Bad films are an international thing. In this series to date, we’ve had films from Germany (“Passion Flower Hotel”), Italy (“Return of the Barbarian Women”) and France (“Gwendoline”) – now we add two more countries to the list. Later on we’ll be taking a look at a real Hammer Horror, first we cross the Atlantic to America to meet some bimbos behind bars.

REFORM SCHOOL GIRLS (Tom de Simone)

Sybil Danning, Wendy O. Williams, Pat Ast.

“Pridemore Juvenile Facility – a world of caged terror without windows, without the possibility of escape and without hope. Jenny Williams, a young first-time offender, learns hard and fast [??] that the rules of the outside world don’t apply. Warden Sutter rules with a fist of iron, Edna dictates sadistic order and Charlie, the unofficial head of the cell-block preys on the weak – beatings and sexual abuse run rampant in the cell-blocks. Will any live long enough to tell the horrible truth of Pridemore’s atrocities?” —- Video box blurb

The women-in-prison film has had a long and dishonourable tradition, going all the way back to the 1950’s when ‘bad girl’ (or indeed, ‘bad boy’) pics joined the beach party movie and the high school film as staples of the cinemagoer’s diet. They’re still with us today – “Chained Heat”, “Caged Heat”, “Bad Girls Dormitory”, etc, of varying quality and content. I’m not an especial fan, since I tend to find them depressingly unescapist and even a shade nasty – “Reform School Girls” is the exception, having absolutely no connection with reality whatsoever.

Our heroine, Jenny (Linda Carol), is sent to reform school after driving the getaway car in a robbery – no mucking about with setting up things, three minutes into the film, she’s on her way to the slammer. In the van she meets up with Lisa (Sherri Stoner) and Nikki – the latter is the streetwise chick going back behind bars again while Lisa is a runaway in for her first time. She clutches a toy bunny rabbit and whimpers a lot.

On arrival, they are processed by the system, providing de Simone with his first chance for a shower scene which, needless to say, he grasps with both hands. We meet two major characters, Edna (Pat Ast), the horrendously evil matron and Dr. Norton (Charlotte McGinnis), the horrendously nice prison psychiatrist who isn’t wearing a placard with ‘Wooly Liberal’ on it, but might as well be. Lisa has her bunny rabbit taken away by Edna.

The girls are taken to their dormitory. Here is one of the great moments in trash cinema history. The prison uniforms they have been given are brown, shapeless and dull. Oddly enough, when the doors open, the other inhabitants are wearing a fine selection or exotic lingerie; stockings, suspenders, basques, lacy nighties and assorted frilly things more suited to a Janet Reger fashion show than a corrective institution. No explanation as to WHY this is the case is ever given.

Jenny meets Charlie (Wendy O. Williams), Edna’s ‘friend’ (“I don’t know what’s going on between you two, but it’s PERVERSE!”) and general hard-case. They do not get on with each other (cat-fight time!). Night falls. Lisa goes to try and get her bunny rabbit. Edna catches her. Bunny gets torched. Edna laughs evilly & Lisa is taken to the psychiatrist. The film nearly slips at this stage, as Sherri Stoner ACTS, describing how she used to get locked in an ice-box, and thus is now claustrophobic. However, she’s up against Charlotte McGinnis, a monumentally appalling actress who seems to be having difficulty reading her cue cards. No contest. This was a clever move by the director – using such a bad actress makes the rest of the cast look excellent by comparison.

Most of the rest of the film deals with ‘life in prison’. The incidents all have one of two things in common; they involve what American Football fans describe as ‘unnecessary roughness’, or take place in the washroom – these are without doubt the CLEANEST bad girls ever. An example which comes into both categories: Charlie has taken a shine to Lisa and wants her to be one of ‘the gang’. She is initiated by being dragged into the toilets and branded with a hot wire (the video is cut at this point – at the cinema you see the burning take place, but as in “Videodrome”, the BBFC decided such things on tape might corrupt or deprave us).

Other highlights: Lisa befriends a kitten as a pet, Edna squashes it. Jenny tries to bribe a prison worker with her body, in order to escape. He quite happily accepts the bribe, then turns her in. Food fight in the mess hall, when Warden Sutter (Sybil Danning in full black gear, leather boots and a riding crop – Ms. Danning should be well up anyone’s list of discipline queens, even if they, like me, have no interest in S&M!) tries to make a speech. Some shots featuring a boom microphone. Lisa leaping off a watch tower to her death, precipitating a mini-riot. As you can see, prison life is dull and humdrum stuff.

