HubrisWeen, Day 8: The H-Man (1958)

While radiation was the cinematic boogeyman of the 1950s, anyone familiar with history should understand why the Japanese had an extremely unique view of it. After all, in addition to being the only country to have ever had nuclear weapons used against them during war, they also had the horrifying misfortune of the ironically named Daigo Fukuryu Maru (or "Lucky Dragon No. 5") incident.

The Lucky Dragon served as partial inspiration for the original Godzilla, but today's film--also directed by Ishiro Honda--delves into it even further. You see, in 1954 the Daigo Fukuryu Maru, a fishing vessel, was fishing for tuna outside of the "danger zone" of the American Castle Bravo H-Bomb test. Unfortunately, the Americans had incorrectly calculated the force of the bomb and the radius of the danger zone was woefully underestimated.

So radioactive ash fell upon the crew of the vessel and the all the tuna that they had collected. Underestimating how deadly the fallout was, some of the fish they had caught ended up on the market. The aftermath of the incident--which the US naturally handled with the tact and sensitivity of someone who blames you for not keeping a better eye on your child after they drive up onto your lawn and run over your toddler--was not nearly as catastrophic as it could have been, but it was still horrifying.

With the US breathing down their neck, the Japanese couldn't very well make a movie about the incident to criticize the US, but in the guise of a monster movie they had a radioactive dinosaur destroying ships with names just this side of "Schmucky Dorgan No. 5". Four years later, they addressed the horror of the incident far more explicitly in another monster movie--and, perhaps due to the notorious short attention span of Americans, met no resistance in doing so.

We open on a rainy night in Tokyo. Uchida (Mokoto Sato), member of a local drug cartel, is waiting in his car for Misaki (Hisaya Itou) to sneak out of a grated window well with a package of heroin stolen from the locker of a rival gangmember. Uchida is more than a little on edge after a policeman stops to question him--although the officer assumes Uchida is just waiting on a lady friend--so when Misaki stops in the middle of loading the package into the trunk in order to pull out a handgun and fire it at the ground by his own feet, Uchida's first action is to drive off and leave his frightened compatriot in the street. A truck coming the other way hits Misaki, but to the bewilderment of the driver, the cop, and several onlookers Misaki's body is nowhere to be found. His empty clothes hang from the grill of the truck, but he has completely vanished.

Detective Tominaga (Akihiko Hirata, here not sporting an eye patch) is thus left with a curious case to try and solve. Misaki obviously is still on the loose, and with the gangs and the police both searching for him he'll probably try to lay low somewhere. Yet, Tominaga can't figure out exactly how Misaka could have somehow fled the scene, naked as a jaybird, with none of the witnesses on the scene seeing him do so.

So Tominaga sends Detective Sakata (Yoshihuma Tajima, better known to Godzilla fans as one of the two unscrupulous capitalists in Mothra vs. Godzilla) and two other detectives to Misaki's last known residence, where they wake up Chikako Arai (Yumi Shirakawa), Misaki's girlfriend and a signer at a local night club. A local night club, it turns out, where many of the gang deals go down. So the police are less than convinced when she professes ignorance of both Misaki's whereabouts and is illicit activities--despite their apartment having a television at a point in time in Japan where having a TV was almost equivalent to having a wall-sized flatscreen today. However, they don't have anything to hold her on, so they allow her to go to work--but decide to keep a very close eye on her, indeed.

So when a handsome young man (Kenji Sahara!) signals to Chikako that he wants to talk to her about Misaki, the police nab him outside her dressing room before he actually gets to say word one to Chikako. However, Tominaga is quite shocked to see the suspect when he's brought in,because he recognizes him at once--he's Dr. Masada, an old school friend of Tominaga. Tominaga wats to know why a scientist is suddenly getting involved in the drug business, but Masada explains that he read about Misaki's strange disappearance in the newspapers and needed to know from Chikako if Misaki had been anywhere near nuclear test sites. It's his belief that Misaki is dead, melted way in the rain that night as a result of exposure to radiation. As Tominaga points out, nobody else who was exposed to the rain that night has melted so Masada advises that it must have been something that targeted Misaki individually.

Masada might not be as silly as Tominaga believes. That night, when Chikako returns home, she is accosted by a gangster looking for Misaki. After he thoroughly intimidates her with a gun and physical violence--but keeping careful not to alert the cops outside her apartment to his presence--the crook heads out the window into the rain. Chikako watches in horror as the man fires off multiple shots and the screams in agony, just like Misaki. When the cops rush into the apartment after Chikako stumbles into the hallway and faints, the only evidence of the intruder are his empty clothes in the street outside.

Chikako can't tell the police anything that they want to know. She went to the window after she saw a shadow that didn't belong to the man attacking her, but she won't say more because they won't believe her. Tominaga begrudgingly lets Masada talk to her, and when she mentions that she saw the man melt away it rings all kinds of alarms for Masada. Quickly he urges Tominaga to come with him to a local hospital, where he knows of someone else who reported seeing a human being melt before their very eyes.

At the hospital, Masada introduces Tominaga to two sailors who are being treated for radiation sickness. The two sailors tell of how they served aboard a vessel that encountered another ship, the Ryujin Maru II, adrift in the open ocean. The two sailors and four others from their crew went aboard the vessel, intending to see if anyone aboard needed assistance. They found the ship deserted, no sign of the crew beyond empty clothes scattered about. Most disconcerting was the discovery that the log book ends in the middle of a word, as though the captain were attacked while writing it. This is enough to convince the others it's time to go, so they grab the log book and begin to leave--but one of them decides to play around with some of the empty clothes. He doesn't see the strange slime oozing towards him until it's too late.

"It creeps and leaps, and slides across the floor..."

The slim creeps up his leg and the sailor screams in pain and horror as he dissolves before the terrified eyes of his companions. The slime then rises up to take the spectral form of something that might once have been human, and when the ghostly humanoid touches another sailor, he dissolves just like his companion.

"Ooga Booga!"

The sailors flee, but when one of them pauses by the hatch to call for another sailor who was still inside the vessel, another slime creature falls onto him from above. The two survivors make it back to their boat and while the other crewmembers first ask where the other four are, seeing the six spectral humanoid shapes take form on the deck of the ghost ship convinces them it is time to leave.

Tominaga is not especially convinced, despite Masada's reasonable assertion that if the sailors were lying they'd have made up a less ridiculous story. At any rate, according to the log book the ghost ship had wandered too close to an H-Bomb test and the six men on deck simply vanished. It's Masada's belief that the radiation altered those six men's DNA and turned them into a completely different form of life. All well and good, but Tominaga points out that the ghost ship was encountered drfting in the open ocean so the creatures aboard would be no threat in Japan--Masada counters with the claim that the Ryuijn Maru II had been sighted in coastal waters recently. If that's true, its liquid occupants could have come ashore and Misaki may have been one of their victims.

Masada tries to further convince Tominsaga by showing him an experiment. Exposing a bullfrog to radiation in his lab results in the creature erupting in bubbles and melting into goop. (Ang Lee's Hulk totally ripped this sequence off) The goop, under a microscope, is shown to be alive. And when the liquid frog is placed next to a normal frog, it moves towards the frog under its own power and melts it, too.

Tominaga still fails to see what he is supposed to do about it and at any rate, he's got a big bust brewing at Chikako's night club that evening that takes precedence.

No, not that kind of bust!

Uchida, the big fish that Tominaga really wants, is there that evening as well. And with the help of Sakata and the other detectives they begin rounding up the other gangmembers as they leave. However, one gangmember attempts to pull a gun on the officers and it goes off as he is being restrained. The waiter, who aids in the illicit activities, hears the gunshot over the wicked drum solo of the house band and alerts Uchida so the two can escape out a window in the dressing rooms. One of the showgirls is not horribly pleased with having the window opened to let the rain in--but she's even less thrilled when a liquid humanoid oozes in through the window.

