Year Of The Knock Off! Bad Dreams (1988)

This post is a week late and for that I apologize. I know everyone was on the edge of their seat wondering when I would poorly type out half baked thoughts on a film you may or may not have heard of while I post weird .gifs and images from said films. Much like the difficulties I had when I was trying to write about Spacehunter, I had the majority of this post already written when I made the fatal error of attempting to save it as a draft on Blogger. Evidently there is a known issue that drafts don't save correctly with this platform and I am not the first person to lose all of their work. It sucks. I had some amazing jokes and commentary that has been lost to the ages. No, don't go looking for it, it was too good and I set the bar way to high. It's for the best.

The film I chose to watch for the blog for October is one that was chasing the success of A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors. But, Paul, why did you decide to look at a Nightmare knockoff and not another Child's Play pretender? Well, Dolly Dearest and its made for TV blandness turned me off to the cursed doll subgenre of horror for a bit. 

So before I accidently lose this post's contents, let's have some Bad Dreams. 

The trailer doesn't shy away from the goop.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing. 

First, a small warning. Bad Dreams isn't the greatest film, but it does have some surprisingly effective gore in it. If you are bothered by such imagery, then maybe you should steer clear of this discussion as I will be sharing some gnarly .gifs. We good? Good.

Bad Dreams starts off in the mid 1970's at a farm/compound called Unity Fields. It is lead by the charismatic and very creepy Franklin Harris (Richard Lynch, more on him later). He is talking about the 'ultimate joining' of man and woman in unity while he is bringing his followers up one by one to be baptized by a ladle of liquid. He tells them its the final break with the old world and with the dawn, a new day begins, a day of unity. 

He sees hippies. Hippies for miles.

One of the followers, Cynthia (Jennifer Rubin) is somewhat hesitant to take Harris's invitation but slowly does so, being baptized. That evening, the house that the members of Unity is living in explodes into a ball of flame and Cynthia is pulled unconscious from the fire, the only known survivor. The injuries from the explosion put Cynthia into a coma for 13 years.

RIP hippies. The fire probably stank of Patchouli and Grateful Dead album covers.

When Cynthia wakes up, she finds herself in the care of Dr. Berrisford (Harris Yulin). Cynthia can not remember the specific events of the night when Unity Fields burned and Dr. Berrisford believes group therapy can help her recover her lost memories. The group therapy though, is composed of people who are suffering from borderline personality disorder and it is not quite apparent why Cynthia would be placed with people who's biggest challenges are with anger, delusion, and self harm. The leader of the group, Dr. Alex Karmen (Bruce Abbott) doesn't understand why Berrisford placed her there as well but goes along with the placement because Berrisford is his superior. 

Bruce Abbot's name may sound somewhat familiar. He was Dr. Dan Cain in the Re-Animator films. He was the straight man to Jeffery Combs's Dr. Herbert West. Can someone get type cast as a well meaning doctor that has shit go crazytown no matter how hard he tries to not let that happen?  

'My diagnosis? Yes.'

Cynthia seems moderately well adjusted considering her cult past and 13 years gone. She is trying to figure out her next steps in life as she has no friends or family or anything waiting for her outside the hospital. There's only one problem though; she keeps seeing Franklin Harris showing and  up asking her to join him on the other side, to be unified with him and the rest of his followers. One particular creepy moment involves Cynthia in an elevator full of people when he appears.

'Third floor: kitchen wares, comas, and burned up hotdog men.'

No one believes Cynthia that she is seeing him, they do believe that she is processing what happened to her years ago. After doing some 'scream therapy' (where all the group members screamed into pillows), Cynthia's memories of that last night flood back. She recalls that the liquid that Harris was baptizing members with was just straight gasoline. He pours a large tub of it over his head and lights a match, causing the house and the people inside to quickly get covered in flames. Some people react more slowly than others.

This is how I finally was able to get out of my Columbia House cassette club membership. As soon as her memory is filled in, Harris starts appearing more and more, trying to get Cynthia to kill herself and cross over to him. If she refuses to do so, he threatens that he will start taking those that are around her. She doesn't want to believe him but soon people do start to die around her in odd ways. Cynthia has a vision of seeing Harris baptizing her (in a creek, not with gasoline). As she is watching herself being forced underwater by him, Cynthia sees that it is no longer her in his hands, but a girl from her therapy group. When she snaps out of her vision, she hears commotion coming from the nearby hospital swimming pool. The girl from her group and her vision has forcibly drowned herself.  Later on, a group member that was once a reporter for a scandal magazine tries to convince Cynthia that they could both leave the hospital and sell her Unity Fields story and start her life over. The former reporter is getting on an elevator to go and get their belongings when Cynthia sees Harris waiting for her friend. The doors close and Cynthia races down the stairwell in hopes of stopping Harris.  Spoiler: She didn't.

With two very gruesome suicides in less than two days, the press come to ask an obvious question: Is it a coincidence that the girl from the suicide cult wakes up 13 years later and those around her are starting to kill themselves?  Dr. Berrisford dismisses this and simply states to the reporters that people with borderline personality disorder have a predisposition to committing suicide. He believes the therapy he is overseeing that Dr. Alex Karmen is conducting is the correct way to treat these people.