While all this is going on, Dr. Norton is trying to complain about Edna’s ‘methods’. Sutter fires her and she goes to the press with her story. An inquiry is set up, though naturally Jemmy is not permitted to testify (she’s in the hospital following an especially unnecessary bit of roughness) and the other girls are all too scared. Heroically, however, Jenny climbs from her bed, overpowers the guard and leads a rebellion – not too difficult since there only seems to be four or five warders. Edna goes insane, climbs a watch tower while blasting away with a pump-action shotgun and is finally nailed by Charlie driving a bus into the tower, both of which then explode.

The film ends very suddenly, shortly afterwards, with Jenny being released. My guess is that the budget had given way under the pressure of buying fake silk underwear…

A mere synopsis isn’t enough to give the true flavour of the film. It does sound highly dodgy, but the style from start to finish is pure pantomime. The acting is completely OTT (except for Sherri Stoner, who seems to be a refugee from a SERIOUS movie), the direction is lightning fast, with some superb shots and never a moment or change for nudity wasted, and the characters are such stereotypes that you’ve got to cheer or hiss them as appropriate. The dialogue is brilliant; some examples :

• Warden Sutter to Edna: It’s time you put on your Fuck You boots & started kicking!
• Edna to Charlie: You’re just a shit-stain on the panties of life!!
• Edna: The name of the game is Control, ladies; COMPLETE Control…
• Charlie: She was a Wanker! You’re ALL wankers!!

INTELLIGENT and SUBTLE dialogue, isn’t it? Virtually every sentence seems to end with an exclamation mark (much like Trash City, really!). Throughout the film, it’s the little things hidden in the background that make it all work; a sign saying “Don’t Throw Food” which has a large splat of something on it; Sybil Danning’s heels which are SEVERE; and a Goth prisoner called Andrea Eldritch…

There is a strong element of parody throughout. Other women-in-cages films have ONE shower scene and ONE cat-fight, “Reform School Girls” scatters them about with reckless abandon every three minutes. Casting Wendy O. Williams as a teenager was an inspired move – older readers may remember her as lead singer of a punk group called The Plasmatics, who had a minor hit in 1978 or so with “Butcher Baby”. She must be nearly thirty in this film; she’s the only teenager with wrinkles I know…

If you read the video box blurb, you expect something one step above “Ilsa, She-Wolf of the SS”, which is a shame, ‘cos what you get is one of the purest examples of Bad Cinema I’ve seen. We are talking loud music. We are talking gratuitous nudity. We are talking gratuitous violence. We are talking Trash.

LUST FOR A VAMPIRE (Jimmy Sangster)

Yutte Stensgard, Ralph Bates, Barbara Jefford, Suzanna Leigh

Between 1957 and 1976, the Hammer film company was THE producer of horror. At least 90% of their product was excellent, but in the last few years as the competition increased, they resorted to souping up their product with sex. Sometimes this worked well (“Vampire Circus”), sometimes it didn’t. “Lust for a Vampire” was easily the tackiest product they made, gleefully sacrificing their entire vampire mythos in exchange for some soft-porn.

It all begins quite promisingly and with no hint of what was to come. A standard Hammer peasant wench wandering through the woods is picked up by a mysterious figure in a cloak and taken, screaming, to a castle where her throat is slit and her blood used to resurrect a skeleton. The first cracks show here – it’s not Christopher Lee, instead it’s some blonde bimbo.

Switch to the village inn, where Richard Lestrange, a writer of dodgy novels is staying while on a research trip. The innkeeper warns him about Castle Karnstein, home of Carmilla Karnstein and family. They’re all dead now, but this doesn’t stop them from coming out, every 40 years or so, to munch on the local virgin girls. Mr. Lestrange laughs heartily and goes up to take a look. He is surrounded by menacing hooded figures – in a plot twist unworthy of Friday the 13th, they turn out to be pupils at a nearby girls’ school out with their history teacher, Giles Barton.

They all return to said school, carefully failing to remark on the fresh blood- stains covering the altar. The other girls are having PE, which consists of dressing up in scanty Greek type gowns and waving your limbs about to the sound of a harp. [The PE mistress is called Miss Playfair!] Lestrange offers his services as an English teacher and is rejected since there’s one on the way. However, he does meet the ‘Countess Herritzen’ and her niece, Mircalla (one of the most blatant anagrams ever devised, rivalling even ‘Johnny Alucard’ for naffness).

In a dormitory, where the girls are getting ready for bed (removing what little clothing they were wearing to start with), Mircalla has made friends with an American girl, Susan Perry, and gets her shoulders massaged. Her dress falls off and they arrange to go for a midnight swim.

