Today's Mini-Review: Day the World Ended

Rating: ***/*****, or 7/10

Starring: Richard Denning, Lori Nelson, Mike Connors

Directed by Roger Corman

USA: Golden State Productions, 1955

Truth is, few of the films from Roger Corman's early days of directing schlock movies for a dime are 'good' in the usual sense of the word. In fact, most (if not all) of them are cheap exploitation quickies shot for next to nothing so they could do nothing but make a profit in drive-in theaters screaming for content to cater to teenage love birds more interested in each other in the dark than in the goings-on present on the big screen in front of them. Flicks like The Beast with a Million Eyes (1955), Swamp Women (1956) and It Conquered the World (1956) nowadays are interesting only to geeks revelling in bad taste or film students exploring the fringes of acceptable study material. Still, the occasional sort-of decent film can be found among Corman's early work for those with enough patience and the stomach for digesting campy creature features from the Fifties. Day the World Ended I count among these very few.

Stories about man's inability to coexist in peace with his fellows, even when such cooperation would be to both parties' mutual advantage in the struggle for basic survival, have often resulted in fascinating pieces of audiovisual excitement studying the human condition and continue to do so to this day even when you thought little more could be added to the subject, except for different, usually interchangeable threats. You think people watch popular shows like The Walking Dead only for the excessive gore and neat-o zombie make-up? Think again: they watch it for the gripping human drama involved in living together under extreme circumstances. Corman applied the same formula to this post-apocalyptic tale of tragedy almost sixty years ago, as he tells the story of a small band of survivors who seek refuge in the same remote mountain location when the bombs finally fall, a typical fear of the Fifties where such an occurrence never seemed so unlikely. Among those that would live are a survivalist, his pretty daughter, a geologist, a loudmouth crook, his slutty girlfriend and a man with a terrible secret. Of course tension quickly mounts between these disparate people over the usual things, like who's in charge, who rations the food and who ends up dating the daughter. Most of the film consists of people arguing, but fortunately the movie only lasts 79 minutes and the man with a secret mutates into a horrifying monster (read: guy in a silly suit) to spice things up a bit. Corman proves quite adept in suspensefully paving the way for the creature's first appearance between all the petty bickering. And even though you know the actual monster isn't gonna succeed in living up to this buildup to his rampage, if you know and accept what type of movie you're watching before you start, you might be able to get a kick out of this film regardless of the total lack of production values, even if only for laughs (who ever said Corman made serious movies anyway?). Aficionados of Fifties' Sci-Fi films will also be grateful to see Richard Denning star as the handsome scientist and noble man of action, as the actor is almost a staple of the science fiction films of this era, starring in genre pieces like the classic Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954) and less well remembered pictures like The Black Scorpion (1957) and Target Earth (1954).

The dystopian themes of Day the World Ended, effectively underscoring that man is his own worst enemy (hardly a novel notion in 1955 to begin with), have since been addressed in other films and television ad infinitum (compare various episodes of the different Twilight Zone series, as well as recent films like The Divide and The Mist for example) yet continue to fascinate and appeal to people, who cannot help but wonder if this was really what it came down to when the world went to hell. Corman crafts a fairly entertaining film out of the subject matter, which remains one of his best, though that is hardly saying something. Though I wouldn't exactly recommend this type of film to anyone, I can honestly say that if you ever fell the need to go sit and watch an obvious cashgrab B-movie from a master in creating such fare the likes of Corman, it might as well be this one. You could do far worse and really, really waste your time.

Today's Mini-Review: Machete Kills

Machete Kills: ***/*****, or 6/10

Robert Rodriguez continues telling the strange and ever over-the-top chronicles of his delightfully violent character Machete (Danny Trejo), who once starred in a fake trailer attached to his original Grindhouse segment Planet Terror and suddenly embarked on a life of his own. Though no faux trailer for this second installment was ever attached to other similar themed films (maybe there just were none), Machete Kills itself opens with a trailer for the alleged third movie, the dubiously titled Machete Kills Again... In Space! It's both a stroke of genius – as this 'prevue' perfectly sets the tone for what's to come, as well as pokes fun to the whole B-movie style Rodriguez embraces so vigorously more aptly in two minutes than the following film does in two hours – but also rather frustrating, as we know exactly how the movie we're about to see ends and what characters survive to fight another day (in space, yes). As such, Machete Kills is largely rendered devoid of any large narrative surprises. As we'll find out soon enough, the film doesn't rely on story structure at all, as in this regard it's kind of a mess, bloated with characters and motivations, many which change over the course of the movie. We're just supposed to roll with it as we did in the case of the first film, but it's obvious the paying-hommage-to-grindhouse-cinema is getting stale. This time, Machete is hired by the President of the USA (Charlie Sheen, humorously billed under his birth name Carlos Estevez and given an 'introducing' credit accordingly) to stop an arms dealer with a bad case of schizophrenia (Demian Bichir) from launching a nuclear assault upon Washington D.C. Why Machete cares about America at all, being an exploited Mexican alien and so forth, is only briefly addressed as we're not supposed to care to much for it is his simple duty to 'go kick some ass', and we like to see him do just that (we do!). Of course the situation is not nearly as simple as it seems and the bad guy's trail leads to an even bigger villain, a big shot industrialist named Voz (Mel Gibson) who harbors even deadlier threats to mankind's health. Along the road, Machete must dodge various well armed, colourful hitmen and legions of mindless minions, survive plots by double agents and also make love to beautiful women from time to time. A lot to do in only two hours, and what's more, a lot of characters to introduce and successively kill off in new and interesting ways.