And as soon as he makes this statement, we find that two other group members, a not-so-secret couple, have snuck off after lights out to go have sex in a ventilation room with a large ominus spinning fan behind them. Cynthia, drawn out into the hallway due to some sounds she is hearing from the vents, looks up and see Harris in the vent beckoning her to join him. You would expect that because the couple that were having sexy times by the spinny fan would be the next victims and their blood would come out of the vents above Cynthia. You would be right. How it happens though, is not something I would expect many people to guess.

Worst. Sprinker. Ever.

There's is way more blood there than two horny people could produce. This doesn't even show that just before this happened a janitor gets a Double Dare sized portion of human slop dropped on him (including at least one hand). You have to believe that a hospital has some kind of protocol on how to deal with such a large biohazard. This will take days to address...

...or one guy with a mop in the very next scene. Give that man a raise.

As the numbers of the group dwindle, Crystal believes that Harris is actually killing them off till she finally joins him. Dr. Karmen decides to stay the night with Crystal in her room, to show her that there won't be any more deaths. 

Meanwhile, the last few members of the group have cops posted outside their room doors. Ralph (Dean Cameron), one of the more violent and aggressive group members, is alone in his room with a very large knife. Earlier in the film, Ralph confided in Cynthia that when things get to be too much, he makes a hole in himself to let it all out and he feels better. He shows her his abdomen that is filled with pinhole scars. Ralph with a knife is bad business. What he does with it though...

Turn away while you still can...

You have been warned....

You have only yourself to blame...

JESUS CHRIST.

I don't often swear out loud when watching a film by myself, but that hand jammed onto the knife made me say say stuff that I am not going to type here. Needless to say Ralph is not in a good state of mind after he does this. This sequence eventually leads to Ralph stabbing himself to death with scalpels in front of Cynthia and Dr. Karmen. 

Dr. Berrisford wants to now put Cynthia in isolation and Dr. Karmen disagrees and threatens to get a court order and Berrisford fires Karmen. Somewhere along the way, Karmen has one of the anti-depressants that was given the group members and decides to pop it on the way out the door, you know, as medically licensed professional doctor are oft to do. This leads to him having this vivid hallucination in the parking lot of him killing Berrisford. Dr. Karmen has a hunch and goes down to where the prescriptions are kept for all the patients in the hospital and checks his group members's records. The pharmacist there has a familiar face. Or at least a familiar voice. 

You might better know him as Roger Rabbit.

Dr. Karmen discovers, with the help of the pharmacist, that Berrisford secretly switched the therapy drugs to ones that are hallucinogenic and spike aggressive behavior. Berrisford was purposefully making his potentially suicidal patients tip over the edge and actually kill themselves to prove some theory about behavior he was researching. Franklin Harris wasn't really there. Berrisford was the real monster. 

Karmen confronts Berrisford as he is trying to get Cynthia to choose to jump off the roof of the hospital. Cynthia, drugged out of her mind, believes if she jumps, she will join Harris and the rest of Unity. Karmen saves the day and Berrisford ends up falling off the building. 

The film ends very quickly and then the credits play. With this song.

I was completely confused as to why Sweet Child O' Mine would be at the end of this film. Evidently, Bad Dreams was coming out right before Guns N' Roses blew up and became the biggest rock band in the world. Per the trivia for the film, the video for the song was supposed to be a tie in to Bad Dreams and was to show clips from the film. Axle Rose's girlfriend nixed the idea as she didn't want the song, which was about her, to be related to a film full of mentally unstable people killing themselves. Probably a good call.  

So a couple of comments about some of the cast and people behind Bad Dreams. First, this film was produced by Gale Ann Hurd. She's got a writing and producing credit on The Terminator, producing credit on Aliens (which came out two years prior to Bad Dreams) and is an executive producer on The Walking Dead. She knows how films and productions should work and is responsible for a lot of great stuff. I don't know why this was her very next project after Aliens. She feels too good for something like this. 

Second, this was written by Stephen E. de Souza (with the director Andrew Flemming). He is responsible for writing the scripts for 48 Hrs., Commando, The Running Man, Die Hard, Hudson Hawk, Judge Dredd (the Stallone One), and Street Fighter. He has more misses than hits, but he has memorable films. I don't really have more to add about him other than I was surprised that this was one of his films considering that he is mainly known for action and comedy. 

Third, Richard Lynch, who played Franklin Harris, was really good in this film. He had the right balance of magnetism and creepiness that made him always compelling to watch when he was on the screen. When I learned that in 1967, while under the influence of drugs that he had set himself on fire and burned 70% of his body, I lost my mind. I can't image what that would be like to go through and then one day take a role in which you play a character the purposefully douses themselves in gasoline and then lights themself on fire. I know he didn't actually do this during filming, but there has to be a long hard look in the mirror before you shoot that scene right? God damn, he elevates the quality of the film every time he shows up and knowing that he is playing a man who burned to death in light of the events of his actual life, it just makes his performance stronger.

I can see how Bad Dreams is trying to walk in the shadow of Dream Warriors. You have a burned up boogeyman reaching out from beyond the grave to a group of psychologically and emotionally challenged people who are on the verge of commiting suicide with very little push needed. Hell, the lead, Jennifer Rubin, was in Dream Warriors as Taryn, the punk rock girl with 7 foot tall mohawk. 

She's bad and beautiful. Just not in this film.