It makes quick work of the waiter, Uchida's bullets failing to affect it, and Uchida uses that as an opportunity to escape. The showgirl is not so lucky. In the US version her fate is mostly implied after we see the liquid creature crawling up her legs. In the Japanese version, we see her death--and later the empty bikini that is the aftermath.

Her death was probably cut because it's a very strange effect. All the other deaths involve a physical prop human basically deflating as foaming bubbles pour out of them. It sounds goofy, but it works and is actually fairly disturbing. Perhaps because the showgirl is wearing too little clothing for that effect to work, she is enveloped by a psychedelic animation effect.

It's a bit weird.

Chikako barely escapes the liquid creature once it enters her dressing room and she calls Masada to tell him it's at the club. But then she finds herself trapped in thephone booth by the creature. Luckily, Sakata--who naturally had been even more skeptical than Tominaga--finds her and his decision to shoot the creature distracts it from its intended prey. His decision to pistol whip the creature after it assumes its humanoid shape also distracts it. I mean, it can only eat one person at a time.

Remember kids, don't doubt the scientist and especially don't try to grapple with a creature whose very touch will instantly kill you!

Sakata's death sends the club into a panic and Uchida, having seen how the creature operates, uses this as a way to escape by leaving his clothes behind and escaping naked--just as Misaki was thought to have done. Tominaga is forced to acknowledge that Masada is right, seeing as how the liquid creature has killed a police detective and all. So now the question becomes, how can the Japanese government stop this "H-Man", as the papers call it? And what will Uchida try to do, while the police are distracted by a more urgent threat to the public?

The H-Man is certainly not what anybody familiar with Toho Studios, and Ishiro Honda's, more famous output might expect. There are monsters in this film, but none of them are giant and the radioactive slime monster plot takes largely a backseat to the drug gang plot for the grand majority of the film. It's also a straight up horror movie, something that Ishiro Honda rarely attempted in the same sense as this film. (But we'll be seeng another example soon enough)

The film's focus on gangmembers and nightclub singers also puts it rather at odds with the expected structure of most 50s sci-fi horror films. Yes, there's the scientist that everybody doubts crusading for the truth, but once he convinces the police that the H-Men are real there's no expected series of scenes where he has to try and find a way to defeat the creatures. Rather, the authorities just somehow know how to defeat them with zero explanation.

As a horror film, this exceeds marvelously. The sequence aboard the ghost ship is a masterfully eerie set piece, equal to anything that Mario Bava would offer in the following decade. (And features Godzilla suit actor Haruo Nakajima playing both the humanoid form of the H-Man and the sailor it eats) The very nature of the H-Man and how it feeds is viscerally horrifying. There's something truly chilling about being broken down so completely by a monster. The effects for the creatures are also marvelous, even if they show some obvious limitations--most particularly with the creatures' transformations from ambulatory slime to upright humanoid, which makes them seem like some ethereal spirits than shape-shifting slime. Though a long shot of the creatures assuming humanoid form aboard the deck of the Ryujin Maru II is accomplished via miniatures instead of animation and super-imposed suit actors, and is much more effective at portraying the creatures as they were intended. It's also magnificently creepy.

It also must be noted that the film's score by Masaru Sato is wonderfully atmospheric, wth a particular ambient seemingly electronic "ping" sound (a theremin, maybe?) that is weirdly unnerving. The score also features something more typical of Sato's work: an incredibly jaunty title theme that, I swear, sounds like it could have inspired John Williams when he was creating the iconic Indiana Jones theme. It is marvelous.

Where the film stumbles ultimately is that, as stated previously, the crime melodrama part of the film takes up entirely too much of the screentime without adding much of any substance. The drug pushers are in no way connected to the liquid humanoids, other than always managing to end up in the creatures' paths when they're looking for a human to dissolve. Worse, Uchida is our human villain but we never get a sense of his personality beyond "ruthless gangster." Hell, I've seen the film many times over the years in both versions and I still have no idea why Uchida--after leading everyone but Masada to think he was eaten by the H-Man at the club--decides to kidnap Chikako and take her along with him into the Tokyo sewers to retrieve a brick of heroin.

Plotwise it's a way to ensure that Chikako is in danger because the sewers are the creatures' lair and the military is pumping them full of gasoline withy the intent to set the city's water system ablaze in order to kill the H-Men. Characterwise it makes no sense, however, because taking a hostage just means that everyone knows Uchida isn't dead and Uchida even makes Chikako strip down to her slip (pretty racy stuff in 1958, even for a film with night club dancers that wear skimpy bikinis), so that the police will find her clothes and think the H-Man got her--thereby removing her usefulness as a hostage!

Apart from the misstep of focusing more on its less interesting crime plot than its chilling radioactive blob monsters plot, this is a fantastic film. It really makes you wish Ishiro Honda had done more horror films.

Though we shall soon see he did one even better than this a few years later.

This concludes day 8 of HubrisWeen! Check out what the other maniacs chose for their H movie by clicking the banner above.

HubrisWeen, Day 7: Galaxy of Terror (1981)

When someone says it's necessary to "face your fears," they generally don't mean literally. Oh, there's a degree of literalness in the phrase, but if your fear is being eaten alive by alligators most people aren't going to suggest jumping into a pool full of hungry crocodilians whilst bleeding.

Yet what if your greatest fear were to become real? Could you face it and survive? Or would it kill you in moments?

When Roger Corman set out to cash in on Alien with Mindwarp: An Infinity Of Terror--the original title of Galaxy of Terror--he didn't just decide to have a slimy space monster chase a crew of misfits through a spaceship. He would do that in other releases. No, what Corman saw was two things:

1. That Alien showed there was an audience for horror and sci-fi combined in one film.
2. That the film had worn its influences on its sleeve, which meant that an enterprising rip-off artist could just as easily cash in on the film by ripping off its influences.

And so, taking the framework of Planet of the Vampires and Alien (and even some Forbidden Planet, for good measure), Corman delivered something just new enough and familiar enough to be appealing to an audience eager for more of the same. Of course, Corman added a little something extra to the mix, as well. But we'll get to that soon enough.

We open on a an alien world, strewn with wrecked vessels and corpses of non-humanoid creatures. One of the vessels, however, still has a living and human occupant. Of course, he won't be living for long. He's running through the corridors of the ship as if something is behind him. He seals himself in a room with a mutilated human corpse--and then some invisible force slams him against the wall until he is hemorrhaging blood.

The next world we see, a voiceover tells us, is Xerxes. The voice belongs to Mitri (Mary Ellen O'Neill), who introduces herself as the interpreter and gamekeeper for The Master. The Master is a robed figure with a glowing head and is in charge of the entire planet. He receives a space Skype call from Commander Ilvar (Bernard Behrens), who informs him of the disappearance of the Remus near a planet called Morganthus. Something about that planet rings significant for The Master and, ignoring the seeming disapproval of Mitri, The Master informs Ilvar that he shall lead a rescue expedition to Morganthus and The Master will pick the crew.

The rescue ship shall be the Quest, and The Master sure can pick a crew. The Quest's skipper, Captain Trantor (Grace Zabriskie!), is fast on the trigger. Barely has the crew made it aboard when Trantor announces that the ship will lift off in 30 seconds. Nervous Cos (Jack Blessing), stoic Quuhod (Sid Haig!), and ship's cook Kore (Ray Walston!) get to their chairs and strap in as sneering Baelon (Zalman King) is rolling his eyes at the goo-goo-eyed reunion of Cabren (Edward Albert) and Alluma (Erin Moran), before they strap in. Dameia (Taafee O'Connell) ends up playing make-shift safety harness for Ranger (Robert Englund!) when Ranger's chair won't work. And then The Quest blasts off.

