OHHHHHH, I TOTALLY SEE WHAT YOU DID THERE - I THINK I DO ANYWAY - UH, MAYBE NOT



The Lords Of Salem (2012)

Did you ever hear that a movie was being made by a familiar director/writer/producer, watch as the news flashes talked about the making of the movie bit by bit, find out it's almost done and then finally in theaters so you go to see it and it's not at all what you were expecting? That's what happened to me when I watched the Lords Of Salem.

Seeing Rob Zombie movies before (and, as always, Sheri Moon Zombie) I had a certain expectation of what was going to be in this movie - hard core horror with no apologies, the kind of horror that not a lot of people can watch without flinching. This is so not that kind of movie. In fact, to be truthful, I had to watch it twice because the first time I was so disappointed and bored I thought okay, I didn't pay enough attention 'cause this can't possibly be by Rob Zombie.

To begin, if you haven't seen the movie and want to, this is a complete review with spoilers so you might want to skip it. Or read to know what to expect. Like I said the first time I was so disappointed, confused and just plain bored I knew I must either be really jaded or I didn't pay enough attention. In this movie, pay attention. I was reminded (the second time) of the movie Rosemary's Baby (which I didn't like) and the movies of the great Mario Bava (which I love) when I examined this movie in depth.

I had known that a great cast of horror icons had been assembled for this cast, which was to include Richard Lynch who, sadly, grew ill and died before he could appear in this film. But if you pay attention, you will see a whole lot of truly great actors and actresses (including Sig Haig, of course) making an appearance in this film about the Salem witch trials. And keep in mind this is heavy on story, short on 'jump out at you' scares, kind of like Rosemary's Baby. It's the atmosphere, the detail, and the incredible sets (like Mario Bava movies) that make this movie halfway decent, but also one which may not appeal to the blood and guts horror viewer.

Now before you dismiss this as just another Salem witch movie (like I almost did) this is actually an engaging story and before you cry nepotism, Sheri Moon Zombie is a good actress in her own right. She plays Heidi, a third of a team of DJ's at a local rock station (They still have those?). She is not portrayed as a great person or a bad one, but a flawed one which made her appear vulnerable and likable. One day she receives a box addressed to her real name instead of her stage name - it has a vinyl album by a band called The Lords. 

One of the other DJ's says that since this is Salem it must be The Lords Of Salem. Not subtle, but okay. It's a discordant, disturbing piece of music that makes Heidi sick and see visions which stop once it is turned off. Expect a lot of that - visions and horrible things happening usually turn out to be Heidi either hallucinating or dreaming. THAT was annoying and an obvious horror movie device.

Enter Francis (Bruce Davison) who is plugging his book on the history of Salem. He hears the song and something about it bothers him. The camera cuts away to various women who seem to be in a trance while the record plays. Wow, there not only is a radio station that is popular, but women of all ages listen to it. How... convenient. Sorry, there are good parts to this but this was not one of them.

Back at her apartment she meets up with her landlady who wants her to join her and her sisters to have a drink.The three seriously creep her out so she leaves. She notices her dog is acting weird (Could it be the naked witches, symbols and other things that are in the air in corners that she never notices which was another movie duh?). 

And again we get more 'hallucinations' - one of Heidi being sexually assaulted by a priest in a Catholic church (Really?), and faceless robed characters with absolutely zero menacing capabilities that tell her they have been 'waiting for her'. Francis, still bothered by the music and the name of the 'group' finds that the basic melody was written in a diary of the Reverend Hawthorne - the one who ordered the death of all the witches at the Salem trial. 

And, of course, in less than five minutes, he discovers Heidi is... wait for it... a descendant of the Reverend. He then 'discovers' (He didn't know this when he wrote his book?) that the witches had 'cursed' all the female descendants of the original Salem founders, and Hawthorne's descendant would be the mother of a 'devil child'. I should have had my horror movie worksheet (patent pending) out because most of this I figured out after Heidi's first 'hallucination'. Sigh.

