MIL MASCARAS: AZTEC REVENGE (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*

MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*

CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*                                                                                                                                                  AZTEC REVENGE, though plagued by the same low budget and amateur actors as ACADEMY OF DOOM, is an improvement over the entry from seven years previous. Though the fights are nothing special, at least they look to have been professionally blocked out. Yet REVENGE seems to have been the last moviemaking hurrah for writer-producer Jeffrey Uhlmann, not to mention his last acting credit. Amusingly, Uhlmann played all the nasty nemeses in this series: the evil mummy in the 2007 movie, the evil mastermind of the 2008 follow-up, and the evil decapitated head of an Aztec chieftain here. According to IMDB, REVENGE is almost the last credit for Mil Mascaras, though I can't tell whether he decisively retired from wrestling or from filmmaking.                                                                

Perhaps scripter Uhlmann intuited that REVENGE might be his last shot at capturing the cheese-appeal of the luchador-movies. Not only does the main menace of the film suggest the Aztec menace of the 1963 Mex-horror film THE LIVING HEAD, the Aztec Chief (never called anything else) possesses, like his 1963 kinsman, the power to manipulate others mentally. After the decapitated do-badder is unearthed in an archeological dig, he takes control of a couple of college students to serve him. Then he branches out, forcing athletes to dress up like ninjas and to attack wrestlers-- reason being, the Chief wants to transplant his head onto the healthy body of a champion fighter. This academic angle is of course the way Uhlmann once more worked things out so that the majority of the movie's scenes take place on a campus, whether it's the same one utilized in ACADEMY or not. Further, throughout the movie Mil Mascaras' confidantes on campus are a security guard (the worst actor, btw), a professor known only as The Professor, and a doctor known as Ruth. No, not that one, although this middle-aged, somewhat frumpy woman supplies Mil with his only romantic interest in the film, as she comes on to him in one scene.  Mil doesn't take her up on her offer, but maybe he thinks about it. And maybe that's why the Chief, with a college full of hot girls, chooses Ruth to be his Aztec queen-- just to twist his enemy's tail, as it were.                   

   Speaking of pulchritude, ACADEMY barely rated in that category, since almost all the female characters there went around clad in heavy masks and wrestling-gear. Hardly in line with Mexican movies of the era being emulated, since the babe-factor usually dominated, sometimes pairing aging wrestlers with very young heroines. But Uhlmann throws in a pleasingly gratuitous scene in which the Chief takes control of a whole sorority, boosts their strength somewhat (says the script), and has these nightgowned beauties try to overpower Mil, who's too gallant to hit back. At the very end, when the Chief can't take possession of Mil's body, he fits his head atop a ramshackle robot form that MUST be a callback to THE ROBOT VS. THE AZTEC MUMMY. Yet the greatest suspense in the movie takes place not when Mil Mascaras is in physical danger, but when he's accused of participating in a kidnapping, and the suspicious cops inform the hero that he's under arrest and will have to take off his mask for their records. The goodguy wrestler escapes this fate, just as the real performer was never unmasked in the ring. But it's the sort of suspense I've rarely seen even in the "real" luchador movies.   

ARENA (1989)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                     If I did not know from interviews that the writers of this project, Danny Bilson and Paul DeMeo, were both stone SF-fans, I might think that ARENA had been written as a mundane boxing yarn, in which the characters' urban environment was taken for granted and needed no explanation. That's how little Bilson and DeMeo tell audiences about the background of the space-station on which all of the film's action takes place. I've seen or read hundreds of sketchy space-opera stories in which Earthpeople of some far-future era gambol about a space-opera cosmos, interacting with a plethora of other, usually-intelligent ETs. But I'm not sure I've encountered any space-opera as sketchy as ARENA.                                                               

 

All the viewer knows about protagonist Steve Armstrong (Paul Satterfield) is that though he has formidable boxing-skills, he's ended up working as a short order cook on the space station with his buddy Shorty (Hamilton Camp), an ET with four (not very believable) arms. A rowdy alien gets in Steve's face, possibly because humans of this era have low status, and Steve punches the alien out, which gets him and Shorty fired. However, the defeated ET was the prize fighter in the very limited stable of fight-manager Quinn (Claudia Christian). Two of her buddies show up at Shorty's domicile to attack Steve, and after a grueling fight, he beats them both. It's not clear that Quinn expressly told her employees to go beat up Steve to find out how good a fighter he was, but after he wins, Quinn just happens to be on hand to offer Steve a contract. He initially refuses but Shorty gets Steve in financial trouble with local fight-fixer Rogor (Marc Alaimo), so inevitably Steve joins Quinn's retinue.                                     

