Semiquincentennial Movie Project #38: Children of the Corn

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #38: Nebraska -

 

 

 

The state of Nebraska was established on March 1, 1867 

Details about Nebraska:

State bird: Western meadowlark

State flower: goldenrod

State tree: cottonwood

Additional historical trivia:

Locking pliers, also known as "Vice-Grips", were invented in Nebraska.

March 14 is celebrated as Reuben Sandwich Day because one legend has it that the sandwich was invented in Omaha. (It's my favorite sandwich, even over a good hamburger).

Nebraska is also the home of the inventors of ranch dressing, Swanson dinners and Kool-Aid.

It is the only "triply land-locked" state, meaning it's the only state that you have to travel through at least three other states to get to a bay, ocean or gulf.

The nation's smallest city hall (10' x 12') is in Maskell.

Famous people born in Nebraska: A huge number of famous actors, like Marlon Brando, Nick Nolte, Fred Astaire, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Montgomery Clift, Harold Lloyd and Ward Bond, as well as Malcolm X,  L. Ron Hubbard, Warren Buffett, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney and U.S. President Gerald Ford.

 

 

 

Children of the Corn (1984):

Those evil kids in Nebraska! Children of the Corn, quite possibly, is in contention for having spawned the most sequels in movie history. Note: I don't include such icons as Dracula and Sherlock Holmes in that because, after all, the many films featuring those characters are not, per se, all sequels to prior movies. As of this writing there are 10 movies in the series, and probably no end in sight. But, to be honest, the sequels have different children in them, so maybe you would not agree with the term "sequel"...

In his phenomenally entertaining book Showgirls, Teen Wolves and Astro Zombies, Mark Adams devoted an entire chapter to the series. I personally have never delved into the many sequels, some of which I hear are just the kind of "bad movie" fare that I have covered over the years. 

But the original may possibly be a preview to the whole bad movie vibe. 

Question: What's worse than a bunch of kids, inspired by some demonic creature they THINK is living in the cornfields, killing off all the adults in town to appease said "He Who Walks Behind the Rows"? How about a movie that has a bunch of kids, inspired by some demonic creature that IS living in the cornfield, doing this nefarious killing for "He Who Walks Behind the Rows". Or, at least maybe it's "demonic"... For all I know, it could be an alien from the 8th dimension. (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension hit theaters that same year...)

Stephen King movies are notoriously hit or miss. Especially when it comes to adaptations of his horror output. Assuming they even bother to stick closely to the source material, this can be problematic. Sometimes you get a genuine gem, such as The Shawshank Redemption or Stand by Me (neither of which are horror movies, per se). The 1976 version of Carrie and Misery both are genuinely good, and qualify as horror.

But on the other hand, sometimes you get such drivel as The Lawnmower Man which has virtually no connection to the original story. Neither do, (need I say it?), the many sequels to previously filmed stories that may or may not have been faithful themselves. In the middle of the pack are such films that somehow maintain a connection to the King original, although several of them had to be expanded from the story to make them work as a full-fledged movie. Children of the Corn is one of these.

In the original King short story our main characters are a married couple who, at the time of the setting, don't particularly like each other. That was changed for the movie into a couple who, though not yet married at the time, were hopelessly in love with each other. Whether that changed the dynamic of the story is probably up to the reader/viewer. 

The movie opens 3 years earlier when Isaac (John Franklin) and his acolytes/followers, all children ritually slaughter all the adults of the town of Gatlin, Nebraska.

 

Three years late (the present), a couple, Burt (Peter Horton ) and his girlfriend/future wife, Vicky (Linda Hamilton) are en route to Seattle where Burt is going to do his intern work as a doctor to be. Along the way they are traveling through a seemingly deserted section of Nebraska, where the only thing around seems to be the miles and miles of corn. (And if you like corn, you might not anymore after watching this movie. That corn is about as scary as a horde of rats descending upon you in a basement... At least it was to me.)

 

Into the road stumbles a boy. Burt and Vicky think they hit and killed him, but it turns out that his throat had been cut before he ever got into the road. So they pack him into the trunk of their car and head to the nearby town of Gatlin to report it. But upon arriving in Gatlin, they find the town deserted. They can find no one, not one single person. 