The Quest then jumps to hyperspace before anyone has caught their breath because Trantor is a maverick in the Sarah Palin vein, dontcha know. Ilvar and Trantor exchange some small talk once they return to normal speed outside, where Trantor makes a dig at Ilvar about his age and Ilvar's mention of "The Hesperus" seems to momentarily trigger a traumatic flashback for Trantor--which would explain the completely unconvincing gray hair she sports. She doesn't have much time to dwell before some kind of tractor beam grabs the Quest and pulls it down to the planet's surface. Trantor attempts to break free from the tractor beam, but quickly just gives up and sits back in her chair.

Luckily, whatever pulled them down wasn't interested in smashing them to bits on the landing and their descent slows until the landing rockets are able to bring them in relatively smoothly. Of course, that means that they're stuck on Morganthus because there's no way they can pull away from the force that grabbed them. Unless they can find the source, that is.

Well, luckily they landed relatively close to the Remus, so they don't have far to go for their investigation. After asserting his rank over Cabren (no doubt due to jealousy over Cabren's beautiful mustache), Baelon leads an away team consisting of himself, Cabren, Alluma, Cos, and Quuhod over to the Remus.

A word here about the costume design for this film. The characters' basic uniforms all consist of riding breeches, what appears to be thermal underwear shirts with bits of rubber glued to them to form "futuristic" patterns, and cargo jackets. (As my girlfriend observed, amusingly, the futuristic underwear tops are more flattering for the women than the men) Once they step outside of the Quest, they do not don space suits of any kind. Instead they just don bulky backpacks with headlights above their shoulders. It's...an interesting look.

"Would the owner of the white space backpack please come to the parking lot? Your lights are on."

Once the group enters the Remus, we get some bizarre bits of world-building. One, Alluma is a psychic of the typically useless movie variety. Two, Quuhod declines to carry a blaster as a weapon and instead carries a pair of futuristic crystal shuriken. Three, the second the group encounters a body, they incinerate it with blaster fire! Yes, they're here on a rescue mission and have just been confronted with the body of a person that has been killed under mysterious circumstances--yet they immediately incinerate it without any examination.

I am left to conclude that Xerxians belong to a strange religion where the soul cannot achieve peace until the body is cremated...and the thought of any soul rapped inside its body fills them with such existential horror that their first instinct is to incinerate it. I mean, if it were as simple as a fear of contagion then maybe they should be wearing helmets.

The away team, realizing that they are in a horror movie, split up to search the Remus. The interior of the ship has been torn apart and the only crew members they find are quickly incinerated. Cos proves to be a complete nervous wreck as he trips over debris and nearly shoots himself. Yet maybe he shouldn't be written off as a worthless coward just yet--something is definitely following him in the shadows. That something is barely glimpsed but it's some kind of stop-motion spider bug.

After Cabren proves the only one who thought to bring a body back for analysis, the away team regroups at the airlock of the Remus and discuss the fact that not all the crew are accounted for but all that were found were dead. Alluma confides to Cabren that she is sensing a lifeform--but it seems to be coming from Cos. Cabren shrugs this off and so Cos gets left in the rear as the others head back to the Quest--and the spider-bug pounces on Cos' back and crushes his skull with its jaws.

Back aboard, Dameia and Ranger do an autopsy on the late Cos and the corpse of the Remus crew member. There's no sign of contagion and both were killed by some tremendous outside force, but there's no clues as to what. Ilvar is particularly puzzled as Cabren found the dead crew member in a sealed room, yet there was no sign of what killed him. More puzzling still, Ilvar has been scanning the surrounding area and every time he gets to a particular point, the screen goes dead. Something at that point is putting out way more energy than the scanners can handle and overloading them. It's a safe bet that that power source is where the tractor beam is coming from--and it could be where the rest of the Remus crew is, if any are left.

The away team to investigate the energy source consists of Baelon, Alluma, Cabren, Dameia, Ilvar, and Quuhod. The six trek across the barren wasteland of Morganthus and suddenly find themselves atop an overlook that provides them a clear view of an immense alien pyramid. Alluma is instantly unnerved by the thing, as she senses absolutely nothing from it. It's definitely the source of the tractor beam, though, so the crew has little choice in the matter. They must investigate.

"So the Egyptians must have visited this planet and taught them how to build pyramids!"

The team splits up again, but this time into two groups of three. Quuhod, Alluma, and Baelon climb up one side of the pyramid while Dameia, Ilvar, and Cabren take the other. Ilvar begins feeling his age as he struggles up the side of the structure. Yet when the three come to some sort of vent shaft in the pyramid's side, Ilvar decides he must investigate it and ignores Dameia and Cabren's pleas to not go down into it himself. Ilvar rappels down into the shaft--and is suddenly set upon by worms or tentacles that launch themselves out of holes in the shaft wall. He wards off the first few, but quickly the worm-tentacles latch onto Ilvar and drain him of blood via some truly cartoonish slurping/squishing sounds effects. They apparently do more than that, because when Cabren goes down to find Ilvar after he and Dameia are unable to pull their commander up, all that's left is the empty harness at the end of the line.

Baelon, meanwhile, incinerates a dead Remus crew member lying on a ledge before either Alluma or Quuhod get a look at the state of his body, which is suddenly a bad thing to do. (Xerxes is not a planet of consistency)  Dameia and Cabren join them, explaining that the only thing they could find after Ilvar's disappearance were a bunch of "wormholes." Whereupon Dameia stares off into space and in a horrified tone informs everyone, "I hate worms." Just then an immense door on the ledge, leading into the pyramid, begins to open--Quuhod uses his crystal shurikens to jam it so it can't open further. However, the crystals are shattered to dust by the power of the door--to Quuhod's surprise and grief--and Baelon fires wildly into the opening.

Quuhod is ordered to guard the entrance and Baelon leaves him a blaster, to which Quuhod replies with his only line, "I live...and I die...by the crystals!" (Supposedly all of Quuhod's original lines were even hokier and Sid Haig refused to say all but that one) The others go deeper into the pyramid, until Alluma suddenly begins sensing the same presence she felt when Cos died. Dameia infers that this means Quuhod is in danger and happily volunteers to go and stay with him to keep them both safe.

It's a bit late for that. See, while Quuhod is grieving over his crystals, they suddenly reform. Quuhod reaches for them, overjoyed--until one launches itself into his left forearm. He tries to remove it but a shard breaks off inside his arm and, under its own power, it moves up his arm beneath his skin. Acting quickly, Quuhod uses the rest of the shuriken to cut his arm off above the elbow. However, Morganthus isn't playing fair--Quuhod's severed arm comes alive and throws the other shuriken into the bewildered man's chest, killing him.

Back aboard the Quest, Kore is serving food to Trantor and Ranger. Trantor begins telling Kore a story when Ranger asks if it's about Hesperus and this stops Trantor dead in her tracks. She stares off into the distance and comments that, "They're out there," as if she were reliving the incident even more vividly than a PTSD flashback.

At the pyramid, Dameia finds and incinerates Quuhod--and then Quuhod's maggot-encrusted arm. (Supposedly the mealworms on the arm were made to wriggle by a young James Cameron rigging the prop arm so that an electric current could run through it) She incinerates the arm with extreme prejudice, in fact, not noticing that one worm wriggled away and is suddenly growing very large indeed. Dameia tries to radio the Quest, but her signal isn't getting through. Inside the pyramid, Alluma senses the presence again and against Baelon's objections she and Cabren hurry back towards Dameia and Quuhod's last known position, with Baelon begrudgingly following.

And here we come to the part of the film that, for better or worse, has gained it a significant amount of notoriety in cult film circles. For as Dameia heads back into the pyraid, she stumbles across a slime rail and--misjudging the direction it came from--she backs way from it...and right into the waiting tentacles of a giant maggot. The maggot seizes her, throws her to the ground, and falls upon her--whereupon it tears off all her clothes and rapes her. Her screams fade quickly into moans of pleasure as it brings her to what appears to be a fatal orgasm--taking "la petit mort" to its literal extremes, you might say.

"And I thought my last boyfriend was slimy!"

