Clearing Through The To-Watch List #4: Journey To The Centre Of The Earth (1988)

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Dirs. Rusty Lemorande and Albert Pyun

Journey To The Centre Of The Earth really takes the biscuit for how unfinished a film can actually be when its released. Like an unfinished building being opened up to the public, the complete lack of solid foundations despite the thing still being able to support itself tentatively is startling, and the holes are so obvious its more interesting to ask yourself what was supposed to be in the spaces missing. Rusty Lemorande has actually (presumably?) put up a brief piece of information on this film's IMDB page stating that only eight minutes of this film, at the beginning, are actually his own creation, the rest presumably that of b-film director Albert Pyun. Originally an update of the Jules Verne story, only for something significant issue to take place that, believing Lemorande's thoughts, caused the project to become a Frankenstein stitched-up creation, it's a case that, only seventy or so minutes long without the end credits, the whole piece is an utter mess.

A British nanny ends up travelling all the way to Hawaii for a job, only to end up having to look after a washed up rock star's dog rather than a child like her job suggests. In screwy, illogical circumstances she ends up in a cave, stuck, with two American brothers and said dog. The film is pretty dreadful in the beginning, to the point frankly that even if Rusty Lemorande got to make his film, it may have been a poorer film than what it is now. Completely leaden dialogue and character interaction that comes off as lame, with a broad performance style that is wooden. Abruptly, as the characters sleep, there are clips in dreams that feel like, in hindsight, scenes originally recorded for the original context of the film. If not, how do you explain an amusingly ghastly rescue sequence with a lazer gun, eighties hair, and troll men who are literally giant rubber ornaments you can also wear, who can only waddle around side-by-side and have no other form of movement let alone bendable limbs to do so? It's incredibly generic filmmaking through this beginning, everything that I really cannot enjoy despite there being a lot of people who delight in these sort of eighties and nineties films. I view this without the nostalgia of films like this being on video, because I grew up as an adolescent with DVDs, nor the real interest in this kind of filmmaking because it feels rudimentary than creative or insane like I prefer it to be. It's the churning of gristle into dust. Creation of film for product only.

Things get a little bit more interesting when, so far removed from an attempt at a Jules Verne story already, it completely abandons the notion of being such a thing and turns into something different. It's still set for the rest of the film in the middle of the Earth's core, so the title is still appropriate, but after that questions have to be asked about what "adaptation" actually means against this film's results. The perverse thing is that this is, technically, deep into the material Albert Pyun added, but I actually found it more interesting than what the film may have supposed to have been. Suddenly the centre of the world is Atlantis, (water, water not everywhere though, but let's not ask about that), a totalitarian city populated by punks, new wavers and proto-steam punk fetishes. It's still got a terrible broad sense of humour, especially when it comes to jokes about the dictatorship of the city, Judge Dread this isn't, but finally this gristle of movie has some layers on of some curiosity. Elaborate sets and costumes even if made on the cheap and baring in mind the possible production history of this whole work. Vaguely interesting characters. A legitimately interesting idea where, after encountering an "alien" from the surface world, a blonde female Californian, the Atlantis military squandered its resources to transform willing participants into exact duplicates of her, even in height and vernacular by rack and vocal couching respectively, to spy on the surface without actually thinking duplicates of a single person would immediately send off alarm bells above.

Then suddenly there's a freeze frame. Random moments of a post apocalypse motorised gang attacking ruined cityscape. Then we're back on the surface in front of a television screen, a peaceful truce between Earth's surface and Atlantis having taken place. An entire catalogue of possible events taking place in-between completely skipped. The film just ends. Its befuddling honestly. Right when a film got vaguely interesting, it suddenly ends because there wasn't enough material and/or time to finish it. It vanishes half way through a sketch you paid to see and no one knows what happened in the rest of the story to improvise, because it was already garbled in its storytelling before it legged it. It fosters the realisation you could release anything to cinemas even if its incomplete. It's actually a Cannon Pictures release, but their logo doesn't appear in the beginning. Only a few years later they would close down, making this film's creation an ill omen in many ways. Either way, even if it was finished properly, it would have either been vaguely interesting but average, or just awful. Frankly as the mess it is its probably memorable for a brief months, but would have disappeared in my mind immediately if it was properly completed. 

