Last Week's Movies #44

I watch so many movies that my movie memory is started to overload. So I've decided to start doing short reviews for each film I've watched during the week. Often they'll be movies I'm viewing for the first time, but some may be favourites that are getting their latest re-watch.

Maniac

(UK, 1963, Michael Carreras)

6/10

No, this is not the Joe Spinnell vehicle and horror masterpiece from 1980. This Maniac is a little discussed Hammer production directed by Hammer kingpin Michael Carreras (usually known for his producing credits). There's not much to say about Maniac really. It's an adequate thriller, but rarely steps above average in its short running time. The plot is fairly uninteresting - an American painter (and ladies' man) passes through a French village and starts up an affair with a bar owner (quite comically confessing his love for her almost as soon as she seduces him). The bar owner's husband is in the loony bin for brutally killing his daughter's rapist. For some idiotic reason, our two heroes haphazardly decide to break the husband out so he can be with his daughter. The biggest problem with Maniac is that it is frustratingly convoluted and more obsessed with twists than plot. Jimmy Sangster - usually a great writer - delivers a messy script full of so many twists that it becomes irritating very quickly. The twists become so outrageous that they are rendered totally meaningless. If this film spent less time trying to be clever, I'm sure it would have been a far more solid affair. Strip back three of the twists and you'd have a good thriller. The performances are okay for the most part, although I couldn't buy Nadia Gray as the seductress. Carreras shoots his film with competence, but that's to be expected from a Hammer production. Maniac should be seen by Hammer completists, everyone else need not bother.   

The Plague Dogs

(UK, 1982, Martin Rosen)

8.5/10

The Plague Dogs is not an animation for children. Unless you want your kids to know the harsh realities of the world and strip them of all fantasy, that is. Yes, this kind of animation could only be from the makers of Watership Down. We follow the depressing tale of two dogs that have escaped from an animal testing laboratory. They must survive in the harsh farming land outside the lab, while being hunted by everyone from the farmers to the army. They may also be infected with the plague. Yes, this is a sad and tragic film, but I found it very engaging.

Our two leading mutts are easy to like, and despite having lengthy conversations with each other, they acted like real dogs. These are not human characters dressed as animals - as seen in most Disney films (not that there's anything wrong with that) - these dogs have the logic of animals and suffer from all the disadvantages (and sometimes advantages) that come with an instinctual intelligence. The story is painful at times, and if I had one complaint about this film, it would be that it is perhaps too negative. Visually, The Plague Dogs is beautiful. The animation is wonderful - it's grounded in reality, but punctuated with moments of great style. The way flashbacks are presented bowled me over. The score is a bit schizophrenic (sometimes it is bizarrely inappropriate, other times it is effectively minimalistic), but the sound design is quite impressive. The Plague Dogs is a great animated film that should be appreciated by almost anyone. But if you're under the age of ten, then expect to be scarred for life.     

Rainy Dog
aka Gokudô kuroshakai

(Japan, 1997, Takashi Miike)

9.5/10

Takashi Miike is one of my favourite directors and Rainy Dog is probably in my top ten, or even five, of his films. That means more than it normally would considering his ridiculously enormous output. Rainy Dog is one of Miike's grounded films. There's no outrageous supernatural ending, there's no ladles being forced into anuses, there's no musical numbers and there's not even any ultraviolence. What we have instead is a simple and solid story of an ex-yakuza trapped in rainy Taipei who has just found out he has a son. Oh, and there's also a whole lot of gangsters gunning for him. Shô Aikawa is excellent in the lead and speaks mostly Mandarin. He has starred in a lot of Miike films, and this could well be his best role. It is a quiet performance, and, while the character is responsible from some reprehensible actions, Aikawa is impossible to hate. Rainy Dog has a great mood. Like the title promises, the majority of scenes are punctuated with wet weather creating a sombre atmosphere. Miike moves the film at a slow pace, which works in its favour making the film's finale pack more of a punch. Rainy Dog is essential Miike, but it stands far away from the rest of his filmography in tone. 

The Snorkel

(UK, 1958, Guy Green)

7/10

The Snorkel is a decent, but not great, Hammer thriller. Here we have the story of a stepfather who is greedy or psychotic, but either way a killer. He has murdered his wife by knocking her out in a room, taping up the doors and windows from the inside, letting gas in then hiding in the room's trapdoor wearing a snorkel attached to an oxygen tank. He hides while the police visit the scene and it is put down as suicide. But the man's stepdaughter knows better. The Snorkel won't wow Hammer fanatics, but it will entertain them well enough. It has its problems. Mandy Miller is a bit weird as the stepdaughter. The script seems to have written her as a very young girl, but she's played by a teenager. As a result, she acts far younger than she is. The film is also a little dry and plods along at quite a slow pace. The Snorkel is mainly worth a watch for the excellent scenes that act as its bookends. The film's opening murder is well-constructed and very original. Similarly, the film's ending is quite brilliant and haunting. That is if you can ignore the bullshit add-on scene obviously thrown in to please censors. Just turn it off once you feel the film has ended.     