Then we get more visions, more gasping sitting up in bed and you could easily start to lose interest. But the details are very engaging. Sheri's appearance, with the striped sweater, shorts that don't quite stay up, long blonde dreads and many tattoos (and for some reason black framed glasses) was unique - during one of the 'hallucinations' she also gets a total face paint treatment and the whole image is surreal.

The Lords Of Salem announce that they are doing a free concert. Now if you heard this music, you wouldn't want to go anywhere near where they'd play it live - it is truly awful. Meanwhile Heidi is falling apart - her sudden waking from nightmares takes its toll and the former junkie relapses, and she starts smoking heroin. Totally stoned, she is carted off by the three sisters. I guess what bothered me most about this movie was the imagery could have been powerful but comes off as being... incomplete. The image of a demon as sort of a hazy, blurry bigfoot surrounded by the typical horned, umm, minions? just confuse instead of terrify. The sets are lavish though - in this particular scene it looked like it was shot in a grand opera hall with beautiful artwork but it just seemed kind of wasted.

Francis tries to visit Heidi at home only to be murdered by the landlady and her 'sisters' with... wait for it... a frying pan. Yes ladies, you too can practice home defense with common kitchen items. As long as your cookware is cast iron, you have nothing to worry about. Sorry, this was just another reason I had such mixed feeling towards this film. It had so much potential but when it came to something that could have been really horror-worthy it just... wasn't.

The ending is truly big, lavish, and - not scary in the least. Heidi meets with her friends at the door of the hall where the concert is starting but locks the two men out and goes in herself. We see the three sisters and the apparitions of the original murdered witches on the stage, and in the audience, a smattering of women. 

As the witches all start their chant, the women in the audience begin to shed their clothes and Heidi is now on stage on a table giving birth to... wait for it... some squid thing. You never clearly see what the hell it's supposed to be, just as you don't see details of the monsters and other things that might have been scary but aren't. You then see Heidi dressed in finery, on top of a mass pile of bodies.

The next day, the radio announcer (who sounds a lot like Rob himself) tells of the tragedy in the concert hall of all the female descendants of the original Salem founders who had apparently committed suicide. We are also told that Heidi has disappeared and no one has any idea where she has gone. On to the next Rob Zombie movie no doubt.

So my main complaint is that the movie feels incomplete, like an idea that was never finished. My compliment is in the details and the sets and the different acting jobs of the many seasoned actors in it. Sigh. Despite its good points I just can't recommend it.

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AN EXPLOITATION RE-VISITATION



The Big Doll House (1971)

If you remember, a short time ago I did a series about exploitation movies, particularly those directed by Jack Hill. There were two almost identical movies, one by Jack Hill, one by another director in the same year using most of the same people, the same basic story, hell, even the same sets. The other was Women In Cages which I found but I couldn't find this one - until now.

By now if you read the series you know how this movie goes: Women who go to prison in a jungle slave labor camp usually because of something done to them by men try to get by with pairing up (if you know what I mean), mud wrestling, food fights, whatever Mr. Hill thought men would want to see - which includes lots and lots of clothes being ripped off. Oh, and Pam Grier and Sid Haig, have to have them or it's just not complete. And for this one Pam Grier got to sing the title song Long-Time Woman (I won't comment on that).

Of course the lead guard is a sadistic psycho named Lucien (played by Kathryn Loder who also played the heavy in Foxy Brown. She was mostly known for her Broadway performances but sadly died young from complications of diabetes). In fact if you look around the movie you'll notice (besides Grier and Haig of course) that most of the faces you've seen in at least one if not several exploitation films.

After the obligatory scenes of torture (including an electric lactation machine which looked very interesting - uh, that's a joke - it was apparently some sort of titty electrocution device) involving whips, chains, being cooped up in a small bamboo cage in the sun all day, sent to a sauna for days at a time, and some sort of Rube Goldberg device for slowwwwwly lowering cobras to prisoners to bite them (instead of just, you know, grabbing one and shoving it at them) the girls decide to rebel and escape. And if you've seen one of these films, that's never good. 