 

It takes about 45 minutes of this movie before our intrepid couple find anything resembling humanity. The kids, who obviously have it in their best interests, or at least in the best interests of the monster living in the cornfield, do anything. For the most part, they just argue amongst themselves. This may be due in part because their leader, Isaac, is obviously a nutjob Pat Robertson wannabe. Isaac spouts apocalyptic scriptures about the fact that he Who Walks Behind the Rows must be appeased. His second in command, Malachai (Courtney Gains), is much more vindictive, but not quite as evil as the street preacher Isaac.

 

Eventually Burt and Vicky find Sarah and Job, two kids who are not beholden to Isaac and his ilk. Sarah is, as often happens in a King story, a psychic with visions. And both of them are playing a game that could get them into serious trouble if Isaac found out; to wit, having independent thought.

 

The ultimate conflict ends up after Vicky is captured. There is a revolt, and it turns out that Malachai may be even more demented in his religious zealotry than Isaac. He thinks that Isaac has failed He Who Walks Behind the Rows, and takes over. 

 

And our intrepid duo of adults are the only ones that seem to be able to come up with a plan.

 

Children of the Corn was originally scripted by King himself, but the director chucked that script and had it re-written. The scriptwriter, George Goldsmith, came up with something that more or less appealed to the director, but it fails on several stages. For one, it adds way too much extraneous stuff that had nothing to do with the movie. For one thing, the couple find an old man (R. G. Armstrong) whom the kids have allowed to live, obviously because he could get things the kids would need, such as tools. But since those same kids kill him off before the movie is halfway over, they must not have needed his help THAT bad...

 

At least the movie kept the fact in the film that their is SOMETHING out there in that cornfield. Although whatever it is, it pales in comparison in it's fright value to the kids themselves. Someone, I think it was King himself, called it a "gopher from Hell", because most of it's scenes on screen are just scenes of something burrowing underneath the soil of the cornfield. Even when it finally foes come up out of the ground, it looks more like left over special effects from Tron. (A demon from a computer world...? Maybe it's really an early invasion of the Borg...)

As cheaply as this movie was made, with a budget of only $3 million, and with King's name attached, it was probably a foregone conclusion that it would make a profit. And it did. Sort of... It mad $!4 million in ticket sales. But word of mouth probably hurt it. I think Roger Ebert, who was probably not a big fan of King in the first place, put it best: "By the end of Children of the Corn, the only thing moving behind the rows is the audience, fleeing to the exits." 

The seemingly never ending raft of sequels that the movie spawned, I think, says more about the audience's willingness to dive into this "evil children" trope than it does about how well the story flows into a fluid tale. Given that probably 75-80% of the potential audience for these sequels are probably parents themselves, it would seem to me that they might be deriving a satisfaction of seeing their own "little monsters" in the roles of those kids. (Not having any of my own, I may not be the right person to judge, but be that as it may...)

Personally, I think the story would have been better served if it had been made as part of an anthology, sort of like Creepshow or Creepshow II. (Replacing that segment in Creepshow II with the India would have been a better choice.  The film suffers a lot from the fact that it takes way too long for anything interesting to happen. It feels exactly like what it essentially is, a 40 minute film that was padded to fill an hour and a half slot.

Interesting note: Goldsmith has later claimed that the script was a metaphor for the Iranian Revolution of 1979, with the kids being the Muslims and the couple being the American hostages. Not sure how I feel about that. Is he saying that the revolutionaries were basically just kids?  

OK, so this is not exactly one of the greatest King films, it's not even one of the better 80's King films, but for a brief break from some of the other films I have reviewed over the years, it's not entirely bad. Just be sure to take a good shot of your Red Bull or Monster before cuing it up, or you may doze off during the lulls between action scenes. And  try not to laugh too hard when the demon shows up at the end.

Until next week, drive safely, folks. And stick to the highways. Those detours through the backwoods burgs are a little risky.

Quiggy

 

 

   

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #37: The Beast of Yucca Flats

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #37: Nevada -

The state of Nevada was established on October 31, 1864 

Details about Nevada:

State bird: mountain bluebird

State flower: sagebrush

State tree: bristle cone pine

Additional historical trivia:

Considering that Nevada has legal gambling, lotteries are illegal unless run by a church.

The Lunar Crater in Nevada was a location where astronauts trained for the moon mission (Or possibly where the moon mission was faked... Who knows...?)

Rayolite is the home of a house made almost entirely from glass bottles.