Meanwhile, back at the inn, Lestrade meets the English teacher and tricks him into going to Vienna instead before going up to the school and taking over the post. Mircalla and Susan go for their swim (nude, naturally) and indulge in a bit of French kissing before Mircalla gets hungry… Lestrade sees her coming back and is so struck with lust he fails to ask why she’s been wandering the grounds at midnight dressed in her negligee. Susan’s disappearance is noticed, and covered up by the headmistress to prevent a scandal.

Giles Barton has discovered Mircalla’s murky past, thanks to her picture in a book, and he confronts her with the evidence (she has a lot of front to con, too). By happy chance, he turns out to be a student of Black Magic and begs to be her servant. She says “Fang you very much” [the editor wishes to disclaim absolutely any responsibility for the preceding pun] and nails him with her teeth. His body is discovered, fortunately while the Countess H. is visiting – her personal ‘physician’ certifies the death as a heart attack.

Miss Playfair reveals to Lestrade what’s been going on. While looking through Mr. Barton’s notes, he finds Mircalla’s picture – he also discovers the fang-marks on the teacher’s corpse. Undaunted, he also confronts Mircalla and shows a severe lack of originality in wanting to meet her at Castle Karnstein, in the middle of the night. They make love, even though Mircalla says it will kill him (accompanied by one of the all-time WORST movie songs – “Strange Love…” moans the singer). Guess what? For some unspecified reason, it doesn’t, and he survives with little damage apart from a couple of love-bites.

Miss Playfair plays fair and tells the police of the missing girl and dead teacher. Inspector Heinrich arrives, tells the headmistress to write to Susan’s father and has a nasty accident involving a well. Miss Playfair tells Lestrade her suspicions of Mircalla, unfortunately within the latter’s hearing; her attempted desanguination of the teacher is foiled only by the cross Miss Playfair wears. Mr Perry arrives, digs up his daughter’s coffin and finds it full of daughter, thanks to the Countess H. The fang marks are a bit of a give away, though…

In less time that it takes to say “Burn them!”, a rampaging peasant mob, led by a handy priest, has gathered, the castle is set on fire and Mircalla has the bad luck to be impaled on a burning beam that falls from the roof. Playfair and Lestrade live, we assume, happily ever after.

As a sexploitation film, it’s pretty good. Lots of cleavage, even if I’m sure school uniform in the 1830’s would have been more demure, plenty of blood and some great images. What makes this such an Incredibly Bad Film, then? History mainly. Forget all the things you thought you knew about vampires. Daylight? No – a schoolgirl who spends the day locked in the closet would be TOO suspicious even for this film. So daylight has no effect. What about water, as in “Dracula, Price of Darkness”? No, that’d get in the way of the swimming scene – out it goes, too. The plot is laden down with so much coincidence; luck, chance and fortune rule at every turn, enough to stretch anyone’s credibility. A perfect example: when Mr. Perry is discussing his daughter’s death in the village inn, his friend says “You don’t need a doctor, you need a…”; at that very moment, a priest arrives. Fortunate, huh? The hero isn’t your average hero either – lusting after school-girls is just not Hammer!

Hell, it’s fun. If nothing else, it’s a good reminder that even better film companies can make Bad Films – just don’t rely on it for anything other than a good time and some female flesh.

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Q. What’s red and lies in the gutter?
A. A dead bus.

It has to be said that I rarely go to the theatre. That’s “rarely”, as in twice in the past six years (and that was to “‘Allo ‘Allo” and a university charity show). However, when a friend of mine got tickets for a preview of “Sherlock Holmes – the Musical” at the Cambridge Theatre in London, I thought it might be fun to go along, not least becasue at a cost of 2.50, I had nothing to lose. To me, ‘musical’ is inexorably linked to things like “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” so I wasn’t expecting too much – I must admit that I enjoyed myself more than I though I would.

It stars Ron Moody, famous for playing Fagin in “Oliver!”, as the great detective and starts just after his battle with Professor Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. He returns to London, where Bella, the Professor’s daughter, has worked out a fiendish plan to incriminate Sherlock Holmes in a ‘orrible murder. This, basically, is the plot. Around this are arranged about 20 musical bits and a few standard Holmes jokes – the disguises, the displays of deductive power etc. Not an awful lot to go on, especially when the music is not the sort I’d normally listen to.