This was Roger Corman's idea, quite against the desires of the director or screenwriter (or, for that matter, Taaffe O'Connell's). However, Corman insisted that it would draw in more of an audience--this being during a time when cinema's idea of what was acceptable excuse for nudity was less discerning than a hormone-addled thirteen-year-old boy's--and he ended up being right. Love it or hate it (and hopefully not triggered by it), there's no question that being the movie where a maggot screws a woman to death has kept the film in the cult consciousness in a way it might otherwise not have been.

Moving on, things aren't going so well at the Quest, either. Ranger and Kore can't find Trantor and suddenly the ship's cannons are firing--and given that they're sitting on the ground, that risks tearing the ship apart. Kore secretly knocks Ranger out and goes to try and talk to Trantor, in the gunner pod. She is firing at the insect-like spaceship she sees on the targeting screen--belonging to the aliens she faced years ago, when she was the only survivor of the Hesperus. Kore clearly knows something about what's happening, because he tries to persuade her that there is no attack--and when the spaceship vanishes from view, it seems he might be right. But then she sees the ship again and ignores Kore's attempts to reason with her as she grabs the biggest gun she can and rushes to the airlock--only to be burnt to a crisp when the doors open and a laser blast strikes her.

Alluma and Cabren find Dameia's slimed, naked corpse--which has naturally somehow rolled over on its side to cover her bits--and then Baelon incinerates it. They hightail it back to the Quest to try and work out a game plan with Ranger and Kore. Clearly, something is picking them off one-by-one and it's connected to the pyramid. However, if they don't go back to the pyramid, then they'll never be free of the tractor beam and they'll just end up dead in their own ship, like the Remus.

So it's decided that they'll all go back, including Ranger and Kore (who volunteered). Ranger warns Cabren that he doesn't trust Kore, and he has a very good reason not to. For soon enough it will become clear that Kore is not who he says he is and he knows way more about the pyramid than he lets on, But by the time they figure out what Kore's secret is, will any of them be left alive?

"There's a liiiight, over at the Xenomorph's Place...."

The influences of Galaxy of Terror are none-too-subtle, but that's no shock, It obviously borrows a lot from Alien in things like set design--including a matte painting at the climax that is clearly James Cameron channeling H.R. Geiger--and, in fact, the "mysterious pyramid on an alien world" was an early concept in the development of Alien. But it plainly borrows much more of its plot from Planet of the Vampires and Forbidden Planet. From the former we have the rescue mission that encounters an ancient psychic force, and from the former we have the highly advanced children's toys from a long-dead race that prove lethal to the adults of lesser species--like humans.

For you see, we ultimately learn the pyramid was a toy meant to teach children how to conquer their fears--by giving physical form to those fears. Sure, it seems like a terrible idea--but then maybe that's why the ancient race that created it is no more. At any rate, if you don't know that that's what you're facing, it's pretty impossible to do anything but die horribly.

The idea of being confronted by your worst fears made flesh is a wonderful concept for a horror film, if not horribly original. And, indeed, it's a bit amusing to realize that that would more or less be part of Freddy Krueger's bag of tricks--and here he is in this film!

Before Shout Factory released the film on DVD and Blu-ray as part of their "Roger Corman Cult Classics" series, I had not seen the film since I rented it on VHS at least fifteen years earlier. I remembered bits and pieces of it, but like many it had stayed with me because of its most infamous scene. Witnessing it again, I discovered that it is much more than that scene. This is a highly entertaining little ghost story in space, with one major caveat of the sort that is expected in a film of this type--and yet is especially egregious here.

You know how characters in horror movies always split up, even when they know there's someone or something out there that wants them dead? Of course you do, it was one of those tropes that was skewered so delightfully in The Cabin in The Woods. Well, imagine if there was a scene where the characters say, verbatim, that something is "picking us off, one-by-one. Like a sniper." Then imagine that, not ten minutes later, they keep splitting up!

It's more than a little ridiculous. I suppose you could argue that it's the influence of the pyramid--and you'd pretty much have to, unless you want to assume the characters are complete idiots.

Beyond that, this is a very enjoyable flick. The actors all turn in pretty damn good performances, the set design and special effects are incredible (particularly for the budget), and the music is overall quite good. The only real negative I can lay on the film is it uses some very questionable sound design at several points--specifically that same cartoon slurping/squishing sound effect that gets used for parasitic worm things and someone's organs being crushed. It just sounds silly.

I definitely recommend it, provided the infamous worm scene is not a dealbreaker. If nothing else, you'll never look at a maggot the same way again...

This concludes day 7 of HubrisWeen! Check out what the other maniacs chose for their G movie by clicking the banner above.

HubrisWeen, Day 6: Frankenstein Meets The Space Monster (1965)

It's hard to say if there is a pop culture figure more misunderstood than Frankenstein. Show people a picture of Boris Karloff in box-headed make-up with bolts in his neck and ask them who he is. Did they say "Frankenstein"? Of course they did.

They're wrong, but after over a century--if not since the initial publication of Mary Shelley's original novel--they might as well be right. Most of you reading this probably know that Frankenstein was the mad scientist who created a monster in his lab, bringing dead flesh back to life and not the monster he created. However, by this point we might as well just give it up. The two are interchangeable now.

I have no idea when or where this misconception first took hold in the pop culture consciousness, but I can bet you it was solidified back when Universal Studios brought us possibly the first film crossover, Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man and only further solidified by House of Frankenstein and cemented by Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. In the first film the Wolf Man does technically meet a member of the Frankenstein family, but the title clearly means the monster; in the second, there is also a castle that belonged to the Frankenstein family at one point in the narrative; but the third film there is absolutely no member of the Frankenstein family present.

Slews of films that misidentified the monster would follow, like I Was A Teenage Frankenstein in which a dead teenager is brought back to life as a monster; and Toho Studios' glorious Frankenstein Conquers The World (known as the more honest Frankenstein vs. The Subterranean Monster Baragon in its native Japan), which chronicles how the Germans smuggled the heart of the Frankenstein monster to Hiroshima in the last days of WWII before the atom bomb there somehow allowed it to take form as a feral young man with regenerative powers who grows to 80 feet tall and fights the world's most adorable rampaging dinosaur. Which makes it the best adaptation of Shelley's story ever made.

However, you have to admit that at least these films all contain an actual Frankenstein monster. That is not always the case. Usually it's because a distributor thinks a title with Frankenstein in it will lure more viewers, sometimes because it's a Godzilla movie released in Germany. You know the drill.

*May not actually contain Frankenstein.

Today's film, however, did not alter its title with no regard to the film within. It isn't totally lying and saying we will be given a Frankenstein monster without ever making good on that promise. No, it gives us--to borrow the "affectionate" fan term for a certain American take on a famous radioactive reptile--FINO: Frankenstein In Name Only. Which, remarkably, is an accurate assessment regardless of whether you mean the scientist or the monster.

We begin aboard a Martian spaceship as it moves into Earth's orbit. Aboard the craft are a crew of bald, pointy-eared Martians and their gorgeous regent, Princess Marcuzan (Marilyn Hanold). The captain of this vessel is Dr. Nadir (Lou Cutell) and before we begin to describe the plot of the film, I must take a moment to describe Dr. Nadir:

Imagine, if you will, a Saturday Night Live-era Jon Lovitz dressed up in make-up to look like "Bat Boy" in an outfit that appears borrowed from Liberace's goth phase and delivering every line as if he was "ACT-TING!" It is glorious.

"Nobody move: I'm here to steal this film."

The Martians have come to Earth, as usual, to get our women. Seems that their planet has been devastated, equally as usual, by atomic war--leaving them with no women of their own, aside from Princess Marcuzan. Obviously Marcuzan is not sufficient to repopulate the planet, even if she wanted to try, so the best option is to go to the nearest planet with suitable humanoid females to steal.

However, the Martians are shocked when a rocket fired from Earth approaches their position. That their sensors detect that the rocket has a living occupant is no matter to them. Clearly this is a weapon launched by Earth and Nadir marvelously overacts the line, "And now--Maximum Energy!" The rocket goes boom as Nadir watches on the monitor and cackles.