The Extraterrestrial Highway, so named because of the numerous sightings of UFO's is in NV.

 

Supposedly the Las Vegas Strip is so brightly lit it can be seen from space. (Since I've never been to space I can't verify that is true.)

Famous people born in Nevada: Bryce Harper, Kyle and Kurt Busch, Andre Agassi, Dawn Wells (Mary Jane on Gilligan's Island), Jenna Jameson, Nevada Barr and former First Lady Pat Nixon.  

 

 

The Beast of Yucca Flats (1961):

 

There are a few things you need to know going in to this week's feature film.

First: The Beast of Yucca Flats often makes many lists of "The Worst Film of All Time". And, admittedly, there are some aspects of it that put it in that category. For one thing; apparently the film was either made without a sound guy on the set, or possibly the audio was lost somewhere along the line. Sometimes it feels like you are watching a silent movie, as characters are speaking to each other on screen, but we don't hear what they are saying. Occasionally we do get some dialogue, but since the camera is almost never on the person who is speaking, it's obvious the dialogue was added in post-production.

Instead we get a narrator (who was actually the director, Coleman Francis, in real life) telling us what is going on.  This movies stars no one you have ever heard of, (or possibly will ever hear of again...) That is, with the exception of Tor Johnson. People of a certain bent will recognize the face, if not the name. From 1934 to 1961 Johnson cropped up in uncredited roles in various low budget schlock films, most notably as Bela Lugosi's henchman in several of Ed Wood's movies. He was unmistakable, whenever he appeared on screen, since he was a big hulking former Swedish wrestler. He almost always had no lines (possibly because no one could have figured out what he was saying, due to his Swedish background?). Wikipedia notes that one source claims a latex mask created in the 60's was one of the best-selling Halloween masks of the time period.

 

The movie also struggles in terms of being actually called a "movie". It barely clocks in at just over 50 minutes in length. Even with commercials it would barely fit in a hour and a half time slot on the local TV midnight movie slot. 

The director, Coleman Francis, could be classed along with Ed Wood, Ray Dennis Steckler and Herschell Gordon Lewis as one of the worst movie directors of all time. To be sure, it takes a stout heart indeed (or a masochist, possibly...) to watch a Francis film. IMDb notes that every single movie that Francis made was the subject of an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. (MST3K, in case you didn't know, specialized in ridiculing some of the cheesiest Hollywood output, some of which have been the focus of The Midnite Drive-In)

The movie opens with a girl (Lanell Cado or maybe Mary Torres... she is identified in places by different names) just getting out of the shower and being strangled by an unseen person. And what this has to do with the story is anybody's guess. Her strangling never comes up throughout the rest of the movie. Apparently it was just added because the director liked the way she looked topless... 

 

And this is as close as you'll get to the topless scene for my blog

When we finally get to the movie proper, the narrator introduces us to Joseph Jaworsky (Johnson), a Russian scientist who has defected to the U.S. with proof that the Russians have secretly landed on the moon (this movie was made and is set in 1961, BTW, 8 years from the official landing made by the U.S., and since this is during the Cold War era, a Russian group getting there first would be troublesome for the Americans...)

Comrade Jaworsky, Soviet scientist extraordinaire 

 

BTW, why is the scientist landing at a remote spot in the desert with this potentially high security information instead of the Washington National Airport in D.C. (or whatever would pass for a high security port of call in the capitol area in 1961)?  

The Kremlin, via the KGB, being intensely interested that their secret not get out, has sent a couple of KGB agents (John Morrison and Anthony Cardoza) to kill Jaworsky and retrieve the incriminating evidence. And, boy, they must have sent the bottom of the barrel in agents because they fire off several shots and hit absolutely nobody, including Jaworsky. Since he is a pretty big target you would THINK it would be no problem... (BTW A note on the low budget aspect: Everyone appears to be using the same gun in this scene... Note the white butt on the grip...)

 

John Morrison

 

Producer Anthony Cardoza pulling double duty

 

This is followed by one of the slowest car chases in cinema history. I couldn't help but think back to the live video of the police chasing O. J. Simpson in the white Bronco, where it seemed like no one was really interested in apprehending their quarry. 

 

Low speed car chase! Don't want a ticket...

 

And, to top it off, the two cars end up stopped on the side of the road for a good old-fashioned gun battle, and Jaworsky takes to the hills. On foot. Walking. Or maybe better said, strolling...