On the plus side, we have the atmosphere of the theatre. It’s like the difference between watching live football and a match on the telly – I can’t be any more explicit than that. Ron Moody is quite excellent as Sherlock, showing real stage presence; most of the other actors are also good. The sets were impressive and the scenery changes extremely slick and a lot less noticeable than this cinefreak expected. Even the songs were ok, as long as there was an accompanying dance routine or something else interesting – when it was just one singer standing in the centre of the stage, it wasn’t too exciting.

The first half was noticeably better, probably thanks to the lower musical content, and a couple of scenes were well up to anything I’ve seen recently in a movie – the murder especially chilled the blood. Things did get a little dull in the second half, which was mostly songs, and ones we’d heard before too – it seemed noticeably shorter, though since the whole thing came in at about 2 1/2 hours including the interval, this is no bad thing.

Criticisms? I’m a very amateur theatregoer and can’t compare it with anything in order to say how good or bad it is. However, Liz Robertson seemed ill at ease when acting compared to the easy manner of Ron Moody and after a while, the continual cheerful Cockney chirpiness (rhyming slang, etc) begins to grate – perhaps the show is aimed at the coming summer tourist market. Nevertheless, I had a very entertaining evening for my 2.50 at this trash musical – whether it’s worth paying eight to twenty pounds for a ‘real’ seat, I’m not so sure.

This film has come in for heavy flak from certain quarters; Time Out described it as “tawdry”, Fear said it was “aimed at the loony slicing up Madonna clones crowd”. I’m going to stick my neck out and disagree with both these august publications. I think it’s a good film, not without flaws I admit, but better than the reviews would have you believe. [If you’re sensitive about such things, I’m about to reveal the plot].

Dr Jekyll (Anthony Perkins) is a successful doctor who is developing a new drug, with uses as an anaesthetic and a, er, stimulant (Somewhat ironic in view of recent events!). Unfortunately, an accident brings him into contact with a ‘mutant’ variety of it which changes him temporarily into a killer. His alter ego, Jack Hyde, slaughters prostitutes, due in part to an incident from his childhood when he was caught indulging in a spot of voyeurism. His wife (Glynis Barber), finally realises he isn’t working nights at the hospital and tracks him down. She is nearly killed, escapes and returns to her home where she hides until she hears her husband returning and the sound of a shot. Hehehe! Jack’s not finished (“You didn’t think I was DEAD, did you?”) and merrily slits his wife’s throat before returning to his normal self, for the moment…

Some people have chosen to point out the anachronisms – a BOY belt buckle, a pound coin, etc. Though I’m no fashion victim, even I saw that most of the prostitutes’ costumes are not very Victorian. The story seems to take place in a twilight world where the ‘nice’ women wear demure crinolines and the ‘naughty’ ones are dressed in Madonna gear (who better to epitomise 80’s female sexuality?). I think we are dealing with an allegorical update here (yo!) – whinges about the costumes are thus about as justifiable as complaining those in ‘West Side Story’ aren’t medieval Italian. The ‘Madonna clones’ comment is more reasonable since the woman he kills do have a certain similarity, though since they also resemble the girl involved in the childhood incident, it’s justifiable.

The acting is generally solid, with two major exceptions. Glynis Barber is out of place and looks uncomfortably wooden. This is more than made up for by the superb performance of Anthony Perkins when playing psycho-Goth & Peter Murphy clone Jack Hyde. He conveys all the depravity of Jack Hyde with a single twitch and loads a simple phrase like ‘Our lucky day’ with enough menace to fuel an entire series of mundane slasher pics. The director (Gerard Kikoine on his debut) shows plenty of neat touches and novel angles. Unfortunately, the BBFC in it’s infinite wisdom decided to cut some scenes, which leaves them looking jagged in places.

Overall, highly impressive stuff and deserving of praise, especially for not trying to produce a ‘happy ending’. Perkins’ performance alone is worth the rental price.

The Accused (Jonathan Kaplan) – It’s tough to give this film a bad review without seeming unsympathetic to rape victims, but it has to be done even if it’s hard to convey just how loathsome it is. With a tediously obvious and laughable plot (a witness is traced by his name in a video game hi-score table!), it’s sensationalist nature makes it as much a serious film about rape as “Fatal Attraction” was a serious film about marital problems. The rape scene is leeringly shot and pointless since by the time it happens, you have no sympathy for the victim. Jodie Foster emotes a lot to minimal effect (a Sympathy Oscar if ever I saw one) and Kelly McGillis seemed to think she was still in “Top Gun”…

The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (Terry Gilliam)
1. A lot of money, a lot of hype – is it worth it? Nooooo, not quite, considering that for the same money Fred Olen Ray could have made about 400 films, each as much fun. There are some truly jaw-dropping moments, the effects ARE remarkable; in fact, there’s very little I can complain about, really, except the ten year old sitting behind me who punctuated every five minutes with “What’s he doing?”, “Why’s he doing that?”, “Can I have an ice-cream?”, “Can I have another ice-cream?”, “I’m going to be sick!”, etc. Any film that introduces to me to a new stunning beauty (Uma Thurman) has to be fairly worthwhile; unfortunately, it’s otherwise very much a case of good, but not THAT (for ‘THAT’, read $40 million) good.