As in every other formulaic boxing-film, Steve starts moving up in the ranks, beating every other fighter he encounters. There's a marginal subplot about how no human has won in the arena-fights for some really long time, which may have something to do with Rogor fixing all the fights. Since Rogor can't bring Steve under his control, he sends his sexy accomplice Jade (Shari Shattuck) to seduce and then poison Steve, so that Steve can't win the match against the ugly ET champion. For no clear reason, Steve just throws off the poisoning, shows up at the match, and promptly trounces his opponent, making the universe safe-- for human boxers, I guess.       

 Considering how undercooked the ARENA script is, the movie's production values are pretty good, and director Peter Manooghian (who directed two other films that are, like one, connected to the Charles Band-iverse) keeps things lively. Satterfield carries most of the movie with his fight-scenes, though I don't know how much he was doubled. But no one watches this sort of thing for good dramatic acting. Curiously, the script is so laser-focused on giving Steve his big triumph that there's no romantic subplot between the fighter and his manager. Usually, in these sorts of films, the hero's "true love," the female professional, is good-looking but not as captivating as the evil temptress. But this time, actresses Christian and Shattuck look equally glamorous. There's only a sidelong glance or two to suggest that Quinn might be jealous of Jade's incursions, until the end-scene, where the former punches out the latter-- which is my only reason for giving this movie a "fighting femme" tag.      

PURGATORY (1999)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTIONS: *metaphysical*

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS

One of the best metaphenomenal westerns I've ever encountered, aside from the best episodes of KUNG FU, debuted on the TNT cable channel-- which I would have to say, never struck me as a font of great original film-making.

A gang of bandits, led by Britton (Eric Roberts) and Guthrie (Peter Stormare), robs a bank in a western town, and during a gunfight, an innocent woman is slain. This moves none of the outlaws save Sonny, nephew of Guthrie (Brad Rowe), but a posse comes after the robbers, so they must flee into the desert. After passing through a dust storm, the gang finds itself in an isolated town named Refuge.

At first glance the citizens of Refuge look like ordinary peacable folks, which should make them easy pickings for the outlaws. None of the locals, even the sheriff (Sam Shepard), carry guns, they won't swear or drink, and every time the church bell rings, the citizens drop what they're doing and assemble in church.

Sonny, by chatting one of the pretty girls, is the first to get an inkling that Refuge is not an ordinary town. Some of the outlaws begin noticing that certain citizens have a resemblance to famous dead gunfighters-- Doc Holliday, Billy the Kid, Jesse James-- while the sheriff himself bears a likeness to Wild Bill Hickock. Eventually the secret comes out: Refuge is a literal "ghost town," where the spirits of dead people have come together to endure a form of purgatory. If they can live righteous lives for a period of time, the citizens can ascend to the rewards of heaven. When one of the locals loses his patience with a nasty outlaw and clouts him with a shovel, a mysterious Indian shows up and escorts the local away to an unknown fate.

The outlaws, though not entirely believing the story, waste no time in taking advantage of the situation. At this point Sonny loses sympathy with his former comrades, particularly when his uncle threatens to rape the pretty young thing whom Sonny likes. It also helps his belief when he actually witnesses a new arrival to town, none other than the woman he saw slain back in the mortal world.

Though the film starts with the outlaws, Gordon Dawson's script is really centered on the former gunfighters, who, to win entry into heaven, must try to resist their instinct to fight back. Sonny, whose name suggests his low-ranking status in the gang, becomes crucial to encouraging the gunfighters to do the right thing, to battle evil even if they may have to go to hell for it.

One might cavil that PURGATORY changes its ground rules from time to time, as when one outlaw is literally smitten by heaven, though the skies are silent when it's time for the big showdown. However, one might argue that everything that happens in Refuge has been ordained by "the big man" in order to test the residents, much like the depiction of God in the "Book of Job." But in most isophenomenal westerns, religious characters are nominal figures, confined to watching the battle of good and evil play out. PURGATORY reverses that trope, putting religion in the driver's seat, but still lending validity to the western's crucial myth of the showdown. All of the actors-- even Randy Quaid, whom I personally don't like-- acquit themselves well, though clearly Sam Shepard is "first among equals" here.