 

Jaworsky working up a sweat on a hike through the scrubs

 

Unfortunately for Jaworsky, even though he is able to avoid the potshots of the Keystone Kops KGB, a test bomb of a nuclear weapon goes off in his vicinity (and don't even ask how he was able to get anywhere near the test site in the first place...)  But, since Jaworsky is ten feet wide, the bomb doesn't actually kill him. Instead it transforms him into our title monster. (Thank God, or this movie would have been even shorter than it is... Did I mention it's only about 50 minutes long?) 

 

The beast change in progress

 

Cut to a scene on a deserted portion of the highway where a man and his wife stop. While the man checks out a problem with the car, the wife calmly smokes a cigarette and waits. The man is strangled, and the killer manages to get in the back seat of the car and strangle the woman, too (without her noticing he even got back there...) Then the beast gathers up her body and goes stumbling off into the desert.

 

Waiting for her neck massage

OK, we're only 15 minutes into this movie, and nothing at all is clear. If it weren't for the narrator telling us what is going on we would be as oblivious to the action as those two unfortunate strangling victims. But it is revealed by the narrator that the strangler is the former Jaworsky, now a mutant nuclear monster. (Gee, thanks helping out, Mr. Francis...)

 

The beast himself

 

Next we get one lone police officer, Joe, who has been informed by a passing motorist that there is a dead guy lying on the road by a car a few miles back. He comes upon the body, notes the fact that there must also have been a woman because she left her purse, sees the tracks going off into the desert, and for a brief moment I think this John Wayne wannabe is going to go  chase after the strangler all by himself. But apparently he either comes to his senses, or more probably gets cold feet, and goes to a buddy to get help.

The officer gets his partner, Jim, who is asleep with his wife at his house. We get a brief scene of the wife in a negligee, whose apparent presence is just to have her cleavage on screen. Still fully dressed, unlike the girl in the opening scene, but her appearance seems to have no purpose except to titillate the viewer.

The pair go off hiking into the scrubs near the abandoned car, and find the cave where the beast stashed the girl. When they find her, amazingly she is still breathing. But not for long. (BTW: don't ask how these two knew that cave was where she'd be, it'll just warp your already befuddled mind...)

 

Relaxing after her massage

 

The film gets even more batty as it goes along. The next scene shows a family of four pulling into a gas station where the attendant is lying on a cot just relaxing, apparently oblivious to the fact that he has a customer. And we get one of the greatest lines I ever heard from one of these cheesy films: "Nothing bothers some people. Not even flying saucers..."  (Wait a minute... flying saucers...? Are there aliens in this movie? No. Well, not the outer space kind anyway...) 

Here we have what becomes one of the strangest sequences of events ever filmed. A married couple (Douglas Mellor and Barbara Francis) and their kids have a flat tire. While the man, Hank, changes the tire, the boys, Randy and Art (Ronald and Alan Francis) run off to explore. So Hank has to go off hiking in the scrub to find his two bratty kids who can't be bothered to stick by while Dad does the heavy work.

Dad changes the tire

 

Meanwhile, our two intrepid police officers, (whom I could probably call Abbott and Costello, but that would insult the comic legends), are still trying to track down the killer all alone without any sort of backup. They decide the best thing is for one of them to take a plane up so they can see the country better. "Jim," says Joe, "shoot first, ask questions later." (These are seasoned police officers? Maybe they are from L.A....) The problem is that the cops don't have any idea what their quarry looks like.

So while Hank is searching for his boys, Jim is up in the plane looking for the strangler. (Yeah. You see it coming a mile away, don't you...?) But, fortunately for Hank, Jim must've gone to the same marksmanship training course those earlier KGB agents did, because he couldn't hit an elephant with a bazooka... 

 

 

Eventually these people do end up finding the real beast at one point and take care of business, however.

Stay tuned for the final 30 seconds, though. You'll get to see a scene that was unscripted, when a walk on extra accidentally blundered into the camera scene and, instead of scrapping the shot, the director just left it in. (Probably because it would have cost a dollar or two more to reshoot it? But, hey, it's worth watching just for that...)

  

You wanted to see the extra? You didn't think I'd make it THAT easy, did you?