Also, the name of the film, Bad Dreams, is supposed to make you think that this film is trying to be Elm Street. There is one big problem with this though: CYNTHIA NEVER DREAMS IN THE FILM. No one dreams and then ends up dead. All the deaths happen while everyone is awake. There isn't even an attempt to do a headnod or eye flutter to imply that someone just accidently fell asleep and now they are in the boiler room Unity Fields. Maybe it is supposed to set you up for the fake out that the real cause of the problem was drugs, not dreams. In that case it works... kind of. 

I think there is an interesting idea in Bad Dreams, I just don't know if it was handled well. The notion that someone who was a part of a cult in which all the members voluntarily let themselves die and they did not,  and how would that affect their world view and their sense of purpose along with their self worth is an very compelling idea. Having their guilt manifest itself as a burned corpse of their leader/father figure adds layers to that. Then mix in that this all could be supernatural or their guilt or the drugs they are being forced to take and you have a film I want to watch. Bad Dreams somehow tries to do this but falls on its keys in a way that is hard to put my finger on. I think its biggest sin is that none of the characters are really relatable (most of the group members are obnoxious) and you don't really ever feel sympathy for any of them. If I don't care about anyone in the film, then I won't care when their blood coats an entire floor of a hospital.

Bad Dreams isn't a bad film, and it is worth watching for Richard Lynch and the gut twistingly great gore effects. I am glad I checked it out even if that hand stab is going to haunt my dreams (the ones I will have actually have, unlike the none that happened in the film) for quite a while.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I am going to go with a 7. It had the following:

• A burned up hotdog man tormenting people from the afterlife (kind of).
• Jennifer Rubin who was in Dream Warriors.
• Charles Fleischer who was in the original Nightmare on Elm Street.
• A death involving falling from a great height.
• A group of psychologically challenged patients being picked off one by one.
• A well meaning doctor trying to help his patients but ultimately can't.
• A rock song playing over the end credits (GNR is pretty good, but they are no Dokken).

If Bad Dreams had ended up being purely supernatural, it would have bumped the score up higher, but there is still a lot these films have in common.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Ator has less hand stabs and a way more awesome end credits song, but Bad Dreams is a better made film. 

Would you recommend this film to anyone else? 

Yes, this is an interesting film to seek out if you have seen all the Elm Street films and are looking for a little different take on the same formula. Just don't eat while watching it. 

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Year Of The Knock Off! Escape From The Bronx (1983)

Are The Riffs gonna make it out this time? Maybe Spike Fist Man will lead the way?

On our most recent Year of The Knock Off episode, we discussed 1982's 1990: The Bronx Warriors, a film that we were lead to believe was a knock off of John Carpenter's Escape From New York. While we did enjoy the film a great deal, the Bronx Warriors had much more DNA from The Warriors in its makeup than Escape From New York. While that was a fun element to look into, because let's be honest, theme gangs are always awesome and always welcome, it didn't scratch that itch that I thought an Escape from New York knock off would. 

Remember, no one will take your turf war seriously if you don't accessorize and practice, practice, practice!

Once we finished watching 1990: The Bronx Warriors, we learned that it had a sequel (technically two sequels but the second one was more of a Mad Max knock off... that I want to watch with Steve, like right now), called Escape From The Bronx. So I decided in lieu of trying to locate a different Escape From New York wannabe, I would watch this sequel in hopes of seeing Trash and the gang escape the Bronx. 

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com cast listing.

Spoilers: the previous film just kind of ended with Trash (Mark Gregory) driving his sweet skull laden motorcycle away from a gang stronghold that was being attacked and decimated by the private police force of The Manhattan Corporation. In tow, Trash has grapple gun hooked Hammer, an officer who lead the attacks (played by the awesome Vic Morrow). Trash was dragging Hammer through the No Man's Land that is the Bronx. 

Escape From The Bronx picks up some time later. Another company, The General Construction Corporation is now rounding up all the remaining residents of the Bronx. They plan to raze the entirety of the Bronx to make way for a new city of the future (think of the Delta City plan put in place by OCP in Robocop and it is pretty much the same thing, except the model of the city is way lower budget). GCC is stating that they are resettling the residents in New Mexico. 

Enchanting! Sign me up!

The people that have survived in the Bronx don't want to leave. Why this is isn't made particularly clear other than it is their home and they shouldn't be made to leave it. They also do have good reason to believe that GCC is not being on the level about their promise of New Mexico. It doesn't help that the relocation squads that are patrolling the borough are wearing shiny silver suits and are packing flame throwers that they use at the drop of a hat. 

Shown: the Bronx. Not shown: New Mexico probably not looking at all like this.

Enter Trash, one of two returning characters from the original film. His gang, The Riders, were supposedly the rulers of the Bronx in the previous film and were the force to reckoned with. It isn't spoken, but evidently the final fight of the first film took the rest of the gang out and now Trash is just an spindly army of one. GCC knows him by name and have been trying to hunt him down. A helicopter spots him in the distance and opens fire on him. Trash, armed only with a revolver and a face that doesn't emote, returns fire.

Ken would never walk again.

GCC takes this personally and orders that Trash's parents are located and killed. It's a very dick move.

Two things about the brief scene involving Trash's parents:

1.) His mom has a poster of him up in their apartment. Weird.

Does that mean the film of 1990: The Bronx Warriors exists in this world as well? *Mind Blown*

2.) His dad knows how to swing a baseball bat.

Ken would never eat solid food again.

This would lead Trash to head underground to find the remnants of the rest of the gangs that had been fighting for control of the Bronx but now are living in fear of the GCC. 