MORBIUS (2022)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*                                                                                                                          Maybe I would have hated MORBIUS as much as many "morbin' meme-sters" did had I seen the movie in a theater, where I had to pay for it. It is, I must admit, a pretty ordinary take on the Marvel character, who was never much more than your average "Doctor Jekyll and Mister Vamp" type of figure, full of existential agony every time he exsanguinated a hapless victim. But having seen the film for free, I can think of a lot of movies that deserve a lot more antipathy.                                                                                                     

The year before Sony Pictures released MORBIUS in April 2022, they'd had success both in collaborating with Marvel Films on two profitable SPIDER-MAN films, and had also done reasonably well with its October 2021 sequel to the new franchise Sony had built around former Spider-Man villain Venom. There was no good reason to think the company couldn't build a solid franchise around Michael Morbius, a scientist who accidentally infected himself with "scientific vampirism." All the producers had to do was repeat the Venom formula: eliding the movie-version's connections to the comic-book source-material-- Morbius's costume and his relationship to Spider-Man. It's possible, though, that MORBIUS got hurt by some of the public's disenchantment with superheroes when the MCU launched "Phase Four" in 2021. In contrast to 2019, which finished up with AVENGERS ENDGAME and the second Sony-MCU collab on Spider-Man, post-pandemic MCU released four 2021's films prior to MORBIUS's April release. These were BLACK WIDOW, SHANG-CHI, ETERNALS, and the third Sony-MCU SPIDER-MAN movie. The SPIDER-MAN film was the only major box-office success, while the "mainstream" MCU movies at best made some money beyond their principal budgets, but didn't prove all that exciting to the public. I think it probable that MORBIUS got caught up in the public's disappointment with uninspired flicks like SHANG-CHI in particular-- though even SHANG-CHI and MORBIUS look good next to a couple of the eyesores of the last half of 2022.                                                                                                    

So, back to MORBIUS's plot, which, as I specified, is pretty ordinary, but in an inoffensive way. Since childhood Michael Morbius suffers from a genetic blood disorder that forces him to walk with crutches, and while at a rehab center he meets another kid similarly afflicted, Lucien, whom for unknown reasons Michael nicknames "Milo." Michael saves Milo from a crisis, and the two bond into adulthood, where they're respectively played by Jared Leto and Matt Smith. Milo's character remains sketchy, though he's apparently both rich and crooked in some mysterious way. Michael, however, distinguishes himself with his innovative research into the disease from which he and Milo suffer-- the broad implication being that friendship with Milo has caused Michael to become altruistic, wanting to cure Milo as much as himself. Michael's research is funded by Milo and aided by fellow doctor Martine (Adria Arjona), who inevitably serves as Michael's romantic interest. Michael decides that a cure for the disease can be found by combining human DNA with that of vampire bats, and naturally the desperate scientist tests his formula on himself. Like dozens upon dozens of scientific overreachers, Michael becomes a monster: a vampiric powerhouse, but only as the result of feeding on human blood. But though Michael does contend with law-enforcement agents investigating his transgressions, his major foe turns out to be his best friend, who wants to possess the power of a vampire, no matter who gets hurt.                       

It's a shame the writers didn't provide Michael and Milo with more than these very schematic characterizations, because Leto and Smith are very talented performers and could have handled much more complex emotions, and Leto in particular looks good in vamp-face. There are some big action-scenes that emphasize some "morphing" effects akin to those in the VENOM franchise. While the fight-scenes aren't as bad as the ones in those late-2021 releases I mentioned-- i.e., the second BLACK PANTHER and the fourth THOR-- I imagine the familiar look of the action didn't do MORBIUS any favors. A mid-credits sequence tosses in another villain from the SPIDER-MAN movie universe, Michael Keaton's "Vulture," but whatever future plot-action this would have set up was doomed by the film's perceived failure. Again, I'm not saying that MORBIUS was anything special. But it also didn't deserve the "special" level of animosity it inspired.    
 

KNIGHTS (1993)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*                                                                                                                          Some sources claim that KNIGHTS was meant to be writer-director Albert Pyun's follow-up to one of his more money-making works, the 1989 CYBORG. That might be one reason why KNIGHTS starts out without even explaining what catastrophe reduced all of Earth into a desert wasteland occupied by small human enclaves. The original reason was supposed to have been a plague, while cyborgs were invented later. An early segment claims that the first cyborgs in the KNIGHTS-world were invented for military use, but they didn't have anything to do with the apocalypse. It's not clear how the dominant form of cyborg becomes that of vampires, remorselessly searching out scattered humans to feed on. Somehow that seems like a counter-intuitive trait to be programmed by even the darkest of Black Ops.                                                                                                   

