The Candy Snatchers (Guerdon Trueblood, 1973)
On the surface there's nothing really special about Guerdon Trueblood's cult exploitation flick
The Candy Snatchers. Three repellent losers kidnap a teenage heiress, Candy (Susan Sennett), in order to extort a ransom from her slimy businessman stepfather Avery (Ben Piazza). But what sounds like a straightforward kidnap plot turns out to be anything but, thanks mainly to Bryan Grindoff's wonderfully unpredictable script, which also features a fascinating array of characters.
Lean and focused, the film naturally begins with Candy's kidnapping as we're introduced to the three main protagonists; namely hard faced Jessie (drive-in favourite Tiffany Bolling), her psychopathic rapist brother Alan (menacingly played by Brad David), and the somewhat softer, but equally deviant Eddy (a workmanlike Vince Martorano). The trio proceed to drive Candy to a patch of wasteland where they bury her alive with an air supply in order to execute the rest of their plan, and retrieve her when needed. The only witness to said crime is a young autistic boy, Sean (played by the director's son) a mute who sets out to save Candy, despite suffering daily mental abuse at the hands of his pill-popping mother. Then there's the business of the diamond ransom, and Avery; a character who turns out to be every bit as reprehensible and calculating as the kidnappers....
What starts out as fairly mundane, quickly escalates into a tension filled grabber; the entire duration of which, Candy spends in various states of bondage as the trio decide on their next move. It's these changes of tactics that bring about the threat of torture and the onset of some unbearable suspense as we gradually get to know and understand the group dynamic and the delicate balance of power within. Offset this with Sean's frustrating attempts to communicate what he's seen, along with the labyrinthine revelations concerning Avery, and the film emerges as something really special. Not only that but Gindoff's script even manages to climax with a truly memorable downbeat ending, that's poignant, disturbing and depressingly believable. Highly recommended.
The Devil's Rain (Robert Fuest, 1975)
+
As good as they are; you have to wonder if the likes of
Rosemary's Baby and
The Exorcist haven't got a lot to answer for, considering the glut of second rate Satanic horror flicks that followed throughout the seventies. This is one of them, but hey...you know me...I don't mind
that much. I mean how's this for a premise? William Shatner as a good guy redneck battling a devil worshiping Ernest Borgnine who looks like a reject from
Monkey Magic. Not only that but the Shat's (if you pardon the expression) mom is played by Ida Lupino, and John Travolta (for two minutes at least) pops up as one of Ernie's eyeless henchmen who all look like Michael Myers from
Halloween. Throw in Tom Skerritt who comes looking for his brother after the Shat gets crucified (literally), and you have this desert set pot boiler which unfortunately isn't quite as fun as it sounds.
I bought this on the strength of it having one of the coolest trailers I've seen in a long time, and the promise of a memorable climactic melt sequence involving lots of runny porridge and candle wax. Whilst there are some high points (most of which involve Borgnine's high priest Corbis) the film sags badly in the middle - largely thanks to an inept period flashback sequence - as most of the action is confined to the first and final reels. The hackneyed plot involves local townspeople going missing, as Borgnine steals their souls which he keeps in a big jar, that if broken, will release
The Devil's Rain. Once without a soul said townsfolk become his ghoulish eyeless followers as he attempts to unleash hell or something or other blah blah blah. What's most surprising is how straight faced the material is played, especially considering how goofy Borgnine's character looks when he goats out. On the plus side though, this does have some decent action sequences and the protracted finale in which everyone turns to puddles of goo is a hoot. You decide.
The Frightened Woman aka Femina Riddens
aka The Laughing Woman (Piero Schivazappa, 1969)
This oddity has been sitting on my shelf for a few months now as I often have to gear myself up for what could either be an hour and a half of Euro-trash boredom, or crazy hip freakout sixties fun. Luckily it turned out to be the latter as Schivazappa's undeniable cult item treads a playfully thin line between art house eroticism and brazen sexploitation.
The plot couldn't be simpler. Philippe Leroy plays a rich misogynistic sadist called Doctor Sayer who drugs an attractive young co-worker called Maria (the extremely sexy Dagmar Lassander) so he can have some fun with her in his bachelor pad over the weekend. Unfortunately for Maria the doc has this behavior down to a fine art, with his lair also doubling as a high tech S&M dungeon that looks more like something out of a sixties modernist's wet dream. What transpires is a series of mind games and physical humiliation as Sayer revels in dominating and controlling Maria before planning to murder her. As these events unfold however, it becomes unclear exactly who is manipulating who...