The leader of the remains goes by the name of Dablone and is played by Antonio Sabato, Snr.  

'One day I will have a son that is bat shit crazy... but also really good looking. Not A List good looking, but definitely good looking enough to make you consider watching some direct to video nonsense, ok?'

Dablone is not as charismatic a leader as Fred Williamson's Ogre was in 1990: The Bronx Warriors, but Sabato plays him with enough crazy energy that it feels like he is the only actor aware of what kind of movie he is actually in, so I appreciated it. Dablone is confident that the GCC wouldn't dare come down in the underground of the Bronx as he and his people know the tunnels and have traps set up. Trash is trying to convince him that they need to take the fight above ground and take their turf back.

While this exchange is going on, there's a certain gang training in the background.

This just made Steve's day.

The Dance Fighters (dance troupe game name 'The Iron Men') are back! Shit is about to get real, right? No. Sadly, they don't ever factor in the fights that happen later. None of the theme gang stuff from the first film really comes back in this one. I did see some members of the rolling skating gang, the Zombies, but they did nothing as well. It's unfortunate, because these two films had a chance to carve out its own distinct brand of weird and failed to do so. 

There is a smaller subplot that is going on during this time involving a reporter, her photographer, and their attempts to get the president of GCC to admit that they are actually killing the remaining people in the Bronx and not at all relocating them to the magical land of New Mexico. The president (played by Ennio Girolami, I only mention his name as he played the president of the other evil company from the first film, so I honestly thought it was the same character... and for all intents and purposes it really is) is quick to dismiss her accusations, stating the he will only respond to respectable press, not a shouting woman. I am glad that this is a sci-fi film and that kind of thing never happens in real life. 

She does present him with a piece of evidence that he thought was hidden from the press: the man running the DAS (Disinfestation Annihilation Squad), the silver suited flame thrower equipped guys, is an expelled prison warden named Floyd Wangler. He is as cruel and as bad as they come. He even has the Disinfestors attach bombs to residents in an attempt to blow others up when they are being rescued.... with varying degrees of success.

'I JUST ATE A BUNCH OF POP ROCKS AND DRANK A 2 LITER OF DIET COKE...'

Who do you get to play such a role? Vic Morrow was a good foil in the first film and had his own intensity. That would be hard to match. Instead, you get Henry Silva. You don't get smolder from Silva. You get a calm demeanor as he goes about doing the worst things to people. Nothing much gets to him. But when he smiles, you are probably already dead. He was great in the roll of Wangler. He didn't really get the chance to mix it up with the main characters and that is a shame. I enjoyed his time on screen and was always hoping there would be more of him. 

'But that's more of grin...!'

The reporter and photographer witness first hand the violence of the DAS, with the photographer not quite making it (he, like a lot of people in this film, got slow motion flame throwered). The reporter ends up in the underground with Trash and Dablone and eventually convinces Dablone to take action.

Their plan? Kidnap the president of GCC and hold him until the company stops all action and hands the Bronx back to the gangs. I don't know if their logic is sound, but I appreciated their enthusiasm. 

They need to get to mainland and the only way they can do that is if they locate an infamous bank robber named Strike (Giancarlo Prete). Strike's motivation for helping Trash and the reporter is that once the Bronx is back in control of the gangs, he can go back to be best there is at crime (?). I figured you could commit crimes and robberies regardless of who is in charge, but what do I know, I am not very good at crime at all. So Strike agrees to help them out, on one condition, that his young son, Junior (Alessandro Prete.. HIS ACTUAL SON) comes along with them as the kid is a demolitions expert. The kid actually does prove time and time again that he knows his stuff about rigging explosives and is probably the most competent character in the whole film. Junior likes to raise his hand into the air, splaying his fingers out, and saying 'boom' before any explosion goes off. It is a very cute and disturbing calling card.

So Trash, Strike, Junior, and the reporter head out to kidnap the GCC president. As the reporter's job is complete, she is quickly killed off. Thanks for filling in the backstory, but we only have so much money for words and we would rather use that on explosions. 

They capture the president and take him underground to get him back to the Bronx. GCC, Wangler, and his Disinfestors are brought out in full force to head into the sewers to find Trash and the gang. 

Please see how unaffected New York City seems to be by a van full of guys in silver suits and motorcycle helmets holding guns and flame throwers exiting immediately the back of the van and then directly heading underground.

I like the one Disinfestor has to run around the side of the van to hassle the one guy walking by.

Soon, all hell breaks loose as Dablone finally gets his men to face the DAS on the streets. There are many moments of slow motion gun fire, fire from explosions, and fire from flame throwers. A lot of characters we saw in passing get killed off. Dablone gets offed to, and he doesn't get the badass send off that Fred Williamson had in the original. The president escapes from Trash and Strike and makes it topside to only find out that he has been double crossed by the vice president and Wangler. Wangler shoots the president and believes that everything is now under control. 

The vice president, in a bright red Porsche, drives through the bloodshed without a care in the world. Strike, who appears to have the most powerful shotgun, takes aim at the car as it passes by.

Ken was still upside down on payments for that car.

Wangler attempts to drive off, but Trash, who shot down a helicopter with a revolver, takes aim. 

Remember, when shooting a gun you have to flex your shoulders and not your face. 