 The cyborgs are led by Job (Lance Henriksen). Presumably the cyborgs don't reproduce, so they enlist rogue humans to swell their ranks and conquer all the desert-dwellers. This might have provided fertile ground for a subplot about humans betraying other humans, but the reality is that the rogue humans are just there to provide more sparring-partners for the story's hero. This is Nea (Kathy Long), who escapes a cyborg-raid that wipes out her entire tribe. Just as other cyborgs led by Simon (Scott Paulin) overtake Nea, she's rescued by good cyborg Gabriel (Kris Kristofferson). Like the young heroes of many westerns, Nea attaches herself to the more experienced fighter and spends years training under him, until she becomes a lean, mean kickboxing-machine.                                                                                     

   Regrettably, it takes Pyun roughly half the movie's running-time before Nea gets to come to the defense of other human tribes and kick major cyborg butt. Nea makes a strong but simplistic heroine and somewhat disproves the point I made in my CYBORG review, that the main attraction of this type of film is the testosterone factor. Long isn't a great actress, but she might have had more to work with had Pyun built up her relationship with Gabriel. But he keeps the good cyborg very simple as well. He's been programmed by his creator to defend the embattled humans, but for some reason he knows nothing about his creator or the creator's motives. Strangely, during Simon's encounter with Gabriel, Simon shows awareness that the good 'borg is named for the Christian angel-- though no one wonders why the head bad 'borg was named for a Biblical character who suffers travails at the will of God. And despite some very good fight-scenes for Nea in the last half-hour, she doesn't get to square off against the Big Bad at the climax. There are a couple of other recognizable performers in KNIGHTS, such as Gary Daniels (another kickboxer-turned-actor) and Vincent Klyn (who played the main villain in CYBORG), but action is pretty much all KNIGHTS has to offer-- though it does rate as one of a very few "apocaflicks" to focus on a female protagonist.                                                        

HERCULES (2014)

  

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny* 
MYTHICITY: *fair* 
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *sociological*                                                                                                                                                  The Wiki-article on this film mentioned that its producers originally intended, for whatever reason, not to credit Steve Moore, author of the graphic novel on which the movie was based. I've read none of Moore's works on the subject of the Greek hero, but since this Dwayne Johnson project spawned two imitations, THE LEGEND OF HERCULES and HERCULES REBORN, one might credit Moore with having brought these into being as well.                                   

  I didn't remember anything about my previous screening of this flick, but now I see why: the only thing HERCULES has going for it is a restrained performance by Johnson, in which he bulked up more than his usual weight and, more importantly, avoided any of his signature winks to the audience. This Hercules grew up as an orphan who became a great warrior due to his uncanny strength and his fighting-skills, and over time people began telling stories about his divine parentage and his slaying of giant monsters. Only one event in the myths strongly resembles the traditional narratives: while Hercules lived in Thebes with his wife and children under the rule of King Eurystheus, his family was slaughtered. He was accused of having slain them when he went mad, but all Hercules remembers is witnessing a spectre akin to the death-hound Cereberus. After that, Hercules became a full-time mercenary, leading an assortment of soldiers, some of whom are also based on legendary figures (Atalanta, Autolycus, Tydeus). Hercules comes to the defense of King Cotys (John Hurt), ruler of Thrace, against an invading force. But wait-- could it be that Cotys hasn't told the whole truth about the situation? Just like Hercules' memories of his family's slaughter may not be entirely correct?                                                                             

 Basically, 2014 HERCULES is constructed like a two-part mystery story, and neither mystery is interesting. The script tries to sell the idea that Hercules, after having been a mercenary who for years killed for whoever paid him the best, suddenly gets the Religion of Altruism and turns against Cotys and his secret ally. The secondary characters are no better, supplying nothing more than the marking of time. The battles are OK, but the most I can say is that they aren't as terrible as those in LEGEND. If I had to choose between the three, HERCULES REBORN seems the best just by virtue of having less pretension than the other two-- though I'd probably choose to view a half dozen Herc-flicks from the 1960s over any of these 2014 losers.              

HONOR ROLL #270

 As archaic villains go, JOHN HURT is-- kind of harmless.                                   

Kickboxing heroine Kathy Long gets ample secondary support from KRIS KRISTOFFERSON.                                                                        

JARED LETO, the vampire with the low box office scores.                      