For a movie, The Beast of Yucca Flats looks like it was written by a couple of junior high kids after they had raided dad's liquor cabinet. Wikipedia claims the movie cost about $35,000 to make, but my opinion is that it cost only about $350... 

You think I'm being snarky? Before you judge let me point out a few things. First the wife and the kids in that car? They were the director's wife and his own kids. The first man strangled, Jim Oliphant, was one of the producers of the film. The part of Jim was played by another producer, Charles Stafford, using the screen name of "Bing " Stafford. Charles' little brother, Graham, played a brief scene as a newsboy. The director Francis himself played a couple of roles, as did Anthony Cardoza, one of the other producers of the film. Larry Aten, who played Joe, was also the makeup artist for the film, and Linda Bielma was his wife. The rest of the cast was played by other friends and neighbors of Francis. Hmmm. Maybe it only cost $35 to make it...

There was one other notable name in the film, however... Conrad Brooks. He got his start appearing in many of Ed Woods' films, but graduated to a slightly higher class of films later in life, like Curse of the Queerwolf, Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000, and The Demon Monster from Outer Space. He was in 108 films of varying quality. 

Most of the negative criticism for the film is heaped upon the lack of synchronized dialogue and Francis' pretty ridiculous narration. He sounds like Jack Webb if Webb had just got up, hung over from a long night of binge drinking and just wanted to get the narration over with so he could go back to bed.   

I never would have thought I would ever see a movie that comes even as close to being as bad as Teenage Zombies (still MY vote for the worst movie ever), but this one comes pretty damn close. And ye, and YET, it's still worth a shot, if only for the unintended humor of the situation. There are so many ridiculous plot points going on in this movie. Stuff that defies logic. That whole scenario of the one cop taking pot shots at Hank, without any motivation other than the fact that the guy is out running in the desert and the cop is looking for some guy out in the desert... that's just humorous. And the fact that the man keeps running, instead of, I don't know, plopping on the ground with his hands raised yelling "I surrender!..."

This was Tor Johnson's final film, BTW. He retired from acting just after this, and if you watch it, it might be apparent that he was physically out of shape by now. He survived for another 10 years, however, not passing away until 1971 from heart failure. Even despite the fact that he was playing a monster in the film, you can't help but feel a little pity for him, because it's obvious that Johnson was struggling from the exertion he had to put out to perform the role.

Well, folks, until next time, drive safely. And make sure the car is in good shape so you don't have to stop on some deserted stretch of desert road...

Quiggy

 

 

Sometimes Time Creeps Up On You

 

Getting old is not for the squeamish. Or the weak. Or the timid.

What the hell, getting old is not for anybody, really...

I was reading a book on Stephen King films and came across a chapter in it on "needless sequels" to King films (Stephen King Films FAQ by Scott Von Doviak). It should be noted that that disparaging designation "needless sequels" is the author's phrase, not mine. The chapter is titled "Sometimes Dead is Better: A Return to Salem's Lot, Pet Semetary Two and Other Needless Sequels" (Chapter 29 if you have a copy of the book). 

I can't say I disagree with ALL of the selections the author points out in this section. (BTW, he devotes a whole 'nother chapter to the seemingly endless sequels to Children of the Corn, {what are we up to now... Children of the Corn XX...?} so at least he has SOME semblance of decorum...). Personally I never really liked the first Firestarter, so when the Sci-Fi Channel inflicted a sequel with a grown up Charlie on the public I was not one of those who looked forward to it. And several other sequels that have been made to follow (and "sucker in" fans of) better movies have not impressed me, probably more often than not.

Still, in my younger and more impressionable days, there was a sequel that I highly anticipated that did get me. I was a huge fan of the original Creepshow. So when a sequel was announced I was one of the first people in line to buy a ticket on opening day of Creepshow 2. 

While I was reading Von Doviak's book it occurred to me that I hadn't seen Creepshow 2 since it first hit the theaters back in 1987. (That's nearly 40 years! See what I mean about getting old? I feel older just noting that...and I felt just fine before I realized it was 40 years...) 

I have quite a number of King movies in my collection, but this was one I have never run across when I have browsed the stacks of my local used DVD store. I remembered fondly two of the three stories in the film ("Old Chief Wood'nhead" and "The Raft"), but, to be honest, I really didn't remember anything about whatever the third story in the film was until I re-watched it just now. (That one is called "The Hitch-hiker"). 