Back on Earth, NASA calls a press conference near Cape Canaveral. The recent series of mysterious destruction of their rockets--and presumably their satellites full of sex geckos--has not daunted NASA's determination to explore the universe. It is the great honor of Dr. Adam Steele (James Karen!) to introduce the latest pilot to be foolhardy enough to go up into space, Colonel Frank Saunders (Robert Reilly).

The press is dumbfounded by the charming Col. Saunders, as none of them had ever heard of him before. They're understandably also perplexed when the Colonel suddenly freezes completely in the middle of laughing at a joke, like he were the physical embodiment of Internet Explorer. Dr. Steele quickly ushers Saunders out of the room, laughing the mysterious episode off as exhaustion. In an adjoining room, Steele and is assistant Karen Grant (Nancy Marshall) go to work on fixing the "exhausted" man.

You see, for some reason that is felt necessary to be kept secret from the public, Col. Frank Saunders is an android. Dr. Steele didn't feel any more human lives should be lost to the space race and, somehow, whipping up a wholly convincing mechanical human was considered the best way around that. Nobody seems to consider that announcing that the US has practically perfected robots would really put one over on the Russians.

At any rate, a newly repaired Frank is launched into space as planned. Unfortunately, the Martians are no less receptive to his space capsule's presence than the last and shoot him down. However, they perceive that Frank's capsule was not destroyed and crash landed in Puerto Rico. So, they land their ship there to both finish the job and begin kidnapping bikini babes.

"Dear Penthouse; I never thought this would happen to me..."

One Martian does find Frank and zaps him with a ray gun. The blast fails to kill him, but it does burn off half his face and render him a bestial creature--striking out with violence at any perceived threat and also occasionally carrying off women. As "Frankensteins" do, you see. Because he's a "Frankenstein" now.

More like a burnt frankfurter.

There's really not anything more to the plot than that. Frankenstein stumbles around killing people he encounters while the Martians kidnap women and lasciviously examine them--with Princess Marcuzan's yea or nay vote determining if they are put in storage or, as far as I can tell, vaporized. The rest is travelogue footage of Puerto Rico set to some truly awesome rock music while Dr. Steele and Karen search for Frankenstein.

Eventually they do find Frankenstein, but then the Martians find Karen. Oh, and there's a Martian mutant named "Mull" (Bruce Glover) that's kept in a cage inside their ship.

"Somebody trim my nails, for God's sake!"

Eventually the military is involved and Frankenstein does, indeed, meet the Space Monster. So you can't fault them for false advertising there!

Though, like Frankenstein Meets The Wolf Man before it, there's no point in placing your bets on the winner. (And not just because it's totally Wolf Man, come on!) As in that film, the titular monsters meet their end when outside forces intervene and render their fight to the death a stalemate. In this case, when the now-heroic Frankenstein sacrifices himself by using a laser gun to somehow destroy the Martian spaceship.

If I made this film sound cheap and terrible, well, that's not far off from the truth. However, while most write the film off as terrible and leave at that, I found it a delight. Oh, it has all the hallmarks of a truly terrible viewing experience--a near total lack of forward momentum in what could loosely be called its "plot" and endless travelogue sequences that add nothing to the film beyond a time capsule of what Cape Canaveral and Puerto Rico looked like in 1965.

And yet, I love it for all that. The music accompanying those sequences is truly awesome. And while they're very repetitive, the scenes with the Martians are a sheer delight. Not least due to the wonderfully hammy performances of Lou Cutell and Marilyn Hanold as Nadir and Marcuzan, respectively. And despite looking like a cross between Paul Blaisdell's Martian from It! The Terror Beyond Space and a gorilla suit with mange, Mull is a fun matinee monster.

The only place the film can be said to "stumble" as it were, is with its "Frankenstein." The burned-off face of its android monster is incredibly unimpressive--even compared with the rush-job the film did on its Martian make-up--and we get no sense of Frankenstein as a character. Just because he's a berserk android killing indiscriminately (well, more like "killing when people decide they should attack a guy who looks like he just lost a fight with a flamethrower instead of offering him medical attention") doesn't mean he has to be lack any sense of personality or character beyond that.

Hell, Mull is just the typical gropy, growly monster in a cage that's barely in the movie and he feels more realized than Frankenstein--you know, the one we're supposed to root for in the final battle.

In spite of its incompetence and meandering nature, this is a damned entertaining yarn. I could never call it a good movie--it is definitely bad--but that doesn't make it any less enjoyable. If nothing else, you will probably find yourself, even weeks or months later, incapable of resisting the urge to imitate Dr. Nadir's line reading of, "And now, Maximum Energy!"

This concludes day 6 of HubrisWeen. Click the banner above to see what the other knuckleheads chose, won't you?

HubrisWeen, Day 5: Equinox (1970)

Stop-motion monsters are awesome. That's just a fact of life.

So naturally, whenever I discover a new source for stop-motion monsters, I jump at the chance to watch it. Or, at least, hop slightly.

Thus many years ago, during the waning years of the 20th Century, I encountered a review of the film we are discussing today and wondered at the fact that I had never heard of it. In point of fact, I had, even longer ago when one of my favorite books to pore through was Jeff Rovin's Encyclopedia of Monsters. Many movies I would come to love I first heard of in that book, and several of them I completely forgot I had read about in there. Encountering the book again at a different library, sure enough I recognized one of this film's monsters amongst its pages.

However, the menagerie of stop-motion critters is not the only reason this film appeals to a lover of genre films, and certainly they aren't the reason Criterion of all distributors decided it needed a special edition DVD. The reason for that ought to become apparent as my review continues, for the film's plot is likely to sound very familiar.

You see, without this film, we would not have had a huge section of our horror films of the last 30-odd years, from The Evil Dead to The Cabin In The Woods. What Joe Bob Briggs referred to as "Spam in a Cabin"? Well, while it's far from the first film to feature a bunch of expendable characters fighting for their lives while trapped in a cabin or camping area, it is still safe to call it "Spam Zero."

We begin, more or less, at the end. Like The Alligator People, nobody involved in this film considered how much of a suspense killer it was to start the film this way. But at least this end begins with a bang, as an explosion in a wooded area tosses aside a burned and confused young man (Edward Connell), whom we will later come to know as David Fielding. He picks himself up and calls out for "Susan,"but the pair of bloodied woman's legs just out of his sight don't seem to be answering. The sound of flapping wings drives the terrified David away.

He finds a road and attempts to flag down the first car he sees. Unfortunately, he can't see the insert shots that reveal the car has no driver (pay no attention to the human head in the wide shot!) and he is run down. Before the driverless car can turn around to finish the job, an actually occupied car pulls up beside David's prone form and come to his aid.

Cut to a reporter, Sloan (Jim Phillips) complete with trilby atop his head, as he drives to a mental institution. Thanks to his narration, we find out that a year and one day ago, David was picked up after his car accident yelling his head off about "the forces of evil" being out to get him. He was locked up for a nut, but the police looked into the case and found three bodies, though they were unable to turn up a body for one Dr. Watermann, "some kind of weirdo from the University." Sloan covered the story for his paper but lacked a good angle. He's hoping to find one now.

David has been in a depressive state for the past year, borderline catatonic. Despite multiple shock therapies and treatments, David refuses to respond to outside stimuli in any significant fashion--except for the cross he carries with him at all times. touch that and he turns violent. Despite the head doctor's warning not to expect anything, Sloan still sits down in David's cell and attempts to question him. Specifically about "the curse." That elicits a tic but it's showing David the picture of an old man (Fritz Leiber), whom will later turn out to be Dr. Watermann, that breaks through,

David has a vision of Watermannn fleeing from a car wreck with a briefcase, losing the case, and then being set upon by a growling POV cam. David attacks Sloan and the staff have to restrain the poor bastard. Sloan is seen to by a nurse, and admits to the head doctor that he somehow ended up with David's cross. David has noticed this, if his desperate wails of "My cross!" are any indication as he is stuffed into a straitjacket.

