Last House on the Left, The |
|
After kidnapping and butchering two teenagers, a gang of rapists and murderers unknowingly seeks refuge with the parents of one of the victims. |
Last House on the Left, The |
|
After kidnapping and butchering two teenagers, a gang of rapists and murderers unknowingly seeks refuge with the parents of one of the victims. |
Ben |
|
A lonely boy, played by Lee H. Montgomery, becomes good friends with Ben, a rat. This rat is also the leader of a pack of vicious killer rats, killing lots of people. |
Asylum |
|
A young psychiatrist interviews four inmates in a mental asylum to satisfy a requirement for employment. He hears stories about 1) the revenge of a murdered wife, 2) a tailor who makes a suit with some highly unusual qualities, 3) a woman who questions her sanity when it appears that her brother is conspiring against her, and 4) a man who builds tiny toy robots with lifelike human heads. |
1776 |
|
The first independent production of former studio mogul Jack Warner, 1776 was adapted from the hit 1969 Broadway musical by Peter Stone and Sherman Edwards. William Daniels, Ken Howard, and Howard Da Silva are among the many actors who recreate their Broadway roles. The story is set during the first Continental Congress, when the Declaration of Independence was drafted by such founding fathers as John Adams (Daniels) and Benjamin Franklin (Da Silva). The script attempts to “humanize” these remote historical figures by contemporizing them — particularly the character of Ben Franklin. Blythe Danner’s character of Martha Jefferson is expanded for the film version to allow for an elaborate outdoor production number. After 1776, Warner made only one more film, the 1972 “grunge Western” Dirty Little Billy. On an added note: the picture was originally rated G with its theatrical running time of 141 minutes. It was later expanded to 166 minutes; the added scenes caused the MPAA to re-rate it PG (for language) in 1992. Both versions are available on video. |
Sleuth |
|
The mystery stage play by Anthony Shaffer was adapted by the author into this stylish film from director Joseph L. Manciewicz. Laurence Olivier stars as Andrew Wyke, a best-selling author of detective fiction living in a grand 16th century mansion. Andrew is visited by Milo Tindle (Michael Caine), owner of a hair salon chain, and reveals to his guest that he’s aware of Milo’s affair with his wife Marguerite. Rather than being vengeful, however, Andrew professes he’s glad to be rid of his troublesome spouse. To avoid paying heavy alimony, Andrew suggests that Milo disguise himself as a clown and steal his wife’s expensive jewelry. That way Marguerite and Milo can obtain financial security while Andrew claims the loss on his insurance and all walk away rich. Andrew’s plan is a devious one, however, designed to toy with his wife’s lover, and a series of deceptions and counter-deceptions are launched in which nothing is as it seems, unfolding as an elaborate game of comeuppance between the two men. Ten years after Sleuth, Caine would assay a role not unlike Olivier’s in the similarly-themed Deathtrap (1982). |
Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things |
|
In Children Shouldn’t Play With Dead Things, an above average slasher/horror film, a group of amateurs decide to experiment with witchcraft with deadly results. This film has a small cult following, due to some extent to the fact that one of the lead characters is played by writer and makeup effects artist Alan Ormsby. Ormsby gives one of the three or four most obnoxious screen performances in history as Alan, the leader of a troupe of actors who try out a voodoo ritual on a corpse only to find out that it has worked on all the corpses in the graveyard. The acting is terrible and the special effects are obvious and cheap, but the film somehow manages to overcome all of this and be quite entertaining, but only for those with strong stomachs. |
Toys Are Not for Children |
|
Forbes is a troubled young woman who grows up to be a prostitute in this sexually-charged drama that uses flashbacks to show the reasons why. It all had to do with her upbringing. Her overbearing mother never overcame her bitterness at having been abandoned by her husband, who had a thing for prostitutes. The story jumps to the present where Forbes is seen playing “baby” to her johns, whom she calls “daddy.” She encourages them because it makes her feel closer to her real pa. One day, a lesbian colleague attempts to seduce her. Forbes rejects her, and the jilted girl gets revenge by setting her up with her own father. Grecian-style tragedy ensues. |
Conquest of the Planet of the Apes |