Haig and his partner are recruited to help since they have a truck. Somehow they get weapons and off they go - without Pam Grier, who gets killed by her junkie girlfriend.

Worst. Plan. Ever. That's what you could say about all of these movies, 'cause in all the prison ones I found they never survive. Hell, they seem to bring armed military guys out of the woodwork by the dozens and always fall under a hail of gunfire. One survives, the main character of this particular movie to walk by herself down the road. She's picked up by a guy driving a jeep. When he asks her where she wants to go she says, 'Anywhere you want.' He says, 'Good 'cause we've been looking for you all day - you're going back to prison.'

What amazes me are the people who complain (now) about these movies as being 'sexist'. Uh, duh - it's an exploitation flick? It was a THING in the 70's, just like there's a THING for movies with psychos that can't die, a THING for Paranormal Activity movies in an endless supply, a THING for creature features... it wasn't a direct arrow at the heart of the women's rights movement, it was a bloody cheap movie for crying out loud. They made 'em in bulk BECAUSE they were cheap, easy and very very popular.

C'est la vie.

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IF YOU'RE TALKING EXPLOITATION, YOU MAY BE TALKING JACK HILL PART FOUR

Foxy Brown (1974)

No you young whippersnappers I am NOT referring to the female rapper of the same name. She wasn't even BORN yet when this movie was made. And I'm sorry, but Pam Grier has it all over that young lady as far as looks and talent. And that's TODAY people, not just when she was younger.

This movie was to showcase Pam Grier, with music by Willie Hutch, but the script follows along other Jack Hill movies.

Pam, who has a heroin pushing brother (Antonio Fargas - if you're just a little older you knew him as 'Huggy Bear' in Starsky and Hutch - if you're still scratching your head, skip it) is waiting for the release of her boyfriend from the hospital. 

No he's not there for sexual exhaustion, he's an informant who's had plastic surgery to hide his identity (although he stays with Pam who was known as his girlfriend - duh) and when the bandages come off, he's Colonel Tigh (Terry Carter)! Sigh, you don't know who that is, do you? Battlestar Galactica? The REAL one, not the one where everybody turns out to be a bloody Cylon.

Anywho, Huggy Bear is in trouble 'cause he's a few bucks short on a shipment and Colonel Tigh has a price on his head. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who Foxy's new man is so Huggy Bear turns him in for the money. Nice. Colonel Tigh doesn't last even five minutes past that before he's shot down right in front of Foxy.

Now Foxy's no cop. She's not a detective, undercover, not an official anything. But she's mean and she's mad and that's enough. She goes on a one-woman rampage to wipe out the syndicate - no small task since they've paid off cops, judges, jurors, etc. plus having the required bevy of women who hate to wear tops to provide to the apparently all male system of justice. This is the 70's after all. You've got the language, the sexual biases, and heroin and cocaine run freely. Just recently a very popular TV personality got fired for saying a certain word - well, if your sensitive ears don't like that kind of language, better pass on this movie 'cause I think they use every derogatory race word in the urban dictionary.

She pieces together that the murderers run a 'modeling agency' and plans to infiltrate it to destroy them from the inside. When sent with a fellow 'model' to entertain some men of official position (which seemed to be sitting with topless women on their laps) she and the other lure a judge into the bedroom, strip him of his boxers and shove him out into the hallway where a bunch of prim and proper older ladies beat him with their purses and umbrellas (no I have no idea why they had umbrellas since it was summer). 

I was afraid we were going to get a very saggy sight of old man butt - however I guess that was a little too much even for Jack Hill, so this judge had tighty whities under his boxers. Dumb but a relief, trust me.

