Kill, Baby...Kill!

Hey folks. Sorry for the delay from the Z Nation Season 3 review. I was working on the next Rotten Reelz Reviews Video Review script and my dad has undergone a bypass surgery. He is off his ventilation tubes and breathing normally. So yeah we can unclench for a few now.

Today's movie revolves around a coroner, his assistant, some supernatural shenanigans, a village gripped in fear and a local witch doing good deeds? Brought to you by the Godfather of Giallo: Mario Bava. This is Kill, Baby...Kill!

Meh, look at this ignorant rabble.

Yup, we should have known this would have alternative English titles to the likes of: Don't Walk in the Park, Operation Fear, Curse of the Dead and Curse of the Living Dead.   

In the year of our lord 1907, Dr. Paul Eswai (Giacomo Rossi Stuart of Zorro and the Three Musketeers, Sodom and Gomorrah, The Last Man on Earth, War Between the Planets,The Crimes of the Black Cat, The Lonely Woman and Zorro) has been called to the Carpathian village of Karmingam to do an autopsy on a young woman.  The girl, Irena Hollander died under mysterious circumstances... in a horror movie.  How bizarre.  Yeah she fell from a high window and impaled on a iron fence post is a tad odd.

His assistant Monica (Erika Blanc of Espionage in Lisbon, Kill,Baby...Kill!, A Man for Emmanuelle, Eye of the Cat, The Mistress Is Served,Sacred Heart and A Second Childhood) must vouch for his work as a witness as Eswai finds a silver coin in Irena's heart. Well how did that get there? Maybe she swallowed it. With the local villagers being devout believers of magical happenings and superstitions, they tell Eswai that the town is haunted by ghost of a young girl who curses those who visits. 

 Naturally, a man of science can't take this seriously. Poppycock! Balderdash I say! Hrrumph! Meanwhile, I am thinking you need an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on your back, a young priest and an old priest at the ready.

I took acid and now I can flyyyyy!!!

Esawi is set to meet Inspector Kruger (Revolt of the Praetorians, Django Kill...If You Live,Shoot!, Fury of Achilles, Hell Commandos, When Heroes Die and My Dear Killer), the man that requested this autopsy in the first place. He is to arrange said meeting at the villa of Baroness Graps (Giovanna Galletti of I fratelli Karamazov, I miserabli, Eneide, Last Tango in Paris, The Girl in Room 2A and Woman of Wonders) when the Baroness tells the good doctor there is no Inspector Kruger... DUN DUN DUN DUN!!!!

The innkeeper's daughter Nadienne (Micaela Esdra of Highest Pressure, Made in Italy, Il muro, Nero Wolfe, I Nicotera, Philo Vance and La villa) claims to be visited by the ghost girl next to be cursed so the local witch Ruth (yes Ruth) performs a ritual to lift the curse. Leaving his cellphone in another century (don't you hate it when you do that?) Eswai confabs with the burgomeister Karl (Piero Lulli of Love Story, Knights of the Desert, Rapture, The Huns, The Two Gladiators, Django Kill and My Name is Nobody) about this Santa Claus fellow. No wait. Kris Kringle. No, wait...right, the ghost girl. Got baffled for a moment.

Selling...girl scout...cookiessss... buy 10 of them....

Karl is claiming the child is actually the ghost Melissa Graps, the dead daughter of the Baroness who is responsible for both Irene and the Inspector Kruger's disappearance.  Eswai heads to the cemetery where two gravediggers are hastily burying a coffin with Kruger in it.  Guess the Baroness don't pay no OT.

Will Esawi figure out how to combat the spooky child? Can anything be done to put her spirit to rest?

Shot in 12 days in the region of Cargata, this small commune has been an artist retreat since the 1930s giving it an amazing look for Americans to find out that ancient towns and villages do exist in the world and not just in cinema.

Domestically it grossed 201 million lire which tallies to about...oh.   117 thousand 5 hundred 20.