Going alphabetically, the gunfighters of Purgatory include RANDY QUAID, SAM SHEPARD, JD SOUTHER and DONNIE WAHLBERG.                                                                                       

 PAUL SATTERFIELD attempted to take the ROCKY road to success.                                                                                                    

JEFFREY ULLMAN played villains in the last three Mil Mascaras movies, but his biggest role was behind the cameras, or none of them would have been made at all.                                                                       

 

LAS VAMPIRAS (1969)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical*                                                                                                                                                 LAS VAMPIRAS was the second feature film to star wrestler-actor Mil Mascaras, but by the end of that decade, director Frederico Curiel had devoted more than a fair share of his career to luchador-movies, having turned out a generous sampling of Santo and Neutron flicks, not to mention THE SHADOW OF THE BAT, which was IMO the best of the Blue Demon films. VAMPIRAS is also noteworthy as one of a handful of Mexican films made by John Carradine. Had I paid anything for the price of seeing this, Carradine alone would have been worth the price of admission, for the veteran performer overacts wildly, possibly confident that none of his countrymen would ever see any of his south-of-the-border efforts.     

  Though Mil Mascaras is the hero, he doesn't have very many memorable scenes, in terms of either dialogue or fight-scenes. This may be because Curiel wanted to justify his title by concentrating on the female bloodsuckers of the title, who dwarf Carradine's vampire character "Branus" in terms of screen-time. Mil comes to Some Mexican City to engage in a wrestling-gig, but he learns that his opponent, like other sports-figures in the city, has been mysteriously abducted. Mil himself witnesses a car crash in which the drivers disappear, and he sees only bats flitting away. I don't think the vampire cult tries to abduct Mil, but while he's researching vampires, he makes contact with a reporter named Carlos (Pedro Armendariz Jr) who has a passion for the subject. Mil and Carlos team up to investigate a local cemetery, but rather than finding the cult, they unleash a female vampire imprisoned there, who joins up with the cult right away.                                                                               

  It's not easy to piece together the order of events here, but prior to the movie's story, the original Dracula was slain by mortals, possibly the same ones who imprisoned his wife Velia (Maria Duval) in the tomb. When Velia shows up at the cult's hideout, the bloodsucker in control is not Count Branus (Carradine), but a new leader named Aura (Marta Romero). She controls about a dozen female vampires, all garbed in green tights, but aside from Branus the only males in the group are the kidnapped sportsmen, who have been turned into slaves. As for Branus, Aura has confined him to a metal cage. Somehow a splinter of wood got lodged in Branus' brain, so that he now acts erratically and seems to have lost his powers. Branus does act oddly but it's not certain that Aura just wants him sidelined so that she can control the others.                                                                   

 Although Velia and Aura are rivals for the throne, they make common cause to get rid of Mil and Carlos. Their opening stratagems fail, but when the heroes manage to access the hideout, the two females are fighting for supremacy (oddly, with torches). Then the ladies decide that they want the two humans to fight one another to see who's worthy to join their ranks. Mil and Carlos fake a battle until they get the chance to use their weapons to destroy the whole clutch of vampires, including Branus. This description might sound a bit bare-bones, but Curiel tosses in a number of interesting comic touches. For instance, even in human form all the vamp-girls have batlike wings that hang down behind them, and when the henchwomen aren't doing anything in particular, they let their arms rise and fall, as if their instinct is to keep flapping their "wings." There are some peculiar bits of dialogue too, often from Carradine. But since I didn't write anything down, the interested reader will have to check out VAMPIRAS' loony charms for himself.  

TERMINATOR GENISYS (2015)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, sociological*                                                                                                                          The slight improvement I saw in the fourth TERMINATOR film, TERMINATOR SALVATION, was not maintained when the franchise shifted to a new production company. The creators hired by that company then sought to extend the already muddled mythology into the idea of alternate timelines, which had been implied in the third movie in the series. This resulted in a summer blockbuster that made a lot of money-- at least partly due to Arnold Schwarzenegger's return to the role of "T-800 As Protector" that had resonated so well with nineties audiences-- but GENISYS also increased the franchise's reputation for being less a meditation on the evils of technology and more a funhouse mirror designed mostly to distract and disconcert.                                                                                     

In fairness, part of the attraction of JUDGMENT DAY was that it reworked the pitiless, implacable image of the original Terminator into an almost-human protector to Young John Connor. The change of the formerly helpless Sarah Connor into a skilled master of combat was almost as extreme, but in that reworking, James Cameron managed to give emotional depth to his extension. Both the third and fourth films failed to formulate strong storylines, but they still had occasional flashes of said depth. GENISYS is the first TERMINATOR iteration I found to be almost completely without any emotional intensity, even though one of its key re-imaginings is that, for some reason never clarified, a T-800 (Schwarzenegger) travels back to the era when Sarah was a young girl and becomes her de factor father from then on (she calls him "Pops") after a T-1000 kills Sarah's parents.                                                                                 

