off his mother's head and putting the ball back together puts her back in her grave and likewise sends black peter santa claus and young Richard to whence they came. He hugs his younger self, and it appears everything is resolved--a neatly wrapped up Freudian faery tale. Except that the next thing we know, Morty is off chasing Ashley through the dark woods. He throws Tanya in the swamp, but she doesn't seem to mind. Richard arrives as Morty struggles with Ashley and tells him it's all over, he understands everything now, and that he has to leave. Morty takes his hand, old friends again, and Morty heads off into the swamp. Richard and Ashley reconcile. Denoument. Richard comes to his professor to tell him that he is dropping out. Last scene--a new couple rents the cabin and their kid runs off into the woods and he looses his soccer ball, asking the woodman "Are you a good guy or a bad guy/" until Morty kicks it back to him.
Fearless Vampire Killers or
(Dance of the Vampires)
* Blood * Not Particularly Violent * No Strong Language *
* No Sexual Situations * No Nudity * Not Gory *
1967/Color/111 Min./MGM\UA & Cadre Films & Filmways Ltd./Not Rated
Director........Roman Polanski
Screenplay......Gerard Brach & Roman Polanski
Music...........Christopher Komeda
Producer........Gene Gutowski
Executive Producer.......Martin Ransohoff
Director of Photography..Douglas Slocombe
Special Effects by
Story by Gerard Brach & Roman Polanski
Dramatis Personae
Alfred................Roman Polanski
Professor Abronsius...Jack MacGowran
Sarah.................Sharon Tate
Count Von Krolock.....Ferdy Mayne
Shagal (Innkeeper)....Alfie Bass
Koukol (hunchback)....Terry Downes
Maid..................Fiona Lewis
Herbert (Count's son).Lain Quarrier
Rebecca (Innkeeper)...Jesse Robins
Village Idiot.........Ronald Lacey
Sleigh Driver.........Sydney Bromley
Critique: A discredited zany professor goes seeking vampires and finds himself in a sixties style romp at a transylvanian castle, in the process finding Sharon Tate in various bubble baths. Like any tongue in cheek sixties style romp, this film is hopelessly tedious. The camp acting by both the professor and Alfred overwhelms. Although the professor's acting is the most annoying element in this film, the sources of dismay are legion. Okay, Sharon Tate. There she is. See her sit in the bubble bath. See her dance a minuet. The count is your basic vampire, doing the best Christopher Lee that he knows how. Polanski himself is almost as annoying as the professor is. One really wonders why such films are made. This one even seemed to have been done with some care. The film work and the scenery are not in the least slip shod. So, the whole thing is baffling. All one can surmise is that it was the sixties, and it was time to lampoon things. Odd to think that a tired genre like the vampire film needed any lampooning in 1967. The film is the inspiration for 1971's Vampire Happening, down to the inclusion of Ferdie Mayne as the campy count but not quite as vapid, not quite the insult to the viewer that that memorable piece was. Perhaps the most interesting scene is with Herbert, the count's gay vampire son, as he prepares to seduce/kill Alfred. But, like everything else in this film, it is utterly pointless, and ends in a fast motion slap stick chase.