It's of no matter, as the doctor decides to play for Sloan the tape of the initial interview with David. You'd think this would be old news to Sloan, but a bit of dialogue suggests it was initially taken as evidence by the police and only recently released. The tape begins with the doctor (who is voiced by an uncredited Forrest J. Ackerman) and a police detective coaxing David into telling his story. It doesn't take much.

It all started when David received a call from Dr. Watermann, his geology professor, urgently requesting David come to see him at the professor's mountain cabin. David promised to be there by the next afternoon, and decided to bring along his friend Jim Hudson (Frank Bonner, credited as Frank Boers, Jr) and Jim's girlfriend, Vicki (Robin Christopher) and Vicki's friend, Susan Turner (Barbara Hewitt). Susan was meant as a blind date for David on the picnic they originally had planned. The matchmakers, seeing no reason to cancel their plans, invited her along.

When the four arrive at the point where they think the cabin should be, but the road ends. They decide to hoof it to the cabin, even though Jim and Vicki forgot to fill the water jug before they left. Little do they know a suspicious-looking park ranger (Jack Woods, the director...sort of, but we'll get to that later) on horseback is watching them from a nearby ridge.

The group finds a stream to fill their jug, but they also find Watermann's cabin--or what's left of it. It's been caved in by some unknown force. The mysterious ranger suddenly makes himself known here, introducing himself as Asmodeus. The students see nothing amiss about this, but even as someone who didn't know how to say "Beelzebub" for years, I would be in a hurry to get away from anybody named that. Asmodeus claims no knowledge of what happened or Watermann's whereabouts, and suggests they might find him back in town before departing. Only now the group notices Vicki is missing.

Vicki, presumably having wandered off to heed the call of nature, discovers a matte painting of an ancient castle. Now, there aren't many Old World castles in the middle of the California wilderness, so when the others rejoin her, they express disbelief at what they're seeing.David has only been to the cabin once before, but is certain he didn't remember there being a castle the last time. The group decides to go check it out, but are distracted from their goal by the sound of maniacal laughter and flapping wings from a nearby cave.

When Jim asks, "Anyone want to go in there?" the answer is oddly not, "No, no, NO," but that they don't have any way to see in the cave since no one has a flashlight. Jim has some matches, though, and they decide to make torches. Vicki discovers some large cloven hoof prints nearby, but Dave writes it off as part of some elaborate practical joke, which the cave laughter is part of. The group enters the cave, torches blazing--and Vicki promptly gets separated. She first finds a withered skeleton and then a cackling old man,

When the others come running after her scream, they find the old man--who gleefully insists that they've come for the book and ignores their protests with, "You're here, you have to take it!" Cackling, he leads the group deeper into the cave and presents them with an ancient tome, secured with a clasp. They take the book and leave the cave, writing off the old man and Vicki's claims of seeing a skeleton as a problem for the authorities when they get back. In the meantime, they're gonna have a picnic and open that book.

Jim manages to unlock the clasp with his switchblade, but opening the book reveals that it is written in an unknown text--and reeks of sulfur. Luckily, there are some scientific notes tucked inside that might offer a key to understanding it, While David reads the notes, Jim marvels at the strange creatures and geometric patterns in the book. Jim hands the book back to David so he can dig into the Kentucky Fried Chicken and potato salad that Vicki brought, whereupon David notices that there's a passage he can read because it's in Latin. Susan turns out to be the one to draw a line in the fucking sand when she realizes that the seeming nonsense David's reading aloud is actually the Lord's Prayer backwards.

It's ultimately irrelevant. After the group finishes eating they head toward the castle again--and Dr. Watermann appears out of the bushes and snatches the book from David. Jim and David, typical late 60s males, tell the women to stay put while they give chase to Watermann. David catches up to Watermann in a stream and tackles the crazed man--who somehow is killed in the fall. David, stricken with guilt, declares they'll take the girls back to town and make a police report. However, Watermann's body disappears as soon as they turn their backs, with no footprints to mark his passage--but there is a strong smell of sulfur, and then Asmodeus appears and while Jim tries to explain the story, David cuts him off each time. However, Asmodeus does show a lot of interest in the mention of the old man in the cave and declares he'll go check on him.

Susan and Vicki get tired of waiting and Susan goes to pick flowers. Whereupon Asmodeus, with dark patches under his eyes, appears and puts a strange ring on his finger before attacking her. He kisses and gropes her, after mesmerizing her with the ring. But her cross necklace drives him off, leaving Susan very confused. The others find Susan, but she has no idea what just happened.

They begin discussing the odd encounter with Dr. Watermann, when Susan realizes the notes in the book belong to Watermann. He had been translating the book with no small amount of difficulty, given the book changes languages with no rhyme or reason and Dr. Watermann was supposedly a geologist. Watermann believes the book to be thousands of years old and that it is a veritable bible of evil. This bible suggests that good and evil are two forces, and the followers want to cancel each other out. One way to do this is via the use of symbols for good and evil that can counteract each other--the symbols for good including the cross and Star of David amongst many others.

Watermann felt the book's philosophy was almost scientific, and being a scientist, he decided to conduct some experiments as per the book's instructions, He successfully manifested something during his final test--but he couldn't control it. In flashback, we see that this something was a land squid/nautilus that smashed Watermann's cabin with its tentacles. Watermann barely escaped alive, but the notes end there.

"Have you sworn obedience to your Lord and Destroyer, Cthulhu?"

The group decides that they should still go to the castle to find more answers--but it's gone. Quickly, they make some symbols of good to protect David, Jim, and Vicki since Susan still has her cross. Once again the women are told to wait behind. Vicki decides to amuse herself by taking Susan's picture by the stream as the menfolk climb up the cliff.

Asmodeus decides to go bother the old man in the cave, ignoring the codger's protests that, "I ain't got it, I told ya!" Well, Asmodeus summons a gorilla lizard to rough the old man up, anyways. (This creature being the one featured in Jeff Rovin's book)

"Where's my banana, old man?!"

On the ridge, Jim and David discover some kind of dimensional gateway, which is what's hiding the castle. The girls' photo shoot is interrupted by the fleeing old man's cries for help--and then by the lizard ape when it grabs him and smashes him against a rock. It then chases after the girls--and the book--while Jim and David try to distract it by throwing rocks at it. After squeezing through a crevice the beast can't enter, the group fashions a spear. The ape manages to grab the book using a tree branch to pull it out of the crevice, but taking a spear to the chest foils its plans to make off with the book.

Jim decides to grab his camera to get a picture so no one can doubt their story. Vicki gets spooked by the dead beast twitching and drops her protective amulet. The whole group leaves the scene, so they don't witness the lizard ape glow and vanish. Susan's cross falls off, without her noticing. Jim finds his camera smashed. David foolishly leaves Susan and Vicki alone, so Susan can sprout dark eye patches and attack Vicki. David returns in time to use his amulet to knock Susan out.

Jim runs afoul of Asmodeus, who begins demanding the book until Jim flashes the amulet at him. Asmodeus then decides to pull the ol' "let's make a Satanic deal" move. Jim is ultimately unswayed, despite Asmodeus assuring him that they'll all die if he doesn't agree. Jim rushes back, arguing that they should leave the book behind and skedaddle, but David disagrees. Suddenly, David pointlessly remembers that, "Asmodeus is another name for the devil," just as Asmodeus summons a giant caveman ogre. The ogre is forced perspective instead of stop motion. This makes it unique in the film.

The local library decided to take on a zero tolerance policy for overdue books.

The ogre is after the book, so Jim at first offers it to the beast in the hopes Asmodeus will bugger off, but he gives up on that when the ogre makes it clear that it would rather just kill him. Jim makes a run for the dimensional gateway, forgetting that he has no idea what's on the other side. Chasing after him, David manages to grab the book when Jim peeks back out--but then Jim is dragged back through the gateway. David gives the book to the women and tells them to get to the car, before he goes after Jim.