   Possibly there was some explanation for this anomaly that was lost in the shuffle, but in the future-world of Grownup John Connor (Jai Courtney), the events of the first TERMINATOR transpire just mostly as expected. But just before Kyle Reece (Jason Clarke) begins his time-trip, John Connor is attacked by an entity from the almost defeated Skynet. Somehow this creates an alternate timeline for time-traveler Reece, so that he journeys to the timeline where Grownup Sarah Connor (Emilia Clarke) has been raised by "Pops" to become a gun-toting badass. This Sarah is fully aware that she's supposed to mate with Kyle to produce John, but all of those emotional storms are lost when John, now mutated into some sort of Nano-Terminator, also travels to the time when the Terminating Trio are attempting to nullify Skynet-- although now that time is 2017, and Skynet is part of Genisys, a sort of glorified Iphone network.                 

The many convolutions of the plot don't matter given that the film has no meaningful center. The "man is too dependent on machines" trope gets dusted off for another outing, and eventually, even in the midst of Things Blowing Up Good, Kyle and Sarah more or less get together. The two (unrelated) Clarkes do as well as they can with these limited roles, but ostensibly GENISYS was not a happy shoot, so that experience may have colored their performances. Arnold gets a fair number of decent lines, but nothing as memorable as his work in T2, while Courtney makes a bland villain. J.K. Simmons, playing an older version of a minor character from the 1984 film, provides a few light moments. Despite good box office, GENISYS failed to generate further iterations of this timeline and the franchise was again rebooted to 2019's DARK FATE, which I have not yet seen but for which I don't have high expectations.

THE TITANS (1962)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *good*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *metaphysical, psychological*                                                                                                                         SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS                                                                                                                                                           THE TITANS-- given the spoofy title MY SON THE HERO in an American release-- isn't representative of what the Italian peplum-subgenre was, but I sure wish it had been. Duccio Tessari hit this one out of the park in his first directorial outing, though to be sure he had scripted or co-scripted about a dozen historical-adventure movies before TITANS. Possibly he decided he was going to throw his best efforts with respect to action, comedy and pageantry into this film, which ended up being his last real contribution to the subgenre. It's possible that Tessari's collaboration with long-time writer Ennio de Concini, who'd also labored in peplum-fields, resulted in the superior script. (They'd also collaborated, along with several other authors, on the above average GOLIATH AND THE DRAGON in 1960, but IMDB lists only De Concini and Tessari as co-writers for TITANS.)                                                                           

 In my peplum-reviews I've often picked at movies that jumbled mythological motifs. However, TITANS messes with a lot of archaic stories but produces a story that's logical on its own terms. In Greek mythology, Cadmus is a culture hero who founds the city of Thebes, and he marries Harmonia, a female occasionally given associations with ill luck. In TITANS, we first see Cadmo, King of Crete (Pedro Armendariz) and Ermione (Antonella Lualdi) in a subterranean cavern filled with mists. This is apparently the legendary Cave of the Sibyl. The two newly married royals have brought along two others: the dead body of Cadmo's previous wife and the infant daughter she birthed before Cadmo murdered the mother. The Sibyl knows exactly what the sinful couple have done and asserts that the gods of Olympus will destroy them. Further, the Sibyl claims that when the king's daughter Antiope grows to womanhood, her lover will slay Cadmo. Also, the king will die if he kills his daughter, so he, like the villains of the Jason and Perseus myths, must allow the seed of destruction to grow-- though Cadmo plans to keep Antiope cloistered so that she cannot meet men. (Parenthetically, in some variations Antiope is the name of Cadmus's mother.) And to block the possibility of immediate vengeance from Jove on high, Cadmo and Ermione bathe in the waters of the subterranean cave, becoming invulnerable to harm, as Achilles was rendered by the waters of the River Styx. (Incidentally, a minor character in TITANS is named Achilles.)                                                                                               

 Though Cadmo compounds his crime of murder by setting himself up as the God of Crete, Jove in his heavens tolerates this impiety for the next twenty years, until the babe Antiope grows into a nubile princess (Jacqueline Sassard). At this point Jove decides to liberate one of the heroic Titans whom he Jove condemned to Tartarus. Said hero is the youngest and cleverest Titan, Krios (Guiliano Gemma), though he isn't told that he's supposed to fall in love with Antiope.                 