Plot Summary: In Transylvania, professor Abronsius and Alfred are on a search. Abronsius has lost his chair at Koenigsberg--his colleagues there call him the nut. Alfted becomes nervous when their sled is pursued by wild dogs, but Abronsius snoozes through the whole event. They stop at x Inn, where the Einstein-looking Abronsius arrives stiff as a board. their feet are placed in hot water, and they thaw out. Abronsius sees garlic hung from the ceiling and is sure his search is at an end. Abronsius asks whether there is a castle in the district, and the townspeople are reticent to tell him, though the town fool blurts it out. Alfred puts leach-bulbs on the professor's bare back and reads vampire lore to the professor. Alfred hears someone moving out in the hallway, it is just the landlord paying a nocturnal visit on his daughter, Sarah (Tate)--though they make a scene of investigating, and there's a bop on the head. Sarah is enchanted by foolish Alfred's snowman. A hunchback hunches in, and she hides under Alfred's table, apparently in terror of him. Alfred follows the hunchback, hiding on his sled. The hunchback stops the sled when he sees a wolf and runs off after it. He returns with a mouth covered with blood. Alfred returns to the Inn, and gets a late night visit from the Sarah, who complains of being bored. She speaks very suggestively--but he realizes that she's speaking of having a bath in their private tub. Later, we see that the hunchback has returned with a distinguished looking passenger on his sled. He peers in through the window at the bather. Fangs and scrunching noises. After some badly camp acting by Alfred, the Inn keepers come and mourn the loss of their daughter who has been bitten and spirited away by the vampire. The Inn keeper is off in the snow to confront the vampire. The next morning, he is brought back frozen by townspeople. He has puncture holes in writ, ankles and stomach. Mrs. Chagall is to put a wooden stake in her dead husband's heart to save his soul. She refuses, and after a bruised thumb, they go to stick the stake in, but Chagall arises and scampers into the cellar. The vampire escapes after some more blundering, and returns to bite the maid--whose cross turns out to be useless. He hides behind the door while they discuss plans, and is soon off with a toodloo. Alfred and the professor ski off to the castle. They find the grave of a Von Krolock, and then enter the castle. They find themselves trapped in a cell for a while, and then the hunchback comes and leads them to the count's table. The count has read the professor's book on bats. They scramble for an excuse by claiming that they had seen a bat flying in december, and the professor explains it was flying while hibernating. They head off for bed, and meet the count's son on the way--who is appartently homosexual and shows a keen interest in Alfred. Alfred hears a mysterious keening of a female, and follows the sound down the hall. The count and son are settled into their coffins, and then Chagall, whistling a toon, settles into his own box, but he is sent by Tucko the hunchback to the stalls. The next morning the pair sees the Tuko working on a coffin, and they decide that Sarah is not yet dead. They begin to search for her. The hunchback guards the crypt, so they scale the walls to get to the other wing of the castle. They climb through a window into one of the towers. With the professor stuck in the window, Alfred following his directions, bumbles around and can't manage to drive the stake in. It is decided that he free the professor and that the professor do the deed. On the way around to the other side to free him, he hears Sarah singing again. He follows her voice and finds her in a tub. She seems fairly content with her situation, and is looking forward to a ball this evening. He finally remembers the professor and pulls him back out of the window, losing the vampire killing materials in the process. The professor spies Chagall going to the now vampirous maid for a tryst. Alfred, hearing Sarah's singing, wanders into the count's son's chambers. He tells Alfred he is ill and insists he take a rest on his bed. He complements Alfred on the length of his lashes. Alfred sees the son throws no image in the mirror and realizes that he is a vampire. The son tries to bite Alfred, but he escapes momentarily--but Alfred bites the son rather than the son's biting him. As they observe vampires rising from their graves, the count comes up behind them--and explains the coming victory of vampires over humans. The professor realizes they have been left on a parapet with a working cannon. They turn it around, and prpare an impromptu projectile with snow, a scarf and some wooden refuse. Meanwhile, the vampires have gathered for an eighteenth century style ball. Sarah is presented to the gathering to greedy gasps. The cannon fires off, breaking down the door, and sneak into the party by bonking some elderly vampires with a knight's helmet. Chagall, meanwhile, pulls the maid into a grave for his own amusement. In the minuet, Alfred assures Sarah she will be saved. As they promenade for the door, they show up in a mirror, and the jig is up. They are pursued, but crossing swords creates a crucifix, and they are able to escape. The professor stops to examine a few bats, but they make their way through catycombs and into Tuko's workroom, and then out into the courtyard where a sled awaits them. They are pursued by the vampires, but it is near dawn, and only Tuko can pursue them in a coffin tobagan. Tuko just misses them a few times, and then is devoured by dogs. Unfortunately, Sarah has alredy turned, and Alfred is bitten--the professor unwittingly brings Sarah and now Alfred, into the world.
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