Even more star studded than Machete's previous venture, this movie features appearances by an overly large score of popular actors including the likes of Jessica Alba, Amber Heard, Lady Gaga, Antonio Banderas, Cuba Gooding Jr. and Vanessa Hudgens. With so many celebrities present, it's obvious a lot of them don't get the screen time they deserve. Another, more serious result is that Trejo himself feels somewhat overwhelmed by it all (or maybe it's just his age, as he's pushing 70) and delivers a less than stellar performance than we're used to, not nearly exuberating the same type of invincibility and 'badassery' as he did before. Fortunately we still have the scantily clad tough girl Michelle Rodriguez (no relation), reprising her role as secret revolutionary Luz, to make up for Trejo's lack of bravura. In all other respects, Machete Kills is equally enjoyable as its predecessor, containing the maximum amount of scenes of idiotic ultraviolence, sweaty sensuality (though surprisingly no actual nudity this time) and a plethora of insanely funny genre self-referencing that have proven hallmarks of Rodriguez' grindhouse flicks. My favorite, apart from the opening trailer for Part 3, is the sex scene which out of the blue has the film stock distorted and blurred just when it got saucy, with an overlaying text asking us to put on our 3D-glasses. At least in terms of sheer simple fun Machete once again gives us what we expect, which does still make you want to see him kill again in space: like the trailer says, because 'it's all galactic and shit'.

Brain Eaters, The

Rating: **/*****, or 3/10

Terrible low budget science fiction/horror flick about alien parasites invading a small American town and taking over people's minds. A small band of brave uninfected individuals tries to stop their hostile take-over. Lousy story, boring execution and mostly non-existent visuals, courtesy of schlock production studio American International Pictures (AIP), specializing in only the cheapest of horror and science fiction flicks to provide drive-in theaters with content to show to teenagers who aren't watching anyway because they're engaged in other activities. Noted science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein sued the producers (including Roger Corman, an expert in producing this type of quick, cheesy, cheap cinema of the late fifties) for stealing the plot of his book 'The Puppet Masters'. Otherwise this movie is only noteworthy for featuring Leonard Nimoy (of Star Trek fame, obviously) in one of his earliest roles, playing the host to the Brain Eater Overlord: unfortunately his last name was misspelled as 'Nemoy'.

Starring: Ed Nelson, Cornelius Keefe, Leonard Nimoy

Directed by Bruno VeSota

USA: AIP, 1958

Blood of Dracula

Rating: **/*****, or 4/10

Beware! Misleading title here! This movie has nothing to do with the Dracula character in whatever incarnation, despite some semi-vampiric presence in the plot. A better title would have been 'I was a Teenage Dracula', considering this was produced by the same company behind I was a Teenage Werewolf, also released in 1957, to which it bears more than just a coincidental resemblance story wise as it tells of a troubled teenage girl (Sandra Harrison) dumped at a boarding school by her father, who finds herself subjected to hypnotic experiments by the evil headmistress (Louise Lewis), that turn her into a vampire at her behest. This results in a few suspenseless murders here and there and a dull subplot about police investigators trying to find out what's going on. This movie was released as a double bill for drive-ins with I was a Teenage Frankenstein. Production company American International Pictures (AIP) was responsible for many a lousy B-movie in the latter half of the fifties (many of them with overly grandiose, incorrect and thus irresponsible titles): though this flick is far from good, it's by no means the worst of this extensive bunch.

Starring: Sandra Harrison, Louise Lewis, Gail Ganley

Directed by Herbert L. Strock

USA: AIP, 1957

Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman

Rating: **/*****, or 4/10

Television remake of the ultimate fifties' cult film. A wife to an abusive and disloyal husband drives home through the night and gets caught by a flying saucer's ray beam. Afterwards, she finds her anger makes her grow taller and taller, until she's at least 50 ft. tall, and she sets out for revenge against her lowlife husband and everybody else who ever humiliated her. The reasons for remaking an already schlock low budget film, its classic silly title not withstanding, remain unclear as this version certainly does not improve upon the original and ends up a dull and predictable watch, despite its occasional funny feminist retro overtones.

Starring: Daryl Hannah, Daniel Baldwin, Frances Fisher

Directed by Christopher Guest

USA: Warner Bros. Television, 1993

Attack of the Crab Monsters

Rating: **/*****, or 5/10

Typical Roger Corman quickie from the fifties, obviously shot on a shoestring budget in very little time, designed to simply cash in on the popularity of science fiction films in that era. On a remote island in the Pacific, a group of scientists is confronted by intelligent giant crabs who have been mutated by nuclear experiments in the area. A typical 'terrestrial creature' flick about man's folly in testing nuclear weaponry and nature out for revenge for this transgression by sending monsters created by man's messing around with her secrets to correct the error. The crabs actually look pretty decent considering the small amount of money spent on their design. A really fun, campy movie if you know what you're getting yourself into, with little pretension of being anything beyond that.

Starring: Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, Russell Johnson

Directed by Roger Corman

USA: Los Altos Productions, 1957