And that's your film. The president and vice president of GCC are dead, their main enforcer is dead, Dablone and many others are dead. There is no actual resolution to the problem of the people of the Bronx being relocated. I suppose Trash has a moral victory because he stood his ground, but at what cost? GCC is likely just going to continue forward with their plan, fueled now by the deaths of their leaders due to the gangs of the Bronx. I kind of think Trash made it worse. Oh, and the biggest thing of all...

NO ONE ESCAPED THE BRONX. NO ONE WAS TRYING TO ESCAPE THE BRONX. THEY ALL WANTED TO STAY IN THE BRONX. THE FILM SHOULD HAVE BEEN CALLED 'STAY IN THE BRONX.'

I feel like director Enzo G. Castellari pulled a Lucy with the football on me. 'Oh, you wanted an Escape from New York style film? How about 1990: The Bronx Warriors? Oh, did you fall for that? I am sorry, what about a film called Escape From The Bronx? Oh. Looks like you lying face up on the ground again, Charlie Brown Paul Steadman. Castellari wins again! Even though I do feel duped, I can appreciate both films for what they were even while I am still lying here on the ground in pain.

Escape From The Bronx really didn't try to knock off Escape From New York all that much more than 1990: The Bronx Warriors did. It did make for a sequel that was somewhat different than the first film and did try to deal with the ideas of escalation and the fallout from the events of the first one. I just wish that those involved saw that they had some really interesting ingredients already in the mix (i.e the insanity of the theme gangs and their costuming, and letting little children be too damn good at modern warfare) and leaned into that and made their own weird post apocalyptic world.

Stylistically, this film does not vary much from the previous one. The use of some really worn down and abandoned city blocks made this world feel desperate and grim. Though somewhat comical, the model effects work and the explosions all still look really cool. I still believe, that much like the first film, that flame throwers were still too close to the actors and I have my doubts that there were no injuries on the set during those scenes. 

Castellari's directing is as workmanlike and solid as it was in the other film. There are a number of great tracking shots that let the scene move forward with just enough detail in the background to show that he put some thought into how he wanted to present this world to the audience. My experience with Castellari is very limited but I am starting to get the idea that the story and plot aren't always the most important part of film making to him. Just like the weird out of place drummer in the previous film that just happened to be there the day they shot that scene, I think if he sees something that works for a particular scene, he will use it, whether it informs the rest of the film or not. 

One thing that Escape From The Bronx has that might just be better than 1990: The Bronx Warriors? The intro theme by Francesco De Masi is kick ass. As I gushed over and over again during my look at Italian westerns, the Italian composers do some of the best and strangest work. This theme will be in my soundtrack rotation from here on out. 

Escape From The Bronx was fun enough ride. I don't think I would have enjoyed it as much if I had not watched 1990: The Bronx Warriors and knew what I was in for. I just wish someone would have tried to escape other than the president of GCC. 

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

As we did give 1990: The Bronx Warriors a 5 in how close it stayed with some of the ideas in Escape From New York, I have to give this one a 4. It strayed away from what little it had in common with Escape Form New York. There were gangs, a section of New York was considered off limits due to crime. That's about it. It did present GCC as more of authoritarian force much akin to the United States Police Force in Escape From New York, so there is that.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Production wise it is better than Ator, and it is certainly watchable, but I enjoyed Ator more.

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

Yes, because I always try to get everyone I know to watch these off the beaten path films. Do I think most of the people I know would give this a chance? Probably not while sober.

Bonus:

If you want to watch the move for 'free,' it is on Youtube. A little fuzzy but it is certainly watchable. It is also currently available to watch on Amazon Prime. 

Bonus Bonus:

If you don't want to go it alone watching this film, you don't need too! Mystery Science Theater 3000 covered this film under the title Escape 2000. 

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Year Of The (Left Behind) Western! #31 Tears of the Black Tiger (2000)

What? Not a blog about a knock off film during the Year of the Knock Off? Yeah, I did have all the intentions in the world to write about the sorta kind of but not really knock off of Terminator, 1992's Nemesis, but I realized while watching it that I was not at all paying attention to the plot it was trying to push its way through. It isn't the worst film I have ever seen and the surprising quality of the action in it is worthy of note (considering it was done on a budget of 2 million dollars), but I just wasn't feeling it. Hands of Steel may have ruined me for a bit as it hit a lot of the sweet spots that I have liked during my and Steve's journey through these odd corners of cinematic also rans. So, I will not be burdening you with my poorly worded thoughts about that film (and overuse of gifs for varying degrees of comedic effect). If you are at all interested in hearing a good conversation about Nemesis and another film done by the same director, Albert Pyun, please check out Episode 360 of Talk Without Rhythm. After relistening to the episode after having seen the film, I agree with El Goro's sentiment that you have to be ready to force some meaning and themes from the film as it doesn't do the best job of bringing them clearly to you. It does have a sweet chase scene involving sliding down a very long mud covered looking water slide, though, so there's that.

Not to worry though, I will be back to the knock offs again real soon.

Alright, now onto something I should have taken care of by now.

It was around this time last year when I put my ass in gear and started finally watching the list of 30 westerns that I had requested from my friend and co-host of Strange Highways, Kevin. The bulk of the list took place between the early 50's through the mid to late 70's, but there was one outlier. Tears of the Black Tiger came out in 2000, and even though I was looking forward to watching it, it did not feel like it belonged with the others as it was 20 plus years newer than the rest of the list. I omitted it and switched in some more Charles Bronson with Breakheart Pass.

I always had plans to come back and watch Tears of the Black Tiger. Like most of my best intentions, it eventually happened. Eventually. I am glad I did. Let's get back in the saddle for one more ride.