The other side of the barrier is where the castle vanished to, and aside from the fact that everything is tinted red, the place is no different from the rest of the countryside. David searches for Jim, but Asmodeus finds Jim first. So when David does find Jim, it's a little suspicious--especially when, under the guise of grabbing onto him for support, Jim crushes the protective symbol hidden in David's shirt. So David leads Not-Jim out of the Red Zone, failing to see the dying Actual-Jim only scant feet away.

In the ordinary light, David is able to see the dark patches under Not-Jim's eyes--but it's the insistence Not-Jim has on finding the girls and recovering the book that tips David off. Not-Jim beats David into submission, turns back into Asmodeus, and then reveals his true form--and takes off after the girls as a winged demon.

"Rawk! Polly wants your soul!"

The demon catches Vicki and shreds her flesh before Asmodeus briefly returns to human form to...do something to her. Susan flees, climbing up the steep cliff face to where David lies unconscious. So much for the repeated assertion that the climb was "too steep for the girls." She drops the book and tries to rouse David, only for the winged demon to catch up to her and scratch her up good. David wakes up and grabs her cross to scare the winged fiend away. The two flee into the woods, finding themselves in what appears to be a ruined churchyard.

The demon has followed them but can't get through the thick branches--until the yard opens up amongst some old headstones. David and Susan cower behind a giant cross headstone and the demon kamikazes right into it...

"Huh, one of those symbols that has the capacity to cancel me out. I'm sure divebombing into it is a great idea!"

...which causes the explosion from the opening, though oddly not immediately. It's a secondary blast after the fiery demise of Asmodeus sets the graveyard ablaze that's oddly stronger than the one from his impact. Susan is apparently killed by the explosion and David is suddenly confronted by an enormous, hooded figure in flowing, ethereal black robes. The figure assures David that he will die, in exactly a year and day. David flees, is hit by the driverless car, and we're back in the room with Sloan.

Sloan's frustrated because he's come up with nothing new. The story on the tape was told a year and a day ago, and tells Sloan nothing new. The doctor isn't sure what Sloan expected--but oddly doesn't ask why he wasted 70 minutes listening to the damn thing if he knew all it had to tell him. Sloan leaves, dejected, as David in his cell cries out for, "My cross!" And in the parking lot on the way out, Sloan passes by a familiar-looking blonde. Susan smirks evilly as she looks towards the institution.

Cue trademark Jack H. Harris, "THE END" card morphing into a question mark.

Equinox began life as a student film, directed by Dennis Muren and featuring effects by Muren, Dave Allen, and Jim Danforth. (It also has a camera operator credit for Ed Begley, Jr!) The original film, Equinox: a Journey Into The Supernatural, is actually contained on Criterion's disc. It's largely the same with some vital differences, such as some of the effects footage, music, the order of scenes, and the absence of the Asmodeus character. Producer Jack H. Harris, much like he would later do with John Carpenter's Dark Star, saw promise in the film and bought the distribution rights to it--along with hiring a director to shoot new footage, who ended up being credited in place of Muren (as well as playing Asmodeus). Muren retained credit for effects, writing, and producing the film, however.

The film suffers in both versions from a horrid sense of pacing, no doubt a consequence of its low budget and its creators perhaps knowing more about effects work than storytelling. Much of the film is its protagonists wandering around with no clear sense of why or where they're going. However, when the film clicks it clicks well. And, admittedly, that is mostly with its monsters.

The acting, aside from Frank Bonner as Jim, is pretty unremarkable. That the film was shot silent and had its audio dubbed over, owing to cost, surely doesn't help. The music is nothing to write home about, either. The cinematography is actually pretty inventive at several points, foreshadowing Sam Raimi's famous gonzo camera angles in The Evil Dead. Just another way this film may have inspired that one.

Is Equinox an important film? Yes, I'd say it is. It clearly was an influential release. Is Equinox a good film? No, I can't quite say that it is. However, it is a very enjoyable one, especially if you are a fan of old monster movies. I must again reiterate that its non-monster scenes can be deathly dull, but if you can withstand that it's a good time.

Just make sure to hang onto your damn protective symbols, you knuckleheads.

Welcome to day 5 of 2014's HubrisWeen! Click on the banner above to check out what the other maniacs chose, won't you?

HubrisWeen, Day 4: Dog Soldiers (2002)

As I have said previously: I love werewolves, but werewolf movies tend to be unforgivably terrible. Much like killer crocodile movies, I will watch them if given the opportunity, but I never expect anything good.

It's not, therefore, very hard for me to be pleasantly surprised when I end up liking a werewolf movie. It's not hard to be better than any of the sequels to The Howling, for instance. However, sometimes it's possible for me to encounter a werewolf movie that rocks my face off--and that is a joyous occasion indeed.

We open in the highlands of Scotland. A young couple, whose names I am not going to bother providing for reasons that should be immediately obvious, are out camping in celebration of the bloke's promotion or something. as the two sit around the campfire, his partner presents him with a decorative dagger and then she playfully admonishes him that, "It's solid silver, so don't lose it!"

He really ought to have listened to her, but when someone or something outside starts to unzip the door of their tent as they are in the process of getting hot and heavy--he reaches for a torch. (A flashlight to us Yanks, as I'm sure many of you might object that a flaming stick would make an excellent weapon) Well, illuminating the interloper just serves to insure that he gets a clear view of his partner being yanked out of the tent by her ankles before her blood splatters all over him. And then whatever dragged her to her doom comes back for him...

Meanwhile, in a completely different remote area of Wales, Private Cooper (Kevin McKidd), is fleeing from several armed pursuers and a dog. He almost escapes, particularly after taking out three of his pursuers with one torch--so I guess it does work as a weapon--but the dog is a bit better than he expected and he is soon surrounded. Captain Ryan (Liam Cunningham--Davos Seaworth to you Game of Thrones fans) congratulates Cooper for his almost-successful escape, whilst holding a gun to his head. As it turns out, this was a test in order for Cooper to see if Cooper was worthy material for special forces unit.

Cooper almost passed as he evaded capture for close to 24 hours. However, Ryan has a task for Cooper that he must complete if he doesn't want to blow his chances of being accepted--Cooper must shoot the dog. Cooper objects that he will not kill a dog for no reason. Well, Ryan has no use for a softie on his team so he tells Cooper he has failed--and then Ryan shoots the dog himself. That Cooper then slugs Ryan on the jaw means he's definitely blown his chances and Ryan now just plain hates him.

Four weeks later, in the highlands of Scotland again. A squad of British Army soldiers is dropped off via helicopter for an exercise. The orange plastic on the barrels of their rifles indicates that they are toting blanks only. Among this squad, we recognize Cooper. In short order we are introduced to the troop's leader, Sergeant Harry G. Wells (Sean Pertwee); our comic relief, Private "Spoon" Witherspoon (Darren Morfitt); Private Terry Milburn (Leslie Simpson); Corporal Bruce Campbell (Thomas Lockyer); and the dour Private Joe Kirkley, who is very upset about missing a football game for this exercise. And yes, many of the character names are jokey references, but you won't notice in the film itself.

We quickly learn, via the bantering and bickering that sets the personalities of our characters, that the exercise is a competition against special forces. Obviously this is a bit of a sore spot for Cooper, and Wells gives his sympathy but at the same time can't help telling Cooper that he's glad to still have him in the unit. As the group makes their way through the woods, Cooper mentions he's heard stories about disappearances in these woods--like the couple from the beginning.

Little does the group realize they're being watched from afar. And look who it is on the other end of the binoculars: Cooper's old friend Ryan. Ryan radios someone else that the "flock are headed for the fold", so it's pretty clear that this is not as typical a training mission as the squad was led to believe.