(Unfortunately) Representing the Philippines: The Killing of Satan (1983)

From http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_BK-6fWMP6m4/S99R0GSdOOI/AAAAAAAAAIM/AOHAy7RDSyk/s1600/KILLINGOFSATAN-1.JPG

Dir. Efren C. Piñon

The Killing of Satan is awful. A candidate for one of the worst films for this year's series. I confess last year I controlled the choices for films to write about more strictly, hesistating to have to write negative reviews but going by nationality now I've decided to loosen it, and sadly for the Philippines, this was a poor film to represent them. A father of two, although his son is killed in opening establishing scenes and is never mentioned again, is called to replace his uncle in an isolated rural community. When his daughter is kidnapped by human mercenaries for Satan himself, wanting to make her his virginal bride, and his wife is harmed, he goes after them to rescue his surviving child, quickly discovering his capabilities for supernatural powers to help him in a war between literal good and evil. It's cheap, tacky, the version I saw had the type of English dub you get on these sorts of films which underwhelm your expectations further, and it's something like this which is a stronger candidate for the worst of cinema than Plan 9 From Outer Space (1959).

From https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWrylCWrvlQcNWKBnH1dXPugJtt6bBQXuAVSwRkLLHltyiGDWo3_wj3yp4QGXTU9t8ARbE41g7ZRs5QZPWh9bzPSYV1ztD-NuQKIJ4kzwamqu0OzLGzc753nq4XBgixQa0oc2OKOB0W-RB/s1600/killingofsatan3.jpg

It's supposed to be a Christian battle of good and evil, with appropriate religious symbolism, but paradoxically it plays up to lurid content. The rudimentary gore is surprisingly violent and effects heavy, a poor man's Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky (1991), and there's a magical cage of completely naked, brainwashed women which completely jars against the film having a religious message. It's an erratic film in presentation, and frankly despite the presence of things I've just mentioned, they have little effect on you when the movie in its whole is completely dull to sit through. It's also the poor man's z-movie, far worse than well known examples I've seen, on a completely different plane, in how horrifically sluggish it is. It's strange moments - snake fighting, a dog attack involving one poor man being tackled to the ground in a living room by a real canine with its jaw around his arm - are really not that rewarding for the slog you're putting yourself through watching the whole film. To enjoy this, The Killing of Satan can only have merit if you give up on any entertainment value, beyond laughing at how bad it is, a perverse mindset to end up in anyway, and not doing this will make it hell to sit through. No amount of ridiculous, added-onto-frames magical/psychic power effects can prevent this film from being atrocious even on the scale of z-movies. It's something that's only rewarding, if there's another way to find entertainment in it, if you watch the potentially funny clips, separate from the film, on YouTube. That is not a good place for any film to be in, as it effectively means that it has been scrapped and recycled into clips while the rest is eliminated from the minds of viewers.

Randy Savage would be proud of that elbow power
(From http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-wjtoZ_1jtxs/T423kxLZIYI/AAAAAAAAAYc/RRPJ7V5suTQ/s1600/killing%2Bof%2Bsatan-lando%2Bmagic%2Bdefense.jpg)

It's also a caution against the notion of any bad film being instantly enjoyable. Even if your soul has died and there is no such thing as a bad film to you now, you still would have a strict idea of what entertaining is, where the highest and lowest of cinema only is what interests you. The Killing of Satan is just boring, not rememberable at all. Even if it has ridiculous moments, and an impressive chest explosion, its only merit is if you watch the segments by themselves only, and never watch the whole film, because the journey of the hero against the forces of the Devil is completely worthless. Truly bad cinema is not rememberable. If you try to enjoy every "bad film", you are gullible to embrace something legitimately awful like The Killing of Satan; I have seen so much better for this kind of perverse kick of watching ramshackle movies, and this one provides me with nothing baring this review. 

From http://nekonekomovielitterbox.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/kos-052.jpg

H Is For... The Holy Mountain (1973)

From http://professormortis.files.wordpress.com/2012/03/holymountain.jpg

Dir. Alejandro Jodorowsky

That Jodorowsky hasn't made that many films is both surprising and not. The former because he is the sort of person who could have channeled his ideas into countless films. The later because he's style of filmmaking would not be acceptable to a producer not wanting the director to take any of the risks or to make a film as far out as this. Tusk (1980), which I want to track down as a die hard fan of his, is said to be what happened when he was straightjacketed from making his own vision. A miserable failure. Thankfully this year, as a much older and wiser man, if his reflections on these older films are to go by, his newest one The Dance of Reality (2013) got a premiere at Cannes with very warm reception. I can only hope it does get released in Britain , preferably within the year but just to see it would be great.