So eventually Foxy finds out that there's going to be a big shipment coming in from just over the Mexican border. The pilot (Sid Haig of course, although not being in the movie until over an hour into it) is of course persuaded by Foxy's charms to let her ride with him in his little plane to the site. Once there she kicks major ass and, although we don't get to see (apparently men's privates are no-no's but women's....) she cuts off the leader's, uh, favorite body parts and puts them in a jar, sending them to his girlfriend.

This leads to a frenzy of violence that Foxy, of course triumphs over 'cause there's 'a whole lotta fight in that woman'. And one dealer is done. And so is this movie. And so is my look into exploitation 'cause there's a whole lotta nausea in me.

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IF YOU'RE TALKING EXPLOITATION, YOU MAY BE TALKING JACK HILL PART TWO

The Big Bird Cage (1972)

This movie is of two exploitation themes: women in prison and the Philippines. As I stated about the documentaries I watched, in the 70's the Philippines was the hot spot to film these types of movies for the lack of censorship, cheapness, and exploiting the locals. This is actually a follow-up movie to one I couldn't find called The Big Doll House (1971) however, don't despair - Netflix DOES have Women In Cages, filmed later the same year, with most of the same cast, almost the same story and using the same sets. 

Pam Grier and Sid Haig

The only difference I noticed off-hand was the lack of Sid Haig, a favorite actor of Jack Hill. I'm not trusting Netflix when you look up lists 'cause I thought I'd gotten all the Jack Hill movies they had but this one popped up. Same happens for other things I've looked up, you've just got to do your own searching I guess.

This movie as most can tell you who've seen it, treats nudity as casual as violence and sex - the girls run around scantily clothed, their shirts sometimes tied, sometimes not. They obviously didn't really care. Especially the native women.

This chick had to be seven feet tall I swear...

Jack Hill loved putting Sid Haig (now a staple in Rob Zombie movies) and Pam Grier together and did so in several of his movies. There are also some obvious models in this movie - they towered above the locals by at least a foot. So what's the plot? Uh, well - to tell the truth there's not much of one. It's about a woman out of place going to prison with a bunch of others where they learn the ropes - and how to get naked ever two minutes or so. They YEARN for men (pfft) but alas, the male guards are all gay. Uh huh.

The big bird cage that mills... something...

So Pam and Sid play Blossom and Django. Django is a guerilla leader looking for revolution - but not very hard. But one day Django and Blossom tangle with the law and not only does Blossom get arrested, so does an, um an escort? to... whoever pays I guess - after a botched attempt at Rrrrrrrevolution in which Django grabs her and she asks why. Here's the famous line and the man's fantasy: 'To rape you!' To which she replies: 'You can't rape me, I like sex!' I'm not even going to touch that one.

A rare moment of shirt wearing...

So we've got black chicks, Filipino chicks and white chicks. And lots and lots of nudity, crass jokes about nearly everything, male rape (why would women want to... ah never mind) and violence. Don't forget violence. In the documentary, which named this movie specifically, it said that locals made about five dollars a day, were in constant danger (Who's gonna be around to make sure they're all safe?) and, of course, bared their bodies for the American moviegoer. 

Well, they do it in the circus I guess...

Scenes with police and police dogs were with REAL police and police dogs - they had to film them separate from the women so no one would get attacked. But if one was called to fall from, say, off a roof they did - right onto the ground. And in one scene where a guard is set on fire - HE IS ON FIRE and simply instructed to jump in the river to put himself out. Nice. And the scene where the woman hangs by her hair - they claim that it doesn't hurt much if you have a lot of long hair. Uh huh.

Two guns against dozens? Might work...

So Django plots with his men to get his main squeeze out of prison. Here the documentary calls the plan the WORSE PLAN EVER MADE because everyone dies. He's not kidding. The girls rush at the soldiers who show up to get Django with sharp sticks, a couple of weapons - not much. All the soldiers have machine guns. Guess who wins? But at least they died with their shirts off.

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