  To get close to Cadmo for the purpose of wreaking holy vengeance, Krios becomes one of the king's gladiators. This allows him the chance to "meet cute" with Antiope. The young Titan wins the court's favor by overcoming a boulder-shouldered Black African combatant named Rator, but the generous hero also asks the King to spare Rator's life. But then Evil Cadmo decides he wants to stage his own version of "The Most Dangerous Game" with Rator as the quarry, and though Krios seeks to temporize, Cadmo's pursuit finally corners Rator near a cliffside. At this point Krios has to reveal his mission to condemn the king to Hades. Ermione shows up with reinforcements, and since Krios' sword just breaks on the flesh of the invulnerable king, the Titan and his new buddy are forced to jump off the cliff to escape, seven years before Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid did the same. (By an odd coincidence Gemma and Tessari collaborated that same year on a western comedy, and an American marketer retitled it "Sundance Cassidy and Butch the Kid.")                                                                                         

  Since Krios has taken his best shot at doing things the mortal way, he then starts seeking to use supernatural weapons. From Tartarus he acquires an invisibility helmet and infiltrates Cadmo's castle, but his main mission is to find Antiope. Krios learns that his love has been moved to an island guarded by a Gorgon, complete with petrifying gaze, so Krios has got to do a Perseus to get past her. Krios rescues his princess, but Cadmo and Ermione get the upper hand again. Krios prays to Jove for help, calling Jove his "father" (maybe metaphorically?), and Jove releases the other eight male Titans from Tartarus to render aid. The big confrontation returns to the Sibyl's Cave, as Cadmo mounts one last defense, and Krios essentially performs the function of Jove by sending the evildoer to Greek Hell. Before watching TITANS, which I only saw once before some thirty years ago, I would have said Tessari's 1975 ZORRO was his best work. But now TITANS is my fave Tessari work, my favorite peplum, and will henceforth appear on my list of the hundred best magical-fantasy films, if I ever compile one. (Addendum: I included the category "clansgression" for this movie because of a line in which Antiope claims to be "consecrated" to her father the God of Crete, but this doesn't imply any incestuous intent on Cadmo's part, as I don't even think Cadmo and Antiope even have scenes together.)                                  

THE BRAWL BUSTERS (1978)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*, 
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *adventure*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                                       The streaming title for this Korean-made revenge-fest is the horribly generic DRAGON FROM SHAOLIN. However, the American title THE BRAWL BUSTERS, while meaningless, at least doesn't sound like a million other kung fu flicks. That said, there's almost nothing else to say about BUSTERS. The identities of the characters and their motives are barely sketched out. An older kung-fu fighter named Tien holds his province in a grip of terror. But a strange female, usually called "The Mistress of Purity Manor," starts knocking off Tien's henchmen with the help of a coterie of female kung-fu fighters. This formidable woman is named (I think) Shao  (Seo Yeong-Ran), and several years ago, Tien killed Shao's father. Fortunately, a wandering Shaolin priest finds Baby Shao and teaches her martial arts so that she can take vengeance. A couple of male fighters get involved in Shao's quest, but their motives proved impenetrable. As one of the very few reviews online observed, the only notable aspect of BUSTERS is that it tosses in a lot of weapons: a scarf that can lengthen to a yard long to strangle a victim, a room with closing walls, and circular saw-blades that can be flung at enemies but will zoom back to the thrower's hands like boomerangs. Oh, and there's one scene in which Shao is attacked by ninjas in differently colored garments. This is significant only because one of the BUSTERS producers was Tomas Tang, who became infamous in the eighties for unleashing on videostores a horde of cheap ninja flicks, which also often contained multicolored ninjas.  

SERENADE FOR TWO SPIES (1965)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *irony*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                              SERENADE is one of the few West German Eurospy films that has a strong Germanic character, though Italy had something to do with the production. Most of the major characters are played by German actors, with only minor contributions from "names" like the American Brad Harris and Italian Tony Kendall, and even though large parts of the story take place in the United States, it's very much a European's treatment of "America as exotic locale." The rambling narrative even wanders from San Francisco to Nevada just so that the hero can contend with guys in cowboy hats.                                 