Von Doviak's main disparaging comment, that the film "creatively...looks like leftovers", seems to be a little harsh to me. The whole concept of the Creepshow series of films (as well as the TV series that followed them) was all about an homage to the old EC comics from the 50's, such as The Vault of Horror and Tales from the Crypt, and many of the comic book stories come off as leftovers if you read the originals. There are a few reprints in book form out there if you are interested in seeking them out.

The stories included in this sequel are just about equal to the ones in the first film, especially the one called "The Raft", which I would take over "The Lonesome Death of Jordy Verrill" from the first film any day...

The three stories in this one come off kind of like a poor man's version of a Twilight Zone episode, complete with a hinted at morality lesson at the end. At least for two of them. (You have to work at getting a morality lesson out of "The Raft", since the only really "bad" thing the teenagers do is smoke a joint... and for that they have to die? If that's the case about 20% or 30% of the population would be slated for morality lessons...)

40 years later I still like Creepshow 2, although the subpar acting on some of the characters does come off a bit ridiculous. None of the kids on the raft are really great, even though I still think it is the better of the three stories.

 

Creepshow 2 (1987): 

It's interesting to note than when the original sequel was conceived, and slated to be done by a major studio, there were actually going to be 5 stories used for this anthology. When New World Pictures took over, the new studio jettisoned two of the stories. Whether either of them would have improved the film is hard to say. I like the idea of an evil bowling league getting revenge, which is one of the ones left out. The other story, called "The Cat from Hell", actually was filmed for an episode of Tales from the Darkside, so we do have that to fall back on.

 

The first segment, "Old Wood'nhead", is probably the least suspenseful and the horror part of the story takes a pretty long time to come to fruition. Before we get to the meat of the horror we are treated to a long introduction to a pair of kindly old souls, Ray (George Kennedy) and Martha (Dorothy Lamour), who run a general store that has seen better days. George does his best to keep the store going because, despite the dwindling economy, the members of the community need him.

 

But there are some bad elements in town. Led by Sam (Holt McCallany) three hoodlums attempt to rob the old couple and ultimately kill them. 

 

Finally, the horror part kicks in as  a wooden cigar store Indian that George is devoted to keeping looking fresh comes to life to exact revenge. (Yes, I said wooden cigar store Indian...) The Indian looks pretty unscary, to be honest, even when it does start to come to life. And I would gladly have exchanged this story for any of the other two that got scuttled. But fortunately the rest of the movie was really good.

 

The second story, "The Raft", involves two pairs of teenagers who are out to spend a day floating on a raft in the middle of a lake. The lake is deserted at this time of year because it is off season for the tourists that would have been around in the summer. (I think this is supposed to be in the fall, after the lake crowd has gone back to their mansions in the city, but it could be early spring... Either way, the teens make a point of noting that the lake is pretty cold.

 

They all get to the raft before they notice a peculiar looking oil slick on the lake. But it's NOT an oil slick... It moves of it's own accord, and it turns out to be some kind of carnivorous being (although it doesn't transform into a giant shark or anything like that, which would have probably detracted from it's scariness..) 

 

It gradually picks off each teenager, one by one, ultimately giving us a lesson in observing surroundings, because at the end of the segment we see a sign, hidden by some bushes, which clearly says "No Swimming"...

Note: To keep this blog on a family friendly level, 

I'm not going to post any pics of the slick taking out the teens. 

Most of it is pretty graphic...  

The third segment, "The Hitch-hiker", really hits that morality tale trope on the head. What we essentially have is a woman, played by Lois Chiles, who is cheating on her husband. (Let this be a lesson to you, whether you are male or female... don't get into any extramarital relationships, or... YOU'LL BE SORRY...!) 

 

As she is trying to get home before her husband gets home from work the woman accidentally hits and kills a hitchhiker on the side of the road. Instead of pulling over, of course, she panics and makes it a case of hit and run. Only the only part of that she seems to get right is the "hit" part, because the "run" part doesn't pan out. The hitchhiker keeps showing up, in more and more beat up condition, saying "Thanks for the ride lady!" (It is somewhat reminiscent of how Griffin Dunne's character keeps showing up to try to get David Naughton to kill himself in An American Werewolf in London.)

 

"The Hitch-hiker" is a pretty cool episode, a bit graphic on occasion, and it called to mind the classic Twilight Zone episode where the woman keeps seeing the same hitchhiker as she is trying to cross the country (although that one has no gory scenes at all...)