Film #31 Tears of the Black Tiger (2000)

Here is the imdb.com cast listing. Here is the wikipedia page about the production. 

At its heart, Tears of the Black Tiger is a tragic love story between Dum (Chartchai Ngamsan) aka Black Tiger and Rumpoey (Stella Malucchi). The film follows two tracks; the current situation in which Rumpoey, a daughter of a wealthy government official who is being forced to marry a young up and coming police captain against her will and who is hoping against hope that Dum will show up and they can elope together, and the story of how Dum and Rumpoey kept crossing paths as they grew up on very different ends of the social ladder and how they fell in love. 

Dum, unknown to Rumpoey, is a member of a gang run by the infamous Fai (Sombat Metanne) and is Fai's right hand man and best gun. Her forced upon fiance, Captain Kumjorn (Arawat Ruangvuth) wants to make a name for himself and prove his worth by taking out Fai. This sets up a collision course between Dum and Kumjorn and series of hard choices that Dum has to make. 

Additionally, Dum's best friend and rival, Mahesuan (Supakorn Kitsuwon), believes he is the best gun in Fai's gang and is looking for way ways to bring Dum down. 

There is a scene early on where the Black Tiger is sitting on a tree and playing a harmonica (oh which its importance is revealed later) when Mahesuan challenges him to a duel. The image below is from that scene and it shows off the trippy visual palate the film plays with the entire time. 

It is so obviously a soundstage with a painted backdrop but yet it adds to the over the top feeling of the moment. What is not seen here (as I could not find a snippet of this scene to put on the blog) is how Mahesuan, the one in the foreground with his back to the viewer, is pulled sideways across the
sceen to mimic a rotating camera shot but with no camera movement at all. Evidently it is a tribute to Thai films of the 40's and 50's but I took it as deconstructing our expectations of what a showdown can be and it was refreshing.

There is not another scene like the one above in the rest of the film. Its not the only time the film does something entirely different visually for one scene and then moves on. It takes an extreme amount of confidence and knowledge in how film works in order to keep pulling off these cinematic magic tricks and keep the story understandable and flowing, and director/writer Wisit Sasantieng does it well.

The use of color in Tears of the Black Tiger is integral to its dreamlike vibe. There are moments that are completely washed out, almost black and white, but only to have Rumpoey pop in her almost bubblegum pink dress. A lot of solid colors are used throughout, giving the film a very 40's and 50's Trucolor feel to it. It wanted to feel like an older film, but not moored in one particular time period. The use of reporters and their cameras with flashbulbs and the handful of cars shown do suggest it is set in the 50's (and the weapons used also hint at this... more on that later) but then when we are off traveling the plains and rock filled edges of the land it feels like it could be set as the same time as Once Upon A Time In The West. While the version of the film I watched appeared to be a little more desaturated than intended, the color palate is still very striking.

Look at the image below from a scene when Rumpoey is forced to come downstairs at the behest of her 'fiance' Kumjorn. Her dress is now the same blue as the lower floor. She is literally lowering herself to the level of Kumjorn as she does not want to have anything to do with him (In fact she refers to him as Captain and as if he isn't even in the room).

There is also a moment towards the end of the film when Black Tiger is dressed in an all white suit in the middle of a pitch black night with the rain falling that not only visually cuts him out of the scenery with a knife's edge but also shows that he doesn't want to be the Black Tiger any longer. It may be all on the nose, but it is done wonderfully so. 

What is also visually striking and bright? The violence. Not a single gunshot or knife stab goes unrewarded without savage bright red blood and gore. It is very stark against the nature of the love story being told. I found myself caught off guard a handful of times with how abrupt and graphic some of the violence actually was. Check out this below clip where the leader of the outlaw gang, Fai, uses a bazooka to pin a guy against a wall. It is impressive. 

Earlier in the film, Black Tiger sees the reflection of a man he is intending to kill and fires a shot that ricochets multiple times before splitting the man's head like a melon. The film breaks the fourth wall and asks if you saw what happened and then replays the same scene to show you how many times the bullet bounced before killing its target. Wisit Sasantieng does not shy away from the emotional extremes of violence, from the moment of pure badass stated above, or how a single pistol shot can be devastating to more than just the person getting shot. Tears of the Black Tiger is full of contrasting colors and tones and it makes for a more interesting film.

The music also reflects this dichotomy of emotions. There are moments that sound like they belong in a spaghetti western and there at least three different songs that are meant to evoke older Thai pop standards. I will post some of it below but it needed to be noted during my talk of the film as it further puts this film into a dreamlike state. 

Tears of the Black Tiger is very much a blend of Thai film history (admittedly, that I did not know about until watching this film and doing some reading), Italian westerns, and some of the extreme violence that was making its way through film in the 80's and 90s. So it is not a straight ahead western, nor does it claim to be. It happens to have the rough edges of a western with a tragic love story at its center. The film plays like a moving abstract painting, challenging you just to experience and feel it. Like love. And loss. 

Though it may have taken me too long to get this film, I am glad to have finally watched Tears of the Black Tiger. It was nice to sit down and watch this after having some time away from all the other westerns I had consumed and view it on its own terms. If you are looking for something off the beaten path that will set off your imagination, Tears of the Black Tiger is a ride worth taking. 

