Monday, April 17, 2017

MONDAY MOVIES

Comic books will always be my first fan and professional love. My second: monster movies, horror movies and B-movies in general. Here are my thoughts on two films I’ve watched recently.

Christopher R. Mihm is one of my favorite filmmakers. What he does is make 1950s-style horror and science fiction movies that appear to be incredibly low-budget 1950s-style horror and science fiction movies. I’ve watched four of his movies to date and fully expect to watch them all sooner or later. These are not movies that will win awards unless there’s some award for “gooey nostalgic fun,” but I keep coming back for the fun, so it’s all good.

Weresquito: Nazi Hunter [2016] is my least favorite of those four Mihm movies I’ve seen. The premise is wonderful:

Horrific Nazi experiments have left a surviving WWII soldier with a terrifying condition: at the sight of fresh blood, he transforms into a man-sized, blood-sucking killer insect. Refusing to let his affliction destroy him and all he loves, he instead commits himself to using his "powers" for good-by finding the people responsible and bringing them to justice.

But the execution was lacking in a few key areas. I’ll cover those once I activate the spoiler warnings...

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Near the end of the World War II fighting in Europe, Corporal John Baker [played by Douglas Sidney] is captured by Nazi mad scientist Schramm [James Norgard] and turned into a “weresquito,” a man who transforms into a humanoid mosquito when he sees blood. Schramm is attempting to create an army of monstrous super-soldiers for Adolf Hitler, but Germany falls before he can accomplish that and he is forced to flee to America.

Baker is rescued and tracks down and kills Schramm’s creations and associates. Sidney plays him as a truly haunted man, a performance that might well be the best in any of Mihm’s films. Sadly, Norgard plays the Nazi scientist way too big. I really couldn’t wait to see him receive his just fate.

Baker’s quest leads him to the small American town of New Berlin, a village founded by post-war German immigrants. In a diner that’s not at all convincing as a diner - it’s clearly just a room with a table, some chairs and a makeshift counter - he meets Leisl Schmidt [Rachel Grubb] and rescues her from an abusive ex-boyfriend. Leisl offers him her home’s spare room while he searched for his wartime friend Schramm. When the ex-boyfriend shows up at Leisl’s home and knocks Leisl out, Baker transforms and dispatches the guy in more permanent fashion.

Leisl is not your typical “pretty girl” heroine, but Grubb portrays her with a realism that was quite attractive. Leisl will not allow herself to be owned by any man, which makes her final fate all the more tragic. Oh, yes, there will be tragedy.

The main problem with this movie is that it’s way too talky. There are too many flashbacks for a movie that runs but one hour and 18 minutes. Discussion scenes overwhelm the handful of action scenes. But the time I got to the climax of the movie, I feel like I’d been watching a more longer movie.

Okay, to no one’s surprise, Schramm is Leisl’s father. Since coming to America, he has kept a low profile. He clearly yearns to return to his experiments and he has already done so...with his daughter. Unbeknownst to Leisl, he has turned her into another were-creature,  a humanoid black widow spider whom he controls. The monster special effects are absurdly low-budget from the start, but they work well for a “homage” movie like this.

When Schramm recaptures Baker, he offers the ex-soldier a chance to join him and Leisl in continuing his work and building an army of his own. When Baker refuses, the Nazi sics Leisl on him. But, even in her monstrous form, Leisl will not be controlled by any man. She turns on her father.

Baker transforms and kills Leisl. Schramm laughs. Leisl’s blood is toxic and will kill Baker. The doomed man hangs on long enough to end Schramm’s life. It’s an effectively tragic ending, marred by the movie then concluding with yet another flashback, this time showing Americans rescuing Baker from Schramm’s lab in Germany.

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As noted above, Weresquito: Nazi Hunter had a good story, but told it poorly. There are fun moments in the movie, but the flashbacks and all that talking hurt its sense of fun and wonder. It’s not a movie I’d watch a second time, but it hasn’t diminished my interest in past and future Mihm projects.

Two more comics-related notes. Long-time comics fan, comics dealer and art collector Joel Thingvall plays a customer in the makeshift diner. Long-time comics fan and professional Tony Isabella appears in the end credits because he backed the Kickstarter project that funded this movie. Next time out, Mihm should set his Kickstarter goal higher. I have no doubt he would put the extra money to good use. Maybe even rent out a real diner.                                                                                     

Based on the story "The Adaptive Ultimate" by noted science-fiction writer Stanley G. Weinbaum, She Devil [1957] is this quietly scary horror movie that, because of its low-key approach, is all the more unsettling. Directed by and with a screenplay by Kurt Neumann, the movie was originally released on a double-bill with Kronos, another sci-fi thriller also directed by Neumann. The story credit goes to Weinbaum - and the movie definitely captures the major plot points and tone of the original prose story - and Carroll Young also gets a screenplay credit.

The movie stars the haunting Mari Blanchard, future Maverick Jack Kelly and genre veteran Albert Dekker. It runs a tight 77 minutes. Here’s the Internet Movie Database synopsis:

Doctors Scott and Bach inject the dying Kyra Zelas with a formula which saves her life - but also renders her almost immortal and wickedly evil.

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Dr. Dan Scott [played by Kelly] is frustrated by the bureaucratic process of getting his new serum approved for human tasting. Though Dr. Bach [Dekker] initially rejects Scott’s plea to be allowed to test his formula on a terminal patient, he relents when faced with the certain demise of Kyra, a plain young woman of no means who is drying from tuberculosis.

The serum cures Kyra and more. She becomes beautiful and vital, but turns into Ayn Rand, a woman who cares only for herself and her own desires. When she commits a crime and a brutal assault, she changes the color of her hair to escape the police. She moves in with Dr. Scott, so that he and Bach can allegedly study her. They learn she can heal from any injury. Scott falls in love with Kyra. Even knowing what Kyra has become, he can’t bring himself to turn her in.

At a party, Kyra seduces a wealthy man and then murders his wife. She marries the man, but, ultimately, he fares no better than did his previous wife. The soulless beauty returns to Scott’s house and shows no remorse for her killings.

Scott and Bach manage to render Kyra unconscious. They then perform surgery on her to reverse the serum’s effects. However, the surgery also restores Kyra’s terminal illness. She dies as the plain young woman she had been.

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Blanchard is amazing in her role as the immortal and inhuman Kyra. Kelly portrays the hopeless desperation of the prideful scientist who created this monster. Dekker comes across a man who so wants to help his patients that he crosses ethical lines to do so. This is a terrific movie that I plan to watch again soon. It’s been decades since I last saw Neumann’s Kronos, but it’s another film I need to track down and watch again.

I hope you enjoyed today’s cinema comments. I’ll be back tomorrow with more stuff.

© 2017 Tony Isabella

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