|
The fourth Planet of the Apes film is set in 1991, 20 years since the assassination of talking, time-traveling apes Cornelius and Zira at the end of Escape From the Planet of the Apes. The couple’s infant son, Caesar (Roddy McDowall), has grown to adulthood in the care of kindly circus owner Armando (Ricardo Montalban). Meanwhile, a plague has wiped all dogs and cats from the face of the Earth; speechless primitive apes have therefore been domesticated and turned into first pets, then servants of humankind. Caesar becomes outraged at the treatment of these simian slaves and accidentally reveals his powers of speech in front of the militaristic authorities, who kill Armando when he tries to protect his friend’s identity. His cover blown, Caesar kick-starts a revolution that pits chimps against humans, paving the way for eventual ape ascendency. Caesar was the second of McDowall’s three Planet of the Apes characters; he also portrayed Cornelius in the first and third films and Galen in the short-lived 1974 television series. After taking over the franchise with this picture, Hollywood veteran J. Lee Thompson would become the only director to helm two Planet of the Apes films when he returned for the fifth and final installment. |
Deliverance |
|
Based on James Dickey’s novel, this film tells the story of an ill-fated canoe trip in deep backwoods America, where the people are as scary as the country is beautiful. |
Lady Sings the Blues |
|
Diana Ross plays the magnificent, tragic song stylist Billie Holiday, who while writhing in a strait jacket in a prison cell, awaiting sentencing on drug charges, reflects on her turbulent life. Raped in her youth by a drunk (Adolph Caesar), then compelled to work as a domestic in a Harlem whorehouse, Holliday is encouraged to try for a singing career by the bordello’s pianist (Richard Pryor). She rises as high as it is possible to go in the white-dominated show business world of the 1930s, but can’t handle the pressure and turns to narcotics. The film takes several liberties with the 44-year existence of “Lady Day.” Among the Billie Holiday standards performed by Ross are “My Man,” “I Cried for You,” “Lover Man,” “Them There Eyes,” and the title song. |
Scooby Doo Meets Batman |
|
Holy jinkies, Batman, just when it seemed superheroes couldn’t get any groovier, you collide with the Mystery Machine gang. Such a pairing might normally yield one wacky crime-fighting power struggle, but in these two capers egos take a back seat to classic you-check-this-out, we’ll-check-that Scooby-Doo splintering. First, bat-plagued pranksters Penguin and the Joker kidnap a hopelessly tongue-tied professor in a scheme to swindle a high-tech flying suit. Then the conniving criminals return as bit players in a counterfeiting ring run out of a way-wacky funhouse. Soar along in the Batmobile or make like a banana and split with Shaggy and Scoob at these crime scenes—either way, it’s a secret-passageway and scary-mask-packed combo even more compelling than the cookies-and-batmilk Scooby snack the pesky kids tuck into during a break in the action. |
Season of the Witch |
|
Joan Mitchell is an unhappy, suburban housewife pushing 40, who has an uncommunicative businessman husband, named Jack, and a distant 19-year-old daughter, named Nikki, on the verge of moving out of the house. Frustrated at her current situation, Joan seeks solance in witchcraft after visiting Marion Hamilton, a local tarot reader and leader of a secret black arts wicca set, who inspires Joan to follow her own path. After dabbling a little in witchcraft, Joan, believing herself to have become a real witch, withdraws into a fantasy world and sinks deeper and deeper into her new lifestyle until the line between fantasy and reality becomes blurred and eventually tragedy results. |
Flesh and Blood Show, The |
|
This sick little horror film from British gore/exploitation director Pete Walker finds a group of actors summoned by an anonymous producer to take part in a gruesome Grand Guignol play being staged at an isolated resort, only to find that their characters’ elaborately staged theatrical deaths are designed to do them in for real. It is revealed that their unseen benefactor is a former stage performer, driven psychotic after catching another actor in bed with his wife, who now seeks symbolic retribution against all actors for their immoral behavior. Though not quite as sleazy as some of Walker’s later work, this is still fairly gruesome stuff. The same theme gets vastly superior treatment in the following year’s Theatre of Blood, featuring a tour-de-force performance from Vincent Price. |