Western Checklist (nowhere near offical or scientific):

• Weird gang member names? There was on guy named Sergent Yam. He was terrible comic relief. He really yammed it up.
• Beautiful landscapes? Yes. As I am not familiar with the topography of Thailand, it was surprising to see the varying terrains and locations. Very beautiful.
• Any terrified horses? Not that I am aware of. A Black Tiger was stabbed at one point, though.
• How many Ernest Borgnines? None, but man that would have been amazing to see him just show up in this Thai film.
• Does it have a theme song with the name of the film in the title? No, but it does have song during its title credits. It is quite lovely sounding and reflects the other songs that are heard during the film.

Rating:

I am going to give Tears of the Black Tiger 3.5 out of 5 tin stars. The parts are greater than the whole in this case. Individual scenes and moments carry this film a lot further than they have any right to. The middle part drags a little, but the film doesn't over stay its welcome. See this for what it is: a unique vision of a what a western can be that is not at all set in the west. 

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Year Of The Knockoff! Grizzly (1976)

Just when thought it was safe to go anywhere ever. 

As we just recently celebrated Shark Week on the show talking about Jaws and a film about a killer mammal in the ocean, I figured I would take it one step further and head out of the water and into the woods and look at another film that was chasing Jaws's success. Grizzly has been on my radar since our discussion about The Exorcist and its knock off, Abby. I really enjoyed Abby and was excited to see what director William Girdler could do with a slightly larger budget. So let's dig into Grizzly and see if it is truly Jaws on land.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing.

Grizzly gets quickly to its premise: a giant (sometimes 15 feet tall, sometimes 18 feet tall, sometimes visibly 11 feet tall) Grizzly Bear has wandered down from the highlands of an unmanned national park and attacks two female campers. The point of view of the bear is done exactly like in Jaws, and the music is very reminiscent of John William's score. How the women don't hear the grunting and huffing of a VERY LARGE bear, is beyond me. They are soon attacked (and beary scared?) and fall victim to one large paw. 

Give me five... or more!

Talk to the paw, they face don't want none.

Michael Kelly (Christopher George), the park's chief ranger, is soon investigating the missing girls and quickly finds their remains. He knows this is likely a bear attack and is trying to convince his boss, Charley Kittridge (Joe Dorsey) to close the park and get all of the campers out. Kittridge blames Kelly for this attack as he and the park naturalist, Arthur Scott (Richard Jaeckel) were to have supposedly gotten all of the bears out of the park before the season started. Kelly knows that they moved all the bears and that this one that attacked must be unknown to the park. 

What manpower Kelly has he puts into use as Kittridge is hesitant to get anyone else involved as he has aspirations of running for public office, and sends out the remaining rangers to go searching the vicinity of where the original attack happened. A pair of rangers who happen to be dating, are searching together when the split up at a waterfall. He decides to keep searching, she 'wants to dip her feet in the waterfall' proceeds to take off all her clothes, save her underwear, and frolics in the falls. The bear, obviously angry about the female ranger's disregard for decency, attacks.

'Is that Head and Shoulders I smell'?

People are ordered by radio broadcast out of the park, and they starting running in large groups out of the higher areas. This is a very sensible response. I too would run like hell with the knowledge that three people have been attacked and eaten by a bear in less than 24 hours. 

Kelly finds Scott up in the highlands, dressed in animal fur, and going on about how this isn't your typical bear that is wandering around. He claims that this bear is from an ancient line of large carnivore Grizzly Bears. Supposedly they were driven from the woods a long time ago, but this one is now back, looking for fresh meat.

When you can't afford to have seperate Quint and Hooper characters, just combine them into one.

That evening, the campers that panicked and ran to the lower areas of the park TO GET AWAY FROM THE KILLER GRIZZLY BEAR, are surprised when the bear comes to their camp and kills yet another woman. I would think if I was the bear, I would appreciate having all of my food get closer together so that I would have to spend less time wandering around finding single campers. The only thing that would have made this situation more enticing would probably be to have a parked truck with a bed full of dipping sauce for easy access.   

Kitteridge starts allowing hunters (i.e. drunk hunting parties) to enter the park in hopes to quickly kill the bear and still keep any higher ups from coming and starting to ask questions (though I am sure four deaths in two days should warrant at least a follow up phone call from someone in power) Kelly and Scott are furious about this as they know that this is going to lead to more trouble and the potential of more people killed. And just as soon as the hunters are let loose, one gets chased by the Grizzly, but only to get away because he fell into a creek and floated downstream.

That evening, a bear does approach a group of sleeping hunters, but it turns out to be a cub and not a threat. The hunters decide to use the cub as bait, hoping that the bigger one in the woods is its mother. They wait in the distance and hear a noise... of the bigger bear eating the cub. I never thought of the Grizzly as a monster. Eat humans? Sure, that's fine. They shouldn't be in your backyard messing with your stuff. Eat a cub? I want to see you get blown up by a rocket launcher. 

If you thought I would make a gif about a cub being eaten... shame on you!

Kelly then realizes he has to attempt to coordinate the hunters into a semblance of a functioning group as they have proven to do more harm than good. He sets them up along a specific area, having them making a bunch of noise in hopes of driving the Grizzly towards where they want it to go. A ranger, the guy who lost his girlfriend in the waterfall attack, is stationed at a lookout tower in hopes of spotting the Grizzly as it makes away from the hunting party. The Grizzly has other plans.

This what I do to vending machines when my candy bar gets stuck.