My opinion on the second watch of this film is that it was not nearly as good as I remembered, but hardly worth the level of putdown that Von Doviak gave it. A reading of several reviews that I researched for this entry fall in line with my own opinion: a) that it's not all that bad, and b)  most of them agreed that the better of the the three was the middle story.

There is, as was in the first movie, a connecting device involving a young comic book fan, in cartoon form,  who is being harassed by a gang of malcontents. The malcontents, of course, getting their just desserts at the end (or maybe that should be better phrased "becoming just desserts"...) 

 

Unlike the third movie in this cycle, Creepshow 3, this movie still had the King hand in it. All three stories were by the horror master. As I understand it, neither Stephen King or George Romero had anything to to do with #3, and it remains to be seen whether I'll even give it a watch. (Probably I will, but I have a lot on my plate right now... it was an unscheduled halt in other projects that even led me to cover this one... maybe in 2027).

Creepshow 2 made a fairly decent profit, not big, but at $4 million to make it managed to pull in $14 million at the box office. Echoing Von Doviak, it wasn't entirely well received by the critics. It currently only has a 36% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critical consensus can be summed up with one reviewer who said "[d]espite its strengths -- a livelier pace, some creatively gory set-pieces -- this is a much cheaper-looking effort than its predecessor..." OK, in all fairness Creepshow is WAY better than Creepshow 2, but it's still a fun watch.

Gotta fire up the old Plymouth and head home. Drive safely, folks. And, please, keep your eyes on the road, and stay away from those remote swimming holes.

Quiggy

 

 

 

Semiquincentennial Movie Project #28: Attack of the Giant Leeches

 

 

 

 

 

The Semiquincentennial  Movie Project is an ongoing celebration of the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States. During the course of this project your humble blogger is choosing a movie a week to represent each of the 50 states in the Union, as well as a movie scheduled for 4th of July weekend that will represent the nation's capitol, Washington D.C. The order of the weekly entries will coincide with the order of each state's entry into the fold (although, not necessarily coinciding with the date of their entry into said fold).

 

 

Week #28: Florida -

 

 

 

The state of Florida was established on Mar. 3, 1845

Details about Florida:

State bird: Northern mockingbird

State flower: orange blossom

State tree: palmetto

Additional historical trivia:

For drive-in fans: In Ft. Lauderdale there is a drive-in theater that has the most screens, with 14 of them. 

Carabelle is noted for having the world's smallest police station. It's a phone booth. 

The oldest continuously settled community in the U.S. is located in Augustine.

If you love golf, there are more golf courses in Florida than any other state. (Makes sense).

For fans of one of my favorite T.V. shows, In Search Of, Florida is home to Coral Castle. This structure was supposedly built by one man, and has some stones that weigh tons. 

Famous people born in Florida: Tom Petty, Jim Morrison (lead singer of the Doors), Ronnie, Johnny and Donnie Van Zant, (brothers who fronted Lynyrd Skynyrd and 38 Special), Sidney Poitier, Wesley Snipes, Matthew Stafford, Deion Sanders, Janet Reno and Marco Rubio.  

 

 

 

 

 

 Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959): 

 

First thought: This movie should probably have been called Attack of the Giant Trash Bags. Of all the movies I have ever seen in my life, (and believe me I have seen a LOT!) these monsters are probably some of the most laughable (and that's even considering A*P*E*...).  There is some interesting background to this, however. Roger Corman, always on the lookout to cut the budget down to the bare bones, had the guys who played the monsters design their own costumes. Zip! Why pay a costume designer when you can just get the actors, who you already are paying, to do the job for you?

Attack of the Giant Leeches was made for about $70. (Just kidding! It was actually made for about $70,000, but it LOOKS like it was made cheaper...)  

It was directed by Corman stalwart Bernard L. Kowalski, who had more success as a TV director. He directed some episodes of Columbo, as well as episodes of Magnum P.I., Knight Rider, Baretta and Jake and the Fatman. This was his third big screen effort. He had previously directed Hot Car Girl and Night of the Blood Beast, both for Corman's AIP studios.  This one was originally released as a double feature with A Bucket of Blood. 