2. Terry Gilliam’s latest offering, which can be roughly described as a ‘buddy’ film about a very old man and a very young girl, would have to do a great deal to fulfil what people have come to expect of him. Massively over budget and beset by catastrophes, the miracle is more that the film was ever completed that that it is at the least a half-decent film.

For those of you who have missed the many publicity blurbs, the plot is basically that of Baron Munchausen, infamous for his many tall stories, attempting to raise the Turkish siege of a town that he had caused long enough ago for most of the town’s population not only to forget that he was the cause, but also to forget that he actually exists.

He escapes the town by talking all the women of the town into relinquishing their underwear in order to build a hot-air balloon (a feat which many of my male friends seem eager to emulate), and proceeds to search for his trusty servants, without whom he appears to be absolutely useless. Watch out for Sting in his cameo role and for Robin Williams for his uncredited [though every review seems to credit it!!] performance as King of the Moon.

The film’s only problem is that the stunts are so well done as to cease being spectacular. Still, it’s an entertaining film, with morsels of violence and nudity for the more bloodthirsty/lustful among you, and just the right attention to detail. If you liked “Brazil”, you’ll probably like this, but considering the budget, the overall assessment is ‘Could do better’.

Angel of Vengeance (Abel Ferrara) – Mr. Ferrara has had an interesting career, ranging from the notorious (and highly tedious) “Driller Killer”, to TV movies such as “The Gladiator”, recently shown here. This film (also known as “Ms. 45” & not to be confused with “Avenging Angel”) falls in the middle, chronologically, and is a lot better than either, thanks mostly to a great performance from Zoe Tamerlis as the mute who is raped twice in one day, which causes her to wreak revenge on every man who looks at her. She overcomes the difficulty of having no dialogue very well and Ferrara does what he does best, painting a picture of the City as Hell on Earth. One supreme moment with Ms. 45, dressed as a nun, kissing the bullets as she loads them up, which is simultaneously the stuff of fantasy and nightmare.

Bad Girls Dormitory (Tim Kincaid) – Great title, disappointing film. Women-in- prison piece goes for ‘realism’ rather than tackiness and suffers as a result. The music’s better than “Reform School Girls” to my ears – in all other categories, it loses. Watch out for one of the worst choreographed fight sequences it has been my misfortune to endure.

Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens (Russ Meyer) – Third in his Vixens series, taking his breast fixation to extremes with Francesca ‘Kitten’ Natividad. Nudity in abundance, I don’t share Russ’s fetish, the humour’s my style instead. Acceptable.

Betrayed (Costa-Gavras) – Deborah Winger plays a CIA agent who goes undercover to track the White Power killers of a radio show host. Generally gripping; even if it does occasionally descend into sentimentality, some scenes made the hairs on the back of my neck stand. Superior to many films about The Land of the Free – if the South IS like that (I don’t know), I don’t think I want to go there.

The Blob (Chuck Russell) – More proof that throwing money at a film doesn’t always work. The effects are acceptable, the acting corny and the characters cliched. I can’t help wondering what the money was spent on – certainly, the sections I enjoyed most, such as “Garden Tool Massacre”, the film-within-the-film parody of the Friday the 13th genre, showed no sign of the budget. Nice to see a movie with a message these days. And the message is ‘If you put your hand down a girl’s blouse, her face explodes and strangles you.’ After “Nightmare 3”, strike 2 for Chuck, I’m afraid.

Crazy Love (Dominique Deruddere) – Dismantles the ‘romantic’ view of love and life with clinical precision and inspects it in an unflattering, cynical light. The three stories concern the same boy/man at different ages: the first sees his instruction in the facts of life, the second has him having to cope with SERIOUS acne and the third has him stealing a corpse for a joke and falling in love with it. Bitter-sweet stuff, often accurate to the point of being squirm-inducing, funny and sad in equal quantities. Excellent.