As for his other films? After this review, don't be surprised if I try to tackle the others at some point.

Review Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/15056/h-is-for-the-holy-mountain-1973-director-alejandro-jodorowsky/

From http://schlockfootage.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/holy-mountain-la-montana-sagrada-0.jpg

Mini-Review: On The Comet (1970)

From http://s2.postimg.org/jn8fpk7k6/Cometa.jpg

Dir. Karel Zeman

Czechoslovakia

A later film is Zeman’s filmography, making films since the later forties, On The Comet takes its influence from turn-of-the century literature. Literature which pre-existed before political correctness, as this film is set in a colonial ruled Middle Eastern country, but is still enriched with the imagination of authors of the time that mixes science fiction and fantasy together and never lets this fact take away from the creativity and fun the stories give. To the surprise of everyone within a colonial town – the French occupiers housed in a fort, an invading group of Arabs helped by the Spanish and the protagonist, obsessed with a girl that seems to have appeared from a postcard and his dreams – a rouge planet skims over the Earth’s atmosphere and pulls the entire town and its populous onto its surface. The warring groups still want to fight each other, as the protagonist and his love interest sit in the middle of it all, despite the fact that the prehistoric occupants of the satellite and the fact that it’s still moving in the universe between planets should be of greater concern.

From http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2190/5808942180_fc159777cf_b.jpg

Significant to Zeman’s style is his mix of live action and animation. In most cases, it is stop motion animation figures imposed on real sets. In Zeman’s work it is real actors on animated and artificially built sets. The results compare to Georges Méliès, or for a more modern example which borrowed from Méliès, to the music video Tonight Tonight by The Smashing Pumpkins. The results create a very appropriate tone for the tributes to classic storytelling, a peculiar mixture of adventure story with science fiction, romance and a handful of rubber dinosaurs. It’s not as extensive in terms of its look as with the director’s A Deadly Invention (1958), but the results, presented in tinted yellow and colour shading like a old silent era film, still fleshes out the results. It also balances out this fantastic plot with satire about the groups involved. The French especially are shown to be comically ridiculous and capable of pointless amounts of dominancy, with plans for any sort of event possible and liable to arrest anyone suspicious when there are flies as big as a man’s head. It would be interesting what this film would be like on an equal adult and child audience – dinosaurs and short length for the kids, a different (from current cinema) take on pulpy adventure stories for adults – and this satire adds a nice caveat to the film. Without the canons the French occupiers, despite being the good guys, would be on equal terms with everyone else and have soldiers who are not as reliable as they would wise. In the colonial era it also adds a nice, modern thought on this issue, replacing soapbox condemnation with a cheeky sense of humour. By the end, the film leaves off with a charming aftertaste to it, managing to feel full for such a short length and never lagging at the same time. And any film with a bipedal pigfish, for a brief scene, deserves an extra mark as a cherry on the top. 

From http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3024/5808919410_dd473c9498_b.jpg

The ‘Solid But Flawed Film’ of Cinema [Cutthroat Island (1995)]

From http://wallpoper.com/images/00/35/65/27/cutthroat-island_00356527.jpg

Dir. Renny Harlin

France-Germany-Italy-USA

Film #31 of The ‘Worst’ of Cinema

From http://www.fernbyfilms.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/cutthroat-island-1995.jpg

Fantasy and pulp storytelling, the kind that existed before cinema and comics in literature, is a vast ocean, not to create a pun, that I have only sunk my toes in into but has provided a vast amount of imagination and sincerity that is still effecting even to someone like me from this century. Cutthroat Island was clearly an attempt to evoke fiction from the past through pirate fantasy, and it immediately brings up this fact and reminds me how all of this entertainment fully connects together in a web. It starts with mythology, once worshiped as actual religious belief from the Greeks to the Vikings, and is now at the point of superhero films in dozens in the summer season. One has to wonder however if the mass audience is aversive to films that draw on classical storytelling for the adventure genre – not coloured by current fads, no hot celebrities, no cool new band doing the soundtrack or McDonald’s tie-ins – with only the Indiana Jones, and to an extent Pirates of the Caribbean, films being the exception. Considering what happened with John Carter [Of Mars] (2012) last year, which I did see at the cinema and quite liked, it is surprising that a film like that failed miserably at the box office. Cutthroat Island has major flaws, but to think that this died so badly at the box office as it did, ending the production company Carolco Pictures through bankruptcy*, and was critically mauled is baffling. We get successful historical dramas, but pulpy, rollicking adventures with the few exceptions seem to be financial poison.