 

The movie starts out slam bang as a local poacher in the swamps fires upon a creature he sees. He pumps several bullets into it, but when he tells the locals, no one is able to find the body, so they assume the guy was drunk, and probably just shot an an oversized alligator. (All back country characters in these movies are alcoholics, did you ever notice that...?)

 

Apparently these mysterious creatures living in the swamp have resentment issues, because the guy turns up dead not long after.

The local game warden, Steve (Ken Clark) is of a mind that the culprit is a renegade alligator and goes out looking for it with his girlfriend, Nan (Jan Shepard), but comes up empty. Meanwhile the mysterious predator, (it is still assumed that there is only one), continues to ravage unlucky souls who find themselves in the swamp at the wrong time. Only the rest of the victims keep disappearing, as far as the local constabulary is concerned.

 

 

Steve thinks this "gator" is dragging it's victims underwater to some hideaway. The local sheriff (Gene Roth) wants to set off some dynamite charges to try to uncover the missing bodies, and hopefully kill the "gator" in the process. but Steve is adamant about preserving the pristine swamp and thinks that dynamite might damage the environment.

 

The next victims to fall prey to the creatures are the wife of Dave (Bruno VeSota), a local storekeeper, and her secret lover. See, Liz (Yvette Vickers) is the essence of a tramp. She has been cheating on Dave with his best friend, Cal (Michael Emmett). And you just know these two sinners are going to get what they deserve... Although maybe not the way that one would expect.

 

Dave figures out that Liz is cheating on him and goes looking for her and finds her in  flagrante delicto with Cal. He is going to shoot them both, apparently, and Cal, being the cad that he is, tries to pin the blame all on Liz. Dave chases Liz and Cal through the swamp, and when he finally corners them near the water's edge he gets his revenge in an unexpected way as one of the creatures shows up.

No one believes Dave when he tells of seeing the creature, however. They assume, with reasonable assurity,  that Dave killed them both and dumped the bodies in the swamp. This eventually leads to a couple of locals going out into the swamp hoping to find the bodies and get some reward money. And, no spoiler alert, they become victims themselves to the creatures. 

Eventually Steve works out that the creatures are leeches, somehow transformed into giant size due to all that nuclear activity that is being done nearby. (Of course it's "nuclear radiation"... what other guilty party could be blamed in a 50's monster movie...?)

At one point the sheriff decides, on his own, to go against the advice of Steve and set off dynamite charges. And most of the bodies end up floating to the surface. Steve and a friend go underwater looking for the leeches and a battle occurs and eventually (maybe) the creatures are defeated.

 

One has to wonder: Are there only two of the leeches that were affected by the radiation? That's all we see. The movie ends, as usual, on a happy note that the threat has been vanquished, but I couldn't help but think: the swamp appears to be devoid of any creatures other than the leeches. It is never stated outright, but I think you are supposed to decide the leeches eliminated the other swamp denizens like the alligators. Did these two do all that all by themselves?

As noted above, don't go into this movie expecting some horrific monsters. Often those creatures look exactly like what they are in real life, just a couple of guys in decorated trash bags. The acting is not exactly top notch, either. Yvette Vickers, despite the fact that she is playing a stereotypical backwaters tramp, is about the best part of it. (And, yes, I am giving her some points for a scene of her in a bathing suit...)

At only 60 minutes in length, it won't use up too much of your time to give it a go. Admittedly there seems to be a few scenes where they are padding the scene and extending sequences just to get the movie up to a full hour. The scene where Dave chases Liz and Cal in particular takes up about 5 or 6 more minutes than might be necessary, and you can't help but wonder why the two couldn't put more distance between them and their pursuer. Especially since Dave has to stop every now and then to fire off his rifle or reload it.

I disparaged Teenage Zombies way back at the beginning of my movie review blogging for it's obvious efforts to pad a 45 minute TV show into a full length feature film, so I would be disingenuous if I didn't do the same here. But Giant Leeches has a phenomenally better acting output. (If you've watched Teenage Zombies, you know that's not hard to accomplish, but be that as it may).

So the end result is that Attack of the Giant Leeches is worth a watch if you appreciate cheesy low budget schlock like I do. Just don't go into it expecting Godzilla, or for that matter, The Horror of Party Beach. I think it's better to watch it for the unintentionally funny stuff than it is for its strictly horror output.

 

Drive safely, folks. Especially if you have to cross a swamp on the way home.

Quiggy