Fortunately the mind games between Sayer and Maria are as fascinating as the sets are striking, and prolific composer Stelvio Cipriani's score is luscious and evocative of the period. The film is somewhat predictable in it's twist, but the way in which Schivazappa, Paolo Levi, and Giuseppe Zaccariello's script arrives at it's stylish conclusion is hugely enjoyable and satisfying particularly for fans of sixties nostalgic weirdness. The subject matter may be a bit on the wild side, but the film has a subtle playful undertone which prevents it from becoming oppressive or bleak. This has as much in common with Elio Petri's brilliant
The 10th Victim, than any horror movie. A pleasant surprise.
Bonnie's Kids (Arthur Marks, 1973)
This is the third Arthur Marks movie I've seen along with blaxploitation entries
Bucktown, and the hugely enjoyable
Detroit 9000 - (coincidentally he also worked on
The Candy Snatchers - and I'm watching
J.D.'s Revenge next).
Bonnie's Kids sits somewhere inbetween the two in terms of overall enjoyment for me. It's pretty standard exploitation drive-in fare in many ways, but it's also undeniably influential in others...
The Bonnie of the title is a long deceased prostitute, and her 'kids', Ellie (Tiffany Bolling who's just as unsympathetic here as she was in
The Candy Snatchers), and the Lolita-ish Myra (an impressive Robin Mattson) are living with their abusive step father. After a heavy night of drinking and gambling with his beer buddies, he catches them peeping at Myra undressing in her bedroom window. This being exploitation he decides to rape Myra to teach her a lesson, but is snuffed out by Ellie and her shotgun (Pictured). So far so predictable, as the sisters hide the body and go on the lam, finding solace with their unscrupulous gangster uncle who runs a fashion magazine as a front. Soon he's got Ellie collecting a suspicious package from a dunderheaded private dick who she falls in love with, and persuades to do a runner once they discover the parcel is full of of cash. Enter Alex Rocco and Timothy Brown as Eddy and Digger, a pair of laconic hitmen tasked with recovering the loot for you know who. Meanwhile Myra is busy seducing all and sundry in her uncle's household, including his golddigging lesbian wife, and lothario gardener...
Clearly named to cash in on the popularity of Arther Penns's
Bonnie and Clyde, this makes Steve Carver's lighter hearted
Big Bad Mamma (released the following year) look like a Sunday school picnic by comparison. Pessimistic in the extreme and filled with amoral and unlikable characters (including the two 'heroines'); the films hard edged grim early seventies atmosphere is matched only by the matter-of-fact nature of it's violence, and uneven narrative aspects. Most interesting are Eddy and Digger, the two hitmen who bear a passing resemblance, and talk a similar (if less polished) everyday patter to Vincent and Jules from
Pulp Fiction. Sadly they're somewhat underused as Marks concentrates on the sleaze with Mattson particularly effective as the acid tonged temptress that doesn't care about anyone, right down to her own sister and the inevitable unhappy ending. I liked it, but this one's for die hard genre fans only.
Venus In Furs aka Paroxismus (Jess Franco, 1969)
Last and most certainly least is one of many Jess Franco exercises in mediocrity masquerading under the 'cult' banner. That said this is widely regarded as one of his best films even if the barely watchable
Vampiros Lesbos is the one everyone remembers; if only for it's awesome title and superb psychedelic soundtrack from Manfred Hubler & Siegfried Schwab...
Anyway back to the point this concerns James Darren's Istanbul based jazz trumpeter Logan, who witnesses the rape and murder of a beautiful young woman at the hands of a trio of deviant swingers (played by Klaus Kinski, Dennis Price, and Margaret Lee) whilst at a party. Sometime later he discovers what may be the girl's body after digging up his trumpet on the beach???. What follows is a series of flashbacks/hallucinations involving him jetting off to Rio and falling in love with Wanda (the stunning Maria Rohm) who may or may not be the same girl he saw murdered in Istanbul, and who is also in the process of bumping off Kinski, Price and Lee who for some unexplained reason are also in Rio *sigh*
With rationale, conventional narrative structure and logic all out of the window we're merely left with Darren's phoned in dreary narration, Rohm's boobs, and the strains of
Venus in furs will be smiling every time Wanda does-in one of the trio who wronged her. To be fair Rohm's boobs are rather nice, and Franco does grace the picture with a modicum of visual style that certainly lifts this well above some of the horror dreck he's made (I'm thinking utter crap like
Oasis of the Zombies). The film is no doubt better viewed as a mood piece whilst 'under the influence', and to be fair it does make crazy sense up to a point. Then Jessie goes and ruins it all with a duff twist ending that's right up there with that essay you wrote at school when you were eight - you know...the one that ended with you waking up from a dream. At least Barbara McNair as Logan's poor two timed girlfriend Rita, rounds off the picture with a superb rendition of the title track. Who knows, maybe I'll grow to love this one.
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