Moving on, it would then be three years before Mario Bava would do another horror film which was Hatchet for the Honeymoon or The Red Sign of Madness, the 1970 giallo film.

An spectral crawly film that gets under your skin and innverves you. I enjoyed it. That being said, English dub actor/writer Renato Izzo makes Eswai sound pompous to John Agar levels.   Arrogant and condescending.  That means he speaks down to you as if you were an errant, lost child. 

Calm yourself, woman. Be cold and detached, like me.

 

Fusion of Film: Candyman

Welcome back to Day 3 of Fusion of Film. This time around let's take a peek at the genre known as Horror. Yes I was feeling a bit whimsy today. We partake of a film in 1992 that is based on urban legends and a figure caked in the blood and whispered as a vengeanceful spirit that did horrible things for the fact of his own tormented soul. This is Candyman.

Y'know...my brother made Evil Dead.

Our story follows a graduate student Helen Lyle (Virginia Madsen of Highlander II: The Quickening, Love Kills, Blue Tiger, The Prophecy, Frasier, American Dreams and Justice League) does research on various urban legends. After extensive study she came across a local legend of a man known as Candyman. The story says Candyman can be brought forth by saying his name five times while looking directly in a mirror but the story ends with whomever summons him will feel death with his hook hand. Similiar to the Bloody Mary story.

Helen and her skeptical friend Bernadette (Kasi Lemmons of Another World,Vampire's Kiss, Silence of the Lambs, Hard Target and Disconnect) decide to invoke Candyman's spirit with both of them calling Candyman out and...nothing seemed to happen. Further poking around Helen finds out that Candyman was the son of a slave, whose dad became well-to-do after creating a system of mass-producing shoes during the Civil War. Candyman (Tony Todd of was raised with privilege and became an artist and was so well known for his works that he had a waiting list for him to create portraits. But life became difficult falling in love with a white woman who he knocked up. Spurned by this woman, her former lover made up a lynch mob to cut Candyman's painting hand off, smeared his face with honey leaving him to the bees. AHH THE BEES!!!!

Candyman's foreplay gets a bit rough.

In this crime-ridden Cabrini-Green via Chicago claim the horrors about this area is all Candyman's doing, shedding blood of the innocent. Yet again ignoring all those that were superstitious and fearful, they warn Helen over and over again that she has released the evil into the world and know what can happen. Husband Trevor (Xander Berkeley of Apollo 13, Leaving Las Vegas, Heat, Bulletproof, Air Force One, Gattaca, Shanghai Noon and The Mentalist) warns Helen that this has gone a bit far as she and Bernadette went to Cabrini-Green to pursue a story of a child that was castrated in a public bathroom alledgedly linked it to Candyman. Checking out the ran-down bathroom a gang member attacks Helen with a hook claiming to be Candyman for his street cred. Helen gets away and sicks the cops on the child killer.

Candyman appears to Helen saying her talk of him being just a legend and he is obligated to prove his existence. Helen wakes up in Anne-Marie's (Vanessa Williams of New Jack City, Melrose Place, Candyman and Soul Food) apartment spattered in blood with a dead dog and Anne's baby is missing. Anne-Marie jumps Helen thinking she did this and Helen fights back when thankfully the cops take Helen away.

Trevor bails Helen out of the hoosegow and Candyman stalks her down, slashing her enough to cause blood to flow and make her pass out only to wake and see Bernadette dead. Off to the rubber room for a month because... well Helen cannot be trusted clearly. I mean look what she has done already.

Will Candyman cut a bloody swath through Helen's life? Can she stop him? Will he take everything she loves away?

A few notes on the film now:

Using practical effects the bees used in the movie were bred for the movie, they were only 12 hours old so they looked large enough to be mature bees but no stingers were able to do real damage.

Eddie Murphy was considered for the role of Candyman but it was Tony Todd's gravelly voice and 6'5" height that impressed the director for the title role. Virginia Madsen is allergic to bees, so an ambulance was always on set while filming the bee scenes. Composer Philip Glass was asked to create the score and give the movie a Gothic feel with chorus and pipe organ. He was less than thrilled that the movie was a low budget slasher flick. Can't please everyone I suppose.