Demons (Dario Argento) – Argento is supposedly the master of the Italian horror film – if this is so, what’re the amateurs like? Minimal plot, a ludicrous climax, bad dubbing/acting and the gore that might have made it tolerable removed. Rotten. [Er… please see this cringing apology]

Drowning by Numbers (Peter Greenaway) – Surreal weirdness from the director of the very odd “Zed and Two Noughts”. Surprisingly, it works; a bit like an “Alice in Wonderland” for adults, it has an internal consistency which makes sense after a while. Here, we have three generations of women who drown their husbands and use their sexual wiles to bribe/blackmail the coroner into covering up. Visually striking, try and understand it at your own risk. Includes an imaginative new use for an ice-lolly… Friday the 13th Part VII – The New Breed – Every other review of this latest Jason flick has been totally negative (“It blows dead ghoulies in hell” – Chas Balun). I don’t see why – it seemed no worse than the last two and, unlike “Jason Lives”, it offers an action packed extended climax, though Jason’s actual demise is pathetic. Four and a half out of ten.

Ghosts of the Civil Dead (John Hillcoat) – Australian film, set in a prison of the near future, detailing the events leading up to a ‘lockdown’, when the prisoners are confined to their cells. Minimal dialogue, told mostly in voiceover, it’s not an easy film to watch. It’s worth the effort, though it’s completely pessimistic and brutally realistic nature makes it very different from other ‘prison’ films. Nice cameo from Nick Cave as a psycho and great stuff for paranoiacs. See it if you can.

Hands of the Ripper (Peter Sasdy) – One of the better late Hammer films, with Angharad Rees giving an excellent performance even by Hammer standards, as the daughter of Jack the Ripper who occasionally slips into psychotic frenzies herself. Surprisingly bloody for a ’15’, especially a nasty bit of eye-violence.

Hellbound – Hellraiser II (Peter Atkins) – As promised, a re-review of this one, and a report on how it’s done at the BBFC. I stand by most of what I said in TC 0; it is nowhere near as good as “Hellraiser”, the dialogue is rotten as is most of the acting and the story line is weak involving a lot of running about. The hell scenes are impressive, on the other hand and the FX are astonishing – if the original wasn’t one of my favourite films, this would be quite tolerable. As for the cuts, scratch almost the entire mattress sequence, reduced to about three shots from about 90 seconds, both Pinhead and Channard’s cenobitization are cut, as is the scene where the Channard slaughters his ex-patients and the one where he loses his head. None of these, except the first one struck me as being too blatant and the editing has been done well. Overall, it could have been a whole lot worse…

The Howling II (Phillipe Mora) – Now out on budget video. It never takes itself seriously enough or QUITE slides into total parody – either way might have been better. Christopher Lee does his best against some crass Americans and appalling werewolf FX (to be fair, some of the other pieces are OK) and Sybil Danning turns in her usual, er, fine performance. Watch the end credits for an example of sheer overkill as the same shot of SD whipping her top off is used at least twenty times!

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Steven Spielberg) – I have to admit to being disappointed by this one. Apart from a wonderful performance by Sean Connery, this is little more than a remake of the first in the series; Jones vs. Nazis, religious imagery, a long chase, etc. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work this time – even the chase is too long (I fell asleep in the middle!). Some nice ideas aren’t fully developed and there are gaping holes in the plot. The climax felt like something out of a bad fantasy game and I would have been much happier all round if it had stopped after The Temple of Doom.

Kamikaze (Didier Grousset) – Impressive French film, about an unemployed guy who gets so annoyed at TV announcers he invents a gun to kill them by remote control, and the policeman who has to track him down. It loses it’s way a little in the last third, when it gets too wordy for it’s own good, though the climax is chilling stuff. The best foreign film for a while and the sooner someone really invents a gun like that, the better!

Licence to Kill (John Glenn) – I go into each Bond film wondering how they’re going to surpass the previous one and come out in a daze. This one was no different, easily living up to “The Living Daylights” with astonishing stunts. Timothy Dalton is perfectly acceptable as Bond – you don’t go to these films for the acting! It does deserve it’s ’15’ certificate with blood and a nasty bit involving someone in a decompression chamber. The climactic car chase, or rather, tanker chase may well be the best one of the year. Add two cute bimbos and a very funny performance by Q and you have an excellent piece of expensive trash!

Nightmare on Elm Street 1, 2, 3 & 4 (Wes Craven, Jack Sholder, Chuck Russell and Renny Harlin) – I’ve never been a great fan of the Nightmare films (any series with a child killer as a hero is on dodgy ground – a Freddy fanclub for chrissake?) but when Wimbledon Odeon put on all four for a fiver, it was too cheap to miss and I have to say I was surprised how well-made at least three of them were. The plot is the same in all four: Freddy comes back from the dead and slaughters a few teens before getting destroyed, though within this framework, each director has a style all his own.