The Streetfighter's Last Revenge

(Japan, 1974, Shigehiro Ozawa)

8/10

I'm currently introducing myself to the world of Sonny Chiba, and this Streetfighter sequel has been a fun highlight. I'm sure that the first two entries are superior to The Streetfighter's Last Revenge, but without seeing them as of yet, this was an absolute blast. Chiba is a total bad ass in this film. For the first half of the film, I couldn't work out if he was the protagonist or antagonist. He's a truly unpleasant guy, with few morals and only the smallest amount of honour. This really added to the film, making it seem fairly nasty despite the silliness going on. The action is awesome. There are some excellent fight scenes and even a few lovely explosions. The plot is predictable and nothing special, but that doesn't mean it isn't entertaining. Wrapped around the story is stylized goodness. The Streetfighter's Last Revenge is fun and cheesy in that way that only a martial arts film from the 70s can be - plenty of zooms and a funk smothered score. Yes, this is good stuff.    

Tahkhana the Dungeon

(India, 1986, Tulsi & Shyam Ramsay)

5.5/10

These Bollywood horror films by the Ramsay brothers could actually be quite good if they didn't all run longer than two hours. Slice out of the musical numbers and shockingly bad comedy and you'd have a decent piece of b-grade horror. Tahkhana the Dungeon has all the ingredients required for a good time. It has a cool monster, dorky heroes, reasonably violent death scenes and a soundtrack that's actually okay when people aren't singing over the top of it.  Unfortunately, it also has a handful of infuriating musical numbers and some of the worst comic relief I've ever seen. Honestly, the jokes in this move from stupid to absurd to brain melting madness.

Here's an awful example, there is a character who is a cook. He is, I guess, the comic relief character supposedly dishing out the laughs. The other characters seem to find him hilarious, and there's nothing unfunnier than watching characters in a film laughing wildly at unfunny jokes. Here's one of his jokes, to our group of heroes he says "my cooking will make you do this", he then twists his hip (as if faking a fart) and we hear a chicken clucking sound. Everyone laughs hysterically. I had to rewind it a few times in an attempt to comprehend it. Here's another example not involving the cook: our two lead characters (a couple) are ordering food at a restaurant. The sweaty waiter is distracted by the girls legs. The male character asks for "eggs" and the waiter goes "legs?" Haha! Fucking brilliant! Please don't let these awful examples be an encouragement to watch this movie. It is pretty painful. While it has elements that make it watchable, it is not gloriously awful like Mahakaal nor does it ever become just plain good.    

The Viking Queen

(UK, 1967, Don Chaffey)

4/10

When a studio makes as many films as Hammer did, some of them are bound to be stinkers. The Viking Queen is one of those stinkers. The Viking Queen is the dull story of a druid queen Salina (Carita), who is predicted to rise against Britain's Roman occupiers. Historical inaccuracies follow. The director of the equally stinky One Million Years B.C. (also from Hammer), Don Chaffey, does his best to inject some style into The Viking Queen, but this is still a pretty miserable affair. What we have in the end is an extremely slow story with a protagonist who's complete dullness makes it impossible to develop any interest in her plight. The Viking Queen is sleep inducing - the film took a while to watch because I kept falling asleep and had to rewind multiple times. The film is peppered with a few interesting scenes - some of the battles are okay and a scene where the Romans humiliate Salina and destroy her town hall was very effective. The Viking Queen also benefits from a fantastic performance from Andrew Keir. Keir is an excellent villain here and it's a shame that a great character delivered with skill went to waste in a film such as this. Don't bother with The Viking Queen.     

Yakuza Deka

(Japan, 1970, Yukio Noda)

8/10

Yakuza Deka is another entertaining Sonny Chiba film. This one really packs on the cheese as Chiba, playing a cop, infiltrates a yakuza gang. Chiba has to be the dodgiest cop around (although the film seems unaware of this, making it even funnier) as he murders an endless supply of villains in a variety of brutal ways. While this film is nonstop fun, it is, admittedly, absolute chaos. The first fifteen minutes of Yakuza Deka zoom through a barrage of characters and scenes that would be enough to fill a full length film. It slows down a little after its speedy set up, but not by much. The chaos is kind of annoying at first, yet after a while I grew to appreciate it. Chiba delivers his usual stellar performance, he's a bit more lighthearted here and gets to don some fantastically awesome 70s outfits. The film's finale is a huge winner in all its explosive glory. Yup, Yakuza Deka is as watchable as it is brainless. 

Yatterman

(Japan, 2009, Takashi Miike)

9/10

I've watched a lot of films by Takashi Miike, and this is the first in a while that made my jaw drop. Yatterman, despite having a big budget and being one of his commercial efforts, is perhaps the most insane film Miike has ever made. Yes, I know, there's Happiness of the Katakuris, Visitor Q, Full Metal Yakuza and Gozu - and that's only to only name a few - to contend with. But those films operate on a twisted logic that becomes understandable after immersing yourself in Miike's work. Yatterman is just plain madness. It's an adaptation - and I use the term loosely - of an old anime from the 70s. The film appears to be a kid's film and the jokes are supremely juvenile. But there's some truly offensive shit scattered around. There's an endless supply of sexual references - some are quite creepy (the pile of Japanese schoolgirls and the scorpion scene) - and Miike seems to be treating the source material with such disregard that it almost feels hateful. Yet other times, Miike back-flips and it feels as though he is lovingly paying tribute. What his, and the screenwriter's, true thoughts were, I do not know. Throughout the film's opening ten minutes, I thought I was watching a parody scene and the real movie would start after the titles. But no. The film continues with its madcap, over-the-top, reference-material-insulting nuttiness for the next ninety minutes. And I loved it. This is possibly the hardest I've laughed at a Miike film with some gags truly hurting my guts from belly laughs. A review of Yatterman won't do it justice. Just see it. If you're in the right mood, you'll love it. If you're not, well, I'm sorry in advance.