Oh yes, I am the title role.

Timothy Dalton Week: The Doctor and the Devils

Welcome back for Day 3 of Timothy Dalton Week. Today I found a horror film that Dalton was in. Oh yes it does exist and of all craziness stars Julian Sands, Johnathan Pryce, Stephen Rea, Twiggy and Sir Patrick Stewart. Where in the fresh hell could I have found this concoction of terror and talent? Well truth be told, I just looked on Dalton's filmography on IMDB, did some searches for the movie and boom. Yeah very light research on this flick. This is The Doctor and the Devils.

Class is dismissed and I need a vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred.

From the awesome power of Freddie Francis, director of such classics as: Day of the Triffids, Nightmare, Hysteria, The Deadly Bees and Dracula Has Risen from the Grave comes the tale that is actually based on a Dylan Thomas screenplay following the real life murder cases of William Burke and William Hare. These two men supplied fresh cadavers for scientists to study anatomy on during the Victorian Era in Scotland. Yes these two unscrupulous men would deliver fresh bodies to scholars because at the time of these studies, donation to science was deemed ghoulish and only convicted felons that were executed were allowed to be used for discovery, anatomy and physiology.

Doctor Thomas Rock (Timothy Dalton) , a brilliant scientist holds lectures by day to enlighten his students but is dissatisfied, forced to work on weeks old convicts that will not teach him anything new and exciting on the subject of death. To hone his skills of his profession he needs fresher bodies to work on given refrigeration is still in its infancy. His assistant Doctor Murray (Julian Sands of Warlock, Boxing Helena, Witch Hunt, Timecode, Rose Red and Blood and Bone) toils with what can be done when a pair of disreputable men approach him in a tavern offering their despicable talents for retrieval of the freshest of corpses. Yup, grave robbery.

Blast, we've been nicked!

Mr. Fallon (Johnathan Pryce of Voyage of the Damned, Loophole, Timon of Athens, Jumpin' Jack Flash, Ronin and Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl) and Mr. Broom (Stephen Rea of The Crying Game, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea, The Break, In Dream and V for Vendetta) tend to this need against the increasing fierce competition with the added bonus that they manage to find the freshest of bodies to be worked on make more than a pretty copper.

Doctor Rock is conflicted with the immorality of this offer but the chance to having a chance to evolve his findings and elevate his science to a practice that will bring information for generations to come. The very building blocks of medicine hang in the balance as he must argue with his superiors on a regular basis, he becomes obsessed with his work, overlooking his newfound body snatchers in order to drive the advancement of science out of the dark ages and to the upper echelons of science as it belongs... but where are all these bodies hailing from??? How is it Fallon and Broom manage to acquire them so easily with little fuss or muss??

A few interesting tidbits for the lot of us Yankees. While shot in clearly Edinburgh Scotland there is not a single Scottish accent aside from Patrick Stewart's Professor Macklin. Everyone else manages a bit of Cockney and proper English so you get the feel you supposed to be in London but still confused overall. Julian Sands' character feels redundant as he does not really bring much to the screen, no fault to Sands, it is just a small role for a good actor to shine through. Twiggy enacts as a lesser prostitute but the vibe is we could have put anyone in this role and does not bring much to the table. I cannot say who was my favorite out of this movie because Pryce and Rea steal the show but Dalton's presence is felt throughout the film. All three of these men gave so much life to their parts.

The interesting bit for the Americans that Mel Brooks' company Brookfilms produced this Gothic tale and it was actually quite disturbing and entertaining at the same time. This being one of the first horror movies to be produced by Brooksfilms to follow directly after would be David Chronenberg's The Fly. With this dark fable written by one of greatest obsessed minds of the 20^th century, this is a gem hidden at the rental shelves for too long. Thankfully it has been out in DVD since 2005 and on Blu-Ray since October 2014 via Shout! Factory.

Sir, I think I dropped my signet ring in her spleen.