The first one is a straight horror story, done well, though Wes Craven has the easier task of not having earlier films to live up/down to. Tense and effective stuff. NoES 2 has come in for some flak, mostly for the Freddy-by-the-pool scene – fair comment and a shame, as up to then it had been better than NoES 1, with more believable heroes and the border between dreams and reality less explicit. NoES 3 was, for me, the worst, and a real turkey – what’s all this “in my dreams, I can be a wizard” crap? No mention of this in the first two films! Schmaltzy and cute, more like a kiddies’ TV series than a horror flick.

Finally, the new one – NoES 4. It’s a little cracker. Renny Harlin, who gave us “Prison”, one of 88’s best, has given us one of 89’s best too. ANYONE can die at ANY time – I was onto my third choice heroine by the end. Although a couple of the dream sequences don’t quite work perfectly, this scarcely matters and we have the first horror pic of the year that even makes an attempt to kick ass. I, for one, can’t wait to see the result when Renny Harlin directs a William Gibson script for “Aliens 3” [ STOP PRESS – Harlin’s dropped out ]. What odds it’ll be one of 1990’s best? Oh, keep an eye out for the name of the cafe, where much of the action takes place…

Parents (Bob Balaban) – The director claims it’s not a horror story – I beg to differ. It IS relatively restrained; it’s plot about a boy who comes to believe his parents are cannibals can hardly be described as romantic comedy though. Deviation behind a facade of normality is the theme and the performances from Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt as the parents bring this out, with a lot of black humour. Even if the climax owes more than a little to ‘Halloween’ and other unkillable killer flicks, it is still one of the most original & enjoyable horror films so far this year.

Patty Hearst (Paul Schrader) – For those of you too young to remember, Patty Hearst was kidnapped by the Symbionese Liberation Army and held to ransom. She was next seen helping her kidnappers rob a bank. Finally, the FBI caught up with her and she was sent to jail, though she is now free. This film is based on her book – surprise, surprise, she comes up smelling of roses! It was all the evil SLA’s fault because thet brainwashed her, raped her and were generally nasty to her (I remain unconvinced she wasn’t just a rich bitch out for kicks). Paul Schrader directs with a severe lack of lustre – the first half an hour or so seems to take place in a cupoboard, which isn’t very exciting. Only in odd moments does the pace or the acting rise above the pedestrian.

The Seven-per-cent Solution (Herbert Ross) – Surprisingly entertaining film, with Nicol Williamson (who played Merlin in John Boorman’s “Excalibur”) playing Sherlock Holmes as a cured coke fiend. Part-parody, part-homage, it might have been a disaster, instead it stays entertaining and frothily on track until the ‘surprise’ ending, which is telegraphed a long way in advance.

The Strangeness – Takes the second half of “Alien” and relocates it to a desert mine. The monster, here, being an ancient Indian folk-lore demon, is stop-motioned and iis barely glimpsed until the last ten minutes. It’s dull – didn’t deserve to be placed in Shock Xpress’s 50 most boring movies list, though.

Street Trash (Jim Muro) – This movie has as much chance of winning an Oscar as Salman Rushdie has of being given the Nobel Peace Prize. The word “Trash” is very apt for this movie – it’s the cinematic equivalent of a Big Mac; the acting is non- descript, the plot is more flimsy than the baggage inspection at Heathrow and the FX are totally gross. I love it! The film is set in the gutters of a USA inner city; scum & lowlife roam the streets and live on a liquid lunch(bit like a Napalm Death gig). A local store-keeper finds a case of liquor in his cellar, gives it a dust down and ships it out at a dollar a throw. No harm in that you might think, the problem is that the beer contains something very unpleasant(no, it’s not Hofmeister) which makes the consumer, well, MELT…

This is when the fun starts, one poor chap melts into the toilet (must have had Tandoori chicken), all that’s left is his deformed head peering out of the porcelain god. Add to this a deranged Vietnam vet, a stupid cop (aren’t they all?) and a sex mad scrap yard owner who likes to indulge in a spot of necrophilia. The film does tend to drag it’s feet a bit in the midle, but it’s still a great piece of sleaze – the highlights have to be a chap getting his head and most of his upper torso blown off and a game of ‘piggy-in-the- middle’ with a poor individual’s love truncheon… Why Barry Norman never included this in his Top Films of ’88 I’ll never know!