Kelly and company still are not able to capture the bear and it keeps getting closer to the nearby town. It eventually attacks a young boy and mother and this finally causes the dam to break and bring in the national press to start asking questions. This also finally gets Kitteridge to close the park and ban the hunters. Kelly is also relieved of his duties. Scott doesn't care if they are fired or not and heads back into the park on his own to find the Grizzly.

Kelly and a local helicopter pilot (Andrew Prine as Don Stober... more on him during the wrap up below) load up the copter with a large number of guns and a bazooka (you could say they were loaded for bear) and make a last ditch effort to find the Grizzly. 

A nice quiet moment of contemplation about the potential
 use of a bazooka to kill a bear

Meanwhile, Scott believes he is close to finding the Grizzly. He spots some recent tracks and tries to tempt the bear out of hiding by pulling a deer carcass behind him while on horseback.

The Grizzly finds Scott... and cleanly knocks the head off of the horse.

An homage to the Godfather? 

Fearing that Scott is dead and running out of options, Kelly and Strober see the Grizzly running back into hiding and decide to land the helicopter nearby and try to stop the bear once and for all. The bear, not afraid of the helicopter, openly attacks it, keeping Kelly inside and unable to help Strober. Strober distracts the bear long enough (and gets killed for it) for Kelly to get free and grab the bazooka. This leads to one of the greatest 3 seconds in film history.

This is how the bakery makes bear claws fresh daily.

And that's the end of the film. It literally went out with a bang. I appreciate it. 

So a note about the bear in the film. His actual name was Teddy and he was 11 feet tall. He was trained but not tamed. He was kept in check by being tricked into thinking that the area he was in was electrified (to match his enclosure he was kept in regularly) by a piece of green string and a ticking kitchen timer. The crew was told never to cross the string. Think about that for a second. The only thing between you and A LARGE GRIZZLY BEAR is string and a timer. The 1970's was a weird and crazy time to make films. 

Now you need to supply them with a hot tub and a marg just to keep them placated.

Or if you are in Canada, just a polite request to go away.

Teddy wasn't all bad though. Evidently he didn't roar, so they had to trick him into opening his mouth by giving him marshmallows. They would give him a few and then keep the last one just far enough away so that he would stretch out his neck and open his jaws wide. The film makers then added the roar in later. So now please watch this moment of Teddy attacking a woman and think about him just wanting marshmallows. 

'Her name is Marsha? Teddy, NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!'

Some brief statements about the cast and their counterparts in Jaws. Christopher George as Ranger Kelly was a good fit for the film. He could play quiet when needed but he was mainly there to be voice of reason and you could see the loss of life mounting on his face as he moved forward. Very good proxy for Brody. Richard Jaeckel as Arthur Scott was an odd turn that I liked. He was a man about nature and very direct about how he felt about things but wasn't always in tune with the social interactions going on around him. Two or three times during the film he would just start eating a sandwich when others were having a serious discussion. He had the smarts of Hooper by the bluntness of Quint. Andrew Prine as Don Stobler was left some Quint like qualities as well, with his constant jawing at Scott and had monologue about a Native American tribe that fought a pack of cannibalistic Grizzly Bears that is very similar to the USS Indianapolis speech that Quint gave. He was fine but I don't think his character would have existed in Grizzly if the story didn't need a helicopter pilot to get deep into the national park.  

Grizzly is a pretty good film for what it set out to be (It also made roughly 52 times more than its budget back while in the theaters, which made it the most successful independent film of all time until the original Halloween came out). William Girdler's directing is very confident and it goes a long way towards selling some of the cheaper effects (though the gore here is pretty over the top and also makes you forget that you are mainly seeing just a fake bear arm swipe at people). There are some really nice panning shots and some smart placement of the actors in heavier dialogue scenes that keep things interesting. I look forward to checking out more of his work. Its a shame that he died young, less then three years after this film came out, because I believe there is real talent on display here. 

It is obvious that Grizzly was using the same blueprint as Jaws. A lot of other films would use it and still do. Grizzly is different enough with changing its setting from sea to land to give its own flavor. It is weirdly more grim than Jaws as there isn't much comic relief in the film (the bear arm swipes aren't meant to be funny but I laughed every time). I think this film would be a good double feature with Orca as they aren't exactly like Jaws and show you how the 'large animal attack' sub-genre of horror films can be approached somewhat differently.

Now, before I get to my final feelings about Grizzly, I do need to post an important message for those of you who may ignore my warnings about never going out into nature. Here are some very useful tips if you happened to be approached by a bear. You will thank me later.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I am going to go with a 6 for tone, story, and character beats. The story is about an area with tourist traffic that the powers that be do not want to shut down. A constant point of view shot being used when the Grizzly is stalking victims. A ranger/officer with limited man power trying to stop a creature bigger and more savage than everyone else believes. There's an expert who is more about the animals than people. There's the above mentioned speech about a worse incident involving similar animals being to told to the others while at night. The animal is blown up. A lot.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator? 

Grizzly is better than Ator in a lot of ways but Ator is still more fun. Also, Ator has a cute bear cub THAT DOES NOT GET EATEN BY ANOTHER BEAR. 

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

Absolutely. If you love Jaws then you are already on board for another large animal attack film. If you don't want to take Grizzly super seriously, there is a RiffTrax version available. 

Bonus:

If you want to watch the movie for 'free,' there's a surprisingly clean looking version up on YouTube.

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