From http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/01/dvd/lionsgate/Cutthroat_1_lg._V219329200_.jpg

After her father dies, the daughter of a pirate captain Morgan (Geena Davis) takes control of his ship and goes on a journey to collect together three pieces of a map that will locate Cutthroat Island and the hoardings of Spanish gold hidden there. It is an exceptionally lavish production; barring some obvious (and horrifically dated) superimpositions of actors falling from large heights, which seems an odd mistake to have in the film in hindsight, this feature stands up in terms of technical and visual quality onscreen. One wishes this sort of production still existed even, with elaborate stunts and constructed sets like pirate galleons for the actors to fight in and around. It is the kind of craftsmanship that feels lost in a lot of mainstream cinema now, and it is regrettable that this sort of production value was easily dismissed back then. Great looking films are still made now, but there are many that look poor in comparison, bland, grey and/or digitally touched up. The only film I’ve seen that used current aesthetic tools properly was John Carter and that did a swan dive theatrically. If there is a major failing with Cutthroat Island, which was clearly a passion project for Renny Harlin and his wife Davis in how hard both of them work, it’s that the adventure in the film does not have enough friction or suspense to it to fully engage. This is a more realistic take on pirates – still a romp, but it doesn’t have a giant Kraken or an undead crew – and while the heroes are elaborate in their look or personalities, Davis as a strong female lead and Matthew Modine as the potential love interest in a relationship where she carries the sword, there is little threat to them to work from. While he has played two of the most evil men in history, Skeletor and Richard Nixon, Frank Langella is not given a lot to do as the evil pirate captain also after the treasure, and neither his crew or the British colonial soldiers after Morgan are much of an opposing force. Without the supernatural tone of the Pirates of the Caribbean series or the dramatic incidents every page from a good piece of adventure literature, Cutthroat Island cannot completely sustain one’s interest in the narrative.

From http://thisdistractedglobe.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/01/cutthroat-island-1995-frank-langella-pic-5.jpg

Nonetheless it has more virtues to it than its reputation has suggested. The sense of quality to the film is still there regardless of its imperfections. It feels sad to think that the epic yarn, rather than the historical epic that usually does well at the box office still, rarely succeeds when a new one is made or ends up being compromised to reach a wider audience. This is even more a problem as, thanks to audio books, I’m acquiring a sweet tooth for this type of storytelling but there’s few cinematic equivalents to feast on. It also feels like a perfect film to end this season on as it shows that what can qualify as the ‘worst’ can also be damned not necessarily for bad quality but because it is not in the current taste of the audience of the time, shows the follies of marketing and budget spending (I was going to cover Heaven’s Gate (1980) for this final review, but that can wait another day), and the fickleness of what succeeds and what is savaged in reviews. I am not suggesting Cutthroat Island is a great film, and I’ve yet to see a film where Renny Harlin goes beyond being a solid filmmaker and punches up into great vulgar filmmaking, but this whole season has felt more like a prodding of old pop culture to try and see what people were thinking about with cinema even in a decade (the nineties) I grew up in as a child. With Cutthroat Island it’s probably the lesser of two evils when put against some films that are far more worse, and were likely covered on this blog even outside of this season; at least Cutthroat Island has some production quality to it while I have seen some utterly unfortunate films even in my day-to-day filming habit.

*Releasing Show Girls (1995) the same year probably didn’t help either.

From http://images6.fanpop.com/image/photos/32500000/Cutthroat-Island-geena-davis-32511931-1200-802.jpg

Chilled Monkey Brains [Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (1984)]

From http://www.scenicreflections.com/ithumbs/
Indiana%20Jones%20and%20the%20Temple%20of%20Doom%20Wallpaper%202.jpg

Dir. Steven Spielberg

USA

Part of Videotape Swapshop’s ‘The Uncut Season’

At the beginning of October, I was contacted by the website Video Swapshop to write reviews for them. This is my second contribution of a season on the site to coincide with the British Film Institution’s screening of controversial films within the history of the British film classification organisation the BBFC. It’s also the most mainstream film I’ve written about so far, which changed how I usually write in a very interesting way for me.

Film Link - http://www.videotapeswapshop.co.uk/11213/indiana-jones-and-the-temple-of-doom-1984-director-steven-spielberg/