The Streetwalker (Walerian Borowczyk) – Sylvia Kristel and Joe d’Allesandro in the current leader for the Film With Least Plot prize. Life in the Paris red-light area sums it up. Not as good as some of his films – far too ‘normal’ to be interesting!

Supervixens (Russ Meyer) – Superb stuff. Part ‘Carry On’ film, part psycho killer, a weird mix, but it works. A guy argues with his wife – by coincidence, she gets slaughtered by a cop (in a scene short on gore, none the less nasty for it). He’s suspected and goes on the run to be waylaid by ANY & EVERY female he meets, until he meets the cop again… Reality takes a back seat permanently in this one, which may be Meyer’s best and is certainly the most entertaining to watch.

The Tall Guy – Better than I expected, from the man at least partly responsible for the appalling “Morons from Outer Space”. Never hysterically funny, never dull either – a few nice moments, though the much-touted sex scene isn’t very sexy or funny. Wait till it’s on TV.

They Live (John Carpenter) – Further evidence of a return to form, following the under-rated “Prince of Darkness”. Roddy Piper is a surprise as the labourer who puts on cool sunglasses and discovers the earth has been invaded by aliens. The action sequences are, as ever from Carpenter, excellent; he will insists pointless scenes that are nothing more than blatant attempts to give the characters character, instead of letting their actions speak for them. Candidate for line of the year: “I have come here to chew bubble-gum and kick ass. And I’m right out of bubble-gum.”

Terror on the Menu OR Terror at the Red Fox Inn, (depending on whether you believe the video box or the film titles respectively) – This is a trashless American drive in movie – ‘trashless’ via it’s lack of gore, horror and (needless to say) sex. It was produced in the mid-70’s and involves a pretty young student winning a holiday at a countryside inn which is owned by a group of cannibals. An endless dinner sequence (lots of closeups of mouths chomping away) deep-sixes this movie early on. To be ignored and forgotten.

Vixens (Russ Meyer) – First in Meyer’s top-heavy trilogy, probably the dullest of them, despite some odd moments when it starts getting political, with a communist hijacker. Wafer-thin plot about, er, I’m not sure what, does little to hold the interest and, unsurprisingly, the acting is awe-inspiring awful.

In the beginning was the word, and the word was ‘A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-wop-bam-boom’. Bad lyrics are an endless source of fascination to me, summing up the pure essence of pop – there’s a strange similarity between the feeling I get watching a truly bad film, and the one I get hearing an infinitive split in a particularly brutal manner.

What makes a bad lyric? Lack of meaning, strangely enough, isn’t necessarily that important – John Foxx produced an entire LP, “The Garden”, without coming up with very much intelligible to the average listener : “Do you get the smell of burning metal? / Can you feel the heartbeat under the sea? / Well, it’s just me and Oppenheimer waltzing / The crowded streets in chromakey” is a typical example, from the peculiarly named “Dancing Like a Gun”. Strangely, it works, probably because the words do fit the tune and have a rhythm, even if they are total gibberish.

Banal lyrics aren’t necessarily bad either, as long as you’re expecting them. Patsy Kensit & Eighth Wonder (above) produce music for happy bimbos, and the lyrics reflect this : “When I see the front page/It makes me worry/In a world full of outrage/The future looks blurry” (“My Baby’s Heartbeat”), may not be totally appalling, but it’s not far off. In terms of childishness, Jonathan Richman is the king here ; “Abominable Snowman in the market/That’s right, you heard me right, gang/And the housewives, they all remark it/Looks like a dirty marsh-mallow with fangs”. If you buy an LP with titles like “Here Come the Martian Martians” and “I’m a Little Dinosaur”, what do you expect?

The lyrics most likely to make me wince are those that attempt to make a serious social or moral point, and sink into sub-nursery drivel. Transvision Vamp came up with a beauty in “Revolution Baby” – “We’re all on the same side when the mushroom hits the sky”. Really, Wendy? You don’t say! Hard to beat that for reducing the complicated subject of nuclear disarmament to the level of a three year old.

The WORST lyrics I’ve heard in a good while come from a group called The Bolshoi. Their song, “Away”, boldly goes where no song has gone before in terms of sheer badness (and I don’t mean bad as in good). “When you were at school, you were a honey/The boys all loved you, you loved their money” deserves to be nominated for the ‘Worst Couplet of the Year’ award. The author has no hesitation is shoe-horning words into a line or adding exclamations as he sees fit if there are too few syllables. I think it wise to finish by stepping back, leaving a blank line and letting you read an example for yourself – come back, Kylie, all is forgiven!

“Yeah, one day you had a baby,
It was painful, it was worth it.”