That night, the squad warms themselves around a campfire at the base of a cliff. They exchange quips about what scares them, with Cooper joking that his fear is, "Spiders. And women. And spider-women." But it's Wells who brings the room down by telling them the story of what scared him during a tour in Kuwait. See, he knew a bloke who got a tattoo of the Devil and said that if he died his soul would go to heaven but the Devil could have his skin. Well, soon enough that bloke stepped on a land mine and was reduced to charred, unrecognizable chunks--except for the perfectly untouched tattoo of Old Scratch.

The mood manages to get even lower when a mutilated Highland cow plunges onto their campfire. Terry reacts by trying to kill a dead animal with an automatic rifle full off blanks. The group laughs about it once they calm down, but now they know something is amiss. In the morning they follow the trail of blood left by the cow--and discover the Special Forces camp. What's left of it, that is. There are blood and entrails strewn about and all the radio equipment is smashed. All the guns in the camp are fully loaded, so nobody got off a shot before they were ambushed. Even weirder, the camp is strewn with the sort of equipment you would use to trap a wild animal--like tranquilizer darts and nets.

However, Ryan suddenly jumps out of hiding, still alive. Mostly. His chest has been torn up by claws or teeth and all he can say is, "There was only supposed to be one," over and over as they bandage him up. Just then, Bruce discovers that their own radio, which can't get a signal, has a tracking device inside it. Spoon is the first to notice that dark is falling--and then the sound of unnatural howls reaches the squad's position.

All the real weapons are salvaged and the squad fall back in the direction of a road by pairs. Bruce takes the rear, but when a target appears his gun jams and in the process of fleeing he impales himself on a tree limb. Whatever was chasing him finishes the job. Wells finds Bruce's body, but then Bruce's killer finds him and Wells gets his gut slashed open. Cooper drives off Wells' attacker, shoves his commanding officer's guts back into his belly, and drags him away. Spoon manages to nearly get himself run over flagging down the only vehicle in the area, which is driven by Megan (Emma Cleasby). She's been looking for the squad because she heard gunfire the previous night.

They all pile into her car, but one of their attackers--by now clearly a werewolf--lands on the car and smashes an arm through the ceiling. One knife through the forearm later, it breaks off its attack and the group escape. Megan explains that she's a zoologist and fairly new to the area but she knows a safe place--a farm just up the road. She knows the family well. Except, when they get to the farmhouse it's deserted: save for the surprisingly non-creepy border collie that Cooper finds.

(Yes, I think border collies are creepy. It's that stare)

After helping themselves to the food--including something that looks like pork--the group pauses to count ammunition and Megan explains what they're dealing with. She had come to investigate the stories that Cooper related earlier, when people would go missing during full moons. A full moon like they're experiencing now. Yes, she does believe that their attackers are werewolves. No one really believes her, but that's of little consequence. They need to get Wells and Ryan medical attention and soon.

Cooper and Spoon go back out to check the car. Well, the car's engine has been torn to shreds. Worse, their attackers have followed them. Cooper and Spoon blow up the car to cover their retreat back into the house. Their attackers attempt to gain entrance, but the group manages to drive them off. Of course, it's quickly becoming apparent that their bullets are only driving their attackers away--so maybe Megan's story isn't so crazy.

The squad begins to barricade the windows and search for weapons, while Megan and Cooper tend to Wells. They may not have the means to stitch Wells up, but they do have whiskey and superglue--so Wells drinks himself into a stupor and then goads Cooper into punching him unconscious so that Cooper and Megan can stuff his organs back inside and glue him back together. Downstairs, Joe finds a wood axe and Spoon finds a broadsword, which ought to come in handy in close quarters.

As Wells sleeps off his wounds, the others prepare for another werewolf onslaught. They don't have to wait long. They manage to keep the werewolves out for the most part, but then one gets into the upstairs bedroom--where Wells is fast asleep. Cooper barely manages to come to his aid and wakes him up in  time for them both to pump one werewolf full of bullets until it falls out the window. Unfortunately, just when they all think they've driven the werewolves off again, one grabs Terry through an open window and carries him off.

Cooper decides it's time that Ryan, who is definitely seeming to have made an improvement, owes them some answers. Especially once the group subdue him and rips off his bandage, to find that his wounds have healed impossibly fast. They tie him up, intending to torture answers out of him, when another werewolf attack sidetracks their plans. It's then that Cooper realizes something--the family isn't gone because they were killed by the werewolves. They are the werewolves. They aren't going to leave because the soldiers are in their home.

Megan suggests that there is a Land Rover in the barn if someone can hotwire it. Joe can, but they need a distraction. "Something fast and loud," Cooper says. One by one all eyes turn to Spoon, who wasn't listening.

Spoon runs out of the house on one side with a flare and Joe runs out the other. Spoon is a perfect distraction, but once Joe hotwires the car he discovers one werewolf is still in the barn--chewing poor Terry's head from his shoulders. Joe quickly drives out of the barn to the front door, but as the others are gathering to join him he realizes that he is not alone in the car. He goes out fighting, but the others find a car full of blood and entrails and a pissed off werewolf waiting for them.

Back inside the survivors press Ryan for answers. He reveals that the whole point of this "training exercise" was to use Wells and his men as bait so they could capture a werewolf for special weapons division. The goal being to use werewolves the same way dolphins are used to plant bombs on ships. Wells, who is also beginning to feel better, angrily attacks Ryan--only for Ryan to turn into a werewolf. Luckily, Spoon still has that sword and rams it through Ryan. Shame the sword's not silver, though, and Ryan bashes through a window into the night.

So now Cooper, Spoon, Megan, and Wells are outnumbered and fast running out of ammunition. Dawn is a long way off and the werewolves aren't gonna give them a moment's peace. And Wells sure has recovered quickly for a man whose guts were in his hands a few hours ago. What if the threat isn't only from outside?

I was already pretty well predisposed to like Dog Soldiers the first time I saw it. Werewolves are, after all, my favorite monster and the DVD promised me the kind of upright werewolves that far too few movies outside of The Howling have ever delivered. Even better, as I would soon find out, the werewolves were actual practical effects. Puppets and men in suits wearing stilts will almost always be preferable to CGI on the sort of budget this film had going for it--aside from just also being awesome.

You get a decent look at the werewolves, too, and they still hold up really well. Mostly they're kept in shadow and mist, of course, as any good monster should be, but the film doesn't deny you the delight of such scenes as Spoon's climactic one-on-one fight with a werewolf.

The film is rather unique as werewolf films go. Usually werewolf films deal with someone struggling with their lycanthropy or in some way try to humanize their werewolves as people afflicted with a curse they never asked for--Dog Soldiers uses werewolves as the monsters in its Night of the Living Dead meets Aliens set-up. There are token attempts to humanize its werewolves--like Megan arguing that the werewolf family are "good people" or Cooper and Wells having an amusing argument about whether the ability to hold back turning into a werewolf is like needing to take a piss or needing to take a shit--but really they're just faceless monsters to be warded off.

And it's awesome.

Part of why the film works so well is that its characters are exactly as likable as they need to be. Of course we loathe Ryan from the start--having the guy introduced by needlessly shooting a dog isn't exactly subtle--but the rest, even as thinly sketched as they may be, are hugely enjoyable. A particular standout being Spoon. The comic relief character is an easy character to turn into an odious chore to experience, but through the script and Darren Morfitt's performance, he becomes one of the standout characters in the film.

Neil Marshall had never directed a feature before this film, and it was one hell of a debut. Indeed, I have yet to see a film from the man that wasn't enjoyable--even Doomsday, which I feel was his weakest film--and he hit the ground running with one of my absolute favorite werewolf movies. It moves at a great clip, particularly once the werewolves show up, and is filled with great set pieces and action. And its jokes actually mostly translate to a non-UK audience.

You could always say it was a howling good time.

"Don't shoot! I'm sorry I made a howling pun!"

So endeth day 4 of HubrisWeen. Check out what the other maniacs reviewed by clicking the banner above.