  The story begins in a farcical mode as John Krim, Agent 006 1/2 (Helmut Lange), gets his assignment, with lots of daffy references to James Bond and Goldfinger. But SERENADE isn't really a comedy with lots of joke-setups, but what I consider an irony, devoted to loosely satirizing the tropes of the superspy genre. Director/co-writer Michael Phlegar doesn't come up with a very pointed satire, but I have the impression that he was focused on inverting just one major superspy trope: that of the spy as a Don Juan who never gets tied down to one woman. To counter this favored trope, the story puts Krim more or less in the hands of the mystery girl Tamara (a radiant Barbara Lass). Is she an ally who keeps giving Krim romantic overtures, but still plays coy, or a foe working for the villains? She seems to want to vex and confuse the hero, and there's even an amusing scene in Nevada where Tamara dresses up like a cowgirl and lassos Krim, just to mess with him. Since Lass's Tamara is so central to the plot-- essentially a co-star to Lange's Krim-- I'm not giving much away to say that she's one of the good guys. But her real threat is not that she's going to murder him, but to marry him, and the goofy ending implies that Krim's going to get hog-tied by matrimony no matter what. A lot of spy-flicks loosely end with the secret agent bonding with his leading lady, so that there's at least the possibility of connubial bliss, but few if any really show the hero getting dragged to the altar.                                                                             

  There's also another duplicitous damsel whom Krim names "Goldfeather" because she never mentions her actual name. She shows up in his hotel room as a maid and delivers him an exploding breakfast roll (which is the most uncanny thing we get in the film). But it's not clear that she knew the roll was really a bomb, and later on she saves Krim from death, so maybe she's one of those bad girls who turns good due to the hero's sex appeal. It's almost impossible to follow who the villains are, and though they're said to be pursuing some sort of "laser rifle" tech, we never see so much as a prototype, so I think the script just threw in a laser reference because there was a laser in the GOLDFINGER movie. Though Krim doesn't have any secret agent devices, he can fight passably well, though an early sequence shows him running from a rumble with a bunch of garishly clad henchmen. Toward the end there's a hallucinatory scene in which Krim and a few allies seem to be standing around on the floor of a lake with no ill effects, shooting it out with enemy spies, but this is clearly just the director's brief visit to Surrealism Alley, with no relevance to the main story. I can't say I found SERENADE as funny as I think its creators thought it was, but I have to appreciate that this is one time the male spy doesn't get to be the cock of the walk-- though Goldfeather does get a pretty good look at an unclad Krim in his bathroom.               

GIANTESS BATTLE ATTACK (2022)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *poor*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *comedy*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*                                                                                                                                               This same-year sequel to ATTACK OF THE 50 FOOT CAM GIRL might be considered a tiny improvement, to the extent that I smiled at one or two of the jokes. The main appeal remains director Jim Wynorski's attempt to out-bosom the oeuvre of Russ Meyer, with a side-dish of giantess-fetishism.                                                   

One improvement is that the first film got the dull setup stuff out of the way. We find out that a couple of people who got giant-ized earlier have returned to normal size, but Beverly Wood (Ivy Smith) is still a fifty-foot freak, though the scientists who created the growth substance are still working on a cure. Last time Wynorski borrowed the main plot from 1958's ATTACK OF THE 50-FOOT WOMAN, right down to the infidelity angle. But this time he takes a leaf from the 1933 SON OF KONG, wherein promoter Carl Denham suffers numerous lawsuits because of the destruction Kong wrought. But here it's "Monstrous Beverly" who loses her shirt (so to speak) trying to make up for the damage she caused. Her boyfriend Mike gets her a job working construction, but a sleazy con artist talks Beverly into staging a catfight with another giantess for the cam-audience.           

It just so happens, though, that a warrior-woman from a planet of giantesses decides to descend to Earth and challenge Beverly to single combat. The new arrival's name is Spa-Zor (Kiersten Hall), and I confess I didn't catch the pun until one of the Earthwomen mispronounced it on purpose. Thus, the film culminates in a three-way fistfight between Spa-Zor, Beverly, and Beverly's intended opponent, "Anna Conda," though as a fight it's as bland as the one from the first film. The writer throws in a couple of SF-media jokes that don't land, one from STAR TREK and the other from THIS ISLAND EARTH, but I must admit the sex-humor involving "spelunking" provided the movie's one clever moment.     
      

HONOR ROLL #269

 Attack of the Fifty-Foot Alien Giantess, KIERSTEN HALL (the one throwing the punch, I think).                                                                         

Serenade for Two Actors Whose Names End in "L": HELMUT LANGE and BARBARA LASS.                                                            

Is SEO YEONG-RAN an also-ran?                                                            

PEDRO ARMENDARIZ only wishes he had a son as heroic as a Titan.                                                                                                           

Two CLARKES, JASON and EMILIA, for the price of one.                       

MARIA DUVAL is one of the evil "vampiras" distressing the many faces of Mil Mascaras.